"Busy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... when he drew near the ranch but reconnoitered a bit from a convenient eminence. The house stood on the summit of a knoll; the land sloped away before it to the river, bare of shrubs or trees. Those of the Mexicans who were not riding herd were down among the cottonwoods by the stream, busy over some washing. In the middle of the open slope, two hundred yards or so from the ranch buildings and a good quarter of a mile from the nearest vaqueros, a solitary figure showed. It was the cattleman. No chance for ambush here. The Man from Bitter Creek spurred his ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... too, till this new cup-bearer was bought. And it really is too bad, that when every one else is in bed, I should have to go off to Pluto with the Shades, and play the usher in Rhadamanthus's court. It is not enough that I must be busy all day in the wrestling-ground and the Assembly and the schools of rhetoric, the dead must have their share in me too. Leda's sons take turn and turn about betwixt Heaven and Hades—I have to be in both every day. And why should the sons of Alemena ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... reflected on the water; the melody of the tragic rhythm; the grace of the comic wit; the strange art that give such meaning to the poet's lightest word;—the fair, false, exciting life that is detailed before us—crowding into some three little hours all that our most busy ambition could desire—love, enterprise, war, glory! the kindling exaggeration of the sentiments which belong to the stage—like our own in our boldest moments: all these appeals to our finer senses are not made in vain. Our taste for castle-building and visions ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... we have been letting our flat. Naturally Celia has had to do most of the work; my military duties have prevented me from taking my share of it. I have been so busy, off and on, inspecting my fellow-soldiers' feet, seeing their boots mended and imploring them to get their hair cut that I have had no time for purely domestic matters. Celia has let the flat; I have merely allotted the praise or blame afterwards. I have also, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various
... passes on through busy Aldersgate Street, where we are interrupted frequently by droves of sheep and numerous oxen on their way from Smithfield to the slaughter-houses of their purchasers. On through Goswell Street, alive with cries of "milk" and ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... come in contact with one another, if they have inquiring minds. We are all giving and taking perpetually when we associate together. The achiever to-day must keep in touch with the society around him; he must put his finger on the pulse of the great busy world and feel its throbbing life. He must be a part of it, or there will be ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... following were issued Letters Patent for the committee thus promised. The conferences held at the Savoy were, however, practically fruitless, and the committee was dissolved by lapse of time on the 24th of July. In the mean time, however, the Convocation of the province of Canterbury had been busy. Meeting on the 8th of May, 1661, the Synod drew up a form of prayer for the 29th of May, the anniversary of the Restoration, and also an office for the baptism of adults, which was approved on the 31st of May. ...
— The Acts of Uniformity - Their Scope and Effect • T.A. Lacey
... him on the night of the attack became his companion on the committee, and took upon himself the task of watching Bill and Dick. This arrangement was made the day after the thieves had been shot at; so that while Duffel was busy making his arrangements with the members of the Thief League, in anticipation of a speedy removal of the head quarters of operations to another part of the country, and while Bill and Dick were busy with ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... view clearly before his countrymen, he set about composing the extremely vivid and successful play, perhaps the most successful pamphlet-play that ever was written, which was to put forward in the clearest light the claim of the minority. He was very busy with preparations for it all through the summer of 1882, which he spent at what was now to be for many years his favorite summer resort, Gossensass in the Tyrol, a place which is consecrated to the memory of Ibsen in the way that Pornic belongs ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... if this reflexion didn't occupy him long, and if no meditation, after his return from Paris, held him for many moments, there was a reason better even than that he was tired, that he was busy, that he appreciated the coincidence of the hit and the hurrah, the hurrah and the hit. That reason was simply Mrs. Dallow, who had suddenly become a still larger fact in his consciousness than his having turned actively political. She was indeed his being so—in the sense that if the politics ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... been very busy with proverbs in all the languages of Europe: some appear to have been the favourite lines of some ancient poem: even in more refined times, many of the pointed verses of Boileau and Pope have become proverbial. Many trivial and laconic ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Report of the Trial—in the evidence of the sheriff's officer. Miserrimus Dexter had spoken in those very terms when he had tried vainly to prevent the men from seizing my husband's papers, and when the men had pushed his chair out of the room. There was no doubt now of what his memory was busy with. The mystery at Gleninch! His last backward flight of thought circled feebly and more feebly nearer and nearer to ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... all right," continued Dick, "but he was so busy cramming 'em full of great forests and magnificent scenery that he forgot to leave any breakfast for us, and I'm afraid we'll have to hustle ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... was removed and the door opened. Seeing his visitor, Langham stood for a moment in sombre astonishment. The room was littered with books and packing-cases with which he had been busy. ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... ought to be there very early; but we can go to the meat market, which is not at all a pretty sight, and a long way off. But it is very wonderful. Here there is selling going on quite late, until about ten o'clock, perhaps, and even to the middle of the day the place is still busy. It is a huge place with a great glass roof, and there are rows of stalls with narrow passages like streets between them, and everywhere are great masses of raw meat. It is a city of meat; you walk down lanes of meat—meat everywhere. All the butchers in London come here to choose what ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... highest part where the water did not reach, some one had lit a fire with bits of ling and dry peat. It was still warm—at least, the ashes were, and somebody had been busy cooking trout there, grilling them, thriddled on a stick of hazel; and very curious it was too, for somehow or other, the water, instead of running down, had been running up backwards like, and carried with it that there fishing-basket of yours, ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... loved before; I know This longing that invades my days, This shape that haunts life's busy ways I know ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... burden of her mind,—the thickening intimacy between her family and the Gurleys; but, though she was silent on the subject, yet her heart was not any the less sad, nor her thoughts any the less busy. She had been made aware that a reconciliation had taken place between her husband and Gaut Gurley; and she had seen how artfully the latter had brought it about, and regained his old fatal influence over the former. She believed she fully understood the motives which actuated Gaut in ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... have been first invented by Prince Rupert, about the year 1649: going out early one morning, during his retirement at Brussels, he observed the sentinel, at some distance from his post, very busy doing something to his piece. The prince asked the soldier what he was about? He replied, the dew had fallen in the night, had made his fusil rusty, and that he was scraping and cleaning it. The prince, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 10, No. 283, 17 Nov 1827 • Various
... night when we'd been working late at the shop, till eleven, as we did very often in busy times without getting any overtime pay though they turned us off as they pleased when work got slack, I saw a girl coming that I thought I'd ask. She was painted up and powdered and had flaring clothes but she looked ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... Maisie was now busy with her breakfast, and her companion attacked his own; so that it was all, in form at least, even more than their old sociability. "Everything she could think of. She was as nice to her as you are," the child said. "She talked ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... were thoroughly toasted, the Badger summoned them to the table, where he had been busy laying a repast. They had felt pretty hungry before, but when they actually saw at last the supper that was spread for them, really it seemed only a question of what they should attack first where ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... end of his address... "Most of you," he said, "most of you who have returned here today, to take contact with this little place for a brief hour, have come only on a pious pilgrimage, and will go back presently to busy cities and lives full of larger duties. But that is not the only way of coming back to North Dormer. Some of us, who went out from here in our youth... went out, like you, to busy cities and larger duties... have come back in another way—come ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... degradation of "the East-end,"—that "London without London," as some one called it the other day. Few regions are more unknown than the Tower Hamlets. Not even Mrs. Riddell has ventured as yet to cross the border which parts the City from their weltering mass of busy life, their million of hard workers packed together in endless rows of monotonous streets, broken only by shipyard or factory or huge breweries, streets that stretch away eastward from Aldgate to the Essex marshes. And yet, ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... I have been as busy as a bee all day; wrote notes, prepared for leaving home, read Schleiermacher, and Philip von Artevelde, which delighted me; walked after tea with Lizzy, then examined my papers to see what is to be burned. I wish I knew what I was made for—I mean, in particular—what ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... wait till to-morrow," he said after a moment, "I could promise you the pony. Unfortunately he is busy this afternoon." ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... had just come into the room with his tea, and the tumbler of Dr. Dale's tonic stood untouched upon the night-table. The bishop sat up in bed. He had missed his opportunity. To-day was a busy day, he knew. ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... got much to do this mornin'," he said. "Fact is, I generally do have more time on my hands than anything else this season of the year. Later on, when I put out my fish weirs, I'm pretty busy, but now I'm a sort of 'longshore loafer. You're figurin' to go to Trumet after you've seen Miss Emily leave the dock, you said, didn't you? Well, I've got an errand of my own in Trumet that might as well be done now as any time. ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... peace and unity of the church was invaded by these spiritual wars; and so deeply did they affect the decline and fall of the empire, that the historian has too often been compelled to attend the synods, to explore the creeds, and to enumerate the sects, of this busy period of ecclesiastical annals. From the beginning of the eighth century to the last ages of the Byzantine empire, the sound of controversy was seldom heard: curiosity was exhausted, zeal was fatigued, and, in the decrees of six councils, the articles of the Catholic faith ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... tale of his adventures, a good part of which will be found in the following chapter. I ought to say, rather, that Billy and I conversed, while Marc'antonio—for we spoke in English—sat by the fire busy with his own thoughts; and, by his face, they ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... the turnpike-keeper had managed to find his way to the court-house of the army-corps. He had been wandering through street after street; the busy traffic of the capital had made his head spin, and he was tired to death with this unwonted tramping over hard ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... social phenomena of that country is the absolute subserviency which the political spirit of unbridled democracy yields to its decrees. The bees of the Barberini carved upon its architectural ornaments are no inapt symbol of the spirit and method of working of this busy theological hive, which sends its annual swarms all over the world to gather ecclesiastical honey from every flower ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... I cannot be far wrong in my statement and, in any case, the conception as stated, whether accurately Marxian or not, is the conception of all who give vitality to Socialism in this country. Hence, I do not take the time to verify my recollection. I am a busy man and it is no light thing to tackle Capital with intent to extract its precise meaning. Multitudes who have tried it have failed. Perhaps I was one of them. Of course Marx recognized the value of Labor other than manual, but his appeal ...
— The Inhumanity of Socialism • Edward F. Adams
... with the menu in front of him, was busy with the waiter and a maitre d'hotel. I dropped my ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to go. Then, "By Jove!" said he, grimly, "I've been so busy making an ass of myself I'd forgotten all about more—more ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... market-place there was a narrow street of flagged stone, which was busy during the early part of the day but deserted after sundown. Along this street, at about seven o'clock, John was strolling with a cigarette, when he was aware of a man crouching, with his back toward him. So absorbed was the ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... sounding, while the sheriff's nod, Prepare the switcher to dead book the whack, While in a rattle sit two blowens flash, [13] Salt tears fast streaming from each bungy eye; To nail the ticker, or to mill the cly [14] Through thick and thin their busy muzzlers splash, The mots lament for Tyburn's merry roam, That bubbl'd prigs must at the New Drop fall, [15] And from the start the scamps are cropp'd at home; All in the sheriff's picture frame the call [16] Exalted ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... Thomas had none. It took, however, all the grace out of his declining, that Mr. Finch remarked in gruff pleasantry, "What would a boy want with tea!" The supper was a very solemn meal. They were all too busy to talk, at least so Hughie felt, and as for himself, he was only afraid lest the others should "push back" before he had satisfied the terrible ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... distance off, I saw both jays and cardinals fluttering among the branches, evidently busy with something on the ground beneath them. At the same time I heard strange noises, far louder than the voices of the birds, but could not tell what was causing them. My spirits sank, for I knew they could not be produced either by ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... into the world, journeying with more prudence and discretion, through cultivated fields; and no longer headstrong in its course, but yielding to circumstances, it winds round what would trouble it to overcome and remove. It passes through populous cities, and all the busy haunts of man, tendering its services on every side, and becoming the support and ornament of the country. Now increased by numerous alliances, and advanced in its course, it loves peace and quiet, and in majestic silence rolls on its mighty waters, until it is laid ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... view, its bright aspect of industrial life, its busy streets, spacious warehouses, fine shops, and thronging commerce, challenge our love of the good and beautiful in civilized life. Indeed, this handsome and prosperous city is one of the most pleasant and interesting places which attract the traveller's attention along the ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill
... afternoon, his mother not being very well and having gone to lie down, his father being out, as he so often was, upon Scramble the old horse, and Tibby, their only servant, being busy with the ironing, Willie ran off to Widow Wilson's, and was soon curled up in the chair, like a little Hindoo idol that had grown weary of sitting upright, and had tumbled itself ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald
... connoisseurs in gems, and collectors of pearls; and whilst the contented and apathetic Singhalese in the villages and forests of the interior passed their lives in the cultivation of their rice-lands, and sought no other excitement than the pomp and ceremonial of their temples; the busy and ambitious Mahometans on the coast built their warehouses at the ports, crowded the harbours with their shipping, and collected the wealth and luxuries of the island, its precious stones, its dye-woods, its ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... the light is streaming, Hail, the gladsome morn! Earth with busy life is teeming, ...
— Hymns from the Morningland - Being Translations, Centos and Suggestions from the Service - Books of the Holy Eastern Church • Various
... a busy time for me. Henri Marais's money had to be got out of the strong box and arranged in a belt of buck's hide that I had strapped about me. A letter had to be written by my father to the manager of the Port Elizabeth bank, identifying me as the owner of the sum lodged there in my name. A meal must ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... darkened with the thought of sickness, but remains with us just as he was in health and vigor. We still think of the quick step with which he came into the office, the hearty cheer with which he greeted us, the pleasant face that shone not only at the door, but through the whole day. He was a busy worker, as has been said, but ever and always the same bright face, the same cheerful heart, the same warm love, the same readiness to help bear everybody's load, went through the long day. If you have ever spent ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 42, No. 12, December, 1888 • Various
... 'is this strange mixture of wires and wings? Can my father's astrologer have really done it at last after all these fruitless years? He must indeed have been busy since I rode forth to battle. Eftsoons, do I dream or wake?' He touched the strange thing cautiously, but it did not bite, and gradually there came upon him an exceeding desire to fly. 'By my halidom,' he cried, 'I will e'en ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... questioned all those he met in the castle; but they were all busy, and he received no answer. During the night they had made a new capture, and they were now employed in dividing the spoils. All he could obtain in this hurry and confusion was an opportunity of departing, which he immediately embraced, ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... busy now; make yourself comfortable until we pull out, and then I'll post you up as ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... aimed at his hand. I hope it has not done any serious damage, except there." The latter was too busy to answer. "Bring the tourniquet," he said to Rankin, and as he ran off he looked up at ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... stretches its roots to the Pharsalic field. She was mumbling charms of the Magi and the magical Gods. For she feared that the war might yet be transferred to other than the Emathian fields. The sorceress was busy therefore enchanting the soil of Philippi, and scattering on its surface the juice of potent herbs, that it might be heaped with carcasses of the dead, and saturated with their blood, that Macedon, and not Italy, might receive the bodies of departed kings ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... "I have been busy these three days in making preparations for our journey, and I feel rather uneasy when I think that I can receive no letters from you till I return to England; but you may depend on this, that I will avail myself of every opportunity of writing to you, though from the very nature of the undertaking ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... There he stood, busy at his anvil, goodly to look upon in his bare-armed might, and with the sun shining in his yellow hair, a veritable son of Anak. He might have been some hero, or demigod come back from that dim age when angels wooed the daughters of men, rather than a village ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... that Arthurian world was far too etherial and too delicately immoral; and to this circumstance is due the fact that the humiliated Carolingian tales eventually received an artistic embodiment which was not given to the Arthurian stories. While troubadours and minnesingers were busy with the court of Arthur, and grave Latinists like Rusticiano of Pisa wrote of Launcelot and Guenevere; the Carolingian epics seem to have been mainly sung about by illiterate jongleurs, and to have busied the pens of prose hackwriters for the benefit of townsfolk. ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... very glad that you can give us such a pleasant account of these parishioners of yours, dear Mr. Ingram," responded Mrs. Bertram. "The fact is, I am in a difficult position here. No, the girls won't overhear us; they are busy at their embroidery in that distant corner. Well, perhaps, to make sure. Kate," Mrs. Bertram raised her voice, "I know the Rector is going to give us the pleasure of his company to tea. Mr. Ingram, I shall not allow you to say ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... were still busy landing wood; whenever they got hold of a specially large piece they shouted 'Hurrah!' Suddenly some big logs came floating down, and this raised their enthusiasm to such a pitch that they started singing the 'Wacht am Rhein'. For the first time in his life ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... prepared, and the impatient Edith only waited for a companion from among her own countrymen, who were all so much occupied at that busy season as to feel little disposed to undertake so long a journey. But she found one at length who was sufficiently interested in her happiness, and that of her husband, to leave his home and his occupations, and offer to be her protector. This was the excellent Edward Winslow, who had been her father's ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... rusty or out of shape to him; for in that establishment a heavy fine or else dismissal would be the lot of any girl who failed to look well- dressed. Constance, for the most part sitting solitary at home, trying in vain to write something that would meet the views of some editor. Merton, busy running about, full to overflowing of all the things he intended doing. Eden, doing nothing: only thinking, which, in his case at all events, was "but an idle waste of thought." So inactive was he at this period, and so much tobacco did he ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... night of dark despair shadows only phantoms. The spirits that guard round us in our pride have gone. Fancy, weeping, flies. Imagination droops her glittering pinions and sinks into the earth. Courage has no heart, and love seems a traitor. A busy demon whispers in our ear that all is vain and worthless, and we among the vainest ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... there was only one other man ever asked me to marry him—I mean, not counting Logan, if you do count him. Oh, yes, and then there was another one yet, with a guitar. He always said he proposed to me. He wrote me a letter all mixed up, about everything in the world; and I was awfully busy just then, selling tickets for a church fair of Cousin Anna's. I never was any good selling tickets anyhow," explained Marjorie, settling herself more nestlingly in her corner of the window-seat; "and so when he said somewhere in the letter ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... very busy to-day?" asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, who, with the old rabbit gentleman, was on a visit to the Bushytail family of squirrels ...
— Uncle Wiggily and Old Mother Hubbard - Adventures of the Rabbit Gentleman with the Mother Goose Characters • Howard R. Garis
... in finishing this letter yesterday. We were very busy. And now to-day it is still dark. From my dug-out, where I have just arrived in the front line, I send you my great love; I am very happy. I feel that the work I am to do in future is taking shape in myself. What does it matter if ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... another ship. But they didn't see ships as often as they had at first, and it was good weather and the wind was fair, so that there wasn't anything much for the sailors to do. The mates kept them as busy as they could, washing down the deck and coiling ropes, and doing a lot of other things that didn't need to be done, for the Industry had just been fixed up and painted and made as clean as she could be made. And that was pretty clean. So the sailors didn't ...
— The Sandman: His Sea Stories • William J. Hopkins
... those buildings with which you are busy in Paris, opposite the Ladies of Belle-Chasse? I hear of a convent; is it your intention ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... him well. On July 14, 1790, the King swore, before half a million spectators, to maintain the new constitution. In that summer he was plotting to escape to Metz and join the army which had been collected there under the Marquis de Bouille, while Bouille himself, after the rising at Nancy, was busy in improving discipline by breaking on the wheel a selection of the soldiers of the Swiss regiment of Chateauvieux which had refused to march against Paris on the 14th of July, 1789. In October, 1790, Louis wrote to the King of Spain and other sovereigns ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams
... a busy time of it. The main army was stationed in the neighbourhood of Lille, and frequent communications passed ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... were, so to speak, "turned loose" and all entered upon a race for the goal. Each one did as much as he could, his attainments being subjected to the test of examination. The plan worked excellently; no one was retarded, and all were intensely busy. ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy
... bluffs. But Field was the busiest man at the post. Other youngsters, troop or company subalterns, had far more time at their disposal, and begged for rides and dances, strolls and sports which the post adjutant was generally far too busy to claim. It was Esther who brought lawn tennis to Frayne and found eager pupils of both sexes, but Field had been the first to meet and welcome her; had been for a brief time at the start her most constant cavalier. ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... they had devoted an appreciable part of their busy hours to modifying Aunt Julia's antique prejudices, developing in her the latent aesthetic sense that their Wednesday art class taught them existed in every one, cajoling her into a tolerance of certain phases ...
— Julia The Apostate • Josephine Daskam
... he will be glad to, if he is not very busy, and he is seldom too busy to talk of birds. He is writing a book now of all the things he knows about them. Knock on ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... seem to have run agin each other since you've been here," he said with an assurance that was nevertheless a trifle forced "but I reckon we're both busy men, and there's a heap too much loafing goin' on in Gilead. Captain Jim told me he met you the day you arrived; said you just cottoned to the 'Guardian' at once and thought it a deal too good for Gilead; eh? Oh, well, jest ez likely he DIDN'T say it—it was only ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... little money of her own, but she never used the income. Instead, she put it in the bank and lived on her allowance. She was not John M. Hurd's daughter for nothing. Her mother, a stiff, lean, gray woman with a tremendous capacity for being both busy and uncomfortable and making every one around her share the latter feeling, had little or nothing to do with Isabel or her friends. She was the typical Puritan, the salt of a somewhat dour earth, and how Isabel ever came into her household would be difficult to say. The mother had much undemonstrative ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... couldn't help coming across to meet 'ee. What an unfortunate thing you missing the boat and not coming Saturday! They meant to have warned 'ee that the time was changed, but forgot it at the last moment. The truth is that I should have informed 'ee myself; but I was that busy finishing up a job last week, so as to have this week free, that I trusted to your father for attending to these little things. However, so plain and quiet as it is all to be, it really do not matter so much as it might otherwise have done, ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... trip that our losses were so grievous. They drove their waggons up in our yard and loaded them with the last of our meat, all of our sugar, coffee, molasses, flour, meal, and potatoes. I went to a Lieut.-Colonel who seemed very busy giving orders, and asked him what he expected me to do; they had left me no provisions at all, and I had a large family, and my husband was away from home. His reply was short and pointed—'Starve, and be d——d, madam.' They then proceeded to the carriage-house, took a fine new buggy ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... island in the St. Lawrence near the mouth of the Richelien. On the nineteenth of June it was swarming with busy and clamorous savages, Champlain's Montagnais allies, cutting down the trees and clearing the ground for a dance and a feast; for they were hourly expecting the Algonquin warriors, and were eager to welcome them with befitting honors. But suddenly, far ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... apartment with regret. The night was so fine that I would gladly have rambled about much longer, yet, recollecting that I must rise very early, I reluctantly went to bed; but my senses had been so awake, and my imagination still continued so busy, that I sought for rest in vain. Rising before six, I scented the sweet morning air; I had long before heard the birds twittering to hail the dawning day, though it could scarcely have been allowed ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... of the Company of One Hundred Associates; while here, too, was Father Vimont, superior of the missions. On the following day they glided along the green and solitary shores, now thronged with the life of a busy city, and landed on the spot which Champlain, thirty-one years before, had chosen as the fit site of a settlement. It was a tongue or triangle of land, formed by the junction of a rivulet with the St. Lawrence. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... not less important town of Wouchang, on the opposite or southern bank of the river, was then attacked, and after a siege of a fortnight carried by storm. The third town of Hanyang, which completes the busy human hive where the Han joins the great river, did ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... went to visit this palace, while my eyes were busy searching for the visitors' door, I saw a lady with a noble and benevolent face come out and get into her carriage. I took her for some English traveller who had brought her visit to a close. As the carriage passed near me, I raised my hat; ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... the street leisurely, idly pausing now and then before the shop-windows. Apparently he had neither object nor destination; yet his mind was busy, so busy in fact that he looked at the various curios without truly seeing them at all. A delicate situation, which needed the lightest handling, confronted him. He must wait for an overt act, then he ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... but it was buying the Prince which did the trick. On the strength of that episode and its consequences, she went to Europe with very nice introductions, and as you know, deah, she has made some valuable as well as pleasant friends. To live up to them and her reputation, she will have to be busy for a while dropping a lot ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... the French life seen with such sweet English eyes; the sweet little descriptions all so gently evocative. "What a tranquil little kitchen it was, with a glimpse of the courtyard outside, and the cocks and hens, and the poplar trees waving in the sunshine, and the old woman sitting in her white cap busy at her homely work." Into many wearisome pages these simple lines have since been expanded, without affecting the beauty of the original. "Will Dampier turned his broad back and looked out of the window. There was a moment's silence. They ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... before the coronation the Emperor commanded of the artist Isabey seven drawings representing the seven principal ceremonies to take place at Notre Dame, which, however, could not be rehearsed in the Cathedral on account of the number of workmen busy day and night in decorating it. To ask at once for seven drawings each containing more than a hundred persons in action, was asking for the impossible. Isabey skilfully eluded the difficulty. He bought at the toy shops all the little dolls ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... The busy years hastened away; the traces of Time's unimaginable touch grew manifest; and old age, approaching, laid a gentle hold upon Victoria. The grey hair whitened; the mature features mellowed; the short firm figure amplified and moved more slowly, supported by a stick. And, simultaneously, ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... Dauney's) I have been engaged at since I arrived. I have had nothing whatever to interfere with my studies for this last fortnight. Tell James and Mary I can now have time to read their letters. On Saturday Mr G.B. called on me, asking me to attend a prayer-meeting, and finding I was busy, told me if I saw things in as clear a light as he did, I would see the vanity of attending to these earthly things. I trust, without irreligion, one may say he is mistaken. I write from Mr Constable's, which is near the Post-office. My dinner-hour is long past, and the post is just going, ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... busy for the next ten minutes, arranging the table, and quite in his element; cooing as he proceeded, and giving little muttered reasons to himself, in his soft contralto voice, for everything he did. That voice of his was wonderfully flexible; he could make it harsh, grating, gruffly mannish, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... supply of feathers, all numbered, for it would not do to supply a missing third feather with a fourth; and the splice was a needle inserted into the ends of the feathers and bound fast with fine thread. The bird's beauty had not escaped Owen's notice, but he had been so busy with the peregrines all the morning that he had not had time to ask why this bird wore no hood, and why it had not been flown. Now he learnt that the gosshawk is a short-winged hawk, which does not go up in the air, and get at pitch, ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... taken away by design. In such cases there should be none of the usual forms of indulgence. A little bread—the crust is best—is the most proper indulgence. If, however, the appetite is raging, as in a convalescent state it sometimes is, puddings and even gruel may be proper, because they busy the stomach without giving it any ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... did come this way," said Rufe, "he was shrewd, after all. He knew that by passing through a busy place like the Mills, he would hide his tracks as he couldn't in ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... the third office of my royal treasury—namely, the office of factor, which I ordered to be suppressed—they petition for a ship-purveyor, in order that the vessels may leave better equipped and more promptly; for the other two officials are so busy that they cannot attend to it. As it would be advisable to place this in charge of the factor whom I am having appointed, you shall have care to see that he attends to it, as far as may be necessary, so that there may be no grievance or ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair
... both sexes—of obscene pictures, especially of whole series of photographs, of poems and prose works of similar stripe, aimed at sexual incitation, and that call for the action of police and District Attorneys. But these gentlemen are too busy with the "civilization, marriage and family-destroying" Socialist movement to be able to devote full attention to such machinations. A part of our works of fiction labors in the same direction. The ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... beard, and made a cut at his throat, and the rest gave him several wounds; but being strong and active, he escaped from their hands, calling loudly to his people for assistance, but they were all too busy at their suppers to hear him. He then fled and concealed himself among some bushes, calling out for assistance, and many of his people turned out for that purpose; but Las Casas called upon them to rally on ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... Faith will conquer Fear; Order will conquer Disorder; Health will conquer Sickness; Joy will conquer Sorrow; Pleasure will conquer Pain; Life will conquer Death; Right will conquer Wrong. All will be well at last. Keep your soul and body pure, humble, busy, pious—in one word, be good: and ere you die, or after you die, you may have some glimpse of Me, the Everlasting Why: and hear with the ears, not of your body but of your spirit, men and all rational beings, plants and animals, ay, the very stones ...
— Madam How and Lady Why - or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children • Charles Kingsley
... without reply, and again the leaves of Winthrop's book said softly now and then that Winthrop's head was busy ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... the cabin, the door closed. He called, and she did not answer. He could hear her within, rummaging about, evidently very busy with something or other; had it not been for the little snatch of song which came out to him he could have thought that she was in the grip of a frenzy no less than that riding him. He rapped on the ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... Philadelphia, at Marcus Hook, on the busy Delaware river where the ships of the world are being made, the Benzol Products Company turns out large quantities of aniline oil. The aniline oil, the essential basis of aniline dyes, is made into tints as fair ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... delicious to the eyes after the long walk over the glaring ice—the jovial Professor, with a sandwich in one hand and a flask of vin ordinaire in the other, descanted on the world of ice. He had a willing audience, for they were all too busy with food to use their tongues in speech, except in making an occasional ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... What's-his-name's, and I thought I'd jine in the festivities for a spell. Who should I see but she that was Sarah Watkins, now the wife of our Congresser, trippin in the dance, dressed up to kill in her store close. Sarah's father use to keep a little grosery store in our town and she used to clerk it for him in busy times. I was rushin up to shake hands with her when she turned on her heel, and tossin her hed in a contemptooious manner, walked away from me very rapid. "Hallo, Sal," I hollered, "can't you measure me a quart ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... as its name implies, is not only especially appropriate for Thanksgiving Day, but has the further merit of not requiring a great deal of preparation beforehand, and is therefore not too great a tax upon a busy woman's time. Before this greatest feast day of the year, the hostess is usually so fully occupied in planning the actual bill of fare, that a game which requires nothing more than pencils, and sheets of paper with the following riddles either ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... either in the way of music or color. There was, indeed, a frugal and housewifely Muse, that brewed a cup, neither cheering unduly nor inebriating, out of the emptyings of Wordsworth's teapot. How that little busy B. improved each shining hour, how neatly he laid his wax, it gives us a cold shiver to think of—ancora ci raccappriccia! Against a copy of verses signed "B.B.," as we remember them in the hardy Annuals that went to seed so many years ago, we ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... curiosity was aroused. He took up a chair and hammered its back on the floor so that the dust fell off the seat, sat down astride it, and, bending forward a little, proceeded to observe the artist with very keen eyes. Hilary Vance, who was very busy, fell to work again, and after his manner, grew grandiloquent about the pleasures of the day before, which he had spent in ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... last turn in the road their leader suddenly halted, and, kneeling on one knee, waved to his men to keep quiet: he had seen several dark figures busy ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... monticola) were busy preparing a nursery for their prospective offspring in one of the many holes presented by the building in question. This had once been a respectable bungalow, surrounded by a broad verandah. But the day came when it fell into the hands of a boarding-house ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... going on, the world outside was not altogether indifferent to affairs in Dalton Hall. In the village and in the immediate neighborhood rumor had been busy, and at length the vague statements of the public voice began ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... woman's life is a busy one, the never finished grinding of corn by the use of the primitive metate and mano taking much time, and the universal woman's task of bearing and rearing children and providing meals and home comforts accounting ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett
... him busy, if he lets you," came from Dave, as he kicked the snow from his feet and came into the cabin. He threw his game on a bench and hung up his bag, musket, outer coat, and his hat. "Something smells good ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... sacred, resigned sorrow that lay upon it like a deep shadow. His page served him with breakfast in his private room: but he left the light meal untasted. One of the women brought me coffee; but the very thought of eating and drinking seemed repulsive, and I could not touch anything. My mind was busy with the consideration of the duty I had to perform—namely, to see the destruction of Zara's colossal statue, as she had requested. After thinking about it for some time, I went to Heliobas and told him what I had it in charge ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... well his place, 'tis Leicester's busy Square; And he's as happy in his night, for the heavens are blue and fair; Calm, though impatient is the Crowd; Each is ready with the fee, And envies him that's looking—what an insight must ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... let himself pine for liberty. He was busy with plans for reconstructing his life. What he would have had it, it could not be. You try to build a house, and it is shaken down about your ears by an earthquake. Your material is, much of it, broken. You can never make ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... her a little, the more so that she had an uneasy conviction that she had punished the lesser offender. She looked at the proud little figure in the torn coat, and her mild heart went out to him. She glanced round; there were not many scholars in the room. Elmira sat in her place, busy with her slate; a few of the older ones were in a knot near the window at the back of the room. The teacher slipped her hand into her pocket and drew out a lemon-drop, which she thrust softly into ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... some time after luncheon that day that Bertram heard a knock at his studio door. Bertram was busy. His particular pet "Face of a Girl" was to be submitted soon to the judges of a forthcoming Art Exhibition, and it was not yet finished. He was trying to make up now for the many hours lost during the ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... had in his hands. He did all that was possible for him to do, but that unfortunately was very little. His recommendation of remedial measures was rarely attended with the desired results. Death was very busy. The people died in scores, and the survivors, excited by the vindictive men who had formerly sought his death for disparaging their gods began not only to fall off rapidly in their regard and reverence for my husband; but murmurs first, ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... stirring, if it be not stopped. But if it be stopped, and cannot have his way, it becometh adust, and thereby malign and venomous. So ambitious men, if they find the way open for their rising, and still get forward, they are rather busy than dangerous; but if they be checked in their desires, they become secretly discontent, and look upon men and matters with an evil eye, and are best pleased, when things go backward; which is the worst property in a servant of a prince, or state. Therefore it is good for princes, if ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... half up the chestnut, perch Stiff-silvered fairies; busy rooks Caw front the elm; and, rung to church, Mute ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... a large establishment of its kind, and upon every hand there were indications that that relentless master, Poverty, had been very busy about his work in the homes of the unfortunate, compelling his victims to sacrifice their dearest possessions ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... carriage, had himself vaulted the barrier, on the side whence it had seemed to come, and reported that he had found no trace of any one. Pieces of the shell had been collected upon the spot, they had not flown very far, nor were they much broken; and experts of the detective department had been busy putting together ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... corps, busy to a man with Saturday morning recitations, did not see the arrival of the visiting team. But the Lehighs and the afternoon's game were the only topics for talk at dinner in the ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... a busy, practical person. Her voice had not much softness of timbre, and perhaps on that account she ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... commendations and encouragements to perseverence, mingled with admonitions. The latter have special reference to certain idle and disorderly members of the church, whom the apostle describes as "some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busy bodies" (chap. 3:11), and who also set themselves in opposition to his apostolic authority (verse 14). These disorderly persons seem to have been the same as those who were engaged in propagating erroneous ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... bishop was frittering the morning away by a desultory attention to his correspondence, hoping each moment that Felicity would pass the open door of his study. He was no longer a busy man, for the onerous duties of his office were now taken by his coadjutor, and he could well afford to wait. He did not know what he wished to say to her, but he would see her face again and observe her manner, that he might examine anew his grounds of suspicion. ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... kinds were kept constantly busy. Women called up their friends, and talked hysterically; men called up their associates and partners, ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... villages and towns all over Italy. The night was broken by the sound of marching feet, for troop movements were usually made at night. The soldiers were going north by the trainload. Each day one saw more of them in the streets, coming and going. Yet Baron Macchio and Prince von Buelow were as busy as ever at the Consulta on the Quirinal Hill, and rumor said that at last they ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... frequently made from the Glendevon and other pulpits that the minister and session would be glad to receive information against suspected witches, and when the common pricker who pricked poor witches "with lang preins of thrie inches" to discover the marks of Satan, was specially busy in the vale of Devon, where in a record year no less than sixteen of the local "covin" were burned. In the Roll of Fugitives from kirk discipline drawn up by the Synod of Perth and Stirling in 1649, Glendevon was represented ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... movements and doings, of the company which he keeps, and watch over his connections with women. M. le Chevalier says that an opera dancer often costs less than a court lady. Obtain information on that point and let me know. If you are too busy, perhaps Mme. Sorbier might know what becomes of the young man, and where he goes. The idea of playing the part of guardian angel to such a noble and charming boy might have attractions for her. God will remember her for ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... procession, headed by Baddeley, of tea-board, urn, and cake-bearers, made its appearance, and delivered her from a grievous imprisonment of body and mind. Mr. Crawford was obliged to move. She was at liberty, she was busy, she was protected. ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... 'Jenny-'ave-another-cup-o' tea' style, an' the crew was strictly ordered not to rupture 'emselves with unnecessary exertion. This isn't our custom in the Navy when we're in puris naturalibus, as you might say. But we wasn't so then. We was impromptu. An' Antonio was busy fetchin' splits for the old man, and the old man was wastin' 'em down the ventilators. There must 'ave been four inches in the bilges, I should think—wardroom ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... because, so it has seemed to me as a doctor of medicine, the more obvious personal benefit thereby conferred renders the recipients more impressionable to the views considered desirable to promulgate. Yet only to-day, as I came home from our busy operating-room, I felt how little real gain the additional time on earth often is either to the world outside or even to the poor sufferers themselves. In order to have one's early teachings on these matters profoundly shaken, one has only to ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... had more, or at the worst, who had much reverence for Latin, and more reverence for Greek. If they did not all share in the services of the temple, all, at least, shared in the superstition. But, now-a-days, the readers come chiefly from a class of busy people who care very little for ancestral crazes. Latin they have heard of, and some of them know it as a good sort of industrious language, that even, in modern times, has turned out many useful books, astronomical, medical, ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... pair of newly-mated moose-birds fluttered and scolded at them. A big jay sat pluming himself in the sunshine. Farther in they heard the crack of a stick broken under a heavy hoof. From the ridge behind them they caught the raw scent of a mother bear, busy pulling down the tender poplar buds for her six-weeks-old cubs, born while she was still ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... not be denied that the Terrace was rather far down town. Around it the busy city was closing in, with its blocks of commonplace houses, its schools and sanitariums, its noisy car lines, until it seemed but a question of a few years when it would be engulfed in a wave of mediocrity. ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... in sculpture. But, on the other hand, the air is full of drama, presaging an event for which Donatello thought a placid sky unsuitable. There are seven angels in all; the lowest, upon whose head the Virgin rests her foot, is half Blake and half Michael Angelo. But there are many other busy little cherubs swimming, climbing, and flying amidst the interstices of cloudland. The Virgin herself, draped in easy-flowing material, has folded her hands, and awaits her entry to Paradise. Her face is the picture ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... conscious that in some degree he had been cowed, and was ever fighting against the feeling. His tenderness to his wife was perhaps increased, because he knew that she still suffered from the letter; but he was almost ashamed of his own tenderness, as being a sign of weakness. He made himself very busy in these days,—busy among his brother magistrates, busy among his farming operations, busy with his tenants, busy among his books, so as to show to those around him that he was one who could perform all the duties of ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... district; while West Lexington Street, a short distance to the N., and North Howard and North Eutaw Streets, between Fayette and Franklin Streets, have numerous department and other retail stores. In North Gay Street also, which runs N.E. through East Baltimore, there are many small but busy retail shops. North Charles Street, running through the district in which the more wealthy citizens live, is itself lined with many of the most substantial and imposing residences in the city. Mount Vernon Place and Washington Place, intersecting near the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... busy social season she was liable to melancholia. She sat by the window in a charming negligee, paler than a camellia, hardly turning her head when, at twilight, her child was led in ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... a-going across the ocean for a long, long time away from here. Doc ast me about it this morning and I told him all right and you could come with us, if you was good. He said couldn't I go without you if you was busy and couldn't come and I told him you would put things down and come if I said so. Won't you, Molly? It won't be no fun without you and you'd cry all by yourself with me gone." His little face was all drawn up with anxiety and sympathy at my lonely estate with him out of it and ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Meanwhile the busy and all-directing Dr. Rochecliffe had contrived to intimate to Alice that she must give him a private audience, and she found him by appointment in what was called the study, once filled with ancient books, which, long since converted into ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... He, supposing that she wished to be let out, opened the door; but instead of running forward, she turned round and looked earnestly at him, as though she had something to communicate. Being very busy, he shut the door upon her, and resumed his writing. In less than an hour, the door having been opened again, he felt her rubbing against his feet; when, on looking down, he saw that she had placed close to them the dead body of her kitten, which had been ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... seemed that the whole town was in a ferment. In every house, men were busy polishing shields, sharpening swords, and washing armour, and scarce could they find time to answer questions put to them; so at the last, finding nowhere in the town to rest, Geraint rode in the direction ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... great deal of hard work is done by agents who are not acknowledged. In a piece of machinery, too, I believe there is often a small unnoticeable wheel which has a great deal to do with the motion of the large obvious ones. Possibly there was some such unrecognized agent secretly busy in Arthur's mind at this moment—possibly it was the fear lest he might hereafter find the fact of having made a confession to the rector a serious annoyance, in case he should NOT be able quite to carry out his good resolutions? I dare not assert that it was not so. The human ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... of us assembled together again, he entered, silent and grim as a ghost, and would have quietly slipped into his usual seat at my elbow, but we all rose to welcome him, and several voices were raised to ask what he would have, and several hands were busy with bottle and glass to serve him; but I knew a smoking tumbler of brandy-and-water would comfort him best, and had nearly prepared it, when he peevishly pushed it ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... one of the eastern outlying peaks of the Alban Mountains, and, like so many Italian mountains, has its road climbing to and fro in long loops to a gray little city at the top. This city of Monte Compatri is a full and busy hive, with solid blocks of houses, and the narrowest of streets that break now and then into stairs. For those old builders respected the features of a landscape as though they had been the features of a face, and ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... a sprig of Grand Duke jasmine in the button-hole of his coat,—shook hands with him for the day, and though she smiled in recognition of his final bow as he drove down the avenue, her thoughts were busy with the dreaded separation that awaited her on the morrow and, while her lips were mute, the cry ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... was caring for none of these things. Her hands were busy with the swaddling clothes. Her thoughts only for that wicker cradle which swung betwixt the pillars, where Hermippus's house ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... my word, Lilly may feel that she is doing this thing in more or less of a spirit of sacrifice to our pleasure, but inside of a week she'll be as busy and happy a ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... inveterately leg-weary set of frames in hopeless competition with the judiciously lazy man's string of daisies. The contrast is sickening. Moreover, the same rule holds fairly well throughout the whole region of industry. But the Scotch-navigator can't see it. He is too furiously busy for eighteen hours out of the twenty-four to notice that, even in the most literal sense, loafing has a more intimate connection with bread-winning than working can possibly have. Such a man finds himself born unto trouble, as the sparks fly in all directions; ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... skill is not confined to the fabrication of arms; for they are heard sedulously hammering in linns, precipices, and rocky or cavernous situations where, like the dwarfs of the mines, mentioned by Georg. Agricola, they busy themselves in imitating the actions and the various employments of men. The brook of Beaumont, for example, which passes, in its course, by numerous linns and caverns, is notorious for being haunted ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... honoured by their invitation and in other circumstances I should have been delighted to come forward as their Candidate. The Parliamentary history of Chesterminster constitutes one of the most romantic chapters in the chronicles of England; but just now I am busy writing verses for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 1st, 1920 • Various
... solemn verse, or ode sublime, Her noble precepts. The broad city's gates Poured forth a mingled throng—impatient steeds Champing their bits, and neighing for the course: Merchants slow driving to the busy port Their ponderous wains: Religion's holy priests Leading her red-robed votaries to the steps Of some vast temple: young and old, with hands Crossed on their breasts, hastening to walks and shades Suburban, where some moralist explained The laws of mind and ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... The men were so busy he didn't like to interrupt them. Besides he didn't feel so well acquainted with them as he did with Tom and Jim. A good many times he had jumped on the drag, and the oxen had drawn him to the other part of the farm where the old stone wall ...
— Berties Home - or, the Way to be Happy • Madeline Leslie
... next week, Mr. McDonald. We have planned to go for a picnic to Brackly Point, but you can tell the girls at home to look out for them next Wednesday; you need not take the trouble to come in for them, Mr. McDonald; I know how busy you are on the farm, and Gertrude knows the road. You must not let them run wild," she laughingly said, "but keep them well in order. But I must hurry home or I shall not be in time to give cook these vegetables for dinner. You must call in and see us on your way ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... has been busy taking bearings, &c., for the purpose of improving our MS. chart, and constructing a new one. Commodore Loring wanted me to tell him all about Port Patteson, and asked me if I wished a man-of-war to be sent down this winter to see me, supposing the New Zealand troubles to be all ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... succeeded to the night, and sorrow is never long without a dawn of ease. But they who restrain themselves from receiving comfort do as the savages would have done, had they put out their eyes when it was dark.' Rasselas, ch. 35. 'Keep yourself busy,' wrote Johnson to Mrs. Thrale, 'and you will in time grow cheerful. New prospects may open, and new enjoyments may come ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... adapt republicanism to autocracy was now at hand. Though Bonaparte desired at once to attack the Austrians in Northern Italy, yet a sure instinct impelled him to remain at Paris, for, as he said to Marmont: "When the house is crumbling, is it the time to busy oneself with the garden? A change ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... completed; before I have taken root at all, they are thoroughly established. I do not yet know what kind of apples my apple-trees bear, but there, in the cavity of a decayed limb, the bluebirds are building a nest, and yonder, on that branch, the social sparrow is busy with hairs and straws. The robins have tasted the quality of my cherries, and the cedar-birds have known every red cedar on the place these many years. While my house is yet surrounded by its scaffoldings, the phoebe-bird has ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... their papers of still further inventions, of groups of English and American and German scientists who were working together in perfect friendship for the purpose of an advance in medicine or in astronomy. They lived in a busy world of trade and of commerce and factories. But only a few noticed that the development of the state, (of the gigantic community of people who recognise certain common ideals,) was lagging several hundred years behind. They tried to warn the others. But the others were occupied ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... and meanwhile have liberty to amuse ourselves pretty much as we like, but, as far as I can see, cards unfortunately seem the only recreation in which the officers indulge. However, I shall be kept busy with drill, and being junior officer expect I shall be for some time fag of the regiment. Mind you write as soon as ever you get this, and a regular yarn. I have had to write this in a hurry, and in a room where a noise is going ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... behind the western woods, and they, weary and worn, lay down to rest. Six weeks had passed since we saw them launch away in quest of this wilderness home. Look at them, and tell me what you think of the prospect. Is it far enough away from the busy haunts of men to suit you? or ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... there are bell-people—it is their voices that you hear when the bells ring. All that about its being the clapper of the bell is mere nonsense, and would hardly deceive a child. I don't know why people say such things. Most Bell-people are very energetic busy folk, who love the sound of their own voices, and hate being idle, and when nearly two hundred years had gone by, and no princesses had been born, they got tired of living in bells that were never rung. So they slipped out of the belfry one fine frosty night, and left the ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... "At the present moment—I have no agent. That is what keeps me so busy. I hope to ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... world, life must needs run smoothly. Under those high gables, behind those mullioned windows, in the beautiful old gardens lying between the stone porches and the elm-shadowed lawn, nothing, one would think, could possibly exist but leisured and pleasant existence: even the busy streets of the old city, outside the crumbling gateway, seem, for ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher
... you'd be busy," she said as she walked in, "an' I came up to lend a hand. Is them the things you're goin' to leave me to take ...
— Bessie Costrell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... busy with their own operations to watch the path, and the relieving force entered the place without firing a shot. The firing round the town continued, but Ammon Quatia, when he saw the reinforcements ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... pay," she cried. "My father is busy, and he can't mind things always. If you ask ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... and opinions of others as he was ruggedly honest and fearlessly sincere in his hatred of the dissimulation and graft practiced upon the ignorant and unsuspecting. For the rest of the day Don Jorge was busy with his maps and papers, and Jose was ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking |
