"Idle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was by no means an idle one, or a life to be envied. Many persons, misled by the magnificent pedestal that the stage gives to a woman, suppose her in the midst of a perpetual carnival. In the dark recesses of a porter's lodge, beneath the tiles of an attic ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... for private circulation among friends; it was not written to cheer and instruct a diseased relative of the author's; it was not thrown off during intervals of wearing labor to amuse an idle hour. It was not written for any of these reasons, and therefore it is submitted without ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... criminal. You ought to see the folly of attacking a man in my position. For years I have been the most prominent man in Lakeville, owner of the large shoe factory that gives employment to fifty hands. It is no idle boast—and your wife will confirm my words—that I am the most influential and ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - or, Jacob Marlowe's Secret • Horatio Alger
... administration of the Advocate, in which he was accused of having received bribes both from Spanish and French sources and to have betrayed the interests of his country. The chief instigator of these attacks was Oldenbarneveldt's personal enemy, Francis van Aerssens, whose pen was never idle. The defenders of the Remonstrant cause and of the principles of provincial sovereignty were not lacking in the vigour and virulence of their replies; and the Advocate himself felt that the accusations which were made against him demanded a formal ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... of this sickness is due to inaction—and now the Dardanelles Committee "quite understand" I am "adopting only a purely defensive action at present." I have never adopted a defensive attitude. They have forced us to sit idle and go sick because—at the very last moment—they have permitted the French offensive to take precedence of ours, although, on the face of it, there was no violent urgency in France as there is here. ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... a rich, idle fellow; De Rochemont, and we want rich, idle fellows to come and look into all this and do something for us. You must let me take you ...
— Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... minutes past nine he stopped a car some four miles from Oxford. Twenty minutes later he was robbing a lonely motorist midway between Thame and Aylesbury. Then for forty minutes he appeared to have been idle, his next two exploits taking place within five minutes of each other, just after ten, in the neighbourhood of Amersham. King's Langley was the scene of his next adventure, the time given being about a quarter of an hour before he had overtaken us. In addition to the particulars ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... after is to be happy, and I care very little what form it takes or what kind of happiness mine may be. I've ceased to be particular about the details even—if Billy Lancaster is my happiness I'll devour him and never waste an idle moment in regret. Why should ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... round to the company a set of pasteboard cards which he had had printed that day at Mr Quinnell's bearing a legend printed in fair italics: Mr Malachi Mulligan. Fertiliser and Incubator. Lambay Island. His project, as he went on to expound, was to withdraw from the round of idle pleasures such as form the chief business of sir Fopling Popinjay and sir Milksop Quidnunc in town and to devote himself to the noblest task for which our bodily organism has been framed. Well, let us hear of it, good my friend, said Mr Dixon. I make no doubt it smacks of wenching. Come, ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... said, "no one must be idle here, even for a moment; you will have riding practice enough hereafter; dismount and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... did the G.C.B. play this trick on him? It happened in this way. Having nothing better to do during Watson's absence and at a critical moment of the War, these idle elderly well-fed lawyers solemnly deliberated upon ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 11, 1919 • Various
... we find an eminent man, whose public services were so notorious that it was impossible to avoid rewarding them; but putting aside those who were in a manner forced upon the Sovereign, it would be idle to deny that the remainder and, of course, the overwhelming majority, were marked by a narrowness and illiberality of sentiment, which, more than anything else, brought the whole order into contempt. No great thinkers, ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... And this is only 42; the odd numbers are on the other side. I must cross. What a lot of rubbish on the road; and do you think I would let my girl stand out bareheaded like that, gossiping with a lot of idle young chaps?" Thus thinking and moralizing Mrs. Rowles went down the street towards the eastern ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended— That you have but slumbered here, While these visions did appear; And this weak and idle theme No more yielding but a dream; Gentles, do not reprehend; If you pardon we will mend. And, as I am honest Puck, If we have unearned luck, How to escape the serpent's tongue, We will make amends ere long; Else the Puck a liar call, So good night unto you all, Give me your ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... us first here, or they may make an effort upon the cattle at the same time that they attack here. They will not begin with the animals. They will find it a very difficult business to break down the fence, which they must do to drive them out; and while they are about it we shall not be idle, depend ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... tea trade not because of necessity, but because he considered it a bad thing for a man to lead an idle life. Nevertheless, the chief object of his existence had always seemed to be the unravelling of mysteries of police and crime. Surely few men, even those professional investigators at Scotland Yard, held such a record ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... Kenyon in this line that he won for himself the title of "The Feeder of Lions." Now, John Kenyon—rich, idle, bookish and generous—saw in the magazines certain fine little poems by one Elizabeth Barrett. He also ascertained that she had published several books. Mr. Kenyon bought one of these volumes and sent it by a messenger with a little note ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... the sitting-room; 'or talking with young ladies in shady bowers, or turning your talents to account in some way? What was a bachelor like you asked here for? Don't you mean to earn your cold chicken and champagne? Were I you, I should be ashamed to be so idle.' ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... by a thousand sleepy citizens, was sent down here to my managing editor, and I was requested to come away. Thus was my Milwaukee career ended, but it ended in a blaze that dazzled the eyes of the old-timers." He cut a scallop. "But papa was not long idle. The solid South wanted him. They knew that papa was the man to quiet a disturbance or compel a drowsy municipality to get up and rub its eyes. Well, I went to Memphis. What was the cause of the great excitement that followed?" He tapped his forehead. "Papa's nut. But ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... the household, 55 to tell me the truth, who is really and truly my father. For Leotychides spoke in his contention with me, saying that thou didst come to Ariston with child by thy former husband; and others besides, reporting that which is doubtless an idle tale, 56 say that thou didst go in to one of the servants, namely the keeper of the asses, and that I am his son. I therefore entreat thee by the gods to tell me the truth; for if thou hast done any of these things which ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... from that, whose colossal flukes were suspended overhead, while all the time, Starbuck stood up in the bows, lance in hand, pricking out of our way whatever whales he could reach by short darts, for there was no time to make long ones. Nor were the oarsmen quite idle, though their wonted duty was now altogether dispensed with. They chiefly attended to the shouting part of the business. Out of the way, Commodore! cried one, to a great dromedary that of a sudden rose bodily to the surface, and for an instant threatened to swamp us. Hard down with ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... back into the pit from whence he had been delivered he could tell a very interesting story of what he had experienced, from which it was evident that he had not been an idle observer of what had passed relative to the Peculiar Institution; especially was it very certain that he had never seen anything lovely or of good report belonging to the system. So far as his personal relations were concerned, he acknowledged that a man named Mr. Robert Hollan, had assumed ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... no longer indulge her laziness—no breakfasting in bed, and coming down in curl-papers. The long gossiping visits of her thousand-and-one acquaintances subsided into frigid morning calls, at which the grim phantom of the husband frowned from a corner and suppressed all idle chatter. Sybilla's favourite system of killing time by half-hours in various idle ways, at home and abroad, was terminated at once. She had now to learn how to be a duteous wife, always ready at the beck and call of her husband, and attentive to ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... cannot be. Who hath brought thee such an idle tale? Day and night have I stood here watching for him, but he came not, and much I fear me the ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... worthless, are still, in patches, cultivated to the very top; but for the most part they are clothed in restful green. Overhead, in the summer haze, turkey-buzzards wheel gracefully, occasionally chased by audacious hawks; and in the woods, we hear the warble of song-birds. Shadowy, idle scenes, these rustic reaches of the lower Ohio, through which man may dream in Nature's lap, all regardless of the ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... had heard enough. The flame had been applied to the dry acreage of his too arid and idle existence. He had remained passive too long. It was change that brought chance. And even though that change meant descent, it would, after all, be only the momentary dip that preceded the upward flight again. And as he gazed thoughtfully landward, where Monte Carlo lay vivid ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... of Verney Manor, white or black, felon or indented, need all their eyesight for their work. They have none to waste in idle gazing at their ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... sessions of the Council of Trent the Archbishop of Armagh had taken a leading part. When the Council opened for its final sessions in January 1562 Ireland was represented by O'Herlihy of Ross, McCongail of Raphoe, and O'Harte of Achonry. Nor were these mere idle spectators of the proceedings. They joined in the warm discussions that took place regarding the Sacrifice of the Mass, Communion under both kinds, the source of episcopal jurisdiction and of the episcopal obligation of residence, the erection of seminaries, ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... shower Crowding over the withered flower For as if they had done some grievous wrong, The sun, that had nursed them and loved them so long, Grew weary of loving, and, turning back, Hastened away on his southern track; And helplessly hung each shrivelled leaf, Faded away with an idle grief. And the gusts of wind, sad Autumn's sighs, Mournfully swept through their families; Casting away with a helpless moan All that he yet might call his own, As the child, when his bird is gone for ever, Flingeth the cage on the wandering river. And the giant ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... all in vain. At last a small key was found to open the padlock, which put an end to the poor girl's lamentation, and restored peace and tranquillity among all her friends. Her adventure had, however, this good effect, that it cured her, and some of her forward country-women, of this idle ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... kind, or doing some manufacturing work. But so long as a people live unto themselves only, each nation can practically make and use all the machinery needed within its borders, and still not employ all the idle hands; and when the population becomes dense, employment must be sought in making goods to sell beyond the sea. The return comes back, sometimes in money, sometimes in the products of the soil and the mine and the ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... might as well have struck a baby! How helpless he lay, with his eyes shut, and his idle hands folded: they had no more work to ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... be remembered that Sir Thomas Underwood had declined to give his late ward any advice at that interview which took place in Southampton Buildings;—or rather that the only advice which he had given to the young man was to cut his throat. The idle word had left no impression on Ralph Newton;—but still it had been spoken, and was remembered by Sir Thomas. When he was left alone after the young man's departure he was very unhappy. It was not ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... study of physic, he inquired, as he says, of Dr. Sydenham, what authors he should read and was directed by Sydenham to "Don Quixote": "which" said he, "is a very good book; I read it still." The perverseness of mankind makes it often mischievous to men of eminence to give way to merriment; the idle and the illiterate will long shelter themselves under this foolish apophthegm. Whether he rested satisfied with this direction, or sought for better, he commenced physician, and obtained high eminence ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... for me to be idle. Think of me lying still all day with nothing to do but read! That's what knocked me out. I wouldn't have minded the pain if I could have gotten about.... ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... "Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean: Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy autumn fields, And thinking of the days ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... not idle. After subduing the revolt of the mercenaries in 237, she formed the project of obtaining SPAIN as compensation for the loss of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica. Hamilcar Barca, by energetic measures, established (236-228) a firm foothold in Southern ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell
... her, she exclaimed at it and then stopped short. Already she had envisaged the situation. But it was idle, she thought, to ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... Charity and Jim as perfect examples of the idle rich, too stupid to work, too pampered to be worthy of sympathy. But whether these two had a right to suffer or not, suffer ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... the other, in a tone of disappointment. "Ay, the sturdy despot is to be found in every sea; and hundreds of ships, and ships of size too, are to be seen scorching in the calms of the equator. It was idle to give ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... not to pay, in this world, his father's debt incurred for spirituous liquor,[107] or, for gratification of lust, or in gambling, nor a fine, nor what remains unpaid of a toll; nor [shall he make good] idle gifts.[108] ...
— Hindu Law and Judicature - from the Dharma-Sastra of Yajnavalkya • Yajnavalkya
... looked more like lurking-places for robbers and dens of wild beasts, than dwellings of men," upheld the traditions of the Columban houses for piety, asceticism, and studious occupations. Thither repaired one Owini, not to live idle, but to labour, and as he was less capable of studying, he applied himself earnestly to manual work, the while better- ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... lugger lay becalmed. While the breeze lasted, the smugglers had been in good humour, but as the watch below turned out, they swore and grumbled at finding their craft lying idle on the smooth surface of the ocean. No sail was in sight, and as long as the calm continued they could not come to harm; but an enemy might bring down a breeze which would enable her to get close up to them before their sails were filled. This was what they dreaded. ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... frightened her, but she was consoled by the thought that it would be a new world to conquer. On her return to the chateau, the daring words uttered by Fanfar dwelt in her memory: "Make yourself beloved." She had entered the booth where the exhibition had taken place, in a moment of idle curiosity, and was surprised at the impression made on her by the place and the people. She was greatly irritated withal. This mountebank, this rope-dancer, had taken a great deal upon himself, certainly. ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... to allow me to lessen them by being a silent Auditor of their Discourses: to suffer me to be at which I could present them no motive, save that their instructions would make them in me a more intelligent Admirer. I added, that I desir'd not to be idle whilst they were imploy'd, but would if they pleas'd, by writing down in short hand what should be delivered, preserve Discourses that I knew would merit to be lasting. At first Carneades and his two friends utterly rejected this motion; and all that my Resoluteness ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... each part, it seems, in particular for himself, and in the name of the whole, took exception to the conduct of the Belly, and were resolved to grant him supplies no longer. They said they thought it very hard that he should lead an idle, good-for-nothing life, spending and squandering away, upon his own ungodly guts, all the fruits of their labor; and that, in short, they were resolved, for the future, to strike off his allowance, and let him shift for himself as well as he could. The Hands protested they would ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... that Satan is so busy with you, but God is greater than Satan. Did you ever hear of Jesus Christ? That he came into the world to save sinners? He does not demand, as a condition, any merit of your own, he only says, 'Come and be healed!' Leave your idle speculations: forget your vain philosophy. Come as you are. Come and be healed. He only requires you to be sensible of your need of him, to give him your heart, to abandon with penitence, every evil practice, ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... knew that that must not happen here; for all her self-absorption, she could not visit with such cruelty the one heart that loved her. And thinking of him, she understood that her father's tenderness was not wholly the idle thing that it had been to her at first; her love could never equal his, had never done so in her childhood, but she grew conscious of a soothing power in the gentle and timid devotion with which he tended her. His appearance of an evening was something more than ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... ports should be carrying bully beef, grain, and munitions, are lying idle at a rent per day of many hundreds of thousands of pounds, in the harbors of Moudros, Salonika, Aden, Alexandria, in the Persian Gulf, and scattered along both coasts of Africa. They are guarded by war-ships withdrawn from duty in the Channel and North ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... reached the flat monotony of the dark prairie soil. The leaves of the soft maples were beginning to show over there, near the village church. A dog crossed the street, pausing midway of the crossing to scratch his ear. The cart of the leading grocer was hitched in front of his store, and an idle citizen or two paused near by to exchange a morning greeting. All the little, uneventful day was beginning, as it had begun so many times before here in this little, uneventful town, where the world was finished, never more to ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love,'" he mused. "It's good, even for me, to be alive this morning.... These violets, the birds, the fresh smells, the bursting green! Oh, well, regrets are idle. But just to think—I had to go through all I've known—right down to this moment—to realize how ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... that has yet settled upon the earth. In the midst of the most extravagant superstition, there have been individuals who have disowned the popular belief, and considered it a mark of wisdom and true philosophy to discard the idle fancies and absurd schemes of faith that possessed the minds of the great mass of their contemporaries. This was the case with Horace, as appears from lines thus ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... way, listening as the horse listened. It seemed to Helen May as though he had become again earthy and material and modern, with the desert love song but the fading memory of a dream. He listened, and she received the impression that something more than idle curiosity held ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... mean time the lesser craft had been by no means idle. In addition to the regular square and fore and aft sails of a brigantine, she had a mizzen-mast stepped well aft not more than four feet from her taffrail, upon which she had hoisted a spanker and gaff-topsail, thus completing a most graceful and effective rig, and spreading a ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... land-wind and sea-wind with mouths that blow slaughter [Ant. Should gird them to battle against thee again, New-born of the blood of a maiden thy daughter, The rage of their breath shall be vain. For their strength shall be quenched and made idle, And the foam of their mouths find a bridle, And the height of their heads bow down At the foot of the towers of the town. 1130 Be blest and beloved as I love thee Of all that shall draw from thee breath; ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... may fall into the trade, and prepare the same for Turkie: for the more kinds of cloth we can deuise to make, the more ample vent of our commoditie we shall haue, and the more sale of the labour of our poore subiects that els for lacke of labour become idle and burdenous to the common weale, and hurtfull to many: and in England we are in our clothing trade to frame our selues according to the desires of forren nations, be it that they desire thicke or thinne, broad or narrowe, long or ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... been, surrounded by a multitude of projects, and full of ardour to labour in fulfilling them. But Schiller's labours and triumphs were drawing to a close. The invisible Messenger was already near, which overtakes alike the busy and the idle, which arrests man in the midst of his pleasures or his occupations, and changes his ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... eleven, and to all the rest. [24:10]And they were the Magdalene Mary, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and the others with them, who told these things to the apostles. [24:11]And their words appeared to them like idle talk; ...
— The New Testament • Various
... up, for she wanted a box that she could not allow to have opened. The clerk then went up to the Sieur Picard's bedroom, but came back saying that what the marquise demanded was for the time being an impossibility, for the commissary was asleep. She saw that it was idle to insist, and went away, saying that she should send a man the next morning to fetch the box. In the morning the man came, offering fifty Louis to the commissary on behalf of the marquise, if he would ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... tears round the arena, to the accompaniment of the delighted roar of the crowd. This scene is repeated again and again, until perhaps several pairs of banderillas are depending from the shoulders of the maddened animal. The capeadores have not been idle, and the bull, repeatedly charging them and meeting only the empty flapping of the capas—the scarlet cloaks which the bull-fighters charged with this office wield—works himself into a paroxysm of rage, which must be seen to be understood. ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... nearly all the differences which divide the two churches, without reckoning the numerous idle tales which they have as well as ourselves, and which are by no means the least cherished ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... from these three sources that I most hope for leading now. Of the new Pope and his influence I know nothing. But in the present situation of the world's affairs it behooves us ill to wait idle until leaders clear the way for us. Every man who realizes the broad conditions of the situation, every one who can talk or write or echo, can do his utmost to spread his realization of the possibilities ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... tell. Why should they bring the laurel-wreath,—why crown the cup with wine? It was not Frenchmen's blood that flow'd so freely on the Rhine,— A stranger band of beggar'd men had done the venturous deed: 115 The glory was to France alone, the danger was their meed. And what cared they for idle thanks from foreign prince and peer? What virtue had such honey'd words the exiled heart to cheer? What matter'd it that men should vaunt and loud and ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... go thither, Illo. I must stay And wait here for the Countess Tertsky. Know 70 That we too are not idle. Break one string, A second ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... walls; Then silence very slowly lifts his head. The starling with impatient screech has flown The chimney, and is watching from the tree. They thought us gone for ever: mouse alone Stops in the middle of the floor to see. Now all you idle things, resume your toil. Hearth, put your ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... surprise I said them all without one mistake. Instead of commendation I received abuse. "By all the powers," exclaimed my pedagogue, "but everything seems to go wrong to-day; my hand has been completely idle; this will never do; didn't you tell me, Mr Keene, that ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... novel sensation the zest that had been wanting to its jaded powers of enjoyment. Nor was it awakened from its illusions by the first eruption from below. In a transport of delirium it threw away, as if they had been idle gems, of use only when cast into the public treasury, the privileges and prerogatives that had formed the basis of the monarchy. Thenceforth the only effort was to secure a tabula rasa on which to rear that new and perfect state of which the model ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... "Let us send a message through all our realm, and go against them, neither let any who is fain of fight sit idle at home; let us send word to the sons of Ring, and to King Hogni, and to Alf the Old, for ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous
... village, and Sam had planted with potatoes for home consumption. It certainly was annoying, for a ditch had been cut round it, a bank made, and, on the top, a neat little hedge of hawthorn planted; but some idle people were in the habit of jumping across the ditch, trampling down the little hedge, and then making a track right across the corner of the field to the other side, where, in getting out, they trampled the hedge ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... was neither so brave nor so wise as his father; on the contrary, he was a weak prince, fond of idle amusements and worthless favorites. It was lucky for Scotland that such was his disposition. He marched a little way into Scotland with the large army which Edward the First had collected, and went back again without ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... term. I asked Alex to explain the principles of this particular organization and she was very voluble and rather cryptic. It appears to embrace the rights of man, the elevation of the masses, the relations between landlord and tenant, the psychological deterioration of the idle rich—" ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... lesson—never to be deceived by high-sounding names and pompous designations. I have not visited their schools for nothing. The French talk; the English act. A steady plodding Englishman will build an house, while a Frenchman is laying down rules for it. There is more of this idle pedantry in France than in any country on the face of the globe: every thing is done with science, and nothing ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... of opinion as to the necessity and utility of parks, and their ultimate payment for their full cost, the only open question is the time to begin. We say that time is now,—now, while thousands of unwillingly idle hands are waiting for work, and money is cheap; cheap, because labor is unemployed. We say to you, gentlemen of the city government, respectfully but earnestly, Act ...
— Parks for the People - Proceedings of a Public Meeting held at Faneuil Hall, June 7, 1876 • Various
... sewing, and whittling can all go on without disturbing the reading, or a tired mother can lie on the lounge and listen; but if any one must sit idle, reading may grow tedious, though good plays in which each can take his part are generally enjoyed. I was once in a home in Switzerland where the family spent most of the evenings in reading ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... grown at any time that the soil is not occupied by other crops, provided other conditions are suitable. Land which is used for spring and summer crops often lies bare and idle during fall and winter. A hardy green manure crop planted after the summer crop is harvested will make considerable growth during the fall and early spring, and this can be plowed under for the use of the following summer crops. If there is a long interval of time ...
— The First Book of Farming • Charles L. Goodrich
... and several letter of Natalie and Theodosia was received yesterday, and will be answered to-morrow or next day. It seems that you write once a fortnight. Two such idle sluts might find half an hour daily to give a sort of journal ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... at poor Bellerophon, and sometimes take him pretty severely to task. They told him that an able-bodied young man like himself ought to have better business than to be wasting his time in such an idle pursuit. They offered to sell him a horse if he wanted one, and when Bellerophon declined the purchase they tried to drive a bargain with ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... "Is this the time to speak of corn? Our Manitou has sent this Great Mountain into our country. He has placed him in our hands so that we may strike, so that we may tell the white man with our muskets that our Manitou is stern and just, and that no Iroquois will listen to the idle ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... suggest, in order to mark that due gradation which in every well regulated society must necessarily exist in the scale of rewards to be accorded to such as may be subordinate or refractory,—industrious, or idle; that these latter encouragements should only be extended in this double ratio to those who might quit the establishment with a certificate of good conduct ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... the strength?... And he would have liked to busy himself in the department of writing also,—he knew how to do that beautifully, as you are aware; but his hands shook so, and he could not hold the pen properly.... He was always reproaching himself: 'I'm an idle dog,' he said. 'I have done no one any good, I have helped no one, I have not toiled!' He was very much afflicted over that same.... He used to say, 'Our people toil, but what are we doing?...' Akh, Nikolai Nikolaitch, he was a fine ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... likewise seen in large numbers at Flicoteaux's; his whole establishment, indeed, is directly affected by the caprices of the season and the vicissitudes of French agriculture. By eating your dinners at Flicoteaux's you learn a host of things of which the wealthy, the idle, and folk indifferent to the phases of Nature have no suspicion, and the student penned up in the Latin Quarter is kept accurately informed of the state of the weather and good or bad seasons. He knows when it is a good year for peas or French beans, and the kind ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... of that worthless ballast, honour and fair-dealing, which any man cast overboard from the ship of his Good Name and Good Intent, the more ample stowage-room he had for dollars. Make commerce one huge lie and mighty theft. Deface the banner of the nation for an idle rag; pollute it star by star; and cut out stripe by stripe as from the arm of a degraded soldier. Do anything for dollars! What ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... did not care for idle life among the gods on Mount Olympus. Instead he preferred to spend his time on the earth, helping men to find easier and better ways of living. For the children of earth were not happy as they had been in the golden days when ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... there would be no instruction, no talent, no genius—nothing to admire, nothing to copy, to respect—nothing to rouse emulation, or stimulate to praiseworthy ambition. Why, my dear father, what an idle, unprofitable, weary world would this be, if it were based ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... to the commons, but they must know what liberty they were entitled to; not a liberty for every one to speak what he listeth, or what cometh in his brain to utter; their privilege extended no further than a liberty of "aye" or "no:" that she enjoined the speaker, if he perceived any idle heads so negligent of their own safety as to attempt reforming the church, or innovating in the commonwealth, that he should refuse the bills exhibited for that purpose, till they were examined by such as were fitter to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... heard. He had intended her to hear it. She was certain of that. For immediately afterwards he glanced at her and then moved away, like a man who has carried out an intention and can relax and be idle. He sat down by a table a little way off, and a waiter brought coffee for him ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... the Largo, with much feeling. The windows were open. It was too warm for lamps, and the room was lighted only by the occasional roar of flames, breaking fan-like from the tops of the stacks in the Yards. Suddenly, in the midst of their idle talk, Mrs. Maitland came in; she paused for a moment before the dark oblong of canvas on the wall beside the door. Of course, in the half- light, the little dim Mother of ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... the correct speaker, is always able to command attention and doors are thrown open to him which remain closed to others not equipped with a like facility of expression. The man who can talk well and to the point need never fear to go idle. He is required in nearly every walk of life and field of human endeavor, the world wants him at every turn. Employers are constantly on the lookout for good talkers, those who are able to attract the public and convince ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... we came near Pentecost again on our cruise, we would spend another idle day in the pretty bay. Two months passed and then we kept our word. As we rounded the lofty headland the Correspondent said: "Say, I'm hankering after that baby!" But the Captain at the moment hoarsely cried: "God's love! but where are the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and yet prepared meals in such a way that our large family was always thoroughly satisfied. Sometimes we could get bananas from Mexico, cocoanuts and oranges, but not very often. Christmas eve came at last and such a busy place, no idle hands these days. Brother George and Mr. Lux brought with them two large sacks of the finest English walnuts. They were a windfall to us. We never had seen so many before. We were used to black walnuts, filberts and other nuts at home. This was ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... not frail, dear; but I have got into an idle habit of taking my outings in the carriage; and so ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... passed through Vincennes, the number of the French was reduced to a hundred individuals, most of whom were about to pass over to Louisiana or to Canada. These French settlers were worthy people, but idle and uninstructed: they had contracted many of the habits of savages. The Americans, who were perhaps their inferiors, in a moral point of view, were immeasurably superior to them in intelligence: they were industrious, well informed, ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... the incessant grinding of quartz mills. Yes, it was decidedly pleasant to have a whole summer—if he wanted it—in which to go where he liked, do what he liked. One might do much worse, he reflected, than find some such spot as this and idle to one's heart's content. There would be trout, as like as not, in that stony brook back there; sunfish, probably, in that lazy stream crossing the open meadow yonder. It would be jolly to try one's ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... days, as in these, idle persons seem to have troubled the Shakers with the question "What would become of the world if all turned Shakers," to which here is a ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... that ever was, he whose book about the English makes all other comment seem idle and superfluous palaver, that Ralph Waldo Emerson whom we always find ahead of us when we look back for him, was once, as he relates in a closing chapter of English Traits, brought to bay by certain great English ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... their being bridled! They never had a bit in their mouths. Before the war they ran wild, and now they ride rough-shod over decorum, decency, and Davis himself. But the dictator endures it like a philosopher. "He lets it pass," said Judge Ould to me, "like the idle ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... any woman in the place," retorted Kemp. "There is no peace for a man when a woman is about. But let us have no more of this idle chatter. What's brought you over here? I ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... spring at Bellecour—the spring of 1789, a short three months before the fall of the Bastille came to give the nobles pause, and make them realise that these new philosophies, which so long they have derided, were by no means the idle ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... those last dispatches from Berlin, did not arrive during the battle. He would certainly have been captured by the pandours, and my dispatches lost. My friend, do you not see how Providence marks out for me the path of duty? A king dare not waste a moment in dreams or idle pleasures. I wished to live an hour for myself, when I should have been reading these dispatches. We will go to work; here is the key of the dispatch bag; open it and take ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... before. deleite m. pleasure, delight. delicado, -a delicate, sweet. delicia f. delight. delicioso, -a delicious, delightful. delirante adj. delirious, raving. delirar rave, dote. delirio m. delirium, madness, rapture, rant, idle talk. delito m. crime. demasa f. excess. demasiado, -a too much, too great. demonio m. devil, demon. denso, -a dense, thick. dentro adv. within; —— de prep. within. denuesto m. insult, abuse. derecho ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... shall lead to ruin and repentance. Nor, O King of the age" (added he), "is this story stranger than that of the Cheat and the Merchants." When the King heard these words, he said in himself, "Indeed, had I given ear to the sayings of my courtiers and inclined to their idle prate in the matter of my Minister, I had repented to the utterest of penitence, but Alhamdolillah—laud be to the Lord—who hath disposed me to endurance and long-suffering and hath vouchsafed to me patience!" Then he turned to the Wazir and dismissed him to his ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... worship, according to the institutes of its founders, consists of an appeal to the reason, rather than an attempt on the imagination through the instrumentality of rites and parade. "Salvation is made dependent, not upon the practice of idle ceremonies, the repeating of prayers or of hymns, or invocations to pretended gods, but upon moral qualifications, which constitute individual and social happiness here, and ensure it hereafter."[1] ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... regard for me, I conjure you to tell me all you know upon the subject." "And do you, my good madam, conceive that it would become my sacred calling to speak ill of my neighbour? besides, surely you would not attach any belief to the idle reports spread about the castle by ill-disposed persons?" "All this has nothing to do with my question, my lord," resumed I. "I ask you once again, whether you ever heard the duc de Villeroi assign his passion for one of my women as the reason for his visits to ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... to be informed of so much of the internal police of your State as relates to the laying, assessing, levying, and collecting taxes. I beg leave to assure your Excellency, that I am not prompted either by an idle curiosity, or by any wish to discover what prudence would dictate to conceal. It is necessary that I should be informed of these things, and I take the plain, open, candid method of acquiring information. To palliate or conceal any evils or disorders ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... mouths, it dashes huge waves against the shore, or banks up the flooded streams as they flow seaward, until, on a calm day, a man may drink sweet water a mile out at sea. During this season the people of the coast are mostly idle, though they risk their lives and their boats upon the fishing banks on days when a treacherous calm lures them seaward, and they can rarely be induced to own that the monsoon has in truth broken, until the beaches have been strewn with driftwood from a dozen wrecks. They long for ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... for he had risen early to perform the matin service for three peasant women, two beggars, a cat, and a paralytic nobleman, in the ancient and beautiful church to which he was attached. He had tried to go about his wonted occupations, but he was still sitting idle before his bench, while his servant gossiped from her balcony to the mistress of the next house, across a calle so deep and narrow that it opened like a mountain chasm beneath them. "It were well if the master read his breviary a little more, instead of always ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... ladies, with its idle attendants, was in waiting at a short distance; and the pale face but composed resignation of its mistress, indicated a struggle between ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... Never does a year pass without a certain number of them making off. Yet so gluttonous and idle are my serfs that they are simply bursting with food, whereas I scarcely get enough to eat. I will take any price for them that you may care to offer. Tell your friends about it, and, should they find even a score of the runaways, it will repay them handsomely, seeing ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... name, that of "Silvernail," we decided could only lawfully belong to a princess in a fairy tale. Such childishness as this, I may say, is of the essence of a walking trip, in which, from moment to moment, you take quite infantile interest in all manner of idle observation and quite useless lore. That is a part of the game you are playing, and the main thing is that you are out in the open air, on the open road, with a simple heart and ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... during which, with my lack of technical knowledge, I found myself often with nothing to do. Our camp was bustling with activity, but among the now idle girls and many of the young men, there was an air of gayety. They laughed, shouted, played games amid the rocks from which we had long since melted the snow. Once, in what would have been early evening had ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... it would be in vain, with his inferior force, to oppose the powerful army of the Christian monarch, but to remain idle and see his territories laid waste would ruin him in the estimation of his people. "If we cannot parry," said he, "we can strike; if we cannot keep our own lands from being ravaged, we can ravage the lands of the enemy." He inquired and learnt that most ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... on the grass outside, served as a messroom for his military family; and here for three long months, until near the end of March, he rested from the labour of his campaigns. The Federal troops, on the snow-clad heights across the river, remained idle in their camps, slowly recovering from the effects of their defeat on the fields of Fredericksburg; the pickets had ceased to bicker; the gunboats had disappeared, and "all was quiet on the Rappahannock." Many of the senior officers in the Confederate ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... of English Language and Literature has been founded, and has attracted a fair number of candidates. Naturally I rejoice in this change, knowing from experience the value of these studies; and knowing also from experience, if I may speak boldly, how idle is that dream which flits about in Oxford and whispers that the mastering of Old English, on the basis of Teutonic phonology, and the conquest of the worlds opened by Chaucer and Shakespeare and Swift ...
— Poetry for Poetry's Sake - An Inaugural Lecture Delivered on June 5, 1901 • A. C. Bradley
... juncture I strolled carelessly along, pretending not to see any thing in particular; and so, taking up an easy attitude, I waited for the denouement. It was a terrible position too. That child-angel! I would have laid down my life for her, but I had to stand idle, and see her rush to fling her life away. And all because I had not happened to have the mere formality of ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... the ruins were real or not, the moments were evidently too precious to be lost in idle discussion. The great city of the Selenites soon disappeared on the remote horizon, and, what was of far greater importance, the distance of the Projectile from the Moon's disc began to increase so sensibly that the smaller details of the surface were soon lost in a confused ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... not tormented by useless contradiction. One night the servant, from an error in judgment, teazed her with idle expostulations, but she complained of it grievously, and it was corrected. "Pray, pray, do not let her reason with me," was her expression. Death itself is scarcely so dreadful to the enfeebled frame, as the monotonous importunity of ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... Generally idle and depraved; appearing to retain the bad qualities of the slaves, with whom they continue to associate, without acquiring any of the good ones of the whites, from whom (they) continued separated by prejudices against their colour, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... can we expect to unravel the difficulties accumulated by ages of domestication? Who knows for a certainty the true prototype of the goat, the sheep, or the ox? To the unscientific reader such questions might appear idle, as having been settled from time immemorial; yet they have never been finally disposed of. The difficulty, as with the dog, may be connected with modifications of form and colour, resulting from the long-continued interference of man with the breed and habits of animals subjected ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... reconciliation. In a sermon in his church, October 29, 1865, he outlined with a master's hand the principles of reconstruction. The South should be restored at the earliest possible moment to a share in the general government. Idle to ask them to repent of secession; enough if they recognize that it is forever disallowed. The best guarantee for the future is the utter destruction of slavery. Let there be no further humbling: "I think it to be the great need of this ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... a large shaded pink rose in the working, had, contrary to her custom, fallen from idle hands, and instead of following the dart of the infinitesimal needle, Mrs. Jett's eyes were burningly upon Mrs. Peopping, following, with almost lip-reading intensity, that ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... for hire," said Hal, after looking up and down the Escolta. "Let's walk across the bridge over the Pasig. We'll be more likely to find an idle cochero on the other ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock
... for even so well-tried and whole-hearted a Non-Juror as Thomas Hearne, of Oxford, knew nothing about them, though a great friend of both the new Bishops, until long years had sped. It would be idle at this distance of time, and having regard to the events which have happened since February, 1693, to consider the nice questions how far the Act of Henry VIII. relating to the appointment of suffragans could have any applicability to such consecrations, or what degree of Episcopal ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... matters, Walsh and his friends had not been idle. Preparations for the second fete were commenced, and energetically urged forward. Guided by experience, the work was somewhat less laborious, but the dread of failure made the committee doubly anxious. Just before, there had been great rejoicing in London to celebrate the peace with Russia, and ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... experience: guided by his credulity, he was unable to fall back upon it; he became consequently inexperienced; from thence he gave birth to the most ridiculous opinions, or else adopted all those vague chimeras, all those idle notions offered to him by men whose interest it was to continue him in that lamentable ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... the Blackfoot while he was relating the legend of the Spirit Circle. He listened attentively. He had heard many such myths among his own people, and once they impressed him, but he had come to look upon them as idle tales not worth a thought. Instead of commenting upon the rude beauty of the story that had been told to his friend many years before, he asked the ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... too young to endure it," sobbed the by-product to her of the sketchy face. And that was no idle epigram, either. ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... several journeys to China and Malaca, but finally despatched him to Europe upon like undertakings, where he was well known at the court of Espana and afterwards at that of Roma. The three who were left behind did not remain idle. Father Antonio Sedeno, in addition to his ordinary occupation of preaching—in which he was so effective that he could move stones by his eloquence—in his capacity as superior attended to the temporal affairs of the residence and to the construction of buildings. He was all the more busy ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... emotional effects. Recognizing these limitations upon his work, he often finds it difficult to avoid one or the other of two dangers that beset all efforts to teach a vernacular literature; the student must not think his reading an idle pastime, nor, on the other hand, must he think it a repellent task. In the first case, he is likely never to read anything well; in the second case, the things best worth reading he will probably never read at all. Of the two dangers, the first is the more serious. The student ought early to ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... south latitude. It is about fifteen miles long, and five broad. After we had seen it in all directions, we agreed that it was indeed a pity that it was in the possession of those who were so little able to make a good use of it. I never saw a more idle set of people than the inhabitants who were not compelled to work. All the time we were on shore, they did nothing but walk about or lie down in the shade, wrapped ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... looked him straight in the eyes. "I have seen her. A fair toy vessel to amuse an idle young man's leisure! You are he that in that fool's hole of a Bosekop, is known as the 'rich Englishman,'—an idle trifler with time,—an aimless wanderer from those dull shores where they eat gold till they die of surfeit! I have heard of you,—a mushroom knight, a fungus of nobility,—an ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... and playfellows, this henbane and antimony, the nourishment of my health and vigour—that any one should write of these as pernicious, deadly, and fatal to existence! Is it error or malignity? or but the wanton freak of an idle imagination?" ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... Union—nominated an able ticket. The latter party were soon conscious of defeat, and began to hint mysteriously at a power stronger than the ballot-box, that would be invoked in defence of 'Southern rights.' To many, indeed to most persons, this seemed an idle threat. Not so to Frank Blair. He had imbibed from Benton the invincible faith of the latter in the settled purpose of the 'nullifiers' to subvert and destroy the government. And in a private caucus of the leaders of the Union party, on an ever-memorable evening in the month of January, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... is glad and merry; Let the requiems rest silent In the lull of deep thanksgiving. For the wrath of heaven is lifted, Lifted from the rescued city. Gone, the sound of rolling death-cart, Hushed, the ringing, tolling belfry, Still, the bier and gloomy shovel, Still, the idle, listless sexton. Other days of anxious watching Followed, one or two years later; Days when fierce, destructive fevers Darkened many homes with mourning.[2] Yet the citizens are happy In this season of glad respite; Now the people ...
— The Song of Lancaster, Kentucky - to the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard County. • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... somewhere, that as soon as a man has done anything remarkable, there seems to be a general conspiracy to prevent him from doing it again. He is feasted, feted, caressed; his time is stolen from him by breakfasts, dinners, societies, idle businesses of a thousand kinds. Mr. Buckle had his share of all this; but there are also more dangerous enemies that wait upon success like his. He had scarcely won for himself the place which he deserved, than his health was found shattered by his labours. ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... But when all idle people shall have visited all the bubbling fountains of Germany, where are they to go next? There are some very nice springs in Iceland not yet patronised; but although the springs there are hot, the Springs, ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... had a hare and hound chase yet," remarked Gladys. It was merely an idle suggestion, but the others pounced upon ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... this in their system. These auguries and divinations therefore were the effect and invention of the ignorance, rashness, curiosity, and blind passions of man, who presumed to interrogate God, and to oblige him to give answers upon every idle imagination ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... lake hushed and tranquil, And I sit here with idle hands, And gaze at the frolicking fishes Which glide to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... appreciate good manners will be polite and courteous in the home, and will share cheerfully in all the little duties of the household. Some one has said that idleness is "the chief author of all mischief." And surely any individual who chooses to be idle rather than to be usefully employed, is exceedingly ill-bred. Children should be taught the nobility of labor, and to respect those who faithfully perform the humblest duties of life, just as much as those who accomplish the more ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... with only the slightest labor to occupy her hands and mind, gave her idle time—fertile soil for the raising of a dark crop of morbid thoughts. She brooded much, and, brooding, became restless, unhappy, and she could not conceal it from Bonbright when he came home eagerly for his dinner, ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... the earl felt—and it would be almost sacrilegious to intrude upon them, or to venture on any idle speculation concerning them—one thing was clear; in losing Helen, the light of his eyes, the delight of his ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... their frontiers. Yet when the armistice was signed on November 11, the German armies still maintained cohesion, with an unbroken line on foreign soil. Surrender was made inevitable by internal breakdown and revolution, the first open manifestations of which appeared among the sailors of the idle High Seas ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... left was not being idle. For the past week our Artillery in the salient had fired a half-hour bombardment every morning at 2-45, and on the 9th this was repeated as usual. The Boche had become used to it, and retired to his dug-outs, where he was found a few minutes later by the 6th Division, who had relieved the 14th, ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... I went to the closet, and scribbled a little about this idle chit-chat. And she being importunate, I was forced to go to bed; but with some of my clothes on, as the former night; and she let me hold the two keys; for there are two locks, there being a double door; ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... through the garden. But few as the moments were, it seemed to Giovanni, when she was on the point of vanishing beneath the sculptured portal, that his beautiful bouquet was already beginning to wither in her grasp. It was an idle thought; there could be no possibility of distinguishing a faded flower from a fresh one at ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... they might eventually get 70 horse power in a boat of that size, because the weight of the motor was not great. With regard to the formation of a film on the surface, no doubt a film of sulphate of lead was formed if the battery stood idle, but it did not considerably reduce its efficiency; as soon as it was broke through by the energy being evolved from it, it would give off its maximum current. They knew by experience that, with properly constructed accumulators, 80 per ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 430, March 29, 1884 • Various
... subjects less agreeable to contemplate. On week-days the village, if we may thus designate the scattered groups of huts and tents, was comparatively quiet, but on Sundays it became a scene of riot and confusion. Not only was it filled with its own idle population of diggers, but miners from all the country round, within a circuit of eight or ten miles, flocked into it for the purpose of buying provisions for the week, as well as for the purpose of gambling and drinking, this ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... thou canst not save thy soul without,' he said, 'thou mightst go on some feast day, when there is such a concourse of folk that thou mightst not be noticed, and come away at once without halting for idle clavers, as they call ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... very hard, and the electric light was on, Madame came into the workroom with another person. And this person was a young man with a grey, thin face, rather tall and stooping, with a hesitating manner, and a general air of weakness. He followed Madame Gala round the room in an idle way, nodding to several of the girls; and Sally thought he had a very attractive smile. She found him looking at herself with a pair of large soft brown eyes, like chocolate which has been in a warm place. It was a rather ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... just when all on board—sick of the calm, the listless monotonous roll of the ship, the flapping of the idle sails against the masts, and the sight of the same cloudless sky and endless expanse of tumid sea, with surface unbroken by the tiniest ripple, save when a dolphin leaped out of the water or a fairy nautilus glided by ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... guests, who with great relish were gorging themselves with pieces as big as their fists. The course of flesh being over, the goatherds spread on the skins a great number of parched acorns and half a cheese, harder than if it had been made of mortar. The horn in the meantime was not idle, but came full from the wineskins and returned empty, as though it had been a ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... time she was silent. Her eyes ranged the green circuit of the hollow—the water, the reeds, the rock, and that idle god among his handmaidens. Her attitude, her look expressed a moral agony, how strangely out of place amid this setting! Through her—innocent, unconscious though she were—the young helpless wife had come to grief—a soul had been risked—perhaps lost. ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of her best boys; and many an eye gazed wistfully at his anchor buttons and dirk and smiling jovial countenance, as he laughed and chatted with wonderful ease with old Rowley, as if he was not a bit afraid of him; and some idle fellows envied him his emancipation from Virgil and Horace, and other classical authors, for whom they had so little affection themselves. Then he had to jump up and hurry off to catch the coach, in order to reach the mail, which was to carry him down that night to Northamptonshire. ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... children, who slowly grub beneath a burning sun through the broad grain fields. Irrigating streams will be made to flow by their own gravitation, while the wooden bucket and well-sweep will become idle and useless. Still, we are not among those who see only a bright side for the future of the republic, nor do we believe so confidently as some writers in her great natural resources. They are abundant, but not so very exceptional as enthusiasts ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... "You are very idle, Cashel; I am sure of that. It is too provoking to throw away so much money every year for nothing. Besides, you must soon be thinking of ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... Sir Francis, who was in a great passion. "Why are you, my head gardener, not protecting my place with the idle scoundrels I pay? Here am I and my sons obliged to turn out of an evening to keep thieves from ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... remember the name of but one poet whose voice from the beginning had none; who started with a style of his own, though he may have chosen to annex—"annex the wise it call"; convey is obsolete—to annex whole phrases or whole verses at need, for the use or the ease of an idle minute; and this name of course is Marlowe's. So starting, Shakespeare had yet (like all other and lesser poets born) some perceptible notes in his yet half boyish voice that were not borrowed; and ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne |
