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More "Inactivity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Palatine. When he awoke these terrifying sounds were already more subdued. The people had been driven by the storm-fanned conflagration which they themselves had kindled, to seek shelter under the arcades of the tabernae in the Forum below. But now, after a couple of hours of enforced inactivity, they were ready once more for mischief: in compact groups of a dozen or so they were slowly emerging from beneath the shelters, and it only needed the amalgamation of these isolated groups for the fire of open insurrection ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... indulged, and to make us acquainted with our rights, our glory, and the inviolable duty which we owe to our holy religion and our monarch. We wanted some electric stroke to rouse us from our paralytic state of inactivity; we stood in need of a hurricane to clear the atmosphere of the insalubrious vapours with which it was loaded.'—The unanimity with which the whole people were affected they rightly deem, an indication of wisdom, an authority, and a sanction,—and they refer it to its highest source. 'The ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... change from the terrible inactivity of waiting to energetic action, and the feeling ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... sergeant, with the same idea in his head and from the same source. As we had all seen the paper's hiding-place I found it a little difficult to be impressed by the elaborate efforts, unconscionably long drawn out, of the departed spirit to disclose the matter to Helen and Hugh; while the masterly inactivity of Stephen, who was trying to find his document by pure reason (mere looking for it would not occur to his Napoleonic brain), confirmed the opinion I had earlier formed of that solemn ass. However, his invisible foe does contrive to get his message through to the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 5, 1917 • Various
... days he had been so buried in thought over this weighty enterprise, and that day from early morning he had been so absorbed by the feeling of that victory which he had won, that he had had no time to think of any other thing; now, after a long time, in the first moment of inactivity which had fallen to him, he felt as if waking from sleep, and he was brought to ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... presentiments. Sechard senior living at a distance, far from the workshop and the machinery which possessed such a fascination for him, reminding him, as it did, of days when he was making his way, could feel that there were disquieting symptoms of inactivity in his son. The name of Cointet Brothers haunted him like a dread; he saw Sechard & Son dropping into the second place. In short, the old man ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... establishment of a new movement. The chief features of the Mahayana may be pronounced to be its less exacting standard of practical morality, its willingness to descend to the level of the multitude, its subtle metaphysical distinctions, its meditative inactivity, its elaborate ceremonial, and its more ...
— Religion in Japan • George A. Cobbold, B.A.
... trouble yourself to answer until you are questioned," the Scar-Cheek recommended briefly. And a round of laughter followed the poor scapegoat as he picked himself up, groaning, and crept away into the shadow. In the restlessness of their inactivity, and this swift breaking into passages of growling and tooth-play whenever, in their narrow confines, they chanced to jostle each other, they were like nothing so much as a pack ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... characterized the especial qualities which made for his success as "his faith and his adaptability." Dr. Angell always believed in the tendency of the right to prevail, and was willing to wait with a "masterly inactivity," avoiding too much injudicious assistance. He was always able to maintain a broad and comprehensive view, the attitude of the administrator, and was faithful in his belief in the Higher Power which guides the ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... We could stand this inactivity no longer. We trudged forward through the snow, taking the broad bands left by the tracks of the busses as our guide, the officers leading the way and the orderlies behind ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh
... one position for at least half an hour, and then, beginning to feel a trifle cramped from his spell of inactivity, made up his mind to traverse the sleeping camp, in order to assure himself fully that all was as it should be. Leaving the lantern behind him, he made his way slowly and silently, by the dim light of the stars, round the sleeping bivouac. ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... away from the university. Oxford had now received its death-blow from Mr. Gladstone and the government to which he belonged, and he could no longer support at election times the worker of such evil, and must return to that inactivity in things political, from which only love and confidence for Mr. Gladstone had roused him. 'Personally,' the good man adds, 'I must always love you.' To Pusey, and to all who poured reproach upon him from this side, Mr. Gladstone ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... government had been to interfere as little as possible, and to allow retribution to be made by one tribe on another. But such inactivity did not appeal to a red-blooded officer like Colonel Snelling, who wrote after the trouble in 1827: "I have no hesitation in Saying that the Military on this frontier are useless for want of discretionary power, and that ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... progressive realisation of a long deferred hope. It is the tension that comes from at last arriving at an object and then finding nothing to do, now that you are there. It is the nervousness that nerveless youth suffers in inactivity. ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... encouraging; the military fortunes of the struggling nation were never at a lower ebb than during the summer which intervened between the disaster of Camden and the discovery of Arnold's treason. Washington's army lay at New Windsor in enforced inactivity; enlistments were few, and the currency was almost worthless. Such was the stagnation in trade, that the young strangers found it extremely difficult to dispose of their little venture in tea. Two months were passed at the cafe, ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... consisted of blankets and bedding and a small, light tent of their sheeting about four by six feet in size. We rose early and worked hard till about the middle of the forenoon getting all things ready. They had been in a state of masterly inactivity so long in this one camp that they were anxious to leave it now forever. Only in progress was there hope, and this was our last and only chance. We must succeed or perish. We loaded the animals from the wagons, and some of the oxen seemed ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... the West, except for sniping. The weather is such that no offensive can take place. The English will never have a better excuse for inactivity than this—"It is raining." Thank God for that! Less dust to swallow to-day! Odd that here in Belgium we are delighted with the rain, while in Germany they are watching it ...
— "Crumps", The Plain Story of a Canadian Who Went • Louis Keene
... spent there in safety, and almost in idleness, were, however, sufficient to make Max and Dale, and especially the former, restless and dissatisfied with their inactivity. The onward march of the Germans, their terrible unscrupulousness and rapacity, and the tales of the terrific fighting with the English and French vanguards reached their ears and made them long to be doing something, however small, to aid the great cause. ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... Another of the signatures of death is inactivity. And oh! what faculties in some of my friends listening to me now are shrivelled and all but extinct! They are dormant, at any rate, to use another word, for the death of my text is not so absolute a death ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... developed in the brain at one time. The popular descriptions of attention easily make it appear as if such were the solution of the problem. If one sensorial brain part is intensely engaged, the remainder of the brain is condemned to a kind of inactivity. Yet such a dogma is hardly better than the old-fashioned one that the soul can have only one idea at a time. We know too well now that the psychophysical system is an extremely complex equilibrium of millions ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... causes, that determined Napoleon, to separate from his army at Laon, were not known: I point them out. General Gourgaud, in his narrative, could give no explanation of the march of the corps of Count Erlon at the battle of Ligny, of the conduct of Marshal Ney on the 16th, of the inactivity of Napoleon on the 17th, &c. All these points, I believe, I have elucidated. I show also, that it was not, as General Gourgaud and other writers assert, to raise the spirits, and excite the courage of the French army, that its leader announced to it the arrival of Marshal ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... country homes, learn the common occupation, and of necessity in most cases make it their means of livelihood. Rural people are accustomed to hard labor for long hours. There are seasons when comparative inactivity renders life dull; there are individuals who enjoy pensions or the income of inherited or accumulated funds, and so are not compelled to resort to manual labor, and there are directors of agricultural industry; there are always a shiftless few who are lazy and poor; but these are only exceptions ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... mob. His hat was gone, and as he stood there, big body braced, mouth set, and hair crested above his smoldering eyes, he made a splendid picture of force and strength which seemed for an instant to awe the Mexicans into inactivity. ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... searching for animals beyond what might be necessary for their own support. It is much to be regretted that these poor men, during their long intercourse with Europeans, have not been taught how pernicious is the grief which produces total inactivity, and that they have not been furnished with any of the consolations which the Christian religion never fails to afford. This, however, could hardly have been expected from persons who have permitted their own offspring, the half-casts, to remain in lamentable ignorance on a subject ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... of Texas fever. It may also arise from the presence of parasites or gallstones in the ducts, forming a mechanical obstruction to the onward flow of bile. The conditions under which jaundice most commonly calls for treatment are when cattle have been highly fed and kept in a state of inactivity. At such time there is an excess of nutritive elements carried into the blood, which is associated with increased fullness of the portal vein and hepatic artery. When continued high feeding has produced this congested state of the liver, the functions of that organ ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... capital. Secondly, advantage might be taken of the distraction thereby caused in the counsels of the Allies, while Napoleon, in person, with the Guards, and the mass of his army, threw himself upon the Austrians. For Napoleon,—the armistice being virtually at an end,—became impatient of inactivity, and hoped, while retaining Dresden, and looking to it throughout as his pivot during the campaign, to find time, ere the Allies should have perfected their arrangements, to strike a blow both against ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... under way when they began to sink, and Bjoern said with a laugh, "What Ran enfolds I trust she will keep." Even King Helge was with difficulty got ashore, and the survivors were forced to stand in helpless inactivity while Ellida's great sails slowly sank beneath the horizon. It was thus that Frithiof sadly saw his native land vanish from sight; and as it disappeared he breathed a tender farewell to the beloved country which he never ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... to be attacked in the early morning, attributed the tranquillity which reigned in the Russian camp to the tremendous losses they had suffered the previous day. This may have been part of the reason, but the main cause of Wittgenstein's inactivity was that he expected the arrival, during the coming night, of a strong division of infantry and several squadrons of cavalry from St. Petersburg, and he had delayed his attack until he had received this powerful reinforcement ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... of the party hurrying on board, the silence and inactivity of the Shawanoes were incomprehensible. That they had been partially dazed was fair to believe, but it could not continue long. The presence of the boat, with its sail still spread, against the bank, must tell the story to the fierce ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... one sufficiently disengaged from the sphere of her acerbity to be able to judge fairly such manifestations of character. A rigid veto upon all things secular, a preoccupied severity of visage, a way of speaking which suggested difficult tolerance of injury, an ostentation of discomfort in bodily inactivity—these were but traditions of happier times; to keep her Sunday thus was to remind herself of days when the outward functions of respectability did in truth correspond to self-respect; and it is probable that often enough, poor woman, the bitterness was not only on her face. As a young girl in ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... five or six of us aside, and spoke to us about it, long and earnestly. He was a fine fellow, that captain. He had been a sub-lieutenant in the Zouaves, was tall and thin and as hard as steel, and during the whole campaign had given a great deal of trouble to the Germans. He fretted in inactivity and could not accustom himself to the idea of being a prisoner ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... timorous mistrust of others. Thus it happened, among other misfortunes of a more deplorable nature, that when my declining age, after a life spent in the service of the Public, should have reposed in the peaceful harbour, not of an indolent, and a total inactivity, but of a moderate and becoming retirement; and when my eloquence was properly mellowed, and had acquired its full maturity;—thus it happened, I say, that recourse was then had to those fatal arms, which the persons who had learned the use of them ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... such golden rules of virtue and good sense that one feels a regret at not knowing more of the family, early years, and character, of such a parent. As she told him that "a wise and a good man suffered no part of his time, but what is necessarily devoted to bodily exercise, to pass in unprofitable inactivity"—you may be sure that, with such book-propensities as he felt, Alfred did not fail to make the most of the fleeting hour. Accordingly we find, from his ancient biographer, that he resolutely set to work by the aid of his wax tapers,[240] and produced some very respectable compositions; ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... wrestle; jump, run, do anything but mope around; warm yourselves up; this inactivity ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... of the challengers breathed from time to time wild bursts expressive of triumph or defiance, while the clowns grudged a holiday which seemed to pass away 10 in inactivity; and old knights and nobles lamented in whispers the decay of martial spirit, spoke of the triumphs of their younger days, but agreed that the land did not now supply dames of such transcendent beauty as had animated the justs ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... accustoming himself to these new conditions, Breed had visited Shady but twice. He had the companionship of coyotes to fill his time and the lonesome howls of the she-wolf were unanswered. It is the stock dog without steady occupation that reverts to the wild. Mere inactivity, even if coupled with kindness, is insufficient to still his natural restlessness and fill his life; he must have careful training and active employment to be content,—and Shady ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... by the police. After several futile attempts at self-expression, he returns to his street corner subdued and so far discouraged that when he has the next impulse to vigorous action he concludes that it is of no use, and sullenly settles back into inactivity. He thus learns to persuade himself that it is better to do nothing, or, as the psychologist would say, "to ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams
... things. Had he found her dead, in her virginal purity, he could have placed her, with Mildred, safely away in his heart and his hopes; but this!... What more could he now do? That he did not take the first train home was because he was benumbed into inactivity. ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... who had only jested with the factor, and had reserved the launching the first spear against the whale to some much more skilful hand, had just time to exclaim, "Mind yourselves, lads, or we are all stamped!" when the monster, roused at once from inactivity by the blow of the factor's missile, blew, with a noise resembling the explosion of a steam-engine, a huge shower of water into the air, and at the same time began to lash the waves with its tail in every direction. The boat in which Magnus presided received the shower of brine which the ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... until his army on the Turkish borders arrived in Swabia. Some were found who believed this odd farrago; but those who watched the calculating balance of Hapsburg policy saw in it one more excuse for a masterly inactivity. ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... mustered at Albany. Sir William Johnson succeeded in rousing the Iroquois, whom the French had been courting with unprecedented assiduity. But D'Anville's fleet threatened. The colonies wanted their troops at home. Inactivity discouraged the soldiers, alienated the Indians. At last news came that the Canada project was abandoned, and in 1748 the Peace ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... Captain Sutter's environment and the results of his enterprises were in significant contrast to the inactivity and backwardness of his neighbors. He showed what an energetic man could accomplish with exactly the same human powers and material tools as had always been available to the Californians. Sutter himself was a rather short, thick-set ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... foregoing three chapters, to supply the body with wholesome substances and to exclude unwholesome substances, but it is also necessary that the body should at times act, and at other times be inactive. There are two great forms of activity, work and play; and two great forms of inactivity, rest and sleep. All four of these are needed in the healthy life and in ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... soil in which to grow. I, as well as Virginia, conceived dream rooms, sketched them in water-colors, created them in wood, and paint, and drapery. I had escaped the stultifying effects of parasitism, rescued body and brain from sluggishness and inactivity, successfully shaken off the shackles of society. Freedom of act and speech was mine; independence, self-expression—yes, all that, but ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... bodkin, but that he is afraid of something in unknown futurity? This fear it is that gives efficacy to conscience, which, by turning the mind upon this regard, chills the ardour of resolution, checks the vigour of enterprize, and makes the current of desire stagnate in inactivity. We may suppose that he would have applied these general observations to his own case, but ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... long breathing spell, which the trio improved by strengthening their defense, digging up the dirt with their knives and piling it upon the mules. It was tedious work, but preferable to inactivity ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... fact of the child's head and face being shaded from the window-light by the projecting side of the cupboard bedstead. There was that restless movement and frequent looking out at the corners of the eyes so characteristic of simulative disease. Considering the lengthened inactivity of the girl, her muscular development was very good, and the amount of fat layer not inconsiderable. My friend stated that she looked even better than she did about a twelvemonth ago. There was a slight perspiration over the surface of the body. The pulse was perfectly ...
— Fasting Girls - Their Physiology and Pathology • William Alexander Hammond
... to leeward, and were jammed and broken under the boxes and coils of rigging. To crown all, we were allowed no light to find anything with, and I was just beginning to feel strong symptoms of sea-sickness, and that listlessness and inactivity which accompany it. Giving up all attempts to collect my things together, I lay down on the sails, expecting every moment to hear the cry, "All hands ahoy!'' which the approaching storm would make necessary. I shortly heard the raindrops falling on deck thick and fast, and ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... quickly passed over. And for the same reason the domestic politics of these years require only the briefest notice. Palmerston's Ministry produced very little social legislation, and the fact that Lord John was at the Foreign Office, while the Prime Minister led the Commons, increased the legislative inactivity of a Government which, with Palmerston at its head, would in any case have changed little in the country. Gladstone's budgets and Cobden's Free-Trade Treaty with France were the important events. Between 1860 and 1864 the taxation of the country was ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... made reply that he had much rather be a peasant slave upon the earth than reign over all the dead. So much did the inactivity and slothful condition of that state displease his unquenchable and restless spirit. Only he inquired of Ulysses if his father Peleus were living, and how his ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB
... on the stone for some minutes longer, and then, tiring of the inactivity, he arose and strolled about. Something seemed to draw him in the direction of the old house, which he knew was just around the ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood
... engagement on account of the illness of the Empress and the favor with which Frederick was beheld by the successor to the throne. It was in vain that Laudon exerted all the powers of eloquence; the Russians remained in a state of inactivity ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... the flying alternative, the "least resistance" theory is gratuitously sound; beyond that, it is misleading. However, all this must be taken as referring back to my own apparently insignificant decision not to disturb the masterly inactivity of that sundowner under the wilga. Mere afterthoughts, introduced here by reason of their ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... two passed in a state of comparative inactivity with the fleet, Lord Hood having arrived at the conclusion, through his experience of the effects of the engagement between the "Fortitude" and "Juno" and the Mortella Tower, that a further sea-attack upon that battery ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... fancied that his light was more sorrowful than the light of the setting sun should be, and I began to feel very heavy at the heart. No sooner had the last brilliant spark of his light vanished, than I felt the stone under me begin to move. With the inactivity of a dreamer, however, I did not care to rise, but wondered only what would come next. My seat, after several strange tumbling motions, seemed to rise into the air a little way, and then I found that I was astride of a gaunt, bony horse—a skeleton horse almost, only he had a gray ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... members of either game were enabled to play as good ball as they did, not only in Paris but in other cities that we visited after the inactivity of steamer life, the late hours, and the continual round of high living that they indulged in, is a mystery, and one that is past my fathoming, and yet the ball that they put up on many of these occasions that I have spoken of was ball of the championship ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... fisherman of genius conjectured that the cod lived only too contentedly in those tanks, and suffered from the atrophy of calm. The cod is by nature a lethargic, torpid, and plethoric creature, prone to inactivity, content to lie in comfort, swallowing all that comes, with cavernous mouth wide open, big enough to gulp its own body down if that could be. In the tanks the cod rotted at ease, rapidly deteriorating in their flesh. ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... the "legale testimonium;" Mr. Francis Butzkay, the lawyer, came to his aid with his stumpy, short-limbed figure: he had gazed for a time in passive inactivity at the fruitless struggle of his principal ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... is strong. I am not one of the sort of humourists who hold it up to contempt in its inactivity. For that matter I am not any sort of humourist. Perhaps you have found that out. But the German High Seas Fleet is no fit subject for joke. That it has proved harmless is due to one ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 12, 1916 • Various
... area," says a despatch from Mr. POCOCK, "a, period of inactivity has set in which is partly due to the fact that the dromedary has been placed on a vegetarian diet. There has been a cold snap in the crocodile house. Three of our keepers ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 25, 1917 • Various
... romantic personal adventures of the king when on a crusade, and in his continental dominions. Henry's second son John reigned from 1199 to 1216. Although of good natural abilities, he was extraordinarily indolent, mean, treacherous, and obstinate. By his inactivity during a long quarrel with the king of France he lost all his provinces on the Continent, except those in the far south. His contest with the Pope had ended in failure and humiliation. He had angered the barons by arbitrary taxation and by many individual acts ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... Cambridge when he was twenty-three, he entered no profession, but lived till he was past twenty-nine in studious retirement at his father's country house at Horton near Windsor. His father, and other friends, very {38} naturally remonstrated at this apparent inactivity. To them all the answer is the same. He cannot now enter the Church, as he had intended, because he would not "subscribe slave" and take oaths that he could not keep. He is not surrendering himself to "the endless delight of speculation," or to the pleasure of "dreaming away his years in the arms ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... into the formal rules of morality has been given in the extracts above, nor does the epic in this regard differ much from the law-books. Every man's first duty is to act; inactivity is sinful. The man that fails to win a good reputation by his acts, a warrior, for example, that is devoid of fame, a 'man of no account,' is a bh[u]mivardhana, [Greek: achthos aroures] a cumberer of earth (iii. 35. 7). A proverb says that man ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... was a time of intense exertion; for me it was an anxious inactivity. I seemed perpetually to be getting out of his way. He leapt about the sphere from point to point with an agility that would have been impossible on earth. He was perpetually opening and closing the Cavorite windows, making calculations, ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... much talk and excitement among the crew, for the general opinion was that the captain would try to cut out the craft lying under the Spanish battery. The navy had, for a long time, been very sore at their inactivity; and had fretted that no attempts had been made to cut out the Spanish vessels, across the bay. The admiral had steadily set his face against all such attempts, considering that the benefits to be gained did not justify the risks; for, had any of his small squadron been damaged, or sunk, by the guns ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... without any shelter, surrounded by fierce tribes of lawless natives, and distant more than two hundred miles from the nearest civilised human being. What was such an unfortunate party to do? They could only live there in inactivity until they starved, were murdered, or were brought away by an expedition sent to their rescue from the interior. Such was the situation when Dodd and I arrived at Anadyrsk. Our orders were to leave the Anadyr River unexplored until another season; but we knew that ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... These tile panels are very decorative. To us, out here, they suggest artistic ceramic possibilities for architectural purposes of which we have taken little advantage. Considering the fact that we have quantities of good clay and that so much original good decorative design is lying idle, this inactivity in architectural ceramics in California is distressing. So far as I know, Batchelder, in Pasadena, still has the monopoly on architectural tiles ...
— The Art of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... trouble me?" he murmured. "What can I do?" And yet it seemed to him impossible to wait in passive inactivity until a red glare in the sky should announce that the nefarious design had ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... man of prominence in the England of King James. And the tone of many of these productions discloses an affectionate familiarity that speaks for the amiable personality and sound worth of the laureate. In 1619, growing unwieldy through inactivity, Jonson hit upon the heroic remedy of a journey afoot to Scotland. On his way thither and back he was hospitably received at the houses of many friends and by those to whom his friends had recommended him. When he arrived in Edinburgh, the burgesses met to grant him the ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... time, Charles and his nobles, satiated with a life of inactivity and pleasure, and feeling that they had accomplished the great object of the expedition, began to look with longing eyes towards their own country. Their impatience was converted into anxiety on receiving tidings of the ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... But now that the prevalence and growth of unbelief is as evident as the sun at noon—now that it is no longer only the recalcitrant and irreligious, but even the religious and docile-minded who are disturbed by the fact, it seems to some that, a policy of silence and inactivity may be far more fruitful in evil than in good, that reverent reserve must be laid aside and the pearls of truth cast into the trough ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... one of her letters—it was during her first year at a woman's college, when the development of muscle in gymnastics, running, and the vigorous game of ball was largely engaging the attention of this enthusiastic young lady—took him to task for his inactivity. "This is the age of muscle," she wrote; "the brain is useless in a flabby body, and probably the brain itself is nothing but concentrated intelligent muscle. I don't know how men are coming out, but women will never get the position they have ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... praise. A few harsh spirits, it seems, blamed him in no measured terms; but he repaid them by a wise neglect, at least as long as Maecenas lived, who well knew, from temperament as well as experience, the value of seasonable inactivity. As it is, all the authors that have come to us are panegyrists. None seem to remember his early days; all centre their thoughts on the success of the present and the promise of the future. Yet Augustus himself could not forget those times. As chief of the proscription, as the betrayer of ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... him every attention, grateful to him for the service he had rendered, the old man, however, appeared at length to grow weary of inactivity, and began to speak of taking his departure with Greensnake ...
— The Frontier Fort - Stirring Times in the N-West Territory of British America • W. H. G. Kingston
... take his purchase-money; I thanked him warmly for his friendly thoughts of me; and having put on the coat, hat, and other garments he had sold me, set out once more, after a day's and night's repose, which were complete enough to make further inactivity impossible. ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... hurry, mes braves," the colonel said, as the Franc-tireurs stamped with impatience as they saw the columns crossing the river, while they remained in enforced inactivity. "At first the troops will carry all before them as Vinoy's men have done. The fighting will only commence in earnest when the Prussians bring up their supports. We shall be in time for that, never fear. ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... actually came, Roosevelt could not stand inactivity in Washington. He was a fighter and he must go where the real fighting was. With Leonard Wood, then a surgeon in the army, he organized the First United States Volunteer Cavalry. He could have been appointed Colonel, but he knew that Wood knew more about the soldier's job than he, and he insisted ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... the servants, and even the peasants, so it seemed to Pyotr Mihalitch, looked at him enigmatically and with perplexity, as though they wanted to say "Your sister has been seduced; why are you doing nothing?" And he reproached himself for inactivity, though he did not know precisely what action he ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... appearance, while flying along in the bright sunshine, so unusual in a nocturnal animal, of a large flock of rooks. On close approach a strong musky odour became apparent, and a loud incessant chattering was heard. Many of the branches were bending under their loads of bats, some in a state of inactivity, suspended by their hind claws, others scrambling along among the boughs, and taking to wing when disturbed. In a very short time I procured as many specimens as I wished, three or four at a shot, for they hung in clusters—but, unless killed outright, they ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... a further definition of revenge, its force, effects, and the chasm it leaves on the mind when once it ceases. The tranquility of being entirely devoid of all passions; and the impossibility for the soul to remain in that state of inactivity is also shewn; with some remarks on human nature in ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... attempts to prove is, that the Catholic religion in Ireland had sunk into torpor and inactivity, till Government roused it with the lash: that even then, from the respect and attachment which men are always inclined to show towards government, there still remained a large body of loyal Catholics; that these only decreased in number from the rapid increase of persecution; ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... the kingdom of Sardinia, should take the same course, France would be in dire straits. It was therefore suggested in the Assembly that a blow should be struck at the house of Savoy, in order to awe both that and the other courts of Italy into inactivity. The idea of an attack on Sardinia for this purpose originated in Corsica, but among the friends of Salicetti, and it was he who urged the scheme successfully. The sister island was represented as eager ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... Shakespeare, are attained by individuals possessing this active character, not at all owing to the superiority of their nature; on the contrary, notwithstanding their inferior gifts, the capacity of activity itself always gives them the advantage over inactivity, quite independent of any consideration whether the inactivity of some persons flows from excellent impulses and the activity of others from bad ones. "Activity is good, inactivity is evil. Activity transforms ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... turned their backs, or in indulgences of loafing of all sorts which leave a narcotic stupidity in their wake. He had plenty of time, therefore, for thought, and he could think while walking either in the fresh air, or back and forth in his study. Men of success detest inactivity. It is a hardship for them to be as if dead for a single moment. So, when my father could not walk out-of doors during meditation, he moved back and forth in his room, sturdily alert, his hands clasped behind him, quietly thinking, ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... have said in his presence, and in which God is implored "to grant His protection to the Emperor William, to give him health and inspiration for the fulfilment of his mission towards the nations." To-day, reduced to inactivity by his illness and by the consequences of his folly, he has ample leisure to reflect on the psalm which he is so fond of singing, with the mitre of the summus episcopus on his head: "The kings of the earth are ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... maintenance of the two limp women who formed a neutral-tinted background to his impressive outline. His pictures of course fetched high prices; but he worked slowly—"painfully," as his devotees preferred to phrase it—with frequent intervals of ill health and inactivity, and the circle of Keniston connoisseurs was still as small as it was distinguished. The girl's fancy instantly hailed in him that favorite figure of imaginative youth, the artist who would rather starve than paint a pot-boiler. It is known to comparatively ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... spent some days in inactivity. All this time my poor young cousin might be exposed to the greatest danger, and yet we were unable to devise a ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... nobles unloaded their sumpter horses, supped gaily, and pledged one another in champagne amidst the heaps of dead; and, when night fell, whole brigades gladly lay down to sleep in their ranks on the field of battle. The inactivity of Luxemburg did not escape censure. None could deny that he had in the action shown great skill and energy. But some complained that he wanted patience and perseverance. Others whispered that he had no wish to bring to an end a war which made him necessary ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... her life should be free and chainless as the winds. Never more should needle and thread tempt her to a womanish inactivity. As Hercules, whose counterpart she was, changed his club for the distaff of Omphale, so would she put off the wimple and bodice of her sex for jerkin and galligaskins. If she could not allure manhood, then would ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... it was converted into allylpyridine (48 grammes), and this by reduction with sodium yielded alpha-propylpyridine, a body in almost every respect identical with coniine. The more important difference was its optical inactivity, but he succeeded in splitting up a solution of the acid tartrate of the base by means of Penicillium glaucum. Crystals separated which had a dextro-rotatory power of [a]{D} 31 deg. 87' as compared with the [a]{D} 13 deg. 79' of natural coniine. This brief ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various
... said Trevylyan, "consoles a man in the ills that flesh is heir to, in that state of obscure repose, that serene inactivity to which you would confine him? Is it not his conscience? Is it not his self-acquittal, or ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... natural selection of such variations became the predominant factor. Especially throughout the plant-world its action appears to have been immensely the most important; and throughout that large part of the animal world characterized by relative inactivity, the survival of individuals that had varied in favourable ways, must all along have been the chief cause of the divergence of species and the occasional production of ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... I had, it may be, blamed the inactivity of the Duc d'Orleans and the Comte de Soissons in the affair of Amiens a hundred times; yet, no sooner was the scheme sufficiently matured for execution, the idea of which I had raised in the memory of La Rochepot, than my mind ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... presently attack. To which he coolly replied, "No, no! if they cannot do it without me, they cannot do it with me." One of the Macphersons, named Alexander, one of Rob's original profession, videlicet, a drover, but a man of great strength and spirit, was so incensed at the inactivity of this temporary leader, that he threw off his plaid, drew his sword, and called out to his clansmen, "Let us endure this no longer! if he will not lead you I will." Rob Roy replied, with great coolness, ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... a common basis and kept all from active participation in the two Balkan wars, restricting their activities to the exertion of their various influences for as just a settlement as was possible under the circumstances when the time for settlement had arrived in 1913. In spite of the inactivity of the powers there can be no doubt that their respective attitudes at that time toward the various Balkan States and their ambitions had an important influence on the latter's attitude toward the various powers after the war of 1914 had ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... a corner of the reserve trench. The fifteen inches of half-frozen mud caused my old wound from an Afghan bullet to ache viciously. I longed for some wounded to arrive—anything to end this chilly inactivity. A tall officer in staff uniform jumped ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 9, 1914 • Various
... greatest retirement during the whole time that I passed at Seville, spending the greater part of each day in study, or in that half-dreamy state of inactivity which is the natural effect of the influence of a warm climate. There was little in the character of the people around to induce me to enter much into society. The higher class of the Andalusians are probably upon the whole the most vain and foolish of ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... inactivity. There were orders for goods to be hauled, but a great portion of what was demanded had not yet arrived by train from the coast side of ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... however, does in my opinion proceed from both causes, and though I have been tender heretofore of giving my opinion or of lodging complaints, as the change in that department took place contrary to my judgment and the consequences thereof were predicted, yet finding that the inactivity of the army, whether for want of provisions, clothes, or other essentials is charged to my account, not only by the common vulgar but by those in power, it is time to speak plain in exculpation of myself. With ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... and English men were playing into the hands of Parma as adroitly as if he had actually directed their movements. Deep were the denunciations of Leicester and his partisans by the States' party, and incessant the complaints of the English and Dutch troops shut up in Sluys against the inactivity or treachery of Maurice ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... until the opening of the New Year. Our men, like most fresh soldiers, were anxious for a fight, and were heartily tired of what they considered inglorious inactivity. Many of them expressed great fears that they would be obliged to return home without ever hearing the sound of battle. How greatly they were mistaken we shall see as we trace the bloody campaigns of more than ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... criminals were among the highest officials and nobles, seconded by the restless and formidable machinations of the Jesuits. When his proofs were complete, he crushed the conspirators at a single grasp. His singular inactivity had disarmed them; and nothing but the most consummate composure could have prevented their flying from justice. On the 12th of January 1759, they were found guilty; and on the 13th they were put to death, to the number of nine, with the Marchioness of Tavora, in the square of Belem. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... so steep!" complained Bess, who was more "plump" than ever, due to the inactivity of ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... heart to another. Zeal for a native, or detestation of a foreign sovereign, hope of sudden greatness or riches, friendship or emulation between particular men, or, what are perhaps more general and powerful, desire of novelty and impatience of inactivity, fill a camp with adventurers, add rank to ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... his inactivity, to trace the progress of events which form one of the most important and ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... to a few individuals. Many species are permanently characterized by the temperament common to the majority of their individual members. Thus, among the great apes the gorilla species is either morose or lymphatic; and it is manifested by persistent inactivity and sullenness. This leads to loss of appetite, indigestion, inactivity and early death. Major Penny's "John Gorilla" was a notable exception, as will ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... numberless little glittering cascades. Every hue of the heavens, every sound of the element, and each dusky and anxious countenance that was visible, helped to proclaim the intense interest of the moment. It was in this brief interval of expectation, and inactivity, that the ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... he more successful against Moldavia, and November arrived with its promise of snow to block the mountain-routes before he had advanced more than four miles into Rumanian territory. Mackensen, too, was held up in the Dobrudja, and a month's inactivity was only relieved by rival raids across the Danube. But by 20 October he had received reinforcements in the shape of two Turkish divisions and one German. The Russo-Rumanian line was broken, and on the ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... moulded him at her fancy, and he still thought of her only with unsatisfied longings for her kisses and ardor! Ah! women! Woman! Yes, indeed, yes, woman was the great source of moral weakness and inactivity. She used politics in her own way, in destroying politicians. If he had only left office with head erect and not dragging the chain-shot of debt! But that bill of exchange! Who ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... self-control. It was not that he did not see McClellan's faults. He saw them, and felt them keenly. "If Gen. McClellan does not want to use the army, I would like to borrow it," he said one day, stung by the General's inactivity into a sarcasm he seldom allowed himself to use. But his patience was not exhausted. McClellan had always more soldiers than the enemy, at Antietam nearly double his numbers, yet his constant cry ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... thing and had concluded it might do, I very seldom put off the consequent action. I found I was wrong sometimes, and that the particular action did no good; but thus movement was kept up in my operative nature, preventing it from sinking towards the inactivity to which I was but too much inclined. Besides, to find out what will not do, is a step towards finding out what will do. Moreover, an attempt in itself unsuccessful may set something or other in motion that ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... correct the expression of your metaphor," said Mr. Silton: "that is not always rust which is acquired by the inactivity of the body on which it preys; such, perhaps, is the case with me, though indeed I was never cleared from my youth; but (taking it in its first stage) it is rather an encrustation, which nature has given for purposes ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... passed in the lair, and the inactivity, confinement and suspense became frightful. He began to feel that he must move, even if he plunged directly into the Indian ranks, and the warriors permitted no doubt that they were near, since ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... money, hands, or confidence, and in ruins before completion. Everywhere, amongst the people, a discontented air of uneasy idleness, as if they were equally in want of labour and repose. Throughout my journey, on the highways, in the towns, and in the fields, I noticed the same appearance of inactivity and agitation, the same visible impoverishment of the country; there were more women and children than men, many young conscripts marching mournfully to their battalions, sick and wounded soldiers returning to the interior; in fact, a mutilated and exhausted ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... tend to increase our knowledge of them and the interior; this after our subsequent discovery of Adelaide river became of still greater moment. The existence of the out-station would also form a change for the settlers, and journeys thither would remove the dreary inactivity of a new settlement at certain periods. The absence of this fence may account for Captain Grey's party having seen signs of buffalo on the mainland; he discovered the tracks of a cloven-footed animal, which one of his men who had been much in South Africa, ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... to insure the security of the German troops and to act as sureties for the inactivity of the population of Rheims, the personages named below have been seized as hostages by the General commanding the German army. At the least sign of disorder these hostages will be hanged. Also the city will be entirely or partly burned and its inhabitants hanged if any infractions whatsoever of ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... (particularly in the dining-room and kitchen), was the "fly-gallery"—a wonderful array of multicolored tissue-paper festooned artistically from the ceiling or around the gas-pipes to lure or induce the fly into moments of inactivity. There was no extermination in this device—it was purely preventive in its function—the idea being that since there must be fly-specks, better to mass them as much as possible on places where they would show ...
— The Long Ago • Jacob William Wright
... Hof; his nervous rheumatic complaint has now settled in his left arm, which he will probably be unable to move for several weeks to come. In addition to the physical pain he suffers most grievously from this enforced state of inactivity. To endure things patiently is to some natures an absolute impossibility. He travelled back to Berlin, ill as he was, last Saturday, accompanied by his wife, and I have promised to go and spend a couple of days ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... defeat. She could not sleep for thinking. She wondered, desperately, if when all other methods had failed, as she now expected they would, she could possibly approach their secret from another angle, laying aside her watchful inactivity and becoming in defiance of all her principles an "agent provocateuse." If it came to the worst she might be forced to do this, for very little time was left to her. If she remained static she would be powerless. Next day, she reflected, they had planned a ride over the flat top of Bredon Hill. ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... our inactivity makes the enemy insolent, for look! here is a numerous sally, directing itself straight toward your Majesty; and the regiments of Biron and De ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... weeks preceding the fall of Detroit, had been characterized by much bustle and excitement, those which immediately succeeded, were no less remarkable for their utter inactivity and repose. With the surrender of the fortress vanished every vestige of hostility in that remote territory, enabling the sinews of watchfulness to undergo a relaxation, nor longer requiring the sacrifice of private interests ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... and Justine—but the latter was conscious that their talk had increased instead of lessened the distance between them. Justine herself meant to leave soon. Her hope of regaining Bessy's confidence had been deceived, and seeing herself definitely superseded, she chafed anew at her purposeless inactivity. She had already written to one or two doctors in New York, and to the matron of Saint Elizabeth's. She had made herself a name in surgical cases, and it could not be ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... from the production of a smaller number of young) the males ceased to give this aid, disuse of the organs during maturity would lead to their becoming inactive; and from two well-known principles of inheritance, this state of inactivity would probably be transmitted to the males at the corresponding age of maturity. But at an earlier age these organs would be left unaffected, so that they would be almost equally well developed in the ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... deserted town of the same magnitude. The population is only 4,000; but, to judge from its extent, it might contain at least three times that number. It is difficult to account exactly for the causes of this inactivity, but I should be inclined to think some blame attaches to its government, as here are no traces of that beneficial superintendence which is so perceptible at Berne, This city cannot even boast of a public library. There are at Lucerne several curious wooden bridges, to join ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard
... looking at all existences as organisms, shall we be disturbed at seeming failure?—long periods of apparent inactivity? Shall we believe, for instance, that Christ's great church can be really hindered in its appropriate cycle of progressive change and adaptation? That any true membership of this organic body can be formed or annulled by mere human interference? That the lopping or burning of branches of the ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... it perplexed her, and caused her to watch Felicita with anxiety. Felix saw less of it than any one, for he was down in Essex, leading the tranquil and not very laborious life of a country curate, chafing a little now and then at his inactivity, yet blissful beyond words in the close daily intercourse with Alice. There was no talk of their marriage, but they were young and together. Their ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... the throne of his father at the age of twenty-three, and, taking Alexander the Great as his model, had soon become popular and powerful. Aiming at the conquest of the whole of Greece, he attacked the king of Macedonia and overcame him. After resting a while upon his laurels, he found a life of inactivity unbearable, and accepted a request, sent him in 281, to follow in the footsteps of his cousin Alexander, and go to the help of the people of Tarentum against the Romans, with whom they were then at war. This is the reason why he was voyaging in haste to Italy, and it was this ambition that ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... within her. She tried to run away from it. She wished she could hear from Skrebensky, in answer to her letter, so that her course should be resolved, she should be engaged in fulfilling her fate. It was this inactivity which made her liable to the revulsion ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... probabilities sufficient to guide us through life; the only axiom which they assert as incontrovertible being the fact that we know nothing. Thus instead of proposing as the highest activity of man a life of speculative thought, they came to consider inactivity and impassibility [13] the chief attainable good. Their method of proof was a dialectic which strove to show the inconsistency or uncertainty of their opponent's positions, but which did not and could not arrive at any ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... our little friend has been lying on his bunk ruining his beady eyes on the micro-viewer, I've been asking myself significant questions. Question number one: What kind of person does it take to survive the inactivity and boredom of three, four, maybe six months in a space can like this? Answer: It takes a highly trained and conditioned person such as yours truly or yourself. Arnold is ...
— Unspecialist • Murray F. Yaco
... important that the clothing should be kept clean. That which is worn for a long time becomes saturated with the excretions and exhalations of the body, which prevent free transpiration from the pores of the skin, and thereby induce mental inactivity and depression of the physical powers. Unclear clothing may be the means of conveying disease. Scarlet fever has been conveyed frequently by the clothing of a nurse into a healthy family. All of the contagious diseases have ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... and the Sloo lines. He declared that Vanderbilt, threatening them with both competition and a public agitation such as would uncover the fraud, had forced them to pay him gigantic sums in return for his silence and inactivity. Responsible capitalists, Senator Toombs said, had offered to carry the mails to California for $550,000. "Everybody knows," he said, "that it can be done for half the money we pay now. Why, then, should we ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... time since an unfruitful peace plunged the members of the Gun Club into deplorable inactivity. After a period of some years, so full of incidents, we have been obliged to abandon our works and stop short on the road of progress. I do not fear to proclaim aloud that any war which would put arms in our hands again would ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... state of things which could exist in a war with such a power as Mexico would be a course of indecision and inactivity on our part. Being charged by the Constitution and the laws with the conduct of the war, I have availed myself of all the means at my command to prosecute it with ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... Imlac says of the monks:—'Their time is regularly distributed; one duty succeeds another, so that they are not left open to the distraction of unguided choice, nor lost in the shades of listless inactivity.... He that lives well in the world is better than he that lives well in a monastery. But perhaps every one is not able to stem the temptations of publick life; and, if he cannot conquer, he may properly retreat.' See also ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... peace which followed the close of the War of 1812 was, perhaps, the longest which any nation has ever enjoyed. For the navy of the United States, it was a time of absolute peace, inactivity, even stagnation. The young nation was living literally up to Washington's rule of avoiding entanglements abroad, and its people looked with suspicion on the naval branch of the service which had rendered such a good account of itself in the war with Great ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... eye might fall; one, perhaps, representing a whole army with supports, another a solitary horseman dragging some ammunition, another nothing but a dummy that might paralyse the efforts of a corps, and overawe it into a ruinous inactivity. To uncover these cards and unmask the forces for which they stood was the duty of the cavalry vedettes, whose movements were governed by an elaborate and most vexatious set of rules. It was necessary ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... posterity. They have every inducement to noble deeds, and are, generally speaking, above the necessities which induce men to go wrong. If the Americans would assert that luxury produces vice, I can only say that luxury infers idleness and inactivity, and on this point the women of the aristocracy in this country have the advantage over the American women, who cannot, from the peculiarity of the climate, take time exercise so universally resorted to by ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... a long letter I have written, even though I don't feel sure that the letter will reach you. Imagine my cholera-boredom, my cholera-loneliness, and compulsory literary inactivity, and write to me more, and oftener. Your contemptuous feeling for France I share. The Germans are far above them, though for some reason they are called stupid. And the Franco-Russian Entente Cordiale I am as fond of as Tolstoy is. ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... the other tragic, and yet most picturesque emblem in the representation here: 'They sit in darkness.' Yes! what can they do, poor creatures? They know not where to go. The light has left them, inactivity is a necessity. And so, with folded hands, they wish for the day, or try to forget the night by lighting some little torch of their own that only serves to make darkness visible, and dies all too soon, leaving them to ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... strength in luxurious idleness. It is our mission to benefit mankind both here and hereafter, by despatching useless persons to Paradise and thus cheering the lives of the friends they leave on earth. Assured of this, as we are, all inactivity is unbearable to us. At the present moment we are, so to say, unemployed philanthropists; we are but a potential and passive blessing to our fellow-creatures, though we burn to be doing good to all! I appeal to my friend, Count Gambardella, here. Is ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... you ought to know that a man such as I am cannot condemn himself to inactivity, unless he wants to die. I do not want any more money; what I want is an outlet for my energy ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... days under a sweltering tropical sun—taking advantage of whatever little breeze we could get that aided our progress to the equator, until we emerged from the retarding influence of this zone of inactivity, some three degrees to the northward of the Line, when we fortunately succeeded in sailing into the south-east ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... during the rest of the month of May; their hunting was interrupted, not so much by the severity of the weather as by the absence of game; fortunately, the supply of fresh meat was not yet quite exhausted. They found themselves accordingly condemned to new inactivity; for a fortnight, from the 11th to the 25th of May, only one incident broke the monotony of their lives; a serious illness, diphtheria, suddenly seized the carpenter; from the swollen tonsils and the false membrane in the throat, the doctor could not be ignorant of the nature of the disease; ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... one of man's most powerful tendencies, as has already been pointed out, is his desire to be with his fellows, this desire is not unqualified. Just as men can be satiated with too much eating, and irritated by too much inactivity, so men become "fed up" with companionship. The demand for solitude and privacy is thus fundamentally a physiological demand, like the demand for rest. "The world is too much with us," especially the human world. Companionship, even of the ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... at a glance, and told him "what to do." Much as she would have liked to have her son near her, she knew that he was too old to acquire new tastes, and too young to be content with a life of comparative inactivity. She told him so, heartily and cheerfully, not marring the effect of her words by any murmurs or repinings of her own. ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson
... educated seem to tolerate the inactivity of imprisonment better than their inferiors. We find that our ordinary malefactors cannot endure solitary imprisonment for more than a year—seldom indeed so long. The Italian prisoners whom I have known, Zucchi, Borsieri, Poerio, Gonfalonieri, and Pellico, endured imprisonment ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... waiting is always a trial. The silence, the bodily inactivity while the mind is strained to be keenly alert, have a sort of hypnotic influence. An untrained man will certainly fancy he hears and sees things, and even a trained man has to light hard against the desire to ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... in England, he went to Switzerland on the 9th April 1880. During this period of inactivity he was offered by the Government of the Cape of Good Hope the command of their colonial forces on L1500 per annum, but his reply was, "Thanks for telegram just received; I do not feel inclined to accept an appointment." In the beginning of May, however, he accepted the post of ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... or endocrines pass directly into the blood stream, and exercise a dominating power over health and personality. Deficiency in the thyroid secretion, especially during the years of infancy and early childhood, creates disorders of nutrition and inactivity of the nervous system. The particular form of idiocy known as cretinism is the result of this deficiency, which produces an arrest of the development of the brain cells. The other glands and their secretions likewise exercise the ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... had, it may be, blamed the inactivity of the Duc d'Orleans and the Comte de Soissons in the affair of Amiens a hundred times; yet, no sooner was the scheme sufficiently matured for execution, the idea of which I had raised in the memory ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... Don Hernan had not set his foot on board the "Saint Cecilia." Both officers and crew had, however, begun to complain at being left so long in so uninteresting a spot in perfect inactivity; Don Hernan accordingly ordered the ship back to Brassay Sound ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... Art thou not, O Michelotto, a striking example of it thyself? Have I been able to acquit myself towards thee in the manner which my obligations to thee demand? But shall we always languish in this shameful inactivity; and shall we wait till fortune or chance do something for those who will do nothing for themselves? Dost thou think that the monotonous life I lead in the conclave and in the church was intended for a spirit like mine? Am I born ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... only to strengthen the hands of Luther and his supporters, who pointed to them as a justification for the whole movement, and to provide the princes with a plausible explanation of their inactivity in giving effect to the decree of Worms. The princes refused to carry out the decree of Worms, alleging as an excuse the danger of popular commotion. They brought forward once more the grievances of the German nation against Rome (/Centum Gravamina/), ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... did, and occasionally volunteering her assistance where she seemed to think she might possibly be able to make herself useful, but otherwise saying little. Now, however, that we had once more settled down into a condition of comparative inactivity she began to question me as to our whereabouts, what were my intentions, and so on; all of which questions I replied to as accurately as I could. Then, after meditating ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... the party hurrying on board, the silence and inactivity of the Shawanoes were incomprehensible. That they had been partially dazed was fair to believe, but it could not continue long. The presence of the boat, with its sail still spread, against the bank, must tell the story to the fierce ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... they say no, let us ask them whether these are not going on all over the country at every general election. If they answer yes, as they must unless they be guilty of wilful falsehood, will they then be so good as to tell us how they reconcile their inactivity with sentiments of virtue? Some men, in all former ages, have been held in esteem for their wisdom, their genius, their skill, their valour, their devotion to country, etc., but never until this age, was quietness deemed a quality to be extolled. It would be no difficult ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... but instead of my disgrace, I will make her my footstool to honour and wealth. And, then, to the devil with the footstool! Yes! two years I have borne what was enough to turn my whole blood into gall,—inactivity, hopelessness, a wasted heart and life in myself; contumely from the world; coldness, bickering, ingratitude from the one for whom (oh, ass that I was!) I gave up the most cherished part of my nature,—rather, my nature itself! Two years I have borne ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... him for a while; but as day after day passed and no appearance of action presented itself, he could not choose but increase in courage. His soul, like a sword-blade too long in the scabbard, was beginning to get fuliginous by inactivity. He looked upon the point of his own needle and the bright edge of his scissors with a bitter pang when he thought of the spirit rusting within him; he meditated fresh insults, studied new plans, and hunted out cunning devices for provoking his acquaintances ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... enemy to use to great advantage his interior lines of communication for transporting troops from East to West, reinforcing the army most vigorously pressed, and to furlough large numbers, during seasons of inactivity on our part, to go to their homes and do the work of producing, for the support of their armies. It was a question whether our numerical strength and resources were not more than balanced by these disadvantages ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... again or not. I go to London toward the end of April: can't you manage to wait in England? I suppose you will only be a day or two in London before you put foot in rail, coach, or on steamer for the Continent; and I excuse my own dastardly inactivity in not going up to meet you and shake hands with you before you start, by my old excuse; that had you but let me know of your coming to England, I should have seen you. This is no excuse; but don't ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... several weeks of the working season had passed, that my master's great repugnance to doing nothing overcame his almost equally great repugnance again to seek work as a journeyman. At length, however, a life of inactivity became wholly intolerable to him; and, applying to his former employer, he was engaged on the previous terms—full wages for himself, and a very small allowance for his apprentice, who was now, however, recognised as the readier and more skilful stone-cutter of the two. In cutting ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... the situation demanded that the main American fleet be released. Cervera must be destroyed or held in some other way than at the expense of inactivity on the part of the American warships. Santiago could not be forced by the navy. Two methods remained. The first and simpler expedient was to make the harbor mouth impassable and in this way to bottle ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... apparently quite unconscious of its ever having existed.—Mrs. Lesbia Faircloth, at the Inn, the Vicar's wife left out of the count.—If Sir Charles Verity and Damaris had hurried away, gossip would have run after them with liveliest yelpings. But this practise of masterly inactivity routed criticism. How far was it studied, cynical on the part of the father, or innocent upon that of the daughter, she could not tell one bit; but that practically it carried success along with it, she saw to be indubitable. "Face the music and the band stops playing"—so she put it ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... effect of beneficial modification is felt immediately, and the modified organs or organisms are stimulated and strengthened cumulatively, while the unmodified are enfeebled and paralyzed cumulatively through inactivity and quickly pass toward atrophy and extinction. Conversely in demotic development, which is characterized by the persistence of the organisms and by the elimination of the bad and the preservation of the good among qualities only, there ...
— The Siouan Indians • W. J. McGee
... been imprisoned I had, as I have stated, been kept in a half-dazed condition, and although my strength had been slowly coming back to me, I was weak compared with the time when I had been taken a prisoner at Pendennis Castle. My food had been drugged, and my enforced inactivity had made my sinews soft like a woman's. Besides, I felt I had met with a skilled fighter, and I knew by the blow he gave me that he was a strong man. Moreover, I doubted Eli's ability to engage with the other serving-man, and this made me doubtful ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... these words of Arjuna, Uttara cast off all inactivity. And he speedily alighted from the tree, bringing with him Arjuna's weapons. Then Arjuna addressed him, saying, 'Yes, I will fight with the Kurus and recover thy kine. Protected by me, the top of this car ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... continuance of the war and its consequent distresses will probably increase, if not bring to maturity. The distresses of our army last winter, the depreciation of our paper money, the exaggerated accounts of our divisions, and our apparent inactivity, have had a bad effect in Europe, which I hope the firmness and unanimity of Congress, added to the exertions of our ally, and those of this Court, will ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... as many dynasties much older in years. One of the missionaries explained to me yesterday that it was only when the King got very mad that he would order heads cut off without reason—but then the Koreans are very lazy and his inactivity at other periods may have been due ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... braves," the colonel said, as the Franc-tireurs stamped with impatience as they saw the columns crossing the river, while they remained in enforced inactivity. "At first the troops will carry all before them as Vinoy's men have done. The fighting will only commence in earnest when the Prussians bring up their supports. We shall be in time for that, never fear. We ought to have begun at daybreak," he growled, in ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... shall shut thee up for revolving years in darkness tangible; he shall plunge thee deep beneath the surface of the mantled pool, the viscous spume shall draw over thy miserable head its dank and dismal shroud; or perhaps, more ingenious in mischief, he shall chain thee up in inactivity, a conscious statue, the silent and passive witness of the usurped joys that once thou fondly ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... There are many such instances; for though by Hindoo institutions a woman cannot reign, she is the legal regent of a kingdom during the minority of the heir—and minorities are frequent, the lives of the male rulers being so often prematurely terminated through their inactivity and excesses. When we consider that these princesses have never been seen in public, have never conversed with any man not of their own family, except from behind a curtain; that they do not read, and if they did, there is no book in their languages which can give ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... and the clammy air gives a sense of deadly depression; here the atmosphere is pure, the land is open, and there is enjoyment in the mere sense of life. The effete matter in the blood and the fatty degeneration of the muscles, the results of inactivity, imperfect respiration, and F. Po, were soon consumed by the pure oxygen of the highland air. I can attribute this superiority of the Congo region only to the labours of an old civilization now obsolete; none but a thick and energetic population could have cleared off the forest, which at one ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... rapidly and with it the dust that obscured the landscape. That the storm was over he was convinced, but he chafed at the inactivity the low visibility put upon him, nor did conditions better materially before night fell, so that he was forced to await the new day at the very spot at which the tempest had deposited him. Without his sleeping ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... no response of any kind to George Cannon's request for an immediate interview, allowing day after day to pass in inactivity, and wondering the while how she might excuse or explain her singular conduct when circumstances should bring the situation to a head. She knew that she ought either to go over to Turnhill, or write him with an appointment to see her at Lane End House; but she did nothing; nor ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... who formed a neutral-tinted background to his impressive outline. His pictures of course fetched high prices; but he worked slowly—"painfully," as his devotees preferred to phrase it—with frequent intervals of ill health and inactivity, and the circle of Keniston connoisseurs was still as small as it was distinguished. The girl's fancy instantly hailed in him that favorite figure of imaginative youth, the artist who would rather starve than paint a pot-boiler. It is known to comparatively few ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... Park had that peculiar bleakness that foreruns the first promise of spring. The children, that six weeks before were playing in the snow and six weeks later would be searching the turf for dandelions, were in the listless between seasons state of comparative inactivity. There was a deceptive balminess in the air that seemed merely to ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... certainly the fine art which receives most attention in our schools. "So far as the body is concerned," said Horace Mann of these institutions, "they provide for all the natural tendencies to physical ease and inactivity as carefully as though paleness and languor, muscular enervation and debility, were held to be constituent elements in national beauty." With this denial of the body on one side, with this tremendous ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... was as unlucky a phrase as ever was coined. It has led small statesmanship into innumerable blunders, and made second-rate politicians fancy that whenever they folded their arms they were dignified. To obtain the credit for a masterly inactivity, it is first of all essential you should show that you could do something very great if you would. There would be no credit in a man born deaf and dumb having observed a discreet silence. To give England, therefore, ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... to decay here in inactivity, he might as well decay genially, taking his pleasure by the way. He was doing it. Like a gentleman and an officer he tippled the evenings out. Rarely was he drunk beyond a genteel limitation—and after an advanced hour he was ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... intercourse with the rebels of Corsica. Paoli said, he did not expect this from Great Britain. This great man was deservedly proud of his country. "I defy Rome, Sparta, or Thebes," he would say, "to show me thirty years of such patriotism as Corsica can boast!" Availing himself of the respite which the inactivity of the French and the weakness of the Genoese allowed, he prosecuted his plans of civilising the people. He used to say, that though he had an unspeakable pride in the prospect of the fame to which he aspired; yet if he could but render his countrymen happy, he could be content to be forgotten. ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... wait for orders to march to Jerusalem sent some leaders out to take cities over which they might rule, and others to visit the Christian leaders who had already won thrones. But most remained in a demoralizing inactivity until a prodigy of electrical balls of light, or possibly a meteoric shower, started, by various interpretations, the mass into securing their rear by the capture and subjugation of several Syrian cities. In one of these sieges the Saracens threw something like Greek fire down on the besiegers, and ...
— Peter the Hermit - A Tale of Enthusiasm • Daniel A. Goodsell
... France, and had persuaded him that the only safe plan for England was to have nothing to do with the pestilent thing. Disraeli, on the other hand, with a wider grasp of the situation, understood that, in this, at any rate, inactivity was not masterly, and that by boldness the enemy would be hoist with their ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... part of Rome too nothing took place calculated seriously to alter the course of Spanish affairs. The first and chief cause of the inactivity of the Romans was undoubtedly their very want of acquaintance with the circumstances of the remote peninsula—which was certainly also Hamilcar's main reason for selecting Spain and not, as might otherwise have been possible, Africa itself for the execution of his plan. The explanations with ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... 'A life of inactivity gave no balm to my wounded spirit, and I burned for action. Mr. Elliott saw it; "Side with us," said he, "there has been a Tea Party in Boston harbor that will bring thunder ere long, and I will procure you a command;" he did so. I joined the ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... mountains of Malaga, and the successful inroad of Muley Abul Hassan into the lands of Medina Sidonia, had produced a favorable effect on the fortunes of the old monarch. The inconstant populace began to shout forth his name in the streets, and to sneer at the inactivity of his son Boabdil el Chico. The latter, though in the flower of his age and distinguished for vigor and dexterity in jousts and tournaments, had never yet fleshed his weapon in the field of battle; and it was murmured that he ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... time, they no longer find viands to suit them. The primary larva of the Sitaris continues from the autumn to the following spring. Even so the initial form of the Anthrax might well continue, not in inactivity, but in stubborn attempts to overcome ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... amongst our essay-writers, his able encomiums of Old England being a delightful feature of the year. It would be gratifying to speak of Maurice W. Moe's splendid style and terse English at this point, for he is one of our very foremost essayists; but his enforced inactivity in amateur journalism this year has deprived us of any current specimens save the brief editorial in ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... his captivity in the Isle of France, his thoughts were constantly busied with projects for the further exploration of the great southern continent he had lately left. In addition to the chafing weariness of prolonged detention and enforced inactivity, he was constantly haunted by the dread that the French would, after examination of his papers, step in and forestall him in the matter. In a letter to Sir Joseph Banks, dated March 20th, 1806, [See fac-simile of ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... went by without bringing him any despatches, he wearied of inactivity and decided to assume the aggressive. Accordingly he sent a force to a Mexican military post known as Sonoma, which ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... young people knew them not. They were far indeed from Esther's mind as she talked with Dot of the future one afternoon. Instead, her words were full of impatience with the slow march of events, and the enforced inactivity of a girl's ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... by the minister, led her, as was natural, to overestimate their worth and to undervalue her own. With the same spirit, therefore, with which she admired Herbert and Bob for their acts, she condemned her own inactivity, and there in that little room beside the remains of the humble newsboy she resolved that she would be something more than a society girl as her life had hitherto been tending. She had learned a valuable lesson and given place to a purpose as ...
— The Boy Broker - Among the Kings of Wall Street • Frank A. Munsey
... once. If you went back it's just possible that into the fellow's dull mind might steal a ghost of suspicion. I'm ready to take my turn now, though I hate the damned inactivity. I am a presumed illiterate. I struggle over the printed page—and with me loafing in his office he would chat away over his ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... civil war, so difficult has it become, at present, to attain the same end. Painful duties, perhaps, will be imposed on Mr. Lincoln. I wonder, in truth, at the politicians who advise him to a "masterly inactivity," that is, who urge him to continue Mr. Buchanan! Doubtless he does right to leave to the insurgents all the odium of acting on the offensive, but his moderation should detract nothing from his firmness, and it is even of importance that the means ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... excellent recipe for a mob, so they have been quiet accordingly, as we are informed. Two or three other wet nights would do much to weary them out with inactivity. Milman, whom I remember a fine gentlemanlike young man, dined here yesterday. He says the fires have never ceased in his country, but that the oppressions and sufferings occasioned by the poor's rates are very great, and there is no persuading ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... or the pinchings of cold, and the exertions that he makes to avoid these evils, by procuring food, and building himself a covering, are the exercises which form and keep in motion his faculties, which otherwise would sink into listless inactivity. From all that experience has taught us concerning the structure of the human mind, if those stimulants to exertion which arise from the wants of the body were removed from the mass of mankind, ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... Ellerey's mind was busy with the events of the afternoon. For two years he had been in Sturatzberg, ready to seize the opportunity of distinguishing himself whenever it arose. It had not come yet. His life had been passed on a dead level of inactivity, and the stirring times he had hoped for seemed as far away as ever. Many a time had his thoughts gone back to that breezy morning on the downs, and he devoutly wished that Princess Maritza would come to Sturatzberg, ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... remarked your late estrangement from Ellen; and while I guessed, I felt that, however painful to me, I ought to remove, the cause: she loves you—though perhaps you know it not—much and truly; and since my earlier life has been passed in a selfish inactivity, I would fain let it close with the reflection of having served two beings whom I prize so dearly, and the hope that their happiness will commence with ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... varying circumstances, the same blow will evoke responses of different amplitudes. Early in the morning, after the prolonged inactivity of a cold night, we find the plant inclined to be lethargic, and its first answers correspondingly small. But as blow after blow is delivered, this lethargy passes off, and the replies become stronger and stronger. A good way to remove this ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... Unused to physical inactivity, Waring had grown somber of mind these latter days. Despite the promise of more comfortable years, he had never felt more lonely. With the coming of Lorry the old order would change. Young blood, new life would have ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... hills easily defended. It is matter for wonder that Howe, with an army well equipped, did not make some attempt to destroy the army of Washington which passed the winter so near and in acute distress. The Pennsylvania Loyalists, with dark days soon to come, were bitter at Howe's inactivity, full of tragic meaning for themselves. He said that he could achieve nothing permanent by attack. It may be so; but it is a sound principle in warfare to destroy the enemy when this is possible. There was a time when in Washington's whole force not more ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... pivots firm, the weights exactly balanced. Every part, even to the bells, was examined with the minute attention of a physician studying the breast of a patient. Nothing indicated that these clocks were on the point of being affected by inactivity. ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... as President. Professor Charles H. Cooley, '87, has characterized the especial qualities which made for his success as "his faith and his adaptability." Dr. Angell always believed in the tendency of the right to prevail, and was willing to wait with a "masterly inactivity," avoiding too much injudicious assistance. He was always able to maintain a broad and comprehensive view, the attitude of the administrator, and was faithful in his belief in the Higher Power which guides the destiny of men—and universities. His diplomatic genius, the combination ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... at Janus's inactivity, but it would do no good to say so. Janus had done the best he could and had wasted more than a dozen bullets among the rocks of Mt. Washington. They had the stranger's gun, therefore she was reasonably ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... determination, the President and authorities struggled in vain. McClellan treated their arguments and appeals with a want of ceremony amounting at times nearly to contempt; he adhered to his own plan resolutely, and in the end the President gave way. In rueful protest against the continued inactivity of General McClellan, President Lincoln had exclaimed, "If General McClellan does not want to use the army, I would like to borrow it;" and "if something is not soon done, the bottom will be ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... proceeded with the King and Queen of France to Paris, where various transactions took place relative to the internal policy of the country. The court soon removed thence to Senlis, where Henry continued to make his principal abode, till news from the banks of the Loire roused him from inactivity. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... question how the impatient man bore the inactivity imposed upon him, her visitor answered, "Rebelliously enough, but he has already grown quieter, and my sister is fond of him and takes ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Dryden had hitherto been engaged, were of a private complexion, arising out of literary disputes and rivalry. But the country was now deeply agitated by political faction; and so powerful an auxiliary was not permitted by his party to remain in a state of inactivity. The religion of the Duke of York rendered him obnoxious to a large proportion of the people, still agitated by the terrors of the Popish Plot. The Duke of Monmouth, handsome, young, brave, and courteous, ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... even more for a man of my years than his love of approbation. You will be able, at least many of you, to live according to the sentiments which your presence here today reveals, and to do so to the middle of the next century, while I have long been condemned to inactivity and belong to the days that are past. I find consolation in this observation, for the German is not so constituted that he could entirely dismiss in his old age what in his youth inspired him. Forty ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... ground, and they had all hustled off at a great pace, and were gone. I had only bagged one elephant. Where was the valiant Bacheet—the would-be Nimrod, who for the last three months had been fretting in inactivity, and longing for the moment of action, when he had promised to be my trusty gun-bearer? He was the last man to appear, and he only ventured from his hiding-place in the high dhurra when assured of the elephants' retreat. I was obliged to admonish the whole party ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... expected for years. There are two great factors which make for war. One is the character of the Emperor himself, and the other the inevitable rot, which must creep like a disease into a great army kept always upon a war footing, through a decade or more of inactivity. The Emperor is shrewd enough to see this. Nothing can possibly exist at its best which is not used for the purpose to which it owes its existence. That is why we have this flood of literature just now telling us of the gross abuses ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... first place I am going down to the Yard," Field explained. "I am then going to get rid of my correspondence and have my dinner. After that till it gets dark I propose to pursue what Lord Beaconsfield called a policy of masterly inactivity for a time. Once it is really dark, I intend to go as far as Wandsworth Common, and learn something of the gentleman who is lame and has a private hansom painted black. You see, sir, the scene of the story is changed. The next act must be ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... war—I want no enlargement of territory sooner than it would come if we were contented with a masterly inactivity. I abhor war, as I detest slavery. I would not give one human life for all the continent that remains ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... times the strangest, the most unexpected of all the things that had happened since his awakening. It had something of the quality of that inactivity that comes in dreams. A tumult, the stupendous realisation of a world struggle between Ostrog and himself, and then this confined quiet little room with its mouthpieces ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... coming into existence. He first suggested the idea of two opposite directions of the moving power, an attractive and a repelling one: and he believed that originally these two coexisted in a state of repose and inactivity. He also assumed a periodical change of the formation of the world; or perhaps, like the philosophers of the pure Ionic school, a perpetual continuance of pure fundamental substances; to which the parts of the world that are tired of change return, and prepare ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... requisitioned, and all six of us proceeded to Fallow Hill. Not until eleven o'clock would the fun of the fair be suspended, and it was better to be on the spot, even if for the second time we had to come empty away, than to spend the evening in the torment of inactivity. ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... Thus, nitrogen means the producer of niter, nitrogen being a constituent of niter or saltpeter. Hydrogen means water former, signifying its presence in water. Argon means lazy or inert, the element being so named because of its inactivity. (4) Other elements are named from countries or localities, ...
— An Elementary Study of Chemistry • William McPherson
... rode through the slush of the farmyard to the gate and out into the open country, his good little horse, after his long inactivity, stepping out gallantly, snorting over the pools, and asking, as it were, for guidance. If Levin had felt happy before in the cattle pens and farmyard, he felt happier yet in the open country. Swaying rhythmically with the ambling ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... their hands, upsetting all military plans, disgusting every chief, met and talked and carried on their busy intrigues, and played their Sibyl—Sibylle de carrefour, says one of the historians indignantly—against the Maid, who, all discouraged and downcast, fretted by caresses, sick of inactivity, dragged out the uneasy days in an uncongenial world; but Jeanne has left no record of the sensations with which she saw these days pass, eating her heart out, gazing over that rapid river, on the other side of which all the devils were unchained and ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... took care that all was done properly. Putting one of his big boots a little in advance, and drawing himself up to his full shortness, he watched the operation attentively, as if the smallness of his stature had nothing to do with his inactivity. When all was ready, he climbed up to his seat, and at a signal from the station-keeper, who watched with paternal pride all the movements of the little prodigy, we dashed off at a pace rarely attained by post-horses. He had the faculty of emitting a peculiar sound—something between ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... he walked between his oxen in the field, and the skillful tailor handled his gun with as much indifference as he would his smoothing-iron. It was only the reserve guard who were restless; not from fear, but from dissatisfaction with their own inactivity. At times a bold fellow would steal into the house, behind Anton's back, in order to have a chance of firing off his gun in front, and Anton was obliged to place the superintendent at the court-door to prevent this ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... Tired of inactivity, Borrow was in London in December, 1829, at 17, Great Russell Street, W.C., eagerly seeking work, scheming for a work on the Songs of Scandinavia, jointly with Bowring, ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... restless, and rising, began to wander aimlessly about the room; but her uneasiness only increased, and finally, in desperation, she resolved to venture out into the corridor and look about her, no matter at what risk. Anything would be better than this enforced inactivity and suspense. She tried the door with a trembling hand, dreading to find herself locked in, but it was not fastened, and seeing that all was dark outside, she took up a small lamp, that had been left burning on a side table, and boldly setting ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... seemed sheer waste. Thousands of lives wasted—thousands of armless and legless cripples sent back—for nothing. The troops soon realised that it was now hopeless. You can't "kid" a great body of men for long. It became utterly sickening—the inactivity—the waiting—for nothing. And every day we lost men. Men were killed by snipers as they went up to the trenches. The Turkish snipers killed them when they went down to ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... officers, and then disgraced itself by cowardice in the field. Another displayed an almost equal want of courage; and La Fayette, disheartened and perplexed, though the number of his troops still more than doubled those opposed to him, retreated into France, and remained there in a state of complete inactivity. ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... reverses, and our heavy losses fully prove. I admit that a blind confidence in persons around the late envoy—a total want of forethought and foresight on his part—unaccountable indecision at first, followed by cessions which, day by day, rendered our force more helpless—inactivity, perhaps, on some occasions—have led to these reverses; but we must not overlook the effects of climate, the difficulty of communication, the distance from our frontier, and the fanatical zeal of our ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... or physical, of great natural strength, are never reduced to weakness by a period of inactivity. It is those minds and bodies which have been artificially developed by a long course of training to a degree of power they were never intended to possess, which lose that force almost immediately in idleness. The really very strong ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... fragments. I secured one, and it turned out to be part of a huge forty-pounder siege-gun shell. Such a gun would far out-range ours, and I believe the scouts have not located it yet, which explains our inactivity. ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... were engaged was sure to be extreme. But all the old symptoms were misleading at this time, for the twins settled down at once, with lively intelligent interest, to the innocent occupation of studying the ways of the household, their own conduct being distinguished for the most part by a masterly inactivity. For the truth was they were thinking. They had lately taken to reading the books and papers and magazines of the day, which they found in the library at Hamilton House; and at Morne they followed the same ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... at all, and keep myself from helpless dependence upon any one.... The occupation, the mere business of the business, will, I am persuaded, be good rather than bad for me; for though one may be strong against sorrow, sorrow and inactivity combined are too much for any strength. Such a burden might not kill one, but destroy one's vitality to a degree just short of, and therefore worse than, death—crush, instead of ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... occupations suddenly suspended, and moreover, like many men who have followed a wholly peaceful profession, plunged in a dark bewilderment as to the onset of the forces governing the social life of Europe. In the sad inactivity which followed, I set to work to look through my old papers, for the sake of distraction and employment, and found much material almost ready for use, careful notes of conversations, personal reminiscences, jottings of characteristic touches, which seemed as if they could ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... of either game were enabled to play as good ball as they did, not only in Paris but in other cities that we visited after the inactivity of steamer life, the late hours, and the continual round of high living that they indulged in, is a mystery, and one that is past my fathoming, and yet the ball that they put up on many of these occasions that I have spoken of was ball of the championship kind and the sort ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... descending colon, which is also contrary to the assertions of the authors. This is due partly to the fact that the contents of the colon have to rise in opposition to gravity, and partly to the semi-paralyzed condition of the muscular coat of the colon through inactivity. When the accumulations are large, the increased weight of the colon tends to displace it; and if in the transverse colon, that portion may be ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... for a considerable period, until, indeed, his men began to murmur at their protracted inactivity. The cause of this inaction will hardly be divined from the character thus far developed of this stupendous freebooter; but it was the tender passion! He had among his prisoners a beautiful Spanish ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Story-seat itself, I had a longer scrutiny of him. He was dandiacally dressed, seemed to tell something under twenty years and had a handsome wistful face atop of a heavy, lumbering, almost corpulent figure, which however did not betoken inactivity; for David's purple hat (a conceit of his mother's of which we were both heartily ashamed) blowing off as we neared him he leapt the railings without touching them and was back with it in three seconds; only instead of delivering ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... May I was seized with fever for the first time. We reached the town of Linyanti on the 23d; and as my habits were suddenly changed from great exertion to comparative inactivity, at the commencement of the cold season I suffered from a severe attack of stoppage of the secretions, closely resembling a common cold. Warm baths and drinks relieved me, and I had no idea but that I ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... in the paths of glory, and to pour out my soul before you with thanksgiving, would be as impossible as it is for me at present to enjoy that blessing!—The king's affairs, it is true, would suffer nothing by my absence; but, sir, what would the world say of me, if, after a whole year of inactivity and idleness, I flew, on the first appearance of danger, and forsook a prince, by whom I have been so highly favoured?—Instead of the character I have always been ambitious of attaining, should I not be branded with everlasting infamy!—Put not therefore, I beseech you, ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... were among the highest officials and nobles, seconded by the restless and formidable machinations of the Jesuits. When his proofs were complete, he crushed the conspirators at a single grasp. His singular inactivity had disarmed them; and nothing but the most consummate composure could have prevented their flying from justice. On the 12th of January 1759, they were found guilty; and on the 13th they were put to death, to the number of nine, with the Marchioness of Tavora, in the square of Belem. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... stationary at Salzburg till the autumn of 1780, highly dissatisfied at being forced to waste his youthful days in inactivity, and in such an obscure place, but still as busy as ever. A succession of grand instrumental compositions were the fruits of this period: two masses, some vespers, the splendid music for "Konig Thamos," and the operetta "Zaide" ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... those many pleasant iniquities which every great city offers liberally to such handsome, fine gentlemen as himself. He actually proposed, just so soon as Katherine could conveniently spare him, to decline from the splendid inactivity of the Guards, upon the hard work of some line regiment under orders for foreign service. Ormiston was quite affected by contemplation of his own good resolutions. He appeared to himself in a really pathetic light. He would like to have told Mary Cathcart all about it and have ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... had rushed into the outer darkness in the wake of the highwayman returned presently. Mere impulse and swift natural reaction from their former enforced inactivity rather than any hope of success had sent them hot-foot on the pursuit. The noisy, windy night, the absolute dark, obviated all possibility of coming up with him. Grumbling and theorising, they returned to the room and ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... of the dying man! One other week and his mortal coil would be shuffled off; in one short week would God resume his soul, and set it apart for its irrevocable doom; seven more tedious days and nights of senseless inactivity, and all would be over for poor Bell in this world; and yet, with his last audible words, he was demanding his moneyed rights, and asserting himself to be the proper heir of John Hiram's bounty! Not on him, poor sinner as he was, be the load ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... and their new friend weary with suspense and their long inactivity. All longed for a stroll in the open air, a chance to stretch their legs, and an unlimited supply of water to drink. It almost seemed that their meager allowance of a pint and a half each for the twenty-four hours did little more than increase their thirst. They could not safely ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... cruiser, though larger and of far less aerial mould and fashion, presented the same picture of repose. The distance between the two was about a league; and Bonnie was sufficiently familiar with the formation of the land and of the position of the vessels, to be quite aware that this inactivity on the part of those whose duty it was to protect the rights of the Queen, proceeded from their utter ignorance of the proximity of their neighbor. The thicket which bounded the Cove and the growth of oaks ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... afternoon, after their destroyers had carefully swept the anchorage in search of mines; and it was my hope that—we having left them alone for the preceding two days—they would by this time be getting suspicious of such unwonted inactivity on our part, and consequently would send out one, or perhaps even two ships, to guard against a possible coup ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... suppressed by the police. After several futile attempts at self-expression, he returns to his street corner subdued and so far discouraged that when he has the next impulse to vigorous action he concludes that it is of no use, and sullenly settles back into inactivity. He thus learns to persuade himself that it is better to do nothing, or, as the psychologist would say, "to inhibit his ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams
... see that she was puzzled, perhaps a little annoyed. Last night in a malicious moment she had been quite ready to sneer at her husband's inactivity, but now, with the situation a matter of practice rather than theory, Starratt felt that she was having her misgivings. A suggestion of a frown hovered above her ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... of the concerts). Hans was confined to bed at the Bairischer Hof; his nervous rheumatic complaint has now settled in his left arm, which he will probably be unable to move for several weeks to come. In addition to the physical pain he suffers most grievously from this enforced state of inactivity. To endure things patiently is to some natures an absolute impossibility. He travelled back to Berlin, ill as he was, last Saturday, accompanied by his wife, and I have promised to go and spend a couple of days with him after my visit to Prince Hohenzollern ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... and no village where a bookstore exists, that has not copies of, or information concerning, the book within a short time of its coming from the press. After this is done, patience is necessary and a period of comparative inactivity ensues. The book is before the people, and it is necessary to wait for their verdict. There are many ways of "puffing" a book. Clever advertising will do much. Window displays and all the other arts resorted to by bookseller and publisher sell copies; but unless the people take to it, unless it ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... work of destruction going on in the city of Quebec, by the fire from Point Levi, and the ceaseless cannonade kept up by the ships and Wolfe's batteries; added to the inactivity to which they were condemned, began to dispirit the Canadian militia, and many desertions took place, the men being anxious to return to their villages and look after the crops; and many more would have deserted, had it not been for the persuasion ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... and earnestly. He was a fine fellow, that captain. He had been a sub-lieutenant in the Zouaves, was tall and thin and as hard as steel, and during the whole campaign had given a great deal of trouble to the Germans. He fretted in inactivity and could not accustom himself to the idea of being a prisoner and of ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... is to be feared; this inactivity, to my mind, proves it. He is waiting; the moment is not ripe. There are many sentimental fools in this world. One has only to step into the street and shout 'Down with!' or 'Long live!' to bring these fools ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... however, that I am offering you quite enough to enable you to buy either the silence or the inactivity of your fellow criminals. Two hundred thousand roubles is a good deal of money, and your gang cannot be so large that you will not be able to afford a sufficient sum to ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... a morbid state of mind, no conditions could have been more favourable than the enforced inactivity to which, with many another, he was condemned for the long dark months during which the ice put a stop to navigation. To his restless, energetic nature, such prolonged inaction was little suited under any circumstances, ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... cannot assume command." French and Howard agreed with Hancock, but Couch remained imperturbable, saying, "When I am properly informed that General Hooker is disabled and not in command, I shall assume the duty which will devolve upon me." And so hour after hour passed of inactivity at this most critical juncture. They said it was plain Lee was making simply a show of force in our front whilst he had detached a large part of his army and was driving Sedgwick before him down at Fredericksburg. Now, why this period ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... the deficiencies of it; the diseases of this country, except those which are the consequences of drunkenness, or of immoderate exercise, more frequently begin with torpor than with orgasm; that is, with inactivity of some parts, or of the whole of the system, and consequent coldness, than with increased activity, ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... Perikles thought that it would be a very serious matter to fight for the very existence of Athens against sixty thousand Peloponnesian and Boeotian[A] heavy-armed troops, and so he pacified those who were dissatisfied at his inactivity by pointing out that trees when cut down quickly grow again, but that when the men of a State are lost, it is hard to raise up others to take their place. He would not call an assembly of the people, because he feared that they would force him to act against his better judgment, ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... assistance; was, however, deeply concerned that it was now, unfortunately, not in Edward's power exactly to comply with the plan which had been chalked out by his best friend and benefactor. He himself had thought with pain on the boy's inactivity, at an age when all his ancestors had borne arms; even Royalty itself had deigned to inquire whether young Waverley was not now in Flanders, at an age when his grandfather was already bleeding for his king in the Great Civil War. This was accompanied by an offer of ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... strange and dismal fancy, that though the Almighty was a God of goodness and justice, it was quite impossible that He should love any beings so sinful and ungrateful as the human race. This vain distinction of a morbid imagination was the result of that solitude, inactivity, and the constantly dwelling upon himself and his own troubles, to which he had unfortunately given himself up, and which had brought his mind into such an unhealthy state, that he could neither reason nor ...
— The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales • Mrs. Alfred Gatty
... her book upon her knee and gave him a smile by way of welcome. He looked unusually tall as he stood in the broad, low entrance; his ten days of sickness and inactivity had made ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... At the door of the largest a pair of children sported in the solitude, as fearlessly as the birds on Selkirk's island; looking into the hotel, he saw a few porters and call-boys seated in statuesque repose against the wall, while the clerk pined in dreamless inactivity behind the register; some deserted ladies flitted through the door of the parlor at the side. He recalled the evening of his former visit, when he and Isabel had met the Ellisons in that parlor, and it seemed, in the retrospect, a scene of the wildest ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... should avoid all vocations which confine him within small areas, pin him down to inactivity or ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... the England of King James. And the tone of many of these productions discloses an affectionate familiarity that speaks for the amiable personality and sound worth of the laureate. In 1619, growing unwieldy through inactivity, Jonson hit upon the heroic remedy of a journey afoot to Scotland. On his way thither and back he was hospitably received at the houses of many friends and by those to whom his friends had recommended ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... stranded in lonely splendour in a sumptuous West Side hotel, with a father compelled to seek a semblance of social life at the hotel bar, and a mother deprived of even this contact with her kind, and reduced to illness by boredom and inactivity. Poor Mrs. Spragg had done her own washing in her youth, but since her rising fortunes had made this occupation unsuitable she had sunk into the relative inertia which the ladies of Apex City regarded as one of the prerogatives of affluence. ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... scanty preparation for war is a proof of how little the Central Powers reckoned on such a contingency it may on the other hand explain away much apparent inactivity on the part of their representatives. Karl Fuerstenberg, my predecessor at Bucharest, whose estimate of the situation was a just one, demanded to have more funds at his disposal, which was refused at Vienna on the plea ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... Theaetetus; and there are plenty of other proofs which will show that motion is the source of what is called being and becoming, and inactivity of not-being and destruction; for fire and warmth, which are supposed to be the parent and guardian of all other things, are born of movement and of friction, which is a kind of motion;—is not this the ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... undoubtedly brave its intangible rigor, but ordinary offenders will dread it as a condemnation which destroys their position in the world, casts a blight upon their honor, and condemns them to a shameful inactivity worse than death. The influence exercised in the United States upon the progress of society by the jurisdiction of political bodies may not appear to be formidable, but it is only the more immense. It does not act directly upon the governed, but it renders the majority more ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... the same reason the domestic politics of these years require only the briefest notice. Palmerston's Ministry produced very little social legislation, and the fact that Lord John was at the Foreign Office, while the Prime Minister led the Commons, increased the legislative inactivity of a Government which, with Palmerston at its head, would in any case have changed little in the country. Gladstone's budgets and Cobden's Free-Trade Treaty with France were the important events. Between 1860 and 1864 the taxation of the country was reduced ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... imperative than that of a remote and fancied liberty. These cases attended to, the militia came forth, struck a few blows, and once more returned to their destitute dependents. The victory over the Tories of Black Mingo, was, from this cause, followed by a more than usually prolonged inactivity of our partisan. His men demanded a respite to go and see their families. He consented, with some reluctance, for the business of the campaign was only beginning to open itself before him. They promised him, as usual, to return ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... were in it yourself. Now, what are you going to do about it?" And, unrebuked and unrestrained, he turned and walked out of the room, leaving the august body, startled, grimly smiling and reduced to a helpless pulp of inactivity. ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... peevishly arrogant, except upon provocation. The conduct of the tender Italian dames was vexatious. It was exasperating to these knights of the slumbering sword to hear their native waltzes sounding of exquisite Vienna, while their legs stretched in melancholy inactivity on the Piazza pavement, and their arms encircled no ductile waists. They tried to despise it more than they disliked it, called their female foes Amazons, and their male by a less complimentary title, and so waited for the patriotic epidemic ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the girls did not venture far from the bungalow on the river, but soon they tired of comparative inactivity and planned a little cruise, down stream this time, past Lake Chad, and up another ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... in the luxury of "sleep-walking." He had not been questioned in regard to the blood upon the seats of the Greyhound, for, being asleep when the stains were made, of course he would know nothing about them. Mr. Presby explained his inactivity and want of energy upon philosophical principles, and every ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... the party joyously made preparations for return. It had been an eventless search for the brave knight, Tristram, and these men hated inactivity. ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... Buzz—extensively as to distances, if not as to people. By the voyageurs, and other French of that region, he was almost universally styled le Bourdon^ or the "Drone"; not, however, from his idleness or inactivity, but from the circumstances that he was notorious for laying his hands on the products of labor that proceeded from others. In a word, Ben Boden was a "bee-hunter," and as he was one of the first to exercise his craft ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... method of the general never to operate except with superior masses, his cumbrous and tedious movements, and the discord of the coalition may perhaps explain in some measure, though not excuse, the inactivity of the land-force; but that the fleet, which commanded the Mediterranean without a rival, should have thus done nothing to influence the course of affairs—nothing for Spain, next to nothing for the faithful Massiliots, nothing to defend Sardinia, Sicily, Africa, or, if not ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... offer gladly, and his young officers, in all eagerness, seconded him. They were tiring of inactivity, and of the cramped and painful life in the trenches. To be on horseback again, riding over hills and across valleys, seemed almost Heaven to them, and, as Colonel Hertford walked away, earnest injunctions to use his influence to ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the acquirement of sight by the normal newly-born child and the infant with that of those born blind, we should, above all, bear in mind that the latter in general could make use of only one eye, and also that on account of the long inactivity of the retina and the absence of the crystalline lens, as well as in consequence of the numerous experiences of touch, essential differences exist. Notwithstanding this, there appears an agreement in the manner in which in both cases vision is learned, the eye is practiced, and the association ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... participation in the two Balkan wars, restricting their activities to the exertion of their various influences for as just a settlement as was possible under the circumstances when the time for settlement had arrived in 1913. In spite of the inactivity of the powers there can be no doubt that their respective attitudes at that time toward the various Balkan States and their ambitions had an important influence on the latter's attitude toward the various powers after the war of 1914 had ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... formal rules of morality has been given in the extracts above, nor does the epic in this regard differ much from the law-books. Every man's first duty is to act; inactivity is sinful. The man that fails to win a good reputation by his acts, a warrior, for example, that is devoid of fame, a 'man of no account,' is a bh[u]mivardhana, [Greek: achthos aroures] a cumberer of earth (iii. 35. 7). A proverb says that man should ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... part of the "legale testimonium;" Mr. Francis Butzkay, the lawyer, came to his aid with his stumpy, short-limbed figure: he had gazed for a time in passive inactivity at the fruitless struggle of his principal ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... her memory charged with one of those griefs or deceptions, which enable the weaklings, or those who demand too little of life, to imagine that passive fidelity to something that has of itself collapsed is an act of virtue; that inactivity is justified by the tears wherein it is bathed; and that the duty of life is accomplished when suffering has been made to yield up all its resignation ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... had concluded it might do, I very seldom put off the consequent action. I found I was wrong sometimes, and that the particular action did no good; but thus movement was kept up in my operative nature, preventing it from sinking towards the inactivity to which I was but too much inclined. Besides, to find out what will not do, is a step towards finding out what will do. Moreover, an attempt in itself unsuccessful may set something or other in ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... I fancied that his light was more sorrowful than the light of the setting sun should be, and I began to feel very heavy at the heart. No sooner had the last brilliant spark of his light vanished, than I felt the stone under me begin to move. With the inactivity of a dreamer, however, I did not care to rise, but wondered only what would come next. My seat, after several strange tumbling motions, seemed to rise into the air a little way, and then I found that I was astride of a gaunt, ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... Philip. "There's nothing to cheer me up about. The question is simply this: Can I stand a period of several years' enforced inactivity as a mere pensioner?" ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... of some exceptional literary or political appointment. The others may console themselves with the thought that in spite of a still deeper degree of poverty, towards which they are sinking by their own inactivity, the hell of mechanical work, by no means abolished, will probably be a little reduced, so far as regards the time they spend in it. The notion that mechanical work will be made acceptable and reconciled with intellectual, if only it is short enough and properly paid, has never ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau
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