"Mechanically" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... along the dusty roads, our thoughts became as dusty as they; all thought indeed stopped, thinking broke down, or proceeded only passively in a sort of rhythmical cadence of the confused material of thought, and we found ourselves mechanically repeating some familiar measure which timed with our tread; some verse of the Robin Hood ballads, for instance, which one can recommend ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... of his eye Sam could not help seeing her profile exposed pitilessly in the glow of the foot-lights; saw her lips tremble like those of a child about to cry; and then saw the forced, hard smile—and heard her laugh lightly and mechanically. ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... waiting for Bill Sticoon to come aboard, Tom found his concern for Roger overriding his enthusiasm for the race. When Sticoon appeared and began to prepare the ship for blast-off, Tom went through the motions mechanically. The Space Lance was scheduled to leave first, with Kit Barnard following at the exact time interval of their arrivals. The Deimos tower operator's voice droned over the loud-speaker on the control deck of the Space Lance " ... minus ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... We had mechanically moved in the direction of the drug-store and were near the curb-stone when I reached this point in my meditations. It had rained a little while before, and a small stream was running down the gutter and emptying itself into the sewer ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... into the stirrup the Dauphin mechanically closed his knees, as a rider does to renew his grip after it has been relaxed. But with the tightening of the grip the bay started as if goaded by a vicious double rasp of the spurs, swerved violently, shaking his head till the chains ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... in which they walked had been worn into two deep circles and they all moved mechanically round and round, like parts of a machine, ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... the house and in the garden. Mechanically he wheeled her bicycle out into the road. He was ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... their glasses to their eyes mechanically, for they could scarcely have expected to have discovered more than their unaided sight ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... himself to his feet, and with forced courtesy asked her to sit down. She allowed herself to sink mechanically to the edge of the divan where, only an hour ago, Dorothea and she had exchanged happy confidences. In the minutes of silence that followed, when he had resumed his own seat, she felt as if she were in some queer nightmare, where ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... hand on one of the carved arms and mechanically toyed with an eagle's head that formed one of the decorations. To his surprise the ...
— The Broncho Rider Boys with Funston at Vera Cruz - Or, Upholding the Honor of the Stars and Stripes • Frank Fowler
... meantime the oiler rowed, and then the correspondent rowed, and then the oiler rowed. Grey-faced and bowed forward, they mechanically, turn by turn, plied the leaden oars. The form of the lighthouse had vanished from the southern horizon, but finally a pale star appeared, just lifting from the sea. The streaked saffron in the west ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... night; the same stillness and mild weather. My soul is pondering. I walk mechanically over to a tree, pull my cap deep down over my eyes, and lean against that tree, with hands clasped behind my neck. I gazed and think; the flame from my fire dazzles my eyes, and I do not feel it. I stand in that stupor for a while, looking at the fire; my legs fail me first, and grow tired; ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... his way to his room upstairs he passed through the little office in which he and his father made out their bills and kept their accounts. On the desk lay half a sheet of a letter. He looked at it at first mechanically, and then began to read with the most intense interest. It was only half a sheet, and the other half was nowhere to be found. ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... As he walked mechanically forward, hardly noting, in the raging tumult of his thoughts, whither his steps were tending, a heavy hand was laid on his shoulder, and a hearty voice exclaimed: "Hello, young fellow! Where have you been, and where are you bound? I've been looking for you everywhere. Here's your grip that I was ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... fire together a bit in the grate, and if you can manage it, you had better make us a good cup or two of tea." "It is devilish cold," and he turned to me, "and I think we had better go and sit round the fire and talk a little." He opened the door, and I followed him mechanically. "How are things going on below?" he asked. "Oh!" replied Francis; "there was not much the matter. The Lady Baroness is all right again, and ascribes her bit of a fainting-fit to a bad dream." I was going to break out ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... the window-pane, and the over-fed, discontented, lonely old bachelor on the splendid side of the window-pane; and I didn't get much happier thinking about it, I can assure you. I drank glass after glass of the wine—not that I enjoyed its flavor any more, but mechanically, as it were, and with a sort of hope thereby to drown unpleasant reminders. I tried to attribute my annoyance in the matter to holidays, and so denounced them more vehemently than ever. I rose once in a while and went to the window, ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... and even when labouring at the oar, the natives, in order to chase the insects, are continually giving one another smart slaps with the palm of the hand. They even strike themselves and their comrades mechanically during their sleep. The violence of their blows reminds one of the Persian tale of the bear that tried to kill with his paw the insects on the forehead of his sleeping master. Near Maypures we saw some young Indians seated ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... as if starting from a trance at the sound of his voice, mechanically obeyed, and they ascended the broken ruinous stair which led from the sepulchre into the churchyard. The other mourners followed, but remained grouped together at the door of the vault, watching with anxiety the motions ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... Mechanically she performed her ordinary duties. The wood was cut and the evening meal was, cooked; afterwards she cut down branches of trees, and swept the wigwam. In the evening, the villagers had assembled on the shores of the lake to enjoy the cool air after ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... morning, raw and gloomy, but the gray sky and the patient, bare-limbed elms were curiously medicinal to my sore heart. In some strange way they comforted me. Snow was in the air and father mechanically weather-wise, said, without thinking of the bitter irony of his ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... of the latch as he entered. The room was filled with bustle and movement, for it was the supper hour, when all tools were laid aside, and trestles and tables shifted. Christian had no knowledge of what he said and did; he moved and spoke mechanically, half thinking that soon he must wake from this horrible dream. Sweyn and his mother supposed him to be cold and dead-tired, and spared all unnecessary questions. And he found himself seated beside the hearth, opposite that dreadful Thing that looked like ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... for nearly eight years now, and much has been done in which I take great pride. But this is not personal pride. It is pride in the people, in the Nation. It is pride in our political system and our form of government—balky sometimes, mechanically deficient perhaps, in many ways—but enormously alive and vigorous; able through these years to keep the Republic on the right course, rising to the great occasions, accomplishing the essentials, meeting the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... seat of his yellow taxicab, Spike Walters drew a heavy lap-robe more closely about his husky figure and shivered miserably. Fortunately, the huge bulk of the station to his right protected him in a large measure from the shrieking wintry winds. Mechanically Spike kept his eyes focused upon the station ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... the various other ores used in the arts must undergo elaborate processes of manufacture; coal must be mined, broken, cleaned, and transported; the soil in which food-stuffs are grown must be fertilized and mechanically prepared; and even the water required for domestic purposes in many instances must be transported ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
... up, and laying the paper down, carelessly, walked to the door that stood open on the verandah, to put an end to a conversation that was not agreeable to him. Mechanically, he repeated the last word again,—"Death!"—and, as he leaned against the railings, and watched the sparkling water as it rose and fell in the fountain; and, as in a dim and dizzy haze, saw flowers and trees and vases of ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the chair the general had vacated, and began mechanically the closing of the letters; but when that to the Governor of New Jersey was reached, he paused in the process. After a little, he took from his pocket Janice's frantic supplication, and reread it, his face displaying his response ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... narrow border of the same white anhydrite: this shows that the veins must have been formed by a process of segregation, and not of infiltration. Some of the little included and CRACKED fragments of foreign rock are penetrated by the anhydrite, and portions have evidently been thus mechanically displaced: at St. Helena, I observed that calcareous matter, deposited by rain water, also had the power to separate small fragments of rock from the larger masses. ("Volcanic Islands" etc. page 87.) I believe the superficial gypseous deposit is widely ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin
... back to gossip, reading, and wine. Drinking became more and more a physical and also a moral necessity. Though the doctors warned him that with his corpulence wine was dangerous for him, he drank a great deal. He was only quite at ease when having poured several glasses of wine mechanically into his large mouth he felt a pleasant warmth in his body, an amiability toward all his fellows, and a readiness to respond superficially to every idea without probing it deeply. Only after emptying a bottle or two did he feel dimly that the terribly tangled skein of life which previously ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... holding her papers in her apron, walked swiftly to the window. There she stood, a moment, looking out into the orchard, where the grass lay tangled under the neglected, happy trees. Her eyes traveled mechanically from one to another. She knew them all. That was the "sopsyvine," its red fruitage fast coming on; there was the Porter she had seen her father graft; and down in the corner grew the August sweet. Life out ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... as they went together into the keeping-room. All was so still that the clash of the rising tide and the ticking of the clock assumed that solemn and mournful distinctness which even tones less impressive take on in the night-watches. Miss Roxy went mechanically through with certain arrangements of the white drapery around the cold sleeper, and uncovering the face and bust for a moment, looked critically ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... half of his miserable breakfast or dinner in his pocket, to be carried up to the invalid and smuggled into his cell. It was a matter of course, nobody remarked it. Any mistake or indiscretion committed by a prisoner would be instantly and almost mechanically covered by the man nearest him, though at the risk of punishment—and the punishment for betraying human sympathy in this way is—of course it is!—especially severe; it is ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... to stone. Mechanically, she listened to the voice of the priest reciting the De Profundis; she listened to the call of the crickets shrilling through the summer night without; she listened to the heart-breaking sobs of faithful black Mandy crouching ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... paced the floor mechanically, some vague recollection crossed his brain of a childish story of the man standing where the two great roads of life parted. They were open before him now. Money, money,—he took the word into his heart as a miser might do. With it, he was free from these carking cares that were making his mind ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... know how many times I hit him, but I am confident that after he had begun his long staggering fall at least three additional bullets entered him ere he impacted on the deck. And even as he was falling, aimlessly and mechanically, stricken then with death, he managed twice ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... in the field of progress was the old-established firm of Purdey and Co. Mr. Purdey, before the general introduction of breechloaders, brought out an Express rifle, No. 70 bore, with a mechanically fitting two-groove solid bullet. This small projectile was a well-pointed cone weighing exactly 200 grains, with a powder charge of 110 grains, more than half the weight of the bullet. The extremely ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... carried the child up to bed; her supper was brought to her solitary in the dining-room; and afterwards in the drawing-room, where a soft twilight was fading into a soft and starlit night, she mechanically brought out some work for Mary, and sat bending over it by the window. After about an hour she looked up straight before her, threw her work down, and slipped on to the floor, her head ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Egg-shells! Pooh! As if any parson could talk about wine. These Church folk had better mind their business, and say grace, and eat their dinner, and be thankful. That's what I say. Egg-shells, forsooth!" The Baron was passing through the chapel, and he mechanically removed his helmet; but he did not catch sight of the glittering eye of Father Anselm himself, who had stepped quickly into the confessional, and there in the dark watched Sir Godfrey with a strange, mocking smile. When he had the ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister
... was to resume the weary way at the end of even those brief spells of rest. Every one was so fit that the actual marching was nothing like so trying as the difficulty of keeping awake through the long, dreary hours, and one would time after time drop asleep as one walked mechanically along, only to wake in the very act of falling. Frederickstadt was reached in the small hours of the morning, and the stream crossed to its left bank. There was then a halt of about an hour to close up the transport, and very welcome it was, for we were still an ordinary day's march from our ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... distinguished himself in all the recent expeditions he has never yet been wounded. He is now major in a regiment of infantry. No officer is more taciturn or more trustworthy. Outside of his duty he is almost mute; he walks alone and lives mechanically. Every one divines and respects a hidden sorrow. He possesses forty-six thousand francs, which old Madame Lorrain, who died in Paris in 1829, ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... gone through the ceremony almost mechanically— recklessly, we might be justified in saying; for not having raised her eyes off the floor from its commencement to its close, the man whom she accepted for better or for worse might have been Jacques or Redfeather ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... too much talk nowadays and too little thinking. Some persons start their gab carburetors and they talk and talk mechanically, without any effort on any thought, just like walking, the motion just goes ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... other facts I put before my friends while they listened in glum silence—indeed, with hardly a move except the pipes carried mechanically to their lips or down. Tommy's brier was empty, but his teeth were tight upon the stem and I saw the muscles of his jaws working, as though grinding up ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... as it left the courtyard. The patrol bent its steps toward the right, by the Rue St. Honore, and mechanically La Valliere went to the left. Her resolution was taken—her determination fixed: she wished to betake herself to the convent of the Carmelites at Chaillot, the superior of which enjoyed a reputation for severity which made the worldly ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... gravity of bodies by a process so recondite, so completely beyond the reach of our senses and the ordinary resources of human intelligence, that the philosophers of antiquity, who supposed that they could explain every thing mechanically according to the simple evolutions of atoms, excepted gravity from ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... the daisied meadow, and although he owned a light overcoat to dangle from shoulders at the Opera crush, he declined to wear it for protection. His gesture of shaking and expanding whenever the tender request was urged on him, signified a physical opposition to the control of garments. Mechanically now, while doating in fancy over the couple beseeching him, he loosened the button across his defaced waistcoat, exposed a large measure of chest to flaws of a wind barbed on Norwegian peaks by ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... wife going upstairs to bed. He did not feel comfortable until he had crept all over the house and seen that everything was made secure. Then he sat down to think the matter out. Twice he helped himself liberally to brandy, a third time his hand went mechanically to the bottle—then he ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... important fact (as we shall see more fully when we treat of the digestive power of the secretion) that when the tentacles become inflected, owing to the central glands having been stimulated mechanically, or by contact with animal matter, the secretion not only increases in quantity, but changes its nature and becomes acid; and this occurs before the glands have touched the object on the centre of the leaf. This acid is of a different nature from that contained in the tissue of the leaves. As long ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... so applicable to De Guiche that he turned pale, and, overcome by a sudden agitation, was barely able to stretch out one hand mechanically towards Raoul, as he covered his eyes and face ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... her husband said, not crossly, but mechanically, as if it were a phrase he often used. But Dicky laughed down at her, although I knew by the look in his eyes that ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... opportunity of finding industrial work, except of the most inferior class, until their competence had been proved; and it would become less fluid and unstable than it is at present. Moreover, farm labor is, on the whole, much more wholesome for economically dependent and mechanically untrained men than labor in towns or cities. They are more likely under such conditions to maintain a higher moral standard. If they can be kept upon the farm until or unless they are prepared for a higher class ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... room to tell the nuns of the Prioress's death, surprised at what seemed to her like indifference, without tears in her eyes, or any manifestation of grief. There could be none, for she was not feeling anything; she seemed to herself to be mechanically performing certain duties, telling Mother Philippa, whom she met in the passage, in a smooth, even voice, that the Prioress had died five minutes ago, without any suffering, quite calmly. Her lack of feeling seemed to her to give the words a strange ring, and she wondered if ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... the cheek she turned to him, and went out, assuming a cheerfulness he did not feel. Madame leaned back in her chair with her eyes closed, exhausted by the stress of emotion. The maid came in for orders, she gave them mechanically, then went into the living-room. She was anxious to be alone, but felt unequal to the exertion ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... rose presently and went slowly down the aisles, with a face that might have taken its place beside the pictured saints to whom she had knelt. Her sabots clicked against the pavement worn by many generations of feet, and her old fingers still moved mechanically, telling the beads which she had slipped ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... Mechanically I obeyed, for I could see there was something of more than usual import on his mind. The Indians had withdrawn, and the master, pacing uncertainly about the room, paused and regarded me intently, as if he almost regretted his invitation to stay. After several ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... my knees. Now, however, I perceived that it had opened at a place some pages in advance of the passages which had excited me; but, feeling no desire to go back to resume my reading just where I had left off, my eyes mechanically sought the top of the page before me, and this ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... theory. No doubt whatever now remained in the mind of Miss Ludington or Paul that the wonderful mystery which they had hardly dared to dream of was about to be enacted before them. They followed Dr. Hull on his tour of inspection as if they were in a dream, mechanically observing what he pointed out, but replying at random to his remarks, and, indeed, barely aware of what they were doing. The sense of the unspeakably awful and tender scene so soon to pass before their eyes absorbed ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... ten minutes—earlier had had no thought of violence, ran his fastest along the road by which he had lately come. His heart was as water within his breast, and his staring eyes played their part mechanically. He did not fall, but he noted nothing, and had no ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... different piece of work and a little masterpiece of its kind. The author, in her preface, tells us how, whilst mechanically listening to the incessant chatter of the Venetian sempstresses in the next room to her own, she was struck by the resemblance between the mode of life and thought their talk betrayed, and that of the same class of girls at La Chatre; and how in the midst of Venice, to the sound of the rippling ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... raw materials? It is obvious that no human intellect could ever unravel the tangled skein of human labor, and that in actual exchange there can be no calculation of the respective labor content of commodities. If the law of value holds good, it must operate mechanically, automatically. And this it does, through the incidence of bargaining and the ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... those bright hopes pondered Whereof yon gay fancies were the type; And my hand mechanically wandered Towards my left-hand ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... may select a partner, and that, we must remember, has always been done even by savages, for, as it has been said, "eugenics is the oldest of the sciences." The question has merely been transformed. Instead of being limited mechanically by caste, we begin to see that the choice of sexual mates must be limited intelligently by actual fitness. Promiscuous marriages have never been the rule; the possibility of choice has always been narrow, and the most primitive peoples have exerted ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... BLADDER (Cystitis).—The condition which we describe under this head commonly causes frequent painful urination. Primarily there is usually some agency which mechanically or chemically irritates the bladder, and if the irritation does not subside, inflammation follows owing to the entrance of germs in some manner. The introduction into the bladder of unboiled, and therefore unclean, instruments ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... seems to devolve upon him. I am counselled to wait and watch—D. V. I will do so; yet it is harder to wait with the hands bound, and the observant and reflective faculties at their silent and unseen work, than to labour mechanically. ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... on the edge of the rocks overlooking the water, she stared at the ever-widening circles which rippled the water and the jagged rocks which shone ominously dark beneath the surface. She followed the center of the ripples mechanically. Thank God, they had hit in a clear spot. But what chance would a man have throttled like that ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... he spoke, and as the smoke rose and he looked up, loading mechanically the while, he caught sight of a long gun dropping swiftly down, barrel first, to fall close by one of the camels, grunting and moaning as it bore its balanced load along ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... of centuries, years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds, but the second is the determining power of mechanical measurement, though it is derived mainly by the movement of the earth around the sun and the turning of the earth on its axis. Mechanically we have derived the second as the unit. It is easy for us to think in hours or days or weeks, though it may be the seconds tick off unnoticed {59} and the years glide by unnoticed; but it is difficult to think in centuries—more difficult in millions ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... day, week after week, freshly made engines would come sliding down the conveyor belt. And mechanically Sam Meecham would attach to each two wires that led from a machine by his side, flip a switch, and if the dial on his machine read at least fifty, he could pass the machine on as being adequate for the job of Moon ferry. He'd been attaching ...
— The Odyssey of Sam Meecham • Charles E. Fritch
... He followed her mechanically to a bedroom, where was a bright fire, and a fine shirt, and his silver-laced suit of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... of his bed came over him, and in order to see it no more he passed into his smoking-room. Mechanically he took a cigar, lighted it, and began to walk about. He was cold. He went toward the bell to waken his valet; but he stopped with his hand on ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... put out his arms and gathered her into them, took hold of her mechanically, displaying neither fondness nor a ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... for putting off the letter by finding every one willing to let the marriage take place whenever he pleased. There were various conferences in the dressing-room, and Guy and Amy both had burning faces when they came down to dinner. Laura beheld them with a throbbing heart, while she mechanically talked to Dr. Mayerne, as if nothing was going on. She was glad there was no singing that evening, for she felt incapable of joining; and when at night Charles and his father talked of sitting up to write to Philip, the misery was such that she had no relief till she ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... still holding the withered roots, advanced mechanically to her father's side. During her absence his mental and bodily faculties had both yielded to wearied nature—he lay in ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... no reply, but seated herself wearily, while Gordon drew a cheque for fifty dollars and handed it to her. She placed it mechanically in ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... the plant as well as in the animal, "a similar series of excitatory effects, whether these be exhibited mechanically or electrically. Both alike are responsive, and similarly responsive, to all the diverse forms of stimulus that impinge upon them. We ascend, in the one case as in the other, from the simplicities of the isotropic to the complexities of the anisotropic; and the laws of these isotropic ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... week, we landed one noon at the private pier of the Liscombes to lunch with them. As Sandys and I strolled toward the front of the house, several people, also guests for lunch, were just descending from a long buckboard. At sight of one of them I stopped short inside, though I mechanically continued to walk toward her. I recognized her instantly—the curve of her shoulders, the poise of her head, and her waving jet-black hair to confirm. And without the slightest warning there came tumbling and roaring up in me a torrent of longings, regrets; and I suddenly had a clear understanding ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... did mechanically what she was bid, and she had ceased to be a sentient being. From this time forth, little was ever seen of the flax-crusher and his family. The manor had become, as it were, a tomb, from which issued no sign ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... served for illumination had thrown back a reflection. He glanced farther down the swimming line and saw that many others had drawn their hunting knives and had clasped them between their teeth, where they would be ready for instant use. Mechanically he did likewise, and he felt something flow from the cold steel into his body, heating his blood and inciting him to battle. He knew at the time that it was only imagination, but the knowledge itself took nothing from the power of the sensation. He became every instant ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... voice nor face displayed the least agitation or threat. He spoke mechanically, with a dead calm, and with even movements of his strong, long hands, pushed the people back. The semicircle before him widened. Heads drooped, faces ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... the shining bugle even while on his way to the friendly tree, and had snatched it up; mechanically perhaps, for he could not have entertained any fear lest the bear ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... a complete surprise for the invading force. They elevated both hands as ordered, mechanically perhaps, for at the same time they were uttering exclamations of ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... the best advantage. I worked early and late in the office, and made myself master of the nature of the work which employed my hands. I learned the philosophy of those law forms, which hitherto I had only copied mechanically, and looked upon as a weary task, and I soon reaped the benefit of my increased stock of knowledge. Grave men, in the absence of my uncle, often applied to me for information and advice, which I felt proud and happy in being ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... that faithful minister and loyal man, who has left some slight record of her words. "She said she never shut her eyes to trials, but liked to look them in the face; she would never shrink from duty, but all was at present done mechanically; her highest ideas of purity and love were obtained from the Prince, and God could not be displeased with her love.... There was nothing morbid in her grief.... She said that the Prince always believed he was to die soon, and ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... almost mechanically. She knelt on the rug and spread out her hands to the blaze. She had reached a point of misery when she hardly cared what happened next to her. Two big tears splashed into the fender. Miss Duckworth suddenly ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... came upon which he missed her at the usual hour. He sat through the tedious meal without speaking; eating a little, drinking a little, mechanically, but with no consciousness of what he ate or drank. There was a mist before his eyes, a confusion of voices in his ears; but the faculties of sight and hearing seemed suspended. The agony he suffered during that miserable hour was ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... rest of his way home almost mechanically, and went straight to bed, but for a long time could ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... for the fly to carry the typhoid bacillus in two ways. In the first place, fecal matter containing the typhoid germ may adhere to the fly and be mechanically transported. In the second place, it is possible that the typhoid bacillus may be carried in the digestive organs of the fly and may ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane
... D. The Cutting of a Sphaere according to any proportion assigned may by this proposition be done Mechanically by tempering Liquor to a certayne waight in respect of the waight of the Sphaere ...
— The Mathematicall Praeface to Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara • John Dee
... mechanically, and put his hand to his forehead. I watched him curiously. It was the strangest trick that fortune ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... midnight to fit me for my work, but it was always a failure. I went on watch sleepy and remained miserable, sleepy, and wretched, straight along through the four hours. I can still see myself sitting by that bed in the melancholy stillness of the sweltering night, mechanically waving a palm-leaf fan over the drawn, white face of the patient. I can still recall my noddings, my fleeting unconsciousness, when the fan would come to a standstill in my hand, and I woke up with a start and a hideous shock. During all that dreary time ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... head into the cow's side, hangs on by a teat, and dozes, while the bucket, mechanically gripped between his knees, sinks lower and lower till it rests on the ground. Likely as not he'll doze on until his mother's shrill voice startles him with an inquiry as to whether he intends to get that milking done to-day; other times he is ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... the bed, and, kneeling on the skin rug, pressed her folded hands against her pale lips. She prayed fervently. They were the same old prayers which had been repeated mechanically so many times before; but they gained solemnity in the child's mouth. Her thin voice sounded deeper and more sonorous; the lamp-light shone on her reddish hair, that curled around her temples until it looked like ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... Mechanically he followed her; she still leading him by the hand, like a child. Like a child, or rather like a blind man, he sat down in the chair which she placed for him. His eyes did not move from her face; but they looked almost like sightless ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... me," was Maddy's reply; and, as the set upon the floor were waiting for her, she turned to the instrument, while Guy mechanically offered his arm to Maria, and sauntered toward ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... folded bit of paper on the table. Mechanically Howland reached for it. Stunned and speechless, cold with the horror of his death sentence, he smoothed out the note. There were only a few words, apparently written in ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... here," said the officer, mechanically, as Ned saluted. "Well, what in the name of General Pershing did you want to ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... the shells of the beans, and releasing the kernels or "nibs," from which the shells and dust are winnowed by a powerful blast. It is accomplished by carrying the beans mechanically to the cracking machine at a considerable height, whence husks and nibs are allowed to fall before the winnower: the separated nibs are assorted according to size. Some of the shells find their way to the Emerald Isle, to be used by the peasants for ...
— The Food of the Gods - A Popular Account of Cocoa • Brandon Head
... in: Sam Clark, Jack Elder, Dave Dyer, Jim Howland. To her they mechanically said, "'Devenin'," but to Kennicott, in a heroic male manner, "Well, well, shall we start playing? Got a hunch I'm going to lick somebody real bad." No one suggested that she join them. She told herself that it was her own fault, because she was not more friendly; but she remembered that they ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... will catch him,' replied Gabriel, mechanically. 'Good-day, Miss Mosk! I shall call and see ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... There was a trail behind that thicket, an old game trail widened by men's feet, that ran along the seaward slope to Cradle Bay. He went up now to this path. His eye, used to the practice of woodcraft, easily picked up tiny heel marks, toe prints, read their message mechanically. Betty had been running. She ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... what?" The slow blood rose to Dwight's hair. He mechanically took the cigar from his mouth. It lost its flavor. He had a sensation of falling through ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... meant to be kind—one could see that, thought Rosemary, mechanically holding on to Shirley as Solomon speeded up in his haste to reach the ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... takes the life out of me? I feel as if I had nothing to work for. I always felt a pride in working for Ernest, because I thought he was fitted for something better. Violet, it saddens me to think he can do without me. I go to my daily work; I lift my hammer and let it fall; but it is all mechanically; there is no vital force in the blow. It is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... her stepdaughter as she had sung the old rhyme, she mechanically followed the words until the word "dimples" arrested her attention. Then she read the paragraph with beating heart. She read it twice before she fully comprehended—understood that Elsie Marley ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... difficulty and as an unmerited favour a charitable condescension of power that knew not very well if it ought to be so kind to a being so unprotected, yes, I obtained—the office of usher! The honour of mechanically hearing declensions, conjugations, and rules of syntax and prosody, repeated by beings who detested the labour to which they were compelled, was conferred upon me! beings who looked on me, not as a benefactor, but as a tyrant! And tyrants all teachers indubitably are, under ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... wasn't especially brilliant. But after another day and night he hit on the notion of sending one of the coolies back with the news while he and the other men waited and watched. They kept her supplied with food. She must have eaten almost mechanically. But she never left that ledge. And yet—and yet—she was kept from taking the one step that would have ended it all. I sometimes wonder if it wouldn't have been better—more merciful—" ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... Lady Holme's look when she was singing. Robin Pierce saw it and pressed his lips together. At this moment the crowd shifted and left a gap through which Lady Holme immediately glided towards Ashley Greaves. He saw her and came forward to meet her with eagerness, holding out his hand, and smiling mechanically with even more than his ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... either mechanically or by mines all the exits of the submarines from their North ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe
... several times at the top of his voice, but receiving no response, he concluded that Bill, in his prospecting, had wandered farther away than he intended. There was no reason for uneasiness. If he did not return soon, he would go in search of him. As he toiled on mechanically, ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... be. Darsie dragged herself slowly to a sitting position, and sat dazed and stupefied, a forlorn, dust-encrusted figure, with hat tilted rakishly on one side, and the palm of her right hand scratched to bleeding where it had dragged along the stony ground. She blinked and stared, and mechanically brushed at her blackened skirts, but it was several moments before remembrance of her position returned to her brain, and with it the realisation of the consequences of delay. She scrambled to her feet, ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... may be arranged in many ways to give an automatic alarm either mechanically or electrically. The mechanical forms mostly depend on one or more single wires which are smooth, and are tightly stretched through staples on the posts which hold them loosely, permitting them ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... and quite as mechanically ran his eye down the list of names. At the bottom of it, written in with a pen, was the name of Patricia's father, with his residence and occupation. While he was staring at the pen-written name, Hathaway went on, eloquently emphasizing the disastrous results which would ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... appeared presently; together the two went through the routine of chores, as they had done hundreds of times before. They worked mechanically, being still stiff and sore from the previous day's work, but swiftly, in the way mechanical work is ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... two or three, then turned to the fly leaf of the book, while Virgie's eyes mechanically followed ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon |
