"Rapidity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in an undertone that he felt sure she would either refuse it altogether or couple it with some conditions that the agent could not accept; either would be fatal. Yancey and the judge, who had been partly paralyzed at the rapidity of the transaction, conferred in a corner, while the agent proceeded to make a copy of the proposition with as much composure as if he bought a coal-mine every day. The colonel sat by himself, his chair tilted back, his eyes ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... bountiful harvest were eaten up so completely that not a green blade or leaf was left; gardens were entirely demolished; screens of cloth put over hot-beds for protection were eaten as greedily as the plants themselves, and the rapidity with which they did their destructive work was amazing. So faded away all our hopes of raising anything available that year, and we watched and waited. But one bright June morning there was a movement and an ...
— 'Three Score Years and Ten' - Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other - Parts of the West • Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve
... ended before a louder gust of rain than ordinary smote upon the windows and immediately there followed a knocking upon the hall-door. The sound was violent, and it came with so opposite a rapidity upon the heels of Fosbrook's words that it thrilled and startled him. There was something very timely in the circumstances of night and storm and that premonitory clapping at the door. Sir Charles looked towards the door in a glow of anticipation. He had time to notice, ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... their size. In general, one may say that a nut should be planted the length of the lateral diameter below the surface of the soil, when it has settled, or about double that depth when the soil is freshly worked over it. The distance apart in the row will vary somewhat with the rapidity of growth of the species; six to eight inches being a fair average for walnuts and chestnuts, and 4 to 6 ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifteenth Annual Meeting • Various
... fill the chest to the fullest with considerable rapidity; then allow the breath-stream to pass out ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... happens, that in things difficult there is danger from ignorance, and in things easy, from confidence; the mind, afraid of greatness, and disdainful of littleness, hastily withdraws herself from painful searches, and passes with scornful rapidity over tasks not adequate to her powers; sometimes too secure for caution, and again too anxious for vigorous effort; sometimes idle in a plain path, and sometimes distracted in labyrinths, ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... the East was like connecting two electrically charged bodies in a Leyden jar by a copper wire. The current was no longer forced through a poor medium, but ran easily through the better conductor. With more rapidity than one would think possible in that age, the commercial consequences of the discovery were appreciated. The trade of the Levant died away, and the center of gravity was transferred from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. While Venice decayed Lisbon rose with mushroom speed to the ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... Suddenly, as if struck with some impulse, she hurried from the window, through the hall, passed the long suite of apartments, and reached her husband's. Entering, she closed the door behind her, and rushed forward to M. de Vaissiere's chair with such passionate rapidity, that one might have thought she feared ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... cart (a barrel on wheels) was a rare and exciting occurrence. The rapidity with which a barrel of sweet cider was consumed would astonish any one who saw it for the first time, and generally the owner had cause to wonder at the small return in cash. Sometimes a desperately enterprising darkey ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... was repeatedly filled again with equal rapidity; and it satisfied all demands, like my inexhaustible bottle, and was borne back ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... Moorish fashion. I have seen exalted ladies in this position at Madrid, and it is very common in the antechambers of the Court and the palace of the Princess of the Asturias. The Spanish women sit in church in the same way, and the rapidity with which they can change this posture to a kneeling or a standing ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... be said to have been the victor, my lady. It was, indeed, hardly a combat. But I maintained that one accustomed to the exercises in use among our border men, and mounted on one of our ponies, accustomed to move with great rapidity, and to turn and twist at the slightest movement of the rider's knee, would be a match for a heavy-armed knight in single combat; although a number would have no chance, against the charge of a handful of mailed knights; and Sir Henry put it ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... such scanty data, Heracleitus was able to attain to views which are in truly remarkable harmony with the most advanced theories as to the constitution of matter. Nowadays the very qualities of hardness and impenetrability are being ascribed to motion—to the almost inconceivable rapidity of the whirling of electrons within the system of the atom. Le Bon, for example, in his "Evolution of Matter" and his "Evolution of Forces," contends that atoms are continually breaking down, radium presenting merely an extreme case of a general rule, and that the final product ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... much pleased with this compliment to make any resistance, while he buckled her close to his own herculean frame, and, driving a spur into his charger, they flew from the lawn with a rapidity that defied further denial. After proceeding for some time, at a rate that a good deal discomposed the spinster, they overtook the cart of the washerwoman driving slowly over the stones, with a proper consideration for the ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... more precious losses she had caused. Repentance was something, and good conduct would lighten the burden she had to bear and shorten the term of her isolation. But judgment could not be evaded; and the majority of the German people showed good sense in their acceptance of the terms and in the rapidity with which the ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... theater, when one has the necessary cash, is not nearly such a complicated business as the layman might imagine. Roland was staggered by the rapidity with which the transaction was carried through. The theater was his before he had time to realize that he had never meant to buy the thing at all. He had gone into the offices of Mr. Montague with the intention of making an offer for the lease for, say, six months; and that wizard, in the space ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... advertised limits, in order that faith might be kept with the public. Although these conditions were made as light as they well could be, the author found it impossible to develope the story in the manner originally intended, and, more especially, was compelled to hurry on events with an improbable rapidity towards the close. In some degree to remedy this obvious defect, various short passages have been inserted, and several new chapters added. With this brief explanation, the tale is commended to the kindness of ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... le Deluge,'—he begins anew the work of destruction. Thus did cultivation, driven out, leave the East, and perhaps the deserts long ago robbed of their coverings; like the wild hordes of old over beautiful Greece, thus rolls this conquest with fearful rapidity from East to West through America; and the planter now often leaves the already exhausted land, and the eastern climate, become infertile through the demolition of the forests, to introduce a similar revolution into the ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... children might remember, very many of them, had these facts been organized round the problem of taking care of cats, and of how cats take care of themselves. A group of children in an upper grade may forget with great rapidity the facts of climate, soil, surface drainage, industries, and the like, while they may remember with little difficulty facts which belong under each of these categories on account of the interest which they have taken in the problem, "Why is ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... out of his mouth than I fell at his Grace's feet, quite overwhelmed with gratitude. I embraced his elliptical legs with almost pagan idolatry, and considered myself as a man on the high-road to a very handsome fortune. "Yes, my child," resumed the archbishop, whose speech had been cut short by the rapidity of my prostration, "I mean to make you the receiver-general of all my inmost ruminations. Harken attentively to what I am going to say. I have a great pleasure in preaching. The Lord sheds a blessing on my homilies; they sink deep into the hearts of sinners; set up a glass in which vice ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... heart was beating with extraordinary rapidity. So powerful and so unpleasant was the impression made upon my mind by this possibly trivial incident and by the extraordinary dream which had preceded it, that on returning to bed (and despite the warmth of the night) I closed both lattices ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... are interwoven innumerable episodes which are not out of place in the epic, and lend variety to a story which would otherwise have become tiresome. The lightness of treatment, sometimes approaching ridicule, the rapidity of movement, the grace of style, and the clearness of language, the atmosphere created by the poet which so successfully harmonizes all his tales of magic and his occasional inconsistencies, and the excellent descriptions, ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... headland I could see huge waves, whitened with foam, and perceive the clouds of spray flung up by the rocks. It was a wild scene, the roar of the breakers loud and continuous, and the black clouds flying above with dizzy rapidity. All the horror which I had just passed through seemed typified in the scene, and I covered ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... board whilst the masts stood, in consequence of our superior fire and their great number of men?" That superior here meant quicker is established by the reply of one of these witnesses: "Our fire was a great deal quicker than the enemy's." Superiority of fire, however, consists not only in rapidity, but in hitting; and while with very big ships it may be possible to realize Nelson's maxim, that by getting close missing becomes impossible, it is not the same with smaller vessels in turbulent motion. It ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... accompanied us as an extra guide, went ahead with a strong reindeer and piloted us. The sagacity with which these animals find the track under a smooth covering of loose snow, is wonderful. They follow it by the feet, of course, but with the utmost ease and rapidity, often while going at full speed. I was struck by the sinuous, mazy character of our course, even where the ground was level, and could only account for it by the supposition that the first track over the light snow had followed the smoothest and firmest ridges of the marshes. ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... its banks. With the rapidity that characterizes its sudden inundations and transforms this peaceful stream into the most impetuous of torrents, the water had risen over the banks that border it and flooded the fields, sweeping away everything that stood in its path. This water ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... me at this discovery was of the strangest kind. I felt that I had been led there; and without a thought of what I was doing, pressed on with ever-increasing rapidity till I came to the open ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... pondering their situation, moreover, they had been swept with almost incredible rapidity down the river. The walls here grew narrower and narrower and the water fairly boiled in its narrow confines. Its dark surface was flecked with white foam, and to make matters worse, as the walls closed in the light became fainter, till the boys were ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... the Frenchman, had not the latter done the same to prevent her opponent obtaining the weather-gage. Just as she was doing so, she received the larger portion of another broadside. Thus the two ships ran on. Nothing could exceed the rapidity with which the Gannet's crew kept up their fire. For nearly two hours they had fought on. One man only had been wounded. What the casualties of the enemy were, they could not tell; but they had every reason to believe them severe. Suddenly the frigate ceased firing; ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... 'The stars shall fade away, the sun himself grow dim with age, and nature sink in years,' which, at all events, were a direct plagiarism, made Sillig laugh—a thing at which I was a little offended. However, I felt very grateful to him, for, thanks to the care and rapidity with which he cleared my poem of these extravagances, it was eventually accepted by the ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... not been sensible of any current, either favourable or adverse, after getting to the south of the Rio Plata. But this afternoon we were hurried with incredible rapidity into the straits of Le Maire; and when we had gained about the middle of the passage, the tide slackened. On sounding we had twenty-seven fathoms on a rocky bottom. We had a dear view of Staten-land, which yields a most uncomfortable ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... be supposed, the mate went to work thoroughly in the instruction of Inez Hawthorne, who proved herself one of the most apt of pupils, and advanced with a rapidity ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... familiar strain, in which it is written: when they consider, that such seemed most suitable to the occasion, the verses consisting of eleven feet, are to be read, like the Greek Iambics (which were, anciently, much used in convivial festivities) with less solemnity and more rapidity, than the common heroic measure of ten feet in ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... politics had been moving with tremendous rapidity during his absence—the fateful years between 1895-1905—Sir Roger Casement seems never to have got beyond the Ulster of 1798—which I need hardly remind anyone conversant with history was as rebellious to England ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... our couple continuing to develop with pleasing rapidity, the building of a country house is next decided upon. A friend of the husband, who has recently started out as an architect, designs them a picturesque residence without a straight line on its exterior or a square ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... landscape which he had seen, were his highest qualities; his retention of the minutest details of the generic or specific characteristics of tree, rock, or cloud was unsurpassed by the work of any landscape painter whose work I know, and everything he knew he rendered with a rapidity and precision which were simply inconceivable by one who had not seen him at work. I think that his vision and retention of even the most transitory facts of nature passing before him must have been at the maximum of which the human mind is capable, but he had no comprehension ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... (the two appearing moved by the same set of springs), and was thus saved not a few embarrassments and annoyances. What chiefly struck his attention was a prodigious number of dishes, great and small, as if half a dozen dinners had been crowded into one; the rapidity with which they were changed, and plates removed, in constant succession; the incessant invitations to take wine, flying about during the whole of dinner. For a considerable while he was too much flurried to enjoy himself; but a few glasses of champagne succeeded in ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... rank and file of the race met with the fate which was at that time so universal throughout the country, or rather in its metal-bearing lands. They were sent to the mines, and, worked and flogged to death, their numbers diminished with a ghastly rapidity. Some sections, more fortunate, were at a rather later age set to agriculture, and, forced to somewhat more congenial tasks than the first workers, they continued to ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... them outside of intrenchments cannot be had. Our men feel that they have gained the MORALE over the enemy, and attack him with confidence. I may be mistaken, but I feel that our success over Lee's army is already assured. The promptness and rapidity with which you have forwarded reinforcements has contributed largely to the feeling of confidence inspired in our men, and to break down that ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... with slow and painful Steps creep up and down on the Surface of this Globe, shall e'er long shoot away with the Swiftness of Imagination, trace out the hidden Springs of Nature's Operations, be able to keep pace with the heavenly Bodies in the Rapidity of their Career, be a Spectator of the long Chain of Events in the natural and Moral Worlds, visit the several Apartments of the Creation, know how they are furnished and how inhabited, comprehend the Order, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... way-marks during his glorious path of victory and triumph, while he was over-running Italy with wondrous rapidity—but, instead of relating these conquests, we turn to his letters to Josephine. Already, on his way to Brescia, he had written her several times. The very day after reaching there, after having made the necessary military arrangements, ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... was a bound; his thought rushed in its movement. He could write a sermon in less time than any other man in the seminary, so far as I know. Plans came to him like an inspiration and were unfolded with a rapidity that seemed to me wonderful. His scholarship was not technical. He always enjoyed the larger sweep of things. He would have been the last man to devote his life to the Greek preterite, and to question whether it would not have been better to have confined ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 42, No. 12, December, 1888 • Various
... hours the 'Endurance' was stopped again by heavy floes. It was impossible to manoeuvre the ship in the ice owing to the strong wind, which kept the floes in movement and caused lanes to open and close with dangerous rapidity. The noon observation showed that we had made six miles to the south-east in the previous twenty-four hours. All hands were engaged during the day in rubbing shoots off our potatoes, which were found to be sprouting freely. We remained moored to a floe over ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... after being laid hold of, they had been stripped with as much rapidity, as if their bodies were about to be submitted to some ignominious chastisement. But they knew it was not that—only a desire on the part of their captors to obtain possession of their clothes—every article of which became ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... German "traversing the world with a sword in one hand and a spade and trowel in the other"; but otherwise no act of Germany's world-policy need have inspired alarm, or need inspire alarm at the present time, in sensible foreign minds. The rapidity of its action probably helped to excite a feeling that it could not be altogether honest or above-board; but it should be remembered that the new Empire had much leeway to make up in the race with other nations, ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... With a passionate rapidity of movement, I leave his side, dart between a carriage and a van, duck under the head of a cab-horse, and board a 'bus going westward somewhere—but anyhow, going in exactly the reverse direction to the botanist. I clamber up the steps and thread my swaying way to the ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... hard to find another expression. He was neither walking nor jumping, but, nevertheless, he was in continual and violent motion. He threw his head—which was covered with red hair—backward and forward with great rapidity. With these swift movements, the sounds which came from his mouth were in perfect harmony; for he was murmuring, then shouting passionately, then pouring ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... prospect! It certainly invited repose; and yet I was in no humour to sleep. My brain was in a whirl. The strange incidents of the day—some of them were mysterious—crowded into my mind. My whole system, mental as well as physical, was flushed; and thought followed thought with nervous rapidity. ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... don't mind confessing I was modestly proud. It used to be a study, I am told, to watch my face when a cake had turned out as it ought. Gratified vanity at the lavish encomiums bestowed on it, and horrified dismay at the rapidity with which a good sized cake disappeared down the throats of the company, warred together in the most artless fashion. The reflection would arise that it was almost a pity it should be eaten up so very fast; yet was it not a fine thing to be able to make such a cake! ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... days, in like manner, outside the Catholic Church things are tending,—with far greater rapidity than in that old time from the circumstance of the age,—to atheism in one shape or other. What a scene, what a prospect, does the whole of Europe present at this day! and not only Europe, but every government and every civilization through the world, which is under the ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... adorned with a yacht, flying a number 13. "My beloved boat" was inscribed in German underneath. Then came a bust of a German soldier, very idealized, full of unfear. After this, a masterful crudity—a doughnut-bodied rider, sliding with fearful rapidity down the acute backbone of a totally transparent sausage-shaped horse, who was moving simultaneously in five directions. The rider had a bored expression as he supported the stiff reins in one fist. His further leg assisted in his flight. He wore a German soldier's cap and was smoking. ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... make a kind of nest in the hollow trees, and there bring up their young. They belong to the scansorial order of birds; that is, they have two toes forward and two backward. Some of them fly slowly; but others wing their way with the greatest rapidity, and for a ...
— Minnie's Pet Parrot • Madeline Leslie
... being an aid to social coordination, it stimulates disintegration to a high degree as the war has shown. It has stimulated disintegration in two ways. First, it has enormously quickened physical movement, which has already been discussed, and secondly, it has stimulated the rapidity with which thought is diffused. The average human being can only absorb and assimilate safely new forms of thought when given enough time for digestion, as if he were assimilating food. If he be plied with new thought too rapidly he fails ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... of thought. As early as 1832 a writer in the New England Magazine waxed wroth to pugilistic outburst against this form of interruption: "I have heard individuals praised for this, as indicating a rapidity of mind which arrived at the end before the other was half through. But I should feel as much disposed to knock a man down who took my words out of my mouth, as one who stole my money out of my pocket. Such a habit may be a credit to one's powers, ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... out on a most gigantic scale, and very pretty it was. Quickly, another triangle was formed across the first one, the result being a six-pointed star; and so on with several other more elaborate geometrical figures. The rapidity and certainty with which these air-ships took up the requisite positions and showed their coloured lights in the appropriate places was ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... stronger actions of the hands. The finer and more delicate movements of the fingers are performed by small muscles situated in the palm and between the bones of the hand, and by which the fingers are expanded and moved in all directions with wonderful rapidity." ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... is merely being offered her? But remember, in our part of India at least, these cups are not given in public. The preparation is public enough, the bare tasting is public too; but the cup in its fulness is given in private, and once given, the poison works with stealthy but startling rapidity. Warn the child before she has drunk of it, and she does not understand you. Warn her after she has drunk, and the ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... the steps appeared to flow downward under their feet with great rapidity. They were not conscious of selecting any particular tread to step on; but while a foot was rising from one step to the next, it seemed as if a thousand steps were passing downward, until the foot ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... the tour of the works, Max was both astonished and delighted at the evidence he saw of the energy and ability displayed in turning over the vast manufacturing resources of the firm from peace to war. The rapidity with which the works had been transformed was indeed remarkable, and his opinion of M. Schenk's capacity, already great, became ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... out of breath from the rapidity with which I had spoken; and without giving him time to renew the conversation, I hastily quitted the room, leaving him in a paroxysm of rage and mortification. As I ascended the stairs, I heard him open the parlour-door with violence, and take two or three rapid strides in the direction ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... count of Aquino conducted him to the abbey of Mount Cassino, when he was but five years old, to be instructed by those good monks in the first principles of religion and learning; and his tutors soon saw with joy the rapidity of his progress, his great talents, and his happy dispositions to virtue. He was but ten years of age when the abbot told his father that it was time to send him to some university. The count, before he sent him to Naples, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... first the young negroes applied themselves with assiduity, and learned with an avidity which delighted some classes, and was no doubt a discomfiting surprise to others. It was astonishing to see the rapidity with which they mastered the alphabet of progress, and white mothers said to their indolent or refractory children, "Are you not ashamed to see little negroes more studious than yourself, making even greater progress according ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... Yorke, without moving a muscle, and preparing to strike again. "You will come to do the same, if you play much at this game—but your sad end will not be protracted. You will starve to death with considerable rapidity." ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... idea at first of ever quitting Mr Garland's service; but, after serious remonstrance and advice from that gentleman, began to contemplate the possibility of such a change being brought about in time. A good post was procured for him, with a rapidity which took away his breath, by some of the gentlemen who had believed him guilty of the offence laid to his charge, and who had acted upon that belief. Through the same kind agency, his mother was secured from want, and made quite happy. Thus, as Kit often said, his great misfortune ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... feelings are here brought together without effort and without discord, in the beauty of Adonis, the rapidity of his flight, the yearning, yet hopelessness, of the enamoured gazer, while a shadowy ideal character is thrown over the whole! Or this power acts by impressing the stamp of humanity, and of human feelings, on ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... Irving returned to Paris, to the society of the Moores and the fascinations of the gay town, and to fitful literary work. Our author wrote with great facility and rapidity when the inspiration was on him, and produced an astonishing amount of manuscript in a short period; but he often waited and fretted through barren weeks and months for the movement of his fitful genius. His mind was teeming ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... own lighted drawing-room, as the psychic [the medium] was entering the room with myself, no other person being there, an easy-chair of great weight that was standing fourteen feet from us was suddenly lifted from the floor and drawn to him with great rapidity, precisely as a heavy magnet will attract ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... live is characterised in no ordinary degree, by a certain boldness and rapidity in the march of intellectual and political improvements. Inventions the most surprising; revolutions the most extraordinary, are springing forth, and passing in quick succession before us,—all tending most clearly ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... thought was for the comet, and he observed it carefully before he aroused Nadia, who hurried into the control room. Looming large in the shortened range of the plate, their objective hurtled onward in its eternal course, its enormous velocity betrayed only by the rapidity with which it sped past the incredibly brilliant background of infinitely distant stars. Apparently it was a wild jumble of separate fragments; a conglomerate, heterogeneous aggregation of rough and jagged masses varying in size ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... wonderful power which belongs to some men of the highest gifts, of passing with the utmost rapidity, not only from subject to subject, but from one mood or key to another entirely different. In a letter to his family, written about this time, we have a characteristic instance. On one side of the sheet is a prolonged outburst of tender Christian love and lamentation over a young attendant ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... in the literary world by her book entitled "Conversations on the Bible." It was written after she was fifty years of age and the mother of eleven children, and was so popular as to astonish its author by the rapidity ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... the rapidity with which he caught the tone of his new surroundings. In Strassburg he found a society whose ways of living and thinking were equally different from those of Frankfort and of Leipzig. Strassburg had not the bounded intellectual ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... taken cold I knew it would not be fatal, and although the water chilled me at first, I became used to it. An hour or two after nightfall I clambered up the well-rope,—and it was not an easy thing, for although not stout, I am a heavy man,—and I got away over the fields with all the rapidity possible. I did not look back to see if the army were still on the road, nor did I ever know whether I had been searched for or ...
— The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander • Frank R. Stockton
... months the little force moved about in Catalonia, the rapidity of its marches baffling the attempts of the archduke's forces to interfere with its operations. These were principally directed against various small fortresses, held by partisans of Charles. Several of these were captured, ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... de Coulanges, "La Gaule Romaine," p.96 and following pages, on the rapidity, facility and depth of the transformation ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... ripening.—Uniformity and evenness in coloring and ripening are an important quality. Tomatoes generally color and ripen from within outward, and from the point opposite the stem upward, but varieties differ in the evenness and rapidity with which this takes place. It is always desirable that the ripening be as even as possible and that there be no green and hard spots either at the surface or in the flesh, but often perfection in this respect is correlated with such lack of size and solidity as to counterbalance it. Rapidity ...
— Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato • William Warner Tracy
... with all his knowledge and great skill and success in defensive warfare, as shown in his Peninsular campaign, after our defeat at Gaines's Mill, is wanting in the rapidity of comprehension and audacity which are necessary components of the highest military talent. He waits for too many chances, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... with great rapidity, and a few minutes after the squall had struck them the Susan was beginning to pitch heavily. The wind increased in force, and seemed to scream rather than whistle ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... snow-white ponies made her stud, and where she gave enchanting little hunting-dinners, at which she sang equally enchanting little hunting-songs, and arrayed herself, in the Fontainebleau hunting costume, gold-hilted knife and all, and spent Cecil's winnings for him with a rapidity that threatened to leave very few of them for the London season. She was very pretty, sweetly pretty; with hair that wanted no gold powder, the clearest, sauciest eyes, and the handsomest mouth in the world; but of grammar she ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... hand, and changing his posture, he asked her, by a sign which custom had rendered familiar, whether she brought any message to him from the Countess. She started up, and arranged herself in her seat with the rapidity of lightning; and, at the same moment, with one turn of her hand, braided her length of locks into a natural head-dress of the most beautiful kind. There was, indeed, when she looked up, a blush still visible on her dark features; but their melancholy and languid ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... an hour and three-quarters, they descended at Nesle, a distance of 27 miles from the place of their departure. On their descent, M. Roberts having left the car, which lightened the vessel about 130 pounds, M. Charles reascended, and in twenty minutes mounted with great rapidity to the height of 9000 feet. When he left the earth, the thermometer stood at 47 degrees, but, in the space of ten minutes, it fell 21 degrees. On making this great and sudden transition into an atmosphere so intensely cold, he felt as if his blood had been freezing, and experienced a severe ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... ready, they pulled away at their long, ponderous oars with the skill and deliberation of lifelong practice, and we moved out upon the broad, glassy swells of the bay towards the open sea, not indeed with the rapidity of a Yankee club-boat, but with a most agreeable steadiness, and a speed happily fitted for a review of the shores, which, under the afternoon sun, were made brilliant with lights ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... said that Lenox was a very pretty place, and that he was able to work there Hawthorne proved by composing The House of the Seven Gables with a good deal of rapidity. But at the close of the year in which this novel was published he wrote to a friend (Mr. Fields, his publisher,) that "to tell you a secret I am sick to death of Berkshire, and hate to think of spending another winter here.... The air and ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... piercingly blue that she had a moment's bewildered feeling of uncertainty, as though she had looked into the eyes of a stranger. Then the colourless lashes descended again and veiled them as of old. He blinked with his usual disconcerting rapidity and ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... its twenty-two years, that looked so eagerly from its dark grey eyes on to the activity of the playing children. But silences were generally short when Daisy was present, and she proceeded to unfold herself with rapidity and all the naturalness of which she deplored the lack ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... tourists: "From Hereford to Ross, its features occasionally assume greater boldness; though more frequently their aspect is placid; but at the latter town wholly emerging from its state of repose," it resumes the brightness and rapidity of its primitive character, as it forms the admired curve which the churchyard of Ross commands. The celebrated spire of Ross church, peeping over a noble row of elms, here fronts the ruined Castle of Wilton, beneath the arches of whose bridge, the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 547, May 19, 1832 • Various
... invite you to consider what Hermogenes and I were saying about sounds. Do you agree with me that the letter rho is expressive of rapidity, motion, and hardness? Were we right or ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... going on, the unwelcome visitor was approaching with noticeable rapidity at every revolution of the earth, and the immense dark shadow which it now made, as it passed beneath the sun, seemed ominous of an ill fate to our world and its inhabitants. It was a time to try the stoutest hearts, and, of course, the multitude of the people were overwhelmed with alarm. ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... strong mingling of salt-water in them that was none other than the tops of the waves, torn off by the terrific blasts of wind and hurled along horizontally in the form of vast sheets of spray. The sea, meanwhile, was rising with astounding rapidity, taking into consideration the fact that, as just stated, the height of the combers was greatly reduced by the enormous volumes of water that were scooped up from the ocean's surface by the fury of the wind; moreover the sea was short, steep, and irregular, ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... This great waterway, thirty-five miles long, and placing an inland town in touch with the sea, was begun in 1887 and finished in 1894. Numerous exhibitions, at home and abroad, have stimulated industrial and aesthetic progress; and science has continued to advance with bewildering rapidity, developing chiefly in practical directions. The bacteriologist has unveiled much of the mystery of disease, showing that seed-germs produce it; the photographer comes in aid of surgery, for the discovery of the X or Roentgen rays, by the German professor ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... constant mild clonus, and the right foot was kept in position of talipes equinovarus. Pins pushed deeply into the skin all over the body caused no reaction. When food was brought to him he leaped upon it and finished the meal with extreme rapidity, stuffed his mouth full, never taking sufficient time for mastication or swallowing, and food was frequently expelled forcibly, probably from irritation of the air-passages. Questions addressed to him remained unheeded, but he kept up a constant mumbling in a low monotone, as ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... was now in perfect order. Altogether, including the soldiers' gardens, about three acres had been cleared and planted. Everything was well above ground, and was growing with that rapidity which can only be understood by those who have witnessed the vegetation of the tropics on the ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... wounding six others, one of whom, W. Clarke, died of wounds afterwards. The practised attack, which should have taken place from Biez Wood on the 16th, never came off, for it was made unnecessary by the rapidity of the ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... first four, no more asteroids were found until 1845, when one was discovered; then, in 1847, three more were added to the list; and after that searchers began to pick them up with such rapidity that by the close of the century hundreds were known, and it had become almost impossible to keep track of them. The first four are by far the largest members of the group, but their actual sizes remained unknown until less than twenty years ago. It was long supposed that Vesta was ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... through the streets to his obscure lodging, seeking to keep pace, as it were, with the rapidity of the thoughts which crowded upon him, many doubts and hesitations arose in his mind, and almost tempted him to return. But what would they gain by this? Supposing he were to put Ralph Nickleby ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... passage, till they arrived at the junction of the Hydaspes with the Akesines. At this place, the channel of the river became contracted, though the bulk of water was of course greatly increased; and from this circumstance, and the rapidity with which the two rivers unite, there is a considerable current, as well as strong eddies; and the noise of the rushing and confined waters, is heard at some distance. This noise astonished or alarmed the seamen ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... played in a masterly style a brilliant and difficult study by Herz. Her performance was marked by great power and rapidity. ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... time after this incident both officers and dragoons patrolled the coast in the neighbourhood no one was ever fortunate enough to gather information either as to the cutter or the people who had vanished into the country with such rapidity. ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... and ask if this land can expect from the blessed saints, whose shrines and whose images have been profaned, any other miracles but those of vengeance? How long," she exclaimed, looking upward, "How long shall it be delayed?" She paused, and then resumed with enthusiastic rapidity, "Yes, my son, all on earth is but for a period—joy and grief, triumph and desolation, succeed each other like cloud and sunshine;—the vineyard shall not be forever trodden down, the gaps shall be amended, and the fruitful ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... in such cases, the news had circulated through the ship with astonishing rapidity, considering that only a couple of minutes or so at most had elapsed since I had saved the starling and knocked down Weeks; for the whole crew, with the exception of two or three hands standing by the braces and the ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson |
