"Desultory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of Ethel's to look after her patient, and in desultory talk on all that was probable and improbable between Dr. May and the younger ones, until just as Ethel was coming down at nine o'clock with the report that she had persuaded Mary to go to bed, she was startled by the street door ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... civilization; "big people" were going to the opera every night, and riding in splendid carriages along imposing boulevards every day. Brick and Bill had contrived to live as well as they desired from profits on skins obtained in the mountains and the small tract of ground they had cultivated in a desultory manner had done little beyond supplying themselves with vegetables and the horses with some extra feed. She had no great opinion of agriculture; and though she had taken part in planting and hoeing with a pleasurable zest, she had never entertained herself with the thought ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... he had gained in Paris was a complete liberty of spirit, and he felt himself at last absolutely free. In a desultory way he had read a good deal of philosophy, and he looked forward with delight to the leisure of the next few months. He began to read at haphazard. He entered upon each system with a little thrill of excitement, expecting to find in each ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... plodded up the steep wood-road, overgrown with ferns and rank grass, with dense green walls of beech and oak saplings on either side, what few desultory remarks they exchanged related to Molly, she being literally the only topic of common knowledge between them. Sylvia, automatically responding to her deep-lying impulse to give pleasure, to be pleasing, made an ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... had retained Cattaro and Spizza, and trouble now broke out over some land near Budua. The Montenegrins fell upon the Austrians, and fierce conflicts ensued, but Peter, who had gained an extraordinary hold over his subjects, forbade them to continue. Hostilities, however, continued in a desultory fashion for ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... Robert Louis did desultory work on newspapers in San Francisco and later at Monterey, with health up and down as hope fluctuated. In the interval a cablegram had come from his father saying, "Your allowance is two hundred and fifty pounds a year." This ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... record, in action where the sick are brought in in battalions, is the best possible agency. Not only are these objects lost when surgeons are allowed to make the great hospital a mere receptacle for a cluster of small and desultory hospitals, but the advantages of a broad study of diseases and their treatment are lost. Inestimable facts of treatment are learned by watching, at the same time and in the same place, a ward full of patients ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... forewarned is to be forearmed; and I seriously counsel you to try if you cannot find something new this summer along the coast to which you are going. There is no reason why you should not be so successful as a friend of mine who, with a very slight smattering of science, and very desultory research, obtained in one winter from the Torbay shores three entirely new species, beside several rare animals which had escaped all naturalists since the lynx-eye of Colonel Montagu ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... The desultory, unsettled life that the family had led seemed to have prevented Walter from making much progress as a sculptor,—a profession he had thought of while in Italy,—and his letters were somewhat vague and unsatisfactory as ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... turned into Wall Street, looking about him in a desultory way, for he was at present out of business. Men and boys were hurrying by in different directions, to and from banks and insurance offices, while here and there a lawyer or lawyer's clerk might be seen looking no less busy and preoccupied. ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... nations of Europe, along that coast, and of the native tribes, and their trade and intercourse with the whites, the writer indulges the idea that he may add a trifle to the general information of the public. He puts forth his work, however, with no higher claims than as a collection of desultory sketches, in which he felt himself nowise bound to tell all that it might be desirable to know, but only to be accurate in what he does tell. On such terms, there is perhaps no very reprehensible audacity in undertaking the history of a voyage; and ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... of several great compositions may be attributed to the domestic infelicities of their authors. The desultory life of CAMOENS is imagined to be perceptible in the deficient connexion of his epic; and MILTON'S blindness and divided family prevented that castigating criticism, which otherwise had erased passages ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... hope, nagged him as he us, preferred to take his meals at home. Smallweed, who had somehow got made quartermaster, couldn't go old Heavysterne, he said, and so kept as long as he could to his desultory habits of living as a citizen and a bachelor. So our mess consisted of the major, who exercised a paternal care over the rest of us, superintending, indeed often joining in, our amusements and discussions, our quarrels and makings up; of Quartermaster-Sergeant Oates, who knew all about everything ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... in the valley to get something to eat. They had been without food or water since morning, and fighting is about the hottest, thirstiest work that a man can engage in. After they had refreshed themselves, they went back to the plateau to keep watch over the fort. Desultory firing took place all night long, the Indians blazing away indiscriminately—they had plenty of ammunition, it appeared—and the soldiers firing at the flashes of the guns. The voices of the medicine men and the chiefs could be heard exhorting ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... and strength have lately been much broken; and I never more felt the insufficiency of both than in preparing for the press the following desultory memoranda on a most noble subject. But I leave them now as they stand, for no time nor labor would be enough to complete them to my contentment; and I believe that they contain suggestions which may ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... sallied out to help their masters. They then made a rush on the fort, but were driven off at once, one of their number being killed and several badly hurt, while but one of the defenders was wounded, and he but slightly. After this they withdrew to cover and began a desultory firing, which ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... the hands of the enemy; and the extensive district then called the county of Cornwall was turned to desolation. Massachusetts and Plymouth sent hasty levies of raw men, ill-armed and ill-officered, to the scene of action. At Casco Bay, they met a large body of Indians, whom they routed after a desultory fight of six hours; and then, as the approaching winter seemed to promise a respite from attack, most of them ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... and revolted others throw no shadow over his writings. He is a placid enlightened professor, whose real good feeling and frequent shrewdness should not be overlooked in consequence of the rather desultory and often superficial mode of reasoning. This, however, suggests a final ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... as I am quite confident, of Mr. Ames's entertaining, but hasty and desultory work, called "Mariner's Sketches," all the books professing to give life at sea have been written by persons who have gained their experience as naval officers, or passengers, and of these, there are very few which are intended to be taken as ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... humain", "Considerations sur le Principe de Vie". To these we must add the "Theodicee" (though more theological than metaphysical) and the "Monadologie", the most compact philosophical treatise of modern time. It is worthy of note, that, writing in the desultory, fragmentary, and accidental way he did, he not only wrote with unexampled clearness on matters the most abstruse, but never, that we are aware, in all the variety of his communications, extending over so many years, contradicted himself. No philosopher is more ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... supported by the forces of Syria and the interest of the house of Ommiyah. From the passage of Thapsacus, the plain of Siffin [174] extends along the western bank of the Euphrates. On this spacious and level theatre, the two competitors waged a desultory war of one hundred and ten days. In the course of ninety actions or skirmishes, the loss of Ali was estimated at twenty-five, that of Moawiyah at forty-five, thousand soldiers; and the list of the slain was dignified with the names ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... of smaller children playing a desultory game of lic-lic for pieces of candy and cigarettes. Slowly he climbed the stairs of a stone flat. He prepared a supper for himself and ate it without either enjoyment or distaste. He lay down, fully clothed, on his bed. The visit to the analyst had ...
— Monkey On His Back • Charles V. De Vet
... A halbert formerly much used. Thus in Shakspeare (Antony and Cleopatra), "I had as lief have a reed that will do me no service, as a partizan I could not heave." Also, a useful stirring man, fit for all sorts of desultory duties. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... must have some money saved for trousseau; she must arrange a little tea at home, when, the boarders being eliminated, Peter could come to meet a few of the very special old friends. These things took time. Susan spent the dreamy, happy afternoon in desultory planning. ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... name which might or might not bear some relation to the visitor's. The lady entered. Her name might perhaps be Mrs. Baker. Maude had no means of knowing who Mrs. Baker might be. The visitor seldom descended to an explanation. Ten minutes of desultory and forced conversation about pinewoods and golf and cremation. A cup of tea and a departure. Then Maude would rush to the card-tray to try to find out whom it was that she had been talking to, and ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... closely: "The plea that this or that man has no time for culture will vanish as soon as we desire culture so much that we begin to examine seriously into our present use of time." It is no exaggeration to say that the mass of men give to unplanned and desultory reading of books and newspapers an amount of time which, if intelligently and thoughtfully given to the best books, would secure, in the long run, the best fruits ...
— Books and Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... balcony and perched upon the worn balustrade were in deshabille, not being accustomed to display their splendors to an empty paradise, and the few fat blackbirds who were hopping about on the lawn did so in a desultory manner, as though they were only half awake and had turned out under protest. Stillness reigned everywhere, but it was the sweet hush of slowly awakening day rather than the drowsy, languorous quiet of exhausted afternoon. With one's eyes shut one could tell that the pulse of day was only just ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... upon a number of hastily adopted projects, crudely conceived, and remorselessly abandoned when the temperature of his enthusiasm lowered, or any unlooked-for difficulties appeared in his path. How the erratic and desultory nature of his mind was fostered and aggravated by Hayley's mischievous efforts has already been shown. That the glowing eulogium pronounced by Flaxman upon his friend's productions will be endorsed ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... but by far the greater portion of the emigrants were satisfied to establish themselves along the margins of the larger water-courses, content with the rich returns that the generous, alluvial, bottoms of the rivers never fail to bestow on the most desultory industry. In this manner were communities formed with magical rapidity; and most of those who witnessed the purchase of the empty empire, have lived to see already a populous and sovereign state, parcelled from its inhabitants, and received into the bosom of ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... contends that the Gipsies themselves are not averse to having their children educated; but it is equally impossible to be sanguine as to results. The true Gipsy, who is not to be confounded with the desultory hawker of English origin, has many arteries of untameable blood within him. He has never as yet shown the slightest concern about the English phases of civilisation which Mr. Smith would like to press upon his notice. Such ideas as those of God, immortality, and marriage are ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... and he said so in his direct fashion. Sylvia nodded, and exchanged a smile with Agatha, who turned at the sound of Plank's voice. For a while, as he ate and drank largely, she made the effort to keep up a desultory conversation, particularly when anybody to whom she owed an explanation hove darkly in sight on the horizon. But Plank's appetite was in proportion to the generous lines on which nature had fashioned him, and ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... as they watched that distant pear-shaped object floating in the sky. As they walked along the road it was impossible to keep their eyes and thoughts from following the balloon, so that conversation was desultory, until Mollie thought she saw a bad wobble ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... Jacquier to keep them out of my room and away from my table. But the majority of the students were "regular girls." At first I was as welcome in the dining-room as a Prussian sentinel, and they exchanged desultory remarks in whispers; but after a while they grew accustomed to me and chattered like magpies. I could hear them again in their dormitories until about half-past ten at night. Mlle. Jacquier asked me once with some anxiety if I minded, and I assured her that I liked it. ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... acquired that love of the country, the farm, and the garden which she retained so keenly to the last. Here she learned to ride; and here, with little guidance from teachers, she had access to a large library, and picked up in a desultory way an extensive knowledge of the best English, French, ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... we have had desultory picket firing, and the great guns in the naval battery have spoken whenever an opportunity presented itself. The opposing outpost lines are drawn so far apart that with the best intentions they can scarcely harm each other. But the long range of the smallbore rifles ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... in their usual desultory fashion—the fashion of country school-children the world over—irregularly, spasmodically, and always as if accidentally; a few hand-in-hand, others driven ahead of or dropped behind their elders; some in straggling groups more or less coherent and at times ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... will be a method from nature, and not a mechanical one of hours and pages. It holds each student to a pursuit of his native aim, instead of a desultory miscellany. Let him read what is proper to him, and not waste his memory on a crowd of mediocrities. As whole nations have derived their culture from a single book,—as the Bible has been the literature ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... hat, his gloves, his papers and other articles of apparel were found also. 'What a man that would be,' said Sydney Smith, 'had he one particle of gall, or the least knowledge of the value of red tape!' It was true that the indolent, desultory character of Mackintosh interfered perpetually with his progress in the world. He loved far better to lie on the sofa reading a novel than to attend a Privy Council; the slightest indisposition was made on his part a plea for avoiding the most ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... to the arrangement of the material as desultory, rote, and logical memory. In desultory memory the facts just "stick" because of the great retentive power of the brain, there are few connections, the material is disconnected and disjointed. Rote memory depends ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... Rothschild was not according to law, and did not entitle him to take his seat; 2nd, pledging the house to a bill in the next session, altering the form of the oath. A debate ensued, which was confused and desultory, and much opposition from both sides of the house was offered to the resolutions, which were, however, eventually carried. The issue was not satisfactory to the city of London, the members of the Jewish persuasion, or ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... is no time for divided councils. If I would have you remember anything I have said in these desultory remarks, it would be to remember at this critical hour in the nation's history we must not be divided. The triumphs of the war are yet to be written in ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... him. She cordially invited me to enter the cabin, and told me that Ben was out feeding the horses and would shortly be in. I had to wait but a little while when Ben came in. He supposed me to be some passing stranger, and did not recognize me. After some desultory conversation I told him who I was and how I came to be there. Our meeting, after mutual recognition, was affectionate and cordial. We talked over old times and related our experience since we parted at the Wilson plantation. ...
— Biography of a Slave - Being the Experiences of Rev. Charles Thompson • Charles Thompson
... don't know that there may be much ability Shown in this sort of desultory rhyme; But there 's a conversational facility, Which may round off an hour upon a time. Of this I 'm sure at least, there 's no servility In mine irregularity of chime, Which rings what 's uppermost of new or hoary, Just as I feel ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... fellows in the light of a public benefactor. The errand-boy also, who, because he carried a parcel or basket and happened to wear shoes, thought himself at liberty to cast obloquy on those whose profession was of a more desultory nature, and whose clothing was scantier—he must be held in check and his pride lowered by sarcasms yet more biting and far less veiled. These things were right and proper, but Wikkey felt uncomfortable under an imputation of "cheekiness" from ...
— Wikkey - A Scrap • YAM
... was arguing a technical case before one of the judges of the superior court in a western state. He had rambled on in such a desultory way that it became very difficult to follow his line of thought, and the judge ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... fro by the prevailing winds, which then, as now, blew from the east in the spring and from the west later in the year, the Northmen, both Norsemen and Danes, neither being Christians, had, like their predecessors the Saxons and Angles and Frisians, for some time made trading voyages and desultory piratical attacks in summer-time on the coasts of Britain and Ireland, and probably many a short-lived settlement as well. But as these attacks and settlements are unrecorded in Cat, no account of them ...
— Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time - or, The Jarls and The Freskyns • James Gray
... reading and discussion relate chiefly to the physical, mental, moral, and religious training of children. Some individual is usually prepared at each meeting to give method and tone to the conversation, which might otherwise become desultory. The faults of children who are known to the members are not made the subject of remark; but cases of difficulty are so presented as to avoid individual exposure. Associations conducted on these principles are ...
— Bertha and Her Baptism • Nehemiah Adams
... not renew the attack, and with some desultory skirmishing the battle ended at two o'clock, and an hour's truce enabled both parties ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... speaker, however, did not profess to offer anything like argument on that occasion, but rather a sentiment. I have no prepared address to deliver to you, being unaccustomed to speak in that way; but I felt a wish to offer some views for your consideration, though in a desultory manner, which may lead to such reflection and discussion as will present the subject in a ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Britain, and secure its coast from invasion; but these purposes might be as effectually answered, at a much smaller expense, by the shipping alone. Should it be judged expedient, however, to prosecute this desultory kind of war, the commanders employed in it will do well to consider, that a descent ought never to be hazarded in an enemy's country, without having taken proper precautions to secure a retreat; that the severest discipline ought to be preserved during ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... These desultory recitals continued for some time, until one day, as I met my young friends in the ordinary way, only somewhat earlier than common, I saw that there was something unusual in the wind. They mustered stronger than was their ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... liquor traffic. It set everybody to talking, even the public school children and students in all the higher institutions were profoundly interested. The press and the pulpit broke their silence and from all over the state came the echo. It was the firing of the signal guns. The response came desultory, as the rattle of musketry in a skirmish, then heavier from the bigger guns, as is the case in all reformatory work. The criticisms and comments were varied, often amusing, reflecting the agitation from far and ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... distinctly how exasperated I was at this, and the objurgations, as forcible as the presence of the ladies permitted, which I lavished upon workmen in general, and these strikers in particular. I had abundant sympathy from those about me, and the remarks made in the desultory conversation which followed, upon the unprincipled conduct of the labor agitators, were calculated to make those gentlemen's ears tingle. It was agreed that affairs were going from bad to worse very fast, and that there was no telling what we should ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... family gathered in the wide hall, through the open doors of which was a slight draught of air. All had donned their coolest costumes, and their talk was quite as languid as the occasional notes and chirpings of the birds without. Amy was reading a magazine in a very desultory way, her eyelids drooping over every page before it was finished, Webb and Burt furtively admiring the exquisite hues that the heat brought into her face, and the soft lustre of her eyes. Old Mr. Clifford nodded over his newspaper until his spectacles clattered to the floor, ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... grounds, for neither the falseness nor the furtiveness could now be detected—but he succeeded in captivating all my sympathy. Long after dinner was over, and the salle empty, we sat smoking our cigars, and discussing politics, literature, and art in that suggestive desultory manner which often gives a charm ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... wish to labor under the weight of obligation without deriving from it any real benefit; and because I consider the advance of small sums rather as a temporary palliation than a radical remedy. Our disorders are such, that the former can be of no use, and it would be better to desist in a desultory defence, than to put on the delusive appearances of a vigor we do not feel; for this lulls the people into a dangerous security, and softens those hopes of the enemy, which give duration and extent to the ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... your exploits, because they reflect honour on itself." [41] An English education might have brought Burton more wealth, but for the wild and adventurous life before him no possible training could have been better than the varied and desultory one he had. Nor could there have been a more suitable preparation for the great linguist and anthropologist. From babyhood he mixed with ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... but'—-with an odd look—-'I fancy my lady thinks poor Kally too handsome for it to be good for a young clergyman to have much to say to her. They have not been so cordial to them of late, but that is partly owing to poor Mrs. White's foolish talk, and in part to young Alexis having been desultory and mopy of late—-not taking the interest in his music he did. Mr. Lee says he is sure some young woman is ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... said) two thousand diameters." Emerson hardly knew his privilege; he may have been the first American to look through an immersion lens with the famous Modena professor. Mr. Emerson says that his narrow and desultory reading had inspired him with the wish to see the faces of three or four writers, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Landor, De Quincey, Carlyle. His accounts of his interviews with these distinguished persons are too condensed to admit of further abbreviation. Goethe and Scott, whom ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... accessible to any reader. {3} The researches of M. Cousin, M. Faugère, and M. Havet, the curious and interesting monograph of M. Lélut, {4a} have thrown light on various points; while the copious portraiture of Sainte-Beuve {4b} has given to the whole an animation and a desultory charm which no English pen need strive ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... proclamations. Half the army takes one side, half the other; and crowds of volunteers and self-made officers join them, in the hope of present pillage or future emolument. Barricades appear in the streets; and at intervals there is to be heard the roaring of cannon, and desultory firing of musketry from the flat roofs, killing a peaceable citizen now and then, but doing little ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... brisk going up and down stairs, came through the partition, and interrupted Stephen's thoughts as much as they did his mother's. They had lived so long alone in the house in absolute quiet, save for the semi-occasional stir of Marty's desultory house-cleaning, that these sounds were disturbing, and not pleasant to hear. Stephen did not like them much better than his mother did; and he gave her great pleasure by remarking, ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... speculated—unluckily—in "De Beers." For a short time Diamonds had been an obsession with him, then Burmah rubies. He had made money out of neither; it was not in his horoscope to make money out of anything. However there was the result—a certain amount of desultory information. ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and Esau Hittall were "so much occupied with Bullingdon and hunting that there was no great opportunity for those mental gymnastics which train and brace the mind for future acquisition." My ways of wasting time were less strenuous than theirs; and my desultory reading, and desultory Church-work, were supplemented by a good deal of desultory riding. I have some delicious memories of autumnal canters over Shotover and Boar's Hill, and racing gallops across Port Meadow, and long ambles on summer afternoons, through the meadows by the river-side, ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... we waited patiently. A few desultory shots, fired by some of our more adventurous partisans, who, climbing to the top of the barricade, aimed where they saw the torches moving, broke the ominous silence, but in distant parts of the city we could hear the rapid firing ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... who committed the fatal error of embroiling himself beyond all hope of pardon with the Church, and who died discomfited in the duel with his warier antagonist. Urbino profited by each mistake of Sigismondo, and the history of this long desultory strife with Rimini is a history of gradual aggrandisement and ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... (the Sage replied) in peace return 'To the gay dreams of fond romantic youth, 'Leave me to hide, in this remote sojourn, 'From every gentle ear the dreadful truth: 'For if my desultory strain with ruth 'And indignation make thine eyes o'erflow, 'Alas! what comfort could thy anguish sooth, 'Shouldst thou the extent of human folly know? 'Be ignorance thy choice, where ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... this rather desultory disquisition with what patience she could command, breaking in upon it impulsively at various points, and seen that it was drifting nowhere—at least, that it was not drifting toward the object of her wishes. Then she took up the burden ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... light a breeze lisped never so faintly in the tree-tops; here and there bird-notes fell, liquid, desultory, like drops of rain after a shower; and constantly one heard the cool music of the river. The sun, filtering through worlds and worlds of leaves, shed upon everything a green-gold penumbra. The air, warm and still, was sweet with garden-scents. The lake, according to its habit at this hour of the ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... been uncertain of her nationality, though I had had my suspicions of it, for the Anglo-Saxon walk differs from the gait of the southern nations; but on this slender introduction we dropped into conversation, and spoke in English of those desultory matters which one does chat upon to ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... shifting of the cloth and the placing of the coasters—the nuts, crusts of bread, and finger-bowls being within easy reach—most of this desultory talk ceased. Something more delicate, more human, more captivating than sport, finance, or politics; more satisfying than all the poets who ever lived, filled everybody's mind. Certain Rip Van Winkles of bottles with tattered garments, dust-begrimed faces, and cobwebs in their hair were lifted ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Jeanne pointed to a linen-bag which was steeping in the tub. The linen-bag contained the ashes of the beech-tree; it is a way of washing that they have in some parts of France, and very cleansing. To specialise thus is lessiver. As we talked in this desultory fashion I let fall a word concerning a journey I was about to undertake to the French lines, a journey that would take me over the battlefield of the Marne. "La Marne! Helas, quelle douleur!" said Jeanne, and wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron. "But ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... It is a fortunate accident for his readers that he should have been gifted with the faculty of picturesque expression and an exceptionally keen power of observation. If not a scholar, he was a man of wide reading, of deep though desultory thinking, and a good critic where the work of others was concerned. He seems to have desired to conceal nothing, nor to set down aught in malice; if he fell into mistakes and misrepresentations, these were the result of unconscious prejudice, and the exaggerative tendency ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... A desultory conversation ensued, after which William Dulan arose to take his leave, which he did in a choking, inaudible voice. As he turned to leave the room, his ghastly face and unsteady step attested, in language not to be misunderstood, the acuteness and intensity ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... hurried into her hot bath, with a vague hope of washing off all traces of that awful street. But their talk at dinner was desultory and rather serious. Jarvis talked for the most part, elaborating schemes of social reform and the handling of ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... her hand in token of assent; and a desultory conversation continuing for another half-hour, Miss Beaufort, who dreaded the wasting one minute in a day so momentous to her peace, sat uneasily until her aunt proposed retiring to her dressing-room a while, and requested Pembroke ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... The desultory fire, which in the darkness and the pouring rain did very little harm, had the effect of further ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... had said herself, the Bible had been a sealed book to her before. She was very careful to conceal this new feeling from Kate, for at least, she would not lay one obstacle in her path, and after a few moments' desultory conversation, they ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... the country, are, with all their good qualities, a backward people, who, had they prevailed, would have done little more than squat here and there over the country with their cattle, and carry on an incessant desultory war with the natives. Whether it is really desirable that the waste lands of the world should be quickly brought under settled order and have their resources developed with all possible speed, is a question on which ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... still dwelling on this theme when she started forth on an afternoon campaign of desultory shopping; it would be rather a comforting thing, she told herself, if she could do something, on the spur of the moment, to bring a gleam of pleasure and interest into the life of even one or two wistful-hearted, empty-pocketed workers; it would add a good deal ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... shapes that vaguely recalled Greek lamps and Etruscan urns. And she piled wedges of ambrosial plum-cake with yellow frosting on sprigged china, and set out wine in her great-grandfather's long-necked decanter, and, with what she considered a gracious tact, overlooked the flippancy of her guest's desultory conversation, and sincerely tried to discover the humorous quality in her conversation that forced a subdued chuckle now ...
— A Philanthropist • Josephine Daskam
... she said in a reflective voice, "that the most authentic and best attested bogies don't come to very much. They appear in a desultory manner, without any context, so to speak, and, like other difficulties, require a context to clear ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... of the war the Germans had prosecuted a desultory submarine warfare on the shipping of Great Britain and had extended it gradually until neutral shipping also was largely involved. All the established principles of international law, or principles that had been supposed to be established, ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... pain the Aleuts fell back, and found shelter for themselves behind trees and rocks. But they were not minded to give up the fight so easily. They gradually extended their line of battle until they had our friends completely surrounded. Their desultory fire, however, did not at first do any damage to those in the fortress, and the whites replied only occasionally, taking careful aim and winging an Indian ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... only discontinued when a box of Havanas stood open on the table. During the momentary lull thus occasioned, I caught the Major's twinkling eyes glancing evasively toward me, as he leaned whispering some further instructions to Tommy, who again took up his desultory ballad, while I turned and fled for the street, catching, however, as I went, and high above the laughter of the crowd, the satire of this quatrain to ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... desultory chat had taken the place of movement and musical sound. The hedge-carpenter was suggesting a song to the company, which nobody just then was inclined to undertake, so that the knock afforded a ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... had come to the parsonage and Jane Riggs, as rigid as starched linen could make a human being, admitted them, and presently after a little desultory conversation, the collection, which was really a carefully made one, and exceedingly good and interesting, was being displayed. Then came the charming little tea which Von Rosen had planned; then the ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the sounds alone, the fugitives crouching in the interior of the altar estimated that about a dozen people had entered the church. They seemed to rush forward a few paces and then halt, as though staring about them; then followed a few brief, desultory movements, and silence. Finally, a voice said, ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... "smartness" out of the larger cities into the mountains, to fix himself at last, with the hopeless fatuity of his race, upon an already impoverished settlement; to sink his scant capital in hopeless shafts and ledges, and finally to take over the decaying hostelry of Buena Vista, with its desultory custom and few, lingering, impecunious guests. Here, too, his old Virginian ideas of hospitality were against his financial success; he could not dun nor turn from his door those unfortunate prospectors ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Hagerstown there was some firing in front, together with an alarm that the Yankee cavalry was upon us. The ambulances were sent back; but some of the wounded jumped out, and, producing the rifles which they had not parted with, they prepared to fight. After a good deal of desultory skirmishing, we seated ourselves upon a hill overlooking Hagerstown, and saw the enemy's cavalry driven through the town pursued by yelling Confederates. A good many Yankee prisoners now passed us; one of them, who was smoking a cigar, was a lieutenant of cavalry, dressed very smartly, and his ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... ran along anyhow, sometimes on and sometimes off it, and kept me in dread of a total smash. The Champs Elysees were full of the late afternoon sunlight, and we sauntered slowly, criticising the occupants of the various carriages rolling up to the great arch of Napoleon, and arguing in a broken, desultory way on our usual ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... the Curlieu mountains, skirmishing as they went. The only incidents which signalized this campaign on their side was the burning of Ballysadare and the plunder of Armagh; to the Irish it was creditable for the combinations it occasioned. It is cheering in the annals of those desultory wars to find a national advantage gained by the joint action of a Munster, a Connaught, and ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... several pieces of artillery, could be distinctly seen in much confusion about half a mile distant in the valley below, yet he was covering them with a pretty well organized line that continued to give us a desultory fire. Seeing this, I at once directed Wagner and Harker to take up the pursuit along Moore's road, which led to Chickamauga Station —Bragg's depot of supply—and as they progressed, I pushed Sherman's brigade along ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... embarked for England, to renew the solicitations of the colony for aid in another attempt on Quebec. Though unsuccessful in this application, the government of the province was bestowed on him; and, in this character, he returned to Boston. A desultory war continued to be carried on, which, without furnishing any events that would now be interesting, produced heavy expense, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... mental magic, as in everything else, success depends upon patience and perseverance. It would be entirely useless to go through these mental drills occasionally and in a desultory fashion; but if persisted in faithfully and intelligently, they will prove truly magical in their effects upon the development of willpower and self-control, and on these depend the mastery of conditions within and without, the conquest of ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... feel that something ought to be done to save him from the fearful consequences of popular feeling. Let us hasten to the town, and procure what assistance we may: but a few persons, well organised and properly armed, will achieve wonders against a desultory and ill-appointed multitude. There may be a chance of saving him, yet, from the imminent danger which ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... with oaths unknown to all but them, While some essayed to frame the words of prayer, Or to articulate the stern command, And one, in most supreme authority, Declaimed a ponderous regal ordinance, But heard a sea of unfamiliar sounds, Confused and desultory turbulence, and dissonance of harsh, discordant tones, Instead of due attention and applause; Nor were his words and usual forms of speech Respected by the idle, wondering craft, Which lately comprehended ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... order, and Sylvia was at one front window in the cool sitting-room, with a basket of mending, and Henry at another with a library book. Henry was very restless in these days. He pottered about the place and was planning to get in a good hay crop, but this desultory sort of employment did not take the place of his regular routine of toil. He missed it horribly, almost as a man is said to miss a pain of long standing. He knew that he was better off without it, that he ought to be happier, but he ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... into which he had been inveigled, rather from indolence than from any freak of his inclination, afforded him, now that it was undertaken, a certain desultory pleasure to which he had long been a stranger. Into the little shrug, comic and valedictory, of Mrs. Dollond's shoulders, as they passed the Octroi, a gesture discreetly mocking of the conditions they had left, he could enter with some humour, the appreciation of a resident ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... halt, except that after the Englishmen had bathed to their satisfaction they found a hot meal awaiting them without the preliminary of the two hours' sleep. As before, the meal was followed by cigarros, accompanied by a little desultory conversation; but this did not continue long, for the Englishmen, at least, were dead weary with their unwonted labours, and one after another they stretched themselves out where they sat and, careless of the saturating dew, at once sank into dreamless slumber, surrounded by their faithful allies, ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... tastes. His father having died, he, when nine, became an office boy and later a clerk. In 1854 he came to California to join his mother who had married again, arriving in Oakland in March of that year. His employment for two years was desultory. He worked in a drug store and also wrote for Eastern magazines. Then he went to Alamo in the San Ramon Valley as tutor—a valued experience. Later in 1856 he went to Tuolumne County where, among other things, he taught school, and may have been an express ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... high horse to amuse the new guest. Andrea was already conscious of an unwillingness to expose so noble and pathetic a mania as a spectacle for so much vulgar shrewdness. It was with no base reservation that he kept up a desultory conversation, in the course of which Signor Giardini's nose not infrequently interposed between two remarks. Whenever Gambara uttered some elegant repartee or some paradoxical aphorism, the cook put his head forward, to glance ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... one other taste which promised well for the future—a sincere love of music. She was taking lessons, but it was from a superficial teacher, who was content to give her pretty and showy pieces; and she brought even to this favorite study the desultory habits which characterized all her efforts to obtain an education. When she sat down to her piano, however, nature was her strong ally. Her ear was fine and correct, and her sensitive, fanciful spirit gave delicacy and originality ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... came to explain difficulties and ask for orders. Doors were constantly slamming, and the very walls seemed to shake with the unusual bustle which filled the house. And feverish as they all were in the dining-room, they talked in desultory, haphazard fashion on all sorts of subjects, passing from a ball given at the Ministry of the Interior on the previous night, to the popular mid-Lent festival which would take place on the morrow, and ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... terms with her belligerent Cherokees and Creeks. But neither diplomacy nor generosity could stay the inevitable conflict as the frontier advanced, especially after the French soldiers enlisted the Indians in their imperial enterprises. It was then that desultory fighting ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... Before anything had been seen of them, I gave some account of this scheme, and of the material on which he had worked, with a statement of the reasons which made all existing versions unsatisfactory to the student, and incomplete. Captain Burton saw fit to reprint these desultory paragraphs as a kind of circular or advertisement on his forthcoming book. He did not think it necessary to ask leave to do this, nor did I know to what use my letter had been put till it was too late to object. In any ordinary case it would have been of no consequence, but Captain Burton's version ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... been examining his favorite books for marked passages. She now resumed this search, not setting methodically to work, but standing perched on the library ladder, taking down volume after volume, and occasionally dipping into the contents for a few pages or so. At this desultory work the time passed as imperceptibly as the shadows lengthened. The last book she examined was a volume of poems. There were no marks in it; but it opened at a page which had evidently lain open often before. The first words Lydia ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... so that you may instantly have recourse to any one. Lay down a method also for your reading, for which you allot a certain share of your mornings; let it be in a consistent and consecutive course, and not in that desultory and unmethodical manner, in which many people read scraps of different authors, upon different subjects. Keep a useful and short commonplace book of what you read, to help your memory only, and not for pedantic ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... as usual, dropped in at the Friary; but this time he brought Grace with him. They were all gathered in the work-room, which had now become their favorite resort. On some pretext or other, the lamp had not been brought in; but they were all sitting round the fire, chatting in an idle desultory way. ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... wait. But the same asyntactle disorder is equally found in the History of Britain, which he had in hand for forty years. Nor is it only the Miltonic sentence which is incoherent; the whole arrangement of his topics is equally loose, disjointed, and desultory. His inspiration comes from impulse. Had he stayed to chastise his emotional writing by reason and the laws of logic, he would have deprived himself of the sources ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... Irish and less nice." The first man I ever saw killed was a Spanish soldier, who was cut in two by a cannon ball. The French army, not long after we began to return their fire, was in full retreat; and after a little sharp, but desultory fighting, in which our Division met with some loss, we took possession of the camp and strong position of Soult's army. We found the soldiers' huts very comfortable; they were built of branches of trees and furze, and formed squares and streets, which had names placarded up, such as Rue de Paris, ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... a few minutes past eleven when Tuppence again entered the hall of South Audley Mansions. Albert was on the look-out, attending to his duties in a somewhat desultory fashion. He did not immediately recognize Tuppence. When he did, his ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... desultory conversation, he strolled away from Varhely, and gradually approached Marsa, who, her chin resting on her hand, and her eyes lowered, seemed absorbed in contemplation of the ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... or Paresis. There is still one more point to consider in dealing with a syphilitic patient. In patients who did not receive energetic treatment from the very beginning of the disease as also in patients whose treatment was only desultory and irregular, we never can guarantee, in spite of lack of external symptoms, in spite of a negative Wassermann reaction, that some trouble may not develop later ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... "pegs" no longer mellowed him. The quartet greatly amused Elsa. Their nods were abrupt, and they spoke in the most formal manner. She was under grave suspicion; in the first place, she was traveling alone, in the second place, she was an American. At table there was generally a desultory conversation, and many a barb of malice Elsa shot from her bow. Figuratively, the colonel walked about like a porcupine, bristling with arrows instead of quills. Elsa could have shouted at times, for the old war-dog was perfectly ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... dined—a very gentlemanlike sensible man. We spoke of the visitation, of granting degrees, of public examinations, of abolishing the election of professors by the Senatus Academicus (a most pregnant source of jobs), and much beside—but all desultory—and Lord M. had either nothing particular to say to me, or was too much engrossed with his family distress to enter upon it. He proposes to be here in the ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... time subsequently in the "Bee," Goldsmith adverts, in his own humorous way, to his impatience at the tardiness with which his desultory and unacknowledged essays crept into notice. "I was once induced," says he, "to show my indignation against the public by discontinuing my efforts to please; and was bravely resolved, like Raleigh, to vex them by burning ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... his young second officer over to him. This was not done in displeasure. The glance he fastened on Mr. Powell conveyed a sort of approving wonder. He engaged him in desultory conversation as if for the only purpose of keeping a man who could provoke such a sound, near his person. Mr. Powell felt himself liked. He felt it. Liked by that haggard, restless man who threw at him disconnected phrases to which his ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... heedless, inattentive, regardless, lax, incautious, remiss, inconsiderate, nonchalant, neglectful, unwary, imprudent, indiscreet, improvident, reckless, desultory, perfunctory, devil-may-care, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... the desultory talk which followed that Tom was able to piece out the story, the mystery of which he had already penetrated. Harlowe, in fear of capture after his supposed killing of the child, had sought refuge in the hunting shack of his friend upon the mountain. ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... some desultory visiting among the Hungarians employed at the coke-ovens, for Bessie's church society. Originally of Presbyterian faith, she had changed at St. Mary's to the Episcopal church, and latterly all church affiliations had grown faint. ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... accountant substitutes "short cuts'' in adding where all the operations should be taken in regular order and made as automatic as the few short cuts previously developed. The executive has the habit of depending upon "desultory'' memory where the logical should be developed. The salesman in speaking to a critical customer says "he don't,'' instead of saying "he doesn't''; "gents' goods'' instead of "men's goods.'' Every investigation into the human ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... The desultory duties connected with the removal of the Indians, in which the Army has been constantly engaged on the northern and western frontiers and in Florida, have rendered it impracticable to carry into full effect the plan recommended ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... A desultory fire was kept up through doors and loop-holes. But now the whole country had become thoroughly aroused, and sundry military companies from neighboring towns and counties poured into Harper's Ferry. Brown himself at length realized the hopelessness of his position, ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... opened their line to cover a wide stretch of the mountain, and plunged upward through the scrub of pines and oaks. There was much running about of the dogs, and desultory barking, corrected by spicy admonitions from their masters, until the ascent's steepness forced silence upon them by ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... The sky was cloudless, the desultory breezes that swept the plains blighted growing things, raising little whirlwinds of fine, flinty alkali dust and spreading it over the face of the world. The storm that had caught Hollis on the Dry Bottom trail had covered only a comparatively small area; it had lasted only a brief ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... additions of territory which all the power of France, actuated by all the ambition of France, had acquired in two centuries. The Romans had frequently acquired more in a single year. They severely and in every part of it criticised the reign of Louis XIV., whose irregular and desultory ambition had more provoked than endangered Europe. Indeed, they who will be at the pains of seriously considering the history of that period will see that those French politicians had some reason. They who will not take the ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... dying sinner passed not without such comfort to his struggling soul as human help might hold out. After reading to him some passages of the gospel, the most apposite to his trying state, and some desultory and unconnected conversation—for the poor creature at times seemed to be unable, under his load of horror, to keep his ideas connected further than as they dwelt upon his own nearing and unavoidable execution—I ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... the hardship to the client, if thus liable to new allegations and suggestions, for which he came unprepared, from a reliance that those publicly given were all against which he need arm himself, and that, if those were disproved, he was cleared; while the desultory and shifting charges of the managers put him out in every method of defence, by making it impossible to him to discern where he might ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... had not moved direct from there; there was a journey to America between, on some business of Mr. Peytral's, and it was on the return voyage that they had met Mr. Percy Bowmore. Mr. Bowmore had no friends nearer than Canada, and he was reading for the Bar—in a very desultory way, as I gathered. Miss Peytral's childhood had been passed in the West Indies, at the town of San Domingo, in fact, where her father had been a merchant. Her mother had been a helpless invalid ever since Miss Peytral could remember. As to the engagement with Bowmore, ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... Add to which, that the most virtuous members in the present would be chosen into the new legislature, which, if the constitution were but once fairly established, would not regard the murmurs of any town or province." After this, a desultory conversation took place, in which some were of opinion that it would be proper, on the introduction of the subject into the Assembly, to move for a committee of inquiry, which should collect facts and documents against the time, ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... one of the most prominent among the political notabilities of Europe, had begun his career by small peddling transactions in iron and timber manufactures; he came of a very plebeian stock, and had received only a desultory sort of education, picked up here and there in cheap provincial schools. But he had a restless, domineering spirit of ambition. Ashamed of his plebeian origin, and embittered from his earliest years by a sense ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... Censor,—In a desultory conversation on a point connected with the dinner at our high table, you incidentally remarked to me that lobster-sauce, "though a necessary adjunct to ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... the action appeared to have become general. Ali Pacha, who commanded the rear-guard, now committed the grave error of halting the three battalions of his brigade, and wasted most valuable time in performing desultory movements, and in firing volleys of grape and musketry, without arriving at any practical results. At one point, however, the rebels, who were advancing in force with loud cries of fanatical vengeance, received a substantial check. Two companies of Turks had been concealed on either side ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... and repose; Cobbett lets his pour out upon the plain like a flock of sheep to feed and batten. Cobbett is a pleasanter writer for those to read who do not agree with him; for he is less dogmatical, goes more into the common grounds of fact and argument to which all appeal, is more desultory and various, and appears less to be driving at a present conclusion than urged on by the force of present conviction. He is therefore tolerated by all parties, though he has made himself by turns obnoxious to all; and even those ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... table was now broken up. The men pulled their chairs into informal groups, and sat together puffing at cigarettes, sipping tea, and talking, in a desultory fashion, while the underlying tension increased, and more than one man wondered a little at the weakness of his knees and the slight unsteadiness of the hand upholding glass or match. Vladimir de Windt, Ivan's ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... of elegant manners and author of a useful and entertaining volume of "Memoirs of a Life chiefly passed in Pennsylvania within the last Sixty Years," published, in the Port Folio, in 1813-14, a series of chatty paragraphs styled "Notes of a Desultory Reader." He lived in the "Slate-Roof House," at Second Street and Norris' Alley, where he had an opportunity of meeting men ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... Encyclopaedia containing Entomology, and with his elbows on the table, proceeded to study it so intently, that the young ladies gave up all hopes of rousing him from it. Claude threw himself down on the sofa to enjoy the luxury of a desultory talk with his sisters; and Reginald, his head on the floor, and his heels on a chair, talked loud and fast enough for all three, with very little regard to what the ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... once reduced to a state of tranquility. A number of French soldiers, who had deserted previous to the surrender of the island, took refuge in the woods, whence they carried on a desultory and ferocious war against the British posts. The 1st West India Regiment, being composed of men better able to support the hardships of a guerilla war, carried on in a country naturally difficult, during the height of the tropical rains, was continually employed against ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... the house took a long time, conducted in this somewhat desultory and dawdling manner; but the closing in of night and the sound of the dinner-gong gave the ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... woman, or cut off her ears or nose, if she be unfaithful without their knowledge or permission. All the lowest and most laborious drudgery is imposed upon her, and she is not permitted to eat till after her lord has finished his meal, who amidst the burdensome toil of life, and a desultory and precarious existence, will only condescend to carry his gun, take care of his horse, and hunt as want may compel him. During the time the interpreter was with these Indians the measles prevailed, ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... from Bournemouth of all places—poor old Bournemouth!—is to hand, and contains a statement of pleasure in my letters which I wish I could have rewarded with a long one. What has gone on? A vast of affairs, of a mingled, strenuous, inconclusive, desultory character; much waste of time, much riding to and fro, and little transacted or at ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of 1696 had been carried on in a very desultory way. All parties were anxious for a peace. Towards the end of April, 1697, William once more crossed over to Flanders,(1858) and the French king having for the first time shown a disposition to come to terms, it was arranged that a congress should meet near the Hague. The result ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... one-room hut there was no place for guests. Presently the men drifted out to the chip pile, where they lingered a while in desultory talk. Roxy and Johnnie, partly undressed, occupied the one bed; and later the host and his guest came in and lay down, clothed just as they were, with their feet to the fire, ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... fairs which are held in its vicinity. The greater part of our theatrical property was sent on direct, to be in a state of preparation for the opening of the fairs; while a detachment of the company travelled slowly on, foraging among the villages. I was amused with the desultory, hap-hazard kind of life we led; here to-day, and gone to-morrow. Sometimes revelling in ale-houses; sometimes feasting under hedges in the green fields. When audiences were crowded and business profitable, we fared well, and when otherwise, we fared scantily, and consoled ourselves with anticipations ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... certainly have a good deal of desultory debate on Monday, when the papers are produced, after Canning's detailed explanation and statement; but as Lord Althorpe's motion for the repeal of the Foreign Enlistment Bill stands for Wednesday, that will open a better vent for the comments upon the papers when they have been read. I ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... into the sunshine free, for the first time in six years. Free to wander through the streets, to do a little desultory shopping, to go down to the river and to watch the workmen driving rivets in the great new bridge. Never had she spent so pleasant a morning, and her heart was full of gratitude and peace when she reflected that hours such as these ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... drive little was said, each one of the three instinctively refraining from all reference to the subject which was uppermost in their minds, and failing to maintain even a desultory conversation on more commonplace topics. Gale drove his pair at a hand gallop all the way till the road swerved from the straight and through the dim mystery of the starlit bush an angry red glow showed ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... replied, "in peace return To the gay dreams of fond romantic youth, Leave me to hide, in this remote sojourn, From every gentle ear the dreadful truth: For if any desultory strain with ruth And indignation make thine eyes o'erflow, Alas! what comfort could thy anguish soothe, Shouldst thou the extent of human folly know? Be ignorance thy choice, where knowledge ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... Bougainville remained ignorant of what was happening. Nothing but an actual messenger coming through with the news would have enlightened him, and in the confusion none came till eight o'clock. The sound of desultory firing borne faintly against the wind from the neighborhood of the city had little significance for him. It was a chronic condition of affairs, and Bougainville's business was to watch the upper river, where an attack was really expected. It was a rare piece of good-fortune for Wolfe ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... much desultory campaigning in Friesland. Verdugo and Frederic van den Berg picked up a few cities, and strong places which had thrown off their allegiance September, to the king—Auerzyl, Schlochteren, Winschoten, Wedde, Ootmarzum—and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of Palatines near Pamlico Sound, and wiped them out; and some Huguenots at Bath fared little better. Disputes between the governor and the burgesses prevented aid from Virginia; but Barnwell of South Carolina succeeded in making terms with the enemy. A desultory and exhausting warfare continued however, complicated with an outbreak of yellow fever, and it was not until 1713 that the Tuscaroras were driven finally out of the country, and were incorporated with the Iroquois in the north. The war in Europe had by that time ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... stairs to the second floor and waited. The elevator came down, stopped, and the guard repeated his desultory search, not stopping to pry into ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... It was during a desultory discussion of an ordinary sessions of the Second Volksraad, in which I represented Johannesburg, that one day in September, 1899—to be precise, the afternoon of the 28th—the messenger of the House came to me with a note, and ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... but derived from a legitimate source. And, lastly, it must not have been received casually, but for the very purpose of being used for masonic purposes. For one to say to another in the course of a desultory conversation: "A.B. is a Mason," is not sufficient. He may not be speaking with due caution, under the expectation that his words will be considered of weight. He must say something to this effect: "I know this man to be a Master Mason," for such or such reasons, ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... in her desultory manner, now that she had the drawing-room all to herself, and no fear of Lady Maulevrier's critical ear or Lesbia's superior smile. The Fraeulein was pleased to hear her pupil ramble on with her favourite bits from Raff, and Hensel, and Schubert, and Mendelssohn, ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... after final arrangements concluded). I wish ROSE had warned me that PODBURY's habit of mind was so painfully desultory. (He ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 25, 1891 • Various
... occupied the part of the town that was north of the Saranac, and began a desultory bombardment of the fortification opposite. Not a very serious one, for they considered they could take the town at any time, but preferred to await the arrival of their ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... He began to tremble that he himself had been unjustly favoured, when he saw all the avenues of wealth, and power, and comfort closed against so many of his superiors and equals, and held unwearyingly open before so idle, so desultory, and so dissolute a being as himself. There sat a youth beside him on the college benches who had only one shirt to his back, and, at intervals sufficiently far apart, must stay at home to have it washed. It was my friend's principle to stay away as often as he dared; for I fear ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had been washed by the rain. It shone with an inimitable cleanliness, as though consciously happy in relief from all soil of dust. And it was here, the open country stretching afar on all sides, that Dickie began talking, not, as at first, in desultory fashion, but of matters nearly pertaining and closely ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... where they stood and eyed the passing carriage with anything but a frightened air. And while Mackenzie hummed something resembling, but very vaguely resembling, "Love in thine eyes sits beaming," and while Ingram, in his quiet, desultory, and often sardonic fashion, amused the young girl with stories of her lover's bravery and kindness and dare-devil escapades, the merry trot of the horses beat time to the bells on their necks, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... say that Chin Foo acted in a highly creditable manner, considering he was in a strange land, and, to my certain knowledge, had no money laid by for funeral expenses; for, while I was stirring the dust and flourishing my stick in a desultory manner in front of the cow, to divert her mind, and keep her thoughts from wandering backward too directly, he fluttered boldly up to her, and laid firmly hold of two teats, with the familiarity ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray |
