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Rapidity   /rəpˈɪdəti/   Listen
Rapidity

noun
1.
A rate that is rapid.  Synonyms: celerity, quickness, rapidness, speediness.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Rapidity" Quotes from Famous Books



... principality. War was now openly declared between the two empires; and Kiuprili, assuming the command in person, opened the campaign of 1663, in Hungary, with 100,000 men—a force before which Montecuculi had no alternative but to retreat, as the rapidity with which the Turks had taken the field, had completely outstripped the dilatory preparations of the Aulic Council[10]. The exploits of the Ottomans, however, were confined to the capture of Ujvar, or Neuhausel, after ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... bade him see what was there. Snuffing slightly at the storm, which was not over yet, Rover started down the walk, while Hugh stood waiting in the door. At first Rover's steps were slow and uncertain, but as he advanced they increased in rapidity, until, with a sudden bound and cry, such as dogs are wont to give when they have caught their destined prey, he sprang upon the mysterious ridge, and commenced digging ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... the general course of later Greek medicine with great rapidity. A definite medical school was established at Alexandria and others perhaps at Pergamon and elsewhere. Athens, after the death of Aristotle and his pupils, passes entirely into the background and is of no importance so far as medicine is concerned. At ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... of imagination to foresee. There are forces in the world which work, not in an arithmetical, but in a geometrical ratio of increase. Education, to use the expression of Plato, moves like a wheel with an ever-multiplying rapidity. Nor can we say how great may be its influence, when it becomes universal,—when it has been inherited by many generations,—when it is freed from the trammels of superstition and rightly adapted to the wants and capacities of different classes of men and women. Neither do we know how ...
— The Republic • Plato

... the far Western States vie with each other in passing legislation which shall deny them the right to life, or at least to live upon any equality of competition with the white. Most of such laws are, of course, unconstitutional, but they were at one time enacted with more rapidity than the Supreme Court of the United States could declare them so. Congress tries to be more reasonable and, indeed, has to be so, in view of the fact that it is a national Congress living, with the executive, in direct touch with the foreign nations themselves. ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson

... stop—"the sphere comes to rest on one of the numbers painted legibly on either a black or a red ground. The children, seated around the table, are provided with the numerating disks to which I have already called your attention; and—with a varying rapidity, regulated by their individual intelligence—they severally, as promptly as possible, arrange their disks in piles corresponding with the number indicated by the purely fortuitous resting-place of the sphere. The purpose of this ingenious contrivance, ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier

... his chum, who observing the rapidity of his contact with the washbasin, the reappearance of the dicky and the two strokes of the brush which completed his toilette, added with a sigh of relief, "I say, old horse, you ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson

... of some tale of Bret Harte, and one found one's self expecting the sudden appearance of Broncho Billy or Jack Hamlin mounted upon a fiery mustang. But we cleared the top of the pass without meeting either, and started on our last long downhill to Andrievitza. Cheered by the rapidity of our motion the two ruffians on the box started a howling Podgoritzian kind of melody, exceedingly discordant. The driver, careless that one of our springs was but wired tree, and that wheels in Montenegro are easily decomposed, flogged his horses unmercifully, rattling ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon

... sapphire—months might pass without its absence being noted by Amherst's careless eye; and if Wyant should pawn it, she might somehow save money to buy it back before it was missed. She went through these calculations with feverish rapidity; then she turned ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... great minuteness, have had their attention so wholly occupied with the care of the body that they do not appreciate the simultaneous growth of the mind, or inquire after its welfare. Yet it is the astounding rapidity with which the mental processes develop that forms the distinguishing characteristic of the infancy of man. Were it not for this rapid growth of the cerebral functions, the rearing of children would be a matter almost as simple and uneventful as ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron

... strain upon commerce, with a public debt swollen to what then seemed the desperate sum of L400,000,000. Burke at the notion of negotiation flamed out in the Letters on a Regicide Peace, in some respects the most splendid of all his compositions. They glow with passion, and yet with all their rapidity is such steadfastness, the fervour of imagination is so skilfully tempered by close and plausible reasoning, and the whole is wrought with such strength and fire, that we hardly know where else to look either in Burke's own writings or elsewhere for such an ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... The rapidity with which Mr. Fleet came to his conclusions increased my bewilderment, and I was at a loss to know what evidence he expected to gain from Craymoor church. He reminded me, however, of Catherine's statement that "the ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... any person who has all his senses about him, a quiet walk, over not more than ten or twelve miles of road a day, is the most amusing of all travelling; and all travelling becomes dull in exact proportion to its rapidity. ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin

... darkness. "Seth's looking after the plans," were the final words which had reached his ears. Had those plans anything to do with Jean's disappearance? he asked himself. Forgotten was everything else as with lightning rapidity these thoughts surged through his mind. He came to himself with a start, and was surprised to see that the Colonel had left him, and was with Davidson at the door of his own house. He hurried after him, and entered the house just as the bereaved father dropped upon a seat near the table, ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody

... in, but not so voluminously as at first. It had evidently become attenuated, and was growing thinner. It appeared also to be ascending with rapidity, as up the funnel of a chimney having a good draught. For this reason it was carried past the mouth of the grotto without much of it drifting in, and they saw that they could soon safely withdraw the curtain. It was a welcome relaxation ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... 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 ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... knew the peculiarities of the climate too well to be alarmed. The storm, he judged, would not break until nearly sundown, and then it would only be short and sharp. In the meantime he would have reached the farm. There was a curious, unconscious rapidity in his way of settling up his affairs. It was as though some strange power were urging him to haste. This may have been the result of the man's character, for he was of a strikingly vigorous nature. He had put the machinery in motion, and now ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum

... cut into a cliff, ten or twelve feet above the bed of the river, and against it the sand is blown in naked dunes. At 2 p.m., the surface-sand was heated to 110 degrees where sheltered from the wind, and 104 degrees in the open bed of the river. To compare the rapidity and depth to which the heat is communicated by pure sand, and by the tough alluvium, I took the temperature at some inches depth in both. That the alluvium absorbs the heat better, and retains it longer, would appear from the following, the only observations ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... sat down before the toilet-table, and with more rapidity than Jenny could well follow, showed her the articles upon it, and the uses for ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt

... rapidity of the flash, and other circumstances, it may be conjectured that there is something of electricity in this phenomenon. Notes to Poems, 1796. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... reaction on the intellectual, emotional, and moral aspects of human affairs, render our societies the most complex and probably the most mobile and unsettled which the world has ever seen. As the result of this rapidity of change and complexity, there must continually exist a large amount of disco-ordination, and consequently, ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner

... the sense of my advice. Issuing orders to enter the ravine, he dismounted with his men behind the bank. There we stood off the Indians till the soldiers in the rear, hearing the shots, came charging to the rescue and drove the Indians away. The rapidity with which we got into the ravine, and the protection its banks afforded us, enabled us to get away without losing a man. Had the general's original plan been carried out none of us would have come away to tell the story. I was summoned to ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)

... the rapidity of wave vibration and decrease the wave length we pass from, sound waves to heat waves or what are known as the infra-red waves, those which lie below the red in the spectrum of light. Next we come to light, which is composed of the seven colors as you know from seeing them resolved in a prism. ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... other of a bush. Few animals turn, if the rush be unsuccessful. The buffalo is an exception; he regularly hunts a man, and is therefore peculiarly dangerous. Unthinking persons talk of the fearful rapidity of a lion or tiger's spring. It is not rapid at all: it is a slow movement, as must be evident from The following consideration. No wild animal can leap ten yards, and they all make a high trajectory in their leaps. Now, think of the speed of a ball thrown, ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... extending over the entire field of action. It could be applied with special success where the German information service was superior to that of the Russians, as it usually was, and the movements of German troops were facilitated by good railway connections. In the Augustowo forests, however, rapidity of movement had to be achieved by the legs of the German soldiers to a large extent, and on this they prided themselves not a little. The operation just described was regarded by the German Great Headquarters as being of great ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan

... as the boys soon noted, at irregular intervals of duration and disappearance. Now they were long, now short; and again they came and went with great rapidity, or ceased altogether for several ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London

... with which the English lessons had gone on was amazing, for Amy usually tired of everything in a day or two. Now, however, she was a devoted teacher, and her pupil did her great credit by the rapidity with which he caught the language. It looked like pleasant play, sitting among the roses day after day, Amy affecting to embroider while she taught, Casimer marching to and fro on the wide, low wall, below which lay the lake, while he learned his lesson; ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott

... to keep through all the days of strife and pain, and also fierce deeds, till they carried him dead from Killiecrankie field. It was a full, rich face, with fine complexion somewhat browned by campaign life, with large, expressive eyes of hazel hue, whose expression could change with rapidity from love to hate, which could be very gentle in a woman's wooing, or very hard when dealing with a Covenanting rebel, but which in repose were apt to be sad and hopeless. The lips are rich and flexible, the ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren

... the accident case in a distressed angry shout that came ringing between the walls like a quavering call down a tunnel. The clawing hand hauled at my shoulder; he leered at me knowingly. "The ship was full of them, you know, and we had to clear out on the strict Q.T.," he whispered with extreme rapidity. "All pink. All pink—as big as mastiffs, with an eye on the top of the head and claws all round their ugly mouths. Ough! Ough!" Quick jerks as of galvanic shocks disclosed under the flat coverlet the outlines of meagre and agitated legs; he let go my shoulder and reached after something in the ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... study the social world, it must always be a matter of astonishment to see the fulness, the perfection, and the rapidity with which an idea develops in a ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... of such a correspondence between sound and light. The red end of the spectrum would naturally relate to the low notes of the musical scale, and the violet end to the high, by reason of the relative rapidity of vibration in each case; for the octave of a musical note sets the air vibrating twice as rapidly as does the note itself, and roughly speaking, the same is true of the end colors of the spectrum with relation ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon

... a larger fish to catch them. They will be perfectly still in the water, and if scared by anything they will start away in any direction like a streak. They go as if it were no effort and move with the rapidity of a dart. I have cut some of the large pickerel open and found whole fish in them, five or ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin

... converted into a raging torrent, and you can hear its roar a mile off. Within about five hours the water in it had risen not less than twenty feet! This will give you an idea of the tremendous force and rapidity of the rainfall in this country. Of course the damage done was great, in MacCullum's as in Deep Creek. A heavy timber bridge had been carried quite away, not a trace of it remaining. Many miners' huts ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles

... fixed on the water. There was a broad band now of yellow with a white edge down the center of the stony flat, and it was widening with terrible rapidity. It was scarce ten yards from the windlass at the top of Red George's shaft when Dick, followed closely by ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty

... the seventeenth century was still young, from one end of the kingdom to the other with any desperate rapidity. Even when the posts rode at a hand gallop, the long leagues took their long time to cover, and, after all, of most of the news that came to the capital from abroad and afar it was generally safe to disbelieve a full half, to discredit the third quarter, and to be justifiably sceptical ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... rapidity he had examined all the spoil of his victim's pockets. A horrid silence had settled down over the ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage

... reasons, however, why the national indebtedness should not be thus rapidly extinguished. Chief among them is the fact that only by excessive taxation is such rapidity attainable. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson

... depend entirely upon mental and spiritual inspiration will receive an impetus from the Communist faith. Whether the flowering period will be long or short depends partly on the political situation, but chiefly on the rapidity of industrial development. It may be that the machine will ultimately conquer the Communist faith and grind out the human impulses, and Russia become during this transition period as inartistic and soulless as was America until quite recent years. One would like to hope that mechanical ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell

... route, but not with the same rapidity, although I lost no time. Everywhere, and above all in Poland at the places where I stopped, I was astonished to find the feeling of security I saw manifested. From all directions I heard the report ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... had hatchet and knife and he worked with great rapidity and skill, cutting and bending a bow in two or three days, and making a string of strong sinews, after which he fashioned many arrows and tipped them with sharp bone. Then he contemplated his ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... their friendship growing with boyish rapidity, the pair were inseparable. Other fellows wondered at the sudden intimacy, and Rose was asked what ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... with such terrifying rapidity that Peter Gudge had hardly time to keep track of them. But now he had plenty of time, he had nothing but time. He could think the whole thing out, and realize the ghastly trick which fate had played upon him. He lay ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair

... success of his operations; whilst in every other particular his conduct was beyond the reach of censure. In his choice of ground for halting, in the order both of his advance and retreat, and in the rapidity of his movements as soon as his plans had been arranged, General Ross exhibited himself in the light of an able and diligent commander. No man could possess, more than he a soldier's eye in examining the face of a country; and in what little manoeuvring the circumstances permitted, ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig

... in astonishment, and as they gazed the tinderlike roof burst into a red sheet of flame that grew and gathered breadth and height with an almost marvellous rapidity. Just then, too, a light breeze sprang up from over the hill at the rear of the house, as it sometimes did at this time of the day, and bent the flames over towards them in an immense arch of fire, so that the fumes and heat and smoke began to beat ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard

... the winding road through a dense forest, I crossed by a suspension bridge the Gori River at Gargia (2450 feet). The track was along the low and unpleasantly hot valley of the Kali River, a raging stream flowing with indescribable rapidity in the opposite direction to that in which I was travelling. It formed the boundary line between Nepal and Kumaon. Huts and patches of cultivation were to be seen on the Nepalese side, whereas on our side we came ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... The rate at which a person reads, or the time consumed in any one selection, is regulated by the extent or breadth of thought and by the rapidity of action. There is a certain medium or ordinary time in which those selections that are in no way emotional are read. Commonplace selections, not calculated to stir the feelings, are of this character, as are simple narratives where the incidents are unexciting. This medium or standard time ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... Pure Spirit, down to the grossest form of Matter, all is in vibration—the higher the vibration, the higher the position in the scale. The vibration of Spirit is at such an infinite rate of intensity and rapidity that it is practically at rest—just as a rapidly moving wheel seems to be motionless. And at the other end of the scale, there are gross forms of matter whose vibrations are so low as to seem at rest. Between these poles, there are millions upon ...
— The Kybalion - A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece • Three Initiates

... without our being able to apprehend the intervals. The case is analogous to that of the perception of a real wheel; but there is the difference that in the case of the wheel no intervals are apprehended, because there are none; while in the case of the firebrand none are apprehended owing to the rapidity of the movement. But in the latter case also the cognition is true.—Again, in the case of mirrors and similar reflecting surfaces the perception of one's own face is likewise true. The fact is that the motion of the visual rays (proceeding from the eye towards the mirror) is ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut

... Bertha's cabinet. My interviews with my wife had become so brief and so rarely solitary, that I had no opportunity of perceiving these images in her mind with more definiteness. The recollections of the past become contracted in the rapidity of thought till they sometimes bear hardly a more distinct resemblance to the external reality than the forms of an oriental alphabet to the ...
— The Lifted Veil • George Eliot

... fortunes of millions had been made on the Volga with fairy-tale rapidity, Ignat Gordyeeff, a young fellow, was working as water-pumper on one of the barges of the wealthy ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky

... masks, and under the first a mask of wax so well made that, when he took off his first mask, people fancied they saw the natural face, and he deceived everybody. Nothing can equal the enjoyment which Mgr. le Dauphin takes in all these diversions, nor the rapidity with which he changes his disguises. He leaves all his officers without being fatigued, although he works harder at dressing and undressing himself than they do, and he danced much. This prince shows in the least things, in his horsemanship, ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne

... Well thought out plans and preparations deserve to win; order and punctuality on the part of subordinates tend to make the reality correspond to the General Staff conception; surprise, if the Commander can bring it off, is worth all K. can say of it; the energy and rapidity of the chosen troops will exploit that surprise for its full value—bar, always, Luck—the Joker; and Wish to Fight and Will to Win are the surest victory getters in the pack. The more these factors are examined, the more sure it ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton

... brandy, which the Highlanders distil from malt, and drink undiluted in excessive quantities, was placed before these worthies. A broken glass, with a wooden foot, served as a drinking cup to the whole party, and circulated with a rapidity, which, considering the potency of the liquor, seemed absolutely marvellous. These men spoke loudly and eagerly together, sometimes in Gaelic, at other times in English. Another Highlander, wrapt in his plaid, reclined on the floor, his head resting on a stone, from which it was only separated ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... the mother. But on the great continental stretches, where competition is keen, where the animal must battle for his life against a wide field of other animals, where migration into new situations is possible, the rapidity of the development ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker

... tempest broke. With a rapidity which, at the time, seemed incredible, and even afterwards is impossible to realize, the whole aspect of nature at once became convulsed. The waves rose in growing fury, each over-topping its fellow, till in a very few minutes ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... in an organ under inflammation is an increase in the rapidity with which the blood circulates through the vessels—a so-called hyperemia—which soon gives place to a diminution (stasis) in the current together with an exudation from the blood-vessels; the latter is due to changes in the ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison

... plunge into chaos, he suddenly heard, however, of his elder brother's death at Heidelberg. Leaving his men, as was his habit, to shift for themselves, and Baron Truchses, the Archbishop's brother, to fall into the hands of the enemy, he disappeared from the scene with great rapidity, in order that his own interests in the palatinate and in the guardianship of the young palatines might not suffer by ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... surface has been treated with the pumice stone this objection is removed, and the paper can be worked on with the stump readily. I can say from my own experience, that for producing a crayon over a photographic enlargement with the stipple effect, it has no equal in the beauty of finish and rapidity of execution. ...
— Crayon Portraiture • Jerome A. Barhydt

... She asked to be allowed to write a poem; there was a doubt whether it would be right to allow her, in case of hurting her eyes. She pleaded earnestly, 'Just this once'; the point was yielded, her slate was given her, and with great rapidity she wrote an address of fourteen lines, 'to her loved cousin on the author's recovery,' her ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various

... against the Moslems, may be left out of the actual task which, encouraged by her voices, Joan had set herself to accomplish. But the two great deeds had now been carried out—and with what marvellous rapidity! In spite of all the obstacles placed in her path, not only by the enemies of her country, but by those nearest to the ear of the King, Orleans had been delivered in four days' time, the English host had ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower

... Southern brethren, and from the Parent Club, which had a humble and unassuming origin on the recreation ground at Queen's Park, sprang hundreds of clubs, spreading over the length and breadth of the land with remarkable rapidity. The wave soon rolled all over Glasgow and suburbs, submerged the whole country, and eventually invaded the Heart of Midlothian itself, where the Rugby code had hitherto reigned supreme. The schoolboys who played cricket and rounders in the summertime ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone

... and having smoothed the surface once more, he drew A after A with the greatest rapidity, scrambling along sideways like a crab, and using both hands indifferently, till the row stretched as far ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... driving them from fort to fort into the Castle of Corral, together with two hundred more, who had abandoned some guns advantageously placed on a height at Fort Chorocomayo. The Corral was stormed with equal rapidity, a number of the enemy escaping in boats to Valdivia, others plunging into the forest; whilst upwards of a hundred, besides officers, fell into our hands, the like number being found bayoneted on the following morning. Our loss was seven men ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... to Africa it is necessary to take account of the natural division of the continent into distinct economic zones. Immediately under the equator is a wide area of heavy rainfall and dense forest. The rapidity and rankness of vegetable growth renders the region unsuited to agriculture. But the plentiful streams abound in fish and the forests in animals and fruits. The banana and plantain grow there in superabundance, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... accumulated in compact masses on the ground. By degrees the rollings of the drum became more frequent and louder, the chants more sonorous and shrill; and at last our Indian shrieked, howled, and roared in the most frightful manner; he struggled and struck his instrument with extraordinary rapidity; it was a real tempest, to which nothing was wanting, not even the distant howling of the dogs, nor the bellowing of the ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... illustrations sometimes ran to anti-climax. One day, he talked of something (if I recollect right, the electric telegraph), moving with the rapidity of a flash of lightning, with a pair of spurs clapped ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton

... then, assuming the old methods are followed, it would seem that with a reasonable naval preponderance the power of carrying out such operations over an uncommanded sea is not less than it has proved to be hitherto. The rapidity and precision of steam propulsion perhaps places that power higher than ever. It would at any rate be difficult to find in the past a parallel to the brilliant movement on Seoul with which the Japanese opened the war in 1904. It is true the Russians at the last moment decided for political ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett

... was left to herself again. She was astonished at the rapidity of Trudi's movements. Within one week she had heard of her, met her, liked her, begun to like her less, and lost her. She had flashed across the Kleinwalde horizon, and left a trail of workmen and new servants ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp

... may rise above the earthly need of it. How many sighs are wasted over the toil of the sickly—a toil which perhaps lifts off half the weight of their sickness, elevates their inner life, and makes the outer pass with tenfold rapidity. Of those who honestly pity such, many would themselves be far less pitiable were they compelled to share in the toil they behold with compassion. They are unaware of the healing virtue which the thing they would not pity at all were it a matter ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... another form of expression, similar in character to the "seven times in a day," he intimates that faith possesses an unlimited power of production in the department of doing. To intensify the result he employs a double hyperbole, as engineers employ two pairs of wheels to generate extreme rapidity of motion; the smallest spark of faith will overcome the greatest obstacles that may lie across a Christian's path. Again, the same idea which appeared before in Matt. xvii. 20, is expressed here by a different figure: in both cases the Lord intends to intimate ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... many impressions or none. In a new circle every character is a study, and every incident an adventure; and the multiplicity of the images and emotions restrains the hours. But after a few days, though Lothair was not less delighted, for he was more so, he was astonished at the rapidity of time. The life was exactly the same, but equally pleasant; the same charming companions, the same refined festivity, the same fascinating amusements; but to his dismay Lothair recollected that nearly a fortnight had elapsed since his arrival. ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli

... a kind of sympathetic vibration ran through the crowd, and with the rapidity of a flash of lightning the words, "There he is! there he is!" passed from group to group. At this cry some withdrew into their houses and shut their doors and darkened their windows, as if it were a day of public mourning, while ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - URBAIN GRANDIER—1634 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... side-door at Trimmings's, and Mrs. Trimmings was at the desk, jotting down legs of mutton, and entries of gravy-beef and suet, with a rapidity that would have tried the brain of any other woman than ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... varies greatly with different substances. PH3 burns spontaneously at the usual temperatures of the air. P takes fire at 60 degrees, but even at 10 degrees it oxidizes with rapidity enough to produce phosphorescence. The vapor of CS2 may be set on fire by a glass rod heated to 150 degrees, but a red-hot iron ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams

... died at Corfu a Dr. Barry, attached to the Medical Staff of the British Army. He was remarkable for skill, firmness, decision, and great rapidity in difficult operations. He had entered the army in 1813, and had served in all quarters of the globe with such distinction, as to insure promotion without interest. He was clever and agreeable, but excessively plain, weak in stature, and with a squeaking voice which provoked ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... the Nipe is just outside the wall of your apartment, in the hallway. I have him in my sights." He was trying to stay calm, Mannheim could tell by his voice, but he rattled the words off with machine-gun rapidity. ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett

... one second before I replied, my mind, with the practised rapidity of an old campaigner, took in all the pros and cons of the case; I saw at a glance, it were better to brave the anger of the Colonel, come in what shape it might, than be the laughing-stock of the mess for life, and with a face of the greatest ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)

... of staggering away to the southward through the ship—channel, already within the influence of the sea breeze, but which was as yet neutralized close in shore where she was by the terral. The speed of the craft—the rapidity with which she slid along the land with the light air, riveted my attention. On enquiry, I found she was the Carthagenian schooner Josefa. At this moment the splash of oars was heard right below where we stood, and a very roguish—looking craft, also schooner—rigged, about ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... to dispute the detective's order, but ultimately obeyed him, muttering, as he went out, something about "the blooming cheek of showin' swells cove's cribs." The child followed him out, her exit being accelerated by Mother Guttersnipe, who, with a rapidity only attained by long practice, seized the shoe from one of her feet, and flung it at the head of the rapidly ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume

... as a special gift from God to be able to do that in a few hours which other men can only perform in many days of labor. But should this rapidity cause a man to fail in his best realization it would be better to proceed slowly. No artist should allow his eagerness to hinder him from the supreme end ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting

... ball, struck by the quivering, bent, and extended arms; with the arms like a loop, turned downwards; with her graceful hair reaching to the end of the back, rolled round upwards; with the game continued (and) not neglected from her rapidity in putting up the fallen-down golden leaf of the ear-ring; with the ball whirled inwards and outwards by the feet and hands throwing it up repeatedly; with the necklace lost to sight through bending down and rising up; the pearls without separation in falling ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob

... are equally well fitted for their own places in nature, both probably will hold their own places and keep separate for almost any length of time. Being familiar with the fact that many species, naturalised through man's agency, have spread with astonishing rapidity over new countries, we are apt to infer that most species would thus spread; but we should remember that the forms which become naturalised in new countries are not generally closely allied to the aboriginal inhabitants, but are very ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin

... soon over; the city of pleasure finally capitulated; its people began rapidly to depart. That sudden movement resembled the migration of a swarm of bees to form a new colony, when, if the day be bright, the expedition issues forth with wondrous rapidity. So this human hive commenced to empty itself of queens, drones and workers. It was an outgoing wave of such life and animation as is apparent in the flight of a swarm of cell-dwellers, giving out a loud and sharp-toned hum from the action of their wings as they soar over ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... their celebrated tercios were the very model of all regiments. Their armament was likewise superior, as they had adopted the musket, which was the first fire-arm that a man could handle with any facility, load with rapidity, and aim with any precision. Each of their tercios or battalions contained a regulated proportion of these musketeers, and the number was large, compared to the whole mass ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various

... some of the things had been found in Pop's trunk spread with great rapidity. Many were astonished to learn that he was thought guilty, but a few declared that "a coon wasn't ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield

... Bolingbroke's position, should have been imitated to such perfection by a mere novice, that accomplished critics like Chesterfield and Warburton should have mistaken the copy for a firstrate original. It is, however, to be remembered that the very boldness and sweeping rapidity of Bolingbroke's prose rendered it more fit for imitation than if its merits had been those of delicacy or subtlety; and we must remember that the imitator was no pigmy, but himself one of the giants. What is certain is that the ...
— Burke • John Morley

... states, on the contrary, the wheels of government cease to act, as it were of their own accord, at the approach of an election, and even for some time previous to that event. The laws may indeed accelerate the operation of the election, which may be conducted with such simplicity and rapidity that the seat of power will never be left vacant; but, notwithstanding these precautions, a break necessarily occurs in the ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al

... its growth, and co-ordinate its effects with those of other industries which were under the patronage of German banks. It was in vain that Witte and his fellow workers threw up barriers that seemed impassable to German enterprise. They were turned with ease and rapidity. Thus in order to protect the textile industries of Moscow, prohibitive tariffs were levied on textile fabrics of German origin. But the irrepressible Teuton crossed the frontier, established his factories in Poland, founded ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... about for a little while, and then sat down and once more watched the dawn. It was not a clear sky, but barred towards the east with cloud, the rain-cloud of the night. She watched and watched, and thought after her fashion, mostly with incoherence, but with rapidity and intensity. At last came the first flash of scarlet upon the bars, and the dead storm contributed its own share to the growing beauty. The rooks were now astir, and flew, one after the other, in an irregular line eastwards black against the sky. Still the colour spread, until ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford

... race increases with a fearful rapidity. No flood does it so quick. Poor Senators! Some of them must spend nights and days to decide on whom to bestow this or that office. Secretaries or Ministers wrangle, fight (that is the word used), as if life ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski

... the wrong track. During her silent ride homeward the girl was thinking with an earnestness and a rapidity that had never before been developed in her brain. She was, at times, almost unconscious that Dic was riding beside her, but she was vividly conscious of the fact that she would soon be home and that he also would be there. She determined ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major

... and the two letters into the vast pocket of his huge frock-coat with a dexterity and a rapidity which would have excited the envy of an accomplished pickpocket. It was high time; for the women who were bending over the bed of the young girl were exhibiting signs of intense excitement. One of them said she was sure the body had trembled under her hand, and the others ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau

... which the note of welcome, however, was more sensible than that of defiance. The person in question was a young lady, who seemed immediately to interpret the greeting of the small beast. He advanced with great rapidity and stood at her feet, looking up and barking hard; whereupon, without hesitation, she stooped and caught him in her hands, holding him face to face while he continued his quick chatter. His master now had had time to follow and to see that Bunchie's ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... her master, M. Papadopoulos, "expanded with so much rapidity, that the professors charged with her instruction could not keep any other pupil abreast of her in the same studies. Not only did she make a wholly unexpected and unhoped-for progress, but it became necessary for her ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams

... carried off all alike and defied every mode of treatment. Most appalling was the despondency which seized upon any one who felt himself sickening; for he instantly abandoned his mind to despair and, instead of holding out, absolutely threw away his chance of life. Appalling too was the rapidity with which men caught the infection, dying like sheep if they attended on one another, and this was the principal cause of mortality. When they were afraid to visit one another, the sufferers died in their ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various

... places, both will probably hold their separate places for almost any length of time. Being familiar with the fact that many species, naturalised through man's agency, have spread with astonishing rapidity over wide areas, we are apt to infer that most species would thus spread; but we should remember that the species which become naturalised in new countries are not generally closely allied to the aboriginal inhabitants, but are very distinct forms, belonging in a large proportion ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin

... contrasted in Napoleon and the boy? By what means is sympathy turned from one to the other? Show how rapidity and vividness are ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning

... McDonell, who, thinking the Colonel was in want of support, caused his own bugles to answer, and immediately advanced with two of his companies from the third and fourth lines to the first and second."[36] "All these movements were executed with great rapidity." De Salaberry, at the same time, as a ruse de guerre, ordered "ten or twelve buglemen into the adjoining woods with orders to separate and blow with all their might."[37] The enemy, as De Salaberry calculated, suspected that the Canadians were advancing in great numbers to circumvent ...
— An Account Of The Battle Of Chateauguay - Being A Lecture Delivered At Ormstown, March 8th, 1889 • William D. Lighthall

... state will be so happy, contented, and knit together that inducement to crime will cease. Others will treat the criminal "scientifically," ensuring reforms at the rate of 100 per cent. with lightning-like rapidity. Which all practically amounts to this, that the problem concerning the future of the weak is shelved. To study it deeply would spoil our best theories and therefore it must be got rid of. Dr Chapple ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll

... Rheinsberg, who pined away in sighs. Now passed the sweetest and loveliest of all. The king's eyes, which stared into empty space, now beamed with glad recognition. The heart which had grown old and sobered beat with feverish rapidity, and the compressed lips whispered, sighing, "Barbarina!" She stood before him in her bewitching beauty, with the charming smile upon her ruby lips, and passionate love beaming from her flashing eyes. "Oh, Barbarina!" The king rose, a cold chill crept over him. He looked ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... in getting under way, and when she had succeeded in so doing, nearly half an hour elapsed, before, owing to the utter absence of wind (which was partial and wholly confined to the opposite shore) as well as the rapidity of the current, she could be brought by the aid of her long and cumbrous sweeps to clear the head of the Island. The American, now discovered to be full of troops, had by this time succeeded in getting out of the range of a fire, which although well ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... newspapers, letters, pipes, riding-whips, faded bouquets, and all kinds of miscellaneous rubbish—such were my friend's surroundings; and such, had I speculated upon them beforehand, I should have expected to find them. Dalrymple, in the meanwhile, despatched his letter with characteristic rapidity. His pen rushed over the paper like a dragoon charge, nor was once laid aside till both letter and address were finished. Just as he was sealing it, a note was brought to him by his servant—a slender, narrow, ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards

... to hang close to his opponents, but without using up all his reserve force. Now he let out "for all he was worth," as he afterwards declared, and, with strokes that could hardly be seen for their rapidity, he forged in front ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer

... lizards found from Texas to California, especially in the dry sections. They run with great rapidity with the tail curved upward, which exposes the markings of the lower surface. Frequently they run like the Collared Lizard, on the hind feet. The black-and-white tail markings account for ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas

... The marvellous rapidity and vigour of these two poems will save them from death; the splendid qualities of direct narration, constructive skill, dignity and poetical power will always make Homer a name to love. Those who know no Greek and therefore fear that they may lose some ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb

... Roman models. But only rarely can any one except sailors and merchants, who made a speciality of eastern trade, have undertaken the long and arduous journey. Certainly ideas travel with mysterious rapidity. The debt of Indian astronomy to Greece is undeniable[1078] and if the same cannot be affirmed of Indian mathematics and medicine yet the resemblance between Greek and Indian treatises on these sciences is remarkable. ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot

... Religious Denominations, resumed his attacks on Judaism. In 1816 he published an article under the title "Concerning the Causes of the Obnoxiousness of the Jews," in which he asserted that the Jews were responsible for Poland's decline. They multiplied with incredible rapidity, forming now no less than an eighth of the population. Should this process continue, the Kingdom of Poland would be turned into a "Jewish country" and become "the laughing-stock of the whole of Europe." The Jewish religion is antagonistic ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... man of weak character under the influence of alcohol and disappointed ambition is not easy to plumb, for his moods follow one another with a rapidity which baffles the observer. Ten minutes before, Gerald Foster had been in the grip of a clammy self-pity, and it seemed from his aspect at the present moment that this phase had returned. But in the interval there had manifestly occurred a brief ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse

... Persevering in the work, he was received in audience by the King, George III., who gave him encouragement. He then travelled over the kingdom, giving lectures on the new mode of instruction; which in consequence spread with rapidity. In 1798 he taught about 1,000 boys, between the ages of 5 and 12 years, his sisters teaching some ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter

... that in the places where his aura vitalis, or subtle fluid, is very abundant, as in hot climates or in heated periods, and especially in humid places, life seems to originate and to multiply itself everywhere and with a singular rapidity. ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard

... stereotyped in its studied grace as a Parisian melody. The men are even more insipid than the women. Under the debilitating influence of society, their energy is blunted, their original characters rot away and finally disappear with a frightful rapidity. Christophe was struck by the number of dead and dying men he met among the artists: there was one young musician, full of life and genius, whom success had dulled, stupefied, and wiped out of existence: he thought of nothing but swallowing down the ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland

... its presence, but pathology is at fault to explain the reason of its deadly effect; and all that we know is that when introduced even in most minute quantities into an open wound, the blood is dissolved, so to speak, and the stream of life paralyzed with an almost incredible rapidity. Without test or antidote, terror has led to blind, fanatical empiricism, necessarily attended with no little injury in the search for specifics, and it may be reasonably asserted that no substance can be named so inert and worthless as not to have been recommended, or so disgusting as not ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various

... Field Marshal Yamagata was sixty-six; General Kuroki was sixty; and General Nogi, who took Port Arthur after a series of desperate conflicts, carried on with unflinching energy and almost breathless rapidity, was nearly sixty years ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller

... gingerly on. Bob looked back. Against the light the two graceful, erect figures, immobile, but carried back and forth over thirty feet with lightning rapidity; the brute masses of the logs; the swift decisive forays of the "nigger," the unobtrusive figures of the other men handling the logs far in the background; and the bright, smooth, glittering, dangerous saws, clear-cut in outline by their very ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... drives bullocks into the slaughter-pen. No time is wasted, no argument is used. This produces an army which will soon turn upon our now victorious soldiers already in the field, if they shall not be sustained by recruits as they should be. It produces an army with a rapidity not to be matched on our side if we first waste time to re-experiment with the volunteer system, already deemed by Congress, and palpably, in fact, so far exhausted as to be inadequate; and then more time to obtain a court decision as to whether a law is constitutional, ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... at the result of their own enquiries, for they had fondly hoped that the dreadful evil was if not diminishing, at least advancing with less rapidity. From various estimates, on which your committee place much reliance, they are confirmed in the opinion, that the increase (independent of clandestine importations) must amount at the present time to at least near 50,000 ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various

... small, but ever so sea-going appearing chap, who was engaged in balancing his hat on the bridge of his nose and wig-wagging at the same time. After beating me over the head several times with the flags, he said I could play with him, and he began to send me messages with lightning-like rapidity. "What is it?" ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.

... spot that it was soon entirely beyond control. The city of London was then composed of an immense mass of mean buildings, crowded densely together, with very narrow streets intervening, and the wind carried the flames, with inconceivable rapidity, far and wide. The people seemed struck universally with a sense of terror and despair, and nothing was to be heard but shrieks, outcries, and wild lamentations. The sky was one vast lurid canopy, like molten brass, day ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott

... Dr. ADDISON'S professional method in dealing with representatives of the Building Trades Unions. A bricklayers' leader, let us say, has expounded at great length the technical difficulties which prevent rapidity ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 1, 1920 • Various

... the oppressed had finally lost patience, and their partial attempts at resistance, disavowed by the most distinguished of their brethren, had been stifled in blood. After the truce of Ratisbon, declarations and decrees hostile to Protestantism succeeded each other with frightful rapidity; nothing else was seen in the official gazette. Protestant ministers were prohibited from officiating longer than three years in the same church (August, 1684); Protestant individuals were forbidden to give asylum ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... more out of the carriage, which was still dashing along with the utmost rapidity. The chasseurs were fast approaching. The panting and snorting of the foaming horses were already heard—the flashing, triumphant eyes of the soldiers distinctly seen. Every second brought them nearer and ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... Captain Tiago passed for the most lavish of entertainers, and it was well known that the doors of his home, like those of his country, were closed to nobody and nothing save commerce and all new or audacious ideas. The news spread, therefore, with lightning rapidity in the world of the sycophants, the unemployed and idle, whom heaven has multiplied so generously ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... the island had been unable to accomplish, the French of William of Normandy were finally to realise. By the rapidity and thoroughness of their conquest, by securing to themselves the assistance of those who knew how to use a pen, by their continental wars, they were to bring about the fusion of all the races in one, and teach them, whether they intended ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... cannot even be conceived to exist in the marble. But consider the redness, to begin with. How does the sensation of redness arise? The waves of a certain very attenuated matter, the particles of which are vibrating with vast rapidity, but with very different velocities, strike upon the marble, and those which vibrate with one particular velocity are thrown off from its surface in all directions. The optical apparatus of the eye gathers some of these together, and gives them such a course that they ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell

... stupid ones, but these are the minority. The majority learn with wonderful rapidity. Many of the grown people are desirous of learning to read. It is wonderful how a people who have been so long crushed to the earth, so imbruted as these have been,—and they are said to be among the most degraded negroes of the South,—can ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various

... first society of the Universalist denomination established in this State. Stacy was a man of small stature, a rapid speaker, full of Biblical quotations, apt in comparing the Old and New Testaments, and happy in the use of vivid illustrations. The vehemence and rapidity of his utterance sometimes sprinkled with saliva the hearers seated near him, which gave occasion for a famous taunt flung at Ambrose Clark, one of Stacy's converts and an early settler of Pierstown, when his brother Abel said that ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall

... some influence on the temperature of the climate. The summer, on the other hand, during the short time that it lasts, is proportionally warmer, the thermometer rising from 70 deg. to 80 deg. above 0. Vegetation then proceeds with uncommon rapidity; the shrubs and plants expand as if by enchantment; and the country assumes the luxuriance and beauty of a European summer. Forests of pine and larch are scattered over the country, the trees of sufficient size to be used in building, or to be sawn into boards; there are also willows, ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous

... soon pass away, he ascended the steps and entered the doorway, where he stood watching the half-obscured moon through the streaming rain. Presently, to his surprise, he beheld a female figure running forward with great rapidity, not towards the granary for shelter, but towards open ground. What could she be running for in that direction? The answer came in the appearance of his brother Bob from that quarter, seated on the back of his father's heavy horse. As soon as ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy

... the action of a contrary conduces to rapidity and intensity of movement: for "hot water freezes quicker and harder," as the Philosopher says (Meteor. i, 12). But the shunning of sorrow is due to the contrariety of the cause of sorrow; whereas the desire for pleasure does not ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... this at the time, and the next day went on to Rome, where the news came that Hood had made his appearance at Resaca, and had demanded the surrender of the place, which was commanded by Colonel Weaver, reenforced by Brevet Brigadier-General Raum. General Hood had evidently marched with rapidity up the Chattooga Valley, by Summerville, Lafayette, Ship's Gap, and Snake-Creek Gap, and had with him his whole army, except a small force left behind to watch Rome. I ordered Resaca to be further reenforced by rail from Kingston, and ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... and vague gesture, their hand over their faces, but most of them kept very still. In the benumbed immobility of their bodies they were excessively wearied by their thoughts, which rushed with the rapidity and vividness of dreams. Now and then, by an abrupt and startling exclamation, they answered the weird hail of some illusion; then, again, in silence contemplated the vision of known faces and familiar things. They recalled the aspect of forgotten ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad

... Diana in these words: "Affected by nothing, loving nothing, sympathizing with nothing; of the passions retaining only those which will give a little rapidity to the blood; of the pleasures preferring those that are mild and without violence—the love of gain and the pursuit of money; hence, there was absence of soul. Another phase was the cultivation of the ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... realized that jauntiness was his keynote—the young man entered the room. His sharp eyes travelled with lightning-like rapidity over the place, resting a moment on the sleeping figure of Pa before they hurried past him to Rose-Marie. He surveyed her coolly, taking in every feature, every fold of her garments, with a studied ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster

... this prosperity was reflected in the growth of the nation. The greater part of the Victorian period was marked by this expansion of population, which reached its highest point in the early years of the second half of that period. While the population of England was thus increasing with ever greater rapidity at home, at the same time the English-speaking peoples overspread the whole of North America, and colonized the fertile fringe of Australia. It was, on a still larger scale, a phenomenon similar to that which had occurred three hundred years earlier, when Spain covered the world and founded ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... the fog rolled on, the vast accumulation of mist rose higher and yet higher, and appeared to draw nearer with immense rapidity. It seemed as though the whole atmosphere was gradually becoming condensed, and precipitating its invisible watery vapor so as to make it visible in far-extending fog banks. It was not wind, therefore, that brought on the clouds, for the surface ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille

... demoralise and daunt an enemy who, whatever their advantages otherwise, had not that military training and cohesion which facilitates rapid recovery from a reverse. Whatever the first mistake of advancing their position so far, it is impossible to withhold admiration from the rapidity and energy of the measures taken in the ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan



Words linked to "Rapidity" :   immediacy, despatch, fleetness, speediness, rate, rapidness, immediateness, expeditiousness, dispatch, promptness, quickness, rapid, instancy, pace, instantaneousness, promptitude, expedition



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