"Idling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... waiting for him, engine idling, at the curb. He got in, tossing his briefcase and topcoat ahead of him to the far side of the front seat. His back began to itch, insistently, and he rubbed it against the ...
— Double Take • Richard Wilson
... complete absorption in this novel recital was so manifest that she put down the revolver with which she had been idling ...
— A Reversible Santa Claus • Meredith Nicholson
... the rifle-pit, watching this. Scores of the men were doing the same, or were idling the time away as suited them best. The sun had sunk from sight; but as the shells would burst over the rebel redoubt, which was then the mark of our artillerists, they seemed balls of silver, in the rays of the sun, now invisible to us. Then ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... on. * * * * * Jackson went on leave. To his deep disgust he had to wait a few hours in London on his way to more civilised parts, and fate led him idling to Brownhill's. He flattened his Celtic nose on the window and stared fascinated at the array of super-pipes displayed there. After a furtive glance along the street he crept into the temple. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 12, 1917 • Various
... Miles McLaren. He is a brilliant fellow when he chooses to work—one of the brightest intellects of the university; but he is wayward, dissipated, and unprincipled. He was nearly expelled over a card scandal in his first year. He has been idling all this term, and he must look forward ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... you trouble to do what you're told at once, Mr Puppy," he said. "Get on with your work, and don't let me catch you idling your ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... shone upon the hushed streets, when a woman, hooded in a gray shawl, walked rapidly down Fifth Street, eying the tenements with a searching look as she passed. On the stoop of one, a knot of mothers were discussing their household affairs, idling a bit after the day's work. The woman halted in front of the group, and was about to ask a question, when one of the women arose ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... all my heart," Sigurd murmured. "When all brave men are fighting abroad or serving the King at home, it is great shame for me to be idling here." And he sighed heavily as ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... But this is idling; it is not getting on with the Book. A score of men and women are crowding up to these pages waiting to get into the story. And the town of Harvey, how it is bursting its bounds, how it is sprawling out over the white paper, tumbling ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... Socrates thought of it in the Republic. We look "toward sunset" with reverence and respect; but it is with a reverence that makes us conscious of our own duty. The young men are now studying, working, some, alas! idling away their time who ought to be the active, earnest men in the next Presidential campaign; young men who are to control the destinies of the race. Many of them are of marked ability and decidedly energetic in character. Not so fluent, perhaps, as their ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... throttle and, with motor idling, swept down toward the endless miles of moonlit waste. Wind? They had been boring into it. Through the opened window he spotted a likely stretch of ground. Setting down the ship on a nice piece of Arizona desert was a mere detail ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... carry him, he found his work as tough and tedious as he could wish or fear, and by the end of the morning was thoroughly fagged. Then would have been the refreshing time for recreation in that pleasant idling-place, the Hollywell drawing-room. Any other time of day would have suited Charles as well for the reading, but he liked to take the hour at noon, and never perceived that this made all the difference to his friend of a toil or a pleasure. Now and then Guy gave tremendous yawns; and once ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... first employments when he arrived there was to look for Renaut, the secretary just alluded to. But Renaut was nowhere to be found, nor could any news be heard of him. Flotte stayed some time in Madrid, and then went to the army, which was still in quarters. He remained there three weeks, idling from quarter to quarter, saluting the Marechal in command, who was much surprised at his long stay, and who pressed him to return into France. At last Flotte took leave of the Marechal, asking him for an escort for himself and a commissary, with whom he meant to go in company ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... despond, and discolors with its own morbid reveries, the objects which it should ardently seek and genially assimilate. It sees things neither as they are, nor as they are glorified and transfigured by hope and health and faith; but, in the apathy of that idling introspection which betrays a genius for misery, it pronounces effort to be vanity, and despairingly dismisses knowledge as delusion. "Despair," says Donne, "is the damp of hell; rejoicing is the serenity ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... day idling about the streets, talking to his companions; he was always ready for a walk; you never saw him work or heard him talk about his work. Nevertheless, he, a foreigner, who had barely mastered the language, presented himself after six months—before he had ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... drew on my clothes, idling there in the sand, and afterward I found an inviting spot in an old meadow where I threw myself down on the grass under an apple-tree and looked up into the shadowy places in the foliage above me. I felt a delicious sense of physical ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... seen that Milton turned back from his unaccomplished tour because he "deemed it disgraceful to be idling away his time abroad for his own gratification, while his countrymen were contending for their liberty." From these words biographers have inferred that he hurried home with the view of taking service in the Parliamentarian army. This interpretation of his words ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... off to the tractor and tool shed and disappeared inside. Barney limped into the kitchen and went to work on the window glass. From the tractor shed came the sounds of an engine spluttering, racing, backfiring and then, just idling. ...
— Make Mine Homogenized • Rick Raphael
... maintain. There will be required a very great share of moderation and wisdom, indeed, under such circumstances, to prevent such a boy from wasting his money in ways that will incapacitate him from living easy when he shall become a father of a family himself, or from idling away the spare time that his gains afford him. He will, naturally, do part of both: but the way that is generally done is this. Without controul from a master, and totally independent of parents, who are quite left behind in poverty, (not ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... a desire for solitude and he went below. A half score of men were idling upon the lower deck. He began his restless pacings again, stroking his faded beard with a strangely white hand. Finally he stopped, gazing wistfully at the dark beauty of the ferry tower, sending its winsome ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... force of her terrible position now struck me like the edge of a weapon with whose sheath I had been idling. ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... the way, mum. Once get a lady to think that a girl isn't idling because she's sitting down, and the battle's won. But a lady comes into a shop blacker 'n midnight if every soul in it isn't on their feet and springing to serve her. I've got seats, but, bless you! my trade 'd be ruined if the girls used them much. 'Tisn't that ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... would build a place like that, only with a different roof. Then he would jump up, because he felt he ought to go somewhere and do work, for he was bored and ashamed of idling; at times he would long for the manor-fields over which he had guided the plough, where the settlement now stood. Then a great fear would seize him that he would be powerless when the Germans, who had felled forests, ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... as he was "ever likely to hear again." This was doubtless one of the reasons why he got (or was it only that it seemed so to him in his old age?) so little from Harvard College; but at any rate he graduated with honors, and afterwards enjoyed the blessed boon of two care-free years of idling and study in Germany and Italy. For six years, as private secretary to his father on one of the most difficult and successful diplomatic missions in the history of his country, he watched history in the making, and gained an inside knowledge ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... The day was spent idling about town waiting for Sabota to return so Skinny could get some whisky and drown his disappointment in love in ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... than his attendant's, dismounted, and gave his horse to a boy who stood idling near. It arose, perhaps, from the shyness of his character in early youth, that he felt dislike at applying to a stranger even for casual information, without previously glancing at his physiognomy ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... cursory inspection of this volume must put to shame those Washington news-mongers, who from March to December pictured the Secretary as locked up in his office, in order to merely shun office-seekers, or as idling his time at reviews and sham-fights. The collection demonstrates, that his logic, persuasion, and rhetorical excellence have in diplomatic composition maintained their previous excellences in other public utterances; and that his physical capacity for labor, and his mental sympathy ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... we're not to do Much finer deeds than we have done; If we must merely wander through Time's garden, idling in the sun; If there is nothing big ahead, Why do we fear ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest
... the practical Doctor these things were no better than the gun—it was idling, anyway. Natural History as a pastime was excellent, and sportsmanship for exercise and recreation had its place, but the business of life must not be neglected—Charles should get himself to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... capricious breeze which wandered through the hot city; but the silken curtains were drawn in one of the smaller reception-rooms. The room itself was a soft blaze of wax candles against the dull richness of crimson and gold. Men and women were idling about in that uneasy atmosphere which precedes the announcement of dinner. Many of the men wore orders on their breasts, and the uniforms of the countries they represented, and a number of Turks gave a picturesque touch to the scene, with their jewelled turbans and ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... late; he must go on; he had not meant to sit idling by the road-side. He went through the fields, his heavy step crushing the snow, a dry heat in his blood, his eye intent, still, until he came within sight of the farm-house; then he went on, cool and grave, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... that the huge black bulk behind them was wavering, turning; the thunderous roar of the propellers fell to a whistling whine; the ship was losing speed! It dipped, and shot down a bit—gained speed, then step by step it glided down—down—down to the surface below. The engines were idling now, the plane running ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... multiple. A single programming head actuated eight spinaret assemblies, which could deliver completed module assemblies into carriers in an almost continuous stream. It was idling. ...
— Alarm Clock • Everett B. Cole
... bred in the very womb of her—spoke to his understanding and found her words not lost on air. The dormant things within the boy had awakened. Life spoke; Hope sang; and between them all the world was changed. Yesterday, he had looked upon this day of idling in the country as a pleasant interlude, as a happy prologue to those greater delights that would come when he at last went to Epsom and really saw the famous race for the Derby. To-day, he was sorry that anything—even so great a thing as that—must ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... little further back than the time of which she spoke. At twenty-six years old I was an idle young man of good family, but scant expectations, supposed to be studying at the Bar, but in reality idling my time about town. In those days, Lady Caroom, you ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Already some aloft began to soar, And some to think who never thought before; But O, what numbers all their strength applied, Then threw despairingly the task aside With feign'd contempt, and vow'd they'd never tried. Did dairy-wife neglect to turn her cheese, Or idling miller lose the favouring breeze; Did the young ploughman o'er the furrows stand, Or stalking sower swing an empty hand, One common sentence on their heads would fall, 'Twas Oakly banquet had bewitch'd them all. Loud roar'd the winds of March, with whirling snow, One brightening hour ...
— May Day With The Muses • Robert Bloomfield
... sergeant. He kept his gun clean, his equipments in good order, and he was always in his place. So prompt was he, that his commander nicknamed him Sergeant Ready. He was as ready to play a game of football, or to run a race, as he was to appear in the ranks at drill. When off duty, instead of idling away his time, he was studying the tactics, learning not only his duty as a sergeant, but what it would be if he were ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... say nothing against that, so Halvor sat down on the hearth, and began to rake about among the ashes just as he had done before, when he lay there idling ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... Caesar was still idling away his time, Pompey had achieved honors such as the veteran generals of Rome were accustomed to regard as the highest to which they could aspire. He had only just left, if indeed he had left, school, when ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... Idling at his work he fell in with other idlers and has left a vivid description in a Daily News article called, "The Diabolist," of one ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... fashionable. Moreover, as he measured success by the crowd's measure, it was the way of life oftenest successful, the way of his father. He did not see the difference between the father's toiling up that way and his idling down it. So, at any rate, agreed the indulgent Gilmores, reading him quite through in a few glances, while all about the boat those who thought they knew best pronounced him more like Gideon Hayle in his regard for "folks just as folks" than were either the twins or the sister, from all ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... car at the curb, slamming its door behind him and walking briskly to the entrance. Hard, handsome in the Slavic tradition, dedicated, Ilya Simonov was young for his rank. A plainclothes man, idling a hundred feet down the street, eyed him briefly then turned his attention elsewhere. The two guards at the gate snapped to attention, their eyes straight ahead. Colonel Simonov was in mufti and didn't answer ...
— Freedom • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... miles), in West Virginia, and Newport, in Ohio (155 miles). Rather dingy villages, these—each, after their kind, with a stone wharf thick-grown with weeds; a flouring mill at the head of the landing; a few cheap-looking, battlemented stores; boys and men lounging about with that air of comfortable idling which impresses one as the main characteristic of rustic hamlets, where nobody seems ever to have anything to do; a ferry running to the opposite shore—for cattle and wagons, a heavy flat, with railings, made to drift with the current; and for foot passengers, ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... to great ferocity, but scowl he ever so much, a laugh kept idling in his irregular bushy beard, which lifted about his face in the wind like a mane, or made a kind of underbrush through which his blunt fingers ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... duty followed for the men, days of drilling, of idling up and down the streets of the dull Southern town. But Captain Conwell used his spare minutes to advantage, and when no work connected with his company or the personal welfare of his comrades occupied him, he was studying. Then came ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... and on the sunny side of the ship the steamer chairs were filling. Two old men were casting quoits; a noisy quartette was playing shuffle-board. After idling back and forth for a time, Kirk selected a chair and stretched himself out; but he was scarcely seated before the deck steward ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... own age, armed with a long fauchard, which we call a bill or halberd, a weapon not unlike the Lochaber axes of the Highlandmen. Other soldiers, French, Scottish, Spaniards, Germans, a mixed company, were idling and ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... Mr Swab called me into his little den, into which he was wont to retire whenever he had any private business to transact, although he generally sat in the outer office, that he might keep an eye on the clerks and see that there was no idling. ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... told me it was now time to set out to view the march of Cleopatra, as she went in triumph to the Shrine of Serapis. For although she would not pass till within two hours of the midday, yet these people of Alexandria have so great a love of shows and idling that had we not presently set forth, by no means could we have come through the press of the multitudes who were already gathering along the highways where the Queen must ride. So we went out to take our places upon ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... Harriet was idling about the parlor, dusting the already dusted furniture as they entered. The face was as impassive as a bronze statue. "Go and ask Miss Phillis, Harriet, if she is ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... you act on yours, and take care you do not stay idling here till the dinner hour is over.—I will add this work ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... his own account, to keep him till my term was out, which was to be very shortly. From the day I had left school I had not neglected my studies, and I used to read all the books I could lay hands on during every spare moment. Life is short enough as it is, and people make it still shorter by idling away their time. I knew that I had plenty of work to do, and I found out early that to get it done I must not lose a moment. I consequently not only kept up the knowledge I obtained at school, but got a fair ...
— The Log House by the Lake - A Tale of Canada • William H. G. Kingston
... altercation drew the attention of Asad's officers who were idling there. Biskaine and some three others lounged forward to stand behind the Basha, looking, on in some amusement, ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... been almost noon when they had at last come into this section. If two of them had not remained idling on the street as the long moments crept by, he would have believed that they had given him the slip, that he was now a cat watching a deserted mouse hole. But at the moment they were ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... Spandau machine guns. Then he glanced along the line of ships making up the first flight. Yes, they were ready, awaiting his signal, their idling motors purring like so many contented cats. The smiling, blond von Herzmann lifted his hand in signal. The purring sound changed to the deafening roar of a hundred infuriated jungle cats. The leading plane raced ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... you. Hence there was joy in the train, from Jimmy Grayson down, because the next day was to be Sunday, a period of rest, no speeches to be made, nothing to write, but just rest, sleeping, eating, idling, bathing, talking—whatever one chose to do. Only those who have been on arduous campaigns can appreciate the luxury of such a day now and then, cutting like a sweep of green grass across the long ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... morsel of gossip from his mouth. The murder out, Uncle Peter's grief is pitiful. How much sharper than a serpent's tooth is a prophecy of evil unfulfilled! It's not that he considers I've gone to work, incorrigible vagabond that I am; it's the fact that my intolerable idling has produced money which sets his teeth on edge—money, the golden calf of Uncle Peter's ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... mental elevation in his profession was only surpassed by the high finish of his apple-trees, and the elaborate nothingness of his general choice of subject. In the foreground of the picture, the artist has, however, most aptly introduced the two vagabonds invariably to be seen idling in the foregrounds of landscapes of this class—two rascally scouts who have put in appearance from time immemorial; they are here just as in the works alluded to, the one sitting, the other of course standing, and courteously bending to receive the remarks of his friend. By the side ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various
... and going to the door he bade his page who was idling in the anteroom go summon the captain. Then he paced slowly back, not to the place he had lately occupied at table, but to the hearth, where he took his stand with his shoulders squared to ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... walked three miles west before I discovered that my destination was three miles east of the railway station, I arrived at the rectory at noon, and found assembled some thirty or forty of the neighbouring farmers, their wives, men-servants and maid-servants, all seemingly bent on a day's idling, rather than business. The sale was announced for noon, but it was an hour later before the auctioneer put in an appearance, and the first operation in which he took part, and in which he invited my assistance, was to make a hearty meal of bread and cheese ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades
... wandered down town on weekday mornings, loitering into the post-office, idling an hour away in the Library, drifting home to mutton stew or Hamburg steak when the clock in the town hall struck twelve. Sometimes Martie watched the big eastern trains thunder by, looking with her wistful young blue eyes at the card-playing men and the flushed, bored young ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... evening, however, after a day spent as usual, in idling about and shooting little birds, our friend John was observed by a woman standing outside a church, under the window nearest to the pulpit. He stood there, listening very attentively to the sermon, till it was over; and then, before ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... the west, he remained enveloped in the lingering aureate haze till a time when the eastern part of the churchyard was in obscurity, and damp with rising dew. When it was too dark to sketch further he packed up his drawing, and, beckoning to a lad who had been idling by the gate, directed him to carry the stool and implements to a roadside inn which he named, lying a mile or two ahead. The draughtsman leisurely followed the lad out of the churchyard, and along a lane in the ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... open door, wild ducks, long domesticated, squalled raucously down the yards, some cattle slept in the huge corrals and the little world of Last's Holding was at peace. It seemed that only the girl idling over the ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... determined that the attempt should be made that very afternoon. The Irish, fancying that the English were about to retreat, kept guard carelessly. Part of the garrison was idling, part dosing. D'Usson was at table. Saint Ruth was in his tent, writing a letter to his master filled with charges against Tyrconnel. Meanwhile, fifteen hundred grenadiers; each wearing in his hat a green bough, were mustered on the Leinster bank of the Shannon. Many of them doubtless ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... he resigned the petty offices he had been filling; and handing his usury business over to those who formerly had served him as go-betweens, he set himself to the task of marrying off his son and sole heir, Ramon, an idling ne'er-do-well, who was always getting into trouble and upsetting the tranquil comfort that surrounded old Brull as he rested ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... not stay here. It cannot be right for a man to idle away his time as you are idling it; besides, you can never win back Pennington thus. If I were you I would find work, and I would honourably make my ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... right. I supposed you had been idling your time over the paper. Go and ask Mr. Murdock what time it is. I left my watch ...
— Fame and Fortune - or, The Progress of Richard Hunter • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... sharp," responded the assistant engineer. "An hour later we hit the long trail in earnest. This isn't an idling camp." ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... captain and his lone deck hand, stopped at many frail docks below the cottages that hung on the bluff above. Every cottager maintained his own light or combination of lights to facilitate identification by approaching visitors. They passed a number of sailboats lazily idling in the light wind, and several small power boats shot past with engines beating ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... on his return from America. Deulin saw his friend emerge from a club in Pall Mall and walk westward, as if he had business in that direction. Like many travellers, the Frenchman loved the open air. Like all Frenchmen, he loved the streets. He was idling in Pall Mall, avoiding a man here and there. For we all have friends whom we are content to see pass by on the other side. Deulin's duty was, moreover, such that it got strangely mixed up with his pleasure, and it often happens that discretion must ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... she was, idling uselessly at the Ritz as she had done yesterday, last week, last month—forever, it seemed to her. The vague protest that for some time had been growing within her against the senselessness and futility of her manner of existence crystallized itself now into a determination no longer ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... proportioned harmony, because of its grand Roman manner. The sight and feeling of it fasten upon the mind and abide in the memory like a nightmare,—like one of Piranesi's weirdest and most passion-haunted etchings for the Carceri. Idling there at noon in the twilight of the dust-bedarkened windows, we fill the tiers of those high galleries with ladies, the space below with grooms and pages; the stage is ablaze with torches, and an Italian Masque, such as ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... visited the town. The street was full of men idling slowly to and fro. All the larger structures were wide open, and from within could be heard the sounds of hurdy-gurdies, loud laughter and noisy talk. At one end of the street a group was organizing a horse race; and toward this Don Gaspar took his immediate departure. ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... its exertions while there is a possibility of success. Napoleon on the plains of Champagne, sometimes fighting two battles in one day, first defeating the Russians and then turning on the Austrians, is an illustration of this energy. The Duke of Brunswick, idling away precious time when he invaded France at the outbreak of the first Revolution, is an example of the contrary. Activity beats about a cover like an untrained dog, never lighting on the covey. Energy goes straight to the bird at ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... evening he found a note written by Traquair. "Are you in your senses, man?" it asked; "we have no more time to waste idling about here. If you want to rejoin us, come on to Danielli's Hotel, Venice." Swithin chuckled when he read it, and feeling frightfully tired, went to bed ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... life, with brief breaks, has been spent in London, sometimes working by day and playing by night, sometimes idling by day and toiling through long midnights, either in streets, clubs, bars, and strange houses, or in the heat and fume of Fleet Street offices. But what nights they were! What things have we seen done—not at The ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... think we ought to be idling on the street corners like this? We ought to be at work, ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... for action arose a stranger, looking at the apparently idling men, with their far-away gazings seaward, would naturally say, 'What a lazy set of fellows!' as has actually been said to me of the very men who I knew had been all night in the lifeboat, and whose faces were tanned and salted ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... meet him, and deciding by a pitched battle who was to have the command of the sea in the Adriatic. But Caesar's old lieutenant, once as energetic and enterprising a soldier as his master, had now become indolent and irresolute. He was used to idling away weeks and months with Cleopatra and his semi-Oriental Court. Instead of venturing on a vigorous offensive campaign he left the initiative to his opponent, and with a nominally more powerful fleet at his disposal he passively ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... said Alejo. "I will tell you all about it. I am married, and have many children to support; but I am poor. I have been idling away my time, and my wife has been kicking and whipping me like a child for not doing anything all day. So I have finally left home to seek ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... would laugh heartily at their cleverness in avoiding them. Tryballot senior went into a passion when he found his grain considerably less in a measure. But although he pulled his son's ears whenever he caught him idling and trifling under a nut tree, the little rascal did not alter his conduct, but continued to study the habits of the blackbirds, sparrows, and other intelligent marauders. One day his father told him that he would be wise to model ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... here, you are certain to see him." Michaela thanked him quietly, and went away. The soldiers were strange to her, and she preferred to wait in another part of the square rather than where they were idling. She had no sooner disappeared than the music of the relief guard was heard in the distance. It was the soldiers' chorus: a regular fife and drum affair. It came nearer, nearer, nearer, till it arrived in full blast, fresh as a pippin, the herald ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... she explained. "I'm idling and I have no business to. Hold it until I give the three o'clocks." Which means ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... round the country to-day, and when I come in I find that long-legged fellow Morris philandering away, and have to listen to his vacuous nonsense for an hour. Whatever brings him here so often? He ought to have something better to do with his time than to be idling it away over afternoon tea. Is ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... the back door. Once out in the compound, he bolted round the end of the house. Emerging innocently between the two bungalows he lingered and lounged in the open, where anybody issuing from any of the dwellings was bound to see him—a self-possessed Chinaman idling there, with nothing but perhaps an ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... freshening of the attire, the Frenchman at length proffered his fat hand, and Ringfield clasped it with a firm, bold grasp; his muscles were twice as strong as those of the Frenchman, for while the one had been chiefly employed in the kitchen, at a rude desk, and had rusted in long loafing and idling intervals, the other had maintained his rowing and paddling and his interest in other athletic pursuits; even a half-dozen lessons in boxing had he laid ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... did as she was bid. She found the piano, although well past its prime, to be better than the generality of those that she had already tried. She got up and again looked out of the window, when she saw that the men, whom she had previously seen idling in the yard, were now ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... Duff living-room, and was idling over his work, at his table in the corner, when Mrs. Hattie Blaisdell opened the door and hurried in, wringing her hands. Her face was red and swollen ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... the barn early the next morning and called her husband. 'Are you going to be long idling there?' ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... said sharply, "you get right off for the cows, you lazy little scamp! You knew right well you had to go for them, and here you've been idling, and me looking high and low for you. Make haste now; ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... seen those poor Morels so unhappy, so very unhappy, that I said to myself: 'There is no sense in having these ugly pieces of money idling in a box, whilst poor people are perishing of hunger beside you,' so I lent them to Morel. When I say lent, I mean I told him I only lent them, in order to spare his feelings, for I assure you ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... softly, "the whole idea of warfare seems so foreign and unnatural, so essentially vulgar, if I may say so, that I can hardly appreciate your sensations. Of course, though, any change from idling in garrison towns must be a ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... eight days must be made; there was no idling for man or beast. When the express rode up to the station, both rider and pony were always ready. The only delay was a second or two as the saddle-pouch with its precious burden was thrown on and the rider leaped into his place, then away they rushed down the trail ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... the garden or the household. The pupils could select their own work and could make a change of occupation with consent of the instructor. No one was obliged to take the Industrial course, but very few declined, even the aristocratic Spaniards taking hold of work like good fellows as they were. Idling was not ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... be easy," he replied, "as I know Van Valkenburgh, the coroner, very well, and we are on good terms. He is a warm friend of Pattmore,—in fact, they are boon companions. He spends most of his time in idling about the Pattmore House, and only yesterday, they ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... Shearing and waiting for shearing—that was his life. Working over the sweating sheep under the hot iron shed in the sweltering summer time; growing sick and losing weight and bickering with the squatter till the few working months wore over; then an occasional job, but mostly enforced idling till the season came round again; looking for work from shed to shed; struggling against conditions; agitating; organising; and in the future years, aged too soon, wifeless and childless, racked with rheumatism, ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... compass of the voice" (113. 188-204). To the female child, then, we owe a good deal of that which is now embodied in our modern speech, and the debt of primitive races is still greater. Many a traveller has found, indeed, a child the best available source of linguistic information, when the idling warriors in their pride, and the hard-working women in their shyness, or taboo-caused fear, failed to respond at all to his requests ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... absurd. Of course it was, and he did everything to make my visit pleasant. I wish you'd go and see him like a dutiful son, instead of idling here." ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... from American establishments; if, therefore, they are to walk out and take exercise, it must be alone, and this can be done in the United States with more security than elsewhere, from the circumstance of everybody being actively employed, and there being no people at leisure who are strolling or idling about. I think that the portion of time which elapses between the period of a young girl leaving school and being married, is the happiest of her existence. I have already remarked upon the attention and gallantry shewn by the Americans to the women, especially to the unmarried. This is carried ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... hung about the little station, watching the trains come and go and dive into the heart of the hills and vanish. No one said anything to him for idling about; people are kind-hearted and easy of temper in this pleasant land, and children and dogs are both happy there. He heard the Bavarians arguing and vociferating a great deal, and learned that they meant to go too and wanted to go with the great stove itself. But this they ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... valley was shut in on the south and east by rocky hills, patched with the immortal green of cedars and gay with clambering columbines. In front was the Mississippi, reposing from its plunge over the rapids, and idling down among the golden sandbars and the low, moist islands, which were looking their loveliest in their new spring dresses of ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... have lived, in short, as an independent being ought to do. Take this advice: the first and last I shall offer you; then you will not want me or any one else, happen what may. Neglect it—go on as heretofore, craving, whining, and idling—and suffer the results of your idiocy, however bad and insuperable they may be. I tell you this plainly; and listen: for though I shall no more repeat what I am now about to say, I shall steadily act on it. After my mother's death, I wash my hands ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... awkwardly at every step. Once on the dock, he gave his bag to a negro and led the way toward the street. At the last moment, however, just as he was about to plant his feet upon solid earth, he was halted by two men who rose from a bench where they had been idling. They carried the tasseled canes of the Secret Service, and ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... forget this. Your profession is settled now irrevocably. You will be a writer, and a famous writer, and one reason why I have procured all these invitations for you, and encouraged you to accept them, has been because I want you to grasp life as a whole. You think that you are idling now. You are not. Every new experience you gain is of value to you. Hitherto you have only seen life through dun-coloured spectacles. I want you also to understand the other side. It is your business to ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... upon. "They that are His have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts."[257] Does that mean, think you, that in time of national distress, of religious trial, of crisis for every interest and hope of humanity—none of us will cease jesting, none cease idling, none put themselves to any wholesome work, none take so much as a tag of lace off their footmen's coats, to save the world? Or does it rather mean, that they are ready to leave houses, lands, and kindreds—yes, and life, if need be? Life!—some of us are ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... Trenfield and Ruth were driving the cows down to the creek to drink, and Will and I were idling about on the seaward hill, we saw Patrick Kenna ride up to the house, dismount and knock. He only remained indoors a few minutes, and presently we saw him galloping towards Trenfield and Ruth, with whom he stayed talking for even a still shorter time; then, without taking any notice of us—which ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... present. If children were wanted they were sent for. It was not seemly for them to be idling in ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... as soon as silence restored, "will now adjourn. At least I must withdraw; and unless it can be shown that Deputy-Speaker has been in bed all day, or otherwise idling his time, you cannot go on. Under ordinary circumstances, House meeting at Three o'clock, we should have adjourned sharp at Eleven to-night; but the fact is, my day's work began at Ten this morning. That is a necessity of my position. With interval of hasty meals, I have been accustomed to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, May 17, 1890. • Various
... cool for all in the busy town— For the girls in their sealskin sacques— For the dainty dudes idling up and down, With overcoats on their backs; And the horse-cars lurch and the people run And the bell at the bridgeway rings— But never perspires a single one, Attending ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson |
