"Languid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he had been before, and she noticed a perfume which hung about his clothing, a perfume that seemed to her like the East, heavy and rich, suggestive of mystery and secret things. It brought to her mind what she had read about harems, and beautiful, languid women, yet it suited Si Maieddine's personality, and somehow did not make him ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the love of his Saviour, as an infant leans on a mother's breast. When the hand that led him through the wilderness leads him at length down the dark sides of the swelling Jordan, he looks up with languid eye, but bright, burning spirit, and whispers to his guide, "I will not fear, for Thou art with me;" when the judgment is set and the books are opened, he stands before the Judge in white clothing, accepted in the Beloved; the voice of the Eternal, tenderly human, yet clothed ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... came the disconsolate answer. "Wisht I did. They ain't nothin' to take me anywheres. I've set two hours in the deadest game of draw—nothing excitin', no hands, an' broke even. Played a rubber of cribbage with Skiff Mitchell for the drinks, an' now I'm that languid for somethin' doin' that I'm perambulatin' the streets on the chance of seein' a dogfight, ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... noonday. 25 When one with bliss or sadness fails, And through the windless ivy-boughs, Sick with sweet love, droops dying away On its mate's music-panting bosom; Another from the swinging blossom, 30 Watching to catch the languid close Of the last strain, then lifts on high The wings of the weak melody, Till some new strain of feeling bear The song, and all the woods are mute; 35 When there is heard through the dim air The rush of wings, and rising ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... understand how a man, impressed with the idea that his blood had all been drawn from him by a sorceress, should become faint, and remain many days in a languid state; but how the people around should believe that they saw the blood flowing from both parts of the cane at the place cut through, it is ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... of the conversation on herself She was a beautiful woman, faded now with the pallor that comes to northern people after a long residence in the sub-tropical south, and languid from the same cause. Her handsome hazel eyes looked as if they had been used to weeping, though they conserved a brightness that imparted animation to her face. A white frill round her throat gave the only relief ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... sketched Its plan and outlines, laughingly assigning To each his part, and barring our excuses With absolute will. So, like the cavaliers Whose voices still are heard in the Romance Of silver-tongued Boccaccio, on the banks Of Arno, with soft tales of love beguiling The ear of languid beauty, plague-exiled From stately Florence, we rehearsed our rhymes To their fair auditor, and shared by turns Her kind approval and her ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... the scene were very diverse. Mrs. Heron, a languid-looking, fair-haired woman, lay at full length on one of the divans. Her step-daughter, Kitty, sat at the tea-table, and Kitty's elder brother, Percival, a tall, broad-shouldered young man of eight-and-twenty, was leaning against the mantelpiece. A girl, who looked about twenty-one ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... not words were ever made For such occasions. Silence, tears, embraces, Are languid eloquence; I'll seek relief In absence from the pain of so much goodness, There, thank the blest above, thy sole superiors, Adore, and raise my thoughts of them by ...
— The Revenge - A Tragedy • Edward Young
... struck by her son's pale face and languid manner. The voyage over, the effects of his severe wound, and the long-continued anxiety he had suffered, at once told on him. She immediately sent for the best surgeon in the place. Dr Roach quickly arrived; he had a great respect ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... eyes As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere Remorsefully regarded thro' his tears, And would have spoken, but he found not word; Then took with care, and kneeling on one knee, O'er both his shoulders drew the languid hands, And rising bore him thro' the place of tombs. But, as he walk'd, King Arthur panted hard, Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed When all the house is mute. So sigh'd the King, Muttering and murmuring ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... Esmond, and The Newcomes recounts the later fortunes of Arthur Pendennis. The Virginians has two or three splendid scenes, and some critics regard The Newcomes as the finest expression of the author's genius; but both works, which appeared in the leisurely form of monthly instalments, are too languid in action for sustained interest. We grow acquainted with certain characters, and are heartily glad when they make their exit; perhaps someone else will come, some adventurer from the road or the inn, to relieve the dullness. The door opens, ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... look and manner greatly assisted his personal advantages. In his own effeminate way he was more handsome than ever that evening. His soft brown eyes wandered about the room with a melting tenderness; his hair was beautifully brushed; his delicate hands hung over the arms of his chair with a languid grace. He looked like a convalescent Apollo. Never, on any previous occasion, had he practiced more successfully the social art which he habitually cultivated—the art of casting himself on society in the character of a well-bred Incubus, and conferring an obligation on his fellow-creatures ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... whose temper long years in India have not soured; the squat pursy paymaster (why are paymasters so fearfully inclined to fat?); the raw-boned young surgeon with the Aberdeen accent; "the ranker," erect and grizzled, and looking ever so little not quite at his ease, you know, for the languid lad with fawn-coloured moustache straddling on the chair beside him is an Honourable; the jovial portly Yorkshireman, who is in the Highland Light Infantry, naturally; and the lively loud-voiced Irishman, ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... because he thought he really should read better stuff; Robert Chambers, David Graham Phillips, and E. Phillips Oppenheim complete, and a scattering of Tennyson and Kipling. Of all his class work only "L'Allegro" and some quality of rigid clarity in solid geometry stirred his languid interest. ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... their taste is sweet, while others that come from deep wells are brackish or sulphurous, even as some pour forth in abundance while others flow drop by drop, thus, understand thou, is it also with our choices. Some choices are swift and exceeding fervent, others languid and cold: some have a bias entirely toward virtue, while others incline with all their force to its opposite. And like in nature to these choices are ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... In a last languid movement he turned on his back and opened his eyes to the bright sky. He felt her stir. Her arm brushed him and the vibrancy of her being sang through him. She opened her eyes and her love smiled out at him. The smile brightened her face until it spread across the sky and grew brilliant like the ...
— The Premiere • Richard Sabia
... languid, semi-tropic summer came hovering over the valley. The apricots turned golden, the peaches glowed, the grapes filled and hardened, like opaque emeralds hung thick under the canopied vines. The garden was a shade brown, and the roses had all fallen; but ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... he crossed the room, and with all the simplicity of old days, which instantly returned on him, those melancholy eyes sparkling with animation, and that languid form quick with excitement, he caught the Doctor's glance, and shook his extended hand with a heartiness which astonished the surrounding spectators, accustomed to the elaborate ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... Krishna, assembled together and eager for the fight, my limbs become languid, and my mouth becomes dry. My body trembles, and my hair stands on end. Gandiva slips from my hand, and my skin burns. I am unable to stand (any longer); my mind seems to wander. I behold adverse omens, too, O Kesava. I do ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Grecian poets have celebrated, and which Grecian sculptors have immortalised, clustered over his brow, which, however, they only partially concealed. It was pale, as was his whole countenance, but the liquid richness of the dark brown eye, and the colour of the lip, denoted anything but a languid circulation. The features were regular, and inclined rather to a refinement which might have imparted to the countenance a character of too much delicacy, had it not been for the deep meditation of the brow, and for the lower ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... Hetherton thought, but Lucy was one who could trample down proprieties, and it was finally arranged that Fanny should stay with her. So, while Fanny went to bed and slept, Lucy sat all night in the sick room with Mrs. Brown, and when the next morning came she was looking very pale and languid, but very beautiful withal. At least, such was the mental compliment paid her by Thornton Hastings, who was passing through Hanover and had stopped over one train to see his old college friend and, perhaps, tell ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... and, worse than this, lack of cleanliness and industry. The woman and children had a look of health, but the man was evidently the subject of some wasting disease. His form was light, his face thin and rather pale, and his languid eyes deeply sunken. He was very far from being the able-bodied man Mr. Prescott had expected to find. As the latter stepped into the miserable room where they were gathered, the light of expectation, mingled with the shadows of mute suffering, came into their countenances. Mr. Prescott was ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... the dying god as it left his lips or his nostrils and so transfer it to a successor, this would not effect their purpose; for, dying of disease, his soul would necessarily leave his body in the last stage of weakness and exhaustion, and so enfeebled it would continue to drag out a languid, inert existence in any body to which it might be transferred. Whereas by slaying him his worshippers could, in the first place, make sure of catching his soul as it escaped and transferring it to a suitable successor; and, in the second ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... that charms us in a squirrel. The elasticity of her limbs took all appearance of awkwardness or effort from her movements. She played about upon the grass, rolling in it as a young child might have done; then, on a sudden, she lay still and stretched out her feet and hands, with the languid natural grace of a ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac
... stately, Languid, slow, serene; All the dancers move sedately, Stepping leisurely and straitly, With a courtly mien; Crossing hands and changing places, Bowing low between, While the minuet inlaces Waving arms ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... heart is almost as severe a strain as the less poetic process of working on an empty stomach. On the morning after the failure of Esme's strategy and the wrecking of Hal's hopes, the young editor went to his office with a languid but bitter distaste for its demands. The first item in the late afternoon mail stung him to a fitter spirit, as a sharp blow will spur to his best efforts a courageous boxer. This was a packet, containing the crumbled fragments of ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... years, and revealed, too, a great emptiness. Flies kept rising and settling again on the hands, the face, and the head of the man—moist flies whose feet felt damp on the skin. They were slow and languid flies which wanted to settle and stay. It was his breathing that made them restless, but not enough to clear them away, only enough to make a low buzzing in the sultry room. Across the top of his head a bald streak ran from ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason
... delicious day—threatening rain; but with the languid and affecting manner in which beauty demands sympathy when about to weep. I wandered about the banks and braes all morning, and got home about three, and saw everything in tolerable order, excepting that there was a good number of branches ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... her daughter's social activity, and as Hamilton's name entered the rapid accounts of revels and routs in the most casual manner, she endeavoured to persuade herself that the madness had passed with a languid afternoon. She was a woman of the world, but the one experience that develops deepest insight had passed her by, and there were shades and moods of the master passion over which her sharp ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... to be wealthiest among the wealthy—gone—forgotten. Her dreams now were of the dolce far niente of a tropical climate, a boudoir giving on the Caribbean sea, cigarettes, coffee, nights spent in a foreign opera house, the languid, reposeful existence of a Spanish dama—with him, with him. It was for his sake that she had modified all her ideas of life. To be with him she would have been content to dwell in the tents of the Patagonians, on the wild and snow-clad Pampas. A love which was strong enough to make her sacrifice ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... out from time to time to watch the arrival of the priest or doctor. On this occasion Dora came to meet them; but, alas! with what a different spirit from that which animated her on the return of her father from the metropolis. Her gait was now slow, her step languid; and they could perceive that, as she approached them, she wiped away the tears. Indeed her whole appearance was indicative of the state of her mother; when they met her, her bitter sobbing and the sorrowful earnestness of manner with which she embraced the sisters, wore melancholy ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... burst here and there into star-shaped crimson blossoms. The sighing and creaking up above were broken every now and then by the jarring cry of some startled animal. The atmosphere was close and the air came at them in languid puffs of scent. The vast green light was broken here and there by a round of pure yellow sunlight which fell through some gap in the immense umbrella of green above, and in these yellow spaces crimson and black butterflies were circling and settling. Terence ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... Creator intended that we should be affected with anything, he did not confide the execution of his design to the languid and precarious operation of our reason; but he endued it with powers and properties that prevent the understanding, and even the will; which, seizing upon the senses and imagination, captivate the soul before the understanding is ready either ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... two men, after awkwardly and perfunctorily grasping each other's hand, entered at once into a languid conversation on the recent election at Fresno, without the slightest further reference to the pursuit of the robbers. It was not until the remaining and undenominated passenger turned to Hale, and, regretting that he had immediate business at the Summit, ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... immoveable cheek, and the unsmiling aspect of the rosy mouth. But he returned the pressure, and that so significantly, that she at least could not be mistaken; nor was she, for her eye again met his, with that deep amorous languid glance; was bashfully withdrawn; and then met his again, glancing askance through the dark fringed lids, and a quick flashing smile, and a burning blush followed; and in a second's space she was again as cold, as ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... face turned a variety of colours, his languid eyes lost all trace of languor. Those who knew his nature might have expected that he would now deliver himself with that sneering sarcasm, that indolent cynicism, which he used upon occasion. But he was too deeply stirred for acting. His self-control deserted ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... however, to take the three days' holiday; and on the second day, after a couple of hours' penance on the sofa, I got up, languid and tired still, but bent on some employment by which I might escape from the sad monotony of my ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... that dreamy, languid haze, so common to the Autumn time, when the distant hills are bathed in a smoky light and all things give token of decay. The sun, round and red, as the October sun is wont to be, shone brightly upon Collingwood, and looked cheerily into ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... 5th 1806. Colter and Bratton were permitted to visit the indian villages today for the purpose of trading for roots and bread, they were fortunate and made a good return. we gave the indian cheif another sweat today, continuing it as long as he could possibly bear it; in the evening he was very languid but appeared still to improve in the use of his limbs. the child is recovering fast the inflamation has subsided intirely, we discontinued the poltice, and applyed a plaster of basilicon; the part is still considerably swolen and hard. in ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... illness is languid, passive, receptive of sweetness, but too weak to contain it. The tears well and fall as the dog barks in the hollow, the children skim after hoops, the country darkens and brightens. Beyond a ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... evening. She asked why he had been keeping it such a great secret, and he could not pretend, as he had once thought he could, that he was keeping it as a surprise for her. "Should you like to see 'em, 'Manda?" she asked, with languid indifference. ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... languid steps that crime often escapes from its slowness. Its tardy and doubtful course causes too many tears ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... the road again towards her own street, it seemed to her that the day even now was beginning to cloud over. Over the roofs of Kensington a haze was beginning to make itself visible, as impalpable as a skein of smoke; yet there it was. She felt a little languid, too. Perhaps she had walked too far. She would rest a little after lunch, if dearest Maud did not mind; for dearest Maud was to lunch with her, as was usual on Sundays ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... was—as he began it. But under his deft hands it grew, and blossomed, and spread—oh, beyond imagination. At the end of half an hour he finished; finished with the remark, uttered in an adorably languid manner: ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... supper-party in my rooms. We were twelve in all. My friend Eustace brought his gondolier Antonio with fair-haired, dark-eyed wife, and little Attilio, their eldest child. My own gondolier, Francesco, came with his wife and two children. Then there was the handsome, languid Luigi, who, in his best clothes, or out of them, is fit for any drawing-room. Two gondoliers, in dark blue shirts, completed the list of guests, if we exclude the maid Catina, who came and went ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... an epoch in the life of Mrs. Morton. She had always been too languid to encounter any excitement of any sort, but she had watched the events of this day with an interest which was as new to herself as it was to all who knew her. And when the young folks declared that they must see ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... and proclamation made that the new boys were about to race. Whereat Templeton lined the quarter-mile track; and showed a languid interest in the contest. Swinstead called over the first ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... collection have in vain been tried; the public expectation has been uniformly disappointed, and the treasuries of the States have remained empty. The popular system of administration inherent in the nature of popular government, coinciding with the real scarcity of money incident to a languid and mutilated state of trade, has hitherto defeated every experiment for extensive collections, and has at length taught the different legislatures ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... a sudden relapse into discouragement, like a votary who has watched too long for a sign from the altar. Perhaps, after all, he should never find his face... The air was languid, and he felt tired. He walked between the bald grass-plots and the twisted trees, making for an empty seat. Presently he passed a bench on which a girl sat alone, and something as definite as the twitch of a cord made him stop before her. He had never dreamed ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... in these views; the home of the languid Italian was the home also of the sternest race of whom the story of mankind retains a record. And again, when we are told that the Spaniards are superstitious, because Spain is a country of earthquakes, ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... the room, he withdrew, and left me alone with Mrs. Leighton. I quietly advanced into the room and paused before her. She was reclining in a large easy chair, and I was much surprised by her changed appearance. She was very thin and pale, and appeared to be weak and languid; and Mrs. Harringford's letter was recalled to my mind when I observed how gray was her once beautiful hair. She extended her hand to me; but, for some moments, was unable to utter a word. When she relinquished the hand I had given her, she motioned me to a seat. She seemed agitated by ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... Fanny and Ambrose came in and sat a while. Fanny is ever so much improved. She has brightened up, and lost much of that languid, limp, fanciful way she used to have; and, instead of writing odes to the stars, she seems to take an interest in her poultry-yard and dairy. My Aunt Kezia says Fanny wanted an object in life, and I suppose she has ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... to the old keeper; to put a little heart in him, if possible. It was no fault of his; he only carried out his orders, and so on. Gwen is silent about her experience; she will not raise false hopes. Besides, she is only half grieved for the old chap—has only a languid sympathy in her heart for him who, tampering with implements of Death, becomes Cain unawares. If she is right, he will know in time. Meanwhile it will be a lesson to him to avoid triggers, and will thus minimise ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... I was languid and fatigued, but felt little desire to sleep. Antonio cooked our supper, or rather his own, for I had no appetite. I sat by the door, gazing on the wood-covered heights above me, or on the waters of the rivulet, occasionally listening ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... army could escape out of their hands, or subsist long where they were, for want of water. The twelfth legion, called the Melitine, from a town of that name in Armenia, where it had been quartered a long time, was chiefly composed of Christians. These, when the army was drawn up, but languid and perishing with thirst, fell upon their knees, "as we are accustomed to do at prayer," says Eusebius, and poured forth earnest supplications to God in this public extremity of their state and emperor, though hitherto he had been a persecutor ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... cradles the unconscious Farragut of the future is at this moment teething think of it! and putting in a world of dead earnest, unarticulated, but perfectly justifiable profanity over it, too. In another the future renowned astronomer is blinking at the shining Milky Way with but a languid interest poor little chap!—and wondering what has become of that other one they call the wet-nurse. In another the future great historian is lying—and doubtless will continue to lie until his earthly mission is ended. In another the future President is busying ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... they call you 'Stanislaus Joe.' Of course that is not your real name?" (Mem.—Miss Alice had never called him ANYTHING, usually prefacing any request with a languid, "O-er-er, please, mister-er-a!" explicit enough for ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... and distress which possessed the Master. Finn knew by the manner in which his friend sat down when he entered the poor little lodging at night, that things had gone evilly during the day. The touch of his friend's hand on his head, languid and inert, told the Wolfhound much; and the nightly messages which reached his understanding were increasingly depressing. He did not understand the Master's explanations to the Mistress of how he had been swindled here, turned away in the other place, ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... loose jointed, languid actin' gents, Marmaduke is; the kind that can drape themselves careless and comf'table over almost any kind of furniture. He's a little pop eyed, his hair is sort of a faded tan color, and he's whopper jawed on the left side; but beyond that he didn't have ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... were soon busy as usual, and as opportunity offered, she told her fellow-worker of the events of the evening. Mara, with a languid interest, inquired about those whom she knew, and how they appeared, and she sometimes laughed aloud at Ella's droll descriptions. She was even more emphatic in her disapproval of young Houghton's presence than the captain or Mrs. Bodine ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... spirits failed her—not at all an unnatural consequence of so many weeks' confinement to the house. A plan was started, quite suddenly, one morning in December, that met with approval from everyone but Ellinor, who was, however, by this time too languid to ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... afternoon school and going to bathe in Firestone Bay. And it was while these lads were dressing, after revelling in their stolen enjoyment, that their attention was attracted by the appearance of a tall ship gliding up the Sound before the soft breathing of the languid breeze. ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... statistics and eloquent appeals of the preacher. Every now and then, however, the Reverend Mr. Fairweather let off a polemic discourse against his neighbor opposite, which waked his people up a little; but it was a languid congregation, at best,—very apt to stay away from meeting in the afternoon, and not at all given to extra evening services. The minister, unlike his rival of the other side of the way, was a down-hearted ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... ten, Encampment Butte was deserted with the exception of a few old cowmen, two ladies, wife and sister of a popular cowman, and the captain, who from this point of vantage surveyed the field with a glass. Usually a languid and indifferent man, Miller had so set his heart on making this drive a success that this morning he appeared alert and aggressive as he rode forward and back across the plateau of the Butte. The dull, heavy reports of several shotguns caused ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... more, Fairfax. Or, if curse I do, it shall be at my own fatuity. I will not be the dilatory, languid, ranting, moralizing Hamlet of the drama; that has the vengeance of hell upon his lips and the charity of heaven in his heart. I will use ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... the contemplation of the very oldest buildings which the hands of man have constructed, become impatient of temples which are hardly older than the Christian era. Ruins which would be gazed upon with wonder and veneration in any other country are hardly noticed in Egypt. The tourists viewed with languid interest the half-Greek art of the Nubian bas-reliefs; they climbed the hill of Korosko to see the sun rise over the savage Eastern desert; they were moved to wonder by the great shrine of Abou-Simbel, where some old race has hollowed out a mountain ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... appeared. He jerked a thumb towards the classroom. 'I've locked dem in. What's doin', Buck?' he asked, indicating me with a languid nod. ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... against the doorpost, now looking in at Ben and his cows, and now at the sunshiny strawyard. She felt tired and languid, as she very often did at the end of the day, although the work at Orchards Farm was no harder than she had always been used to at home. There, however, it had been done in peace and quietness, here all was hurry and confusion. It was a new and distracting thing to live ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... Accustomance, or Diet, or peculiarity of Constitution, should enable a Man to distinguish with such Gross and Unsuitable Organs, such Nice and Subtile Differences as those of the forms of Asperity, that belong to differing Colours, to receive whose Languid and Delicate Impressions by the Intervention of Light, Nature seems to have appointed and contexed into the Retina the tender and delicate Pith of the Optick Nerve. Wherefore I confess, I propos'd divers Scruples, and particularly whether the Doctor had taken care to bind a Napkin or Hankerchief ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... half, or at most a full, note. The conclusion of a measure is generally a descent, and the commencement of a new one seems to be a feeble effort to rise from the dreamy apathy in which Eastern imagination delights; but it is immediately followed by the fall of the rhythmus, re-establishing its languid repose. The frequent use of half notes induces a predominance of the minor key, and this, with the constant recurrence of the rhythmical fall, imparts to Semitic and Hindoo music that melancholy, lethargic uniformity which expresses ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... nineteenth century he rode as a northern barbarian of the first might have disported before the Roman populace, but harmlessly, of his own free will, and of some little profit to himself. He threw his lasso under the curious eyes of languid men and women of the world, eager for some new sensation, with admiring plaudits from them and a half contemptuous egotism of his own. But outside of the arena he was lonely, lost, and ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... hid the passions of the stage, I turned with a sigh of exhaustion and of pleasure to my hostess, and I was rather surprised to find that she showed not a trace of the nervous excitement which had marked her entrance into the box. She sat there, an excellent imitation of a woman of fashion, languid, unmoved, apparently a little bored, but finely conscious of doing the ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... Marchmont's in deadly earnest under that deuced languid manner of his. I tell you what, he's a very limited ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... interested eyes, in which there was never one trace of pity. It cannot be said with precision that he writhed; his movement was more a slow, continuous squirm, effected with a ghastly assumption of languid indifference; while his gaze, in the effort to escape the marble-hearted glare of his schoolmates, affixed itself with apparent permanence to the waistcoat button of James Russell Lowell just above the ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... the sea, and sometimes took long driving and walking expeditions among the hills. It was a rainy region, and we were often confined to the house, except for a brisk walk in the soft rain. The climate never suited me; I was always languid in body there, greedy of sleep and food. There was no great brilliance of talk, only a quiet ease of communication such as takes place among people of the same interests. I was ill there, more than once, and often anxious and perplexed. And yet, for all that, my memory persists ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... hesitating, uncertain, rose; his face had regained its composure. He regarded the slender, aristocratic figure of the nobleman in the background; faultlessly dressed, Lord Ronsdale carried himself with his habitual languid air of assurance. The two bowed; the stony glance of the lord met the impassive one of the man. Then a puzzled look came into the nobleman's eyes; he gazed at Steele more closely; his ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... take the trouble to help you and the young un?" she asked, sitting on Susannah's doorstep, languid with the heat. "When I was going along the lane last night I met a spirit, so I held out my hand according to Joe's latest. You've not heard! My! it's in the Millenial Star that if any sort of a voice or dream comes to you, the way to know, whether it's an angel or devil ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... for he told me so. I had been passing a few days at Blois, and was staring at the Fragonard which hangs in the gallery of the chateau, when a languid voice said, "This ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... furious; and Hortense would have been, too, only she was too languid to feel such an emotion. Flossie proceeded to introduce Helen to the three visitors—all of whom chanced to be young ladies whom Belle was striving her ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... kind of cheerful effort. But now he had to go through the experience of feebleness and peevish inactivity. He used sometimes, out of pure irritability, to resume his work; but he had no grip or vigour; his conceptions were languid, his technical resources were dulled; and then came strange and unmanning dizzinesses, the horrible feeling, in the middle of a cheerful company, that one is hardly accountable for one's actions, when the only escape ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Never, in her childhood, had she so eagerly longed for a plaything; never, at her present age, had she so vehemently wished for a new dress or a glittering ornament, as she desired to meet the eye of the guest; and when at length, in the evening, she encountered his languid, yet expressive gaze, she could not remove her look from the black eyes of Ammalat, which were intently fixed on her. They seemed to say—"Hide not thyself; star of my soul!" as they drank health and consolation from her glances. She ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... the uppermost to the lowest terrace, without losing any of its nutritive effects by a rapid course, seems to have suggested this mode of preparing the ground. In a hot and dry country, vegetation becomes languid without the command of water; and I observed that on the uppermost terrace there was invariably a tank or reservoir to collect the waters falling from the upper parts of the hills. The expense of labour, that had evidently ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... the kingdom. Where rewards or sums of money are paid for the taking or destroying them, no advantages are gained, except where there are sufficiently ample and proper regulations entered into and enforced, the whole district, parish, or township, becomes partakers in the business. No languid or half measures will do any thing useful, or to the purpose, in this sort of undertaking. It is not improbable, but that these destructive birds might be greatly extirpated and thinned down in their numbers, by the use ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... And what a race, brooding over its nests in the eagles' crags! Where on earth can be found so peculiar a people, guarding their individuality from the hoariest antiquity, and snatching the arts into the clefts of the mountains, to cover the languid races of the plains with luxuries borrowed from the clouds! The jewelry and the tissues, the bornouses and haiks, the blacksmith-work and ammunition, which fill the markets of Morocco, Tunis and the countries toward the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... stood in the sala again I saw that Miss Tita had followed me, and I supposed that as her aunt had neglected to suggest that I should take a look at my quarters it was her purpose to repair the omission. But she made no such suggestion; she only stood there with a dim, though not a languid smile, and with an effect of irresponsible, incompetent youth which was almost comically at variance with the faded facts of her person. She was not infirm, like her aunt, but she struck me as still more helpless, because her inefficiency was ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... upon a bank. I tried not to see the artificial roads of the forest, alive with city carriages. I believed myself lost in a primeval wood, and I examined the state of my heart. I perceived with concern that that organ was still lacerated. The languid, musical pageant of my youth streamed toward me again through the leafy aisles, and I remembered my high aspirings, my poems, my ideals: the floating vision of a Dark Ladye passed or looked up at me through the broken waves of Oblivion; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... a languid eye over the bundle of humanity spread out for sale at his feet and gave courteous greeting ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... study struck three, in the darkness three strokes, remote and deep, answered. In the air the volatile and languid odor of syringas was overcome by the narcotic and stronger odor of hyacinths. The increasing cold flowed around them with painful contrast. In the door, beyond which she had vanished, Irene appeared again, just as silently as before. She passed through the room and placed a shawl ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... Eugen, Hereditary Prince of Posen, entered the audience chamber. He was pale and languid, and his uniform seemed to be a trouble to him. His hair had been slightly ruffled, and there was a look of uneasiness, almost of alarmed unrest, in his fine dark eyes. He was like a man who is afraid to look behind him lest he should see something there which ought not to be there. ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... crimson stain tinges their ashen brows As they part the last boughs and slowly step again On to the village grass, and chill and languid pass Into the huts to sleep. Brief slumber, yet so deep That, when they wake to day, darkness and splendour seem Broken and far-away, a faint miraculous dream; And when those maidens rise they are as they ever were ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... to kneel beside Julia's bed, and gather her little limp hands to his lips, and murmur incoherent praise of his brave girl, his darling little mother, his little old sweetheart, dearer than a thousand babies. Julia heard him dreamily, raised languid eyes, and after a little while stroked his hair. She was spent, exhausted, hammered by the agony of a few short hours into this pale ghost of herself, and he was strong and well, the red blood running confident and audacious in his veins. Their spirits could not meet to-night. ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... how strong the sun's bright ball, But seen from thence, how languid and how small, When the keen north with all its fury blows, Congeals the floods and forms the fleecy snows: 'Tis heat intense, to what can there be known, Warmer our poles than in its burning (!) zone; One moment's cold like their's ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... proportion as he thinks himself happier? Therefore, as these men are miserable, so, on the other hand, those are happy who are alarmed by no fears, wasted by no griefs, provoked by no lusts, melted by no languid pleasures that arise from vain and exulting joys. We look on the sea as calm when not the least breath of air disturbs its waves; and, in like manner, the placid and quiet state of the mind is discovered when unmoved by any perturbation. Now, if there be any one who holds the power of fortune, and ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... the meadows of brit, the Pequod still held on her way north-eastward towards the island of Java; a gentle air impelling her keel, so that in the surrounding serenity her three tall tapering masts mildly waved to that languid breeze, as three mild palms on a plain. And still, at wide intervals in the silvery night, the lonely, alluring jet would ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... and Glorieux, already paralyzed ere the chase began, were the only results of this languid movement, except the French flag-ship and the Ardent, 64. The latter was taken because, notwithstanding her being an indifferent sailer, she gallantly tried to pass from her own division, the van, ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... Pao-y, "You had better go for a stroll," Tai-y urged, "for the day before yesterday I was disturbed the whole night, and up to this day I haven't had rest enough to get over the fatigue. My whole body feels languid and sore." ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... the fresh air sweeps her out. There is no hurry. The old contracts (they will be revised at the end of the year) allow twelve hours for a run which any packet can put behind her in ten. So we breakfast in the arms of an easterly slant which pushes us along at a languid twenty. ...
— With The Night Mail - A Story of 2000 A.D. (Together with extracts from the - comtemporary magazine in which it appeared) • Rudyard Kipling
... they marched us off to listen to a hour sermon by a antiquated ol' bunch of spinnage, who at the end bawled out, No. 475. "Art thou weary, Art thou languid?" An now they give me 7 days in the guard house because I yelled out that I certainly was. How was I to know that the ol' billy goat was givin out the him to ...
— Love Letters of a Rookie to Julie • Barney Stone
... hand lay across the velvet arm of the sofa; I took it and raised it to my lips, and she smiled approval, then drew a languid little sigh, fanned, and vowed I was the boldest man she had ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... a close and sultry day—one of the hottest of the dog-days—even out in the open country, where the dusky green leaves had never stirred upon their stems since the sunrise, and where the birds had found themselves too languid for any songs beyond a faint chirp now and then. All day long the sun had shone down steadily upon the streets of London, with a fierce glare and glowing heat, until the barefooted children had felt the dusty ...
— Alone In London • Hesba Stretton
... he strolled down a deserted St. James's Street, passed the door of his club with no temptation to go in, and climbed the stairs slowly to his rooms. His body was languid though his mind alert. He sank into an arm-chair beside the open window. 'I must do something to-night,' he thought eagerly; 'mere reading at the club is out of the question. I'll go to a theatre or—or—.' He considered various alternatives, deciding finally upon Richmond Park. He loved ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... older than I thought," Mr. Raymond said to me, regarding me for the first time with languid curiosity. "I expected to see a velvet-coated little fellow of Helen's size. What is ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... seemed to the raw spectator, in the qualities and excitements that properly belong to multitude! Half the men down below, under their hats, seemed to her asleep; the rest indifferent. And were those languid, indistinguishable murmurs what ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... that, although cut off from their auxiliaries, the Amazons had both shelter and food. At first they appeared to pay some little attention to the young; this soon ceased, and they neither traced out a dwelling nor took any food; in two days one-half died of hunger, and the other remained weak and languid. Commiserating their condition, he gave them one of their black companions. This little creature, unassisted, formed a chamber in the earth, gathered together the larvae, put everything into complete order, and preserved the lives of those which ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... one end of the hot and dusty street. Beside the burro limped a man, occasionally beating the animal on the rump with a switch he carried. The Legion took a languid interest. This was some farmer from a hill valley bringing supplies to sell to the patriotic army. Would his wares turn out to be mescal or vegetables or perhaps a leggy ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... faced each other like a pair of fighting-cocks had not flapped their wings or crowed at each other for a considerable time. The Reverend Mr. Fairweather had been dyspeptic and low-spirited of late, and was too languid for controversy. The Reverend Doctor Honeywood had been very busy with his benevolent associations, and had discoursed chiefly on practical matters, to the neglect of special doctrinal subjects. His senior deacon ventured ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... to the world below, That languid river to behold we of this earth must go; To see the grim Danaides, that miserable race, And Sisyphus of AEolus, condemned to ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field
... on with facts and figures, but the Cap'n listened with only languid interest. He kept sighing and wrinkling his brows, as though in deep rumination on a matter far removed from the stumpage question. When the agreement of sale was laid before him he signed with a blunted lead-pencil, ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... me to Erech Su-bu-ri[2] To Anu's temple Elli-tar-du-si, And Ishtar's city where great Izdubar Doth reign, the glorious giant king of war; Whose mighty strength above his chiefs doth tower, Come see our giant king of matchless power." Her flashing eyes half languid pierce the seer, Until his first resolves all disappear. And rising to his feet his eyes he turned Toward sweet Joy,[3] whose love for him yet burned; And eyeing both with beaming face he saith, "With Sam-kha's love the seer hath pledged his ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... faculty of the stomach be weakened, the body, failing of recruiting juices, must tend to emaciation, and the whole frame be rendered one system of distress and infirmity. The nerves, being thus deprived of a sufficiency of their animal spirits, must become languid, and leave every sense void of the first means of conveying to the mind the only enjoyments ...
— A Treatise on Foreign Teas - Abstracted From An Ingenious Work, Lately Published, - Entitled An Essay On the Nerves • Hugh Smith
... all the insects gave out an exceptionally large, brilliant light, which shone almost steadily. The long grass was thickly studded with them, while they literally swarmed in the air, all moving up the valley with a singularly slow and languid flight. When I galloped down into this river of phosphorescent fire, my horse plunged and snorted with alarm. I succeeded at length in quieting him, and then rode slowly through, compelled to keep ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... especially when crossing the Channel. There is no one who does not hail with delight the first sight of the shore. It gladdens the hearts of the sickly ones, and soon their childlike helplessness disappears; hope and life return, sending the warm blood once more to the pallid cheek, and lighting the languid eye with fresh joy and anticipation. It is pleasant to see how quickly the sufferers shake off the evil spirit of the sea—the terrible mal de mer, pull themselves together, and step on shore, beaming with ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... in-between-seasons time. Wise Miss Meredith marshalled her forces and took counsel with the Heads of Houses; the gymnasium staff put on extra dancing classes, and indoor basket-ball matches, but in spite of all their efforts many of the girls seemed languid and uninterested. ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... at thy freezing name Chill fears in every shivering vein I prove; My sinking pulse almost forgets to move, And life almost forsakes my languid frame: Yet thee, relentless nymph! no more I blame: Why do my thoughts 'midst vain illusions rove? Why gild the charms of friendship and of love With the warm glow of fancy's purple flame? When ruffling winds have some bright fane o'erthrown, Which shone on painted clouds, or seem'd to ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... over-powering wish or impulse to do so. The lowest sound startled him—but with this terrible irritation, his muscular power, before debilitated, seemed to revive, and his action, which was drooping and languid, became quick and angular. I began to be seized with an undefined sense of fear and alarm. In vain I combated it; it grew upon me; and I had almost risen from my seat to try to make myself heard, and obtain, if possible, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 374 • Various
... destroyed alike by the defection of Osmyn, and by the zeal of Caled: thy life may yet be preserved; but it can be preserved only by a charm, which HAMET must apply.' ALMORAN, who had raised his eyes, and conceived some languid hope, when he heard that he might yet live; cast them again down in despair, when he heard that he could receive life only from HAMET. 'From HAMET,' said he, 'I have already taken the power to save me; I have, by thy counsel, ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... condition does not endure. The fightings begin from within and from without, and the flame is quenched. The heart becomes cold and empty. The life of faith becomes silent and slow in its course. We become languid in watching and prayer; the love of the world and its sinful pleasures awakes again; and before we are aware, we are trying to serve both God and the world. Then the war bursts out: this moment God is above us, the next beneath us, and we get no rest until we have renounced the world, ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... happy, innocent, and simple-minded little society, by some summary process, and consigning them to those sinks of infamy on New Holland or Van Diemen's Land, or to mix them up with the dram-drinkers, the psalmsingers, and the languid and lazy Otaheitans, would, in either case, be a subject of deep regret to all who take an interest in their welfare; and to themselves would be the inevitable loss of all those amiable qualities which have obtained for them the kind and generous sympathy of their countrymen at home. ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... By the quick ague fits of hope and fear, Quietly cold! Presiding Powers look down! In vain to you I pour'd my earnest prayers, In vain I sung your praises: chiefly thou VENUS! ungrateful Goddess, whom my lyre Hymn'd with such full devotion! Lesbian groves, Witness how often at the languid hour Of summer twilight, to the melting song Ye gave your choral echoes! Grecian Maids Who hear with downcast look and flushing cheek That lay of love bear witness! and ye Youths, Who hang enraptur'd on the empassion'd strain Gazing with eloquent eye, even till the heart Sinks in ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... message from his niece, requesting to see him in her chamber, being too unwell to meet the family at noon. Thither his Excellency ascended with reluctant steps and slow, like a child called from his play to be whipped and sent to bed. He found his niece reclining upon a sofa, pale, languid, and evidently much agitated. She rose to receive him with her accustomed affection, and the old Don ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... had somewhat abated; yet she watched with deep interest the earlier stages of the great struggle in America; and she did not falter in her hopes for Italy; by intrigues and smuggling the newspapers which she wished to see were obtained through the courteous French generals. But her spirits were languid; "I gather myself up by fits and starts," she confesses, "and then ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... by a sorrow resulting from affection, she declared she could not survive Brunoro. She caused a tomb to be made, in which their remains could be united; and, after seeing the work completed, she gradually sank into a languid state, which terminated in ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... reached the cottage at the avenue gate. On the threshold drooped a figure that the sight of set his heart beating with a stifling pulse in his throat, and he floundered on till he made out that this languid figure was Adeline. He could have laughed at the irony, the mockery of the anti-climax, if it had not been for the face that the old maid turned upon him at the approach of his footfalls, and the pleasure that lighted up its pathos when she ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... male and raging and proud. And in all the works of this period there appears something new and magnificent that has scarcely before informed piano music. There is a truly Russian depth and vehemence and largeness in this now languid, now mystical, now leonine music, that lifts it entirely out of the company of the works of the Petrograd salon school into that of those composers who made orchestra and opera speak in the national tongue. The rhythms are joyously, barbarically, at times almost frenetically, free. ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... the nostrils and laving the face with a combination of every filthy odor. The atmosphere fairly reeked with the smell of sweating animals, perspiring humanity, rotting garbage, and vile sewage. And, in the midst of the hot filth, the people moved with languid, feeble manner; their faces worn and pallid; their eyes dull and weary; their ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... when he asked Phineas Finn to come down to Matching. Hope had been expressed in more than one quarter that this would be a short Session. Such hopes are much more common in June than in July, and, though rarely verified, serve to keep up the drooping spirits of languid senators. "I suppose we shall be early out of town, Duke," ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... woman, restless, resolute, extraordinarily active for her age. She was up long before the languid Castlewood ladies (just home from their London routs and balls) had quitted their feather-beds, or jolly Will had slept off his various potations of punch. She was up, and pacing the green terraces that sparkled with the sweet morning dew, which lay twinkling, also, on a flowery wilderness ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Master's Soldier, but not one To lead an army of his Martyrs on: Fear was his ruling passion; yet was Love, Of timid kind, once known his heart to move; It led his patient spirit where it paid Its languid offerings to a listening Maid: She, with her widow'd Mother, heard him speak, And sought awhile to find what he would seek: Smiling he came, he smiled when he withdrew, And paid the same attention to the two; Meeting and parting without joy or pain, He seem'd to ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe |
