"Listless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... admiral, finding her dull and listless, said, "Why don't you go and talk to the Sister? She amuses you. I'll join you when I have ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... the margin-sand large foot-marks went, No further than to where his feet had stray'd, And slept there since. Upon the sodden ground His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead, Unsceptred; and his realmless eyes were closed; While his bow'd head seem'd list'ning to the Earth, 20 His ancient mother, for some ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... musicians of the wood, Whose dirges fill the solitude, Whose minor strains and melodies Are wafted on the whispering breeze, Whose plaintive chants and listless sighs, Ascend as incense to the skies; Do solemn tones afford relief, With you, as ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... he was not particularly curious—he was not particularly concerned about anything. In fact, he was getting weaker, and the excitement at the station was bringing on the fever again. Half the time his eyes were closed, and when he opened them on the swiftly passing autumn fields, his gaze was listless. Once he muttered several times, as though he were out of his head; and when they drove into the yard, his face was turning blue at the lips and his teeth began to chatter. Close ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... a fine evening, when the sun sank ruddy and the breeze blew soft, we turned again to Brading harbour, and, just perhaps because we had come safely once before, there was listless incaution now, as if Bembridge reef could not be cruel on such a ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... and eloquent eyes, who could repeat after him the very words which had fallen from his lips. But when it came to almagest and astrolabe, the counting of figures and reckoning of epicycles, away would go her thoughts to horse and hound, and a vacant eye and listless face would warn the teacher that he had lost his hold upon his scholar. Then he had but to bring out the old romance book from the priory, with befingered cover of sheepskin and gold letters upon a purple ground, to entice her wayward mind back ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... opened and the Duke crossed the garden. He walked slowly, with the listless step she had observed in him of late; and as he entered she saw that he looked pale ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... and I'm not going to knuckle under to him." Her brother had explained that the Colonel's ideas were old-fashioned, so she sometimes talked slang on purpose to shock him. She listened to his abrupt, awkward sentences with a half listless, half criticising air. She was a typical school-girl at the most characteristic age,—quick to resent, impatient of control, straightforward almost to rudeness. The Colonel might be a father to her brother—he never ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... wonder for a time As there she listless lay and sang my rhyme, Wrapped up in fabrics of an Indian clime She seemed a Bird of Paradise Languid from ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... of the boys, who, from deficient early training or peculiar turn of mind, were unable to bring themselves to proficiency in the regular Latin and Greek course of the school, and consequently were idle and listless, found other and more congenial paths in which intelligence and application would ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... retains its appetite, but as the severity of the disease increases the animal shows less and less disposition to suck, and has lost all vivacity, lying dull and listless, and, when raised, walking weakly and unsteadily. Flesh is lost rapidly, the hair stands erect, the skin gets dry and scurfy, the nose is dry and hot, or this condition alternates with a moist and cool one. ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... himself to the work of any time; and so he will. But it is not necessarily to the first thing that offers. There is always latent in civilized society a certain amount of what may be called Sir Philip Sidney genius, which will seem elegant and listless and aimless enough until the congenial chance appears. A plant may grow in a cellar; but it will flower only under the due sun and warmth. Sir Philip Sidney was but a lovely possibility, until he went ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... distinguishing his researches concerning other and lower orders of beings. In the Voyage of a Naturalist, speaking of this supposed indolence of the gauchos, he tells that in one place where workmen were in great request, seeing a poor gaucho sitting in a listless attitude, he asked him why he did not work. The man's answer was that he was too poor to work! The philosopher was astonished and amused at the reply, but failed to understand it. And yet, to one acquainted with these lovers of ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... "the death of the night," as Kiva used to call the dawn. No one stirring till six, when people come out of the huts, and stretch themselves and proceed to begin the day, in the African's usual perfunctory, listless way. ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... that implores thy aid; Let all behold; and thou, imperious Jove, On me direct thy lightning from above: Now all its force the poison doth assume, And my burnt entrails with its flame consume. Crest-fallen, unembraced I now let fall Listless, those hands that lately conquer'd all; When the Nemaean lion own'd their force, And he indignant fell a breathless corse: The serpent slew, of the Lernean lake, As did the Hydra of its force partake: By this, too, fell the Erymanthian boar: E'en Cerberus did his weak strength ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... miserable one: though our physical strength was in a great measure recruited, there was no increase of cheerfulness. Except when engaged in procuring food, or making our daily surveys of the ocean, (which was all our occupation), we were dispirited and listless. ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... finished Katherine led the way to the living-room. To his unspeakable pride, Rhoda took Billy Porter's arm and he guided her listless footsteps carefully, casting pitying glances on his less favored friends. Jack wheeled a Morris chair before the fireplace—desert nights are cool—and John DeWitt hurried for a shawl, while Katherine gave every one orders that no one heeded in ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... die and go he knew not where, there was a terror about that which his faith was not strong enough to dissipate. The decoy watched and waited. He contrasted the husband returning home with haggard cheek and listless step and the shadow of dark doom all about him, having a few hundred dollars in his pocket, with a husband empty-handed, but with bright cheeks, and cheerful spirits, and with strong legs under him! Then Hobert repeated the story he had told to Dr. Shepard,—all about the little treasure with which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... listless and unconscious along the broad and shady alleys of the garden. Sometimes, in a moment of vexation, she plucked the unoffending leaves from the hedges and strewed them upon the ground; sometimes she stopped suddenly, then rushed forward ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis
... passengers of sundry stage-coaches, which passed me in one direction or the other. In this way I proceeded till considerably past noon, when I felt myself very fatigued, and my horse appeared no less so; and it is probable that the lazy and listless manner in which we were moving on tired us both much more effectually than hurrying along at a swift trot would have done, for I have observed that when the energies of the body are not exerted a languor frequently comes over ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... dream, and all through life, Worked up to it through toil and strife. Afloat fore'er before his eyes, It colored for him all his skies: The storm-cloud dark Above his bark, The calm and listless vault of blue Took on its hopeful hue, It tinctured every passing beam— He ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... fanciful houses of the rich, the Chinese woman is regarded with even more sympathy by foreigners generally than is accorded to her humbler fellow-countrywoman. She is represented as a mere ornament, or a soulless, listless machine—something on which the sensual eye of her opium-smoking lord may rest with pleasure while she prepares the fumes which will waft him to another hour or so of tipsy forgetfulness. She knows nothing, she is taught nothing, never leaves the house, never sees friends, ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... watched his listless steps as he departed. "Head or heart—which?" he murmured. "That man is ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... again, he was surrounded by men, the French Count among them, drinking champagne. He held a bottle, and was talking fast. The others were laughing. His listless, morose expression had disappeared; in the place of a brutal-tempered, selfish, bored man, I saw a brilliant, jovial gentleman. ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... your letter made me dizzy. For a few moments I held it in my listless hands, while a tear or two sparkled on it in the setting sun. I was alone beneath the small barren rock where I have had a seat placed; far off, like a lance of steel, the Mediterranean shone. The seat is shaded by aromatic shrubs, ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... got up and dressed herself, with the feeling that she had not rested a minute during the night. Harry was listless and fretful when he awoke, and while she put on his clothes, she debated with herself whether or not she should summon old Doctor Fraser from around the corner. When his lesson hour came, he climbed into her lap and went to sleep with his hot little ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... and the majority is not to be depended on in another action." If the English had, at this time, made a general assault, the Americans must inevitably have been driven from all their positions, and the war would soon have been over. After the battle of Bunker's Hill, however, the same listless inactivity prevailed as before, as though the capture of that hill was a full and final triumph. Thus favoured, Washington set about remedying his defects in good earnest. During the summer and autumn, he was occupied in organising his troops, collecting ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... raised myself from the couch where I had lain down to read, I could not help being struck with the pretty picture the vessel presented. My cousin was reclining not far from me; her book had fallen from her listless hand, her bright searching eyes, so restless in their intelligent activity when open, were closed, her flushed face shewed she slept. Madame was quietly pacing up and down, shaded from the sun by a great parasol; to her the heat ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... for my lost love these visits to my mother and her beautiful, sympathetic companion now became my greatest solace and it was not long before I saw from my father's dark and suspicious glances, from his listless and discouraged air, which suddenly made the still vigorous man appear aged, and from his almost invariably silent and tightly compressed lips, that he realized ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... reached the tent, where I was introduced to Judge Law and a pleasant little gray-haired French gentleman of the name of Porlier. Several voyageurs and half-breeds were near, the former busily at work, the latter lounging for the most part, and going through with what they had to do with a sort of listless indifference. ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... now the duties seemed sweet and homelike, like those of a sister, or—a wife. Once she thought thus—but she dared not think again. And Harold was watching her, too; following her—as she deemed—with the listless gaze of weariness. But soon he turned his face from her, and whatever was written thereon Olive read ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... chief business. Watering places—the sports of the field—cards! never failing cards!—the assembly—the theatre—all contribute their aid—amusements are multiplied, and combined, and varied, "to fill up the void of a listless and languid life;" and by the judicious use of these different resources, there is often a kind of sober settled plan of domestic dissipation, in which with all imaginable decency year after year wears ...
— 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
... was bad enough, and momentarily grew worse. The road was lined with charred ruins and devastated fields, and the waysides were dotted with groups of listless, desperate soldiers who fell out and sank on the ground as the straggling ranks of their comrades tramped on. Skirting the battle-field of Borodino, the marching battalions looked askance on the ghastly heaps of unburied corpses; but the wounded survivors were dragged ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... in by bars containing locks and gates, and on the other side of the room a row of stretchers, shut in by bars. At a table in the middle, on which were bottles, lint, graduated glasses, sat a warder, with outstretched legs and fallen head: near him, standing listless, a convict hospital-orderly, who continually edged nearer the stove; and, ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... a band of animals does not consciously pride itself on leadership, yet has an uncomfortable sensation when not followed. But there are times with all when solitude is sought. The Varsimle' had been fat and well through the winter, yet now was listless, and lingered with drooping head as the grazing herd ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... suffering and distress, instead of showing any anxiety to communicate the causes of their distress, or to relate their privations, and their longings for their homes and their friends and relatives, they lay in a listless, lethargic, uncomplaining state, taking no notice either of their own distressed condition, or of the gigantic mass of human misery by which they were surrounded. Nothing appalled and depressed me ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... rubs elbows in Washington. Outwardly it is merely a city of evasion, of conventionalities, sated with the commonplace pleasures of life, listless, blase even, and always exquisitely, albeit frigidly, courteous; but beneath the still, suave surface strange currents play at cross purposes, intrigue is endless, and the merciless war of diplomacy goes on unceasingly. Occasionally, only occasionally, a bubble ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle
... that her words passed by the child's ears as the summer wind passed. Perhaps it was all a bit of temper and would disappear and leave no trace behind. At the same time, there WAS something queer about the little thing. She had a listless way of sitting staring out of the window and seeming to have no desire to amuse herself. She was too young to be listless and she did not care for her food. Dowson asked permission to send for the doctor and, when he came, he ordered ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... their Sunday finery, given the appearance of attendants upon Jack-in-the-Green. If a visit be paid to the houses of the town, after the morning's work of the people is over, the family will be found sitting on chairs, listless and uncomfortable, in a room full of litter. In the houses of the superior native clergy there will be a yet greater aping of the manners of the West. There will be chairs covered with hideous antimacassars, tasteless round worsted-work mats for absent flower jars, and a lot of ugly cheap and vulgar ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... conscious of going through the figures of the dance automatically and tastelessly. I came back after each lady's chain to my tiresome partner, wishing earnestly that it would soon be over. My step-mother detected my listless manner, and came to me later, when the dance was ended and I had been left by the amiable Mr. Fawcett standing before a picture of Siddons which I was ostensibly admiring with enthusiasm. There was a becoming smile on the lace of my step-mother, as there always ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... husband whom she was obliged to leave; we have bid each other good-night, she has gone up the creaky staircase. I have returned to my room, littered with MS. and queer publications; the night is hot and heavy, but now a wind is blowing from the river. I am listless and lonely.... I open a book, the first book that comes to hand ... it is Le Journal des Goncourts, p. 358, ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... he stand like that?' the young lady thought at length—up to that moment as listless and careless as one of the ancient Tarentines, who, on such an afternoon as this, watched from the Theatre the entry into their Harbour of a power that ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... criticise these details, but they helped in the impression of lifelessness and gloom that hung about her. It was a faint, gleamy afternoon, and such sun as there was did not shine into the study. The dark panelling looked darker than usual, and as she sat silent and listless in a corner of the old sofa, her hair and face stood out against it almost startling in their blondness and whiteness. She was strangely unlike herself, but Stewart comforted himself by remembering that ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... murky, miserable winter. Eily was transformed. No longer bright, sparkling, and gay, but pale, listless, and weary—the veriest drudge that ever lived under an iron rule. A thick black fringe adorned her forehead, her ears were bedecked with gaudy rings, and her waist squeezed into half its ordinary size; her clothes, bought cheaply at a second-hand shop, were tawdry ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... nature cried out against any act that would cause a scandal in Mangadone, the magnitude of which he could hardly gauge but only guess at; and yet, wherever he went, the thought haunted him. His feelings gave him no rest, and he remained inactive and listless for several days after his ride with Mrs. Wilder. If she had told him that she implored him personally to drop the case he could not have felt more certain that she desired him to do so. She worked indirectly upon his feelings, a much surer way with some natures than a direct ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... at Elegant Corners—a frowzy, listless mud-hole of the woods, near by. They were all possessed by one mother, too. The last comer had appeared in the fall of the year; and Pattie Batch—when the great news came down to Swamp's End—had instantly taken the ...
— Christmas Eve at Swamp's End • Norman Duncan
... saw it yourself?" Flint asked, partly from listless curiosity, and partly with an eye to the ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... in listless progress. The light, reflected from the screen, revealed a throng of repulsive faces, stretching, row upon row, into the darkness of the rear, into the shadows of the roof—sickly and pimpled and bloated flesh: vicious faces, hopeless, vacuous, diseased. ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan
... drawing-room, and forthwith fall to lively remarks on that neutral ground of conversation, the weather. Mr. Verdant Green is there, dressed with elaborate magnificence; but he continues in a state of listless apathy, and is indifferent to the "lively" rattle of the balloon-like Miss Waters, until John the footman (who is suffering from influenza) rouses him into animation by the magic talisman "Bister, Bissis, an' the Biss "Oneywoods;" when he beams through ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... street I could see the house that I had left twenty-four hours before, never dreaming what my journey to La Trappe held in store for me. One or two dismounted soldiers of the Third Hussars sat in the doorway, listening to the cannon; but, except for these listless troopers, a few nervous sparrows, and here and there a skulking peasant, slinking off with a load of household furniture on his back, the ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... the parapet his listless attention was awakened by sounds of an unaccustomed kind from the town quarter. They were a confusion of rhythmical noises, to which the streets added yet more confusion by encumbering them with echoes. His first incurious thought that ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... hold of outside matter, or cannot proselytise [sic] that matter and persuade it to see things through its own (the amoeba's) spectacles-if it cannot convert that matter, if the matter persists in disagreeing with it-its spirits droop, its soul is disquieted within it, it becomes listless like a withering flower-it languishes and dies. We cannot imagine a thing to live at all and yet be soulless except in sleep for a short time, and even so not quite soulless. The idea of a soul, or of that unknown something for which the word "soul" ...
— God the Known and God the Unknown • Samuel Butler
... Yet I was aware that Gennaro was no more happy than I was in his presence. My poor husband would sit pale and listless, listening to the endless raving upon politics and upon social questions which made up or visitor's conversation. Gennaro said nothing, but I, who knew him so well, could read in his face some emotion which I had never seen there before. At first I thought that it was dislike. And then, gradually, ...
— The Adventure of the Red Circle • Arthur Conan Doyle
... under the gas-light. Susan drew up a chair, and plunged into a new library book. Mary Lou, returning from a trip upstairs, said noiselessly, "Gone walking!" and Susan looked properly disgusted at Georgie's lack of propriety. Mary Lou began a listless game of patience, with a shabby deck of cards taken from the sideboard drawer, presently she grew interested, and Susan put aside her book, and began to watch the cards, too. The old ladies chatted at intervals over ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... the socket. A spot of blood had already spurted into the white bosom of his shirt, smearing its way over the pearl button, and running under the crisp fold of the shirt. The head nurse was too tired and listless to be impatient, but she had been called out of hours on this emergency case, and she was not used to the surgeon's preoccupation. Such things usually went off rapidly at St. Isidore's, and she could hear the tinkle of the bell as the hall door opened ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... went home that Lilian's health began to fail—to fail gently and slowly, but surely. She shut herself up at first, and lay all day listless and melancholy. She did not come down in the morning before John went out, but he usually found her on the sofa when he came in. And there she stayed, either on the sofa or half lost among the cushions of an arm-chair, during the evenings when John's friends came. But by and by the house-friends ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... the hot broth the girl was able to take, but she did not show much life, and, after a close look at her immobile countenance, and feeling of the cold and listless ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... profound contempt for poor whites, and never let slip an opportunity for expressing it. He assumed that we shared this sentiment, while in fact our feeling toward this listless race was something entirely different. They were, like Julius himself, the product of a system which they had not created and which they did not know enough ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt
... Blackfriars Bridge. They neither of them spoke a word. From time to time they glanced at the silent and motionless figures on the seats. For the most part, the loiterers there were either asleep or sitting with closed eyes. Here and there they caught a glance from some spectral face, a glance cold and listless. The fires of life were dead amongst these people. The animal desires alone remained; their ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the flexibility of his own body on being carried upstairs, and, more unhappy still, ignorant of the art of waking. He, therefore, clenched his fingers harder and harder as he felt my mother trying to unfold them while his head hung listless, and his eyes were closed I as though he were sleeping sweetly. It is needless to detail the agony of shame that followed. My mother begged my father to box his ears, which my father flatly refused to do. Then she boxed them ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... up from the corral. The boy had gone without sleep or rest until his eyes were heavy and his movements listless. Like the women of Palomitas he also had worked overtime at the call of Tula, and Kit wondered at the concerted activity—no one ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... strange it was, to find, in every stagnant town, this same Heart beating with the same monotonous pulsation, the centre of the same torpid, listless system, I came out by another door, and was suddenly scared to death by a blast from the shrillest trumpet that ever was blown. Immediately, came tearing round the corner, an equestrian company from Paris: marshalling themselves under the walls of the church, and ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... with nicely modulated ardor; and he continued: "If she avow such constant hate of love as would ignore my great and constant love, plead thou no more! With listless lore of love woo Death resistlessly, resistless Love, in place of her that saith such scorn of love as lends to Death the lure ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... I do, in a dead country—a valley where folks have lived and died for two hundred years such lumps of clay that they niver had wan man sharp enough to see the counts in between heaven and earth." He lapsed again into his listless position on the Round Stone. "But ye needn't be a-fearin' for her soul, Father—her wid th' black hair an' the big gray eyes like wan that cud see thim if she wud! She's as dead a lump as anny of th' rest—as thim meat-eatin' Protestants, the Wilcoxes, heaven save the kindly bodies, for ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... should they have hoped to console a mother thus bereft? The days lounged by inexorably, bringing no word of Emmanuel with them, and no mercy. Their footprints were the wounds upon the Vrouw van der Westhuizen's heart; and, in the end she sickened wearily and lay listless, ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... soft Enone's charms, He to oblivion doom'd the listless day; Inglorious lull'd in Love's dissolving arms, While flutes ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... was she who listened, to something beyond the reach of even McCord's faculties, her neck stiff and her ears flattened. I looked at McCord and found him brooding at the animal with a sort of listless malevolence. "Quick! She has kittens somewhere about." I shook his elbow sharply. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... buffalo may shake The turbid water of the lake; Shade-seeking deer may chew the cud, Boars trample swamp-grass in the mud; The bow I bend in hunting, may Enjoy a listless holiday. ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... soft snow, and the head turned at once, showing a face which lost its listless look in a minute, as the big eyes brightened and the mouth began to smile. Jo nodded and laughed, and flourished her ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... of yonder nodding beech, That wreathes its old, fantastic roots so high, His listless length at noontide would he stretch, And pore upon the ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... occasion to stop at Pocock for water or for harbor shelter during eastern cruises, will remember a long, listless figure, astonishingly attired in blue army pants, rubber boots, loose toga made of some bright chintz material, and very bad hat, staggering through the little settlement, followed by a rabble of jeering brats, and pausing to strike ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... by the open window, sipping her tea, and caressing Argus's big head with a listless hand, waiting for the next stroke of fate. She was sorry for her mother, but had no wish to see her. What could they say to each other—they, whose thoughts and feelings were so wide apart? Presently Phoebe came in with a little three-cornered note, ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... and of bridle, All the brown line of the mule-train, tired and foot-sore and straggling; Nothing to right and to left, nothing before and behind us, Save the dry yellowing grass, and afar on the hazy horizon, Sullen, and grim, and gray, sunburnt, monotonous sand-heaps. So we rode, sombre and listless, day after day, while the distance Grew as we rode, till the eyeballs ached with the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... permission to remain. In 1539 the Chinese population had risen to thirty thousand, according to other information, to forty thousand, when they revolted and were reduced to seven thousand. "The natives, who generally were so listless and indifferent, showed the utmost eagerness in assisting in the [Another massacre.] massacre of the Chinese, but more from hatred of this industrious people than from any feeling of friendship towards ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... half-shell Pale green and white-lined of sea-urchin, knew What her eyes sought as often children know Of grief or sin they could not name or think of Yet sooth or shrink from, so I saw and longed To heal her tender wound and yet said naught. The energy of bygone joy and pain Had left her listless figure charged with magic That caught and held my idleness near hers. Resentful of her power, my spirit chafed Against its own deep pity, as though it were Raised ghost and she the witch had bid it haunt me. What's more I knew this slave by rights should ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... of these Things is never examin'd into. It is possible likewise for a crafty Divine, in order to rouse a listless and dejected Audience, first to awaken them with lively Images of the Torments of Hell and the State of Damnation, and afterwards seem happily to light on an Expedient, that shall create new Hopes, ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... light crept over the ocean it showed some of the party asleep. The others were haggard and worn looking and seemed to have but small concern as to what happened to them. They lolled on the cross seats in a listless way, not at all interested in the beautiful sunrise. They were more concerned in their own welfare than in the beauties ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay
... on humbly. She looked back. Charity had fallen again into a listless reverie. She seemed sad. Kedzie wondered what on earth she could have to be sorry about. She had money and a ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... still seated in the library chair. His head was sunk forward on his chest; his hands were extended listless, palms up, along the arms of the chair; his eyes were vacant and troubled. Hardly once in the long hours had he shifted by a hair's breadth his position. His body was suspended in an absolute inaction while his spirit ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... object of my affection, but merely as a corollary. But, perhaps, it will be as well that you should finish your proposition, before I make any remarks on the subject." And Lord Kilcullen, sat down, with a well-feigned look of listless indifference. ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... examiner's watchfulness; the hushed silence that reigned around, only broken by the scribbling sound of busy workers and the listless shuffling of the feet of others, who, having, as they sanguinely thought, completely mastered their tasks, had nothing further to occupy their time until "the gaudy pageant" should be "o'er"—the whole thing, really, ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... wife, opposed more furrowed foreheads to a world too strong for them. If Daniel had taken back his words and told them he was happier for the ruin they had made of his prospects, their gait might not have been so listless. But he was a ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... by our gloom, Yon little mourner sits and sighs, His playthings, scatter'd round the room, No more attract his listless eyes. Nutting, his infant task, he plies, On moves with soft and stealthy tread, And call'd, in tone subdued replies, As if he feard to wake ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 405, December 19, 1829 • Various
... his mother's. Miss Lou thinks him strangely thoughtful and considerate in keeping away, as he does, after a few short visits at The Oaks. The truth is, he is wofully disappointed at the change in his cousin's looks. This pale, listless, hollow-eyed girl is not the one who set him to reading 'Taming of the Shrew.' That her beauty of color and of outline could ever return, he does not consider; and in swift revulsion of ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... of the summer they talked and laughed and drove and sailed together, a happy trio. Mrs. Leroy's listless quiet of the first few days gave way to a brilliant, fitful gayety that enchanted the more silent two, and the few hours when she was not with them seemed incomplete. On his mentioning this to her one afternoon she shot him a ...
— The Courting Of Lady Jane • Josephine Daskam
... time I first saw this sweet lassie, I 'm listless, I 'm restless, wherever I be; I 'm dowie, and donnart, and aften ca'd saucy; They kenna its a' for the lass o' Dundee! O! lang may her guardians be virtue and honour; Though anither may wed her, yet well may she be; And blessin's ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... facilitates healing by all means when once healing has begun, was blank to any impressions save the luxury of rest, of passive enjoyment, indifferent to ought but the passing present. She took pleasure in flowers, in the gambols of pet animals, in long listless spells of cloud-gazing when the heavens were bright, in the presence of her husband in whom she only saw a being whose eyes were always beautiful with the light of kindness, whose touch invariably soothed her when fatigue or irritation marred ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... their languid, listless roving, my eyes encountered those of my attendant fixed full upon me, while a smile distorted the homely, sallow face, disclosing a set of yellow teeth, sound, short, and strong, like ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... dimly lit room every one rose to his feet, incoherently echoing the last words of the speaker. . . . Still with the filmy wistfulness about his eyes and a tired, weary smile, Dick Durwent sat in his chair beating a listless tattoo on the ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... the carnival. At some houses conversazioni are still held, and it is impossible that balls and parties should not now and then be given. But the greater number of the nobles and the richer of the professional classes lead for the most part a life of listless seclusion, and attempts to lighten the general gloom and heaviness in any way are not looked upon with favor. By no sort of chance are Austrians, or Austriacanti ever invited to participate in ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... slow, heavy, listless, eddying, lingering, moving—the same apparently as for days past. It splashed very softly and murmured low and gurgled faintly. It gave forth fitful little swishes and musical tinkles and lapping sounds. It was flowing water, yet the proof was there of tardiness. Now it was almost still, ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... part of her fascination with a girl whom she neither liked nor approved was her belief that Alice's health had broken under the strain of her regrets and her despair. She did not get better from the change of air; she grew more listless and languid, and more dependent upon Mrs. Brinkley's chary sympathy. The older woman asked herself again and again what made the girl cling to her? Was she going to ask her finally to intercede with Dan? or was it really a despairing atonement to him, the most disagreeable sacrifice she could offer, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... they were quite at home. The men took themselves to the bar-room, and smoked cigars and talked about the war with their feet upon the counter; and the women got themselves into rocking-chairs in the saloon, and sat there listless and silent, but not more listless and silent than they usually are in the big drawing-rooms of the big hotels. There was supper there precisely at six o'clock—beef-steaks, and tea, and apple jam, and hot ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... where circling hills looked down, With cannon grimly planted, O'er listless camp and silent ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... afraid we are of poverty! Is there nothing worse than poverty, what you call poverty—poverty that cannot have its gowns starched above once a week?" Caroline stared at her, but Adela went on. "Broken hearts are not half so bad as that; nor daily tears and disappointed hopes, nor dry, dull, dead, listless despondency without one drop of water to refresh it! All that is as nothing to a well-grounded apprehension as to one's larder! Never marry till you are sure that will be full, let the heart be ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... little time he felt himself rapidly losing ground, and could hardly avoid thinking that the eyes of his opponent were looking into his very soul: his eyelids quivered, his eyes assumed a dull and listless appearance, and ultimately closed for some moments—he was ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... palace the men made way for her in silence. They removed the pipes from their mouths and stared in mingled bewilderment and admiration. Despite her veil she was too striking looking not to fetter the attention of even the most listless, for the disgust with which these surroundings inspired her and the tenacity of her cruel design gave her a bearing such as Clytemnestra might have envied. She stalked through the corridor and up the stairs, disregarding the gilded hand and tin sign which read, "To the President's ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... in a condition little removed from absolute barbarism."[16] Nowhere can any factors be found which will promote any progress of civilization so long as slavery persists. The non-slaveholders will continue in "a life alternating between listless vagrancy and the excitement of marauding expeditions." "If civilization is to spring up among the negro race, it will scarcely be contended that this will happen while they are still slaves; and if the present ruling class ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... another boy. I went ben excitedly, but the room was dark, and when I heard the door shut and no sound come from the bed I was afraid, and I stood still. I suppose I was breathing hard, or perhaps I was crying, for after a time I heard a listless voice that had never been listless before say, 'Is that you?' I think the tone hurt me, for I made no answer, and then the voice said more anxiously 'Is that you?' again. I thought it was the dead boy she was speaking to, and I said in a little lonely voice, 'No, it's no him, it's just me.' Then ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... attention of all. A small detachment of soldiers was advancing, at a leisurely pace, headed by a young officer whose arms blazed with gold and silver. No Hannibalian veterans these. As they came near, even Marcia could note the sleek, soft look of the men, and their listless, muscleless gait; while their leader's hair and person literally reeked with perfumes. His eyes turned slowly from the huge Gaul to the woman; then a flash of ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... to a knowledge of her larger duty in the training of her child—her only child now; for, nearly two years before, death had claimed, in one week, her two other children, one older and one younger than Reuben; and since then she had fallen into a sad, listless state of mind which she found hard to get out of. She was an unusually good mother in the ordinary sense of the word, since she was careful to have her boy well-fed, well-clothed, and well-behaved; but now she saw more than ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various
... building, and so the federal government appealed to the state government for protection. The appeal was fruitless. President Dickinson had a few state militia at his disposal, but did not dare to summon them, for fear they should side with the rioters. The city government was equally listless, and the townsfolk went their ways as if it were none of their business; and so Congress fled across the river and on to Princeton, where the college afforded it shelter. Thus in a city of thirty-two thousand inhabitants, the ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... thing often happened. How much better if Nettie Vollar had been killed! She studied her with a renewed interest—a fresh question. Perhaps the other would die as it was. She was extremely weak; her spirit, Taou Yuen saw, lay listlessly in a listless body. Nettie Vollar slightly moved her injured arm, and that little effort exhausted her for a moment; her eyes closed, her face was as white ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... guiltless of colours She stood, with a dull, listless air - A creature of dumps and of dolours, But ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... if listless with a lonely love, Straying among the alleys with a book,— Herrick or Herbert,—watched the circling dove, And spied the tiny letter ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... day was told what deeds of night Were done; the web had vanished quite; With it the strange opposing pair; And listless waved on vacant air, For her adieu to heart's content, A ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... he murmured, as he fell back again into his former listless attitude, "it's not creditable for an old salt like me to go mistakin' sea-gulls for sails, as I've bin doin' so often of late. I'm out o' ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... on as directed. It seemed as if he must have put in the horse himself, so quickly did he reappear with the phaeton on the open road. Margery silently took her seat, and the Baron seemed cut to the quick with self-reproach as he noticed the listless indifference with which she acted. There was no doubt that in her heart she had preferred obeying the apparently important mandate that morning to becoming Jim's wife; but there was no less doubt that had the Baron left her alone she would quietly ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... sunk; the night had all but fallen; the men were all on board; Amyas in command of one canoe, Cary of the other. The Indians were grouped on the bank, watching the party with their listless stare, and with them the young guide, who preferred remaining among the Indians, and was made supremely happy by the present of a Spanish sword and an English ax; while, in the midst, the old hermit, with tears in his eyes, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... were tabulated by the author Hyrummetricus. The Professors of this Science [of land surveying] are honoured with a more earnest attention than falls to the lot of any other philosophers. Arithmetic, Theoretical Geometry, Astronomy, and Music are discoursed upon to listless audiences, sometimes to empty benches. But the land surveyor is like a judge; the deserted fields become his forum, crowded with eager spectators. You would fancy him a madman when you see him walking along the most devious paths. But in truth he is seeking for the traces of ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... indolent minds, and depraved morals. They become but wrecks of what they were when they first entered the school. This has been called "the stiff and starched system of muslin education," and is the nursery of pale, sickly, listless, peevish children. ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... of your company, old boy." Presently he said, "Do you know what it is to feel sad? I suppose not. I don't mean troubled about anything in particular—there's nothing to be troubled about—but simply sad, in a causeless, listless way?" ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... come at last! But how altered! flushed and feverish, listless and languid, his beauty strangely diminished, his vigour and vivacity quite departed. I have not upbraided him by word or look; I have not even asked him what he has been doing. I have not the heart to do it, for I think he is ashamed of himself-he must be so indeed, and such inquiries ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... to know An errand, why, or where to go, To trot, to walk, or scamper swift— In short, he seem'd a dog adrift; His very tail, a listless thing, With just an accidental swing, Like rudder to the ripple veering, When ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... at this most obscure village of the land, this Nazareth of England, slumbering in rustic ignorance and stupid apathy, and to think of what has come out of this place, of what vast influences and activities have issued from this quiet and almost listless scene, one has strange feelings. The storied "Alba Longa," from which Rome sprang, is an interesting spot, but the newly discovered spiritual birthplace of America may excite ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... wondered, until, indeed, Ailleen rushed down from the cottage, where her father lay, to the roadway in front of the school, where the inhabitants of the township stood, and taunted them with being heartless cowards and listless fools to ignore the pleadings of a ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... yet I found a clearer proof of the slavery in which the man held them in the perfect indifference with which they regarded my arrival—though a guest with two servants must have been a rarity in such a place—and the listless way in which they set about attending to my wants. Keenly remembering that not long before this my enemies had striven to prejudice me in the King's eyes by alleging that, though I filled his coffers, I was grinding the poor into the dust—and ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... true, for now there came to the door and opened it a thin fellow wearing horn spectacles, who stood silent and cringing before us. Slowly rubbing his workworn hands, he made us a landlord's bow as listless and as perfunctory as ever I have seen in any ordinary. But his welcome was ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... spoken in a low tone, scarcely intended for Carley, but she had keen ears and heard distinctly. Not improbably this sheep-dip was what Flo meant as the worst to come. Carley adopted a listless posture to hide her keen desire to hear what Glenn would ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... Lady Macbeth's nature, and the marked change in her demeanour to her husband, are most strikingly shown in the conclusion of the banquet scene; and from this point pathos is mingled with awe. The guests are gone. She is completely exhausted, and answers Macbeth in listless, submissive words which seem to come with difficulty. How strange sounds the reply 'Did you send to him, sir?' to his imperious question about Macduff! And when he goes on, 'waxing desperate in imagination,' to ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... came the earth, at first but a cold gray mass hanging listless in the hollow void. Later she saw it separate into divisions; here a plain, there a mountain, yonder a sea, all as yet without a sparkle. And then, by a river-bank, something moved; and she stopped her knitting ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... was seldom seen on the poor, narrow street where Brida lived, and big-eyed babies and listless loungers watched its progress. Brida was at school; but her mother received with loud expressions of gratitude and praise the pretty doll carriage which ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... March whispered to him; he turned upon me a listless gaze from over his fur collar, and bowed languidly, without rising from his easy chair. Yes, it was Mr. March—the very Mr. March we had met! I knew him, changed though he was; but he did not know me in the least, as, ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... his brown hands. She knew then the bitterness of his defeat, and she made no comment. She was tired of the fight. A compromise with Carey or a sale of the water right was their only hope, and when Bob spoke of compromise she was too listless to dissuade him. Since that eventful night when he had first ridden into San Pasqual she had been more or less of a stormy petrel; woe and death and suffering had followed his coming, and if Donnaville was to be purchased at such a price, the ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... having been away so long, then cajoled him and kissed him. He felt pathetic, listless, out of breath, out of place, for he had no genuine desires. He finally flung himself on a couch and, enervated to the point of crying, he went through the back-breaking motions ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... dressed in a suit of black velvet, cut in the Spanish fashion. His face was strangely pale, but his lips were like a proud red flower. He seemed weary, and was leaning back toying in a listless manner with the pommel of his dagger. On the grass beside him lay a plumed hat, and a pair of riding-gloves gauntleted with gilt lace, and sewn with seed-pearls wrought into a curious device. A short cloak lined with sables hang from his shoulder, and his delicate white hands were gemmed with ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde
... antiquity. Keen looked with yearning upon the woman, and she, unnoting, held her eyes steadfastly upon her father's face. The wolf-dog shoved the flap aside again, and plucking courage at the quiet, wormed forward on his belly. He sniffed curiously at Thom's listless hand, cocked ears challengingly at Chugungatte, and hunched down upon his haunches before Tantlatch. The spear rattled to the ground, and the dog, with a frightened yell, sprang sideways, snapping in mid-air, and on the ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... hysteria, sat whole hours listless, with her feet on the fender. Pete's conduct exasperated her. As time went on and developed the sweetness of Pete, the man grew more and more distasteful to her, and she broke into fits of shrewishness. Pete hung his head ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... madame?" she asked; but her tone was listless, apathetic, as of one who though uttering a question is incurious as to what the answer ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... shaded gleams falling decorously on dark-wood tables, on the backs of chairs, on cards and tumblers, the little gilded coffee-cups, the polished nails of fingers holding cigars. A crony challenged him to piquet. He sat down listless. That three-legged whist—bridge—had always offended his fastidiousness—a mangled short cut of a game! Poker had something blatant in it. Piquet, though out of fashion, remained for him the only game worth playing—the only game ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... sunburnt faces from the vineyards and the canebrakes of the valley. The old look prematurely aged and withered—their wrinkled cheeks bound up in scarlet and orange-coloured kerchiefs, their skinny fingers fumbling on the rosary, and their mute lips moving in prayer. The younger women have great listless eyes and large limbs used to labor. Some of them carry babies trussed up in tight swaddling-clothes. One kneels beside a dark-browed shepherd, on whose shoulder falls his shaggy hair; and little children play about, half hushed, half heedless of the place, among old men whose life has dwindled ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... visit Mrs Harrel; she found that unhappy lady a prey to all the misery of unoccupied solitude: torn from whatever had, to her, made existence seem valuable, her mind was as listless as her person was inactive, and she was at a loss how to employ even a moment of the day: she had now neither a party to form, nor an entertainment to plan, company to arrange, nor dress to consider; and these, with ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... man!—eat, eat, canna ye!" exclaimed Adair, every now and then, as he marked the listless manner in which the stranger pecked at the food on his plate. "Eat, man, canna ye!" he said, getting absolutely angry at his guest's want of appetite, which he construed into diffidence. "Lord, man, take a richt whang on your plate at once, and dinna be ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... She struggled in vain against an impulse to look at Keith. When her eyes turned in his direction he, not looking at her, moved in his listless way ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... was not a tea-cup saver by nature. Could the time and scheming of those pioneer women to save water have been utilized in some water project, it would have watered the whole frontier. But gradually we were becoming listless, shiftless. We were in a stage of endurance in which there was no point in forging ahead. We merely sat and waited—for rain or ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... Listless he eyes the palisades And sentries in the glare; 'Tis barren as a pelican-beach But his ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... convinced that it could only have been a rat that had disturbed me, I sat on the table alongside the alleged remains of the werwolf, and waited to see if the noises would recommence. I was thus waiting in a listless sort of way, my back bent, my elbows on my knees, looking at the floor and thinking of nothing in particular, when there came a loud rat, tat, tat of knuckles on the window-pane. I immediately ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... seated on the ground, or leaning idly against the walls, were about a dozen poor fellows who the Judge told me were hostages, held for a similar number under sentence of death by our Government. Their dejected, homesick look, and weary, listless manner disclosed some ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... the citadel. See the good Aurelius, in later and more corrupt ages, forsaking the pleasures of an imperial throne, that he might meditate on his soul's welfare, or the slave Epictetus, unfolding the richest lessons of moral wisdom to a corrupt and listless generation. ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... attention I bestowed upon this production. It was a very modest attempt,—a bit of landscape, with two horses grazing and a man at work in the foreground. Quiet in tone, and half-concealed by the shaded casement, it was only by degrees, and to ward off the ennui of a listless half-hour, that I gradually became absorbed in its examination. There were some masterly lines, clever arrangement, a true feeling, and a peculiar delicacy of treatment, that implied the hand of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... passed so slowly to Honor Blake. All the morning she goes about her work with a listless preoccupied air that could not fail to attract attention if there were any one to heed the girl ...
— Only an Irish Girl • Mrs. Hungerford
... Feeling listless, and not in the slightest degree interested in the coming performance, he enters the concert room, to find himself decidedly late. Some one has evidently just finished singing, and the applause that followed the effort has ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... does, with dates and names of places, their longitude and latitude duly recorded, makes for himself a meal of bitter-sweet; and that your truest dulcamara is to read with glasses the faded notes jotted down hurriedly in rain, in sun, in wind, in camps, by flooded rivers, and in the long and listless hours of heat — in fact, to see again your life, as it were, acted for you in some camera obscura, with the chief actor changed. But diaries, unless they be mere records of bare facts, must of necessity, as in their ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... organ notes,—the march drowning the miserere, and the sullen crowd thickening round them,—a crowd, which, if it had its will, would stiletto every soldier that pipes to it. And in the recesses of the porches, all day long, knots of men of the lowest classes, unemployed and listless, lie basking in the sun like lizards; and unregarded children,—every heavy glance of their young eyes full of desperation and stony depravity, and their throats hoarse with cursing,—gamble, and fight, and snarl, and sleep, hour after hour, clashing their bruised centesimi ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... would be given to it? Even the very paper, pens, and ink, would have to be of the best quality. But hear yonder father praying for his children's conversion. His son is old enough to have rejected the gospel, and is condemned already; but how listless the prayer! "Offer it to thy Governor." Would the Queen be expected to deign to notice such a petition? Is it any ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... Josephine sat waiting and watching, when the ring of the door-bell, the movement of the servant, the mingling of several suppressed voices, and the shuffle of footsteps on the entry-floor, aroused her from that listless inaction which fatigue had brought upon her. She sprang to the door of her room, and, opening it, was about to descend, when her brother met her and requested ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... the writing materials from Molly, and wrote the explanation and request in regard to Bertha, then folding it with a listless gesture, handed it to ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... The listless indolence of her father's life, and the almost complete absence from home of her brother, who was pursuing his studies at the Dublin University, had given over to her charge not only the household, but no small share of the management of the estate—all, in ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... her eye stole itself round into his face, and then her face was turned quickly to the ground. Her parasol which had been raised drooped listless from her hand. All unconsciously she hastened her steps and became aware that the tears were streaming from her eyes. For a moment or two it seemed to her that all was still hopeless. If he had no more to say than that, certainly she had not a word. He had ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... how changed! The cheeks were pale and hollow; dark rings—he could see them but too plainly as the face was lifted up toward the light—were round those great eyes, bright no longer. Her face was listless, careworn; looking all the more sad and impassive by the side of Sabina's, as she pointed smiling and sparkling, up to the fortress; and seemed trying to interest Marie in it, but ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley |
