"Inactive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the Batta country in Sumatra (of which Zamara is one of the ancient names), "when not engaged in war, lead an idle, inactive life, passing the day in playing on a kind of flute, crowned with garlands of flowers, among which the globe-amaranthus, a native of ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... of Newgate and Tyburn weighed heavily upon her spirit, and she cast about her for a method of escape. Avoiding the danger of discovery, she was loth to forego her just profit, and hoped that intelligence might atone for her sturdy, inactive fingers. Already she had endeared herself to the gang by unnumbered acts of kindness and generosity; already her inflexible justice had made her umpire in many a difficult dispute. If a rascal could be bought off at the gallows' ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... reply. No one felt more than he how fatal it was to remain inactive in a hotel bedroom and how useful his presence would have been on the battlefield! Perhaps even this vague idea had already prolonged his illness ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... have thrown some light upon the obscurity which enveloped the doings of Sir Cyril Smart. But I preferred to remain inactive. Locked away in my writing-case I kept the jewelled dagger so mysteriously found by me outside ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... group collected again, curiosity to witness such a death—or a better feeling—drawing to the spot men who had so lately been actors in a scene seemingly of so much greater interest and moment. By this time Judith had got to be inactive through grief, and Hist alone was performing the little offices of feminine attention that are so appropriate to the sick bed. Hetty herself had undergone no other apparent change than the general failing that indicated the near approach of dissolution. All that ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... turned pale. The fizzing sound was interspersed with one or two cracks, which intensified the alarm, but did not clear up the mystery. If they had only known what to do they would have done it; what danger to face, they would have faced it; but to sit there inactive, with the mysterious ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... relief, and I stepped ashore. I was glad to put my feet upon the pier. Now I felt that I was my own master. It was too soon to go on board the yacht, but I could regulate my movements as I pleased, and was very willing to be alone during the hour or two in which I must remain inactive. ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... no one twice: Of this, a last and poor resource, bereft, He to himself, unhappy guide! was left - And who shall say where guided? to what seats Of starving villany? of thieves and cheats? In that sad time of many a dismal scene Had he a witness, not inactive, been; Had leagued with petty pilferers, and had crept Where of each sex degraded numbers slept: With such associates he was long allied, Where his capacity for ill was tried, And that once lost, ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... effort, he is perfectly well able to do so. The most important part of your duties, Nurse Gray, will be the aiding him day by day to resume life,—the life of a blind man, it is true; but not therefore necessarily an inactive life. Now that all danger of inflammation from the wounds has subsided, he may get up, move about, learn to find his way by sound and touch. He was an artist by profession. He will never paint again. ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... realms of everlasting bliss? It is for me, and me alone to decide. Perhaps it is for this that my life has been spared—that I might make a firm and decided choice; and shall I still draw back? shall I still hesitate and remain inactive? No, no; for "now is the accepted time, and now is the ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... example, by transplanting a hamstring tendon into the patella to reinforce a weak quadriceps, or reinforcing the weak invertors of the foot by a transplanted extensor hallucis longus. (2) Transplantation may also be performed to replace a muscle which is quite inactive and does not show any sign of recovery—for example, the tibiales being paralysed, the peroneus longus may be implanted into the navicular or first metatarsal to act as an invertor ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... some nights after, his part filled by an old man and a bad player. During the remainder of the season he continued with Stephen Kemble, without at all appearing on the stage. From Edinburgh he went with the company to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, there he lived as dependent, inactive, and undistinguished as before, till, owing to the want of a person to fill the part of Malcolm in Macbeth, he was cast to that humble character. In so inferior a sphere did he begin to move who is now become one of the brightest luminaries of ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... had been full of the tragedy. Glaring headlines, sandwiched biographies of every member of the household, subtle innuendoes, the usual familiar tag about the police having a clue. Nothing was spared us. It was a slack time. The war was momentarily inactive, and the newspapers seized with avidity on this crime in fashionable life: "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" was the ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... turning in his fingers the copy of "Walden" which she was bringing back to him. "Perhaps now that you have your mother and the children with you, there will be less time for this sort of thing for a while, but you haven't a mind that can enjoy being inactive. You may think you'll give it up; but study—once you've tasted ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... youngest" may have placed him in his "nascent state" after the latter "saw his brothers all depart towards the setting sun." We find reasons to believe that the chief motive for alleging such a procrastination is the necessity to bring the race closer to the Christian era. To show the "brother" inactive and unconcerned, "with nothing but himself to ponder on," lest his antiquity and "fables of empty idolatry," and perhaps his traditions of other people's doings, should interfere with the chronology by which it is determined to try him. The suspicion is strengthened when one finds ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... insult had he still been with us? Spain has dared us to the trial, and now bids us defiance. She is yet in possession of that country; it is at this moment within your reach and within your power. It offers a sure and easy conquest. We should have to encounter there only a weak, inactive, and unenterprising people. But how may a few months vary the scene and darken our prospects! Though not officially informed, we know that the Spanish provinces on the Mississippi have been ceded to the French, and that they will, as soon as possible, take possession of them. What may we ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... law-work in the ecclesiastical courts, the call of a domestic duty took George Hughes—not, one may well imagine, without a severe struggle—from the active practice of his profession, and bade him be content thenceforward with home life. Idle or inactive of course a man of prime mental and bodily vigor could not be. The violoncello, farming, volunteering, magistrate's work, getting up laborers' reading-rooms and organizing Sunday evening classes for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... two extremes of life in our new far Eastern provinces: the one is active, progressive, and cosmopolitan; the other, inactive, decadent, and narrow; but, whether one enjoys the first or endures the second, there comes to him after leaving a longing to lounge again in tropic airs and listen to the lullaby of the ...
— An Epoch in History • P. H. Eley
... him in peace, and she made no further attempt upon her son's confidence. But she was not inactive for that reason. She did not, of course, admit to herself, and far less to others, the motive with which she went to pay an early visit to the Laphams, who had now come up from Nantasket to Nankeen Square. She said ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... We must observe, that a deficiency of stimulus in those fibres, which are not subject to perpetual stimulus, as the locomotive muscles, is not succeeded by accumulation of sensorial power; these therefore are more liable to become permanently inactive after a diminution of stimulus; as in strokes of the palsy, this may be called inactivity ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... of truth in it. I have had no correspondence with Russia, nor anything happened that could have given rise to such a conjecture. It must therefore be sheer mischief. There are such diabolical spirits, who, incapable of good, cannot rest inactive but fester the ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... holy Pope at Rome. The contest between the Hanoverians and our French ally is ended, and a cessation of hostilities determined upon. Unconditional peace is indeed indefinitely declared. The Hanoverians remain inactive on the Elbe; the Duke of Cumberland, leader of the English troops, has returned to Loudon, [Footnote: When the Duke of Cumberland returned to Loudon, after the convention at the cloister of Zeven, his father, whose favorite he had ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... especially on the Karaites, excluding them from the Hebrew community, and refusing them the friendship and help of their tribe. Under such a blow the existence of the inhabitants of Szybow, already poor, sad, and inactive, was made altogether unbearable. The descendants of Hazairan rulers, heretics, constituting, as always, a great minority of the population, exposed to aversion and hatred, oppressed and poor, left the place which had given them shelter for a certain time, ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... Babila, inactive by age, struggled to regain his feet, but ere he could do so, or before Omar could interfere, the executioner had lifted his sword with both hands. The sound of a dull blow was heard, and next second the head of the Queen's faithful servant rolled across ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... that time in any part of the world. They were certain, in their little sphere, of their aesthetic and logical aims. They were the flower of an intense civilization, very limited, in a way very simple; so far as the adoption of outer impulses went, very inactive, and yet within its own range energetic, elegant and audacious. To this world the "Caracteres" was now offered, modestly, as though it were a summing up of the moralizations of the last fifty years. The author begins by deprecating the idea that he has anything new to ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... batrachians. The notes it utters are long, as of a wind instrument, not unmelodious, and so powerful as to make themselves heard distinctly a mile off on still evenings. After the amorous period these toads retire to moist places and sit inactive, buried just deep enough to leave the broad green back on a level with the surface, and it is then very difficult to detect them. In this position they wait for their prey—frogs, toads, birds, and small mammals. Often they capture and attempt ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... in much the same way as moist yeast, but, instead of being mixed with a small amount of starch, the yeast culture is combined with a large quantity of starch or meal and then dried. The process of drying kills off some of the plants and renders the remainder inactive; because of this, the yeast requires no special care and will keep for an indefinite period of time, facts that account for its extensive use by housewives who are not within easy reach of the markets. However, because of the inactivity of the yeast plants, much longer ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... carter from the village drove his wain: And when it fell into a rugged lane, Inactive stood, nor lent a helping hand; But to that god, whom of the heavenly band He really honored most, Alcides, prayed: "Push at your wheels," the god appearing said, "And goad your team; but when you pray again, Help yourself likewise, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... questions farther. He had his own affairs to think of, that one business which absorbed almost the whole of his thoughts—the business of his search for the man who had robbed him of his promised wife, this interval, in which he remained inactive, devoting himself to the duties of his commercial life, was only a pause in his labours. He was not the less bent upon bringing about a face-to-face meeting between himself and Marian's husband because of this brief ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... naval forces on the lakes and to reinforce General Dearborn. Indeed, that officer was now at the head of ten thousand men, at Plattsburgh, and the American fleet on Lake Ontario was already so much superior to that of the British, as to make it necessary for the latter to remain inactive in harbour. The British ship Royal George, was actually chased into Kingston channel, and was there cannonaded for some time. It was only when the American fleet came within range of the Kingston forts that they hauled off to Four Mile Point, and anchored, ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... (6 are inactive; the active station is in Kabul), FM 1, shortwave 1 (broadcasts in Pashtu, Afghan Persian (Dari), Urdu, and ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... a tailor's, and bespoke a suit of clothes. He bought new linen; and our readers will perhaps hear with surprise, that he actually began to consider very seriously whether he should not take a few lessons in dancing. He had learned to dance formerly, and was not naturally either inactive or awkward: but his contempt for the art prevented him, for some years, from practising it; and he had nearly forgotten his wonted agility. Henry Campbell once, when Forester was declaiming against dancing, told him, that if he had learned to dance, and excelled in the art, his contempt ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... that, knowing himself anticipated and discovered, he knew also that if spared for a time by his opponent, it was no lack of will, but lack of opportunity alone to crush him, that held the hands of Cicero inactive. ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... Darke does not remain inactive, but leaps—forth from his lurking-place, to obtain more freedom for his arms. The buttresses hinder him from having elbow room. He also elevates his gun; but, perceiving it will be too late, instead of taking aim, he lowers the piece again, and ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... was a blank as regards her identity and former history. Now, in order to effect a recovery, I have reversed these experiences with her. She is at present plunged into a deep sleep, under the influence of narcotics that have rendered her brain absolutely inactive. It is really a state of coma, and I wish her to waken in this house, amid the scenes with which she was formerly familiar. By this means I hope to induce her mental faculties to resume their ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... purpose then have we performed so long a march with such expedition?" when he found it impossible to make his way to the enemy in that quarter, withdrawing several cohorts from the right wing, where he saw they would occupy an inactive station, rather than join in the fight, led them round the rear of the line, and, to the surprise not only of the enemy but his own party, charged their right flank; and such was their rapidity, that after ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... to the climate, but more particularly to the inactive life that they lead in this country, so much at variance with that of England, we can lay claim to but few dogs that would be considered above mediocrity among British sportsmen. We have seen several of these dogs ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... English names, bestowed upon them, it would appear, by the buccaneers of the 17th century; Albemarle Island makes up more than half of their area; they are volcanic in formation, and some of their 2000 craters are not yet inactive; their fauna is of peculiar scientific interest as exhibiting many species unknown elsewhere; besides the islands proper there is a vast number of islets ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... bad as it was, occupied nine days, during which our army lay in camp, making no attempt to molest the enemy. The Americans, however, were not so inactive. A battery of six guns, mounted on the opposite bank, kept up a continued fire upon our men. The same mode of proceeding was adopted in front, and thus, night and day we were harassed by danger, against which ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith
... dip in the mountains right down upon the margin of the lake. From this pass, elevated about two thousand feet above the level of the water, they continued to 5 descend, by a very winding and difficult road, for an hour and a half; and during the whole of this descent they were compelled to be inactive spectators of the fiendish spectacle below. The Kalmucks, reduced by this time from about six hundred thousand souls to two hundred and 10 sixty thousand, and after enduring for two months and a half the miseries we have previously described—outrageous heat, famine, and the ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... were destitute of flesh, blood, and animal life, mere umbroe. These ghosts are described as being nearly as destitute of sensation as they are of strength. They are called "the inhabitants of the land of stillness." They exist in an inactive, partially torpid state, with a dreamy consciousness of past and present, neither suffering nor enjoying, and seldom moving. Herder says of the Hebrews, "The sad and mournful images of their ghostly realm disturbed ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... furnished in time. In the meantime the Governor of the State of Mexico had arrived with seven hundred men, having reached a point near Tacubaya on the 11th, and his arrival greatly increased the Mexicans' hopes. Not being joined by cavalry as he expected, the Governor remained inactive on the 11th, 12th, and 13th. Quitman's division, with United States Marines and a company of New York volunteers, remained in the rear near the Tacubaya road during ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... something. Their not finding the object is another part of the consideration; but they always have one in view. As to savages, and the poorer classes of people, they shew their propensity by a more simple process; that is, merely by resting inactive, when they are not compelled ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... sooner strengthened by the foot-men who had been so long inactive while crossing the pass, than changes began to occur, foremost among which was the progress forward, the little force now pressing steadily ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... disagreeable things, you make reasoning disagreeable to him, and weaken its influence beforehand in a mind as yet unfitted to understand it. Keep his organs, his senses, his physical strength, busy; but, as long as possible, keep his mind inactive. Guard against all sensations arising in advance of judgment, which estimates their true value. Keep back and check unfamiliar impressions, and be in no haste to do good for the sake of preventing evil. For the good is not real unless enlightened by reason. Regard every delay ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... the women of other lands, to a far greater extent, than by American females. Most English women, in the wealthier classes, are able to walk six and eight miles, without oppressive fatigue; and when they visit this Country, always express their surprise at the inactive habits of American ladies. In England, regular exercise, in the open air, is very commonly required by the mother, as a part of daily duty, and is sought by young women, as an enjoyment. In consequence of a different physical training, ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... had taken a wider flight, and made his first visit to the Continent, but this was not likely to be repeated for some time. He always referred to it as more or less of a feat. The expense, to begin with, was greater than he could readily reconcile himself to, and the indulgence of his curiosity, not inactive, hardly compensated for his lack of ease amid the unfamiliar conditions of foreign travel. Richard represented an intermediate stage of development between the hard-headed operative who conquers wealth, and his descendant who shall know what use to make of it. Therein lay ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... attainment of that happy state, in which the body is free from every kind of pain, and the mind from all perturbation. This state must not, however, be conceived to be perfect in proportion as it is inactive and torpid, but in proportion as all the functions of life are quietly and pleasantly performed. A happy life neither resembles a rapid torrent, nor a standing pool, but is like a gentle stream, that glides smoothly ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... which modern historians have failed to represent. Gibbon records rightly, that the Count of Minorbino entered Rome with one hundred and fifty soldiers, and barricadoed the quarter of the Colonna—that the bell of the Capitol sounded—that Rienzi addressed the People—that they were silent and inactive—and that Rienzi then abdicated the government. But for this he calls Rienzi "pusillanimous." Is not that epithet to be applied to the People? Rienzi invoked them to move against the Robber—the People refused to obey. Rienzi wished to fight—the ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... when it had lost its archiepiscopal pre-eminence, gradually decayed: One of its streets is now lost; and in those that remain, there is silence and solitude of inactive indigence ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... give him news of his father's state. He wished not only to cure Stephanus, but to continue his relations with the youth, who had excited his interest in the highest degree, and he had resolved to help him to escape from the inactive life which ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... something she could not hear; but his gesture implied a negative. At first she did not understand; she could not reconcile this with the fact that he crouched inactive when wounded men were ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... does not permit any man to know the future, because in proportion as he does so, in the same degree his reason and understanding, with his prudence and wisdom, become inactive, are ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... the sensorium during their inactive state are termed irritability, sensibility, voluntarily, and associability; in their active state they are termed as above irritation, sensation, ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... town of Degarehi, where they plundered the famous lamasery of Teshu Lumbo, the residence of the Teshu Lama. Having achieved this success and gratified their desire for plunder, the Goorkhas remained inactive for some weeks, and wasted much precious time. The Tibetans did not attempt a resistance, which their want of military skill and their natural cowardice would have rendered futile, but they sent express messengers to Pekin entreating the Chinese emperor to ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... cheery, and he referred to the prisoners as "boys." The French and Russians were good boys; but the English were bad boys, who had no discipline. He said that all received the same food as German soldiers. It seemed almost ridiculous chivalry that men who had fought against you and were living inactive lives should be as well fed as the men who were fighting for you. The rations that I saw given to German soldiers were better. But that ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... cover as was convenient, and reached the kitchen, just as the band broke into the defences, and burst open the door of the blazing and already roofless hut. Here Peter paused, unwilling to seem inactive in such a scene, yet averse to doing anything that a sensitively tender conscience might tell him was wrong. He knew there was no human being there to save, and cared little for the few effects that might be destroyed. He did not join the crowd, therefore, until it ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... many days upon the spot, it would be almost impossible to hit it off exactly. On this last occasion,—although we did not prepare the plate until a good twenty minutes after the turf was thrown in,—the spring remained inactive so much longer than is usual that the collodion became quite insensitive, and the eruption left no impression whatever ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... knew how to take scalps. Now, a thousand snows had come and melted, since this gift was made," continued Whittal, who spoke with the air of one charged with the narration of a grave tradition, though he probably did no more than relate what many repetitions had rendered familiar to his inactive mind, "and yet none but red-skins were seen to hunt the moose, or to go on the war-path. Then the Great Spirit grew angry; he hid his face from his children, because they quarrelled among themselves. Big canoes came out of the rising ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... not a little busy with me, injecting doubts as to the right to trust for eyes. Faith still quenches all his fiery darts, although it sorely tries me to be thus inactive in these long summer days, without reading my beautiful edition of Young's Concordance, useless at the bottom of my trunk. My Revised New Testament I can only ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... not be seduced to put too much confidence in justice or in truth: they have often been found inactive in their own defence, and give more confidence than help to their friends and their advocates. It may, perhaps, be prudent to make one momentary concession to falsehood, by supposing the vote in Mr. Lutterel's favour ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... pranks comes from the lack of culture in so far as it is dependent upon the excess of energy and upon idleness. There cannot be any doubt that our merchant class, with but few exceptions, is the healthiest and, at the same time, most inactive class." ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... be added, that, in historic eras, the mythopoeic fancy is not inactive. Stories of marvelous adventure clustered about the old Celtic King Arthur of England and the "knights of the Round-Table," and fill up the chronicles relating to Charlemagne. Wherever there is a person who kindles popular enthusiasm, myths accumulate. ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... reader, a connectedness with the foregoing. Omit it if you like,—What a treasure it is to my poor, indolent, and unemployed mind thus to lay hold on a subject to talk about, though 'tis but a sonnet, and that of the lowest order! How mournfully inactive I ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... on the other hand—the supposition is also a wild one—that the Home Secretary had declined to protect the rights of the free labourers, that the troops had been withdrawn, and that the police had been inactive; suppose, in short, that the Government had been careless to maintain order. The Trade Unionists would at once have become supreme, and freedom of contract, as well as liberty of person, would have been at once abolished. Even in England then the power to exercise our rights ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... lovely child. 115 Each other care her burning thoughts refuse, In arms no more her Tyrian youth she views; No spreading moles the boistrous tide command; The tow'rs, the forts, begun, unfinish'd stand: The mighty structure threat'ning from on high 120 Hangs interrupted—all inactive lie Unbrac'd,—the vast machines that thro' the air, Lab'ring, the pond'rous mass, ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire
... do, as we get older and find ourselves slower, more timid, more inactive, more anxious, is to consult a candid friend, and to follow his advice rather than our own inclination; a certain fearfulness, an avoidance of unpleasant duty, a dreary foreboding, is apt to be characteristic ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... not persuade himself to call an alarm. He could not even inform Machin that she was mistaken, for to do so would have been equivalent to calling an alarm. Hesitating and inactive he allowed the black-and-white damsels and the blue cook to disappear. Nor would he disturb Sissie—yet. He had first to get used to the singular idea that his wife had vanished from home. Could this vanishing be one of the effects of traumatic neurasthenia? He hurried about and searched ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... to put the place in a posture of defence. Bonnivet was now obliged to attempt reducing the city by blockade and famine; and he took possession of all the posts which commanded the passages to it. But the army of the league, meanwhile, was not inactive; and they so straitened and harassed the quarters of the French, that it seemed more likely the latter should themselves perish by famine, than reduce ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... the lizard was freely handled by those in charge at Regent's Park, and being a lizard, was regarded as harmless. It was certainly dull and inactive, a result probably due to its long voyage and to the want of food. Thanks, however, to the examination of Dr. Gunther, of the British Museum, and to actual experiment, we now know that Heloderma will require in future ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... ladders and were able to fight on a level with the garrison. Perhaps they were repulsed, and then a shed-like structure would be advanced towards the wall, so as to enable the men to get close enough to dig a hole beneath the walls in order to bring them down. The besieged would not be inactive, but would cast heavy stones on the roof of the shed. Molten lead and burning flax were favourite means of defence to alarm and frighten away the enemy, who retaliated by casting heavy stones by means of ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... the kind who fought out trouble silently, but not placidly. She must have something to contend against; something on which to work out the distemper of a heart and mind not in harmony. She must experience physical exhaustion before resignation came. In learning a lesson she could not remain inactive. She must walk, walk, up and down, up an down, until its moral or text was beaten into her ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... of changes through which an insect passes in its growth from egg through larva and pupa to adult: it is complete when the pupa is inactive and does not feed; incomplete when there is no pupa or when the pupa is active ...
— Explanation of Terms Used in Entomology • John. B. Smith
... Lilian. I asked them to meet you all here to-night; but Mrs. Ashleigh was tired. The last of the furniture was to arrive today; and though dear Mrs. Ashleigh is an undecided character, she is not inactive. But it is not only the planning where to put tables and chairs that would have tried her today: she has had Mr. Vigors on her hands all the afternoon, and he has been—here's her little note—what are the words? No ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... been silent while all this talk was going on. But it could be readily believed that his restless mind was not inactive. He proved this by suddenly nodding his head, and looking up at Ned in that shrewd way he had of doing, whenever a particularly brilliant idea ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... mountains, through ravines which afforded a thousand places for assault, would make the guards relax their attention as they approached Gidding Creek. And, though there were many people in the region, they were a fat and inactive populace, not comparable with the lean ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... monk sighed again and then started off to follow the boys, trying hard to walk slowly and steadily; but it was all in vain. The hill-side sloped very steeply to the broad bed of willows and reeds far below, making the way very bad for so heavy and inactive a man. Worse still: walking over the short grass in the hot sun had made the bottoms of the monk's sandals as slippery as glass, and so it was that before he had gone far down the slope he began to talk to himself, at first slowly—then quickly—then in a loud excited way—and lastly he uttered ...
— The King's Sons • George Manville Fenn
... In a few minutes she heard her uncle go out; and shortly afterward the Rosemary's engine shook itself free of the car and rumbled away westward. At that, Virginia went back to the others and found a book. But if waiting inactive were difficult, ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... and children all huddled together in the insufficient barrack buildings. After waiting for a few hours, Jacques began to wonder what was delaying the others, and to think that something must have gone wrong. He was not the sort to remain inactive if he knew his services might be required, so he evaded the sentries and stole out of the Fort again to find his missing friends. Luck had so far favoured him, and he had wished many of the rebels good-night without arousing ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... arrived in Bern they were warmly welcomed by Dietrich, who forced Heime to give the stolen Mimung back to its rightful owner. The brave warriors were not long allowed to remain inactive, however, for they were soon asked to help Ermenrich against his revolted vassal, Rimstein. They besieged the recalcitrant knight in his stronghold of Gerimsburg, which was given to Walther von Wasgenstein, while Wittich was rewarded for his services by the hand of Bolfriana, ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... endure, go on, remain, persist; intervene; elapse &c. 109; hold out. take time, take up time, fill time, occupy time. pass time, pass away time, spend time, while away time, consume time, talk against time; tide over; use time, employ time; seize an opportunity &c. 134; waste time &c. (be inactive) 683. Adj. continuing &c. v.; on foot; permanent &c. (durable) 110. Adv. while, whilst, during, pending; during the time, during the interval; in the course of, at that point, at that point in time; for the time being, day by day; in ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... be remembered, in broken health. He used to say that when King Edward VII. wrote out to Cairo, strongly pressing him to stay, he had replied, in the words of Herodotus, "I am too old, oh King, and too inactive; so bid thou one of the younger men here to do these things." He very soon, however, recovered elasticity of mind and body when the load of office was removed from his shoulders, and "inactive" was the last epithet which could ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... by, and Knight remained inactive. Lengthening time, which made fainter the heart-awakening power of her presence, strengthened the mental ability to reason her down. Elfride loved him, he knew, and he could not leave off loving her but marry ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... She lowered it, and her hands remained inactive. Iver!—she saw him, as he stood before her in the Ship, extending his hands to her. She almost ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... their side had not been inactive, and early in 1776 Silas Deane, a member of Congress from Connecticut, was sent over to Paris with the mission to do his utmost to cement the friendship between the American Colonies and France. Deane worked to such good purpose that by October, 1776, he had sent clothing ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... Minister of War, General Clarke; for Napoleon had practically ceased to correspond with his brother. In the latter of these despatches Clarke explained in some detail the urgent need of acting at once, while the English were inactive, so as to stamp out the ever-spreading flame of revolt in the northern provinces. Two French armies, that of the North and the so-called "Army of Portugal," were to be told off for this duty; and Joseph was informed that his armies of the south and ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... men, and even Christians, introduce into their dealings some mixture of fate after the Turkish fashion, although they do not sufficiently acknowledge it. It is true that they are not inactive or negligent when obvious perils or great and manifest hopes present themselves; for they will not fail to abandon a house that is about to fall and to turn aside from a precipice they see in their path; and they will burrow in the earth to dig up a treasure half uncovered, ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... time been anxious to open hostilities; an act of Athenian aggression gave them an opportunity. Meanwhile in Sicily Lamachus had perished in attacking a Syracusan cross-wall. Left in sole command, Nicias remained inactive, while Gylippus, despatched from Sparta, arrived in Syracuse just in time to prevent it from capitulating. The seventh book is the record of continued Athenian disasters. Little by little Gylippus developed the Syracusan resources. ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... between idleness and inaction. It is the natural propensity of man to be idle, but not to be inactive. Enjoyment is his aim, after he has secured the means of existence. Enjoyment and idleness are supposed, in many cases, to go hand in hand; at any rate, they can be reconciled, whereas inaction and enjoyment are ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... thirty seconds to break the elbow of one of my assailants, trip another and send him stumbling backward among his fellows, and throw the third completely over my head in such a way that when he fell his neck was broken. In the instant that the others of the party stood in mute and inactive surprise, I unslung my rifle—which, carelessly, I had been carrying across my back; and when they charged, as I felt they would, I put a bullet in the forehead of one of them. This stopped them all temporarily—not the death of their fellow, but the ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... with this feeling, and reason only increased her fears. It was now noon, Bompard was not the man to go on a long expedition by himself; he was too inactive and easy-going. No, something had happened to him and he might at that moment be lying dead at the foot of some cliff or he might have broken a leg and be lying at the foot of some rock unable ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... peculiar form of the bird, and not in illusion to its mental capacity; and, consequently, even dodoor may not be the true origin. We more than suspect that it is really derived from a vulgar, compound epithet, used by Dutch seamen to denote an awkward, clumsily-formed, inactive person. This inquiry, however, is beyond our humble powers, and should be prosecuted by some learned professor—such, for instance, as Jonathan Oldbuck's friend, Dr ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... this war, which has already destroyed the value of untold millions, and has cost hundreds of thousands of promising human lives. I could almost envy you for being still spared to be an eyewitness of the great events, while I am condemned to the role of an inactive spectator. But I do not believe the struggle will last much longer. The sacrifices which it imposes on the people are too great to be endured many months longer. Everything is pressing to a speedy and decisive result, and I have no doubt what that result will ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... indulgent master. Those who have ability and industry make the most of their precious gifts by devoting their energies to trade or to music, for which accomplishment negroes have often a natural inclination; but the infirm or the inactive—and of these there is always a majority—are reduced to penury, in which condition they fall naturally into begging ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... inactive for some time, we shall soon have work for all of you," he remarked, laughing: "you, Barry, to take a part in the fighting; you, senor doctor, to attend the wounded; and you, senor padre, to shrive the dying. Each man to his trade,—though, to confess the truth, I ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... of a nervous temperament which called for constant motion, could not long remain inactive, and now, having poured his extravagant devotion into his sweetheart's ears, he ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... mischance he slipt and fell: A limb was broken when they lifted him; And while he lay recovering there, his wife Bore him another son, a sickly one: Another hand crept too across his trade Taking her bread and theirs: and on him fell, Altho' a grave and staid God-fearing man, Yet lying thus inactive, doubt and gloom. He seem'd, as in a nightmare of the night, To see his children leading evermore Low miserable lives of hand-to-mouth, And her, he loved, a beggar: then he pray'd 'Save them from this, whatever comes to me.' And while he pray'd, the master of ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson
... suppose that he was holding us inactive while he thus exhorted us. On the contrary, he was posting us skilfully beside the trace like the shrewd old Indian fighter that he was, with a rare and practised eye to the maximum of cover with the minimum of thicket tangle to impede the rush or ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... us, Mr Seagrave, but at the same time it is necessary that we should help ourselves; he will give his blessing to our exertions, but we cannot expect that miracles will be performed for us; and if we remain as we now are, inactive, and taking no steps to meet the danger which threatens us, we cannot expect the divine assistance. We have had a heavy shock, but it is now time that we recover from it, and put our own shoulders to ...
— Masterman Ready - The Wreck of the "Pacific" • Captain Frederick Marryat
... so had not provided for, the emergency. The municipal authorities were powerless and inactive. The judicial machinery seemed as if it had been designed, not to sustain the government, but to ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... Scotland idly now, Dark Flodden! on thy airy brow, Since England gains the pass the while, And struggles through the deep defile? What checks the fiery soul of James? Why sits that champion of the dames Inactive on his steed, And sees between him and his land, Between him and Tweed's southern strand, His host Lord Surrey lead? What 'vails the vain knight-errant's brand? O, Douglas, for thy leading wand! Fierce Randolph, for thy speed! O for ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... gradually entering into secret relations with the Bolsheviki and in Kiakhta and Ulankom delivered to them the Russian refugees, thus violating recognized international law; in Urga the Bolsheviki set up a Russian communistic municipality; Russian Consuls were inactive; Red troops in the region of Kosogol and the valley of the Selenga had encounters with Anti-Bolshevik officers; the Chinese authorities established garrisons in the Mongolian towns and sent punitive expeditions into the country; and, to complete the confusion, ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... remain here inactive," the doctor argued. "We've got to go one way or the other, and I think the chances are better ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman
... sheets were terminals of a circuit including a bell and battery, when water reached them the circuit would be closed and the bell would ring. It was also proposed to use one copper and one zinc sheet so as to constitute a battery in itself, to be thrown into action by moisture. These contacts or inactive batteries could be distributed where water from an overflow would be most likely ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... of men's sight in a sort of religious melancholy which lasted till his death in 1515, according to the received date. Vasari says that he plunged into the study of Dante, and even wrote a comment on the Divine Comedy. But it seems strange that he should have lived on inactive so long; and one almost wishes that some document might come to light which, fixing the date of his death earlier, might relieve one, in thinking of him, of his dejected ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... the eggs which they contain, undergo, at particular seasons, a periodical development, or increase in growth.... At the approach of the generative season, in all the lower animals, a certain number of the eggs, which were previously in an imperfect and inactive condition, begin to increase in size and become somewhat ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... widely known. I refer to the school for the education of the higher classes, which at the solicitation of many friends you have founded and attached to the Oratory. Surely after reading this bare enumeration of work done, no man will venture to say that Dr. Newman is leading a comparatively inactive life in ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... resources the children had not remained inactive. Their curious eyes taking in all the strange surroundings, they saw many things that interested them. One of the pictures on the east wall particularly impressed them. It portrayed the figure of a man, his face lighted up with a wonderfully tender expression, while in his arms and round about ...
— Pearl and Periwinkle • Anna Graetz
... Movement of our age an endeavour on the part of women among modern civilised races to find new fields of labour as the old slip from them, as an attempt to escape from parasitism and an inactive dependence upon sex function alone; but, viewed from another side, the Woman's Movement might not less justly be called a part of a great movement of the sexes towards each other, a movement towards common occupations, common interests, common ideals, and towards an emotional ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... Hall, whose injudicious space, Like Death, confounds a various mismatched race, Where kings and clowns, th' ambitious and the mean, Compose th' inactive ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... 'Praetorian guards of Turkey.' The arrogant pretensions of Scodra Pacha were very strongly exemplified in the attitude which he assumed at the close of the campaign of 1829. Having in the first instance shown much dilatoriness in entering the field, he remained inactive near Widdin during the latter part of 1828 and the commencement of 1829, when, by operating in the rear of the Russians, he might have been most useful to the Turkish Seraskier. The treaty of peace, however, had been signed, and forwarded for ratification ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... manly, erect, easy, forceful, and impressive. Avoid that which is weak, shifting, stiff, inactive, ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... but the vines being mostly blighted, had this year the same autumnal tint as the trees. In this country, the vine is almost the only product of the soil, and the inhabitants, who subsist chiefly by it, now behold with regret its withered state, and are melancholy and inactive, instead of being engaged in the pleasing ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard
... to a battle: Still, however, they delayed the attack, but a party ran to each of our boats, and attempted to draw them on shore; this seemed to be the signal, for the people about us at the same time began to press in upon our line: Our situation was now become too critical for us to remain longer inactive, I therefore discharged my musket, which was loaded with small shot, at one of the forwardest, and Mr Banks and two of the men fired immediately afterwards: This made them fall back in some confusion, but one of the chiefs, who was at the distance ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... Fredonia station. A man darted in front of the horses, flung up his arms and began to shriek curses at me. If she had not been a skilful driver, we should both have been thrown from the cart. As it was, the horses ran several miles before she got them under control, I sitting inactive, because I knew how it would hurt her pride if I ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... Lashmar with a new interest. Constantly worrying about his own inactive life, and what he deemed his culpable supineness as a citizen, the pinched peer envied any man to whom the Lower ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... woods; and swinging himself lightly into one of the trees, showed that he was a master in the art of whipping them. Fleda was delighted, but not surprised; for, from the first moment of Mr. Carleton's proposing to go with her, she had been privately sure that he would not prove an inactive or inefficient ally. By whatever slight tokens she might read this, in whatsoever fine characters of the eye, or speech, or manner, she knew it; and knew it just as well before they reached the ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... besides acting on the nerves of the excitable, such weather affected the sensitive or ailing in material ways. Daniel Robson's fit of rheumatism incapacitated him from stirring abroad; and to a man of his active habits, and somewhat inactive mind, this was a great hardship. He was not ill-tempered naturally, but this state of confinement made him more ill-tempered than he had ever been before in his life. He sat in the chimney-corner, abusing the weather and doubting the wisdom or desirableness ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... portion of the wondrous things related by M. Deleuze. He further said, "When magnetism produces somnambulism, the person who is in this state acquires a prodigious extension of all his faculties. Several of his external organs, especially those of sight and hearing, become inactive; but the sensations which depend upon them take place internally. Seeing and hearing are carried on by the magnetic fluid, which transmits the impressions immediately, and without the intervention of any nerves ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... to hesitation. She was a woman who thought clearly, who knew what she wanted and what she did not want, and who acted promptly and decisively. Perhaps she hesitated now because she had been forced to remain inactive in this particular case for such a long time; or perhaps she had received an obscure warning from something within her which knew what she—the whole of her that was Cynthia ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... of Lincoln's last eclipse is a period of relative silence. But his mind was not inactive. He did not cease thinking upon the deep theoretical distinctions that were separating him by a steadily widening chasm from the most powerful faction in Congress. In fact, his mental powers were, ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... masses, with St. Benedict, their contemplative but at first inactive general, stood the little army of Normans,—certainly not more than the third of their number—but with Robert Guiscard for captain, and under him his brother, Humphrey of Hauteville, and Richard of Aversa. Not in fear, but ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin
... moment emphatically lazy. Towards the end of life some conscientious pangs seem to have touched Montaigne's singularly humane and sensitive spirit, when he looked back on the [89] long intellectual entertainment he had had, in following, as an inactive spectator, "the ruin of his country," through a series of chapters, every one of which had told emphatically in his own immediate neighbourhood. With its old and new battlefields, its business, ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... and effect were so closely allied in certain classes of crime my department would cease to exist, and the protection of life and property might be left safely to the ordinary police. By the way, P. C. Robinson has been rather inactive during two whole days. That makes me suspicious. What's he up to? Can you throw a ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy |
