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More "Listless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and moved off slowly on his way back to his post, with the listless, hopeless air that seems to belong to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... At a corner of the window the boughs of an old apple-tree, still green, looked in and nodded in a friendly manner. The invalid looked bright and interested for a few minutes, then sighed and grew wan and listless again. ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... night, was still in bed, as were many of those who had enjoyed Madame Didier's fete; and the hotel was unusually quiet, almost seeming as though half the visitors had departed during the night. It was a lovely morning, sunny and calm; and Cellini, observing that I looked listless and fatigued, placed a comfortable easy-chair for me near the window, from whence I could see one of the prettiest parterres of the garden, gay with flowers of every colour and perfume. He himself remained standing, one hand resting lightly on his writing-table, ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... was standing in a listless, indifferent attitude near the door, not taking the smallest part in the active proceedings which were going forward, was for the first time aroused to interest by the expression on Rosalind's face. She moved a step or two into ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... the people,' he said. 'They give the measure of the quality of their work—lazy, slovenly, monotonous repetition, producing nothing splendid but machines, wonderful engines, marvellous ships, miraculous motor-cars, but dull, listless, sodden people—inert. It is the inertia of London that ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... the image of the swarthy, supercilious, be-diamonded woman who sat that memorable night in the minister's box, claiming as husband the listless handsome man at her side; and as she pictured the dismay which would follow the sudden rending of the name of Laurance from the banker's daughter, and her helpless child, Mrs. ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... years of age. She was seated, or rather cowering, among the timbers of the raft, upon a piece of tarpauling that had been spread over them, her eyes bent upon her black companion, though occasionally straying, with listless glance, over the sombre surface of the sea. Although so young, her countenance appeared sad and despondent, as if under the belief that there was little hope of escape from the fearful situation in which she was placed, and as ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... bless the wit and heart of woman again and again in my joy of industrial deliverance! The heart of woman—that noble heart! burn it in the fire of Africa; steep it in the snow of Sweden; lap it in the listless elysium of Indian tropics; cage it in the centre of dungeons, as the palpitating core of that stony rind,—yet every where and always, throughout my wild career, has it been the last sought—but surest, sweetest, and truest of ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... preceding, was a listless and somewhat prudish woman whose old entanglement with M. Delangre was still remembered with amusement in the cafes. She was consulted by Madame Mouret regarding the Home for Girls proposed by Abbe Faujas, ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... walking home from the upper town of Portlossie, not with the lazy gait of the fisherman off work, poised backwards, with hands in trouser pocket, but stooping care laden with listless swinging arms. Thus Meg Partan met him—and of course attributed his dejection to ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... there dwelt in Madrid a certain student, who went by the name of El Rojo, or the Red. Not by his acquaintances and intimates alone was he thus designated, but by all the various classes of idlers with whom the Spanish capital abounds; by the listless loiterers at the coffee-house doors, by the lounging gossips of the Puerta del Sol, and by the cloaked saunterers who, when the siesta is over, pace the Calle Alcala, puffing their beloved Havanas, retailing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... once more entered into me—the instant that I was possessed—I cannot call it by any other name—an unnatural strength pervaded my shrunken muscles and emaciated frame, and I stepped boldly into the hall. While I had stood at the door, listless and feeble as a child, hanging on the arms of the two topmen, after they had raised me from the hammock, the whole party had sat silently gazing at me, with their faculties paralysed with terror. But now, when I stumped into the room like the marble statue in Don Juan, and glared on them, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... listless, irritable, which Odette now adopted with Swann, undoubtedly made him suffer; but he did not realise how much he suffered; since it had been with a regular progression, day after day, that Odette had chilled towards him, it was only by directly contrasting ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... it without a word, and the Tenor went upstairs. His step was listless, and when he came back he looked pale and disheartened. He sat down in his accustomed seat beside the fireplace farthest from the window that looked out upon the cathedral, but facing it himself, and rested his elbow on the arm of the chair and his head on his hand, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... of being very dull. The people looked comfortable, but there was no liveliness in them. No trace of vivacity in their faces gave the smallest reason to suppose that my coming had interrupted any enjoyment of the evening. A listless contentment in being at home together, with the day's work done and a fire to sit by, was what was suggested by the whole bearing of the family. Their leisure was of no use to them for recreation—for "making themselves anew," ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... 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
... seat; and now that the momentary animation of humane fear and womanly compassion passed from her countenance, its expression altered; it took the calm, almost the coldness, of a Greek statue. But with the calm there was a listless melancholy which Greek sculpture never gives to the Parian stone: stone cannot convey that melancholy; it is the shadow which needs for its substance a ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... months the border was quiet. The rangers lolled, listless, in camp. And then—bringing joy to the rusting guardians of the frontier—Sebastiano Saldar, an eminent Mexican desperado and cattle-thief, crossed the Rio Grande with his gang and began to lay waste the Texas side. There were indications that ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... from her bosom, and her mistress, approaching the lamp, put aside the shade which obscured it, and bent eagerly over the closely-written page she held. She read it again and again, and a smile of delight lit up the listless features, as she refolded it, and flung to the girl beside her to ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... illness, which was of the bilious kind, and for which he had obstinately refused to take any medicine. He soon came ashore, with his boy Tayeto, and though while he was on board, and after he came into the boat, he was exceedingly listless and dejected, he no sooner entered the town than he seemed to be animated with a new soul. The houses, carriages, streets, people, and a multiplicity of other objects, all new, which rushed upon him at once, produced an effect like the sudden ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... history of slavery. He kept a watchful eye on the progress of events. He was always alert to seize an opportunity and proclaim in trumpet tones the voice of conscience, the demands of eternal righteousness. But he waited. His hour had not yet come. He bided his time. It was not a listless waiting, it was intensely earnest and active. Far more than he could realize, he was in training for the stupendous responsibilities which should in due time fall upon him. It is fortunate for all that ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... is he strong enough?" she added wistfully. Strong enough, she meant, to bear agitation and surprise. But Falloden reported that Sorell knew everything that was intended, and approved. Otto had been very listless and depressed in town; a reaction no doubt from his spurt of work before the musical exam. Sorell thought the pleasure of the gift might rouse him, and gild the return ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... door of the steward's room stood open, and she turned into it, fancying it was empty. Down on a chair sat she, a marked change coming over her air and manner. Her bright colour had faded, her hands hung down listless; and there was an expression on her face of care, of perplexity. Suddenly she lifted her hands and struck her temples, with a gesture ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... dance and flirt in our listless style While the waltzes dream in the drill-room arch, What would we do if the order came, Sudden and sharp—"Let the Seventh march!" Why, we'd faint, of course; our cheeks would pale; Our knees would tremble, our fears—but stay, That order I ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.
... wood-chopping, and such other toils as were imposed on his brothers. Elnathan was indebted for this exemption from labor in some measure to his extraordinary growth, which, leaving him pale, inanimate, and listless, induced his tender mother to pronounce him a sickly boy, and one that was not equal to work, but who might earn a living comfortably enough by taking to pleading law, or turning minister, or doctoring, or some such like easy calling. Still, there was great uncertainty ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... enough, "But it is not Sunday at home." I could not attend their parties and I had little heart to dance. I had only to go to the window to see their various functions; it could hardly be called merry as they went at it in such a listless, lazy way, with apparently little enjoyment, the air that they ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... the body and coldness of the skin, especially of the face, feet, and hands. The skin is moist with a cold, clammy sweat, and beads of perspiration stand out on the forehead. The pulse becomes feeble, soft, and rapid, and the patient is dull and listless, and complains of extreme thirst. The temperature is usually sub-normal; and the respiration rapid, shallow, and sighing in character. Abnormal visual sensations, in the form of flashes of light or spots before the eyes; and rushing, ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... four o'clock, and the closing work of the day was pressing. Mr. Bright was more than busy with his class, and the room was quiet, the pupils devoting themselves to their work assiduously. "Dodd" sat listless for some time, but he finally straightened himself up quietly, his face lighted with interest, and it would have been evident to any one watching him (no one was watching him just at this time) that he was about to do ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... usually a period of penance. In London she was no very great personage. She had never laid herself out for greatness of that sort, and did not shine as a lady-patroness or state secretary in the female cabinet of fashion. She was dull and listless, and without congenial pursuits in London, and spent her happiest moments in reading accounts of what was being done at Framley, and in writing orders for further local information of the same kind. But on this occasion there ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... prepares them for another state, and reminds them of its approach, while it fits them for it. Their time is regularly distributed; one duty succeeds another, so that they are not left open to the distraction of unguided choice, nor lost in the shades of listless inactivity. There is a certain task to be performed at an appropriated hour; and their toils are cheerful, because they consider them as acts of piety, by which they are ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... Burdon Sanderson, 'which perhaps for the previous day has declined food and shown signs of general disturbance, begins to shudder and to have twitches of the muscles of the back, and soon after becomes weak and listless. In the meantime the respiration becomes frequent and often difficult, and the temperature rises three or four degrees above the normal; but soon convulsions, affecting chiefly the muscles of the back and loins, usher in the final collapse of which the progress is marked ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... excite her. She marked the inevitable false rhyme of Cockney and Yankee beginners, morn and dawn, and tossed the verses on the pile of those she had finished. She was looking over some of the last of them in a rather listless way,—for the poor thing was getting sleepy in spite of herself,—when she came to one which seemed to rouse her attention, and lifted her drooping lids. She looked at it a moment before she would touch it. Then she took hold of it by one corner and slid it off from the rest. One would have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... 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
... wearily up from the corral. The boy had gone without sleep or rest until his eyes were heavy and his movements listless. Like the women of Palomitas he also had worked overtime at the call of Tula, and Kit wondered at the concerted activity—no one had ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... complete change: its buoyancy had fled, and no longer, like a butterfly, fluttering from one flower of fancy to another, it was fixed on the one engrossing object; yet I was conscious that the faculties of which I had once felt so proud, were now weak as those of an infant; and, dreamy and listless, I began to wander into the fields. My school had broken up. The greater part of my pupils were with a successful competitor who now supplied my place. This deepened my gloom; and I often returned with a feeling that my task on earth ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... physique, their eyes still possessing some of the brightness but lacking the snap and glisten of those of Tehuantepec and the plateau. Many were chrome-yellow with fever. Ragged officers of law and disorder were numerous, often in bare feet, the same listless inefficiency showing in their weak, unproductive, unshaven features. The car grew so crowded I went to sit on the platform rail, as had a half-dozen already, though large signs on the ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... brows, full in the eye, yellow- haired, like most of the women in this place, with a fine-shaped mouth, rather voluptuously underlipped, and, as I then saw her, sitting in a carven chair with her hands at a listless droop over the arms of it. Her hair, which was loose about her and of great length and softness, lay at the mercy of her master. He, a short, pursy man, well over middle age— "past the Grand Climacteric," as Bulwer Lytton used to say—red and anxiously ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... work rose up before me: the row of gaunt figures, lean, flat-breasted, ugly, without a grace of form or face about them; dressed in wretched skimpy print gowns, and hideous flapping sun-bonnets, moving their rakes in a listless mechanical way. How often had that marred the loveliness of the June day to me; how often had I longed to see the hay-fields peopled with men and women worthy of the sweet abundance of midsummer, of its endless wealth of beautiful sights, and delicious ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... see it in the vacant eye, the listless face, the expression that betrays hopeless intoxication. Some are preparing the enchanting pipe,—a laborious process, that reminds one of an incantation. See those two votaries lying face to face, chatting in low voices, each loading his pipe with a look of ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... to-night, my dear,' said Averil, looking anxiously at her listless attitude, half-opened eyes, and the ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... said Ramsay, taking up her hand, which lay listless at her side, and playing with her taper fingers, "you really think William of ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... foot of yonder nodding beech That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, His listless length at noontide would he stretch, And pore upon the brook ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... From being a listless listener I became an earnest one immediately; an idea concerning that graveyard had crossed my mind that very morning while I contemplated its dismal gravestones, almost hidden in old rank grass, through the open ironwork ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... operations grew simpler and simpler. Nothing but a little patience was needed in order to take Berlin. Every little while, when the old gentleman grew listless, we read him a letter from his son, an imaginary letter of course, as Paris was by now cut off, and as since Sedan, the aide-de-camp of Mac Mahon had been ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... was thrust slightly forward, and the heavy eyebrows were like a pent-house. The eyes were slightly feverish, and round the mouth there crept a smile, half-cynical but a little happy. All freshness was gone from his hands. One hung at his side, listless, corded; the other doffed his hat in reply to the salute of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... males appear of a dark color, the females of yellowish brown. There is not such a complete separation of the sexes among them as among elephants. They spend most of their time in the water, lolling about in a listless, dreamy manner. When they come out of the river by night, they crop off the soft succulent grasses very neatly. When they blow, they puff up the water about ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... time I could see that a change was coming over my master. He grew grave and quiet. No, more, as he poured out his gold, did he chuckle and laugh to himself. All his movements seemed listless. He counted his money less frequently, and when he did so it was in a half-hearted manner. One day I even saw him go away and leave the yellow heap lying on the sands. At last one day he came, packed the gold in me, and put in my head with the greatest care. Moreover, when ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... uncomprehended solitude began to encompass her,—a solitude even more keenly felt when she was surrounded by friends than when she was quite alone,—and as the sweet English June drew to its end, she grew languid and listless, and her blue eyes often filled with sudden tears. Her little watch-dog, Britta, began to notice this, and to wonder concerning the reason of her mistress's ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... model cottagers, with Mrs. Dacre; Lady Geraldine sat at the foot of a great shining beech, with her white dress set off by a background of scarlet shawl, and her hat lying on the grass beside her. She seemed too listless to ramble about with the rest of the party, or to take the faintest interest in the conversation of any of the gentlemen who tried to talk to her. She amused herself in a desultory way with a drawing-book and a volume of a novel, and did not appear to consider ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... some fair being. Though suffering from the agony of his wound, there was something so attractive in this discovery, that the eyes of the invalid were immediately turned upon the window, or rather grating, from which the flag was suspended, and his countenance changed at once, from the listless apathy of pain to an expression of eager interest. A young girl was in the window, leaning her forehead against the reja, or grating, and looking down with more of painful interest than curiosity upon the pale face beneath her. It was the window of the entresol, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... is the apostle of a well-bred boredom. He knows all about society, and bric-a-brac, and pictures, and music, and natural landscape, and foreign cities, and if he could feel a spice of interest in any earthly thing he could be charming. But his listless, easy air—of gentlemanly-giftedness fatigued—provokes and bores. He is like a man who suppresses a yawn to tell a story. He is a blend of genuine power and native priggery, and his faults are the more annoying because ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... sleep, and turned. "Will you go?" said the mother very roughly in her ear. She opened listless, senseless eyes. She had no wish to go. "She wanted to come last week," we said. The mother hardened, and pushed the child, and rolled her over with her foot. "She will not ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... streets and public places, giving and receiving with eagerness such intelligence as could be obtained. Their affliction is such as it would be had each one lost a parent or a friend. The men rave, or sit, or wander about listless and sad; the women weep; children catch the infection, and lament as for the greatest misfortune that could have overtaken them. The soldiers, at first dumb with amazement at so unlooked-for and unaccountable a catastrophe, afterward, upon learning that it fell out through ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... thickening round them,—a crowd, which, if it had its will, would stiletto every soldier that pipes to it. And in the recesses of the porches, all day long, knots of men of the lowest classes, unemployed and listless, lie basking in the sun like lizards; and unregarded children,—every heavy glance of their young eyes full of desperation and stony depravity, and their throats hoarse with cursing,—gamble, and fight, and snarl, and sleep, hour after hour, clashing their bruised centesimi upon the ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... had drawn with listless hand The letter, six long years had fled, And winds had blown about the sand, And ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... margin-sand large foot-marks went, No further than to where his feet had stray'd, And slept there since. Upon the sodden ground His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead, Unsceptred; and his realmless eyes were closed; While his bow'd head seem'd list'ning to the Earth, 20 His ancient mother, ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... under a frosty sky in which a February sun hung listless, Hollister turned his glasses on the cabin of the settler near his camp. He was on the edge of the cliff, so close that when he dislodged a fragment of rock it rolled over the brink, bounded once from the cliff's face, and after a lapse that grew to seconds struck with a distant ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the camp devolved upon them; they were to harness the horses, pitch the lodges, dress the buffalo robes, and bring in meat for the hunters. With the cracked voices of these hags, the clamor of dogs, the shouting and laughing of children and girls, and the listless tranquillity of the warriors, the whole scene had an effect too lively and picturesque ever ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... place among the litter of colored confetti and exploded fireworks, and the refuse from various "treats" and lunches left by the celebrating citizens and their guests. The flags and bunting that from window and roof and pole and doorway had given the day its gay note of color hung faded and listless, as though, spent with their gaiety, and mutely conscious that the spirit and purpose of their gladness was past, they waited the hand that would remove them to the ash ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... wandering about, hungry and wan in body, and fierce in soul, from the thought of wives and children starving at home, and the last sticks of furniture going to the pawnshop; children taken from school, and lounging about the dirty streets and courts, too listless almost to play, and squalid in rags and misery; and then the fearful struggle between the employers and men—lowerings of wages, strikes, and the long course of oft-repeated crime, ending every now and then with a riot, a fire, and the county yeomanry. There is no need here to dwell ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... crone sentries (each by a small clear fire) cooking syrup on their posts—and this chimaera waiting with his deadly engine. To him, enter at last the cook, strolling down the sandhill from Equator Town, listless, vain and graceful; with no thought of alarm. As soon as he was well within range, the travestied monarch fired the six shots over his head, at his feet, and on either hand of him: the second Apemama warning, startling in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sea-urchin, knew What her eyes sought as often children know Of grief or sin they could not name or think of Yet sooth or shrink from, so I saw and longed To heal her tender wound and yet said naught. The energy of bygone joy and pain Had left her listless figure charged with magic That caught and held my idleness near hers. Resentful of her power, my spirit chafed Against its own deep pity, as though it were Raised ghost and she the witch had bid ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... entirely, and the nature of his material accorded little with the size of the structure and the orchestral frame. And, then, are not these confessions of intimate experiences, these moonlight sentimentalities, these listless dreams, &c., out of place in the gaslight glare of concert-rooms, crowded with audiences brought together to a great extent rather by ennui, vanity, and idle curiosity ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... herself carefully in her new dress. It was black voile. Carefully she did her hair. Ciccio and Madame were coming. The thought of Ciccio made her shudder. She hung about, waiting. Luckily none of the funeral guests would arrive till after one o'clock. Alvina sat listless, musing, by the fire in the drawing-room. She left everything now to Miss Pinnegar and Mrs. Rollings. Miss Pinnegar, red-eyed and yellow-skinned, was ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... for him, Cosmo thought; for at least here was a fellow-countryman. He went along the hedge therefore until he found a place where he could get through, and approached the man, who had by this time resumed his work, though after a listless fashion, turning over spadeful after spadeful, as if neither he nor the cabbages cared much, and all would be in good time if done by the end of the world. As he came nearer, Cosmo read peevishness and ill-temper in every line of his countryman's countenance, ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... see her son, but showed far less emotion than he did, while he gave the details of the past day. Her dull, apathetic gaze was a contrast with the young man's gush of tears, and the caresses that Phoebe lavished on her listless hand. Phoebe proposed that Robert should read to her—she assented, and soon dozed, awaking to ask plaintively for Boodle and ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and gurgled under her bow, flashing in ripples now and then. There was no phosphorescence, no glitter or sparkle. The schooner moved on as through a tideless sea. Now and then a clutter of spars or a suit of listless sails loomed up in the dark. But even if the other craft likewise was tacking seaward, the Seamew passed it and dropped ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... large for a girl of seventeen. Specially beautiful was her pure, smooth forehead above fine eyebrows, which seemed broken in the middle. She spoke little, but listened to others, and fixed her eyes on them as though she were forming her own conclusions. She would often stand with listless hands, motionless and deep in thought; her face at such moments showed that her mind was at work within.... A scarcely perceptible smile would suddenly appear on her lips and vanish again; then she ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... on the fool who taught us to confine The swelling thought within a measured line; Who first in narrow thraldom fancy pent, And chained in rhyme each pinioned sentiment. Without this toil, contentment's soothing balm Might lull my languid soul in listless calm: Like the smooth prebend how might I recline, And loiter life in mirth and song and wine! Roused by no labor, with no care opprest, Pass all my nights in sleep, my days in rest. My passions and desires obey the rein; No mad ambition fires my temperate vein; The schemes ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... there are liberties and liberties. Yonder torrent, crystal-clear, and arrow-swift, with its spray leaping into the air like white troops of fawns, is free enough. Lost, presently, amidst bankless, boundless marsh —soaking in slow shallowness, as it will, hither and thither, listless among the poisonous reeds and unresisting slime—it is free also. We may choose which liberty we like,—the restraint of voiceful rock, or the dumb and edgeless shore of darkened sand. Of that evil liberty which men are now glorifying and proclaiming as essence ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... 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 ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... very brave, act, Mademoiselle." Bienville's eyes glistened and his face lighted up with an ardor that was not dampened by the casual, almost listless, air with which she ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... with a listless air up and down the chamber, the Door caught her eye conducting to that which had been her Mother's. She remembered that Elvira's little Library was arranged there, and thought that She might possibly find ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... French silk, reposed Madame de Fontanges, attended by three or four young female slaves, of different complexions, but none of pure African blood. Others were seated upon the different Persian carpets about the room, in listless idleness, or strewing the petals of the orange-flower, to perfume the apartment with its odour. The only negro was a little boy, about six years of age, dressed in a fantastic costume, who sat in a corner, apparently in a very sulky humour. ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... you know,' she continued, 'to see the sequel as you see it, as you believe it's your duty to me to see it. I know the instances you're thinking of: the listless couples wearing out their lives in shabby watering places, and hanging on the favour of hotel acquaintances; or the proud quarrelling wretches shut up alone in a fine house because they're too good for the only society they can get, and trying to cheat ...
— The Long Run - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... he will presently have a fit, or be sent for, or come to some kind of an end. But when you gradually open to the conviction that vis inertiae rules the hour, and the thing which has been is that which shall be, you wax listless; your chariot-wheels drive heavily; your end of the pole drags in the mud, and you speedily wallow in unmitigated disgust. If he broaches a subject on which you have a real and deep living interest, you shrink from unbosoming yourself to him. You feel that it would be sacrilege. He feels nothing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... from his immediate neighbourhood McCurdie went to the other end of the seat and faced Lord Doyne, who had resumed his gold glasses and his listless contemplation of obscure actresses. McCurdie lit a pipe, Doyne another black cigar. The train ...
— A Christmas Mystery - The Story of Three Wise Men • William J. Locke
... done when the food had been consumed. Now and then one or the other would use the shovel in a listless way for a few moments at a time, but each had become so weak that any prolonged exertion ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... the prairie wolf seems so weary and listless. If at a distance, he protests at your entrance upon his domain with a forlorn wail, or insolently stares at you from a ridge. He sits and looks or moves about dyspeptically waiting ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... thank you," murmured Mrs. Snow, falling back into her usual listless attitude. "I lost my nap this morning. Nellie Higgins next door has begun music lessons, and her practising drives me nearly wild. She was at it all the morning—every minute! I'm sure, I don't know what I ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter
... soft and quivered pitifully, and she sank down in the easy-chair, her golden head bowed upon the green and yellow tablecloth. The battered hat tumbled to the floor, and striding forward, he had bent and caught one of her listless hands all in a moment, and thereafter, though it struggled feebly once, he held it closely prisoned in ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... Three years make a difference in most men, but I was not prepared for the change in Lawson. For one thing, he had grown fat. In place of the lean young man I had known, I saw a heavy, flaccid being, who shuffled in his gait, and seemed tired and listless. His sunburn had gone, and his face was as pasty as a city clerk's. He had been walking, and wore shapeless flannel clothes, which hung loose even on his enlarged figure. And the worst of it was, that he did not seem over-pleased to see me. He murmured something about my journey, ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... down in her office chair and rested her heels on the window sill while her cigarette burned to ashes between her listless fingers. For a time she watched the white light of the June moon grow on the line of dimpled foothills, the myriad odors of spring were in the air and the balmy west wind lifted the hair at her temples as it came through the open window. She felt ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... metaphysical chain which at length connected the mind of Venetia Herbert with her actual experience and precise situation. It was, however, at length perfect, and gradually formed as she sat in an invalid chair, apparently listless, not yet venturing on any occupation, or occasionally amused for a moment by her mother reading to her. But when her mind had thus resumed its natural tone, and in time its accustomed vigour, the past demanded all her solicitude. At length the ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... fatally wrong in that scheme of life which finds an heir of eternity weary, listless, discouraged, while yet in the dawning of existence? It is not in perishing things, merely, to give back the lost zest. But a glad zest and hopefulness might be inspired even in the most jaded and ennui-cursed, were there in our homes such ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... deep with suffering, and she was, as old Gabe said, much changed. Then she went on toward the garden, stepping with an effort over the low fence, and leaned as if weak and tired against the apple-tree, the boughs of which shaded the two graves at her feet. For a few moments she stood there, listless, and Rome watched her with hungry eyes, at a loss what to do. She moved presently, and walked quite around the graves without looking at them; then came back past him, and, seating herself in the porch, turned her face to the river. The sun lighted her ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... Maya began to grow pale and listless. Her eyes shone brighter than ever, but she was consumed with a feverish longing to see new and strange things. On her knees, and weeping, she implored her mother to release her from the court routine, and let her wander in the woods and watch ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... "we know perfectly well that they are too tame, too mild, too listless about life, ever to become homicidal in their hatred of one another. The moment two deep, eager and adorable girls, like these daughters of Mrs. Delarayne, walk on to our English boards, our whole fabric, our whole scenery, and stage machinery, is shown to be wrong to the last screw. God! ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... begins, "O my brothers ..." but I do not attend: I want to get Margarita out of the growing crowd, listless, but lifted for a moment from their sordid treadmill of existence by the light and the muffled, rhythmic crush and the high-pitched sing-song. They must have followed for a long way, for they are churnings from the very dregs of London and alien to Trafalgar Square, and the officer ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... to make war on capital. We are goin' to scare the blood-suckers into terms. We are goin' to get our rights— peaceably, if we can't get them any other way. We are goin' to prove that a man is better than a moneybag." He rattled off these words as a listless child says its alphabet without thinking of a letter. But he was closely watching Sam to see if any of these stereotyped phrases attracted his attention. Sleeny smoked his cigar with the air of polite fatigue with which one listens to ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... stared at the sun in its cloudless sky and gazed off across the sea whose blue was shrouded by the golden haze of a perfect summer's day. Only a lazy roll was left of the sudden turbulence of the night before. A listless breeze with a fresh tang of salt in it lapped the surface of the long, slow surges, and the facets of the ripples flashed back ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... much oftener the principle of right things, that though they ought to have a better, yet, considering human nature, that principle is to be encouraged and cherished, in consideration of its effects. Where that desire is wanting, we are apt to be indifferent, listless, indolent, and inert; we do not exert our powers; and we appear to be as much below ourselves as the vainest man living can desire to appear above what ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... seemed less and less numerous. An air of idleness, almost dissoluteness and despair, brooded over some of the hives. The strong robbed the weak; and the weak contented themselves with gathering in listless groups, murmuring plaintively. If the hives were inquiringly tapped, instead of a furious and instant alarm and angry outpouring of excited and wrathful citizens, eager to sacrifice themselves in the ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... household dog, though, of course, in a different manner. In the house Mr Verloc could be detected staring curiously at Stevie a good deal. His own demeanour had changed. Taciturn still, he was not so listless. Mrs Verloc thought that he was rather jumpy at times. It might have been regarded as an improvement. As to Stevie, he moped no longer at the foot of the clock, but muttered to himself in corners instead in a threatening tone. When ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... many cases, even of the greatest apparent suffering and distress, instead of showing any anxiety to communicate the causes of their distress, or to relate their privations, and their longings for their homes and their friends and relatives, they lay in a listless, lethargic, uncomplaining state, taking no notice either of their own distressed condition, or of the gigantic mass of human misery by which they were surrounded. Nothing appalled and depressed me so much ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... approached, and between them walked Maren Le Moyne. McElroy's heart pounded hard with a quick excitement as he saw the listless droop of the face under the black braids and stopped with a prescience of disaster. His glance went swiftly to the long-haired gallant in the braided coat. Surely ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... For now she knew that she must go; and there could he no more joy in life for her in the love of little Maurice. To face that, she clutched her hands that afternoon as she walked back into Cailsham. How it was to be accomplished, how endured, was more than she could realize, more than the listless energy of her mind ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... was done that day. The heavy labour of curing the biltongue, that had occupied them the whole of the preceding day, and their disturbed rest, had rendered them all listless; and neither Von Bloom nor the others had any inclination for work. So they moved around the camp and did ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... the remnants of a routed army had been passing through the City. They were not troops, but disorganized hordes. The men had long, dirty beards and tattered uniforms; they walked with a listless gait, without flag nor formation. All seemed exhausted, worn out, incapable of thought or resolve, marching only by force of habit and dropping with fatigue as soon as they stopped. One saw for the most part hastily mobilized men, peaceful business men and ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... night. Leon d' Armilly was walking back and forth in the small apartment, wringing his hands and shedding tears like a woman, while at the open door lounged the tenor and baritone of the troupe, their countenances wearing the usual listless expression of veteran opera singers who, from long habit, are thoroughly accustomed to the indispositions and caprices of prima donnas and consider them as incidental ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... anything at all about the early morning of the next day, the 9th. We were dreadfully tired, and I suppose we slept late, and then lounged about, with nothing to do, yet, in a listless, stupid state. Everything was quiet around us, and nothing to attract attention, or fix it in mind. About mid-day, I recollect noticing bodies of troops, a regiment, a brigade, or two, moving about, ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... good service, that thou mightest know to what end thou wast born, and acknowledge thy Creator, and, leaving darkness, run to the light. And I hoped that when thou heardest thereof thou wouldst follow it with irresistible desire. But, as I perceive, I am disappointed of my hope, seeing that thou art listless to that which hath been spoken. But if thou reveal these secrets to the king my father, thou shalt but distress his mind with sorrows and griefs. If thou be well disposed to him, on no account reveal this matter to him until a convenient season." Speaking thus, he seemed to be only casting ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... when Sundays and evenings come, Completely empty and listless I move about, I am completely glassy-eyed, play with dogs for fun, Ah, or with little stones that I find, Weary, without a thought, drag myself through the streets. I often also stand around at my window, At loose ends; should I just hang out at the local bar With my dull comrades, kill my weary ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... eagerness noticeable which used to boast openly that its rewards consisted in the consciousness of work well done. Instead, idleness became the badge of gentility, and trade a slur upon a man's reputation. No city can long survive so listless and languid an ideal. The Archbishop, therefore, denounced this new method of usurious traffic, and hinted further that to it was due the fierce rebellion which had for a while plunged Florence into the horrors of the Jacquerie. Wealth, he taught, should not of itself breed wealth, but ...
— Mediaeval Socialism • Bede Jarrett
... soldiers. But such is not the case. The men are absolutely starving. Many of the infantrymen are so weak that they can barely stagger along under the weight of their soldierly equipment. They are worn to shadows, and move with weary, listless footsteps on the march. People high up in authority may deny this, but he who denies it sullies the truth. This is what the soldiers get to eat, what they have been getting to eat for a long time past, and what they are likely to get for ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... shoulder at the two in the back seat, and noted Caroline's pallor, and the fact that she was allowing a listless hand to linger in Billy's; but when he turned back to Nancy he discovered no such encouraging symptoms. She was sitting lightly relaxed at his side, but there was nothing even negatively responsive in her attitude. Her color was high; her breath coming ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... passion had indeed worn her out. For the rest of the evening she was quiet and listless; and she went upstairs very early to bed, leaving Herrick to sit alone with his dog, smoking his pipe, and facing the ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... striking gymnast, like many of his kindred. He has a preference for dense woods of beech and maple, moves slowly amid the lower branches and smaller growths, keeping from eight to ten feet from the ground, and repeating now and then his listless, indolent strain. His back and crown are dark blue; his throat and breast, black; his belly, pure white; and he has a white ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... had collected a large group of common scrub cut-worms, early Swedish cut-worms, dwarf Hubbard cut-worms, and short-horn cut-worms, all doing well, but still, I thought, a little hide-bound and bilious. They acted languid and listless. As my squash bugs, currant worms, potato bugs, etc., were all doing well without care, I devoted myself almost exclusively to my cut-worms. They were all strong and well, but they seemed melancholy with nothing to eat, day after ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... another boy. I went ben excitedly, but the room was dark, and when I heard the door shut and no sound come from the bed I was afraid, and I stood still. I suppose I was breathing hard, or perhaps I was crying, for after a time I heard a listless voice that had never been listless before say, 'Is that you?' I think the tone hurt me, for I made no answer, and then the voice said more anxiously 'Is that you?' again. I thought it was the dead boy she was speaking to, and I said in a little lonely voice, 'No, it's ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... bad indeed—before a woman's pride and vanity will let her own to such a confession. Then Rebecca's twinkling green eyes and baleful smile lighted upon her, and filled her with dismay. And so she sate for awhile indulging in her usual mood of selfish brooding, in that very listless melancholy attitude in which the honest maid-servant had found her, on the day when she brought up the letter in which George renewed ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of the half year Ernest was listless and unhappy. He was very fond of some of his schoolfellows, but afraid of those whom he believed to be better than himself, and prone to idealise everyone into being his superior except those who were obviously a good deal beneath him. He held himself much too cheap, and because he was ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... rest or pause, in a career of conquest that has few parallels in the history of Oriental nations. In the subsequent period, this spirit is less marked; but, at all times, a certain vigor and activity has characterized the race, distinguishing it in a very marked way from the dreamy and listless Hindus upon the one hand, and the apathetic Turks ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... dream our listless eyes What glorious presence they despise While, in our noon of life, To power or fame we rudely press.— Christ is at hand, to scorn or bless, Christ suffers ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... gigantic scheme, felt a sudden strange sense of fear creeping into his bones. Half an hour ago he had seen a man in what looked like the last stage of utter physical exhaustion, a hunched up figure, listless and limp, hands that twitched nervously, the face as of a dying man. Now those outward symptoms were still there certainly; the face by the light of the lamp still looked livid, the lips bloodless, the hands emaciated and waxen, but the eyes!—they were still ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... look, the old woman went out of the prison, up through the rugged quarries, where a gang of men were at work, dragging their weary limbs from stone to stone, with the listless, haggard effort of forced labor. Some of these men looked up, as she passed them, and ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... mind now about Tara, who was almost well again, to all appearances, and lay contentedly in the den all day, having apparently forgotten, not only her illness, but its causes, and her puppies. She was rather listless and lackadaisical, but seemed to be well content so that she could lie within sight of the Master and dream. And now the Master was chatting with the sheep-dog foster, after having had a good look at Finn, and before shutting up ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... paid Violet 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 ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... bad," I was saying to myself; and then, in my listless weariness, I was dropping off to sleep again, as I generally did after a hard drill, when my black servant entered silently, and presented me ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... was the Esther to this poor Vashti, and their fates might be supposed to stand in some respects as contrasts to each other. When Liddy came into the room a second time the beautiful eyes which met hers had worn a listless, weary look. When she went out after telling the story they had expressed wretchedness in full activity. Her simple country nature, fed on old-fashioned principles, was troubled by that which would have troubled a woman of the ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... offered resistance to the French; its men have a fine reputation throughout Tunisia, which they do something now and then to maintain, in consequence. They certainly appeared a sturdy and virile lot. They were not listless, like the Arabs of Algeria, who have nothing to show for themselves but the haughty and aloof bearing of ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... very paper, pens, and ink, would have to be of the best quality. But hear yonder father praying for his children's conversion. His son is old enough to have rejected the gospel, and is condemned already; but how listless the prayer! "Offer it to thy Governor." Would the Queen be expected to deign to notice such a petition? Is it any wonder such prayers ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... away sorrowful and in tears, so that he could keep the respect of a city that bored him and the affection of a mother who had never really loved him? Besides, what sort of a love was it that stepped aside in a cowardly, listless way like that, when a woman was at stake, a woman for whom far richer, far more powerful men than he, men bound to life by attractions that he had never dreamed of in his countrified existence, had died or ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... prize, some unforeseen accident prevented my winning it at the last moment. Nothing to which I put my hand succeeded, and I got the reputation of being unlucky, until my companions felt it was always safe to bet against me, no matter what the appearances might be. I became discouraged and listless in everything. I gave up the idea of competing for any distinction at the University, comforting myself with the thought that I could not fail in the examination for the ordinary degree. The day before the examination ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... intimations of her increasing age and wisdom, but to-night she was listless. She turned away from him, her arms flung above her head and wispy ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... believed, with Mrs. Stidger, that the balsamic odors of the firs "did her chest good," for certainly her slight cough was less frequent and her step was firmer; perhaps she had learned the unending lesson which the patient pines are never weary of repeating to heedful or listless ears. And so, one day, she planned a picnic on Buckeye Hill, and took the children with her. Away from the dusty road, the straggling shanties, the yellow ditches, the clamor of restless engines, the cheap finery of shop windows, the deeper glitter of paint and colored glass, ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... Lord Chesterfield, however, has justly observed in one of his letters, when earnestly cautioning a friend against the pernicious effects of idleness, that active sports are not to be reckoned idleness in young people; and that the listless torpor of doing nothing, alone deserves that name[154]. Of this dismal inertness of disposition, Johnson had all his life too great a share. Mr. Hector relates, that 'he could not oblige him more than by sauntering away the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... musicians of the wood, Whose dirges fill the solitude, Whose minor strains and melodies Are wafted on the whispering breeze, Whose plaintive chants and listless sighs, Ascend as incense to the skies; Do solemn tones afford relief, With you, as men, a ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... the singular destiny that had befallen their 'waif of the sea' as they were wont to call the beautiful girl who had grown up among them,—and the aged Rene Ronsard was made the centre of their interest and attention,—even of their adulation. But Ronsard had grown very listless of late. His age began to tell heavily upon him, and the news that Gloria was returning in all triumph as Crown Princess, moved ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... Johannes 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 in ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... occurrence had an interest for the listless Jem and he ran to pick it up. "It didn't come very far, I guess, for here is the village postmark," said he to his mother who came to the door and extended ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... everything. You'd expect him to be able to mix a salad dressin' a la Montmartre, and reel off anecdotes about the time when he was a guest of the Grand Duke So and So at his huntin' lodge. Kind of a faded, thin-blooded, listless party, somewhere in the late fifties, with droopy eye corners and a sarcastic bite to his ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... 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 closed, none vouchsafed ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... the smoke ascending Filled the sky with haze and vapor, Filled the air with dreamy softness, Gave a twinkle to the water. 240 Touched the rugged hills with smoothness, Brought the tender Indian Summer To the melancholy North-land, In the dreary Moon of Snow-shoes. Listless, careless Shawondasee! 245 In his life he had one shadow, In his heart one sorrow had he. Once, as he was gazing northward, Far away upon a prairie He beheld a maiden standing, 250 Saw a tall and slender maiden All alone upon a prairie; Brightest green were ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... Duke, was one of those helpless persons against whom fate wars in vain; she smiled vaguely both before and after all her calamities; she was too soft to be hurt. But by the aid (or rather under the orders) of a strenuous niece she always kept the remains of a clientele, mostly of young but listless folks. And there were actually five inmates standing disconsolately about the garden when the great gale broke at the base of the terminal tower behind them, as the sea bursts against the base of ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... by one of those listless smiles and unintelligible monosyllables which signifies in every language under the sun, ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... counting-room, but said little about it, in the belief that complaining wouldn't help. Ernestine's four scholars lessened to two, and as the days grew warmer she spent much of the time on the lounge, looking listless, and ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... not 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, sometimes three quarters of ...
— The Care and Feeding of Children - A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses • L. Emmett Holt
... more serious business of the evening, the movie man in the gallery threw on the screen—no, not some military hero nor the beautiful Queen whose photograph you will remember, but the head of the Roman Emperor Trajan! And the listless crowd, drowsing cynically in its tobacco smoke, broke into obedient applause, just as they would at home at the sight of the flag or a picture ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... a scarlet riding-robe, with a hood which was lined with white taffeta. It fell back, and made a background to her shining hair, and defined the outline of her small, well-shaped head as she leaned against the doorway in listless dejection, which was a contrast indeed to her bright, sparkling mood as she bent over the edge of the booth at ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... and a pleasant little gray-haired French gentleman of the name of Porlier. Several voyageurs and half-breeds were near, the former busily at work, the latter lounging for the most part, and going through with what they had to do with a sort of listless indifference. ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... not exceeding two persons. Their method was to follow the tracks of an elephant, so as to arrive at their game between the hours of 10 A.M. and noon, at which time the animal is either asleep, or extremely listless, and easy to approach. Should they discover the animal asleep, one of the hunters would creep stealthily towards the head, and with one blow sever the trunk while stretched upon the ground; in which case the elephant would start ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... must come to pass As was foreknowledged. In the grass Whereas the Goddess and her mate Stood, one and other, prompt for fate— Listless the first and heavy-eyed, Astrain the second—she espied That strange white flower, unseen before, With chalice pale, which thin stalk bore And swung, as hanging by a hair, So fine it seemed afloat in air, Unlinkt and wafted for the feast Of some blest mystic, without priest Or acolyte ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... lonely do not live in isolated farmhouses, prairie shacks, or remote villages. In reality, there are more idle, listless hands in the hearts of crowded bustling cities than in the quiet country. City women, surrounded by many enticing distractions, are turning more and more to patchwork as a fascinating yet nerve-soothing occupation. Not only is there a sort of companionship between ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... and Point Pleasant (442 miles) are the Ohio towns to-day; and Dover (417 miles), Augusta (424 miles), and Foster (435 miles), their rivals on the Kentucky shore. Sawmills and distilleries are the leading industries, and there are broad paved wharves; but a listless air pervades them all, as if once they basked in the light of better days. Foster is rather the shabbiest of the lot. As I passed through to find the postoffice, at the upper edge of town, where the hills come down to meet the bottom, I saw that half of the ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... how, like her brother, she contrived—it was the charming thing in both children—to let me alone without appearing to drop me and to accompany me without appearing to surround. They were never importunate and yet never listless. My attention to them all really went to seeing them amuse themselves immensely without me: this was a spectacle they seemed actively to prepare and that engaged me as an active admirer. I walked in a world of their invention—they ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... more definite than that of creating, without conditions or limitations material or intellectual, significant form ever so to concentrate his energies as to achieve his object. His objective would lack precision and therefore his efforts would lack intention. He would almost certainly be vague and listless at his work. It would seem always possible to pull the thing round by a happy fluke, it would rarely be absolutely clear that things were going wrong. The effort would be feeble and the result would be feeble. That is the danger of aestheticism for the artist. The man who feels that he ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... her hand, but the little man, who had been standing behind the Professor, made no motion to take it. He was staring at the planks of the platform; he lifted his eyes for an instant to glance at her, and dropped them again at once. Mary saw a listless, empty face, pale eyes, and pale hair, a mere effect of vacuity and weakness. The man drooped where he stood as though he were no more than half alive; his clothes were grotesquely ill-fitting. A little puzzled, she looked up to the Professor, ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... more than any other, did the young lady direct her glance to the bend in the road, there keeping it steadfast? For what reason was the expression upon her countenance so different from that of other days? No listless look now; instead, an earnest eager gaze, as though she expected to see some one whose advent was of the greatest interest to her. It could only be the coming of some one, as one going would have been long since visible by the ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... Instead, he lay gazing up at them and mumbling to himself. With much trouble, they got him to a small, stony knoll, where they made a fire and spread their blankets on a bundle of reeds for him to lie on. Then he spoke, in a faint and listless voice. ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... lizard, and whose inward spirit dances and exults like a very mote in the sun-beam, always hail its approach with rapture; but our anticipations of bright and serene days—of blue, cloudless, and transparent skies—of shadows the deeper from intensity of surrounding light—of yellow corn-fields, listless rambles, and lassitude rejoicing in green and sunny banks—are allayed by this one ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 346, December 13, 1828 • Various
... litter of colored confetti and exploded fireworks, and the refuse from various "treats" and lunches left by the celebrating citizens and their guests. The flags and bunting that from window and roof and pole and doorway had given the day its gay note of color hung faded and listless, as though, spent with their gaiety, and mutely conscious that the spirit and purpose of their gladness was past, they waited the hand that would remove them to the ash ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... Chesterfield, however, has justly observed in one of his letters, when earnestly cautioning a friend against the pernicious effects of idleness, that active sports are not to be reckoned idleness in young people; and that the listless torpor of doing nothing, alone deserves that name[154]. Of this dismal inertness of disposition, Johnson had all his life too great a share. Mr. Hector relates, that 'he could not oblige him more than by sauntering ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... he tried to distract himself by fancying how the discovery of their absence would be made. He heard the listless, half-querulous discussion about the locality that regularly pervaded the nightly camp. He heard the discontented voice of Jake Silsbee as he halted beside the wagon, and said, "Come out o' that ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... have kept silkworms or other caterpillars must have noticed that these insects, from time to time, become listless, cease feeding, and finally 'moult,' or change their skin; but it may not have occurred to you to inquire why ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... 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 ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... man's voice, laughing. The door of the express office banged. George Willard arose and crossing the room fumbled for the doorknob. Sometimes he knocked against a chair, making it scrape along the floor. By the window sat the sick woman, perfectly still, listless. Her long hands, white and bloodless, could be seen drooping over the ends of the arms of the chair. "I think you had better be out among the boys. You are too much indoors," she said, striving to relieve the embarrassment of the departure. "I thought I would take ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... 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 sayings attentively, O fool, thou mayst ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... of getting to the theatre in time to secure an end seat near the front of the pit. He had proposed to his Uncle Matthew that he should go to Belfast, too, to see the plays, but Uncle Matthew shook his head and murmured that he was not feeling well. He had been listless lately, they had noticed, and Uncle William, regarding him one afternoon as he stood at the door of the shop, had turned to John and said that he would be glad when the summer weather came in again, so that Uncle Matthew could go down ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... was bent, and his hands were clasped upon his saddle-bow, while the reins fell loosely from between his listless fingers. ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... mastering the history of slavery. He kept a watchful eye on the progress of events. He was always alert to seize an opportunity and proclaim in trumpet tones the voice of conscience, the demands of eternal righteousness. But he waited. His hour had not yet come. He bided his time. It was not a listless waiting, it was intensely earnest and active. Far more than he could realize, he was in training for the stupendous responsibilities which should in due time fall upon him. It is fortunate for all that he did not learn to limit his powers to the arena of ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... all to soft Enone's charms, He to oblivion doom'd the listless day; Inglorious lull'd in Love's dissolving arms, While flutes ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... sure, men who looked bored, and women who were listless, missing the stimulus of any personal interest; but the scene was so animated, the weather so propitious, that, on the whole, a person must be very cynical not to ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... his hands. Place was once more given to the noises of the gale. He looked up—broken, listless; possessed again by the ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... thoughtfully and with a return of his annoyance, "he will find me at home when he calls." And P.D. knew that the reins were still held in listless hands as he turned down the side street toward ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... sat drooping and listless, there came a light foot along the passage, a light tap at the door, and the next moment she stood before him, a little paler than usual, but lovelier than ever, for celestial joy softened her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... of God in vain can be nothing else than to hear the pure word of God which presents and offers his grace, and yet to remain listless and irresponsive, undergoing no change at all. Thus, ungrateful for the Word and unworthy of it, we merit the loss of the Word. Such as these are described in the parable (Lk 14, 16-24) where the guests bidden to the ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... met her—when the tourist was of that sex—young, gay, gathering the red leaves of the Virginia-creeper from the lakeward terraces of the highway; we met him, old, sick, pale, munching the sour grapes, and trying somehow to kill the time. Large listless groups of them met every steamboat from which we landed, and parties of them encountered us on every road. "A hash of foreigners," the Swiss call Montreux, and they scarcely contribute a native flavor to the dish. The Englishman ...
— A Little Swiss Sojourn • W. D. Howells
... see things through its own (the amoeba's) spectacles-if it cannot convert that matter, if the matter persists in disagreeing with it-its spirits droop, its soul is disquieted within it, it becomes listless like a withering flower-it languishes and dies. We cannot imagine a thing to live at all and yet be soulless except in sleep for a short time, and even so not quite soulless. The idea of a soul, or of that unknown something for ...
— God the Known and God the Unknown • Samuel Butler
... exceeding two persons. Their method was to follow the tracks of an elephant, so as to arrive at their game between the hours of 10 A.M. and noon, at which time the animal is either asleep, or extremely listless, and easy to approach. Should they discover the animal asleep, one of the hunters would creep stealthily towards the head, and with one blow sever the trunk while stretched upon the ground; in which case ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... Viennese are a people who soon grow weary and listless,—but only of the theatre. My forte is too popular to be neglected. This, ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... time Mr. Devereux continued very ill, and Dr. Leslie gave little hope of his improvement. Mr. Mohun and Claude were his constant attendants—an additional cause of anxiety to the Miss Mohuns. Emily was listless and melancholy, talking in a maundering, dismal way, not calculated to brace her spirits or those of her sisters. Jane was not without serious thoughts, but whether they would benefit her depended on herself; for, as we have seen by the events of the autumn, sorrow and suffering do not ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... shout out Tad's name. It was plain that he heard them, for he waved a listless hand then ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin
... pitifully for help. The son is a student, and has been expelled from the university. He hangs about at home, and cannot find energy to plot out a new career for himself. The weariness of a whole generation is expressed in his faint-hearted, listless words, as also in the blustering but ineffective rhodomontades of the tipsy choir-singer Teterev. All cordial relations between parents and children ...
— Maxim Gorki • Hans Ostwald
... that was not engaged with the book and lay abandoned, outstretched, listless and shining on her knee. Solomon's needle snapped. She frowned and roused herself heavily to secure another from the basket on the floor at her side. Miriam, flashing hatred at her, caught Fraulein's fascinating gaze fixed on Ulrica; ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... on, scarcely thinking at all now, stooping here and there. These faint listless ideas made no more stir than the sunlight gilding the fading leaves, the crisp turf underfoot. With a slight effort he stooped ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... listened then, more moved than he was willing to have it appear, trying, in his turn, to hide all his artistic and patriotic anxieties under that firm exterior which his colleague of the Department of Foreign Affairs wore, a dull-eyed, listless face, and cheeks that might be ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... mail-bags were ready, we received a 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 ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... general seem very ill by day, only heavy, listless and dull, unable to eat, too giddy to sit up, and unable to help crying like a babe, if Stephen left him for a moment; but he never fell asleep without all the horror and dread of the sentence coming over him. Like all the boys in London, he had gazed at executions with the sort of ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and flirt in our listless style While the waltzes dream in the drill-room arch, What would we do if the order came, Sudden and sharp—"Let the Seventh march!" Why, we'd faint, of course; our cheeks would pale; Our knees would tremble, our fears—but stay, ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.
... big negro, who didn't seem more than half interested in what he was doing. I saw him pull a dead Spaniard out of the door with a listless movement, and then pick up his rifle as if he thought the whole thing a bore. Suddenly, a bullet came in with a zip along the underside of his gun barrel, glanced against the strap, and took the skin off the negro's knuckles ...
— Young Peoples' History of the War with Spain • Prescott Holmes
... Yet, indeed, In current Gallic light not hard to read. Woman, with angel-wings, and mournful face, What are the plans those listless fingers trace? What are the visions those fixed eyes survey? The War-dog fierce lies couchant in your way. The instruments of Art are scattered round. Mistress of charm in form, in tint, in sound, Of engineering might, mechanic skill, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 29, 1893 • Various
... in a listless, indifferent attitude near the door, not taking the smallest part in the active proceedings which were going forward, was for the first time aroused to interest by the expression on Rosalind's face. ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... grays the sky, A moisture gathers on each knop Of the bramble, rounding to a drop, That greets the goer-by With the cold listless lustre of a ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... outskirts of the mob, gazing at the flames like men who had been suddenly roused from sleep. Some moments elapsed before they could distinctly remember where they were, or how they got there; or recollected that while they were standing idle and listless spectators of the fire, they had tools in their hands which had been hurriedly given them that they might free themselves ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... tendency to lose its independence, and fuse itself into the surface of the masses upon which it is traced; and in the expression seen so often, in the arrangement of those masses themselves, of an abandonment of their strength to an inevitable necessity, or a listless repose. ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... The cheeks were pale and hollow; dark rings—he could see them but too plainly as the face was lifted up toward the light—were round those great eyes, bright no longer. Her face was listless, careworn; looking all the more sad and impassive by the side of Sabina's, as she pointed smiling and sparkling, up to the fortress; and seemed trying to interest Marie ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... utterly hopeless. She smiled and beckoned to him. She was so used to being obeyed that his response was as a matter of course to her. He moved slowly toward the surrey, resting his hand upon the wheel and looking up at her with listless eyes. "You want me, miss?" ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... blaze on the turning scythe, And after nodded sleepily in the heat. But she, remembering her old ruined hall, And all the windy clamour of the daws About her hollow turret, plucked the grass There growing longest by the meadow's edge, And into many a listless annulet, Now over, now beneath her marriage ring, Wove and unwove it, till the boy returned And told them of a chamber, and they went; Where, after saying to her, 'If ye will, Call for the woman of the house,' to which She answered, 'Thanks, my lord;' the two remained Apart by all the ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... kneeling beside her, questioned her patiently and gently as one asks a sick child to describe the pain which one is anxious to relieve. Silently, gazing vaguely into space, she let herself rest on my shoulder. The flowers fell from her listless hands. Some still hung to her dress, with tangled stalks. Red carnations, mimosa, tuberose, narcissus, hyacinths drunk with perfume, guelder-roses and white lilac wept at ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... depends on the degree of attention with which it was first regarded. If the attention was so fixed that a clear mental image was formed, there will be no difficulty in remembering it again. If, on the other hand, you were inattentive, or listless, or pre-occupied with other thoughts, when you encountered the object, your impression of it would be hazy and indistinct, and no effort of memory would be ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... the nurse. It was the upstairs sitting-room in one of the pretentious houses of Sutherland, oldest and most charming of the towns on the Indiana bank of the Ohio. The two big windows were open; their limp and listless draperies showed that there was not the least motion in the stifling humid air of the July afternoon. At the center of the room stood an oblong table; over it were neatly spread several thicknesses of white cotton cloth; naked upon them lay the body of a newborn ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... and that it had grown meaner as the fancy which her beauty had at first kindled in him had grown cooler. He was aware that of late he had been amusing himself with her passion in a way that was not less than cruel, not because he wished to do so, but because he was listless and wished nothing. He rose in saying: "I might be a little more lenient than you think, Mrs. Mandel; but I won't trouble you with any palliating theory. I will not come ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... them, looked up at the windows, thought of all those great tiers, those moulds and blocks of learning on the shelves; and have you never watched the weary people that dribble in from the streets and wander coldly about, or sit down listless in them—in those mighty, silent empires of the past? have you never thought that somewhere all about them, somewhere in this same library, there must be some white, silent, sunny country of the future, full of children and ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... appointed to her youth. If, while her mind is yet ignorant, her judgment inexperienced, and her tastes actually unformed, she indulges any affection or fancy which makes her studies tedious, her companions dull, and her mind and spirits listless, she has fallen into a ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... the deck in a hundred listless postures. Some leaned idly over the bulwarks, and looked wistfully away from the ship, as if they fancied they saw all that I inferred but could not see. As the perfume, and sound, and climate changed, I could see many a longing eye sadden and grow moist, and as the chime of bells echoed distinctly ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... their return homewards till they cross the Line, and so having no experience of the breadth of them) being thus possessed with a conceit that we could not sail from hence till September; this made them still the more remiss in their duties, and very listless to the getting things in a readiness for our departure. However I was the more diligent myself to have the ship scrubbed, and to send my water casks ashore to get them trimmed, my beer being now out. I went also to the governor to get my water filled; for here being but one watering-place ...
— A Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... crept over the ocean it showed some of the party asleep. The others were haggard and worn looking and seemed to have but small concern as to what happened to them. They lolled on the cross seats in a listless way, not at all interested in the beautiful sunrise. They were more concerned in their own welfare than in the ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay
... as a matter of course and looked forward to as a financial relief to the entire family, had never held any particular interest for her, but now even the preparations, which had hitherto excited her interest and enthusiasm, found her listless and indifferent. ...
— Little Sister Snow • Frances Little
... old love is gone. There is a sweetness in song or in the cunning reimaging of the beauty we see; but the Magician of the Beautiful whispers to us of his art, how we were with him when he laid the foundations of the world, and the song is unfinished, the fingers grow listless. As we receive these intimations of age our very sins become negative: we are still pleased if a voice praises us, but we grow lethargic in enterprises where the spur to activity is fame or the acclamation of men. At some point in the past ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... Dick was worse; listless, nerveless, unable to rise, and spending his time in dozes that were perilously ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... captivate the heart. Young Hope, in flatt'ring smiles for ever gay, To Love's mysterious altar leads the way: The graces round, half veil'd and half in sight, Enticing motion with their voice unite; 35 While Indolence, luxurious laid along, Listless and loit'ring, hears the tender song. There, silent Myst'ry, with the veil she wears, And eyes conversing with the soul, appears, Attentive tender cares, attracting smiles, 40 Gay sport and mirth, and all that thought beguiles. Lascivious pleasures group'd with wanton ease; And ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire
... on my back on the smooth greensward With a straw in my mouth, and an open vest, And the cool wind blowing upon my breast, And I'd vacantly stare at the clear blue sky, And watch the clouds that are listless as I, Lazily, lazily! And I'd pick the moss and the daisies white, And chew their stalks with a nibbling bite; And I'd let my fancies roam abroad In search of a hint for ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... its report with a bill "to regulate the civil service and to promote its efficiency." The next year Mr. Jenckes made a second report, but it was not until 1871 that action on the subject was secured.[44] George W. Curtis says that at first he "pressed it upon an utterly listless Congress, and his proposition was regarded as the harmless hobby of an amiable man, from which a little knowledge of practical politics would soon dismount him."[45] Most members of Congress thought the reform a mere vagary, ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... backward and forward, apparently in deep and dejected thoughtfulness, and when the time came for the keepers to lock him up again he would yield a ready but listless obedience, and spend the remainder of the time in reading and ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... heroine. I have followed your instructions to the letter. My hero is as listless as I fear my readers will be, and he is not yet in love. In fact, he is only captivated with himself. I have made him ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... astonishing extent mere spectators in the arduous work of hauling the cobles 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, ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... 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
... 78 deg. 13'; Mt. Terror N. 3 W.; Erebus 23 1/2 Terror 2nd peak from south; Pk. 2 White Island 74 Terror; Castle Rk. 43 Terror. Night march just completed. 10 miles, 200 yards. The ponies were much shaken by the blizzard. One supposes they did not sleep—all look listless and two or three are visibly thinner than before. But the worst case by far is Forde's little pony; he was reduced to a weight little exceeding 400 lbs. on his sledge and caved in altogether on the second part of the march. The load was reduced ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... whom poetry was then written — Chaucer beautifully enforces the lasting advantages of purity, valour, and faithful love, and the fleeting and disappointing character of mere idle pleasure, of sloth and listless retirement from the battle of life. In the "season sweet" of spring, which the great singer of Middle Age England loved so well, a gentle woman is supposed to seek sleep in vain, to rise "about the springing of the gladsome day," and, by an unfrequented path in a pleasant grove, to ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... than a week, and confined them to the house. Ann then found the ladies not so agreeable; when they sat whole hours together, the thread-bare topics were exhausted; and, but for cards or music, the long evenings would have been yawned away in listless indolence. ...
— Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft
... barked that some creature was there; and looking more narrowly, I observed some animals clinging to the lower branches, but so nearly did they resemble the bark to which they were holding, that had they not been pointed out to me I should have passed them by. The animals turned listless glances at us, and seemed in no ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... wind and I the sea— There is no splendor any more, I have grown listless as the pool ...
— Rivers to the Sea • Sara Teasdale
... breathed forth their most joyful notes till the heavens rang with the melody. Such bursts of music welcomed Napoleon as he returned, flushed with victory, till his eye kindled with exultation. But now they fell on a dull and listless ear. It ceased, and again the mournful requiem filled all the air. But nothing could rouse him from his agonizing reflections. His friend lay dying, and the heart that he loved more than his life was throbbing its last pulsations. What a theme for a painter, and what a eulogy was that scene! ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... on her father's face, the gladness in her own was somewhat dimmed. What was making that loved face so care- worn, the mind so listless, the attitude so weary? But she was young; the spirits of youth never flow long in one direction. The repartee, brilliant and at the same time with every sting withdrawn, flashed up and down the table like so many fireflies on a wet ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... with the driver, in the midst of his belongings. He spent a week with us in the first American home he had known, and we found him an amiable and unobtrusive gentleman. He was a vigorous walker and explored the city well. His listless, seemingly inattentive eyes somehow scanned everything, and he judged well what he witnessed. He was an accomplished scholar and had a quiet humour. A little daughter half-playfully and half-wilfully, announced her intention ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... Hermit 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, ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... and listless at first, and quite given to resting in the shallows and back water, and taking things as easily as possible. But that was to be expected for a time, and he was much better off than some of the other trout babies. He saw one that had two heads and only one body, and another with two ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert
... to his monde, and they have in their manners and habits a free-and-easy rusticity which is positively disagreeable to him. His relations with them are therefore confined to formal calls. The greater part of the day he spends in listless loitering, frequently yawning, regretting the routine of St. Petersburg life—the pleasant chats with his colleagues, the opera, the ballet, the French theatre, and the quiet rubber at the Club Anglais. His spirits rise as the day of his departure ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... sat there on the beach, basking in the sun, and far too idle to read, her listless gaze became fastened upon a trim, smart-looking little schooner which, under all the canvas she could possibly spread, was creeping slowly up from the westward before the light summer breeze. The glance of indifference with which the fair girl at first regarded the little craft, gradually ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... boy thanked none, smiled on none, but looked curiously and cautiously at all, with the quick perception and the illogical conclusions of his class and race. As we started he did not move, but remained in his attitude of listless tranquillity. As we glanced back, the mystery of him seemed to be solved for a moment: he would stand there till he grew up into a graceful, prayerful, pitiless brigand, and then he would rend from travel the tribute now go freely given him. ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... he was not finally beaten. Of that she was sure. His name would be read often in cold print, but the glow of the life he lived would be henceforth unknown to her. She would go back to the old world and the old circle of it. What would happen after that she was too listless to think. It was summed up in negations; and these again melted into one great want, the absence of the man to whom her imagination and her heart blindly ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... down 'n' rest, dearie," he urged, anxiously. He took the things from her and laid them back, one by one, in the lower drawer of the high, glass-knobbed bureau whence she had taken them. The thin stuff of the little, listless sleeves and yellowed skirts clung to his roughened fingers; ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... wither'd carcase that implores thy aid; Let all behold; and thou, imperious Jove, On me direct thy lightning from above: Now all its force the poison doth assume, And my burnt entrails with its flame consume. Crest-fallen, unembraced I now let fall Listless, those hands that lately conquer'd all; When the Nemaean lion own'd their force, And he indignant fell a breathless corse: The serpent slew, of the Lernean lake, As did the Hydra of its force partake: By ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... an hour and then he began to feel faint. He had eaten but little breakfast and he needed a fresh supply of food to restore his strength. How he could hold out till evening he could not tell. Already his head began to ache and he felt weary and listless. ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... Never mind; here by good luck we find seats where we can watch the throng passing and repassing. It is a great review of the People. On the whole how respectable they are, how sober, how deadly dull! See how worn-out the poor girls are becoming, how they gape, what listless eyes most of them have! The stoop in the shoulders so universal among them merely means over-toil in the workroom. Not one in a thousand shows the elements of taste in dress; vulgarity and worse glares in all but every costume. Observe the middle-aged women; it would be small surprise that their ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... nastiness and beggary do not, on the contrary, extinguish all such ambition, making men listless, hopeless, and slothful? ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley
... succeeded by dark pine-forests. Few travellers ever think of breaking their journey on this melancholy plain, the territory of the Grand Dukes of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz. They have not the remotest suspicion that these Grand Duchies of Mecklenburg, which they cross in such listless haste, are, from a political point of view, one of the most fascinating countries of Europe. Mecklenburg has for the students of comparative politics the same sort of interest which an Indian reserve territory, ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... great antiquity. Keen looked with yearning upon the woman, and she, unnoting, held her eyes steadfastly upon her father's face. The wolf-dog shoved the flap aside again, and plucking courage at the quiet, wormed forward on his belly. He sniffed curiously at Thom's listless hand, cocked ears challengingly at Chugungatte, and hunched down upon his haunches before Tantlatch. The spear rattled to the ground, and the dog, with a frightened yell, sprang sideways, snapping in mid-air, and on the second leap cleared ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... different persons, and at different ages. From six to nine hours may be reckoned about the average proportion. Men of active minds whose attention is engaged in a series of interesting enjoyments, sleep much less than the listless and indolent, and the same individual will spend fewer hours in this way, when strongly interested in any pursuits, than when the stream of life is gentle and undisturbed. The Great Frederic of Prussia, and John Hunter, who devoted every moment of their time to the most active ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 393, October 10, 1829 • Various
... grass and sea-weed which I intended for fuel. I slept very little, for the disquiets of my mind prevailed over my weariness, and kept me awake. I considered how impossible it was to preserve my life in so desolate a place, and how miserable my end must be: yet found myself so listless and desponding, that I had not the heart to rise; and before I could get spirits enough to creep out of my cave, the day was far advanced. I walked awhile among the rocks: the sky was perfectly clear, and the sun so hot, that I was forced to turn my face from it: when all on a sudden it became ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... turns, there is the association with Balzac's birth in the Rue Royale, and his delightful picturings of the city's environment in the "Cure de Tours," "Le Lys dans la Vallee," and "La Grenadiere." Says Balzac of the habitant: "...He is a listless and unobliging individual." But the sojourner for a day will probably not notice this, and, if he should, must simply make allowance, and think with Henry James of the other memories of "this land of Rabelais, Descartes, and Balzac; of good dinners, ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... Eyebright thought often of this sentence of Wealthy's as the long weeks went by, and still the cold continued and the spring delayed, till it seemed as though it were never coming at all, and papa grew thinner and more listless and discouraged all the time. The loneliness and want of occupation hurt him more than it did Eyebright, and when spring came, as at last it did, his spirits did not revive as she had hoped they would. Farming was trying and depressing work on Causey Island. The ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... material. Now, Chopin lacked such aptitude entirely, and the nature of his material accorded little with the size of the structure and the orchestral frame. And, then, are not these confessions of intimate experiences, these moonlight sentimentalities, these listless dreams, &c., out of place in the gaslight glare of concert-rooms, crowded with audiences brought together to a great extent rather by ennui, vanity, and idle curiosity ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... room, the door of which remained ajar—for she had thrown herself upon my 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, save that ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... midst of the warm controversy that the question excited he fell ill, and firmly believed that he was going to die. His near approach to dissolution found him quite resigned. A listless willingness to let life go, grew upon him during the dreary days of helpless inactivity. "Death," he said, "appeared to him little else than a pleasant sleep, and he wished for sleep." But a long life was before him, and, after spending weeks upon his bed, his strength came back ...
— George Borrow in East Anglia • William A. Dutt
... awake, he exclaimed, "Mamma, I can't say it; and you know I can't say it. You're a naughty mamma, and you don't love me." Her heart sank within her; but she patiently went again and again over yesterday's ground. Willy cried. He ate very little breakfast. He stood at the window in a listless attitude of discouraged misery, which she said cut her to the heart. Once in a while he would ask for some plaything which he did not usually have. She gave him whatever he asked for; but he could not play. She kept up an appearance ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... chirping of multitudinous sparrows, wrens, and linnets, and the twittering of swallows. At the outer gate sat two or three aged monks, picturesque and sculpturesque at once, like enchanted porters at the doors of some spellbound palace, their long, gray beards and sunken, listless eyes according with their own and the convent's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... Interior holds his court, and, of course, also the Commissioners of Patents. Here is, in accordance with the name of the building, a museum of models of all patents taken out. I wandered through it, gazing with listless eye now upon this and now upon that; but to me, in my ignorance, it was no better than a large toy-shop. When I saw an ancient, dusty white hat, with some peculiar appendage to it which was unintelligible, it was no more to me than any other old white hat. But had I been ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... did not go inside. He saw the figure his eye was following take a seat high up, and turn the child so that it might get the air from the window. He could see the poor, little pinched face, utterly listless and wan, and by reason of its sickness totally bereft of the beauty that belongs to plump, round, rosy babyhood. And yet the child had wonderful eyes—strange, large eyes of a clear, golden-brown color—the like of which he had seen once only before. Memories, speculations and presentments seemed ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder
... sleepy and listless beneath a proud and distant sky of changeless blue. Idly sat the Arabs on the benches outside the low- roofed coffee-houses; lazily worked the makers of ornaments in the bazaars; yawningly pounded the tinkers; greedily ate the children; the city was cloyed with ease. Warham, Blithelygo and myself ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... a stranger, and self-invited to the house of her old acquaintance a few weeks ago, had already created a sensation in London. Her rare beauty, the strange charm of her quiet, listless manner, the shade of melancholy which had of late imperceptibly crept over her, aroused a keen admiration and interest in her, even in that city, which more than all others is satiated with its manifold types of ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... draught from the king's cup, and a second draught when he recovered consciousness, from the stream that flowed past the camp. Yet he walked steadily on without pause; his head hung forward, and his arms were listless, but his feet mechanically plodded on. He walked, indeed, by his will, and not with his sinews. Thus, like a ghost, for there was no life in him, he traversed ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... was to visit Mrs Harrel; she found that unhappy lady a prey to all the misery of unoccupied solitude: torn from whatever had, to her, made existence seem valuable, her mind was as listless as her person was inactive, and she was at a loss how to employ even a moment of the day: she had now neither a party to form, nor an entertainment to plan, company to arrange, nor dress to consider; and these, with visits and public ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... to-morrows have come 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 senorita are ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... 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 ...
— Christmas Eve at Swamp's End • Norman Duncan
... collected in augmented proportions, lost its head and was swept off its feet. But it must also be said that, having gorged itself with plentiful bribes, it resembled a sated python, willy-nilly drowsy and listless. People were killed for anything and nothing, just so. It happened that men would walk up to a person in broad daylight somewhere on an unfrequented street and ask: "What's your name?" "Fedorov." "Aha, Federov? Then take this!" and they ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... over the awakening earth, although the mounting sun was speedily drinking up the dew and rousing the locusts into droning song. Not a leaf stirred. Through the shimmering atmosphere the valley, with its river yellow as a band of molten gold, lay listless in drowsy haze; but the birds, butterflies, and bees flitted among the flowers that bordered the roadside with an alertness which proved that they, at least, felt no lessening of ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... madame?" she asked; but her tone was listless, apathetic, as of one who though uttering a question is incurious as to what the ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... earth, at first but a cold gray mass hanging listless in the hollow void. Later she saw it separate into divisions; here a plain, there a mountain, yonder a sea, all as yet without a sparkle. And then, by a river-bank, something moved; and she stopped her knitting for wonder. The something arose, and lifted its hands to the sun in sign of ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... our eyes, and we sought refuge in the cool, dim shades of the parlour. Our conversation was exactly like that of passengers on board ship when they are just about to collapse. The minutes seemed like hours; our limbs were listless, as if we had been beaten into helplessness. So passed one doleful hour. I mentioned breakfast, and Bob shuddered, while Coney rushed from the room. What a pleasant ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... themselves, have produced. I became acquainted with the lady from whose lips I heard this narrative, nearly twenty years since, and the story struck my fancy so much, that I committed it to paper while it was still fresh in my mind, and should its perusal afford you entertainment for a listless half hour, my labour shall not have been bestowed in vain. I find that I have taken the story down as she told it, in the first person, and, perhaps, this is as it should ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... you show me in this the greatest earthly kindness; you make me completely irresponsible. Woe to the fools and lunatics who are mad enough to lend me money! From this time onward, I shall never know a weary or listless moment. I shall have always the cheering and inspiring occupation of winning the hearts of trusting and weak-minded dunces, and, by adroit sleight-of-hand, transferring the gold from their ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... him as he himself sat listless and unoccupied during that gloomy evening. He did his best to acquaint himself, by the aid of papers and circulars scattered about the room, with the work that lay before him. He made a careful tour of the premises, with a view to possible alterations and improvements. He settled in his own ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... earnestness. Lagging is a disgrace to the one who travels and to the one to whom we go. It shows his laziness on the one hand, and his misunderstanding of the master on the other; for if he understood he would take no listless step. ...
— Music Talks with Children • Thomas Tapper
... into her breast, and drawing out the pass on the back of which she had written her last message to him, she thrust it between his listless fingers. It should speak for her. Then she leant over him, and watched his sleeping face, a very incarnation of infinite, despairing tenderness, and love that is deeper than the grave. And as she watched, gradually her feet and legs grew cold and numb, till at length she could feel ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... as well. She was 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 her. She was willing to make allowances for a foreigner, but she had never ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... he murmured, as he fell back again into his former listless attitude, "it's not creditable for an old salt like me to go mistakin' sea-gulls for sails, as I've bin doin' so often of late. I'm out o' practice, that's where ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... bathers, men who bathed seven times a day, would remain in a state of enervate and speechless lassitude, either before or (mostly) after the water-bath; and many of these victims of the pursuit of health turned their listless eyes on the newcomers, recognizing their friends with a nod, but ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... are almost as certain to fail of achieving an end as a locomotive engine that lacks steam is of climbing the grade. Even a listless, lackadaisical spirit may get on all right so long as the path of life is all on a level or is down grade, but when it comes to hill-climbing and the real experiences of life that serve to develop character, it is likely to give up the contest and surrender the prize it might win to ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... cunning, both of husbandry and handicraft. Moreover, they had great love of the kindreds, and especially of the Woodlanders, and strove to do all things that might pleasure them. And as for those who were dull and listless because of their many torments of the last ten years, they would at least fetch and carry willingly for them of the kindreds; and these last grudged them not meat and raiment and house-room, even if they ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... away the time until it is cool enough for the alameda or public walk. At Cadiz, and even at Seville, up the Guadalquivir, you are sure of a delightful breeze from the water. The sea-breeze comes like a spirit. The effect is quite magical. As you are lolling in listless languor in the hot and perfumed air, an invisible guest comes dancing into the party and touches them all with an enchanted wand. All start, all smile. It has come; it is the sea-breeze. There is much discussion ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known by the name of Sleepy Hollow, and its rustic lads are called the Sleepy Hollow Boys throughout all the neighbouring country. ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... hundred years afterward. When we think of these dates, by the way, we realize the import of the saying that in the sight of the Lord a thousand years are but as a day, and we feel that the work of the Lord cannot be done by the listless or the slothful. So much time and so much strife by sea and land has it taken to secure beyond peradventure the boon to mankind for which Earl Simon gave up his noble life on the field of Evesham! Nor without unremitting watchfulness can we be sure that the day of peril is yet past. ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... Under our peculiar and improved system of treatment, gradual improvement in the patient's condition will be manifested. The eye becomes more brilliant and sparkling, the patient is less morose, his digestion improves, he is less listless and despondent, takes more interest in business and other affairs, his sleep is less disturbed and more refreshing, the strength improves, and, if the sexual organs had become wasted in size, weak in function, and flaccid ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... was nothing. So we rode on, rather aimlessly, weaving in and out of the bushes and open spaces. I think we were all a little tired from the long day and the excitement, and hence a bit listless. Suddenly we were fairly shaken out of our saddles by an angry roar just ahead. Usually a lion growls, low and thunderous, when he wants, to warn you that you have gone about far enough; but this one was angry all through at being followed about so much, and ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... still to see in the bit of carved wood before him the fulfilment of all his dearest dreams. So, while daylight faded into dusk and evening into night, he sat lost in a maze of tangled thoughts that crowded wearily through his listless brain. It was now too dark for him to discern the image by his side, but from time to time he laid his hand upon it with a gentle touch, as a mother might caress a sleeping child, and was ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... comfy first. I can talk a great deal better." Arline began a listless unfastening of her fluffy lingerie frock, her ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... 47 of Rasselas Johnson had lately considered monastic life. Imlac says of the monks:—'Their time is regularly distributed; one duty succeeds another, so that they are not left open to the distraction of unguided choice, nor lost in the shades of listless inactivity.... He that lives well in the world is better than he that lives well in a monastery. But perhaps every one is not able to stem the temptations of publick life; and, if he cannot conquer, he may properly retreat.' See also post, March ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... of all present, however, the knight thus preferred was nowhere to be found. He had left the lists immediately when the conflict ceased, and had been observed by some spectators to move down one of the forest glades with the same slow pace and listless and indifferent manner which had procured him the epithet of the Black Sluggard.[87-17] After he had been summoned twice by sound of trumpet and proclamation of the heralds, it became necessary to name ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... German he had been accustomed on Sunday mornings to attend the Lutheran service, but when Hayward arrived he began instead to go with him to Mass. He noticed that, whereas the Protestant church was nearly empty and the congregation had a listless air, the Jesuit on the other hand was crowded and the worshippers seemed to pray with all their hearts. They had not the look of hypocrites. He was surprised at the contrast; for he knew of course that the Lutherans, whose faith was closer to that of the Church ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... the world, and looked on at the great labour of my neighbour without taking any part in the struggle? Why, what a mere dilettante you own yourself to be, in this confession of general scepticism, and what a listless spectator yourself! You are six-and-twenty years old; and as blase as a rake of sixty. You neither hope much nor care much, nor believe much. You doubt about other men as much as about yourself. Were it made of such pococuranti as you, the world would be intolerable; and I had rather ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... exquisitely neat indeed, but still in a coloured print, of a pattern familiar to his observant eye in the windows of many a shop lavish of tickets, and inviting you to come in by the assurance that it is "selling off." The artist stopped, coloured, bowed, answered the listless questions put to him with shy haste: he then attempted to escape; ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... pension reforms and simplification of administrative procedures. The tax burden remains one of the highest in Europe (43.8% of GDP in 2003). The current economic slowdown and inflexible budget items have pushed the 2003 deficit to 4% of GDP, above the EU's 3% debt limit. Business investment remains listless because of low rates of capital utilization, sluggish demand, high debt, and the ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... the Mole left him for a time and busied himself with household matters; and it was getting dark when he returned to the parlour and found the Rat where he had left him, wide awake indeed, but listless, silent, and dejected. He took one hasty glance at his eyes; found them, to his great gratification, clear and dark and brown again as before; and then sat down and tried to cheer him up and help him to relate what ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... love, That God that did at first thy spirit move To ask it to his praise, that he might be Thy God, and that he might delight in thee. If I should here particulars relate, Methinks it could not but much animate Thy heart, though very listless to inquire How thou mayst that enjoy, which all desire That love themselves and future happiness; But O, I cannot fully it express: The promise is so open and so free, In all respects, to those that humble be, That want they cannot what for them is good; But there 'tis, and confirmed ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... changing her place of abode from one lodging to another; and instead of a cartload of drawers and baskets, dressers and beds, with old king clock at the top of all, it was only one large wooden chest to be carried after the girl, who moved slowly and heavily along the streets, listless and depressed, more from the state of her mind than of her body. It was Libbie Marsh, who had been obliged to quit her room in Dean Street, because the acquaintances whom she had been living with were leaving Manchester. She ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... a lovely night; the sea was now smooth as glass, and not a breath of air moved in the heavens; the sail of the raft hung listless down the mast, and was reflected upon the calm surface by the brilliancy of the starry night alone. It was a night for contemplation—for examination of oneself, and adoration of the Deity; and here, on's frail raft, were huddled ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... heard Cornelia's step along the hall, and up the staircase. It sounded more slow and listless than a few minutes before, as if she were treading under the weight of a weary load. Now that she was out of Bressant's eyeshot, the support afforded by her anger had given way, and she felt very tired, very ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... neither of them spoke a word. From time to time they glanced at the silent and motionless figures on the seats. For the most part, the loiterers there were either asleep or sitting with closed eyes. Here and there they caught a glance from some spectral face, a glance cold and listless. The fires of life were dead amongst these people. The animal desires alone ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... from his pack's scant treasure A hoarded volume drew, And cards were dropped from hands of listless leisure ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... passed so slowly to Honor Blake. All the morning she goes about her work with a listless preoccupied air that could not fail to attract attention if there were any one to heed the ...
— Only an Irish Girl • Mrs. Hungerford
... dreamed of lands afar where they might find that liberty for which their souls thirsted as the hart for the water-brook. Far from their native country, without the blessings of the Church, or the warmth of substantial friendship, they fell into a listless condition, a somnolence that led them to stagger against some of the regulations of the Province. Their wandering was not inspired by any subjective, inherent, generic evil: it was but the tossing of a weary, distressed mind under the dreadful ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... on the veil, and the brocade of white and gold for her wedding-gown was on the loom. She was the pale center of a riot of finery. Dressmakers stood back and raised delighted hands as, one by one; their models were adjusted to her listless figure. ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... For virtuous scorn of fair Hippolyta, And tells again each tale That e'er led heart astray. In vain; for deafer than Icarian seas He hears, untainted yet. But, lady fair, What if Enipeus please Your listless eye? beware! Though true it be that none with surer seat O'er Mars's grassy turf is seen to ride, Nor any swims so fleet Adown the Tuscan tide, Yet keep each evening door and window barr'd; Look not abroad when music strikes ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... on a look of discouragement and failure, and he sat for a time as though seeking a loophole of escape from his ultimatum. At last he lifted his head and looked at the cowman with a listless eye. ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... passed between them since the talk of yesterday when he carried in her dinner. He found her now sitting in a listless attitude, and she did not look ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... this outpouring of the Spirit, which is the great need of the age we live in. The Church seems to be lying listless as a sailing ship, due to leave harbour, but still waiting for a breeze. Her masts are firm, the canvas ready to be stretched, and her equipment complete. The helmsman stands impatient at the wheel, and all the sailors are alert, but not a ripple runs along the vessel's side. She waits, and must ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... the edge of the wood, and gradually, as she walked, the flowers she had gathered fell unheeded out of her listless ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... by my fault. The land forces might still save us, but not under his command. He is with me, uninjured, but apparently exhausted; like a different being, bereft of courage, listless as if utterly crushed. I foresee the beginning of the end. As soon as this reaches you, arrange to have some unpretending litters ready for us every evening at sunset. Make the people believe that we have conquered until trustworthy ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... when the wished end's denied, Yet while the busy means are plied, They bring their own reward: Whilst I, a hope-abandon'd wight, Unfitted with an aim, Meet ev'ry sad returning night, And joyless morn the same! You, bustling, and justling, Forget each grief and pain; I, listless, yet restless, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... a soft eraser over the sketch, dimming its outline; picked out a brush and began in color, rambling on in easy, listless self-communion: "I've asked you who you are and you haven't told me. Pas chic, ca. There are thousands and thousands of dark-eyed little things like you in this city. Did you ever see the streets when the shops close? There are thousands ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... entreaty.— I climb towards death: it is not falling down For me to die, but up the event of the world As up a mighty ridge I climb, and look With lifted vision backward down on life. So high towards death I am gone, listless I gaze Where on the earth beneath me, into the fires Of that Assyrian strength, our siege of fate, Judith, the dream of my desire of beauty, Goes daring forth, to shape herself therein, Seeking to fashion ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... dilapidated condition of picket-fence and stuccoed gate front. Beyond it stretched the wooden Doric columns of the usual Southern mansion, dimly seen through the broad leaves of the horse-chestnut-trees that shaded it. There were the usual listless black shadows haunting the veranda and outer offices—former slaves and still attached house-servants, arrested like lizards in breathless attitudes at the approach of strange footsteps, and still holding the brush, broom, ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... to talk to him about his intended comedy—its plot, and some of the most striking scenes and characters. The result was just as he had anticipated, and its author, who just before had dragged himself along in moody silence, or only replied in listless monosyllables, began to chat away upon the much-loved topic in the most animated manner possible; and so much were both engrossed with the subject, as not to perceive that, whilst traversing one of those level pieces of turf that few and far between formed a kind of tiny oasis in this ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... shake the mind, Yea, like the rustling of a mighty wind. "Thus would I ask: 'Nay, let me question now, How sink my sayings in your bosoms? how? Feel you a quickening? drops the subject deep? Stupid and stony, no! you're all asleep; Listless and lazy, waiting for a close, As if at church;—do I allow repose? Am I a legal minister? do I With form or rubric, rule or rite comply? Then whence this quiet, tell me, I beseech? One might believe you heard your Rector preach, Or his ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... Northern France saw with amazement the presence of a real king, and an orderly government. In 1422 King Henry died; a few weeks later Charles VI. died also, and the face of affairs began to change, although, at the first, Charles VII. the "Well-served," the lazy, listless prince, seemed to have little heart for the perils and efforts of his position. He was proclaimed King at Mehun, in Berri, for the true France for the time lay on that side of the Loire, and the ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... whispered to him; he turned upon me a listless gaze from over his fur collar, and bowed languidly, without rising from his easy chair. Yes, it was Mr. March—the very Mr. March we had met! I knew him, changed though he was; but he did not know me in the least, ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... edge of the bed. He felt ashamed. He saw now that Mildred's cheeks were thick with rouge, her eyebrows were blackened; but she looked thin and ill, and the red on her cheeks exaggerated the greenish pallor of her skin. She stared at the paper fan in a listless fashion. Philip could not think what to say, and he had a choking in his throat as if he were going to cry. He covered his ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... dragged herself upright. She was listless, the lightness had gone out of her step. Without a word, she reached out and lifted her leather coat from the nail on which it hung. Then she dragged her leaden feet to the door. ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... their sweet antiphonies, A long procession through the splendid hall Wended slow way, and bearing in the King, The suffering Amfortas in his pain, Still lying listless on his royal couch. Before him walked a company of boys Clothed in pale blue, and bearing high aloft A mystic shrine in cloth of deepest crimson, To signify the royal blood beneath. And others followed bearing silver flagons With wine, and baskets of the finest bread. Slowly the King was carried ...
— Parsifal - A Drama by Wagner • Retold by Oliver Huckel
... eye is the sign of intelligence; while the vacant, listless stare of indifference betokens an empty brain. The eyes are placed in an elevated position that they may better observe all that comes within their range. These highways to the soul should always stand wide open, ready to carry inward all such impressions ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... thinks him strangely thoughtful and considerate in keeping away, as he does, after a few short visits at The Oaks. The truth is, he is wofully disappointed at the change in his cousin's looks. This pale, listless, hollow-eyed girl is not the one who set him to reading 'Taming of the Shrew.' That her beauty of color and of outline could ever return, he does not consider; and in swift revulsion of feeling ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... life there as though they were quite at home. The men took themselves to the bar-room, and smoked cigars and talked about the war with their feet upon the counter; and the women got themselves into rocking-chairs in the saloon, and sat there listless and silent, but not more listless and silent than they usually are in the big drawing-rooms of the big hotels. There was supper there precisely at six o'clock—beef-steaks, and tea, and apple jam, and hot cakes, and light fixings, ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... she is emptied of it now! Outright now!—how miraculously gone All of the grace—had she not strange grace once? Why, the blank cheek hangs listless as it likes, No purpose holds the features up together, 235 Only the cloven brow and puckered chin Stay in their places; and the very hair, That seemed to have a sort of life in it, Drops, ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... they had passed Rapide Flat, after toiling laboriously by the Long Sault. They were a sober enough party now, oppressed with Danton's dogged attention to duty and with the maid's listless manner. ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
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