"Idle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... malice, obloquy, and spite Expire e're morn, the mushroom of a night! Transient as vapours glimm'ring thro' the glades, Half-form'd and idle, as the dreams of maids, Vain as the sick man's vow, or young man's sigh, Third-nights of Bards, ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... acrid smoke pervaded everything. Here the poorer streets were spared, and it was chiefly the rich shops and banks and private houses that had been destroyed. Charleroi was the great Birmingham of Belgium—coal-pits all round, with many great iron and steel works, now of course all idle, and most of the owners entirely ruined. The town was absolutely crammed with German troops as we passed through; it had now been occupied for two or three days and was being used ...
— Field Hospital and Flying Column - Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia • Violetta Thurstan
... that I may see their works, done in My name in a fertile land of peace. I will withdraw Mine eyes from other worlds that I may behold them, that I may behold these people to whom I sent Christ—they whose innumerable spires pierce My blue vault like bayonets.' God saw the restless, idle rich in club and cabaret, Meat-gorged, wine-filled, they played and preened and danced till dawn o' day; They played at sports; they played at love; they played at being gay. They were but empty, silk-clad shells; their souls had leaked away. He saw the sweat-shop and the mill where little children ...
— Hello, Boys! • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... him for writing on so universal a matter, even though it is unimportant; and he has tried to make it uncommon and important by weaving round it an intricate lace-work of psychology; yet, when we get down to its main lines, it is the ordinary event, especially commonplace in any idle society which clings to outward respectability and is dreadfully wearied of it. Our neighbours across the Channel call it La Crise when, after years of a quiet, not unhappy, excellent married existence, day succeeding day in unbroken continuity of easy affection ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... village gossip about Edith, and so she endeavored, by warning and by bribery, to induce the maid, the footman, and the driver to say nothing about the scene at the gates. Another day, she hoped, would make it all right, and idle gossip should, never be allowed to meddle with the name ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... to the main street and for a distance the roar of their volleying chorus followed us. Men and women stood at the doors of the houses along the way. They were silent and idle. Idleness and silence seemed always to have fallen as grim legacies upon the civilian populace of these captured towns; but the look upon their faces as they listened to the soldiers' voices was not hard to read. Their town was pierced by cannonballs where it was not scarified with fire; there was ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... stone, and the other walls are blank and calm. The young folk were in raptures. They went in trepidation, almost afraid that the delight of exploring this ruin might be denied them. In the first courtyard, within the high broken walls, were farm-carts, with their shafts lying idle on the ground, the tyres of the wheels brilliant with gold-red rust. It ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... tossing his head, and turning it on all sides, as if he partly suspected some mischief or other. Seeing nothing, however, and hearing no sound, he soon began his antics again. At length—not that he was weary, but only idle and luxurious—Pegasus folded his wings and lay down on the soft green turf. But, being too full of aerial life to remain quiet for many moments together, he soon rolled over on his back with his ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... vegetation, from the symmetry of avenues and the interlacing of branches, is a strange and vain supposition. It is a theory which never could have existed for a moment in the mind of any person acquainted with early Gothic; but, however idle as a theory, it is most valuable as a testimony to the character of ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... stirrups, and loosely fastened to their right arms, vibrating over their heads; long files of Russian and Prussian foragers, and long trains of Austrian baggage waggons, winding slowly through the crowd; idle soldiers of all services, French as well as allied, lounging about in their loose great coats and trowsers, with long crooked pipes hanging from their mouths; patroles of infantry parading about under arms, composed half of Russian grenadiers, ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... humor:—whether they are better or worse, is unimportant. His delicate and irritable genius, influenced by his early studies, and fettered by old associations, moved within a limited circle. Yet this was not without its advantages; for, whilst it stopped him from many bold (and many idle) speculations and theories, it gave to his writings their peculiar charm, their individuality, their sincerity, their pure, gentle original character. Wit, which is "impersonal," and, for that very ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... whilst my lord and lady were away. King James was flying; the Dutchmen were coming; awful stories about them and the Prince of Orange Mrs. Worksop used to tell to the idle little page, who enjoyed the exciting narratives. The family were away more than six months, and when they returned they were in the deepest state of dejection, for King James had been banished, the Prince of Orange was on the throne, and the direst persecutions ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... therefore the water that runneth through Bantam is very vnwholesome; for euery one washeth themselues in it, as well pockie as other people, whereby wee lost some of our men that drunke of the water: The women are verie idle, for they do nothing all the day but lie downe; the poore slaues must doe all the drudgerie, and the men sit all day vpon a mat, and chaw Betele, hauing ten or twentie women about them, and when they make water, presenly one of the women washeth their member, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt
... it rains try to find some thing to do indoors. Clean up, rather than remain idle. Remember that while work may stop, expenses still ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... myself apprentice to a tailor; for I always envied the comfortable seat which they appeared to enjoy upon the shopboard, and their elevated position, which enabled them to look down upon the constant succession of the idle or the busy, who passed in review before them in the main street of the country town, near to which I passed the first ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... of the Queen-mother rendered all further discussion upon this point at once idle and impolitic, De Luynes resolved to induce her to come to terms with the King without any allusion to M. d'Epernon; and for this purpose the Archbishop of Sens was directed to act in concert with the two original envoys, and to endeavour to convince her that a prolonged opposition to the ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... sleight-of-hand performer juggles with his balls. The expressions: "This is what I would do, if I were the government"; "You, as a clever man, will immediately agree with me"—were never absent from his tongue. Lavretzky listened coldly to Panshin's idle chatter: he did not like this handsome, clever, and unconstrainedly elegant man, with his brilliant smile, courteous voice, and searching eyes. Panshin speedily divined, with the swift comprehension of other ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... Admiral lying on his bed, not yet in his stone house but in a rich and large pavilion brought out especially for the Viceroy and now pitched upon the river bank, under palms. I came to him past numbers out of that thirty. Idle here; they certainly were idle here! With him I found a secretary, but when he could he preferred always to write his own letters, in his small, clear, strong hand, and now he was doing this, propped in bed, in his brow a knot of pain. He wrote many letters. Long afterwards I ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... young Welland's thoughts had been very busy; ay, and his conscience had not been idle, for when mention was made of that great curse strong drink, he vividly recalled the day when he had laughed at Sam Twitter's blue ribbon, and felt uneasy as to how far his conduct on that occasion had helped Sam in ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... to another lady ten or twelve days since, but to this must be added the fact that all Littlebath knew that he had done so. Miss Todd, after the first ebullition of her comic spleen, had not said much about it; but Miss P. Gauntlet's tongue had not been idle. She, perhaps, had told it only to the godly; but the godly, let them be ever so exclusive, must have some intercourse with the wicked world; and thus every lady in Littlebath now knew all about it. And then there were other difficulties. That whispered conversation ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... Down in the water, a long reef of gold, Or what seem'd gold: and I was glad at first To think that in our often-ransack'd world Still so much gold was left; and then I fear'd Lest the gay navy there should splinter on it, And fearing waved my arm to warn them off; An idle signal, for the brittle fleet (I thought I could have died to save it) near'd, Touch'd, clink'd, and clash'd, and vanish'd, and I woke, I heard the clash so clearly. Now I see My dream was Life; the woman honest Work; And my poor venture but a fleet ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson
... not ready to proceed to trial until 1664. For three years the sharpest lawyers in France had been working on the Act of Accusation. It was very large even for its age. The accompanying Pieces were unusually voluminous. The accused had not been idle. His Defenses may be seen in fourteen ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... yet determined—but this lady has taught an to respect myself. I have been spending an idle, useless life, dependent on her bounty, a pet, a protege which no human being endowed with health and energy should ever content herself with being. Henceforth ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... hardly wonder that the time spent at Oxford was, to a man like Gibbon, "the most idle and unprofitable period of his life," to use his own words. Even under the very different system which prevailed in the early portion of the present century, one of the most fertile thinkers of our day has been heard to speak ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... be imported, were not to be worn, and lamb's flesh was abjured that more wool might be raised for home manufacture. England's colonial trade fell off so alarmingly in consequence that Manchester manufacturers petitioned Parliament to repeal the act, asserting that nine-tenths of their workmen were idle. Besides these popular demonstrations, delegates from nine colonies met in New York, in October, 1765, often called the Stamp Act Congress, and adopted a declaration of rights, asserting that England ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... it is certain that, in many instances, masters have failed to win the gratitude to which they thought themselves justly entitled, for their kindness and care. They have found their servants growing discontented and idle, where they hoped to make them docile and happy. Searching for the cause of this, they perhaps turn upon the course of training they have followed, and accuse it of being opposed to the best interests of the slave. Could such reasoners but look upon the matter in its ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... neighborhood and in Kalsing being most intent on hospitable thoughts and providing something agreeable in the shape of an entertainment for every night. Every moment of the day, too, of every day was filled up. It seemed to Mrs. Ketchum that "those English people," as she called them, were never idle, and had discovered the secret ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... kept pure and holy to that degree that no books shall be read on that day which originated among the world's people, save those scientific books which treat of propriety of diction. No idle or vain stories shall be rehearsed, no unnecessary labor shall be performed—not even the cooking of food, the ablution of the body, the cutting of the hair, beard, or nails, the blacking and polishing of shoes or ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... attention in this direction has been, an unwillingness to interfere with the Dutch, who have been supposed to have been in possession of all the valuable islands in the archipelago, and from long-standing to have a prior right to this portion of the East; but, although the Dutch have not been idle, and are gradually adding to their possessions, there is little chance of our interfering with them, as there is room, and more, for the Dutch, ourselves, and every other nation which may feel inclined ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... came to be so luxuriously dressed, so well supplied with money. She had heard of this system under which the girls in the streets were exploited as thoroughly as the girls in the houses. In all the earth was there anyone who was suffered to do for himself or herself without there being a powerful idle someone else to take away all the proceeds but a bare ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... pity. In his rapid rise he had kicked many rivals from the ladder of Court favour, and climbed yet higher by trampling them underfoot, caring little what gulf of disgrace or worse swallowed them. And the King's threat was no idle boast; the hand which had raised could drag down, not only to irremediable disaster, but to the very grave itself. A hand? A beckoning finger to those who waited at the door would be enough, ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... thee this is idle! Oh, thou man of little faith! Doubting on the verge of Aidenn, turning now to covet death! By the fervent hopes within me, by the strength which nerves my soul, By the heart that yearns to help thee, we shall live and reach the ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... is but idle talk to tell me of Zeus and the other gods. We Cyclopes take no account of gods, holding ourselves to be much better and stronger than they. But come, tell me where have you ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... the circle about the hearth. There sat Sol's mother, idle to-night, for it was Sunday. His grandmother, too, was there, so old that she seemed to confirm the story told of these healthy mountains, to the effect that people are obliged to go down in the valley to die, else they would ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... little information he had given his friend, and it seemed idle to say that the real captors of Otto Relstaub could not tell ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... with her. She was not the sort to inspire idle fancies—either in married or unmarried men. In any event, it looked a long time to these chaps before they could get back to the States, and she was ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... is gaining the open water and Geneva already lies far behind. Not a ripple on the blue water that shades into deep blue behind us. Ahead the scene melts into a milky haze. A little boat, with idle sails embroidered with sunlight, vanishes into it. On the right rise the mountains of Savoy, dotted with forests, veiled in clouds which cast their shadows on the broken slopes. The contrast is happy, and I can not help admiring Leman's lovely smile at ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... straightforward character of the people is still unspoiled by contact with the outer world. Here, also, the pervading aspect is of well-being and contentment. 'Everybody can live here,' we were told by an intelligent resident; 'only the idle, the drunkard, and the ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... sailed the year before from Palos were useful and efficient. The universal impression about the new lands in the West was that they were places where fortunes could be picked up like dirt, and where the very shores were strewn with gold and precious stones; and every idle scamp in Spain who had a taste for adventure and a desire to get a great deal of money without working for it was anxious to visit the new territory. The result was that instead of artisans, farmers, craftsmen, and colonists, Columbus took with him a company at least half ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... his "idle thoughts" toward the construction of an arithmetical machine, but he does not appear ever to have prosecuted this design further than by mentally considering the manner in which he could make it perform the processes ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... ever; spending their idle breath on what is past; and trembling at the future. We must be active. Beverley, at worst, is but suspicious; but Lewson's genius, and his hate to Me, will lay all open. Means must be found ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... his tail. Poll and Niger always accompanied Ellen. "We shall soon be back!" I exclaimed, as I shoved off; "and who knows but that we may be accompanied by papa, mamma, Fanny, and Aunt Martha! Ellen, you must get out your books, for she will be shocked at finding that you have been so long idle." With these and other cheerful remarks we backed away from the shore, then, turning the canoe's head round, proceeded after our Indian friends. By keeping close to the banks we were out of the current, and thus made good way. Sometimes ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... Doughty ("Arabia Deserta," i. 223) speaks of the Badawin who sit beating the time away, and for pastime limning with their driving-sticks (the Bkr) in the idle land." ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... the heart, and, totally indulged, soon require a change and vicissitude in our minds; wherefore, in the midst of your griefs, your feet involuntarily wandered after Darandu, and your soul, softened by idle sighs, was the more easily impressed by ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... the New Testament told in a word. Christians read and forget it. But Christians are not philosophers. The latter are charitable because they regard evil as a part of the universal order of things, one which it is idle to blame, ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... boast of God and of Christ and of the Spirit. But whether such boasting has any foundation or not, depends on whether or not the Spirit so works and rules in one as to subdue and mortify sin. For where the Spirit is, there assuredly the Spirit is not idle nor powerless. He proves his presence by ruling and directing man and prevailing on man to obey and follow his promptings. Such a man has the comfort that he is a child of God, and that God so reigns and works in him that he is not subject to ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... through the Reptile room on my way to the study that I first saw him. I took him to be a mere common working man passing away an idle hour; one of the ordinary Museum visitors. Two hours later, I noticed that he was closely examining the lizard cases. Then later, he seemed interested in my collection of prints illustrating the living world ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... thinly veiled a cynical contempt. It styled woman a goddess and really regarded her as little better than a doll. The passion of love had fallen from the high estate it once possessed and become the mere relaxation of the idle moments of a ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... life-thread from which depended no small portion of the destinies of millions of people. How the history of this nation might have been changed, had Mr. Lincoln survived to bear his influential part in reconstructing and reuniting the shattered country, no man can tell. Many have indulged in the idle speculation, though to do so is but to waste time. The life which he had already lived gives food enough for reflection and for study without trying to evolve out of arbitrary fancy the further things which might have been attempted by him, which might have been of wise or of visionary conception, ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... say,"—here he lowered his voice to a tone of mysterious and weighty reproach,—"what shall I say of your most unseemly and indiscreet companionship with these worldly young men who are visiting the Fjord for their idle pastime? Ah dear, dear! This is indeed a heavy scandal and a sore burden to my soul,—for up to this time I have, in spite of many faults in your disposition, considered you were at least of a most maidenly and decorous deportment,—but ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... an idle boy, I sought its grateful shade; In all their gushing joy Here, too, my sisters played. My mother kissed me here; My father pressed my hand;— Forgive this foolish tear, But let ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... career, the latter just beginning his, argued cogently in favor of retracing the steps taken the year before. Grenville refused. "America must learn," he wailed, "that prayers are not to be brought to Caesar through riot and sedition." His protests were idle. The Commons agreed to the repeal on February 22, 1766, amid the cheers of the victorious majority. It was carried through the Lords in the face of strong opposition and, on March 18, reluctantly signed by the king, now restored to his ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... room, and there The Mother sat and gave him welcome twice. "I prayed last night," she spoke, "to know God's will; I prayed to Holy Mary and the saints That they might pray for me, and I might know My conduct in the matter. Now, kind sir, What wouldst thou? Tell thy errand." He replied: "It was not idle curiosity That brought me hither or that prompts my lips To ask the story of the 'White-Rose-Grave', To seek the story of the sleeper there Whose name I knew so long and far away. Who was she, pray? Dost deem it right to tell?" There was a pause before the answer came, As if ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... to the grove," said Patty, "but I don't want to play anything. This is a day just to be idle and enjoy living, ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... which have a voice and nothing else—nay, hardly a voice, so seldom are they heard even to speak. They appear to have been enacted merely as a compliment to decency, and they remain in the statute-book as "idle as painted ships upon a painted ocean." The dens of debauch keep open doors night and day; the saloons of profligacy send out their cards of invitation; the gambler rattles his triumphant dice; but excursive policemen never see, and ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... respectively Surprise, Defiance and Doubt. Indeed, irresolution being the keynote of Hamlet's soliloquy, a clever player could to some extent indicate the whole thirty lines by a silent working of the jaw. But at the same time it would be idle to deny that he would miss the finer shades of the poet's meaning. "The insolence of office, and the spurns"—to take only one line—would tax the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... attend the conclusion of a long, hard drive over country roads. Maitland, on the other hand, (judging him by his preoccupied pose), was already weary of, if not bored by, the hare-brained enterprise which, initiated on the spur of an idle moment and directly due to a thoughtless remark of his own, had brought him a hundred miles (or so) through the heat of a broiling afternoon, accompanied by spirits as ardent and irresponsible as his own, in search of the dubious distraction afforded by the ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... and essentially political character of Romanism it would be idle to deny. No one at all acquainted with its cunningly contrived 'system' will hesitate to characterise it as 'wickedly political,' productive of nothing but mischief—a system through whose accursed instrumentality ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell
... come to pass that thou, thine armor cast away Art mute in heaven; and but an idle tale? At such a time the horns should sprout, the raging bull hold sway, Or they white hair beneath swan's down conceal Here's Dana's self! But touch that lovely form Thy limbs will melt beneath ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... heard Wood say the day before that the Q—— had irrevocably determined to come down every day to the trial in her "coach-and-six in a high style;" if so, she will very likely be attended by all the idle populace between Hammersmith and London, besides a host of radicals, who will not let go by such an auspicious opportunity. How the peace of the metropolis or the safety of the Parliament is to be secured under all these circumstances, might ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... this land they have the softer side of life—the best of everything. There are, of course, exceptions—individuals—whose struggle in life is hard, whose husbands and fathers are tyrants instead of protectors; so there are bad wives, and men ruined and disheartened by selfish, idle women. ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... to let her idle gaze roam over the attractive landscape, her thoughts just now were far away. She had in her hand a letter from her father, and its message was strongly in favour of her leaving Cromarty Manor and joining her parents ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... patronised it. As he was an undergraduate of this college, and a singularly lazy person, it's very probable that he really did so; every other undergraduate certainly does, for it's the nearest walk an idle man can get without ever taking the trouble to go ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... are mistaken," said my friend, "or rather you are willing to mislead me; for you must know that, though your father appears to be idle, yet your brother is speculating with his money at ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... landowners and capitalists, could never satisfy the masses nor fail to invite their savage attack. Only the most hopeless and futile of doctrinaires could have argued themselves into believing anything else. It was quite idle to argue from the experience of other countries that Russia must follow the universal rule and establish and maintain bourgeois rule for a period more or less prolonged. True, that had been the experience of most nations, but it was foolish in the extreme to suppose that it ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... child spent the long warm days of summer under the trees of the park, or driving in the quiet lanes. Guests were unbidden, and his pen was idle. All that was human in him had gone out to Blanche. He loved her, and she was a perpetual delight to him. The rest of the world received the large measure of his indifference. There was no further change in her, and apprehension slept ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... instant we were on the street. Arrests in Darbyville were rare, and by the time we reached the jail we had a goodly following of boys and idle men, all anxious to know ...
— True to Himself • Edward Stratemeyer
... conviction this morning, but a vague gypsying stirred his blood also, and a wayfaring urge swept him. The sky was indescribably blue, washed clean by a moist January that had drenched the hills to lush-green life. The bay lay in a sapphire drowse, flecked by idle-winged argosies, unfolding their storm-soaked sails to the caressing sunlight. Soaring high above the placid gulls, an airplane circled and dipped like a huge dragon fly in nuptial flight. Through the Golden Gate, shrouded in the delicate mists evoked by the ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... fitted than the ordinary occupations of everyday life. This raises a difficult question, and each case would have to be settled on its merits. The difficulty must be faced; otherwise the children will simply drift and become idle and useless, while, if educated, at any rate partly, on the system for the blind, they would ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch
... to systematic meditation, try to give an hour at night, and should this, by the length and laboriousness of your daily task be denied you, you need not despair, for you may turn your thoughts upward in holy meditation in the intervals of your work, or in those few idle minutes which you now waste in aimlessness; and should your work be of that kind which becomes by practice automatic, you may meditate while engaged upon it. That eminent Christian saint and philosopher, Jacob Boehme, realized his vast knowledge ...
— The Way of Peace • James Allen
... unavoidably acted upon by the water vapor in the generator and will in time become more or less pasty and sticky. This is more noticeable if the generator stands idle for a considerable length of time This condition imposes another duty on the feeding mechanism; that is, the necessity of self-cleaning so that the carbide, no matter in what condition, cannot prevent the positive action of this part of the device, especially so that it cannot prevent the supply ...
— Oxy-Acetylene Welding and Cutting • Harold P. Manly
... family belonged to Throndhjem district. She worshipped King Olaf the Saint, and believed firmly in his sanctity. But the above mentioned count doubted all that was told of the holy man's miracles, insisted that it was nothing but nonsense and idle talk, and made a joke and scorn of the esteem and honour which all the country people showed the good king. Now when his holyday came, on which the mild monarch ended his life, and which all Northmen kept sacred, this unreasonable count would not observe it, but ordered his servant-girl to bake and ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... killed a groom and wounded three other men, and wounded three horses so badly that they all had to be killed. It is always men on duty, holding horses or otherwise unable to escape, who pay for the curiosity of the idle. ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... shadows of hell, and the taint of the grave upon him, and sat among these respectable persons of flesh and blood—impenetrable—secure—for he knew there were but two in the church for whom clever disguises were idle and transparent as the air. The blue-chinned sly clerk, who read the responses, and quavered the Psalms so demurely, and the white-headed, silver-spectacled, upright man, in my Lord Castlemallard's pew, who ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... "With my ignorance and idle curiosity, I led you on and on, over first one hill and then another, until you lost your way in that awful desert over there, but yet perhaps there was a destiny in that. When I was leading you out of the desert, a blind man, it may be that ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... girl will always do well to avoid a companion who is vain, idle, silly, or frivolous. Girls who have these evil characteristics are very likely to have others also which are worse. A girl who is rude in her manners, careless in her habits, irreverent and disobedient to parents and teachers, is always an unsafe companion. ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... that suggested idle expense or vanity. To dwell at all upon the subject would be a disproportion, but for the note of contrast that was struck. In an assembly of well-dressed people, no one would have remarked Cecily's attire, unless to praise its quiet distinction. In the Spences' sitting-room it became another ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... been idle," said Krag. "While you have been murdering and lovemaking, we have had ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... and orderly assembly of idle people had collected on the pavement to see the gentlemen alight, to watch them go into the house, to stare at the inkstand, to wonder at the Address, to observe that Mr. Thorpe's page wore his best livery, ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... subject of the first is no idle piece of subtle argument, but a consideration of such decidedly practical importance that it comes up whenever the plan of pushing War to the utmost extremity is mooted, and by its weight in most cases restrains the ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... up much room, he's so little," reassured idle Molly, with a mischievous glance toward the doorway which the other girls did not observe; while by dint of considerable assistance Alfy "got him down" and "all on one ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... me, Constance. I am going to Garibaldi. He wants soldiers. I must not live an idle life any longer.—We ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... the world are those who do not catch fish; the mere slaughter of fish is simply brutal, and it was with a view to keeping her excellent treatise out of the hands of the idle and the inappreciative that Dame Berners incorporated that treatise in a compendious book whose cost was so large that only "gentyll and noble men" could possess it. What mind has he who loveth fishing merely for the killing it involves—what ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... truth. It was well done, Hathi with the white mark; but the second time it shall be done better, for the reason that there is a man to direct. Thou knowest the village of the Man-Pack that cast me out? They are idle, senseless, and cruel; they play with their mouths, and they do not kill the weaker for food, but for sport. When they are full-fed they would throw their own breed into the Red Flower. This I have seen. It is not well that they should live ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... were quite satisfied, notwithstanding, that it was, what the stranger asserted, the remains of a human heart; and David readily promised his influence in the village, which was almost co-ordinate with that of the bailie himself, to silence all idle rumours. He was, moreover, pleased to favour us with his company to supper; and having taken the lion's share of two bottles of sherry, he not only sanctioned with his plenary authority the stranger's removal ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... Mrs. Alison was really very happy, making delicate biscuits after a receipt of her own. Things came to a point where I was sure they would finish themselves off more happily without either of us, and though one idle female more might not be desirable, I thought at least I might prevent Harold's effacement, and went down to Mycening with Eustace ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... face, gallant in bearing, idle and careless; a jolly companion, with beautiful courtly manners. His dark chestnut hair curled over his smooth, rather small forehead. His black twinkling eyes looked out under level brows; his nose was ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... hauberks, coat-armures; **trappings Lordes in parements* on their coursers, *ornamental garb ; Knightes of retinue, and eke squiers, Nailing the spears, and helmes buckeling, Gniding* of shieldes, with lainers** lacing; *polishing There as need is, they were nothing idle: **lanyards The foamy steeds upon the golden bridle Gnawing, and fast the armourers also With file and hammer pricking to and fro; Yeomen on foot, and knaves* many one *servants With shorte staves, thick* as they may gon**; *close **walk Pipes, trumpets, nakeres*, and clariouns, *drums ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... idle to suppose that the author of the Annals was actuated by the simple purpose of Peter of Calabria; there is ground for believing that some deeper, and less pure, motive instigated him to commit forgery. Though ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... was one of your lot," rejoined the Wolf, "so make no more such idle excuses." He then seized the poor Lamb, carried him off to the woods, and ate him, but before the poor creature died he gasped out, feebly, "Any excuse will ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... as if to compensate her for the absence of nearer ties, had a simple and wholesome love of all created things. She was infirm now, but was quite content, when it was fine, to sit for long hours idle for very love, and look about her with a peaceful and smiling air; she prayed much, or rather held a sweet converse in her heart with God; she thought little of her latter end, which she knew could not be long delayed, but was ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the fairest flower of all which bloomed around that bower, clasped her hand upon her heart, lest he should see its wild throbbings, and, forcing back the tears which moistened her long lashes, listened to the knell of all her hopes. Henceforth her love for him must be an idle mockery, and the time would come when to love him as she loved him then would be a sin—a wrong to herself, a wrong to him, and a ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... French, I'll teach ye all I can," said Dennis. "Sh—sh! No kindness whatever. I wish we mayn't have idle time ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... was beginning to break, a boat filled with sailors rowed up to the landing. All the occupants save one disembarked without paying any attention to the idle boy who was watching them intently, and the little craft was being pushed ...
— Neal, the Miller - A Son of Liberty • James Otis
... I had seene this hot loue on the wing, As I perceiued it, I must tell you that Before my Daughter told me what might you Or my deere Maiestie your Queene heere, think, If I had playd the Deske or Table-booke, Or giuen my heart a winking, mute and dumbe, Or look'd vpon this Loue, with idle sight, What might you thinke? No, I went round to worke, And (my yong Mistris) thus I did bespeake Lord Hamlet is a Prince out of thy Starre, This must not be: and then, I Precepts gaue her, That she should locke her selfe ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... that he might not be entirely idle, and to give a certain colour to his way of life, Francis had purchased Euclid's Geometry in French, which he set himself to copy and translate on the top of his portmanteau and seated on the floor against the wall; for ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of Trumball's widow. Pope, who introduced him to Lady Trumball, had also introduced him to Craggs, who, when Secretary of State, felt his want of a decent education, and wished to be polished by some competent person. He seems to have been a kindly, idle, honourable man, who died, says Pope, of indolence, and more immediately, it appears, of the gout. The alliance thus formed was rather a delicate one, and was embittered by some of Pope's usual trickery. ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... elephant undoubtedly evinces uneasiness at the presence of a dog, but this is referable to the same cause as its impatience of a horse, namely, that neither is habitually seen by it in the forest; but it would be idle to suppose that this feeling could amount to hostility against a creature incapable of inflicting on it the slightest injury.[1] The truth I apprehend to be that, when they meet, the impudence and impertinences of the dog are offensive to the gravity ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... youngsters and idlers, who are ever ready to seize upon novelty and enter upon bustle; but further off, it extended to old and young, hale and infirm, asthmatic and long-winded, grave and gay, taught and untaught, respectable and disreputable, industrious and idle, till it reached a compass of twenty miles at least, extending not only to the Forth and Tay, but stretching inland from their opposite shores. In short, men who had never climbed a mountain all their lives before, though living in close proximity to one, were seen on its loftiest ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various
... unburied by the Pasha's order—of women big with child ripped open, etc., etc. 'Thou knowest oh! our Lady, that we are people of peace in this place, and behold now if one madman should come and a few idle fellows go out to the mountain (desert) with him, Effendina will send his soldiers to destroy the place and spoil our poor little girls and hang us—is that right, oh Lady and Achmet el-Berberi saw Europeans with hats in the steamer with Effendina and the soldiers. Truly in all the ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... be idle to announce to your Lordship, that there is such a rule of practice as that which I have mentioned, unless we meant to abide by it; the rule is, that no application can be made for a new trial, unless all the persons convicted are here: we have acted on that rule this day; and if we were now ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... mysteries. The festivals were observed with every circumstance of pomp and splendor to charm the eye and please the imagination. A sacrifice was a feast attended with gayety and even licentiousness. Every temple was the resort of the idle and the dissolute, and the shrines of the Cyprian Venus and the Athenian Minerva could attest that devotion, far from being a pure and exalted exercise of the mind, was only the introduction ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 11, November, 1880 • Various
... manufactories, to the end that we may be able to pay these debts. Where a new market can be created for the sale of our products, either of the soil, the mine, or the manufactory, a new means is discovered of utilizing our idle capital and labor to the advantage of the whole people. But, in my judgment, the first step toward accomplishing this object is to secure a currency of fixed, stable value; a currency good wherever ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Plymouth for Portsmouth to payoff. One of the Portsmouth outfitters had made it his business to come to Plymouth, and to take the return passage in our ship. Truly he was a highly favoured man. Nor was he idle, for he was measuring men for suits of clothes the most of the night. I suppose he did not mind such night-work. We sighted Portsmouth in the morning, and after doing the customary steam trials, proceeded up harbour. Here, ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... deepens in my mind with every hour: this was never Christ's city. The confusion, the shallow curiosity, the self-interest, the clashing prejudices, the inaccessibility of the idle and busy multitudes were the same in His day that they are now. It was not here that Jesus found the men and women who believed in Him and loved Him, but in the quiet villages, among the green fields, by the peaceful lake-shores. And it is not here that we shall find the clearest traces, the ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... and important, and without waiting to criticise each individual specimen, pays in advance to all alike the tribute of good wishes and sympathy. Now this favourable presumption with regard to human beings is not a causeless prepossession, it is no idle superstition of the mind, nor is it a natural instinct. It is a feeling founded on the actual observation and discovery of interesting and noble qualities in particular human beings, and it is strong or ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... not alike—her overwhelming passion, herself generally; and her admission, no, cry, that she loved him, or the special part he had in her. It rather looked as though he'd be successful. It did for a fact. He had not been idle through all the day, but had drawn from the Harriman Bank twenty thousand dollars. So much had not been necessary; it was very bad business to segregate in idleness such a sum of money now; but he enjoyed the extravagance of it. Prudence, frugality, ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... constrained to work, should remember that a life of idleness cannot be a life of innocence; for the idle cannot serve the Lord. A life that does not cultivate one's own capacities, and aid either in supplying the wants or cultivating the capacities of some one beside self, is no preparation for heaven; for the heavenly life is one of perpetual ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... provision in regular armies, who seldom entered into the Church, and never applied themselves to commerce, and when every considerable family was surrounded by an innumerable multitude of retainers and dependants, idle, and greedy of war and pillage. The Crusade had universally diffused a spirit of adventure; and if any adventure had the Pope's approbation, it was sure to have a ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... endeavoured to avoid an ostentatious display of learning. By the idle and the frivolous indeed, any appearance of learning is called pedantry. But as I do not write for such readers, I pay no regard to their censures. Those by whom I wish to be judged, will I hope, approve of my adding ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... his girdle, for he hated Little John because he had found favor with the Sheriff. "So, Master Reynold Greenleaf, thou art anhungered, art thou?" quoth he. "But, fair youth, if thou livest long enough, thou wilt find that he who getteth overmuch sleep for an idle head goeth with an empty stomach. For what sayeth the old saw, Master Greenleaf? Is it not 'The late ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... suffer us yet a while longer—with our broken purposes of good, and our idle endeavours against evil—suffer us a while longer to endure, and (if it may be) help us to do better. Bless to us our extraordinary mercies; if the day come when these must be taken, have us play the man under ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... yours, old boy, when Satan taught your idle hands to punch Shadrach's head. But perhaps you had better put that pipe out. These azo-imide compounds are said to burn rather more safely than coal. Still, one never knows; the climate or the journey ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... good deal of rather hard work at lessons just then for me. Papa and mamma wanted me to get into a higher class after Christmas, and I daresay I had been pretty idle, or at least taking things easy, for I was not as well up as I should have been, I know. So Peterkin and I had not as much time for private talking as usual. I had often lessons to look over first thing in the morning, and as mamma would not allow us to have candles in ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... window-sills. Knots of shirt-sleeved men congregate about the frequent liquor-saloons, talking loudly and volubly. No signs of poverty are apparent, but everything wears an aspect of prosperous ignorance, satisfied to eat, drink, and idle away the hours not given to work. Such is the general aspect of operative Lowell to-day; but some of the old well-conducted boarding-houses remain, sheltering worthy sons and daughters of toil. Similarly, the outskirts of the city are adorned with many ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 481, March 21, 1885 • Various
... once. She had not been idle since Dick had left her. Before he had come she had merely looked upon the crusade as one of Harold Hazlewood's stupendous follies. But after he had gone she was genuinely horrified. She saw Dick speaking with the set dogged look and ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... not live permanently at the rectory, but visited her mother from time to time, either in England, or at one of the foreign resorts of idle people. But the visits, as years went by, became shorter and rarer. At twenty-one Miriam came into a small fortune of her own, left by her father in the hands of executors, one of whom was that John Turner, the Paris banker, who ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... Parks, there appeared latterly a trim little figure in black (with the face protected from notice behind a crape veil), which was beginning to be familiar, day after day, to nursemaids and children, and to rouse curiosity among harmless solitaries meditating on benches, and idle vagabonds strolling over the grass. The woman-servant, whom the considerate doctor had provided, was the one person in Emily's absence left to take care of the house. There was no other creature who could be a companion to the friendless ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... part, I think it idle to prophesy. If mental culture ever succeeds in overcoming brutality and barbarism, and if it continues to make real progress, I do not think that any of the old systems of marriage will persist in their primary ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... he unfolded these devices of the dashing youth of Market Bumpstead, had taken on an animation quite unsuitable to a conscientious valet. He gave the impression of a man who does not depend on idle rumour for his facts. His eye gleamed unprofessionally for a moment before resuming its ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... he asked. "All this leads to what? Has not Mrs. Orme suffered enough, that she should undergo this idle chatter? It is sufficient that she knows this—this man is here. It is a time ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... to make sacrifices was rapidly beginning to fail. The public had now had enough of the affair. Everything was failing, now they would have to see if they could not come to some arrangement. Starvation was beginning to thrust its grinning head among the fifty thousand men now idle. The moment had come upon which capital was counting; the moment when the crying of children for bread begins to break the will of the workers, until they are ready to sacrifice honor and independence in order to satisfy the little creatures' hunger. And the enemy showed ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... it and a few passages of the Commedia the proof that Dante, as a natural philosopher was wholly in advance of his age,—that he had, among other things, anticipated Newton in the theory of gravitation. But this is as idle as the claim that Shakespeare had discovered the circulation of the blood before Harvey,[63] and one might as well attempt to dethrone Newton because Chaucer speaks of the love which draws the apple to the earth. The truth is, that it was only ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... drop the subject now. I've a good reason, Elise, for watching the letters,—not mere idle curiosity. Now, Patty, for details. What do you mean by taking the baby ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... even if his attempt for the moment united the senatorial party and the equites, while the city mob stood wavering or hostile, he might nevertheless have forestalled the empire by a century had Marius only had half his enterprise or nerve. In an epoch of revolution it is idle to judge men by an ordinary standard. How far personal ambition and how far a nobler ideal animated Saturninus no man can say. Those who condemn him must ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... idle to thresh over old straw when the grain is not only winnowed, but gone to the mill. And so I am not here to discuss abstract questions: as, for example, whether in the year 1898 the United States was wise in going to war with Spain, though on that I might not greatly disagree with the malcontents; ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... him see his father's and mother's faces no more, grew louder and more persistent. If he could not cut himself adrift from those who he knew would hamper him, when so small an effort was wanted, his dream of a destiny was idle; what was the prospect of a hundred pounds from his father in comparison with jeopardy to this? He still felt deeply the pain his disgrace had inflicted upon his father and mother, but he was getting stronger, and reflected that as he had run his chance with them for parents, ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... have family prayer and instruction to-day, but something will prevent it to-morrow. Establish the habit of Christian industry. Be diligent; not slothful in business. Industry must be the price of all you obtain. You must be instant in season. The Christian home cannot be an indolent, idle home. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... be hard to define the charm of that garden. It did not consist in order or system, for there was no trace of either, except, perhaps, in that prim row of poplars growing about the whole domain and shutting it away from all idle and curious eyes. For the rest, I think the real charm must have been in its unexpectedness. At every turn and in every nook you stumbled on some miracle of which you had never dreamed. Or perhaps the charm was simply that the whole garden was an ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... there were two brothers, who lived together in one family. One did everything, while the other was an idle fellow who troubled himself about nothing but eating and drinking. The harvests were always magnificent; they had cows, horses, sheep, pigs, bees, and everything else ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... was coursing lightly through my heart at that moment. It was—envy. I say "envy" boldly, because I am accustomed to acknowledge everything to myself. It would be hard to find a young man who, if his idle fancy had been attracted by a pretty woman and he had suddenly found her openly singling out before his eyes another man equally unknown to her—it would be hard, I say, to find such a young man (living, of course, in the ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... idle our time, and are lazy; when we are indifferent about serving God; when we do anything slowly and poorly and in a way that shows we would rather not do it. They are slothful who lie in bed late in the morning and neglect their duty. Slothful ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 4 (of 4) - An Explanation Of The Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doctrine • Thomas L. Kinkead
... been twice married, the second time to the widow West. She had brought with her to her new home a good-looking, long-legged, black-eyed, black-haired ne'er-do-well of a son, a year or so younger than Hiram. He was a shrewd, quick-witted lad, idle, shiftless, willful, ill-trained perhaps, but as bright and keen as a pin. He was the very opposite to poor, dull Hiram. Eleazer White had never loved his son; he was ashamed of the poor, slack-witted oaf. Upon the other hand, he ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... was given to unpacking and seeing the grounds; after that, Miss Inches said they must begin to lead a regular life, and Johnnie must study. Johnnie had been to school all winter, and in the natural course of things would have had holidays now. Mamma Marion, however, declared that so long an idle time would not ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... to tell you I have been so idle that I have not yet finished Madame de Fleury. You will allow that we have gadded about enough lately: Sonna, Pakenham Hall, Farnham, and Castle Forbes. I don't think I told you that I grew quite fond of Lady Judith Maxwell, and I flatter myself she ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... in another. Thou, therefore, daughter of God and man, all-potent woman! reverence thy own ideal; and in the wildest of the homage which is paid to thee, as also in the most real aspects of thy wide dominion, read no trophy of idle vanity, but a silent indication of the possible grandeur enshrined in thy nature; which realize to the extent of ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... staunchest enemies they had yet encountered. The war began from an entreaty from the people of Campania to the Romans to defend them from the attacks of the Samnites. For the Campanians, living in the rich plains, whose name is still unchanged, were an idle, languid people, whom the stout men of Samnium could easily overcome. The Romans took their part, and Valerius Corvus gained a victory at Mount Gaurus; but the other consul, Cornelius Cossus, fell into danger, having marched foolishly into a forest, shut ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... campaign for reelection to the senatorship was, owing to a grievous error in tact, of doubtful issue. A hue and cry arose against him among his constituents, and things in general fell out so unhappily that it looked toward the close of the contest as if he would be obliged to sit idle and dangle his heels, while the two halves of the country, pushing against each other, were rising in the middle like the hinge of a toggle-joint into the most momentous crisis in the nation's history. It looked as if the strong man, with his ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... he saw that the word "mine" hardly described the place, for it was not in the least like an English mine. The so-called mines consisted of a number of ancient Inca workings which, after having lain idle for hundreds of years, had been again started by the Peruvians. Instead of a shaft being driven down into the earth, and galleries being cut in various directions from that shaft, the mines simply consisted of tunnels driven horizontally into the side of a hill. It was ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... vitality which had magically transformed her. But now, as under the spell of a new encompassment of her own weaving, she seemed to revert to her former self, sinking, relaxed, into a wicker lounge beside the basin, one long and shapely hand in the water, the other idle in her lap. Her eyes, he remarked, were the contradiction in her face. Had they been larger, and almond-shaped, the illusion might have been complete. They were neither opaque nor smouldering,—but Western eyes, amber-coloured, with delicately stencilled rays and long lashes. And ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the next day. It was impossible to stay on the platform. From the lounge, where I was writing up the incidents of this excursion to the polar continent, I could hear the calls of petrel and albatross cavorting in the midst of the turmoil. The Nautilus didn't stay idle, and cruising along the coast, it advanced some ten miles farther south amid the half light left by the sun as it skimmed the edge ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... hobby," said the curate, mincingly, as he indicated the treasures of cloisonne and of porcelain; "he does not frivol away his money as so many do, on idle dissipations and ephemeral pleasures. On the contrary, he devotes it to ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... surplice appeared and lighted groups of candles on either side of the altar. A hushed stirring of feet in the choir-loft indicated that the service was to be accompanied by music. Some loiterers, attracted by the bell, some idle strangers, a few acquaintances and citizens not directly invited ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... cities where the Mediums reside, and where they hold their seances on regular days throughout the winter, the audiences are by no means composed only of those who go out of idle curiosity; these form but a small segment of the 'circle,' the majority are regular attendants, mostly those whose lives have been clouded by sorrow, and who go thither as to a church or sanctuary, and so serious and earnest ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... the agitation an epidemic madness that would presently pass. But it was manifest to any one who sought more than comfort in the matter that the streams of women and sympathisers and money forthcoming marked far deeper and wider things than an idle fancy for the franchise. The existing laws and conventions of relationship between Man and Woman were just as unsatisfactory a disorder as anything else in our tumbled confusion of a world, and that also was coming to bear ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... their mother tongue matter wherewith to occupy themselves in prayer on holy days; and also that the faithful, reciting these Hours, or hearing them recited by other devout persons, might the more readily keep themselves from many vanities and from idle talking, and so, being assisted by these holy readings, might make progress in the love of God and in singing the divine praises. Once a certain man who was united to him in the bonds of friendship, asked him, saying: ...
— The Chronicle of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes • Thomas a Kempis
... yours. As for me, it does not suit well with the business of war; besides, I have no wish for it. On arriving, I shall give the necessary orders for disarming, and for burning the standard used for Ferdinand's proclamation. Use every endeavor that it may be felt to be no idle form." ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... was at length startled from his waking dream by a swell in the noise outside. All the time there had been a few of the more idle of the inhabitants about the door, but they had been rather quiet. Now, however, the sounds of feet and voices began to grow, and grew so rapidly that it was plain a multitude was gathering. For the people of Gwyntystorm always gave themselves an hour of pleasure ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald
... we are struck with the fact that the very Teachers who are most insistent on the changeless working of law are also those who emphatically proclaim the forgiveness of sins. At one time Jesus is saying: "That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment,"[313] and at another: "Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee."[314] So in the Bhagavad Gita we read constantly of the bonds of action, that "the world is bound by action,"[315] ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... mentioned to me your purpose of retiring from the government, though I felt all the magnitude of the event, I was in a considerable degree silent. I knew that to such a mind as yours persuasion was idle and impertinent; that, before forming your decision, you had weighed all the reasons for and against the measure, had made up your mind on full view of them, and that there could be little hope of changing the result. Pursuing my reflections, too, I knew we were some day to try to walk ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... is apt to imagine that the air of Pall Mall, Paddington and Stowe, would have kept away such heavy misfortunes, and that you would have been easier and happier than you are now. I sometimes think, that idle men with good fortunes are happier than busy men; their enjoyments perhaps are not so acute, but ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos |
