"Siesta" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... than the animals, like to be caught napping; but I remember, one autumn day, coming upon a red-eyed vireo that was clearly oblivious to all that was passing around it. It was a young bird, though full grown, and it was taking its siesta on a low branch in a remote heathery field. Its head was snugly stowed away under its wing, and it would have fallen easy prey to the first hawk that came along. I approached noiselessly, and when within a few feet of it paused to note its breathings, so much more rapid and full than our own. ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... she could make very excellent sponge-cake; for, unfortunately, it was discovered that it would be necessary to increase the supply of that delicacy. Adeline did her share; while her Saratoga friends were taking a morning siesta, with a novel in their hands, she had made the syllabub, and prepared the fruit. These arrangements having been made, the little girl of twelve had received orders to station herself near at hand, where she could be sent of {sic} errands ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... remained there for six weeks, during which time my book, to which I gave the name A Critical Examination of Socialism, was very nearly completed. In spite, however, of my labor, I from time to time found leisure for pilgrimages to moated chateaux, which seemed still to be enjoying a siesta of social and religious peace, unbroken by revolutions and even undisturbed by republics. Of these chateaux one was the home of Chateaubriand. Another, which I traveled a hundred miles to see, was the Chateau de Kerjaen, its gray gates approached by three huge converging avenues, and the outer ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... fallen logs, and untangling my way among the vines which embraced the stern old woods like seductive sirens, I at last struck a shaded path, which erelong led me down through a ravine to the waters of the big old lake. It too had dined, but instead of yielding itself to folly, was taking its siesta. Across its tranquil bosom the zephyrs played, stirring ripples and tiny eddies, as dreams may stir lights and shadows ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... breakfast. The plantation hands were similarly occupied in their quarters. Satan lay sound asleep on his back under the billiard table, in his sleep brushing at the flies that pestered him. Joan was rummaging in the storeroom, and Sheldon was taking his siesta in a hammock on the veranda. He awoke gently. In some occult, subtle way a warning that all was not well had penetrated his sleep and aroused him. Without moving, he glanced down and saw the ground beneath covered with armed savages. ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... day, the king, instead of taking his siesta, or mid-day slumber, repaired to this apartment to seek the society of the queen. In passing through a small oratory, he was drawn by the sound of female voices to a casement overhung with myrtles and jessamines. It looked into an interior garden, or court, set out with orange trees, in the ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... furniture. So regular was it to recline that, where we should speak of a sitting-room, the Romans spoke of a "reclining-room." At business they sat; but they reclined in social conversation—unless it was brief—when reading, when taking the siesta, and when dining. Their beds in the proper sense were similar to our own, though less heavy than those of our older fashion. To mount them it was often necessary to use steps or an elongated footstool. A slave in close attendance upon a master or mistress sometimes slept upon a low ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... for the sleepy figure of the horse-picket, attempting vainly to keep his lanky person within the shadow of the feed-trough, there was no one in sight. The horses needed little attention. With heads low and legs crooked, they dozed in every attitude of siesta. Within the open tents lay the human element, more or less replete after the seldom varying meal of sandy stew and bread. Most of the men slept, stretched full length upon rush matting on the shady sides of the tents. Some wore trousers, ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... element of the Oriental architecture of the Mediterranean, which provided the theme of the Exposition plan. There, however, it is the patio, the place of the siesta, the playground of the children. Here the courts have been made the chief architectural feature of the group. There the courts are private. ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... of the mid-day siesta, and except for the brisk scything of the cicade from the hill-slope behind the house, ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... efface those early impressions. I adore pretty faces. I can't keep away from shops where they sell good old furniture like my bureau. I like plain rooms with low ceilings better than any other rooms; and for my afternoon siesta, which is one of my institutions, I often choose the floor in preference to ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... reading—stealthily; for Mr. Linden with his book sat in the porch not three feet from her; but it is not too much to say that neither made great progress. Who could read or work—or think—vigilantly, in that hazy sunshine?—the very bees took a siesta on the wing, and rocked to and fro in the ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... explanation won't fit. We'll say that he was prepared for the boat returning, but not to find an entire stranger pulling her. At all events, he let her come within a couple of gunshots before calling down to the cabin and giving the alarm. I had my legs up on a locker, and was taking a siesta over a book—'Parkinson On The Dog'—and, by the way, we were a set of fools not to bring a dog; but I ran up the companion in a jiffy, and had the sense to catch up your spyglass as I went. Goodfellow by this time had begun to dance ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... daybreak they were jogging on at a walk-trot, the road gait of the Southwest, into the treeless country of the prairie. They nooned at an arroyo seco, and after they had eaten took a siesta during the heat of the day. Night brought with it a thunderstorm and they took refuge in a Mexican hut built of palisades and roofed with grass sod. A widow lived alone in the jacal, but she made them welcome to the best she had. The young men slept in a corner of the hut on a ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... the train service is not quite up to modern requirements. There is usually one passenger train in either direction during the day, though between the larger cities this service has of late years been doubled. It was afternoon, and the hour of the siesta, when Evasio Mon walked through the narrow streets of this ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... of the cypress-grove with its delicious dapple of shadows. An invisible blackbird fluted overhead. He walked along the great walk under the stone eyes of sculptured gods, and looked out upon the hot landscape taking its siesta under the ardent blue sky—the green sunlit hills, the white nestling villas, the gray olive-trees. Who had paced these cloistral terraces? Mediaeval princesses, passionate and scornful, treading delicately, with trailing silks and faint perfumes. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... depths of that pleasant little garden, where it would play in the waters of the pool, like a beam of golden light which gleams through the chinks of a shutter into a room in Spain, that has been carefully darkened for a siesta. When the sun rose above the old crater that some antediluvian revolution had filled with water, its rocky sides took warmer tones, the extinct volcano glowed again, and its sudden heat quickened the sprouting seeds and vegetation, gave color to the flowers, and ripened the fruits ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... fair—were spent by everybody on the front gallery watching the golden ball in the west set the whole prairie, as well as the sky itself, on fire. In the early afternoon, of course, there was the inevitable siesta—Tilly's ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... After a brief siesta M. Forgues and his companion resume their journey toward Villa Rica. Under a shed on the roadside they see a dozen women, all talking at the same time, and engaged in grating manioc-roots in pails of water. The mixture thus obtained composes the dough of manioc. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... know, Philip," cried Annette a few days after, rudely shaking him from his siesta on the gallery,—"do you know that I ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... painter living in London, where she frequently exhibits her excellent pictures. Among them are "A Siesta," "Dolce far Niente," "Multiplication," and portraits of Guy Cohn, son of Sir Guy Campbell, Bart., and of Peggy and ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... of the summer afternoon the Red House was taking its siesta. There was a lazy murmur of bees in the flower-borders, a gentle cooing of pigeons in the tops of the elms. From distant lawns came the whir of a mowing-machine, that most restful of all country sounds; making ease the sweeter in that it is taken ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne
... her son, always in her own room and sometimes in the church, whither she went often alone in the afternoon, and sometimes accompanied by her husband. She even curtailed her daily siesta in order to have more time for prayer. No doubt, she would have given anything in the world for Gianluca, but she had very little else to give, beyond that sacrifice, which did not seem small or laughable to her. The Duca said ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... of this sweet idleness. It was in harder labour that he passed most of his mornings. These hours of work achieved, he dressed and went down among his friends. Then came the mid-day dinner, which was sumptuous; host and guests both ate and drank more than was good for their health. After a short siesta, towards four o'clock they took their sticks and went forth to walk, among woods, over ploughed fields, up hills, through quagmires, delighting in nature. As they went, they talked of history, or politics, or chemistry, of literature, or physics, or morality. At sundown they returned, to ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... taking his siesta when we arrived, and we had to walk up and down in the sun, in front of his dwelling, a miserable tumble-down cottage, for two hours, before any one ventured to arouse him. At length we were admitted ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... as to her position. "How did you know me?" he asked. "You are expected," she replied, "and no one but an Englishman would have called at the hour of the siesta. Shall I show your worship to your own room, or will you await the ladies in the library?" His hand was on the little fan, and he was striving to frame some question whose answer would enlighten him as to the giver, but the dwarf's last word ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... it all at the burning hour of midday, and saw not a soul, unless indeed, through the open windows of the bonze-houses, I caught sight of some priests, guardians of tombs or sanctuaries, taking their siesta under their ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... fastened a wisp of hay to it, that this might serve as a handle. One day in the height of summer, when the deserted square was blazing with sunlight, and most of the citizens were taking their noonday rest, their siesta was disturbed by the violent pealing of ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... is at office. The people in his house are all taking the noon siesta after their meal. The boita khana is locked. A mongrel terrier is sleeping on the door-mat outside, his head between his paws. A couple of servants are seizing the opportunity to ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
... strict law of the Camp confined the girls to the pasture, but as it was the last week of the quarantine, they were beginning to grow a little slack about rules. The five victims of the salt cure waited until Miss Huntley and Nurse Robinson were enjoying their afternoon siesta; then, without waiting for any permission, they climbed the fence into the lane, found a thin place in the hedge, and scrambled into the wood. It was a thrillingly exciting experience. Rather scratched and panting, ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... clever of David, though, to have her tell him the story, for then she would sometimes forget that her little boy was not having his siesta. To show her that he was trying to keep up an interest he would now and then ask a question, as, for example, when she spoke of the honors the young ...
— A Melody in Silver • Keene Abbott
... his cruise in the ship after her capture. Agnes soon recovered from her reserve, and Jack had the forbearance not to allude again to the scene in the cabin, which was the only thing she dreaded. After dinner, when the family, according to custom, had retired for the siesta, Gascoigne and Jack, who had slept enough in the cart to last for a week, went out together in ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... whole caravan stopped and all the animals were tied under different trees for two or three hours to rest. As we knew we could easily reach the city by sun-down, we all enjoyed our siesta. About half-past three, the doves began to coo, and that made the monkey sit up and listen. Being a dweller of the trees by birth, Kopee was always sensitive to tree sounds. Soon a cuckoo called from the distance and in a few moments ...
— Kari the Elephant • Dhan Gopal Mukerji
... was tired; Drane's Court, where she had been born and had lived all her girlhood's life, was restful; and the seat in the shade of the great beech was cunningly curved. The shiny, mahogany-coloured spaniel, prescient of siesta, leaped to her side and lay down with his chin on her lap and blinked ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... the day is prayers and tea at sunrise, and dictating letters or "tablets," receiving visitors, and giving alms to the poor until dinner in the middle of the day. After this meal he takes a half-hour's siesta, spends the afternoon in making visits to the sick and others whom he has occasion to see about the city, and the evening in talking to the believers or in expounding, to any who wish to hear him, the K̀£uran, ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne
... the shopping is done in the morning or late in the afternoon. For several hours, during the heat of the day, many of the stores are closed while the proprietors enjoy a midday lunch and siesta. ...
— Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese
... ceremonia of the mistletoe. The antidote. The oak as a sacred tree. The great feast after the ceremony. Table implements. The Korinos. Where they were imprisoned. Prepared for the sacrifice. Their attempted escape. Gluttony. Habits of savages in this respect. The siesta. The boys discover the escape of the Korinos. The Marmozets. The tall native with the knotted club. His remarkable garb. The Chief's crown. The club-bearer reports the escape of the Korinos. The Chief's anger. Arrests the guards. Condemns ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... began to complain of weariness, and we scaled the terraced hill, and gathering a large quantity of clean and well-dried leaves, arranged our beds as Browne had suggested, beneath the group of noble trees where we had taken our siesta at noon. ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... Gordon asked to have something light sent in to him, as he wished not to be disturbed in his investigation of the documents. He had scant need to apprehend interruption, however, while the long afternoon wore gradually away. The universal Southern siesta was on, and the somnolent mansion was like the castle of Sleeping Beauty. The ladies had sought their apartments and the downy couches; the cook, on a shady bench under the trellis, nodded as she seeded the raisins for the frozen pudding of the six-o'clock dinner; the waiter had ...
— The Phantom Of Bogue Holauba - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... have been alluding to the habit of late siesta; but I mumbled something about "beastly habits anyhow"—and ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... official duties, whilst the ladies go out shopping or pay visits, and devote any time that remains to their household duties and their children; but the day's work is over about four o'clock, and the long evening remains to be filled up. The siesta may dispose of an hour or an hour and a half, but about seven o'clock some definite occupation has to be found. As it is impossible to devote the whole evening to discussing the ordinary news of the day, recourse is almost invariably had to card-playing, which is indulged in to ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... he had taken a siesta, then, towards the close of the afternoon, he had gone out to breathe the fresh, soothing breeze under the trees ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... returned and took up his parcel. As he entered the outer gate of the convent, Lucy could see him glancing nervously from side to side. But it was the hour of siesta and of quiet. His tormentors of the morning were ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... one to Blacky; perhaps he smoked. But I thought he would prefer a piece of sugar. He caught it on the fly very cleverly, and crunched it with enjoyment. Then he lay down and took a nap at my feet. He was evidently accustomed to a little siesta at this place. ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy
... filling the tub for her Monday morning siesta. She was humming a strange tune over the cascade like another Minnehaha. And from the behavior of the dining-room chandelier and the plates on the ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... taller mesquite grass, into which he sank with his burden. Nevertheless, if useless as a point of vantage, it offered a soft couch for Susy, who seemed to have fallen quite naturally into her usual afternoon siesta, and in a measure it shielded her from a cold breeze that had sprung up from the west. Utterly exhausted himself, but not daring to yield to the torpor that seemed to be creeping over him, Clarence half sat, half knelt down beside her, supporting himself with one hand, and, ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... snatches this half-hour for its siesta. There is a song, however, inside one of the cafes, with a burden in which several voices join. A girl goes through the street, sheltered under her great bundle of freshly cut grass. By and by the song ceases, ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... occasion which gave them birth. Some writings of Asinius Gallus were being read aloud to me in my Laurentine villa; in these works he was comparing his father with Cicero; we came upon an epigram of Cicero dedicated to his freedman Tiro. Shortly after, about noon—for it was summer—I retired to take my siesta, and finding that I could not sleep, I began to reflect how the very greatest orators have taken delight in composing this style of verse, and have hoped to win fame thereby. I set my mind to it, and, quite contrary to my expectations after so long desuetude, produced in an extremely short space ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... have set my heart on going to Loch Coruisk"—I answered, lightly—"And I cannot let you off your promise to take me there! We will leave Mr. Harland to his siesta." ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... straight to a hospital on arriving; whilst Marie endeavoured to rouse Madame Vincent from the torpor in which she seemed determined to remain. M. de Guersaint, who had been indulging in a little siesta, also had to be awakened. And at last, when Sister Hyacinthe had clapped her hands, the whole carriage intonated the "Te Deum," the hymn of praise and thanksgiving. "Te Deum, laudamus, te Dominum confitemur." The voices rose amidst a last burst of fervour. All ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... the words before the housekeeper's large tabby cat, taking its noonday siesta in the looped-up fold of the curtain, leaped out ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... father—still kind and affectionate, but never dropping the Spanish, nor manifesting any consciousness of her letters. She had hopes of the period allotted to the siesta, to which custom, in old days, she had never acceded, but had always spent the interval on any special occupation—above all, to writing for him; but he went off without any notice of her, and she was in no condition to dispense with the repose, for her frame was ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... said the Captain, "just after my siesta, engaged, by-the-by, in writing a letter to a relation of mine at Lucerne, when I was interrupted by Mr. Marshall—a gentleman with whom I had frequent business transactions—bursting hurriedly into the room. From the unusual agitation in his manner ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... and no topsails to reef. The evenings we generally spent at one another's houses, and I often went up and spent an hour or so at the oven; which was called the "Kanaka Hotel," and the "Oahu Coffee-house." Immediately after dinner we usually took a short siesta to make up for our early rising, and spent the rest of the afternoon according to our own fancies. I generally read, wrote, and made or mended clothes; for necessity, the mother of invention, had taught me these two latter arts. The Kanakas ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... ascertaining from the patrona the state of the larder, which, as is usual enough in Spanish inns, was but meagrely provided, his companion sought out the landlord of the venta, whom he found in the chimney-corner, enjoying a supplementary siesta amidst a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... that I had been a little too premature in coming to this conclusion. One, day about noon, happening to be at the Ti, I had lain down on the mats with several of the chiefs, and had gradually sunk into a most luxurious siesta, when I was awakened by a tremendous outcry, and starting up beheld the natives seizing their spears and hurrying out, while the most puissant of the chiefs, grasping the six muskets which were ranged against the bamboos, followed after, and soon disappeared ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... of mutually vigilant Winter-quarters," says Archenholtz, "as was never drawn in Germany, or in Europe, before." Chain of about 300,000 fighting men, poured out in that lengthy manner. Taking their winter siesta there, asleep with one eye open, till reinforced for new business of death and destruction against Spring. Pathetic surely, as well as picturesque. "Three Campaigns there have already been," sighs the peaceable observer: "Three ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... surface of the water; then the shock of the early plunge, the scamper along the bank, and the radiant transformation of earth, air, and water, when suddenly the sun was with them again, and grey was gold and colour was born and sprang out of the earth once more. They recalled the languorous siesta of hot mid-day, deep in green undergrowth, the sun striking through in tiny golden shafts and spots; the boating and bathing of the afternoon, the rambles along dusty lanes and through yellow corn-fields; and the long, ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... any house, whether if I took the road I should find one in a mile, or in two, or in five. And, note you, I was utterly exhausted. That enormous march from Faido, though it had been wisely broken by the siesta at Bellinzona, needed more than a few cold hours under trees, and I thought of the three poor francs in my pocket, and of the ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... swore, kissing the book, or rather the roll, in the civilized fashion. Afterwards, very tired, for all this business had been anxious, we were conducted back to our own quarters to lunch, or rather to dine, for the Abati ate their heaviest meal at midday, taking a siesta after it according to ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... would fain have gone out for a ramble on the shore—as he had been wont to do in time past—but his gaoler forbade him to quit the hut. He was therefore about to console himself with a siesta, when an unexpected order came from Big Chief, requiring his immediate attendance in the royal hut. Jarwin at once obeyed the mandate, and in a few minutes stood before his master, who was seated on a raised couch, enjoying a ...
— Jarwin and Cuffy • R.M. Ballantyne
... and shaped busily all day, and the work progressed rapidly. On the tufted heath with its stiff sedges and by the river with its reeds and rushes, there was no lack of building material. They had no time for noon siesta nor for evening rest. Glowing with eagerness and delight, they flew to and fro, and before night came they had ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... willingly take it again. The sand had far too hospitable a trick of holding on to you at every step to be to my liking. Besides, the sun, which had come out with summer insistence, chose that particular spot for its midday siesta, and lay there at full length, while the air was preternaturally still. It was a stupidly drowsy heat that gave no ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... the disaster at Cumana had long since reached Hispaniola and Las Casas heard of it in the following manner, while journeying on foot across the island with several companions. One day, while he was taking his afternoon siesta under a tree, a party of travellers joined his companions, who enquired what news there was in Santo Domingo or from Spain. The newcomers answered that the only recent news was that of the murder of the clerigo Las Casas ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... Sleep is not good)—Ver. 681. It was a custom with the Romans to take a nap at noon, after the "prandium." The modern Italians have the same practice, and call it the "siesta." Simo has his private reasons for thinking that this nap is not ...
— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus
... a gnat," said I, "in Borneo—Gnatus soporificus—and when this tiny gnat stings people they never entirely wake up. It's really rather a pleasurable catastrophe, I understand. Life becomes one endless cat-nap—one delightful siesta, with intervals for light nourishment.... She—ah—could sit very comfortably in some pleasant retreat and rock in a rocking-chair and doze quite happily through the years to come.... And from your description of her I should say that the Soldiers' Home ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... is stirring, but warm air. Going through the streets, the fronts of the sleepy houses look like backs. They are all so still and quiet, and unlike houses with people in them, that the greater part of the city has the appearance of a city at daybreak, or during a general siesta of the population. Or it is yet more like those backgrounds of houses in common prints, or old engravings, where windows and doors are squarely indicated, and one figure (a beggar of course) is seen walking off by ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... day after day, after the siesta hour, I found myself in the company of this accursed idol—for accursed it came to be, bringing me misfortunes and ruin, as my story will unfold. No doubt it was by my own doing that the wrath of Allah was brought down upon my head. For had not I, a follower of the Prophet, and ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... also, but later in the afternoon, when luncheon was over and the two girls were wandering in the lovely gardens of the Hotel Vittoria, while the Colonel indulged in an afternoon siesta, Mary Louise led Alora to speak freely of her ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... son had been murdered and Soderini wounded to the death. It was now no longer possible to conceal their doings from the Count, who told them to pluck up courage and abide in patience. He had himself to dine and take his siesta, and then to attend a meeting ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... though he were gagged and bound, lest a sigh, or a rustle in turning over—as he longed to turn—might waken a neighbour. The hours set apart for the Legion's repose were sacred, so profoundly sacred that any man who made the least noise at night or during the afternoon siesta was given good cause to regret his awkwardness. The most inveterate snorers were cured, or half killed; and to-night, in this great room with its double row of beds, the trained silence of the sleepers seemed unnatural, almost ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... opposite, the statue of a man, in realistic style, stretching out three fingers to neutralize the evil eye. These familiar figures remained very clear in the recollection of Augustin. In the evening, or at the hour of the siesta, he had stretched himself under their pedestals and played at dice or bones in the cool shade of the god Mars, or of the Man with outstretched fingers. The slabs of marble of the portico made a good place to play ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... for his accustomed siesta and I was smoking pipe after pipe over a confoundedly bad French novel that I had found in the book-shelves. I must have been dozing. A voice ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... would take her siesta. Possibly her guest would smoke and entertain Anita with news from the Concho and of the Patron Loring and of his own rancho. Anita was not of what you say the kind to do the much talking, but she had a heart. Of that the Senora had reason to be assured. Had not Anita gone, each day, to ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... to the home folks to be superintended, or half the girls would never write at all, to say nothing of the marketing and housekeeping, and our own business correspondence, that has to be tucked into the siesta hour after luncheon. Indeed, in the nine weeks of camp last summer I never once had an hour that I ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... sometimes by a heavy damask rose that suddenly sent down its rosy shower upon the ground. It was the very pastime of birds and insects and roses,—with that slight extra stir which told the time of day and that the afternoon siesta was ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... thou hast eaten of our humble food, and seen our dancing. Thou hast heard our song. Wilt thou also see jugglers, wrestlers, trained apes from Yemen? Or wilt thou take the kaylulah (siesta)? Or doth it please thee now to speak of the gifts that my ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... dwellers in the Casa del Mare made the siesta after the mid-day meal. The awnings and blinds were drawn. Silence reigned, and the house was still as the Palace of the Sleeping Beauty. At the foot of the cliffs the sea slept in the sunshine, and it was almost an empty sea, for few ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... were near the negro quarter he would make ready for his siesta by sending forth the servantman who waited on him, bidding him tell the people that they were to keep quiet during the performance. I can see him now with his pig-tail hanging down behind the back of the easy chair and a handkerchief over his ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... of the Bliss was heard in the land, so I dodged till she went upstairs, and then took a brief siesta while waiting to pay my respects to the distinguished traveler, Lady Hester Stanhope," he said, leaping up to ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... an intensely hot afternoon, the air close and heavy with humidity, an hour when all Texans who can do so take a siesta. Judge and counsel were snoozing peacefully on the gallery of the distant court house, and the two bailiffs guarding the "jury room," overcome by habit and the heat, were stretched at full length on the ground, snoring in concert. This situation made the opportunity ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... and another, and another. The prairie wind carried along the sound of their chatter; but it was subdued now, entirely different from the clamour of a bit ago. Against the blue of the sky where they had been a blot only, the curling, dancing heat waves arose. One and all had answered the siesta call. ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... left in the morning. We stopped from one o'clock to three, to dine, rest the mules, and allow the heat of the day to pass, during which time one slept; what the Spanish call the siesta. Then we went on to our night stop. The meals were sufficiently plentiful, but the Spanish cuisine seemed to me, at first, to taste awful, however I got used to it; but I could never have got used to the horrible beds which we were offered at night in the pousadas or inns. They were really disgusting, ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... spend a week in his old house on the hillside just without the town. Here was poverty also, but yet sufficient acres to set a table and pour good wine and to make the horse forget the famine road behind him. Here were lounging and siesta, rest for body and mind, sweet "do well a very little!" Don Fernando would have kept the guest a second ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... stillness of the great forest, with the solitary exception of the metallic note of the uruponga, or bell-bird, which seems to mount guard when all the rest of the world has gone to sleep. As the afternoon approaches they all wake up, refreshed by their siesta, active and lively as fairies, and ready for another spell of work and ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... to a fool?" cried the minor canon, so startling Ambrose that he had almost answered, and turning to another ecclesiastic whose siesta seemed to have ended about the same time, "Look at this varlet, Brother Cloudesley! Would you believe it? He comes to me with a letter from mine old friend, in consideration of which I offer him that saucy lubber Bolt's place, a gown of mine own a year, meat and preferment, and, lo you, he tells ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... slight diversion is caused by the appearance of a footman, tea tray, a boy, a gypsy table, a maid, a good deal of fruit, maraschino, brandy, soda, and Madam O'Connor. The latter, to tell the truth, has been having a siesta in the privacy of her own room, and has now come down, like a giant refreshed, to see how her guests are ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... evening; an opal-colored light, through which an autumnal sun shed its golden rays, descended on the blue ocean. The heat of the day had gradually decreased, and a light breeze arose, seeming like the respiration of nature on awakening from the burning siesta of the south. A delicious zephyr played along the coasts of the Mediterranean, and wafted from shore to shore the sweet perfume of plants, mingled with the ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... ybigin mo ang dios lalo sa lahat. Ang y calua, houag mo sacsihin ang dios cundi totoo. Ang ycatlo mangilin ca cun domingo at cu siesta. Ang ycapat, ygalang mo ang yyong ama, at ang yyong yna. Ang ycalima houag mog patayin ag capoua mo tauo. ag yca nim, houag cag maquiapir sa di mo asaua. Ang ycapito houag cang mag nacao, ag ycaualo houag mog paga uagaua nanguica ang capoua mo tauo houag ca naman magsono ...
— Doctrina Christiana • Anonymous
... with the winter of the temperate zone; and it is a curious physiological phenomenon to observe the alligators of North America plunged into a winter-sleep by excess of cold, at the same period when the crocodiles of the Llanos begin their siesta or summer-sleep. If it were probable that these animals of the same family had heretofore inhabited the same northern country, we might suppose that, in advancing towards the equator, they feel the want of repose after having exercised their muscles for seven or eight months, and ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... Grief spent with the boats, and had lunch in the bungalow. In the afternoon he loafed, taking a siesta in the big living-room, reading some, and talking for half an hour with Mrs. Hall. After dinner, he played billiards with her husband. It chanced that Grief had never before encountered Swithin Hall, yet the latter's fame as an expert at billiards was the talk of the ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... of interest now, that Ned forgot the labour, and eagerly kept pace with his uncle, the Malays following closely behind, and carrying the specimens willingly enough, but with their swarthy faces wearing rather a contemptuous look for the man who, in preference to a quiet siesta beneath a tree, chose to tramp on beneath the burning sun for the sake of ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... now those untaught melodies Broke the luxurious silence of the skies, The sweet siesta of a summer day, The tropic afternoon of Toobonai, When every flower was bloom, and air was balm, And the first breath began to stir the palm, The first yet voiceless wind to urge the wave All gently ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... the morning, at eight o'clock, and go on till twelve, at which hour everybody goes to the mid-day meal. They commence again at four o'clock, and terminate at seven, which is the hour of supper. The reason of this is, that almost everybody takes a siesta. ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... hour or so all went well, and the cheerful tao dug and delved and carried without murmur. Then his diligence subsided and there was a talk of "siesta." Somebody down at the sluice box shouted, "Keep busy up there"; so, after one or two efforts to hurry up our minions, I pointed the pistol carefully into the ground and fired. They all jumped prodigiously and looked around. But I couldn't ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... were just part of my world when I woke up and found it taking shape around me. The familiar mountains, the familiar sun, the strange man. But he spoke to me in a friendly way, as if it were an ordinary thing to find a perfect stranger sprawled out taking a siesta in here. ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... genial glow of June Had passed, they sought still warmer climes And took beneath the verdurous limes Their sweet siesta through ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... went, she most certainly did not have what one would call a good time. She loved the Maidan and golf at the Jodhpur Club, or Tollygunge, before breakfast; she cordially loathed shopping and duty calls; grudged the hours lost out of life in the daily afternoon siesta, and took part in dances, bridge, dinners, and all the usual monotonous effort to kill time, with the air ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... favourite spot for an afternoon siesta, for there is a bit of green sward under the tree, and all along the side of the road. But as the shades of evening gather in, the lane is usually deserted, shunned by the neighbouring peasantry on account of its eerie loneliness, ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... her houseward in the midst of the festivities. She nodded a gracious apology to all, entered her wheel-chair, and was rolled heavily away for her daily siesta. ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... tell; philosophers will agree more often than clocks; but it was between midday and one after noon. "Clumsy creature!" you say. "The poets are not content to describe sunrise and sunset, and now they even disturb the midday siesta. Will you thus neglect so ...
— Apocolocyntosis • Lucius Seneca
... sure that he might venture, if he could only get cash for the journey. He wanted to drift back to the idleness and adventure and the "easy money" of the old anarchist days in Cadiz and Madrid. He was sick for the patio and the plaza, for the bull-fight, for the siesta in the sun, for the lazy glamour of the gardens and the red wine of Valladolid, for the redolent cigarette of the roadside tavern. This cold iron land had spoiled him, and he would strive to get himself home again before it was too late. In ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker |
