"Backwardness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the slightest backwardness about explaining. In fact she always took the greatest pains to be explicit with old Mr. Sommerville about the pit from which she had been digged. "Why, this visit to Aunt Victoria is like stepping into another world for me. Everything is so ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... intellectual side proved to be a great treat. He was only in the 4th grade. His retardation was the result of having been changed back and forth from foreign-speaking to English schools and having been sent away to an institution for truancy. In spite of his backwardness Robert had a fund of remarkably accurate scientific and other information which a mature person might envy. We found our regular series of tests were all done unusually well, except those which called for ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... Democracy: 'For what would happen if we Germans emerged victorious from this war? Our victory would only mean a strengthening of the dynastic principle of arbitrary power all along the line. Those of us who bewail the political backwardness of our Fatherland must realize that a German victory would prolong this backward condition for centuries. And not only Germany, but the whole of Europe, would have ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... more and, at length relieving me, assured me that I was the ghost of her son who had some time before been killed by a spear-wound in his breast. The younger female was my sister; but she, whether from motives of delicacy or from any imagined backwardness on my part, did not think ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... through which the largest craft are towed to and from the ports by row-boats. In the model of the sea-going vessels there has apparently been little change from the first. Yet in spite of all this backwardness in invention, the city is full of beautiful workmanship in every branch of artificing, and the Venetians are still the ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... herself she shall find, certain means of securing her reputation, and preventing all the pernicious consequences of her pleasures. It is necessary, therefore, that, beside the infamy attending such licences, there should be some preceding backwardness or dread, which may prevent their first approaches, and may give the female sex a repugnance to all expressions, and postures, and liberties, that have an immediate ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... of eternal felicity hereafter. Oh, what sacred pleasure there is in the idea of spending an eternity together in perfect and uninterrupted bliss! This should encourage us to the utmost exertion and fortitude. But whilst I write, my own words condemn me—I am ashamed of my own indolence and backwardness to duty. May I be more careful, watchful, and active than I ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... hints that the Legislature will have to interfere unless shipowners look to it themselves. The ease with which preserved foods of all kinds can be obtained and carried now removes the last shadow of an excuse for backwardness in this matter, and in particular the provision of a large supply of potatoes, both fresh and dried, ought to be an unceasing care; this is done on board American ships, and to this is doubtless owing in a great part the healthiness of their ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... cared what, provided the play were played—and both Captain Maumbry and his wife were in the piece, having been in fact, by mutual consent, the originators of the performance. And so with laughter, and thoughtlessness, and movement, all went merrily. There was a little backwardness in the bill-paying of the couple; but in justice to them it must be added that sooner or later all owings ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... the rule of the enlightened autocrat. "But," he said, "the mischief is that you can't guarantee a succession of enlightened autocrats; so we must make the best of the rule of the majority." The backwardness of England in education used to make him wring his hands. To lack of education he attributed the tawdriness and vulgarity of popular taste. I thought my own political and social views were advanced: to ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... nations have secured are eagerly distributed to the remotest corners. The agents of the governmental Bureau of Agriculture, the agricultural county demonstrators, the rapidly spreading agricultural schools, take care that the farmer's "commonsense" with its backwardness and narrowness be replaced by an insight which results from scientific experiment and exact calculation. Agricultural science, based on physics and chemistry, on botany and zooelogy, has made wonderful strides ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... and quite entreated that no such step might be taken, as I had no authority for presentation but to the duchess. However, Lady Crewe was only provoked at my backwardness, and charged Mr. Grattan not to heed me. "Tell the duke," she cried, "that Madame d'Arblay is our Madame de Stael! tell him we are as proud of our Madame d'Arblay as he can be of ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... and no strong desire for the necessity of it, no craving for the counterbalancing influence of a Nietzsche, has arisen yet in the British mind. I cannot help pointing out the grave consequences of this backwardness of England, which has arisen from the fact that you have never taken any ideas or theories, not even your own, seriously. Democracy, dear Englishmen, is like a stream, which all the peoples of Europe will have to cross: ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... physical, mental, and vocational opportunities for all, includes not only the better care of all incompetent for self-control, self-support, and self-direction, it also is coming to include a far more searching investigation of the causes of degeneracy and backwardness, and many children are thereby lifted from the hopeless classes to the group of those requiring only special care and teaching to be able to be classed ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... efficiently by the workers, from the point of view of production, than they are at present by the capitalists. The Bolsheviks oppose self-government in industry every where, because it has failed in Russia, and their national self-esteem prevents them from admitting that this is due to the backwardness of Russia. This is one of the respects in which they are misled by the assumption that Russia must be in all ways a model to the rest of the world. I would go so far as to say that the winning of self-government in such industries as railways and mining is an essential ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... grasping after anything that would seem to serve his purpose of thoroughly discrediting the Negro, Mr. Dixon holds up the backwardness of Africa as an indication of the inherent inefficiency of the Negro race. The life of the great body of the Negro race has been cast for untold centuries in Africa. This one simple fact has meant and still means so much. The peculiar character of the ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... were the heritage he had brought with him from Russia. He was at that time, he told me, president of a large Jewish congregation, whose pillars of support were men like himself. He complained bitterly of their backwardness and illiberality. They would not introduce an organ and refused to change the prayer book or to secure an "advanced" rabbi. For himself, he did not care whether they had a synagogue—I mean temple—at all. He retained ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... blockade, combined with the effects of the UN sanctions on Serbia and Montenegro, cost the economy approximately $1 billion in 1992 according to official figures. Macedonia's geographical isolation, technological backwardness, and potential political instability place it far down the list of countries of interest to Western investors. Resolution of the dispute with Greece and an internal commitment to economic reform would help to encourage foreign investment over the long run. In the immediate ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... nothing on earth about me; you may actually do me harm; I am in better hands than yours. I know my own sincerity of purpose; and I am determined upon taking my time." Since I have been a Catholic, people have sometimes accused me of backwardness in making converts; and Protestants have argued from it that I have no great eagerness to do so. It would be against my nature to act otherwise than I do; but besides, it would be to forget the lessons which I gained in the experience ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... reasons which determined the length of our Lord's life upon earth, but this was one of them,—that He could not go away until He had left these men strong enough to stand by themselves, and to lay the foundations of the Church. Therefore He yielded to the plea of their very faithlessness and backwardness, and with this wonderful word of condescension and appeal bade them say for how many more days He must abide in the plain, and turn His back on the glories that had gleamed for a moment on ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... slaves. He had a special building erected near the Mansion House for use as a hospital. Once he went to Winchester in the Shenandoah region especially to look after slaves ill with smallpox "and found everything in the utmost confusion, disorder, and backwardness. Got Blankets and every other requisite from Winchester, and settied things on the best footing I could." As he had had smallpox when at Barbadoes, he had ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... the landing on the rock, owing to the breach of sea which had for days past been around it, the artificers showed some backwardness at getting into the boats this morning; but after a little explanation this was got over. It was always observable that for some time after anything like danger had occurred at the rock, the workmen became much more cautious, and on some occasions their timidity was rather troublesome. ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... over the keys of the melodeon. The others wanted to be coaxed as amateurs always do. There is no backwardness that requires as much persuasion to appear before an audience as that of an amateur, but when once persuaded there is no cheerfulness that exceeds that of an amateur ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... suffers from a want of laborers. Agriculture, mining and manufactures are in a primitive state unworthy of the Middle Ages. The exhibition from Roumania at Vienna in 1873, although arrayed tastefully, was a lamentable confession of poverty and backwardness. Even Hungary, anxious to display her autonomy to the best advantage, could show little more than the beginnings of a change. The actual condition of the lower Danube is a reproach to European civilization. Everything ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... the properly plentiful feeding of the world was only kept waiting for the chemists, she certainly did have her fears. Chemical agriculture is expensive; and though the results may possibly be remunerative, still, while we are thus kept waiting by the backwardness of the chemists, there must be much risk in making any serious expenditure ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... relish the weary climbing. The Professor, who led the way, not for the sake of leadership, but to be the discoverer of laden blackberry bushes, which began to offer occasional refreshment, discouraged by the inhospitable road and perhaps oppressed by the moral backwardness of things in general, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... elsewhere, she required small assistance from Flora, whom she dispatched to tidy up the sitting-room instead. The good little lady was armed cap-a-pie by seven-fifteen, at which time a glance into Carlisle's room revealed much backwardness there, not concealed by the appearances of haste. Hugo would have to wait, that was clear; and just as it was clear, up Mr. Canning's name came ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... designs frustrated, if we had once more offered to fight them, it is thought that the duke was determined to surrender, being so persuaded by his confessor. This example, it is very likely, would have been followed by the rest. But this opportunity was lost, not through the negligence or backwardness of the lord admiral, but through the want of providence in those who had the charge of furnishing and providing for the fleet: For, at that time of so great advantage, when they came to examine into the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... only of his late disappointment that he was thinking, but of his whole past life. He was conscious of his hobbledehoyhood,—of that backwardness on his part in assuming manhood which had rendered him incapable of making himself acceptable to Lily before she had fallen into the clutches of Crosbie. As he thought of this he declared to himself that if he could ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... our national existence that the beginnings of the English Navy are to be ascribed, and it was under this stubborn prince that English trade began to depend upon English bottoms. But the real explanation of Anglo-Saxon backwardness lies somewhat deeper. Foreign adventure and the planting of settlements must proceed, if they are to be successful, from an exuberant State; neither in resources, nor in population, nor, perhaps it must be added, in the spirit of adventure, was the England of King Henry VII. sufficiently equipped. ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... consideration of which need not have been postponed because the constitutional question still remained in dispute. Therefore, though I seem to throw upon the Nationalist party the chief blame for our present political backwardness, and, so far as politics affect other spheres of national activity, for our industrial depression, candour compels me to admit that Irish Unionism has failed to recognise its obligation—an obligation recognised by the Unionist ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... the child will be glad to know me?" asked the minister, somewhat uneasily. "I have long shrunk from children, because they often show a distrust—a backwardness to be familiar with me. I have even been afraid of ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... large number of monasteries and churches is always a sign of the backwardness of a people," said Napoleon, turning to Caulaincourt for ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... by openly and unreservedly placing itself at the head of the uprising. In any other country than Russia that would have been done, in all probability, but the Russian bourgeoisie was weak. This was due, like so much else in Russia, to the backwardness of the industrial system. There was not a strong middle class and, therefore, the bourgeoisie left the fighting to the working class. Rodzianko's new appeal to the Czar was pathetic. When hundreds of dead and dying lay in the streets ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... was only nine; their output consisted of phosphates, with a small amount of zinc and tin. Brandy, leather and cork goods, and coarse woollen stuffs are manufactured in many of the towns, but the backwardness of education, the lack of good roads, and the general poverty retard the development of commerce. The more northerly of the two Madrid-Lisbon railways enters the province on the east; passes south of Plasencia, where it is joined by the railway from ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... our time in staring at the nonsense and ignorance of the Pagans?"—"Why, truly," said I, "my friend, I think it is, and I begin to be a convert to the principles of merchandising; but I must tell you, by the way, you do not know what I am doing; for if I once conquer my backwardness, and embark heartily, old as I am, I shall harass you up and down the world till I tire you; for I shall pursue it so eagerly, I shall never let ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... "but you have said something that awakens all my interest. Does this indolence actually, naturally, exist among the natives or is there some truth in what a foreign traveler says: that with this indolence we excuse our own, as well as our backwardness and our colonial system. He referred to other colonies whose inhabitants belong to the ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... that time already employed in large numbers in the Company's services, but only in subordinate posts, for which in most cases their educational backwardness alone fitted them, and only as an act of grace on the part of their British rulers. Parliament had recognised the right of the Indian people to expect from us the benefits of good and honest government—perhaps as a duty which we owed to ourselves as much as to them—but it had not yet risen to ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... yoke of outward conformity hath left a slavish print upon our necks; the ghost of a linen decency yet haunts us. We stumble and are impatient at the least dividing of one visible congregation from another, though it be not in fundamentals; and through our forwardness to suppress, and our backwardness to recover any enthralled piece of truth out of the gripe of custom, we care not to keep truth separated from truth, which is the fiercest rent and disunion of all. We do not see that, while we still affect by all means a rigid external formality, we may as soon fall ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... grindstone, there was a prodigious stir and motion in all the hearts and pulses of Scotland, and no where in a more vehement degree than in Gudetown. But, for some reason or an other which I could never dive into the bottom of, there was a slackness or backwardness on the part of government in sending instructions to the magistrates to step forward; in so much that the people grew terrified that they would be conquered, without having even an opportunity to defend, as their fathers did of old, the hallowed things of their native land; and, under the ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... of modern mathematics, Sir Henry Savile and the Bushman are both woefully backward; and in both cases the backwardness is not a matter of mental incapacity, but of the state ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... royal-mast-head down. The vessel was then rolling a little, and I had taken no food for three days, so that I felt tempted to tell him that I had rather wait till after breakfast; but I knew that I must "take the bull by the horns,'' and that if I showed any sign of want of spirit or backwardness, I should be ruined at once. So I took my bucket of grease and climbed up to the royal-mast-head. Here the rocking of the vessel, which increases the higher you go from the foot of the mast, which is the fulcrum ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... end of a period of 120 years, and that at the time of the fall of the Persian Empire there had indeed been one intercalation during their sojourn in Khorassan, but once they were in India this usage had been abandoned; hence the backwardness by one month from the computation of the Kadmis. The latter declared on the other hand that the intercalation was forbidden in the Zoroastrian calendar, that it was only meant for political emergencies, and that this mode of calculation had ...
— Les Parsis • D. Menant
... which causes one to mourn for the backwardness of this country, here is the bright jewel in her crown. China is, as far as I know, the only nation which has advanced beyond the so-called heroic age when the soldier claims precedence. England and America must be content to ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... arouses my interest. Is this indolence an inherent characteristic of the native, or is it true, as a foreign traveller has said in speaking of a country whose inhabitants are of the same race as these, that this indolence is only a fabrication to excuse our own laziness, our backwardness and the faults of ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... on. At that juncture, subsequently, when he was in a state of hesitancy as to entering the holy ministry, and his father had encouraged the idea of delay, his mother said, "The sooner you are a deacon the better"—and broke the spell of what might have been a fatal backwardness. On that evening, at Aldersgate Street, 24th May, 1738, so memorable in the spiritual history of Methodism, when John Wesley stood up in his newly-found fulness of the assurance of grace, and encountered much sharp ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... not till the close of this mournful tragedy that backwardness, rather than impatience, to adopt the perilous and only means of escape that offered, became generally discernible on the part of the unhappy remnant still on board, and that made it not only imperative on Captain Cobb to reiterate his ...
— The Loss of the Kent, East Indiaman, in the Bay of Biscay - Narrated in a Letter to a Friend • Duncan McGregor
... that, notwithstanding his sympathy with Satan, he almost invariably sided with his master, in regard of any angry reflection or seditious movement, and even when unjustly punished himself, the occasional result of a certain backwardness in self-defence, never showed any resentment—a most improbable statement, I admit, but nevertheless true—and I think the rest of his character may be left to the gradual ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... up, and then to buy a new house and refurnish, &c.—so that artificial means for stopping inventions will be adopted; and partly by the fact that though all inventions breed in geometrical ratio, yet some multiply more rapidly than others, and the backwardness of one art will impede the forwardness of another. At any rate, so far as I can see, the present is about the only comfortable time for a man to live in, that either ever has been or ever will be. The past was too slow, and the future will be ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... of those who were looked upon as higher and wiser. The meeting was appointed, and but few came. I felt much backwardness, and as though I could not pray, but a pressure upon me to arise and express myself by way of exhortation. After hesitating for some time whether I would take up the cross or no, I arose, and after expressing ...
— Memoir of Old Elizabeth, A Coloured Woman • Anonymous
... of very civil proverbs, truly. 'Tis hard to tell whether the lady or Mr Tattle be the more obliged to you. For you found her virtue upon the backwardness of the men; and his secrecy upon the mistrust of ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... Englishman comes to-day to the Marquesans and is amazed to find the men tattooed; polite Italians came not long ago to England and found our fathers stained with woad; and when I paid the return visit as a little boy, I was highly diverted with the backwardness of Italy: so insecure, so much a matter of the day and hour, is the pre-eminence of race. It was so that I hit upon a means of communication which I recommend to travellers. When I desired any detail of savage custom, or of superstitious belief, I cast back in the story ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... accelerating economic growth by exploiting its potential in hydropower and tourism, areas of recent foreign investment interest. Prospects for foreign trade or investment in other sectors will remain poor, however, because of the small size of the economy, its technological backwardness, its remoteness, its landlocked geographic location, and its susceptibility to natural disaster. The international community's role of funding more than 60% of Nepal's development budget and more than 28% of total budgetary expenditures will likely continue ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... father's presence till he was old enough to be a soldier. When the call to arms went out, every man of the required age was expected at the muster, and the last comer was tortured to death in the presence of his comrades as a lesson against backwardness. ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... thoughts they were suitable to his state and services. On February 8, 1668, we find him writing to Evelyn, his mind bitterly occupied with the late Dutch war, and some thoughts of the different story of the repulse of the Great Armada: "Sir, you will not wonder at the backwardness of my thanks for the present you made me, so many days since, of the Prospect of the Medway, while the Hollander rode master in it, when I have told you that the sight of it hath led me to such reflections on my particular interest, by my employment, in the reproach ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... possible, and proceed up to them.... After taking the Doctors directions in regard to my people ... I set out for my quarters about 12 oclock, time enough to go over them and found every thing in the utmost confusion, disorder and backwardness.... Got Blankets and every other requisite from Winchester, and settl'd things on the best footing I cou'd, ... Val Crawford agreeing if any of those at the upper quarter got it, to have them remov'd into my room and ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... State, or the State being subject to the Church. Here (as we used to see in the papal domains) the Church is the State, and the State the Church. They both are one. And in this we have another cause of the backwardness and depression of Mohammedan society. Since the abolition of the temporal power in Italy we have nowhere in Christian lands any such theocratic union of Caesar and the Church, so that secular and religious advance is left more or less unhampered; whereas in Islam the hierarchico-political ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir
... American dollars) in circulation in different countries is far from being a true index of their industrial development or of their commercial activity. Indeed, beyond a certain point the larger average amount of money in circulation in a country may indicate backwardness in the development of banks and other credit agencies rather than greater amount of wealth or of business. Notice, for example, the medium position of the great commercial countries, Germany and the United Kingdom, ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... their prayers alone; and it was with some difficulty they were constrained to desist from an opposition, which in them who had been the chief promoters of those pious enterprises, appeared with the worst grace imaginable [o]. This backwardness of the clergy is perhaps a symptom, that the enthusiastic ardour which had at first seized the people for crusades, was now by time and ill success considerably abated; and that the frenzy was chiefly supported by the military genius ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... extremely small, and all practically independent of the feeble German kings. [37] This weakness of the central power condemned Germany to a minor part in the affairs of Europe, as late as the nineteenth century. Yet Germany found some compensation for political backwardness in the splendid city life which it developed during the later Middle Ages. The German cities, together with those of Italy and other European lands, now ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... for her security: this Sir R. Ford tells us: And it is too plain a truth, that both here and at Chatham the ships that we have sunk have many, and the first of them, been ships completely fitted for fire-ships at great charge. But most strange the backwardness and disorder of all people, especially the King's people in pay, to do any work, Sir W. Pen tells me, all crying out for money; and it was so at Chatham, that this night comes an order from Sir W. Coventry to stop the pay of the wages of that ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... conduct while I remain ignorant of them, nor can I imagine it to be my duty, or the expectation of Congress, that I should blindly fall into the sentiments of any man, especially when I think this backwardness to give proper support to our cause at the Courts of Europe, may be accounted for on other principles. That it does actually exist, I can now no longer doubt. However, Congress will make up their own judgment upon this point from the letters ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... also a corresponding backwardness. The nominal district of Woodhall Spa consisted of outlying portions of the parishes of Woodhall, Langton, Thornton and Thimbleby, these villages themselves being distant from four and a half to seven miles. A person standing in the centre of the cross-roads, ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... Went she in anger! I will follow her,— No, I will not! Heigho! I love my cousin! O would that she loved me! Why did she taunt me With backwardness in love? What could she mean? Sees she I love her, and so laughs at me, Because I lack the front to woo her? Nay, I'll woo her then! Her lips shall be in danger, When next she trusts them near me! Looked she at me To-day as never did she look before! ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles
... administrative titles, converted whole provinces into family estates and claimed over their tenants the divine right of unlimited and irresponsible sovereignty. To investigate all the reasons for the political backwardness of these eastern peoples would carry us far afield. But one reason lies on the surface. Outside the free towns they had produced no middle class; and their towns were neither numerous nor wealthy enough to be important in national ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... 6.-Backwardness of the season. Marriages. Masquerades. New establishment at Almack's. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... on all sides so much more swiftly for the genius than for the rest of us, led to a result often to be noted in the childhood of exceptional men: a combination of backwardness and precocity. Gilbert Chesterton was in some ways a very backward child. He did not talk much before three. He learnt to read ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... way, but I think correctly, I have thrown the chief burden of backwardness in school, or retardation, upon physical defects. But our special topic is eye trouble. How much of this burden must be referred to this specific source? It is difficult to say exactly. But knowing as we do the great prevalence of eye defects among school children, from 20% to 71%, ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... respecting it have been, instead of a thousand arguments. From an apprehension, probably, of the uncourtierliness of their temper, and their inflexible attachment to a system; it seems to appear by those events, that the sovereign had contracted a sort of backwardness to admit them into his councils, which it is to be hoped, was only temporary. It was however such, as, without any other apparent cause to cooperate with it, alone sufficed to delay the forming an administration for six weeks, in a most delicate and critical juncture. ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... his faith was as perfectly orthodox as St Paul's himself."—"I wish you success," says the bookseller, "but must beg to be excused, as my hands are so very full at present; and, indeed, I am afraid you will find a backwardness in the trade to engage in a book which the clergy would be certain to cry down."—"God forbid," says Adams, "any books should be propagated which the clergy would cry down; but if you mean by the clergy, ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... fields, their great courage, and their self-governing communes, are quite cut off from what is called (in the fashionable street in Frankfort) The True, The Beautiful and The Good. There is a real sense in which one can call such backwardness barbaric, by comparison with the Kaiserstrasse; and in that sense it ...
— The Barbarism of Berlin • G. K. Chesterton
... explanation had taken place between-them, however. Jane knew, both by her own feelings and by all the legends of love from its earliest days, that the moment of parting was generally a crisis in affairs of the heart, and, with a backwardness occasioned by her modesty, had rather avoided than sought an opportunity to favor the colonel's wishes. Egerton had no been over anxious to come to the point, and everything was left as heretofore: neither, however, appeared to doubt in the least the state of the other's' affections; and ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... performance, had not the boy's mother that week visited her home and there, in the presence of other people, talked considerably about her boy's progress in school, his rapid advance as compared with that of our little dreamer, her relative stupidity and backwardness. And so this boy's mother had continued for some time in the same strain. This caused our little girl to feel much embarrassed—in fact, ashamed and mortified. She had felt that way for several days past, it had made her cry, had made her feel miserable and unhappy; so much so ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... There ensued a discouraging condition of industry. The white officials sent out in these days were arbitrary and corrupt. Little was done for the mass of the people and there was outrageous over-taxation. Nevertheless the backwardness of the colony was attributed to the Negro. Governor Eyre complained in 1865 that the young and strong were good for nothing and were filling the jails; but a simultaneous report by a missionary told the truth concerning the officials. This aroused the colored people, and a mulatto, ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... that are important. A nation handicapped by its geography may have to start later in the field, and yet her performance may be relatively better than that of her more favored neighbors. It is astonishing to read German diatribes about Russian backwardness when one remembers that as recently as fifty years ago Austria and Prussia were living under a regime which can hardly be considered more enlightened than the present rule in Russia. The Italians in Lombardy and Venice have still a vivid recollection of Austrian jails; and, as for Prussian militarism, ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... long lived in a state of backwardness, have a sudden fit of cleanliness, in imitation of more advanced nations, they are apt to clean the outside walls only, and to leave all their accustomed filth hidden behind them. I mention these terrible ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified."[599] Who can describe that life? and who can sufficiently tell of the grace of Him who hath secured it to men? And who should not feel amazed at the backwardness of sinners to prepare for it—so free and beneficently offered? Truly the glory of God is great in his salvation! The redeemed through eternity will find the glad work of declaring that glory undone. Would that sinners now, by accepting of the great salvation, would ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham
... and backwardness of a child displeases its mother, but she does not for that reason love it less. On the contrary, she loves it more fondly, because she compassionates it. So, too, is it with God, who cannot, as I have said, love our imperfections and venial sins, but never ceases to love ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... emotions has been reduced to a fine art which neither of the great parties is ashamed to employ. Military ideals possess the mind, and military expenditure eats up the public resources. On the other side, the political economic and social progress of other nations reacts on our own. The backwardness of our commercial rivals in industrial legislation was long made an argument against further advances among ourselves. Conversely, when they go beyond us, as now they often do, we can learn from them. Physically the world ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse
... lose one of the most valued members of the Baptist church in this district. I speak with all the respect due to your position, when I ask you to realize how irreparable is the injury you inflict upon the cause here by this lukewarm backwardness.' ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... pursue its actions in leading to the strengthening of its economic and social cohesion. In particular, the Community shall aim at reducing the disparities between the levels of development of the various regions and the backwardness of the least-favoured regions, including rural areas. ARTICLE 130b Member States shall conduct their economic policies and shall co- ordinate them is such a way as, in addition, to attain the objectives ...
— The Treaty of the European Union, Maastricht Treaty, 7th February, 1992 • European Union
... In the backwardness of those Dark Ages—curiosity, fellow feeling, mass migration, the spirit of adventure, trade, travel and the need for common action to master nature and repel enemies—broke down barriers and created fields of ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... had been used to teach the little delicate son of the purse-proud lady, and that he had taken great interest in the little fellow both on account of his backwardness and ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... to be noted in this connection is that this shape of the head seems to bear no direct relation to intellectual power or intelligence. Posterior development of the cranium does not imply a corresponding backwardness in culture.... Europe offers the best refutation of the statement that the proportions of the head mean anything intellectual.... In our study of the proportions of the head, therefore, we are ...
— A Review of Hoffman's Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 1 • Kelly Miller
... the priests, for such I took them to be, came and sat down along with us, when we made them presents of such things as were about us. Having then made signs to them that we wanted to view the premises, my friend Attago immediately got up, and going with us, without showing the least backwardness, gave us full liberty to examine ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... the 'backwardness' of persons to appear in defence of Miss Monk's book. We promise to appear as often on the subject as you are willing to publish our communications. In one of the paragraphs you publish, our book is spoken of as one of ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... proposed to myself in going to Pernambuco I was soon put by that design through the refractoriness of some under me, and the discontents and backwardness of some of my men. For the calms and shiftings of winds which I met with, as I was to expect, in crossing the Line, made them who were unacquainted with these matters almost heartless as to the pursuit of the voyage, as thinking we should never be ...
— A Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... danger. One thing, at any rate, is evident: had an Irish mob threatened to burn down a Roman Catholic church, or a Roman Catholic orphan asylum, or threatened any of the institutions or property of the Roman Church, he would have shown no such backwardness or fear. The mob would have been confronted with the most terrible anathemas of the church, and those lawless bands quailed before the maledictions of the representative of "God's vicegerent on earth." It is unjust to suppose ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... The reason of the backwardness displayed from the commencement by Prussia to act as the bulwark of Germany on the Lower Rhine is explained by Stein in his letters: "Hanoverian jealousy, by which the narrow-minded Castlereagh was guided, and, generally speaking, jealousy of the German ministerial clauses, as if ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... number of which has just been laid on our table. When we mention that it is edited by Mr. Parker Pillsbury and Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, all the world will immediately know what to expect from it. Those two writers can never be accused of having nothing to say, or of backwardness in saying it. Each has separately long maintained a striking individuality of tongue and pen. Working together, they will produce a canvas of the Rembrandt school—Mrs. Stanton painting the high lights and Mr. Pillsbury the deep darks. In fact, ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... off his eyes; and had he list to do it, he could never set them on again. They said he covered his face, and wept like the child he nearhand was. Then he lifted his head, the tears over, and in his eyes was the light of a settled purpose, and in his lips a stern avisement. No latsummes [backwardness, reluctance] was in him ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... in the widow De Cusco's hotel, an establishment mounted, as they say now, not at the height, but at the depth of the superlative backwardness of the town. Lieutenant-colonel Pinzon visited him with frequency, in order that they might discuss together the plot which they had on hand, and for the successful conduct of which the soldier showed the happiest dispositions. ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... Mr. Hastings, depose (though not on oath) concerning a conversation between him and the said Hastings (but mentioning neither the time nor place where the same was held); in which conversation, after reciting the allegations of the said Hastings relative to several particulars of the delay and backwardness of the Rajah in paying the aforesaid extra demand, and his resolution to exact from the Rajah "a considerable sum of money to the relief of the Company's exigencies," he proceeds in the following words: ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... was of solid gold. As, however, we had no such treasure, and the meeting was unavoidable, and might be hostile, I put myself into a complete posture of defense, with a determination neither to show backwardness nor suspicion. The day arrived, and the pirates swept up the river; eighteen prahus, one following the other, decorated with flags and streamers, and firing both cannon and musketry; the sight was interesting and curious, ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... Hegelians," the "Tuebingen School," and finally Feuerbach himself are summoned from the grave to which the Revolution of 1848 had consigned them. Still, ancient history as these controversies are from the German standpoint, such is the backwardness of philosophy among English-speaking peoples, that we find Engels exposing again and again fallacies which persist even in our time, and ridiculing sentiments which we receive with approbation in our political assemblies, and with mute approval in ...
— Feuerbach: The roots of the socialist philosophy • Frederick Engels
... continue these notes as to the backwardness of portions of the country compared with its general level of culture, because I have dealt with the evidence elsewhere.[244] What I am anxious to point out here is that the faculty of such people as these to think, not in terms of modern science but in terms of their own psychological ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... Scots and this uncertainty and backwardness in the English must produce, it was not hard to foresee; and, therefore, that I might neglect nothing in my power to prevent any false measures—as I was conscious to myself that I had neglected ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... that the king needs a counterpart in such a wife, he being impulsively generous; he blames his daughter for her backwardness in not coming to town with Ulysses, whereat the latter frames one of his smallest fibs in excuse of the maiden. Still further, the king in a surprising burst of admiration, wishes that Ulysses, or "such an one as thou art," might stay and be called his ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... with archbishop Parker, whom he highly offended by his backwardness in proceeding to extremities against the puritans, a sect many of whose scruples Grindal himself had formerly entertained, and was still inclined to view with respect or pity rather than with indignation. ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... for it walks with him from end to end of the street. He is your only performer that requires not many entreaties for a song; for he will chant, without asking, to a street cur, or a parish post. His only backwardness is to a stave after dinner, seeing that he never dines; for he sings for bread, and though corn has ears, sings very commonly in vain. As for his country, he is an Englishman, that by his birthright may sing whether he can or not. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 285, December 1, 1827 • Various
... various economic blockades and may permanently take over large areas populated by fellow ethnic groups. These areas contain most of the industry. If a much smaller core Muslim state survives, it will share many Third World problems of poverty, technological backwardness, and dependence on historically soft foreign markets for its primary products. In these circumstances, other Muslim countries might offer assistance. GDP: $14 billion; real growth rate —37% (1991) Inflation rate (consumer prices): 80% per month (1991) Unemployment rate: 28% ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... were little better than vanquished men." This account made the consul judge it necessary to go himself among the soldiers, and speak to them; and, as he came up to each, he rebuked them for their backwardness in taking arms, asking, "Why they loitered, and declined the fight? If they did not choose to go out of the camp, the enemy would come into it; and they must fight in defence of their tents, if they would not in defence of the rampart. ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... I was very ready at forming an acquaintance with these fine ladies, and the company that attended them; but travelling the same road, lodging at the same inns, and being obliged to eat at the same table, the acquaintance seemed unavoidable, as any backwardness on my part would have got me the character of a very unsociable being: it was formed then, and even sooner than I desired, for all this bustle was by no means convenient to a person in ill health, particularly to one of my humor. Curiosity renders these vixens extremely insinuating; they accomplish ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... voluntarily, when such good pay and reasonable terms are offered to you, your loyalty will be strongly suspected. The king's business must be done; so many brave troops, come so far for your defense, must not stand idle through your backwardness to do what may be reasonably expected from you; waggons and horses must be had; violent measures will probably be used, and you will be left to seek for a recompense where you can find it, and your case, perhaps, be little pitied ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... think the child will be glad to know me?" asked the minister, somewhat uneasily. "I have long shrunk from children, because they often show a distrust,—a backwardness to be familiar with me. I have even been afraid of ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and she deserves it better. Of all Shakespeare's women she is perhaps the most tender and the most artless. Her incredulity in the opening scene with Iachimo, as to her husband's infidelity, is much the same as Desdemona's backwardness to believe Othello's jealousy. Her answer to the most distressing part of the picture is only, 'My lord, I fear, has forgot Britain.' Her readiness to pardon Iachimo's false imputations and his designs against herself, is a good lesson to prudes; and may ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... better classes and voted the Democratic ticket almost to a man, Jefferson proposed that the period of residence required by the naturalization laws to qualify a voter should be shortened. He had no objection to coercion before 1787. Speaking of the backwardness of some of the colonies in paying their quota of the Confederate expenses, he recommends sending a frigate to make them more punctual. 'The States must see the rod, perhaps some of them must be made to feel it.' His somersets ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... was a greater danger to those who hold that beauty is a menace to salvation; on her cheek hung the rosy banner of youth; in her eyes shone the bright arrows of conquest. And the duke, discarding his backwardness, as a soldier his cloak before battle, watched the hue that mantled her face, proffered his open breast to the shining lances of her gaze, and capitulated unconditionally before the smile of victory on her blood-red lips. With his great shoulders, his massive neck ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... he had been brought over into this country by William the Conqueror.[251] (A character, by the bye, who, however completely hollow were his claims to the crown of England, can never be reproached with a backwardness in promoting learned men to the several great offices ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... their dread of the effects of our arms was the principal cause of their backwardness in attacking us; and, indeed, the confidence we appeared to place in this advantage, by opposing only five marines to their whole force, must have raised in them a very high idea of our superiority. It was our business to keep up this opinion as much as possible; and in justice to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... to drive you, Miss Rolleston?" asked she, suspecting, from his backwardness in coming forward, that the object of her ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... despite the warm official encouragement given to it, make such relatively meager progress? There are several reasons for its backwardness. The long winters, which developed in the habitant an inveterate disposition to idleness, afford the clue to one of them. A general aversion to unremitting manual toil was one of the colony's besetting sins. Notwithstanding the small per capita acreage, accordingly, there was a continual complaint ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... me begging subscriptions for a monument for him. I would not deign to write an answer; but sent down word by my footman, as I would have done to parish officers, with a brief, that I would not subscribe.' Horace Walpole's Letters, ix. 319. In Malone's correspondence are complaints of the backwardness of the members of the Literary Club 'to pay the amounts nominally subscribed by them.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... while the boatman is pushing and picking up. The sport continues till an hour or two after high-water, when the shallowness of the water, and the strength and weight of the floating reeds, and also the backwardness of the game to spring as the tide decreases, oblige them to return. Several boats are sometimes within a short distance of each other, and perpetual cracking of musketry prevails along the whole reedy shores of the river. In these excursions it is not ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... Then Dale and his room-mates were so friendly and jolly that if his captivity had not meant the disgrace of the freshman class, Ken would have rejoiced in it. He began to thaw out, though he did not lose his backwardness. The life of the great university began to be real to him. Almost the whole sophomore class, in squads of twos and threes and sixes, visited Dale's rooms during that week. No Soph wanted to miss a sight of a captive bowl-man. Ken felt so callow and fresh in their presence that he scarcely responded ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... attentions. Sir William, however, misapprehended her gentle signalling, and from excellent, though mistaken motives of delicacy, delayed to intrude himself upon her for a long time. Meanwhile Sir John, now created a baronet, was unremitting, and she began to grow somewhat piqued at the backwardness of him she secretly ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... the Company in their Indian settlements, and to reform abuses, returned for answer, That, "however low and inadequate their finances might be to admit of extraordinary expences, yet they deemed it expedient not to shew any backwardness in adopting similar measures to those pursued by other Europeans trading to China; and that they had, accordingly, nominated Mr. Titsingh as chief, and himself (Mr. Van Braam) as second Embassador ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... of the sky; and the relief, the renewed loveliness of life, when all is over, the sun forth again, and our out-fought enemy only a blot upon the leeward sea. I love to recall, and would that I could reproduce that life, the unforgettable, the unrememberable. The memory, which shows so wise a backwardness in registering pain, is besides an imperfect recorder of extended pleasures; and a long-continued well-being escapes (as it were, by its mass) our petty methods of commemoration. On a part of our life's map there lies a roseate, undecipherable ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... science collects and combines the very elements themselves, either to purposes of destruction or towards the progress, improvement, and almost perfection of human nature. The Canadian could only reason from his own experience, and that was so exceedingly limited, that his backwardness in enterprise is less to be wondered at than the eagerness with which he copies the enterprise of others. The Canadian, like the native of old France, is a thinking animal. He is ever doubting, ever mistrustful. In spiritual ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... had certainly neither of these qualifications, and he it was whom Pitt designed to act the leading part in the coming year, "a greater part," he modestly wrote after receiving his appointment, "than I wished or desired. The backwardness of some of the older officers has in some measure forced the Government to come down so low. I shall do my best and leave the rest to fortune, as perforce we must when there are not the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... I can only say I think, the results in my own case were marvellously good, and that I was saved from worse by my own innocence and by the physical backwardness which nature, probably in mercy, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis |
