"Mechanically" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... be an obstinate string or button, but Nils was sure to be able to help in any such difficulty, or even to tie a refractory kerchief over the light locks. The children now put on their wrappings mechanically, lost in watching the proceedings of the teacher and ...
— Little Tora, The Swedish Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Mrs. Woods Baker
... broke upon his ears and he knew that the great ship was about to depart. Mechanically, disconsolately he walked out and paced the broad, crowded wharf. All was excitement. There was the rush of people, the shouts, the cheers, the puffing of tugs, the churning of water, and the Kaiser Wilhelm was off on its long voyage. Half-heartedly, miserably and in a dazed condition he found ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... kindness, I stood gazing after him till he disappeared behind the bulwarks; and then, mechanically putting the knife in my pocket, I remained for a while without stirring from ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... black leather let into the baize. Every now and then he threw the cards he had been dealing into a kind of well in the table, and after every deal he raked up his winnings with a rake, or distributed gold and counters to the winners, as mechanically as if he had been a croupier at Monte Carlo. The players, who were all in evening dress, had scarcely looked up when the strangers ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... trains of thought and reasoning, of intuitions wrought into rational convictions, all of which betray both temperament and character. Of these intellectual antecedents, the existence and development may be gleaned from his writings, confirming the inference reached somewhat mechanically by the scrutiny of his actions. They play to the latter the part of the soul to the body, and thus contribute to the rather anatomical result of the dissecting process a spiritual element it would otherwise lack. But if this is so even of the outward career, it is far more deeply true of the inner ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... journey, oppressed by the strange events which had just been related to him, unable to struggle against the emotions which they had aroused in his breast, the count had thrown himself on his brother's bed, and mechanically directed his gaze toward the deep blue heavens above him, which seemed ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... muttered Steve, as soon as he was alone; and he mechanically went to the little washing-sink to remove the ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... silent one morning in the cool shade of a wild grapevine, jerking the meat of a mountain sheep that he had killed; and as he worked mechanically, shredding the flesh into long strips, he watched the lower trail. Ten days had gone by since he had fled across the Valley, but the danger of pursuit had not passed and, as he saw a great owl that was nesting down below rise up ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... originally intelligent may by frequent repetition and heredity so write their effects on the nervous system that the latter is prepared, even before individual experience, to perform adjustive actions mechanically which in previous generations were performed intelligently. This mode of origin of instincts has been appropriately called (by Lewes—see "Problems of Life and Mind" {54a}) ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... chair the general had vacated, and began mechanically the closing of the letters; but when that to the Governor of New Jersey was reached, he paused in the process. After a little, he took from his pocket Janice's frantic supplication, and reread ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... him by the arm, and, leading him back to the hut, told Mrs. Clare that it would be best to start at once to Northborough, the earl being dissatisfied that the removal had not taken place. Patty's little caravan was soon ready, and the poet, guided by his friends, followed in the rear, walking mechanically, with eyes half shut, as ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... were so mixed that he really could not feel anything at all. His arm was still about the grandmother's neck, mechanically he gave her the kiss she asked for, but it was with real relief he saw his mother open the door to the living-room and responded to her demand that he go to ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... fear shook the child from the sound of his voice. She cried mechanically, her eyes looking watchful through her tears, in terror, ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... had been rich; it was now torn and damp, and clung in dank folds to her limbs. The child she carried appeared to be four months old. She held it convulsively at her breast, and when it gave forth a feeble cry she rocked it mechanically. ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... giving her a look in which his laughter tried to remain, but vanished before a gratitude threatening to become emotional in spite of him. Isabel, however, turned instantly to Fanny. "Give him your hand, Fanny," she said gayly; and, as Fanny mechanically obeyed, "There!" Isabel cried. "If brother George were here, Eugene would have his three oldest and best friends congratulating him all at once. We know what brother George thinks about it, though. It's just ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... country is always described as an earthly paradise; and to girls who are manifestly fascinated by the witcheries of the nuns, and in whom moral sensibility has become blunted by the unmeaning superstitions which they witness, and which they mechanically perform, a visit to the "Nuns' Island," is always proposed as the greatest privilege, and the most costly reward, which can be given for constant obsequiousness to the nuns, and unreserved compliance with their ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... the primitive groups of savages who then constituted mankind were instinctively led to express their emotions together, communally, in rhythmical fashion. Perhaps after an achievement in hunting or war the village-group would mechanically fall into a dance, sometimes, it might be, about their village fire. Suddenly from among the inarticulate cries of the crowd some one excited individual would shout out a fairly distinct rhythmical expression. This expression, which may be called a line, was taken up and repeated by the crowd; ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... Mrs. Bodine he again went forward. The miserable little procession followed, Uncle Sheba mechanically doing his part, at the same time continuing to make night hideous by the full use of a pair of lungs in which was no rheumatic weakness. Motion caused the wretched woman renewed agony, and her shrieks mingled ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... anything comes, and so we go on) was rather wearisome at first, but we adopted it with an eye to the long run; you're in better order—if your legs don't break down!—and you can keep it up for more years. Oh we're practical—we're practical!" St. George repeated, going to the table and taking up all mechanically the bundle of proofs. But, pulling off the wrapper, he had a change of attention that appealed afresh to our hero. He lost himself a moment, examining the sheets of his new book, while the younger man's eyes wandered ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... to forget everything else, though she continued to mechanically run light, sensitive fingers down the velvety muzzle so close to her face, and semi-consciously reach forth the other hand to caress the head of a superb wolfhound which, upon the first sweet notes, had risen from where she lay not far off to listen, thrusting an insinuating nose under ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... her blankly for a moment, then Drusilla saw that she understood. Her mouth drooped and quivered, her hands faltered in their work, but only for a moment. Mechanically she put the flower into the paste, then placed it on the wreath. She worked ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... Her countenance expressed a dignified inquiry combined, perhaps, with a certain amount of very natural surprise at so unseemly an interruption of her strictly private interview with Claude Heath and Masterman. Her left thumb mechanically sought the shelter of her mouth, and it was obvious that she was "sizing up" Mrs. Mansfield with all the caution, if not suspicion, of the female ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... himself has to extend his influence far beyond the office hours and the strictly medical relations. And yet, on the other hand, there is no department of medicine in which the treatment might not profit by the psychotherapeutic influence. With a few vague words of encouragement mechanically uttered, or with a routine of tricks of suggestion by bread pills and colored water and tuning forks, not much will be gained even in the ordinary physician's practice. Subtle adjustment to the personal needs and to the individual conditions is necessary in every case where the psychical factor ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... they went together into the keeping-room. All was so still that the clash of the rising tide and the ticking of the clock assumed that solemn and mournful distinctness which even tones less impressive take on in the night-watches. Miss Roxy went mechanically through with certain arrangements of the white drapery around the cold sleeper, and uncovering the face and bust for a moment, looked critically at the ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... she said mechanically, for a string in her brain seemed to be pulled by a persistent knocking at the door. With great slowness the door opened and a tall human being came towards her, holding out her arm ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... down, as he had directed, but not an eye in the room moved from his face. Epstein, still wearing his hat and heavy coat, had dropped into the big chair by the reading-lamp and was nervously gnawing his under lip. Bangs had mechanically tossed his hat toward a corner as he came in. He took a chair as mechanically, and sat very still, his back to the window, his eyes trying vainly to meet his friend's. Doris had moved to the upper corner of the couch, where she crouched, elbows on knees, chin on hands, staring at a spot on ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world, and, through this knowledge, turning a stream of fresh and free thought upon our stock notions and habits, which we now follow staunchly but mechanically, vainly imagining that there is a virtue in following them staunchly which makes up for the mischief of following them mechanically. This, and this alone, is the scope of the following essay. I say again here, what I have said in the pages which follow, ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... been thrown during the last twenty-four hours, he felt something of the pungency of life, the thrill of new and appealing surroundings, as he sat in his high-backed chair, sipping his wonderful wine, eating almost mechanically what was set before him, fascinated through all his being by his ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... acquiesced nor dissented. He signed mechanically whatever documents his father presented to him, and he stood by his bargain with a certain sullen, undeviating, hard-featured loyalty; but he never forgot those few angry words in which his father had half let out his ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... looked up at the lama, who had mechanically followed Kim to the platform. He bowed his head that he might not see her, and muttered in Tibetan as she passed ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... the place less than fifteen minutes when bang went a revolver and on the instant the room was in total darkness. I mechanically ducked under a table. Where my companions were, I knew not; I began to think that Mike's advice was about correct, and before emerging wished more than once I was back in my home. When the lights were turned on, I discovered ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... time the two men sat staring at each other unseeingly. Finally the German, with a prodigious Teutonic sigh, replaced the diamond from Mr. Latham's right hand in one of the glazed boxes and carefully stowed it away in a cavernous pocket; Mr. Latham mechanically disposed of the other ...
— The Diamond Master • Jacques Futrelle
... bewildering sense of failure—not knowing what to say or what to do next—Mrs. Ferrari mechanically obeyed. Lady Montbarry, rising on the sofa for the first time, watched her with undisguised scrutiny as she crossed the room—then sank back into a reclining position once more. 'No,' she said to herself, 'the woman walks steadily; ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... ran, with terrible yells, towards a neighbouring hill or mound, on which we observed the frame-work of a house lying ready to be erected. Sick with horror, yet fascinated by curiosity, we staggered after them mechanically, scarce knowing where we were going or what we did, and feeling a sort of impression that all we saw was a ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... passion in my life. I began to watch presently, almost mechanically, the little group beneath the ombrellino, in white and gold, and the movements of the monstrance blessing the sick; but again and again my eyes wandered back to the little figure in the midst, and ...
— Lourdes • Robert Hugh Benson
... till two o'clock nearly. Came home, corrected proof-sheets, etc., mechanically. All well, would the machine but keep in order, but "The spinning wheel ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... Hazleton, and then turned to his daughter. Had he been half an hour later, Emily would have cast her arms round his neck and told him all; but as it was, she remained self-involved, even in his presence—answered indeed mechanically—spoke words of affection with an absent air, and let the mind still run on upon the path ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... see you, doctor," I said mechanically. "My friend here, Mr. Guest, Dr. Rust," I added, completing the introduction, "is a little run down. I thought that I would like you to ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... ten passed by, I began to feel rather hungry. At the same time I happened to put my hand into my pocket, and there I found the greater part of a ship's biscuit, which, as I was quitting the cabin, I had mechanically thrust into it. I almost shouted for joy as I found the prize—though it was not much to be divided among four men. The discovery made the rest fumble in their pockets. McTavish had a tobacco-box, which he ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... may be purified mechanically and chemically by method of intermittent filtration by passing it through filter beds of gravel, sand, coke, cinders, or any such materials. Intermittent filtration has passed beyond the experimental stage and has been adopted already by a number of cities where such a method ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume V (of VI) • Various
... on the ground before him—a small, sparkling object. Then she swept away, his eyes following her, and was lost in the darkness of the trees. Mechanically Mr Pickering stooped to pick up what she had let fall. He recognized it now. It was ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... efforts to hearten him. After the stories he had been telling that very evening about mutinies and wrecks and fights against odds, it seemed unbelievable that he should submit so tamely to Thirkle and his men. As he sat opposite me on the sea-chest and ate mechanically of the broken bits of biscuits, I observed him closely, and it seemed that he had aged twenty years in ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... slip-shod, half-hearted working woman is a curse to the race, because she gives it a bad reputation. She should put the "somebody" stamp on every portion of daily work and do the work as if she expected to get a diploma for it each night. She should not work mechanically or it will be drudgery. She should put pride and enthusiasm in her work, and let it reflect ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley
... accomplished with a celerity seldom seen outside of Paris. During those ten days, Philippe regularly decamped after breakfast, came back for dinner, was off again for the evening, and only got home about midnight to go to bed. He contracted certain habits half mechanically, and they soon became rooted in him; he got his boots blacked on the Pont Neuf for the two sous it would have cost him to go by the Pont des Arts to the Palais-Royal, where he consumed regularly two glasses of brandy while reading the newspapers,—an occupation ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... the Day?" he asked, quite mechanically, as he saw the woman putting by a large piece of paper. She did not understand what he meant, but she handed him the sheet; it was a woodcut, representing a meteor, which had appeared in ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... although by now so utterly spent I could barely stagger rapidly enough to escape those pitiless thrusts, I mechanically noted enough of our surroundings to understand that we traversed ground which had been cultivated; that low fences, here and there encountered, divided the land into small sections, even as in more civilized ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... you in such haste?" he asked, taking the five pounds mechanically, and forgetting all that he had ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... lifted their glasses to their eyes mechanically, for they could scarcely have expected to have discovered more than their unaided sight would have ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... In fact, it will never draw a deeper, inasmuch as the passages and chambers of the lungs, once distended with air, do not empty themselves again; it is only a fraction of their contents which passes in and out with the flow and the ebb of the respiratory tide. Mechanically, this act of drawing breath, or inspiration, is of the same nature as that by which the handles of a bellows are separated, in order to fill the bellows with air; and, in like manner, it involves that expenditure of energy ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... maji!" at the top of his voice, as though that added anything to the visible supply. The water-carrier of the moment disappeared in a swirl of excited contestants. He was attending strictly to business, looking neither to right nor to left, pushing forward as steadily as he could, gasping mechanically his customary warning, "Semeelay! Semeelay!" Somehow, eventually, he and his comrades must have got somewhere; for after an interval he returned with empty buckets. Then every blessed fool of a property owner took ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... question is not entirely one of engineering unless as part of the engineering problem we consider the various economic elements that enter into the question, and their investigation is the important task of the twentieth century engineer. For he must answer the question not only is a method possible mechanically, but is it profitable from a practical and economic standpoint? And it is here that the question of the electrification of trunk lines now rests. The steam locomotive has been developed to a point perhaps of almost maximum efficiency where ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... or snappish. 14. Snappish on fasting. 26. Cursed snappishness to those under me, on a bodily indisposition. Third month, 11. On a provocation, exercised a dumb resentment for two days, instead of scolding. 22. Scolded too vehemently. 23. Dogged again. Fourth month, 29. Mechanically and sinfully dogged.' ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... she ran toward them. Checking her steps on the edge of the rocks overlooking the water, she stared at the ever-widening circles which rippled the water and the jagged rocks which shone ominously dark beneath the surface. She followed the center of the ripples mechanically. Thank God, they had hit in a clear spot. But what chance would a man have throttled ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... the only antidote against the propensity to let slip the connotation of names, is the habit of predicating of them the properties connoted; though even the propositions themselves, as may be seen from the way in which maxims of Religion, Ethics, and Politics are used, are often repeated merely mechanically, not being questioned, but also not being felt. Much of our knowledge recorded in words is ever oscillating between its tendency, in consequence of different generations attending exclusively to different properties in names, to become partially dormant, and the counter-efforts ...
— Analysis of Mr. Mill's System of Logic • William Stebbing
... on the floor, and walked with his hands behind him to the window, out of which, still faintly whistling, he gazed with eyes that saw nothing. Once his lips opened to emit mechanically the Englishman's expletive of sudden enlightenment. At length he turned to the shelves again, and swiftly but carefully examined every one of ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... turned as pale as marble, slid away from the brigade commander's side, and disappeared behind a group of staff officers and orderlies. The new-comer also became deathly white as he glanced after the retreating youth. Then he dismounted, touched his cap slightly and, as if mechanically, advanced a few steps, and said hoarsely, "I believe this is Colonel Waldron. I am Captain Fitz ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... etc. This plan permits tapping off desired amounts of air at intermediate pressures with marked economy, and as it is slow speed, and generally direct connected with its motor on the same shaft, it is both quiet and mechanically efficient. ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... Mechanically I passed him the gun. He examined it as if he was used to such things, broke it, snapped it shut, tried the locks with his thumb and handed it ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... those who had come in for tea seemed artificial and flat. She soon went up-stairs, eager to be alone. Mechanically she went to her desk to write her customary daily letter to Danvers. She looked vacantly at the pen and paper, and then she remembered why ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... to react either to the danger or to the novelty of this experience, or even to think to any good purpose, Sally dropped mechanically into the chair held for her, wondering as much at herself for accepting the situation as at the masterful creature opposite, earnestly but amiably conferring with the head waiter over ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... was extremely high, and one of his great quarrels with his age was that it was an age of half-beliefs and insincere professions. He maintained that religious beliefs which had once been living realities had too often degenerated into mere formulas, untruly professed or mechanically repeated with the lips only, and without any genuine or heartfelt conviction. He often repeated a saying of Coleridge: 'They do not believe—they only believe that they believe.' He used to speak of men who 'played false with their intellects'; or, in other words, turned away their minds ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... stripped ivy-twig, with the leaves scattered around it, stretched at his feet. That was another and corroborative sign, clearer to him than printed capitals. The reading of it declared that the Revolt had collapsed. He wound and unwound his handkerchief about his fingers mechanically: great curses were in his throat. 'I would start for South America at dawn, but for her!' he said. The country of Bolivar still had its attractions for Italian youth. For a certain space Ammiani's soul was ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... perspirable matter will irritate the skin, both mechanically and chemically; and this membrane will be kept damp and cold, from attraction and detention of moisture; and foreign material, as before adverted to, once removed from the system, may be reconveyed into ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... hand as he bade her good night. Eileen returned his good night in her most charming manner, though rather mechanically; something had come over her; she did not know it, but for the first time in her life she seemed to have ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... to those always found on Chinese instruments but never on the Ptolemaic variety. Lastly, he cites "the construction of a sphere, most suitable for recognizing the planets," but unfortunately it is not clear from the description whether or not the model planets were actually to be animated mechanically. The text runs:[27] ...
— On the Origin of Clockwork, Perpetual Motion Devices, and the Compass • Derek J. de Solla Price
... already pointed out what an unusual route they were taking, but that the cap- tain had said that he was quite aware what he was about. The mate made no further remark; but the knit of his brow, as he passed his hand mechanically across his forehead, made me fancy that he was inclined to speak ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... of invention gradually perfected and necessarily progressing through the advance of knowledge and skill. One often finds this false analogy in books about the history of the arts, especially of painting and music. It is assumed, for instance, that Italian painting progressed mechanically from Giotto to Titian, that Titian had a greater power of expression than Giotto because he had command of a number of inventions in anatomy and perspective and the like that were unknown to Giotto. So we have histories of the development of the symphony, in which ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock
... me. Knock off 8% as a sort of agent's commission to me for starting you on the job and finding you a theme. This leaves L100. I will pay you L100 down on your contracting to supply me within three months with a mechanically possible, i.e., stageable drama dealing with the experiences of St. Augustine after re-visiting England. The literary copyright to be yours, except that you are not to prevent me making as many copies as I may require for ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... it mechanically. She had determined not to read the paper. But she knew now, if she unfolded it, she would turn immediately to the local pages and search for Warrington's speech. She read it, and she hated herself for admiring ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... it upon the result of his experiments in the Pullman train, which place the cost at one farthing per hour per light. At the same time he does not profess that the battery can compete in the matter of cost with mechanically generated currents on a large scale, but he offers it as a convenient means of obtaining the electric light in places where a steam engine or a gas engine is inadmissible, as in a private house, and where the cost of driving a dynamo machine is raised abnormally ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 417 • Various
... with a feeling that he was officially responsible for their safety. When he ran up and down in his desperation, his skirts and theirs all fluttered together. Stephens, the lawyer, kept close to Sadie Adams, muttering mechanically, "Don't be alarmed, Miss Sadie; don't be at all alarmed!" though his own limbs were twitching with agitation. Monsieur Fardet stamped about with a guttural rolling of r's, glancing angrily at his companions as if they had in some way betrayed him; while the fat clergyman stood with his umbrella ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of the interval that elapsed before the nearest could arrive, nor distinct notion of any part of that long sunny afternoon while he sat by his Nina in the death-chamber. Once he got up to stop the ticking of a clock on the chimney-piece, moving mechanically with stealthy footfall across the room lest she should be disturbed. The doctors came and went, agreeing, as they left the house, that he had answered their questions with wonderful precision and presence of ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... unconscious of her presence. She was but another human atom, and of no more interest to him than the chair on which she sat. Mechanically he declined one or two things she passed to him, and in an absent manner replied to the few casual remarks by which she sought to engage him in conversation. At last she said, in a voice that was indescribably ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... arose, pouring in through the open windows, full of mournful reminiscence, not of this, but of other summers,—the same wind that De Quincey heard at noonday in midsummer blowing through the room where he stood, a mere boy, by the side of his dead sister, —a wind centuries old. As I wrote on mechanically, I became conscious of a presence in the room, though I did not lift my eyes from the paper on which I wrote. Gradually I came to know that my grandmother—dead so long ago that I laughed at the idea—was ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... The victim mechanically looked round the room in which he found himself—an anteroom full of choice flowers and of furniture that must have cost twenty thousand francs. The servant, on his return, begged monsieur to wait in the drawing-room till the company came to ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... I could not listen; I could not look. I did not know whither to go or what to do. Mechanically and without knowing it, I put my eye to that strange instrument, and there was Peking and the Czar's procession! The next moment I was leaning out of the window, gasping, suffocating, trying to speak, but dumb from the very imminence of the necessity ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... ask; and, as behind infinity there can be none that is not infinity itself, it is impossible to imagine a malignant will in a will that leaves no point around it but what it fills entirely. Or are the experiments begun in the stars continued mechanically, by virtue of the force acquired, without regard to their uselessness and to their pitiful consequences, according to the custom of nature, which knows nothing of our parsimony and squanders the suns in space as it does the seed on earth, knowing that nothing can be lost? Or, again, is the ...
— Death • Maurice Maeterlinck
... the skulls in quicklime, but it has a tendency to make the bones splinter, and it is difficult to keep the teeth from getting loose and dropping out. The best but slowest plan is to fix them in mechanically by wire or white lead. A good preservative is to wash or paint them with a very strong solution of fine lime ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... man sank down before the table with its load of proofs, on which lay outspread the three forged letters to Rabelais. He gazed at them blankly, and mechanically read: 'Maitre Rabelais, vous qu'avez l'esprit fin et subtil!' The characters seemed to go round and round in a mixture of ink, dissolved into broad blots of sulphate of iron, which to his imagination went on spreading, till they reached ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... mechanically, turned to her brush heap, selected some dry sticks for her fire, and was about to place them on the embers when she noticed that it had long been dead. Her hands were like ice; she was chilled to the very bone; but the physical pain she now began to feel saved ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... the copse. A lean old shepherd, bareheaded, in a torn grey smock, stood leaning against the wet trunk of a birch-tree. He stared at the ground, pondering something, and played his pipe, it seemed, mechanically. ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... instruments by which an artist may remove the causes of the balance being destroyed, and thus re-instate the lost equilibrium of solids and liquids. He therefore concludes, that a medicine supposes a flowing of the humours or liquids; that it operates mechanically; that it acts only mediately; that its good or bad effects depend entirely on the bulk, motion, and figure of the acting particles, and that the destruction of the balance must be deduced from the solids. So that, as it has been found that the solids are wasted and impaired by the constant ...
— A Treatise on Foreign Teas - Abstracted From An Ingenious Work, Lately Published, - Entitled An Essay On the Nerves • Hugh Smith
... moment was come for twisting him into a ditch and robbing him; until, letting down the glass again and looking out, he perceived himself assailed by nothing worse than a funeral procession, which came mechanically chaunting by, with an indistinct show of dirty vestments, lurid torches, swinging censers, and a great cross borne before a priest. He was an ugly priest by torchlight; of a lowering aspect, with an overhanging ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... from him. Once he asked for water, and as Orme and I stooped over him I heard him murmur as though to himself, "Who would have thought it?" and again, "Who would have thought it?" Then he drank the water mechanically and lay back, and ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... don't often lose my bets, but here, Uncle, is the cigar, for I've lost the bet. You have fifteen cents more than seven dollars. I didn't watch that gent's counting as well as I thought," and Uncle mechanically took the cigar he had so generously given to Mr. ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... both mind and hands full during the trip. As to Fogg, he went straight about his duties, grimly silent and mechanically. As the fire and vim of stimulation died down, Ralph could see that it was with the most exhaustive effort that his fireman kept up his nerve and strength. Fogg was weak and panting the last shovel full of coal he threw into the ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... risen now, had kissed his mother's hand, and mechanically raised his face to receive her kiss; but his face did not show that he was glad to see her. Or was it embarrassment, a boyish shame because she had taken him by surprise? His eyes did not gaze straight at her, but always sideways. Did he look upon her ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... only drew his rein, and, dismounting mechanically, contemplated the sight before him. The high, arched doors and windows were thrown wide to the summer air; from every opening the bright light of numerous candelabra darted out upon the sparkling foliage of magnolia ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... who would repudiate the facts that I am about to reveal, and who will not believe that in their own careless talk they themselves actually pronounce the words very much as Mr. Jones prints them,[18] should remember that the sounds of speech are now mechanically recorded and reproduced, and the records can be compared; so that it would betray incompetence for any one in Mr. Jones' position to misrepresent the facts, as it would be folly in him to go to the trouble and expense of making such a bogus book as his would be were it untrue; nor could he have ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
... will be but a little while and, according to the terms of this same decree, a military veteran of seventy-seven years, a loyal servant of the Republic, and a brigadier-general under the Convention, will be arrested on returning to his native village, because he has mechanically signed the register of the revolutionary committee as Montperreux instead of Vannod, and, for this infraction, he will be guillotined along with ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... He obeyed mechanically, and walked in silence by her side. They reached the cottage and entered. Margaret said: "Here ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... my thoughts were; I sat as if stupefied by the unfaithfulness of one of whom I had never been jealous, whom I had never had cause to suspect. What I had seen left no room for doubt; I was felled as if by a stroke from a club. The only thing I remember doing as I sat there, was looking mechanically up at the sky, and, seeing a star shoot across the heavens, I saluted that fugitive gleam, in which poets see a worn-out world, and gravely took off ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... when they seemed so large and deep that he could scarcely bear to look at them. She had a hat in her hand, and she held it out to him, still smiling, but so dreamily, so unlike herself, that he could but look and tremble and wonder. He took the hat mechanically, and saw that it was his own. He thought himself dismissed, and his heart changed from a soft ethereal fire to ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... tops seem like islands in the blue lakes of the skies. Quaint towns are nestled among the groves of the shore; towers, with bells ringing soft and melodious in the still air. The water is like emerald. Afar, zigzagging sails flap mechanically in ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... mechanically, and putting on his hat, accompanied Barker, all unwitting of the thunder-blow that his words had been.... Mrs. Wallace was at home. James went upstairs, forgetting everything but that the woman he loved was free—free! His heart beat so that he could scarcely breathe; he was afraid ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... myself, my eye on the spot where I had seen her disappear. Somebody greeted me from the hotel lawn. I returned the salutation mechanically and went on gazing at that spot. I knew that I was making a fool of myself, but I could not help it. My will-power was gone as it might from the effect of ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... two crows flew low over his head and passed on their way, croaking out their alarm and dissatisfaction. Mechanically his eyes followed their movements. For he was well versed in the sights, and sounds, and habits ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... "Johanna Meyer," answered someone mechanically, for they did not seem to have taken the trouble to look at me. As I listened to those words my heart, which had stood still waiting for the answer, beat again with a sudden bound that I could hear in ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... pool of water under the threshold, Hugh walked up and down, to and fro, from fire to window, from door to wall, but not fast, rather with a sort of stateliness. Sometimes he looked sidelong at Bella's expressionless, listening face. At last he forced himself back to the chair and sat there, mechanically polishing the barrel of his gun, but his tongue still spoke the saga of illusion. It stopped when the storm dropped into the bottomless silence of dawn. Then there was only the dripping from their eaves. ...
— Snow-Blind • Katharine Newlin Burt
... corner, perhaps, in some damp kennel which is supposed to be a room, an artisan has just awakened from sleep. All night he has dreamt—IF such an insignificant fellow is capable of dreaming?— about the shoes which last night he mechanically cut out. He is a master-shoemaker, you see, and therefore able to think of nothing but his one subject of interest. Nearby are some squalling children and a hungry wife. Nor is he the only man that has to greet the day in this fashion. Indeed, ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... I followed Tom mechanically, spade in hand, to where, behind a mass of rock, we had made our storehouse, and seating ourselves in the gloomy shade I was busily opening my wallet, when Tom, who was getting some maize for the mules, suddenly pressed my shoulder ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... Trenck; when that combination of particles which Nature commanded should compose this body shall be decomposed, scattered, or in other bodies united; when I have no muscles to act, no brain to think, no retina on which pictures can mechanically be painted, my eyes wasted, and no tongue remaining to pronounce the Creator's name, should I still behold a Creator—then, oh then, will my spirit mount, and indubitably associate with spirits of the just who expectant wait for their golden harps and glorious crowns from the Most ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... he uncoiled it again; she mechanically took it between her delicate fingers and held it steady while he measured and shortened ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... particular table at the end of the room, where they could converse unheard, and see all that was to be seen. An obsequious waiter—one of the restaurant race that has no native language—relieved them of their coats, and they sat down opposite to each other, mechanically touching their hair to feel if their hats ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... hours; he swabbed it out, and poured in the powder and inserted the fuse; then filled up the rest of the hole with dirt and small fragments of stone; tamped it down firmly, touched his candle to the fuse, and ran. By and by the I dull report came, and he was about to walk back mechanically and see what was accomplished; but he halted; presently turned on his heel and thought, rather ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Mechanically she bathed her face and hands and passed into her sitting-room, where her tea awaited her. A bright fire crackled there, and her favourite chair was drawn up to it. The kettle hissed merrily on ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... critics said that if the book added nothing to his reputation, it detracted nothing from it, but probably their pen added this mechanically when they were away. What annoyed him more was the two or three who stated that, much as they liked "Unrequited Love," they liked the "Letters" still better. He could not endure hearing a good word said for ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... the first sentence of this speech. Her mind was possessed by one idea. She must warn her lover. Mechanically she turned away, forgetful of her companion, and passing through the door with ever quicker steps, left her step-mother gazing ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... strenuously to catch up with the enemy, only to see at nightfall their spearheads disappearing over the last brown ridge of sand hills. Scotty felt himself becoming a machine, something that did the day's work mechanically. To toil all day in the bow or stern of a boat in the scorching heat of the pitiless sun, or walk over blistering rock and dazzling sand; to sleep at night inside a square of good British bayonets, chilled by the numbing wind from the north; to rise at the bugle-call ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... his words, and yet I continued advancing while I mechanically endeavored to guess his reason ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... barren corner of the wooded highland looking inland stood grey topless ruins set in nettles and rank grass-blades. Richard mechanically sat down on the crumbling flints to rest, and listened to the panting of the dog. Sprinkled at his feet were emerald lights: hundreds of glow-worms studded ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... more intimate acquaintance, and on that account, despite his impatience, began the usual conversation, which is carried on by almost all men—when alone with prostitutes, and which compels the latter to lie almost mechanically, to lie without mortification, enthusiasm or malice, according to a single, very ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... mechanically. Outside, in the main office, the same air of tense expectancy prevailed. For two weeks the office force had been busily at work, preparing inventories and balance sheets. The firm of French and ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... v. 14.]; it could not be bent to suit the diversities of individual character, but was a rule iron and inflexible, which applied equally to all. His measure was that of Procrustes; the cleverest boys could not stretch themselves beyond it, the dullest were mechanically pulled into its dimensions. Hence some fared hardly under it; yet let me hasten to say that, on the whole, with the great number of average boys, it was a success. The discipline which he established was perfect, and though many boys winced under it at the time, it was ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... shoving the strap-unfastener roughly away, I imperatively order the whole covetous crew to "haidi." Without a moment's hesitation they betake themselves off to their work, it being an inborn trait of their character to mechanically obey an authoritative command. Following them to their other arabas, I find that they have brought quilts along, intending, after loading up to sleep in the field until daylight. Selecting a good heavy quilt with as little ceremony as though it were my own property, I take ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... paper and pencil into my hand again, and I sat and wrote mechanically the date, 1848, in each corner. If only now one single effervescing thought would grip me powerfully, and put words into my mouth. Why, I had known hours when I could write a long piece, without the least exertion, and turn it ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... evening that he could not consent to seek repose. Love, hope, and jealousy, disputed for the possession of his heart. Seated in a vast arm-chair, near the hearth, the fire on which flickered faintly, the eyes of Maulear were mechanically directed to one of the windows of his room, by the beating of the rain against it. All at once he saw, or thought he saw, a white figure on the other side of the window pause for a few instants, as if it sought to enter his room. Maulear fancied himself under the influence of a dream. ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... thickness. It is quite white, compact, with some parts slightly spathose, and is firmly attached to the rock. After a short time it gradually disappears, being either redissolved, when the water is less charged with lime, or more probably is mechanically abraded. Lieutenant Evans has observed these facts, during the six years he has resided at Ascension. The incrustation varies in thickness in different years: in 1831 it was unusually thick. When I was there in July, ...
— Volcanic Islands • Charles Darwin
... going up and down, stinging Dead Easy to more violent exertions, if possible. But the outlaw had shot its bolt. The plunges grew less vicious, the bucks more feeble. It still pitched, because of the unbroken gameness that defied defeat, but so mechanically that the ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... the barking of a squirrel, the noise of the wind among the pines—all were anxiously noted by his overstrained sense. Suddenly, directly in front of his line, he heard a faint, confused rumble, like the clatter of a falling building translated by distance. The lieutenant mechanically looked at his watch. Six o'clock and eighteen minutes. At the same moment an officer approached him on foot from ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... may manage to get a living, but he has lost the buoyancy, energy and enthusiasm which are as natural to a man in his place as his breath. He is industrious, but he works mechanically and without heart. It is to support himself and family, not because he cannot help it. Dinner time does not come two hours before he realizes it; a man out of place is constantly looking at his watch and ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden |
