"Listless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... man 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 ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde
... began to explain matters in the usual official tone, but before long perceived that the attention paid to him was merely formal. The King sat depressed, listless, and cold. This renewal of the official routine found him mentally fagged out; it was evident that ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... all a glorious indigo flushed with rose colour from "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
... awkward 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 ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... becomes a disturber of the peace; the parents can do nothing with him; he insists on eating just what he likes and when he likes; and he chooses, as a rule, candy, cake, pastries, ice cream, tea, coffee. Indigestion follows, the child loses weight, is languid and listless and constipated. ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... of hording together in families, and of not marrying out of their own kraals, has, no doubt, tended to enervate this race of men, and reduced them to their present degenerated condition, which is that of a languid, listless, phlegmatic people, in whom the prolific powers of nature seem to be ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... the room in a listless way, looking about at the various familiar objects that he was to see no more, and one of the first things to strike him was a teacup on the washstand, containing Mrs Millett's infusion, bitter, nauseous, and sweetened to sickliness; ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... homestead of the thriving Wolverine, On the beauteous Western prairies, with their carpeting of green, By the sweeping Mississippi, long our country's pride and boast, On the rugged Rocky Mountains, and the weird Pacific coast, In the listless, sunny Southland, with its blossoms and its vines, On the bracing Northern hill-tops, and amid their murmuring pines, Over all our happy country—over all our Nation spread, Is a band of noble heroes—is our Army ...
— Farm Ballads • Will Carleton
... we were anxiously watching for some indications of a breeze, but were so frequently deceived with "cat's paws," and the occasional slight flickering of the dog vane, that we sank into listless resignation. At length our canvass filled, and we soon came within sight of the Straits of Gibraltar. On our left was the coast of Spain, with its vineyards and white villages; and on our right lay the sterile hills of Barbary. Opposite Cape Trafalgar is Cape Spartel, a ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... gives an interesting account of the monkeys that live in that far-away country. He says that in the morning, during the cold season, the monkeys are always very listless, but as soon as they are warmed with the rays of the sun, they are as playful as kittens. They will jump over each other's backs, slap each other's faces, pull each other's tails, and even make pretense to ...
— Harper's Young People, January 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... stuff of different hues, gray and brown being the leading shades, but both subdued by a neutral tint, such as is wont to harmonize the variegated apparel of travel-stained vagabonds. They looked slouchy, listless, torpid,—an ill-conditioned crew, at first sight, made up of such fellows as an old woman would drive away from her hen-roost with a broomstick. Yet these were estrays from the fiery army which has given our generals so much trouble,—"Secesh prisoners," as a bystander told us. A talk with them ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... that no one seemed to be laughing and enjoying himself out of all the crowd? The Avenue du Bois de Boulogne seemed to belong to another planet. The listless languor of these girls did not at least obviously claim Transatlantic cousinship; the gaiety of a Japanese street seemed so remote as to belong to a planet of another system; and the seriousness seemed reflected in the faces of the great mediocracy sauntering along inside ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... and gone as did those Spanish lovers, riding up through the sunshine on their silver-bitted pinto ponies and riding out at dusk with tinkling spur-chains into that long to-morrow that has shrouded the ancient plaza in listless dreams. Mexicans in black sombreros and blue overalls still prowl from cantina to cantina, but the gay vaquero and his ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... there was any spot in the world so entirely ugly; and when I saw those rows and rows of pale, listless, blue-uniformed children, the whole dismal business suddenly struck me with such a shock that I almost collapsed. It seemed like an unachievable goal for one person to bring sunshine to one hundred little faces when what they need ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... sure that he needed encouragement and guidance. She pictured him with his fiddle under his chin, masterful, confident, miraculous, throwing a spell over everyone within earshot. But actually she saw him listless and vanquished in the basket chair, and she perceived that only a strongly influential and determined woman, such as herself, could save him from disaster. No man could do it. His tears had shaken ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... the mysteriously-perforated card, and left her post behind his chair; and then, after roaming about the great saloon with a weary listless air, and wandering from one open window to another to look into the sunny quadrangle, where well-dressed people were sitting at little tables eating ices or drinking lemonade, she went away altogether, and roamed into another chamber where some children were dancing to the sound ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... with bleak rehearsals, hours of listless waiting for his little scenes; with his powerlessness to get into his simple words the particular intonation required by an overdriven producer. Familiar, too, with long and hungry Sunday railway journeys when ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... groaned 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 ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... has had an amusing experience. The other day a somewhat distracted mother brought her daughter to see him. The girl was suffering from what is known among people as 'general lowness.' There was nothing much the matter with her, but she was pale and listless and did not care about eating or doing anything. The doctor, after due consultation, prescribed for her a glass of claret three times a day with her meals. The mother was somewhat deaf, but apparently heard all he said and bore off her daughter, determined to carry out the prescription to the very ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... who is there that will not send them back again without a gift? And they with naked feet and looks askance come homewards, and sorely they upbraid me when they have gone on a vain journey, and listless again in the bottom of their empty coffer they dwell with heads bowed over their chilly knees, where is their drear abode, when portionless they return." How far happier was the prisoned goat-herd, Comatas, in the fragrant cedar ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... Bob on the subject in the billiard-room after dinner. Bob was practising cannons in rather a listless way. ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... 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 ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt
... daughter—side by side With young Sunanda. Little praise had now That beauty which in old days shone so bright; Marred with much grief it was, like sunlight dimmed By fold on fold of wreathed and creeping mists. But when Sudeva marked the great dark eyes— Lustreless though they were, and she so worn, So listless—"Lo, the Princess!" whispered he;— "'Tis the King's daughter," quoth he to himself; And thus mused on:— "Yea! as I used to see, 'Tis she! no other woman hath such grace! My task is done; I gaze on that one form, Which is like Lakshmi's, whom all worlds adore. I see ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... from the semicircle of straight-backed chairs in the old court-house, the clerk had laid aside his pen along with his air of listless attention, and the judge was making his way through the straggling spectators to the sunken stone steps of the platform outside. As the crowd in the doorway parted slightly, a breeze passed into the room, scattering the odours ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... showed that he belonged to that class of men who, as a rule slothful and listless, can yet on occasion act with energy, and who act most creditably on behalf of others. But William had no need to fear him, and he was easily turned into a friend and a dependant. Edgar, first of Englishmen by descent, was hardly an Englishman by birth. William had now to deal ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... been an alert, keen man, with quick, bright eyes, alive to every impression, responsive to every sensation, living his full allowance of life. She was looking now at a man unnaturally old, of deadened nerves, listless. As he caught sight of her and recognised her he suddenly roused himself with a quick, glad smile and with a look in his eyes that to Lloyd was unmistakable. But there was not that joyful, exuberant ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... the play of the cedar-branch shadows on the moonlit lawn, and planning schemes of fresh devilry for the sunshiny morrow. From below, strains of the jocund piano declared that the Olympians were enjoying themselves in their listless, impotent way; for the new curate had been bidden to dinner that night, and was at the moment unclerically proclaiming to all the world that he feared no foe. His discordant vociferations doubtless started a train of thought in Edward's mind, for the youth presently ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... between the boys and the girls. The boys are, I think, the finest set of lads I ever saw brought together; bright looking, gay, active, and full of intelligence. The girls are exactly in reverse; heavy, listless, indifferent, and melancholy. In conversing with the gentleman who is the general superintendant of the establishment, I made the remark to him, and he told me, that the reality corresponded with the appearance. All of them had been detected ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... strong-limbed and manly, and had the look of one who never had been cowed by abuse or worn with oppressive labor. He sat on his bed doing nothing; no book, no pipe, no pen or paper anywhere appeared, yet anything less indolent or listless than his attitude and expression I never saw. Erect he sat, with a hand on either knee, and eyes fixed on the bare wall opposite, so rapt in some absorbing thought as to be unconscious of my presence, though ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... can talk a great deal better." Arline began a listless unfastening of her fluffy lingerie frock, her eyes ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... horned 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
... rambled on In one long listless monotone, We heard a wild and mournful groan Come rumbling down the tunnelled way; A voice, an awful mournful bray, Singing some old funereal lay; Then solemn footsteps, muffled, dull, Approached as if they trod on wool, And as they nearer, nearer drew, ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... as they tumble trunk on trunk Beneath the gory waters sunk, Still o'er their drowning bodies press New victims quick and numberless; Till scarce an arm in HAFED'S band, So fierce their toil, hath power to stir, But listless from each crimson hand The sword hangs clogged with massacre. Never was horde of tyrants met With bloodier welcome—never yet To patriot vengeance hath the sword More ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... supposed to train become irretrievably starved and stunted in the over-educated school child; till at last, when the time comes for him to leave the school in which he has been so sedulously cared for, he is too often thrown out upon the world, helpless, listless, resourceless, without a single interest, without a single ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... evening I received another visit from the man in black. I had been taking a stroll in the neighbourhood, and was sitting in the dingle in rather a listless manner, scarcely knowing how to employ myself; his coming, therefore, was by no means disagreeable to me. I produced the hollands and glass from my tent, where Isopel Berners had requested me to deposit them, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... Krishnas. A 1,000 Vasudevas and hundreds of Phalgunas, I shall, single-handed, slay. Hold thy tongue, O thou that art born in a sinful country. Hear from me, O Shalya, the sayings, already passed into proverbs, that men, young and old, and women, and persons arrived in course of their listless wanderings, generally utter, as if those sayings formed part of their studies, about the wicked Madrakas. Brahmanas also duly narrated the same things formerly in the courts of kings. Listening to those ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... to their lively, affectionate, simple intercourse; and, as the truth must be told, the lady in the Nankin sitting-room crossed her hands with a motion of indolent interest and turned her head with an air of listless pleasure, nodding and beating her foot lightly on the floor now and then, in interjection and commentary. She could figure the group perfectly. Two rosy little girls brought into the town for a day and a night's shopping and gadding, as they would call it, under the escort of an indulgent uncle: ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... I entered the Puerta del Sol at about noon. There is always a crowd there about this hour, but it is generally a very quiet motionless crowd, consisting of listless idlers calmly smoking their cigars, or listening to or retailing the—in general—very dull news of the capital; but on the day of which I am speaking the mass was no longer inert. There was much gesticulation and vociferation, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... any thing that fell from the party in conversation, it would have been impossible to say if our destination were China or Ireland. Not a book nor a map, not a pamphlet nor a paper that bore upon the country whose destinies were about to be committed to us, ever appeared on the tables. A vague and listless doubt how long the voyage might last, was the extent of interest any one condescended to exhibit; but as to what was to follow after—what new chapter of events should open when this first had ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... too, got very much put out about this time, and all on account of the two new-comers; for when Miss Ross hadn't got the children with her, they were along with Lizzy, who, like her mistress, was new to the climate, and hadn't got into that dull listless way that comes to people who have been some time up the country. They were all life, and fun, and energy, and the children were never happy when they were away; and of a morning, more to please Lizzy, I used to think, than the children, Harry Lant used to pick out a shady place, and then drive ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... looking on grew listless: three of them, Gordon, Smith, and Hart minor, wandered off from the pavilion further up the slope of the hill, where there was a kind of wooden scaffolding raised for letting off fireworks on the 5th of November. The headmaster, ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... one afternoon when, being in a listless and an idle mood, I had risen from my work and was amusing myself with speculating at my window on the different personages who were passing before me. At that time I occupied apartments in the Brompton ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... their troubles. What are they to do during the long hours of night, and on wet, pouring days? They can't read, they can't see in their huts to do any work, making baskets, &c. They must lie about, talking scandal and acquiring listless indolent habits. Then comes a wild reaction. The younger people like excitement as much as our young men like hunting, fishing, shooting, &c. How can they get this? Why, they must quarrel and fight, ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... day, he, by some accident, extended his walk beyond the suburbs, and desirous to contemplate the nature of the rustic scenery, he, with listless step, came up to a spot encircled by hills and streaming pools, by luxuriant clumps of trees and thick groves of bamboos. Nestling in the dense foliage stood a temple. The doors and courts were in ruins. The walls, inner and outer, in ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... of noon began, full soon, On his youthful frame to tell; On the ivory brow, flushed, wearied now, It laid its burning spell; And listless—languid—he journeyed on, The smiles from his ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... disadvantages under which they laboured, it may be supposed these poor children had not many attractions to boast of. Adrian had the benefit of rather more education than his sister and cousin, as his father would sometimes devote himself to his instruction, but listless from disappointment, and out of humour with a world in which he despaired of his son ever appearing with the distinctions of rank and fortune, his lessons were never regularly given, or enforced in a manner likely to make any profitable impression on the mind of a playful thoughtless ...
— The Flower Basket - A Fairy Tale • Unknown
... all he did was to try to avoid the strokes aimed at him, and he could not always escape them. His spiritlessness served to inspire the chaffinch with greater boldness, and then it appeared that the gay little creature was really and truly incensed, possibly because the rusty, draggled, and listless appearance of the larger bird was offensive to him. Anyhow, the persecutions continued, increasing in fury until they could not be borne, and the blackbird tried to escape by hiding in the bramble. But he was not permitted to rest there; out he was soon driven and away ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... worthy a heart as mine.' Then before I realized my position, there was but the memory in my heart of his lips having touched mine, followed by the feeling of secret dread and horror, that sprung from the awe in which I stood, of my father. I woke suddenly from the listless apathy that came over me. I looked up with all the emotion of fear, excitement and love visible in my face, looked to find the pale angry countenance of my father before me, with all the insulted dignity and slighted authority he felt, ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... disappointed, unhappy, frequently irritated, Ellen became at length very ready to take offence, and nowise disposed to pass it over, or smooth it away. She seldom showed this in words, it is true, but it rankled in her mind. Listless and brooding, she sat, day after day, comparing the present with the past, wishing vain wishes, indulging bootless regrets, and looking upon her aunt and grandmother with an eye of more settled aversion. The only other person she saw ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... saw, or imagined he saw, that his antagonist was tiring. He looked jaded and listless, and his hands drooped a little from their position. His own youth and condition were beginning to tell. He sprang in and brought off a fine left-handed lead. The Master's return lacked his usual fire. Again Montgomery led, ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... not near me. No wonder that my second father should expect a son's deference from me in waiting first on him. But, galled and stung by a sense of my follies and demerit, I strove to throw the blame on others. We kept nightly orgies in Palazzo Carega. To sleepless, riotous nights, followed listless, supine mornings. At the Ave Maria we showed our dainty persons in the streets, scoffing at the sober citizens, casting insolent glances on the shrinking women. Juliet was not among them—no, no; if she had been there, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... 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 ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... Listless lies the strong man there, Silver-streaked his careless hair; Lips of love have left no trace On that hard and haughty face; And that forehead's knitted thought Love's soft ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... burly, red-haired young man, with a resolute face but a listless manner. He carried under his arm a flat, grey portfolio of black-and-white sketches, which he had sold with more or less success to publishers ever since his uncle (who was an admiral) had disinherited him for Socialism, because of a lecture which he had delivered against that economic ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... the town, at that period especially, deepened the impression caused by the loneliness of its surroundings. There was no stir in the streets, where only a few listless idlers—always the same—were to be seen; no women at all, except an odd peasant come in to sell her produce; no loud talk, laughter, and singing, as in the Italian towns. Sometimes, under the shade of a tree on the public promenade, a dozen armed peasants will ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... since the 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, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... the going out herself," said Dowie. "I'd thought she'd be too weak and listless to move. And they ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... she had worked out her scheme of gestures in the awakening, and Lucia had been very glad, very glad indeed to give her a few hints. In fact, Lucia was quite herself: it was only her subjects whom it had been a little hard to stir up. Georgie in particular had been very listless and dull, and Lucia, for all her ingenuity, was at a complete loss to find a ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... that was guiltless of colours She stood, with a dull, listless air - A creature of dumps and of ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... ethereal blue canopy which hung over the loftiest peaks. All was silence save the rumbling noise of our conveyance; and when, as was the case at a sudden angle of the winding road, a large black bear was seen coolly sitting on his haunches, with listless hanging paws, looking at the stage and its contents, it did not seem at all strange, but quite in keeping with the solitary surroundings, though some of our horses did exhibit a little restlessness. The pistol-like crack of the driver's ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... I wish He'd scratch paper. It's an idle habit but an honored one. And see how listless She is, there in her wicker chair. Their silence frightens me more than anything. She seems asleep, but I can see her eyelashes move and the tips of her fingers, too. She's forgetting to play with the little balls of thread and doesn't sing, or whistle. She suffers ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... thinking of their own affairs. As if a man's soul were not too small to begin with, they have dwarfed and narrowed theirs by a life of all work and no play; until here they are at forty, with a listless attention, a mind vacant of all material of amusement, and not one thought to rub against another, while they wait for the train. Before he was breeched, he might have clambered on the boxes; when ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... gain and may even lose in weight. It no longer exhibits its usual energy and playfulness, but is either listless and indifferent or cross, fretful and irritable, and is apt to sleep poorly. It grows pale and anaemic and its tissues become soft and flabby. When the milk is scanty it will often nurse a long time at the breasts, ...
— The Care and Feeding of Children - A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses • L. Emmett Holt
... done in any other place. Our crew generally laboured away from sunrise to sunset without complaining. But Howlett and Trinder grumbled at the additional work they had to perform. The second mate seemed always out of humour, and went about his duty in a listless fashion, frequently abusing the men without any cause for so doing. The captain, who was getting better, would not allow himself to be taken on shore to the hospital, asserting that he was much more comfortable on board with Mr Radburn, Blyth, and me to look after him, than he should be ...
— The Mate of the Lily - Notes from Harry Musgrave's Log Book • W. H. G. Kingston
... didn't suppose you would take the trouble to do it again. And if you had, I should have only loved you the more. I thought you would most likely be rather amused, rather touched, by my importunity. I thought you would take a listless advantage, make a plaything of me—the diversion of a few idle hours in summer, and then, when you had tired of me, would cast me aside, forget me, break my heart. I desired nothing better than that. That is what I must have been ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... will not permit me to tarry long within its hospitable walls. In fact, we only arrived late at night, and departed early the next morning; but even a six-hours' sojourn gave me a solemn and "realizing sense" of its marked worth,—for, when, tired and listless, I asked for a servant to assist me, the waiter said he would send the housekeeper. Accordingly, when, a few moments after, it knocked at the door with light, light finger, (See De la Motte Fouque,) I drawled, "Come in," and the Queen of Sheba stood before me, clad in purple and fine linen, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... and rather awkward. The brown of out-of-doors was upon his skin. His eyelids dropped at the corners in rather a listless way, but the eyes beneath were gray and steady. He was young, not more than twenty-five, so Whittaker judged at his first ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... cleanly animal, and its vigilance is extreme. It is almost impossible to come on it unawares, for even when appearing to be soundly asleep, it opens its eyes on the slightest noise being made. During the day it appears to be listless, but no sooner has the night set in than it is in motion, and it continues very active until morning. The young migrate to the southward in the autumn, and sometimes collect in great numbers on the shores of Hudson's Bay. Mr Graham ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... bed, without removing her apparel—fell upon my ear, and proved she slept in all the tranquillity of innocence. And yet the very tranquillity of that sleep almost excited my displeasure; for it seemed to evince a listless, reckless indifference to danger, a lack of tender, womanly sympathy for suffering and sickness, that might indeed arise from a heart untouched by any love, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... A close, listless heat held Monday afternoon, even on the hilltop. The clay tennis-court was baking; the worn bricks of the terrace reflected a furnace glow. The Kerrs had disappeared for a nap. Carl, lounging with Ruth on the swinging ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... suitable abodes for human beings, and are distanced in neatness by the ant-hills. Such a degraded condition of humanity can hardly be found elsewhere among semi-civilized races. The women are worn by hardships. The men are cadaverous and listless. Clothing among them is the exception; nudity is the rule. It seems strange, but it is true, that one-quarter of the human race goes ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... "In listless quietude of mind I yield to all The change of cloud and wave and wind; And passive, on the flood reclined, I wander with the waves, and ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... 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
... visit from the black health-officer, and we reflected severely on the exceeding 'cheek' of inspecting, as a rule, new comers from old England at this yellow Home of Pestilence. But in the healthy time of the year we rarely see the listless, emaciated whites with skins stained by unoxygenised carbon, of whom travellers tell. Despite the sun, all the Bathurstians save the Government officials—now few, too few—flocked on board. Mail-days are here, as in other places down-coast, high days and holidays. But times are changed, and ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... path had been cut through to the eastern shore. It was almost a tunnel, for the fronds of the coco palms and the branches of the red-trunked gumbo limbo, and of live oak formed an arch overhead, from which hung long, listless streamers of Spanish moss. The red rays touched the hanging tips of the moss, as if the streamers had been dipped in vermilion, and it tinted softly the palm fronds, ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... Dodd, delighted. Julia assented: she even added, with a listless yawn, "I had no idea that a skeleton was such a gentlemanlike thing; I never saw ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... with the regulation measure of facts, scraped through the customary examination, and was despatched, much against his will, to the universities of Jena and Zuerich. When I last saw him he was a plodding lawyer of the conventional type, doing his duties in a listless manner, with very indifferent success, and quite broken down in spirit. The Gymnasium, the university, and the parental obstinacy had done their work very effectually. They had succeeded in reducing him to the level of a machine, and in all ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... respite. It was her temper to die once rather than a thousand times. Her father was in Sacramento on business. He would return the following day. She was too dull and listless to feel fear of him, ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... 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 mechanically, ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... slipped slowly off Lingard's shoulders and her arms fell by her side, listless, discouraged, as if to her—to her, the savage, violent, and ignorant creature—had been revealed clearly in that moment the tremendous fact of our isolation, of the loneliness impenetrable and transparent, elusive and everlasting; of the indestructible loneliness that surrounds, ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... a few words in regard to the most marvellous man that this country has produced in the nineteenth century. His name is to-day a household word in every civilized land. Dr. Newman Hall, of London, has told me that when he had addressed a listless audience, he found that nothing was so certain to arouse them as to introduce the name of Abraham Lincoln. Certainly no other name has such electric power over every true heart from Maine to Mexico. The first time ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... or South, who might not be lovely and beloved. I do not reckon on a difference of race in North and South, as the manner of some is. The great mass of girls whom one meets in schools and public places are the ones who in the South would be the listless, ragged daughters of poverty. The great mass of Southern girls that we see are the cherished and cultivated upper classes, and answer only to our very best. Like should always be compared with like. And I am not afraid to ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... a pearly waif, just past the reach Of foamy billows he lies cast. Just then, Some listless fishers, straying down the beach, Spy out this wonder. Thence the curious men, Low crouching, creep into a thicket brake, And watch her doings till their ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... 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 not yet quite ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... in a most listless, melancholy manner, wondering why it was that Jack did not write, and Paquita, too, was quite despondent at not hearing any thing ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... who was sitting on his buffalo-robe blanket in the doorway, watched him and began to make comparisons. He recalled the boy who had left Omaha with the wagon train six or eight months before, a thin, spiritless fellow with a slender, weak neck, hollow, white cheeks, pale lips, and listless eyes. That boy drew coughs incessantly from a hollow chest, and the backs of his hands were ridged when the flesh had gone away, leaving the bones standing up. This boy whom Dick contemplated was quite a different being. His face was no longer white, it was ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... even the gamblers were listless to-night. The only stir of excitement was round one roulette wheel. Bob started toward the group, and saw the centre of it was Reedy Jenkins with his hat tipped back, shirt open at the throat, sleeves rolled to elbows, playing ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... The listless youth rose from the table, walked slowly about the room, stopped, looked mournfully at the portraits, recommenced his walk, and approached an antique casket placed on a bracket in the corner. He opened it with apparent indifference and took out some simple jewelry,—a pair of ear-rings and ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... undismayed, to make good his accusation. He had dropped back into his slightly listless air of thinly veiled persiflage, and he appeared to address the lady, to explain the situation to her, rather than to justify the charge ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... made the least effort, and that only when Steve stood by. Then came the day when he, too, resigned himself to his fate; and on going, after leaving him lying in the engine-room, to the galley, Steve found that the cook was seated listless and weary, his chin upon his hands, his elbows on his knees, gazing at the dying fire ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... ran upstairs to see her husband for a few minutes, and then returned to me in her little sitting-room. He was tired, she said, and hoped to sleep until tea. She had not told him of my visit; he was so listless and apathetic that it worried him to talk, or to have people talk to him. "I don't believe he will ever be the ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... she rose and went to the window with a listless step, and gazed idly through the glass at the long row of windows in the palace opposite, and then went back and sank down, as though very weary, upon a sofa far from the light. There was a dazed, wondering look in her face and she sat very ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... the best drawing-rooms in Moscow. His bald head with its tufts of dyed hair, and the soiled ribbon of the Order of St. Anne which he wore over a cravat of the colour of a raven's wing, began to be familiar to all the pale and listless young men who hang morosely about the card-tables while dancing is going on. Pavel Petrovitch knew how to gain a footing in society; he spoke little, but from old habit, condescendingly—though, of course, not when he was talking to persons of a higher ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... structure, with verandahs supported on wooden pillars. High walls surround a rather commodious courtyard. There are mysterious little doors, through which you can get a peep of crooked little stairs leading to the upper rooms or to the roof, from dusky inside verandahs. Half-naked, listless, indolent figures lie about, or walk slowly to and from the yard with seemingly purposeless indecision. In the outer verandah is an old palkee, with evidences in the tarnished gilding and frayed and tattered hangings, that it once had some pretensions ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... here; and although the laughter and noise of your schoolfellows will jar upon you for awhile, it is better to overcome the feeling at once; and I am sure that you will best carry out what would have been his wishes by setting to your work again instead of wasting your time in listless grieving." ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... shore, That slumbered, mirrored in the blue, With havens where we touched of yore, And ports that over well we knew. Then broke the calm before a breeze That sought the secret of the west; And listless all we swept the seas Towards ...
— Ballads and Lyrics of Old France: with other Poems • Andrew Lang
... old nook may peep, And think it listless and asleep; But I have seen the world enough To think its grandeur something dull. And here were men of sterling stuff, In their own era wonderful: Young Luther Martin's wayward race, And William Winder's core of oak, The lion heart of Samuel Chase, ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... place his cold body on the litter; a few listless prisoners stand their sickly figures along the passage, watch him slowly borne to the iron gate in the arched vault. Death-less inexorable than creditors-has signed his release, thrown back prison bolts and bars, wrested him from the grasp ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... Until June 2 careful treatment and regulation of diet was necessary. He passed through what at the time seemed a rather startling condition, but rapidly regained his usual good health, and on June 3, although somewhat weak and listless, he ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... give it the flavor of suffering and make it poetical. I should get up late, sip chocolate, and have my breakfast in slippers and a dressing-gown. I should lie out in the garden in a hammock and read sentimental novels with a melancholy ending, until the books should fall from my listless hand, and I should recline there, dreamily gazing into the deep blue of the firmament, watching the fleecy clouds floating like white-sailed ships across its depths, and listening to the joyous song of the birds and the low rustling of the ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... preached the sermon. But somehow it did not just seem to hook in. That banker down there on the left looked listless, and yawned a couple of times behind his hand. And the merchant over on the right, who could give freely, examined his watch secretly more than once. And so it was with a little tinge of discouragement insistently creeping into his spirit that he finished, and sat down. And he remained with ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon
... they were in December, and he had not seen her. After having recovered somewhat under the influence of the drug strophanthus, he now became depressed, listless, easily fatigued. ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... classes of people here, from the labouring man in his fustian jacket, to the broken-down spendthrift in his shawl dressing-gown, most appropriately out at elbows; but there was the same air about them all—a kind of listless, jail-bird, careless swagger, a vagabondish who's-afraid sort of bearing, which is wholly indescribable in words, but which any man can understand in one moment if he wish, by setting foot in the nearest debtors' prison, and looking at the very first group of people he sees there, with ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... Shoshone, poker is not alone a relaxation, the game wherewith to wear out a long and listless evening, but it is a passion, a duty and a devotion. He has a face designed especially for poker. It never shows a sign of good or evil fortune. You might as well try to win a smile from a railroad right of way. The full hand, the fours, threes, pairs and bob-tail flushes are all the same to him, ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... one hour before and one hour after midnight, and that only on two nights of the week, and that only when Parliament was sitting. Its attractions were not numerous, consisting chiefly of tobacco and tea. The conversation was generally listless and often desultory; and occasionally there would arise the great and terrible evil of a punster whom every one hated but no one had life enough to put down. But the thing had been a success, and men liked to be members of the Universe. Mr. Bonteen was a member, and so was Phineas Finn. On this ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... their feet, Merrihew's disappointment softened somewhat. It was the fashionable hour. The band was playing near-by in the Villa Nazionale. Americans were everywhere. Occasionally a stray princess or countess flashed by, inert and listless against the cushions, and invariably over-dressed. And when men accompanied them, the men (if they were husbands) lolled back, even more listless. And beggars of all sorts and descriptions besieged the "very great grand rich Americans." To the ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... him he was much at the Cottage in those days, superintending the last arrangements, else I think, ardent as he was, he could hardly have borne with me, for I was alternately listless and bitter, so that I have seen my dear old grandmother look at me in sad wonder; and that always reduced ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... 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. "When ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... to the first object, in the course of the late war; and this mutual succor is, indeed, a principal end of our political association. If the power of affording it be placed under the direction of the Union, there will be no danger of a supine and listless inattention to the dangers of a neighbor, till its near approach had superadded the incitements of selfpreservation to the too feeble impulses of ...
— The Federalist Papers
... the rough-and-tumble of battle that lifts one above one's self. One's legs and arms are not the same listless limbs that were crying for rest only a short hour ago. One is envigoured; the excitement stimulates. One feels great, magnanimous, superb. The difficulty lies not in forcing oneself to be brave, but in curbing ridiculous impulses, and in forcing the brain ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... guide books, and from the beautiful, desolate islands came out sampans and junks, with the lonely figure of a white man sitting despondent among the naked rowers, eager to get his letters from home. It was his only eagerness, but very dull and listless at that. At night, the islands loomed large and mysterious in the darkness, while now and then a single ray of light from some light house, gleaming from some lost, mysterious island of the southern seas, beamed with a curious constancy. There were dangerous ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... her promised visit, for Mrs. Mencke realized almost immediately that something was very wrong about her young sister, who appeared strangely listless and unhappy, and she often ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... sight of Nosey checking the times of arrival, and still more the gloomy aspect of a half-empty workroom, chilled her. Miss Summers looked spiteful, Rose Anstey was sniffling with a cold, the others were listless and tired. It was a muggy morning, and all spirits were low. Sally's were lower than any others in the room. She began to work with only half her ordinary attentiveness, broke her cotton, snapped a needle, fidgetted. Her eyelids were hot, and she felt a headache begin to ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... burn as she answered, "Ay," but Theron did not notice her confusion, for he was again gazing down upon the city, and, though he questioned anew, his voice was listless. ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... a very unfavourable account from their countryman, Dion Chrysostom. With their wealth, they had those vices which usually follow or cause the loss of national independence. They were eager for nothing but food and horse-races. They were grave and quiet in their sacrifices and listless in business, but in the theatre or in the stadium men, women, and children were alike heated into passion, and overcome with eagerness and warmth of feeling. A scurrilous song or a horse-race would so rouse them into a quarrel that they could not hear for their own noise, nor see for the ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... stood by the fire talking with Sir Jasper, a handsome, reckless, generous-hearted young gentleman, who very plainly showed his great admiration for the lady. When he came, she suddenly woke up from her listless mood and became as brilliantly gay as she had been unmistakably melancholy before. As she chatted, she absently pushed to and fro a small antique urn of bronze on the chimneypiece, and in doing so ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard
... The listless figure in the saddle made no reply, seemed bereft of any volition of its own. As Ramorez put up his hands to help her, she came down stiffly and stood stiffly, looking about her. Kendric, to see better, came on emerging ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... king was listless, young Helena was not. The misty records speak of her determined efforts, and though it is hard to understand how a girl of fifteen can do any thing toward successful generalship, much can be granted to a young lady ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... interesting! There he sat in a small, wretched room, dirty and felonious, with two little windows, one looking into a court where a parcel of ragged prisoners were playing at fives, the other into a sort of garden where others were loitering away their listless vacuity ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... bewilder, moider^, fluster, muddle, dazzle; throw a sop to Cerberus. Adj. inattentive; unobservant, unmindful, heedless, unthinking, unheeding, undiscerning^; inadvertent; mindless, regardless, respectless^, listless &c (indifferent) 866; blind, deaf; bird-witted; hand over head; cursory, percursory^; giddy-brained, scatter-brained, hare-brained; unreflective, unreflecting^, ecervele [Fr.]; offhand; dizzy, muzzy^, brainsick^; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... away sadly, with a sudden down-heartedness. He returned so joyous and triumphant, in spite of his weariness, that this unexpected and unpleasant greeting had been a very severe shock to him. With his broom over his shoulder, and with his listless, slouching steps, he sauntered slowly back to his crossing; but he had ...
— Alone In London • Hesba Stretton
... leap, Whose sound is as soft as the listless flow Of streams that forever linger and go Down delicate, dream-far valleys ...
— The Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition • Louis Christian Mullgardt
... fear of the success of his class. Such procedure not only guarantees a good class—it promotes faith on the part of those participating as few other things can. Too frequently we content ourselves with the routine of commonplace "talk." There is no enthusiasm in mere routine as there is none in listless listening to generalities. Our effort should be to make our classes intellectual social ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... listless voice, monotonous in inflection and lifeless in timbre. The dominion of Valentine over him since the supper at the Savoy had increased, consolidating itself into an undoubted tyranny, which Julian accepted, carelessly, thoughtlessly, a prey to the ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... the threshold, he stirred uneasily. "That you, Ladybird?" he asked; and his tone, if listless, was ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... shock was given to Baptista's listless mind about an hour after the wedding service. They had nearly finished the midday dinner when the now husband said to her father, 'We think of starting about two. And the breeze being so fair we shall bring up inside Pen-zephyr new pier about six ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... the arduous work of hauling the cobbles one by one on to the steep bank of shingle. A tackle hooked to one of the baulks of timber forming the staith was being hauled at by five women and two men! Two others were in a listless fashion leaning their shoulders against the boat itself. With the last 'Heave-ho!' at the shortened tackle the women laid hold of the nets, and with casual male assistance laid them out on the shingle, removed any fragments of fish, and generally prepared them ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... 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 |
