Drive

“ Drive, a term used by tradesmen in speaking of business; “he’s DRIVING a roaring trade,” i.e., a very good one; hence, to succeed in a bargain, “I DROVE a good bargain,” i.e., got the best end of it. To “LET DRIVE at one,” to strike out. A man snoring hard is said to be “DRIVING his pigs to market.”
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Drive at, to aim at; “what is he DRIVING AT?” “what does he intend to imply?” a phrase often used when a circuitous line of argument is adopted by a barrister, or a strange set of questions asked, the purport of which is not very evident. ”

“ These words are pronounced alike and modern American practise favors the spelling of draft for both.
drive: Critics have seen fit to cavil at the distinction between drive and ride, objecting that the coachman drives the lady, and asking whether traveling by train or trolley-car is a ride or drive. The popular idea is that one rides in a public conveyance but drives when in a private carriage. As a matter of convenience, however, the old-time distinction so far as it concerns riding on horseback and driving in a carriage is good, and in no way encroaches on the question of travel submitted. ”

“ But the chief attraction in the afternoon is the drive along its great carriage roads, to view the numerous equipages of every nationality and description that frequent them. It is really an interesting study to view the solid old establishments of English residents, with driver and footmen, the young English bloods driving those heavily-timbered vehicles of theirs, which they seem to have invented for the purpose of taking their valets out to ride, and showing the neatness of their livery, the length of their whips, and the points of the horse attached to the clumsy gundalow. ”

“ Perhaps in endeavouring to initiate the beginner into the art and apparent mystery of controlling and driving a motor-car, it would be as well to start from the beginning. We will assume that the car has arrived home and everything is ready to set off for the first drive. ”

“ On horseback one does drive, and in a vehicle one does ride, but a distinction is needed here, as in England; so, here as there, we may profitably make it, riding in the saddle and driving in the carriage. ”

“ Better abjure the motor, though—it is a brute—and, waiting until it and its smell are past, hire a couple of horses at the hotel and drive up the mountain far enough in its wake to be able to forget it. ”

“ You have got an expert driver this time, who has driven ten thousand miles, and was never known to upset; can drive six in hand on the edge of a precipice, and touch the leaders anywhere with his snapper. ”

“ You make a point of taking your drive every day so that in a month’s time you will have had the full benefit of the fresh air; you have hesitated over which cloak you will take, which cabman to call, you are in the cab, the whole day lies before you, short because you have to be at home early, as a friend is coming to see you ”

“ Starting for a Drive.—There are many points which require to be thought over when starting for a drive, so as to make sure that everything is in order and that the necessary spare parts are carried. Although it seems a formidable list, it is curious how very quickly one gets used to running mentally over all these items, and after a time never forgetting anything. ”

“ For household purposes, if you live at a distance from your country town, you will find a motor car of great use for parcels, for sending away your game, and for bringing your supplies; and let me also mention that your servants, should you care to give them a day's outing in the summer, will enjoy a motor-car drive and a picnic in the woods with a zest which they never knew in th days of the horse-drawn vehicle. ”

“ I drive her one day, and have her jogged quietly the next. When I do drive her, I jog her for two or three miles to warm her up, then speed her a mile or two, and then take her home. She covers perhaps six or seven miles in an entire day's work. ”

“ On the main roads one finds the carts fitted with something in the way of springs; but upon roads such as it was our fortune to be driven on, often badly in need of repairs, they were usually much behind the times, and it was a wonderful and awful sensation to drive for untold hours under such conditions. ”

“ The most skillful driving did not prove skillful enough to guide the staggering oxen through the way provided by the road-makers; and the constant tendency of a forward wheel to run up a tree, on one side or the other, was very trying to the drivers. ”

“ Each year brings a growing number of machines which help us work but which require educated people to run them. When there were only wagons and horses, the driver knew enough, if he could properly grease the wagon, tie the traces, and drive the horses. ”

“ When this stage is reached, it will be found very much better to take four or five drives of ten miles each, with half an hour or an hour's stoppage between, rather than one continuous drive of forty or fifty miles. ”

“ Self-tuition In driving Continued—The initial trip—Charging tanks—Starting the engine—Manipulating the control—Correct mixture—Changing gear—On the top speed—Withdrawing the clutch—Coasting slopes—Picking up the Drive—Driving on the reverse—Entering and leaving the garage—After the drive—Road risks. ”

“ In passing such a light the eyes should be kept on the road and shielded, if possible, from the glare of the other machine. The precaution of driving slowly under such circumstances goes without saying.
Unlighted Vehicles. —Unlighted, horse-drawn vehicles, bicycles, and animals driven or walking in the street frequently give the automobile driver palpitation of the heart. ”

“ On account of the night driving we have lately put two men on each car, a driver and an orderly who just goes back and forth between the posts. Five cars are out every day and eight drivers. Three cars begin at the posts and two wait in the woods. As a car comes in from a post, another is sent out from the woods and this driver takes with him the orderly who has just come in, as only one man is necessary to make the trip from the woods to the hospital. ”

“ The long-drawn rural road I refer to, stretching over hill and dale and to which I devoted the whole of the longest day of the year—I was in a small single-horse conveyance, of which I had already made appreciative use, and with a driver as disposed as myself ever to sacrifice speed to contemplation—is doubtless familiar now with the rush of the motor-car ”

“ Scene opens and discovers street-car driving furiously along, drawn by two chestnut acquaintances. Conductor and driver represented by two small boys. Car composed of lounge, clothes-horse, and two chairs, judiciously arranged and draped; wheels of band box-lids or circular tea-trays. Noise of car simulated by confederates outside shaking sleigh-bells or hand-bells, and drumming on door with fingers and hand; also rattling on floor with feet. [Pg 285]
Enter some passengers, running and hailing car. ”

“ Autos are everywhere these days. You cannot take a country ride without seeing many signboards at the farm entrances advertising chickens, fresh eggs, vegetables, honey, apples and canned goods. I have a friend who drives 50 miles every fall for her honey. ”

“ What is required in the driver besides the general knowledge of the machinery is a knowledge of the customs and courtesies of the road and the habits of traffic, the possession of the qualities of alertness, foresight, and consideration for others. ”

“ Even if we suppose that the carriage is not broken up and its occupants killed, yet they are all in a violent [Pg 40] state of excitement; those fronting the engine are driven with force against their opposite neighbours, and are, no doubt, as forcibly repelled, each one taking care of himself in the general scramble. ”

“ The mounds and valleys of the way provide an unbroken succession of surprises to which the car responds by lurching and dipping wildly, although the dexterity of the driver keeps it staggering upon its four wheels. ”

“ I am fond of rapid driving, but sometimes it made me rather nervous to dash at the rate of eight miles an hour, within two feet of a precipice down which we looked upon the tops of trees a thousand feet below. There is, however, very little danger, as where the descent is steep, the driver can, in a moment, by putting his foot upon a spring at his side, cramp the wheel, and check our speed. ”

“ And indeed what does the price matter, if the trick be well done? You do your tricks very well. And I didn't do badly either, since I managed not to sink that steamboat on my first trip. It's a wonder to me yet. Imagine a blindfolded man set to drive a van over a bad road. ”

“ The drivers, however, stick to their stories, and they tell them to you with the evident conviction that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your sceptical philosophy. Anyhow, it is a relief to think that the motors have not driven away 107the supernatural from the roads. ”

“ The short drives at the beginning of the course of instruction were intended gradually to accustom the novice to the speed, and of giving him in the pauses an opportunity to fix well in his mind the principles of the automobile. ”

“ Our vehicle is simply a wooden tray on wheels, with a bag of hay in it, on which we do our best to recline, while our driver perches himself on the edge of the cart, thereby doubtless realizing vividly the sensation of rowing hard in a pair of thin unmentionables. ”

“ Some of them also are so contrived that the machinery is put in motion by the revolution of the wheels of the carriage on which they are placed; and others, and perhaps the greater part of those used, are driven by horses or men, after the wheels of the carriage are sunk in the ground, or fastened in some other manner. ”

“ Occasionally we pass a small cart or wagon drawn by dogs, the driver a young girl who is comfortably seated in the vehicle, now and then administering to the animals, by means of a short stick, reminders not to lag on the way. ”

“ The streets all around are choked up with carriages, hacks, omnibuses, wagons, and all sorts of wheeled things, in which drivers sit, on the sharp watch, and ladies and girls wait for their men folks to get in and be drove away. ”

“ The driver and conductor on top were still, too, or only spoke at long intervals, in low tones, as is the way of men in the midst of invisible dangers. We listened to rain-drops pattering on the roof; and the grinding of the wheels through the muddy gravel; and the low wailing of the wind; and all the time we had that absurd sense upon us, inseparable from travel at night in a close-curtained vehicle, the sense of remaining perfectly still in one place, notwithstanding the jolting and swaying of the vehicle, the trampling of the horses, and the grinding of the wheels. ”

“ What would be the state of the highways of life, if we did not drive our THOUGHT-SPRINKLERS through them with the valves open, sometimes? ”

“ As my driver prophesied when I was ploughing, they warmed me twice, once while I was splitting them, and again when they were on the fire, so that no fuel could give out more heat. ”

“ I am in the carriage next the engine, and as I lie full length in the darkened empty carriage I look out on snow-patched fields and hills, now partly obscured by wild volumes of vapour, now fierily illumined by the glow of the furnace, the black sky raining showers of red sparks on to the vague night landscape, the engine racing forward past signal-boxes and stations, clattering along the changing points of the rails of junctions, knowing apparently that all signals are for, never anticipating any hindrance, skirling and leaping in the exuberance of accomplishment. ”

“ I staggered out-of-doors again, and fell into the car, whose ever-running machinery masked my yelps and hiccups. When I raised my forehead from the wheel, I saw that traffic through the village had been resumed, after, as my watch showed, one and one-half hour's suspension. There were two limousines, one landau, one doctor's car, three touring-cars, one patent steam-laundry van, three tricars, one traction-engine, some motor-cycles, one with a side-car, and one brewery lorry. ”

“ Bill brought the little car to a stop.
Well I know that sort of sand! You plunge rashly into it on low gear; you buzz bravely for possibly fifty feet; you slow down, slow down; your driving wheels begin to spin—that finishes you. Every revolution digs a deeper hole. ”

“ A motor—going, I knew, at sixty miles an hour—moved along a distant highway. I could see every spoke of the lazily-turning wheels. I found that my eyesight had been so intensified that I could read the number of the car and distinguish a patch upon its tire.
In place of the noisome stenches of the night before, however, I breathed the pungent odors of the fields and herbs, and this afforded me the only relief that I experienced throughout this awful period of time, for my clothes still seemed heavy as chain mail and my shirt chafed me as if made of horsehair. ”

“ These principles are common to all branches of the art of driving, whether of one, two or four horses. When they are observed no great difficulty confronts the coachman who is content with single or double harness, provided he has acquired the eye for pace and distance, and the instinctive realization of the length of the carriage behind him, without which he may suffer collision with other vehicles, or allow insufficient room in turning a corner or entering a gateway. ”

“ When driving on greasy roads it is always well to keep as far away as possible from any vehicle in front, whether it be a motor-car, a horse-drawn vehicle, or a cycle, as this allows plenty of time to pull up slowly and gradually. ”

“ The road is broad and smooth and level, and lies between low hedges, and has the straightness that the motorist loves; beyond the waving tamarisks a flat land of green and purple stretches away to the horizon; for the first time in many days the car speeds over the plain at the pace she loves best ”