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More "Idle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fears. He had been accustomed to rely upon no power but that of the sword, and to respect no authority but a military commission. To him the law was a subject of scorn, and the civil rights of citizens or subjects an idle tale. He looked upon his five thousand troops, with their arms and ammunition, and he saw there the only power be respected, or would condescend to use to maintain his government. Such principles led or drove him to a course of desperate violence, having then no parallel in any country pretending ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... room, with quiet, firm step, erect, stately, beautiful in her advanced years as she had been in her bloom and freshness, only with another kind of beauty—an empress among women. The boast that she had made to herself was no idle boast. At sixty-seven years of age her physical powers showed no signs of decay, her mental qualities were at their best and brightest. Long years of thought and study had ripened and widened her mind. She was a woman fit to be the friend and counsellor of statesmen, the companion and confidant of ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... found only along the coast or at a great depth. It has been brought here from a considerable distance. Indians may have done the work, but they never did it willingly. If they did it at all, it was as slaves. But we have no time for idle speculation. Let's walk along it and ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... though not possessed of equal resources, as the Massilians. On this account they received the consul, and his army, with kindness and cordiality. Cato staid there a few days, until he could learn what force the enemy had, and where they lay; and, not to be idle during even that short delay, he spent the whole time in exercising his men. It happened to be the season of the year when the Spaniards had the corn in their barns. He therefore ordered the purveyors ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... the cuckoo to the instinctive love of their offspring observable in almost all birds! After the eggs are laid the parent bird has no further trouble with them; no period of incubation to bare the breast of the brooding bird; no anxiety about her young ones, as some idle, wanton lad hunts amongst the trees and bushes, destroys both nest and eggs, or tortures the helpless fledglings! "But, papa," said Willy, "how does it happen that the young birds hatched in the same nest with the young cuckoo always get turned out of it." ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... of a variety of tabbies, a sort of thing by no means impossible among two hundred relations. Such affairs often spring from a grain of mustard seed, and by-and-by involve all the fowls of the air that roost in the branches. Idle tales circulated of a discussion among the ministers (visitors) which happened one evening over the pipes and three-star bottles, when the elder, taking down a celebrated volume of sermons, pointed out a passage almost ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... office was dropped or abolished in the first year of the present century, I believe, long after it ceased to be of use for most of its primary purposes. The area before the entry doors of the Buttery had become a sort of students' exchange for idle gossip, if nothing worse. The rooms were now redeemed from traffic, and devoted to places of study, and other provision was made for the records which had there been kept. The last person who held the office of Butler was Joseph Chickering, a graduate of 1799."—Memories ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... idle pastime is to apply letter-based Dissociated Press to a random body of text and {vgrep} the output in hopes of finding an interesting new word. (In the preceding example, 'window sysIWYG' and 'informash' show ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... Mrs. Clavering had a wonderful way with her pupils, a very stimulating way, and she so arranged her prizes and her certificates that no girl who had really worked, who had really taken pains, was excluded from distinction. It was only the hopelessly idle, the hopelessly disobedient, who could leave Cherry Court School without some token of its mistress's ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... "'T is idle to resist," persisted the hidden speaker. "The way is barred in both directions, and there ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... ignoble uses, and the urns which contained their ashes stuck up as ornaments in a painted room, where barbarian visitors lounge away their hours, and stare upon their relics with scornful indifference or idle curiosity! ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... the low settle beside the window and lighted his long pipe, puffing thoughtfully and gazing into the smoke as he spoke. "I would not have you repeat this, son, for it may be but idle gossip. But it is reported that since her mother's death the child has become the idol of the governor's hard, old heart. He is filled with foolish fears that he may lose her as cruelly as he lost her mother before her. He scarcely ever permits her to stir abroad ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... to me idle, Mr. Gregory. I know that I have to try very hard to do right, and I often fail. I do not believe that our very existence begins in a lie, as it were, for from earliest years conscience tells us that we needn't ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... there's rhythm, and a nice variety there is. The allegro has one stout tune, and the rush and dynamic glow lasts. He lasts, does Rubin Goldmark, and I could have heard the piece through twice. The young American composer has not been idle lately." ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... We went round to the back of the sleeping cottage, and found a little shed. On a bench in that shed a candle was burning in a ginger-beer bottle. By the candle was a structure meaningless to me, having nothing of which I could make a guess. It was fragmentary and idle, the building which a child makes of household utensils, naming it anything to its fancy. There were old jam-pots, brass door-knobs, squares of india-rubber, an electric bell, glass rods, cotton reels, and thin wires which ran up to ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... used it hard. In fact he made something of a special feature of it. It began to bring him emergency business. Wherever speed was a big essential, he secured the contract through my gang. He used us altogether for foundation work and his business increased so rapidly that we were never idle. I became proud of my men ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... of idle waiting Schiller was able to report that Dalberg had returned and was showing himself very friendly. The man was 'all fire,'—only it was gunpowder flame that would not last long. The genial intendant insisted that Schiller should by all means remain in Mannheim. 'Fiesco,' now ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... most debased form he has much more vigour and vivacity than the most debased of English operatives. He may be more immoral; but he is less brutish. If we are a little vain, and very fond of gaiety; and if we are improvident, we are not idle; and, with all our street fighting, we are not a discontented race. Except an Arab, who can be so happy as we know how to make ourselves, upon ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... only ill circumstance in his future. He had been idle for some eighteen months, superintending his new edition, hanging on to settle with the publisher, travelling in the Highlands with Willie Nichol, or philandering with Mrs. M'Lehose; and in this period the radical part of the man had suffered irremediable ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... time that I became a Catholic, of course I have no further history of my religious opinions to narrate. In saying this, I do not mean to say that my mind has been idle, or that I have given up thinking on theological subjects; but that I have had no variations to record, and have had no anxiety of heart whatever. I have been in perfect peace and contentment; I never have had one doubt. I was not conscious to myself, on my conversion, ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... in Muslin." Said an old shanachie to Synge on Inishere, when Synge had told him of a stock exchange trick, "Isn't it a great wonder to think that those men are as big rogues as ourselves?" It is idle to pretend that it is not true that, in some moods, all men the world over have sympathy for the rogue. Why do we read of Reynard the Fox with delight, and Robin Hood, and Uncle Remus, and not only in the days of our own infantile roguery, but as grown men and women? This ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... it you're saying, Stevie?" he merely opened his mouth, and squinted at his sister. At odd times he clenched his fists without apparent cause, and when discovered in solitude would be scowling at the wall, with the sheet of paper and the pencil given him for drawing circles lying blank and idle on the kitchen table. This was a change, but it was no improvement. Mrs Verloc including all these vagaries under the general definition of excitement, began to fear that Stevie was hearing more than was good for him of her husband's conversations with his ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... next day, which was Sunday, they remained at Nantucket; there is a pretty little church in the town, and Charlie, Harry, and Mr. Smith attended service there; the rest of the gentlemen preferring to idle away the morning in a ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... accomplished before the sight is taken. Next, take your sextant and test it for index error. This should be done regularly before each series of sights as it is impossible to tell what may have happened when the sextant is lying idle, except by the above test. Now, with your sextant, watch and notebook, go to the place from which you have decided to take your observations and, at the proper watch time, start taking your altitudes. ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper
... your idle assemblies, and conferences, otherwise, then in talke of matter, either aboue your Capacities, for hardnesse: or contrary to your ...
— The Mathematicall Praeface to Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara • John Dee
... "The idle rich," she said, smiling. "Yes, but you see you shouldn't have. When you saw me coming ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... Prussians 3,000" and the Field).] Preussen now lies at Apraxin's discretion. This bit of news too is on the road for Erfurt Country. Such a six weeks for the swift man, obliged to stand spell-bound,—idle posterity never will conceive it; ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... lust, conclude in perjuries; Beauty, and Youth, and Wealth, and Luxury, And sprightly Hope and short-enduring Joy, And Sorceries, to raise the infernal powers, And Sigils framed in planetary hours; Expense, and After-thought, and idle Care, And Doubts of motley hue, and dark Despair; Suspicions and fantastical Surmise, And Jealousy suffused, with jaundice in her eyes, Discolouring all she viewed, in tawny dressed, Down-looked, and with a cuckow on her ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... little recovered I had great trouble to keep off the men, who wished to ask him a thousand questions; but I would not allow him to be tormented by their idle curiosity, in a state of body and mind whose restoration evidently depended upon entire repose. Once, however, the lieutenant asked why he had come so far upon the ice in so ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... I found a score or more of idle artisans, banished by the on-sweeping tourists and completely forgotten by me in the excitement of the hour. Commanding them to fetch their files, saws, broad-axes and augurs, I led the way to the mighty doors that barred my entrance ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... deceive, if not fairly conditioned. As we have seen, it is claimed on excellent authority that the equivalent of 4,000 candles appeared in an arc by expending 40,000 foot pounds of energy at the generator, but with everyday conditions it is at present idle to expect such efficiency. Commercially we can give by our own system 3,000 candles for 40,000 foot pounds absorbed; this may be done for an indefinite length of time and leave nothing to be desired on the score of steadiness. Unfortunately there is no unit of photometric measurement ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 315, January 14, 1882 • Various
... yacht in its cleanness and order, and in these respects vied with the men-of-war that he had so often watched from the heights of Dover. He had, however, but little time for admiration; for he was kept at work rubbing and polishing the guns and brass-work, and was not idle for a minute from the time he came on deck dressed as a cabin-boy on the morning after he was picked up until sunset. There were two French boys about his own age forward, and as soon as his work was done and the evening ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... of Health throughout the country, hear it! Then you will be able to judge how exceedingly frivolous the idle opinions and reports are which you have obtruded so industriously upon ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... a strange way. I have never seen her either weep, or smile, or work, or read, since that terrible day. I must take back part of that. She does smile, as she sits idle, playing with her fingers,—smiles and moves her lips like—But I cannot bear to write what she is like. I will never believe it. She was in a state of excitement, and this blow has staggered her. But she will recover. God will not deal with us ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... celebrated the feasts of the Roman Goddes Flora, or the beasly practieses of the madd Bacchinalians. Morton likewise (to shew his poetrie) composed sundry rimes & verses, some tending to lasciviousnes, and others to the detraction & scandall of some persons, which he affixed to this idle or idoll May-polle. They chainged allso the name of their place, and in stead of calling it Mounte Wollaston, they call it Merie-mounte, as if this joylity would ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... a hearty laugh, "I respect myself more for having never once got the best mark for an exercise than I should do if I had got it every time it could be got. I am glad nothing could make me do Latin and Greek verses; I am glad Skinner could never get any moral influence over me; I am glad I was idle at school, and I am glad my father overtasked me as a boy—otherwise, likely enough I should have acquiesced in the swindle, and might have written as good a copy of Alcaics about the dogs of the monks of St ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... haunts me! I can't explain to you why, but I feel there is something we haven't discovered yet,—something we ought to know. It isn't just 'idle curiosity' as Professor Marlow would call it! I never knew or heard of anything that went so—so deep in me as this thing has. That poor, loving, proud mother, and her terrible misunderstanding with her splendid son!— He was right, ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... the persecuted merchant of Bourges, the lost Agnes Sorel and the turbulent and revolted Dauphin; and had retired to his castle of pleasure at Mehun-sur-Yevre, where he could best conceal from prying eyes the idle occupations and degrading enjoyments which filled the time of the hero of other's swords. He had just concluded a peace with Savoy, and had rejected, as vexatious, the petitions of his subjects ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... said the maiden as she sat in the shade of the old apple tree. "I believe I have been dreaming. But this is too beautiful a day to idle it away. I will go and do something for some one to make others see its ...
— Fireside Stories for Girls in Their Teens • Margaret White Eggleston
... subjects to write about—there is something there for study. These fellows are good for nothing under any government. I will, however, give them pensions, because I ought to do so, as Head of the State. They occupy and amuse the idle. I will make Lagrange a ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... he whispered, "God hath surely found thee worthy to be one of His holy angels, so hast thou stooped from heaven to teach to me my duty. Thus now will I set by my idle grieving for thee, sweet saint, and strive to live thy worthy son—O dear my mother, ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... this to Pico when he returned a little later. He was quick to perceive the opportunity that offered, but far from sure that Pico would suffer his daughter to be used as a decoy; far, indeed, from sure that he dared himself so employ her. But on the morrow, chancing to look from a window out of idle curiosity to see what horse it was that was pacing in the street below, he beheld a man in a rich cloak, in whom at once he recognized the Duke, and he accounted that the dice of destiny ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... the same sickness years ago, and he's had a feelin' heart for the sufferers in this calamity. I tell you, elder, that he's good to everybody, and if he does not take hold to work in the way that father does, his head and heart are never idle. I am sorry that he and father do not see more alike. The boy is goin' to do well in ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... Jerusalem, too, the natives were sent to labour on the roads and to clean up some of the filth that the Turks had allowed to accumulate for years, if not for generations, inside the Holy City. The Army not merely provided work for idle hands but enabled starving bodies to be vitalised. Food was brought into Jerusalem, and with the cash wages old and young labourers could get more than a sufficiency. The native in the hills proved to be a good road repairer, ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... dens are to be closed after six months. These are places where smokers dream away the night in company with the idle and ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... ago there lived a widow who had three sons. The two eldest were grown up, and though they were known to be idle fellows, some of the neighbours had given them work to do on account of the respect in which their mother was held. But at the time this story begins they had both been so careless and idle that their masters declared they would keep ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... Peter or Stimson idle. To assist Stetson in his press-work, and to further the idea that all Europe was now clamoring for the "Rise and fall," Peter paid an impecunious but over-educated dragoman to translate it into five languages, and Stimson officially wrote of this, ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... before. And so for seven days they fared in that forest, and seven stags were slain. Then Oisin grew wearied of hunting, and as he plunged his sharp black hunting-knife into the throat of the last stag, he thought of the sword of magic temper that hung idle by his side in the City of Youth, or rested from its golden nail in his bed-chamber, and he said to Niam, "Has thy father never a foe to tame, never a wrong to avenge? Surely the peasant is no ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... be required before the film of copper becomes sufficiently thick to protect the tin from corrosion when the cell stands idle. For this reason it will be necessary to pour out the blue vitriol solution into another receptacle immediately after through using, as otherwise the tin would be soon eaten full of holes. The porous cup should always be emptied after using to prevent the diffusion of the blue ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... Bible which had been given Emily by her Aunt Lucy, on her seventh birthday, and showed her father how all its blank leaves were covered with Annas. Her father took the book with reverence, and Emily understood and felt the seriousness with which he examined her idle scrawls. It was a look that would have risen up before her and made her stay her hand, should she ever again in her life-long have been tempted thus to misuse the word of God; just as the angel stood before Balaam in the narrow path he was struggling to push through. But Emily never again ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... It was an idle half-hour, and when the despatcher at Exeter heard his call he glanced up from a magazine, listened a moment, and impatiently remarking, "Some idiot student!" returned to ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... The captain, to show he is proud of the favour, Looks up to your window, and cocks up his beaver; (His beaver is cock'd: pray, madam, mark that, For a captain of horse never takes off his hat, Because he has never a hand that is idle, For the right holds the sword, and the left holds the bridle;) Then flourishes thrice his sword in the air, As a compliment due to a lady so fair; (How I tremble to think of the blood it has spilt!) Then he lowers down the point, and kisses ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... a valuable one for purposes of agitation, and it is used by the Socialists to the fullest extent. The workers are told: "The children are too ill provided for to be educated. This is not because the worker is idle or thriftless, but actually because he is too industrious and produces so much that his labour as a producer is at a discount. It is objected that to provide free State maintenance for all the children would be to destroy ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... to behold it, might for his sake condemn it. Those ears, which in heaven unceasingly hear "Holy, Holy, Holy," vouchsafed on earth to be filled with: "Thou hast a devil,—Crucify him, Crucify him!" to the intent that thine ears might not be deaf to the cry of the poor, nor, open to idle tales, should readily receive the poison of detraction or of adulation. That fair face of him that was fairer than the children of men, yea, than thousands of angels, was bedaubed with spitting, afflicted with blows, given up to mockery, to the end that thy face might be enlightened, ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... twelve days since, but to this must be added the fact that all Littlebath knew that he had done so. Miss Todd, after the first ebullition of her comic spleen, had not said much about it; but Miss P. Gauntlet's tongue had not been idle. She, perhaps, had told it only to the godly; but the godly, let them be ever so exclusive, must have some intercourse with the wicked world; and thus every lady in Littlebath now knew all about it. And then ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... to bomb New York from the air has a big surprise coming to him—a lot of big surprises. The war department may not have been doing much advertising, but it has not been idle." ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... to some of us it comes to be tragic and dreadful at last, as we sit helpless, and see the shore rush past and hear the roar of the falls in our ears, like some poor wretch caught in the glassy smoothness above Niagara, who has flung down the oars, and, clutching the gunwale with idle hands, sits effortless and breathless till the plunge comes. Many a despairing voice has prayed as the sands ran out, and joys fled, 'Sun, stand thou still on Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon,' but in vain. Once the wish was answered; but, for all ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... that it was all the Lord's doing, "Then," said he, "you are the instruments, and what a blessed thing it is to have parents who guide and instruct us in the way;" and added, "O what will become of those children who idle about on the Sabbath day, who swear and steal. O shocking! shocking! O what a blessing to have good parents." On requesting to see his brothers, they came to him; and taking them by the hand, he asked them how they did. To his little brother Henry ...
— Stories of Boys and Girls Who Loved the Saviour - A Token for Children • John Wesley
... though they have lost themselves, or are lost, exhale their idle sweets for him; the spire peeps for him; sod-seats, forests, clouds, nature's charities, and babbling brooks, all are to him luxury and friendship. He is the happiest of mortals, and plods, is forlorn, and has a wounded ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... the questioning remember the purposes of the recitation. Ask questions knowing exactly what you wish as an answer. There is no time for aimless or idle questioning. ...
— The Teaching of History • Ernest C. Hartwell
... on correspondence, looking after the estate, discharging social duties, filled up every moment of his time. Superintending the house, the garden, corresponding, and a hundred other labours, filled up every moment of hers. They were never idle; to rise socially and politically requires as great or greater work than for a poor ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... when the footman had departed with his card, too restless—too eager—to be seated. In one of his turns about the room his eyes alighted on an object which instantly arrested his idle steps. It was a woman's photograph, lying on a small table, as though placed there by a careless hand and then forgotten. A tiny object to work such an effect, but it was enough to bring ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... had grown afraid of Manchon because of his pretty apparent leanings toward Joan, for another recorder was in the chief place here, which left my master and me nothing to do but sit idle and look on. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... sunlight; there was the Piazza di Spagna, the lively meeting-place of foreigners, with its double flight of a hundred and thirty steps gilded by the sun; there was the vast Piazza Colonna, always swarming with people, and the most Italian of all the Roman squares from the presence of the idle, careless crowd which ever lounged round the column of Marcus Aurelius as if waiting for fortune to fall from heaven; there was also the long and regular Piazza Navona, deserted since the market was no longer held there, and retaining a melancholy ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... Beauty of the wood, the verdant walls of which were to separate him forever from the world of cities. Henceforth, he could be himself, could move freely, dress as he wished, or give way to his dreaming, without fearing to encounter the ironical looks of idle and wondering neighbors. For the first time since his departure from his former home, he experienced a feeling of joy and serenity; the influence of the surroundings, so much in harmony with his wishes, unlocked his tongue, and ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... Tories and the faint praise with which it was damned by the Whigs. Even Lord John was forced to confess that the apathy of the country was undeniable. A more sweeping measure would have had a better chance, but so long as Lord Palmerston was at the head of affairs it was idle to expect it. Lord John recognised the inevitable after a succession of dreary debates, and the measure was withdrawn on June 11. Lord John's first important speech in the House of Commons was made in the year of Peterloo, when he brought forward, thirteen years before ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... as I could tell, my shadowy enemy with the axe had taken himself away for good and all, but I was so fearful of recalling him that I kept altogether idle, and in other respects nursed and coddled myself with a constant assiduity. But it is a hard thing for a man who has accustomed himself to constant mental employment to go without it, and in the absence of pens, ink, and paper, books and journals, the procession bade ...
— Schwartz: A History - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... estates on which these peasants lived and about the rents which they had to pay, and the services which they had to do. But how did they feel and think and amuse themselves when they were not working? Rents and services are only outside things; an estate book only describes routine. It would be idle to try to picture the life of a university from a study of its lecture list, and it is equally idle to try and describe the life of Bodo from the estate book of his masters. It is no good taking your meals in the kitchen if ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... don't believe what I say," concluded the lecturer, "just come out to New South Wales and see for yourselves if I have not told you the plain, unvarnished truth; and I repeat what I have said before, that although it is no place for the idle rich, for the man or the woman who wants to work it is not ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... nearest and dearest to Coleridge by affection and biood have left on record their sentiments respecting him in the following language. His nephew says: "Coleridge was a student all his life. He was very rarely indeed idle in the common sense of the term, but he was consitutionally indolent, averse from continuous exertion externally directed, and consequently the victim of a procrastinating habit, the occasion of innumerable distresses to himself and ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... companions his own history of the recent dialogue, in which, according to his own account of the matter, he had completely gotten the better of that "young upstart, Blunt," a man of whom he knew positively nothing, divers anecdotes of the Effingham family, that came of the lowest and most idle gossip of rustic malignancy, and his own vague and confused notions of the rights of persons and of things. Very different was the conversation that ensued in the ladies' cabin, after the welcome disappearance of the uninvited guest. Not a remark of any sort was made on his intrusion, ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... ascertain, another and even more painful phenomenon appears in our great cities—a dangerous class. How it arose is not yet clear. That the Reformation had something to do with the matter, we can hardly doubt. At the dissolution of the monasteries, the more idle, ignorant, and profligate members of the mendicant orders, unable to live any longer on the alms of the public, sunk, probably, into vicious penury. The frightful misgovernment of this country during the minority of Edward the Sixth, especially the conversion of tilled lands into pasture, ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... longs to hear the clatter of wooden shoes. If he had his way he would have laws enacted forbidding peasant folk to change their ancient costumes. He would preserve every relic of feudalism. He bitterly laments the division of great estates. A nobleman's park with its beautiful idle acres, its deer, its pheasants, and its scurrying rabbits, is so much more pleasant to look at than a succession of market-gardens. Poachers, game-keepers, and squires are alike interesting, if only they ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... midnight in a sister's arms to die. Oh thou wert lovely; lovely was thy frame, And pure thy spirit as from heaven it came: And when recall'd to join the blest above Thou diedst a victim to exceeding love, Nursing the young to health. In happier hours, When idle Fancy wove luxuriant flowers, Once in thy mirth thou badst me write on thee And now I write ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... without taste or smell. It is prepared from opium and Spanish flies, combined with some other ingredients, which, however, are only known to the makers of it. That the Acqua Tofana is made from the foam sometimes found upon the lips of the dying, is an idle tale. Allessandro Borgia was the first to bring it ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... personal attributes, or criticism of his appearance, or anything which might be repeated, maliciously or otherwise, to that man. He did not say to Miguel Rapponi, for instance, what he thought of Andy Green as a man or a rider. He did not mention him at all. He had learned in bitterness how idle gossip may eat away the efficiency ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... him time to reply, she continued: "Then it was only idle curiosity that brought you here. You wished to know the source of the money which you spend like water. Very well, you may see for yourself. This is a gambling house; one of those establishments frequented by distinguished personages, which the police ignore, or which they cannot suppress. ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... possession and privilege and power above the law of love, then nations will inevitably do the same. If there is constant jealousy and rivalry and disagreement among individuals there will surely be the same among nations, and it is idle for Mr. Bryan to talk about putting our trust in love collectively when we do nothing of the sort individually. Would Mr. Bryan put his trust in love if he felt himself the victim of ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... understanding, hated this name because of Mrs. Magwire, whose most merciless taunt was, "Sure ye're well named, ye idle dthreamer." ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... last cigar is smoked and the box is splintered and gone, And only the faintest whiff of the dear old smell hangs on, In the times when he's idle or thoughtful, When he's lonesome, jolly or blue, And he fingers his useless matches, What is a poor fellow ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... sense in the horse's foot is useful, it would be idle to deny; but that it is absolutely essential, even to safe progression, no one who has paid attention to the results of plantar neurectomy will maintain. On several occasions for years I have hunted, hacked, and driven horses which have been deprived ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... cane-honey,[FN10] said to him, "Did I not bid thee bring it with bees' honey? Wilt thou contrary my wish and have it dressed with cane-honey?" He excused himself to her, saying, "I bought it not save on credit;" but said she, "This talk is idle; I will not eat Kunafah save with bees' honey." And she was wroth with it and threw it in his face, saying, "Begone, thou pimp, and bring me other than this !" Then she dealt him a buffet on the cheek and knocked out one of his teeth. The blood ran down upon his breast and for stress ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... the hereditary distinctions that clash with the mental superiority that naturally raises a man above his fellows. He did not perceive, that the regal power, in a few generations, introduces idiotism into the noble stem, and holds out baits to render thousands idle and vicious. ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... human being within hearing who understands the statement, and the statement must be false. But it is arguable that the latter of these facts need not be known, as certainly the falsity of the charge need not be, and that a man must take the risk of even an idle statement being heard, unless he made it under known circumstances of privilege. It would be no great curtailment of freedom to deny a man immunity in attaching a charge of crime to the name of his neighbor, even when he supposes himself alone. But it does not seem clear that the law ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... ill-natured to me, and often plagues me very much. It was only yesterday he broke the best hoe, by knocking stones about with it, and then told master it was my doing. Besides, he is idle, and does not mind what is said to him, and often ...
— The Apricot Tree • Unknown
... that dreary contemplation of the white paper and the idle pen. He went into the frozen and deserted streets, hoping that he might pluck the burning coal from his heart, but the fire was not quenched. As he walked furiously along the grim iron roads he fancied that those persons who passed him cheerfully on their way to friends ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... might eventually get 70 horse power in a boat of that size, because the weight of the motor was not great. With regard to the formation of a film on the surface, no doubt a film of sulphate of lead was formed if the battery stood idle, but it did not considerably reduce its efficiency; as soon as it was broke through by the energy being evolved from it, it would give off its maximum current. They knew by experience that, with properly constructed ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 430, March 29, 1884 • Various
... on the ground to my house, a distance of forty rods, and threw her in at the door. Hiokatoo, my husband, exasperated at the sight of so much inhumanity, hastily took down his old tomahawk, which for awhile had lain idle, shook it over the cuckold's head, and bade him jogo (i. e. go off.) The enraged husband, well knowing that he should feel a blow if he waited to hear the order repeated, instantly retreated, and went down the river to his cattle. We protected the poor Nanticoke woman, and gave ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... regretted the hour when he gave the struggling boy such timely assistance. The discipline of the life through which he was passing as the main stay of his mother, matured his mind and imparted to it a thoughtfulness past his years. Instead of wasting his time in idle and pernicious pleasure, he learned how to use his surplus dollar and how to spend his leisure hours, and this knowledge told upon his life and character. He was not very popular in society. Young men with cigars in their mouths and the perfume of liquor on their breaths, shrugged ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... still cherished an enduring faith in this old prophecy. But others, who had seen more of the world, had watched and waited till they were weary, and had beheld no man with such a face, nor any man that proved to be much greater or nobler than his neighbors, concluded it to be nothing but an idle tale. At all events, the great man of the ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... whiling away an idle month in cruises up and down that New England coast which, once stern and rock-bound, has come to be the smiling home of midsummer pleasures, encounters at each little port into which he may run, moldering and decrepit wharves, crowned with ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... attainments as those of Teresa, if only to support my failing faith in the words of my Master. I had rather believe every syllable of Teresa's so-staggering locutions and visions than be left to this, that ever since Paul and John went home to heaven our Lord's greatest promises have been so many idle words. It is open to any man to scoff and sneer at Teresa's extraordinary life of prayer, and at the manifestations of the Father and the Son that were made to her in her life of prayer, and some of her biographers and censors among ourselves ...
— Santa Teresa - an Appreciation: with some of the best passages of the Saint's Writings • Alexander Whyte
... kraals for cover; and Commandant Mentz had with fifty burghers stormed this ridge, shooting down from thirty to forty of the enemy, and taking twenty-five prisoners. We lost two killed and three wounded. The Frankfort burghers under Commandant Ross had also not been idle, for they had attacked a division of Colonel Rimington's troops with the result that sixteen killed and wounded fell into their hands—among these were seven of ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... his wife in the little graveyard. For days after the funeral Eugenia wandered like a shadow through the still rooms. Bernard had come and gone, carrying with him his short, sharp grief. Miss Chris had put aside her own sorrow and gone back to the management of the house; only the girl, worn, idle, tragic, haunted the reminders of her loss. Coming upon the general's old slouch hat on the rack, she had grasped it in sudden passionate longing; at the sight of his half-filled pipe she had rushed from the room and from the house. The faint scent of tobacco about the furniture ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... gauzes, horses, linens and calicoes, candles, bricks and tiles, paper, and hackney-coaches; and he also proposed licences to dealers in exciseable articles, and certificates to kill game. In commenting upon these taxes, the young premier observed:—"It would be idle to suppose that all the taxes in this long catalogue were unexceptionable; but the necessities of the public leave us no option to deal otherwise than openly and fairly. The wants of government are many; the finances of the country have been much reduced; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... booming, ominous, the roar continued. The sail flapped idle on the mast. Stern could distinguish a long line of foam that slid away, past the boat, as only foam slides on ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... nest in the thick bough of a tree which overhung a high paling. Here they fancied themselves secure from the prying eyes of idle boys or marauding cats. The hen laid her eggs in her new abode, and in due time several fledgelings were hatched, which her faithful mate assisted her to rear. While in the full enjoyment of their happiness, watching over ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... day had hardly begun, and the idle salesman saw the wink. Jack walked up to him and ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... self-forgetfulness. Afterward, when mother was married and had the happiness of her five daughters at heart, she induced each one of us to take up something of absorbing interest, in order that there might be no empty, idle days when discontent could creep in. That is how I came to study medicine, and that is how I learned to love the word 'homely' in its first and best sense. She taught me the definitions which I have ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... would not allow him to remain idle at home, so he joined a party of trappers who were going to trap the streams of the Laramie and Chugwater for otter, beaver and other animals possessing valuable fur, as well as to ...
— Beadle's Boy's Library of Sport, Story and Adventure, Vol. I, No. 1. - Adventures of Buffalo Bill from Boyhood to Manhood • Prentiss Ingraham
... years of service here, should not be free to marry, providing he takes a vow to render full service to the Order whenever called upon to do so. Already the vow of poverty is everywhere broken. Already, in defiance of their oaths, too many knights lead idle and dissolute lives. Already, knights, when in their own countries, disregard the rule that they shall draw sword in no cause save that of the Holy Sepulchre, and, like other knights and nobles, take part in civil strife or foreign wars. All this is a scandal, ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... long summer hours The golden light should lie, And thick young herbs and groups of flowers Stand in their beauty by; The oriole should build and tell His love-tale close beside my cell; The idle butterfly Should rest him there, and there be heard ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... y'are idle:—till they ha forc'd him To cancell his late lawlesse bond he seal'd At the high Altar to his Florentine Strumpet, And in his bed lay ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... Pagello. He asked her to whom he was to give the letter. George Sand took the envelope back and wrote on it: "To stupid Pagello." We have this declaration, and among other things in the letter are the following lines: "You will not deceive me, anyhow. You will not make any idle promises and false vows. . . . I shall not, perhaps, find in you what I have sought for in others, but, at any rate, I can always believe that you possess it. . . . I shall be able to interpret your meditations and make your silence speak eloquently. . . ." This shows us clearly the kind of ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... when deprived of the ballot the consequence is that this inalienable right is abridged, then society owes it to the class thus practically enslaved to bestow suffrage upon them. At the South there is no safety for the negro from oppressive laws but in the ballot. It is idle to argue ignorance. Political enfranchisement ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... come back to her; that being misspent they had passed away; that a new worker had come to drop seed into the unoccupied heart; that never again would Sadie be as fresh, and as guileless, and as easily won, as in those days which she had let slip in idle, ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... and wear the prize, Let each divide the crown, The deeds of Harlowe and of Thayer, Are equal in renown. Stop arguing and get to work, For that is why we're here, Don't waste your time in idle words, The ...
— Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... for an influx of Southern Britons, might be Aberdeen; Christ-church, population and all, might be planted in Warwickshire, and no tourist would know that it was not indigenous there. They call their local stream the Avon, and boating there some idle summer days, I easily dreamed myself at home again, and within bow-shot of the skyward-pointing spire which covers the bones of Shakespeare. It is, I believe, a fact that the stream is christened after another river than that which owes its ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... corporate life. And yet it was "tied up" with a legal disability—left largely useless and waste. It looked as if when the legal spell was finally broken, as it must be, and the land so long unprofitable and idle should be apportioned to these human needs, it would be neither the Clarks nor the community that would derive benefit from it,—certainly not the people who would live upon it,—but some gang of skillful ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... figure, which, owing, as we understood, to a fall in her childhood, was hopelessly deformed, though still strongly set and muscular. Albeit, a sum of money—about fifty pounds—scraped together by thrifty self-denial during a dozen years of servitude, amply compensated in the eyes of several idle and needy young fellows for the unlovely outline of her person; and Anne, with an infatuation too common with persons of her class and condition, and in spite of repeated warning, and the secret misgivings, one would suppose, of her own mind, married the best-looking, but most ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... wife as I could. I should have hated and loathed it, but I should have become accustomed to it in time. But this vile action of yours makes all the difference. When you and I part after this painful conversation, we part for good. We shall be talked about; there will be a lot of idle gossip, but I care nothing for that. And if you raise a hand, if you try to use the law on your side, I produce that telegram ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... round with a smile, slightly conscious. The position he had occupied for some three years, of the idle and penniless husband dependent on his wife's dollars, was not, he knew, an exalted one ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... said, sarcastically, "that a mere head-covering, elegant in its day, could make more hostility than an idle head? I will tell you the silly secret of it. When I came from the obscurity of the forest, sensitive, and anxious to make my way, and slowly gathered capital and knowledge, a person in New York directed a letter of inquiry to me. It ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... not sorry to escape with his dignity and so cheap a masterpiece. Kloot was left, with swinging legs, dominating the situation. In idle curiosity and with the simplicity of perfectly bad manners, he took up the poet's papers and letters and perused them. As there were scraps of verse amid the mass, Pinchas let him ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... Awgwa looked around upon this vast army and his heart beat high with wicked pride, for he believed he would surely triumph over his gentle enemies, who had never before been known to fight. But the Master Woodsman had not been idle. None of his people was used to warfare, yet now that they were called upon to face the hosts of evil they willingly prepared ...
— The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus • L. Frank Baum
... a fresh start in company. It consisted of more than a dozen persons, in all; the black domestics of the family being present, as well as several mechanics whom Captain Willoughby had employed to carry on his improvements. The men sent in advance had not been idle, any more than those left at the Hutted Knoll. They had built three or four skiffs, one small batteau, and a couple of canoes. These were all in the water, in waiting for the disappearance of the ice; which was now reduced to a mass of stalactites ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... seventeenth century the idle dancing youth of to-day had his prototype in the Cavalier Servente, who hovered at his lady's side, affecting extravagant ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... Hence shadows seeming idle shapes Of little frisking elves and apes, To earth do make their wanton 'scapes As hope of pastime ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... stock. We stopped to take a tumbler of milk fresh from the cow; declined an invitation to go in, as we were anxious to finish our journey while it was cool; and after a hard ride galloped into the courtyard of Atlacamulco, which seemed like returning home. We spent a pleasant, idle day, lying down and reading while the sun was high, and in the evening sauntering about under the orange trees. We concluded with ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... a dollar invested with us and increasing and yielding day by day and the dollar which you use to purchase a few moments idle diversion or pleasure. The latter is lost forever—the dollar put to earning ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... therein Full measure and set her to take her wreak of the favours she did show. For know that her blows fall sudden and swift and unawares, though long The time of forbearance be and halt the coming of fate and slow. So look to thyself, lest life in the world pass idle and profitless by, And see that thou fail not of taking thought to the end of all below. Cast loose from the chains of the love and the wish of the world and thou shalt find Guidance and help unto righteousness and peace ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... I rose from the fire, and approached the great trunk to examine it. Had it been in an inhabited country we should have thought nothing of it—for then we should have fancied that some one had been cutting out figures in the bark of the tree for their amusement—perhaps some idle boys—as I have often done myself, and so had Ben, when he was an idle boy. But during all that day's ramble we had met with no human being, nor had we seen either sign or track of one; and we were pretty certain, from what we had been told, that ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... a yellow light swings like an idle lantern over the car tracks. So the newspaper man stops at the corner and waits. This is the owl car. It may not stop. Sometimes cars have a habit of roaring by with an insulting indifference to the people waiting for them to stop at the corner. At such moments one feels a fine rage, ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... inhabitants, says, "They eat their dinners, and it is so very hot, they go to sleep — and could they do better?" I quite agree with Sir F. Head: the happy doom of the Mendozinos is to eat, sleep and be idle. ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... number of government empleados residing at Manilla makes an important addition to the society of the place, as, from being idle men to a great extent, they seek how to amuse and be amused, and are cultivators of the society of the English, whose dinner tables are probably the chief causes of the intercourse ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... no more, it fits not me To have respect to such vain fantasies As idle love presents my ears withall. More reason I should ghostly give my self To sacred prayers for this my former sin, For which this plague is justly fallen upon me, Then to harken to the ...
— Fair Em - A Pleasant Commodie Of Faire Em The Millers Daughter Of - Manchester With The Love Of William The Conquerour • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... people exceedingly, and especially the poor, hearing their suits and seeking to despatch them instantly. He also makes the lawyers plead gratis for all poor suitors. He is in very great repute, seven times more so than if (p. 119) he were Pope."[324] His sympathy with the poor was no idle sentiment, and his commission of 1517, and decree against enclosures in the following year, were the only steps taken in Henry's reign to mitigate that curse of ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... It is idle for any wideawake observer to deny that a certain antipathy exists between the French and the Italians. Both, I think, generally prefer the British to their Latin brothers, and I have heard both say unjust and absurdly untrue things about the other. Their antipathy ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... these islands result many great inconveniences. In the first place, on account of their greed, they have taken to the cultivation of gardens and other real estate; whence it follows that all the native Indians live idle and vicious lives, without anyone urging them to labor. The Chinese have risen, by buying and selling and bringing provisions to the community, to be the retailers of supplies. From this it results that this country is so expensive to live ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume X, 1597-1599 • E. H. Blair
... shall we call it, dear friends?" he argued. "Are we not allied against a common foe? The exact terms of the entente, what does it matter? Is it credible that England would remain idle while the legions of Germany ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... committed when we idle our time, and are lazy; when we are indifferent about serving God; when we do anything slowly and poorly and in a way that shows we would rather not do it. They are slothful who lie in bed late in the morning and neglect their duty. ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 4 (of 4) - An Explanation Of The Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doctrine • Thomas L. Kinkead
... horses, you idle lads," the lisping voice of the Captain was heard to call. "Ya, ya! there, luego! the morning ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... friars of the Badia, Cardinal Salviati took him into his house, gave him a stipend of four crowns a month, and an apartment at the Borgo Vecchio, he painting any works the Cardinal wished. Francesco was not idle, a great number of frescoes, altar-pieces, and portraits, &c., &c., testifying to his industry. In his later years he was employed with his friend Vasari in the Palazzo Vecchio, where he painted the frescoes in the smaller ...
— Fra Bartolommeo • Leader Scott (Re-Edited By Horace Shipp And Flora Kendrick)
... cheeses, like cart-wheels, from Switzerland; almonds, lemons, raisins, olives, boxes of citron, casks of chains; specie from Vera Cruz; cries of drivers, cracking of whips, rumble of wheels, tremble of earth, frequent gorge and stoppage. It seemed an idle tale to say that any one could be lacking bread and raiment. "We are a great city," said the patient foot-passengers, waiting long on street corners for opportunity to ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... is widely different here from that in Europe; and our comfort and character require it should long remain so. Those who strive to introduce many of the European habits and fashions, by displacing our own, do a serious injury to the republic, and deserve censure. An idle person, with good powers of mind, becomes torpid and inactive after a few years of indulgence, and is incapable of making any high effort. Highly important it is, then, to avoid this enemy of mental and moral improvement. I have no wish that you pursue ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... faithful fellow's tongue was thus wagging, his arms were not idle. Intimately acquainted, as became his calling, with the numerous windings and intricacies of the Venetian canals, he threaded them with unhesitating confidence; and, favoured by the darkness of the night, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... live in a mansion? That is my choice, my desire. You will only eradicate it when you have changed my preference. Well, do change it, allure me with something else, give me another ideal. But meanwhile I will not take a hen-house for a mansion. The palace of crystal may be an idle dream, it may be that it is inconsistent with the laws of nature and that I have invented it only through my own stupidity, through the old-fashioned irrational habits of my generation. But what does it matter to me that it is inconsistent? That makes no difference since it exists ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... first of May, and the sun had passed the noon line in a bright sky, causing the shadow of Peter Taylor to fall east of north and infusing his substance with the delightful languor called Spring Fever. Leaning upon an idle spade, Peter watched the lazy motions of a negro slave whom he had directed to trim a level lawn ornamented with flowerbeds. The English origin of the overseer was revealed by his ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... been winning his spurs, the keen-eyed scouts of the big leagues had not been idle. The St. Louis team of the National League drafted him into their ranks and took him away from the "bushes." Now he felt that he was really on the highway to success. Almost from the start he created a sensation, ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... she heard Claybrook say. "Full up?" He had turned from his idle inspection of the lobby. "Not in two weeks. You can rent a floor in ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... penitence, of deploring his guilt, and employing his few remaining hours in deprecating Heaven's wrath, He abandoned himself to the transports of desperate rage; He sorrowed for the punishment of his crimes, not their commission; and exhaled his bosom's anguish in idle sighs, in vain lamentations, in blasphemy and despair. As the few beams of day which pierced through the bars of his prison window gradually disappeared, and their place was supplied by the pale and glimmering Lamp, He felt his terrors redouble, and his ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... later that evening, when she happened to find herself alone with Sam in the library, and, in merest idle curiosity, she asked: "Sam, what ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... wrong of me to exercise my powers just to gratify idle curiosity. No good Theosophist ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... though he is talking, not of our Indians, but of the Moors: "Water seems more needed by these infidels than bread, for they wash every day, as their damnable religion directs them to, and they use it in baths, and in a thousand other idle fashions, of which Spaniards and other Christians can make little account." We know that a Spanish queen refrained, not only from washing, but from changing her clothes for a whole year. The Porto Ricans were naked, but unaware of their nakedness, ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... there was plenty to make fun of, and plenty of idle loafers, too, who were not ashamed ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... clothed in rags, living among rags, thriving on rags; a people strangely proof against pestilence, gathering rags from the city to their dens, when the cholera was raging outside the Ghetto's gates, and rags were cheap, yet never sickening of the plague themselves; a people never idle, sleeping little, eating sparingly, labouring for small gain amid dirt and stench and dampness, till Friday night came at last, and the old crier's melancholy voice ran through the darkening alleys—'The ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... name among the great in the land of poetry and song. Happy here, ere his first joyous aspirations were repressed—ere the warm and genial emotions of his heart were checked—before time had dissipated his idle dreams, and neglect, contempt and distress had fastened on his mind, and hurried him onward ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... register lay open, and going over to the hall door stood there a while, staring out on the tide of life that rolled by, and listening to the subdued rattle of the traffic in its ceaseless traverse of the Strand. And as he stood in this apparently idle and purposeless lounging attitude, he thought—thought of a certain birthday of his, a good thirty years before, whereon a kind, elderly aunt had made him a present of a box of puzzles. There were all sorts of puzzles in that box—things ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... in, radiant and glowing, and men from many miles away visited the Bar L-M to look over the course upon which the race meet was to be held. MacKelvey spent weary days and nights driving his relentless quest; Sledge Hume seemed sullenly idle; Helga Strawn coolly Indifferent to the world about her; and still Wayne Shandon received no encouraging word from Brisbane. May ran through half its allotted days of thaw and bursting seeds; the day for the race was less than ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... better go to the workhouse. She'll have an idle enough time there," said the duke who was staunchly ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... semi-independent state, the Nawab of which has a revenue of sixteen lacs of rupees, (L160,000,) while the city, being without the pale of English law, is "a city of refuge, a very Goshen of robbers, ... the streets are crowded with a mob of very handsome, idle, lounging fellows, having generally the fullest and finest jet-black beards and black mustaches in the world. Many of these were handsomely dressed, and many (which struck me as a very curious fact) appeared clean!" These were the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... unacquainted maid, So uninformed of whereabout I am, And in a wild completely solitary, Hope to find out my strangely absent lord! Sadness there is, and an unquiet fear, Within my heart, to trace these hereabouts Of idle woods, unthreaded labyrinths, Rude mannered brooks, unpastured meadow sides, All vagrant, voiceless, pathless, echoless, Oh for the farthest breath of mortal sound! From lacqueyed hall, or folded peasant hut,— Some noontide echo sweetly voluble; Some song of toil reclining ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... of the ball on the bat travelled but slowly upward, and reached her after the striker had begun to run. The effect was curious, but it was not new to her, though she listened and counted with idle interest. ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... Moors consists chiefly in their numerous herds of cattle, yet, as the pastoral life does not afford full employment, the majority of the people are perfectly idle, and spend the day in trifling conversation about their horses, or in laying schemes of depredation ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... children observed, not far off, a party of youths rowing on the bosom of a lake. They sat in a rocking, unsteady little bark, but were in gay spirits, blowing bubbles, watching idle clouds, and throwing up empty shouts to be caught up and ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May
... are by no means idle. They are instructing their people in the dogmas of their Church; and for this they have classes in the evening,—the zealous at least, among them have. Apart from their petty persecution in preventing us getting a place of worship (the affair of the 'Madre di Dio' you know all about, as also ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... are all so idle and debauched, such gobbling and drinking rascals, and expensive in ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 46, Saturday, September 14, 1850 • Various
... these attributes,—succeeds in attaining to the eternal and immutable region of kine. He, who is stained with adultery, sees not such a region; nor he, who is a slayer of his preceptor; nor he, who speaks falsely or indulges in idle boasts; nor he, who always disputes with others; nor he who behaves with hostility towards the Brahmanas. Indeed, that wicked wight, who is stained with such faults fails to attain even a sight of these ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... seventeen year old son of a Mexican laborer, who had married one of the mission Indian women, united in himself the bad qualities of both races, as has so often been the result of such crosses. He had grown up idle, indifferent to his parents, vicious and cruel, leading astray the other youths of the mission, among whom he was easily the master, and causing his parents and Father Zalvidea no end of anxiety. The Father, in fact, ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... it is explicit. "Every one of us shall give account of himself to God." This necessarily implies a perfect recollection of our lives. We are to answer for all the deeds done in the body; for every idle word, for every secret and sinful thought and feeling. This requires a perfect recollection of every event, sentiment, and emotion of our lives. The soul, therefore, must carry into the unseen world a perfect recollection of ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... she spoke. "When you were telling me about your musical fancies you made me remember how once when I was young I climbed a high hill and had an adventure with a wind that was very swift and eager. At first I recollect I tried not to heed it, because I had been dull and idle and unhappy; but I found that I could not be very long in the presence of so much life without being made ashamed, and that brave windstorm put me through a course of repentance of the very sternest kind before it let me go. I tried just to promise that I would be more wide-awake and more true, ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... his hat and gloried simply that he was alive. He did not even note the cottontail that came out from behind a bush to peer at him, nor mark the sweeping shadow of a passing eagle that swung high above the little valley. His eye now and again fell upon the abandoned mill, gaunt, idle and silent; yet he regarded it lazily, the spell of the spot and the languor of the ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... a youth of resolution and energy. He entertained the same opinion as Fritz; and instead of wasting his time in idle despondency, got together some articles of merchandise, and sailed for the Indian Archipelago, promising his friends that he would return to his ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... loyalty!" exclaimed Warwick, starting to his feet; "and know that thou hast done more to melt and yet to nerve my spirit than—But complaints in one are idle, and praise were ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... standard of street poetry, had for burden some gibberish which was said to have been used as a watchword by the insurgents of Ulster in 1641. The verses and the tune caught the fancy of the nation. From one end of England to the other, all classes were constantly singing this idle rhyme. It was especially the delight of the English army. More than seventy years after the revolution, a great writer delineated, with exquisite skill, a veteran who had fought at the Boyne and at ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... obloquy, and spite Expire e're morn, the mushroom of a night! Transient as vapours glimm'ring thro' the glades, Half-form'd and idle, as the dreams of maids, Vain as the sick man's vow, or young man's sigh, Third-nights ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... them. If therefore I can make out in this Essay, that there were such Animals as Pygmies; and that they were not a Race of Men, but Apes; and can discover the Authors, who have forged all, or most of the idle Stories concerning them; and shew how the Cheat in after Ages has been carried on, by embalming the Bodies of Apes, then exposing them for the Men of the Country, from whence they brought them: If I can do this, I shall think my time not wholly lost, nor the trouble altogether useless, ...
— A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients • Edward Tyson
... in search of adventures, for he had the nature of a warrior and could not bear to be idle. So he buckled on his two swords, took his huge bow, much taller than himself, in his hand, and slinging his quiver on his back started out. He had not gone far when he came to the bridge of Seta-no-Karashi ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... was too sensible to gratify their idle curiosity, but the very return of her brightness, and her unwillingness to talk about the matter, only added to the foolish desires of outsiders to find out what had really occurred. So some of these naughty busybodies began questioning the children ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young
... people for her piety, her charity and her wisdom. If such records as are there to be read by earnest seekers after truth be not sufficient to convince, and to reveal those others whom I have named in the light of their true baseness, then were it idle for me to set up in these pages a passing refutation of the falsehoods which it has grieved me so ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... is a serious attempt to while away an idle hour. The best criticism that the author received of "Her Ladyship's Elephant" was from an old lady who wrote him that it had made her forget a toothache; the most discouraging, from a critic who approached the book ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... Doughty ("Arabia Deserta," i. 223) speaks of the Badawin who sit beating the time away, and for pastime limning with their driving-sticks (the Bkr) in the idle land." ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... delicate magnificence of leaf tracery and flower petal and feather, soft fur and the shining wonder of living skin, musical with thunder and the singing of birds; but an arena nevertheless, an arena which offers no seats for idle spectators, in which one must will and do, decide, strike and strike ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... that has yet settled upon the earth. In the midst of the most extravagant superstition, there have been individuals who have disowned the popular belief, and considered it a mark of wisdom and true philosophy to discard the idle fancies and absurd schemes of faith that possessed the minds of the great mass of their contemporaries. This was the case with Horace, as appears from lines thus quite freely but ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... universally rich and fruitful, and full of the plantations of trees of all sorts, insomuch that it invites the most slothful to take pains in its cultivation, by its fruitfulness; accordingly, it is all cultivated by its inhabitants, and no part of it lies idle. Moreover, the cities lie here very thick, and the very many villages there are here are every where so full of people, by the richness of their soil, that the very least of them ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... it certainly marred the enjoyment of the last part of her trip. Before quitting Jersey the Queen was made acquainted with the fact that Louis Philippe's voluntary protestations with regard to the marriage of his son, the Duc de Montpensier, had been so many idle words. He had stolen a march both upon England and Europe generally. The marriage of the Due de Montpensier with the Infanta Luisa of Spain was announced simultaneously with the marriage of her sister, the Queen of Spain, to her cousin the Due ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... occupied by the families of members of the staff; in the others boarders were taken, the laboratory, of course, furnishing all the patrons. Near the railway station was a small saloon kept by an old Scotchman named Davis, where billiards were played in idle moments, and where in the long winter evenings the hot stove was a centre of attraction to loungers and story-tellers. The truth is that there was very little social life of any kind possible under ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... little on the left; by turning to the left, therefore, he would find it. But, as we have said, it was at least a league from the Chateau d'If to this island. Often in prison Faria had said to him, when he saw him idle and inactive, "Dantes, you must not give way to this listlessness; you will be drowned if you seek to escape, and your strength has not been properly exercised and prepared for exertion." These words rang in Dantes' ears, even beneath the waves; he hastened to cleave his way through them to see ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... temporal and spiritual, negotiations between Dysart and Brownell made rapid progress. The newcomer's tent was pitched upon the twenty acres selected, and gleamed white against the mountain-side, suggesting to Palmerston's idle vision a sail becalmed upon a sage-green sea. "Dysart's ship, which will probably never come in," he said to himself, looking at it with visible indignation, one morning, as he sat at his tent door in that state of fuming ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... reason. The crimes, and the misfortunes, of the suffering people, were presumptuously compared with those of their ancestors; and they arraigned the Divine Justice, which did not exempt from the common destruction the feeble, the guiltless, the infant portion of the human species. These idle disputants overlooked the invariable laws of nature, which have connected peace with innocence, plenty with industry, and safety with valor. The timid and selfish policy of the court of Ravenna might recall the Palatine legions for the protection of Italy; the remains of the stationary troops ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... said Dyke. "I don't think I used to be idle, but this hot sun has stewed all the spirit ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... more vigour and vivacity than the most debased of English operatives. He may be more immoral; but he is less brutish. If we are a little vain, and very fond of gaiety; and if we are improvident, we are not idle; and, with all our street fighting, we are not a discontented race. Except an Arab, who can be so happy as we know how to make ourselves, upon the ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... to the great, bare rock. Here the line and flies were adjusted, and the fishing began. Willis watched every motion as for a brief second the fly was allowed to drift down the stream, "to be floated here and there by idle little eddies, to be sucked down, then suddenly spat out by tiny suction holes;" then it fell quietly into the current and floated out to the end of the line, bringing up sharply just at the edge of a bleak ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley
... differences and aversions due to religion—Puritan, Quaker and Church of England, intercolonial tariffs and what not. For the planter-class we were mere traders; they for us were men too lightly presumed to live an idle life of gambling, sport and hard drinking—a life foreign to ours. The colonies were to one another like foreign countries. In the Revolution you may read clearly the effect of these opinions, when Washington expressed the wish that his officers would forget that they ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... twenty-eight years longer, without adding to the high literary reputation which he had attained. He read much while he retained his eyesight, and now and then wrote a short essay, or put an idle tale into verse; but he appears never to have planned any considerable work. The miscellaneous pieces which he published in 1710 are of little value, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... his anger was just, there is no concession, however great, Miss Moncton, that I would hesitate to make: I love and revere Sir Alexander, but he has taken up idle prejudices against me, and I am too proud—obstinate, if you will—to ask his forgiveness for what I never can ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... haver vengado las injurias hechas a su Divina Magestad." Herrera, Hist General, dec. 8, lib. 4, cap. 17.] But, however grateful was this homage to Gasca's heart, he was not a man to waste his time in idle vanities. He now thought only by what means he could eradicate the seeds of disorder which shot up so readily in this fruitful soil, and how he could place the authority of the government on a permanent basis. By virtue of his office, he presided over the Royal Audience, the great judicial, ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... latter as a growing lad, his mother as an essentially Egyptian figure, conventionally drawn according to the rules which had determined the figures of gods and kings for fifteen hundred years. Under these circumstances it is idle to speak of this well-known relief picture as a portrait of the Queen. It is no more so than the granite statues in the Vatican are portraits of Philadelphus and Arsinoe. The artist had probably never seen the Queen, and if he had, it would not have produced the slightest ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... dashed forward, dodging among the running crowd. He meant, I think, to stop the fight, because he could not be an idle spectator once he was informed of the fact. I of course had no intention of turning tail, and hastened on the heels of Porcupine. The fight was in its fiercest. There were about fifty to sixty normals, and the middles numbered by some ninety. The normals wore uniform, but the middles ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... What can I say to you? Athene watched over you. You were of those who dwell alone, but whom the gods are with. You had the clue and the sword, and they are nothing to you; you lose them both at his word, at the mere breath of his lips, and know no god but his idle law, that shifts as the winds of the sea. And you count that gain? Oh, just Heaven! Oh, my dear, my heart is broken; how can I tell you? One man loved you who was great and good, to whom you were a sacred thing, who would have lifted you up in heaven, and never have touched too ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... his old impulsiveness he had come to rescue them, never pausing to think of what risks he himself might run. And now they were gone! Could Diggle have suspected that his carefully-hidden tracks were being followed up, and have removed the prisoners to some spot remoter from the river? It was idle to speculate; they were gone; and there was no ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... without effect. The old count sat low in his saddle and urged his horse with a mechanical jerk of the heels. Thus they passed through the village of Bastelica—a place with an evil name. It was early still, and but few were astir, for the peasants of the South are idle. In Corsica, moreover, the sight of a flying man always sends others into hiding. No man wishes to see him, though all sympathies are with him, and the pursuer is avoided as ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... which she could be always with Neil, "the new Grey." Sometimes she thought of the real Grey, who was still at Oxford, which Neil had left for good. He was not fond of study, and greatly preferred his idle, pleasant life at home, breakfasting when he pleased and as he pleased, either in bed or in the breakfast-room, lounging through the morning, playing duets with Blanche, sorting her worsteds for her, or teasing her about the grotesque figures she was embroidering ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... upon those points where they wish to excel, and yet are doubtful whether they do or not. As, for example, Cardinal Richelieu, who was undoubtedly the ablest statesman of his time, or perhaps of any other, had the idle vanity of being thought the best poet too; he envied the great Corneille his reputation, and ordered a criticism to be written upon the "Cid." Those, therefore, who flattered skillfully, said little to him of his abilities in state affairs, or at least but 'en passant,' and as it ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... Bible, which was long forbidden, now open to all, how can we of this enlightened day still adhere to such idle dogma or ever quote these words of Christ to Nicodemus as authority for any water baptism?[154] By this whole context and by all of Christ's relevant sayings upon the Mount and elsewhere he had no allusion to water baptism. Had he meant baptized ...
— Water Baptism • James H. Moon
... for waste de vittles, now, and th'ow away de bread, Jes' for to strength dese idle hands to scratch dis ole bald head? T'ink of de 'conomy, Marster, ef dis ole ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... to her and embraced me." On hearing this, the chamberlain said to himself, "What is passing in his mother's breast? What have I not done I can yet do, and it were better that I preserve this youth some days, for such a rose may not be wounded through idle words, and such a bough may not be broken by a breath. For some day the truth of this matter will be disclosed, and it will become known to the king when repentance may be of no avail." So he went before the king ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... the increasing demands of the incomparable Miss JESSIMINA upon the dancing attendance of your humble servant, I am lately become as idle as a newly painted ship, and have not drunk in the legal wisdom of the learned Moonshees who lecture in the hall of my Inn of Court, or opened the ponderous treatise of Hon'ble Justice BLACKSTONE or ADDISON on Torts, for many ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... on this point I can only speak from hearsay, and am quite willing to end here my series of illustrations, fearing that I may already have been wrongly set down as a lavulator temporis acti. Not the idle praising of times gone by, but the getting a lesson from them which may be of use to us, has been my object. And I believe enough has been said to show that the great complexity of modern life, with its multiplicity of demands upon our energy, has got us into a state of chronic hurry, the ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... no one to care for them, for their father and mother are drunken and idle, and send them about to beg. The children have been told that a kind Christian man lives at this house, and they are going to pull the bell and ask him ...
— Child-Land - Picture-Pages for the Little Ones • Oscar Pletsch
... suffice To save you. When by evil lust entic'd, Remember ye be men, not senseless beasts; Nor let the Jew, who dwelleth in your streets, Hold you in mock'ry. Be not, as the lamb, That, fickle wanton, leaves its mother's milk, To dally with itself in idle play." ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... just over. Blanche, seeing a pleasantly-idle morning before her, proposed to Arnold to take ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... with! that is the only comfort for people like me, for then they can fold their hands and idle away their time as before. Perhaps it is a sign of exceptional weakness, but I find some comfort in it. Now I can ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... grove," said Patty, "but I don't want to play anything. This is a day just to be idle and enjoy ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... to the American army from the British, urging the men to fly from all their hardships and miseries, and join the English force, where they would be received, and furnished with every comfort. In this condition of things it was very important to keep the American soldiers, cold, hungry, and idle, from thinking too much of their troubles. Washington could not give them balls, nor invite them to dine; but he wisely considered that the best thing he could give them was occupation,—a most wonderful medicine ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... the "Liberator." I told him I did; but, just having made my escape from slavery, I remarked that I was unable to pay for it then. I, however, finally became a subscriber to it. The paper came, and I read it from week to week with such feelings as it would be quite idle for me to attempt to describe. The paper became my meat and my drink. My soul was set all on fire. Its sympathy for my brethren in bonds—its scathing denunciations of slaveholders—its faithful exposures of slavery—and ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... not only idle, but stupid, to lament the departure of childhood's joys. It is as if something precious and valued had been forcibly torn from us, and we go sorrowing for lost treasure. But these things fall off from us naturally; we ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... be the walk, dinner, the Saturday afternoon home-letters to be written and then, until Monday, holiday, freedom to read and to talk English and idle. And there was a new arrival in the house. Ulrica Hesse had come. Miriam had seen her. There had been three large leather trunks in the hall and a girl with a smooth pure oval of pale face standing ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... happen to be all alone and in an idle mood, I play a game of solitaire, of which I am very fond. I use playing cards marked in the upper right-hand corner with braille symbols which indicate the ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... It was three o'clock. There was no time to lose. The day was passing swiftly, and at this rate evening would come on before one might be aware. The thought of standing idle any longer, while the precious hours were passing, was intolerable. Once more I made a hasty survey, and now, pressed and stimulated by the dire exigencies of the hour, I determined to make an effort toward the Quebec side. On that ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... Christendom took the Cross for the central symbol of its faith. What would have happened to Western Christendom without Augustine we do not know, and it is idle to try to guess, but Europe in its religious thinking followed for a thousand years the direction he gave it. His theology is only the travail of his soul, glowing and molten. His Confessions reveal to us more clearly than any other record we have Paganism becoming Christian. ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... appearance, or anything which might be repeated, maliciously or otherwise, to that man. He did not say to Miguel Rapponi, for instance, what he thought of Andy Green as a man or a rider. He did not mention him at all. He had learned in bitterness how idle gossip may eat away the efficiency of ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... the prospect will be to a person sitting quietly in the centre of the room; on the contrary, the farther out the glass is set, the more convenient the window will be for a person rising and looking out of it. The one, therefore, is an arrangement for the idle and curious, who care only about what is going on upon the earth: the other for those who are willing to remain at rest, so that they have free admission of the light of Heaven. This might be noted as a curious expressional reason for the necessity (of which no man of ordinary ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... would such stirring monuments be; full of life and commotion; than hermit obelisks of Luxor, and idle towers of stone; which, useless to the world in themselves, vainly hope to eternize a name, by having it carved, solitary and alone, in their granite. Such monuments are cenotaphs indeed; founded far away from the true body of ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... what I tole yer," he whipped out suddenly, just becoming aware that Roy's pencil had been idle. Peggy breathed hard. There was menace ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... excitement lasted Miss Dimple was in a state of jubilee. But by and by the novelty wore off; she had told the family everything she could possibly think of, and now longed for a few pairs of fresh ears into which to pour her stories. Everybody else was working for Christmas; Dotty alone was idle; for no one had time to give her a daily stint, and see that she ...
— Dotty Dimple at Play • Sophie May
... go. There is plenty of work in these days for a Christian woman to do. Surely I should go mad if I were to remain idle. You have work here, I have none, therefore I must go. Nurses are wanted in the ambulance corps ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... not be supposed, however, that the Germans in the tower were idle all this time. Bullets went through the opening in both directions and already two of the Frenchmen had been killed; two more were wounded. The fight ...
— Fighting in France • Ross Kay
... declaratory of international law on this point, and setting forth that England had no right to interfere with, or to permit, the escape of slaves from vessels driven into her ports. The resolutions were idle, because they could effect nothing, and mischievous because they represented that the sentiment of the Senate was in favor of protecting the slave-trade. Upon these resolutions, absurd in character and barbarous in principle, Mr. Webster did not even ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... ties were in patterns and styles that startled Battle Field. He had taken on manners and personal habits befitting a "man of the world"—but he had not lost that simplicity and directness which were as unchangeably a part of him as the outlines of his face or the force which forbade him to be idle for a moment. He and Pierson—Pierson was pupil, now—took a suite of rooms over a shop in the town and furnished them luxuriously. They had brought from New York to look after them and their belongings the first English manservant ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... and change its wildest passions into a holy calm. Till all nations receive the Bible in its integrity and own it as their only rule of policy, till kings reign for Christ and lay their crowns at His feet, a lasting peace is an idle dream. Treaties will no more bind nations that lie under the influence of unsanctified passions, that chains him who dwelt among the tombs, and within whom dwelt a legion of devils. Till other and better days come, the best cemented peace is only a pause—a truce—an ...
— The Angels' Song • Thomas Guthrie
... Eben walked at a little distance from the party, apparently taking no more interest in the affair than one of idle curiosity. ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... and turned once more to the window. Consciousness had flooded back indeed. What would Sheila have said to see him there? The unearthly beauty and stillness, and man's small labours, garden and wall and roof-tree idle and smokeless in the light of daybreak—there seemed to be some half-told secret between them. What had life done with him to leave a reality so clouded? He put on his slippers, and, gently opening the door, ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... out of her window came the mocking tones of the idle boys who had chosen as the vehicle of their scorn the very words which showed the relation of the fool to the eternal, and revealed in him an element higher far than any yet developed in them. They turned his glory into shame, ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... proposed to me, as proper in a boy, in order that in this world I might prosper, and excel in tongue-science, which should serve to the "praise of men," and to deceitful riches. Next I was put to school to get learning, in which I (poor wretch) knew not what use there was; and yet, if idle in learning, I was beaten. For this was judged right by our forefathers; and many, passing the same course before us, framed for us weary paths, through which we were fain to pass; multiplying ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... achievements of our great undertaking. We shall be able to point to you in proof that zeal for knowledge may thrive even under the pressure of secular callings; that mother-wit does not necessarily make a man idle, nor inquisitiveness of mind irreverent; that shrewdness and cleverness are not incompatible with firm faith in the mysteries of Revelation; that attainment in Literature and Science need not make men conceited, nor above ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... of the Sea," is never so beautiful as when it is dying. I have read that the Romans—after they ceased to be a brave people, and became idle and pleasure-loving—used to have these fish brought in before dinner and shown to the guests. The gay, thoughtless ladies, as they clapped their hands with delight at the beauty of the quickly-changing colours—white turning to sky-blue, and then to deep red—cared no more for the suffering ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... adaptable to any light scheme of colour, where they may appear indeed as guests of honour—invited from the past to be courted by the present. It is not often that such pieces are offered as parts of a scheme of modern decoration, and the fingers of to-day are too busy or too idle for their creation, yet it sometimes happens that a valuable piece of drapery of exceptional colour belongs by inheritance or purchase to the fortunate householder, and in this case it should be used as a picture would be, for an independent bit ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... rather a pamphleteer than an orator, deserves, on many accounts, a place in such a disquisition. The length of my prolegomena and digressions compels me to postpone this part of the subject to another occasion. A Magazine is certainly a delightful invention for a very idle or a very busy man. He is not compelled to complete his plan or to adhere to his subject. He may ramble as far as he is inclined, and stop as soon as he is tired. No one takes the trouble to recollect his contradictory opinions or his unredeemed pledges. He may be as superficial, as inconsistent, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... capitalist, 'if it were not for foreign competition I should be able to sell these things that you have made, and then I should be able to give you Plenty of Work again: but until I have sold them to somebody or other, or until I have used them myself, you will have to remain idle.' ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... anything in common with English Catholicism of the early sixteenth century. English Catholicism long before the Reformation had been a Protestant Catholicism, always in revolt against Roman claims, always preserving its insularity. It was idle to question the Catholic intentions of a priesthood that could produce within a century of the Reformation such prelates as Andrews and Ken. It was ridiculous at the prompting of the party in the ascendancy ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... pray to be informed of so much of the internal police of your State as relates to the laying, assessing, levying, and collecting taxes. I beg leave to assure your Excellency, that I am not prompted either by an idle curiosity, or by any wish to discover what prudence would dictate to conceal. It is necessary that I should be informed of these things, and I take the plain, open, candid method of acquiring information. To palliate or conceal any evils or disorders in our situation, can answer no good purpose; ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... Slaveholders do not recognize the fact that God designed us all to work, and has so arranged matters, that true comfort and happiness can only be reached through the gateway of labor. It is no blessing to be idle, and let others wait upon us; and in this respect the slaves certainly have the advantage of ...
— Step by Step - or, Tidy's Way to Freedom • The American Tract Society
... keep men at work. Idle men are the ones who growl. The French consider periods spent in the trenches as periods of rest; instead of letting the men go on pass when relieved, they restore discipline by close ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... seems uncultivated, and nearly all of it in misery. What have kings, and ministers, and parliaments, and states, to answer for their prejudices, seeing millions of hands that would be industrious, idle and starving through the execrable maxims of despotism, or the equally detestable prejudices of a feudal nobility. Sleep at the "Lion d'Or," at Montauban, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... hard case," said the admiral, "that, with all the will in the world to be up and doing something, we are lying here like a fleet of ships in a calm, as idle as possible." ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... with the pretence of warming his hands and fidgeted restlessly by the fire. Barbara had lost her expression of amusement and was honestly puzzled that he should make so great a pother about a piece of idle gossip. ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... goes bravely on, my lord. I was not idle, even last night. I dropped two of the handbills before I went to bed, and both are gone this morning. Nobody in the house has mentioned the circumstance of finding them, though I have been downstairs full half-an-hour. One or two recruits will be their ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... who, brought up in the merciless school of misfortune, no longer exaggerate the sentiment of sorrow, too familiar and assiduous a guest to be treated as a stranger, Mother Bunch was incapable of long yielding to idle regrets and vain despair, with regard to what was already past. Beyond doubt, the blow had been sudden, dreadful; doubtless it must leave a long and painful remembrance in the sufferer's soul; but it was soon to pass, as it were, into that chronic state of pain-durance, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... hand obeys me not; But, as in slumbers, when we fain would run From our imagined fears, our idle feet Grow to the ground, our struggling voice dies inward; So now, when I would force myself to chear you, My faltering tongue can give no glad presage: Alas, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... Damaris, bringing her slowly awake. For a time she lay watching, though but half consciously the tinted radiance as—the trees now stirred by a little wind drawing out of the sunset—it shifted and flitted over the white surfaces. At first it pleased her idle fancy. But presently distressed her, as too thin, too chill, too restlessly unsubstantial, the veriest chippering ghost of colour and of light. It affected her with a desolating sadness as of failure; of great designs richly ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... twirling the shade-tassel with her idle fingers, and seeing, not the rattle and clatter of Italian street-life, but the great space of the Maximilian-Joseph Platz, with the doves pattering placidly over the white and black pattern of its pavement, ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... Berkeley was growing uneasy. He felt that he stood above a burning volcano, from which an eruption was liable to take place at any moment. He trembled at the slightest whispers of freedom, for royalty dreads independence, and the idle boasts of Giles Peram startled him. He summoned Hugh Price and consulted with him on the ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... died childless many years before him, and he never married again. He was in the full possession of his mental faculties and blessed with a fair degree of health when he resigned, in 1824, the Rectorship of Christ Church. For a time he lingered in the neighborhood of Stratford, but could not be idle, and was soon in charge of the parish in Meriden, and afterwards officiated in several places, as Tashua, Wallingford, North Haven, Oxford, and Quakers' Farms. Ten years were thus passed, doing what he could for the Church which he had served so faithfully and loved so much; but in 1834 failure ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut
... cried harshly, 'and tell your master that it is idle for him to send to mine uncle. Tell him from me, Sir Gawaine, that by the vow of my knighthood, I will never leave this land till I or ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... his opinions, and to-night his opinions were strongly and forcefully declared. Beasley listened to him with interest, and smiled as he observed him moving about amongst the crowd drinking with one, treating another, his tongue never idle in his denunciation of sheriffs, and all those who called in their aid. It almost seemed as if the man was acting under orders, orders, perhaps inspired by a subtler mind, to disguise the real source ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... themselves in the very middle of the place, and reaped a golden, or rather a paper, harvest from the throng. The Boulevards and public gardens were forsaken; parties of pleasure took their walks in preference in the Place Vendome, which became the fashionable lounge of the idle, as well as the general rendezvous of the busy. The noise was so great all day, that the Chancellor, whose court was situated in the square, complained to the Regent and the municipality, that he could not hear the advocates. Law, when applied to, expressed his willingness to ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... the road turned round that fold of the plain, lolling a little to its left in the idle Spanish air, they came upon the village all in view. I do not know how to describe this village to you, my reader, for the words that mean to you what it was are all the wrong words to use. "Antique," "old-world," "quaint," seem words with which to tell of it. Yet it had no antiquity denied to the ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... to this Spanish settlement, doubtless imagining, that the rains which come from Mexico, rolled and brought gold along with them, which would cost nothing but the trouble of picking up. But to what purpose serves this beautiful metal, but to make the people vain and idle among whom it is so common, and to make them {151} neglect the culture of the earth, which constitutes true riches, by the sweets it procures to man, and by the advantages ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... King then cheeres his daughter, in his arme, Why dost thou weep? be still my sweete, be stil, Come clip thy loue I meane to do no harme, My Kingly bed with pleasures shall thee fill, And to hide all that idle heads may moue, Hence-forth I call ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... them? Left them there until they have stiffened like an unused lock, or rusted like the hinges of an unopened door; and you are as little active in all the noblest activities of spirit, which are activities in submission to and dependence upon Him, as if you were laid in your coffin with your idle hands crossed for ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... the reasons given, and besides, although they loved the Sergeant, they did not like Pierre. Pierre was not popular in the Quarter,—except with the young girls and a few special friends. The women said he was idle and vain like his mother, who had been, they said, a silly lazy thing with little to boast of but blue eyes and a white skin, of which she was too proud to endanger it by work, and that she had married the Sergeant for his pension, and would have ruined ...
— "A Soldier Of The Empire" - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page
... leave it all, and to be forced to go and fight against my brothers, so to speak, in a cause that I felt I must hate. As I rode on, thinking thus, I could see that there was no such oppression and tyranny as the Irish captain spoke of; nothing but a bitter and contemptible race-hatred, fostered by idle and discontented men. ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... mariners of this unsophisticated and little frequented port, as that of the hawk is known to excite among the timid tenants of the barn-yard. The rig of the stranger had been noted two hours before by one or two old coasters, who habitually passed their idle moments on the heights, examining the signs of the weather, and indulging in gossip; and their conjectures had drawn to the Porto Ferrajo mall some twenty men, who fancied themselves, or who actually were, cognoscenti in matters of ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... out the moment Varney laid down the paper, but Varney, staring absently out of the porthole, did not listen. This, then, was the meaning of the pale young editor's enigmatical remark last night. Here was no idle malice. Diabolically resourceful and without shame, young Mr. Smith had circulated this lie to discredit reform and drive off its new champion. And this was the way that he, Varney, had kept the coming of the Cypriani ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... he glanced at the now enormous stack of pearl shells and at the tubs once more well filled with oysters, for the beachcomber had not let his men be idle. But the sight of the treasures of which they had been robbed only irritated the boy, and he turned away to forget it in encountering the grinning face of ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... groan and hiss, in mockery of inevitable and earnest doings. Out at sea the merry moods of the boat and hasty and determined throbs of the engine are manifestations of something accomplished in the overcoming of distance. Here it is all mere idle fancy, while the echoes jeer. Surely the uncouth imps of the dimly-lit jungles need not proclaim their ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... There was no noise of labor. I did not perceive that they were weaving or spinning. Yet I did detect, when the wind lulled and hearing was done away, the finest imaginable sweet musical hum as of a distant hive in May, which perchance was the sound of their thinking. They had no idle thoughts and no one without could say their work, for their industry was not in knots and excrescences embayed. Yet I find it difficult to remember them. They fade irrevocably even while I speak. It is only after a long and serious effort to recollect that I became again ...
— Life's Enthusiasms • David Starr Jordan
... and there to the Duke of York, to attend him, where among other things I did give a severe account of our proceedings, and what we found, in the business of Sir W. Jenings's demand of Supernumeraries. I thought it a good occasion to make an example of him, for he is a proud, idle fellow; and it did meet with the Duke of York's acceptance and well-liking; and he did call him in, after I had done, and did not only give him a soft rebuke, but condemns him to pay both their victuals and wages, or right himself of the purser. This ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... terminology in OS theory] 1. vi. To delay or sit idle while waiting for something. "We're blocking until everyone gets here." Compare {busy-wait}. 2. 'block on' vt. To block, waiting for (something). "Lunch is ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... go next, what we should do when we decided where that "next" was to be—all these questions we had not considered at all. I, for my part, was curiously uninterested in the future. I was enjoying myself in an idle, irresponsible way, and I could not seem to concentrate my thoughts upon a definite course of action. If I did permit myself to think I found my thoughts straying to my work and there they faced the same impassable ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... every young woman would think of her soul when she looks in the glass, would hear the cry of her naked mind when she dallies away her precious hours at her toilet, would listen to the sad moaning of her hollow heart, as it wails through her idle, useless life, something would be done for the elevation of womanhood. I hope I address those who appreciate my words and my feelings. Above almost every thing else do I desire woman's elevation in the moral and intellectual scale of life. You may not see the mental ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... conduct. When we reached Oreus and joined Proxenus, instead of sailing and following their instructions, they made a circuitous journey by land, and before we reached Macedonia we had spent three and twenty days. All the rest of the time, until Philip's arrival, we were sitting idle at Pella; and this, with the journey, brought the time up to fifty days in all. {156} During this interval, in a time of peace and truce, Philip was taking Doriscus,[n] Thrace, the district towards the Walls, the Sacred Mountain—everything, ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... say—Miss Vanrenen does not know, and will never know from me, the true nature of the trick you played on her. You bear the label of a gentleman, so it is my earnest hope—indeed, my sincere belief—that you will respect the trust she placed in you, and not expose her to the idle chatter of clubs and scandal-spreading drawing-rooms. During two days I have been very bitter against you. To-day I take a calmer view, and, provided that neither my daughter nor I ever see or hear of you again, I shall be willing to credit that you acted more in a spirit of ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... opened for the admittance of the public, and one of the favorite amusements of the inhabitants of Lima is to go to San Andres to see the lunatics. It is melancholy to observe these unfortunate beings, thus made the objects of public exhibition, and irritated by the idle throng who go to stare at them. The collection of alms from the numerous visitors is, doubtless, the motive for keeping up this custom, which, nevertheless, ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... now to find himself thus situated in a House of Commons which had just been elected, and from which it would therefore be idle to appeal to the electors, he would instantly resign his office, and his adversaries would take his place. The change would be most advantageous to the public, even if we suppose his successor to be both less virtuous and less able than himself. For it is much ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... days before they knew what Calhoun meant. A few days sufficed to rest Morgan's command, and it was not the nature of Morgan to remain long idle. He had to be doing something. It was known that the Confederate armies were about ready to make the long-talked-of forward movement into Kentucky. In fact, General Kirby Smith had already set out from Knoxville to invade Eastern Kentucky, and General Bragg was nearly ready to take the initiative ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... why, I am truly ignorant," writes Washington to Mr. Speaker Robinson, "but my strongest representations of matters relative to the frontiers are disregarded as idle and frivolous; my propositions and measures as partial and selfish; and all my sincerest endeavors for the service of my country are perverted to the worst purposes. My orders are dark and uncertain; ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... How much rarer the world becomes to the man who has seen flower gardens and beautiful women moving to and fro among them! Ah, that ragged, rugged highway which he had traversed: dry crusts of life, buffets, bramble, curses and mockery. And here was realized one of his idle dreams. He took a dozen long strokes, which sent the craft up stream in the direction of Sillery, and let the oars drift. "You were to read a book?" ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... quite unfair to say that he only writes of the idle rich. What he actually does is—as I have said—to write of our upper middle class life, with its aristocrats at the top and its luckless governesses and tutors and journalists at the bottom; as we, who are in it, know it ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... ground yield two or three crops per annum.[981] Every inch of arable land is cultivated in grain, vegetables and fruits. Mountains and hills are terraced and tilled far up their slopes. Meadows are conspicuously absent, as are also fallow fields. Land is too valuable to lie idle. Labor is chiefly manual and is shared by the women and children; mattock and hoe are more common than the plow.[982] Such elaborate cultivation and such pressure of population eventuate in small holdings. In Japan one hectar (2 1-2 acres) is ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... my thoughts will appear to you but as idle fancies; and though you always seem well satisfied with my services, you have seldom felt inclined to follow my advice. How often have you said in jest: "You see too far, Machiavel! You should be an historian; he who acts, must provide for the exigence of the hour." And yet have I not ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... sky, mountains and broad prospects, decorated with all the delicate magnificence of leaf tracery and flower petal and feather, soft fur and the shining wonder of living skin, musical with thunder and the singing of birds; but an arena nevertheless, an arena which offers no seats for idle spectators, in which one must will and do, decide, strike and ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... me, he said, "There are the goods; I hope you will take care to sell them, and you shall have factorage." I thanked him for thus affording me an opportunity of employing myself, because I hated to be idle. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... returned John Mangles. "We shall be forced to come to that, and I think it is useless to waste our time in idle discussion." ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... They idle down the traffic lands, And loiter through the woods with spring; To them the glory of the earth Is but to ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... come of it. He had on the same day, April 3rd, met Randolph at Mrs. Jeune's at lunch. They had walked away together, when Randolph had proposed a Chamberlain-Hartington-Randolph league against both parties. This had tempted Chamberlain, but was an idle suggestion, as Hartington and ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... insisted upon being obeyed, and if any one of his crew behaved improperly, or was even found idle, this strict and inexorable master would cut him down where he stood. But although he was so strict and exacting during the business sessions of his piratical year, by which I mean when he was cruising around after prizes, he was very much more disagreeable ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... the British Commander, had the sea open to him and a finely tempered army upon which he could rely. The opposite was true of his opponents. They were a motley host rather than an army. They had few guns and almost no powder. Idle waiting since the fight at Lexington made untrained troops restless and anxious to go home. Nothing holds an army together like real war, and shrewd officers knew that they must give the men some hard task to keep up their fighting spirit. It was rumored that Gage was preparing an aggressive ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... in his well-earned retirement could he permit himself to be idle. To me, one of the most touching sights in the first year of my arrival here, was the indomitable perseverance with which every day the well-known figure of the old Principal would make its way, bag in hand, across the campus to the museum he loved so well, there to work for a time among ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan
... The legs, hitherto idle, are now working. They take up and break off one by one the threads that keep the round mat stretched on the coarse supporting network. At the same time, the fangs grip this sheet, lift it by degrees, tear it from its base ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... latter party were soon conscious of defeat, and began to hint mysteriously at a power stronger than the ballot-box, that would be invoked in defence of 'Southern rights.' To many, indeed to most persons, this seemed an idle threat. Not so to Frank Blair. He had imbibed from Benton the invincible faith of the latter in the settled purpose of the 'nullifiers' to subvert and destroy the government. And in a private caucus of the leaders of the Union party, on an ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... means of easing the imaginations of one's brain by fasting, excessive labours, and other virtues; and instead of frisking and fretting like a child let loose from school, you should pray to the virgin, sleep on a hard board, attend to your household duties, and never be idle." ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... of the Revolution, tempered to the necessities of the times. The thoughts of the men of that day were as practical as their sentiments were patriotic. They wasted no portion of their energies upon idle and delusive speculations, but with a firm and fearless step advanced beyond the governmental landmarks which had hitherto circumscribed the limits of human freedom and planted their standard, where it has stood against ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... he, "don't I remember being three terms in the Third Fifth when that tartar old Heriot had it? I dare swear I got no more than my deserts. I was an idle vagabond, but Heriot made my life such a burden to me that I entreated my people to take me away from Harrow. And then my governor urged me to put my back into the work and get a remove. And I did. And would you believe it, upon the first day of the next term I wired to my people, 'You must take ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... master's crops, housing the corn in caves or pits, distilling the roses, irrigating the khennah, and training and sheltering the vines. And he does so, not only from a sense of duty, but the more assiduously, because he finds in constant employment a protection against himself, against idle thoughts, wayward wishes, discontent, and despondency. It is doubtless very strange to the reader how any one who professed himself a Christian in good earnest should be open to the imputation of resting his hopes and his heart in ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... both more just and more generous to remember that during our time of peril as a nation, these very ranks of purposeless men furnished us soldiers and money, and a cheerful faith in the cause, just as these very legions of idle women gave ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... said Goggins, "I have seen a litherary gentleman in a sponging-house do crack things on the wall with a bit of burnt stick, rather than be idle—they must execute." ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... those more characteristic audiences of the road whose taste is less fickle, less blase. This is so much the case with the arts in America—the fashions change with the season's end and there is never enough of novelty; dancing is already dying out, skating will not prevail for long among the idle; what shall we predict for our variety which is in its last stages of ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... drawing these holders of personal property together. Capitalists with idle money found the avenues to profitable investment closed by the inability of Congress to offer protection to either manufacturing or shipping; creditors with money at interest witnessed with alarm the inability or unwillingness of state legislatures to resist ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... destitution by the Poor-law Commissioners, not more than 68,000 could in any one year, since the establishment of the Poor-law, be induced to accept the relief which Parliament provided for them;" and for this reason it is, that the condition of the most idle and indolent people in Europe is compassionated, as if it resulted from the misconduct of others rather than their own; and that "the patient endurance" of the most turbulent and bloodstained peasantry ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... with wounds, early in the day, but when, after the Irish had fairly beat the Dutchman back all day, they made up their minds to march away at night, I had to lave my patients and be off too. Then I was shut up in Limerick; and I was not idle there, as you may guess. When at last the surrender came, I managed to slip away, having no fancy for going over with the regiments that were to enter the service of France. I thought I could have gone ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... little boy named Fountain, also staying with me at school during the vacation, and he too stole after us unperceived, and when I and my companions had swam to middle of the lake, the imprudent little fellow also stripped and went into the water. There were some idle stragglers looking on, and when I was far, very far from the sport, the fearful shout came along the level surface, of "Help, help, he is drowning!" and with dreadful distinctness, as if the voice had been shrieked into my very ears, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... and art of nations will be no longer merely national, but world possessions, when wars shall have ceased and the policy of aggression have come to be regarded as an evil thing, when, in a word, the brotherhood of man shall be no longer an idle dream, a mere speculative aspiration which no practical person ever expected to see realised, but an actuality within measurable distance of being accomplished. All these things may as yet be dreams, but let us ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... his voice sad. "Not a thing! My Svengali pass didn't work. I was as the idle wind to her. Therefore, I ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... was, indeed, a disconcerting crowd gathered round the chief entrance, but Robert was like a general, cool and vigorous, strung up to the finest pitch of cunning. He wormed his way under the ropes, he edged and insinuated himself between the idle and good-natured onlookers, with Cosgrave, tossed and buffeted, but still in tow, struggling in the backwash. At last they were through, next to the entrance, and in the very front ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... himself the conversations they had had, of no consequence, the idle gossip of a stray half-hour; but each word was opulent in the charming smile, in the caressing glance of her eyes. He was able to imagine Mrs. Wallace quite close to him, wearing the things that he had seen ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... sham," said Dyke. "I don't think I used to be idle, but this hot sun has stewed all the spirit out ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... Olaf think of allowing his Uncle Sigurd to take the punishment for his crime. He knew that Sigurd had made no idle offer when he had said that he would give up his life for his sake; but Sigurd was guiltless, and it would be a coward's act to allow him to make this sacrifice. With all his newborn hopes burning within him, it was a hard thing for Olaf ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... vista betrayed the presence of scouting party or vedette. But there were no symptoms of unusual excitement, no sign of working parties, of reinforcements for the advanced posts, of the construction of earthworks or abattis. Pope's camps were scattered over a wide tract of country, his cavalry was idle, and it seemed absolutely certain that he was unconscious of the near neighbourhood of the ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... be ever so much more attractive than the young women I hear of, who have seen and known a great deal too much,' answered the dowager; and as her granddaughter knew that Lady Maulevrier's word was a law that altered not, there was no more idle repinings. ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... by chance one day in Spring Through Devon he went wandering And for an idle moment stood Upon the edge of Daccombe wood, Where bluebells almost hid the green, With the last primroses between, He bit his lip and turned away And could do no more work ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 26, 1920 • Various
... not at all afraid of the diphtheria, and as Delight is perfectly well, she can begin her lessons just as we planned to do. This will keep her interested and prevent her from worrying as much as if she were idle. And then, if anything should happen, I will be there to assist ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... enough for Rouletabille; he had had enough of it! This idle gossip and these living bombs! These pinchbecks, these whispering tale-tellers in their bourgeois, countrified setting; these politico-police combinations whose grotesque side was always uppermost; while the terrible side, the Siberian aspect, ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... said in deprecation of the waste of fertilizing matters in the city of New York, in which the writer of this pamphlet has conscientiously joined; because, he thought it wicked to commit such waste, while we were surrounded by lands lying idle, for the want of these very substances. Precious, however, as they would be to the farmer, he cannot afford to use them. That is, it would be poor economy for a Long Island farmer, no matter how near the city, to ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... her mother, the trained nurse, and the child. But instead of the "mild climate," Pasadena happened to be raw and rainy. She disliked the hotel, and the hosts of idle, overdressed, and vulgar women. So her mother brought her back, as we have seen, and then there was talk of the Virginia Springs, "an excellent ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... illness, as he sat by the stove, the memory of Emma Byers came to him often. She had left that district twenty-eight years ago, and had married, and lived in Chicago somewhere, he had heard, and was prosperous. He wasted no time in idle regrets. He had been a fool, and he paid the price of fools. Bella, slamming noisily about the room, never suspected the presence in the untidy place of a third person—a sturdy girl of twenty-two or -three, very wholesome to look ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... we are neither free nor sufficiently enlightened, that we submit to be cheated in our bargains; that the laborer pays the duties levied by the prestige of power and the selfishness of talent upon the curiosity of the idle, and that we are perpetually scandalized by these monstrous inequalities which are encouraged and applauded ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... the engine measured. This plant for the testing of engines might have been used with valuable results, but for one hindrance—the makers of engines were unwilling to send them to the factory to be tested, and the plant remained idle. There was a misunderstanding, which after a time became acute, between the factory and the private makers of aircraft. The factory, zealous for the public interest, believed that it could best serve their interest by encouraging, supervising, and co-ordinating ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... and, much as she loved the sport, to ride no more till Peter should return. So she gave out that she had hurt her knee, which made the saddle painful to her, and the beautiful Spanish mare was left idle in the stable, or ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... accomplished in one hundred minutes by the powerful Laxton horses. Magnificent was the Laxton turn-out; and in the roomy travelling coach of Lady Carbery, made large enough to receive upon occasion even a bed, it would have been an idle scruple to fear the crowding a party which mustered only three besides myself. For Lord Massey uniformly declined joining us; in which I believe that he was right. A schoolboy like myself had fortunately no dignity to lose. But Lord Massey, a needy Irish peer (or, strictly speaking, since the Union ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... course of the day, that a strong body of the Metropolitan A division of police was stationed at Slough, in plain clothes (as we are informed), to be in readiness to assist the local authorities, in the event of their services being required, it being expected that a mob, composed of the idle and lazy of the two towns, might, in the course of the evening, show some disposition to create a disturbance. The abolition of Montem is not only considered to be a most unpopular proceeding on the part of ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... travelling circus-van which came to Oxford, and now the memory of the scene returned to him when he looked at his lady's face. He had not known a human countenance could express such fierce, terrible rage. A quiver ran through him. Yes, this was no idle boast of an angry woman—he felt those slender hands would indeed be capable of dealing death to any one who robbed her of ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... And thus was this idle quarrel made up. All that vexes me on the occasion is, that it was not made up with dignity on my lord's part. His honest heart so overflowed with joy at his lips, that the naughty creature, by her arch leers, ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... did, Sir Charles," Finglemore answered, rubbing his hands somewhat nervously. "But he never went there. Being an idle young dog, with a taste for amusement, he got for the time no further than Paris. Since then, he's hung about a bit, here, there, and everywhere, and done no particular good for himself or his family. But about three or four years ago he somehow 'struck ile': he went to South ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... fourteen and thirty. In all, only 6,874 of these young toilers, who earn on an average six dollars a week, are provided with vacation outings. They are usually given vacations, with or without pay, but they spend the idle time at Coney Island, on excursion boats, ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr
... from the fireside, and dissipates the idle illusions of conversation, except under certain conditions. Let us say that the conditions are: a house in the country, with some forest trees near, and a few evergreens, which are Christmas-trees all winter long, fringed with snow, glistening with ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... good to ride and run, To roam the greenwood wild and free; To hunt, to idle in the sun, To leap into the ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... tenth dozen, when, exhausted, he gave up, and let M. Laperte go on alone. This gentleman managed to eat thirty-two dozen within an hour, and would doubtless have got through more, but the person who opened them is described as not being very skilful. In the interim Savarin was idle, and at length, tired with his painful state of inaction, he said to Laperte, whilst the latter was still in full career, "Mon cher, you will not eat as many oysters to-day as you meant; let us dine." They dined, and the insatiable oyster-eater ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... Ireland. These were Dr. Browne of Dublin, Dr. Staples of Meath, and Dr. Bale of Ossory. The latter writing of the former in 1553, excuses the corruption of his own reformed clergy, by stating that "they would at no hand obey; alleging for their vain and idle excuse, the lewd example of the Archbishop of Dublin, who was always slack in things pertaining to God's glory." He calls him "an epicurious archbishop, a brockish swine, and a dissembling proselyte," and accuses him in plain terms of "drunkenness and gluttony." Dr. Browne accuses ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... more blessed to give than to receive, my child. Happy are they who have the power to confer benefits, and who do so with willing hearts. I fear, however, that you will find your task a difficult one. Everywhere are the idle and undeserving, and these are more apt to force themselves forward as objects of benevolence than the truly needy and meritorious. As I know every one in the village, perhaps I may be able to guide you to such objects ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... as much pleasure as a child that has turned scolding into praise. "I'm delighted about it in more ways than one. It will give employment to our unskilled hands, who are now idle half the time. Even the children can turn a penny on their ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... all was a reek of powder-smoke; the stout pickets quivered to the pelting balls—every loop-hole was a target. Never did a garrison work harder; there was not an idle hand, for the ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... to fail. The public had now had enough of the affair. Everything was failing, now they would have to see if they could not come to some arrangement. Starvation was beginning to thrust its grinning head among the fifty thousand men now idle. The moment had come upon which capital was counting; the moment when the crying of children for bread begins to break the will of the workers, until they are ready to sacrifice honor and independence in order to satisfy the little creatures' hunger. And the enemy showed no sign ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... familiar, one might suppose, to need comment, but such irreconcilable views have been held by different authorities, from Dr. Johnson onwards, that it may not be idle to attempt to view the work critically in relation to ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... deepens in my mind with every hour: this was never Christ's city. The confusion, the shallow curiosity, the self-interest, the clashing prejudices, the inaccessibility of the idle and busy multitudes were the same in His day that they are now. It was not here that Jesus found the men and women who believed in Him and loved Him, but in the quiet villages, among the green fields, by the peaceful lake-shores. And it is not here that we shall find the clearest ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... shall be going away. You see, Mrs. Henriksen, I should very much have liked to stay, because this is really where I belong; but what more can I do here? I don't work; I merely idle. Do you understand me? I grieve continually, and my heart sits wrinkled. My most brilliant achievement is spinning coins: I toss a coin into the air and wait. When I came here last autumn I wasn't ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun
... and face the boys or sleep nights with Pat's hand reaching for me in the dark to remind me of my word? Can't you see where I stand? Do you think I could look Lorry in the face when he knew that I sat idle while the man that murdered Pat was riding the ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... remarkable instances; we had been forced to dismiss an audience of a hundred and fifty pounds, from a disturbance spirited up, by obscure people, who never gave any better reason for it than that it was their fancy to support the idle complaint of one rival actress against another, in their several pretensions to the chief part in a new tragedy. But as this tumult seemed only to be the wantonness of English liberty, I shall not presume to lay ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... remarkable that 'the Almighty' only receives prayers at the new moon (of sacrifice to the Almighty he says nothing), and that, being the creator and preserver of all things, he is 'of so exalted a nature that it is idle to imagine the feeble supplications of wretched mortals can reverse the decrees and change the purpose of unerring Wisdom.' The new moon prayers are mere matters of tradition; 'our fathers did it before ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... regiment, which has made itself a name throughout all Europe, there are half a score of Scottish regiments in the service of the King of Sweden, and his gracious majesty Gustavus Adolphus does not keep them idle, I warrant you." ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... object or a limited time, in return for subsidies and for our assurance (which you know to be a very sincere one) of wishing to procure for them important acquisitions. The question of Hanover may I think be left aloof. As to plans of operations, it is almost idle to say anything. But you will have seen that we think the first and essential point is to act (as Prussia seems to intend) with a force sure of success in the rear of the French Army in Germany. ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... said, "You make no mention of Eudora; and I perceive that both you and Philothea are reserved when her name is mentioned. Do not believe every idle rumour, my son. The gayety of a light-hearted maiden is often unmixed with boldness, or crime. Do not cast ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... half idle yet unconsciously tactful, was one of those human things which cost so little but are worth so much. It gave Doggie ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... country amply supplies all that the army needs, without its calling on its abundant reserves. I propose, Sir, to write to you twice a week, to give you the news about His Majesty, and details about the operations of the army. These communications will enable you to contradict the idle rumors which malicious persons ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... the horse to the water, if we cannot make him drink," shouts a newsboy in her ear; and with a great deal of tugging and thumping she feels herself driven closer to her books. But idle hands make an idle brain, and the pages ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... were now firmly planted on Olympus. Along the grass lay the warm strong colours of the evening sun, reddening the pine-stems and yellowing the idle aspen-leaves. For a moment it had hung in doubt whether the pic-nic could survive the two rude shocks it had received. Happily the youthful element was large, and when the band, refreshed by chicken and sherry, threw off half-a-dozen bars of one of those irresistible ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... who had been cultivating cotton on their own hook looked on with envious eyes and empty pockets, creating a very general impression in favor of the wages system. Under this impression, I think they will fall to work gradually at similar wages to what I have been paying, but will probably lie idle a few weeks to think about it, in hopes ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... De Maintenon's salons at a time when she knew the king would be present there. This stately robe invested the venerable lady's noble figure with such majesty as could not fail to inspire respect, even in the mob of idle loungers who were wont to collect in anterooms, laughing and jesting in frivolous and irreverent fashion. They all shyly made way for her; and when she entered the salon the king himself in his astonishment rose and came to meet her. As his eyes fell ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... Temple got away from memorialists, petitioners, grievances, men of business, idle men, newsmen, and dear friends, then hastened to Alfred to unburden his mind—and to ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... to frequent a group of idle and opulent people who executed the same gestures and revolved on the same pivots as Mrs. Lidcote's daughter and her friends: their Coras, Matties and Mabels seemed at any moment likely to reveal familiar patronymics, and once one of the speakers, summing up a discussion of which ...
— Autres Temps... - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... fell on the Bambino, resting disgracefully on its wooden head. "Poor little figurine," she murmured, reaching a slender hand to draw it up. She straightened the tumbled finery absently. It slipped to her lap, and lay there. Her hands were idle, her eyes ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee
... but be certain it has its defects. Your articulation is vicious, and the gestures upon which you pride yourself, are, in most cases, unnatural. Do not rely upon the fire of momentary inspiration. Nothing is more deceptive. The great Garrick said: "I do not depend upon that inspiration which idle mediocrity awaits." Talma declared that he absolutely calculated all effects, leaving nothing to chance. While he recited the scene between Augustus and Cinna, he was also performing an arithmetical operation. ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... and their villas and theatres and baths were models of classic architecture and the scenes of unbounded luxury; the streets were narrow, provided with side-walks, the walls often decorated with painting or scribbled over by idle gamins; the number of shops witnesses to the fashion and gaiety of the town, the remains of painted notices to its municipal life; a terrible earthquake ruined it and drove out the inhabitants in A.D. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... lately been begun, but, instead of being made with hardy, industrious husbandmen, accustomed to labor, the only people fit for such an enterprise, it was with families of broken shop-keepers and other insolvent debtors, many of indolent and idle habits, taken out of the jails, who, being set down in the woods, unqualified for clearing land, and unable to endure the hardships of a new settlement, perished in numbers, leaving many helpless children unprovided for. The sight ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... During his first idle day, Harry's attention was drawn to a handbill which had been posted up in the store, the post office, the tavern, and other public places in the village. It was to ...
— Bound to Rise • Horatio Alger
... owned the lordship of the East-English King Raedwald. The shelter given by Raedwald to AElla's son Eadwine served as a pretext for a Northumbrian attack. Fortune however deserted AEthelfrith, and a snatch of northern song still tells of the day when the river Idle by Retford saw his defeat and fall. But the greatness of Northumbria survived its king. In 617 Eadwine was welcomed back by his own men of Deira; and his conquest of Bernicia maintained that union of the two realms which the Bernician conquest of Deira had first brought about. The greatness ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... sight. He was a Russian refugee of mark. All Geneva knew his burly black-coated figure. At one time all Europe was aware of the story of his life written by himself and translated into seven or more languages. In his youth he had led an idle, dissolute life. Then a society girl he was about to marry died suddenly and thereupon he abandoned the world of fashion, and began to conspire in a spirit of repentance, and, after that, his native ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... you, or when, overcome by base usage, you take to drink. There is no hope for you; even if you were treated better and paid your wages there would be no hope. Those forty pounds even, if they were given to you, would bring you no good fortune. They would bring the idle loafer, who scorns you now as something too low for even his kisses, hanging about your heels and whispering in your ears. And his whispering would drive you mad, for your kind heart longs for kind words; ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... characterized Chesterfield's early pursuits. Desultory reading he abhorred. He looked on it as one of the resources of age, but as injurious to the young in the extreme. 'Throw away,' thus he writes to his son, 'none of your time upon those trivial, futile books, published by idle necessitous authors for the amusement of ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... than her companions, "but on the 14th of July you would have besieged and bombarded the city; and on the 6th of October you wanted to flee to the frontier." She answered, in the gentlest tone, that "these were idle stories, which they were wrong to believe; tales like these were what caused at once the misery of the people and that of the best of kings." Another woman addressed her in German. Marie Antoinette declared ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... were in view. They were a sight that couldn't fail to stimulate the funny bone. By comparison with real ants everything about them had been grossly exaggerated to achieve the proper effect. They walked on their two back legs but the four front apertures were far from idle. Some of them turned somersaults, others did complicated flips consisting of two or three spins in mid-air. Still others, doing a kind of animated cakewalk, carried toy ray guns which they fired at random into ...
— Martian V.F.W. • G.L. Vandenburg
... shouting at Mr. Easton's tavern all winter. Nay, they declare that all this country west of the mountains, too, will be broken off and set up into a republic, and allied with that most glorious of all republics, France. Believe me, the Jacobins have not been idle, and there have been strange-looking birds of French plumage dodging between the General's house at Clarksville ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... great deal too well pleased with himself to know how ill his friends were thinking of him, and was pursuing a very idle and pleasant, if unprofitable, life, without having the least notion of the hubbub he was creating, and the dreadful repute in which he was held by many good men. Coming out from a match at tennis with Mr. Batts, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... multiplied examinations so as to make quite sure, at the end of each term or each year, that the pupils confided to them have done at least some work. This kind of forced labor may do some good to the incorrigibly idle, but it does the greatest harm to all the rest. If there is an examination at the end of each year, there can be no freedom left for any independent work. Both teachers and taught will be guided by the same pole-star—examinations; no deviation ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... under her superintending eye. She must be the nurse of her children alike by day and by night, in sickness and in health; and with the attention which American ladies pay to their husbands, their married life is by no means an idle one. Under these circumstances, the early fading of their bloom is not to be wondered at, and I cannot but admire the manner in which many of them cheerfully conform to years of anxiety and comparative seclusion, after the homage and gaiety which seemed ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... of Bello Sguardo, and has paced the centuries continually since the coming of the friars. One might have asked of her the kindness of a fellow-feeling. She and he alike were so habited as to show the world that their life was aloof from its "idle business." By some such phrase, at least, the friar would assuredly have attempted to include her in any spiritual honours ascribed to him. Or one might have asked of her the condescension of forbearance. "Only fancy," said the Salvation Army girl, watching the friar out of sight, "only fancy ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... we have had in England during the last two hundred years than in some parts of Ireland at the present moment. Rather, much rather, would I have lived on the line of march of the Pretender's army in 1745 than in Tipperary now. It is idle to threaten us with civil war; for we have it already; and it is because we are resolved to put an end to it that we are called base, and brutal, and bloody. Such are the epithets which the honourable and learned Member ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... throughout the East and South, who looked upon the pioneers in general as renegades and vagabonds forming a "lawless rabble" on the outskirts of civilization. To them the first settlers were "lawless intruders" on the public domain, "land robbers," "fugitives from justice," and "idle and profligate characters." Squatters, they held, were those "who had gone beyond the settlement and were wholly reckless of the laws either of God or man." Nay more, they were "non-consumers of the country, performing no duties either civil or military." In short, gentlemen ...
— History of the Constitutions of Iowa • Benjamin F. Shambaugh
... found that the lowness of the tide would prevent their getting off for an hour, the Swancourts, having nothing else to do, allowed their eyes to idle upon men in blue jerseys performing mysterious mending operations with tar-twine; they turned to look at the dashes of lurid sunlight, like burnished copper stars afloat on the ripples, which danced into and tantalized their vision; or listened to the loud music ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... thinking such talk idle; and begged to know what manner of man this was who was coming. Was he—was he ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... familiar and silent public, where the heavy clouds of tobacco smoke lulls disquietude, while the heavy beer dulls the mind and calms the heart. He almost lived there. He was scarcely up, before he went there to find people to occupy his looks and his thoughts, and soon, as he felt too idle to move, he took his meals there. About twelve o'clock he used to rap on the marble table, and the waiter quickly brought a plate, a glass, a table napkin, and his lunch when he had ordered it. When he had done, he slowly drank his cup of black coffee, with his eyes fixed on the decanter of brandy, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... labour that is required of you. You are carefully rubbed down and washed, you have well-dressed corn, and fresh clean water. Your greatest business is to carry the merchant, our master, when he has any little journey to make, and were it not for that you would be perfectly idle. I am treated in a very different manner, and my condition is as deplorable as yours is fortunate. Daylight no sooner appears than I am fastened to a plough, and made to work till night, which so fatigues me, that sometimes my strength entirely fails. Besides, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... some of the circumstances to you it may bring back the memory," suggested the lieutenant. "Believe me, I do not do it out of mere idle curiosity, but you seemed in such distress at the time, and so uncertain of where you wanted to go, that I really wished after I had directed you that I had placed you in charge of the conductor of ...
— The Moving Picture Girls in War Plays - Or, The Sham Battles at Oak Farm • Laura Lee Hope
... variety of methods. The training of men for business callings increases the supply of entrepreneurs. Taxes on inheritances, excess profits, and the unearned increment of land will tend to force into productive work many capable men who now either idle away their lives, or retire from business prematurely. It is also important that the well-to-do classes be encouraged to rear larger families, since it is these classes which can best afford to give ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... godlines. In our forefathers tyme, whan Papistrie, as a standyng poole, couered and ouerflowed all England, fewe bookes were read in our tong, sauyng certaine bookes of Cheualrie, as they sayd, for pastime and pleasure, which, as some say, were made in Monasteries, by idle Monkes, or wanton Chanons: as ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... pity," he reflected; "but we cannot alter the matter now. The poor girl will feel herself sadly out of place in this house, I fear; but perhaps it won't do her any harm. She may be a better woman all her life—the idle, selfish, self-indulgent life that she is bound by all her traditions and her upbringing to lead—for having seen for a few months what honest work is like. She is too handsome not to marry well: let us only hope that Alice won't secure a duke for her. She will ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... and adaptation. Too early and too much criticism spoils many a home. "One silent, both happy," is an old motto well worth observing. But often a single appreciative word will brighten the whole sky. One of Franklin's plain phrases has its wise lesson: "As we must account for every idle word, so we must for every idle silence." Frederika Bremer says: "Marriage has a morrow, and again a morrow." You will need to bear with each other, and to so act, each to the other, that every ...
— The Wedding Day - The Service—The Marriage Certificate—Words of Counsel • John Fletcher Hurst
... to learn that you have forgotten the protection that I always gave you. Do you think that I am no longer alive; or that I have a mind to stand idle, like those who have been here in my place? Or do you think that, if eight or ten hairs have been torn from my children's heads when I was absent, I cannot put ten handfuls of hair in the place of every one that was pulled out? You know that before I protected you the ravenous Iroquois dog ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... had in their employ as high as two thousand men at one time and worked under a contract that gave them a substantial bonus for all track laid in excess of two miles a day, as well as made them allowance for idle time occasioned by their being unable to work on account of the grade not being ready for them. Thus they were to receive eight hundred dollars per mile of track laid if two miles or less was laid in a day. If they laid ...
— The Story of the First Trans-Continental Railroad - Its Projectors, Construction and History • W. F. Bailey
... Our tongue from Lilly's writing then in use, Talking of stones, stars, plants, of fishes, flies, Playing with words and idle similies." ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... last week, warrants for the arrest of William and Ellen were issued by Judge Levi Woodbury, but no officer has yet been found ready or bold enough to serve them. In the meantime, the Vigilance Committee, appointed at the Faneuil Hall meeting, has not been idle. Their number has been increased to upwards of a hundred "good men and true," including some thirty or forty members of the bar; and they have been in constant session, devising every legal method to baffle the pursuing bloodhounds, and relieve ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... his spare time in taming birds and making cages for them, and in cutting models of vessels and boats, and manufacturing other articles; indeed, I believe he is never idle, and seems as contented and happy as if he had been prosperous all his life, and never met ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston
... operations, and had had the planking, which surrounded the building-yard on the side where the warehouses lay, pulled down in order to get room for the engines. He managed to get some order among the men who were handing the water, and drove the idle spectators up into the yard near the house. As he happened to pass Uncle Richard, the latter asked him, "Do you think ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... in the slightest observations of Lady Annabel, which, however sweet might be the voice in which they were uttered, scarcely encouraged their propriety to be canvassed. Now Venetia was far from desirous of being separated from her mother this morning. It was not a vain and idle curiosity, prompted by the receipt of the letter and its consequent effects, both in the emotion of her mother and the visit which it had rendered necessary, that swayed her breast. The native dignity ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... wins for Ex clear Wever and the Clist, Contributing their streams their mistress' fame to raise. As all assist the Ex, so Ex consumeth these; Like some unthrifty youth, depending on the court, To win an idle name, that keeps a needless port; And raising his old rent, exacts his farmers' store The landlord to enrich, the tenants wondrous poor: Who having lent him theirs, he then consumes his own, That with most vain expense upon the Prince is thrown: So ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... freezing deliberation, "that Miss Miranda Dows and her niece now represent the Drummond Company equally with myself, and that you cannot expect me to listen to any reflections upon the way they choose to administer their part in its affairs, either now, or to come. Still less do I care to discuss the idle gossip which can affect only the PRIVATE interests of these ladies, with which neither you nor I ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... darted into my soul, since I formed a scheme of reasonable felicity, have been squandered by my own fault. I have lost that which can never be restored; I have seen the sun rise and set for twenty months, an idle gazer on the light of heaven; in this time the birds have left the nest of their mother, and committed themselves to the woods and to the skies; the kid has forsaken the teat, and learned by degrees to climb the rocks ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson
... to tell all that had happened to her, and when the mother heard how she had come by her riches, she was most anxious to secure the same luck for her own idle, ugly daughter; so she told her to sit at the well and spin. In order to make her spindle bloody, she stuck her hand into a hedge of thorns and pricked her finger. Then she threw the spindle into the well, and jumped in herself ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... apostolic and catholic Christianity, and if all three had conspired to draw together into one the various temperaments and tendencies of the German Americans in the unity of the Spirit with the bond of peace, may seem like an idle historical conjecture, but the question is not without practical interest to-day. Perhaps the Moravians would have been the better for being ballasted with the weighty theologies and the conservative temper of the state churches; it is very ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... the country throws it up to New York a lot because of its Four Hundred, and that the ordinary small-town man gets so scornful when he talks of the idle and diamond-crusted rich, with their poodle-dog pastimes, that he lives in constant danger of stabbing his eyes with his nose. But I'm not that way; I'm interested. Nothing fascinates me so much as the stories in your papers ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... I never saw so many idle men and grown boys. Not a spot could be found so secluded that one or more did not soon make his appearance. Selecting the quiet yard of a summer cottage, a deserted-looking place not yet opened ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... admit that there are certain strong points in their natural character which are anything but pleasing; and it is, I believe, these points coming to the notice of people who are not inclined to befriend them that have earned for them the character of an idle, ungrateful people. Many a time has it been said to me, "How can you waste your time working among those Indians? They will never get any better for all you can teach them or do for them." And yet I have continued labouring, and do still labour ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... I got on board I saw five men flogged for not being smart enough at reefing topsails. I thought it very cruel, and it set me against the service. I did not inquire who the men were. I found afterwards that they were idle rascals who deserved punishment, and always went about their duty in a lazy, sluggish way. However, there was no doubt that our captain was a very taut hand. The ship had just come out of harbour. He had found out that the ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... or his right, and no one should be presumed to submit to illegal acts of power, whether actual or contingent. (5.) But a main objection to this argument is, that it would render the whole constitutional provision idle and inoperative; and no explanatory words, if such words had been added in the Constitution, could have prevented this consequence. The law, it is said, is part of the contract; it cannot, therefore, impair the contract, because a contract cannot impair itself. Now, ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... my pastur fust, an' show you our cow—the best milker i' the county. An' see here at these backbuildins, how convenent the dairy is; I planned it ivery bit myself. An' here I've got my little carpenter's shop an' my blacksmith's shop; I do no end o' jobs here myself. I niver could bear to be idle, Mr. Tryan; I must al'ys be at somethin' or other. It was time for me to lay by business an mek room for younger folks. I'd got money enough, wi' only one daughter to leave it to, an' I says to myself, says I, it's time to leave off moitherin' myself wi' this world so much, an' give ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... chamber, who told me her business was chiefly for my advice about her husband's leaving off his trade, which though I wish enough, yet I did advise against, for he is a man will not know how to live idle, and employment he is fit for none. Thence anon carried her and Mrs. Pierce home, and so to the Duke of Albemarle, and mighty kind he to me still. So home late at my letters, and so to bed, being mightily troubled at the newes of the plague's being encreased, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... and His righteousness be added to us over and above—or NOT as it may happen. Try for once the plan the Lord of heaven and earth advises, and seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and see whether every thing else will not be added to you. Again, you need not be idle a moment more in Lent than at any other time. But I dare say, that none of you are so full of business that you have not a free ten minutes in the morning, and ten minutes at night, of which the best of uses may be made. What do I say? Why, of all men in the ...
— Twenty-Five Village Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... attempt of the Bolsheviki is on the eve of complete failure. The garrison is disaffected. The Ministries are idle, bread is lacking. All factions except a handful of Bolsheviki have left the Congress of Soviets. The Bolsheviki are alone! Abuses of all sorts, acts of vandalism and pillage, the bombardment of the Winter Palace, arbitrary ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... which bound them together he was far too sensible to dream of separation. Nor, in his heart, did he think her guilty of anything but foolish, headstrong indiscretion,—of that and latterly of dissimulation. It was not that Caesar had been wronged, but that his wife had enabled idle tongues to suggest ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... states that "the American tonnage measurements, properly taken, never could give results for frigates varying largely from the English tonnage." But a statement like this is idle; for the answer to the "never could" is that they did. If Mr. Chiswell will turn to James' "Naval Occurrences," he will find the Chesapeake set down as 1,135 tons, and the Macedonian as of 1,081; but in the American Navy lists, which are those I followed, the Chesapeake ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... great dragon-fly came through on some mysterious journey, and paused for a palpitating bright second on a sunny rock. The woods all about were silent in the tense hush of the summer afternoon; even the horses were motionless, except for an occasional idle lipping of the underbrush. Now and then a breath of pine, incredibly sweet, ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... Idleness.—If a boy should carry one hand in his pocket all the time, and use only the other hand and arm, the idle arm would become small and weak, while the other would grow large and strong. Any part of the body which is not used will after a time become weak. Little boys and girls who do not take plenty of exercise are likely to be pale and puny. ...
— First Book in Physiology and Hygiene • J.H. Kellogg
... 7.15 A.M. Early morning parades were being held by all corps. He watched some units at work and then went to the quarters prepared for him. After breakfast he at once began his inspection, and from that time until he left the camp, three days afterwards, there was practically not an idle moment. ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... pleasant it was to humiliate himself and depreciate himself before her! How delightful it was to get such splendid opportunities of hinting that if his life had been sanctified by an object he might indeed have striven to be something better than an idle flaneur upon the smooth pathways that have no particular goal; that, blessed by the ties which would have given a solemn purpose to every hour of his existence, he might indeed have fought the battle earnestly ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... own native cactus, and he desired only peace and quiet while he throttled the snake of ignorance in his talons, which snake had been his worry ever since the Aztec hordes from the north had first caged him in. Beneath the Imperial arms was the motto, "Equidad en la Justicia," but it seemed an idle promise. ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... soldiery, who took to flight and murdered one of their generals. The discouragement with which the nation heard of these reverses deepened into sullen indignation against the Court, as weeks and months passed by, and the forces lay idle on the frontier or met the enemy only in trifling skirmishes which left both sides where they were before. If at this crisis of the Revolution, with all the patriotism, all the bravery, all the military ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... an one would do well to succor a father's failings, to add hope to his despondency and love to the mitigation of his trials. But Mr. Keene was not despondent, nor were his trials of a sort which might not easily be tempered by something like industry on his own part. He was frankly idle. He loved better than simple work the precarious excitement of prospecting—an occupation which, except in isolated and accidental instances, cannot be pursued to any good save with the ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead
... morning awoke from her sweet dream of bliss to find herself wedded to a drunkard! Only they who like her have experienced a similar awakening can know the bitterness of that hour, and yet methinks she was happier than the haughty Lina, for her love was no idle passion, and through weal and woe she clung to her husband, living oft on the remembrance of what he had been, and the hope of what he might be again, and when her little Willie was first laid upon her bosom, and she felt her husband's tears upon her cheek as he promised to reform for her ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes
... mesa, the clang and rattle of ore cars and the incessant grinding of quartz mills. Yes, it was decidedly pleasant to have a whole summer—if he wanted it—in which to go where he liked, do what he liked. One might do much worse, he reflected, than find some such spot as this and idle to one's heart's content. There would be trout, as like as not, in that stony brook back there; sunfish, probably, in that lazy stream crossing the open meadow yonder. It would be jolly to try one's luck on a day like this; jolly to lie back on the green bank ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... foreign influence which reigned in her home. It might be told how in that spiritual atmosphere, shedding its sleepy indolence, her own spirit awoke and grew conscious and far-seeing, till impressions and hints which in the old days she would have set aside as idle, became for her pregnant with light and meaning. Then at last her eyes were opened, and understanding much and guessing more she began to watch. The attitude of the Colonel also could be studied, and how he grew first suspicious, then sarcastic, and at last thoroughly ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... superior way, trembled before the stamp of his foot and the kindling flash of his eye. Some affair abroad had disturbed him and he came into the hall, when his sisters' voices were raised giddily as they played off an idle, ill-thought-of jest on grave, cold Nelly. "Queans and fools," he termed them, and bade them "end their steer" so harshly, that the free, thoughtful girls did not think of pouting or crying, but shrank back in affright. Nelly Carnegie, whom he had humbled to the ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... are audible to me, These idle flowers, that tremble in the wind, I understand their ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... through life in the old country in some exacting and ill-paid sedentary occupation, might have been benefited by emigration. The colonies have been inundated with ruined spendthrifts, gamblers, drunkards, idle good-for-nothings, who have been induced to emigrate in the belief that that alone was a panacea for their moral diseases. Very very few of them have reformed or done any good, so that colonists are naturally prejudiced against their class, and look upon gentleman-new-chums with great suspicion. ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... father. "The wages here are so low that we can afford to hire men to do handwork. This gives many men work, and keeps them from being idle and discontented." ...
— Fil and Filippa - Story of Child Life in the Philippines • John Stuart Thomson
... It would be idle to assert that all women are suited to marriage, motherhood, and domestic life, although there is little doubt that early training may develop in some a suitability which would otherwise remain unsuspected. When, however, ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson
... light-haired, ungainly youth, of about twenty, with a reputation for singing a comic song. It was understood that the Admiral designed him for College and Holy Orders, but meanwhile time was passing, and Sam sat "with idle hands at home," or more frequently, in the bar ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... by Dominican capital and are not able to supply the local demand. In Santo Domingo City are the remains of a costly brewery erected by Americans with a view to supplying the West Indies; it was ruined, so local reports say, by bad management and has been idle for fifteen years. If the amount of soap used by a people is really an index of its degree of civilization, then the Dominicans can claim to be far advanced, for the consumption of soap manufactured in the country and imported, ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... for idle vanities," he said; "it's no time to indulge unreal modesties; and you have none of either if it were. God has laid His hand on us all, Rotha; yes, and our hearts are open without disguise before Him—and before each ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... and the revolting heinousness of which the records of our courts reveal; may be traced to his prescribing for himself, and practising, a lax standard of morals, is a statement which it would be idle to dispute. That the marriage tie exacts from him not the most onerous of interpretations, and that the scriptural basis for a sound morality, involved in the declaration, "and they twain shall be one flesh," not seldom escapes, in his case, its ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... and that his sacred image Was in thy soul engraven, when first his Spirit, The spring of life, did in thy limbs inspire it. For, as his beauties are past all compare, So is thy soul all beautiful and fair: As he's immortal, and is never idle, Thy soul's immortal, and can brook no bridle Of sloth, to curb her busy intellect: He ponders all; thou peizest[1] each effect: And thy mature and settled sapience Hath some alliance with his ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... possess a part of our own language, though they cannot speak it, and hence do not possess it so fully as we do. They cannot say "bread," "meat," or "water," but there are many that readily learn what ideas they ought to attach to these symbols when they are presented to them. It is idle to say that a cat does not know what the cat's-meat man means when he says "meat." The cat knows just as well, neither better nor worse than the cat's-meat man does, and a great deal better than I myself ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... tr-r-r-rum-ti-tum-tum! 'Tis the warning voice of the rolling drum. Through the awakened night air come The stern command and the busy hum Of hurried preparation. 'Tis no time now for idle strumming Of light guitars: in that loud drumming Is fearful meaning; the hour is coming That for some of us will be the summing Of all ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... years, his chief delight was in his books, which lost none of their power to interest him in advancing age; especially was this true of the Book of books. He was never idle. The active energy, which distinguished his youth, no less marked his advancing years. His mind was as clear, his judgment as sound, and his mental vision as keen at eighty-three, as they were at thirty-three. His was a long and happy old ...
— Among the Sioux - A Story of the Twin Cities and the Two Dakotas • R. J. Creswell
... did not greatly care whether I died or lived, while Hans drew his knife and stood over me, cursing them as he had cursed at Jana. By slow degrees they drew nearer and nearer. I watched them with a kind of idle curiosity, believing that the moment when they came within actual spear-thrust would be our last, but, as I have said, not greatly caring because of my mental ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... offered that majestic, silent figure some grotesque indignity: thrown a pillow at it, or hailed it in tones of mocking offence. He was profoundly and exquisitely ashamed even before he ceased to tell the story for his listeners' idle amusement. When he stopped doing so, and snubbed solicitation with the curt answer that everybody had heard that story, he was retrospectively ashamed; and mixed with the expectation of seeing the vision again was the formless wish to offer it some ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... ingratitude to my indolence, and yet I felt my heart so little culpable that, had it been in my power to do M. le Blond the least service, even unknown to himself, I am certain he would not have found me idle. But indolence, negligence and delay in little duties to be fulfilled have been more prejudicial to me than great vices. My greatest faults have been omissions: I have seldom done what I ought not to have done, and unfortunately ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... wanted to make a good impression with that lesson. After a while, when she was sure she could spell them all correctly, she began to listen and look around her. She always "got" her spelling in less time than was allowed the class, and usually sat idle, looking out of the window until that study period was over. But now the moment she stopped staring at the board and moving her lips as she spelled to herself the teacher said, just as though she had been watching her every minute instead of ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... my veins And fills with sleep the droning times, Like sluggish dreams among my brains, There runs the drollest sort of rhymes, Idle as clouds that stray through heaven And vague as if they were a myth, But in these rhymes is always given A ...
— Songs, Merry and Sad • John Charles McNeill
... Constance. I am going to Garibaldi. He wants soldiers. I must not live an idle life any longer.—We ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... never ceased asking, What is piety? what is impiety? what is noble? what is base? what is just? what is unjust? what is temperance? what is madness?"[912] And these questions were not asked in the Sophistic spirit, as a dialectic exercise, or from idle curiosity. He was a perfect contrast to the Sophists. They had slighted Truth, he made her the mistress of his soul. They had turned away from her, he longed for more perfect communion with her. ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... public nuisances. Their maintenance directly tends to corrupt and debase public morals, to promote vice, and to encourage dissolute and idle habits, and the suppression of nuisances of this character and having this tendency, is one of the important ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... we are both idle, and if we continue so, may have ennui and may quarrel. After three days I will not pay for your breakfasts, and every day in which you do not breakfast with me, paying for yourself, I will give you no dinner. Remember it, Suzette, for ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... a moment did Olaf think of allowing his Uncle Sigurd to take the punishment for his crime. He knew that Sigurd had made no idle offer when he had said that he would give up his life for his sake; but Sigurd was guiltless, and it would be a coward's act to allow him to make this sacrifice. With all his newborn hopes burning within him, it was a hard thing for Olaf to think ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... published in facsimile by Mr. F. W. Bourdillon at Oxford in 1896. Indeed, few poems, old or new, have in the last few years been more reprinted, translated, and discussed, than "Aucassins," yet the discussion lacks interest to the idle tourist, and tells him little. Nothing is known of the author or his date. The second line alone offers a hint, but nothing more. "Caitif" means in the first place a captive, and secondly any unfortunate or wretched man. Critics ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... did as well as we could expect, I suppose. The children did need the "gad" occasionally and the father indulged in a few idle, surly, drinking days; but, convinced that the man was honestly trying, I found that a little tact and kindness always brought him around to renewed endeavor. To expect immediate reform and unvaried well-doing would be asking too much of such ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... La Masque, in a tone so strangely sad that it touched Leoline, "do not be angry with me. It is no idle curiosity that sent me here at this hour to ask impertinent questions, but a claim that I have upon you, stronger than that of any ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... combination shown in Fig. 20. This consists of a train-arm T revolving about the vertical axis OO of the fixed wheel A, which is equal in diameter to F, which receives its motion by the intervention of one idle wheel carried by a stud S fixed in the arm. The second train-arm T' is fixed to the shaft of F and turns with it; A' is secured to the arm T, and F' is actuated by A' also through a single idler carried ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 441, June 14, 1884. • Various
... plans. We don't mean to say much about them yet, because we are such very new brooms, but we don't intend to be idle. I'm going into business with a devotion that shall delight Grandfather, and prove to him that I'm not spoiled. I need something of the sort to keep me steady. I'm tired of dawdling, and mean to work ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... of the deputation did honour to the prophetess, as well as showed the king's anxiety as to the matter in hand. Jeremiah and Zephaniah were both living at this time, and we do not know why Huldah was preferred. Perhaps she was more accessible. But conjecture is idle. Enough that she was recognised as having, and declared herself to have, direct authoritative communications ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... When he got out at 12.30 the sun seemed to pour right through his skin, into the drab chamber of his soul, gilding it. He hurried over his macaroon tart and cup of coffee, and then had three-quarters of an hour left to idle in the square. ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... a snake to me. I threw away the glass he had drunk from. And yet—was it idle curiosity, or was it fear of being shut away in the valley outside Papeite by the quarantine officers, that made her ask me that question about ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... are to go having bad dreams about me—who am like a stalled ox—browsing in idle comfort—in fact, idle is no word for it. Sloth is the right epithet. I can't get myself to do anything but potter in the ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... obtained, and so much encouragement was given by Government to settlers, that many of the half-pay officers and soldiers who had gone to New Brunswick found their way here, as well as many of the idle, discontented, dissipated, vicious and worthless of the United States. But at the Settler's Home all were made welcome; the meals, victuals and night's lodging were freely given to all, and for years after, to my recollection, during ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... tell Vaudrey that an old friend, Claire Dujarrier, was on intimate terms with a certain Adolphe Gochard, who upon the endorsement of a responsible person, would certainly advance a hundred thousand francs that he had at this moment lying idle. Gochard only needed a bill of exchange in his favor for one hundred thousand francs at three months' date, plus interest at five per cent. This Gochard was a very straightforward capitalist, who did not make it a business to lend ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... Raya we saw great flocks of sheep and alpacas, numerous corrals, and the thatched-roofed huts of herdsmen. The Quichua women are never idle. One often sees them engaged in the manufacture of textiles—shawls, girdles, ponchos, and blankets—on hand looms fastened to stakes driven into the ground. When tending flocks or walking along the road they are always winding or spinning ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... letters, they too much talk of government affairs. It is our duty to take care of the Smyrna trade, as well as all other, and it never has yet been neglected; but Great Britain, extensive as her navy is, cannot afford to have one ship lay idle. Be assured, my dear Sir Sidney, of my perfect esteem and regard, and do not let any one persuade you to the contrary: but my character is, that I will not suffer the smallest tittle of my command to be taken from me. But, with pleasure, I give way to my friends; among ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... rowed out to the clipper. The wind had shifted to the southeast, but still there was not enough of a sea to give them any trouble; and in a few minutes they were under the bows of The Southern Cross. Dan hailed a seaman who was leaning over the gunwale and watching them with idle curiosity. If the man replied in French, it was in a variety of that tongue that Tom's limited attainments did not understand, and, annoyed by the incomprehensible replies, he asked for "le captaine". At length,—possibly attracted ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... which Dowie immediately demanded from all who came to him, some of them even pouring their entire fortunes into the coffers of the new Elias. The ranks of his recruits were further swelled by crowds of hypochondriacs, and by the superstitious, the idle, and the curious, who filled his temple to such an extent that soon he was obliged to hire a large hall for his Sunday meetings, at which he was wont to appear in great magnificence with the cortege of ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... fire on the forts at Pharos Point and Ras-el-Tin. The Egyptians were standing at their guns, and instantly replied to the fire. The gunboats were lying in a second line behind the line of battle-ships, but the sailors who manned them were not content to remain idle, and, though without orders to engage, the Cygnet soon crept in close enough to use her guns. The Condor steamed away to the west, and engaged alone and unsupported the Marabout Fort. The admiral, seeing the disproportion ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... new things, and told me that I was among a thoughtful and sensible people. To the ship-repairing dock I went, and saw the same wise prudence. The carpenters struck where they aimed, and the calkers wasted no blows in idle flourishes of the mallet. I learned that men went from New Bedford to Baltimore, and bought old ships, and brought them here to repair, and made them better and more valuable than they ever were before. Men talked here of going whaling on a four years' voyage ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... I am afraid you must really make up your mind to get up to-day. I know quite well how delightful it is to be thoroughly idle, for when my husband and I were King and Queen we did nothing at all from morning to night, and I sincerely hope that it will not be long before those happy days will come again for us. But at present we have not reached them, nor have you, and you know from what the Fairy said that perhaps ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... professor lowered the guard he had built up before his holy places, relaxed the vigilance of his watch upon them lest they should be invaded by the careless feet of those that did not comprehend. Scott Brenton did comprehend. To him, experimenting was an act of reverence, not a deed of idle curiosity. The world-laws were, to him, full of purpose, albeit only half revealed; and blessed was he who should assist ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... question of drinking raised again by the "hootch," it is perhaps possible that, having so little else to do, they were ready to eat the more; it is also true that, busy or idle, the human body requires more nourishment in the North than it does in ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... 1% of the atmospheric nitrogen proved to be argon. The new element is characterized by having no affinity for other elements. Even under the most favorable conditions it has not been made to combine with any other element. On this account it was given the name argon, signifying lazy or idle. Like nitrogen, it is colorless, odorless, and tasteless. It has been liquefied and solidified. Its boiling point ...
— An Elementary Study of Chemistry • William McPherson
... Robert Hart. Of course the change gave rise to much discussion, and Sherard Osborne went frankly to Hart and told him how ill-natured people were hinting that he had intrigued against Lay. The malignity of idle gossip, however, could not turn him back. Knowing that he had worked as loyally for his chief as for himself, he simply replied that if the public looked at it in that way, instead of refusing he would certainly accept the post. I wonder if any instinct told him that the great day of his life ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... poor people long to waste themselves in idle lamentations. The problem of the future was forced upon Mrs. Ramsay for solution. If they had been able only to live comfortably on the earnings of the dead husband, what should they do now when the strong arm that delved for them was silent in the cold embrace of death? They must all work now; ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... moments the old man-of-wars man stood staring up at his wounded flag, idle with wrath and astonishment. He then in a voice of thunder shouted: "Plum—Robins—Tuck! D' ye see what that there fired little tailor's been and done? Why, junk me if he ha' n't shot our colour through! Boys, load with ball; d' ye hear? Suffocate ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... half of the first dog watch, Shuffles began to be excited. He was too much of a politician to be idle while any voting was going on? and so far as his duty would permit, he had watched the receivers since the balloting commenced. He had seen seven or eight vote of whose membership in the Chain he had no previous knowledge. He saw that Pelham had made more initiates ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... worst from the older-established countries. And again, at the end of the week, he most unexpectedly found himself seated on a country-club verandah, having a very good time, indeed, with some charming specimens of the idle rich. He talked polo, golf, tennis and horses; he dined at several most elaborate "cottages"; he rode forth on glossy, bang-tailed horses, perfectly appointed; he drove in marvellously conceived traps ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... learned to think more of the Japanese. I studied Takahashi very earnestly and I grew to like him. The Orientals are mystics and hard to understand. But any one could see that here was a Japanese who was a real man. I never saw him idle. He resented being told what to do, and after my first offense in this regard I never gave him another order. He was a wonderful cook. It pleased his vanity to see how good an appetite I always had. When I would hail him: "George, what you got to eat?" he would grin and reply: "Aw, ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... the excursion boat could be carrying, stepped forward in idle curiosity to look down the hatch. Suddenly he became aware that the young men were circling behind him. Before he could so much as turn around, he was seized from each side and a hand clapped over his mouth. With a concerted rush they swept him into the hole in ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... skin are frequently caused by ill-fitting harness or saddles. When a horse has been resting from steady work for some time, particularly after being idle in a stable on a scanty allowance of grain, as in winter, he is soft and tender and sweats easily when put to work again. In this condition he is liable to sweat and chafe under the harness, especially if it is hard and poorly fitted. This chafing is likely to ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... wisdom as well as in stature, and no longer sought the bubble reputation in official visits to the headmaster's study. In short, Jack had improved with his surroundings. He and Valentine, in addition to their fretwork, had taken up carpentry; and on wet afternoons, when idle hands were steeped in mischief, they were always to be found in the shed which had been set apart for the boys to use as a sort of workshop. As far as the Fifth Form was concerned, only one incident happened ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... you," said the deacon, shocked. "Pigs are only brute animals. They have no souls. Would you be willing to give up your immortal soul for the sake of bein' idle, and ...
— The Young Outlaw - or, Adrift in the Streets • Horatio Alger
... know it will be just two weeks now till we go up to the lake for all the summer. Why didn't I think to have you plant stuff in our back garden? Then you could have all the garden you liked right there handy—we always do hate to leave the ground idle." ...
— Mary Jane's City Home • Clara Ingram Judson
... stress as were now present in the colony, when exceptionally large sums had to be raised, and great sacrifices and sufferings endured, and when little less than the actual existence of the province might be thought to be at stake, it certainly seemed that the rich and idle proprietaries might stand on the same footing with their poor and laboring subjects. They lived comfortably in England upon revenues estimated to amount to the then enormous sum of L20,000 sterling; while the ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... the idle curiosity of a spectator who had no share in the drama, for the end of Menko's odious argument: "I ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... in the request and representation; and having done so, it is idle to detail my arguments in favour of my own self-love and 'Poeshie;' but I protest. If the poem has poetry, it would stand; if not, fall; the rest is 'leather and prunello,' and has never yet affected any human production 'pro or con.' Dulness is the only annihilator in such cases. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... objects in your life, then, if you fritter away your interest on an idle acquaintance whom you will forget as soon as you are out of her sight, and, if you'll pardon me, who will forget you, except when something calls up your name, or a reminiscence of you." Even Edmonson as he stood staring at her drew his breath like one recovering ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... destruction: if he had not recognised the monarch from his resemblance with his portrait on the assignats—if he had not rode with all speed, and reached Varennes before the carriages, in two hours more the king and his family must have been saved. Drouet, this obscure son of a post-master, sauntering and idle that evening before the door of a cottage, decided the fate of a monarchy. He took the advice of no one but himself—he set off, saying, "I will arrest the king." But Drouet would not have had this decisive impulse if, ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... destroyed, and with the home the home-like virtues. It is the dis-homed multitude, nomadic, hungry that is rearing an undisciplined population, cursed from birth with hereditary weakness of body and hereditary faults of character. It is idle to hope to mend matters by taking the children and bundling them up in barracks. A child brought up in an institution is too often only half-human, having never known a mother's love and a father's care. To men and women who are without ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... liberty which France recovered in 1814, the triumph of any particular school in philosophy or party in politics. Turbulent propensities, obstinate theories and imaginations, at the same time ardent and idle, were unable to find in it the gratification of their irregular and unbounded appetites. It was, in truth, social liberty, the practical and legalized enjoyment of rights, equally essential to the active life of the citizens and ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... of from thirty to fifty feet wide were effected in the walls. The Saxons had not been idle. Behind each of the threatened points they raised banks of earth ten feet high, and cut away the bank perpendicularly behind the shattered wall, so that the assailants as they poured in at the gaps would have to leap ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... over the premises, from the corral to the office. He showed her the automobile lying idle because an important part was broken and the new one though ordered from ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... is taking the pictures!" Paul went on, pointing to Russ, who, with a look of chagrin on his face, stood idle beside the camera. He did not want to take a film with this scene in it, for the whole plot of the story would have to be changed to make the ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Rocky Ranch - Or, Great Days Among the Cowboys • Laura Lee Hope
... bridled! They never had a bit in their mouths. Before the war they ran wild, and now they ride rough-shod over decorum, decency, and Davis himself. But the dictator endures it like a philosopher. "He lets it pass," said Judge Ould to me, "like the idle wind, which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... his winding stair, Into his dismal den, Within his little parlor—but She ne'er came out again! And now, dear little children Who may this story read, To idle, silly, flattering words, I pray you, ne'er give heed: Unto an evil counsellor Close heart and ear and eye, And learn a lesson from this tale Of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... perhaps an idle speculation, how early in the long line of our progenitors the various expressive movements, now exhibited by man, were successively acquired. The following remarks will at least serve to recall some of the chief points discussed in this volume. We may confidently believe that laughter, as a sign ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... them went to St. Louis to see my prosecutors. He found they would do nothing unless they got all their money back. Of course I could not give them that," said he with a wink, "as I haven't it; and so my lawyer was unable to do anything for me. Shanks, however, has just been in, and he has not been idle during the five days he has been absent. He has made arrangements with a party to go my bail, provided I will advance a considerable sum as security. Nothing is needed now but security, and I think I can manage it. I can give them some money, and they will then manage to get me ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... would have become even easier later, when Mr. Lloyd George enlarged his attack on the landlords definitely into an attack against the idle upper classes, who with their dependents he reckoned at two million persons. He accused this class of constituting an intolerable burden on the community, said that its existence was the symptom of the disease of society, and that only ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... salvages, or any other, be they never such idlers may turne, carry, and returne fish without shame or either great pain: hee is very idle that is past twelve years of age and cannot doe so much: and shee is very old that cannot spin a ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... prevents or deters investment in new or expanded production facilities. This lessens the opportunity for employment and chokes off new outlets for idle savings. Monopoly maintains prices at artificially high levels and reduces consumption which, with lower prices, would rise and support larger production and higher employment. Monopoly, not being subject to competitive pressure, is slow to take advantage of technical advances which would lower ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Harry S. Truman • Harry S. Truman
... text makes ruling common to both, over and beyond which the preaching elder labors in the word. 2. Doth not this interpretation allow a double honor to ministers that labor not so much as others in the word? And can we think that the laborious Paul intended to dignify, patronize, or encourage idle drones, lazy, sluggish, seldom preachers? Ministers must be exceeding instant and laborious in their ministry, 2 Tim. iv. 1-3. If this were the sense only to prefer the greater before the less labor in the ministry, the apostle would have used this order ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... naturally, and latterly on topics that might seem indifferent, we were both sweetly agitated. Too soon it was time for her to go; and we separated, as if by mutual consent, without shaking hands, for both knew that, between us, it was no idle ceremony. ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... hand, did every idea influence our actions, our condition would not be much mended. For such is the unsteadiness and activity of thought, that the images of every thing, especially of goods and evils, are always wandering in the mind; and were it moved by every idle conception of this kind, it would never enjoy a moment's peace ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... but these bees are born with business instincts, and they can't enjoy loafing; they don't know how to be idle. Being as busy as a busy bee must be ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... occasions when the mistress of Storm sat idle in her eyrie, her household—children, negroes, even the motley assortment of dogs that claimed her for their own—had learned to go their ways softly. The morning after Mag's affair, three collies, a hound or so, and several curs ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... certain implements would effect, answered with characteristic conservatism. "What," said he, "would you have us do? Our only concern is to fill our bellies, to get good clothes and houses, to say to one slave, 'Do this,' and to another, 'Do that,' and to sit idle ourselves and be waited upon. As to our tillage, or building, or planting, our forefathers did so and so and were satisfied, and why should not we do the same? The English want us to use their ploughs instead of our heavy wooden ones, and recommend other implements ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... Confederate method of counting their effectives, which should be increased nearly one-fifth to compare properly with our reports. In addition to these Stuart had the principal part of the Confederate cavalry on this line, and they were not idle spectators. Parts of Lee's and Hampton's brigades were certainly there, and probably the whole of Lee's. [Footnote: Id., p. 819.] With less than half the numerical strength which was opposed to it, therefore, the Kanawha division ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... Sabbath, he was not compelled to move a muscle. The Boer burgher could eat, sleep, or fight whenever he wished, and inasmuch as he was a law unto himself, there was no one who could compel him to change his habits. It was an ideal idle-man's mode of living and the foreign volunteers who had leaves of absence from their own armies made the most of their holiday, but in that respect they did not surpass their companion, ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... father who was a scholar and knew Greek." A week or two before his death Browning told an American friend, Mrs. Corson, in reply to a statement of hers that no one could accuse him of letting his talents lie idle: "It would have been quite unpardonable in my case not to have done my best. My dear father put me in a condition most favourable for the best work I was capable of. When I think of the many authors who have had to fight their way through all sorts of difficulties, ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... fair to see God yearned to have unto Himself the joy she brought to me; And bid your winds sing soft and low the song of other days, When, hand in hand and heart to heart, we went our pleasant ways— Ah me! but could I sing again that song of long ago, Instead of this poor idle ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... red-hot iron, its cascades of sparks, and the melodious clank of the heavy hammer as it falls upon the impressionable metal. In all pursuits which entail the use of an open fire at night, its fascination attracts both busy and idle villagers, and more especially in winter it becomes a centre for local gossip. At that season the time-honoured gossip corner, close to the Manor gate, was deserted for the warmth and action of the forge. Blacksmiths, like other specialists, vary, ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... was for a moment interested by what was to her so new a scene. "I had thought it magical art," she said, "but poor Tressilian taught me to judge of such things as they are. Great God! and may not these idle splendours resemble my own hoped-for happiness—a single spark, which is instantly swallowed up by surrounding darkness—a precarious glow, which rises but for a brief space into the air, that its fall may be the ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... Unitarian chapel and found certain Unitarian charities, in the heart of what was even then one of the densest and most poverty-stricken of London parishes. For a long time, however, chapel and charities seemed likely to rank as one of the idle freaks of religious wealth and nothing more. Unitarianism of the old sort is perhaps the most illogical creed that exists, and certainly it has never been the creed of the poor. In old days it required the presence of a certain arid ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... De Laleu, all the household of Marie de Medicis, with the exception of Chanteloupe and one or two others, began to anticipate a speedy return to France. The concessions which she had made were indeed so important and so unforeseen, that it seemed idle to apprehend any further opposition on the part either of the King himself, or of his still more obdurate minister. Great, therefore, was their dismay when they discovered that their unhappy mistress had sacrificed her pride in vain, and that she still remained ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... felt like I wanted to hit something, and hit hard. It wa'n't any idle impulse, either. That tooth was jumpin' so I could almost feel my heels leave the floor, and I had emotions that it would take more than language to express proper. So I peels off for it, down to a sleeveless jersey and a pair of flannel pants, and starts ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... the last time, he made Penn the offer of a pistol. There was no leisure for idle arguments on the subject. The weapon was accepted. The two wrung each other's hands in silence: there were tears in the eyes of both. Then Stackridge gave Dobbin a resounding slap, and the horse bounded away, bearing his rider swiftly out of ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... he cut his finger, as chemists are apt to do, and, again as chemists are apt to do, he dissolved some guncotton in ether-alcohol and swabbed it on the wound. At this point, however, his conduct diverges from the ordinary, for instead of standing idle, impatiently waving his hand in the air to dry the film as most people, including chemists, are apt to do, he put his mind on it and it occurred to him that this sticky stuff, slowly hardening to an elastic mass, might be ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... danger signals have gone up. Already the corrosive process has begun. And every diminution of our tolerance, each new act of enforced conformity, each idle accusation, each demonstration of hysteria-each new restrictive law—is one more sign that we can lose the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Harry S. Truman • Harry S. Truman
... and sooner than confess that she could not understand the work, Winona was silent. She never mentioned the long hours she spent poring over her books in Aunt Harriet's dining-room. After all, it was better to be thought idle than stupid. But it was humiliating to feel that she was counted among the slackers of the Form, while Garnet was already winning laurels. The contrast between the two scholarship holders could not fail ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... adage, that "when the devil finds a man idle, he sets him to work;" when love finds a heart unoccupied, he soon finds it a tenant, for it always has been, is now, and always ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... and in the civil service of the Company. I returned to England last year, on inheriting the fortune of an uncle, among whose possessions was the house in question. I found it shut up and uninhabited. I was told that it was haunted, that no one would inhabit it. I smiled at what seemed to me so idle a story. I spent some money in repairing it, added to its old-fashioned furniture a few modern articles,—advertised it, and obtained a lodger for a year. He was a colonel on half-pay. He came in with his family, a son and a daughter, and four or five servants: they all left the house the next ...
— Haunted and the Haunters • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the harrow," said Mr. Brandon. "The king and ministry are determined to crush the life out of us. All business has stopped. Grass is growing in the streets. Ship-carpenters, joiners, blacksmiths, ropemakers, are idle; no one has any work for them. Thousands have already left town, and others are going. Nobody can earn a penny, and we are all growing poorer. We should starve in a short time were it not for the kindness ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... spite of the strong love, which had opened new vistas of thought and emotion for him during the past year, his feeling for Desmond was, and always would be, the master-force of his life. That he should be condemned to play the woman's part and sit with idle hands while his friend risked life and limb in the wild mountain country across the Border, seemed for the moment more than he could ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... malice, obloquy, and spite Expire e're morn, the mushroom of a night! Transient as vapours glimm'ring thro' the glades, Half-form'd and idle, as the dreams of maids, Vain as the sick man's vow, or young man's sigh, Third-nights of Bards, ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... acrid smoke pervaded everything. Here the poorer streets were spared, and it was chiefly the rich shops and banks and private houses that had been destroyed. Charleroi was the great Birmingham of Belgium—coal-pits all round, with many great iron and steel works, now of course all idle, and most of the owners entirely ruined. The town was absolutely crammed with German troops as we passed through; it had now been occupied for two or three days and was being used ...
— Field Hospital and Flying Column - Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia • Violetta Thurstan
... that I may see their works, done in My name in a fertile land of peace. I will withdraw Mine eyes from other worlds that I may behold them, that I may behold these people to whom I sent Christ—they whose innumerable spires pierce My blue vault like bayonets.' God saw the restless, idle rich in club and cabaret, Meat-gorged, wine-filled, they played and preened and danced till dawn o' day; They played at sports; they played at love; they played at being gay. They were but empty, silk-clad shells; their souls had leaked away. He saw the sweat-shop and the mill where little children ...
— Hello, Boys! • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... him for writing on so universal a matter, even though it is unimportant; and he has tried to make it uncommon and important by weaving round it an intricate lace-work of psychology; yet, when we get down to its main lines, it is the ordinary event, especially commonplace in any idle society which clings to outward respectability and is dreadfully wearied of it. Our neighbours across the Channel call it La Crise when, after years of a quiet, not unhappy, excellent married existence, day succeeding day in unbroken continuity of easy affection ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... village gossip about Edith, and so she endeavored, by warning and by bribery, to induce the maid, the footman, and the driver to say nothing about the scene at the gates. Another day, she hoped, would make it all right, and idle gossip should, never be allowed to meddle with the name ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... to the main street and for a distance the roar of their volleying chorus followed us. Men and women stood at the doors of the houses along the way. They were silent and idle. Idleness and silence seemed always to have fallen as grim legacies upon the civilian populace of these captured towns; but the look upon their faces as they listened to the soldiers' voices was not hard to read. Their town was pierced by cannonballs where it was not scarified with fire; there was ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... stone, and the other walls are blank and calm. The young folk were in raptures. They went in trepidation, almost afraid that the delight of exploring this ruin might be denied them. In the first courtyard, within the high broken walls, were farm-carts, with their shafts lying idle on the ground, the tyres of the wheels brilliant with gold-red rust. It ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... tossing his head, and turning it on all sides, as if he partly suspected some mischief or other. Seeing nothing, however, and hearing no sound, he soon began his antics again. At length—not that he was weary, but only idle and luxurious—Pegasus folded his wings and lay down on the soft green turf. But, being too full of aerial life to remain quiet for many moments together, he soon rolled over on his back with his ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... vegetation, from the symmetry of avenues and the interlacing of branches, is a strange and vain supposition. It is a theory which never could have existed for a moment in the mind of any person acquainted with early Gothic; but, however idle as a theory, it is most valuable as a testimony to the character of ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... stirrups, and loosely fastened to their right arms, vibrating over their heads; long files of Russian and Prussian foragers, and long trains of Austrian baggage waggons, winding slowly through the crowd; idle soldiers of all services, French as well as allied, lounging about in their loose great coats and trowsers, with long crooked pipes hanging from their mouths; patroles of infantry parading about under arms, composed half of Russian grenadiers, ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... humor:—whether they are better or worse, is unimportant. His delicate and irritable genius, influenced by his early studies, and fettered by old associations, moved within a limited circle. Yet this was not without its advantages; for, whilst it stopped him from many bold (and many idle) speculations and theories, it gave to his writings their peculiar charm, their individuality, their sincerity, their pure, gentle original character. Wit, which is "impersonal," and, for that very ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... whilst my lord and lady were away. King James was flying; the Dutchmen were coming; awful stories about them and the Prince of Orange Mrs. Worksop used to tell to the idle little page, who enjoyed the exciting narratives. The family were away more than six months, and when they returned they were in the deepest state of dejection, for King James had been banished, the Prince of Orange was on the throne, and the direst persecutions ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... therefore the water that runneth through Bantam is very vnwholesome; for euery one washeth themselues in it, as well pockie as other people, whereby wee lost some of our men that drunke of the water: The women are verie idle, for they do nothing all the day but lie downe; the poore slaues must doe all the drudgerie, and the men sit all day vpon a mat, and chaw Betele, hauing ten or twentie women about them, and when they make water, presenly one of the women washeth their member, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt
... it rains try to find some thing to do indoors. Clean up, rather than remain idle. Remember that while work may stop, expenses still ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... myself apprentice to a tailor; for I always envied the comfortable seat which they appeared to enjoy upon the shopboard, and their elevated position, which enabled them to look down upon the constant succession of the idle or the busy, who passed in review before them in the main street of the country town, near to which I passed the first ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... of the Queen-mother rendered all further discussion upon this point at once idle and impolitic, De Luynes resolved to induce her to come to terms with the King without any allusion to M. d'Epernon; and for this purpose the Archbishop of Sens was directed to act in concert with the two original envoys, and to endeavour to convince her that a prolonged opposition to the ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... sleight-of-hand performer juggles with his balls. The expressions: "This is what I would do, if I were the government"; "You, as a clever man, will immediately agree with me"—were never absent from his tongue. Lavretzky listened coldly to Panshin's idle chatter: he did not like this handsome, clever, and unconstrainedly elegant man, with his brilliant smile, courteous voice, and searching eyes. Panshin speedily divined, with the swift comprehension of other ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... Admiral lying on his bed, not yet in his stone house but in a rich and large pavilion brought out especially for the Viceroy and now pitched upon the river bank, under palms. I came to him past numbers out of that thirty. Idle here; they certainly were idle here! With him I found a secretary, but when he could he preferred always to write his own letters, in his small, clear, strong hand, and now he was doing this, propped in bed, in his brow a knot of pain. He wrote many letters. Long afterwards I ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... young Welland's thoughts had been very busy; ay, and his conscience had not been idle, for when mention was made of that great curse strong drink, he vividly recalled the day when he had laughed at Sam Twitter's blue ribbon, and felt uneasy as to how far his conduct on that occasion had helped Sam in ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... to another lady ten or twelve days since, but to this must be added the fact that all Littlebath knew that he had done so. Miss Todd, after the first ebullition of her comic spleen, had not said much about it; but Miss P. Gauntlet's tongue had not been idle. She, perhaps, had told it only to the godly; but the godly, let them be ever so exclusive, must have some intercourse with the wicked world; and thus every lady in Littlebath now knew all about it. And then there were other difficulties. That whispered conversation ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... Down in the water, a long reef of gold, Or what seem'd gold: and I was glad at first To think that in our often-ransack'd world Still so much gold was left; and then I fear'd Lest the gay navy there should splinter on it, And fearing waved my arm to warn them off; An idle signal, for the brittle fleet (I thought I could have died to save it) near'd, Touch'd, clink'd, and clash'd, and vanish'd, and I woke, I heard the clash so clearly. Now I see My dream was Life; the woman honest Work; And my poor venture but a fleet ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson
... not ready to proceed to trial until 1664. For three years the sharpest lawyers in France had been working on the Act of Accusation. It was very large even for its age. The accompanying Pieces were unusually voluminous. The accused had not been idle. His Defenses may be seen in fourteen ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... yet determined—but this lady has taught an to respect myself. I have been spending an idle, useless life, dependent on her bounty, a pet, a protege which no human being endowed with health and energy should ever content herself with being. Henceforth ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... hardly wonder that the time spent at Oxford was, to a man like Gibbon, "the most idle and unprofitable period of his life," to use his own words. Even under the very different system which prevailed in the early portion of the present century, one of the most fertile thinkers of our day has been heard to speak ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... be imported, were not to be worn, and lamb's flesh was abjured that more wool might be raised for home manufacture. England's colonial trade fell off so alarmingly in consequence that Manchester manufacturers petitioned Parliament to repeal the act, asserting that nine-tenths of their workmen were idle. Besides these popular demonstrations, delegates from nine colonies met in New York, in October, 1765, often called the Stamp Act Congress, and adopted a declaration of rights, asserting that England ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... it is certain that, in many instances, masters have failed to win the gratitude to which they thought themselves justly entitled, for their kindness and care. They have found their servants growing discontented and idle, where they hoped to make them docile and happy. Searching for the cause of this, they perhaps turn upon the course of training they have followed, and accuse it of being opposed to the best interests of the slave. Could such reasoners but look upon the matter in its ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... neighborhood and in Kalsing being most intent on hospitable thoughts and providing something agreeable in the shape of an entertainment for every night. Every moment of the day, too, of every day was filled up. It seemed to Mrs. Ketchum that "those English people," as she called them, were never idle, and had discovered the secret ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... kept pure and holy to that degree that no books shall be read on that day which originated among the world's people, save those scientific books which treat of propriety of diction. No idle or vain stories shall be rehearsed, no unnecessary labor shall be performed—not even the cooking of food, the ablution of the body, the cutting of the hair, beard, or nails, the blacking and polishing of shoes or ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... attention in this direction has been, an unwillingness to interfere with the Dutch, who have been supposed to have been in possession of all the valuable islands in the archipelago, and from long-standing to have a prior right to this portion of the East; but, although the Dutch have not been idle, and are gradually adding to their possessions, there is little chance of our interfering with them, as there is room, and more, for the Dutch, ourselves, and every other nation which may feel inclined ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... came to be so luxuriously dressed, so well supplied with money. She had heard of this system under which the girls in the streets were exploited as thoroughly as the girls in the houses. In all the earth was there anyone who was suffered to do for himself or herself without there being a powerful idle someone else to take away all the proceeds but a bare ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... pity. In his rapid rise he had kicked many rivals from the ladder of Court favour, and climbed yet higher by trampling them underfoot, caring little what gulf of disgrace or worse swallowed them. And the King's threat was no idle boast; the hand which had raised could drag down, not only to irremediable disaster, but to the very grave itself. A hand? A beckoning finger to those who waited at the door would be enough, ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... thee this is idle! Oh, thou man of little faith! Doubting on the verge of Aidenn, turning now to covet death! By the fervent hopes within me, by the strength which nerves my soul, By the heart that yearns to help thee, we shall live and reach the ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... is but idle talk to tell me of Zeus and the other gods. We Cyclopes take no account of gods, holding ourselves to be much better and stronger than they. But come, tell me where have you ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... the circle about the hearth. There sat Sol's mother, idle to-night, for it was Sunday. His grandmother, too, was there, so old that she seemed to confirm the story told of these healthy mountains, to the effect that people are obliged to go down in the valley to die, else they would ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... little information he had given his friend, and it seemed idle to say that the real captors of Otto Relstaub could not tell ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... with her. She was not the sort to inspire idle fancies—either in married or unmarried men. In any event, it looked a long time to these chaps before they could get back to the States, and she was ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... is gaining the open water and Geneva already lies far behind. Not a ripple on the blue water that shades into deep blue behind us. Ahead the scene melts into a milky haze. A little boat, with idle sails embroidered with sunlight, vanishes into it. On the right rise the mountains of Savoy, dotted with forests, veiled in clouds which cast their shadows on the broken slopes. The contrast is happy, and I can not help admiring Leman's lovely smile at ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... straightforward character of the people is still unspoiled by contact with the outer world. Here, also, the pervading aspect is of well-being and contentment. 'Everybody can live here,' we were told by an intelligent resident; 'only the idle, the drunkard, and the ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... sailed the year before from Palos were useful and efficient. The universal impression about the new lands in the West was that they were places where fortunes could be picked up like dirt, and where the very shores were strewn with gold and precious stones; and every idle scamp in Spain who had a taste for adventure and a desire to get a great deal of money without working for it was anxious to visit the new territory. The result was that instead of artisans, farmers, craftsmen, and colonists, Columbus took with him a company at least half ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... his "idle thoughts" toward the construction of an arithmetical machine, but he does not appear ever to have prosecuted this design further than by mentally considering the manner in which he could make it perform the processes ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... ever; spending their idle breath on what is past; and trembling at the future. We must be active. Beverley, at worst, is but suspicious; but Lewson's genius, and his hate to Me, will lay all open. Means must be found ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... his tail. Poll and Niger always accompanied Ellen. "We shall soon be back!" I exclaimed, as I shoved off; "and who knows but that we may be accompanied by papa, mamma, Fanny, and Aunt Martha! Ellen, you must get out your books, for she will be shocked at finding that you have been so long idle." With these and other cheerful remarks we backed away from the shore, then, turning the canoe's head round, proceeded after our Indian friends. By keeping close to the banks we were out of the current, and thus made good way. Sometimes ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... the heart, and, totally indulged, soon require a change and vicissitude in our minds; wherefore, in the midst of your griefs, your feet involuntarily wandered after Darandu, and your soul, softened by idle sighs, was the more easily impressed by ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... the New Testament told in a word. Christians read and forget it. But Christians are not philosophers. The latter are charitable because they regard evil as a part of the universal order of things, one which it is idle to blame, ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... boast of God and of Christ and of the Spirit. But whether such boasting has any foundation or not, depends on whether or not the Spirit so works and rules in one as to subdue and mortify sin. For where the Spirit is, there assuredly the Spirit is not idle nor powerless. He proves his presence by ruling and directing man and prevailing on man to obey and follow his promptings. Such a man has the comfort that he is a child of God, and that God so reigns and works in him that he is not subject to ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... through the Reptile room on my way to the study that I first saw him. I took him to be a mere common working man passing away an idle hour; one of the ordinary Museum visitors. Two hours later, I noticed that he was closely examining the lizard cases. Then later, he seemed interested in my collection of prints illustrating the living world ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... thinly veiled a cynical contempt. It styled woman a goddess and really regarded her as little better than a doll. The passion of love had fallen from the high estate it once possessed and become the mere relaxation of the idle moments of a ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... life-thread from which depended no small portion of the destinies of millions of people. How the history of this nation might have been changed, had Mr. Lincoln survived to bear his influential part in reconstructing and reuniting the shattered country, no man can tell. Many have indulged in the idle speculation, though to do so is but to waste time. The life which he had already lived gives food enough for reflection and for study without trying to evolve out of arbitrary fancy the further things which might have been attempted by him, which might have been of wise or of visionary conception, ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... say,"—here he lowered his voice to a tone of mysterious and weighty reproach,—"what shall I say of your most unseemly and indiscreet companionship with these worldly young men who are visiting the Fjord for their idle pastime? Ah dear, dear! This is indeed a heavy scandal and a sore burden to my soul,—for up to this time I have, in spite of many faults in your disposition, considered you were at least of a most maidenly and decorous deportment,—but ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... an idle boy, I sought its grateful shade; In all their gushing joy Here, too, my sisters played. My mother kissed me here; My father pressed my hand;— Forgive this foolish tear, But let ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... career, the latter just beginning his, argued cogently in favor of retracing the steps taken the year before. Grenville refused. "America must learn," he wailed, "that prayers are not to be brought to Caesar through riot and sedition." His protests were idle. The Commons agreed to the repeal on February 22, 1766, amid the cheers of the victorious majority. It was carried through the Lords in the face of strong opposition and, on March 18, reluctantly signed by the king, now restored to his ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... room, and there The Mother sat and gave him welcome twice. "I prayed last night," she spoke, "to know God's will; I prayed to Holy Mary and the saints That they might pray for me, and I might know My conduct in the matter. Now, kind sir, What wouldst thou? Tell thy errand." He replied: "It was not idle curiosity That brought me hither or that prompts my lips To ask the story of the 'White-Rose-Grave', To seek the story of the sleeper there Whose name I knew so long and far away. Who was she, pray? Dost deem it right to tell?" There was a pause before the answer came, As if ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... to the grove," said Patty, "but I don't want to play anything. This is a day just to be idle and enjoy living, ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... which have a voice and nothing else—nay, hardly a voice, so seldom are they heard even to speak. They appear to have been enacted merely as a compliment to decency, and they remain in the statute-book as "idle as painted ships upon a painted ocean." The dens of debauch keep open doors night and day; the saloons of profligacy send out their cards of invitation; the gambler rattles his triumphant dice; but excursive policemen never see, and ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... respectively Surprise, Defiance and Doubt. Indeed, irresolution being the keynote of Hamlet's soliloquy, a clever player could to some extent indicate the whole thirty lines by a silent working of the jaw. But at the same time it would be idle to deny that he would miss the finer shades of the poet's meaning. "The insolence of office, and the spurns"—to take only one line—would tax the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... attend the conclusion of a long, hard drive over country roads. Maitland, on the other hand, (judging him by his preoccupied pose), was already weary of, if not bored by, the hare-brained enterprise which, initiated on the spur of an idle moment and directly due to a thoughtless remark of his own, had brought him a hundred miles (or so) through the heat of a broiling afternoon, accompanied by spirits as ardent and irresponsible as his own, in search of the dubious distraction afforded by the ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... and essentially political character of Romanism it would be idle to deny. No one at all acquainted with its cunningly contrived 'system' will hesitate to characterise it as 'wickedly political,' productive of nothing but mischief—a system through whose accursed instrumentality ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell
... come to pass that thou, thine armor cast away Art mute in heaven; and but an idle tale? At such a time the horns should sprout, the raging bull hold sway, Or they white hair beneath swan's down conceal Here's Dana's self! But touch that lovely form Thy limbs will melt beneath ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... heard Wood say the day before that the Q—— had irrevocably determined to come down every day to the trial in her "coach-and-six in a high style;" if so, she will very likely be attended by all the idle populace between Hammersmith and London, besides a host of radicals, who will not let go by such an auspicious opportunity. How the peace of the metropolis or the safety of the Parliament is to be secured under all these circumstances, might ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... this land they have the softer side of life—the best of everything. There are, of course, exceptions—individuals—whose struggle in life is hard, whose husbands and fathers are tyrants instead of protectors; so there are bad wives, and men ruined and disheartened by selfish, idle women. ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... to let her idle gaze roam over the attractive landscape, her thoughts just now were far away. She had in her hand a letter from her father, and its message was strongly in favour of her leaving Cromarty Manor and joining her parents ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... patronised it. As he was an undergraduate of this college, and a singularly lazy person, it's very probable that he really did so; every other undergraduate certainly does, for it's the nearest walk an idle man can get without ever taking the trouble to go ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... are mistaken," said my friend, "or rather you are willing to mislead me; for you must know that, though your father appears to be idle, yet your brother is speculating with his money at ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... landowners and capitalists, could never satisfy the masses nor fail to invite their savage attack. Only the most hopeless and futile of doctrinaires could have argued themselves into believing anything else. It was quite idle to argue from the experience of other countries that Russia must follow the universal rule and establish and maintain bourgeois rule for a period more or less prolonged. True, that had been the experience of most nations, but it was foolish in the extreme to suppose that it ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... child spent the long warm days of summer under the trees of the park, or driving in the quiet lanes. Guests were unbidden, and his pen was idle. All that was human in him had gone out to Blanche. He loved her, and she was a perpetual delight to him. The rest of the world received the large measure of his indifference. There was no further change in her, and apprehension slept ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... instant we were on the street. Arrests in Darbyville were rare, and by the time we reached the jail we had a goodly following of boys and idle men, all anxious to know ...
— True to Himself • Edward Stratemeyer
... conviction this morning, but a vague gypsying stirred his blood also, and a wayfaring urge swept him. The sky was indescribably blue, washed clean by a moist January that had drenched the hills to lush-green life. The bay lay in a sapphire drowse, flecked by idle-winged argosies, unfolding their storm-soaked sails to the caressing sunlight. Soaring high above the placid gulls, an airplane circled and dipped like a huge dragon fly in nuptial flight. Through the Golden Gate, shrouded in the delicate mists evoked by the ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... fitted than the ordinary occupations of everyday life. This raises a difficult question, and each case would have to be settled on its merits. The difficulty must be faced; otherwise the children will simply drift and become idle and useless, while, if educated, at any rate partly, on the system for the blind, they would ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch
... to systematic meditation, try to give an hour at night, and should this, by the length and laboriousness of your daily task be denied you, you need not despair, for you may turn your thoughts upward in holy meditation in the intervals of your work, or in those few idle minutes which you now waste in aimlessness; and should your work be of that kind which becomes by practice automatic, you may meditate while engaged upon it. That eminent Christian saint and philosopher, Jacob Boehme, realized his vast knowledge ...
— The Way of Peace • James Allen
... unavoidably acted upon by the water vapor in the generator and will in time become more or less pasty and sticky. This is more noticeable if the generator stands idle for a considerable length of time This condition imposes another duty on the feeding mechanism; that is, the necessity of self-cleaning so that the carbide, no matter in what condition, cannot prevent the positive action of this part of the device, especially so that it cannot prevent the supply ...
— Oxy-Acetylene Welding and Cutting • Harold P. Manly
... family belonged to Throndhjem district. She worshipped King Olaf the Saint, and believed firmly in his sanctity. But the above mentioned count doubted all that was told of the holy man's miracles, insisted that it was nothing but nonsense and idle talk, and made a joke and scorn of the esteem and honour which all the country people showed the good king. Now when his holyday came, on which the mild monarch ended his life, and which all Northmen kept sacred, this unreasonable count would not observe it, but ordered his servant-girl to bake and ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... killed a groom and wounded three other men, and wounded three horses so badly that they all had to be killed. It is always men on duty, holding horses or otherwise unable to escape, who pay for the curiosity of the idle. ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... shadows of hell, and the taint of the grave upon him, and sat among these respectable persons of flesh and blood—impenetrable—secure—for he knew there were but two in the church for whom clever disguises were idle and transparent as the air. The blue-chinned sly clerk, who read the responses, and quavered the Psalms so demurely, and the white-headed, silver-spectacled, upright man, in my Lord Castlemallard's pew, who ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... "With my ignorance and idle curiosity, I led you on and on, over first one hill and then another, until you lost your way in that awful desert over there, but yet perhaps there was a destiny in that. When I was leading you out of the desert, a blind man, it may be that ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... girl will always do well to avoid a companion who is vain, idle, silly, or frivolous. Girls who have these evil characteristics are very likely to have others also which are worse. A girl who is rude in her manners, careless in her habits, irreverent and disobedient to parents and teachers, is always an unsafe companion. ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... that suggested idle expense or vanity. To dwell at all upon the subject would be a disproportion, but for the note of contrast that was struck. In an assembly of well-dressed people, no one would have remarked Cecily's attire, unless to praise its quiet distinction. In the Spences' sitting-room it became another ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... been idle," said Krag. "While you have been murdering and lovemaking, we have had ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... and orderly assembly of idle people had collected on the pavement to see the gentlemen alight, to watch them go into the house, to stare at the inkstand, to wonder at the Address, to observe that Mr. Thorpe's page wore his best livery, ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... subject of the first is no idle piece of subtle argument, but a consideration of such decidedly practical importance that it comes up whenever the plan of pushing War to the utmost extremity is mooted, and by its weight in most cases restrains the ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... up much room, he's so little," reassured idle Molly, with a mischievous glance toward the doorway which the other girls did not observe; while by dint of considerable assistance Alfy "got him down" and "all on one ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... me, Constance. I am going to Garibaldi. He wants soldiers. I must not live an idle life any longer.—We ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... the world are those who do not catch fish; the mere slaughter of fish is simply brutal, and it was with a view to keeping her excellent treatise out of the hands of the idle and the inappreciative that Dame Berners incorporated that treatise in a compendious book whose cost was so large that only "gentyll and noble men" could possess it. What mind has he who loveth fishing merely for the killing it involves—what ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... truth. It was well done, Hathi with the white mark; but the second time it shall be done better, for the reason that there is a man to direct. Thou knowest the village of the Man-Pack that cast me out? They are idle, senseless, and cruel; they play with their mouths, and they do not kill the weaker for food, but for sport. When they are full-fed they would throw their own breed into the Red Flower. This I have seen. It is not well that they should live ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... were quite satisfied, notwithstanding, that it was, what the stranger asserted, the remains of a human heart; and David readily promised his influence in the village, which was almost co-ordinate with that of the bailie himself, to silence all idle rumours. He was, moreover, pleased to favour us with his company to supper; and having taken the lion's share of two bottles of sherry, he not only sanctioned with his plenary authority the stranger's removal ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... Mrs. Alison was really very happy, making delicate biscuits after a receipt of her own. Things came to a point where I was sure they would finish themselves off more happily without either of us, and though one idle female more might not be desirable, I thought at least I might prevent Harold's effacement, and went down to Mycening with Eustace ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... face, gallant in bearing, idle and careless; a jolly companion, with beautiful courtly manners. His dark chestnut hair curled over his smooth, rather small forehead. His black twinkling eyes looked out under level brows; his nose was ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... hauberks, coat-armures; **trappings Lordes in parements* on their coursers, *ornamental garb ; Knightes of retinue, and eke squiers, Nailing the spears, and helmes buckeling, Gniding* of shieldes, with lainers** lacing; *polishing There as need is, they were nothing idle: **lanyards The foamy steeds upon the golden bridle Gnawing, and fast the armourers also With file and hammer pricking to and fro; Yeomen on foot, and knaves* many one *servants With shorte staves, thick* as they may gon**; *close **walk Pipes, trumpets, nakeres*, and clariouns, *drums ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... was one of your lot," rejoined the Wolf, "so make no more such idle excuses." He then seized the poor Lamb, carried him off to the woods, and ate him, but before the poor creature died he gasped out, feebly, "Any excuse will ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... as if to compensate her for the absence of nearer ties, had a simple and wholesome love of all created things. She was infirm now, but was quite content, when it was fine, to sit for long hours idle for very love, and look about her with a peaceful and smiling air; she prayed much, or rather held a sweet converse in her heart with God; she thought little of her latter end, which she knew could not be long delayed, but was ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the fairest flower of all which bloomed around that bower, clasped her hand upon her heart, lest he should see its wild throbbings, and, forcing back the tears which moistened her long lashes, listened to the knell of all her hopes. Henceforth her love for him must be an idle mockery, and the time would come when to love him as she loved him then would be a sin—a wrong to herself, a wrong to him, and a ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... French, I'll teach ye all I can," said Dennis. "Sh—sh! No kindness whatever. I wish we mayn't have idle time ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... was beginning to break, a boat filled with sailors rowed up to the landing. All the occupants save one disembarked without paying any attention to the idle boy who was watching them intently, and the little craft was being pushed ...
— Neal, the Miller - A Son of Liberty • James Otis
... I had seene this hot loue on the wing, As I perceiued it, I must tell you that Before my Daughter told me what might you Or my deere Maiestie your Queene heere, think, If I had playd the Deske or Table-booke, Or giuen my heart a winking, mute and dumbe, Or look'd vpon this Loue, with idle sight, What might you thinke? No, I went round to worke, And (my yong Mistris) thus I did bespeake Lord Hamlet is a Prince out of thy Starre, This must not be: and then, I Precepts gaue her, That she should locke her selfe ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... that he might not be entirely idle, and to give a certain colour to his way of life, Francis had purchased Euclid's Geometry in French, which he set himself to copy and translate on the top of his portmanteau and seated on the floor against the wall; for ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of Trumball's widow. Pope, who introduced him to Lady Trumball, had also introduced him to Craggs, who, when Secretary of State, felt his want of a decent education, and wished to be polished by some competent person. He seems to have been a kindly, idle, honourable man, who died, says Pope, of indolence, and more immediately, it appears, of the gout. The alliance thus formed was rather a delicate one, and was embittered by some of Pope's usual trickery. ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... elephant undoubtedly evinces uneasiness at the presence of a dog, but this is referable to the same cause as its impatience of a horse, namely, that neither is habitually seen by it in the forest; but it would be idle to suppose that this feeling could amount to hostility against a creature incapable of inflicting on it the slightest injury.[1] The truth I apprehend to be that, when they meet, the impudence and impertinences of the dog are offensive to the gravity ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... youngsters and idlers, who are ever ready to seize upon novelty and enter upon bustle; but further off, it extended to old and young, hale and infirm, asthmatic and long-winded, grave and gay, taught and untaught, respectable and disreputable, industrious and idle, till it reached a compass of twenty miles at least, extending not only to the Forth and Tay, but stretching inland from their opposite shores. In short, men who had never climbed a mountain all their lives before, though living in close proximity to one, were seen on its loftiest ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various
... unburied by the Pasha's order—of women big with child ripped open, etc., etc. 'Thou knowest oh! our Lady, that we are people of peace in this place, and behold now if one madman should come and a few idle fellows go out to the mountain (desert) with him, Effendina will send his soldiers to destroy the place and spoil our poor little girls and hang us—is that right, oh Lady and Achmet el-Berberi saw Europeans with hats in the steamer with Effendina and the soldiers. Truly in all the ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... be idle to announce to your Lordship, that there is such a rule of practice as that which I have mentioned, unless we meant to abide by it; the rule is, that no application can be made for a new trial, unless all the persons convicted are here: we have acted on that rule this day; and if we were now ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... mysteries. The festivals were observed with every circumstance of pomp and splendor to charm the eye and please the imagination. A sacrifice was a feast attended with gayety and even licentiousness. Every temple was the resort of the idle and the dissolute, and the shrines of the Cyprian Venus and the Athenian Minerva could attest that devotion, far from being a pure and exalted exercise of the mind, was only the introduction ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 11, November, 1880 • Various
... manufactories, to the end that we may be able to pay these debts. Where a new market can be created for the sale of our products, either of the soil, the mine, or the manufactory, a new means is discovered of utilizing our idle capital and labor to the advantage of the whole people. But, in my judgment, the first step toward accomplishing this object is to secure a currency of fixed, stable value; a currency good wherever ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Plymouth for Portsmouth to payoff. One of the Portsmouth outfitters had made it his business to come to Plymouth, and to take the return passage in our ship. Truly he was a highly favoured man. Nor was he idle, for he was measuring men for suits of clothes the most of the night. I suppose he did not mind such night-work. We sighted Portsmouth in the morning, and after doing the customary steam trials, proceeded up harbour. Here, ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... and important, and without waiting to criticise each individual specimen, pays in advance to all alike the tribute of good wishes and sympathy. Now this favourable presumption with regard to human beings is not a causeless prepossession, it is no idle superstition of the mind, nor is it a natural instinct. It is a feeling founded on the actual observation and discovery of interesting and noble qualities in particular human beings, and it is strong or ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... not alike—her overwhelming passion, herself generally; and her admission, no, cry, that she loved him, or the special part he had in her. It rather looked as though he'd be successful. It did for a fact. He had not been idle through all the day, but had drawn from the Harriman Bank twenty thousand dollars. So much had not been necessary; it was very bad business to segregate in idleness such a sum of money now; but he enjoyed the extravagance of it. Prudence, frugality, ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... constrained to work, should remember that a life of idleness cannot be a life of innocence; for the idle cannot serve the Lord. A life that does not cultivate one's own capacities, and aid either in supplying the wants or cultivating the capacities of some one beside self, is no preparation for heaven; for the heavenly life is one of perpetual ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... provision in regular armies, who seldom entered into the Church, and never applied themselves to commerce, and when every considerable family was surrounded by an innumerable multitude of retainers and dependants, idle, and greedy of war and pillage. The Crusade had universally diffused a spirit of adventure; and if any adventure had the Pope's approbation, it was sure to have a ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... endeavoured to avoid an ostentatious display of learning. By the idle and the frivolous indeed, any appearance of learning is called pedantry. But as I do not write for such readers, I pay no regard to their censures. Those by whom I wish to be judged, will I hope, approve of my adding ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... his girdle, for he hated Little John because he had found favor with the Sheriff. "So, Master Reynold Greenleaf, thou art anhungered, art thou?" quoth he. "But, fair youth, if thou livest long enough, thou wilt find that he who getteth overmuch sleep for an idle head goeth with an empty stomach. For what sayeth the old saw, Master Greenleaf? Is it not 'The late ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... suffer us yet a while longer—with our broken purposes of good, and our idle endeavours against evil—suffer us a while longer to endure, and (if it may be) help us to do better. Bless to us our extraordinary mercies; if the day come when these must be taken, have us play the man under ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... yours, old boy, when Satan taught your idle hands to punch Shadrach's head. But perhaps you had better put that pipe out. These azo-imide compounds are said to burn rather more safely than coal. Still, one never knows; the climate or the journey ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... good deal of rather hard work at lessons just then for me. Papa and mamma wanted me to get into a higher class after Christmas, and I daresay I had been pretty idle, or at least taking things easy, for I was not as well up as I should have been, I know. So Peterkin and I had not as much time for private talking as usual. I had often lessons to look over first thing in the morning, and as mamma would not allow us to have candles in ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... window-sills. Knots of shirt-sleeved men congregate about the frequent liquor-saloons, talking loudly and volubly. No signs of poverty are apparent, but everything wears an aspect of prosperous ignorance, satisfied to eat, drink, and idle away the hours not given to work. Such is the general aspect of operative Lowell to-day; but some of the old well-conducted boarding-houses remain, sheltering worthy sons and daughters of toil. Similarly, the outskirts of the city are adorned with many ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 481, March 21, 1885 • Various
... once. She had not been idle since Dick had left her. Before he had come she had merely looked upon the crusade as one of Harold Hazlewood's stupendous follies. But after he had gone she was genuinely horrified. She saw Dick speaking with the set dogged look and ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... not live permanently at the rectory, but visited her mother from time to time, either in England, or at one of the foreign resorts of idle people. But the visits, as years went by, became shorter and rarer. At twenty-one Miriam came into a small fortune of her own, left by her father in the hands of executors, one of whom was that John Turner, the Paris banker, who ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... Parks, there appeared latterly a trim little figure in black (with the face protected from notice behind a crape veil), which was beginning to be familiar, day after day, to nursemaids and children, and to rouse curiosity among harmless solitaries meditating on benches, and idle vagabonds strolling over the grass. The woman-servant, whom the considerate doctor had provided, was the one person in Emily's absence left to take care of the house. There was no other creature who could be a companion to the friendless ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... part, I think it idle to prophesy. If mental culture ever succeeds in overcoming brutality and barbarism, and if it continues to make real progress, I do not think that any of the old systems of marriage will persist in their primary ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... he unfolded these devices of the dashing youth of Market Bumpstead, had taken on an animation quite unsuitable to a conscientious valet. He gave the impression of a man who does not depend on idle rumour for his facts. His eye gleamed unprofessionally for a moment before resuming its ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... he asked. "All this leads to what? Has not Mrs. Orme suffered enough, that she should undergo this idle chatter? It is sufficient that she knows this—this man is here. It is a time ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... to make sacrifices was rapidly beginning to fail. The public had now had enough of the affair. Everything was failing, now they would have to see if they could not come to some arrangement. Starvation was beginning to thrust its grinning head among the fifty thousand men now idle. The moment had come upon which capital was counting; the moment when the crying of children for bread begins to break the will of the workers, until they are ready to sacrifice honor and independence in order to satisfy the little creatures' hunger. And the enemy showed ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... it and a few passages of the Commedia the proof that Dante, as a natural philosopher was wholly in advance of his age,—that he had, among other things, anticipated Newton in the theory of gravitation. But this is as idle as the claim that Shakespeare had discovered the circulation of the blood before Harvey,[63] and one might as well attempt to dethrone Newton because Chaucer speaks of the love which draws the apple to the earth. The truth is, that it was only ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... drop the subject now. I've a good reason, Elise, for watching the letters,—not mere idle curiosity. Now, Patty, for details. What do you mean by taking the baby ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... even if his attempt for the moment united the senatorial party and the equites, while the city mob stood wavering or hostile, he might nevertheless have forestalled the empire by a century had Marius only had half his enterprise or nerve. In an epoch of revolution it is idle to judge men by an ordinary standard. How far personal ambition and how far a nobler ideal animated Saturninus no man can say. Those who condemn him must ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... him see his father's and mother's faces no more, grew louder and more persistent. If he could not cut himself adrift from those who he knew would hamper him, when so small an effort was wanted, his dream of a destiny was idle; what was the prospect of a hundred pounds from his father in comparison with jeopardy to this? He still felt deeply the pain his disgrace had inflicted upon his father and mother, but he was getting stronger, and reflected that as he had run his chance with them for parents, ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... have family prayer and instruction to-day, but something will prevent it to-morrow. Establish the habit of Christian industry. Be diligent; not slothful in business. Industry must be the price of all you obtain. You must be instant in season. The Christian home cannot be an indolent, idle home. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... be hard to define the charm of that garden. It did not consist in order or system, for there was no trace of either, except, perhaps, in that prim row of poplars growing about the whole domain and shutting it away from all idle and curious eyes. For the rest, I think the real charm must have been in its unexpectedness. At every turn and in every nook you stumbled on some miracle of which you had never dreamed. Or perhaps the charm was simply that the whole garden was an ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... there were two brothers, who lived together in one family. One did everything, while the other was an idle fellow who troubled himself about nothing but eating and drinking. The harvests were always magnificent; they had cows, horses, sheep, pigs, bees, and everything else ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... was coursing lightly through my heart at that moment. It was—envy. I say "envy" boldly, because I am accustomed to acknowledge everything to myself. It would be hard to find a young man who, if his idle fancy had been attracted by a pretty woman and he had suddenly found her openly singling out before his eyes another man equally unknown to her—it would be hard, I say, to find such a young man (living, of course, in the ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... been twice married, the second time to the widow West. She had brought with her to her new home a good-looking, long-legged, black-eyed, black-haired ne'er-do-well of a son, a year or so younger than Hiram. He was a shrewd, quick-witted lad, idle, shiftless, willful, ill-trained perhaps, but as bright and keen as a pin. He was the very opposite to poor, dull Hiram. Eleazer White had never loved his son; he was ashamed of the poor, slack-witted oaf. Upon the other hand, he ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... was given to unpacking and seeing the grounds; after that, Miss Inches said they must begin to lead a regular life, and Johnnie must study. Johnnie had been to school all winter, and in the natural course of things would have had holidays now. Mamma Marion, however, declared that so long an idle time would not ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... to tell you I have been so idle that I have not yet finished Madame de Fleury. You will allow that we have gadded about enough lately: Sonna, Pakenham Hall, Farnham, and Castle Forbes. I don't think I told you that I grew quite fond of Lady Judith Maxwell, and I flatter myself she ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... in another. Thou, therefore, daughter of God and man, all-potent woman! reverence thy own ideal; and in the wildest of the homage which is paid to thee, as also in the most real aspects of thy wide dominion, read no trophy of idle vanity, but a silent indication of the possible grandeur enshrined in thy nature; which realize to the extent of ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... staunchest enemies they had yet encountered. The war began from an entreaty from the people of Campania to the Romans to defend them from the attacks of the Samnites. For the Campanians, living in the rich plains, whose name is still unchanged, were an idle, languid people, whom the stout men of Samnium could easily overcome. The Romans took their part, and Valerius Corvus gained a victory at Mount Gaurus; but the other consul, Cornelius Cossus, fell into danger, having marched foolishly into a forest, shut ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... campaign for reelection to the senatorship was, owing to a grievous error in tact, of doubtful issue. A hue and cry arose against him among his constituents, and things in general fell out so unhappily that it looked toward the close of the contest as if he would be obliged to sit idle and dangle his heels, while the two halves of the country, pushing against each other, were rising in the middle like the hinge of a toggle-joint into the most momentous crisis in the nation's history. It looked as if the strong man, with his ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... he saw that the word "mine" hardly described the place, for it was not in the least like an English mine. The so-called mines consisted of a number of ancient Inca workings which, after having lain idle for hundreds of years, had been again started by the Peruvians. Instead of a shaft being driven down into the earth, and galleries being cut in various directions from that shaft, the mines simply consisted of tunnels driven horizontally into the side of a hill. It was ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... vitality which had magically transformed her. But now, as under the spell of a new encompassment of her own weaving, she seemed to revert to her former self, sinking, relaxed, into a wicker lounge beside the basin, one long and shapely hand in the water, the other idle in her lap. Her eyes, he remarked, were the contradiction in her face. Had they been larger, and almond-shaped, the illusion might have been complete. They were neither opaque nor smouldering,—but Western eyes, amber-coloured, with delicately stencilled rays and long lashes. And ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the next day. It was impossible to stay on the platform. From the lounge, where I was writing up the incidents of this excursion to the polar continent, I could hear the calls of petrel and albatross cavorting in the midst of the turmoil. The Nautilus didn't stay idle, and cruising along the coast, it advanced some ten miles farther south amid the half light left by the sun as it skimmed the edge ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... hobby," said the curate, mincingly, as he indicated the treasures of cloisonne and of porcelain; "he does not frivol away his money as so many do, on idle dissipations and ephemeral pleasures. On the contrary, he devotes it to ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... surplice appeared and lighted groups of candles on either side of the altar. A hushed stirring of feet in the choir-loft indicated that the service was to be accompanied by music. Some loiterers, attracted by the bell, some idle strangers, a few acquaintances and citizens not directly invited ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... cities where the Mediums reside, and where they hold their seances on regular days throughout the winter, the audiences are by no means composed only of those who go out of idle curiosity; these form but a small segment of the 'circle,' the majority are regular attendants, mostly those whose lives have been clouded by sorrow, and who go thither as to a church or sanctuary, and so serious and earnest ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... the agitation an epidemic madness that would presently pass. But it was manifest to any one who sought more than comfort in the matter that the streams of women and sympathisers and money forthcoming marked far deeper and wider things than an idle fancy for the franchise. The existing laws and conventions of relationship between Man and Woman were just as unsatisfactory a disorder as anything else in our tumbled confusion of a world, and that also was coming to bear ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... their mother tongue matter wherewith to occupy themselves in prayer on holy days; and also that the faithful, reciting these Hours, or hearing them recited by other devout persons, might the more readily keep themselves from many vanities and from idle talking, and so, being assisted by these holy readings, might make progress in the love of God and in singing the divine praises. Once a certain man who was united to him in the bonds of friendship, asked him, saying: ...
— The Chronicle of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes • Thomas a Kempis
... yours. As for me, it does not suit well with the business of war; besides, I have no wish for it. On arriving, I shall give the necessary orders for disarming, and for burning the standard used for Ferdinand's proclamation. Use every endeavor that it may be felt to be no idle form." ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... was at length startled from his waking dream by a swell in the noise outside. All the time there had been a few of the more idle of the inhabitants about the door, but they had been rather quiet. Now, however, the sounds of feet and voices began to grow, and grew so rapidly that it was plain a multitude was gathering. For the people of Gwyntystorm always gave themselves an hour of pleasure ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald
... we are struck with the fact that the very Teachers who are most insistent on the changeless working of law are also those who emphatically proclaim the forgiveness of sins. At one time Jesus is saying: "That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment,"[313] and at another: "Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee."[314] So in the Bhagavad Gita we read constantly of the bonds of action, that "the world is bound by action,"[315] ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... mentioned to me your purpose of retiring from the government, though I felt all the magnitude of the event, I was in a considerable degree silent. I knew that to such a mind as yours persuasion was idle and impertinent; that, before forming your decision, you had weighed all the reasons for and against the measure, had made up your mind on full view of them, and that there could be little hope of changing the result. Pursuing my reflections, too, I knew we were some day to try to walk ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... is apt to imagine that the air of Pall Mall, Paddington and Stowe, would have kept away such heavy misfortunes, and that you would have been easier and happier than you are now. I sometimes think, that idle men with good fortunes are happier than busy men; their enjoyments perhaps are not so acute, but ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... crept to the great, bare rock. Here the line and flies were adjusted, and the fishing began. Willis watched every motion as for a brief second the fly was allowed to drift down the stream, "to be floated here and there by idle little eddies, to be sucked down, then suddenly spat out by tiny suction holes;" then it fell quietly into the current and floated out to the end of the line, bringing up sharply just at the edge of a bleak old granite boulder in midstream. Again the flies were cast, ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley
... been immured in a place of furtive, obscene whisperings, but he had found there not only vice. There was the chance of an education. He had accepted it at first because he dared not let himself be idle in his spare time. That way lay degeneration and the loss of his manhood. He had studied under competent instructors English, mathematics, the Spanish grammar, and mechanical drawing, as well as surveying and stationary engineering. He had read some ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... the bishop governed in his choice? As far as I can learn the stipends are absurdly various, one man getting 100 pounds a year for working like a horse in a big town, and another 1000 pounds for living an idle life in a luxurious country house. But the bishop of course gives the bigger plums to the best men. How is it then that the big plums find their way so often to the sons and sons-in-law ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... I dare not call thee dear, I've lost that right so long; Yet once again I vex thine ear With memory's idle song. Had time and change not blotted out The love of former days, Thou wert the last that I should doubt Of pleasing ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... is kind of you To come to us, who linger here like gossips Wasting the afternoon in idle talk. These are all friends of ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... with a sigh of relief, for it was more pleasant to stand watching the men cutting the peat and the birds flying over, or to idle about the place, than to be dragging along a great sodden mass ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... formed and Eben walked at a little distance from the party, apparently taking no more interest in the affair than one of idle curiosity. ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... attack, backward in retreat. If he is not free to fight well, his family will be in danger. White men who have seen Indians journeying in this way, and who have not understood why some women carried heavy loads and the men carried nothing, have said that Indian men were idle and lazy, and forced their women to do all the work. Those who wrote those things were mistaken in what they said. They did not understand what they saw. The truth is that these men were prepared for danger of attacks by enemies, ...
— Blackfeet Indian Stories • George Bird Grinnell
... far dealt chiefly with the British operations in the western front, but it must not be assumed that the French, in the meantime, were idle. On the contrary, their operations, covering the far greater territory, were proportionally more important than those ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... daily employment, Intent upon solid enjoyment, Her time she won't idle, But reads in her Bible, ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte
... institutions. At a time when such varied and contradictory opinions, both within and without the limits of Christian belief, were supported by some of the most powerful minds and distinguished investigators, it seemed idle to look for any basis of agreement beyond some simple moral principles. But he thought that all men might agree in admitting the sanctity of human life and judging accordingly every man or system which needlessly sacrificed it. It is this ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... i'th' shuttle, i'th' loom, an i'th frame, Ther's melody mingled i'th' noise, For th' active ther's praises, for th' idle ther's blame, If they'd hearken to th' saand of its voice; An' when flaggin a bit, ha refreshin to feel As yo pause an luk raand on the throng, At the clank o' the tappet, the hum o' the wheel, Sing this plain unmistakable ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, First Series - To Which Is Added The Cream Of Wit And Humour From His Popular Writings • John Hartley
... arise popular organisations bred of the wildness of despair which enjoy the moral sanction which the law has failed to secure "When citizens," said Filangieri long ago, "see the Sword of Justice idle they snatch a dagger." So long as the Government sate on the safety valve, so long did periodic explosions of revolutionary resentment arise, and one must appreciate the fact that in a country so devoutly Catholic as is Ireland the natural conservatism ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... appearance. He was wont to declare that he had no time for games, and his frequent absences made it impossible for him to take a very active part in the proceedings of the Club which he had himself inaugurated in an idle hour. He dropped in occasionally to watch a game, and he took interest in Bunny's progress; but he was very rarely moved to play himself. He was too restless, too volatile, to maintain any lasting enthusiasm for any pastime. All that was generally seen of him when staying at Burchester ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... appeared at last in the summer, and it was in June 1814 that the first of a series of wonderful tours de force was achieved by the completion, in about three weeks, of the last half of Waverley. One of the most striking things in Lockhart is the story of the idle apprentice who became industrious by seeing Scott's hand traversing the paper hour after hour at his study window. The novel actually appeared on July 7, and, being anonymous, made no immediate 'move,' as booksellers say, ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... But, land, 'Queenie,' you best not wait fer the cap'n. Best keep a doin', an' onct you're at it again, the holler'll come all right. Like myself—jest let me stan' up afore this here tub an' the wash begins to do itself, unbeknownst like. Don't you idle. Keep peddlin' er patchin', though peddlin's the least lonesome, an' the time'll fly like lightnin'. It's them 'at don't do nothin' 'at don't know what to do. Ain't many them sort in the Lane, though, thank the ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... Arthur left this wood-cutting polity next morning, and worked, or rather hunted their way back to the settled districts. The former stayed for another idle week at Cedar Creek; and then the brothers were again alone, to pursue ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... Unorganized Labor.—A static assumption excludes enforced idleness on the part of able-bodied men. The changes which throw such men out of employment are not taking place, and there is no reserve of efficient but idle labor. In the actual state, which is highly dynamic, such a supply of unemployed labor is always at hand, and it is neither possible nor normal that it should be altogether absent. The well-being of workers requires ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... forth thy daughter into my sight, lady, not let us fall into reproach for inconsiderate conduct, for our assembled army, being idle from home occupations, loves evil and slanderous talk. But at all events you will accomplish the same, whether you come to me as a suppliant, or do not supplicate, for a mighty contest awaits me, to release you from these evils. Wherefore, having heard one thing, be persuaded that I will not ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... was better to have such a motive. My position was one of temptation, and this was a safeguard as well as a check on idle prosperity. An incentive to exertion, too; for my father held out a hope that if I continued in the same mind, and deserved his confidence, he would consent in a few years, but on condition I should neither say nor do anything to ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to possess public baths, and how large an item of annual expense their care was is clear from the fact that an article of the Theodosian code provided that cities should spend at least one-third of their incomes on the heating of the baths and the repair of the walls. The great idle population of the city of Rome had to be provided with food at public expense. Otherwise riot and disorder would have followed, but in the towns the situation was not so threatening, and probably furnishing grain to the people did not constitute a regular ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... but it is explicit. "Every one of us shall give account of himself to God." This necessarily implies a perfect recollection of our lives. We are to answer for all the deeds done in the body; for every idle word, for every secret and sinful thought and feeling. This requires a perfect recollection of every event, sentiment, and emotion of our lives. The soul, therefore, must carry into the unseen world a perfect ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... troopers were thus preparing to set the chateau in a blaze, the General himself was not idle; he seated himself in the salon, and having had pen, ink, and paper brought to him, he wrote the following despatch to the President of the Convention, in which, it will be observed, he studiously omitted all mention of the defeat which he ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... great promenade, a tour of which was then, even more than now, considered obligatory on the gracefully idle. Neither said anything—Orde because he was too absorbed in the emotions this sudden revelation of Carroll's environment had aroused in him; Gerald, apparently, because he was too indifferent. Nevertheless it was the young exquisite who ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... houses early, for a public school, a schooling all the stricter as years went on, to be followed, even so, by a peculiar kind of barrack-life, the temper of which, a sort of military monasticism (it must be repeated) would beset him to the end. Though in the gymnasia of Lacedaemon no idle by- standers, no—well! Platonic loungers after truth or what not—were permitted, yet we are told, neither there nor in Sparta generally, neither there nor anywhere else, were the boys permitted [221] to be alone. If a certain love of reserve, of seclusion, characterised the Spartan citizen ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... the day was beginning to break, a boat filled with sailors rowed up to the landing. All the occupants save one disembarked without paying any attention to the idle boy who was watching them intently, and the little craft was being pushed off, ...
— Neal, the Miller - A Son of Liberty • James Otis
... And when Mrs. Tams had been informed of the case so full of disturbing enigmas, while Rachel and she drank tea together in the kitchen, the daily domestic movement of the house was partly resumed, from vanity, because Rachel could not bear to sit idle nor to admit to herself that she had been scared to ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... them to rouse him up, for she wanted a box that she could not allow to have opened. The clerk then went up to the Sieur Picard's bedroom, but came back saying that what the marquise demanded was for the time being an impossibility, for the commissary was asleep. She saw that it was idle to insist, and went away, saying that she should send a man the next morning to fetch the box. In the morning the man came, offering fifty Louis to the commissary on behalf of the marquise, if he would give her the box. But he replied that the box was in ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... was in this fashion; long, long ago, when the world was but just called from chaos, the Dominiddio was tired, as you all know, and took his rest on the seventh day; and four of the saints, George and Denis and Jago and Michael, stood round him with their wings folded and their swords idle. ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... serious attempt to while away an idle hour. The best criticism that the author received of "Her Ladyship's Elephant" was from an old lady who wrote him that it had made her forget a toothache; the most discouraging, from a critic who approached the book as serious literature and treated it according to the standards ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... indited, so circumstantial, as to be unworthy of our serious regard. It is at least very rash, if not presumptuous, to say, that nothing about the circumstantials of religion will be inquired into at the tribunal of Christ. God has expressly said, that every work, good or evil, every idle word, and every deed done in the body, shall be brought into judgment; and false worshippers will, perhaps, find that their form of worship consisted in something worse than idle words, or sinful words either, even in sinful deeds, for which ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... Letters should not be known: riches, poverty, And use of service, none: contract, succession; Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none; No use of metal, corn or wine or oil; No occupation; all men idle, all; And women too; but ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... this idle morning in our sunny window on the edge of a chalk cliff in the old-fashioned watering-place to which we are a faithful resorter, we feel a lazy inclination to ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... pieces to the doors of their abodes, and after some hours' toil leave off work, and many of the bits of grass may be seen collected around the orifice. They continue out of sight for perhaps a month, but they are never idle. On one occasion, a good bundle of grass was laid down for my bed on a spot which was quite smooth and destitute of plants. The ants at once sounded the call to a good supply of grass. I heard them ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... He was not idle himself. As neither fiddling nor dancing seemed to pay, he determined to earn money in some other manner; so, as there were quantities of fir cones in the forests, he collected great piles and took them ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... things go on rightly, and governments, and clergy, and people do right, Christ is there then, filling them all with His Spirit and guiding them all to their duty; but that when evil times come, and rulers are idle, and clergy dumb dogs, and the rich tyrannous, and the poor profligate, and men are crying for work and cannot get it, and every man's hand is against his fellow, and no one knows what to do or think; and on earth is distress of nations with perplexity, men's hearts failing them for fear, and ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... but sat stupefied. I was again chidden, again beaten by my master. I felt no anger this time, and scarcely heeded the strokes. I looked, however, at my master's face, and thought to myself, you are beating me for being idle, as you suppose; poor man, what would you do if you knew I had committed the sin against the ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... are attempts to get a pleasure out of life that is not our due, and so Nemesis provides her penalty for the idle and gluttonous. ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... the latest London manufacture; and from the door behind it steams forth a mingled smell of musk and assafaetida and other drugs of potent perfume, as if an appropriate sacrifice were just laid upon the altar of the medical deity. Five or six idle people are already collected, peeping curiously in at the glittering array of gallipots and phials, and deciphering the labels which tell their contents in the mysterious and imposing nomenclature of ancient physic. They are next attracted by the printed ...
— Dr. Bullivant - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... other days Raoul Beardsley felt the burden, the dragging sense of inevitability. He frowned; he glanced at his watch; he leaned forward to speak to the copter pilot and then changed his mind. He settled back, and from idle habit adjusted his chair-scope to the familiar broad-spoked area of ...
— We're Friends, Now • Henry Hasse
... absolutely conflicting social and political systems—perfect equality for Dutch and British in the British Colonies side by side with the permanent subjection of the British to the Dutch in one of the Republics. It is idle to talk of peace and unity under such a state ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... the man put it into my hands, saying, "Bring us that pail, boy, will you?" I hastened up to the cabin, filled the pail full of water, and then went for a quantity of dried birds, with which I hastened down again to the bathing-pool. I found the men had not been idle; they had taken some fagots off the stack and made a large fire under the rocks, and were then busy making a sort of tent with ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... palace, with one hundred men. It was generally reported, that he had marched into the interior, to bring about a federal revolution; but it appears that he has arrived at Guadalupe, and there taken up his quarters. A loud cannonading has been kept up since ten o'clock, which keeps us all idle, looking out for the smoke, and ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... under the wrath and curse of God, I marvel they did not stone us. The Methodists, I hope, know better now. We preach assurance, as we always did, as a common privilege of the children of God, but we do not enforce it under pain of damnation denounced on all who enjoy it not.' He thought it idle to discuss the question of regeneration in baptism when it was obvious that baptized persons had practically as much need as heathens to be born again.[736] It was quite as much their fondness for controversy as their rigid Calvinism which put ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... matter of our residences, or in that of the employees of our much-heralded republican government. With every increase in accomplishment, or worth, or demand for the better things of life, comes the burden of wrongs, injustice, and rash discrimination. It would be idle here to attempt to recount in detail the grievances we justly have against the government in city, state and nation; to do so further than the purpose I have in view would be but to tell you what you full well know. The Negro race needs a change of viewpoint; another leadership is ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... I would take her into my heart, and fold my arms about her.—Oh, I pray you do not look upon me with that mocking smile! Pity me, rather! pity this wretched heart that longs to curse God and die!—Nay, I want not your idle words. Can good destroy? Can love persecute? I was a worm that turned. What then? Why not have crushed me to annihilation? Oh, no, not that! He took me up and shook me before the world, clipped me, and let ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... the passage they shall rush on the idle city, and shall destroy some portion of thy land, and consume part of thy glory, and shall return ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... thou lie so idle there, dear Nell,' he murmured, 'when there are bright red berries out of doors waiting for thee to pluck them! Why dost thou lie so idle there, when thy little friends come creeping to the door, crying "where is Nell—sweet Nell?"—and ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... drive to the Baltic shores, and spend the afternoon on the moss beneath the pines whose pink stems form the framework of the sea, I take Spenser; and presently the blue waves are the ripples of the Idle Lake, and a tiny white sail in the distance is Phaedria's shallow ship, bearing Cymochles swiftly away to her drowsy little nest of delights. How can I tell why Keats has never been brought here, and why Spenser is brought again and again? Who shall follow the dark intricacies of ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... which is as frequent as it is idle, concerns the degree of sexual impulse in woman. It is important for the lawyer to know something about this, of course, for many a sexual crime may be more properly judged if it is known how far the woman encouraged the man; ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... names of Peel and Gladstone are associated in history. The policy advocated in 1830 in the admirable treatise of Sir Henry Parnell is exactly the policy of Peel in 1842, as he acknowledged. After all it is an idle quarrel between the closet strategist and the victorious commander; between the man who first discerns some great truth of government, and the man who gets the thing, or even a part of ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... officer lost his leg at the battle of Vittoria, and after suffering amputation with the greatest courage, thus addressed his servant who was crying, or pretending to cry, in one corner of the room, "None of your hypocritical tears, you idle dog; you know you are very glad, for now you will have only one boot ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... avoid an ostentatious display of learning. By the idle and the frivolous indeed, any appearance of learning is called pedantry. But as I do not write for such readers, I pay no regard to their censures. Those by whom I wish to be judged, will I hope, approve of my adding dignity to Corsica, by shewing its consideration among the ancients, and will ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... with him! the slave! the pompous, empty, fawning knave! Does he think with idle speeches to delude and cheat us all, As he does the doting elders that attend his daily call? Pelt him here, and bang him there; and ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... about preordination is idle waste of time is the only wise one; but how difficult it is not to speculate! My theology is a simple muddle; I cannot look at the universe as the result of blind chance, yet I can see no evidence of beneficent design or indeed of design of ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... as a conspirator—'in good faith he will never help his friend or harm his foe'—and the praises of Bower, are characteristic, and, here, are in place; elsewhere they are idle repetitions, mere copies. The apology for bad writing—Logan could not employ a secretary in this case—is natural: the two days writing agrees with ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... your misery, as foredeeming you An idle meteor, which drawn forth, the earth Would soon ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... in dreamy seas of vaporous and idle bliss—do you catch that combination?—and fancy myself, mark you, busy all the time. It is the smoker's dementia accentuated by such a mixture as this, that while he is blowing rings he imagines he ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... called the 'Fortunes of the Freeman Family,' and it is a history with a moral. Morals were more in fashion then than they are now, but this one is obvious without any commentary upon it. It is tolerably certain that clever, industrious, well-conducted people will succeed, where idle, scheming, and untrustworthy persons will eventually fail to get on, even with powerful friends to back them. But the novel has yet to be written that will prove that, where merits are more equal, a little patronage is not of a great deal of ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... running here, running there, hastening to and fro, carrying long-swords and shields, holding horses' heads, stamping, tramping, scolding and jesting. Little Wattie was more than once told to stand aside, and more than once got pushed about and mixed up with the throng of idle children, whose juvenile curiosity kept them spell-bound, ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... No idle occupation can be more fascinating than to wander about the mazes of this ancient town. The variety of race and occupation is something astounding. Probably the one human note that, everywhere persisting, draws the whole together is furnished by the water-carriers. Mombasa has no water system ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... child!" replied Jeanne, looking pleased. "None know better than the priests how to speak idle words to women. But what was he telling thee? How came it that he spoke of the time when I was married?" added ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... might watch the other. After departing from the supper hall to bed it was not permitted them to speak again in public, except upon urgent necessity, and then only in an undertone. All scurrility, jests, and idle words were to be avoided; and after any foolish saying, the repetition of the Lord's Prayer was enjoined. All professed knights were to wear white garments, both in summer and winter, as emblems of chastity. The esquires and retainers were required ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... days' battering, breaches of from thirty to fifty feet wide were effected in the walls. The Saxons had not been idle. Behind each of the threatened points they raised banks of earth ten feet high, and cut away the bank perpendicularly behind the shattered wall, so that the assailants as they poured in at the gaps would have to ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... a large revenue was distributed among them in the form of wages for attendance in the courts of justice and other public assemblies. These payments to citizens for their share in the public business were quite new in Greece, and many considered the sitting and listening in these assemblies as an idle life in comparison with the labor of the plowman and vine-grower in the country, and for a long time the industrious cultivators, the brave warriors, and the men of old-fashioned morality were opposed, ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... syren of the stage, Charmer of an idle age, Empty warbler, breathing lyre, Wanton gale of fond desire, Bane of every manly art, Sweet enfeebler of the heart; O! too pleasing is thy strain, Hence, to southern climes again, Tuneful mischief, vocal spell, To this island bid farewell, Leave us, as we ought ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... of justifying himself by reason or argument, had recourse to recrimination. In the paper which he sent me next day, he insisted in general that he had carefully perused the case (which you will perceive was a self-evident untruth); he said the theory it contained was idle; that he was sure it could not be written by a physician; that, with respect to the disorder, he was still of the same opinion; and adhered to his former prescription; but if I had any doubts I might come to his house, and he ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... to say how much comfort could be drawn from this report. The messenger had brought a copy of Monk's published declaration; but that contained no word about the restoration of the King. Even were his friends encouraged to action, it was idle to hope for success in arms without foreign aid; and Charles and Hyde knew how small were the chances of such aid. Were the unpurged Long Parliament restored, what better could be hoped from them than that they would open negotiations upon the basis ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... Little-Belly caught too many fish, so that it took a great many to sell for a little money, he threw many of the fish back into the sea, so that more money would be paid for what was left. And Three-Legs often let many large fields lie idle so as to get more money for his corn. And the women, making so much money out of shell that much money was needed to buy with, Dog-Tooth stopped the making of money. And the women had no work, so they took the places of the men. I worked on the fish-trap, getting a ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... he, "did you ever, as you walked along the empty street upon some idle afternoon, feel the utter hunger for something to happen—something, in the splendid words of Walt Whitman: 'Something pernicious and dread; something far removed from a puny and pious life; something unproved; something in a trance; ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... sort, no doubt; and has taken a fit with fright. Now, then, I must see you all back into your rooms; for, till the house is settled, she cannot be looked after. Gentlemen, have the goodness to set the ladies the example. Miss Ingram, I am sure you will not fail in evincing superiority to idle terrors. Amy and Louisa, return to your nests like a pair of doves, as you are. Mesdames" (to the dowagers), "you will take cold to a dead certainty, if you stay in this ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... like dragons' fangs; they spat venom, they spouted fire. Each one added her word. Anecdotes were piled upon anecdotes. A wife fled from her home before a drunken husband. Wives slaved for idle husbands. Wives were deserted for other women. The tongues whistled like whip lashes. The misery of homes was laid bare. Long litanies were read. From the tyranny of the husband ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... teacher by natural vocation. No sooner was he satisfied that he knew anything of general moment than he felt pressed to impart his knowledge. Contact with him could never be simply for acquaintance' sake; still less for an idle comparison of views. While no man could be more frank in the admission of a lack of data on which to base an opinion in matters of fact, or a lack of illumination on affairs of conduct or practical direction, when such existed, ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... "Not at all fond. My friends have often remarked upon it. A palmist once told me that I had one of those rare spiritual natures which cannot be satisfied with substitutes but must seek and seek till they find their soul-mate. When other men all round me were frittering away their emotions in idle flirtations which did not touch their deeper natures, I was ... I was ... well, I wasn't, if you see ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... have no better we must use him to bring in the rest of the untamed band to which he once belonged. Neither should our visitors complain about this form of payment. If all of our obligations from abroad were paid in coin, assuming that we had enough, it would fill Europe with idle money, and as we have always been a good customer, and always prompt in our payments, they should be reasonable, and admit that it is no worse to have idle bonds than it is to have idle money, so long as final payment is assured. Neither should they expect, par value for what did ...
— Confiscation, An Outline • William Greenwood
... a sudden very quiet, and their pickaxes no longer gave dull muffled thumps upon the seam of coal; but he was too busy to notice how idle and still they were. It was only when Cole spoke to him, in a tone of extraordinary mildness, that the boy paused in his rough and ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... first believed in property qualifications and had feared with genuine alarm the "mobs of the great cities." It was near the end of the eighteenth century before he accepted the idea of manhood suffrage. Even then he was unable to convince the constitution-makers of his own state. "It is not an idle chimera of the brain," urged one of them, "that the possession of land furnishes the strongest evidence of permanent, common interest with, and attachment to, the community.... It is upon this foundation I wish to place the right of suffrage. This is the best general standard which can ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... lonely pine. Home once more! I'll have no friendships to distract me hence. The times are out of joint for me; and what have I to seek from men? In the pure enjoyment of the family circle I will pass my days, cheering my idle hours with lute and book. My husbandmen will tell me when spring-time is nigh, and when there will be work in the furrowed fields. Thither I shall repair by cart or by boat, through the deep gorge, over the dizzy cliff, trees bursting merrily into leaf, the streamlet swelling ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... world all drab; when I think of model lodging-houses in St. James's Park, and trams running round and round St. James's Square—the mighty fallen, and the lowly swollen, and, in Elysium, the shade of Matthew Arnold shedding tears on the shoulder of a shade so different as George Brummell's—tears, idle tears, at sight of the Barbarians, whom he had mocked and loved, now annihilated by those others whom he had mocked and hated; when such previsions as these come surging up in me, I do deem myself well content with the present state of things, dishonourable ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... foundation of a great Republic. She found herself a widow at an early age, with a family of young children to educate and support. Her means were narrow, for although Augustine Washington was able to leave what was called a landed estate to each son, it was little more than idle capital, and the income in ready money was by no means so ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... yet more he vainly says; nor stand They idle long; from word they pass to deed; And having compassed on the level land Enough of ground, encounter on the mead. Not fired in some rejoicing, from the hand Discharged, so fast the whistling rockets speed, As the two coursers bear the cavaliers To hurtle ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... watching, knew that her eyes were seeing the things of which she was telling. "A wee white cottage—the roses and the cliffs," repeated Patsy, "and a great, grim, silent figure of a man sitting there idle all day, watching a little lass at her play. Just the man and the child. And the trouble in his mind that had kept the man silent and idle was an old, old trouble—old ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... they are called, demand principally a different division of the land. Under the present system, approximately one-third of all the land is in the hands of the government. Of that, generally more than half lies idle most of the time. The Targos wish to have this land divided among the citizens. They claim also that most of the city organizations do not produce as large a dividend as the Targos could show under their own management. They have ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... their spherical vessels, had spent the preceding days in manufacturing space equipment. Let the weight-fiends plan upon detonating magazines of explosives, upon laying mines calculated to destroy the invaders, even the vessel itself and all within it. Let them plan upon any other such idle schemes, which were certain to be foreseen and guarded against by the space-hardened veterans who undoubtedly moaned that all-powerful and vengeful football of scarred gray metal. Space-fighters were they, and as space-fighters would they die; taking ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... if you don't wish to," he told her, "but—but there's something rather tragic about that little face of yours. I don't think it's idle curiosity, but I'd like to know. I might as well confess that I've been questioning that fellow Stefan about you, but the sum of his knowledge is best represented by zero. I can assure you that I don't want to intrude ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... hour, he came to a small country called the Land of the Busy Bees. The streets were filled with people running to and fro about their tasks. Everyone worked, everyone had something to do. Even if one were to search with a lantern, not one idle man or one tramp could have ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... for which I had as yet no name. Every imaginative growing child has these flashes of intuition, especially one that becomes intimate with some one aspect of nature. With me it was the growing time, that idle summer by the sea, and I grew all the faster because I had been so cramped before. My mind, too, had so recently been worked upon by the impressive experience of a change of country that I was more than commonly alive to impressions, which are the ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... such thy will; nor distant far The fountain from the house. At the first dawn My bullocks yoked I to the field will drive, And sow my furrows; for no idle wretch With the gods always in the mouth can gain Without due labour the support of ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... that jealous hopes beset the mind of mortals, be silent concerning his father's prowess, nor from these hymns: for not to lie idle have I devised them. That message give him, Nikesippos, when thou ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... delicate in organization, and not much given to outdoor amusements, except skating and swimming, of which last exercise he was very fond in his young days, and in which he excelled. He was a great reader, never idle, but always had a book in his hand,—a volume of poetry or one of the novels of Scott or Cooper. His fondness for plays and declamation is illustrated by the story told by a younger brother, who remembers being wrapped up in a shawl and kept quiet by sweetmeats, while he figured ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... readily reach Lenox's ears. But Kenneth Malcolm, whose aspirations were no secret to the busily idle world around him, was speedily enlightened: and there could be neither peace nor rest for him till he had confirmation or denial ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... was not ideal. There were idle, slovenly women, misguided female fanatics, as there are to-day. Too often in considering the men and women who made colonial history we are liable to think that all were of the stamp of Winthrop, Bradford, Sewall, Adams, and Washington. Instead, they were people like the readers of this ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... subject. It is in the third plate of the "Rake's Progress" the woman alluded to is introduced. A small critic might here find a fit subject for vituperation, and loudly condemn Cunningham as a writer who was too idle to examine the works he was describing; pouncing on his minute errors, and forgetting the totality of his generous labors. Much of this spirit infests literature; and merges the kindly exposition of error into ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... a kiss, and no idle eye was there in mockery to gaze upon them and no ear save his own heard her when she said: "And together we ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... persons of the worst-regulated habits are constantly engaged in this exciting and precarious trade; and serious demoralisation is engendered amongst the villagers by the idle and dissolute adventurers who resort to Saffragam. Systematic industry suffers, and the cultivation of the land is frequently neglected whilst its owners are absorbed in these speculative ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... an old Scotch cap upon his shaggy head; near him again, a tall ruffian, in a smock-frock; next to him, a miserable being of distressed appearance, with his head resting on his hand;—all alike in one respect, all idle and listless. When they do leave the fire, sauntering moodily about, lounging in the window, or leaning against the wall, vacantly swinging their bodies to and fro. With the exception of a man reading an old newspaper, in two or three instances, this was ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... never let pass any opportunity to try to make a speech. His early employers, when called upon after his fame was won to describe his habits as a young man, admitted that they might have been disposed to consider him an idle fellow. They explained that he was not only idle himself but the cause of idleness in others. Unless closely watched, he was likely to mount a stump and, to the intense delight of his fellow farm hands, deliver a side-splitting ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... privileged places like the abbeys of Saint-Germain and Saint-Marcel, the vast enclosure of the Temple, that of Saint-John the Lateran, and the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, and you will find at least 12,000 persons cutting, fitting, and sewing." How many in these two groups are now idle! How many others are walking the streets, such as upholsterers, lace-makers, embroiderers, fan-makers, gilders, carnage-makers, binders, engravers, and all the other producers of Parisian nick-nacks! For ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... the last idle day we had for some time, for we had an abundance of work to get through before the return of spring, which was now rapidly approaching. It was the least pleasant time of the year, too; for we had thaws of two or three days at a time, during which the hardened ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... of land, A boundless wealth of virgin soil As yet unfruitful and untilled! Our willing workmen, strong and skilled Within our cities idle stand, And cry aloud ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... raiment thin and spare Was idle mail 'gainst the barbed air, For it was just at the Christmas time; 260 So he mused, as he sat, of a sunnier clime, And sought for a shelter from cold and snow In the light and warmth of long-ago; He sees the snake-like caravan crawl O'er the edge of the desert, black and ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... in which a soul examines and detects her vices, bewails her past sins and those of the whole world, sighs at the consideration of its vanity and slavery, and of her distance from heaven, labors daily to cleanse her mind from all idle thoughts, and her heart from all sin, all irregular attachments, and superfluous desires, flies the vain joys of the world, and often entertains herself on the bloody passion of Christ. If the affections are thus purified, and this cleanness of ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... cloud; her loveliness Is wan on Neptune's blue: yet there's a stress Of love-spangles, just off yon cape of trees, Dancing upon the waves, as if to please The curly foam with amorous influence. O, not so idle: for down-glancing thence She fathoms eddies, and runs wild about O'erwhelming water-courses; scaring out The thorny sharks from hiding-holes, and fright'ning Their savage eyes with unaccustomed lightning. 90 Where will the splendor be content to reach? O love! ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... tree; and he was proceeding with his work, when he was alarmed by the approach of Captain Bonneville's men, who, feeling anxious at the protracted absence of their leader, were coming in search of him. At the sound of their voices, all the beavers, busy as well as idle, dived at once beneath the surface, and were no more to be seen. Captain Bonneville regretted this interruption. He had heard much of the sagacity of the beaver in cutting down trees, in which, it is said, they manage to make them fall into the water, and in such a position ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... hopes have been miserably disappointed, and they loudly proclaim their wants and sorrows in the streets. There are unfortunately in all colonies — those 'refugia peccatorum' — many emigrants of this class, idle and worthless, who have never done well, and never will succeed in any part ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... him a crank. Like many Christians of great character and intellect, he has made the study of his Scriptures and the writing of books of commentaries upon them the loving labor of his life. Like them, he has believed that his was not an idle and foolish waste of his life, but a most worthy and honorable employment of it. Yet, there are many people who will see in those others, men worthy of homage and deep reverence, but in him merely a crank. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of Ancre, which cost him nearly half a million livres,—and, soon after, the post of First Gentleman of the Bedchamber, and that cost him nearly a quarter of a million,—and, soon after that, a multitude of broad estates and high offices at immense prices. Leonora, also, was not idle, and among her many gains was a bribe of three hundred thousand livres to screen certain ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... of setting himself up as a prophet of evil, for his remark was made more out of spite than anything else, it having struck the old fellow that a good idle ashore would be very pleasant, especially with plenty to eat and drink, and a fair supply ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... 1470. This collection, which forms a principal part of the Poggiana, is chiefly valuable as recording interesting anecdotes of eminent men of the 14th and 15th centuries. It also contains a number of quibbles or jeux de mots, and a still greater number of facetiae, idle and licentious stories. These Facetiae form, upon the whole, the most amusing and interesting part of the Poggiana printed at Amsterdam in 1720; but this collection also comprehends additional anecdotes of Poggio's life, and a few extracts from his ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... found himself landed in the colonies with but very little money in his pocket. The captain and passengers had considered the adventurer's declaration that before a month had passed he would be the husband of Blue Beard, as an idle boast. Far from having given up the idea, the chevalier persisted in it more and more since his arrival in Martinique; he had carefully informed himself as to the riches of Blue Beard, and was convinced that, if the life of this strange ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... or their fathers' recollections of the days before the Corn Laws when wages ran from 8s. to 9s. a week. What is recalled with horror in England as the state of affairs in the "hungry forties" is the present condition in several of the Irish counties. It would be idle to multiply proofs to show the desperate condition of the country. Even in the ten years which have elapsed since the issue of the Report of the Royal Commission the taxation of the country has increased by more than two and a half million pounds, while the population, ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... ordinary: it was a time of great financial distress; in the border slave States the pursuits of peace were interrupted; all was in turmoil and confusion; rolling-mills, machine-shops, foundries, forges, and sawmills were all idle, and many of the mechanics had gone to the war. The timber for the boats was still growing in the forests; the iron was not yet manufactured. And so short was the time that two or three factories alone, no matter how well ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How
... man to be idle. Some hunted; some fished; some labored at the houses and defences. To the large building made by La Salle he added four lodging-houses for the men, and a fifth for the women, besides a small chapel. ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... is an idle invention of my brain—but think it for a moment the speech of a true diviner, and what wouldst thou ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... sitting-room; 'or talking with young ladies in shady bowers, or turning your talents to account in some way? What was a bachelor like you asked here for? Don't you mean to earn your cold chicken and champagne? Were I you, I should be ashamed to be so idle.' ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... a certain river, where there was always good fishing, lived an old man and his three sons. The two eldest were sharp-witted, active young men, already married; the youngest was stupid and idle, and a bachelor. When the father was dying, he called his children to him and told them how he had left his property. The house was for his two married sons, with a sum of three hundred florins each. ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko
... thousand wrongs; Or if that surly spirit, melancholy, Had bak'd thy blood and made it heavy-thick, Which else runs tickling up and down the veins, Making that idiot, laughter, keep men's eyes, And strain their cheeks to idle merriment— A passion hateful to my purposes;— Or if that thou couldst see me without eyes, Hear me without thine ears, and make reply Without a tongue, using conceit alone, Without eyes, ears, and harmful sound of words,— Then, in despite of brooded watchful day, ...
— King John • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... our independence, which has also been quoted in support of the perilous doctrines now urged upon us, I need not now speak at large. I have shown on a former occasion how idle it is to rely upon that instrument for such a purpose, and I will not fatigue you by mere repetition. The self-evident truths announced in the Declaration of Independence are not truths at all, if taken literally; and the practical ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... sed, "he wor gooin daan to Shibden this afternooin, to visit one ov his Sundy skollards 'ats badly; an' he happened bi ill luck to coom on a reg'lar lot o' idle young fellers at wor laikin at pitch an' toss. Martin connot bide wickedness o' noa sooart, soa he stopt to tell 'em hah sinful gamblin' wor, 'specially on a Sundy, an' hah mich better for 'em it 'ud be, if they'd put ther hard-addled brass into th' Savins Bank, but asteead o' takkin his gooid advice, ...
— Yorkshire Tales. Third Series - Amusing sketches of Yorkshire Life in the Yorkshire Dialect • John Hartley
... could be heard of the girls. Then a horrible thought struck him that Roscorla might by this time have left the Hall, and would he not be coming down to this very road on his way up to Basset Cottage? This was no idle fear: it was almost ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... however, to ignore the effect that this produces on the temper of soldiers, who say with characteristic energy of expression that they would rather a hundred times take their chances with death in a fair fight than remain idle under a shell fire that is trying to the strongest nerves, though it does little material harm. Sir George is naturally reluctant to sacrifice valuable lives in capturing positions which we have not men enough to hold, but it would be ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... of Combahee, S.C., one of the wealthiest planters in the state, stated, in conversation with some other planters who were complaining of the idle and lazy habits of their slaves, and the difficulty of ascertaining whether their sickness was real or pretended, and the loss they suffered from their frequent absence on this account from their work, said, 'I never lose a day's work: it is an established rule ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... at the now enormous stack of pearl shells and at the tubs once more well filled with oysters, for the beachcomber had not let his men be idle. But the sight of the treasures of which they had been robbed only irritated the boy, and he turned away to forget it in encountering the grinning face of Black Jack ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... principles of interest and policy, should induce us rather to protect than molest them: were they driven from their forests, the peltry trade would decrease; and it is not impossible that worse savages would take refuge in them, for they might then become the asylum of fugitive Negroes, and idle vagabonds, escaped from justice, who in time might become formidable, and subsist by rapine, ...
— Report of the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations on the Petition of the Honourable Thomas Walpole, Benjamin Franklin, John Sargent, and Samuel Wharton, Esquires, and their Associates • Great Britain Board of Trade
... languages, and at the age of eighteen, was handed over to society as finished in every way. I loved the gayeties that surrounded me, just as well as ever a girl could, but after a while, it struck me as being such an idle, aimless life, for a well educated, sensible girl to live, so I determined to make use of all that I had received. I had a small class in music, and one in painting and drawing; some of them paid, and some, ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... Christmas and early in February, the whole cultivation gets beaten down and caked over. In such a case amusements must for a time be thrown aside, till all the lands have been again re-ploughed. Of course we are never wholly idle. There are always rents to collect, matters to adjust in connexion with our villages and tenantry, law-suits to recover bad debts, to enforce contracts, or protect manorial or other rights,—but generally speaking, when the lands have been prepared, ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... Knickerbocker, rising to his full height, stern and majestic and shouting in a stentorian tone that echoed through the great room. "War! War! To your places, every one of you! Be done with your idle luxury! Out with the glare of your lights! Begone you painted women and worthless men! To your places every man of you! To the Battery! Man the guns! Stand to it, every one of you for the defence of America—for our New York, ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... This privilege of intimacy can, however, be abused. An engagement, even with a member of one's family, ought never to be broken twice within a brief period, or it becomes apparent that the other's presence is more a fill-in of idle time ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... secretly hoping that the project would fail. A generous dinner was cooking indoors; for the host intended to refuse his guests nothing that was good. The song of mallets and hammers rang out, and the timbers began to come together; but the master framer was idle. Over by the old house door sat grandfather. He positively refused to lend a hand to the enterprise unless treated to his rum. For a time the work progressed rapidly; then there came a halt. There was a place where the timbers would not fit. After much delay and many vain attempts ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... afford to waste idle hours and empty plants while awaiting the end of the recession. We must show the world what a free economy can do—to reduce unemployment, to put unused capacity to work, to spur new productivity, and to foster higher economic growth within a range ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John F. Kennedy • John F. Kennedy
... wanton sacrifice of life which are incident to the evolution of machinery and the division of labor seem to demand at times their elimination. In weariness we are urged to retrace our steps and go back to craftsmanship and the Guilds. But it is idle to talk about going back or eliminating institutionalized features of society. We cannot go back, we have not the ability to discard this or that part of our environment except as we make it over. The result of this making over might be vitalized by methods ...
— Creative Impulse in Industry - A Proposition for Educators • Helen Marot
... grammar confronted him, Will had already found grammar-school an excellent place to plead aching tooth or heavy head to stay away from. At eight, a dreary traveling for him to cover did his "Sententiae Pueriles" prove, and idle paths more pleasing. ...
— A Warwickshire Lad - The Story of the Boyhood of William Shakespeare • George Madden Martin
... colleen to put by the book: My grandfather would mutter just such things, And he was no judge of a dog or horse, And any idle boy could blarney him: Just speak ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... did not give entire credence to his own words, and wished to provoke the others to question Bates further; but they were not now in the same idle mood that had enthralled them when, in the morning, they had listened to him indulgently. Their loins were girded; they were intent upon what they were doing and what they were going to do. No one but Bates ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... a close family feeling, and how you and Sylvia and I planned in our simple ambitions to live together in the great world outside. We may say now that this was childish romance, and that the caprice of time has made it an idle fancy. For many years we have been separated, and only by a happy chance have we been brought together. Fortune has been kind to me. I am called a rich man, and I believe I may say without boasting that I am far beyond the need of anxiety. But to a degree I am a lonely man. My sister's ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... She had listened to the cross-examination which revealed Jasper as a scientist with something approaching amazement. She had known of the laboratory, but had associated the place with those entertaining experiments that an idle dabbler ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... have to do with an idle, curious man, with an unthankful man, a railer, a crafty, false, or an envious man. All these ill qualities have happened unto him, through ignorance of that which is truly good and truly bad. But I that understand the nature of that which is good, that it only is to be ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett
... so weak that he could not raise his eyelids without aid, and, on hearing the noise around him, he motioned to his attendants to lift his lids that he might see what it meant. When he saw the idle and curious crowd, a flash of wounded pride and just resentment stirred his vanished powers. Sending for the governor, he said, with a keen reproach that has grown historic, "Had I taken Sir William Berkeley prisoner, I would not have exposed him as a show to my people." ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... vacated the house by the bay, some of the more ignorant saying he did so because it was haunted by the ghosts of William Barton and Luella Sealy. The house is now standing idle, and is known to the children of the neighborhood as the "haunted house," and many say that, in the night, two white figures are seen walking on the verandah, and that frequently the stillness is broken by the sound of a pistol, and the agonizing shrieks of a woman in the ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... pursuits; a Tibetan "cui bono?" was always in his mouth: "What good will it do you?" "Why should you spend weeks on the coldest, hungriest, windiest, loftiest place on the earth, without even inhabitants?" Drugs and idle curiosity he believed were my motives, and possibly a reverence for the religion of Boodh, Sakya, and Tsongkaba. Latterly he had made up his mind to starve me out, and was dismayed when he found I could hold out better than himself, and when I ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... simple, common man who plods the plain routine of life from the cradle to the grave. His education will be that of one who has never had to struggle; who has always felt that he has nothing to gain; who has had the first dignity given him; who has never seen common life as in truth it is. It is idle to expect an ordinary man born in the purple to have greater genius than an extraordinary man born out of the purple; to expect a man whose place has always been fixed to have a better judgment than one who has lived by his judgment; to expect a man whose career will be the same whether ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... too late, bring vices in their train; the desire for good, when chilled, turns to evil. The mind, never idle, if debarred from the best, leans inevitably toward the worst. Angry with herself, her very soul embittered within her, Lady Baltimore feels more and more a sense of passionate wrong against the man who had wooed and won her, and sown the seeds of ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... kings' thrones and cobblers' stalls; and another strange thing is that from the same rags are made the paper on which the wisdom of sages is recorded, and the crown which is placed on the head of a fool. The same, too, may be said of children: one daughter is good and another bad; one idle, another a good housewife; one fair, another ugly; one spiteful, another kind; one unfortunate, another born to good luck, and who being all of one family ought to be of one nature. But leaving this subject to those ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... perceived, is but little practised in the ways of literature; much less is he gifted with that prophetic spirit which can anticipate the judgment of the public. It may be that he is too idle or too apathetic to think anxiously or much about the matter; and yet he has been amused, in his earlier days, at watching the first appearance of such few books as he believed to be the production of ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... tu, so 'tis. You'd turn any gal's 'ead wi' your stuff, Chirgwin. Wheer's the gude of a fuzz-pole o' yeller hair an' a pair o' blue eyes stuck 'pon top of a idle, good-for-nothin' body? Maidens caan't live by looks in these paarts, an' they'll find theerselves in trouble mighty ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
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