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More "Indolent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not forget that it was still a mere suspicion, which must be endorsed by investigation if the people were to be convinced. And Stephen was unprepared to offer the results of his investigation to a populace which was too indolent and hasty to investigate them as facts and to discriminate nicely between the shades of guilt. Anderson was loved and admired by his countrymen and more especially by his countrywomen. Everything, it seemed, would be forgiven ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... back after removing the coal-scuttle, Tommy Brock was lying a little more sideways; but he seemed even sounder asleep. He was an incurably indolent person; he was not in the least afraid of Mr. Tod; he was simply too ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... here by some who wish well to you, and as I go to London in the spring, I shall, together with Mr. Wedderburn and Mr. Elliot, consider what are the most prudent measures to take for your sake, or whether to take any. Mr. Smith is too busy or too indolent, but I flatter myself Dr. Black will be happy to make out this memorial for you. Let me know if I have any chance of seeing you this winter. I have none of being at Glasgow, and therefore wish you and Mr. Smith would come here, or you by yourself would come ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... an astonishing amount of what is called "reading matter" rolling out of our presses every year; while, significantly, we are producing very few books of permanent literary value. If the college study of literature is to encourage this indolent receptive temper, and relax the intellectual fiber of the student, then we might better drop it from the curriculum. The student must somehow learn that the book that is worth while will tax his ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... been asked with a royal air, and Memmi had ardently kissed the beautiful and guileless hand. Then he suddenly started up in a rage with himself, and left the Duchess. Massimilla remained in her indolent attitude on the sofa; but she wept, wondering how, young and handsome as she was, she could fail to please Emilio. Memmi, on the other hand, knocked his head against the tree-trunks like ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... came they found that the smith was nearly through his work. They stood watching him as he was driving in one of the last nails, feeling a kind of indolent curiosity in the work, when suddenly there arose in the road behind them a frightful outburst of shrieks and cries. The smith dropped the horse's foot and the hammer, and started up. Dudleigh and Edith also turned by a quick movement to see ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... found himself face to face with Madame Volmar, and their glances met. However, he gave no sign of recognition, and on her side there was but a slight sudden drooping of the eyelids. She had again assumed the air of a languid, indolent, black-robed woman, who modestly shrinks back, well pleased to escape notice. Her brasier-like eyes no longer glowed; it was only at long intervals that they kindled into a spark beneath the veil of indifference, the ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... aware that bears, being of rather an indolent disposition, are not accustomed to hoard up a store of provision for their wants in winter, but prefer—in their own country, at least—sleeping through the short dreary days and long bitter nights, and thus avoid the necessity of taking food for some weeks, although they ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes
... chatting in the indolent stile of men who were to stay here all this day at least, we were suddenly roused at being told that the wind was fair, that a little fleet of herring-busses was passing by for Mull, and that Mr Simpson's vessel was about to sail. Hugh M'Donald, the skipper, came ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... enemies of the king, as they had wrongfully said of Roland, who had but done his duty faithfully to Queen Isabella, and was assuredly no enemy of her son, although he might well be opposed to the weak and indolent king, his father. However, when the search relaxed I borrowed the cloak of the good man's wife and set out for London, whither I have traveled on foot, believing that you and Bertha would take me in and shelter me in ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... the cause of his depression. There was Mr Ashton, the vicar, who had succeeded Mr. Browning, a thoroughly good and kind- hearted man, but one without an original thought in him; whose habitual courtesy and indolent mind led him to agree to every opinion, not palpably heterodox, and to utter platitudes in the most gentlemanly manner. Mr. Gibson had once or twice amused himself, by leading the vicar on in his agreeable admissions of arguments ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... fleets sought gold and peafowl and monkeys in the jungles of the Peninsula, as everybody knows. Above the rapids the Malays plant enough gambir to supply the wants of the whole betel-chewing population of Pahang, and, as the sale of this commodity wins them a few dollars annually, they are too indolent to plant their own rice. This grain, which is the staple of all Malays, without which they cannot live, is therefore sold to them by down river natives, at the exorbitant price of half ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... useful, and consequently happy; and more especially that thou mayest combat that false principle of honour, or rather of intolerable pride and folly, which so strongly prevails in our nation, where the most indolent, and the least useful, fancy themselves, and are reputed the most noble. Let us endeavour to make them sensible that men are noble, but in exact proportion with their being rational. The happiness which ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... learned from various reliable sources," the detective replied, "that Ralph Mainwaring has a younger brother, Harold, who is as much of a money-lover as himself, though too indolent to take the same measures for acquiring it. He is a reckless, unprincipled fellow, and having about run through his own property, I understand, he has had great expectations regarding this American estate, depending upon his share ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... bower, All flush'd or frosted with forest flower In the warm sun's wanton glances; And I grew deaf to the song bird—blind To blossom that sweeten'd the sweet spring wind— I saw her only—a girl reclined In her girlhood's indolent trances. ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... policy of the Church makes itself felt everywhere, high and low; and by long habit the people have become indolent and supine. The splendid robes of ecclesiastical Rome have a draggled fringe of beggary and vice. What a change there might be, if the energies of the Italians, instead of rotting in idleness, could have a free scope! Industry is the only purification of a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... the towns and cities women help in their husbands' shops, as in France, and while they may not always possess the energy and business skill which characterize the French women, they are at least no more indolent and easy-going than their male companions. The women of the nobility are often less educated than their plebeian sisters, and for the most part lead a very narrow and petty existence, which produces ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... proficiency does not appear to have been brilliant. He was indolent and careless, however, rather than dull, and, on the whole, appears to have been well thought of by his teachers. In his studies he inclined toward the Latin poets and historians; relished Ovid and Horace, and delighted in ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... from Marivaux, Lesage, Prevost, and Voltaire downwards, and glances, sometimes with actual comptes rendus, at pieces of the class not included. That it is conducted on the somewhat irresponsible and indolent principles of its time might be anticipated from previous things, such as the clause in the Preface to Wieland's just noticed book, that the author had "gone to Weimar, where perhaps he is still," an observation which, from the context, seems not to be so ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... in the newspapers that the Sultan of Priok, when visiting an aviation camp, was so overcome by the heat that he had to be carried away, regaining consciousness on arriving at his quarters. However, the attack may have been induced to some extent by general lack of exercise and the indolent life that characterises his compatriots who ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... colder, or a night-march has miscarried. Then you never wish to see the sun rise again. There was a time when a man who boasted that he had never seen the sun rise was branded as a lazy sloth, an indolent good-for-nothing, who willingly missed half the pleasures of life. After twenty months continuous trekking in South Africa one is not sure that one's opinions on this subject fall into line with those of the majority. For after a baker's dozen of sunrises one has generally reached that ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... you haven't any principles," Mrs. Armiger declared; and Alexa Glennard, lifting an indolent smile, said: "I shall never write ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... long time he was unsuspected, and indeed, if he had been, he cared very little about it. He went from tribe to tribe, living an indolent life, which suited his taste perfectly; and as he was very necessary to the Indians as an interpreter during their bartering transactions with the Whites, he was allowed to do just as he pleased. He was, however, fond of shifting from tribe to tribe, and the traders seeing him now with ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... on the hall table, swinging his foot and regarding the spectacle with the indolent curiosity that one might exhibit toward the gambols of some ugly new importation of the Zoological Society. When the story was told he ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... by the wreckage of those wars it would have become Italy's mainstay through the Empire. The earlier Romans and Latins who had first accepted colonial allotments or had migrated severally there for over a century were of sterner stuff than the indolent remnants that had drifted to the city's corn cribs. These frontiersmen had come while the Italic stock was still sound, not yet contaminated by the freedmen of Eastern extraction. Cities like Cremona and Mantua were truer guardians of the ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank
... could see, beneath a confusion of black eyelashes and dark eyebrow, that the blue eyes looked straight out in front of her, her arm lay along the wicker side-rest of the chair, languid, indolent, relaxed. ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... plausible grounds for their judgement. Many circumstances contributed to qualify him in a very special degree for the task which, looking at his letters in that light, he may be said to have undertaken. His birth, as the son of a great minister; his comparative opulence; even the indolent insignificance of his elder brothers, which caused him to be looked upon as his father's representative, and as such to be consulted by those who considered themselves as the heirs of his policy, while the leader of that party in the House of Commons, General Conway, was his cousin, and the ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... as German. It worked on a poor material, morally considered; among peoples who have not been distinguished for stamina of character, earnestness, contemplative habits, and moral elevation,—peoples long enslaved, frivolous in their pleasures, superstitious, indolent, fond of fetes, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... was indolent. I was accustomed to pass the day with my mistress; my greatest pleasure was to take her through the fields on beautiful summer days, the sight of nature in her splendor having ever been for me the most powerful ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... will pay the least attention to him. It is, at all events, too late in the day for we 'Saxons' to be either cajoled or amused by such nonsense. An overwhelming majority of the Irish people have been proved indolent beyond all parallel, and not much more provident than those unhappy savages who sell their beds in the morning, not being able to foresee they shall again require them at night. A want of forethought so remarkable, and indolence so abominable, as characterize ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... adroit phrases as would catch the ear of a listening, applauding audience. Straight, hard thinking was not the road to political preferment in Clay's day. Calhoun had that power, as Lincoln had it. Webster had the capacity for it, although he was too indolent to employ his great gifts steadily. Yet it was Webster who analyzed kindly and a little sadly, for he was talking during Clay's last illness and just before his own, his old rival's defect in literary quality: "He was never a man of books.... I could never ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... in the Gardens at Naples, some four or five gentleman were seated under a tree, drinking their sherbet, and listening, in the intervals of conversation, to the music which enlivened that gay and favourite resort of an indolent population. One of this little party was a young Englishman, who had been the life of the whole group, but who, for the last few moments, had sunk into a gloomy and abstracted reverie. One of his countrymen observed this sudden gloom, and, tapping him ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Mowbray, with his calm sadness, "you should not thus allow your time to be absorbed in indolent lounging. A man has his career in the world to run, and college is the threshold. If you enter the world ignorant and awkward—and the greatest genius is awkward if ignorant—you will find the mere fops of the day pass you in the course. ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... then unprovided with the slightest artificial contrivance for the betterment of its naturally unhygienic conditions. There was no systematic drainage, and the entire refuse matter of an ignorant and indolent population might have been left to fester under the rays of a tropical sun during the dry season, had it not been for the zopilotes, or turkey-buzzards, which, protected by law, had multiplied to ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... all ignorant men—are beginning to be alarmed at the press of women into other—I had almost said any other—avenues of labor than that of housewifery. Eagerness to break up housekeeping and try boarding for a while, in order "to get rested out," is not confined to the incompetent and the indolent. Nor is it altogether the result of the national discontent with "the greatest plague ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... but I thought I saw the indolent Bimbo suddenly start at the word "bushrangers," and his apparently heavy-looking eyes were lighted up with an energetic look that I little expected from a man such as his outward appearance denoted. Whether my surmises were correct or not, the man resumed ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... up at her blankly, his laughing, impertinent brown face sobered at once by the sight of her own. He made a reply in Italian, raising his shoulders. Some ill-dressed, loafing stragglers on the wharf drew near Sylvia with an indolent curiosity. She turned to them and asked, "Do any of you speak English?" although it was manifestly inconceivable that any of those typical Neapolitans should. One of them stepped forward, running his hand through greasy ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... store cattle, or accustoming them to change of food, are eminently practical. After speaking of the desirableness of providing a good stock of vegetables, he continues,—"And yet, after all, how many indolent farmers remain, who for want of spring food are forced to turn their cattle out to grass before it is ready for pasture! which not only starves the cattle, but lays the grass-roots open to be ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... without sashes, were women, scantily covered, sounding every note in a scale from black to white. Yet, Lee observed, the whitest were, essentially, black. What amazed, disturbed, him was their indolent blinking indifference, their indecent imperviousness, in the ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... world, or to enforce his opinions upon others, rarely becomes a learned man. A great many confused, dreamy ideas, no doubt, float through the brain of such a man; but he has little exact and reliable knowledge. The truth is, there is a sort of indolent, listless absorption of intellectual food, that tends to idiocy. I knew a person once, a gentleman of wealth and leisure, who having no taste for social intercourse, and no material wants to be supplied, which might have required the active exercise of his powers, gave himself up entirely ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... refugees, from peripatetic philosophers to indolent aborigines, the testimony of her charm can be gathered. I speak as a victim. I love England with a fervour born of admiration (without admiration no one ever falls in love). I love her ways and her mind, ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... the old school of the dance, Lanyard was unversed in that graceless scamper which to-day passes as the waltz with a generation largely too indolent or too inept of foot to learn ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... Thirty-Years War, and the still dolefuler spiritual atrophy (the flaccid Pedantry, ever rummaging and rearranging among learned marine-stores, which thinks itself Wisdom and Insight; the vague maunderings, flutings; indolent, impotent daydreaming and tobacco-smoking, of poor Modern Germany) which has followed therefrom,—ACH GOTT, he might have been a "SUCCESS of a Fritz" three times over! He might have been a German Cromwell; ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... navigation. The Thames managed better for York's upstart rival London, and yet the Ouse is not destitute of sea or river craft. These were of both steam and sail, and I myself have witnessed the energy with which the reluctance of the indolent stream is sometimes overcome. I do not suppose that anywhere else, when the wind is low, is a vessel madly hurled through the water at a mile an hour by means of a rope tied to its mast and pulled by a fatherly old horse under the intermittent ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... and for the first time was aware of the presence of the indolent figure in the doorway. The glow of a cigarette was at the man's lips, but the ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... Throes, rebuffs, even failure to achieve what we wish, are to be welcomed, for the effects of vigorous endeavor inweave themselves into our characters; moreover through struggle we lift ourselves from the degradation into which the indolent fall. In the intervals of strife we may look back dispassionately upon what we have gone through, see where we erred and where we did wisely, watch the workings of universal laws, and resolve to apply hereafter what we have ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... pleasant summons to a Creole ball. With one glance I made a mental picture of him—a young, high-bred face, marred somewhat by dissipation and late hours, yet beneath that dim light appearing almost boyishly fresh, and bearing upon its every feature the plain impress of reckless humor, and indolent content. It was the face of a youth rather than a man; of one more accustomed to looking upon gay companions at the club than on the horrors of a battlefield; one who could justly be expected to boast of fair conquests, yet who might prove somewhat slow at drawing sword to front ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... interrupted Harry; "it was given me for a certain purpose, to wit, the reconquest of the country and its restoration to its former owners. But since the people are too indolent and too self- indulgent to allow me to do this for them, of course I have no claim upon the treasure, and could not possibly dream of appropriating it to ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... cannot express the pleasure your letter and that of your Lorchen caused me. An answer speedy as an arrow's flight ought indeed to have responded, but I am always rather indolent about writing, because I think that the better class of men know me sufficiently without this. I often compose the answer in my head, but when I wish to write it down I generally throw aside the pen, from not ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... happen.) The Vicar was struck at the time by the fact that, after all, no one on earth had the slightest idea of what this great monster thought about when he saw fit to rest from his labours. But he was too indolent to follow up that new theme that day; he fell back from its suggestion into his ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... the chronic state of the disease presents a rather dry, indolent and bluish appearance, except that here and there the tissues show more activity of the disease, more especially so over the anal region, due to harsher disturbance during the act of stooling. ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... extended observation, it should be found that the same ominous groups of cases clusterings about individual practitioners were observed in a remote country, at different times, and in widely separated regions, it would seem incredible that any should be found too prejudiced or indolent to accept the solemn truth knelled into their ears by the funeral bells from both sides of the ocean—the plain conclusion that the physician and the disease entered, hand in hand, into the ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... doctor, yet she does not seem to have been one bit in love. He was too grave and good, though as devoted a lover as could be asked for. It was a queer match and a dangerous experiment, but after a while their mutual qualities adjusted themselves. He kept her steady, and she roused him from indolent repose. As a critic of that time says: "She was as bustling, restless, energetic and pushing as he was modest, retiring and unaffected." Lover gives this picture of them: "There was Lady Morgan, with her irrepressible vivacity, her humor ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... the most crude implements, and have but very little knowledge of farming, and are too indolent to put into practice what little they do know of soils and crops. It seems to make little difference what season they plant in. The climate is always warm, most of the year extremely hot; too hot for an American or white man, ...
— A Soldier in the Philippines • Needom N. Freeman
... in the plains, and hunted the buffaloes; dressed well; were cleanly; rich in horses; bold, independent, and good warriors. The War-are-ree-kas lived chiefly by fishing, and were found on the banks of the rivers and lakes throughout the country. They were more corpulent, slovenly, and indolent than the Shirry-dikas, and more peaceful. The Banattees, as we have before mentioned, were the robbers of the mountains. They were a wild and contemptible race, and at enmity with every one. In summer they went about nearly naked. In winter they clothed themselves in the skins of rabbits ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... hand. When he was not singing, he stood looking like a sulky child. When he began to sing the first recitative, it went tolerably well, but every now and then he gave a kind of shriek, which I could not bear. He sang the arias in a most indolent way, and yet some of the notes with too much emphasis, which is not what I like. This has been an invariable habit of his, which the Bernacchi school probably entails; for he is a pupil of Bernacchi's. At court, too, he used to sing all kinds of airs which, ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... condition in their native country, where they were the victims of idolatry, barbarism, and war. The negroes imported were usually between the ages of fourteen and thirty, two-thirds of them being males. The new negro, just transferred from the wilds of a distant continent, was indolent, ignorant of the modes and implements of labor, and of the language of his master and, perhaps, of his fellow-laborers. To tame and domesticate, to instruct in the modes of industry, and to reduce to subordination and usefulness a barbarian, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... their littleness. He did not at this time profess the austere devotion which, at a later period, gave to his court the aspect of a monastery. On the contrary, he was as licentious, though by no means as frivolous and indolent, as his brother of England. But he was a sincere Roman Catholic; and both his conscience and his vanity impelled him to use his power for the defence and propagation of the true faith, after the example of his renowned predecessors, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of his indolent habits, which were incorrigible, young Montgomery was removed from the seminary at Fulneck, and placed in the shop of a baker at Mirfield, in the vicinity. He was then in his sixteenth year; and having already afforded evidence of a refined taste, both in poetry and music, though ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... stuck into a bladder came the heckling. Denson, that indolent, liberal-minded sceptic, did most of the questioning. He lay contorted in a chair, with his ugly head very low, his legs crossed and his left boot very high, and he pointed his remarks with a long ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... over, the crowd dispersed, and now that the speeches had been read, each one fell back into his place again, and everything into the old grooves; the masters bullied the servants, and these struck the animals, indolent victors, going back to the stalls, a ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... but, with deliberate mind I say, that I have never seen anything so ghastly in its inner tragic meaning,—not in Pisan Maremma—not by Campagna tomb,—not by the sand-isles of the Torcellan shore,—as the slow stealing of aspects of reckless, indolent, animal neglect, over the delicate sweetness of that English scene: nor is any blasphemy or impiety—any frantic saying or godless thought—more appalling to me, using the best power of judgment I have to discern its sense and scope, than the ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... poverty, also in accumulation enough, lies impassably separated from it; opposed, uncommunicating, like forces in positive and negative poles. The gods of this lower world sit aloft on glittering thrones, less happy than Epicurus's gods, but as indolent, as impotent; while the boundless living chaos of ignorance and hunger welters, terrific in its dark fury, under their feet. How much among us might be likened to a whited sepulcher: outwardly all pomp and strength, ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... with some trouble and expense, has been brought to the state in which you see it, will afford to the poorest people an opportunity of giving to their children some share of education, and I will not suppose that anybody can be so indolent, and so unprincipled, as not to exact from their children a regular attendance upon it. I sincerely exhort you, and beg of you now, for the last time, that after this institution has been got into some ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... further, and something red gleamed, among the trees and undergrowth. Smoke was observed at the same moment, and immediately after came the hum of voices and the sight of persons stretched on the ground in lolling, indolent positions, while some were sitting on a fallen tree, and two were engaged in broiling some venison, which evidently was meant to furnish dinner for the rest. The majority were smoking a species of red clay pipe, and the appearance of the party suggested that they were resting after a laborious ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... reverse. Feeble, languid, and inert, sitting motionless for hours at her window, or moving her small fingers over the strings of her guitar, to some soft and languishing air, she would have seemed to a stranger incapable of rousing herself from that indolent repose, in which mind as well as body participated. But, the slightest disregard of her commands—and sometimes even the neglect to anticipate her wishes, on the part of the servants; was sufficient to awake her. The inanimate and delicate ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Holland, so that this venerable masterpiece was at least forty years old. But what would you have? It is the passions which wear out body as well as soul, the clothes as well as the body; and our worthy burgomaster, apathetic, indolent, indifferent, was passionate in nothing. He wore nothing out, not even himself, and he considered himself the very man to administer the affairs of ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... a faultful temper, which, having so mighty a power of realization at command, never became so much interested in any fact of human history as to spend one touch of heartfelt skill upon it;—which, yielding momentarily to indolent imagination, ended, at best, in a Puck, or a Thais; a Mercury as Thief, or a Cupid as Linkboy. How wide the interval between this gently trivial humor, guided by the wave of a feather, or arrested by the enchantment of a smile,—and the habitual dwelling of the thoughts of the great ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... not a banking bubble by which he had not lost, nor a mining company of vast promise and brief existence in which he had not held shares. Uncompromisingly averse to the jog-trot work of ordinary mortals. Bill was neither indolent nor timid in his own peculiar fashion of seeking riches. He would have gone up in a balloon to any height, or down in a diving-bell to depths yet unsounded, had the promise been large enough; and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... stir up his rather indolent-minded Grace—he did not mean the countess to hear it; but some people's eyes and ears are wonderfully quick at gathering what is to their own credit, and Kate, who had not heard a bit of commendation for a long ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... mistook his talent after all. He used to be very much dissatisfied that I preferred his Letters to his Sermons. The last were forced and dry; the first came naturally from him. For ease, half-plays on words, and a supine, monkish, indolent pleasantry, I ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... tell where the apartments of the adulteress ended and that of the divine courtesan began. Haunts of her long, indolent, self-pleasing nights and days, they presented everywhere the impress of Phaedra's luxurious humour. A peculiar glow, such as he had never before seen, like heady lamplight, or sunshine to some sleeper in a delirious dream, hung upon, ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... the chief danger of all that class of reading is its easiness, and the indolent, careless mental habits it induces. A great deal of the reading of young people on all days is really reading to no purpose, its object being merely present amusement. It is a listless yielding of the mind to be ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... am safe!" said he, with an arrogant little air of satisfaction. "I was born under an indolent star, but I confess to you, privately, of the two I would rather gather my harvests with the sickle than the sword. How ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Professor wondered secretly whether France too was beginning to be tarred with the Modernist brush. No!—impossible. For that the Canon was either too indolent or too busy. ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... permission to leave cards by proxy is often abused by selfish and indolent men is no doubt true. But the social advantage which it gives to a large class of men who are neither selfish nor indolent more than counterbalances any disadvantages, and saves to "society" a solid element that might be entirely ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... Europe which have suffered the greatest physical degradation. "Feudalism," says Blanqui, "was a concentration of scourges. The peasant, stripped of the inheritance of his fathers, became the property of inflexible, ignorant, indolent masters; he was obliged to travel fifty leagues with their carts whenever they required it; he labored for them three days in the week, and surrendered to them half the product of his earnings during the other three; without their consent he could not change his residence, or ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... directly associated with the human interest of their calling. Our capacity of appreciating the beauties of the earth we live on is, in truth, one of the civilised accomplishments which we all learn as an Art; and, more, that very capacity is rarely practised by any of us except when our minds are most indolent and most unoccupied. How much share have the attractions of Nature ever had in the pleasurable or painful interests and emotions of ourselves or our friends? What space do they ever occupy in the thousand ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... the indolent Mortimer, which seems to hint that if good society might on any account allow itself to be impressible, he, one of good society, might have the weakness to be impressed by what he here relates. It is hidden with great pains, but it is in him. The gloomy Eugene ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... business a success. In our Christian walk we are to seize upon every opportunity to make progress. There is no time in this short life for ease. Carelessness and indolence are dangerous and destructive to spirituality. An indolent man will never accomplish much for God nor be of any great benefit to his fellow men. But oh, how easy ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr
... winding path above the inn, and made love to one another. Their journey had made them indolent, the afternoon was warm, and it seemed impossible to breathe a sweeter air. The flowers and turf, a wild strawberry, a rare butterfly, and suchlike little intimate things had become more interesting than mountains. ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... more successful, and by bringing up a reserve, after ten or twelve hours hard fighting, they compelled the Holstein centre to give way, and by two o'clock the army was in full retreat, but in good order. The Danes appear to have been either too fatigued or too indolent to follow up their advantage. The members of the Holstein government, who were in Schleswig, fled immediately to Kiel, on hearing the battle was lost; all the officials also left the town; the post-office was shut, the doors locked, and all business suspended. The battle was more sanguinary ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... she said with difficult composure. 'I just caught his voice. He has no doubt come back from Paris to stay. This is a rather vexatious, indolent way he has, never ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... friends in town, in less than a week got the first confirmed in his station. "I have been on board," said he, "ever since; and, as this way of life is becoming familiar to me, have no cause to complain of my situation. The surgeon is a good-natured, indolent man; the first mate (who is now on shore on duty) is indeed a little proud and choleric, as all Welshmen are, but in the main a friendly honest fellow. The lieutenants I have no concern with; and, as for the captain, he is too much of a ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... him over with indolent insolence. "Some folks find this climate don't agree with them. Some folks find it better to ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... better speak frankly to you, Captain Rainham," he said. "Your aunt, as you probably know, did not like your father. I am not sure that she actually distrusted him. But she considered him weak and indolent, and she recognized that he was completely under the thumb of his second wife. Your late aunt, my old friend, had an abhorrence for that lady that was quaint, considering that she had scarcely ever seen her." He permitted himself the ghost of a smile. "She was deeply afraid of any of her property ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... silent, and both were sad. Like a queen she leaned on her full white arm, With that regal, indolent air she had; ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... is of such certainty and importance that a person, not indolent or prejudiced, might ask for no other. It is that sempiternal desire for change[562]—that principle of revolution, which is so much more certain than any evolution, and which governs human life, though it is always bringing that life back to the old places, "camouflaged," as they ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... not one of these personages, and a woman, moreover, so indolent and void of character as not to be of the least consequence in her own house, Rebecca soon found that it was not at all necessary to cultivate her good will—indeed, impossible to gain it. She used to talk to her pupils about their "poor mamma"; and, though she ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of every man in the world is to find his true master, and, for his own good, submit to him; and to find his true inferior, and, for that inferior's good, conquer him. The punishment is sure, if we either refuse the reverence, or are too cowardly and indolent to enforce the compulsion. A base nation crucifies or poisons its wise men, and lets its fools rave and rot in its streets. A wise nation obeys the one, restrains the ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... was told, "the yeomanry of the Northern States are so well armed that we have found it impossible to hold the country against their militia; but in the Southern States, aside from the difference between the energetic Northerners and the more indolent Sonthrons, the long distances between the plantations, and the fact that the gentry don't dare to trust their slaves with weapons, make them practically defenceless. The plan now seems to be, therefore, to wear the ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... Edmundsbury, they say. Charitable burghers of St. Edmundsbury? To me Jocelin it seems rather, Samson, and Warinus whom he leads, have privily hoarded the oblations at the Shrine itself, in these late years of indolent dilapidation, while Abbot Hugo sat wrapt inaccessible; and are struggling, in this prudent way, to have the rain kept out![11]—Under what conditions, sometimes, has Wisdom to struggle with Folly; get Folly persuaded to so much as thatch out the rain from itself! For, indeed, ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... supper. Marie poured out a glass of wine from a bottle on the table; apparently they had been supping. They began to converse together in low tones. My repast arriving, I fell to. A few moments later, I heard Marie say, in her composed indolent tones: ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... the risk of moving farther up the hill-path to a less exposed lurking place, was hesitating only because his indolent soul rebelled at the thought of having to drag Ford's body so many added steps to its burial in the river, when the clink of shod hoofs upon stone warned him that the time for scene-shifting had passed. Pushing the mustang ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... him with twenty-five thousand, and gained the battle of Arques, in spite of the disparity. This extraordinary result may probably be ascribed in great measure to the contrast of personal character in the two generals. Mayenne was slow and indolent. Of Henry it was said, that he lost less time in bed than Mayenne lost at table; and that he wore out very little broad-cloth, but a great deal of boot-leather. A person was once extolling the skill and courage of Mayenne in Henry's presence. "You are right," said Henry, "he is a great captain, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... Jurgen and the Centaur another boy with the small blue-eyed person in whom he took delight. And this fat and indolent looking boy informed them that he and the girl who was with him were walking in the glaze of the red mustard jar, which Jurgen thought was gibberish: and the fat boy said that he and the girl had decided never to grow any older, which ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... in a quiet undertone, "does it occur to you that you are making no preparations to defend the camp! That, in fact, you seem wholly indolent in the matter?" ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... or hunter, and is not only so by hereditary descent, but he is one of the noted "mighty hunters" in the province to which he belongs. Far and wide is his name known—for Ossaroo possesses, what is somewhat rare among his indolent countrymen, an energy of mind, combined with strength and activity of body, that would have given him distinction anywhere; but among a people where such qualities are extremely rare, Ossaroo is of course a ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... be impertinent. My dear liberty, shall I leave thee? My faithful solitude, my darling contemplation, must I bid you then adieu? Ay-h, adieu. My morning thoughts, agreeable wakings, indolent slumbers, all ye DOUCEURS, ye SOMMEILS DU MATIN, adieu. I can't do't, 'tis more than impossible—positively, Mirabell, I'll lie a-bed in a morning as long as ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... passage Plato discusses types of music in relation to action, the Lydian which is sorrowful, and the Ionian which is indolent; showing that selection must be made if men are not to be at the mercy of random influences. It is not necessary, as Plato would have it, to banish Lydian and Ionian harmonies from society; but within one's personal economy, within the republic of one's own soul, one must prefer with ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... austere in the practice of its duty and charity, living in the world to console and edify it, without mingling in its joys and passions—but a clergy such as intrigue, cupidity, and ambition had made it; that is to say, the court abbes, rivalling the Roman priests, indolent, libertine, elegant, impudent, kings of fashion, autocrats of the salon, kissing the hands of those ladies of whom they boasted themselves the paramours, giving their hands to kiss to the women of the people whom they honored ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... brutally simple—the face of a pioneer. The forehead was broad and strong, and the chin was square and determined; but the full, dark-blue eyes had in them shadows of rashness and recklessness, the mouth was somewhat self-indulgent and indolent; though the hands clasping both knees were combined of strength, activity, and also a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... as though their condition were meant to be a state of uniform indulgence, and vacant, unprofitable sloth. To multiply the comforts of affluence, to provide for the gratification of appetite, to be luxurious without diseases, and indolent without lassitude, seems the chief study of their lives. Nor can they be clearly exempted from this class, who, by a common error, substituting the means for the end, make the preservation of health and spirits, not as instruments of usefulness, but as sources of pleasure, their ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... I am far from saying that this depreciation of the cloistered life is just in either case but any impartial critic of monastic institutions must admit that their virtues avoid publicity and their faults attract attention. In all countries a large percentage of monks are indolent: it is the temptation which besets all but the elect. Yet the Buddhist ideal of the man who has renounced the world leaves no place for slackness, nor I think does the Christian. Buddhist monks are men of higher aspirations ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... more or less witty way, just as an advocate pleads in court on the most contradictory briefs. The newspaper critic always finds a subject to work up in the book he is discussing. Done after this fashion, the business is well adapted to indolent brains, to men devoid of the sublime faculty of imagination, or, possessed of it indeed, but lacking courage to cultivate it. Every play, every book comes to their pen as a subject, making no demand on their imagination, ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... over the wheel and walked. He was a spare man, sinewy and upright, and past the golden age of youth. He lounged over the road in a careless manner that concealed his agile strength, his tireless endurance. This indolent carriage and his seemingly slight build had, on more than one occasion, been disastrously misleading to importunate or beery strangers. He could, and did, fight whenever chance offered, with a cold passion, a destructive abandon, that had won him, throughout the turbulent confines ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... eyes, and far greater firmness and determination in all the lines of her face, so that, in spite of superficial dissimilarity, Bessie Harper really resembled her mother more nearly than either Camilla, calm, gentle, by nature possibly, a little indolent, ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... sea-green. Against this bright afterglow the hills of Imbros stood almost black. I stared at them. Then the luminous green turned to the blue of the zenith, and the hills were lost. And the cold of the Gallipoli night chilled me, as I lay there, too indolent ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... would have to be done; I've been going on in a most uncomfortable manner. In spite of my continual remonstrances, I could not persuade you to work. You must have recognised that you contained two men: the one indolent, dreamy, always carried away by the pleasures or caprice of the moment—a feather-brain. The other: ambitious, clear-headed, and eager for work. Your part would give my part no chance. Very well; we are partly separated. ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... picking cherries. Marian saw her and came too, establishing Jilly comfortably at the foot of the tree with a rubber doll and the two pups as companions. Jilly was usually a placid baby and she settled down contentedly to trimming up her doll with dandelions. Buz, the indolent, curled himself at her feet and was asleep inside of five minutes, but Huz looked up longingly into the tree at Jane. He seemed to be racking his doggish brain as to the best method of reaching her. He kept making little futile leaps, whining impatiently. ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... indeed a pleasure unknown to those indolent beings who let the sun gain his meridian splendour before they reluctantly leave ...
— The Little Quaker - or, the Triumph of Virtue. A Tale for the Instruction of Youth • Susan Moodie
... Soudan by the hopes of gratifying peculiar tastes. The majority had harems of the women of the country, which were limited only by the amount of money they could lay their hands on by any method. Many were hopeless and habitual drunkards. Nearly all were dishonest. All were indolent and incapable. ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... direct and inspire, and our better men felt all through their lives how much that meant. In general we soon came to feel and appreciate a most kindly influence as proceeding from him. I think we had no teacher whom we at the last regarded more affectionately or approached more closely; and many an indolent one was won to warm interest ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... size, and are more fierce in their nature, than upon the Magdalena, and other great rivers that run into it. These rivers flow through a low country within the tropics; their climate is of the hottest kind, and consequently most suitable to the development of the great reptiles. The indolent character of the natives, too— half-Indian, half-Spanish—prevents them from attacking and destroying these creatures with that energy that is exhibited by the inhabitants of our own country. The consequence ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... vouchsafe any more, and Mrs. Meadowsweet was too innocent and indolent and comfortable in her ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... man acts always with reason, and prepares his own lentils." Among the Romans it was not much esteemed, and from them the English may have inherited a prejudice against it, on account, it is said, of its rendering men indolent. It takes its name from lentus 'slow,' and, according to Pliny, produces mildness and ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... in danger. If the tongue and the knees and the hands are too much engaged in it, the mind grows weary or idle. If the mind is too busily employed, the spirit has a diminished share, or the body is indolent. It is necessary to provide occupation for the mind, but not to occupy it in following great mental efforts for which it is unprepared. If the mind is unprepared, it no sooner reaches one point than it has to follow the speaker to another; and thereby the spirit loses ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson
... as a receptacle for convict labour; it was not a populous place when we took it in 1685, nor, as far as we can gather, had the population much increased up to the year 1787, and the few Sumatrans and Malays that were its inhabitants were an indolent race, and preferred a life of ease to any kind of labour. They were content to get their livelihood from fishing, and they had no artificial wants. They would occasionally work upon pepper plantations, and would bring the berries to Bencoolen for sale to British merchants. Labour was therefore wanted ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair
... the undulating country may be seen stretching away into the gray of distance, with hills and woods, and stains of smoke which mark the sites of villages. Every now and then a horse comes staggering along the towing-path, trailing a sleepy barge filled with merchandise. A quiet, indolent life these bargemen lead in the summer days. One lies stretched at his length on the sun-heated plank; his comrade sits smoking in the little dog-hutch, which I suppose he calls a cabin. Silently they come and go; silently the wooden bridge lifts to let them through. The horse stops at the bridge-house ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... lack of exercise is enforced, and the resulting interference with normal functions is so great that he lives the winter through in a sort of hibernation. He is nearly poisoned by lack of ventilation in the small living room, where the one stove makes living possible; he gets fat and indolent, and then with relaxed muscles plunges into furious labor again ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... picture steeped in cool shadows, with glints of sunshine here and there, and one could almost imagine now, in looking at it, that the open windows, with glimpses of snowy curtains, the great front door with the cool, deep hall beyond, the shady, vine-covered porch, and the indolent figure on the steps, with dreamy, dark eyes, and hat idly dropped, were but witcheries of the artist's ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... deck chairs in the veranda of the pavilion, smoked, drank whisky, and, the chalice disposed of, meditated. His temporary annoyance passed. It was an altogether splendid summer night, following a blazing, indolent day. Full moonlight brought out dimly the lines of the receding hills, one wave beyond another; far beyond were the pin-point lights of Leatherhead, and in the foreground the little stage from which I used to start upon my gliders gleamed like ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... have one advantage; the greatest sceptic, after a glance at them, can no longer invoke chance, the great Deus ex machina of the ignorant and indolent. ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... the bureau and pulled open the upper drawers. In those drawers were so many things, things which he had kept there, either deliberately or because he was too indolent to destroy them. Old dance cards, invitations, and a bundle of photographs, snapshots. He removed the rubber band from the bundle and stood looking them over. Photographs of school fellows, of picnic groups, of girls. ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... gathering of cattle in Loving's brand began at once, continuing for six weeks. We combed the hills and valleys along the main Brazos, and then started west up the Clear Fork, carrying the beeves with us while gathering. The range was in prime condition, the cattle were fat and indolent, and with the exception of Indian rumors there was not a cloud ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... a week, of the indolent, aimless life led by most of our youthful heirs expectant and apparent," returned Rosa. "I remember once telling you how I envied you for having work and a career. I was youthful then ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... under heaven have been placed beneath him. The spectacle of this small and delicate vanity doing battle against this vanity so infinitely hard and robust is exquisitely diverting. Mme. Recamier put herself so prodigiously out of her way; she who was indolent became active; she who was utterly insensible to children became maternal; she who was of delicate health underwent what only a vigorous constitution would undertake. But all in vain; she either did not or would not see that M. Guizot would ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... and in the black country, behind Vera Cruz, you will find these people living a half-indolent, half-savage life, as small cultivators, cattle-herds, fishermen, or hunters. In riding through the forest you may often chance upon such a picture ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... called Esmond, had now business enough on his hands in Castlewood House. He had three pupils, his lady and her two children, at whose lessons she would always be present; besides writing my lord's letters, and arranging his accompts for him—when these could be got from Esmond's indolent patron. ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... indolent. Of that there has been abundant proof. Give them a definite object, a fair chance of profit, and they will work as well as the people of this or any other country. Of this I have had ample opportunity of judging, on works where thousands have been employed, both here [England] and in Ireland."—A ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... your son to be idle one minute. I do not call play, of which he ought to have a good share, idleness; but I mean sitting still in a chair in total inaction; it makes boys lazy and indolent.' Chesterfield's Misc. Works, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... cease to dislike him; she went farther, and rapidly. She began to like him, to circle round that tantalizing, indolent mystery as a deer about a queer bit of brush in the undergrowth. She liked to watch him. She was alternately afraid to talk before him and recklessly confidential—all with no response or sign of interest from ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... people they are! All beggars; but that's nothing. Look at them as they gather round. Some, are too indolent to come down-stairs, or are too wisely mistrustful of the stairs, perhaps, to venture: so stretch out their lean hands from upper windows, and howl; others, come flocking about us, fighting and jostling one another, and demanding, incessantly, charity for the ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... there a square-rigged schooner from Maine smothered with fragrant planks and clapboards; an imported citizen is fishing at the end of the wharf, a ruminative freckled son of Drogheda, in perfect sympathy with the indolent sunshine that seems to be sole proprietor of these crumbling piles and ridiculous warehouses, from which even the ghost of prosperity ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... countries have more or less of the same defects, for certain it is that they everywhere attach paramount or undue importance to the conventional learning of the grammar-school and the drawing-room, and the ignorant and the indolent have everywhere the support of a great majority. Johnson ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... merit, to these three taken together, viz., conferring a boon, acquiring a kingdom, and obtaining a son. Learned men have declared that a king, although powerful, should never consult with these four, viz., men of small sense, men that are procrastinating, men that are indolent, and men that are flatterers. O sire, crowned with prosperity and leading the life of a householder, let these four dwell with thee, viz., old consanguineous relatives, high-born persons fallen into adversity, poor friends, and issueless sisters. On being asked by the chief of the celestials, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... an erroneous impression of Mr. Vernon if we designed, by the words "listless ennui," to depict the slumberous insipidity of more modern affectation; it was not the ennui of a man to whom ennui is habitual, it was rather the indolent prostration that fills up the intervals of excitement. At that day the word blast was unknown; men had not enough sentiment for satiety. There was a kind of Bacchanalian fury in the life led by those leaders of fashion, among whom Mr. Vernon was not the least distinguished; it was ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... pronounced; but at this moment, when there shone forth the mother-instinct which had never come out or blossomed in her life, but had been overlaid completely with routine and conventionality, rendering it too indolent to put forth petals, Michael had no thought but for that which she had never given him yet, and which, now it began to expand before him, he knew he ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... he is the idol of all the soldiers, whatever their nationality; for he is as ready to rush to the rescue of a French or Austrian knight when pressed as to that of his own men. But the devotion which the whole army felt for him was as gall and wormwood to the haughty Austrian and the indolent Frenchman; and the retirement of the King of France, which left Richard in supreme command, ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... attitudes, and is not a bold and striking gymnast, like many of his kindred. He has a preference for dense woods of beech and maple, moves slowly amid the lower branches and smaller growths, keeping from eight to ten feet from the ground, and repeating now and then his listless, indolent strain. His back and crown are dark blue; his throat and breast, black; his belly, pure white; and he has a white ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... came, in two indolent yellow lines, male lions, female lions, half-grown lions, cub lions that cuffed each other in play, in all perhaps fifty or sixty of them. Of these only two or three looked towards the Professor, for none of them ran or galloped, while the rest spread over the den, ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... maximum of effort on the part of the individual and, therefore, on the part of society as a whole. If some receive more than their share, others will necessarily receive less than their share—the very essence of injustice; the former will become indolent because work is not required of them and the latter will grow desperate because their toil is not fairly rewarded. Injustice is the greatest enemy ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... and the firing of minute guns on Castle Island. These mournful sounds were heard all day, even to the setting of the sun. However doleful the day may have seemed, there was more appropriateness in these signs of mourning than any man of that generation could have known; for with George II. died the indolent but salutary let-them-alone policy under which the colonies enjoyed prosperity and peace. With the accession of the new king the troubles began which ended in the disruption of the empire. George III. was the last king whose accession received official recognition ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... second of them inherited the high spirit and the genius of the great Peter, while the first was a pleasure-seeking princess, resembling some of those Roman empresses who loved to stoop that they might conquer. She is described as indolent and sensual, and she once declared that the chief good in the world was love. Yet, though she neglected affairs of state and gave them over to favorites, she won and kept the affections of her people. She was unquestionably endowed with the magnetic ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... the world and stows himself away at the farthest end of his tunnel, there to sleep away the winter. Little more does he know of the snows and blizzards than the bird which has flown to the tropics. Even storing up fruits or roots is too great an effort for the indolent woodchuck, and in his hibernation stupor he draws only upon the fat which his lethargic summer life ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... Moreau, the Emperor talked a great deal respecting that general. "Moreau," he said, "possesses many good qualities; his bravery is undoubted; but he has more courage than energy; he is indolent and effeminate. When with the army he lived like a pasha; he smoked, was almost constantly in bed, and gave himself up to the pleasures of the table. His dispositions are naturally good; but he is too indolent ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... to interrupt our life's work for a week at a time? Where are we to search for obstructions in the channels of the mind when ideas will not flow? How is it that, after a period of clearness and activity in thought, the brain grows indolent, and, without a feeling of illness, or even of fatigue, work lags and stops? By what right is it that, at times, each faculty in our possession seems to grow independent, and refuses to return to its task at our call? What are the secret ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... such a salutary discipline to the lower classes. That is the whole principle of religion, surely, Aphrodite? It is not for people like ourselves. You know how indolent Dionysus is, but he always attended the temple when ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse
... poems, the copyright of which was purchased by Mr. Cottle for thirty guineas. Coleridge was a student all his life; he was very rarely indeed idle in the common sense of the term; but he was constitutionally indolent, averse from continuous exertion externally directed, and consequently the victim of a procrastinating habit, the occasion of innumerable distresses to himself and of endless solicitude to his friends, and which materially impaired, though it could not destroy, the operation and influence ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... Brazil. This is one of the paradoxes of the last century; but nations are only aggregates of men, and what makes an individual rich, cannot make a nation poor. The true secret is this—that while the possession of the gold mines induced an indolent government to rely upon them for the expenses of the state, that reliance led them to abandon sources of profit in the agriculture and commerce of the country, which were of ten times the value. This was equally the case in Spain. The first influx ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... these Prayers! They will wonder why I have not finished the tasks they set Me nor accepted the bribes they offered. And to-morrow they will rebuke Me as a faithless, indolent servant who ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... fifteenth century figure. A few weeks before I had heard one of my father's friends, an official in a publishing firm that had employed both Wilde and Henley as editors, blaming Henley who was 'no use except under control' and praising Wilde, 'so indolent but such a genius;' and now the firm became the topic of our talk. 'How often do you go to the office?' said Henley. 'I used to go three times a week,' said Wilde, 'for an hour a day but I have since struck ...
— Four Years • William Butler Yeats
... "Oh Indolent! to waste thy hours away! And sleep'st thou careless of the bridal day! Thy spousal ornament neglected lies; Arise, prepare the bridal train, arise! A just applause the cares of dress impart, And give soft transport to a parent's heart. Haste, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... was not long, however, before Walton became indolent and neglectful of his duty; and in addition to this, he was guilty, as the old man thought, of worse offences. He watched his conduct more strictly, and found he was guilty of disposing of articles from the farm for his own use, ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb
... board a comparatively small ship. Nor can anyone who has not suffered, as we all have, from prickly heat, understand how pleasant are fresh-water baths. We all felt far too comfortable and delightfully indolent for letter-writing, or even for reading, and could do nothing but enjoy to the utmost the delights of the shore under such agreeable conditions. Our good-natured host had turned out, bag and baggage, in order to make room ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... are so ill-educated, and so indolent, that a man is better without their society," ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... change in the bearing of Gaston de Bois, by which Maurice was struck, had been wrought by a triad of agents. A man who had passed his life in indolent seclusion, who had plunged into a tangled labyrinth of abstruse books, not in search of valuable knowledge, but to lose in its mazes the recollection of valueless hours; who had allowed his days to drag on in aimless monotony; ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... the sensibility of the organs, and much positive injury follows the habitual use of snuff. It has been a popular remedy in many places for the cure of scald-head, psora, and most other cutaneous eruptions. It has also been applied for cleansing ulcers, and for the removal of indolent tumors. But the dreadful effects produced by it when absorbed into the system, have induced most medical men to abandon it altogether, and prescribe ...
— A Dissertation on the Medical Properties and Injurious Effects of the Habitual Use of Tobacco • A. McAllister
... looked up to by the crew. Such indeed was the hardihood and romantic spirit of enterprise with which he conducted the difficult affairs sometimes confided to him—that Captain Donneraile, who was old and indolent, gradually allowed the command of the ship to devolve on him; and at the age of sixteen he was much more the commander of the vessel than the nominal captain. This habit of early command over a large and warlike crew, tempered by good nature ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... thing as a sacred idleness, the cultivation of which is now fearfully neglected. Abraham, seated in his tent door in the heat of the day, would be to the philosophers of the nineteenth century an object for uplifted hands and pointed fingers. They would see in him only the indolent Arab, whom nothing but the foolish fancy that he saw his Maker in the distance, could ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... no doubt that the Indians are the most lazy, indolent race of human beings. No attempt which has ever been made to convert them into slaves, has availed much. The rigid discipline of a Spanish master, has failed to overcome that inertness, from which an Indian is roused only by war and the chase—Engaged in these, he exhibits as ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... a certain deliberate indolent hither-and-thitherness in the psychological progress of Mr. Conrad's Under Western Eyes, for instance, which is never to be found even in the most elusive of Henry James's novels. Both of them are, of course, in love with the elusive. To each of them a bird in the bush is worth two in ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... is precisely the account which Lieutenant Garnier gives of the people of Laos: "The Laos people are very indolent, and when they are not rich enough to possess slaves they make over to their women the greatest part of the business of the day; and 'tis these latter who not only do all the work of the house, but who husk the rice, work in the fields, and ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... observation, it should be found that the same ominous groups of cases clustering about individual practitioners were observed in a remote country, at different times, and in widely separated regions, it would seem incredible that any should be found too prejudiced or indolent to accept the solemn truth knelled into their ears by the funeral bells from both sides of the ocean,—the plain conclusion that the physician and the disease entered, hand in hand, into the chamber of ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... twenty-four hours; and at any other time, if he express the slightest inclination to do so. I have known a little fellow to hold his water, to his great detriment, for twelve hours, because either the mother bad in her trouble forgotten to inquire, or the child himself was either too ill or too indolent to make ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... beetles is mainly due to the action of natural selection, but combined probably with disuse. For during thousands of successive generations each individual beetle which flew least, either from its wings having been ever so little less perfectly developed or from indolent habit, will have had the best chance of surviving from not being blown out to sea; and, on the other hand, those beetles which most readily took to flight would oftenest have been blown to sea and thus ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... treasures, such as these you have around you now. But by those same laws of Nature and Providence, if the labour of the nation or of the individual be misapplied, and much more if it be insufficient,—if the nation or man be indolent and unwise,—suffering and want result, exactly in proportion to the indolence and improvidence—to the refusal of labour, or to the misapplication of it. Wherever you see want, or misery, or degradation, in this world about you, there, be sure, either industry has been ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... involved in the rebellion. Reduced to the lowest depths of poverty, often suffering absolute starvation, usually dirty and of uncleanly habits, in many cases ignorant in the extreme, and intensely indolent, these poor creatures had often little to recommend them to the sympathy of their northern friends, save their common humanity, and their childlike attachment to the Union cause. Yet on these, women of high culture and refinement, women who, but for the fire of patriotism ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... Dionysius was growing short of provisions, was beginning to despair of holding Ortygia, and was withal a man of indolent and drunken habits, without a tithe of his father's spirit and energy. He was like a fox driven to bay, and having heard of the victory of Timoleon, it occurred to him that he would be better off in yielding the city to these Corinthians than ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... place at its head the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord North, a man of some administrative ability, but unconnected with any political party, steadily opposed to any recognition of public opinion, and of an easy and indolent temper which yielded against his better knowledge to the stubborn doggedness of the king. The instinct of the country at once warned it of the results of such a change; and the City of London put itself formally at the head of the public discontent. In solemn addresses it called ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... Mrs. Baker had been exceedingly kind to the women and children of both the traders and natives, and together we had created so favorable an impression that we were always referred to as umpires in every dispute. My own men, although indolent, were so completely disciplined that they would not have dared to disobey an order, and they looked back upon their former mutinous conduct with surprise at their own audacity, and declared that they feared to return to Khartoum, ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... cynicism of Charles enabled him to ride out storms which would have wrecked a better and a nobler king. He treated the Lords with an easy familiarity which robbed opposition of its seriousness. "Their debates amused him," he said in his indolent way; and he stood chatting before the fire while peer after peer poured invectives on his ministers, and laughed louder than the rest when Shaftesbury directed his coarsest taunts at the barrenness of the queen. Courtiers were entrusted with the secret "management" ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... is so responsible for it as the crowd of indolent, luxurious and vain women? The frenzy to become notorious—almost entirely women's work. The spirit of reckless ambition in public life encouraged by the sex which has never known the meaning of responsibility. Decay of the arts—inevitable result of the predominance of little fools ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... bondage of labor, suddenly becoming masters of themselves, with simple and easily satisfied wants, with abundant means of subsistence, to be procured at the expense of the least possible effort, exposed to no competition from the pressure of population, and endowed by nature with indolent temperaments, naturally took to leading idle and easy lives, and refused to work except at their own pleasure. They had, as a class, no desire of regular and continued occupation, and little sense of the worth of work in itself. There was nothing surprising ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... narrow line of the Lizard, half lost in a silver haze. For the rest, a cool wind went this way and that through Mrs. Rosewarne's room, stirring the curtains. There was an odor of the sea in the air. It was a day for dreaming perhaps, but not for the gloom begotten of languor and an indolent pulse. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... Carmelite's school at ——, and instead of showing any aptitude for work, he had played truant with a keener delight than any of his school-fellows. His was an eminently contemplative nature, kindly and indolent, but proud and almost savage in its love of independence; religious, yet opposed to all authority; somewhat captious, very suspicious, and inexorable with hypocrites. The observances of the cloister inspired him with but little awe; and ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... painful Attention to mark the Propriety and Accuracy of Johnson, and your Satisfaction arises from Reflection and Comparison; But the Fire and Invention of Shakespear in an Instant are shot into your Soul, and enlighten and chear the most indolent Mind with their own Spirit and Lustre.—Upon the whole, Johnson's Compositions are like finished Cabinets, where every Part is wrought up with the most excellent Skill and Exactness;— Shakespear's like magnificent Castles, not perfectly finished or regular, but adorn'd with such ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... to be quiet and think in such an indolent mood; and Phyllis had some reasons for finding the "thinking" engrossing. First, she had had a letter from Elizabeth, and it was in a very hopeful tone. Antony and George Eltham were doing very well, and, as Lord Eltham had become quietly interested in ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... whether or not these critics shall be justified in their award. He need not be the second. God made him second to no man. If I were he, I would show myself as I am, not as critics report me; at any rate, I would do my best. Mr. Thackeray is easy and indolent, and seldom cares to do his best. Thank you once more; and believe me ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... contrast was presented there by the rounded form of the skull of the fierce, indomitable American Indian, who is so averse to intercourse with strangers, and the rather narrow, elongated head of the indolent negro, who is devoted to social enjoyments. How wide was the difference between the head of the Sandwich Islander or of the Tahitian and that of the Australian or the Tasmanian. How much superior to either of them were the heads of the civilized Incas of Peru, which had not been submitted ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... as if even so slight an effort were too great, the smoker settled himself more comfortably and resumed his indolent musing. Then he heard the sound again. This time he did not trouble to look around. Something white swished quickly past him and he stared, bewildered. It was a woman, young, if her figure were to be trusted. His cigar dropped ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach
... not vouchsafe any more, and Mrs. Meadowsweet was too innocent and indolent and comfortable in her ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... easy task to bring into training minds so ignorant and so utterly undisciplined as those of her little pupils. Left entirely to themselves, as they had been for many months, with a mother too indolent to trouble herself about any systematic plan of government, and a father too easy and good-natured to carry out the many plans he was ever forming for their "breaking in;" scolded and fretted at by their older sisters, to whom they were perfect torments; by turns playing harmoniously, ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... military demonstration in front of the Khedive's palace, with a view to extorting the dismissal of the able and energetic Prime Minister, Riaz Pasha. Again Tewfik yielded, and consented to the appointment of the weak and indolent Sherif Pasha. To consolidate their triumph the mutineers now proposed measures which would please the populace. Chief among them was a plan for instituting a consultative National Assembly. This would serve as a check on the Dual Control and ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... were all either disappointed or forced to suspend their operations, at least for the present. Every one ran or walked as quickly as possible, with the exception of some forenoon drunkard, who staggered along at his ease, with an eye half indolent and half stupid, careless, if not unconscious of the wild uproar, both elemental and otherwise, by ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... method of London housekeeping, even in the second ranks of the middle-classes, is for the mistress to give her orders in the kitchen in the morning, leaving the cook to pass them on to the tradespeople when they call. If she is not very indolent, and if she has a due regard for neatness and cleanliness, she may supplement her kitchen commands by going up stairs through some of the bedrooms; but after a kind word of advice to the housemaid if ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... exhibit when the question comes up of examining their religious opinions. The first one is, the hopelessness of penetrating the obscurity by which every religion is surrounded; even in its first principles, it has only a tendency to repel indolent minds, who see in it but chaos, to penetrate which, they judge impossible. The second is, that each one is afraid to incommode himself by the severe precepts which everybody admires in the theory, and which few persons take the ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... between the two men, but Maurice, though he did not refuse to meet Oldenbarneveldt, was cold and unfriendly. He did not attempt to interfere with the old statesman's control of the machinery of administration or with his diplomatic activities, for he was naturally indolent and took little interest in politics. Had he been ambitious, he might many years before have obtained by general consent sovereign power, but he did not seek it. His passion was the study of military science. From his early ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... manner. Should anything happen to our present chief, an impulse may be given to the minds now sunk down, and raise our characters from their present torpid state. But until such an event, we shall remain as we are, indolent but submissive, sacrificing our children and treasures for a cause we detest, and for a man we abhor. I am sorry to say it, but it certainly does, no honour to my nation when one million desperados of civil and military banditti are suffered to govern, tyrannize, and ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... As soon as he was five years old he was put out to board elsewhere, while his brother Hippolyte and his sister were well cared for at home. The effect of this unjust neglect on the character of Auguste Ballet was, as may be imagined, had; he became indolent and dissipated. His brother Hippolyte, on the other hand, had justified the affectionate care bestowed on his upbringing; he had grown into a studious, intelligent youth of a refined and attractive temperament. Unhappily, early in his ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... later and relatively assured, though never prosperous condition, I can see that most of my straits in life have been owing to my having accepted the miserable and delusive advantage of an official position under my government. I was not indolent, and asked for an appointment not to escape work, but to be put in the way of work which I wanted to do; and when I was disappointed in the appointment to Venice I should have set to work at home. But my position was a difficult ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... Yearning, wind-swift, indolent, wild, Toils with those shadowy two,— The faltering restless hand of Hack, And the tireless hand ...
— Behind the Arras - A Book of the Unseen • Bliss Carman
... right in the middle of the little village, and the Maoris treated them in the most friendly manner, smiling at them in an indolent fashion as they lolled about the place, doing very little except a little gardening; for their wants were few, and nature was kind in the abundance she gave for a little toil. This life soon had its effects upon Jem, who began to display a ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... now has felt, as I cannot doubt, a moment's perplexity at the now courtly poet's assertion that "vipers treacle yield"—who yet has been too indolent, or who has not had the opportunity, to search out what his meaning might be. There is in fact allusion here to a curious piece of legendary lore. 'Treacle', or 'triacle', as Chaucer wrote it, was originally a Greek word, and wrapped up in itself ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... its ruinous appearance, would turn out an antique church or tower was announced to be an infant brewery, in a very early stage of its existence. We stood by while our companions talked to a very pretty, indolent-looking woman, surrounded by black-eyed children, whose ages and habits were dilated on, and all of whom were scattered about the premises—sitting or lying on tubs and heaps of wood; while the husband and father sauntered through something like work, which was to bring the erection, in the course ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... flew swiftly on before the wind—drawing nearer and nearer each instant—they could distinctly see the young girl half lying back in the stern, allowing her hand to fall in the water with an indolent enjoyment ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... the brain, we might find it in the fact, that all intellectual efforts which imply sound reasoning are prevented even by a partial sleepiness or dreaminess. A light novel may be read and enjoyed while the mind is in an indolent and dreamy state; music may be enjoyed, or even composed, in the same circumstances, because it is connected rather with the imaginative than with the logical faculty; but, not to mention any higher efforts, we cannot ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various
... ghosts, but came to be neglected as ghost-worship arose. I am not aware that Dr. Bennett is a missionary. Anthropologists distrust missionaries, and most of my evidence is from laymen. If the anthropological study of religion is to advance, the high and usually indolent chief Beings of savage religions must be carefully examined, not consigned to a casual page or paragraph. I have found them most potent, and most moral, where ghost-worship has not been evolved; least potent, or at all events most indifferent, where ghost-worship is most in vogue. The ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... take the risk of moving farther up the hill-path to a less exposed lurking place, was hesitating only because his indolent soul rebelled at the thought of having to drag Ford's body so many added steps to its burial in the river, when the clink of shod hoofs upon stone warned him that the time for scene-shifting had passed. Pushing the mustang out of the line of sight from the trail, ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... and womanly feeling, was smothered at its birth. They had come from savagery to slavery, and in a day, without training or preparation, they were set free. It is no wonder that they were ignorant, indolent, degraded and despised. As one of their own number says, "We came into bondage naked and destitute of worldly goods, we went out of it penniless, homeless and almost characterless." Now it was this mass of degraded humanity that this Association set itself to elevate and Christianize, ...
— American Missionary, Vol. XLII., June, 1888., No. 6 • Various
... of the indolent in many countries, is ruinously general throughout South America. In England, and other European states, it is pretty much limited to the unemployed of the upper classes, who furnish a never-ending supply of dupes to knavery. In South America the passion taints all ages, both sexes, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 363, Saturday, March 28, 1829 • Various
... and from whom she exacted little, tribute merely, and obeisance to herself. Her strength was not in the sword; the lioness roared rarely, often slept; it was the fear smaller beasts had of her awakening that made them docile; once aroused those indolent paws could do terrible work, and it was well not to excite them. When the Jews threatened to revolt, Agrippa warned them: "Look at Rome; look at her well; her arms are invisible, her troops are afar; she rules, not by them, but by the certainty ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... those who can work yet are supported in idleness by any mistaken charity, or are subsisted by their parishes, which are at this time, through all England overburdened by indolent and lazy poor, who claim and are designed only for impotent poor;—all those who add nothing by their labor to the welfare of the state, are useless, burdensome, or dangerous to it. What is to be done with these necessitous? Nobody, I suppose, thinks that they ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... so, you're clever enough to fight with your own weapons instead of picking up the rusty swords of men I've already beaten. You knew little Val Arden, of course? And my cousin Jim Loring? They taught you to call me a 'sensationalist.' Labels are an indolent man's device for guessing what's inside a ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... person quit working in another woman's kitchen and keep herself like a lady?" I inquired, all the prejudice of indolent wealth against labor coming ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... failure, community of property was not. Whether the law of mine and thine is natural or incidental in human character, it soon began to develop its sway. The industrious, the skilful and the strong saw the product of their labor enjoyed by the indolent, the unskilled and the improvident; and self-love rose against benevolence. A band of musicians thought their brassy harmony was as necessary to the common happiness as bread and meat, and declined ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... but it submits to rule. The mission of authority is not to constrain, but to counsel; not to command, but to help accomplish; not to absorb individual activity, but to develop it. It does not pretend to raise a convenient indifference on the part of government, nor the indolent withdrawal of all protective influence to the dignity of a principle. To say, on the other hand, that the laisser faire and laisser passer of the economists means: Let robbery alone; let fraud alone etc., is to amuse one's self playing upon words, and to ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... distant ages of the world Let us revert, and place before our thoughts The face which rural solitude might wear To the unenlightened swains of pagan Greece. —In that fair clime, the lonely herdsman, stretched On the soft grass through half a summer's day, With music lulled his indolent repose: And, in some fit of weariness, if he, When his own breath was silent, chanced to hear A distant strain, far sweeter than the sounds Which his poor skill could make, his fancy fetched, Even from the blazing chariot of the sun, A beardless Youth, who touched a golden ...
— Philosophy and Religion - Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge • Hastings Rashdall
... the emperor's financial agent in Spain, he could have sold these note-books to Largius Licinus for L3000, and at that time they were considerably less numerous." ... "And so," writes the nephew, "I always laugh when certain people call me studious, for, compared to him, I am a most indolent person." ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... they could, he stoutly pulled forth from the landing and around a bend in the river. Thereafter his efforts relaxed, and he had Adelle to himself for two long hours. And Adelle, reclining on the gaudy cushions under an enormous pink sunshade, was not unenticing. Her air of indolent taciturnity was almost provoking. Mr. Ashly Crane quite persuaded himself that he was really in love ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... and what other people report to have seen. Thus, he mentions "a very experienced and sober gentleman, who is much talked of" who cured cancer of the female breast "by the outward application of an indolent powder, some of which he also gave me." But, he adds cautiously, he has not yet "had the opportunity to make trial of it."[52] Clearly, since he cannot make the trial himself, Boyle withholds judgment, even though the material came from a "very experienced" gentleman. Or again, ...
— Medical Investigation in Seventeenth Century England - Papers Read at a Clark Library Seminar, October 14, 1967 • Charles W. Bodemer
... humble refugees, from peripatetic philosophers to indolent aborigines, the testimony of her charm can be gathered. I speak as a victim. I love England with a fervour born of admiration (without admiration no one ever falls in love). I love her ways and her mind, I love her chilly dampness and her hot, glowing fires (attempts to analyse ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... in the human constitution the opposite elements of untiring energy or industry, and of indolent relaxation. To the former we must give an exalted position, as it is the sustaining power of all the virtues; and it must evidently be farther back than conscientiousness as it is of a more vigorous character. It is favorable to health and therefore near that organ, and being ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, December 1887 - Volume 1, Number 11 • Various
... always vigorously enforced, and though the logical principles involved are sometimes rather dubious they are adequate from the fact that they are never open to argument. Occasionally, however, under the leadership of some president either too indolent or incapable of leadership, this strict surveillance over the habits and conduct of youth is relaxed, with disastrous results to the ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... gates they came, in two indolent yellow lines, male lions, female lions, half-grown lions, cub lions that cuffed each other in play, in all perhaps fifty or sixty of them. Of these only two or three looked towards the Professor, for none of them ran or galloped, while the rest spread over the den, some of them vanishing ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... years ago, the French and American populations were about equal. Now the Saxon element predominates, and rapidly absorbs all the others. In time the indolent Creole must yield to the more energetic American— in other words, New Orleans will be Americanised. Progress and civilisation will gain by this, at the expense—according to the sentimental ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... before Sir Percy," murmured the young girl, casting shy glances at the elegant cavalier before her, vainly trying to find in the indolent, foppish personality of this society butterfly, some trace of the daring man of action, the bold adventurer who had snatched her and her lover from out the very tumbril that ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... what harm we are doing to our own selves in the meantime! How habitually warped, how unsteady, how feeble, the judgment becomes, which is not kept bright and vigorous through right use. How insensibly we become callous or indolent about forming a correct judgment. "It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore and see the ships tossed upon the sea; a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle and to see a battle and the adventures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth (a ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... where nature still wore her motherly smile and seemed to promise room not only for those favored or cursed with the qualities best adapting for the strifes of competition, but for the delicate, the thoughtful, even the indolent or eccentric. She did not say, Fight or starve; nor even, Work or cease to exist; but, merely showing that the apple was a finer fruit than the wild crab, gave both room to grow ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... generally admitted to be the first, and there were those who thought him in general powers superior even to Fox and Sheridan. His oratory, however, did not do justice to his talents, and he was both shy and indolent. His best speech was that in December, 1796, for the release of Lafayette, to which even the ridicule of the Anti-Jacobin allowed the merit of pathetic eloquence. His share in the Rolliad was considerable, and there are many other sprightly and some elegant ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 78, April 26, 1851 • Various
... white; but Alcibiades, whether with good men or with bad, could adapt himself to his company, and equally wear the appearance of virtue or vice. At Sparta, he was devoted to athletic exercises, was frugal and reserved; in Ionia, luxurious, gay, and indolent; in Thrace, always drinking; in Thessaly, ever on horseback; and when he lived with Tisaphernes, the Persian satrap, he exceeded the Persians themselves in magnificence and pomp. Not that his natural disposition changed so easily, nor that his real character was so very variable, but, whenever ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... to thee, but I would have shed the best drops of my heart to have saved thy young years from a single pang. Nay, listen to me silently. That thou mightest one day be worthy of thy race, and that thine hours might not pass in indolent and weary lassitude, thou hast been taught lessons of a knowledge rarely to thy sex. Not thine the lascivious arts of the Moorish maidens; not thine their harlot songs, and their dances of lewd delight; thy delicate limbs were but taught ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... here and there glimmered something more opulent and inviting still, which proclaimed, if it did not confess, the remote motherhood of the zenana and the origin of the sun. An audience of fluttering fans and wrinkled shirt collars—the evening was warm under the gas-lights—sensuous, indolent, already amused with itself. Not an old woman in it from end to end, hardly a man turned fifty, and those who were had the air and looked to have the habits of twenty-five—an audience that might have got up and stretched itself but for good manners, and walked ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... in his soft, indolent voice, and regarding her beneath languidly drooping lids, "pray accept the hospitality of my—er—apartment. You will find the easy-chair is very easy, and while you sit here with Mrs. Trapes, I'll find your brother and ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... the trial. He was a youth of about twenty-two, intelligent, handsome, and amiable, but extremely indolent, in a graceful and gentlemanly way; or, as old Judge Fenderson put it more than once, he was lazy as the Devil,—a mere figure of speech, of course, and not one that did justice to the Enemy of Mankind. When asked why he never did anything serious, Dick would good-naturedly ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... no notion of what other men called relaxation: he found his own relaxation in a change of work. He excuses himself in one of his orations for this strange taste, as it would seem to the indolent and luxurious Roman nobles with whom ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... imagined from their careless indolent bearing that they were posing as patriots, men who a short time before had escaped from a deadly peril, and were now for aught they knew sailing straight away into one ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... new scholar to the school, and no small stir did her coming make there. For the first nine years of her life, Elsie Ray had been the neglected child of a careless and indolent mother. At her death, Elsie had come to the neighbourhood of Kirklands, to live with her grandfather and her aunt. She thus passed from one extreme of misfortune to the other. From roaming at large ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson
... would serve as a punishment. The Romans punished their indolent and refractory domestics, by sending them to labor in the country, as well as by heavy chains (vinculis) and cruel flagellations (verberare). They had also the power of life and death (occidere). Beck. Gall. Exc. 2. Sc. 2; ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... fortunate for nearly half a century, but had fallen, towards the end of his life, into contempt with his people and into forgetfulness on the continent of Europe, where nothing was heard about him beyond whispers of an indolent old man's indulgent weaknesses ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... ensuing season, for Simon, for a certain share in the profits; and then, if they should find the business likely to succeed, they might take a lease of the whole. Simon willingly made this agreement; and there was no danger in dealing with him, because, though careless and indolent, he was honest, and would keep his engagements. It was settled that John and Robin should have the power, at the end of the year, either to hold or give up all concern in the mill and tan-yard; and, in the mean time, they were to manage the business for ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... door; the waiter appeared, and I ordered a light supper. Marie poured out a glass of wine from a bottle on the table; apparently they had been supping. They began to converse together in low tones. My repast arriving, I fell to. A few moments later, I heard Marie say, in her composed indolent tones: ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... his fiery face over the table and suffered the general snicker in helpless silence. Then there was quiet for a space, broken only by the click of knives against the heavy china and the indolent ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... gracefully enough, and chatted casually, but Patty realised that Nan was looking him over and resented it. And, somehow, Blaney didn't appear to advantage in the Fairfield drawing-room, as he did in his own surroundings. His attitude, while polite, was the least bit careless, and his courtesy was indolent rather than alert. In fact, he conducted himself as an old friend might have done, but in a way which was not ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... in Virginia in 1736. As a youth he was dull and indolent and gave no sign of coming greatness. After two failures as a storekeeper and one as a farmer he turned in desperation to law, read a few books, and with difficulty passed the examination necessary for admittance to the bar. Henry had now found his true vocation. ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... conceived a high esteem, which no little peculiarities of antiquated dress or manner could diminish. Indeed, the old-fashioned politeness of what was formerly called a well-bred gentleman pleased him better than the indolent or insolent selfishness of modern men of the ton. Perhaps, notwithstanding our hero's determination to turn his mind from everything connected with the idea of Miss Nugent, some latent curiosity about the burial-place of the Nugents might have operated to make him call upon the count. In ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... commenced, and continued till 1572. Under the princes of this line, the government was arbitrary and oppressive. War was the great business and amusement of the princes, and success in it brought the highest honors. The kings were, however, weak, cruel, and capricious, ignorant, fierce, and indolent. The records of their reigns are the records of drunkenness, extortion, cruelty, lust, and violence—the common history of all barbarous kings. There were some of the Polish princes who were benignant and merciful, but the great majority of them, like the Merovingian and ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... to 1815, when he went abroad for the second time, were passed by Irving in a sort of humble waiting on Providence. His letters to Brevoort during this period are full of the ennui of irresolute youth. He idled away weeks and months in indolent enjoyment in the country; he indulged his passion for the theater when opportunity offered; and he began to be weary of a society which offered little stimulus to his mind. His was the temperament of the artist, and America at that time had little to evoke or to satisfy ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... of this. His unsuspicious nature left him utterly blinded to the inner workings of her indolent, selfish spirit, and was always ready to accept blame for her ill-humors. Now he hurriedly endeavored ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... him, scarce believing now that he was sane, and marvelling deeply whence had sprung this sudden martial fervour in one whose nature was more indolent than active, more timid than warlike. And yet the reason was not far to seek, had they but cared to follow the line of thought to which he, himself, had given them the clue when he referred to the voice he had heard, and the sights he had seen ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... ago, remained, nearly unchanged in its larger features; but, with deliberate mind I say, that I have never seen anything so ghastly in its inner tragic meaning,—not in Pisan Maremma—not by Campagna tomb,—not by the sand-isles of the Torcellan shore,—as the slow stealing of aspects of reckless, indolent, animal neglect, over the delicate sweetness of that English scene: nor is any blasphemy or impiety—any frantic saying or godless thought—more appalling to me, using the best power of judgment I have to discern its sense and scope, than the insolent ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... of a victory already won. Disposed in form of a crescent, the horns of which were seven miles asunder, those gilded, towered, floating castles, with their gaudy standards and their martial music, moved slowly along the channel, with an air of indolent pomp. Their captain-general, the golden Duke, stood in his private shot-proof fortress, on the—deck of his great galleon the Saint Martin, surrounded by generals of infantry, and colonels of cavalry, who knew as little as he did himself of naval matters. The English vessels, on the other hand—with ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... who assumed the name of Adair, published, in 1804, 'An Essay on Diet and Regimen, as indispensable to the Recovery and Preservation of Firm Health, especially to Indolent, Studious, Delicate and Invalid; with ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... and gentlemen, while Charity thus labored in my behalf, Faith and Hope were not idle. I have been anything but indolent during the last four years. Driven from pillar to post, and annoyed beyond description by all sorts of legal claims and writs, I was perusing protests and summonses by day, and dreaming of clocks run down by night. My head ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... people, and which had perhaps been the original causes of the success and establishment of their religion. Such a clergy, when attacked by a set of popular and bold, though perhaps stupid and ignorant enthusiasts, feel themselves as perfectly defenceless as the indolent, effeminate, and full fed nations of the southern parts of Asia, when they were invaded by the active, hardy, and hungry Tartars of the north. Such a clergy, upon such an emergency, have commonly no other resource than to call upon the civil magistrate to persecute, destroy, or drive out their ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... twelve years of age, with an incorrigible fondness for loafing and telling funny stories, Bob saw no chance to improve his condition. A man may be either honest or lazy and got rich; but a man who Is both honest and indolent is doomed. Bob lived in a cabin on the Anderson farm, and when not hired by Samuel Anderson he did days' work here and there, riding to and from his labor on a raw-boned mare, that was the laughing-stock ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... unexploded fragments of this prodigious magazine of all mischief, and heap them up for continued explosions? Does not the South need peace? And, since free labor is inevitable, will you have it in its worst forms or in its best? Shall it be ignorant, impertinent, indolent, or shall it be educated, self-respecting, moral, and self-supporting? Will you have men as drudges, or will you have them as citizens? Since they have vindicated the government, and cemented its foundation stones with their blood, may they not offer the tribute of their support to maintain ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... of fashion With an indolent, unused brain; But his sluggish heart feels a sudden start In the purpose of giving pain. And the fluttering flock of pigeons, As they rise on eager wings, From prison to death, bring a catch in his breath: OH, ...
— Poems of Experience • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... heart-rending pathos in his manner of uttering these last words—a hopelessness of effort and a despairing sense of failure which he himself seemed conscious of, for, meeting the fixed and earnest gaze of Ileliobas, he quickly relapsed into his usual tone of indolent indifference. ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... his old failing, there were no special complaints, but in those pre-Arnoldian times no lofty code of honour was even ideal among schoolboys, or expected of them by masters; shuffling was thought natural, and allowances made for faults in indolent despair. ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... The sooty films that play upon the bars Pendulous, and foreboding in the view Of superstition, prophesying still, Though still deceived, some stranger's near approach. 'Tis thus the understanding takes repose In indolent vacuity of thought, And sleeps and is refreshed. Meanwhile the face Conceals the mood lethargic with a mask Of deep deliberation, as the man Were tasked to his full strength, absorbed and lost. Thus oft reclined at ease, I lose an hour At ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... town, in less than a week got the first confirmed in his station. "I have been on board," said he, "ever since; and, as this way of life is becoming familiar to me, have no cause to complain of my situation. The surgeon is a good-natured, indolent man; the first mate (who is now on shore on duty) is indeed a little proud and choleric, as all Welshmen are, but in the main a friendly honest fellow. The lieutenants I have no concern with; and, as for the captain, he is too much of a gentleman to ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... till they cried at the thought of Averdoopoy going to the Arctic regions. But an uneasy seriousness fell upon these "beautiful, bountiful, brilliant boys," as Holly called them later, when in a simple, honest, but indolent speech he said he ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... sustained their position by entails, and constantly undermined it by the reckless profusion which ruined them at last. Many of them were well born, with an immense pride of descent, increased by the habit of domination. Indolent and energetic by turns; rich in natural gifts and often poor in book-learning, though some, in the lack of good teaching at home, had been bred in the English universities; high-spirited, generous to a fault; keeping open house in their capacious ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... he chance to be of indolent temperament—there is something very irritating in the ceaseless crowd, and hurry, and din. From early morning till long past midnight, you might search in vain, through any one of the principal hotels, for a quiet nook to write or read in, unless it were found in your ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... lady called Esmond, had now business enough on his hands in Castlewood House. He had three pupils, his lady and her two children, at whose lessons she would always be present; besides writing my lord's letters, and arranging his accompts for him—when these could be got from Esmond's indolent patron. ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... village, and who had found it a hard thing to pay the rent of that trumpery tenement; and yet Sir Reginald Palliser accepted the change in his circumstances as tranquilly as if it had been but a migration from the red room to the blue. He took good fortune with the same easy indolent air with which he had endured evil fortune. He had the Horatian temperament, uneager to anticipate the future, content if the present were fairly comfortable, sighing for no palatial halls over-arched with gold and ivory, no porphyry columns, or marble terraces encroaching upon ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... though as devoted a lover as could be asked for. It was a queer match and a dangerous experiment, but after a while their mutual qualities adjusted themselves. He kept her steady, and she roused him from indolent repose. As a critic of that time says: "She was as bustling, restless, energetic and pushing as he was modest, retiring and unaffected." Lover gives this picture of them: "There was Lady Morgan, with her irrepressible vivacity, her humor that indulged ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... increase nor diminish under his axe, a fact, doubtless, owing to the activity of Mammy, who was always at the same time making pies, seemed to give some credence to the story. Indeed, the wood-pile of Daddy Downey was a standing reproof to the indolent ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... sonneteer: He was one of those that had too much wit to know how to live in the world; he was a man of no justice, but great good manners; he ruined every body that had anything to do with him, but never said a rude thing in his life; the most indolent person in the world, he would sign a deed that passed away half his estate with his gloves on, but would not put on his hat before a lady if it were to save his country. He is said to be the first that made love by squeezing ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... same towards different objects and may be subject to very profound changes and developments. A schoolboy is frequently lazy when engaged in the study of grammar, but industrious when at work in manual training. A young man who is an indolent bookkeeper may prove to be an indefatigable salesman. Another who has shown himself apathetic and indifferent in a subordinate position may suddenly wake up when cast upon his ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... leader of women. Perhaps it is because she has such winning, lovable qualities. It was always difficult for her to give all of her energy and power to a movement. She yearned to play, to read, to study, to be luxuriously indolent, to revel in the companionship of her family, to which she is ardently devoted; to do any one of a hundred things more pleasant than trying to reason with a politician or an unawakened member of her own sex. But for these latter labors she had a most gentle ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... feelings which make life amiable and indolent, were unknown to him. No domestic difficulties, no domestic weakness, reached him; but, aloof from the sordid occurrences of life, and unsullied by its intercourse, he came occasionally into our system, to counsel, and to decide. ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... own part, I comfort myself with the humane reflection of the Irishman in the ship that was on fire—I am but a passenger! If I were not so indolent, I think I should rather put in practice the late Duchess of Bolton's geographical resolution of going to China, when Whiston told her the world would be burnt in three years. Have you any philosophy? Tell me what you think. It is quite the fashion to talk of the French coming here. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... orange-trees hanging their golden fruits. Thus happily bowered, merchants and bankers pursue their avocations, and shopkeepers display their wares in a pleasant array of modern shops. On the streets walk leisurely an indolent and elegant people; the dark women are especially chic and it must be said refined and restrained, and not so seductive in appearance as the South would suggest. You see also at the many open-air cafes and in the street a very distinguished-looking type of man with finely cut features ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... intellectual to those who prefer to take him as literally as they can. There are reformers, and in "the form" lies their interest, who prefer to stand on the plain, and then insist they see from the summit. Indolent legs supply the strength of eye for their inspiration. The intellect is never a whole. It is where the soul finds things. It is often the only track to the over-values. It appears a whole—but never becomes one even in the stock exchange, or the convent, or the laboratory. In the cleverest criminal, ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... exercise are the most conducive to sound healthy sleep, hence the peasant is rewarded, for his toil and frugal mode of life, with a blessing, which is seldom enjoyed by those whom wealth renders indolent and luxurious. The poor in the country enjoy sound and sweet sleep: forced by necessity to labour, their excitability becomes exhausted in a proper and natural manner, and they retire to rest early in the evening. Their sleep is generally sound, and early in the morning they find ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... thou, with all a monarch's cares oppress'd, O Atreus' son! canst thou indulge the rest?(78) Ill fits a chief who mighty nations guides, Directs in council, and in war presides, To whom its safety a whole people owes, To waste long nights in indolent repose.(79) Monarch, awake! 'tis Jove's command I bear; Thou, and thy glory, claim his heavenly care. In just array draw forth the embattled train, Lead all thy Grecians to the dusty plain; E'en now, O king! 'tis given ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... of the peasant class work in the fields with the men; in the towns and cities women help in their husbands' shops, as in France, and while they may not always possess the energy and business skill which characterize the French women, they are at least no more indolent and easy-going than their male companions. The women of the nobility are often less educated than their plebeian sisters, and for the most part lead a very narrow and petty existence, which produces little but vanity and selfishness ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... Intelligencer, and had been immediately afterwards republished in a separate form as a thin quarto pamphlet, together with some lines of no special merit "addressed to a young man of fortune" (probably Charles Lloyd), "who abandoned himself to an indolent and causeless melancholy." To the new edition were added the preface already quoted from, and a prose introduction to the sonnets. The volume also contained some poems by Charles Lloyd and an enlarged collection ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... revenge. Perhaps a further insight into the real character of Assur-bani-pal may have induced him to venture on hostilities. For the king's contemporaries had begun to realise that, beneath his apparent bravery and ostentation, he was by nature indolent, impatient of restraint, and fond of ease and luxury. When not absorbed in the routine of the court and the pleasures of the harem, he spent his leisure in hunting on the Mesopotamian plains, or in the extensive parks which had ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... horror. During the speaking of the Philippics the Republican party had been strong and Cicero had been held in favor. The soldiers had still clung to the memory of Caesar; but the men of mark in the city, those who were indolent and rich and luxurious, the "fish-ponders" generally, had thought that, now Caesar was dead, and especially as Antony had left Rome, their safest course would be to join the Republic. They had done so, and had found their mistake. Young Caesar had ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... treated by Anacreon and Horace, from those of Orpheus, Museus, &c. is owing to the different characters of the ages in which they lived. We could not indeed have expected to meet with any thing very serious, at any period, from so indolent and careless a writer as Anacreon. But Luxury even in his time had made considerable progress in the world. The principles of Theology were sufficiently well established. Civil polity had succeeded to a state of confusion, and men ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... is my brother!' she said with difficult composure. 'I just caught his voice. He has no doubt come back from Paris to stay. This is a rather vexatious, indolent way he has, never to write to ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... from the Island of St. Jago and the Brazils, and published an ordinance by which every planter was compelled to put under cultivation five hundred feet of cassava for every slave that he possessed. The planters, an ignorant and indolent race, used every measure to degenerate and discredit this innovation, and in some cases destroyed the plantations of the cassava by pouring boiling water on the root. The benefit conferred by this ordinance was later felt and appreciated when their crops were destroyed by the hurricanes or devoured ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... the reader some idea of the bear in general, but these facts about bruin must be varied as the climate varies between the arctic regions and the tropics. If a meat diet makes man cross and brutal, and a fruit and vegetable diet makes him amiable and indolent, they affect bruin ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... truth, is ever ready for the journey when his time comes. We have lost a great teacher and example of knowledge and virtue, but men will long feel the presence of his character about them, making them ashamed of what is indolent or selfish, and encouraging them to all disinterested labour, both in trying to do good and in trying to find out what the good is,—which ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 3) - Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill - Essay 3: Mr Mill's Autobiography • John Morley
... too low to make an idle life enjoyable. In the south, the soil is more productive, while less food is wanted and fewer clothes; and, in the exquisite air, exertion is not needed to make the sense of existence delightful. Therefore, in the south we find men lazy and indolent. ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... mile off. She has taken a flat of five rooms, and has installed herself fairly comfortably and in the taste of the day. If any one were to undertake to describe her surroundings, the most characteristic note in the picture would be indolence. For the indolent body there are soft lounges, soft stools; for indolent feet soft rugs; for indolent eyes faded, dingy, or flat colours; for the indolent soul the walls are hung with a number of cheap fans and trivial pictures, in which ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... argument against the Germans is that they were not lazy enough. In the middle of Europe, a thoroughly disillusioned, indolent and delightful old continent, the Germans were a dangerous mass of energy and bumptious push. If the Germans had been as lazy, as indifferent, and as righteously laissez-fairish as their neighbours, the world would have been spared ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... man who drew A gloom about him like a cloak, And wandered aimlessly. The few Who spoke of him at all, but spoke Disparagingly of a mind The Fates had faultily designed: Too indolent for modern times— Too fanciful, and full of whims— For, talking to himself in rhymes, And scrawling never-heard-of hymns, The idle life to which he clung Was worthless as the songs he sung! I saw him, in my vision, filled With rapture o'er ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... them. Almost the entire repair force seemed to be concentrated here. Stocky, muscular men they were, with the same modified Oriental countenances as the rest of the Hans, but with a certain ruggedness about them that was lacking in the rest of the indolent population. They sweated as they labored over the construction of magnetic cars evidently designed to travel down these tunnels, automatically laying pipe lines for ventilation and temperature control. The tunnels themselves appeared to have been driven with disintegrator ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... work, its desultoriness, the time it costs his readers, that [134] slow Latinity which Johnson imitated from him, those lengthy leisurely terminations which busy posterity will abbreviate, all breathe of the long quiet of the place. Yet he is by no means indolent. Besides wide book-learning, experimental research at home, and indefatigable observation in the open air, he prosecutes the ordinary duties of a physician; contrasting himself indeed with other students, "whose quiet and unmolested doors afford no such distractions." ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... was on the latch. She met Ruth's harassed, unhappy gaze with her indolent, almost insolent, smile. Suddenly the American girl snatched up her jacket and the little fur collar she had thrown across a chair in ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... the Old Manse, it was chiefly this strange, indolent, unjoyous attachment for my native town, that brought me to fill a place in Uncle Sam's brick edifice, when I might as well, or better, have gone somewhere else. My doom was on me. It was not the first time, nor the second, that I had gone away,—as it seemed, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... aim at an indolent equality which Union men aim at, is one of the greatest hindrances to industrial progress. When the Union Delegates called upon me to insist that none but men who had served seven years' apprenticeship should be employed in the ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... London once a fortnight, and as the ordinary courier left for London not more than three days ago, I have been thinking that some serious circumstance could alone have induced her to write again so soon, for you know she is a very indolent correspondent." ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... murderer—the duc d'Aiguillon. As for you gentlemen, who now constitute our parliament, your places will soon be filled by a magistracy drawn from the dregs of society; a troop of slaves, deaf and blind, except as he who pays them best will have them exercise those powers. "This is no time for indolent repose; we must at once courageously and unanimously defeat the guilty schemes of our enemies. So long as my brother retains his present post he will support you with his best interest; but, should he be dismissed, your business will soon be finished. ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... one advantage; the greatest sceptic, after a glance at them, can no longer invoke chance, the great Deus ex machina of the ignorant and indolent. ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... who was more subtle than she appeared on the surface, while apparently indolent, had a very active brain. Madame Frabelle caused her to use it more than she had ever done before. Edith was intensely curious and until she understood her visitor she could not rest satisfied. She made ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... doctrine was asserted by all those who defended the existing organization and ceremonial practices of the church. [Footnote: Makower, Constitutional History of the Church of England, 75.] Thus the breach between the Puritan and the churchman was now so wide that James I., indolent and arrogant for all his toleration and learning, did nothing—perhaps could do nothing—towards its closing. He said of the Puritans, at the Conference at Hampton Court in 1604: "I shall make them conform themselves or I will harry them ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... specific directions can be given, further than to recommend, what is much neglected—particular attention to a good garden spot; and to remark, that those who devote undivided attention to cultivating the soil, receive more uniform supplies of suitable nourishment than the more indolent, who spend a considerable portion of their time ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... will not conceal from ourselves that these victories for which our bells ring and our flags wave, and for which we thank our God, may become a danger to us, should they make us vain and arrogant, boastful and indolent! God forbid! We will hold fast to our old modesty, with which we have so often been reproached, and which has indeed often enough degenerated into the undervaluing of ourselves and overvaluing of that which is foreign and despicable.—K. ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... a great many of the Patients, who had been in Hospitals the preceding Winter, had Tumours formed on the external Part of the Breast, which they shewed me at Osnabruck. They began in the Form of indolent Tumours, and came slowly to Suppuration. For the most part, the Suppuration was only partial, and the Tumour, on being opened, discharged a very small Quantity of Matter. Some of them, though they felt soft, and seemed to contain Matter, yet, upon being opened, discharged only a small Quantity ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro
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