"Inactive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thus closely mewed up within his walls and the Christians remained inactive in their camp, he noticed, one calm autumnal day, the sound of implements of labor echoing among the mountains, and now and then the crash of a falling tree or a thundering report, as if some rock had been heaved from its bed and hurled ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... lower end of the city, the battery was speedily captured and its guns were turned upon another work of the enemy. An entrance into the east end of the city was now secured, and the houses protected our troops so long as they were inactive. On the west General Worth had reached the Saltillo road after some fighting but without heavy loss. He turned from his new position and captured the forts on both heights in that quarter. This gave him possession of the upper or west end of Monterey. ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... this enchanting approach brought us to the outskirts of Rivas, and we entered a narrow, mud-walled street, and never halted until we came out upon the central and only plaza of the miserable town. Our incumbered march, without breakfast, after a long, inactive sea-voyage, had wearied us sadly; and we threw our luggage upon, the ground, lay down upon it, and ruminated on a scene of little comfort to the faint-hearted, if there were any such in our little crowd of world-battered and battering ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... elements differ, each being united with O and H, and yet producing compounds of a directly opposite character; (4) that salts are really compounded of acids and bases. This explains why salts are usually inactive and neutral in character, while acids and bases are active agents. Thus we see why the most positive or the most negative elements in general have the strongest affinities, while those intermediate in the list are inactive, and have weak affinities; why alloys of the metals ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams
... hatching in the bed and floating down the surface of the stream. As the trout do not rise until the natural fly appears, and as the hatches of fly are capricious, there are often weary hours of waiting when the angler must be perforce inactive. His exercise comes in full measure when the hour of action does arrive, and he will find some motion even in the eventless intervals by walking up the river on the look-out for olive dun or ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... exert himself to get me appointed to a more active situation. I must see service, or I may as well, and indeed much better, quit the army at once, for no one advantage can I reasonably look to hereafter if I remain buried in this inactive, remote corner, without the least mention being made of me. Should Sir James Saumarez return from the Baltic crowned with success, he could, I should think, say a good word for me ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... Death huddled and herded his reluctant sheep into a fold where they lay inactive but struggling and restless. Christ leads His flock into a pasture. He shall guide them 'to the fountains of waters of life.' I need not dwell at any length on the blessed particulars of that future, set forth ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the river. The landing at Blackfriars was attended with a more concentrated attack of 'public execration,' for, there, an immense multitude was wedged together, anxious to be spectators of the scene, though not inactive ones. On the procession passed amid the continued manifestations of public disapprobation of the present, and respect for the retiring Lord Mayor. Many interrogations of a searching nature were repeatedly bawled forth, not that they ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... Wernek distinguished themselves, and at Landrecis, where the Archduke Charles made a brilliant charge at the head of the cavalry. Landrecis was taken. But this was all. Clairfait, whose example might have animated the inactive duke of York, being left unsupported by the British, was attacked singly at Courtray by Pichegru and forced to yield to superior numbers. Coburg fought an extremely bloody but indecisive battle at Doornik (Tournay), where Pichegru ever opposed fresh masses to the Austrian ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... has never attracted and when people say that one looks tired, it is time to smile and deny it, for the "Spot" is beginning to take form. The body should never be permitted to settle. In Cuba, the women have enormous hips because they sit so much and are inactive. ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley
... being a silent or inactive listener while a conversation was going forward. No matter how complete his ignorance of the subject, he generally managed to hazard some remarks. Bruce talked a good deal about actors and theatres, and Hazlet had never seen a theatre in his life. He did ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... obvious to the senses. In the languages of the ruder tribes there were no words to express any thing that is not material, such as faith, time, imagination, and the like. When the mind of the savage is not occupied with matters relating to his animal existence, it is altogether inactive. In the islands, and upon the exuberant plains of the south, where little exertion of ingenuity was required to obtain the necessaries of life, the rational faculties were frequently dormant, and the countenance remained vacant and inexpressive. Even the superior races of the ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... (turning to Captain Benjamin Rich, who sat by him,) is not this true? (Mr. Rich at once replied, True!) Is every measure of this sort, for the relief of such abuses, to be rejected? Are we to suffer ourselves to remain inactive under every grievance of this kind until these three years shall expire, and through as many more as shall pass until Providence shall bless us with more power of doing good than we ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... the Army of the Tennessee, under Gen. Grant, before the Army of the Cumberland, under Buell, could come to his assistance. At the second battle of Bull Run Gen. Pope claimed that Porter was within sound of his guns, yet he remained inactive. At Pittsburg Landing it was claimed by military men that Gen. Buell could have made a junction with Grant twenty-four hours sooner and thereby saved a terrible loss of life had he chosen to do so. Both generals were subsequently ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore
... prepared to charge. The Boers, however, began discreetly to remove themselves to a second position still better intrenched, from whence they could fire on the British as they gained the top. At this time the British guns were forced to be almost inactive, as the storming line was now so near the crest that the shrapnel could only be directed on the enemy by enfilading the position from the ridge of the kopje on the left, and it was during the lull that Lieutenant Taylor, Yorkshire Light Infantry, and Lieutenant Jones, of ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... squadrons drawn across the Highway, hitherward of the Kreczor latitude: Ziethen dashes on Nadasti; tumbles his squadrons and him away; clears the Road, and Kreczor neighborhood, of Nadasti: drives him quite into the hollow of Radowesnitz, where he stood inactive for the rest of the day. Hulsen now at the level of Kreczor (in the latitude of Kreczor, as we phrased it), halts, faces to right; stiffly presses up, opens his cannon-thunders, his bayonet-charges and platoon-fires upon Kreczor. Stiffly pressing ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... can he exclude gravity from matter. Yet can he admit matter as well as space to be eternal, because he will not allow the inactivity of God." "If God's works had a beginning he must have been for a whole eternity inactive." He seems to have an odd notion of eternity, for he there allows it could have an end. The argument would be fairer in concluding "he must have been inactive ...
— Answer to Dr. Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever • Matthew Turner
... looked down from His lofty throne upon the Christian powers in Syria. In the six years they had spent in the East they had taken Nice and Antioch. Now, while inactive in winter quarters, Bohemond was strengthening himself in Antioch, and the other chiefs were thinking of glory or love; but Godfrey, to whom renown was the meanest of glories, was burning to win Jerusalem and restore it to the faith. Inspired by Gabriel, despatched by the Eternal Father, Godfrey ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... steps. His small figure had grown heavy from his inactive life abroad. The thick hair had almost gone from the top of his head, and the neat pointed beard had become bushy. In his negligent clothes he looked quite slouchy, she had felt that evening, as if he had long ceased ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... experience. The dead detective had altered his position as Silas Blackburn had done, and this time someone had been in the room and suffered the appalling change. Bobby's fingers still responded to the charnel feeling of cold, inactive flesh suddenly become alive and potent beneath his touch. And a reason for the apparent miracle offered itself. Between the extinction of his candle and the commencement of that movement!—only a second or so—the evidence had disappeared from the ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... Warren, The few spies I have been able to procure upon the island seem rather to think of an evacuation than of any enterprise; but, you know, New York is the fountain-head. I long much, my dear general, to be again with you; our separation has been long enough, and I am here as inactive as anywhere else. My wish, and that you will easily conceive, had been to co-operate with the French fleet; I don't know now what they will do. The admiral has written to me upon many plans, and does not seem well fixed on any scheme: he burns with the desire ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... as he; "he had achieved the victory in Norfolk once already, and was so feared, that none durst lift their weapons against him:"[27] Suffolk in his absence should command the Tower. Had the duke dared, he would have delayed; but every moment that he remained inactive added to Mary's strength, and whatever he did he must risk something. He resolved to go, and as the plot was thickening, he sent Sir Henry Dudley to Paris to entreat the king to protect Calais against Charles, should the latter move upon it in ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... extensive, and complicated iniquity.—To what cause are we to impute this frigid silence—this torpid indifference—this cold inanimated conduct of the otherwise warm and generous Americans? Why do they remain inactive, amidst the groans of injured humanity, the shrill and distressing complaints of expiring justice and the keen remorse of polluted integrity?—Why do they not rise up to assert the cause of God and the world, to ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... monotonous, inactive life of the monastery began to pall upon him. He soon found, too, that many of his brethren believed as little as he did; that others were too indolent to reflect and believed as a matter of course. The thousand ceremonials, ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... have the chance," I said gloomily. "I doubt very much whether Mephisto will consent to remain inactive. He doesn't ...
— The Holladay Case - A Tale • Burton E. Stevenson
... (velut agmine facto qua data porta ruunt) than the awfully sublime revelation vouchsafed to the prophet Ezekiel. And how unworthy and degrading is that representation of the {161} heavenly host, resting inactive, and sparing themselves from toil, until they witnessed Christ's descent and humiliation; and then when chid and put to shame and rebuke, and mutually roused to action by their fellows, coming down to visit this earth, and rushing through the ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... nights after, his part filled by an old man and a bad player. During the remainder of the season he continued with Stephen Kemble, without at all appearing on the stage. From Edinburgh he went with the company to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, there he lived as dependent, inactive, and undistinguished as before, till, owing to the want of a person to fill the part of Malcolm in Macbeth, he was cast to that humble character. In so inferior a sphere did he begin to move who is now become one of the brightest luminaries of the theatrical hemisphere. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... and then started off to follow the boys, trying hard to walk slowly and steadily; but it was all in vain. The hill-side sloped very steeply to the broad bed of willows and reeds far below, making the way very bad for so heavy and inactive a man. Worse still: walking over the short grass in the hot sun had made the bottoms of the monk's sandals as slippery as glass, and so it was that before he had gone far down the slope he began to talk to himself, at first slowly—then quickly—then in a loud ...
— The King's Sons • George Manville Fenn
... fortune from this change of men, and cheerfully made every exertion, of which they were capable, for the ensuing campaign. The circular letter of Mr. Pitt assured the several governors that, to repair the losses and disappointments of the last inactive campaign, the cabinet was determined to send a formidable force, to operate by sea and land, against the French in America; and he called upon them to raise as large bodies of men, within their respective ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... negative properties, although many of its compounds are very energetic bodies. It is a gas, present everywhere, but so inactive that the assayer can always afford to ignore its presence, and, except in testing furnace gases, &c., he is never called on ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer
... Broglie, maintained a precarious foothold in central Bohemia, menaced by the main army of the Austrians, and Khevenhueller was ranging unopposed in Bavaria, while Frederick, in pursuance of his secret obligations, lay inactive in Silesia. In Italy the allied Neapolitans and Spaniards had advanced towards Modena, the duke of which state had allied himself with them, but the vigilant Austrian commander Count Traun had outmarched them, captured Modena, and forced ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... and there were no fewer than a thousand Jews, of the best esteem among them, who confirmed this accusation; which confirmation was procured by Antipater. But Aristobulus alleged against him, that it was Hyrcanus's own temper, which was inactive, and on that account contemptible, which caused him to be deprived of the government; and that for himself, he was necessitated to take it upon him, for fear lest it should be transferred to others. And that as to his title [of king], it was no other than what his father ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... requires, and lives (if it is permitted to do so) in competence on the produce of its daily labour. The quantity of its store, great or small, is therefore in many respects indifferent to it, and cannot be inferred from its aspect. Similarly an inactive and wasteful population, which cannot live by its daily labour, but is dependent, partly or wholly, on consumption of its store, may be (by various difficulties, hereafter to be examined, in realizing or getting at such store) retained in a state ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... on the 10th of July of that year 1810, and a wave of indignation such as must have overwhelmed any but a man of almost superhuman mettle swept up against Lord Wellington for having stood inactive within the frontiers of Portugal and never stirred a hand to aid the Spaniards. It was not only from Spain that bitter invective was hurled upon him; British journalism poured scorn and rage upon his incompetence, French ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... the first few hours' rain, the boys begin to loll around, lie on the cots, or hang around the kitchen and develop a disease known as "Grouchitis." During the first stages of the disease the boys are inactive and accumulate an over-supply of energy, which must find an outlet. Here is where the leader plays an important part in handling the case; he provides an outlet for the expenditure of this surplus ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... FRIEND: Yesterday I received your letter of the 30th past, by which I find that you had not then got mine, which I sent you the day after I had received your former; you have had no great loss of it; for, as I told you in my last, this inactive season of the year supplies no materials for a letter; the winter may, and probably will, produce an abundant crop, but of what grain I neither know, guess, nor care. I take it for granted, that Lord B———'surnagera encore', but by the assistance of what bladders or cork-waistcoats ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... knowledge[1:5]; (6)and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, patience; and to patience, godliness; (7)and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. (8)For if these things are in you, and abound, they cause that ye shall not be inactive nor unfruitful in attaining to the full knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (9)But he that lacks these things is blind, not seeing afar off, having forgotten the cleansing ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... except in the northern or Serang division, where they are Javanese. The coast is low-lying and frequently marshy. The northern portion of the residency constitutes the most fertile portion, is generally flat with a hilly group in the middle, where the two inactive volcanoes, Karang and Pulosari, [v.03 p.0356] are found, while the north-western corner is occupied by the isolated Gede Mountain. The southern portion is covered by the Kendang (Malay for "range") Mountains extending into ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... set it away; sit near me; sit farther along; sit still;" are expressions used by every teacher in addressing his scholars. On the system we are examining, what would they understand by such inactive expressions? Would he not correct them for disobeying his orders? But what did he order them to do? Nothing at all, if sit denotes ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... was lying inactive at the head of Lake George, Brigadier General Forbes had advanced from Virginia against Fort Duquesne, and, after immense labour and hardships, succeeded in arriving at the fort, which the French evacuated at his approach, having burnt the barracks and storehouses, ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... undergone a change. For my part, I was wet to the skin, and chilled to my very bones; but I was young and strong, and could stand even that. With O'Halloran, however, it was different. A man of sixty cannot sit with impunity, inactive, and exposed to a cold, slimy drizzle, such as this was, without feeling very serious effects, and anticipating worse. This he soon experienced. I saw his figure crouching down, and an expression of pain coming over his face. In the midst of his pain he still maintained his punctilious resolution; ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... navy at an early period of life, I went through many vicissitudes and experiences in various quarters of the globe. But circumstances induced me to quit the navy, and for a short time I remained inactive, until my old commander offered to procure me a berth on board a ship of eighteen guns, designed for the use of the patriots ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... vigilant commander a hearty welcome, however, and after a long skirmish was obliged to withdraw, carrying off his dead and wounded, together with a few cart-horses which had been found grazing outside the trenches. Not satisfied with these trophies or such results, he remained several days inactive, and then suddenly whirled around Aardenburg with his whole army, directly southward of Sluys, seized the forts of St. Catharine and St. Philip, which had been left with very small garrisons, and then made a furious attempt to break the lines at Oostburg, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... long so wary, had worked himself into a fever and, rather than remain inactive, was ripe for any step, however venturesome, provided it led to the remedium. He had still the prudence to postpone action until night; but when darkness had fairly set in and the bell of St. Peter, inviting the ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... on. Grey and blue armies rested inactive save that they worked at burying the dead. Then, in the afternoon, information came to grey headquarters. Humphrey's division, pouring through the gaps of South Mountain, would in a few hours be at McClellan's service. Couch's division was ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... conquest of Mid-Britain by the Engle that roused the West-Saxons to a new advance. For thirty years they had rested inactive within the limits of the Gwent, but in 552 their capture of the hill-fort of Old Sarum threw open the reaches of the Wiltshire downs, and a march of King Cuthwulf on the Thames in 571 made them masters of the districts ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... counsels of Arbetio, Apodemius, who was a persevering and bitter enemy to all good men, was sent with letters to summon Silvanus to the presence. When he had arrived in Gaul, taking no heed of the commission with which he was charged, and caring but little for anything that might happen, he remained inactive, without either seeing Silvanus, or delivering the letters which commanded him to appear at court. And having taken the receiver of the province into his counsels, he began with arrogance and malevolence to harass the clients and servants of the master of the horse, as if that officer ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... rulers and their adherents will be strong enough to overpower the discontents of those who have not been able to assert their share of the spoil. The unfortunate adventurers in the cheating lottery of plunder will probably be the least sagacious or the most inactive and irresolute of the gang. If, on disappointment, they should dare to stir, they will soon be suppressed as rebels and mutineers by their brother rebels. Scantily fed for a while with the offal of plunder, they ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... one realises for the first time that these Londoners have been forced to sacrifice the best qualities of their human nature, to bring to pass all the marvels of civilisation which crowd their city; that a hundred powers which slumbered within them have remained inactive, have been suppressed in order that a few might be developed more fully and multiply through union with those of others. The very turmoil of the streets has something repulsive, something against which human nature rebels. The hundreds of thousands of all classes ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... sun disappeared in the West, sinking rapidly, and diving, as it were, into the very midst of darkness, the Shumiro-Accads did not fancy him as either asleep or inactive, but on the contrary as still engaged in his everlasting work. Under the name of NIN-DAR, he travels through the dreary regions ruled by Mul-ge and, his essence being light, he combats the powers of darkness in their own home, till He comes out of it, a triumphant hero, ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... the same time that they should be divided in equal parts among the wealthier peasants only—a measure which provoked new insurrections and was abrogated next year, in 1793, when the order came to divide the communal lands among. all commoners, rich and poor alike, "active" and "inactive." ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... an instant. Only an infinitesimal fraction of time elapsed between the spectacle of Mr Birdsey, indignant but inactive, and Mr Birdsey berserk, seeing red, frankly and undisguisedly running amok. The transformation took place in the space of time required for the lighting ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... thus becomes ungrateful and unjust, doubtless his loss is greater than his gain. To the prince, therefore, who, either through indolence or from want of foresight, sends forth a captain to conduct his wars while he himself remains inactive at home, I have no advice to offer which he does not already know. But I would counsel the captain whom he sends, since I am sure that he can never escape the attacks of ingratitude, to follow one or other of two courses, and either quit his command at once after a victory, and place himself ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... colored man is indeed a man, then his manhood with proper training can be developed. His soul may appear dormant, his brain inactive, but there is a vitality there; and Nature will assert herself if you will give ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... of like nature followed; on some plates were abnormal appearances, on others none. All this time, Mr. D. the medium, during the exposure of the plates, was quite inactive.... ...
— Psychic Phenomena - A Brief Account of the Physical Manifestations Observed - in Psychical Research • Edward T. Bennett
... himself retired, and the attack became a failure. Still Joan desired to march upon Paris for a renewed attack; but the King would not hear of it, and she was sent with troops badly equipped to besiege La Charite, where she again failed. For four weary months she remained inactive. She grew desperate; the voices neither encouraged nor discouraged her. She was now full of sad forebodings, yet her activity continued. She repaired to Compiegne, a city already besieged by the enemy, which she wished to relieve. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... of academic pedantry. But let me ask the reader to consider with an open mind a familiar parallel. During the recent war there was inevitably much waste and muddle in the utilization of the military resources of the Allies. Some regiments would be kept inactive for long periods, not for purposes of rest or training, but owing to some defect of organization. In the manufacture of munitions, an insufficient appreciation of the principles of joint demand led to the piling up of excessive ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson
... vault was high enough to permit them; then laid him on his back and dragged him along as well as they could, for no persuasion would induce him to assist the transportation by any exertion of his own. He lay as silent and inactive in their hands as a dead corpse, incapable of opposing, but in no way aiding, their operations. When he was dragged into daylight and placed erect upon his feet among three or four assistants who had remained without the cave, he seemed stupefied and dazzled ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... intention to take a stand upon the hillside above timber, hoping that the moose would show himself toward evening, but in our wet clothes we were soon too chilled to remain inactive. As a last resort, Hunter forced his way back into the alders, while I kept in the open above. After going some distance my man turned to the right for the purpose of driving him out in my direction, but our ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... reached a stream so swollen that crossing was impossible. The artillery had to return to Lung-kow. German diplomacy, meanwhile, exasperated at its inability to prevent a Japanese landing, had not been inactive. ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... be sure, he rarely moves about and his body remains practically inert. But we must never forget that the mind is a muscle and calls for continual rebuilding. And the mind of Mr. Cumberland is never inactive. It works ceaselessly. It will not permit him to sleep. For three days, now, as far as I can tell, he has not closed his eyes. It might be assumed that he is in a state of trance, but by a series of careful experiments, I have ascertained that he is constantly ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... influence, the jealousy, envy, and avarice incident to our nature, and so common to a state of peace, prosperity, and conscious strength, were for the time in a great measure smothered and rendered inactive, while the deep-rooted principles of hate, and the powerful motive of revenge, instead of being turned against each other, were directed exclusively against the British nation. And thus, from the force of circumstances, the basest principles ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... of the hind feet, are broad and admirably adapted, with their long hairy covering, to keep the polar bear from sinking in the snow. Although the creature has an appearance of clumsiness, it is the reverse of inactive. Every one who knows the boundless spaces it has to traverse, when in a state of liberty and the "monarch of all it surveys," cannot but pity it as a prisoner in the Regent's Park, where a tolerably capacious den, supplied with a bath of water ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... as throughout life. The difference is not great, but it would be much more considerable, if we did not include in the weight of the body the fat, which is present in much larger quantity with women, and which, as an inert (inactive) mass, has no influence whatever upon the weight ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... A mere inactive witch was one thing—a thing scarce distinguishable from any other old woman. But this transformation of a black wand into a wide-spreading tent was so obviously the result of magic, that it was self-evident ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... deed, because he had a private spite against the victim, and "that action" must be sullied with no suggestion of a worldly motive; on the other hand, "that action" in itself was highly justified, he had cast in his lot with "the actors," and he must stay there, inactive, but publicly sharing the responsibility. "You are a gentleman—you will protect me!" cried the wounded old man, crawling towards him. "I will never lay a hand on you," said Hackston, and put his cloak about his mouth. It is an old temptation with me to pluck away that cloak and see the face—to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Medusae, we find these channels of communication consisting simply of branched canals opening out of the stomach and spreading through the disk, we may know, a priori, that such creatures are comparatively inactive; seeing that the nutritive liquid thus partially distributed throughout their bodies is crude and dilute, and that there is no efficient appliance for keeping it in motion. Conversely, when we meet with a creature of ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... than the remark which I heard only lately in the Council—that one who advises you ought, forsooth, to advise you plainly either to go to war or to keep the peace. {5} Very good.[3] If Philip is remaining inactive, if he is keeping nothing that is ours, in violation of the Peace, if he is not organizing all mankind against us, there is nothing more to be said—we have simply to observe the Peace; and I see that, for your part, you are quite ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes
... view of the matter?" I exclaimed contemptuously. "Then I can only say, Monsieur Dumaresq, that I have been mistaken in you. Man, man!" I continued angrily; "what are you thinking about? Are you going to crouch here, dumb, abject, and inactive, like a whipped hound, instead of bestirring yourself and helping me to put an end to the career of these fiends and bring them to justice, to say nothing of the possibility of saving those unhappy wretches on board the ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... of James at Wark, at Etall, and at Ford; and then, that Norham castle had been taken; but later, news was whispered that while King James was dallying the time away with the wily Lady Heron, the army lay inactive. At length they heard the army had made post on the ridge that frowns over the Millfield Plain, and that brave Surrey, with a force from the South, had marched into Northumberland ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins
... something must happen presently. It is impossible for the hardiest men to sit inactive in a boat for any length of time in a January night in Norway. In the calmest nights the cold is only to be sustained by means of the glow from strong exercise. It was certain that these three men could not have been long in their places, and that they would not sit ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... drawing near her end. On receiving this intelligence the group collected again, curiosity to witness such a death—or a better feeling—drawing to the spot men who had so lately been actors in a scene seemingly of so much greater interest and moment. By this time Judith had got to be inactive through grief, and Hist alone was performing the little offices of feminine attention that are so appropriate to the sick bed. Hetty herself had undergone no other apparent change than the general failing that indicated the near approach ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... the visit of the Hawaiian embassy, and the riot on the Emperor's birthday. The rest shall be silence; only it must be borne in view that Tamasese all the while continued to strengthen himself in Leulumoenga, and Laupepa sat inactive listening to the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... useless to persist in my endeavor to extricate my gun, and satisfied that the matter was in good hands, I was content to look on, an inactive ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... and did not possess one blade of corn, as the soil required rest after the yield of the previous season. None of these people have an idea respecting a succession of crops in scientific rotation, therefore a loss is sustained by the impoverishment of the ground, which must occasionally lie inactive to recover its fertility. There is absolutely no provision whatever for the cattle in the shape of root-crops or hay, but they trust entirely to the bruised barley-straw and such seeds as the cotton and lentil. At this season the Carpas district possessed an important advantage in ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... insult had he still been with us? Spain has dared us to the trial, and now bids us defiance. She is yet in possession of that country; it is at this moment within your reach and within your power. It offers a sure and easy conquest. We should have to encounter there only a weak, inactive, and unenterprising people. But how may a few months vary the scene and darken our prospects! Though not officially informed, we know that the Spanish provinces on the Mississippi have been ceded to the French, and that ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... Their ability for action is inhibited. In one moment they want to act under the stimulus of one impression, but before the impulse is realized, some other perhaps rather indifferent impression forces itself on their minds and suggests the counteraction, and in this way they vacillate and remain inactive until it is too late to give the right order or to press the right button. The other type feels only the necessity for rapid action, and under the pressure of greatest haste, without clear thought, they jump to the first decision which ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg
... while all this talk was going on. But it could be readily believed that his restless mind was not inactive. He proved this by suddenly nodding his head, and looking up at Ned in that shrewd way he had of doing, whenever a particularly brilliant ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... broken only by her sobbing. Men turned away and covered their eyes—Brookfield edged himself stealthily through the little crowd and sneaked out into the open air—and the officers of the law stood inactive. Helmsley felt the room whirling about him in a sickening blackness, and sat down to steady himself, the stinging tears rising involuntarily in his throat ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... began. So far that dirty hot way had been unusually quiet and empty, but beyond the corner, where the first group of beershops clustered, it became populous. It was very quiet still, even the children were a little inactive, but there were a lot of people standing dispersedly in little groups, and with a general direction towards the gates ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... calm. The general view held is that Austria's ultimatum is unacceptable for a sovereign State. In Belgrade no one doubts that Russia will stand by Serbia. Everyone is certain that in consequence of Austria's excessively sharp tone, Russia will not remain inactive should Austria resort to armed force. The populace is prepared ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... field, they should have shifted them afterward to the extreme left, so that while the allies were operating in Flanders they were in no manner seconded or aided by the imposing army upon the Rhine; and when, in its turn, this army took up the offensive, the allies remained inactive upon the Sambre. Do not these false combinations resemble those of Soubise and Broglie in 1761, and all the operations of the Seven ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... the compound, and for which there is scarce any reprieve to be obtained, but by swallowing a kind of poison (opiates, etc.); when I behold with compassion and sorrow, such scenes of misery and woe, and see them happen only to the rich, the lazy, the luxurious, and the inactive, those who fare daintily and live voluptuously, those who are furnished with the rarest delicacies, the richest foods, and the most generous wines, such as can provoke the appetites, senses, and passions, in the most exquisite ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... designs, how many treasonable plots, which only Marat's perspicacity and vigilance could unravel and foil! Now he was dead, who was there to denounce Custine loitering in idleness in the Camp of Caesar and refusing to relieve Valenciennes, Biron tarrying inactive in the Lower Vendee letting Saumur be taken and Nantes blockaded, Dillon betraying the Fatherland in ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... must be done in order to salvation. No man expects to reach heaven by inaction. Even the indifferent and supine soul expects to rouse itself up at some future time, and work out its salvation. The most thoughtless and inactive man, in religious respects, will acknowledge that thoughtlessness and inactivity if continued will end in perdition. But he intends at a future day to think, and act, and be saved. So natural is it, to every man, ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... Something of electricity ran through Piers; there came as it were the ripple of muscles contracting for a spring. Yet still he stood motionless, menacing but inactive. ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... a minute Nancy Nelson had been inactive. Her quick mind had suggested the way the boy in the millrace might be saved; but the chauffeur of the automobile was the instrument by which the helpless victim's course down the current had ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe
... spirit and courage of the Americans, while the loyalists and the English troops were disheartened and disgusted at seeing an army of 30,000 fine troops kept inactive, while the enemy, with but 4000 men, who were wholly incapable of opposing an equal number of English troops, were allowed to wander unchecked, to attack and harass the English pickets, and to utilize ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... childish affection. Little comrades would ask him mockingly, "Do you still need milk?" if they saw him walking out with his mother, although he might love her in the house as demonstratively as he pleased, during the hours he could pass by her side. These were not many. All inactive pleasures were severely restricted by his discipline; and even comforts, except during illness, were not allowed him. Almost from the time he could speak he was enjoined to consider duty the guiding motive of life, self-control the first requisite of conduct, ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... fire in St. Quentin was ablaze. The weather now changed for the worse. Hail, rain and snow prevailed alternately. A fierce wind blew. Winter conditions were repeated in the outpost line, where no shelter other than tarpaulins rigged across the shallow trenches existed. Nor was the artillery inactive. As the enemy's resistance stiffened, shells commenced to fall on fields yet unscarred by trench or shell-hole. Better ammunition seemed to be in use—or was it a month's holiday from shells that made it seem so?—and ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... fact as they may, it gets on the nerves of the most courageous among us, producing a sense of helplessness in the presence of danger. Nobody likes sitting still to be battered at without power of effective reply. Still less would he be content to stand inactive by while the wounded and defenceless were being shelled. These considerations no doubt influenced Sir George White yesterday when he sent a message to General Joubert asking that non-combatants with sick and wounded might be allowed ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... at this unexpected act of temerity, was for a few moments inactive. This pause was too precious to be lost. Desperation gave him courage, and Cedric addressed the dread ruler of the world even whilst he clutched the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... visible; the spirit inward and invisible. Both are necessary to the life, growth, and active influence of the gospel. Without the spirit of Christianity, the body would be good for nothing; it would be only a corpse. Without the body of Christianity, the spirit would be comparatively inactive; it would be only a ghost. A body without spirit corrupts and is offensive; a spirit without body is inoperative and alarming. Through body alone the spirit can act; through spirit alone the body ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... down to material conditions—that is, is passing through the processes of Samsara—it is an agent. But as soon as it has escaped from this bondage of transmigration it dwells in a state of perfect repose, inactive and restful. In all its activities the soul is prompted by Brahman, without whose inspiration and guidance the soul could perform nothing, and could never, therefore, reach the true goal of all souls, absorption in the one All, ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... a battle: Still, however, they delayed the attack, but a party ran to each of our boats, and attempted to draw them on shore; this seemed to be the signal, for the people about us at the same time began to press in upon our line: Our situation was now become too critical for us to remain longer inactive, I therefore discharged my musket, which was loaded with small shot, at one of the forwardest, and Mr Banks and two of the men fired immediately afterwards: This made them fall back in some confusion, but one of the chiefs, who was at the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... ten of whom are said not to have consumed more food than one Spaniard, nor to have been capable of more than one tenth of the exertion of a Spaniard. Robertson's History.—In a state similar to this the greatest part of the animal world pass their lives, between sleep or inactive reverie, except when they are excited ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... sentence so easily, that it was suspected that she did not realize the tedium of confinement, and was relieved by being allowed to be inactive. Until she should go home, she might do whatever did not fatigue her; but most sights, and even the motion of the carriage, were so fatiguing, that she was much more inclined to remain at home and revel in the delightful world of books. The kind, unobtrusive petting; ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the remainder of his army to the chances of a battle. Shut up in Ratisbon, he awaited the reinforcements which Wallenstein was bringing from Bohemia; and endeavored, in the meantime, to amuse his enemy and keep him inactive, by reviving the negotiation for a neutrality. But the King's distrust, too often and too justly excited by his previous conduct, frustrated this design; and the intentional delay of Wallenstein abandoned ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... of refusal to help Edgar escape the life that was growing more and more irksome to him was as decided as it was brief. But Edgar was unshaken in his resolve to get away as soon as possible. In the meantime, finding no outlet for his restless creative faculty that would not remain inactive though there was no opportunity for its satisfaction, he gave himself over by turns, to deepest dejection and ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... feet above the crater, from which mud was ejected. Near the village of Baklichli, west of Baku, the flames rose so high that p 225 they could be seen at a distance of twenty-four miles. Enormous masses of rock were torn up and scattered around. Similar masses may be seen round the now inactive mud volcano of Monte Ziblo, near Sassuolo, in Northern Italy. The secondary condition of repose has been maintained for upward of fifteen centuries in the mud volcanoes of Girgenti, the 'Macalubi', in Sicily, which have been described by the ancients. These ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... vision: the conclusions of reason, and the deductions of scientific premises. I have watched the habits of the animal, young man; and can fearlessly pronounce, by evidence that would be thrown away on ordinary observers, that it is of vast dimensions, inactive, possibly torpid, of voracious appetite, and, as it now appears by the direct testimony of this venerable hunter, ferocious ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... annoyance would soon have ceased. Alfred would simply have bashfully killed him. But because of his innate courtesy, which so saturated him that his philosophy of life was thoroughly tinged by it, he was silent and inactive. ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... marriage of this woman of the world with such an unworldly man as Mr. Ellenwood was announced soon after Mrs. Dabney's return to her native city. Superficial observers, and deeper ones, seemed to concur in supposing that the lady must have borne no inactive part in arranging the affair; there were considerations of expediency which she would be far more likely to appreciate than Mr. Ellenwood, and there was just the specious phantom of sentiment and romance in this late union of two early lovers which sometimes makes a fool of a woman ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... despair, he lay for some time motionless, feeling the rocking of the waves, and the breath of the wind, and the chill damp of the fog, yet unable to do anything against these enemies. For nearly an hour he lay thus inactive, and at the end of that time his lost energies began to return. He rose and looked around. The scene had not changed at all; in fact, there was no scene to change. There was nothing but black darkness all ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... she has ordained this marvel; those are her desires that we see before us!" the fact is merely that our special attention has been drawn to some tiny manifestation of life upon the boundless surface of matter that we deem inactive, and choose to describe, with evident inaccuracy, as nothingness and death. A purely fortuitous chain of events has allowed this special manifestation to attract our attention; but a thousand others, no less interesting, ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... inactive in his lines before Vienna, Tekoeli, who had been detached with his Hungarian followers and an auxiliary Turkish corps to reduce the castle of Presburg, which held out after the surrender of the town, had ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... enough to permit the use of her torpedo tubes. Miserable was the plight of the Leipzig's crew, for the two hundred men who were still alive were unable to get to her flag on account of the fire aboard her, and they had to remain inactive while the Carnarvon and Glasgow poured round after round into their ship. Only twelve remained alive at nine o'clock, when she began to list to port. Slowly more and more of the under-water part of her hull showed above the sea, and she continued to heel until her keel was ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... he who, by the resolute exercise of his freewill, has so disciplined himself as to have acquired the habit of virtue; as the bad man is he who, by allowing his freewill to remain inactive, and giving the bridle to his desires and passions, has acquired the habit of vice, by which he becomes, at last, bound as by ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... of body, therefore, take courage of heart; and let the robust student be admonished that he cannot excuse all his inactive days upon the ground ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... you. But history in the nineteenth century, better understood and better employed, will, I trust, teach a civilized posterity to abhor the misdeeds of both these barbarous ages. It will teach future priests and magistrates not to retaliate upon the speculative and inactive atheists of future times the enormities committed by the present practical zealots and furious fanatics of that wretched error, which, in its quiescent state, is more than punished, whenever it is embraced. It will teach posterity not to make war upon either religion ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... impatient passenger in the smoker, who found the stoppages at these wayside hamlets interminable, both in frequency and in the delay at each of them; and while the dawdling train remained inert, and the moments passed inactive, his eyes dilated and his hand clenched till the nails bit his palm; then, when the trucks groaned and the wheels crooned against the rails once more, he sank back in his seat with sighs of relief. Sometimes he would get up and pace the aisle until his ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... exception to this sad rule, in the person of an old tar, whom necessity has pressed into the service, and who from long acquaintance with the pleasures of traversing the mighty ocean, feels little pleasure in staring at it like an inactive land-lubber, a character which he holds in hearty contempt; besides, to fire at a fellow Briton is against his nature; thief or no thief it crosses his grain, and he looks at his pistols and hates himself. His situation ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various
... both the worst among men. Those only that believe in the efficacy of acts are laudable. He that lieth at ease, without activity, believing in destiny alone, is soon destroyed like an unburnt earthen pot in water. So also he that believeth in chance, i.e. sitteth inactive though capable of activity liveth not long, for his life is one of weakness and helplessness. If any person accidentally acquireth any wealth, it is said he deriveth it from chance, for no one's effort hath brought about the ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... cavalry had already lost several men under the withering fire to which they had been exposed during the few minutes their advance had lasted, and they were now compelled to remain inactive while the action was going forward, as their brethren of the light cavalry had been in the morning. It was pretty evident that Lord Lucan could not be aware of the enemy on his right, or he would at once have found ample work for his heavy horsemen. ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... Crawford's division of Pennsylvania Reserves, and Abercrombie's division were sent to him. As the latter was just going out of service, it was of no use. Hooker contended that his army constituted the proper defence of Washington, and that it was not necessary to keep a large force inactive there, who could be of much more service at the front. The authorities were timid, however, did not see the force of this reasoning and therefore refused to place Schenck's and Heintzelman's commands under ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... to gods, there are some who say that a divine being does not exist; others say that it exists, but is inactive and careless, and takes no forethought about anything; a third class say that such a being exists and exercises forethought, but only about great things and heavenly things, and about nothing on the earth; a fourth class say that a divine being exercises forethought both about things on the earth ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... great and growing reluctance to do what he had come to do, to make inquiries into a certain matter; and he believed that this reluctance, awake within him although perhaps he had scarcely been aware of it, had kept him inactive during many days. Yet he was not sure of this. He was not sure when a faint suspicion had first been born in his mind. Even now he said to himself that what he meant to do, if explained to the ordinary man, would probably seem to him ridiculous, ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... dealt the residential district long ago had not yet cleared up. Real property of that sort was still dull and inactive except for a flare-up now and then along Park Avenue ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... National United Party (inactive), Anak Hasanuddin, chairman; Brunei National Democratic Party (the first legal political party and now banned) Abdul ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... its wonted tenderness, but the merry twinkle was gone from his eye, and the gladsome note from his voice. For eight consecutive days, the fatal snow fell with but few short intermissions. Eight days, in which there was nothing to break the monotony of torturing, inactive endurance, except the necessity of gathering wood, keeping the fires, and cutting anew the steps which led upward, as the snow increased in depth. Hope ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... with those curious little creatures known as Hermit-crabs. The peculiarity of the Hermits is that they take up their abode in the cast-off shell of some other animal, not unusually the whelk; and here, like Diogenes in his tub, the creature lives a solitary, but by no means an inactive life. ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... summoned the Elector of Saxony to admit his army into his country, and either to disband the Saxon army or to unite it to his own. Hitherto the elector had held aloof from Gustavus, whom he regarded with jealousy and dislike, and had stood by inactive although the slightest movement of his army would have saved Magdeburg. To disband his troops, however, and to hand over his fortresses to Tilly, would be equivalent to giving up his dominions to the enemy; rather than do this he determined ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... come quickly. In two months' time Mr. Rymer still waited upon the pleasure of the executors. But he was not inactive. His brother at Birmingham had suggested 'an opening' in that city (thus did Mrs. Rymer phrase it), and the commission-agent had decided to leave London as soon as his affairs were in order. Towards the end of the third month the family was suffering from hope deferred. Mr. Rymer ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... to repair the waste, or loss of substance that attends action. In every department of nature, waste, or loss of substance, attends and follows action. When an individual increases his exercise,—changes from light to severe labor,—or the inactive and sedentary undertake journeys for pleasure, the fluids of the system circulate with increased energy. The old and exhausted particles of matter are more rapidly removed through the action of the vessels of the skin, lungs, ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... support. The walls of his parish, or his order, did not circumscribe for him God's Church. His choice of a patron saint—St. Paul—reveals the fire burning within his soul. He would not, he could not be idle. On his sick-bed, where he lay the greater part of his latter years, he was not inactive. He wrote valuable articles and books, and when unable ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... refreshing rest, and the peaceful night, are the portion only of him who lies down weary with honest labour, and free from the fumes of indigested luxury; it is the just doom of laziness and gluttony, to be inactive without ease, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... and reason only increased her fears. It was now noon, Bompard was not the man to go on a long expedition by himself; he was too inactive and easy-going. No, something had happened to him and he might at that moment be lying dead at the foot of some cliff or he might have broken a leg and be lying at the foot of some rock ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... his case a serious one as yet," said he; "his feet are swollen, indeed, but that might soon be cured. However, his sedentary inactive life is so bad for a frame like his, and his diet is so unwholesome, that I am sorry to say the sudden development of some serious complaint ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... said, Tish is volcanic in her temperament; she remains inactive for certain preparatory periods, but when she overflows ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... air, turning in his fingers the copy of "Walden" which she was bringing back to him. "Perhaps now that you have your mother and the children with you, there will be less time for this sort of thing for a while, but you haven't a mind that can enjoy being inactive. You may think you'll give it up; but study—once you've tasted ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... inactive. The Black Prince lay sick at Cognac, and of his subordinates Chandos, now seneschal of Poitou, alone showed vigour. Chandos, finding the lords of Poitou much more loyal to the English connexion than those of the south, was able to take the aggressive by invading Anjou. He was, ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... and less than one hundred wounded: the enemy suffered severely. The difficulties of Edwardes increased with his victories, for it was impossible for him to take Mooltan by a coup de main, and he had no siege materiel. To remain inactive was dangerous, for little reliance could be placed on the sheik, still less on the khan, and even the regular regiments of Courtlandt were not very trustworthy: he had mainly to rely upon his brave but undisciplined Affghan ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... But with the blood of this ancient royal race, many of their infirmities had descended to Athelstane. He was comely in countenance, bulky and strong in person, and in the flower of his age—yet inanimate in expression, dull-eyed, heavy-browed, inactive and sluggish in all his motions, and so slow in resolution, that the soubriquet of one of his ancestors was conferred upon him, and he was very generally called Athelstane the Unready. His friends, and he had many, who, as well as Cedric, were passionately ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... Greeks were under the Ottoman, what the blacks now are at New York. Every man of the subject caste was strictly excluded from any public trust. Take what path he might in life, he was crossed at every step by some vexatious restriction. It was only by being obscure and inactive, that he could, on his native soil, be safe. If he aspired to be powerful and honoured, he might gain a cross or perhaps a Marshal's staff in the armies of France or Austria. If his vocation was ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... stared at him, his uncertain hand now closed on the butt of his revolver, yet held inactive ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... accompanies them in the street when they call on their clients. Imagine the state of a notary's office or a counting-room under a system of this sort! The master of it winds up his business as soon as he can, no matter how, makes no new engagements and does as little as possible. Still more inactive than he, his colleagues, condemned to an indefinite listlessness, under lock and key in the common prison, no longer attend to their business.—There is a general, total paralysis of those natural organs which, in economic life, produce, elaborate, receive, store, preserve, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... influence, evaporation will be rapid; therefore, water must be applied to both roots and leaves. Succession plants to be shaded during sudden bright sunshine or sunbursts; and be guided in the application of water by the active or inactive state ...
— In-Door Gardening for Every Week in the Year • William Keane
... bleak on the St. Lawrence, an east wind feeling along the river's surface and rocking the vessels of Sir William Phips on tawny rollers. It was the second night that his fleet sat there inactive. During that day a small ship had approached Beauport landing; but it stuck fast in the mud and became a mark for gathering Canadians until the tide rose and floated it off. At this hour all the habitants about Beauport except one, and even the Huron Indians of Lorette, were safe inside ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... there was hope from another quarter. A body of six thousand Mahrattas, half soldiers, half robbers, under the command of a chief named Morari Row, had been hired to assist Mahommed Ali; but thinking the French power irresistible, and the triumph of Chunda Sahib certain, they had hitherto remained inactive on the frontiers of the Carnatic. The fame of the defence of Arcot roused them from their torpor. Morari Row declared that he had never before believed that Englishmen could fight, but that he would willingly help them since he saw that they had spirit to help themselves. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... professor, "they may have caves under water where they can keep cool. They evidently knew what to expect when they felt the first rumblings and shaking of the earth and must have had previous experience. I guess I was mistaken in thinking the volcano inactive." ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... investigations; it would, indeed, have been the sheerest madness to have attempted to face the furious gale, with its deadly cold and the blinding whirling snow. The travellers were therefore compelled to spend an inactive day. For this, however, they were by no means sorry; they had been keeping rather late hours since entering the Arctic circle, and this interval of inaction afforded them an opportunity of securing their arrears of rest. Besides ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... was far from being inactive. The Sangamon delegation, in fact, had their hands full, and to no one of the nine had more been entrusted than to Lincoln. In common with almost every delegation, they had been instructed by their constituents to adopt a scheme of internal improvements ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... camp was by no means inactive during the winter. Those who were well were kept busy repairing wagons, and making, in a rude way, such household articles as were most needed—chairs, tubs, and baskets. Parties were sent out to ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... faction, still at liberty, from whom some exertions might have been expected, were cautiously inactive; and those who had been most in the habit of appreciating themselves for their valour, were now conspicuous only for that discretion which Falstaff calls the better part of it.—Dubois Crance, who had been at the ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... though she were chilled to the blood with terror. At last I reached the lowest step—I touched the floor of the vault. I set my precious burden down. Releasing my clasp of her, I remained for a moment inactive, breathing heavily. She caught my arm—she spoke in ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... Parliament. His Majesty's slumbers were interrupted, his pillow was stuffed with thorns, and his peace of mind entirely broken,—because the king's turnspit was a member of Parliament. The judges were unpaid, the justice of the kingdom bent and gave way, the foreign ministers remained inactive and unprovided, the system of Europe was dissolved, the chain of our alliances was broken, all the wheels of government at home and abroad were stopped,—because the king's turnspit was a ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... been. Even before I left the country, last autumn, I envied the drummer-boys of Strahan's regiment. I don't wish to take advantage of your present feeling, or have you forget that I am still under a miserable restraint which I can't explain. I must probably resume my old inactive life, while your other friends win fame and rank in serving their country. Of course I shall give money, but bah! what's that to a girl like you? When all this hurly-burly in the streets is over, when conventional life begins again, and I seem a part of it, will you ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... unmixed with that admiration which is only the rightful due of a successful man. But nobody had ever seen him in the mood he was in now. Nobody had seen Lingard doubtful and giving way to doubt, unable to make up his mind and unwilling to act; Lingard timid and hesitating one minute, angry yet inactive the next; Lingard puzzled in a word, because confronted with a situation that discomposed him by its unprovoked malevolence, by its ghastly injustice, that to his rough but unsophisticated palate tasted distinctly of sulphurous fumes ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... doors of her true soul, And with their silken latches softly closed, When, couched beneath his poppy parachute, Inactive Sleep came by. Her glances seemed Like gold-winged angels sent from heavenly doors. Yet she was often sad when I was near. Once, tarrying late, I told her of my life, And of the monster I had come to ...
— Stories in Verse • Henry Abbey
... whence he came. He kept as much under cover as was convenient, and reached the kitchen, just as the band broke into the defences, and burst open the door of the blazing and already roofless hut. Here Peter paused, unwilling to seem inactive in such a scene, yet averse to doing anything that a sensitively tender conscience might tell him was wrong. He knew there was no human being there to save, and cared little for the few effects that might be destroyed. He did not ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... education of the higher classes, which at the solicitation of many friends you have founded and attached to the Oratory. Surely after reading this bare enumeration of work done, no man will venture to say that Dr. Newman is leading a comparatively inactive life in the service of ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... the quick succession of slaughter that thinned their diminished ranks; and when the day wore later, when the remnants of two, and even three regiments were necessary to complete the square which one of them had formed in the morning—to support this with firmness, and 'feed death,' inactive and unmoved, exhibited that calm and desperate bravery which elicited the admiration ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 395, Saturday, October 24, 1829. • Various
... days went by, and Knight remained inactive. Lengthening time, which made fainter the heart-awakening power of her presence, strengthened the mental ability to reason her down. Elfride loved him, he knew, and he could not leave off loving her but marry her ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... burned. Twenty-five days of pitiless starvation have followed, and now we have this curious record: 'All the men are hearty and strong; even the ones that were down sick are well, except poor Peter.' When I wrote an article some months ago urging temporary abstention from food as a remedy for an inactive appetite and for disease, I was accused of jesting, but I was in earnest. 'We are all wonderfully well and strong, comparatively speaking.' On this day the starvation regime drew its belt a couple of buckle-holes tighter: the bread ration was reduced from the usual ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... South had gained rather than lost; that the control of the river was of no real value to the North; that the loss of Vicksburg "has on our side liberated for general operations in the field a large army, while it requires the enemy to maintain cooped up, inactive, in positions insalubrious to their soldiers, ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... action was going on, cross the river and march straight upon Richmond; but communication was difficult from one part of the army to another, owing to the thick forests and the swampy state of the ground, and being without orders they remained inactive all day. The loss on their side had been 7000 men, while the Confederates had lost 4500; and General Johnston being seriously wounded, the chief command was given to General Lee, by far the ablest soldier the war produced. Satisfied with the success they had gained, the Confederates ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... and ease, and luxury, which it would require no inconsiderable means to indulge. He desired to cut a figure in the world, and to make money that he might do so; and he was anxious withal to select that occupation with which he might personally be the least occupied—in which he might indulge his inactive propensities with the least corporeal exertion—and by which he might realize the greatest profit. After duly weighing matters, therefore, and balancing the various considerations that occurred, with all appropriate gravity, he determined to engage in merchandise—a branch of ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... temperature of the atmosphere, muscular activity, and influences which affect the nerves. The emotions exert a remarkable influence upon the action of the perspiratory glands. Intense fear causes great drops of perspiration to accumulate on the skin, while the salivary glands remain inactive. ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... indeed in a terrible state; I had not repulsed her, but I was perfectly inactive. Modesty prevented her asking me openly to continue, but she redoubled her caresses, and placed herself in an easier position, reproaching me with my cruelty. I do not know whether I could have held out much longer, but just then the cousin turned round and told us that Don ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... his head above the waters of life without toil. The mechanical motion of his hands at their task of years was absolutely necessary to him. He had become, in fact, as a machine, which rusts and is good for nothing if left long inactive. Henry was at once pitiable and terrible when he came in sight of the many-windowed building which was his goal. The whistles blew, and he heard as an old war-horse hears the summons to battle. But in his case the battle was all for naught and there ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... reports were flying abroad of the absconded steward, she never breathed a word of, what had been confided to her, and accounted for the absence of "Rooney" in various ways of her own; so that all trace of the profligate was lost, by her remaining inactive in making the smallest inquiry about him, and her very fidelity to her betrayer became the means of her losing all power of procuring his discovery. For months she trusted all was right; but when moon followed moon, and she gave birth to a boy without hearing one word of his father, misgiving ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... those eight guns loaded like the rest and at hand. Swords and pistols in your belts. Twenty men to the barricade. Six ambushed in the attic windows, and at the window on the first floor to fire on the assailants through the loop-holes in the stones. Let not a single worker remain inactive here. Presently, when the drum beats the assault, let the twenty below stairs rush to the barricade. The first to arrive will ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... breaking, and when it does break it only discharges a thin sanies or watery humour from one or more small apertures. The disease even then maintains its indolent character; the ulcerated parts become languid and inactive, and the constitution begins to be affected; the patient complains of weakness—there is a want of appetite; there are frequently profuse night sweats, and feeling of languor ...
— Observations on the Causes, Symptoms, and Nature of Scrofula or King's Evil, Scurvy, and Cancer • John Kent
... making things run smoothly. True complaisance is a more intimate quality. It is an impulse to seek points of agreement with others. A spirit of welcome, whether to strangers, or to new suggestions, untried pleasures, fresh impressions. It never is satisfied to remain inactive as long as there is anybody to please or to ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... commandos, to the best of my ability, at Modderrivierpoort (Poplar Grove), ten miles east of the scene of Cronje's surrender. I had plenty of time to effect this, for Lord Roberts remained inactive from the 24th of February to the 7th of March, in order to rest a little after the gigantic task he had performed in capturing Cronje's laager. His thoughts must have been busy during that period with even more serious matters than the care of his ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... of gunboats under Benedict Arnold, and, deeming it impossible to advance, delayed all summer in order to construct a rival fleet. Meanwhile, all operations came to a standstill in that region. Eleven thousand men, chiefly regular troops, were thus kept inactive for months. ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... dresses, yet, when divested of them, and beheld in their common habit and actions, they have not the least appearance of ferocity in their countenances; and seem, on the contrary, as observed already, to be of a quiet, phlegmatic, and inactive disposition, destitute, in some measure, of that degree of animation and vivacity that would render them agreeable as social beings. If they are not reserved, they are far from being loquacious; but their gravity ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr |
