Full twenty-four inches they measure from the beak to the tip of the single pen that protracts them a foot beyond their real bulk; but it is said their tempers are shorter than they, and they attack fiercely anything they suspect of too intimate a curiosity concerning their nests.
"Short Stories and Essays From "Literature and Life""
William Dean Howells
This diversion is clearly inadequate and futile, if it does not actually defeat its own ends; for it merely protracts and postpones a solution, and perhaps even aggravates difficulties.
"The Jewish State"
Theodor Herzl Commentator: Louis Lipsky Alex Bein
But Mr. Seward sustained a policy of delays and not of blows; the struggle protracts, and, for reasons repeatedly mentioned, the suppression of rebellion becomes more and more difficult, and the reconstruction of the old Union as it was a mirage of his imagination.
"Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862"
Adam Gurowski