"Leisure" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... saw that? And guessed?" he grinned. Then gave some word to the Scoutmaster and led me to his office—a small room beside the entrance at the front of the building—and closed the door. In this better light I had the opportunity to examine him at my leisure while he talked. He was a little thinner in face and body, but not spare or lean. There were no shadows in his eyes, which were finely lighted by his new enthusiasm. The new fire had burned out the old. ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... was no leisure. His whole mind was filled with but one idea—his mother. In a few moments they were outside the room. The madman was left to himself, and Reginald questioned ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... by a blush, which made her look all the handsomer, but her aunt said,—'Yes, Mr. Tryan, I have ever inculcated on my dear Eliza the importance of spending her leisure in being useful to her fellow-creatures. Your example and instruction have been quite in the spirit of the system which I have always pursued, though we are indebted to you for a clearer view of the motives that should actuate us in our pursuit of good works. Not that ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... Now, as to the other knave. There are trees and to spare over yonder, but we have scarce leisure to make for them. Draw thy sword, Thomas of Redbridge, and hew me his ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of the idle leisure of the Indians when at home is passed in groups, squatted together on the bank of a river, on the top of a mound on the prairie, or on the roof of one of their earth-covered lodges, talking over the news of the day, the affairs of the tribe, ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... I given you some of the thoughts and experiments which have occupied my attention during my leisure. I have been long under the impression that there is a feeling in the minds of many that we are already in a position to give an answer to almost every question relating to electricity or magnetism. All I can ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 417 • Various
... there, so to say, whenever I go in; their thoughts are still filling the rooms, after so many years. The garden and the orchard are the first little bits of land my father bought from his earnings as ploughboy. He cultivated them in his leisure hours, and there is literally not a foot of soil which he has not moistened with the sweat of his brow. They are sacred to me; but the rest—I ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... grounds stood, I should say, a dozen apple-trees, the spreading branches of which seemed to form a roof for a sort of enchanted bower, in which, you may be sure, I passed many of my leisure hours, swinging idly in a hammock, the cool breezes from the Hudson, concerning which so many people are sceptical, but which nevertheless exist, bringing delight to the ear and nostril as well as to the 'fevered ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... "lonesome" place, and there was something "terr'ble" in its solitude compared to the comfortable closeness and crowding chimneys of Buzley's Court; but, fortunately for Biddy, her busy life at Truslow Manor did not leave much leisure for dwelling upon this. As time went on she and her mistress, drawn together by one common interest, became really attached to each other; the baby's crumpled red hand, which could just hold one of Biddy's fingers, kept her a willing prisoner in its feeble yet mighty grasp, ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... a life, inherited from a race which had lived in conditions not unlike her own, beauty, in the common sense of the term, could hardly find leisure to develop and shape itself. For it must be remembered, that symmetry and elegance of features and figure, like perfectly formed crystals in the mineral world, are reached only by insuring a certain necessary repose to individuals and to generations. Human beauty is ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... delight in my leisure hours was to retire to my bedroom and immerse myself in books of travel and adventure. This was my mania. No one can conceive the delight I experienced in following heroes of every name over the ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... she entreated, "will you be so good as to wait awhile in the next chamber. I have some immediate business to deal with, but I would be loath to part company with you so soon if you have the leisure to wait." ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Builders, men of leisure, and professional men, of all classes, need good books in the line of their respective callings. Our post office department permits the transmission of books through the mails at very small cost. A comprehensive catalogue of useful books by different authors, on more than fifty different ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various
... while the work was in progress, Pett spent the leisure of his evenings in perfecting himself in learning, especially in drawing, cyphering, and mathematics, for the purpose, as he says, of attaining the knowledge of his profession. His master, Mr. Baker, gave him every encouragement, and from his assistance, he adds, ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... regularly use your leisure moments in this trade? You'd make your fortune by your ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... of any one else. He would have been a masterless man. The success of two one-act plays on the stage of the music-halls had given him the firm hope of one day becoming a masterless man as a successful dramatist. His post gave him the leisure to write plays. But for the fact that it brought him into such frequent contact with the Lord Loudwater it would have been a really pleasant post: the food was excellent; the wine was good; the library was passable; and the ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... tastes of a typical country gentleman, and he found ample leisure to indulge in his favourite amusement of hunting, after ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... vaulted ceiling, and smooth stone walls which had been covered with plaster and whitewashed. Among the Spanish soldiers who had occupied this room there was evidently an amateur artist of no mean ability, who had amused himself in his hours of leisure by drawing pictures and caricatures on the whitewashed walls. On the left of the door, at a height of five or six feet, was a life-sized and very cleverly executed sketch of a Spaniard in a wide sombrero, reading a Havana newspaper. His eyes and mouth were wide open, as if he were amazed and ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... until Mr. Chambers was married that any women were baptized. At breakfast the next morning came an old chief, called Tongkat Langit—the Staff of Heaven. His son Lingire was one of the most pleasing converts, and Tongkat was wavering—had not leisure at present! The necessity of forswearing the practise of head-taking deters the old men from becoming Christians: they fear to lose influence with their tribe. The little party then fixed upon the spot where the church should be built, a permanent ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... commanded nothing else, they went to see the boys perform their exercises, to teach them something useful, or to learn it themselves of those who knew better. And, indeed, one of the greatest and highest blessings Lycurgus procured his people was the abundance of leisure, which proceeded from his forbidding to them the exercise of any mean and mechanical trade. Of the money-making that depends on troublesome going about and seeing people and doing business, they had no need at all in a state where wealth obtained no honor or respect. The Helots tilled ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... had leisure to carry out those splendid works of peace by which it was his aim to ingratiate himself with the emperor. He founded cities and harbours (Antipatris, Caesarea), constructed roads, theatres, and ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... bites, which lets drop His bone from the heap of offal in the street,— Why, soul and sense of him grow sharp alike, He learns the look of things, and none the less For admonition from the hunger-pinch. I had a store of such remarks, be sure, Which, after I found leisure, turned to use: I drew men's faces on my copy-books, Scrawled them within the antiphonary's marge, {130} Joined legs and arms to the long music-notes, Found eyes and nose and chin for A's and B's, And made a string of pictures of the world Betwixt the ins and outs of verb and ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... envious; she was the plainest woman in the house, with the additional misfortune of having one shoulder bigger than the other. What the servants chiefly resented, I think, was her silent tongue and her solitary ways. She read or worked in leisure hours when the rest gossiped. And when it came to her turn to go out, nine times out of ten she quietly put on her bonnet, and had her turn by herself. She never quarrelled, she never took offence; she only kept a certain distance, obstinately and civilly, between the rest of them and herself. Add ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... of you, my dear friend, to pay me a visit when you are at leisure, and to let the masked gentleman-bearer of this note know the hour, so that he can accompany you. He will be punctual. Farewell. You will ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... experience did not heighten my appreciation of the mental leisure which otherwise I now enjoyed. It was a leisure, however, which before very long took the form of activity in ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... replied Breakspeare, gravely, "I really think, that at the next election we shall floor him. It is the hope of my life. For that I toil; for that I sacrifice leisure and tranquillity and most of the things dear to a man philosophically inclined. Can I but see Robb cast down, I shall withdraw from the arena and hum (I have no voice) ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... hear not a word that she said For he was far distant behind; So the hare felt secured while at leisure she fed, And took a sound ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... limit our wanderings. I will ask this gentleman. He is standing at a corner. He has leisure and must know the ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 9, 1914 • Various
... the men. The Norwegian woman usually carries a little more than her share of the load, and can support a husband without difficulty if he insists upon it. There is nothing so admirable in this world as a useful woman, particularly if she is married to a man inclined to leisure and loafing. In Norway and other countries of northern Europe the ballad, "I Love to See My Dear Old Mother Work," is something more than an affectionate sentiment. It has a practical significance, and is frequently found in husbands as well ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... If by dint of reflection on my internal propensities, I can attain to putting them in better order, and correcting the evil that remains in me, these meditations will not be utterly useless; and though I am accounted worthless on earth, shall not cast away my latter days. The leisure of my daily walks has frequently been filled with charming contemplations, which I regret having forgot; but I will write down those that occur in future; then, every time I read them over, I shall forget my misfortunes, disgraces, and persecutors, in recollecting and ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... own who is worth his weight in gold—that will be sufficient. I will dismiss every man you think I ought, and as for the women, we can give them warning, and replace them at leisure." ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... material nature, but belonged to the intellectual part of his constitution. Those who framed such a religion for themselves must have been raised above the pressing necessities and cares of savage life; they were not absorbed in the task of making their living, but had leisure to stand and admire the heavenly bodies, and to analyse the impressions made on them by the waters and the thunder. Nay, they had sufficient power of abstraction to form a class of such great beings, to bestow on them a common ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... had contrived to get through the night in his own way; first, he thoroughly enjoyed the supper and wine brought him by the terrified maids, and found leisure to say a few encouraging words to the prettiest of them. Then he contemplated the dirty bed, and at last threw himself, with a French oath, upon it, looking now at the distorted countenance of the roguish host, who sat opposite him on the ground, ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... oratory. Over and over, during the last decade of his official career, did he declare that the only thing which kept him from throwing aside the worry and vexation of governmental duties and retiring to the much coveted leisure of home and hearth, was the oath of vassal loyalty constraining him to stand at his post until his imperial master released him of his own accord. And at the very height of his political triumphs he wrote to his sovereign: ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... inspired. Her state was, in fact, dangerous, discretion deserted her, and before the end, carried away by the desire to please further, make laugh more, she had done a foolish thing—a thing which she half knew, even while she did it, to be foolish, perhaps wrong. But not having leisure to think, she took the risk, and in time found herself, as a result of her mistake, to have made an enemy; yes, changed her dear and helpful friend Charlie Hunt ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... six, that he goes to bed at nine, that he rises every morning of his life at four; that before ten o'clock he has finished his writing for the day, and, that though no man has written more than he has, that he never knew any one who enjoyed more leisure than he does, and has done. "Now is there a man on earth who sits at a table, on an average, so many hours in the day as I do? I do not believe that there is: and I say it, not with pride, but with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 383, August 1, 1829 • Various
... eyes. It was not easy for him to join in the chatter of the others, but he was thinking how she illuminated her own words. Manifestly she was not lacking in mind, and quite as evidently her brain was only the antechamber of her nature. She gave him the impression of "the heart at leisure from itself". There was the unconsciousness of sheltered girlhood, but already, in bud, the suggestion of that big type of woman who, as years mellow her, touches with sympathy every life with which she comes in contact. What she now was, promised more in the future, as though ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... he made those martial preparations of whetting his teeth, since there was no enemy near, that he could perceive. "That may be, Master Reynard," says the Boar, "but we should scour up our arms, while we have leisure, you know; for, in time of danger, we shall have ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... I passed my leisure hours and leisure days in the open air, in the woods. I chased the sunshine from the fields in under the deep trees, where it only flickered through the leaves. I hunted for flowers, too, beginning with the gay ones which shone with color. I wondered how it was they could drink ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... thinking of the past she had had with her cousin when she had been very poor in Lincolnshire; she had had leisure to read good letters there, and the time to think of them. Now she had not held a book for four ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... for consideration is about the usual time the average producer requires to read a manuscript at his leisure. In times when a producer is actively engaged in putting on an act, he may not have an hour in the week he can call his own. Therefore have patience, and if you do not receive a reply from him in three weeks, write again and courteously remind him that you would like to have his decision ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... husband to English Literature made her turn over the pages. The Taming of the Shrew was a play she knew very slightly. For the Harmans, though deeply implicated like most other rich and striving people in plans for honouring the immortal William, like most other people found scanty leisure to read him. ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... were so busy that I had little leisure for brooding, but at odd moments I would fall into a deep melancholy. She had lived so constantly in my thoughts that without her no project charmed me. What mattered wealth or fame, I thought, if she did not approve? What availed my striving, if she were not ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... widower; he had a dreary life (he was prevented from working by a disease which he sometimes called a rupture and sometimes worms) he was maintained by his son, who worked at a confectioner's in Harkov and sent him money; and from early morning till evening he sauntered at leisure about the river or about the village; if he saw, for instance, a peasant carting a log, or fishing, he would say: "That log's dry wood—it is rotten," or, "They won't bite in weather like this." In times of drought ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... And to promote the success of their work they have been allowed access to some maps and other records physically preserved from the remote periods concerned—though in safer keeping than in that of the turbulent races occupied in Europe with the development of civilisation in brief intervals of leisure from warfare, and hard pressed by the fanaticism that so long treated science as sacrilegious during ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... S. Lorenzo in Lucina, Rome. He had for years been a great collector of pictures, of which he left a large number (1200) to the town of Ajaccio. The Cardinal, buying at the right time when few men had either enough leisure or money to think of pictures, got together a most valuable collection. This was sold in 1843-44 at Rome. Its contents now form some of the greatest treasures in the galleries of Dudley House and of ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... the Queen's abdication, which, for the ingenuity and fancy, were worthy the sight of a Prince; and Whitelocke sent them to the Queen, who was much taken with them. Whitelocke was so pleased with those verses that, having a little leisure, himself ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... night separated the combatants while the victory was undecided. The following day the Romans stood drawn up for battle from sun-rise till late in the day; but none of the enemy coming out against them, they gathered the spoils at their leisure, and collecting the bodies of their own troops into a heap, burnt them. The following night Hannibal decamped in silence, and moved on into Apulia. As soon as daylight discovered the flight of the enemy, Marcellus, leaving his wounded under the protection of a small garrison at Numistro, in command ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... Watches, and seven Silver ones. A mighty clean-handed Fellow! Sixteen Snuff-boxes, five of them of true Gold. Six Dozen of Handkerchiefs, four silver-hilted Swords, half a Dozen of Shirts, three Tye-Periwigs, and a Piece of Broad-Cloth. Considering these are only the Fruits of his leisure Hours, I don't know a prettier Fellow, for no Man alive hath a more engaging Presence of Mind upon the Road. Wat Dreary, alias Brown Will, an irregular Dog, who hath an underhand way of disposing of his Goods. I'll try him only for ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay
... had been to look at a flat,—a set of rooms,—in the Belgrave Mansions, in Pimlico, or Belgravia you ought more probably to call it. He proposed to take them furnished till they could look about at their leisure and get a house that should suit them. Would she like a flat? She would have liked a cellar with him, and so she told him. Then they went to look at the flat, and old Mr. Wharton condescended to go with them. Though his heart was ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... having had a small estate left to him, proceeded to turn it into the home of a secular community for young men desirous of pursuing the literary gift, and how he financed, encouraged and generally supervised them. Leisure, an exquisite setting, and the society of enthusiastic and personally-selected youth—one might call the book perhaps a Tutor's Dream of the Millennium. Anyhow, Father Payne, as shown in this volume, which ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 10, 1917 • Various
... up at night to care for my hands"—there was a note of bitterness in her tone—"and I wear gloves when I work. There are some things that one desires to hold on to, and my mother and my grandmother were ladies of leisure." ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... trimmed and cut into sheets of whatever size is desired. The finest note papers are not finished in this way, but are partly dried, passed through a vat of thin glue, any excess being squeezed off by rollers, then cut into sheets, and hung up to dry thoroughly at their leisure. ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan
... we would hoist it out of its bed and examine it at our leisure above ground. To compass this we had to erect a kind of tripod of three long pieces of deal, which had evidently at some time been top-sail yards of some vessel probably wrecked on rocky Jethou. From this we suspended ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... it now in the public street," said he, smiling; 'but come in and refresh yourself, and we will consider the question afterwards at leisure.' ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... abeyance; that we are murdered by our ancestors and must roll back the tide of death; that a hundredth part of man's labor would suffice for his support; that idleness is no evil; that in the future nine-tenths of the time will be leisure, and to that end he will work with all his heart. "I was not more than eighteen when an inner and esoteric meaning began to come to me from all the visible universe, and ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... point each way; but here was a "gadget" that worked me to death, the result being a wake like a letter S. Gradually I got the hang of the thing, becoming easier in my mind on my own account. Even that was not an unmixed blessing, for I had now some leisure to listen to the goings-on ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... was announced, and entered. To him, Seraphina was a hated task: like the schoolboy with his Virgil, he had neither will nor leisure to remark her beauties; but when he now beheld her standing illuminated by her passion, new feelings flashed upon him, a frank admiration, a brief sparkle of desire. He noted both with joy; they were means. 'If I have to play the lover,' thought he, for that was his constant preoccupation, ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... courts; the vicissitudes and the vanities of those who haunt them; the glittering jest and the light strain; the passing irony or the close reflection; the characters of the great; the colloquies of wit,—these are what delight the temper, and amuse the leisure more than the solemn narrative of fated love. As the monster of the Nile is found beneath the sunniest banks and in the most freshening wave, the stream may seem to wander on in melody and mirth,—the ripple ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a paltry parcel of books at the Stag o' Tyne, and these I read over and over again at my leisure. There was a History of the Persecutions undergone by the Quakers, and Bishop Sprat's Narrative of the Conspiracy of Blackhead and the others against him. There was Foxe's Martyrs, and God's Revenge against Murder (a very grim tome), and Mr. Daniel ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... same respectful interest in those with whom he talked, even the humblest, which raised them in their own estimation. One thing particularly impressed me,—the sense that he seemed to have of a certain great amplitude of time and leisure. It was the behavior of one who really believed in an immortal life, and had adjusted his conduct accordingly; so that, beautiful and grand as the natural objects were, among which our journey lay, they were matched by the sweet elevation of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... came forward on the next evening and made his statement. He had already put his resignation into the hands of Her Majesty, and Her Majesty had graciously accepted it. He was very old, and felt that the time had come in which it behoved him to retire into that leisure which he thought he had, perhaps, earned. He had hoped to carry this bill as the last act of his political life; but he was too old, too stiff, as he said, in his prejudices, to bend further than he had bent already, and he must leave the completion ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... professional bookmen. They were smiths and ploughmen, traders and merchants, and their businesses and their trades were idealized and ennobled—and, may we not add, their handiwork improved?—by the expenditure of their leisure in the schools and ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... that all that was best in each girl was brought to the fore. There was an admirable time-table, which allowed the girls periods for play as well as the most suitable hours for work. In addition, each day there were what were called the "leisure hours." These were from five to seven o'clock each evening. The leisure hours began immediately after tea, and lasted until the period when the girls went to their rooms to dress for dinner. During these two hours ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... Miss Snodgrass's bad mark disturb her. No sooner had she begun her practising than she fell to work again on the theme that occupied all her leisure moments, and was threatening to assume the bulk of an early Victorian novel. But she now built at her top-heavy edifice for her own enjoyment; and the usual fate of the robust liar had overtaken her: she was beginning to believe in her ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... paid her a marked and punctilious respect; and his attachment was evidently one not only of passion, but of confidence and esteem. Time developed in her mental qualities far superior to those of Beaufort, and for these she had ample leisure of cultivation. To the influence derived from her mind and person she added that of a frank, affectionate, and winning disposition; their children cemented the bond between them. Mr. Beaufort was passionately attached to field sports. ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... of his life at Bologna, Cardan seems to have lived comparatively alone, and to have spent his weary leisure in brooding over his sorrows. He began his long rambling epilogue to the De Libris Propriis, and, almost on the threshold, pours out his sorrow afresh over Gian Battista's unhappy fate. After affirming that Death must necessarily ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... digression into which memories of Overton lead one. My only excuse is that part of the story, and indeed its emotional climax belongs to Overton, to that smoothly ordered country house with its huge sentinel elms and its peculiar atmosphere of leisure and peace. No doubt Mrs. Payne was aware of this when she kissed her son. From the lawn where we were sitting she could see the yew-parlour and the cypress hedge in the shadow of which she had stood on the tremendous evening ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... seems to me it would have been odd, as our eyes went out in the rare leisure moments of that afternoon and fell upon that presence, worn and strange and solitary within the immense ring of the horizon, if there had not been somewhere among us some dim stirring of memory, and of wonder. Not too vivid, perhaps; not strong enough perhaps ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... rather small-sized one, of the pure Kentish blood; liver-colored, with a white ring on his neck, and white paws; close-curled, wicked-eyed, deep-chested, and remarkably powerful for his size. Professionally a retriever,—and one of great promise, although never fully tested with the gun,—his leisure hours, which included every one in the twenty-four, were passed in the invention and perpetration of curiously regulated mischiefs, with all of which he took pains to combine an element of the ludicrous. His great ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... certain substance, which it may be as well not to name, and got what he wanted in a small phial, marked poison. Mr. Cranley then called a third cab, gave the direction of a surgical-instrument maker's (also eminent), and amused his leisure during the drive in removing the label from the bottle. At the surgical-instrument maker's he complained of neuralgia, and purchased a hypodermic syringe for injecting morphine or some such anodyne into his arm. A fourth cab took him back to the ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... said said, "Gentlemen, I learned that France was in peril, I therefore did not hesitate to leave my army in Egypt, that I might come to he rescue. I now go hence. In a few days, if you think fit to wait upon me, I shall be at leisure to hear you." Fresh horses were by this time attached to the carriages, and the cavalcade, which like a meteor had burst upon them, like a meteor disappeared. From Lyons, for some unexplained reason, Napoleon turned from the regular route to Paris and took a less frequented road. When Josephine ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... banes we'll byke, And sun oursells about the dyke, And at our leisure, when ye like, We'll whistle owre the ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... officers have large halls, billiards, and reading-room to meet in; and the common men are admitted into apartments adjoining libraries, from-which they can borrow what books they contain, and read them at leisure. This is certainly a very good and even a humane institution, though these libraries chiefly contain ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... gave a refuge to the souls that could accept it—an "Ideal of calmness and innocence and reverie." "La Petite Fadette" and "Le Meunier d'Angibault" reveal her fascinating intelligence and her idyllic imagination. "Le Meunier d'Angibault," she tells us, was the result of a walk, a meeting, a day of leisure, an hour of far niente, followed by Reverie, that play of the imagination which, clothes with beauty and perfects, and interprets, the isolated and small events and facts of life. There are books of hers in early life that are simply self-revelations—outpourings ...
— Cobwebs of Thought • Arachne
... them," pursued Mrs. Blunt, "have had the good fortune, the leisure to develop their intelligence and their beauty in aesthetic conditions as this charming woman had? Not one in a million. Perhaps not one in ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... she would make a triumphant progress through the capitals of Europe which should be remembered for half a century. After that, said the Primadonna to herself, she would repay her friend all the money he had lent her, and would then decide at her leisure whether she would marry him or not. For one moment her cynicism would have surprised even Schreiermeyer; the next, the Primadonna herself was ashamed of it, quite independently of what her better ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... Richard, and I cannot but have my suspicions of the wily Saracen. They are curious in the art of poisons, and can so temper them that they shall be weeks in acting upon the party, during which time the perpetrator has leisure to escape. They can impregnate cloth and leather, nay, even paper and parchment, with the most subtle venom. Our Lady forgive me! And wherefore, knowing this, hold I these letters of credence so close to my face? Take ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... teachers, housekeepers—busy people that you are—have you ever felt the twinge of unrest, almost discouragement, because some friendly letter, which you enjoyed receiving, lay unanswered waiting a spare hour? And have you ever had to "brace up" to what, in a life of leisure might be a pastime, but in a life so full of care and responsibility becomes a task? Then you will ...
— American Missionary, Vol. XLII., May, 1888., No. 5 • Various
... curious to know whether they could have mounted the ladder without any step breaking beneath them, I will give them a few of the sentences to correct at their leisure. I write the faulty words in italics, though I hope that it is not ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... pupils have contrived to find, or to make, time enough to carry out this object with a very considerable degree of efficiency. That efficiency will, I doubt not, be very much increased as the system becomes known and perfected, even with the very limited leisure left to masters and teachers on week-days. And this leads me to ask, Why should scientific teaching be limited ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... to cross over into Asia. He only asked for thirty Spartans and two thousand New Citizens, (6) besides a contingent of the allies six thousand strong; with these he would cross over into Asia and endeavour to effect a peace; or, if the barbarian preferred war, he would leave him little leisure to invade Hellas. ...
— Agesilaus • Xenophon
... well back on the middle tier of the spectators' benches and chatted until the Emperor should have returned from his dressing-room and should seem at leisure to ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... lighted in his hand, and with this he quickly touched the wick of a lamp. Paul heard him draw a long breath as he approached the spot where the little box lay upon the table desk at which stood the chair used by the owner of the den when taking his leisure here. ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... Pothier," said he, as he rode off with Le Gardeur. The old notary could not keep up with them, but came jolting on behind, well pleased to have leisure to count and jingle his coins. Master Pothier was in that state of joyful anticipation when hope outruns realization. He already saw himself seated in the old armchair in the snug parlor of Dame Bedard's inn, his ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... life in wealthy houses, amid the luxury which appertained only to fortune's favourites, which surrounded her only by chance. She had presumptuously taken to herself the religion of her superiors, of those to whom fate allowed the assurance of peace, of guarded leisure wherein to cultivate the richer and sweeter flowers of their nature. How artificial had been the delights with which she soothed herself! Here, all the time, was the reality; here in this poor home, brooded over by the curse of poverty, whence should come shame and woe ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... imprisonment, with the many ills which make the heart sick, and when at length we return into port, instead of obtaining rest we have to refit ship, take in stores and provisions, and seldom enjoy a moment of leisure till we are once more ready for sea. I was very far, even in the days of which I speak, of complaining of this. I chose my profession. I loved it. I delighted in action, and all I wish to impress on my readers is the nature and duties of a sailor's life. ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... strange world in which she found herself. She shared the house with a scene-painter and his wife, and as the scene-painter was an Englishman, Emma could talk to somebody and be understood. Emma's idea of happiness was leisure to sew squares of patchwork together for quilts. She had brought her cut-out quilt scraps with her, and she sat in the kiosk and sewed little pieces of colored calico together, while the big cat scampered about the garden, or lay and blinked at her, ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... to him that this would be a very pleasant mission, for his leisure hours during the rest of that winter. All thought of any danger to himself through such intercourse as he was suggesting to his thoughts had departed ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... received a short and hurried note from the former, saying, that he had left London in pursuit of Tyrrell, and that he would not rest till he had brought him to account. In the hurry of the public events in which I had been of late so actively engaged, my mind had not had leisure to dwell much upon Glanville; but when I was alone in my carriage, that singular being, and the mystery which attended him, forced themselves upon my reflection, in spite of all the importance of ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... fashion, have never loosened their grip. I have no pretension to be an expert in either subject; but the turn for philosophical and historical reading, which rendered Hamilton and Guizot attractive to me, has not only filled many lawful leisure hours, and still more sleepless ones, with the repose of changed mental occupation, but has not unfrequently disputed my proper work-time with my liege lady, Natural Science. In this way I have found it possible to cover a good deal of ground in ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... contained in this volume. And thus, without in appearance living otherwise than those who, with no other occupation than that of spending their lives agreeably and innocently, study to sever pleasure from vice, and who, that they may enjoy their leisure without ennui, have recourse to such pursuits as are honorable, I was nevertheless prosecuting my design, and making greater progress in the knowledge of truth, than I might, perhaps, have made had I been engaged in the perusal of books ...
— A Discourse on Method • Rene Descartes
... too, the outcome of the leisure in the cloister, and the men who designed and built those venerable temples must have been men to whom their work was their religion, and who regarded it as the way of honouring God. One cannot look at their architecture without realising how ...
— Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys • Dugald Butler and Herbert Story
... one of the ladies, however, I am informed, who interests herself in the construction of these most ingenious toys. Possessed of ample means, and more than ample leisure, she amuses herself in hours which might otherwise be devoted to gossip and tea, in putting together these various models of buildings, all differing in style, and of most singular materials. The church, for instance, is built of fragments of clinker, gathered ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... back and safe in her own home. She was aware that he was speaking, but the words did not reach her. She found the door, and pulled it open. She felt a hand on her arm, but she shook it off. And then she was back behind her own door, alone and at liberty to contemplate at leisure the ruins of that little temple of friendship which she had built up so carefully and in which she had ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... to answer the man, and that gave Rafael an opportunity to study her at his leisure. She was tall, ever so tall, as tall as he perhaps. But the impression her height of stature made was softened by a grace of figure that revealed strength allied to elegance. A strong bust, sculpturesque, ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... struggled on, up and up; "for every chimney has a top," said Hans to himself "and I am sure to climb out somewhere or other." Suddenly he came to a place where another chimney joined the one he was climbing, and here he stopped to consider the matter at his leisure. "See now," he muttered, "if I still go upward I may come out at the top of some tall chimney-stack with no way of getting down outside. Now, below here there must be a fire-place somewhere, for a chimney does not start from nothing at all; yes, good! we ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... thy little arms Ply hard the hammer on the stony blocks? But our hard master, though he likes good looks, May find thee quite a youth; He says that thou hast spirit; and he means for thy behoof. Then do what gives thee pleasure, Without vain-glory, Abel; and spend thy precious leisure In writing or in working—each is a labour worthy, Either with pen or hammer—they are the tools most lofty; Labour in mind or body, they do fatigue us ever— But then, Abel my son, I hope that never One blush upon you e'er will gather To shame ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... consult at your leisure," said he. "I have some notes here which you can confirm. There is not a doubt that what you have seen is the murder of Rizzio by the Scottish nobles in the presence of Mary, which occurred in March, ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... naturalist. Georges Leopold Cuvier was born in 1769 at Montbeliard. After studying at Stuttgart he became private tutor in the family of Count D'Hericy in Normandy, where he was at liberty to devote his leisure to natural science and in particular to zoology. A natural classification of the Vermae or worms was his first achievement. The ability and knowledge shown in this work procured him the friendship of the greatest naturalists of France. He was invited to Paris, took a chair at the Ecole Centrale, ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... the summer following, the Lacedaemonians and Athenians made an armistice for a year; the Athenians thinking that they would thus have full leisure to take their precautions before Brasidas could procure the revolt of any more of their towns, and might also, if it suited them, conclude a general peace; the Lacedaemonians divining the actual fears of the Athenians, and thinking that after once tasting a respite from trouble and misery ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... to have a private conference with you two," said he, when he had surveyed me at his leisure. "It will take a little time. Perhaps we had better go to your place of residence. I prefer not to anticipate my communication here; you will impart as much or as little of it as you please to your friends afterwards; I have nothing ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... Greater leisure for reading, however, compensated the loss of the occasional penny. He read dazzling tales of dukes with palaces (like Chudley Court), and countesses with ropes of diamonds in their hair, who all bore a resemblance to the fragrant one. And dukes and countesses ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... first and second stories are occupied by sleeping apartments, fourteen in number. These, without being luxurious, are sufficiently comfortable, and offer the great advantage that they are very near the work rooms, thus permitting of observing, at leisure, and at any hour of the day or ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885 • Various
... used to luxury. It had not spoiled her. MacRae granted that. It had not made her set great store by false values. MacRae was sure of that. She had loved him simply and naturally, with an almost primitive directness. Spoiled daughters of the leisure class are not so simple and direct. MacRae began to wonder if she could possibly escape resenting his share in the overturning of her father's fortunes, whereby she herself ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... and disinterested man had finished his work of legislation, 494 B.C., he visited Egypt and Cyprus, and devoted his leisure to the composition of poems. He also, it is said, when a prisoner in the hands of the Persians, visited Croesus, the rich king of Lydia, and gave to him an admonitory lesson on the vicissitudes of life. After ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... would-be paladin, who, misshapen in body and fantastic in mind, had yet the power to raise a storm which the lapse of generations could not quell. Under Charles the Eighth and his successor, war and intrigue ruled the day; and in the whirl of Italian politics there was no leisure to think ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... leisure for thought and for study. He had access to a library which, although not large, held many treasures of book making, and was sufficient for the requirements of the young monk. He could keep the hours of the Church in the little chantry attached to the house, and he was taken out of ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... great gate, and from the noise they expected it to announce the arrival at least of the First Consul, or king Gargantua. Panurge was sent to reconnoiter, and after a quarter of an hour's absence, returned with the news that the University of Pontemaca was waiting his highness's leisure in the great hall, to propound a question which {210} had turned the brains of thirty-nine students, and had flung twenty-seven more into a high fever. With all my heart, says Pantagruel, and swallowed down three quarts of Burton ale; but remember, it wants but an hour of dinner time, and the question ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... accumulating resolution sufficient to ring the bell, which when at last she did, was not performed in a way at all calculated to make the young man Joey hasten to the door. After the lapse of a certain time he did, however, find leisure to stroll and see what the caller might want, out of curiosity to know who there could be in London afraid ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... of all question. Had the war left me leisure for making love, she was the only woman I ever knew, who could have brought me to her feet—I ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... familiarities with the empress Sabina, of which we have no further account than that they were unbecoming his position in the imperial court. How long he survived this disgrace, which appears to have befallen him in the year 121, we are not informed; but we find that the leisure afforded him by his retirement, was employed in the composition of numerous works, of which the only portions now extant are ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... this a matter to be deferred till a more convenient time of peace and leisure: Because a reformation in men's faith and morals is the best natural, as well as religious means, to bring the war to a good conclusion. For, if men in trust performed their duty for conscience sake, affairs would ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... and will not mention the subject again till you do, but leave you to consider my advice at your leisure." ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... composition. Certain of his reminiscences, in particular, Ryecroft could hardly have troubled to write down had he not, however vaguely, entertained the thought of putting them to some use. I suspect that, in his happy leisure, there grew upon him a desire to write one more book, a book which should be written merely for his own satisfaction. Plainly, it would have been the best he had it in him to do. But he seems never ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... first arrival in Paris, though I was almost constantly with the General, yet, as our routine of occupation was not yet settled, I was enabled now and then to snatch an hour or two from business. This leisure time I spent in the society of my family and a few friends, and in collecting information as to what had happened during our absence, for which purpose I consulted old newspapers and pamphlets. I was not surprised to learn that Bonaparte's brothers—that is to say, Joseph ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... Lafarge did when he got the word, was to go straight to his hat-peg, then leave the office, walk to the little club where he spent leisure hours, called office hours by people who wished to be precise as well as suggestive,—sit down, and raise a glass to his lips. After which he threw himself back in his chair and said: "Well, I'm particularly damned!" A few hours later they were ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... cut: men, wise in their generation, had said that a diamond never could be cut; and consequently, according to the general mode of treating inventors in those days, a charge of sorcery was brought against the first diamond-cutter. Berghen, thrown into prison, had abundant leisure for deliberation. Two courses were open to him: one was to keep his secret, and be burned as a sorcerer; the other, to clear himself of that charge by shewing how he cut the diamond by natural means, and thus lose the exclusive benefit of his invention, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various |
