"Languid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ever drinking, as if intoxicated; he organized festivals with music and torch-light processions, and was the patron of all the love-affairs among the workers in the vineyards. In case of long-continued bad weather he grew pale, languid, and supersensitive, lost sleep and appetite, and was subject to sudden fits of rage which were the dread of his servants; on one such occasion he cut down half a dozen of the grandest trees in the garden, which, as everybody knew, he loved as ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... in years, with a ruddy complexion and hale appearance, while his general bearing is such as to instantly impress one with his strict honor and integrity. Several years ago he became afflicted with most distressing troubles, which prevented the prosecution of his duties. He was languid, and yet restless, while at times a dizziness would come over him which seemed almost blinding. His will power was strong, and he determined not to give way to the mysterious influence which seemed undermining his life. But the pain and annoying symptoms were stronger than his will, and he ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... crab-catching; and if they try city manners in the evening, they are so tired with their honest day's work that it is apt to end in misery. On the hotel piazzas you see beauties that surprise you with exquisite touches of the warm and languid South. That dark Baltimore girl, her hair a constellation of jessamines, is beating her lover's shoulders with her fan in a state of ferocity that you would give worlds to encounter. That pair of proud Philadelphia sisters, statues sculptured in peach-pulp and wrapped in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... sent her away and closed the door; presently she sat down at some distance from Fan, but spoke no word. Fan was in a low easy-chair near the window, through which the sun was shining very brightly. She looked pale and languid, resting her cheek on her palm and never moving; only at intervals, when Miss Starbrow, with an exclamation of rage, would rise and take a few steps about the room and then drop into her seat again, the girl would raise her eyes and glance at her. All the keen suffering, the strife, the bitterness ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... indolence of manner, and noticed that often, before doing anything, the big eyes debated steadfastly, and the long, slender fingers ran down the beard softly. At times there was a deep meditativeness in the eye, again a dusky fire. But there was a certain charm through it all—a languid precision, a slumbering look in the face, a vague undercurrent in the voice, a fantastical flavour to the thought. The change had come so gradually that only Medallion and the wife had a real conception of how great it was. Medallion ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... he come?" asked Miss Madigan, absently. "He isn't sick, is he? Irene complains of headache and backache, and she's so languid she let Sissy get the wish-bone—I call it the bone of contention—at dinner yesterday without a struggle. I'm half afraid she'll not be able to sing to-night at Professor Trask's concert; but perhaps it's only that she danced too much at ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... exquisite day dropped to its close. It was the time of fruit-blossoms and feathery acacia, languid, perfumed breezes, lengthening twilights, opening roses and swaying plumes of lilac. Sausalito was like a little park, every garden ran over with sweetness and color, every walk was fringed with ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... sounds to interrupt the silence of that solemn moment,—at least none worthy of being mentioned. The slightest ripple of the water, stirred by a zephyr breeze, as it played against the bodies of the languid swimmers, might have been heard, but was not heeded. No more did the scream of the sea-mew arrest the attention of any of them, or if it did, it was only to add to the awe which reigned above and ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... as "Beauty." The appellative, gained at Eton, was in no way undeserved; when the smoke cleared away that was circling round him out of a great meerschaum bowl, it showed a face of as much delicacy and brilliancy as a woman's; handsome, thoroughbred, languid, nonchalant, with a certain latent recklessness under the impressive calm of habit, and a singular softness given to the large, dark hazel eyes by the unusual length of the lashes over them. His features were exceedingly fair—fair as the fairest girl's; ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... the freshening deep Purple beneath a rosy gleam. From a high, mist-engirdled steep Thin anthems to the orient beam Came faint as languid waves of sleep That lap ...
— Iolaeus - The man that was a ghost • James A. Mackereth
... set and his great fist clenched. Swiftly the jester's gaze again sought the princess, but she had plucked a spray of blossoms from the table and was holding it to her lips, mindlessly biting the fragrant leaves; and those who followed the fool's glance saw in her but a picture of languid unconcern such as became ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... occupation verbalizer. A slim, languid man with an earnest, boyish face and smooth, ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley
... things unknown. No enemy can pass the threshold.... The fire flares. A golden duck turns slowly on the spit; a delicious smell of fat and of crisping flesh scents the room. The joy of eating, incomparable delight, a religious enthusiasm, thrills of joy! The body is too languid with the soft warmth, and the fatigues of the day, and the familiar voices. The act of digestion plunges it in ecstasy, and faces, shadows, the lampshade, the tongues of flame dancing with a shower of stars ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... jolly enough for both of them. He's funnier than you, Basil, and he hasn't any of your little languid airs and affectations. I don't know but I'm a bit disappointed in my choice, darling; but I dare say I shall work out of it. In fact, I don't know but the Colonel is a little too jolly. This drolling everything is rather fatiguing." ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... long I have been classifying MSS.... The sun came in through the loft uncurtained windows; and, during my reading, often very interesting, I could hear the languid bumblebees bump heavily against the windows, and the flies intoxicated with light and heat, making their wings hum in circles around my head. So loud became their humming about three o'clock that I looked up from the document I was reading—a document containing very precious materials ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... nightfall. For now the over-tense nerves are all unstraining themselves, and a buzz, like that which comes over one who stops after being long jolted upon an uneasy pavement, makes the whole frame alive with a luxurious languid sense of all its inmost fibres. Our cheerfulness ran over, and the mild, pensive clerk was so magnetized by it that he came and sat down with us. He presently confided to me, with infinite naivete and ingenuousness, that, judging from my personal ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... little Elsie drooped and pined, growing paler and thinner day by day—her step more languid, and her eye more dim—till no one could have recognized in her the bright, rosy, joyous child, full of health and happiness, that she had been six months before. She went about the house like a shadow, scarcely ever speaking or being ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... Jove's clouds, to escape the sight 10 Of his great summoner, and made retreat Into a forest on the shores of Crete. For somewhere in that sacred island dwelt A nymph, to whom all hoofed Satyrs knelt; At whose white feet the languid Tritons poured Pearls, while on land they wither'd and adored. Fast by the springs where she to bathe was wont, And in those meads where sometime she might haunt, Were strewn rich gifts, unknown to any Muse, Though Fancy's casket were unlock'd to choose. 20 Ah, what ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... we left this good work in the rude, unfinished state in which good works are commonly left, through the tame circumspection with which a timid prudence so frequently enervates beneficence. In doing good, we are generally cold, and languid, and sluggish, and of all things afraid of being too much in the right. But the works of malice and injustice are quite in another style. They are finished with a bold, masterly hand, touched as they are with the spirit of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... her first action caused Dick to dislike her, because she deliberately turned her back on the smart yacht, and gave heed only to the safe lowering of certain trunks from the roof of the omnibus. He heard the manner of her speech to a neatly dressed maid and its languid insolence did not help ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... knelt at their devotions. It was but the day before that he had returned to them, warmed with new fervor, from his meditations in retreat at Sainte Marie. Suddenly an uproar of voices, shrill with terror, burst upon the languid silence of the town. "The Iroquois! the Iroquois!" A crowd of hostile warriors had issued from the forest, and were rushing across the clearing, towards the opening in the palisade. Daniel ran out of the church, and hurried to the point ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... gone, and I was hungry as only a boy on a holiday can be. I had walked three miles to the town, and there were three miles now between me and my mother's cupboard. When I arrived there I feasted for the remainder of the day and went to bed still hungry. The next few days were flat and languid. In all my boyhood pleasures and excitements I suffered intensely from these reactions. I tormented the family by persistent teasings to go somewhere, or to do something. "Go play, go read your book, go see what Aunt ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... pass in his canoe. They waited a long time, making merry upon these rocks, for it was a highly romantic spot. At last the wished-for object appeared; Kwasind came floating calmly down the stream, on the afternoon of a summer's day, languid with the heat of the weather, and almost asleep. When his canoe came directly beneath the cliff, the tallest and stoutest fairy began the attack. Others followed his example. It was a long time before they could hit the vulnerable part, but success at length crowned their efforts, and ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... roses scented, Languid from a slumber-spell; June in shade of leafage tented;— June the next, with roses scented. Now her Itys, still ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... allusions. He ought to write with a crystal pen on silver paper. His subject is set off by a dazzling veil of poetic diction, like a wreath of flowers gemmed with innumerous dew-drops, that weep, tremble, and glitter in liquid softness and pearly light, while the song of birds ravishes the ear, and languid odours breathe around, and Aurora opens Heaven's smiling portals, Peris and nymphs peep through the golden glades, and an Angel's wing glances over ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... of an hour's waiting one of the Roman candles went off with vast eclat, and after it two crackers simultaneously gave chase to the operator half-way round the lawn. One of the Catherine-wheels was also prevailed upon to give a few languid rotations on its axis, and some of the squibs, which had unfortunately got damp, condescended, after being inserted bodily into the lantern, to go off. Presently, however, the wind got into the lantern, and the matches being by this time exhausted, and the starlights refusing to depart from their ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... the garden stirred with the first languid breath of the hot day to come, when she suddenly rose and bound up the loosened hair, and went in. Harriet was not yet twenty-seven, and every fibre of her being cried out for sleep. Cold water on the tear-stained face, and the childish prayer she never forgot, and she had crept gratefully ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... at me blankly. Her beautiful face carried no expression of satisfaction or surprise. Her transparent complexion was neither paled by fear nor flushed by pleasure. Her great dreamy eyes, of a deep liquid blue, wandered unfixedly in their languid gaze. Still holding her soft hand, which was far warmer than my own, I opened her fingers with my other hand and pointed at her pink extended palm as if to inquire what she wished. I watched her closely, but she made no sign, said nothing, ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... bosoms round Inhale thee in the fulness of delight; And languid forms rise up, and pulses bound Livelier, at coming of the wind of night; And, languishing to hear thy grateful sound, Lies the vast inland stretched beyond the sight. Go forth into the gathering shade; go forth, God's blessing breathed ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... said M., 'he was always languid and embarrassed at starting; it took him ten minutes to ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... his enemies as well as his friends. The press worked on both sides of the question; while it vilified Bute, it animadverted on Pitt's pensions and honours. At the same time the people were only partially in the favour of the ex-minister. The progress of addresses, resolutions, and condolences was languid, and in some instances the people were disposed to cast odium upon, and to blacken the character of, the retired secretary. The popularity of Pitt was, in truth, obscured with mists and clouds for a time, and it was not till after he had raised a few thunder-storms ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... acquaintance with him. He was not generally popular among the undergraduates, though it always seemed to me that what was set down as pride was really an attempt to cover extreme natural diffidence. In appearance he was a man of exceedingly aristocratic type, thin, high-nosed, and large-eyed, with languid and yet courtly manners. He was indeed a scion of one of the very oldest families in the kingdom, though his branch was a cadet one which had separated from the northern Musgraves some time in the sixteenth century, and had established itself in western Sussex, where the Manor ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... years have elapsed since then. I said, 'My dear friend, you evidently are standing on the borders of the eternal world; do not think it wrong, then, if I ask, What are your feelings in the immediate prospect of death?' The question roused him from his apparent stupor, and opening his languid eyes, he earnestly replied, 'As far as my personal salvation is concerned, I have not the shadow of a doubt; I know in Whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... picture of voluptuous joys, see only the happy lovers immersed in pleasure, your picture is very imperfect; you have only its grosser part, the sweetest charms of pleasure are not there. Which of you has seen a young couple, happily married, on the morrow of their marriage? their chaste yet languid looks betray the intoxication of the bliss they have enjoyed, the blessed security of innocence, and the delightful certainty that they will spend the rest of their life together. The heart of man can behold no more rapturous ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... unmanly tendency to look away while he was speaking. He was tall, broad shouldered, and well proportioned, with beautiful hands and shapely feet, yet he did not give an impression of strength, whereas Venier's languid manner, assumed as it doubtless was, could not hide the restless energy that lay in his ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... A languid atmosphere, a lazy breeze, With labored respiration, moves the wheat From distant reaches, till the golden seas Break in crisp ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... interest the earlier stages of the great struggle in America; and she did not falter in her hopes for Italy; by intrigues and smuggling the newspapers which she wished to see were obtained through the courteous French generals. But her spirits were languid; "I gather myself up by fits and starts," she confesses, "and ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... claimed quarter. "Quarter, you rogues!" cried he. "Kindly lend me one of your staves for the purpose." He gave them a drubbing as one horsed his brother in turn, and dropped them, a chapfallen trio, beside their dead. "Now," said he, "take that languid gentleman with you, and be so good for the rest of your journey as to imitate his indifference to strangers. Thus you will have a prosperous ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... were trifling, and the result was more trifling still. Prussia gained Silesia, and Austria scarcely felt the loss, in an Empire extending from the Rhine to the Euxine. Then came peace, lassitude, and oblivion once more. But this languid century was to close with a tremendous explosion. A Belgian revolt was followed by a French Revolution. The wearisome continuance of the calm was broken up by a tornado, and when the surges subsided again, they exhibited many a wreck of thrones ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... degenerated into tatters; But her Native Charms, that needed not the Help of Art, gave to Astraea's returning Remembrance that it could be no other than her beautiful Mother Vertue. But oh! how despicable her Garments! how neglected her flowing Hair! How languid her formally animated Eyes! How pale, how withered the Roses of her lovely Cheeks and Lips! How useless her snowy arms and polished Fingers! they hung in a melancholy Decline, and seemed out of other Employment, but sometimes to support the ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... superabundant vitality. The later birds of the season, suggesting no such fine-drawn sensations, yet identify themselves with their chosen haunts, so that we cannot think of the one without the other. In the meadows, we hear the languid and tender drawl of the Meadow-Lark,—one of the most peculiar of notes, almost amounting to affectation in its excess of laborious sweetness. When we reach the thickets and wooded streams, there is no affectation in the Maryland Yellow-Throat, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... stifling sea-cloth and his hard hat, though his collar was now but a limp frill. He came lurching, on uncertain feet, into the establishment of Hop Sing, the only seller of strong drink at Mendigos. The few languid, half-clad men who lounged within looked up at him in astonishment. He pointed shakily towards a bottle on the primitive bar. "Gimme some of that," he ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... afternoon, Eva, in town on shopping bent, entered a small, exclusive, and expensive shop on Michigan Avenue. Exclusive, that is, in price. Eva's weakness, you may remember, was hats. She was seeking a hat now. She described what she sought with a languid conciseness, and stood looking about her after the saleswoman had vanished in quest of it. The room was becomingly rose-illumined and somewhat dim, so that some minutes had passed before she realized that a man seated on a raspberry brocade settee not five feet away—a man with a walking ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... traditional lion, but went out like the orthodox lamb, and the 1st of April was ushered in by most appropriate showers. The time-honoured festival was kept up in rather a languid fashion at Briarcroft. The Upper School discountenanced it as childish and foolish, but a few of the Juniors indulged in jokes at one another's expense. These were mostly confined to the First and Second Forms, and ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... these views; the home of the languid Italian was the home also of the sternest race of whom the story of mankind retains a record. And again, when we are told that the Spaniards are superstitious because Spain is a country of earthquakes, we remember Japan, the spot in all the world where earthquakes are most frequent, and where at ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... a less violent degree. The origin of this complaint was plainly traceable to the food we had used for the last day or two; it rendered us both incapable of the least exertion of any kind, whilst the disorder continued, and afterwards left us very languid and weak. In the evening upon examining the meat, a great deal of it was found to be getting putrid, or fly-blown, and we were obliged to pick it over, and throw what ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... for Hugh and Mildred to take their customary canter. The young heiress, for whom so much time and pains were spent, looked ill; the delicate flush had vanished from her cheek; she seemed languid, and cheerful only by effort. A moment after they had gone, as Mrs. Kinloch closed the door, for it was a raw November day, she saw and picked up a rudely-folded letter in the hall. "Good-bye, Lucy Ransom," were the words ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... the middle of her back—and looked out at the high brick wall and saw a snow-clad range of hills. But she was tired; this tremendous idea was too much for her; the very wonder of it was exhausting. She lay down on her bed—radiant, but languid. Soon she heard a rush of waters. At first it was only someone filling the bath-tub, but after a while it was the little stream which flowed through her forest. And then she was not lying on a lumpy bed; she was sinking down under pine trees—all so sweet and still and cool. ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... and the heat was torrid and sweltering. The fierce vertical sun-rays seemed to pour down upon their unshaded position as in streams of molten fire. Even the quick, excited murmurs of the men grew languid. And, having seen to all being in complete readiness, as Laurence Stanninghame sat there at his post in the torrid heat, smoking the pipe of meditation, did no thought of the home, such as it was, but which he would probably never see ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... a balmy, languid morning about two weeks after O'Reilly's return to the City among the Leaves. The Cubitas Mountains were green and sparkling from a recent shower; wood fires smoldered in front of the bark huts, sending up their wavering ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... many nights, she slept in the forest; and when at length she came out upon the plain beyond, she was pale and wan, her dark eyes drooped, her slender figure was bowed and languid, and only the mark upon her brow, where the coronet had fretted its whiteness, betrayed that Maya ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... uppermost in her as they approached the others. She walked with a dainty slowness, a composed consciousness, that were almost the least bit affected, and as she stood still for a minute close to her mother, with her long eyes half shut, she looked typically of the world worldly, languid, almost prettily disdainful. ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... the subtle changes which he counted in Dorothy, as the summer waned. She was thinner and paler,—perhaps with the heats of harvest, which had not, indeed, been burdensome from its abundance. Her eyes were darker and shyer, and her voice more languid. Was she wearing down, with all this work and care? A fierce disgust possessed him, that this sweet life should be cast into the breach ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... passed away the spell that had fallen upon San Carlos. The rain returned to invigorate the languid soil, harmony was restored between priest and soldier, the green grass presently waved over the sere hillsides, the children flocked again to the side of their martial preceptor, a TE DEUM was sung in the Mission Church, ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... the name of graduate that will do all this. It is not a scrape pass; it is not decent mediocrity with a languid interest. It is a fair and even attention throughout, supplemented by auxiliaries to the class work. It is such a hold of the leading subjects, such a mastery of the various alphabets, as will make future references intelligible, and a continuation ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... the young woman slightly raises her languid head, lifts an arm, which feebly falls back again upon her divan, raises her eyes to the ceiling, raises all that she has power to raise; then darting at you a leaden glance, she says in a voice ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... tired." Grace made languid efforts to prove that she was weary. There could be no doubt of it. She did not have the endurance possessed by her companion, and even Harriet's strength was leaving her, because of that terrible numbness in her lower ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... He had just left the Mediterranean station, and there still abode with him a certain languid levantine softness of voice and manner; when he came in to dinner, out of the wild weather, the moral contrast with the turmoil outside was quite refreshing. Report speaks highly of Captain Grace's seamanship; and I believe in him far more implicitly than I should in one of those ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... hair, the gold chain tinkling between her ankles; and is hardly more than an attitude, a fixed gesture, like the Eastern women whom one sees passing, with oblique eyes and mouths painted into smiles, their faces curiously traced into a work of art, in the languid movements of a pantomimic dance. The soul behind those eyes? the temperament under that at times almost terrifying mask? Salammbo is as inarticulate for us as the serpent, to whose drowsy beauty, capable ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... "music, love, and beauty" that he specially insists. What he does demand is that these shall be not merely outward adornments, but the instinctive utterance of a deeper harmony within; that they shall be such as not merely to "furnish a languid mind with fantastic shows and indolent emotions, but to incorporate the everlasting reason of man in forms visible to his sense, and suitable to it". [Footnote: Miscellanies, i. 297.] The "reason" is no less necessary to poetry than its sensible form; and whether ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... collector would appear at odd moments with a lacquered box, or a drawer from a cabinet, and Faversham would find a languid amusement in turning over the contents, while Melrose strolled smoking up and down the room, telling endless stories of "finds" and bargains. Of the store, indeed, of precious or curious objects lying heaped together in ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... recollect something was brought which he had been very anxious for. Naturally enough, he was disappointed when he found it not so good as he expected; but I was quite struck with his endeavour to praise it, for fear I should be sorry. There was a languid melancholy about him at the same time that he was calm and resigned, which would have made the most uninterested person grieved to see him suffering, and with such sweetness. Emma once gave him some drink, and she told me that the tone of voice and his smile when he thanked her, was like to ...
— A Week at Waterloo in 1815 • Magdalene De Lancey
... a row. It's all your fault, Dick. Why don't you go for a sail, or shrimping, or something? A boy's always a nuisance in the house. I'll come at once, Molly. There!" she exclaimed, as a woman's thin voice was heard calling in a languid ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... the city was! Only here and there above the chimneys rose a languid film of smoke. The gates of the park shut behind her with a clang, and so for a time she was alone and free. She touched Artemis with a spur, and the filly broke into a canter toward the lake road. The girl's nostrils dilated. Every flower, the thousand resinous ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... grew with every stroke he plied. At sound of sea and men, Death's clammy sweat Was changed for drops that told of health again, While through his languid frame life's current swept, It only made him feel ...
— Rowena & Harold - A Romance in Rhyme of an Olden Time, of Hastyngs and Normanhurst • Wm. Stephen Pryer
... person who has once had the new life in him, but lost it for awhile and regained it, can be said to be revived. So, likewise, only a church or a community that was once spiritually alive, but had grown languid and lifeless, can be said to be revived. On the other hand, it is an improper use of terms to apply the word revival to the work of a foreign missionary, who for the first time preaches the life-giving Word, and through it gathers converts and organizes ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding
... pose languid, her eyes raised to him, but as unreadable as ever. He avoided looking into them for that very reason. He forgot himself in the contemplation of those passive arms, of these defenceless lips, and—yes, one had to go back to them—of these wide-open eyes. Something wild ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... feminine smell of southernwood, and the infinite mystery of silence. This silence was at times softly broken with the tender inarticulate whisper of falling leaves, broken sighs from the tree-tops, and the languid stretching of wakened and unclasping boughs. Madison Wayne had not, alas! taken into account this subtle conspiracy of Night and Nature, and as he climbed higher, his steps began to falter with new and strange sensations. The rigidity of purpose which had guided the hard religious convictions ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... on desperately, "was it an accident? Were you thrown? Was it Chu Chu?"—for somehow, in spite of her languid posture and voice, I could not, even in my ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... a tear stole out upon his cheek. A new-born awkwardness grappled with him as he stumbled along the roadway. Somehow he saw a pair of dirty, sun-scorched feet encased in his shining leather shoes. The languid eyes of the hotel guests followed him, and some wondered as to the nature of his errand. Arriving at the door, he knocked lightly. An old woman, with dishevelled grey hair and shoulders enveloped in a bright homespun shawl, answered ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer
... brighter than the earth is not a precious truth unless the earth itself be first understood. Despise the earth, or slander it; fix your eyes on its gloom, and forget its loveliness; and we do not thank you for your languid or despairing perception of brightness in heaven. But rise up actively on the earth,—learn what there is in it, know its color and form, and the full measure and make of it, and if after that you can say "heaven is bright," it will be a precious ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... If the case is neglected, and if the adenoids have existed for a long time, the growth of the child is impaired. He remains small and stunted, and the expression of the face is dull and stupid. The temperament and disposition are affected also; such children are languid, ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague
... the two mountains, a drive to the foot and then a scramble to the tip-top house, for the sake of one last look down upon the beautiful valley, before winter should shut it in. Unfortunately, Job was in one of his languid moods that day, and in spite of warning checks and flapping of lines, and even a mild application of the whip, he refused to break into a trot; but, with bowed head and discouraged mien, he plodded onward with as much apparent effort as if each ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... kiss upon her breast. This was the electric spark, for she gave a sigh which did her good. She had not strength to repulse the hand which I pressed amorously upon her heart, and becoming bolder I fastened my burning lips upon her languid mouth. I warmed her with my breath, and my audacious hand penetrated to the very sanctuary of bliss. She made an effort to push me back, and told me with her eyes, since she could not speak, how insulted she felt. I drew ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... never show admir'd, Or very long ago was tir'd, I can with face unmov'd behold, A scarlet suit with glittering gold; And tho' a son of war and strife, Detest the listless languid life; Then coolly, Sir, I say repent, And in derision hold a tent; Leave not the sweet poetic band, To scold recruits, and pore on Bland,[42] Our military books won't charm ye, Not even th' enchanting list ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... its broken channels contain now only a muddy stream. But the beauty of the women who meet there in the evening—that beauty which was remarked even in the sixth century, and which was looked upon as a gift of the Virgin Mary[4]—is still most strikingly preserved. It is the Syrian type in all its languid grace. No doubt Mary was there almost every day, and took her place with her jar on her shoulder in the file of her companions who have remained unknown. Anthony the Martyr remarks that the Jewish women, ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... we went through the wood, I began to feel a strange elation and joy of spirit, severe and bracing, very different from my languid and half-contented acquiescence in the place of beauty; and now the woods began to change their kind; there were fewer forest trees now, but bare heaths with patches of grey sand and scattered pines; and there began to ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... lay across the velvet arm of the sofa; I took it and raised it to my lips, and she smiled approval, then drew a languid little sigh, fanned, and vowed I was the boldest man she ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... up his gold-rimmed quizzing-glass, and directed through that powerful weapon of offence an eye of supreme displeasure upon the singer. He could not contain his rage, yet from his languid tone none would have suspected it. "Sir," said he, ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... little while, five minutes perhaps, she sighed like one awakening from a deep sleep, passed her hand across her forehead and was as she had been, though somewhat languid, as though strength had ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... main,— And where there was life, there, there are the slain! No valley so deep, no islet so lone, But his shadow is cast, and his victims are known. He paused not, though years rolled weary and slow, And Time's hoary pinion drooped languid and low: He paused not till Man from his birth-place was swept, And the sea and ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich
... inaction, or tainted by thoughts of baser pleasure. A schoolmaster only salves his conscience by supplying a strict time-table and regular games. A house master ought to be most careful in the case of boys whose work is languid and proficiency in games small, to find out what the boy really likes and enjoys, and to encourage it by every means in his power. That is the best corrective, to administer wholesome food for the mind to digest. But I believe that good ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... of the English army, and in especial to the Black Prince, who there laid the foundation of the disorder which destroyed his health. Week after week passed on, each adding heat to the summer, and increasing the long roll of sick and dying in the camp, while Gaston still lay, languid and feeble by day, and fevered by night; there were other patients among the men-at-arms, requiring scarcely less care; and the young Knight himself, though, owing to his temperate habits, he had escaped the prevailing sickness, was looking thin and careworn with the numerous troubles and anxieties ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Farragut of the future is at this moment teething think of it! and putting in a world of dead earnest, unarticulated, but perfectly justifiable profanity over it, too. In another the future renowned astronomer is blinking at the shining Milky Way with but a languid interest poor little chap!—and wondering what has become of that other one they call the wet-nurse. In another the future great historian is lying—and doubtless will continue to lie until his earthly mission ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... speech, and a capital hit, too, thought the honorable members of the House, as they settled comfortably back again to endure the routine of a dull day. Towards midnight, after seven hours of languid debate, an adjournment was carried, as everyone foresaw it would be, by a great majority—205 to 49 in support of the ministry. On the 13th of February the Stamp Act bill was introduced and read for the first time, without debate. It passed the House on the 27th; ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... thrown into the bath will sometimes whiten the skin. Salt is not cleansing at all, but is very invigorating and a pleasant tonic if one is worn out and languid. Turkish baths are splendid complexion-makers, but must not be indulged in too frequently. If the skin is dry and feverish, a dry bath—or massage—with oil of sweet almonds will promote a healthy skin and ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... inclin'd to preferr the same to the received doctrine of its malignity. Then, having laid down, for a foundation of the Cure, the two times, of Separation and Expulsion, he argues as well against too high an Ebullition or too hasty a separation (by a hot diet or high Cordials) as against too languid a one (by Blooding, Purges, and Cooling medicines.) The like he does to the Time of Expulsion, forbidding both immoderate Heat (whereby Nature's expelling operation is disturbed by a precipitated and too thick a crowd of the protruded pustuls,) and too much Cooling, whereby due Expulsion ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... rice, old shoes, and orange blossoms when you interrupted," the languid Mr. Rilleau continued. "Frankly, speaking as a friend, I don't see anything in your conversation so far to interest a sick lady. Why don't you talk to the ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... rather stay here,' returned Audrey. 'I am so fond of this pretty old porch, and this bench is so comfortable. Booty is tired, Mrs. Baxter; he has been fretting because his master chose to go up to London to-day, and his low spirits have made him languid. Look at him when I say Michael—there!' as the dog started and sat up eagerly; 'he knows his ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Charnock answered with a languid hint of meaning. "Didn't want to join the procession and thought they might load up my rig if I got here ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... woods, where the breathless boughs Hung heavy and faint in a languid drowse, And the ferns were curling with thirst and heat; Glared down on the fields where the sleepy cows Stood munching the grasses, dry ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... are symptoms of nasal catarrh. The mucous membrane first becomes dry; afterwards a watery discharge appears, and later, in severe cases, the discharge becomes mucopurulent. In mild cases there is little or no fever, but in severe ones it may run high. The animal becomes dull, languid, and is not inclined to move about, and the appetite may become impaired; there is also variable temperature of the horns and ears. If in a cow giving milk the secretion diminishes, the mucus from the eyes and nose becomes ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... looks at Cousin Anne, and Sophy whispered into Mrs. Copperhead's ear an explanation, which, instead of quenching her ardour, brought it up instantly to boiling point. Her pale little languid countenance glowed and shone. She took both Ursula's hands in hers, ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... the beach, the atmosphere became still closer and more languid. Much did we miss the refreshing balm which breathed in the fine breezy air of the open lagoon. Of a slender and sickly growth seemed the trees; in the meadows, the grass ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... plutocrat is idly lounging, reading, dictating to his shorthand amanuensis, or playing dice with a friend; a dashing youth driving his own chariot in professional style to the disgust of the sober-minded; a languid matron lolling in a litter carried by six tall, bright-liveried Cappadocians; a peasant on his way to town with his waggon-load of produce and cruelly belabouring his mule. If you are very fortunate you may meet Nero himself ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... you in my dreams to a far-off land I used to know, Back in the ages long ago; a land of palms and languid streams. ...
— Fifty years & Other Poems • James Weldon Johnson
... recalled our conversation at my reception as minister, when, to my amazement, he showed himself entirely ignorant of the starving condition of the peasantry throughout large districts in the very heart of the empire.[8] That he was a kindly man, wishing in a languid way the good of his country, could not be doubted; but the indifference to everything about him evident in all his actions, his lack of force even in the simplest efforts for the improvement of his people, ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... virulent and disgraceful to all the parties), Hogarth's health visibly declined. In 1762, he complained of an internal pain, the continuance of which produced a general decay of the system, that proved incurable; and, on the 25th of October, 1764, (having been previously conveyed in a very weak and languid state from Chiswick to Leicester Fields,) he died suddenly, of an aneurism in his chest, in the sixty-seventh or sixty-eighth year of his age. His remains were interred at Chiswick, beneath a plain but neat mausoleum, ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... can buy a reel of thread or a yard of tape in the place!'—when I observed a tall and handsome young man on the opposite side of the road cast a hasty glance at us, and then sneak round the corner hurriedly. He was a loose-limbed, languid-looking young man, with large, dreamy eyes, and a peculiarly beautiful and gentle expression; but what I noted about him most was an odd superficial air of superciliousness. He seemed always to be looking down with scorn on that foolish jumble, the ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... that vague delirium preceding death. He wished once again to press the count's hand, but his own was immovable. He wished to articulate a last farewell, but his tongue lay motionless and heavy in his throat, like a stone at the mouth of a sepulchre. Involuntarily his languid eyes closed, and still through his eyelashes a well-known form seemed to move amid the obscurity with which he thought ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Fanny! How deceived she was! After a time Mrs. Miller said, "Fanny, Mr. Miller seems very anxious about your altered and languid appearance. May I not tell him the truth? He will sympathize with you as truly as I do; for he feels for you almost ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... and down shallow vales: through stone-fenced lanes; now in the shade of old trees; now along a seashore partially overflowed by languid waves, he went, lighter in step than heart, for he was in the mood by no means uncommon, when the spirit is prophesying evil unto itself. He was sensible of the feeling, and for shame would catch the javelin in the middle and whirl ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... colouring of the foliage of our woods, and the air feels more rarefied during the nights and the early part of the day, the alligators leave the lakes to seek for winter-quarters, by burrowing under the roots of trees, or covering themselves simply with earth along their edges. They become then very languid and inactive, and, at this period, to sit or ride on one would not be more difficult than for a child to mount his wooden rocking-horse. The negroes, who now kill them, put all danger aside by separating at one blow with an axe, the tail from the body. They are ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... they found themselves among groups of students arriving from all parts of the place, and pausing for Synthesis gossip, which Cornelia could not have entered into yet if she had wished. She escaped, and walked home to her boarding-house with rather a languid pace, and climbed to her little room on the fifth story, and lay down on her bed. It was harder work than teaching, and her back ached, and her heart was heavy with the thought of five years in the Synthesis, when she barely had money enough ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... illness is languid, passive, receptive of sweetness, but too weak to contain it. The tears well and fall as the dog barks in the hollow, the children skim after hoops, the country darkens and brightens. Beyond a veil it seems. Ah, ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... said the stranger, turning weary eyes to Isbister's face and emphasizing his words with a languid hand, "but I have had no sleep—no sleep at all ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... river. It was stifling hot on the steamer, and from side to side, whichever side one walked to, came no breeze at all. Only the warm, enveloping, moist heat closed down, stifling. Very quiet it was, with no noises or voices from the after deck, where under the awning lay the languid deck passengers, sleeping on their bedding rolls. Very quiet it was ashore, so still and quiet that one could hear the bubbling, sucking noises of the large land-crabs, pattering over the black, oozy mud, or the sound of a lean pig scratching himself against ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... familiar tones, and looked again. Surely that was Miss Madison standing by the prow of the stranded skiff! He knew well indeed it was she; and he put his boat about with an energy not in keeping with his former languid strokes. Then, recollecting himself, he became pale with the self-control he purposed to maintain, "She is in a scrape," he thought; "and calls upon me as she would upon any one else to get her out ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... in him is, either the disposition or capacity to see the present great crisis of Europe upon the large scale on which it should be looked at by the leading Minister of this empire; instead of which, we see in all our discussions a cold, narrow, and contracted view of this subject, infinitely too languid and little for the object, and made peculiarly unfavourable to our propositions, by the disinclination which he certainly feels to concur heartily with us in the great interests attached to the Austrian possession ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... Landing (place) platajxo. Landlord bienulo, landsinjoro. Landmark terlimsxtono. Landscape pejzagxo. Landslip terdisfalo. Lane strateto. Language lingvo. Language (speech) lingvajxo. Languid malfortika. Languish malfortigxi. Lank maldika. Lantern lanterno. Lap leki, lekumi. Lapis lazuli lapis lazuro. Lapse (of time) manko, dauxro. Larceny sxtelo. Larch lariko. Lard porkograso. Larder mangxajxejo. Large ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... myself for the languid or dormant state of my feelings respecting the Mohammedan and Heathen nations; yet know not in what degree to condemn. The less culpable grounds of this languor are, first, my utter ignorance of God's purposes with respect to the Heathens; and second, the strong conviction, ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... stood behind her fanning her, and a girl about twelve years old was seated on a low stool studying from a roll of papyrus. She threw it down and jumped to her feet as her father entered, and the lady rose with a languid air, as if the effort of even so slight a movement was a trouble ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... it is very selfish in him,' said Alda, 'when every one of us wants change! I'm as languid as possible; ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... crystal, its nectarines, and cherries, and pineapples, seemed some kind of enchanted place. And then the people talked in a low and hushed fashion, and the servants moved silently and mysteriously, and the air was languid with the scents of fruits and flowers. They gave him some wine in a tall green glass that had transparent lizards crawling up its stem; he had never drunk out of a thing like ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... had sprung out into the road and, not waiting for Anthony, hastened into the place, opened a door at random, and found myself in a small room where smoked a miserable fire over which lounged two languid gentlemen well coated and muffled ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... beneath the yoke they bear— The earth is iron and the skies are brass— And faint with fervour of the flaming air The languid hours pass. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... mercenary army. The posterity of their boldest leaders was contented with the rank of citizens and subjects. The most aspiring spirits resorted to the court or standard of the emperors; and the deserted provinces, deprived of political strength or union, insensibly sunk into the languid ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... the usual din of ready-made phrases on the rights of Man and the public salvation.—This central power itself has in its hands no body who might give it an impetus and inspiration, it rules only over an impoverished, inert, or languid social body, solely capable of intermittent spasms or of artificial rigidity according to order, an organism deprived of its secondary organs, simplified to excess, of an inferior or degraded kind, a people ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... black Cocytus, wandering to the world below, That languid river to behold we of this earth must go; To see the grim Danaides, that miserable race, And Sisyphus of AEolus, condemned to ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field
... does not hail with delight the first sight of the shore. It gladdens the hearts of the sickly ones, and soon their childlike helplessness disappears; hope and life return, sending the warm blood once more to the pallid cheek, and lighting the languid eye with fresh joy and anticipation. It is pleasant to see how quickly the sufferers shake off the evil spirit of the sea—the terrible mal de mer, pull themselves together, and step on shore, beaming with ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... think it is not far And I bend my head and list, For I think I see a slender spar Gleam through the golden mist; And I fancy I hear the sound Of wind in a silken sail, And an odor rare from Eastern ground, Floats in on the languid gale. ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley
... this, it was high day, and the light was let into the room as it had not been for a good while. It all looked natural, and yet new; and Matilda's eyes went from one object to another with a sort of recognizing pleasure; feeling languid too, as if her eyelids could just keep open and that was all. But the light seemed sweet. And her gaze lingered long on the figure of Mrs. Laval, who was standing by the mantle-piece; going over with quiet pleasure every graceful ...
— Trading • Susan Warner
... church, I curtsied to you and looked at a great fuss in a glaring light dress, next pew. That strong, masculine thing is a knight's wife, pretends to all the tenderness in the world, and would fain put the unwieldly upon us for the soft, the languid. She has of a sudden left her dairy, and sets up for a fine town lady; calls her maid Cisly, her woman speaks to her by her surname of Mrs. Cherryfist, and her great foot-boy of nineteen, big enough for a trooper, is stripped into a laced coat, ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... capitalist, does not pay you, but pays somebody else; and if you are a consumer, does not please you, but pleases somebody else. Take one special instance, in further illustration of the general type given above. I did not invent that type, but spoke of a real river, and of real peasantry, the languid and sickly race which inhabits, or haunts—for they are often more like spectres than living men—the thorny desolation of the banks of the Arve in Savoy. Some years ago, a society, formed at Geneva, offered to embank the river for the ground which ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... Lord Robert made languid puffs of his cigarette, and said, in a tearful drawl: "My dear Drake, of course it is exactly as you say. Who doesn't know it is so? It has always been so and always will be. But what refuge is there for the poor leisured people but these diversions which you despise? ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... St. Paul's, where dry divines rehearse, Bell keeps his store for vending prose and verse, And books that's neither—for no age nor clime, Lame, languid prose, begot on hobb'ling ryme. Here authors meet who ne'er a sprig have got, The poet, player, doctor, wit and sot; Smart politicians wrangling here are seen Condemning Jeffries or indulging spleen, Reproving Congress or amending laws, Still fond ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... room, more beautiful than he had thought possible in his most extravagant dreams. The gods had evidently not intended Amyntas for single blessedness.... The young persons appeared not to have noticed him. Two of them were seated on rugs playing a languid game of chess, the others were lazily ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... goat remarked her pulse was high, Her languid head, her heavy eye,— "My back," says he, "may do you harm; The sheep's at hand, and ...
— Parker's Second Reader • Richard G. Parker
... up its sad-gold body lustily, All in a honey madness hotly bound On blissful burglary. A cunning sound In that wing-music held me: down I lay In amber shades of many a golden spray, Where looping low with languid arms the Vine In wreaths of ravishment did overtwine Her kneeling Live-Oak, thousand-fold to plight Herself unto her own true ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... thing about roses, speaking generally, Miss Kate, is that they fade quickly and do not embarrass one by outliving the little affairs in which they have played a part." She returned Sanderson's languid glance in a way ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... the Englishman went out into the garden of the hotel, meaning to start for a walk. But he espied a party of young people gathered about the new lawn-tennis court where instead of the languid and dishevelled trifling, with a broken net and a wretched court, that was once supposed to attract English visitors, he had been already astonished to find Austrians and Hungarians—both girls and boys—playing a game quite up to the average of a good English ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... astonishment at the sudden arrival, and perhaps a little in alarm also; for he could not tell how long the visitor had been eavesdropping at the portal. But Roseleaf turned his languid eyes toward his old friend, and ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... this, she took the bird from the cage; and bearing it to the open window, kissed it, and held it on her hand in the air. The poor bird turned a languid and sickly eye around it, as if the sight of the crowded houses and busy streets presented nothing familiar or inviting; and it was not till Lucy with a tender courage shook it gently from her, that it availed itself of the proffered liberty. It flew first to an opposite ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... gardens. Tembarom took him out, and they strolled about for some time. Even an alert observer would not have suspected the fact that as they strolled, Tembarom slouching a trifle and with his hands in his pockets, Captain Palliser bearing himself with languid distinction, each man was summing up the other and considering seriously how far and in what manner he could ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... it is a languid satisfaction to compare St. Peter's with St. Paul's to the disadvantage of the former, and to think there is nothing in Switzerland to equal the Trossachs, Loch Maree and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 93, August 13, 1887 • Various
... his white head my father pointed out the beauties of his new possession, while my intended husband, with his monocle to his eye, looked on with a certain condescension, and answered with a languid humour that ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... and when heat alone prevails, the wonder is that the whole patch of luxuriant greenness does not collapse and wither. But the broad leaves woo the cool night airs, and while the thin, harsh, tough foliage of the wattles becomes languid and droops and falls, the banana grove retains its verdancy, each plant a reservoir ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... him, just as day was coming. A new Bland, fresh shaven,—with Johnny's razor,—and with a certain languid animation in his manner that was in sharp contrast to his extreme dejection of the ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... hiding-place. He did not mean to read, only to fondle; but his eye chancing to fall on a special passage—two hours afterwards he was interrupted by the dinner-gong. He returned the pages to the box and wiped his eyes. While dressing hurriedly he remembered with languid interest that Lady Pippinworth was staying ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... experience was most valuable, and relieved Lilias of the fear that was continually haunting her, lest her ignorance might lead to some fatal mistake. The next day brought Rachel, and both patients began to mend. Jane's recovery was quicker than Emily's, for her constitution was not so languid, and having no pleasure in the importance of being an invalid, she was willing to exert herself, and make the best of everything, while Emily did not much like to be told that she was better, and thought it cruel to hint that exertion would benefit her. Both were convalescent before the fever attacked ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... him, if possible. It was no fault of his; he only carried out his orders, and so on. Gwen is silent about her experience; she will not raise false hopes. Besides, she is only half grieved for the old chap—has only a languid sympathy in her heart for him who, tampering with implements of Death, becomes Cain unawares. If she is right, he will know in time. Meanwhile it will be a lesson to him to avoid triggers, and will thus minimise the exigencies of ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... light, electricity, gravitation. Of either, we may be quite certain that such phenomena exist, and utterly ignorant of the mode of their operation. It were as utterly unphilosophical to deny that Almighty God could impart nervous energy to the languid limbs of your sick neighbor, because you are ignorant of its origin and means of transmission, as to deny that God could impart spiritual electricity to his paralyzed soul, because you are ignorant of the mode in which he bestows it. And ignorance is all that you can plead in this case. ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... unwholesome dwelling propagates a moral typhus worse than the plague itself. Where the body is enfeebled by the depressing influences of vitiated air and bodily defilement, the mind, almost of necessity, takes the same low, unhealthy tone. Self-respect is lost; a stupid, inert, languid feeling overpowers the system; the character becomes depraved; and too often—eager to snatch even a momentary enjoyment, to feel the blood bounding in the veins,—the miserable victim flies to the demon of strong drink for relief; hence misery, infamy, shame, ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... splendid-looking knight—that was his first impression of him. Broad shouldered, graceful, in age neither young nor old, clean featured, quick eyed, with a mobile mouth and a little, square-cut beard, soft and languid voiced, black haired, richly dressed in a fur robe, and mounted on a fine black ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... is constantly undergoing a gradual renovation by the received system of frequently transferring officials from one town to another, it preserves faithfully, in spite of the new blood which it thus receives, its essentially languid character. When a new official arrives he exchanges visits with all the notables, and for a few days he produces quite a sensation in the little community. If he appears at social gatherings he ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... condescended to take a languid interest in the watch—which had a picture of Marie pasted inside the back of the case, by the way. "Ee?" he inquired, with a pitiful little catch in his breath, and held it up for Bud to see the busy little second hand. "Ee?" he smiled tearily and tried ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... it right in his bedroom; but first, where were his cigarettes? He hoped above all things that the waiter had not forgotten his cigarettes. Some people began their days with cold showers—nothing less than a cruel shock to a languid nervous system. An atrocious practice, the speaker called it—a relic of barbarism—a fetish of ignorance. Much preferable was a hygienic, stimulating cigarette which served the same purpose and ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... Fame's hard school the warm disciples came; To learn sage Liberty's unlesson'd lore, To brave the tempest on her war-beat shore, Prometheus like, to snatch a beam of day, And homeward bear the unscintillating ray, To pour new life on Europe's languid horde, Where millions crouch beneath one stupid lord. Tho Austria's keiser and the Russian czar To dungeons doom them, and with fetters mar, Fayette o'er Gaul's vast realm some light shall spread, Brave Kosciusko rear Sarmatia's head; From Garonne's bank to Duna's wintry skies, The morn ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... the birth of Alianora, on a close, warm autumn afternoon, Constance was lying on her bed to rest, feeling languid and tired with the heat; and Maude sat by the window near her, singing softly to the baby in her arms. Hearing a gentle call from Bertram outside, Maude laid the child down and opened the door. Bertram was there, in the drawing-room, and with him were two sisters of Saint Clare, robed ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... of the gods,' and a bottle of good Bordeaux at every's man's elbow. When evening came, Mr. Reade and a special friend sought the river: 'The rosy wine had rouged our yellow cheeks, and we lay back on the cushions, and watched the setting sun with languid, half-closed eyes. Four men, who might have served as models to Appelles, bent slowly to their stroke, and murmured forth a sweet and plaintive song. Their oars, obedient to their voice, rippled the still water, and dropped from their blades pearls, which the sun ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson |
