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Out of gear   /aʊt əv gɪr/   Listen
Out of gear

adjective
1.
Not having gears engaged.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Out of gear" Quotes from Famous Books



... time, something far back in Bristow's brain stirred uneasily, as if, miles away, somebody had sounded an alarm. Should he trust this man? Would Braceway try to pick up a false scent, try to throw the whole thing out of gear? ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.

... incapable of a prolonged effort of will. His lawyer's mind, accustomed as it was to disentangling and studying complicated situations and questions of domestic difficulties in families that had got out of gear, at once foresaw the more immediate consequences of his brother's state of mind. In spite of himself, he looked at the issue from an almost professional point of view, as though he had to legislate for the future relations of certain ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant

... disappointed in his anticipations. For instance, he marks out a certain life for a flower and breeds and selects to that end. For a time all may go according to his plans, but suddenly some new trait develops which knocks those plans all out of gear. The new flower may have a longer stem and narrower leaves than either parent, while a shorter stem and broader leaves are the desideratum. The experimenter is disappointed, but not disheartened; he casts the flower aside and makes another selection from the same ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing

... point it. He was the brilliant Morgan O'Doherty of "Fraser" and "Blackwood," and was nearly, but not quite, "Captain Shandon" in "Pendennis." Thackeray had an affectionate admiration for his talents. But the times and the doctor were out of gear; he lost sympathy through his persecution of "L.E.L.," and his misfortunes led him to follow a class of journalism out of all consonance with his powers and better feeling; he is credited with having been the forerunner of scurrilous society-journalism. But no hint of ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... speak, prepared, measured out, labelled, and numbered. Everything takes place at the appointed time. Nothing is left to chance. It is a work very nicely pieced together, worthy of the most skilful artisan, so solidly constructed that outside happenings have not been able to throw it out of gear; and that the scheme works exactly, precisely, imperturbably, like the clockwork in this box, which is a perfect symbol of the whole business and, at the same time, gives a most accurate explanation of it, because the letters denouncing the murderers were ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc

... the drastic cut in war programs has thrown the economy into lower gear; it has not thrown it out of gear. Our economic machine demonstrates remarkable resiliency, although there are many difficulties that must still be overcome. The rapid termination of war contracts, prompt clearance of unneeded Government-owned equipment from private plants, and other reconversion policies ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... across lots, and spend half an hour with you, Toby," Jack announced; "though I couldn't promise to stay late, because I ought to be doing some of my lessons, you know. This football work afternoons throws everything out of gear." ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton

... them whatsoever judgments they pleased. All, so to speak, abandoned their own sphere of duty, and followed the paths that pleased them, however difficult or untrodden they had previously been. Everything was out of gear; offices were degraded, not even their names being preserved. In a word, the Empire resembled a queen over boys at play. But I must pass over the rest, as I hinted at the ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius

... family combinations when we settled down on the lake. Honestly, Stella, do you think it's worth while? I never could see you as a sentimental little chump, letting a momentary aberration throw your whole life out of gear." ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... the gaoler. Jack, following the example of Robinson Crusoe, attempted to tie knots on the tail of time by cutting notches with his knife on the leg of the table, but most days he forgot to perform this operation, and so his wooden almanac fell hopelessly out of gear. He estimated that he had been a little more than a week in prison when he heard by the clang of the bolts that the next cell was ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr

... the proper chamber to restore the equilibrium. But, as we may desire occasionally to direct the flight of the ship in an upward or a downward direction, I have so arranged matters that the apparatus shall be thrown out of gear when the tiller is sloped in either direction out of the horizontal; and as we shall not require it when the ship is on or below the surface of the ocean, I have here provided a small knob by pressing which inwards the apparatus can also be thrown out ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... with the Majority party in the Reichstag for preparing a peace resolution. The collapse of Russia inspired him with new hopes of victory in the west, and again he prepared to sacrifice masses of men in the slaughter-fields. But he blundered again, and this time fatally. His time-table was out of gear. The U—boat war had failed. American manhood was pouring into France, and German soldiers on the Russian front had been infected with ideas most dangerous to German discipline and the "will to win." At the end, as at ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... laxatives, cathartics, purgatives, and in consequence we start in life with teeth, intestines, appendices, out of gear and nervous systems on edge. With unconscious stupidity we continue the fatuous practice. The monarch selected to preside over the functions of human life was the Liver; and it is only with bated breath that any doctor dares ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison

... more empirically certain, and will some day doubtless become scientifically obvious, that there are works of art which awaken such emotion that they can be delectable only to creatures with instincts out of gear and perception upside down; while there are others, infinitely more plentiful, which, in greater or lesser degree, must delight all persons who are sane, as all such are delighted by fine weather, normal exercise, and kindly sympathy; and, ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... out of gear by the electric currents, confirmed me in a growing conviction. The mineral crust of the globe threatened to burst up, the granite foundations to come together with a crash, the fissure through which ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne

... by muscle, and they are accustomed to doing things for themselves. God is everywhere, they have heard, but he flings a shadow over the land for half the year that they may not find him; so they grope in darkness, and it is not to be wondered that they often doubt, and deem the Decalogue out of gear. ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London

... good as being clever. In a very short time I became one of the best drivers on the Line. That was allowed. I took a pride in it, you see, and liked it. No, I didn't know much about the engine scientifically, as you call it; but I could put her to rights if anything went out of gear—that is to say, if there was nothing broken—but I couldn't have explained how the steam worked inside. Starting a engine, it's just like drawing a drop of gin. You turn a handle and off she goes; then you turn the handle the other ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens

... Bless my soul, to be sure I know it! Why, the last time but one I passed that way, taking note that one of the window-hinges was out of gear, I knocked and asked leave to repair it. A lady with side-curls opened the door, and after the job was done took me into the parlour an' gave me a jugful of cider over and above the sixpence charged. I believe ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... the moment, one of the ploughs was out of order, a bolt had slipped, a lever refused to work, or a machine had become immobilised in heavy ground, or a horse had lamed himself. Once, even, toward noon, an entire plough was taken out of the line, so out of gear that a messenger had to be sent to the division forge ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... the end of the run, after a bust like that? I reckon the Martians'll open their beautiful eyes! Can't you see them, man? Can't you see them hurrying, hurrying—puffing and blowing and hooting to their other mechanical affairs? Something out of gear in every case. And swish, bang, rattle, swish! Just as they are fumbling over it, swish comes the Heat-Ray, and, behold! man has ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells

... some fullness a man among men, a whole critical period: the one, with his peculiar temperament, his genius which adapts itself thereto, his beliefs which dominate them both, his passions which throw out of gear his temperament, his genius and his beliefs, his tastes which give colour to his passions, his habits which regulate his tastes and muzzle his passions, and with the innumerable procession of men of every sort whom these various elements keep in constant commotion ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... come to no good," he said, shaking his fist at the disappearing plane. "You've scared me half to death with your shots, and I hope that both your rudders will get out of gear and stay out of gear! I hope that the wheel controlling them will be smashed up! I hope that the top plane will crash into the bottom one! I hope that a French shell will shoot your tail off! And I hope that you'll tumble ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler

... to the big wheel," said Uncle Dick, throwing open a door at the end. "They go out here to oil and repair it when it's out of gear. Nasty spot too, but there's a ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn

... Mara and Ella, Bodine felt his heart beat as it had never done in the bloodiest battle. His careless boatman had not recognized the danger since the cloud was so comparatively small, and when he sought to lower the sail something was out of gear and it stuck. The gust struck it fairly, and would have capsized the boat had not the mast broken. As it was, the vessel so careened as to ship a dangerous quantity of water, which was rapidly increased by every wave that broke over ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe

... don't realize. I am carrying big projects in my mind—big, ambitious thoughts and plans upon which great things depend. They no doubt make me seem preoccupied and absent-minded; but it is a wife's part to understand, and make allowances, and not intrude trifles which may throw everything out of gear. Don't think I'm scolding, my girl. I only speak to reassure you and—and help you to comprehend. Of course I know that you wouldn't ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... machinery in an engine; and the best fly-wheel is the layman. The tendency, you know, of the Pulpit is toward an unpractical sort of idealism. Its theories are all very good, but my professor in physics used to tell me that the best mathematical theory is put out of gear by friction when you come to illustrate it in practical physics, and so with even the best kind of theoretical philanthropy. The theoretical solution of the problems, social and economic, which confront us is put "out of gear" by ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... spirits who can divine without half a whisper, whose intuitiveness is proof against all the accidents of inconsequence. In respect of the less alert, however, should any one's train of thought be thrown out of gear by a consecutive piping of vocal reeds in jarring tonics, without a semiquaver's rest between, and be led thereby to miss the writer's aim and meaning in one out of two contiguous compositions, I shall ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy

... hope. But what I mean is, the war doesn't really touch us in the routine of our every-day living. We don't have to darken our windows at night and take, every now and then, to the cellars. The machinery of our lives isn't thrown out of gear. We don't live hand in hand with danger. But lots of us think we're killed if we have to use our brains a little, if we're asked to substitute for wheat flour, and can't have thick frosting on our cake and eat meat three times ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist

... time completely over them. They listened with strained ears—the engine continued to beat. They still moved slowly. Then there was a shock. The wheel had struck something in the road—a great stone or rock. The chauffeur thrust the car out of gear. The engine still beat. Gerald leaped from the car. The water was over his knees. He crossed in front of the bonnet ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... smoke. Near the stove knelt Sundown trying to encourage the smoke to more perpendicular behavior. He coughed. "She ain't good in her intentions, this here stove. One time she goes and the next time she stays and takes a smoke. Her innards is out of gear. Whew!" ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs

... breakdown of the machine, which caused a delay too great to be subsequently made up. Mr. Cooper's characteristic recollection of the event, as given fifty-five years later, was that "they tried a little race one day, but it didn't amount to anything. It was rather funny; and the locomotive got out of gear." ...
— Peter Cooper - The Riverside Biographical Series, Number 4 • Rossiter W. Raymond

... his place, Prone and sprawling on his face, More like brute than any man Alive or dead, By his great pump out of gear, Lay the peon engineer, Waking only just to hear, Overhead, Angry tones that called his name, Oaths and cries of bitter blame,— Woke to hear all this, and, waking, turned ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte

... showed herself among her guests, for a quarter of an hour or so, in a semi-hysterical flutter; so anxious that everything should go off well, so fearful that something might happen, she knew not what, to throw the machinery of her arrangements out of gear. ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... larger and larger. This licensed selfishness became more domineering in proportion as it became more successful. If a political question arose, which in any way interfered with his opportunities, the good American began to believe that his democratic political machine was out of gear. Did Abolitionism create a condition of political unrest, and interfere with good business, then Abolitionists were wicked men, who were tampering with the ark of the Constitution; and in much ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... intercourse with the West Indies. These things worked injury to shipbuilding, to the exports of lumber and oil and salted fish, even to the manufacture of Medford rum. Nowhere had the normal machinery of business been thrown out of gear so extensively as in these two states, and in Rhode Island there was the added disturbance due to a prolonged occupation by the enemy's troops. Nowhere, perhaps, was there a larger proportion of the population in debt, and in these preeminently ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske

... mean, Brad, all right," spoke up Colon, sensitive to anything like criticism; "every one knows that I weakened toward the end, and that's what threw us out of gear. Couldn't help it, if you killed me. That little trouble I had with the river yesterday must have still bothered me. Never had such a queer feeling grip me before, and hope ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman

... now. Poverty and anxiety can throw even a Napoleon out of gear, but Richard Royson was hard as granite in some ways, and the mere decision to go to South Africa had driven the day's distempered broodings from ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy

... emotion. She is not the woman to make my pulse go fevered and me go mad. Nor is she the woman to make me forget my manhood and pride, to tumble me down doddering at her feet and gibbering like an ape. She is not the woman to put my thoughts out of joint and the world out of gear, and so to befuddle and make me drunk with the beast that is in me, that I am ready to sacrifice truth, honesty, duty, and purpose for the sake of possession. She is not the woman ever to make me swamp honour and poise and right ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London

... is out of gear, when I would pray, my senses go all astray, I cannot recollect myself, and if I succeed in pulling myself together, five minutes do not pass but I am all astray again; no, I have neither fervour nor true contrition, I do not love God ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... to bury the dead. But the Black Death fell on the villages almost as fiercely as on the towns. More than one-half of the priests of Yorkshire are known to have perished; in the diocese of Norwich two-thirds of the parishes changed their incumbents. The whole organization of labour was thrown out of gear. The scarcity of hands produced by the terrible mortality made it difficult for villeins to perform the services due for their lands, and only a temporary abandonment of half the rent by the landowners induced the farmers of their demesnes to refrain from the abandonment of their farms. ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green

... the back at H and can be lifted up, thereby throwing the A-wheels out of gear. When thus raised the figure disks can be set to any figures; at the same time it can slide to and fro so that an A-wheel can be put in gear with any C-wheel forming with it one "element." The number ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... I fear so," said Willows, in the same tone. "It's revenge, and the engine has been purposely left out of gear. No," he cried, as if in agony, his words having given him intense pain; "I won't believe a man could ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn

... in the large cities, there are very few really poor people in Provence now. It is a rich land, and it gives to its hard-working inhabitants a good living; with only a pinch now and then when a cold winter or a dry summer or a wet harvest puts things out of gear. But of old the conditions were sadly different and there was need for all that ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier

... moment he was dissatisfied with life. But that was Lady Sellingworth's fault. If he were sitting with her now in Berkeley square the scheme of things would probably not seem all out of gear. He wondered where she was, what she was doing! The footman had said he believed she was near Monte Carlo. Craven remembered once hearing her say she was fond of Cap Martin. Probably she was staying ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens

... the imagination may be disordered. And the intellect or understanding of the spiritual soul is so closely united in its action and its very being with the organic body that the two ever act conjointly, like the two wheels of a vehicle. If one wheel breaks down, the other is thrown out of gear. Thus it is readily understood that mental unsoundness is an affection of the brain, a bodily disease, which may often be relieved and even cured by bodily remedies, by the use of drugs or wholesome food, healthy exercise, fresh ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens

... to speak and Fall had walked to the switchboard and was about to put the deadly apparatus out of gear, when a sharp ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace

... half the weight of the ordinary boom, and whereas the latter is fixed to the ship's side by a hook which is liable to be disconnected or broken by the jerk of an exploding torpedo, Mr. Bullivant's boom works in a universal or socket joint, which cannot get out of gear except by fracture, and which permits the boom to be moved in any direction, whether vertically or fore and aft, close in against the sides. Below each boom is a flange, which serves as a line along which a traveler moves, the latter being ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various

... generation of dealers and collectors knew of them only by hearsay. Then you know the effect of suggestion in such cases. The undefinable sense we were speaking of is a ticklish instrument, easily thrown out of gear by a sudden fall of temperature; and the sharpest experts grow shy and self-distrustful when the cold current of depreciation touches them. The sale was a slaughter—and when I saw the Daunt Diana fall at the wink of a little third-rate brocanteur from Vienna I ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton

... had been fixed for five o'clock, and Julian intended, of course, to be in Victoria Street with Valentine to receive the expected guest, but Cuckoo Bright threw his polite plans out of gear, and Valentine was alone when, at half-past four, the electric bell rang, and, a moment later, Wade solemnly showed into the drawing-room a striking vision, such as had never "burst into that silent sea" of artistic repose and ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... cleverest leaders, and his indifference to Cornell's interests left a jagged wound that was not soon to heal. Moreover, it could not be concealed that Morgan's nomination was a Pyrrhic victory. In fact, the conventions at Cincinnati and Saratoga had thrown the Conkling machine out of gear, and while the repair shop kept it running several years longer, it was destined never again to make the speed it ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... good thing for people who allow their nerves to get out of gear," he remarked, dryly and leisurely, puffing contentedly in the middle and at the end of the sentence. "But he who does this subverts the order of the ruler aad the ruled. I supposed I had nerves once, but it is an age since they have dared ...
— At Last • Marion Harland

... and its shell, or the brain and its skull; and in minor matters there would be the same incongruity of effect. Thus, if the molar teeth lengthened from extra use the incisors could not meet. Unequal and indiscriminate variation would throw the machinery of the organism out of gear in innumerable ways. ...
— Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited? - An Examination of the View Held by Spencer and Darwin • William Platt Ball

... your sublunary divisions. But they have eaten and drunk me out of house and home; at that hour, too, when the most meteors were predicted: and what is worse they invaded my garret in their clumsy jack-boots, and have thrown my Orchestra Coeli out of gear. I was mending it when you knocked. By the way,' he added more kindly, 'I can go on mending it while you wash your wound, which will appear less horrid when cleansed of all this blood. I have a fire upstairs, ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... they suffer'd this noisy and his lawyers to bellow: Which over, the blade A poor punishment had For that racket he made. By which ye may know They thought as I do, That he is but at best an inconsiderable fellow. Upon this I find here, And everywhere, That the country rides rusty, and is all out of gear: And for what? May I not In opinion vary, And think the contrary, But it must create Unfriendly debate, And disunion straight; When no reason in nature Can be given of the matter, Any more than for shapes or for different ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... coast of the mainland, after which came a stretch of open sea for two hours, and at noon we reached Bjoro, near the mouth of the Namsen Fjord. Here there was half a dozen red houses on a bright green slope, with a windmill out of gear crowning the rocky hill in the rear. The sky gradually cleared as we entered the Namsen Fjord, which charmed us with the wildness and nakedness of its shores, studded with little nooks and corners of tillage, which sparkled like oases of tropical greenness, in such a rough setting. ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor

... sense of wrong," Meredith whispered to Gay. "I feel as if I had done the fellow to death myself, as if it were all out of gear. I know, now, how Henry felt over the great Guisard. My God, how tall he looks! That doesn't seem to ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington

... under Elizabeth would seem little better than a religious chaos. But England was fairly used to religious confusion, for the whole machinery of English religion had been thrown out of gear by the rapid and radical changes of the last two reigns. And to the Queen's mind a religious chaos was a far less difficulty than the parting of the nation into two warring Churches which would have been brought about by a more rigorous ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green

... children that if one keeps things where they belong, they are true with regard to each other, but that if one drags these things out of the shadowy atmosphere of the "make-believe," and forces them into the land of actual facts, the whole thing is out of gear. ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock

... of the condemnation is a play upon these three attributes. So proper and so sufficient has this condemnatory analysis become, that it is a risky matter to approach the problem from another angle. But it is now so obvious that our internal affairs are out of gear, that any comprehensive scheme of national preparedness would demand that full and honest consideration be given to all forces determining the degree of American unity, one force being this ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker

... foot is turned back with its wall on the ground, is nothing more than spasm of the muscles which keeps the patella drawn up. The moment they relax the previously immovable limb and useless foot have their function restored as if by magic, but are immediately thrown out of gear in the course of a few minutes as a recurrence of the tetanus of the petallar muscle takes place. The fascia of the thigh, like that of the arm, is a most potent factor in giving assistance to the constant strain imposed on the muscles of the limbs ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix

... in readiness he ate a hearty meal, threw the dynamo out of gear, closed the door and shutters of the place that had given him the shelter of a home, adjusted the hauling straps of his sled, and set resolutely forth on his venturesome journey across ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe

... mill twenty feet, to guard still further against the effects of an explosion. Behind these the powder-makers stood, for safety, while starting or stopping the motion of the ponderous rollers. This was done by means of a long lever, which threw in or out of gear the friction arrangement, which worked each set beneath the floor, in the thick archway which extended from end to end beneath the mills. It has already been stated that this archway contained the great iron shaft which imparted motion to all ...
— History of the Confederate Powder Works • Geo. W. Rains

... to regard man as merely a duality—mind and body. Man is a trinity,—soul, mind, and body, each with its own functions,—and it is the right coordinating of these that makes the truly efficient and eventually the perfect life. Anything less is always one-sided and we may say, continually out of gear. It is essential to a correct understanding, and therefore for any adequate use of the potential powers and forces of the inner life, to ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine

... to be soldiers, they are men. "They are men, good fellows of all kinds, rudely torn away from life; they are ignorant, not easily carried away, men of narrow outlook, but full of common sense which sometimes gets out of gear. They are inclined to go where they are led and to do as they are bid. They are tough, and able to bear a great deal. Simple men who have been artificially simplified yet more, and in whom, by the force of circumstances, the primitive instincts have become accentuated: the instinct of ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland

... bring with it a reviving interest in the sex. It was indeed very fortunate, I told her, that you were, at present, indifferent. Any question of selecting a life partner in your present nervous state would be most dangerous. Your power of judgment, I pointed out, was temporarily jarred and out of gear. You might marry anybody. The only safe, the only humane way, was to give you time to ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... which is itself keyed to the shaft, h. The hub of the cone, O, is connected by a ring with a bronze nut, p, mounted at the threaded end of the shaft, h, and carrying a hand-wheel, P. It is only necessary to turn this latter in one direction or the other in order to throw the two cones into or out of gear. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 441, June 14, 1884. • Various

... hesitation on my part. I had been, if I may express myself so, put out of gear mentally. But as soon as I had convinced myself that this stale, unprofitable world of my discontent contained such a thing as a command to be seized, I ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad

... formed by routine and punishment, can no more stand before him than a tree can resist the stroke of the lightning, than the book general and paper tactician can resist the genius which throws his plans out of gear, ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke

... to whom it has been given. It has the tendency to develop his emotionalism, his sloth, and his vanity, and it has no tendency to develop those parts of his character which are in a rudimentary state and much want it; thereby throwing the whole character of the man out of gear. ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... writer looks upon as one of the greatest improvements in this mill, is its being furnished with circular knives, which can be set to any desired width, and put in or out of gear at will; and which are used for dressing up the finished sheet in the longitudinal direction. This is a simple mechanical arrangement, but one which is found to be of immense benefit, and which, ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various

... poured from his own store of sympathy into that dry, atrophied soul upon the bed. 'It's a question how much she will be able to transmit, though,' he said doubtfully. 'The spiritual machinery is so stiff and out of gear from long disuse. In Miss Waghorn's case it's only physical—I've just been there—but this is spiritual blackness. We shall see to-morrow. Something will get through at any rate, and we must do this every ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood

... After we got the mill to going, about the middle of January, last year, we found the tail-race wasn't big enough to carry off the water fast and make a current that would turn the wheel. So I threw the wheel out of gear, one night, and lifted the head-gate of the race full open, to flow a hard stream through and wash the tail-race deeper. Next morning early, which was January 24, I went down with Weimer (you know Weimer, Mr. Grigsby; he served in the Fremont battalion during the conquest), who was ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin

... of interest and close scrutiny to the little knots of volunteers who had sauntered in to pick up points. To the former it looked odd and out of gear to see the forage-caps and broad white stripes of commissioned officers mingling with the slouch hats and ill-fitting nether garments of the ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King

... provided with police, but the destruction of the City Hall—and Post-Offide and other central ganglia had hopelessly disorganised the co-operation of part with part. The street cars and railways had ceased; the telephone service was out of gear and only worked intermittently. The Germans had struck at the head, and the head was conquered and stunned—only to release the body from its rule. New York had become a headless monster, no longer capable of collective submission. Everywhere it lifted itself rebelliously; ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells

... and pursuit of Fred Munson took place at a critical period in the affairs of all parties and so mixed up the business that it was thrown entirely out of gear and almost into inextricable confusion. It seemed that there was a party of Kiowas in hiding, and awaiting the chance to open fire upon the approaching Apaches. The sly scamps saw every movement of the warriors, and it looked as if the ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)

... never mentioned on the way-bill, nor does it affect the time allowed for the completion of the trip; for, though the mail be brought in ahead of time, it is never handed over to the relay until the appointed hour has struck. Otherwise, the whole system would be thrown out of gear. Exceptionally fast runs are not shown upon the way-bills, because they would eventually affect the average time allowed for the trip; and in stormy weather that would be hard upon the packeteers. The time allowed for the transmission of a packet ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... very clever fellow," asserted Hetty, "and such a loss of memory is by no means so uncommon as you think. Our brains are queer things—mine is, I know—and it doesn't take much to throw their machinery out of gear. Once I knew a reporter who was worried and over-worked. He came to the office one morning and said he was George Washington, the Commander of the Continental Army. In all other ways he was sane enough, and we humored him and called ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne

... the maps. Give the child an ordinary conventional map with dots and lines and green seas and tell him to revaluate that geographic scene in his or her own terms. The mountains will be a bit out of gear and the cities will look astonishingly mediaeval. The outlines will be often very imperfect, but the general effect will be quite as truthful as that of our conventional maps, which ever since the days of good Gerardus Mercator have told a strangely erroneous ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon

... to Ham's ability to rally from such a shock. I could not bear to listen to these comments: they were violently distasteful to me. The unforeseen accident and Nancy's sudden departure had thrown my life completely out of gear: I could not attend to business, I dared not go away lest the news from Nancy be delayed. I spent the hours in an exhausting mental state that alternated between hope and fear, a state of unmitigated, intense desire, of balked realization, sometimes heightening into that ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... corresponding wheel on the horizontal shafting running along the top of the converters. This latter is secured to a clutch; and there is a feather on the shaft, so that any one of the converters can if necessary be put either in or out of gear. This arrangement is necessary, as riggers or belts of leather, cotton, or indiarubber will not stand the atmosphere of the nitro-benzole house. Above and close to each nitrator stands its acid store ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford

... [Note 1], any Sunday morn, with their pigeons, looking more like scarecrows than Christians; and afore night they'll be so weary that they'll scarce know how to bide anywhere. They'll be lounging about, looking as limp as a strap out of gear, till they've got the ale in them, and then they're all for swearing and shouting up and down ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson

... fluttered bird, came flying from away: "Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted fifty-three!" Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: "'Fore God, I am no coward; But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of gear, And the half my men are sick. I must fly, but follow quick. We are six ships of the line; can we fight ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various

... sponges, it was just as well to take advantage of the blaze while it lasted. And Mrs. Nightingale and her daughter, in the thickest available dressing-gowns, and pretending they were not taking baths only because the bath-room was thrown out of gear by the frost, took advantage of the said blaze to their heart's content and harked back—a ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... brain is a very delicate instrument, and one that is easily thrown out of gear. Before I proceed, just sum up for yourselves the facts that I have mentioned: a light seen and presently extinguished in an apartment supposed to be uninhabited; and a cat of a remarkable color, which appeared ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various

... train to throw his proposed brakes into action, immediately on the moving power of the engine being checked. He would also have these brakes under the control of the guard, by means of a connecting line running along the whole length of the train, by which they should at once be thrown out of gear when necessary. At the same time he suggested, as an additional means of safety, that the signals of the line should be self-acting, and worked by the locomotives as they passed along the railway. He considered the adoption of this plan of so much importance, that, ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... has vanished we fain would keep, When the heart, like a watch, runs out of gear, And all the savor goes out of the year, Oh, then is the ...
— Poems of Passion • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... welcome. Then give him just what you give John, and make no apologies. Above all, do not let him feel that any additional labor caused by his presence throws the whole course of the household machinery out of gear. Do not invite to your home those for whom you have to make so great a change in your daily life. If you keep house as a lady should, you need not fear to entertain anyone who is worthy to be your friend. It is no disgrace if your ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... assuredly not! Martin Holt nudged Hurliguerly with his elbow, and both regarded Hunt with pity, while West observed him without speaking. Captain Len Guy made me a sign, meaning that nothing serious was to be got out of this poor fellow, whose mental faculties must have been out of gear ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne

... gear a single eccentric was used for each cylinder, and to reverse the engine this eccentric had to be loose on the axle. "A lever and gear worked by a treadle on the footplate controlled the position of the eccentrics. When starting the engine, the driver put the eccentrics out of gear by the treadle; then, by means of a lever he raised the small-ends[5] of the eccentric rods, and, noting the position of the cranks, or, if more convenient, the balance weight in the wheels, he, by means of another ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams

... the professor, the boys and Washington made a tour of the ship. They found, for some unaccountable reason, that nearly all the engines and apparatuses were out of gear. In some the parts had broken, and others were merely stopped, from the failure of some other machine, on ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood

... began to warm up our big twenty-pounder there in the bow. But the deadly scuds of iron kept flying over and upon our deck, bursting into awful showers of bolt and chain and spike and hammerheads. We saw shortly that our brig was badly out of gear. She began to drift to leeward, and being unable to aim at the enemy, we could make no use of the bow gun. Every brace and bowline cut away, her canvas torn to rags, her hull shot through, and half her men dead or wounded, she was, ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller

... Mrs. Doherty had not much to say on the subject. During the conversation, however, she continued to rinse one of her aprons, and wring it dry very carefully, and drop it back into the water, like a machine slightly out of gear, which goes on repeating some process ineffectually. The two friends read in her silence an omen of acquiescent conviction, and congratulated each other upon it with furtive nods and winks. Mick went off to the bog in high feather, ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various

... a camel to pass through the needle's eye. But it also exposed to the rancours of jealousy a man who had nearly everything but domestic happiness to excite that most corroding of literary passions; and when he got out of gear he became the quarry of Spenser's "blatant beast." On the other hand, Burns was, beneath his disgust at Holy Fairs and Willies, sincerely reverential; much of Don Juan would have seemed to him "an atheist's laugh," and—a more certain ...
— Byron • John Nichol

... out of gear, Nicholas—Your voice is rasping, your remarks are bitter, and you must be ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn

... me, what hard and difficult thing can I do to get free from this abominable, miserable condition, in which all my thoughts, desires, and dreams are no longer my own, but belong to some demon who has taken possession of me? I love you, love you so much that I am completely thrown out of gear; I've given up my work and all who are dear to me; I've forgotten my God! I've never been in love ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... normal mind was slipping out of gear and proceeded to back off and avail myself of a tube of stimulant which I carried in ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings

... That's the passengers' glass. I told the steward to put it out of gear so that you might not be frightened; it is an old trick. Look at this," and he produced one of the portable variety ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard

... Then he looked upon the trees and the broad fields, with the thatched huts hidden among crops—looked with strange eyes unable to take up the size and proportion and use of things—stared for a still half-hour. All that while he felt, though he could not put it into words, that his soul was out of gear with its surroundings—a cog-wheel unconnected with any machinery, just like the idle cog-wheel of a cheap Beheea sugar-crusher laid by in a corner. The breezes fanned over him, the parrots shrieked at him, the noises of the populated house behind—squabbles, orders, ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling

... attempt any sudden changes in so complex a machinery, which already strains so severely the energies of the small number of officials employed in working it, would be inevitably to throw the whole out of gear. ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... This world is thrown all out of gear by sin. Things fitted in Eden, be thou sure. Another reason is there also—that he which hath the food may bestow it on him that can relish ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... I answered, without saying how much I had done. "Now you must retire—and rest easy. The formula won't work. I have put both it and Brande himself out of gear." ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie

... England, and now his mind turned covetously towards a country and a clime where his best promised to yield richer and better fruit. He had mended society's nervous wrecks so long that he had come to look upon the whole modern world as a machine too hopelessly out of gear to repay his ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici

... the girl's previous character will not clear her," resumed the captain emphatically. "You are a relative, lover, or something, I suppose. This poor woman has knocked my routine methods a little out of gear. One rarely sees a face like hers in a station-house. She evidently comes of no common stock, and I'd like to hear that the charge is all a mistake, as you claim; but, young man, you can't meet criminal charges with generalities. You've got to show that she didn't steal that lace. I wish you success, ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe

... to fear. Now could Robur get back to the island for three or four hours if his screws were out of gear? By that time the "Albatross" would have been destroyed by the explosion, and be no more than a wreck floating on the sea; those whom she bore would be mangled corpses, which the ocean would not even give up again. The act of ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne

... either a good load on, or was in a brown study. While I was thinking about it up comes a fellow of the 2—th, that I used to meet often while we were upon picket. He is usually trim, tidy-looking, and is an intelligent fellow, but on that day everything about him appeared out of gear. His old grey slouch hat had only half a rim, and that hung over his eyes—hair uncombed, face unwashed, hands looking as if he had been scratching gravel with them, his blouse dirty and stuffed out above the belt, making him as full-breasted ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong

... works who refuse to work a full week's work for the nation's need. What is the reason? They are a minority. The vast majority belong to a class we can depend upon. The others are a minority. But, you must remember, a small minority of workmen can throw a whole works out of gear. What is the reason? Sometimes it is one thing, sometimes it is another, but let us be perfectly candid. It is mostly the lure of the drink. They refuse to work full time, and when they return their strength and efficiency are impaired by the way in which they have spent their leisure. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... to most women, especially such as had no claim upon him, but cherished respect for none. It was odd therefore that he should now feel embarrassed. From some cause the machinery of his self-content had possibly got out of gear; anyhow no answer came ready. He had not the smallest wish to see the child, but was yet, perhaps, unwilling to appear brutal. In the meantime, the woman, with gentle, moth-like touch, was parting and turning ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald

... dejection—I came to believe practically, instead of merely theoretically, in the personal immortality of the human soul. I was conscious, during the whole time, that though the physical machinery of the nerves was out of gear, the soul and the mind remained, not only intact, but practically unaffected by the disease, imprisoned, like a bird in a cage, but perfectly free in themselves, and uninjured by the bodily weakness which enveloped them. This was not ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson

... I am. It's necessary sometimes, when people are—obstinate!" And she smiled frankly into his troubled face. "Oh, believe me, it's fatal for the man to throw all his life out of gear on account of the woman. It's putting things the wrong way about altogether. In accepting her husband, a woman must be prepared to accept his life ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... a wild-eyed man whose name and birth-place are alike unknown. His reason has been unseated by some sudden shock, the doctors say, though of what nature they are unable to determine. "It is the most delicate machine which is most readily put out of gear," they remark, and point, in proof of their axiom, to the complicated electric engines, and remarkable aeronautic machines which the patient is fond of devising ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... said, coolly. "At this present we have Dan Morgan's fish to fry, and sitting here saucing this devil's mess of a supper with thoughts of private revenge will never fry it. Set your wits at work; Falconnet's ghost has put mine hopelessly out of gear. Ye gods! but 'twas a most fearsome ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... unconscious, there lies the heart and guiding spirit of the New World. He does not hear the talking of the waters past the Nina's timbers, does not hear the stamping on the deck and shortening of sail and unstopping of cables and getting out of gear; does not hear the splash of the anchor, nor the screams of birds that rise circling from the shore. Does not hear the greetings and the news; does not see bending over him a kind, helpful, and well-beloved face. He sees and hears and knows nothing; and in that state of rest and ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young

... of human beings worked in Marcella like some fevering torture. She was wholly out of gear physically and morally. Another practically sleepless night, peopled with images of horror, had decreased her stock of sane self-control, already lessened by long conflict of feeling and the pressure of self-contempt. Now, as she lay ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... alluded, are attached to the walls in various parts of the room, as seen in the engraving. Connected with these shafts are various drilling and boring machines, which can at any time be set in motion, or put to rest, by being thrown in or out of gear. One of these machines is seen on the right of the boiler above referred to, and another in the left-hand corner of the room quite in the back-ground. Near the fore-ground, on the left, is seen a ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... to be of much use to the H. & P. A. this locomotive must have such speed—or mighty near it. Of course, under ordinary conditions, two miles a minute for a locomotive and train of heavy freights would burn up the track—maybe melt the flanges and throw everything out of gear." ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton

... Hiram roused the packing room of the flour mill with the master's eye, he was in the cooperage, the center of a group round one of the hooping machines. It had got out of gear, and the workman had bungled in shutting off power; the result was chaos that threatened to stop the whole department for the rest of the day. Ranger brushed away the wrangling tinkerers and examined the machine. After grasping the problem in all its details, he threw himself flat upon his ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips

... seemed to take their colour from his own mind. He had loved Marian Nowell as it is not given to many men to love; and with the loss of her, it seemed to him as if the very springs of his life were broken. All the machinery of his existence was loosened and out of gear, and he could scarcely have borne the dreary burden of his days, had it not been for that one feverish hope of finding the man who had ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon

... as she rode high on this wave of approbation, Laura suffered another of those drops in the esteem of her fellows, another of those mental upsets, which from time to time had thrown her young life out of gear. ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson

... their drunkenness off. Now, if something intervenes unexpectedly during the performance of this ha- bitual activity, especially some opposition, some superfluous cajolement, correction, or similar thing, the intoxicated actor is thrown completely out of gear, and can not be restored to it, nor is he able properly to oppose this obstacle. Hence he acts against it reflexly, and in most ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... and absurdities up to the highest things our minds can receive, and presumably an infinity of things higher still. They appear to flow into us in all sorts of ways, presumably depending upon the condition of the nerve apparatus through which they flow. If that is out of gear from any disorder or injury, what it receives is not only trifling, but often grotesque and painful; while if it is in good estate, it often receives things far surpassing in beauty and wisdom those ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various

... the luckless household was out of gear, and its noble guest, the Duke von Gulich, would feel the consequences, for the servants had lost their wits too. Spite of the countless men and maids, he had been obliged to go himself to the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... Is it worth while to put so much force of soul and spirit, brain and heart into things from which we may be summoned without a moment's notice? Is it worth while to live, and then go to pieces through the effort at living, live on day after day like a machine out of gear (held together oftentimes only by the surgeon's skill), then break down completely, give a final sigh and be hurried away to add a lot of useless fragments to the already accumulated scrap heap of the still more ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman

... such minute attention that the overseer privately wondered whatever was the matter with "Master John," but soon settled the question, by a decision that "he hed been worried by his wife a bit, and it hed put him all out of gear, and no wonder." For Greenwood had had his own experiences of this kind and had suffered many things in consequence of them. So he was sorry for John as he told himself that "whether married men were rich or poor, things were ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... of exertion, and they would certainly get better results, for it is always much more difficult to get good results with a light club than with one of medium weight. With the featherweight the swing is very liable to get out of gear. It is cut short, and is apt to wander out of its proper direction. There is, in fact, no such control over the club as there is when one can feel the weight of the head at the end of the shaft. A lady may require clubs a trifle shorter in the shaft, but this is the only difference which need ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon

... Lieutenant?" mocked Necia. "It's only the joke of an ignorant half-breed girl whose sense of humor is all out of gear. You mustn't quarrel ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... excitement for the past twenty-four hours; his nerves during that time had been kept at straining point. Passion, joy, happiness, deadly danger, and moral fights had worn his mental endurance threadbare; want of proper food and a sleepless night had almost thrown his physical balance out of gear. This blow came at a moment when he was least ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy

... have provided the usual cycle pitched chain so that, in the event of a breakdown, the rider can propel his machine with the pedals. Indeed, this is always necessary in starting, though a few strokes with the pedals suffice, and as soon as the engine is started the pedal clutch is thrown out of gear. In mounting a steep gradient the pedals are also useful as an auxiliary to the motor. The mechanical power provided is sufficient to drive the machine on a good and level road at the rate of 20 kilometers an hour. It can also travel up grades of 1 in 20 or 25; the weight of the machine ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1082, September 26, 1896 • Various

... father. This is the only point upon which we have not always been agreed. For my part I should willingly resign myself, if the opportunity arose (I must say that it seems to grow more distant every day), to serve, for the greater good of humanity now so sadly out of gear, a tyrant who was philanthropic, ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan

... may be said to take place by anticipation, and the person who benefits by it is unaware that it takes place at all. Correct breathing has then become a habit. This habit, this smooth working, automatic cooperation of nerves with breathing-muscles, may be thrown out of gear by something unusual, such as the ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller

... immediate cause may have been a leaky valve permitting the gas to escape, or a faulty air-pump which made prompt filling of the ballonet impossible. But the effect of these flaws was to deprive the balloon of its rigidity, cause it to buckle, throwing the cordage out of gear, shifting stresses and strains, and resulting in ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot

... suddenly thrown upon the organism of reacting to a situation with which it is at the moment able to cope only imperfectly, if at all. The condition is one in which normal, uninterrupted, coordinated movements are for a time checked and thrown out of gear.[241] ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas

... officers and units from different races. All this can be and is maintained only by extra cost and extra-active co-operation on the part of the people. The slightest withdrawal of assistance must put such machinery out of gear. This is the basis of the programme of progressive non violent non-co-operation that has been adopted ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi

... barbed-wire fence ahead. Hugh could do but one thing. He circled them about toward the outside of the field by the one line he could control, while he frantically jammed the lever down, which threw the machine out of gear, but at the speed at which the machine was going the lever would not act. The one line swung the horses around in a short circle, and as the thoroughly alarmed man raised his head he was horrified to find that Elizabeth, encumbered with the jug, and so thoroughly frightened that she held on ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... countries but in parts of America, and in many continental countries specie payments were suspended. In a word, the possibility of war had thrown the delicately poised credit system of the commercial world out of gear; the declaration of war had brought it to a standstill. Into an explanation of its working it is not possible to enter; it is sufficient for our immediate purpose to realise that the foreign exchange machinery by which the supply of commodities from other countries becomes practicable ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,

... the men to get any hold on the fast set who were now in the ascendant. It was not in the nature of things that they should understand each other; in fact, they were hopelessly at war, and the college was getting more and more out of gear in consequence. ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... to flinders over everything that gets out of gear," he drawled. "If I was to be goin' up higher'n a kite every time, fur instance, that the seaweed ketches round the propeller of my motor-boat, I'd be in mid-air most ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett

... two rival powers—one good and the other evil—in the direction of the universe, and any sense of harmony becomes impossible; the whole course of Nature is thrown out of gear, and, whether for ourselves or for the world at large, there remains no ground of certainty anywhere. And this is precisely the condition in which the majority of people live. They are surrounded by ...
— The Hidden Power - And Other Papers upon Mental Science • Thomas Troward

... returning the same way, while two assistants steady him by holding his hands. In the case of the smaller children, the priest considerately steps on their thighs, to avoid throwing their internal apparatus out of gear; but if the recipient of his holy attentions is, in his estimation, strong enough to run the risk, he steps square on their backs, The little things jump up as sprightly as may be, kiss the priest's hand fervently, and go trooping ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... will be three or four times as great. During the latter part of October, 1907, and in November, the exchange market fluctuated with greater violence than, perhaps, at any other time since the gold standard was firmly established. Thrown completely out of gear by the premium of 3-1/2 per cent. a day for currency during the panic time, the exchange markets for some time would rise and fall several cents in the pound on the same day. Completely baffled by this erratic movement, many bankers temporarily ...
— Elements of Foreign Exchange - A Foreign Exchange Primer • Franklin Escher

... Von Lembke became more and more depressed. He was full of strange and sinister forebodings, and this made Yulia Mihailovna seriously uneasy. Indeed, things were not altogether satisfactory. Our mild governor had left the affairs of the province a little out of gear; at the moment we were threatened with cholera; serious outbreaks of cattle plague had appeared in several places; fires were prevalent that summer in towns and villages; whilst among the peasantry foolish rumours ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... at a rise. The rear extension always got out of gear; the ropes and pulley tangled in the rigging. It was decided that Alfred hold the rear extension aloft. Node would run down the hill a few feet launching himself into ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... harsh command which it was more or less difficult to obey. But life, as we all know, is not made up of great events so much as of irritating trifles,—poor, wretched, apparently insignificant trifles, which, nevertheless do so act upon our destinies sometimes as to put everything out of gear, and make havoc and confusion where there should be nothing but peace. It was the merest trifle that Sir Morton Pippitt should have brought his 'distinguished guests,' including Marius Longford, to see John Walden's church—and also have ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... hemorrhage, paresis or the degeneration by senility. More effective may be its work in concussion of the brain and especially with traumatic neuroses, as in the case when a railroad accident has put the mind-brain system out of gear. ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg

... up and down the field, back and forth, with a clanking as the lever was thrown in and out of gear for the turn at either end, this cloud went with them, blowing fine and free, encompassing them high as the horses' bellies. Ishmael watched, checked the man at the turn, and finding the corn was flowing too freely, altered the indicator, and then himself took the reins and ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... are easy to talk over, thought Bardun. One can do anything with them when one only makes them fancy they are having their own way. And it is wonderful how far one can get if one only bides one's time, and makes the best of things. Whatever was out of gear he could very easily put right again, when once he got a firm ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie

... and would have the possession of Westmoreland House and its contents. The sale would realise enough to save her from actual want, and yet she would not be receiving a pension from Lady Rose. Her mind got out of gear and flashed through these thoughts until, unable to check it in any way, she burst into tears. She felt the self-deception of such plans with physical pain. What was that money in the bank at Florence but blackmail gathered in during Sir David's life? "Why cannot I be straight even ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward

... looms have been tampered with continually, just enough to keep everything out of gear. Nearly every improvement, you know, has to fight its way through opposition in the beginning. The men declare themselves innocent, and puzzled over it, but it certainly has been done. There are five ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... recollection of certain past events, or of whole periods of our lives, or of everything but one system of ideas which monopolizes the field of attention. Sometimes great systems of memories, instincts, and complexes are alternately shifted in and out of gear, leaving first one kind of person on top and then another.[25] Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is not so fantastic a character as he seems. Any one who doubts the ability of the mind to split itself up into two or more ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury

... himself up with his family and his retainers and be independent of society, even laugh at its impotent rage. No man's house is his castle now. He is at the mercy of every imbecile and every fanatic. His whole life is regulated by delicate mechanisms which can be put out of gear by a touch. There is nothing so fragile as civilisation, and no high civilisation has long withstood the manifold risks it is exposed to. Nowadays any naughty grown-up child can say to Society: Give me the sugar-stick I want or I'll make your life intolerable. And for a brief moment ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis

... pence. If the supply of paste waned—there were hand processes of a peculiar sort involved in its preparation, and sometimes the workers had convulsions which deranged their output—Denton had to throw the press out of gear. In the painful vigilance a multitude of such trivial attentions entailed, painful because of the incessant effort its absence of natural interest required, Denton had now to pass one-third of his days. ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells

... trained detectives picked for special work. With swift, smooth precision, the well-oiled machinery works, and we, who only see the results, never guess at the disaster that might have befallen if a sudden strain had thrown things out of gear. ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot

... just one of those arrangements that look so promising and plausible until fairly tried, but before many months had passed there was a hitch—something out of gear ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... professional instrument-maker, but they were very considerable to an amateur. Farrow selected the best-seasoned wood he could find, but it frequently happened that after it was cut it warped a little, and the slightest want of truth threw all the connected part out of gear. Miriam learned something when she saw that a wheel whose revolution was not in a perfect plane could give rise to so much annoyance, and she learned something also when she saw how her husband, in the true spirit of a genuine craftsman, ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford

... always attended and probably directed these discussions; but it was found that nothing could be done. Any attempt to remove a gamekeeper or a gardener would evidently throw the whole machinery of Aylmer Park out of gear. If retrenchment was necessary Aylmer Park must be abandoned, and the glory of the Aylmers must be allowed to pale. But things were not so bad as that with Sir Anthony. The gardeners, grooms, and gamekeepers were maintained; ten domestic servants sat down to four heavy meals ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope

... progressive. The development of trade and industry, as has been emphasized, rapidly increased the numbers, wealth, and influence of the bourgeoisie, or middle class, and quite naturally threw the social machine out of gear. The merchants, the lawyers, the doctors, the professors, the literary men, began to envy the nobles and clergy, and in turn were envied by the poor townsfolk and by the downtrodden peasants. With the progress of ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... much of it as had gone down into the depths forever. He liked the sagging and sighing cypresses, with their roots in the air, that hung upon and clung upon the rugged edge of the remainder. He liked the shaky stairway that led to it (when it was not out of gear), and all that was irrelative and irrelevant; what might have been irritating to another was to him singularly appealing and engaging; for he was a poet and a romancer, and his name was Robert Louis Stevenson. He used to ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard

... of our cares come from being too dignified about them. It is pleasanter to think oneself the battle-ground for high and tragical forces of a spiritual kind, than to realise that some little homely bit of common machinery is out of gear. But we must resist the temptation to feel that our fears have a dark and great significance. We must simply treat them as little sicknesses and ailments ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson

... unskilled in arms, but persistent in his plans—sat in his palace at Madrid like a spider forever spinning webs that enemies tore down. Drake and the English had thrown the whole scheme of the Armada's mobilization completely out of gear. Philip's well-intentioned orders and counter-orders had made confusion worse confounded; and though the Spanish empire held half the riches of the world it felt the lack of ready money because English sea power had made it all parts and no whole for several months ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood

... structure produced by such changes of function, are inheritable, then the re-adjustment of parts throughout the organism, taking place generation after generation, maintains an approximate balance; but if not, then generation after generation the organism must get more and more out of gear, and tend to ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... social organization. It does not take an open-eyed onlooker long to discover that social organizations of all kinds are infested with many evils. Social machinery is never perfect in its construction or operation. It is always getting out of gear; there is endless friction and clatter and confusion; it takes a great deal of trouble to keep it moving, and its product is often of poor quality. When men get together and try to cooeperate for any purpose, by orderly methods, they are always sure, because ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden

... hat and let the soft breeze cool his brow. Things seemed hopelessly out of gear. He felt like a trapped animal. So he imagined a squirrel might feel, turning the wheel endlessly in the narrow limits of its cage. Or, to make the image human, his thoughts wandered to the shorn and blinded Samson grinding his tale of corn ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes

... scalpel, collecting-net, and pen, and almost entirely with reference to Pawkins. The European reputation he had won had come as an incident in that great antipathy. He had gradually worked up to a climax in this last controversy. It had killed Pawkins, but it had also thrown Hapley out of gear, so to speak, and his doctor advised him to give up work for a time, and rest. So Hapley went down into a quiet village in Kent, and thought day and night of Pawkins, and good things it was now impossible ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells



Words linked to "Out of gear" :   ungeared



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