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More "Inaction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that action, not inaction was the best outlet for her energies, temporarily smothered by the shock of the raid. It was not in her nature to sit with folded hands among the ruins of the ranch and ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... was carried to Tientsin, and delivered there to the Viceroy of Chihli. Commissioner Lin was now cashiered for incompetency; but was afterwards instructed to act with the Viceroy of Chihli, who was sent down to supersede him. Further vexatious action, or rather inaction, on the part of these two at length drove Captain Elliot to an ultimatum; and as no attention was paid to this, the Bogue forts near the mouth of the Canton river were taken by the British fleet, after great slaughter of the Chinese. In January, 1841, ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles
... snow. The travellers were therefore compelled to spend an inactive day. For this, however, they were by no means sorry; they had been keeping rather late hours since entering the Arctic circle, and this interval of inaction afforded them an opportunity of securing their arrears of rest. Besides this there were sketches to complete, and a thousand little odd matters to attend to—to such an extent, indeed, that when they once began work they wondered at their own thoughtlessness in ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... The remedy against such inaction proving successful in the future lies in the existence of a strong body of public opinion in Great Britain, educated to such a degree in the facts of the case as to brook no delay in the application of remedies. As for us, we cannot expect ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... Barbarians, which issued from the North, would soon be encountered from the South by new swarms of Barbarians, equally fierce and equally formidable. These gloomy terrors would indeed have been dispelled by a more intimate acquaintance with the character of their African enemies. The inaction of the negroes does not seem to be the effect either of their virtue or of their pusillanimity. They indulge, like the rest of mankind, their passions and appetites; and the adjacent tribes are engaged in frequent ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... and sorry once and again. Took more soda-water. At last I fell into a dreary sleep. Woke, and was ill all day, till I had galloped a few miles. Query—was it the cockles, or what I took to correct them, that caused the commotion? I think both. I remarked in my illness the complete inertion, inaction, and destruction of my chief mental faculties. I tried to rouse them, and yet could not—and this is the Soul!!! I should believe that it was married to the body, if they did not sympathise so much with each other. If the one rose, when the other fell, it ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... of his inaction on the isle of Elba. He had spent all his life in military pursuits and missed the companionship of soldiers. He thought with regret of his old veterans when he welcomed the guards sent to him. Perhaps he hoped for the arrival of ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... says he, 'are a warlike race. There is me father's sword; and here is the map. A life of inaction is not for me. The O'Connors were born to rule. 'Tis a ruler of ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... the highest spirits now. They had not enjoyed the work of the past few days, cruising about off Valmosa and Monterey. Inaction is the last thing ...
— Young Glory and the Spanish Cruiser - A Brave Fight Against Odds • Walter Fenton Mott
... doorway from both directions and leaped savagely at us. After so many weary days of dull inaction and helpless, hopeless apathy, a mad joy fired my brain and thrilled my heart as I raised my club on high and struck a blow for freedom ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... an instant of horrified inaction, and in that instant a tongue of flame shot like a fiery serpent through the closed curtains behind the dancer. In a moment the cry was caught up and repeated in a dozen directions, and even as it went from mouth to mouth the ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... Antonio, who saw in warfare only the wickedness and the cruelty of it, we all were most eager for our inaction to end, and for the battling to begin that would give us opportunity to let the life out of some of those by whom Pablo had been slain. It was with delight, therefore, that we noted the rapidity with which the preparations for the ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... Everett Wharton at a new club called the Progress, of which they were both members. The Progress was certainly a new club, having as yet been open hardly more than three years; but still it was old enough to have seen many of the hopes of its early youth become dim with age and inaction. For the Progress had intended to do great things for the Liberal party,—or rather for political liberality in general,—and had in truth done little or nothing. It had been got up with considerable enthusiasm, ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of Hope, until our enemies shall have ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... and there be no other important circumstances, except the assault, the Department begs to advise you that, had not Midshipman Darrin resented the gross insult tendered the woman under his protection, he would thereby, by such inaction, have rendered himself liable to dismissal from the Navy. It is always the first duty of a gentleman to afford ample protection to any woman ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... is the allowing the parts of generation to remain too long in a state of inaction. Those parts of the body which are most exercised are always found to be better grown, stronger, and more fitted for the discharge of their natural functions provided the exercise be neither too violent nor too frequent. ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... certainty which sent him forward at a bound along the wood-road into which he had seen Marise turn. The moment he had been watching for had come at last, after these three hideous days of sudden arrest and pause. The forced inaction had been a sensation physically intolerable to him, as though he had been frozen immobile with every nerve and muscle ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... Dorian went into action in search of Carlia Duke. He acknowledged to himself that it was like searching for the proverbial needle in the haystack, but inaction was no longer possible. ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... hands of the Camp Fire Girls had done much to rid the place of its look of desolation, and now everything spoke of hope and renewed activity instead of despair and inaction. A healthier spirit prevailed, and now the Pratts, encouraged as to their future, were able to join heartily in the laughter and singing with which the Camp Fire Girls made ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the March - Bessie King's Test of Friendship • Jane L. Stewart
... my course will prove best for us both," he replied, gently. "You would not be happy if you saw me growing more sad and despairing every day through inaction, and—and—well, I could never become strong and calm with that cottage there just beyond the trees. You have not lost me, for I shall try to prove a ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... is defined by some one as piggishness. Generally it may be regarded as overfed. The elements of the bile are in the blood in excess of the power of the liver to eliminate them. This may be caused either from the superabundance of the materials from which the bile is made or by inaction of the organ itself. Being thus retained the system is clogged. It is the result of either too much food in quantity or too rich in quality. Especially is it caused by the excessive use of fats and sweets. The simplest remedy is the best. A plain, light ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... not wholly endorse this criticism, but it should be represented that the inaction of the government, whether due to inability or indifference or to whatever cause, has been the prime preventing cause of an earlier solution of a long standing problem. It seemed, however, as if an attempt was at last to be made to ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... a tendency to disparage culture as not practical-" a spirit of cultivated inaction" -unworthy of the attention of serious men. The word connotes, perhaps, to these critics certain superficial polite accomplishments, mere frills and decorations, which fritter away our time and dissipate ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... the architectural inaction of the Decadence came a marvellous recrudescence of splendor under the Ptolemies, whose Hellenic origin and sympathies did not lead them into the mistaken effort to impose Greek models upon Egyptian art. ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... of sage-brush in a storm of bullets from invisible enemies. The rascals did not rise and pursue, which I thought rather queer, for they must have known by my trail that they had to deal with only one man. The reason for their inaction was soon made clear. I had not gone a hundred yards before I reached the limit of my run—the head of the gulch which I had mistaken for a canon. It terminated in a concave breast of rock, nearly vertical and destitute of vegetation. In that cul-de-sac ...
— Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories • Ambrose Bierce
... given a certain independence in the execution of the tasks to which they are assigned and are expected to show initiative in meeting the different situations as they arise. Every individual, from the highest commander to the lowest private, must always remember that inaction and neglect of opportunities will warrant severe censure. Do something that will help carry out the plans of your commander. The Japanese regulations caution their commanders to avoid inaction ...
— The Plattsburg Manual - A Handbook for Military Training • O.O. Ellis and E.B. Garey
... am astonished to hear such sentiments from you, George Wild. I had thought you possessed a nobler, braver heart than to sit down here beneath the oaks of Scraggiewood, and waste the best years of your life in sloth and inaction." ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... inaction it was indeed good to recommence a moving life among oxen and waggons and guns and soldiers. Kimberley was all very well as a spectacle immediately after the siege; everyone flocked to see the holes in the houses and the ruined ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... and then he announced his intention of accompanying Felix on his voyage. But after a visit to the town, and a glance at the Princess Lucia, his resolution changed. Yet he wavered, one time openly reproaching himself for enduring such a life of inaction and ignominy, and at another deriding Felix and his visionary schemes. The canoe was now completed; it was tried on the pool and found to float exactly as it should. It had now to ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... of talking with her mates, but now there was no one to talk to; she had had an easy laugh, but it was gone dumb now; she had been born for comradeship, and blithe and busy work, and all manner of joyous activities, but here were only dreariness, and leaden hours, and weary inaction, and brooding stillness, and thoughts that travel by day and night and night and day round and round in the same circle, and wear the brain and break the heart with weariness. It was death in life; yes, death in life, that is what ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... consuls and the army alike, they declared that the pretence of internal dissension was assumed as a cloak for cowardice: and that the consuls rather distrusted the courage than disbelieved the sincerity of their soldiers: that inaction and idleness among men in arms were a novel form of sedition. Besides this they uttered insinuations, partly true and partly false, as to the upstart nature of their race and origin. While they loudly proclaimed this close to the very rampart and ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... to depress him more as he crouched there in the enforced inaction; he could hear rustlings in the low water-growth as of reptiles creeping along, the splashes in the river, and all about him the croaking, hooting, and barking of the nocturnal creatures which made the place their home; while, as if ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... agree with his philosophy of life, or even with many of his ideals. Often they did not understand him. But the action that he proposed was something tangible which could be understood and appreciated intellectually. Any action would be welcome after the long tradition of inaction which our spineless politics had nurtured; brave and effective action with an ethical halo about it had an irresistible appeal, both to the intellect and the emotions. Step by step he convinced us of the rightness ...
— Introduction to Non-Violence • Theodore Paullin
... subject of tariff revision be left to the incoming Congress. It is matter of regret that this work must be delayed for at least three months, for the threat of great tariff changes introduces so much uncertainty that an amount, not easily estimated, of business inaction and of diminished production will necessarily result. It is possible also that this uncertainty may result in decreased revenues from customs duties, for our merchants will make cautious orders for foreign goods in view of the prospect of tariff reductions and the uncertainty ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... occasional cryptic smile, he did nothing to alarm either of the women. Yet his very silence and inaction were more ominous than threats. He instilled in them a crawling dread, a growing terror and uncertainty that was worse than anything they had ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... You'll observe that Miss Malroy disappeared at a moment when the public is disposed to think she has retained me as her legal adviser, probably she will be set at liberty when she agrees to drop the matter of Norton's murder. As for the boy, they'll use him to compel my silence and inaction." The judge took a long breath. "Yet there remains one point where the boy is concerned that completely baffles me. If we knew just a little more of his antecedents it might cause me to make a startling and ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... destruction, he descended, and mingling both with the barbarians and his own men, without any one perceiving him or knowing whether he was an officer or a common soldier; and since there was no time for delay or inaction, he mounted a speedy horse, and galloped away, and ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... returned home than he found a menacing letter from Wharton, who had evidently heard of the reconciliation. Maxwell's dark face glowed hotly as he made a vow to terrify Wharton into inaction. He would instantly give him a 'handsel' of harrying to stay his proud stomach. So he caused warn the waters far and wide. Nith he summoned, and Annan, and then with his whole 'name' rode through the debatable land, and ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... restrained, I should for ever have been miserable. The remembrance of this escape, and the certain knowledge that of all beings whom I knew I was most likely to be mistaken in an emergency, always produced in me a torturing tendency to inaction. There was no such tendency now. I thought I chose Mary, but there was no choice. The feeblest steel filing which is drawn to a magnet, would think, if it had consciousness, that it went to the magnet of its own free ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... the little Anastasia in her arms; the child, tired of inaction, had fallen asleep, with her delicate rosy cheek leaning against ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... rugged, and toilsome. Take almost any one of Tennyson's more serious poems, and it will be found pervaded by the thought of life as to be fulfilled and perfected only through moral endurance and struggle. "Ulysses" is no restless aimless wanderer; he is driven forth from inaction and security by that necessity which impels the higher life, once begun within, to press on toward its perfecting this all-possible sorrow, peril, and fear. "The Lotos-eaters" are no mere legendary myth: ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... ministries, the barracks and anywhere else you care to look. Of course it is treason, don't misunderstand, general, but most of it is really quite harmless. It is the national pastime of the power elite; a sort of political mah-jongg and most of these little bubbling kettles cool and sour from inaction. However, this time, it is evident that some drastic catalyst has caused a most violent reaction of these subversive ingredients and the incredible, one in a million possibility has occurred. All the pots are ...
— I Was a Teen-Age Secret Weapon • Richard Sabia
... occupy Messina, and so to abandon the hitherto traditional policy which had confined the expansion of Rome to the Italian peninsula. For let it not be overlooked that, whether we wish or no, we must answer the question, we must make the decision. The issue cannot be dodged. Absolute inaction in such a case is a decision as truly as the most vehement action. We can now advance, but, the conditions of the world being what they are, if we do not advance we recede; for there is involved not so much a particular action ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... were amazed—and divided. Only Stanton and Bates were for immediate promulgation. Chase thought it would be better to leave the matter to district commanders, but would support the proclamation as better than inaction. Blair opposed it as likely to be unpopular and lose the Fall election. All this Lincoln had weighed beforehand. But now came a suggestion from Seward, that the immediate time was inopportune, because ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... fashionable among the better orders of society to go to church . . . The greater number of states declare it to be unconstitutional to refer to the providence of God in any of their public acts." The Quarterly Review informed its readers that "the supreme felicity of a true-born American is inaction of body and inanity of mind." Dickens's American Notes was an ungrateful return for the kindness and enthusiasm with which he had been received in this country. De Tocqueville's Democracy in America was widely read in England and doubtless had its influence ...
— From Isolation to Leadership, Revised - A Review of American Foreign Policy • John Holladay Latane
... two. Indeed, they seemed to have only one taste between them, and that was Charley's. If he felt inclined, which was not seldom, to utter inaction, his wife encouraged him in his laziness, sitting contentedly for hours on her footstool, with her silky hair just within reach of his indolent hand. If, after dinner, he suggested the "Italiens," or the "Bouffes," it was always precisely that theatre that she had been thinking of all the ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... know whether they meant to be as humorous as they were, but I can hardly think they were not amused at each other. They stood and lay very close together, with fierce glances, and quick, jerky motions of the head. Now and then one, tired of inaction, raised a deliberate claw, bowed its head, scratched with incredible rapidity, shook its tumbled feathers, and looked round with angry self-consciousness, as though to say: "I will ask any one to think me absurd at his peril." Now and then one of them kicked diligently at the soil, ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... fatal inaction seized her. The school went on; daily the dark little cloud of scholars rose up from hill and vale and settled in the white buildings; the hum of voices and the busy movements of industrious teachers filled the day; the office work went on methodically; but back of it all Miss Smith sat half hopeless. ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... "The Germans may have gone away, but I believe they are still loitering on the outside. However, this inaction is getting monotonous. We've got to do something, and we've got to do ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... the south-east Trades; bogs dry up everywhere, opening all roads; travellers pass through the stations from all points of the compass—cattle buyers, drovers, station-owners, telegraph people—all bent on business, and all glad to get moving after the long compulsory inaction of the Wet; and lastly that great yearly cumbrous event takes place: the starting of the "waggons," with their ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... he been in the danger himself his nerves would have been as hard as steel, but the inaction while someone else was doing the work ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes
... the winter had brought to a temporary standstill the operations of the British troops engaged in the first Afghan campaign, and I took the opportunity of this inaction to make a journey into Native Burmah, the condition of which seemed thus early to portend the interest which almost immediately after converged upon it, because of King Thebau's wholesale slaughter of his relatives. ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... Government's failure to express its disapproval of the German utter disregard of its Lusitania notes. After eight months, it has done nothing but write more notes. My love for America, I must confess, is offended at this inaction and—puzzled. I can't understand it. You will pardon me, I ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... muscles and sinews of this long inaction, I took snow-shoes and a couple of Kobuks one day and made an ascent of the hill behind Bettles known as Lookout Mountain, because from its top the smoke of the eagerly expected first steamboat of the summer may be seen many miles down the river; being moved ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... was left, keel up, half on the sand, half in the water, swaying with each swell of the lake. It gave a picturesque grace to that part of the shore, as the only image of inaction—only object of a pensive character to be seen. Near this I sat, to dream my dreams and watch the colors of the Jake, changing hourly, till the sun sank. These hours yielded impulses, wove webs, such as life will not ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... merely inured the Americans to danger, and seeing that it did them good rather than harm, Howe presently stopped it. Washington, perhaps not aware of the strength of his own position, declared himself "unable, upon any principle whatever," to account for Howe's inaction. He suspected it might be intended to lull him into a false sense of security, but resolved to be ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... where he lay a little while in luxurious inaction, sleep coming over him heavily. Joan shook him, sending him stumbling off to ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... as her very calmness was, and enchanted for the moment into voicelessness and utter inaction, she was not that kind of women who sit and bear the stripes without an effort to ward them off. If Jeannie was as quick as lightning, she was sure as that which follows the flash. She thought for a moment, "God does not absolutely and for ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... herself into her chair to spend the slow hours until the boy's return as well as her fierce impatience and forced inaction ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... doing something," she answered. "If I wasn't looking well when you came in just now, it was because this inaction is bad for me. I want to do something!—something to help. If I could only be ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... there all day, and nobody grew restless except Paul. He found it hard to pass so much time in inaction, and now and then he suggested to the others that they move on, taking all risks, but they merely rallied him on ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... murmured the young man, bitterly, leaning his cheek on his hand; "what fortune fairer than the present can be mine? yet inaction in youth is more keenly felt than in age. How lightly I should endure poverty if it brought poverty's ennobling companion, Labour,—denied to me! Well, well; I must go back to the old rock: on this ocean there is no sail, not even an oar, ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... may we reach spiritual illumination? There are certain well established facts about the laws of growth that we should not overlook when seeking the way forward. Nothing whatever can grow without use, without activity. Inaction causes atrophy. Physiologists tell us that if the arm be tied to the body so that it cannot be used it will in time become so enfeebled, that it is of no further service. It will wither away. That is nature's law of economy. She never gives life where it is useless, ...
— Self-Development and the Way to Power • L. W. Rogers
... time, whether it is advisable to cross the mountain to-day or to-morrow." 9. "It seems best to me," exclaimed Cleanor, "to march at once, as soon as we have dined and resumed our arms, against the enemy; for if we waste the present day in inaction, the enemy who are now looking down upon us will grow bolder, and it is likely that, as their confidence is increased, others will join them in ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon
... Claudet de Buxieres; but, however much he wished to render Claudet a service, he was still more desirous of respecting the feelings of his client; so, between the hostility of one party and the backwardness of the other, he chose the wise part of inaction. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the universe, like a crane that liveth on the water (untaught by any one.) If a creature acteth not, its course of life is impossible. In the case of a creature, therefore, there must be action and not inaction. Thou also shouldest act, and not incur censure by abandoning action. Cover thyself up, as with an armour, with action. There may or may not be even one in a thousand who truly knoweth the utility of acts or work. One must act for protecting as also ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... ranch house. In answer to our inquiries as to how he had spent the night he reported that the horses stood quietly in their tracks all night long, while he slept comfortably in the wagon. In the morning the horses started without undue urging as if tired of inaction and glad to go in the direction of provender. They were completely broken by their fast and after that gave no ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... made, and the rest of the day thus cleared for inaction, he sat down and wrote a letter. Ever since his fall he had been successfully practising the art of throwing a morsel straight into one or other of the throats of the triple-headed Cerberus, his conscience—which was more clever in catching ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... Spain, and the unrelenting grasp of the Papacy upon those portions of Christendom which were slipping from its control, that his apathy to those perils was so marked. We have seen his leading motives for inaction, and the world was long to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... several weeks, and the usual tenor of my life became like an old remembrance. But this was not the effect of time so much as of the change in all my habits made by the helplessness and inaction of a sick-room. Before I had been confined to it many days, everything else seemed to have retired into a remote distance where there was little or no separation between the various stages of my ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... Gardens, Austin Selwyn turned his course. A couple of saddle-horses were standing outside No. 8, held by a groom of expressionless countenance. From No. 3 a butler emerged, looked at the morning, and retired. Elsewhere inaction reigned. ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... the glorious stand at Inkermann taught the Americans that their aged parent could still defend the cause of freedom with the vigour of youth. The disasters of the winter, and the gloomy months of inaction which succeeded it, had the effect of damping their sympathies; the prophets of defeat were for a time triumphant, and our fading prestige, and reputed incapacity, were made the subjects of ill-natured discussion by the press. But when the news of the fall of Sebastopol arrived, the ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... stature. He carried a short club, and appeared almost as dumbfounded as the two Americans. A moment he regarded them, then, with a ferocious snarl of rage, he hurled himself upon the startled Ward and half clubbed, half pushed him to the floor. Recovering from his momentary inaction and realizing the danger in which his friend stood, Miles shouted and leaped upon the green man's back, fastening his sinewy ...
— The Heads of Apex • Francis Flagg
... partially even to species. In the latter case, though size is often gained, fertility is lost; but the increased size, vigour, and hardiness of many hybrids cannot be accounted for solely on the principle of compensation from the inaction of the reproductive system. Certain plants, both of pure and hybrid origin, though perfectly healthy, have become self-impotent, apparently from the unnatural conditions to which they have been exposed; and ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... to be lured into inaction by negotiations, while Monk gathered a convention at Edinburgh, and strengthened himself with money and recruits. His attitude was enough to rouse England to action. Portsmouth closed its gates against the delegates of the soldiers. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... thousand; of Shermantown, seven thousand; of Swansea, three thousand. All of these were incorporated towns with mayors, councils, fire departments, and daily newspapers. Hamilton has now about one hundred inhabitants, most of whom are merely waiting in dreary inaction for something to turn up. Treasure Hill has about half as many, Shermantown one family, and Swansea none, while on the other hand the graveyards are far ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... McClellan, and two more weeks of inaction passed before he again set his vast army in motion. But by this time, the demand for his dismissal had become clamorous and, on November 5, 1862, President Lincoln ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... were. To begin with, we had only sufficient food left to keep our force from starvation for two more days. Also the spirits of our soldiers, brave men enough when actual fighting was concerned, were beginning to flag in this atmosphere of inaction. Gathered into groups, they talked of their wives and children, and of what would happen to them at the hands of Joshua; also of their cattle and crops, saying that doubtless these were being ravaged and ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... later I took advantage of the inaction to go upstairs, whither Menzies had already preceded me. He was with his wife and Miss Hatherton in a back room with one small window, and that protected by ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... seeming inactivity, more than forty years, elapsed before another constitutional amendment was adopted.[1] The inaction, however, was apparent rather than real. As matter of fact, a change was all the time going on. In a very real sense the Constitution was being altered almost from year to year. That the alterations did not take the shape of formal written amendments ...
— Our Changing Constitution • Charles Pierson
... and uncertainty might excuse inaction on the part of the army in Limerick, but there was no such excuse the second time. Their force outside the town gate was but a small one; it was certain that the English could not push across the bridge; and, as Ginckle had ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... manufacturer, each discoverer in Germany, each exporter knew that the whole weight and power of the Government was behind him in his efforts to increase his business. On the other hand, in America, business men have been terrorized, almost into inaction, by constant prosecutions. What was a crime in one part of the United States, under one Circuit Court of Appeals, was a ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... persons. A company of fifty-three Grenadiers was sent to Wellington and a man-of-war to Nelson. Strict orders were given to the disgusted settlers not to meet and drill. On the whole, in the helpless state of the Colony, inaction was wisest. At any rate Mr. Shortland's successor was on his way out, and there was reason in waiting for him. Now had come the result of Hobson's error in fixing the seat of government in Auckland, and in keeping the leading officials there. Had Wellington been the seat of government ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... 1: We apply the word "voluntary" not only to that which proceeds from the will directly, as from its action; but also to that which proceeds from it indirectly as from its inaction. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... [Her Majesty visited Birmingham that year], "Rule Britannia," "Blue Bells of Scotland," "Life let us cherish," the "Easter Hymn," and two other hymns. Twenty years after (in 1878) after a very long period (nine years) of inaction, the charming apparatus was again put in order, the chimes being the same as before, with the exception of "Auld lang syne," which is substituted for "God save the Queen," in consequence of the ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... repose is well illustrated in the group of "The Chant" where the inaction of the woman dominates through its contrast with the effort expressed by the other members ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... delightful sensation is motion, after five months' inaction! The last time I was in a vehicle was the night General Beale's ambulance brought me to Linwood a helpless bundle, last November. It seemed to me yesterday that I could again feel the kind gentleman's arm supporting me, and his wondering, sympathetic tone as he repeated every half-mile, ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... pathos and spiritual beauty. There are two acts, and the story is that of a frail little Indian lad condemned to seclusion and inaction by ill health. He makes a new world for himself, however, by his imagination and insatiable curiosity, and the passersby bring the world of action to him. The play has been presented in England by the Irish Players, and fully adapts itself ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... the hero and title of a romance by Ch[^a]teaubriand (1801). It was designed for an episode to his G['e]nie du Christianisme (1802). Ren['e] is a man of social inaction, conscious of possessing a superior genius, but his pride produces in him a ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... became so annoying that it was decided to make a sortie and effect a capture if possible. Captain H——, the second captain of the British detachment, was selected to command the sortie, and with a small force of British marines who have been pining at their enforced inaction and dull sentry-go, and are jealous of the greater glory the others have already earned by their successful butchery of the enemy, a wall was breached and our men rushed out. Being off duty, I witnessed most of the affair. Of course, the ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... dejected to my hut and talked to my mare which whinnied and rubbed its nose against me, for although it was well fed and looked after, the poor beast seemed as lonely as I was myself. No wonder, since like myself it was separated from all its kind and weary of inaction. After this I ate and smoked and finally dozed, no more, for whenever I tried to go to sleep I thought that I heard Zikali laughing at me, as mayhap he was doing ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... sunk by slow degrees to mere embers among the ashes. It appeared that the nibble, which had seemed but the preliminary to swallowing the bait, was after all no more than a nibble; that the fish had merely nosed the worm and swum away. In the meantime, while eaten up by the suspense of this inaction, she was witness to activity of the most strenuous variety. Never had she seen a man spring up into favour as did Harrison Blake. His campaign meetings were resumed the very night of Bruce's conviction; the city crowded to them; the Blake Marching Club tramped the ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... herself. Any sort of appeal to her father for help was out of the question. She knew beforehand exactly what his view of the matter would be. In all things concerning her sex he was of that ancient school which reckoned helplessness and inaction the chief and necessary qualities of women outside the domestic circle. He might himself have made some move in the matter, but it would have been half hearted and under protest. She knew exactly what his point of view would be. Rachel Kynaston had been excited ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... not withstand it. Those who had originally murmured at the course which he had adopted of moving for a committee of inquiry, instead of proposing a specific measure of relief, and had treated an investigation as a mere means of securing inaction, now recanted their rash criticism, and did justice to his prescience and superior judgment, as well as to his vast information and indefatigable exertions. The week during which the committee sat on their report was a very anxious one; the divisions ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... long to wait. The Athenian soldiers stationed at Eion were chafing at their inaction, and mutinous speeches were heard on all sides. What a man was this Cleon, this cowardly braggart, under whom they were to take the field against the most daring and skilful leader in Greece! They had known what ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... of Mr. Buchanan is the precise explanation of the prodigious haste which the South Carolinians have used in their proceedings. They knew that the President in power could not, if he would, act with vigor against his own party. His inaction was assured; there were two months of interregnum, of which it was important to make the most; so that Mr. Lincoln, on coming into office, might find himself checked, or at least harassed, by the power of ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... say that this apparent supineness was not all due to the British generals. The ministers behind them believed that a large part of the colonists were loyal and that compromise would be promoted by inaction rather than by a war vigorously prosecuted. Victory by masterly inactivity was obviously better than conquest, and the slighter the wounds the quicker the healing. Later in the conflict when the seasoned forces ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... would die of inanition. If, for instance, it was prophesied to me that I must die in the course of a journey in Italy, I should naturally abandon the journey; therefore it could not have been predicted to me; and thus all life would soon be nothing but inaction, pause and abstention, a soft of vast desert where the embryos of still-born events would be gathered in heaps and where nothing would grow save perhaps one or two more or less fortunate enterprises and the little insignificant incidents which no one would trouble ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... last, that wherever he was, he was unwatched, Mr. Grimm was on the point of concluding that further inaction was useless, when his straining ears caught the faint grating of metal against metal—perhaps the insertion of a key in the lock. His hands grew still; his eyes closed. And after a moment a door creaked slightly on its hinges, and a breath of cool air informed Mr. Grimm ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle
... deliverance. Success will come: of that they are all convinced. While waiting, one washes her antennae by passing them through her mouth, another polishes her wings with her hind legs, another frisks about to while away the period of inaction. Some are making love, a sovran means of killing time, whether one be born that day ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... time of Confucius (which is equal to 172 B.C.), King Cochu, King of Kiangnan, sent an expedition into the Shensi Country, under the command of a Mandarin, called Hansing, to conquer it, and during the winter season, to allay the discontent of his army at inaction, chess was invented to amuse them, with ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird
... yet looks well. Bonaparte is surrounded and hemmed in to the space of two leagues by troops marching from all sides. These, however, how strong soever they may be, appear to maintain a suspicious kind of inaction, and he continues his progress towards Grenoble. Every thing depends on the conduct of the troops there, under General Marchand. Their force is such, that if they continue firm, his project is ruined. On the contrary, if their allegiance to the Bourbons is but pretended, ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... I approached I was confronted with a change. The gate, which in normal times used to swing shakily on its hinges and keep on chattering against its post (in the vain effort to shut) whenever the wind was in its teeth, now leaned against an adjacent bush in listless inaction. One of its hinges had been broken. I learned the details of the tragedy ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 147, August 12, 1914 • Various
... you that, before entering on a life of self-denial and devotion to rather vague ideals, a man ought to be mighty sure of himself? Can you keep up the culture business without growing in on yourself unhealthily, and then getting sick of inaction? Don't you think there will be times of disappointment and doubt when you look around and see fellows without half your talents getting ahead ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... Clarina Howard Nichols; while a much larger number do know that our laws favor women more than those of other States, and largely avail themselves of the school ballot. The readiness with which the rank and file of our women assent to the truth when it is presented to them, indicates that their inaction results not so much from apathy and indifference as from a lack of means and opportunity. Among all the members of all the woman suffrage societies in Central Kansas, I know of but just one woman of leisure—one who is not obliged to make a personal sacrifice of some kind each time she attends ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... Feeling the evils of inaction most, Bedford in 1428 decided on a forward movement, and sent the Earl of Salisbury to the south. He first secured his position on the north of the Loire, then, crossing that river, laid siege to Orleans, the key to the south, and the last bulwark of the national party. All efforts to ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... question be solved before conflicting claims to the Presidency shall again distract the country, and I am persuaded that by the people at large any of the measures of relief thus far proposed would be preferred to continued inaction. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... however, was the absolute silence and inaction of the British. True, two shots had been fired, but whether from fort or warship, and with what intent, he hadn't the remotest notion. The hour arranged upon for the general assault was fast approaching. The British must be aware that an attack would be ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... and present condition of Spain have been astonished at the result of this effort. A new era has commenced for the country, and it is everywhere evident that a strong current of enterprise and industry has set in. But it is with nations, as with individuals, when they have remained long in complete inaction, brain and muscles are torpid and cannot at first obey the will. Spain needs the assistance of other nations hardened and ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... hardly be expected to understand what is necessary, yet the War Department must be asked to do their utmost to achieve what is possible, and not to stop short out of deference to public opinion. When the future of a great and noble nation is at stake there is no room for cowardice or inaction. Nothing must be done, as unhappily has too often been the case, which runs counter to the principles of ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... but sun themselves. Whose fault is that? Why it's the fault of the legislature; they don't encourage internal improvement, nor the investment of capital in the country; and the result is apathy, inaction and poverty. They spend three months in Halifax, and what do they do? Father gave me a dollar once, to go to the fair at Hartford, and when I came back, says he, 'Sam, what have you got to show for it?' Now I ax what have they to show for their three months' setting? They mislead folks; they make ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... rolls backward the wheels of all progress, till the nation becomes a community of dull, contented plodders, fixed in the ruts of a bygone age, suffering all its energy and life to rust away, day by day, in inaction. Such we find to be the case with those nations of the Old World which are still ruled by the effete systems of a feudal age. The governmental policy and the intellectual status of the masses mutually react upon each other, effectually neutralizing all progress, whether ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... himself that he had allowed her father to persuade him against following her to the cabin of her mother. Then doubt began to perplex him; then suspicion. A bird croaked significantly as it flew above his head. He could not longer endure inaction. Kaala's footprints were still traceable in the sand. He would go as far as they might lead. He set off at a round pace, stopping now and then to assure himself, and presently stood perplexed near the ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... of the people who has betrayed his fellow countrymen, is ex-Attorney General Lax. It was his masterful policy of inaction that permitted the trusts and monopolies to intrench themselves during the four years that he stood as their buffer, against all efforts of the ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... the pernicious character of Montaigne's inconsistent thoughts, which, unable to place us in sound relation to the Universe, only succeed in making men pass their lives in subtle reflection and unmanly, sentimental inaction. Shakspere, intending to avert the blighting influence of such a philosophy from the best and foremost of his country, wrote his 'Hamlet.' As a truly heaven-born poet he bound for ever, ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... resolved to submit patiently to my fate, and contrive to make myself as easy as the nature of the case would allow. We got out of the channel with a prosperous breeze, which died away, leaving us becalmed about fifty leagues to the westward of the Lizard: but this state of inaction did not last long; for next night our maintop-sail was split by the wind, which, in the morning, increased to a hurricane. I was awakened by a most horrible din, occasioned by the play of the gun carriages upon ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... Inertness — N. inertness, dullness &c adj.; inertia, vis inertiae [Lat.], inertion^, inactivity, torpor, languor; quiescence &c 265; latency, inaction; passivity. mental inertness; sloth &c (inactivity) 683; inexcitability &c 826 [Obs.]; irresolution &c 605; obstinacy &c 606; permanence &c 141. rare gas, paraffin, noble metal, unreactivity. V. be inert &c adj.; hang fire, smolder. Adj. inert, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... been very slow with us, and I had learned to dread such periods of inaction, for I knew by experience that my companion's brain was so abnormally active that it was dangerous to leave it without material upon which to work. For years I had gradually weaned him from that drug mania which had threatened once to check his remarkable ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the reign of reason. It is no more a state to justify pride than that of the Eastern sybarite who will not even lift his food to his mouth; he is "reasonable" also in that he sees no value in activity, and therefore does not exercise it. So with the sceptic; decay follows the condition of inaction, whether it be mental, psychic, ...
— Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold • Mabel Collins
... of repose is well illustrated in the group of "The Chant" where the inaction of the woman dominates through its contrast with the effort expressed by the other members ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... This was his first disappointment. He had fancied himself on board early in the day. The prospect of a long morning's inaction seemed already ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... excuse could be accepted for his slip, there was none for inaction after its discovery. It was not to be supposed that the animals would set out to hunt him, nor that any knowledge could be gained of them by idleness. There were other men on duty, and he shouted at the top of his voice, in the hope of receiving ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... scurvy; and though towards the end of winter severe cold set in, yet only four men died. The snow thawed at last, and as patches of the black and oozy soil began to appear, they saw the grain of their last autumn's sowing already piercing the mould. The forced inaction of the winter was over. The carpenters built a water-mill on the stream now called Allen's River; others enclosed fields and laid out gardens; others, again, with scoop-nets and baskets, caught the herrings and alewives as they ran up the innumerable rivulets. The leaders of the colony set ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... Reuben touched the door, Mrs. Derrick had opened it from the inside, and stood there—her usually quiet manner quite subdued into silence. Not into inaction however, for her woman's hands soon made their superior powers known, and Mr. Simlins could only wonder why this and that had not occurred to him before. Quick and still and thoughtful, she had done half ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... own way, he might, perhaps, have buried himself in Hampstead, and enjoyed the company of his aunt and the mild society of Mr. Gilbert Sarrasin. But the impetuous, indomitable Hamilton would hear of no inaction. He insisted copying a famous phrase of Lord Beaconsfield's, that the key of Gloria was in London. 'We must make friends,' he said; 'we must keep ourselves in evidence; we must never for a moment allow our claim to be forgotten, or our interests to be ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... Pinkney that it seemed to manifest indifference to the character of the diplomatic intercourse between the two countries, arising from dissatisfaction at the step necessarily taken with regard to Mr. Jackson. Should this inference from Wellesley's inaction prove correct, Pinkney was directed to return to the United States, leaving the office with a charge d'affaires, for whom a blank appointment was sent. He was, however, to exercise his own judgment ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... may be unable to estimate the minimum of time required for the changes in physical geography above alluded to, we cannot fail to perceive that the duration of the period must have been very protracted, and that other ages of comparative inaction may have followed, separating the Pleistocene from the historical periods, and constituting an interval no less indefinite ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... position which he occupied, the desperate battle being fought by the gallant Davout some two leagues away. Meanwhile he ordered his men to set up their bivouacs and to start preparing a meal. His generals complained to him in vain at this culpable inaction; Bernadotte would not budge, so that Marshal Davout, with no more than twenty-five thousand men, comprising the divisions of Friant, Morland and Gudin, faced almost eighty thousand Prussians animated by the ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... and inaction worked sadly upon Burke's active and impatient temperament, and he suddenly announced his intention to subdivide his party and, with three men, to start across the belt of unknown country — a distance of five hundred miles at the furthest ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... relief of Paris, and there was no longer a chance of a great battle being fought, he returned to Holland, followed after the recapture of Lagny by Sir Ralph Pimpernel and the few survivors of his party, who were all heartily weary of the long period of inaction that had followed the victory ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... performed, says Mrs. Barker, who had the general superintendence of the distribution, admirably. With this labor Mrs. Bickerdyke's connection with the sanitary work of the army ceased. She had, however, been too long engaged in philanthropic labor, to be content to sit down quietly, and lead a life of inaction; and after a brief period of rest, she began to gather the more helpless of the freedmen, in Chicago, and has since devoted her time and efforts to a "Freedmen's Home and Refuge" in that city, in which she is accomplishing great good. Out of the host of ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... him to sit by in silence. The world, misconstruing his inaction, believed him false like Northumberland; the world reported that he had restored mass at Canterbury; the world professed to have ascertained that he had offered to sing a requiem at Edward's funeral. In the second week of September, therefore, he made a public offer, in the form ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... this time between camps British and camps Dutch in the neighbourhood of the border was curious. The Boers were prepared, taking their ease. The British were in suspense. Disaffection was visible on all sides, and yet inaction, irritating inaction, was obligatory. Morning, noon, and night a perennial sand-storm blew; overhead, the sun grilled and scorched. Meals, edibles, and liquids were diluted with 10 per cent. of grit, ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... leaves a blight over all. We were happy indeed when our motor started off again with the steady, powerful hum that so delights the soul of the driver, and it seemed fairly to tremble with impatience to make up for its enforced inaction. Though it was eight o'clock in the evening, it was anything to get away from Llangollen, and we left with a view of stopping for the night at Bettws-y-Coed, ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... January 1854 was met by orders to join the "Illustrious" at Portsmouth. He appealed to the Admiralty that this appointment might be cancelled, giving a brief summary of the facts, and pointing out that it was the inaction of the Treasury which had absolutely prevented him from ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... turn up the heels to correspond. In this motion the horse is placed upon a tripod, his weight being entirely upon three points of his foot, and those not the parts intended to bear the shock of travel or to sustain his weight. The position of the frog is of course one of hopeless inaction, and the motion of the unsupported bones within the hoof produce inflammation at the points of extreme pressure, so that, in case of all old horses accustomed to go upon calks, there is ulceration of the heels, in the form of "corns," which ...
— Rational Horse-Shoeing • John E. Russell
... assuming, insolent, aggressive, never perpetrating open violence, but by petty insults effectually preventing all good understanding. He was met by neglect or forbearance on the part of the Calcutta government; and by patience and passive resistance at Dorjiling. Our inaction and long-suffering were taken for weakness, and our concessions for timidity. Such has been our policy in China, Siam, and Burmah, and in each instance the result has been the same. Had it been insisted that the terms of the treaty should be strictly ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... declining; in fact he had not yet reached the zenith of his capabilities, physical or mental; yet his broken arm, slow in mending, the pain, had unquestionably depleted him more than a similar accident ten years ago. Not only this, but, during the forced inaction, his mind had definitely taken a different cast; considerations that had seemed to constitute the main business of existence had lately faded before preoccupations ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... day that I had mentally decided on total inaction as to all ecclesiastical questions, I count the termination of my Second Period. My ideal of a spiritual Church had blown up in the most sudden and heartbreaking way; overpowering me with shame, when the violence of sorrow was past. There was no change ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... towards Dublin, running evenly like pellets in the groove of the Naas Road. At the crest of the hill at Inchicore sightseers had gathered in clumps to watch the cars careering homeward and through this channel of poverty and inaction the Continent sped its wealth and industry. Now and again the clumps of people raised the cheer of the gratefully oppressed. Their sympathy, however, was for the blue cars—the cars ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... Tillman, an outspoken Democratic critic of the President, declared that senators vigorously denounced Roosevelt's radical ideas in private but that in public they opposed merely by inaction. Party loyalty was sufficient to keep these Republicans, in most cases, from open and continued rebellion. Hardly less hostile to the President were many of the business men of the country, who objected to his economic policies, ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... continued his hostility to Monte Video during the year. The measures taken against the tyrant by the governments of England and France were half measures. The Earl of Aberdeen and M. Guizot seemed to be associated in wondrous harmony of action, or rather inaction, when the joint interests of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... confounded themes touched on by Hammond in the garden kept obtruding themselves on my brain. I battled against them. I erected ramparts of would-be blackness of intellect to keep them out. They still crowded upon me. While I was lying still as a corpse, hoping that by a perfect physical inaction I should hasten mental repose, an awful incident occurred. A Something dropped, as it seemed, from the ceiling, plumb upon my chest, and the next instant I felt two bony hands encircling my throat, ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... replied Hal. "The Germans may have gone away, but I believe they are still loitering on the outside. However, this inaction is getting monotonous. We've got to do something, and we've got to ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... smashes his too persistent alarum clock in a fit of nerves, and cuts his throat while shaving. All patriotic vehemence does not serve one's country. Exertion is a more critical and dangerous thing than inaction, and the essence of success is in the ability to develop those qualities which make action effective, and without which strenuousness is merely a clumsy and noisy protest against inevitable defeat. These necessary qualities, ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... an occasional cryptic smile, he did nothing to alarm either of the women. Yet his very silence and inaction were more ominous than threats. He instilled in them a crawling dread, a growing terror and uncertainty that was worse than anything ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... discouraged by the aspect of affairs, Babar, uneasy at the forced inaction, passed in review the events of his life, and recognised with humility and penitence that throughout it he had habitually violated one of the strictest injunctions of the Kuran, that which forbids the drinking ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson
... much movement any way, and for several hours before and after noon they lay almost becalmed upon the ocean. This period was passed in silence and inaction. There was nothing for them to talk about but their forlorn situation, and this topic had been exhausted. There was nothing for them to do. Their only occupation was to watch the sun, until, by its sinking lower in the sky, ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... through inaction into a more despairing mood, the rear covering of the tepee moved almost imperceptibly, and I turned hastily to seek the cause, my heart in my throat lest it prove an enemy, perhaps some stealthy savage still seeking the life of De ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... violence, they broke open the prisons, and thus obtained a re-enforcement of hundreds of desperadoes, ripe for any wickedness. The troops were paralyzed by Louis's imbecile order to avoid bloodshed, and in the same proportion the rioters were encouraged by their inaction and evident helplessness. They attacked the great armory, and equipped themselves with its contents, applying to the basest uses time-honored weapons, monuments of ancient valor and patriotism. The spear with which Dunois had cleared his country of the British invaders; ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... had rival propositions to urge, for they gained self-confidence from drill and guard-duty, and were growing impatient of inaction. "Ought to go to work, Sa,—don't believe in we lyin' in camp eatin' up de perwisions." Such were the quaint complaints, which I heard with joy. Looking over my note-books of that period, I find them ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... the princes of this family some virtues, it gave them also corresponding vices. More intelligent and more ambitious than the king's sons, they were also more restless. The very restraint in which the policy of the reigning house kept them, condemned their idea or their courage to inaction, and forced them to misapply, in irregularities or indolence, the faculties with which nature had endowed them, and the immense fortune for which they had no other occupation: too great for citizens, too dangerous at the head of armies or in affairs, ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... had passed wearily in the French prison, during which both Paul and Dick Stone had been buoyed up in inaction by the hope of carrying into execution a plan for their escape. The only view from the prison windows was the sea, and the street and beach in the foreground. The "Polly" still lay at anchor in the same spot, as some difficulty had arisen between Captain Dupuis and the captain of the corvette ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... Sluys was the beginning and foreshadowed the inevitable end of Leicester's second administration. The inaction of the States was one of the causes of its loss. Distrust of Leicester was the cause of the inaction. Sir William Russell, Lord Willoughby, Sir William Pelham, and other English officers, united in statements exonerating the Earl from all blame for the great failure ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... cold and hunger, l. 71. Those parts of our system, which are in health excited into perpetual action, give us pain, when they are not excited into action: thus when the hands are for a time immersed in snow, an inaction of the cutaneous capillaries is induced, as is seen from the paleness of the skin, which is attended with the pain of coldness. So the pain of hunger is probably produced by the inaction of the muscular fibres of the stomach from the want ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... She could not endure inaction, so she did the worst thing possible. She went alone, one afternoon, just before dusk, to see Brandon at our rooms. I was not there when she first went in, but, having seen her on the way, suspected something and followed, arriving two or three ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... fairness than at the present moment would any Executive chosen by any Irish Parliament. One thing, at any rate, is certain. An independent Irish Executive will possess immense power. It will be able by mere administrative action or inaction, without passing a single law which infringes any Restriction to be imposed by the Irish Government Act, 1893, to effect a revolution. Let us consider for a moment a few of the things which the Irish Cabinet ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... as subsistence-money for the people till they should have had time to till the land and reap their first harvest, this was all that Zeno offered to the chief, who already in imagination saw the rich cities of the Adriatic lying defenceless at his feet. For during this time of inaction the Amal had opened communications with a Gothic landowner, named Sigismund, who dwelt near Dyrrhachium (Durazzo), and was a man of influence in the province of Epirus; and Sigismund, though nominally ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... odd, by the way, that those who accuse Hamlet of inaction, are mostly the same who believe his madness a reality! In truth, however, his affected madness is one of the strongest signs of his activity, and his delay one of the strongest proofs of ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... task, full of danger and toil, which they are always imposing upon themselves. None enjoy their good things less, because they are always seeking for more. To do their duty is their only holiday, and they deem the quiet of inaction to be as disagreeable as the most tiresome business. If a man should say to them, in a word, that they were born neither to have peace themselves nor to allow peace to other men, he would ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... spectator. For him, in all this tangle, there was one thing, and one thing only, that mattered; to be in time. He did not fear murder; but the very reason of her security from death was the cause of a fear so horrible, that he knew inaction would ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... George's Sound, having caused a vacancy in that appointment, I was induced, at the offer of Mr. Hutt, to assume the temporary duties, with a two-fold desire of rendering what public services I could during my unavoidable period of inaction in the country, as well as of enlarging my opportunities of ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... sir, that we are weak, unable to cope with so formidable an adversary; but when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... and more irritable. The thought of what the loss of the notes meant was fast crowding the murder to the back of my mind. The forced inaction ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... sat still without attempting to renew the struggle. The enforced few moments of inaction had restored to him his self-control. He was still deeply angered, but the insanity of rage had left him. Outwardly he was himself again. Only a rapid heaving of his chest answered Ned Trent's quick breathing, as ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... seen or suffered nothing. Poverty escorts him: from home there can nothing come, except Job's-news; the eighteen daily francs, which we here as Deputy or Delegate with difficulty 'touch,' are in paper assignats, and sink fast in value. Poverty, disappointment, inaction, obloquy; the brave heart slowly breaking! Such is Foster's lot. For the rest, Demoiselle Theroigne smiles on you in the Soirees; 'a beautiful brownlocked face,' of an exalted temper; and contrives to keep her carriage. Prussian Trenck, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... slowly crept by, with the heat and inaction growing more and more difficult to bear, every thought was directed to the envoy they had sent out, and they waited anxiously for Ali's return, or for some messenger with tidings at ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... cannot take peril or even decadence seriously, reached by far its highest and healthiest form in the sense that we were watched over by one so thoroughly English in her silence and self-control, in her shrewd trustfulness and her brilliant inaction. Over and above those sublime laws of labour and pity by which she ordered her life, there are a very large number of minor intellectual matters in which we might learn a lesson from the Queen. There is one especially ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... half cry and half groan. Then he stood silent and I had an opportunity of noting how haggard he had grown in the short time which had elapsed since I had seen him last. But the interval of his inaction was short, and in a moment he flung up his arms with a loud "Curse her!" that rang through the narrow room and betrayed the source of his present frenzy. Then he again stood still, grating his teeth and working his hands in a way terribly suggestive of the murderer's instinct. But not for long. He ...
— A Difficult Problem - 1900 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... faculty. The little glove was swiftly put where it would furnish a spot of light to no one else; and in breathless readiness for action, though that is rhetorical, for Rollo's breath was as regular and as calm as cool nerves could make it, he subsided again into the utter inaction which is all eye and ear. And then in a few minutes, from across the road again, and near where he was at first, came these ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... he had taken no open action against Chasters. Suppose now he were to side with Chasters and let the whole diocese, the church of Princhester, drift as far as it chose under his inaction towards an extreme modernism, risking a conflict with, and if necessary fighting, the archbishop.... It was but for a moment that his mind swung to this possibility and then recoiled. The Laymen, that band of bigots, would fight. He could not contemplate litigation ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... we reach the crux of the matter. One of the little known peculiarities of the day lies in the fact that Japan is the land of political inaction because there is no tradition of action save that which has been built up by the military and naval chiefs since the Chinese war of 1894-95. Having only visualized the world in international terms during two short decades, there has been no time for a proper tradition ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... That one may submit, is not a sufficient reason for abandonment and despair. To take an analogous case, it may be a complex and laborious thing to escape out of a bear-pit into which one has fallen, but few people will consider that a reason for inaction. Even if they had small hope of doing anything effectual they might find speculation and experiments in escape, a congenial way of passing the time. It is the sort of project one should only abandon at the final and conclusive ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... own making; and I repeat that it is still not for us, here and now, to apportion the blame. We have not the knowledge to say just who, or whether any man or body, is wholly at fault. What we do know is that the course of hesitation and inaction which the Nation pursued in face of an openly maturing attack was precisely the policy sure to give us the greatest trouble, and that we are now paying the penalty. If the opposite course had been taken at the outset—unless all the testimony from foreign ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... 10-8. It is equally clear that two equal forces acting in opposite directions, both being finite and each distinguished from the other by its direction only, must neutralize or reduce each other to inaction. Now the transcendental philosophy demands; first, that two forces should be conceived which counteract each other by their essential nature; not only not in consequence of the accidental direction ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... for Gregory says (Moral. vi, 37): "Often those who were able to contemplate God so long as they were undisturbed have fallen when pressed with occupation; and frequently they who might live advantageously occupied with the service of their fellow-creatures are killed by the sword of their inaction." ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... on the death of Admiral Hosier, a distinguished admiral, who had been sent with a squadron to blockade the Spanish treasure-ships in Porto Bello, but was prohibited from attacking them in the harbour. He died in 1727, according to the account that the poet adopted, of mortification at the inaction to which his orders compelled him; but according to another statement, more trustworthy ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... and Marvell tradition was opposed to this desultory dabbling with life. For four or five generations it had been the rule of both houses that a young fellow should go to Columbia or Harvard, read law, and then lapse into more or less cultivated inaction. The only essential was that he should live "like a gentleman"—that is, with a tranquil disdain for mere money-getting, a passive openness to the finer sensations, one or two fixed principles as to the quality of wine, and an archaic probity that had not yet learned to distinguish between ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... the bold and liberal course which the maritime genius of the country demands, condemned us for long years to inaction, until, at length, the absolute necessity for the renewal of a portion of our naval force produced the "Minnesota" class of frigates. Although they developed little that was absolutely new, they are very far from being imitations; but in model, capacity, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... and the former got the best of the fray. Had the fait d'armes of the 24th, or the battle of Custozza, as Archduke Albrecht calls it, been a great victory for the Austrians, why should the imperial army remain in such inaction? The only conclusion we must come to is simply this, that the Austrian losses have been such as to induce the commander-in-chief of the army to act prudently on the defensive. We are now informed that the charges of cavalry which the Austrian lancers and the Hungarian hussars ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... suspicious at the change of name and the accusation of theft, peremptorily refused to accept Charles's cheque, or anything else, as he phrased it, except "hard money." So we lingered on perforce at Lake George in ignoble inaction. ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... chafed at their enforced inaction, necessary though he knew it to be. Then another thing that troubled him was the thought of his wife. Would they think she knew of his attempt that night, and punish her? He had told her nothing, but whether she could make the Father believe it, was another matter. Much he wished he could have ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... Alexina Tinne returned to Khartum, where the European community received her with applause. Her restless and adventurous spirit, however, could not long endure the burden of inaction. Baffled in one design, she immediately struck out another; and with characteristic energy and daring she resolved on ascending the great western tributary of the Nile, the Bahr-el-Ghazal, exploring the waters which feed it, and penetrating into the country of the Nyam-Nyam. She shared her counsels ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... very dejected to my hut and talked to my mare which whinnied and rubbed its nose against me, for although it was well fed and looked after, the poor beast seemed as lonely as I was myself. No wonder, since like myself it was separated from all its kind and weary of inaction. After this I ate and smoked and finally dozed, no more, for whenever I tried to go to sleep I thought that I heard Zikali laughing at me, as mayhap he was doing yonder ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... in quite a new and valuable light after he went to reside in the beacon—namely, as a storyteller. During the long periods of inaction that ensued, when the men were imprisoned there by storms, he lightened many an hour that would have otherwise hung heavily on their hands, and he cheered the more timid among them by speaking lightly of the ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... her life. But this summons from the doctor at the same time frightened her and braced her heart. It might mean that Julian was ill, in danger—she knew not what. But at least it broke through the appalling inaction, the dreary stagnation, of her days. The lady of the feathers had fought indeed, of late, that worst enemy, mental despair, bred of grim patience at last grown weary. That was not the battle she had been ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... generous spirit bred of his new contrition, it seemed to him a brutal thing to leave her weeks or even days in such a condition of mind as must be hers. Inaction on his part was all that was required to make her position intolerable. Inaction was not therefore permissible to him. It was a matter in which he must take the initiative, and there seemed to be just one thing he could do which ...
— A Love Story Reversed - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... fabulous prices, and their purchase was the occasion of many banquets in houses where such entertainments had become rare. Still there were no signs that the time when Paris was to make its attempt to burst its bonds was at hand. Among the National Guard complaints at the long inaction were incessant, but there was good reason for doubt whether the discontent was as general ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... was quite curious to see the arrivals. Barnet had been the home of his youth, and there might be some one whom he knew. He had half intended, earlier in the day, to go himself to the Reform meeting, but a growing spirit of inaction had made him give up the idea. Yes, there was quite a carload ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... expect much," he said, "but it will be reading the Boers a lesson, even if he fails, and do our men good, for all this inaction is telling upon them, as I have been noticing, to my sorrow, during the past three or four days. To be frank with you, Robson, I have been maturing something ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... on living like this, in feverish inaction?" And she whispered, "I am no longer counting the days, the thirty-eight or forty days that remain to us: ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... out of the pavilion to join Bob, was not conscious of any particular nervousness. It had been an ordeal having to wait and look on while wickets fell, but now that the time of inaction was at an end he felt curiously composed. When he had gone out to bat against the M.C.C. on the occasion of his first appearance for the school, he experienced a quaint sensation of unreality. He seemed to be watching his body walking to the wickets, as if it were some one else's. There ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... adequate provision for it. No one is better entitled to speak on the naval policy of the Armada epoch than Mr. Julian Corbett,[67] who is not disposed to assume that the Queen's action was above criticism. He says that 'Elizabeth has usually been regarded as guilty of complete and unpardonable inaction.' He explains that 'the event at least justified the Queen's policy. There is no trace of her having been blamed for it at the time at home; nor is there any reason to doubt it was adopted sagaciously and deliberately on the advice of her most capable officers.' Mr. David Hannay, who, ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... thoughts, she had been overborne by his words and the promptings of her own heart. She was glad, indeed, that she had not revealed what she now regarded as her weakness, feeling that it would have complicated matters most seriously. While she had been compelled to see the folly of seclusion and inaction, the natural result of a morbid pride which blinds as well as paralyzes, she was by no means ready to accept his views or go to his lengths. She would have shared poverty with him gladly if he would continue to be "a true Southerner," in other ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... The inaction of the Asiatic commanders during this interval appears strange at first sight; but Hippias was with them, and they and he were aware of their chance of a bloodless conquest through the machinations of his partisans among the Athenians. The nature of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... brilliant nephew of Uncle Leicester would have been a quickly ruined man if he had not been Philip Sidney. He bowed and flirted at court, but he chafed under inaction. A marriage was planned for him with Penelope Devereux, sister of the famous Earl of Essex, one of the thousand fair and unfortunate women who flit across the page of history leaving only a name, and that written in tears. But Philip's father grew cool in the negotiation, and ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... pillars of the cause that should have been, were not only lukewarm, timorous, superstitiously afraid of taking part against the Emperor, but they were sybarites, or rather sots, to whose gross hearts no noble thought could find its way. Their inaction was almost justified by the conduct of the Protestant chiefs, whose councils were full of folly and selfishness, whose policy seemed mere anarchy, and who too often made war like buccaneers. The Evangelical Union, in which ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... in the Nueces gorge the loneliness and inaction of his life drove Duane out upon the trails seeking anything rather than to hide longer alone, a prey to the scourge of his thoughts. The moment he rode into sight of men a remarkable transformation occurred in him. A strange warmth stirred in him—a longing to see the faces of ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... fraud or of failure to protect every legal voter in his rights. I therefore hereby notify you that in the event of any wrong-doing following upon the failure immediately to recall Chief Devery's order, or upon any action or inaction on the part of Chief Devery, I must necessarily ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... grow uneasy with the waiting. It had been against the prevalent feeling of impatience that we halted here the preceding day, instead of hastening forward to strike the blow. Now every minute's inaction increased this spirit of restlessness. The militiamen's faces—already saturnine enough, what with broken rest and three days' stubble of beard—were clouding over ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... test. Later he became a soldier, and there is evidence to show that at first he enjoyed the life and for a time had military ambitions. When Braddock's expedition was preparing he chafed at the prospect of inaction and welcomed the offer to join the general's staff, but the bitter experiences of the next few years, when he had charge of the herculean task of protecting the settlers upon the "cold and Barren Frontiers ... from ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... themselves; and they held meetings and passed resolutions, censuring the Government for the mode which it had chosen of counteracting the Famine. The Government and its organs returned the compliment by pointing out the inaction and obstructive ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... the line of retreat. But as the day wore on, and no diminution of the firing, at the point where A.P. Hill and his adversary had so long kept up, Jackson and D.H. Hill undertook to relieve him. Longstreet, too, near nightfall, who had been held in reserve all day, now broke from his place of inaction and rushed into the fray like an uncaged lion, and placed himself between A.P. Hill and the river. For a few moments the earth trembled with the tread of struggling thousands, and the dreadful recoil of the heavy batteries that lined the crest of the hill from right to left. The air was ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... employed for the purchase of munitions, and second, that Russia shall be excluded from the loan; only by these means could they overcome the opposition of the German-Americans and the Jews. Our Jewish friends here are in no easy position. Their action, or rather inaction, takes the form of what is commonly known as 'egg-dancing,' or 'pussyfooting'; they wish to stand well with all sides, but have not the courage of their convictions, and are very anxious to make money. All this is very easily understood, when one remembers the ambiguous ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... did not come on again; the lesson had been too terrible, and we all stood there, hot with excitement and fretting against the inaction; while preparations were being rapidly made behind us for evacuating the residency, the infantry now manned the roof, keeping down observations by a shot or two now and then at any of the enemy who appeared at the windows ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... not even have observed their absence. We saw no one in authority. Hour by hour my wounds healed and my strength returned. If it was a dark and noisome prison, if there were hunger and thirst and inaction to be endured, if we knew not how near to us might be a death of ignominy, yet the minister and I found the jewel in the head of the toad; for in that time of pain and heaviness we became ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... bidden into her own room; she dreaded inaction and solitude. She made herself busy with carrying heavy baskets of turf, and straining her strength to the utmost; fetching all that was ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... even weeks, had now passed away, and still no enemy had come to offer him battle. His men were becoming restless from inaction; and the example of the troublesome Independents had already begun to stir up discontent among them, which threatened, if not checked in season, to end in downright insubordination. As the surest remedy ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... from the minister of war and the minister of police gave notice that vigorous measures entrusted to the military commanders would be taken to stifle the insurrection at its birth. But the Chouans and the Vendeans had profited by the inaction of the Directory to rouse the whole region and virtually take possession of it. A new Consular proclamation was therefore issued. This time, it was the general speaking to ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... greatest exertions are never made by those who have got the advance of their competitors. Amongst the wants of mankind, ease is one of very permanent operation; and whenever the necessity of supplying other wants ceases, the desire of supplying that, leads to a state of inaction and rest. {18} To seek ease, however, does not imply necessarily to seek total inaction or rest; a diminished exertion is comparative ease; and this is always observable in a state of prosperity, either of an individual or of a nation, after ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... ex-Emperor, seems to be fast approaching. Our friend tells us all as yet looks well. Bonaparte is surrounded and hemmed in to the space of two leagues by troops marching from all sides. These, however, how strong soever they may be, appear to maintain a suspicious kind of inaction, and he continues his progress towards Grenoble. Every thing depends on the conduct of the troops there, under General Marchand. Their force is such, that if they continue firm, his project is ruined. ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... Rule.—Set bones in proper place by pulling steadily on wrist while assistant holds back the upper part of the forearm. If unsuccessful, leave it for surgeon to reduce after "period of inaction" comes, a few days later, when swelling subsides. If successful, put padded splints (pieces of cigar box padded with handkerchiefs) one on each side, front and back, and wind a bandage about whole thing to ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... jealous flashes of the mating season, the males of several species of deer fight savagely. After a long period of inaction while the new antlers are developing—from April to September—the beginning of October finds the male deer, elk, or moose of North America with a new suit of hair, new horns, a swollen neck, and all his usual assertiveness. The crisp autumn air promotes a disposition ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... a very Hamlet of postponement and inaction. Hamlet had only a ghost for counselor, and a mother to be the first victim of his rashness. No wonder he hesitated. And Marie Louise had only hysterical suspicion to account for her thoughts; and the victims of her first ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... stretched forward, his head buried in his hands upon the pillow. With silent awe, they stood apart and watched him, lest they should invade the privacy of prayer. But he did not stir; there was not even the motion of breathing, but a suspicious rigidity of inaction. Then one of them, Matthew, softly came near and gently laid his hands upon Livingstone's cheeks. It was enough; the chill of death was there. The great father of Africa's dark children was dead, and they were orphans. The most refined and cultured Englishmen would have been perplexed ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... am weary of solitude! I have seen scarcely a face that I recognise. My tongue is parched with inaction. I like to talk, and there has been no one to talk to. I might as well have opened up my little house in ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... be explained that "standing" means not absolute inaction but slowly riding round and round the herd. Yes, it is trying, especially in bad weather and after working hard all day long from before sun-up. How well one gets to know the stars and their positions! ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... turns her wheel for men and nations. Concurrently with, and tributary to, these warlike preparations, crushing taxes have been levied, journals have been suppressed, and the country, which three years ago was prosperous and happy, now stagnates in a forced inaction, gold has become a curiosity, and the mills stand idle ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... it all in his new-found bitterness, was nevertheless impatient in his inaction, and was eagerly awaiting a telegram from Stacy; Barker had disappeared since luncheon. Suddenly there was a commotion on the veranda as a carriage drove up with a handsome, gray-haired woman. In the buzzing ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... eyes registered in memory the casual movements without, while her consciousness was occupied only with her soul's experience. But soon this period of blissful inaction was sharply terminated. Her still watching eyes brought her a message so incongruous with her immediate surroundings as to shake her out of her waking dream. She became suddenly conscious of a nineteenth-century intruder ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... who, like most of their description, were fond of enterprise and detested inaction, went joyfully to the scene of danger as they were commanded, and thus the charge of Ivanhoe was transferred to Urfried, or Ulrica. But she, whose brain was burning with remembrance of injuries and with hopes of vengeance, ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... to stop them, they thought us false to the cause; if we went on with them, we ran directly upon rocks, which we saw, but could not avoid. Nor could we take shelter in a philosophical retreat from business. Inaction would in us have been cowardice and desertion. To complete the public calamities, a religious fury, on both sides, mingled itself with the rage of our civil dissensions, more frantic than that, more implacable, more averse to all ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... year give up everything to arrive at some helpful contribution to the sum of human knowledge, and I have sometimes thought that good people who lightly and freely criticize their actions scarcely realize just what such criticism means. It is one thing to stand on the comfortable ground of placid inaction and put forth words of cynical wisdom, and another to plunge into the work itself and through strenuous experience earn the right to ...
— Random Reminiscences of Men and Events • John D. Rockefeller
... military writers, with moderate reinforcements they would have had a strong probability of winning the battle. La Marmora saw the importance of getting fresh troops into the field, but, instead of sending for the divisions under Bixio and Prince Humbert, which since eight a.m. had been fretting in inaction close by, at Villafranca, he rode himself to Goito, a great distance away, to look after the reserves belonging to the 2nd corps d'armee; a task which any staff officer could have performed as well. This inexplicable proceeding left the army without a commander-in-chief. ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... of staff appointments, for no apparent reason except the desire not to be out of the way if any work were to be done: and scarcely a day passed when he was not up at head-quarters, trying to find out if there was any chance of a break in the long inaction of the cavalry. Whether it was that the old blood-thirstiness had waked again in a congenial atmosphere, or whether a great weariness weighing on his spirits made him so impatient and restless, none can know for certain. Again I say, let us not sift ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... before his threat reacted. Two weeks of continued silence and apparent inaction by the strike leaders. The men's first terror at the loss of heat and power seemed to have passed. As Bull had suggested they had resorted to the methods of the trail, and day and night mighty beacon fires burned along the fore-shores ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... for the rank she is allowed to hold in our republic? Released from the servitude of her sex, which prevails in so many foreign lands, and recognized as a partaker in the divinity of our nature, why should she sink into inaction? How, as if an angel spoke to her soul, should she rise and gird herself in the meek robes of righteousness, standing fast by the young, and inciting them to a lofty patriotism, quickening brother, husband and son, ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... freight locomotive at the further end of the town—strident noises brought from the West to break the drowsy murmur of the Orient, but not a sight nor a sound which could give him a clew as to the whereabouts of Linke or Countess Marishka. The inaction was maddening. In his belt the American revolver hung its futile weight. Had it not been for Linke, he might have had a chance at least to follow the instructions of the note of the Hotel Europa to some conclusion whether for good or ill—it did not matter. If Marishka herself had written ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... from this influence, I began to think; and, my mind making up for its previous inaction by working with unwonted swiftness, I formed a plan ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... middle of November when Captain Raymond received his injuries, so that the six weeks or more of enforced inaction would carry him into the month ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... who does not actually prefer action to inaction—industry to idleness—labor to ease—and who does not steadfastly resolve to labor moderately as long as she lives, whatever may be her circumstances, is unfit for life, social or domestic. It is not for me to say, in what form her labor shall be applied, except in rearing the young. ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... gates of the great stables, where the regiment of Flanders was stationed, and mixed pell-mell with the soldiers. Others, about four thousand in number, had remained in the Assembly. The men were quiet enough, but the women were impatient at that state of inaction; they talked, ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... other hand, however, there was a powerful party attempting to stem the precipitancy of the nation. The great moneyed corporations viewed the matter with alarm, and advocated peaceful settlement, or, at most, inaction. This, however, was attributed to their fears of unsettlement of values, and ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... moral stress. History, philosophy (with sustained chains of reasoning) and biographies (best, autobiographies) of active and strenuous lives, should be resorted to by those temporarily doomed to spells of suspense and involuntary inaction. Invalids should be encouraged to read Plutarch's Lives rather than the Memorials ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... are frequently upbraided by the industrious and plodding sons of care, with passing too great a part of their life in a state of inaction. But these defiers of sleep seem not to remember that though it must be granted them that they are crawling about before the break of day, it can seldom be said that they are perfectly awake; they exhaust no spirits, and require no repairs; but lie torpid as a toad in marble, or at ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... would this woman accept! Such resignation, while it simplified things, offended the part of Barbara which rebelled against all inaction, all dictation, even from her favourite brother. She ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... This inaction became most monotonous. It was exceedingly trying, and the condition after the third day was now made plain; that they intended to starve them ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... hardly settled down to the feeling that the offensive was over and that there was another long winter of inaction—a winter of the same physical and material discomforts as the first—lack of fuel, suspense,—when the news came which makes my feeling very personal. The British offensive in the north has cost me a dear friend. You remember the young English officer who had marched ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... so loved repose and inaction. I said to myself, I am responsible to the country for this, and I must go along with him and protect the country against him as far as I can. So I took my poor little capital that I had saved up through ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the late rebel chief, tired of inaction, had left Geneva in the end of February, and arrived safely at Vivarais. He had held a religious meeting in a cave near La Goree, and had drawn to his side Valette of Vals and Boyer of Valon. Just as the three had determined to penetrate ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... decisive measures will be carried into effect, both for the sake of the colony and of geography, to fill up the blank upon the face of the chart of Australia, and remove from us the reproach of indifference and inaction. ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... called in, to find Miss Mildare breaking down from suspense, and the overstrain of inaction. And—to avert even worse evils, I prescribed the tonic of danger. There was no ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... suppose that writing down my thoughts from day to day just eased the dumb pain of inaction, as the sick man shifts himself in his bed. Anyhow it is written, and it shall ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... proposed compromise—but not very willingly. With a letter of introduction, I might have seen Miserrimus Dexter that afternoon. As it was, the "little dinner" compelled me to wait in absolute inaction through a whole week. However, there was no help for it but to submit. Major Fitz-David, in his polite way, could be as obstinate as I was. He had evidently made up his mind; and further opposition on my part would be ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... had so far moderated that, tired of our long inaction, we resolved to make a start once more, so shaking the reefs out of the trysail, and rigging our bowsprit out far enough to set a small jib, we got our floating-anchor in, and stood away to the southward and westward, with the ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... was a French priest of the Church of Rome. He was sent by the ecclesiastic authorities of Dubuque to the Upper Mississippi country, and arrived at Fort Snelling in April, 1840, and settled at St. Peters (now Mendota), where he soon tired of inaction, and sought a larger field among the settlers who had found homes further down the river, in the neighborhood of the present St. Paul. He decided that he could facilitate his labors by erecting a church at some point accessible to his parishioners. Here he found Joseph Rondo, ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... on the morning of the 20th a dense fog obscured everything; consequently both armies were passive so far as fighting was concerned. Rosecrans took advantage of the inaction to rearrange his right, and I was pulled back closer to the widow Glenn's house to a strong position, where I threw together some rails and logs as barricades, but I was disconnected from the troops on my left by a considerable ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... delay and negotiation on which the Court had entered. Paris was not given up, nor was there any appearance that it ever would be, and to all the generals as well as to the Maid it was very evident that this was the next step to be taken. Some of the leaders wearied with inaction had pushed on to Normandy where four great fortresses—greatest of all the immense and mysterious stronghold on the high cliffs of the Seine, that imposing Chateau Gaillard which Richard Coeur-de-lion had built, the ruins ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... discovery froze the young hunter into inaction. But in a moment the whole situation flashed upon him. The Woongas had followed them! They were about to fall upon the helpless camp! Unexpectedly one of his hands came in contact with the barrel of Wabi's rifle. The touch of the cold steel aroused him. There ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... sprung but the propeller was still turning. To a man, the various captains reported that their men had obeyed instructions to the letter. No acts of violence had as yet been committed by any of the American crews. The ex-sailors, though chafing at their inaction, had assumed the ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... and Lance seemed to be lulled into a continual doze whenever he was unoccupied, and that was almost always. It had grieved his elder brother to see this naturally vivacious being so inert and content with inaction, only strolling about a little in early morning and late evening, and languid and weary, if not actually suffering, during the heat and glare of the day. He was now, with his air-pillow and a railway ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... this train, but must see the world, and its contemptible grandeurs, lessen before him at every thought? It is enough to make one remain stupefied in a poise of inaction, void of all desires, of all ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... evils of inaction most, Bedford in 1428 decided on a forward movement, and sent the Earl of Salisbury to the south. He first secured his position on the north of the Loire, then, crossing that river, laid siege to Orleans, the ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... and the life," He simply expressed a fact that cannot be negatived nor ignored. It is an actual, a positive law, as impossible to evade as the law of gravitation. One may refuse "the way, the truth, and the life," and wander in bewilderment and inaction; but he will never be able to achieve worthy work, or personal peace, until he accepts and lives by this law. As Professor Hilty so well says, this, alone, gives life an intelligent meaning. "As one follows the way, he gains, first of all, courage, ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... than doubtful, and the professor on putting the question perceived that the more competent could not, or would not, reply. Still, this was no cause for inaction—they were all agreed upon that point—but action must ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne
... Albis, forsook her own canton and joined the Bernese at Bremgarten, he still hesitated. The united forces, now exceeding in number those of the Catholics, occupied five days in advancing the distance of a few miles, where they again encamped. Frei could no longer endure such treasonable inaction. On his own responsibility, aided by the men of Basel, Schaffhausen, and St. Gall, he pressed on by night to the Gubel. The Bernese slept without concern. But the Gospel of Christ is not to be upheld by swords and lances. A second time ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
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