Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Tardy   Listen
adjective
Tardy  adj.  (compar. tardier; superl. tardiest)  
1.
Moving with a slow pace or motion; slow; not swift. "And check the tardy flight of time." "Tardy to vengeance, and with mercy brave."
2.
Not being inseason; late; dilatory; opposed to prompt; as, to be tardy in one's payments. "The tardy plants in our cold orchards placed."
3.
Unwary; unready. (Obs.)
4.
Criminal; guilty. (Obs.)
Synonyms: Slow; dilatory; tedious; reluctant. See Slow.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Tardy" Quotes from Famous Books



... influence—the persevering hostility of persons whom they cannot help comparing with him—not permitted even to submit in peace to those irregular censures, to which he seems to have been even morbidly alive, but dragged forth to suffer an oblique and tardy condemnation; called again to account for matters now long ago accounted for; on which a judgment has been pronounced, which, whatever others may think of it, he at least has accepted as conclusive—when they contrast his merits, ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church

... nothing but the screams of my companion prevented him from plunging in, wholly lost his way. The few lamps in this intricate and miserable quarter of the city had been blown out by the tempest, and our only resource appeared to be patience, until the tardy break of winter's morn should guide us through the labyrinth of the Faubourg St Antoine. However, this my companion's patriotism would not suffer. "The Club would be adjourned! Danton would be gone!" ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various

... is that the better human nature might be the more difficult and the more tardy would be the generation of nobility, which is a great difficulty; since the better a thing is the more it is honored and the more good it causes; and nobility would be commemorated among the good things. And that this would be so is proved; for if rank ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various

... love to rise ere gleams the tardy light, Winter's pale dawn;—and as warm fires illume, And cheerful tapers shine around the room, Thro' misty windows bend my musing sight Where, round the dusky lawn, the mansions white, With shutters clos'd, peer faintly thro' the gloom, That slow recedes; while yon grey spires assume, ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward

... in Philadelphia was brief. In April came the first news of the beheading of the French king; and the same tardy packets brought word that France was at war with England and Spain. Hamilton sent the news, express haste, to Washington, and dismissed every consideration from his brain but the terrible crisis forced upon the United States, and the proper measures ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskillful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of the which one must in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theater of others. O, there be players that I have seen ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter

... the luncheon fare, when it made its tardy appearance, was distinctly unworthy of the reputation which the justly- treasured cook had built up for herself. The soup alone would have sufficed to cast a gloom over any meal that it had inaugurated, and it was not redeemed by anything that followed. Eleanor said little, but ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki

... English dockyards under the direction of the Southern foe, while the English Government could not decide if it were legally competent for Her Majesty's Ministers to interfere and detain such vessels. The tardy action at last taken just prevented the breaking out of hostilities. Out of these unfortunate transactions a certain good was to ensue at a date not far distant, when, after the restoration of peace, America and England, disputing as to the compensation due from one to the other ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling

... own standard. Its publishers (who may be prejudiced) consider The Avalanche as "a brilliant and engaging study of mystery and romance;" me it impressed as a melodrama dependent on one long-heralded sensation, which proves on tardy arrival an affair of disappointment. I suppose I must be careful not to give away the mystery, such as it is. Price Rugler was anxious to discover why his attractive wife assumed a worried look when money was mentioned and fainted on being told that she was not to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 25, 1919 • Various

... upbraided a Hare that had been pounced upon by an Eagle, and was sending forth piercing cries. "Where now," said he, "is that fleetness for which you are so remarkable? Why were your feet {thus} tardy?" While he was speaking, a Hawk seizes him unawares, and kills him, shrieking aloud with vain complaints. The Hare, almost dead, as a consolation in his agony, {exclaimed}: "You, who so lately, free from care, were ridiculing my misfortunes, have ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus

... winds are up, and proud O'er heath and hill careering loud; The groaning forest to its power Yields all that formed our summer bower. The summons wakes the anxious swain, Whose tardy shocks still load the plain, And bids the sleepless merchant weep, Whose richer hazard loads the deep. For me the blast, or low or high, Blows nought of wealth or poverty; It can but whirl in whimsies vain The windmill of a restless brain, And bid me tell in slipshod ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... ahead of his troop, unattended by squire or by page. The red cross upon his shoulder is witness that he is vowed to service in Palestine, and as he passes through the leafy avenues on his way to the rendezvous he fears that he will be late, most tardy of all the knights of Brittany who have sworn to drive the paynim from the Holy Land. Fearful of such disgrace, he spurs his jaded charger on through the haunted forest, and with anxious eye watches the sun sink and the gay white moon sail high above the tree-tops, pouring ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence

... tardy invitation to Fyles was despatched. Tresler had watched and waited for the sending of that letter; he had hoped to be the bearer of it himself. It would have given him the opportunity of making this Fyles's acquaintance, which was a matter ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum

... single vessel either by war or by weather. He had made the red cross of Saint George an object of terror to all the princes and commonwealths of Italy. The effect of his successes was that embassies were on their way from Florence, Genoa and Venice, with tardy congratulations to William on his accession. Russell's merits, artfully magnified by the Whigs, made such an impression that he was returned to Parliament not only by Portsmouth where his official situation ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... to offend the all-accomplished Madam de Pompadour, who expiated his youthful indiscretion by a life-long imprisonment; who twice escaped from prison, to be twice cast back into captivity; who, trusting in the tardy generosity of his beautiful foe, betrayed himself to an implacable fiend? Robert Audley looked at the pale face of the woman standing by his side; that fair and beautiful face, illumined by starry-blue eyes, that had a strange and surely a dangerous light in them; and remembering a hundred ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon

... observed, in excuse of his correspondents, that the post was then much more tardy than since Mr. Palmer's ingenious invention has taken place; and with respect to honest Dinmont in particular, as he rarely received above one letter a quarter (unless during the time of his being ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... mingled uncertainty, determination, and something very like fear came over his face. He started forward, hesitated, looked back, then turned doubtfully toward the thinly wooded mountain side. Then, with tardy decision he left the road and disappeared behind a clump of oak bushes, an instant before a team and buckboard rounded the turn ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright

... that those who live in this age are no less than others concerned in that advice of the wise man, to keep the King's commandment, because of the oath of God, and not to be tardy to go out of his sight that doth whatever pleaseth him; wherefore they desire that seeing his Majesty hath already taken no little displeasure against us, as if we disowned his Majesty's jurisdiction over us, effectual care be taken, ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... direful rain, always sequence of the shock of battle, was steadily falling, falling, on the stricken field. Many a soldier who might have survived his wounds would succumb to exposure to the elements during the night, debarred the tardy succor that must needs await his turn. One of the surgeons at their hasty work at the field hospital, under the shelter of the cliffs on the slope, paused to note the presage of doom and death, and to draw a long breath before he adjusted himself anew to the grim duties of the scalpel ...
— The Lost Guidon - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... church, she passed the house of a lady to whom, a long time before, she had sold a piece of pork, so long indeed that she had entirely forgotten the circumstance. But, seeing her this morning, the lady called her in, apologized for having been so tardy in the settlement, and then inquired how much it was. Old Sukey did not know, and the lady, determined to be on the safe side, gave her two dollars, besides directing her housekeeper to put up a basket ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various

... minister,—immediately sent Firdusi sixty thousand pieces of gold, but that the money arrived only as his corpse was being lowered into the tomb! As the poet's daughter indignantly refused to accept this tardy atonement, another relative took the money and built the dike which ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... them, should they chance to be asked for one; and not one of them would be prepared to make the smallest material sacrifice for the sake of it. It is true that the existence of evil spirits recently received a tardy and somewhat hesitating recognition in our ecclesiastical courts,[2] which at first authoritatively declared that a denial of the existence of the personality of the devil constituted a man a notorious evil liver, and depraver of the Book of Common ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding

... are tardy of growth, or the season is backward, wooden frames covered with cloth soaked in linseed oil may be placed over the beds, which is far better than to cover with pine boughs or glass even. The cloth ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... due perception of the decency of things, may enjoy a happy life. Should, however, he be of the type that demands a wreck or so every month to maintain his supplies of rum or gin, and other articles of his true religion, and is prepared if wrecks do not come with regularity, to assist tardy Nature by means of false lights on the shore, he will find no scope whatever among ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... but one; the tardy Mr. Harris making it a point always to be the last. We found Anneke Mordaunt supported by two or three ladies of her connection, and a party of quite a dozen assembled. As most of those present saw each other ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... the Constable was up at seven, and personally called and reprimanded any tardy officers, who were sometimes committed to the Tower for disorder. If any officer absented himself at meals, any one sitting in his place was compelled to pay his fee and assume his office. Any offender, if he escaped into the oratory, could claim sanctuary, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... Shelley tells us that' Fame is love disguised;' and it was intellectual sympathy that Wordsworth had always valued far more than reputation. 'Give me thy love; I claim no other fee,' had been his demand on his reader. When Fame had laid her tardy garland at his feet he found on it no fresher green than his 'Rydalian laurels' had always worn. Once he said to me, 'It is indeed a deep satisfaction to hope and believe that my poetry will be, while it lasts, a help ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... depressed, the animal is weak and sluggish, sweats on the slightest exertion, and can endure little. The subject may survive for months, or may die early of exhaustion. In the slighter cases, or when the cause ceases to operate, a somewhat tardy recovery may be made. ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... Islamism have been on their trial for the last eighteen and twelve centuries. They have been ardent in proselytizing, yet they embrace only one-tenth and one-twentieth of the human race. Hj Abd would account for the tardy and unsatisfactory progress of what their votaries call pure truths, by the innate imperfections of the same. Both propose a reward for mere belief, and a penalty for simple unbelief; rewards and punishments being, by the way, very disproportionate. ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton

... of no importance either tactically or strategically, and that momentary success was the only one achieved by Joubert. The slow and hesitating movements of the Boer columns had but hastened the disembarkation and concentration of the troops destined for the relief of Ladysmith. Finally, a tardy fit of rashness had induced the old Commandant-General to place his ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice

... through watches of the dark The abashless inquisition of each star, Yea, was the outcast mark Of all those heavenly passers' scrutiny; Stood bound and helplessly For Time to shoot his barbed minutes at me; Suffered the trampling hoof of every hour In night's slow-wheeled car; Until the tardy dawn dragged me at length From under those dread wheels; and, bled of strength, I waited the inevitable last. Then there came past A child; like thee, a spring-flower; but a flower Fallen from the budded coronal of Spring, And through the city-streets blown withering. She passed,—O brave, sad, lovingest, ...
— Sister Songs • Francis Thompson

... civilization. The sea line of Europe, compared with its area, is more extensive than that of any other continent, and Europe has had a more various and complete intellectual development than elsewhere. Africa, which has the shortest sea line compared with its area, has been most tardy in mental activity. The sea is the highway of nations and the promoter of commerce; and commerce, which brings different races together, awakens the intellect by the contact of different languages, religions, arts, and manners. Material civilization, ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke

... this time smartly engaged with the main body of the canoes, and by their tardy progress I knew that they already had their hands fully occupied. The detachment which had assumed the responsibility of intercepting us had separated itself some distance from the main body, and was now formed in a ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... tree-like character of the plants, the variety is remarkably well adapted for cultivation in pots; but its late maturity greatly impairs its value as a variety for forcing. It is a slow grower, tardy in forming and perfecting its fruit, and, for ordinary garden culture, cannot be recommended as being preferable to the Perfected and other earlier and much more prolific varieties. It has been described as strictly self-supporting: but, though the fruit is produced in a remarkably ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr

... in direct communication with Havana, and the postal service is effected by means of mounted carriers. Thus the speediest ways for conveying news to Havana are cut off, and there is no other resource but the tardy steamer. I accordingly return without delay to the 'Pajaro del Oceano,' which is to sail for Havana in three hours' time, and finding my good friend Don Fernandez on board, I secretly hand him my big budget of news, begging him by ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman

... seem alike to love to have their counsels taken; and the equinox being now gone by, Mrs. Busk was ready to begin before the tardy sun was up, who begins to give you short measure at once when he finds the weights go against him. Mrs. Busk considered not the sun, neither any of his doings. The time of day was more momentous than any of the ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... thalers from me at dummy whist, a little at a time." Perhaps this figure was too high, but however that may be, the sum was at all events large enough to throw his credit and debit out of balance and to make him, among other things, a very tardy payer of interest. Now in ordinary circumstances, if, for example, he could have had recourse to mortgages and the like, this would not have been, for a time at least, a wholly unbearable situation; but unfortunately it so happened that my father's chief creditor was his own father, ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... seemed to regret these tardy spontaneous eulogies which were chilling their interview. So again she changed the trend ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... and far, like plaintive cry for help Piercing the ear of Sleep. Each knight o' the spur, Watchful as brave, and emulous in noise, With mighty pinions beats a glad reveille. All feathered nature wakes. Man's drowsy sense Heeds not the trilling band, but slumbrous waits The tardy god of day. Ah! sluggard, wake! Open thy blind, and rub thy heavy eyes! For once behold a sunrise. Is there aught In thy dream-world more splendid, or more fair? With crimson glory the horizon streams, And ghostly Dian hides her face ashamed. Now to the ear of him who ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various

... Lincoln, because he believed Douglas's re-election "necessary as a rebuke to the administration and a vindication of the great cause of popular rights and public justice."[750] The most influential Republican papers in the East gave Lincoln tardy support, with the exception ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... Marzelli, the old bibliophile's housekeeper, made holiday with his niece, now upon a visit to him, and together the women climbed, where food might be procured for the last tardy caterpillars to change ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts

... with her household cares and her son's education. For that reason it seems the more singular that from her disordered mind, just about as it was to take its journey into complete darkness and to become disintegrated through death, there should come this tardy echo of that ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti

... the sentence, "Alas for Napoleon, here set his lucky star; not only was his misfortune repeated, but also his final downfall accomplished when Blucher's tardy cavalry appeared on the field, turning the tide of battle in favor of the British"—in came mother with happy, triumphant laughter, unfolding and flaunting to the breeze the so ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann

... stuff exactly to their liking, and coming in clouds, settled, and feasted, and flew upwards, and settled back, and feasted, and swept on, leaving poor Cheon's heart as barren of hope as the garden was of vegetables. Nothing remained but pumpkins, sweet potatoes, and Cheon's tardy watermelons, and the sight of the glaring blotches of pumpkins filled ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... the sun. This was not so early as may be supposed, for already November had touched its middle point, and the tardy sun did not make its appearance till nearly seven o'clock. As he passed through the hall he noticed that ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... the advance of agriculture and the condition of the farmer have been tardy, as compared with the improvement in other departments of labor—in other avocations of life—it is solely because science and study have not as soon been applied to agriculture—and because also the farmer has not been permitted the advantages resulting from ...
— Address delivered by Hon. Henry H. Crapo, Governor of Michigan, before the Central Michigan Agricultural Society, at their Sheep-shearing Exhibition held at the Agricultural College Farm, on Thursday, • Henry Howland Crapo

... upon others, do it cheerfully and with pleasure." He declares (2 Cor 9, 7), "God loveth a cheerful giver." And he makes his meaning clear by another portion of the same verse, "not grudgingly, or of necessity." That is, the giver is not to twitter and tremble, not to be slow and tardy in his giving, nor to seek everywhere for reasons to withhold his gift. He is not to give in a way calculated to spoil the recipient's enjoyment of the favor. Nor is he to delay until the gift loses its sweetness because of the importunity required to secure it; rather he should ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther

... a determined man sets out with a fixed and unshakeable resolve to tickle your fancy, there is no limit to the means he may adopt to catch you unawares, and it shall go hard with him but he extorts from you a laugh, however tardy. Frank Reynolds makes no such desperate efforts. One might say, indeed, that he makes no effort at all. His simple method is to set down—with the most refined and delicate art—just one of those little scenes or incidents which everyone may ...
— Frank Reynolds, R.I. • A.E. Johnson

... noticed that where the nests were placed on the banks of streams, they were made secure against the floods by being built amid a small clump of bushes. When the fall of 1879 came, the muskrats were very tardy about beginning their house, laying the corner-stone—or the corner-sod-about December 1st, and continuing the work slowly and indifferently. On the 15th of the month the nest was not yet finished. This, ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs

... that all his life he had longed for, that he had sought vainly through many countries, had come to him at last, and it had come too late. The helpless loveliness lying in his arms was not for him. It was Ahmed whom she loved, Ahmed who had waked to such a tardy recognition of the priceless gift that she had given him, Ahmed whom he must wrest from the grim spectre that was hovering near him lest the light that shone in her violet eyes should go out in the blackness of despair. And yet as he looked at her with eyes filled with hopeless ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull

... dissociated from it so long as the empire of Germany lasted. Territorial sovereignty—the view which connects sovereignty with the possession of a limited portion of the earth's surface—was distinctly an offshoot, though a tardy one, of feudalism. This might have been expected a priori, for it was feudalism which for the first time linked personal duties, and by consequence personal rights, to the ownership of land. Whatever be the proper view of its origin and legal nature, the best mode of vividly picturing to ourselves ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine

... moment's space Concludes the hopes and fears of human race. Proceed who dares!—I tremble as I write, The whole creation swims before my sight: I see, I see, the Judge's frowning brow; Say not, 'tis distant; I behold it now; I faint, my tardy blood forgets to flow, My soul recoils at the stupendous woe; That woe, those pangs, which from the guilty breast, In these, or words like these, shall be exprest. "Who burst the barriers of my peaceful grave? Ah! cruel death, that ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young

... "county god," and haply perpetuate the prouder title of "the biggest taxpayer on the assessment list." And this fact, too, fortunate as it would seem, was doubtless the indirect occasion of a liberal percentage of all John's misfortunes. From his earliest school-days in the little town, up to his tardy graduation from a distant college, the influence of his father's wealth invited his procrastination, humored its results, encouraged the laxity of his ambition, "and even now," as John used, in bitter irony, to put it, "it is aiding and abetting me in the ostensible ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley

... must have a preventive operation as well as a remedial. It ought to have a natural tendency to exclude bad men from Government, and not to trust for the safety of the State to subsequent punishment alone—punishment which has ever been tardy and uncertain, and which, when power is suffered in bad hands, may chance to fall rather on ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke

... acknowledge that a full and satisfactory solution of so profound a problem is hardly to be hoped for, and that the most we can do in the present state of our knowledge is to hazard a more or less plausible conjecture. With all due diffidence, then, I would suggest that a tardy recognition of the inherent falsehood and barrenness of magic set the more thoughtful part of mankind to cast about for a truer theory of nature and a more fruitful method of turning her resources to account. The shrewder intelligences must in time have come to perceive that ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... Thirty-six hours scarcely ever passed away so rapidly to him before. But it found him ready. He was one of the few boys who are always on hand, whether it was for school, or any thing else. Teachers never complained of him for being tardy, for they never had occasion to do it; and he was as prompt to recite his lessons as he was to be in school at nine o'clock. He was punctual to a second. If his mother told him to be at home at a given time from an afternoon visit or ramble, he was sure to ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer

... accommodation of the citizens. This is the case all through America. In every Public Institution, the right of the people to attend, and to have an interest in the proceedings, is most fully and distinctly recognised. There are no grim door-keepers to dole out their tardy civility by the sixpenny-worth; nor is there, I sincerely believe, any insolence of office of any kind. Nothing national is exhibited for money; and no public officer is a showman. We have begun of late years to imitate this good example. I hope ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens

... "gave way unaccountably and discreditably." Five days later he promised to modify his charge, if he found occasion; but it was only in his final report, made many months after leaving the army, he was constrained to acknowledge the good conduct of the division—an act of tardy justice to deserving men. ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens

... immediately repeated by the Count d'Artois, who had hitherto refrained from it. "We swear," said he, "on our honour, I and my family, to live and die faithful to our King, and to the constitutional charter, which assures the happiness of France." But these tardy protestations could not repair the mischief, that the disloyal conduct of the government had done to ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... the rock is to write on a solid parchment; but it requires a pilgrimage to see it. There is but one copy, and Time wears even that. To write on skins or papyrus was to give, as it were, but one tardy edition, and the rich only could procure it. The Chinese stereotyped not only the unchanging wisdom of old sages, but also the passing events. The process tended to suffocate thought, and to hinder progress; for there is continual ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... thing; if a bit of pleasure comes along, there's bound to be a committee meeting in the way! Half an hour! Pleased, indeed! I've always been longing for Ralph to take me drives, and now that he has been disappointed like this, the very first time, is he likely to try again? Of course, Evelyn" (tardy sense of hospitality!) "I am glad for you to have the change. It's awfully good ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... brain, I kept my eyes fixed on my good friend, whose motions appeared unusually tardy to me, while he ordered a bottle of particular claret, decanted it with scrupulous accuracy with his own hand, caused his old domestic to bring a saucer of olives, and chips of toasted bread, and thus, on hospitable thoughts intent, seemed to me to adjourn the discussion which I longed to ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott

... was far away to the northwest, but the wireless promptly flashed the signal, "Enemy in sight," and as the battle-cruisers raced to close quarters with the tardy foe, and sacrificed themselves in the effort to hold him in the open sea, down from the north rushed the leviathans of the Mistress of the Seas, that were counted on to crush the enemy when the ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... sleepless night, she hailed the tardy day, watched the rising sun, and then listened for every footstep, and started if she heard the street door opened. At last he came, and she who had been counting the hours, and doubting whether the earth moved, would gladly have ...
— Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft

... But blood runs tardy in the cold dawn; my thoughts were chilled, and I deemed, to speak sooth, that I carried my death within me, from my old wound, and, even if unhurt, could scarce escape out of that day's labour and live. I said farewell to life and the sun, in my own mind, and ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang

... stipulations,—particularly the elevation of the Archduke Joseph to the Roman throne,—seemed more precisely known, he grew more and more impatient; and I had to go several times a week, nay, at last, almost daily, to visit the tardy artist. Owing to my unremitted teasing and exhortation, the work went on, though slowly enough; for, as it was of that kind which can be taken in hand or laid aside at will, there was always something by which it was thrust out of the way, ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... should say that his Majesty's wisdom and loyalty are beyond dispute, and that there is no prince in the world whom he esteems more highly than your Excellency. And if I asked why all the king's dealings appear slow and tardy, I should say that this was caused by two obstacles, which neither of them proceed from his Majesty's own fault. The first is want of money, and the second the little confidence that he can ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright

... planning greetings with which to favor the tardy scouting parties that he failed to notice the loose ...
— The Talkative Tree • Horace Brown Fyfe

... sanctuary of holy thought and tender love. Juliet shrank from me affrighted. Her father was the best and kindest of men, and she strove to show me how, in obeying him, every good would follow. He would receive my tardy submission with warm affection, and generous pardon would follow my repentance. Profitless words for a young and gentle daughter to use to a man accustomed to make his will law, and to feel in his own heart a despot ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... to fire his men. There was no wailing, no crying to the gods, no curses upon the tardy ephors at Lacedaemon who had deferred sending their whole strong levy instead of the pitiful three hundred. Sparta had sent this band to hold the pass. They had gone, knowing she might require the supreme sacrifice. Leonidas had spoken for all ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... gave him a furious look. She then proffered the tardy invitation to sit by her side. As the audience came to a close, the Queen in ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre

... fleets of Danish ships coming to England; and the son of Edgar, whose name was Ethelred, was a helpless, cowardly sort of man, so slow and tardy, that his people called him Ethelred the Unready. Instead of fitting out ships to fight against the Danes, he took the money the ships ought to have cost to pay them to go away without plundering; and as to those who had come into the country without his leave, he called them his ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge

... by now, and we were surprised to see a number of people running across the ground towards us. First there came the tardy mechanics; and with them were a number of reporters and photographers representing the Paris newspapers. These latter had—though I only found this out afterwards—been brought by the mechanics in the expectation of being able to record, with their notebooks and cameras, some catastrophe in which ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White

... laughed at this remark, but they had not gone much farther along the road before they spied the Vernon automobile waiting under a great oak tree. When the tardy car came up, both parties began to shout, some asking where the delinquents had been, and the unfortunates to demand why folks wouldn't look behind once ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... sounded so loud in his ears that he felt sure it would be heard at the chateau. The mysterious darkness of the wood filled him with awe, and the great, black trees seemed like terrible genii, threatening him. The poor wretch was not exactly frightened, but not very far from it. Mme. la Marquise was tardy—Diana was leaving her faithful Endymion too long cooling his heels in the heavy night dew. At last he thought he heard heavy footsteps approaching,—but they could not be those of his goddess—he must be mistaken—goddesses glide so lightly over the sward that not even ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... innocence. It was a skilfully drawn document, and it exhibits Flinders in a light which enhances our respect for him, as the strong champion of an accused man whom he believed to be wronged. In the result, the Crown granted a pardon to Nichols; but this did not arrive till 1802, so tardy was justice in getting itself done. Apart from Flinders' share in it, the case is interesting as revealing the strained relations existing between the principal officials in the colony at the time. The Judge Advocate was a bitter enemy ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... late; the nurse and Polly strictly obeyed orders. Nobody cared, however, and unusual gayety prevailed at the tardy breakfast, to match the bright September morning and the good news of Colonel Gresham. For word had come up from Dr. Dudley that the Colonel was going to ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd

... accept her challenge she would not have given it, for after thinking over the incident of her rescue she had come to the conclusion that she had not treated Dakota fairly, and by personally taking his horse to him she would have an opportunity to proffer her tardy thanks for his service. She did not revert to the subject of the animal's return during the evening meal, however, nor after it when she and her father and Duncan sat on the gallery of the ranchhouse enjoying the cool of ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer

... the justifying grace of the Holy Spirit. Now the Holy Spirit comes to men's minds suddenly, according to Acts 2:2: "And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a mighty wind coming," upon which the gloss says that "the grace of the Holy Ghost knows no tardy efforts." Hence the justification of the ungodly ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... nearly ready, and with everything keeping warm by the fire, we now ran down to the ford, to perform our own rather tardy ablutions. The girls, looking fresh as pinks, had finished theirs and were gathering more hazel nuts, and Theodora and Kate had crossed the ford to gather a few bunches of high-bush cranberry fruit, which they espied hanging ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... the royal governor, as opposition to measures which he believed to be hostile to the liberties of his country was to Samuel Adams, the popular leader. We can at this day well afford to mete out this tardy justice to a man whose motives and conduct have been so bitterly and unscrupulously vilified and maligned as have ...
— Tea Leaves • Various

... eloquent plea for the protection of her interests in the country's political economy. We hear from the lips of the Kentucky Senator a full recognition of our worth, our greatness and alas! the tardy ...
— Historic Papers on the Causes of the Civil War • Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap Potts

... The tardy winter morning, looking through her grimy window, found her sitting there, huddled in a big bath-robe, just as she'd been ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... said Mr. Lawrence, pointing down a street into which they had turned, "you catch your first glimpse of his statue. Poor fellow! I wonder if he knows of the tardy recognition, wherever he ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... Debby, lifting the bag and turning slowly about, to take her homeward path. "Great doin's, I say!" And she made no reply when Letty, prompted by a tardy conscience, stopped in the barn doorway and called to her, "Tell Sammy I'm much obliged. Tell him I shall make turn-overs to-morrow." Debby was thinking of the pork, and the likelihood of its being ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown

... their arduous and dangerous duties, still, everybody did his best and seemed desirous of doing something. We did that something with a will, but without much order, system, or discretion. The engines in use were not powerful, and the supply of water was not only tardy but scanty, as you may believe when I tell you it had to be brought from the town wells, the Dye-house Well in Greetham-street, the Old Fall Well in Rose-street (where Alderman's Bennett's ironwork warehouse stands, ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian

... ever thou canst, either in civil or spiritual things, as aforesaid—that is, either in the service of God, or in thy employments in the world, as thy trade or calling, either in buying or selling any way, in anything whatsoever; I say, if in any particular it find thee tardy, or in the least measure guilty, it calleth thee an offender, it accuseth thee to God, it puts a stop to all the promises thereof that are joined to the law, and leaves thee there as a cursed transgressor against God, and a destroyer of thy own ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... the crowd said a hearty amen; and I walked off to stretch myself full length on a bench, resolving to have out a mirror from my packing case and get rid of those bristles that offended my chin. The men began to disperse to their quarters. The tardy twilight of the long summer evenings, peculiar to the far north, was gathering in the courtyard. As the night-wind sighed past, I felt the velvet caress of warm June air on my face and memory reverted to the ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... ordered his old and faithful servant to the scaffold; but even Henry was no longer absolute on his death-bed. For once he was disobeyed, and Norfolk survived him; but the long years of his succeeding captivity were poorly compensated by a brief and tardy restoration to liberty and honors ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... agents that were placed near it, by America, has quite reasonably inferred that the mass at home acted on the same temporizing and selfish policy, and has treated a solemn compact, that contains a tardy and very insufficient reparation, for some of the greatest outrages that were ever committed by one civilized nation on the rights of another, as a matter quite within its own control. This consequence was foreseen by the writer, and foretold, in a letter that was written in 1832, ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper

... pottage. The doctor declares, moreover, that they were mostly very common people. Gradually the old man seems to have developed a preference for two or three strictly exquisite intimates, over a throng of your vulgar pensioners. His tardy literary schemes, too—fruit of his all but sapless senility—have absorbed more and more of his time and attention. The end of it all is, therefore, that Theodore and I have him quite to ourselves, and that it behooves us to ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various

... tardy answer was: "More fools 'n one about, I reckon"; and Robert allowed him the victory ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... again at his work on the force. He was a trifle pale, and the hours on patrol duty and fixed post seemed trebly long, for even his sturdy physique was tardy in recuperating from that vicious shock at the ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball

... pardons all who truly repent. She welcomes all who come to her in confidence, no matter how tardy or hesitating their approach. We shall receive the husband of our daughter Sylvie Hermenstein, with such joy as the prodigal son was in old time received—and of his past mistakes and follies there shall be ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... of his money on the highway, but a cross-road frequently robs him of time and patience; for when haply he considers himself at his journey's end, an impertinent finger-post, offering him the tardy and unpleasant information that he has wandered from his track, makes him turn about and wheel about, like Jim Crow, in anything but a ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour

... shortly after Germany had compulsorily disposed of her connections with the United States. An expected address by the kaiser's Chancellor, Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg, had been deferred until February 27, 1917, when a tardy official recognition was ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... always equally powerful for evil, and equally impotent for good. I might speak of the attacks by which it attempted to depress the rising fame of Corneille; I might speak of the reluctance with which it gave its tardy confirmation to the applauses which the whole civilised world had bestowed on the genius of Voltaire. I might prove by overwhelming evidence that, to the latest period of its existence, even under ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... if his agents were tardy in making remittances, with the dread of not being able to meet his engagements. Of his own gold he was liberal, but he respected the ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... made his love through Sestos to be known, And thence unto Abydos sooner blown Than he could sail; for incorporeal Fame, Whose weight consists in nothing but her name, Is swifter than the wind, whose tardy plumes Are reeking water and dull earthly fumes. Home when he came, he seem'd not to be there, But, like exiled air thrust from his sphere, Set in a foreign place; and straight from thence, Alcides-like, by mighty violence, He would have chas'd away the swelling main, That him from her ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman

... the evening of her days, those blessings, which had descended so plentifully upon us in a much earlier period of the world. Then also would Europe, participating in her improvement and prosperity, receive an ample recompense for the tardy kindness (if kindness it could be called) of no longer hindering her from extricating herself out of the darkness, which, in other more fortunate regions, had been so ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson

... in the mud, which their own trampling had reduced to the consistency of pap, the postman unstrapping his little lantern from his breast, and thrusting it about, close to the ground, the rain still drizzling down, and the dawn so tardy on account of the heavy clouds that daylight seemed delayed indefinitely. The rays of the lantern were rendered individually visible upon the thick mist, and seemed almost tangible as they passed off into it, after ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy

... and would have executed the commands of the Prince before Athelstane the Unready had recovered presence of mind sufficient even to draw back his person from the weapon, had not Cedric, as prompt as his companion was tardy, unsheathed, with the speed of lightning, the short sword which he wore, and at a single blow severed the point of the lance from the handle. The blood rushed into the countenance of Prince John. ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... supreme Deity who sent another Divine being to "publish the news," and divide the sexes. A message was sent to him from the Power in heaven to announce that man should not die, but this was committed to that tardy reptile the chameleon; then another message that man should die was given to the lizard, who outran the chameleon, and thus brought death into ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... brother, is not he?—get away, you little beast!"—(the latter clause, in a tone of sudden exasperation, is addressed, not to me, but to Vick, and tells me that my pet dog's endeavors have been crowned with a tardy prosperity.) ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... towards God are the double-hearted, and shall receive nothing whatever of their desires. For those who are whole in the faith, ask every thing, trusting in the Lord, and they receive because they ask nothing doubting. [See St. James i. 6.] And if thou shouldest be tardy in receiving, do not doubt in thy mind because thou dost not receive soon the request of thy soul. For the cause of the tardiness of thy receiving is some trial, or some transgression which thou knowest not of. Do thou then {78} not cease to offer the request of thy ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler

... Ralph de Salopia (1363), builder of the choir (possibly removed here from the sanctuary). The effigies of the Saxon bishops in the choir aisles were probably an after-thought of Bishop Joceline, who perhaps thought that this tardy testimonial to the labours of his predecessors would be an effective advertisement of the priority of his see. The labelled stone coffins of Dudoc and Giso are said to have been unearthed within recent memory. In S. transept ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade

... partial law! whose keen restraint 'Gainst female innocence alone is pointed, Whilst villains riot in its spoils unpunish'd; So that love's chaste, connubial joys no more, On its fleet wings, but in the tardy pace Of sordid interest move. But, thank kind heaven! My will is free to choose; else, my good lord, The parish proofs deceive. Lord BELMOUR. Perish all love! That one of the first families in Britain, Shou'd by such whims of folly be dishonour'd! A moment more, and I shall ...
— The Female Gamester • Gorges Edmond Howard

... somewhat on Mrs Betty's recovering. I take it, it shall be about a month; but should her distemper be tardy of disappearing, it shall then be ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt

... Court. In due time, it was hoped this savage and ignorant churl would do yeoman's service to Austrian principles in the Peninsula. But the Regency and the new Constitution of Portugal had not to wait for the tardy operation of Metternich's covert hostility. The soldiery who had risen at Miguel's bidding in 1823 now proclaimed him King, and deserted to Spanish soil. Within the Spanish frontier they were received by Ferdinand's representatives with open arms. The demands made by the Portuguese ambassador ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... work. His words were scarcely spoken before I was making my way to the rear. I soon reached McDowell's carriage at the intersection of the roads, and found it empty. Learning that the general, in his impatience, had taken horse and galloped off to see what had become of his tardy commanders, ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe

... profound silence. Not a word was spoken, nor a single individual permitted to step one inch out of his place, by which means they passed along the streets perfectly unnoticed, and cleared the town without any alarm being given. Our pace, it will be imagined, was none of the most tardy, consequently it was not long before we reached the ground which had been occupied by the other brigades. Here we found a second line of fires blazing in the same manner as those deserted by ourselves; and the same precautions in ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig

... Malory. While the discipline was lost, and England was trusting to sheer weight and "who will pound longest," a fresh force, banners displayed, was seen rushing down the Gillies' Hill, beyond the Scottish right. The English could deem no less than that this multitude were tardy levies from beyond the Spey, above all when the slogans rang out from the fresh advancing host. It was a body of yeomen, shepherds, and camp-followers, who could no longer remain and gaze when fighting and plunder were in sight. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... appearance. There was no touch of fawning or crouching in their manner. They demanded the articles given them, rather than begged. You would have thought them lords of the soil, come to collect rent of tardy tenantry. ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson

... distinct idea of what o'clock it was and no means of measuring the flight of time, he had long been watching the tardy declination of the fiery disk, which seemed to him to have ceased to move, hanging there in the heavens over the woods of the left bank. And this was not owing to any lack of courage on his part; it was simply the overmastering, ever increasing desire, amounting to ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... command? Think you my unshod feet would shrink from glowing ploughshares, if crossing them I found the sacred shelter of my husband's name? Ah, husband! dost blanch before the storm of condemnation, which has no terrors for a wife's brave heart? It would seem but scant and tardy justice to own thy ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... some fresh pretence, With chance-dropt words the people fired, Sought means of hurt, intrigued, conspired. Nor did the glow of hatred cool, Till, wielding Calchas* as his tool— But why a tedious tale repeat, To stay you from your morsel sweet? If all are equal, Greek and Greek, Enough: your tardy vengeance wreak. My death will Ithacus* delights, And ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester

... the young artist became the friend of the poor widow, whose prospects soon brightened. Through the influence of some of the friends of her lost husband, she obtained a pension from government—a merited but tardy reward! The two ladies lived near each other, and spent their evenings together. Henry and Jules played and studied together. Marie read aloud, while her mother and Mlle d'Orbe worked. Dr Raymond sometimes shared in this pleasant intercourse. He ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various

... Buddha and Marcus Aurelius His resemblance to Christ in life and teachings Unjust charges of his enemies His unpopularity His trial and defence His audacity His condemnation The dignity of his last hours His easy death Tardy repentance of the Athenians; statue by Lysippus Posthumous ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord

... schooner, her paint dazzling to the eye, her decks flashing with metal, her canvas faultless in fit and set and whiteness. She was still five miles distant and slowly edging along the coast, as if indifferent to her tardy progress. The giant noted her exact position, then presented himself ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle

... quiet voice, scarce listened to, Enforced by its importunate command This tardy recognition, sooner due; And having sought a letter, now I stand And hold in trembling hand the paper she Has held, and ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats

... perhaps the former, as I hope so much the latter." Only with large reservations would he now have repeated the rule Codrington tells us he inculcated,—"that every man became a bachelor after passing the Rock of Gibraltar, and he was not very tardy in showing that he practised what he preached. Honour, glory and distinction were the whole object of his life, and that dear domestic happiness never abstracted his attention." He did, indeed, rail at marriage[57] during his ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... lately so deeply troubled the current of your life—your good father's death, and the birth of your second baby, together with the threatened calamity from which its mother's recovery has spared you. Tardy as are these words, my sympathy has been sincerely yours during this your season of trial; and though I have done myself injustice in not sooner writing to you, believe me I have felt more for you and yours than any letter could express, though ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... tardy in setting me right. In the first place, he gave me to understand that the hierarchy of Leaphigh was illustrated by the order of their tails. Thus, a deacon wore one and a half; a curate, if a minister, one and three-quarters, and a rector two; a dean, two and a half, an archdeacon, ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... was to prove the first leaf in a laurel-crown to be awarded the painter in his lifetime, and not, as is so often the case, by the tardy hand of Death, was the work of Jean-Leon Gerome, a young man of twenty-three. He had been for six years under the teaching of Paul Delaroche, part of the time in Italy, but most of it in Paris. He was born at Vesoul, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... Andrew, to turn the conversation, as he felt somewhat guilty and uncomfortable, though his eyes were jubilant. He had very little doubt about the success of his venture. As it is with a man who yields to love for the first time in his life, it was with Andrew in his tardy subjection to the hazards of fortune. He was a much more devoted slave than those who had long wooed her. He had always taken nothing but the principal newspaper published in Rowe, but now he subscribed to a Boston paper, the one which had the fullest ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... senses with distress and uncertainty, and being still weak, was less able to endure. She burst into violent hysterical weeping, and had to be helped up to her own room, where she sometimes lay on her bed; sometimes raged up and down the room, heaping violent words on the head of the tardy cowardly German; sometimes talking of loosing Skywing to show they were in the castle and cognisant of what was going on; but it was not certain that Skywing, with the lion rampant on his hood, would fly down to the besiegers, so that she would only ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge

... she, herself, with her veiled face, were to be the tardy avenger of her own wrong? Her soul stirred in its despair as the dead might stir in the winding sheet. Out of her sodden ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed

... stately old house and its beautiful park as he had last seen it, with all its glories rejuvenated by the money that was pouring in to the coffers of his detested relative. And now that malign old man was at rest, after a tardy admission of the grievous evil he had wrought to his brother's wife and son. Well, peace be to his crooked bones! Dick could have wished him safely in Paradise if the wish would restore to life his beloved mother. And she, dear soul—though ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy

... burning, broken, lost in the impenetrable darkness: he heard the clocks striking the half hours: he could not breathe, or think, or move: he was bound and gagged like a man flung into water to drown: he tried to struggle, but only sank down again.—Dawn came at length, the tardy gray dawn of a rainy day. The intolerable heat that consumed him grew less: but his body was pinned under the weight of a mountain. He woke up. ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland

... facilities in directing a suitable armament against any particular point, and the movements of the militia, on whom Congress chiefly depended for repelling sudden predatory incursions and for guarding the roads to Philadelphia, were often tardy and inefficient. The roads were ill guarded, and the British frequently accomplished their foraging and returned to camp before an adequate force could ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... energy from his early writings, since it is to be remarked that, from 1880 to 1890, the great prestige of Ibsen did not depend so much on the dramas he was then producing, as on the earlier works of his poetic youth, now reread with an unexampled fervor. So, with us, the tardy popularity of Robert Browning, which faintly resembles that of Ibsen, did not attract the younger generation to the volumes which succeed The Ring and the Book, but sent them back to the books which their fathers had despised, to Pippa Passes and Men and Women. To the generation of 1880, ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse

... 70 men, properly armed and equipped, will be enough for these purposes, and any greater number only makes the movements of the party more cumbersome and tardy. ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy

... those women to whom old age is very tardy in coming, and whose beauty, modified in each season of life, never leaves them. For this last she was indebted less to the features of her face than to the immense charm of her movements, her smile, her expression, her speech. She retained ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)

... darkened by vain regrets, were passed more and more in the warmth and tenderness of her devoted family, in the noble and elevated thought that rose above the strife of politics into the serene atmosphere of a Christian faith. At her death bed Chateaubriand did her tardy justice. "Bon jour, my dear Francis; I suffer, but that does not prevent me from loving you," she said to one who had been her critic, but never her friend. Her magnanimity was as unfailing as her generosity, ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason

... it across his shoulder like a bale of hay. As he threw it to the ground, a delicate spice-like aroma disengaged itself to mingle with the smell of cooking. Just at the edge of camp sat the wolf-dogs, their yellow eyes gleaming, waiting in patience for their tardy share. ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White

... scenery so much engaged us, that we were very tardy in observing the embarrassment felt by our kind entertainers the monks. They had but a slender provision of wine and wheaten bread; and although in those high regions both are considered as belonging merely to the luxuries of the table, yet we saw with regret, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... of man to be made happy now, and that the Deity can be infinitely benevolent without willing either infinite or universal happiness. Take the argument any way, it must go against his benevolence or his power; and the same observations hold as to his love of justice, whilst he is so tardy in ...
— Answer to Dr. Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever • Matthew Turner

... amenities was as brief as it was cordial, but as Mr. David Vandeford and Mr. Jonathan Farraday passed on to a table which the discreet head waiter had reserved in case of the unexpected and tardy arrival of just such personages as Mr. Godfrey Vandeford and his friend, Mr. Farraday, Miss Hawtry had answered a low-voiced question from Mr. Farraday with a sadly tender smile ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess

... the sole noteworthy influence. He finds no worth in a religion which seeks to work from within to without, which aims at transforming character, and thus transforming the world. In its headlong quest of tangible results his eager spirit scorns so tardy a method: he will "compel men to be happy," and for this result there is but one practicable means, the Social Contract, the State. Everything which mars the unity of the Social Contract shall be shattered, ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... late to retract," she exclaimed, at length; "why should I think of it? What right has my father to complain? He leaves me here without compunction, and am I to await his tardy permission to act, as I have a full right to do, without it? No, that point is settled. Then Bertha suggests that the world will call me unmaidenly, more than indiscreet, and will say that I have ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston

... the boys told of the discovery they had made regarding the scrap of paper, and had they followed his advice, they would have started in search of the villains then and there, without waiting the tardy ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis

... remedy for the permanent decrease of the native fever, is the clearing up and cultivation of the land, which will be for some time yet to come, tardy; as emigration to Liberia is very slow, and the natives very unlike those of Yoruba—cultivate little or nothing but rice, cassaba, and yams, and these in comparative small patches, so that there is very little need ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany

... flight, for which, after all, no one is to blame so much as Zephoranim himself,—but 'tis the privilege of monarchs to shift their own mistakes and follies on to the shoulders of their subjects! Come! Lysia awaits us, and will not easily pardon our tardy obedience to her summons,—let us hence ere the gates of the ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... Waldron, the only son of a poor widow, but who could boast of more fathers than any lad in the province, for his mother had had four husbands, and this only child, so that, though born in her last wedlock, he might fairly claim to be the tardy fruit of a long course of cultivation. This son of four fathers united the merits and the vigor of all his sires. If he had not had a great family before him he seemed likely to have a great one after him, for you had only to look at the fresh, buxom youth to see that he was formed to be ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... implicitly in Russian friendship, even when there was nothing whatever to indicate its existence, that they may be excused for rating at more than they are worth expressions of goodwill, which, after all, are as ambiguous as they are tardy.... The success of a Russian Loan is not dearly purchased by a little effusion, which, after all, commits Russia to nothing. French sentiment is always worth cultivating in that way, because, unlike the British variety, it has a distinct influence ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various

... from accident or design, the same impartial rigor was exercised against the heads of the adverse factions. Peter Agapet Colonna, who had himself been senator of Rome, was arrested in the street for injury or debt; and justice was appeased by the tardy execution of Martin Ursini, who, among his various acts of violence and rapine, had pillaged a shipwrecked vessel at the mouth of the Tyber. [28] His name, the purple of two cardinals, his uncles, a recent marriage, and ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... little knowest, my child, what a heap of cares and sorrows thou graspest at." History does, indeed, prove that "uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." New perplexities now burst upon the king. The Protestants, many of them irritated by his conversion, and by the tardy and insufficient concessions they received, violently demanded entire equality with the Catholics. This demand led to the famous Edict of Nantes. This ordinance, which receives its name from the place where it was published, was issued in the month of April, 1598. It granted to ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott

... rest, Be calm, as being not. Ye oceans of intolerable delight, The blazing photosphere of central Night, Be ye forgot. Terror, thou swarthy Groom of Bride-bliss coy, Let me not see thee toy. O, Death, too tardy with thy hope intense Of kisses close beyond conceit of sense; O, Life, too liberal, while to take her hand Is more of hope than heart can understand; Perturb my golden patience not with joy, Nor, through a wish, profane The peace that should ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore

... carpeted with velvet flowers; on the blue and dreamy sea—it is the same. I look around, and perceive men and women moving mechanically about me; I even take part in their proceedings, and seem to float along the tardy current upon which they swim, and become a part—an insignificant portion—of the dull and stagnant scene; and yet, often and often, in the busiest moment, when commonplace has its strongest hold upon me, and I feel actually interested ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various

... the Throckmartin Mystery and to kill the innuendo and scandalous suspicions which have threatened to stain the reputations of Dr. David Throckmartin, his youthful wife, and equally youthful associate Dr. Charles Stanton ever since a tardy despatch from Melbourne, Australia, reported the disappearance of the first from a ship sailing to that port, and the subsequent reports of the disappearance of his wife and associate from the camp of their expedition in the ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt

... cheapness. They watched the head waiter, with his little black imperial and beady eyes, a miracle of suaveness, deftness, and light-footedness, one moment bowing before a newcomer, his face wreathed with smiles, the next storming with volubility absolutely indescribable at a tardy waiter, a moment later gravely discussing the wine list with a bon viveur, and offering confidential and wholly disinterested advice. It was all ordinary enough perhaps, but a chapter out of real life. Their pleasure was almost ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim

... Tardy the offering is and weak;— Yet were I happy if I knew These children had the power to speak My love ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field

... The tardy winter daylight had scarcely come before we were jolting in a fiacre over the stony streets of Versailles. In the gutters, crones were eagerly rummaging among the dust heaps that awaited removal. In France no degradation attaches to open ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd

... We do not yet see how Mr. L. will get on—the case seems so complex. I feel, as I have often done, that as regards ourselves it is a subject more for prayer than for deliberation, separated as we are by such distances, and such a tardy and eccentric post. I used to imagine that when he was once got out safely from this dark continent we should only have to praise God for all his mercies to him and to us all, and for what He had effected by him; but now I see we must ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... armies, lift thine eyes, (Awhile forbear, ye tort'ring fiends;) Seest thou whose step, unwilling hither bends? No fallen angel, hurl'd from upper skies; 'Tis thy trusty quondam mate, Doom'd to share thy fiery fate, She, tardy, hell-ward plies. ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... it is naturally deficient. Dry peat of good quality contains about one per cent of nitrogen, and a quantity of ash varying from five to twenty per cent. These substances, however, become available very slowly, owing to the tardy decay of peat in its natural state; and in order to make it useful, it is necessary to compost it with lime, or to mix it with farm-yard manure, or some readily putrescible substance, so that its decomposition may be accelerated. It may be most advantageously used ...
— Elements of Agricultural Chemistry • Thomas Anderson

... foreign broils, or stirring beyond that home which rounded all their earthly ideas. Upon beholding this, the great Peter, whose noble heart was all on fire with war, and sweet revenge, determined to wait no longer for the tardy assistance of these oily citizens, but to muster up his merry men of the Hudson, who, brought up among woods, and wilds, and savage beasts, like our yeomen of Kentucky, delighted in nothing so much as desperate adventures and perilous expeditions ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... The landward slope of the prophetic hill; From whose green head, as from the verge of time, Far out on the eternity of blue, Shading her hope-rapt eyes, seer-like she gazed, If from the Hades of the nether world, Slow climbing up the round side of the earth, Haply her prayers were drawing his tardy sails Over the threshold of the far sky-sea— Drawing her sailor home to celebrate, With holy rites of family and church, ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald

... the benefit done, how glorious as to the fame acquired, to slay a tyrant? When men could not bear him, do you think they will bear you? Believe me, the time will come when men will race with one another to do this deed, and when no one will wait for the tardy arrival of an opportunity. ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero

... misery of owing birth to a mother who has erred? He can indeed give them both the rank, the state of married wife and of lawful son; but, in public opinion, their names will be smirched and sullied with a stain which his tardy efforts cannot entirely efface. Yet render it to them, Baron of Avenel, render to them this late and imperfect justice. Bid me bind you together for ever, and celebrate the day of your bridal, not with feasting or wassail, but with ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... May came cold and unfriendly, as April had been, and Wilhelmine thought that all the warmth of the world must have departed when Eberhard Ludwig went to the frontier to do battle. The lilacs came to a tardy bloom, and even on the cold ungenial air there floated a divine fragrance. News came from the Duke—dull news, all detail of the organising and improvement of troops. Passionate words intermingled in these letters to Wilhelmine, old faded yellow ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... it as my deliberate and solemn conviction that the individual who is habitually tardy in meeting an appointment, will never be respected or successful in life.—REV. ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various



Words linked to "Tardy" :   late, unpunctual, belated



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com