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More "Idle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not unfrequently known as "Father Wynn," pastor of the first Baptist church. The "pastorage," as it was cheerfully called, had the glaring distinction of being built of brick, and was, as had been wickedly pointed out by idle scoffers, the only "fireproof" structure in town. This sarcasm was not, however, supposed to be particularly distasteful to "Father Wynn," who enjoyed the reputation of being "hail fellow, well met" with the rough mining element, who called them by their Christian ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... had not been idle, and with twelve myriads of soldiers on three hundred ships, awaited the foe in the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... have doubtless guessed Not one of you but all are here addressed) Remember this: the shaft that seeks a heart Draws all eyes after it; an idle dart Shot at some shadow flutters o'er the green, Its flight unheeded and ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... work and high pay held out to doubtful electors, and the same bright illusive promises made to the masses, which all parties make in all elections and which the people believe each time. The Republicans were not idle either, and many fiery patriotic speeches were made or their side. Gambetta always held his public with his passionate, earnest declamation, and his famous phrase, that the marshal must "se soumettre ou se demettre," became a password all through ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... the week vanished before the influence of the blessed words on those familiar pages. They were precious still, though the strange charm of her new companionship had turned her thoughts from them for a time. She forgot her idle dreams, the foolish fancies she had indulged, the vain longing for this or that earthly good for herself and for all at home that had at times for the last few days taken possession of her. The peace which flows from a sense of pardon and acceptance ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... next few days Lushington did not lead a life of idle repose; in fact, he did not remember that he had ever taken so much exercise since his Oxford days. On an average he must have bicycled twenty or thirty miles between breakfast and dinner, which is not bad work for a literary man accustomed ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... of its advocates, is of great interest in showing to what extent and by what means a considerable part of the community may be led into the belief of that which is to be eventually considered' as an idle folly. If there is any existing folly, fraudulent or innocent in its origin, which appeals to certain arguments for its support; provided that the very same arguments can be shown to have been used for Perkinism with as good reason, they will at once fall to the ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... first conversation. And he threatens an unknown adversary, 'If you go on so impudently to assail my good name, then take care that my gentleness does not give way and I cause you to be ranked, after a thousand years, among the venomous sycophants, among the idle boasters, ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... been in the habit, mistaken in this case but natural in a chief who desires to be friendly, of calling at McClellan's house rather than summoning him to his own. McClellan acquired a habit of avoiding him, he treated his enquiries as idle curiosity, and he probably thought, not without a grain of reason, that Lincoln's way of discussing matters with many people led him into indiscretion. So one evening when Lincoln and Seward were waiting at the ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... leave to go and see anybody. And if we take the street we'll hae twa or three idle folk glowerin' an' speerin' this and that at us. I like the bonny ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... to habits of thought and observation, was not idle. When a city was his home he had been a physiologist and had studied man: he made the world his dwelling-place, and wandering among the nations he became an ethnologist and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... no narrow system of vicious politics', no idle contest for ministerial victories', sank him to the vulgar level of ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... he was not compelled to move a muscle. The Boer burgher could eat, sleep, or fight whenever he wished, and inasmuch as he was a law unto himself, there was no one who could compel him to change his habits. It was an ideal idle-man's mode of living and the foreign volunteers who had leaves of absence from their own armies made the most of their holiday, but in that respect they did not surpass their ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... seemed to beckon her onward, her heart at times grew desperate with the apprehension that all had been in vain. For Sergius, content that the wife whom he neglected did not disturb his repose with idle complaints, had no thought of inflicting any deeper injury upon her, being well satisfied to have her remain and confer honor upon him by the grace with which she maintained the dignity of his house. And though well ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... hot for them as we can, Dick; and if we cannot do more, we can certainly oblige the French to keep something like a division idle, to hold us in check. With the two battalions, and Moras's irregulars, we ought to be able to harass them amazingly; and to hold any of these mountain passes against ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... study at Castle Street. Swift appeared at last in the summer, and it was in June 1814 that the first of a series of wonderful tours de force was achieved by the completion, in about three weeks, of the last half of Waverley. One of the most striking things in Lockhart is the story of the idle apprentice who became industrious by seeing Scott's hand traversing the paper hour after hour at his study window. The novel actually appeared on July 7, and, being anonymous, made no immediate 'move,' as booksellers say, before Scott set off a fortnight later for his long-planned tour with ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... none; who started with a style of his own, though he may have chosen to annex—"annex the wise it call"; convey is obsolete—to annex whole phrases or whole verses at need, for the use or the ease of an idle minute; and this name of course is Marlowe's. So starting, Shakespeare had yet (like all other and lesser poets born) some perceptible notes in his yet half boyish voice that were not borrowed; ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... were little inclined to break away from the ties which bound them to friends and society, in order to plunge in such a scene of turmoil and confusion as the building of a new city, under such circumstances, must necessarily be. It was of course generally the discontented, the idle, and the bad, that would hope for benefit from such a change as this enterprise proposed to them. Every restless and desperate spirit, every depraved victim of vice, every fugitive and outlaw would be ready to embark in such a scheme, which was ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... and its needs I do not pray, Keep me from stain of sin, just for to-day. Let me both diligently work, and duly pray, Let me be kind in word and deed, just for to-day. Let me no wrong or idle word unthinking say, Set thou a seal upon my lips, just for to-day. Let me be slow to do my will, prompt to obey, Help me to sacrifice myself, just for to-day. So for to-morrow and its needs, I do not pray, But help me, keep me, hold me, Lord, ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody
... I shouldn't like that at all,' she replied, nervously but amiably. She wished to believe that his suggestion about selling the house was merely an idle notion thrown out on the spur of the moment, but she ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... interesting in this great city of yours than to watch the people coming and going from it. All your railway stations fascinate me, especially those which are the connecting links with other countries. Perhaps it is because I am an idle man, and must ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the council found that the awful moment had arrived when they were to sign and seal the perdition of their empire and blot themselves out as a nation, all firmness deserted them and many gave way to tears. Musa alone retained an unaltered mien. "Leave, seniors," cried he, "this idle lamentation to helpless women and children: we are men—we have hearts, not to shed tender tears, but drops of blood. I see the spirit of the people so cast down that it is impossible to save the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... laid upon it, to gloss and tinge it over with superfluous and needless Decorations, which, like too much Drapery in Sculpture and Statuary, will but encumber it; it may disguise the Facts, mar the Reflections, and unnaturalize the Incidents, so as to be lost in a Multiplicity of fine idle Words and Phrases, and reduce our Sterling Substance into an empty Shadow, or rather frenchify our English Solidity into Froth and Whip-syllabub. No; let us have Pamela as Pamela wrote it; in her own Words, without Amputation, or Addition. Produce her to us in her neat Country Apparel, ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... into their homes they found bare, dirty, chilly rooms where the little folk shivered and wailed for food and the mothers looked distracted, gaunt and sullen and half crazed. Over three hundred thousand workers were idle in the city. Meanwhile, to make matters worse, half the money from uptown which had gone in former years into work for the tenements was going over to Belgium instead. And the same relentless drain of war was felt by the tenement ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... blandly, "I was misinformed. I heard the Grantleys were moving up here. I daresay it was merely an idle rumour." ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... sick-list at the "great house." Long after his ailment has been cured he will be seen daily going up to the manor house for his allowance of meat; somehow or other he "can't get a job nohow." The fact is, he has got the name of being an idle scoundrel, and no farmer will take him on. It is some time before you are able to find him out; for as he goes decidedly lame as he passes you in the village street, he generally manages to persuade you that he is very ill. Like a fool, you take compassion on him, and give him an ounce of "baccy" ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... you say such a thing? Why, he rides in the Row at ten o'clock in the morning, goes to the Opera three times a week, changes his clothes at least five times a day, and dines out every night of the season. You don't call that leading an idle life, do you? ...
— An Ideal Husband - A Play • Oscar Wilde
... of his greed of knowledge, he meant 'to learn the whole art of navigation, every rope in the ship and how to handle her on any occasion'; and once when he was shown a young lady's holiday collection of seaweeds, he must cry out, 'It showed me my eyes had been idle.' Nor was his the case of the mere literary smatterer, content if he but learn the names of things. In him, to do and to do well, was even a dearer ambition than to know. Anything done well, any craft, despatch, or finish, delighted and inspired ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... prisons took her into his house, where she either spun worked as a servant, or walked about the city, discoursing upon the sacrament of the altar. Her husband was sent for to take her home, but this she refused while the cause of religion could be served. She was too active to be idle, and her conversation, simple as they affected to think her, excited the attention of several catholic priests and friars. They teazed her with questions, till she answered them angrily, and this excited a laugh at ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... frankly curious, had little time to indulge in idle surmise. All her faculties were bent on mastering the big modern type-writer that presented such different problems from the ancient machine on which she had pounded out her lessons. She didn't like this sensitive, temperamental affair that went off half-cocked ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... received with caution; accusations against a great body are easily made; and it is rarely consistent with the dignity of the latter to reply; they are received as truths either because people are too idle to examine or because there is no opportunity ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... calculated how much is lost to every good cause by the simple withdrawal of money from circulation. Those four crown pieces had they been carefully invested, so as to double in value, by compound interest, every ten years, would have increased to one thousand pounds during the years they had lain idle! ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... to be idle at his father's expense than to do a little work for a handsome salary," said Mr. May; "everything is right that is extracted from his father's pocket, though it is contrary to a high code of honour to accept a sinecure. Fine reasoning that, is it not? The one wrongs nobody, while ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... or a stab with the knife is generally the ready remedy for infidelity. Although strict Mahometans, the women are never veiled; neither do they adopt the excessive reserve assumed by the Turks and Egyptians. The Arab women are generally idle, and one of the conditions of accepting a suitor is that a female slave is to be provided for the special use of the wife. No Arab woman will engage herself as a domestic servant; thus, so long as their present customs shall remain ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... a stop, and consequently all their workmen discharged. Add to these that the river was in a manner without boats, and all or most part of the watermen, lightermen, boat-builders, and lighter-builders in like manner idle and laid by. ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... house and furniture had been changed for poor rooms, with little in them, except what was barely necessary. The oldest child, a son, about nineteen years of age, on to whose maturity the mother had often looked with a lively hope, following the example of his father, had become idle and dissipated; spending most of his time in low taverns and gambling-shops. Here was a keen sorrow which no heart but a mother's can understand. Oh, what a darkening of all the dreams of early years! When a warm-hearted girl, looking into the pleasant future ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... large open boat with wooden frame and sealskin covering. The women row the umiaks while the men sit idle. It is beneath the dignity of the latter to handle the oars when women ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... He was some way off and evidently unaware of my presence—I saw a sort of three-quarter length of him over a pile of toys and through an arch—and, you know, he was leaning against a pillar in an idle sort of way doing the most horrid things with his features! The particular horrid thing he did was with his nose. He did it just as though he was idle and wanted to amuse himself. First of all it was a short, blobby nose, and then suddenly he shot it out like ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... to ask you," said my solicitor—"have you any money lying idle at the bank? Because ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... darkness of the evening had drawn down, coming along early with the howling gloom of the storm-shrouded ocean, without so much as a rusty tinge of hectic to tell us where the West lay, that we abandoned our idle task of staring at the sea, and made up our minds to go through with the night as ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... folly see fit to commit. My experience c'n jus' 's well be a warnin' to you too, f'r I was put off three miles from where there ain't no omnibus, 'n' I had to leg it over a road 's is laid out three hills to the mile. I ain't one 's is give to idle words, but I will remark 't by the time I'd clum the fourth hill I hadn't no kind o' family feelin's left alive within me, 'n' when I did finally get to Knoxville I was so nigh to puffed out 't I c'd hardly find breath to ask where Cousin Marion did live. It was a boy skippin' rope 's ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... dredged channel Orde saw the rivermen standing idle, and, half-blind with anger he burst upon them demanding by this, that and the other what they meant. Then ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... effects of tobacco upon public and private morals, are seen in the idle, sauntering habits, which the use of it engenders,—in the benumbing, grovelling, stupid sensations which it induces,—but especially in perpetuating and extending the practice of ...
— A Disquisition on the Evils of Using Tobacco - and the Necessity of Immediate and Entire Reformation • Orin Fowler
... familiar to her entrance. The children smiled at her approach; their mothers rose and courtesied with affectionate respect. How many names and how many wants had she to remember! yet nothing was forgotten. Some were rewarded for industry, some were admonished not to be idle; but all were treated with an engaging suavity more efficacious than gifts or punishments. The aged were solaced by her visit; the sick forgot their pains; and, as she listened with sympathising patience to long narratives of rheumatic griefs, it seemed her presence ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... fourteen months And in all that time I'll say We never catched him a-sleepin' once Er idle a single day. But shucks! It made him worse and worse A-writin' rhymes and stuff, And the school committee used to furse 'At ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... boats and coal-barges. What wonder? When I was a child, I used to fancy a look of weary, dumb appeal upon the face of the negro-like river slavishly bearing its burden day after day. Something of the same idle notion comes to me to-day, when from the street-window I look on the slow stream of human life creeping past, night and morning, to the great mills. Masses of men, with dull, besotted faces bent to the ground, sharpened here and there by pain or cunning; skin and muscle and ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis
... who uses wood, whether to build, fence, burn, box his goods, or timber his mine, is directly interested in a cheap and plentiful supply of timber. Every acre burned, every cut-over acre lying idle, raises the price for him without furnishing any revenue with which to help pay it. Every acre saved from fire, every acre of young growth, lowers it for him and ...
— Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest • Edward Tyson Allen
... puts the matter in that way, wrinkling her pretty brows, twisting her little hands, and growing wistful in the eyes, all on account of an idle scamp like myself, for whom she has no natural responsibility, I am visited with compunction. Moreover, I thought it possible that I could pass the time in the position suggested with some ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... he would be constantly liable to disturbance by the first comer who coveted the spot and thought himself strong enough to drive away the possessor. But the truth is that all such cavil at these positions is perfectly idle from the very baselessness of the positions themselves. What mankind did in the primitive state may not be a hopeless subject of inquiry, but of their motives for doing it it is impossible to know anything. These ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... virtue your enormities I see: And I wish that a reversal of the laws of gravitation Would prevent your vicious current from contaminating me! With your hedonists who grovel on a cushion with a novel (Which is sure to sap the morals and the intellect to stunt), And the spectacle nefarious of your idle, gay Lotharios Who pursue a mild flirtation in ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... little spot upon the landscape, a patch of grey on the stretch of forest and snow. A shutter blowing in the wind gave an impression of desertion, for how could any one, however wretched, sit idle under that recurrent bang? ...
— The Burglar and the Blizzard • Alice Duer Miller
... of the house, till, through the window of the music-room, he could see Irene at the piano, with lamp-light falling on her powdery hair; withdrawn into herself she seemed, her dark eyes staring straight before her, her hands idle. Jolyon saw her raise those hands and clasp them over her breast. 'It's Jon, with her,' he thought; 'all Jon! I'm dying out of ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... patrimony. You are too sensible a man. Pray let us have no delay, Mr Allcraft. See what we want. Mr Brammel will go to London to-morrow. We must take time by the forelock. Let us meet these heavy payments, and then we can think, and breathe, and talk. Till then it is idle to wrangle, and to lose one's temper. Very well: then there's little more, I imagine, to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... from an almost paralyzing depression—Medchester, perhaps, as severely as any town in the United Kingdom. Its staple manufactures were being imported from the States and elsewhere at prices which the local manufacturers declared to be ruinous. Many of the largest factories were standing idle, a great majority of the remainder were being worked at half or three-quarters time. Thoughtful men, looking ten years ahead, saw the cloud, which even now was threatening enough, grow blacker and blacker, and shuddered at the ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... brilliant moon. At Dade's invitation they all went down to the bunkhouse. In spite of the dilapidated appearance of its exterior, the interior of the building was in comparatively good condition—due to the continual tinkering of Malcolm, who liked to spend his idle hours there—and Malcolm lighted a candle, placed it on the rough table, took a deck of cards from the shelf, and the three played "pitch" for two hours. At the end of that time Malcolm said he was going to bed. Dade signified that he intended ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... the scapegrace every luxury and indulgence, and, self-absorbed as he was in an ideal sphere, felt the deepest interest in all the most trivial things that concerned him. Much to the uncle's sorrow, Karl cared nothing for music; but, worst of all, he was an idle, selfish, heartless fellow, who sneered at his benefactor, and valued him only for what he could get from him. At last Beethoven became fully aware of the lying ingratitude of his nephew, and he exclaims: "I know now you have no pleasure ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... man a new meaning; or, rather, he learned little by little to read the message that lay on the open pages; first a word here and there, then sentences, then paragraphs, and soon he was reading alone, as he tramped the hills for stray stock, or worked in the mountain field. The idle days of winter and the long evenings were spent in reading aloud from the books that had come to mean ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... nurse of trembling fear, A path that leads to peril and mishap, A true retreat of sorrow and despair, An idle boy that sleeps in Pleasure's lap; A deep distrust of that which certain seems, A hope of ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... The idle Greek fine gentlemen of Tarentum sat in their theatre one day, overlooking the sea, shaded by dyed awnings from the afternoon sun, listening entranced to some grand play,—the Oedipus King, perhaps, or ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... as much as you like, but let me tell you that the life of a clergyman's wife—honoured, respected, and useful—is a more profitable one than the idle existence which you lead, utterly purposeless and lazy. You never do one single thing from morning ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... imaginary beauty, of a sort which extinguishes rather than stimulates vulgar love,—a heavenly beauty like that which flashed from time to time before the eyes of Dante or Bunyan? Surely the latter. But it would be idle to reconcile all the details of the passage: it is a picture, not a system, and a picture which is for the greater part an allegory, and an allegory which allows the meaning to come through. The image of the ...
— Phaedrus • Plato
... of a man who finds himself compelled to answer an idle question, and assuming an air of hypocritical commiseration, he replied: "Well, since you insist upon it, I know, in Paris—in the Rue de Helder, to be more exact—a nice young fellow, whose lot I have often envied. He has wanted for nothing since ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... of the trick you played on her. You bear the label of a gentleman, so it is my earnest hope—indeed, my sincere belief—that you will respect the trust she placed in you, and not expose her to the idle chatter of clubs and scandal-spreading drawing-rooms. During two days I have been very bitter against you. To-day I take a calmer view, and, provided that neither my daughter nor I ever see or hear of you ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... Egyptians and Ethiopians to have been of the Caucasian or white race!—So, also, this colored gentleman, makes all ancient great white men, black—as Diogenes, Socrates, Themistocles, Pompey, Caesar, Cato, Cicero, Horace, Virgil, et cetera. Gliddon's idle nonsense has found a capital match in the production of Mr. Lewis' "Light and Truth," and both should be sold together. We may conclude by expressing our thanks to our brother Lewis, as we do not think that Professor Gliddon's learned ignorance, would have ever met an equal but for "Light ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... through the deepest night that has yet settled upon the earth. In the midst of the most extravagant superstition, there have been individuals who have disowned the popular belief, and considered it a mark of wisdom and true philosophy to discard the idle fancies and absurd schemes of faith that possessed the minds of the great mass of their contemporaries. This was the case with Horace, as appears from lines thus quite freely ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... world which was so much in the mind of the one and so little in the thought of the other, and if they chance to fall into chat—Shakspere spoke French, pretty certainly, even if Moliere knew no English—we may rest assured that they will not surprize each other by idle questions about the meaning of this play or that, its moral purpose or its symbolic significance. We may be confident that their talk would turn promptly to technic; and, perhaps, Shakspere would congratulate Moliere on his advantage ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... nearest and dearest to Coleridge by affection and biood have left on record their sentiments respecting him in the following language. His nephew says: "Coleridge was a student all his life. He was very rarely indeed idle in the common sense of the term, but he was consitutionally indolent, averse from continuous exertion externally directed, and consequently the victim of a procrastinating habit, the occasion of innumerable distresses to himself and of endless solicitude to his friends, ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... out at 12.30 the sun seemed to pour right through his skin, into the drab chamber of his soul, gilding it. He hurried over his macaroon tart and cup of coffee, and then had three-quarters of an hour left to idle in the square. ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... little praise to be got from men for that," said Wingfold; "and I am sure Richard does not seek any. He would help men to see that the man who serves his neighbour, is the man whom the Lord of the universe honours. An idle man, or one busy only for himself, is like a lump of refuse floating this way and that in the flux and reflux of the sewer-tide of the world. Were Richard lord of lands it would be absurd of him to give his life to bookbinding; that would be to desert ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... memory of which has been preserved partly by the appellation -Punicum- given to a little village on the Caerite coast, partly by the other name of the town of Caere itself, -Agylla-, which is not, as idle fiction asserts, of Pelasgic origin, but is a Phoenician word signifying the "round town"—precisely the appearance which Caere presents when seen from the sea. That this station and any similar establishments ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... written from Paris that his Majesty was very much displeased with Spinola's prosperity, ascribing it to the want of good councils on the part of the States' Government that so fine an army should lie idle so long, without making an attempt to relieve the beleaguered places, so that Spinola felt assured of taking anything as soon as he made his appearance. "Your Mightinesses cannot believe," continued the agent, "what a ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... great distinction and privilege to have been requested to take a part in the proceedings of this day. It is a day which will not soon pass from the recollection of those who have partaken in its admirably-conducted festivities. In assembling to do honour to the memory of Burns, in no idle or frivolous spirit, but impressed with those elevated emotions which have so plainly animated the whole of this mighty gathering, we have a right to feel that we do honour to ourselves as individuals, and as a nation. Our assembling has been prompted by a love of all that is purest ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... weeks idle at Harper's Ferry, gave Lee time to reorganize his army and to take positions. Elections. ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... reticence, he was a sensitive man; and for months now he could scarcely take up a newspaper, except his party's official organ, without finding himself accused of imbecility, of idle vanity, of corrupt bargaining, of every unworthy motive. Worse than all, he realized the inherent weakness of his position. He told his hearers at Waterford that the Irish party would not vary its attitude ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... who could not help themselves, the god of the lazy and incapable. The nineteenth century decided that there is indeed no such god; and now Man must take in hand all the work that he used to shirk with an idle prayer. He must, in effect, change himself into the political Providence which he formerly conceived as god; and such change is not only possible, but the only sort of change that is real. The mere transfiguration of institutions, as from military and priestly dominance to commercial and scientific ...
— Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion • George Bernard Shaw
... humbler being, doomed to a place so far below, avows to himself that he is ugly and monstrous. But amidst his wailing he feels in himself a power greater than the East can know. With the will of a hero, through the very greatness of his desire, he breaks out of his idle coverings. He loves so much, this monster, that he is loved, and, in return, through ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... pleasure in the brand new Republic than his actual experience warranted. The roughness of the strong, uncultured young life grated upon him. It jarred upon his sensibilities. But of Italy he wrote with very different feeling. What though the places were dirty, the people shiftless, idle, unpunctual, unbusinesslike, and the fleas as the sand which is upon the sea-shore for multitude? It mattered not while life was so picturesque and varied, and manners were so full of amenity. Your inn might be, and probably was, ill-appointed, untidy, the floors of brick, the doors ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... internal golden flame of the opal; a something which may be abstracted from the thing in which it appears, without changing the quality of its substance, its form, or its affinities. I am not, therefore, disposed to consider the idle and reckless childhood of Byron as unfavourable to the development of his genius; but, on the contrary, inclined to think, that the indulgence of his mother, leaving him so much to the accidents of undisciplined ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... I ought to do, in order to pursue that single, absorbing, exquisite gratification. I am afraid, sir, you think me very foolish. I know the first letter I wrote to you was all senseless trash from beginning to end; but I am not altogether the idle dreaming being it would seem to denote. My father is a clergyman of limited, though competent income, and I am the eldest of his children. He expended quite as much in my education as he could afford in justice to the ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... answered easily,—the boy was with his nurse in the courtyard, the idle wench left him for but a minute or two—so she avers—fetch him some childish toy; when she returned he was gone; not a trace left, save his pretty cap with the plume in it! Poor Adeline, many a time have I found her kissing that relic ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... laugh, and M. le Major! Just look at Gogo again. Have you forgotten what he is doing now? I haven't.... He has just changed the musee des familles for the Penny Magazine, and is explaining Hogarth's pictures of the 'Idle and Industrious Apprentices' to Mimsey, and they are both agreed that the idle one is much the less ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... impudence. They'll all get a pension when they're too old to work, and good food and good pay whilst they're working, and I've said to them 'you're no more emancipated than I am, we're all slaves to our duty and the only difference between now and the old days is I can't sell you—and if you were idle enough to make me want to sell you there's no one would buy such rubbish nowadays.' Half the trouble is that people these times don't know how to talk to coloured folk, and the other half is that they don't want to talk ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... was made of mixed earth, covered with sea-sand and powdered shells as at Versailles. The park was much secluded, except on this side, which was that only accessible to the public in general. There, Spring Gardens, with its bowling-greens and gaming-tables, seduced the idle and dissipated, until the Mulberry Garden (which stood on the site of Carlton Gardens) put forth its attractions; and which, as Evelyn says, became "the only place of refreshment about the town for persons of the best quality to be exceedingly ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... was like oil beneath and the mists like snow above and about, while we groped blindly. Of course we could not press forward under the circumstances; for we were surrounded by islands great and small, and any one of these might silently materialize at a moment's notice; but we were not idle. Now and again our paddles beat the water impetuously, and they hung dripping, while the sea stretched around us as we leisurely drifted on like a larger bubble in danger of bursting upon an unexpected rock. We sounded frequently. There was an abundance of water—there nearly always is throughout ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... afternoon—a period of anecdote, reminiscence, and mirth. They were all young then, and laughed easily. Howells, has written of one such luncheon given by Ralph Keeler, a young Californian—a gathering at which James T. Fields was present "Nothing remains to me of the happy time but a sense of idle and aimless and joyful talk-play, beginning and ending nowhere, of eager laughter, of countless good stories from Fields, of a heat-lightning shimmer of wit from Aldrich, of an occasional concentration of our joint mockeries upon our host, who ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Opening a single essay at random, we find in it citations from Montesquieu, Schiller, Milton, Herodotus, Shelley, Plutarch, Franklin, Bacon, Van Helmont, Goethe. So little does Emerson lend himself to the idle vanity of seeking all the treasures of wisdom in his own head, or neglecting the hoarded authority of the ages. It is true that he held the unholy opinion that a translation is as good as the original, or better. Nor need we suppose ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley
... peasant began to cut capers, as though to amuse his Generals, because they had been kind to him, an idle sluggard, and had not scorned his peasant toil. And he built a ship—not a ship exactly, but a boat—so that they could sail across the ocean-sea, up ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... to reply, she continued: "Then it was only idle curiosity that brought you here. You wished to know the source of the money which you spend like water. Very well, you may see for yourself. This is a gambling house; one of those establishments frequented by distinguished personages, which ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... in anything like a direct line, and it was found that they were drifting rapidly down stream. Still, Lena-Wingo persevered in his calm, unexcited way until the middle of the river was nearly reached, when it struck both the young scouts that it was hardly the thing for them to sit idle in the boat while he was toiling so manfully to work his way over. Ned whispered to Jo that he meant to take a hand ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... King can do no wrong" had not been bred in the young Prince's mind, he would have deserted his sovereign in the early days of their exile. But as it was, he made excuses for him to others and to himself, and served the King's idle purposes so well that he gained for himself the name of the King's jackal, and there were some who regarded him as little better than the King's confidential blackguard, and man Friday, the weakest if the most charming ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis
... illness, as he sat by the stove, the memory of Emma Byers came to him often. She had left that district twenty-eight years ago, and had married, and lived in Chicago somewhere, he had heard, and was prosperous. He wasted no time in idle regrets. He had been a fool, and he paid the price of fools. Bella, slamming noisily about the room, never suspected the presence in the untidy place of a third person—a sturdy girl of twenty-two or -three, very wholesome to look at, and with honest, intelligent ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... were the Emperor and his young "Confucius" idle? By no means. They had hatched a counterplot, and had decided that what they could not do by moral suasion and statesmanship they would do by force, and so they sent an order to Yuan Shih-kai, who as we have said had drilled and was in charge of 12,500 of the best troops in the empire, urging him ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... he had by his neglect raised up so many idle spies and merciless judges of his actions, so many collectors and propagators of malicious rumor. As their pride did not quit them with their prosperity, so now, driven by necessity, they trafficked with the sole capital which they could not alienate—their nobility, and the political influence ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... sea and quiet sky, Idle sail and anchored boat, Just a snowflake gull afloat, Drifting like a feather— And the gray hawk crying, And a man's heart sighing— That is blue-bird weather:— And the high hawk crying, And a maid's heart sighing ...
— Blue-Bird Weather • Robert W. Chambers
... what thee say'st, Adam," observed Seth, gravely. "But thee know'st thyself as it's hearing the preachers thee find'st so much fault with has turned many an idle fellow into an industrious un. It's the preacher as empties th' alehouse; and if a man gets religion, he'll do his work none ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... Here, then, is a great field, whose supplies of bread cannot be carried to our army, or, rather, which will raise no supplies of bread, because there is no body to eat them. Was it not, then, wise in Congress to remove to that field four thousand idle mouths, who must otherwise have interfered with the pasture of our own troops? And, if they are removed to any other part of the country, will it not defeat this wise purpose? The mills on the waters of James river, above the falls, open to canoe navigation, are very many. Some of them are of ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... was not disposed to repeat all that Frank had said. A year ago, before he went away, he had told his sister a score of times that he meant to marry Mary Thorne if she would have him; but Beatrice now looked on all that as idle, boyish vapouring. The pity was, that Mary should have ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... that before he would yield to the demands of his workmen, his factory should stand idle until the buildings rotted to ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... suddenly very sad and would not laugh any more. So the king issued a proclamation that whoever made his daughter laugh, whether he were a prince, peasant, or beggar, should become her husband. Many made the attempt, but none succeeded. Now there was a poor woman who had an only son, who was idle and would not learn any trade; so finally his mother sent him to a farmer to keep his sheep. One day, as he was driving the sheep over the fields, he came to a well, and bent over it to drink. As he did so he saw a handsome ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... leading her on. He could not speak of her to his wife without shame and remorse. He had no idea what could have been her fate, for the poor girl had disappeared from the face of the earth, and now, at last, this day had proved to him the threats of her lover and her brothers were not idle. He had had so narrow a squeak for his life, so sharp and sudden and hard a fight for it that, now that the peril was over, his nerve began to give way, his strong hands to tremble. Armed with breech-loaders, he and his two friends had been able to ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... all those people who had hushed their various work and were now resting, or soon would be, in the unconsciousness and the helplessness of sleep. The helplessness,—and then that Eye that never sleeps; that Hand that keeps them all, that is never idle, that is the safety and the strength alike of all the earth and of them that ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... March has risen upon us with all the primeval splendor of the birth-morn of creation. The lovely river, having resumed its crimson border (the so long idle miners being again busily at work), glides by, laughing gayly, leaping and clapping its glad waves joyfully in the golden sunlight. The feathery fringe of the fir-trees glitters like emerald in the luster-bathing air. A hundred tiny rivulets ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... of that kraal?" I asked of one of the Kafirs who had collected round us in our trouble, as such idle fellows always do. ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... a thing absolute; it is not altered by circumstances, especially for a circumstance so trivial as a young man's idle fancy." ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... idle in regard to the investigation of the effects of tobacco, and the discoveries made have been published, so that we are not now ignorant of the tobacco heart, or tobacco throat, or tobacco nerves, nor of the transmission of nerve degeneracy ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... too many immigrants settle in our cities, thus dangerously increasing their idle and vicious population. This is certainly a disadvantage. It can not be shown, however, that it affects all our cities, nor that it is permanent; nor does it appear that this condition where it exists demands as its remedy the reversal of ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... to Dr. Morga concerning China and the possibility, desirability, and advantages of the Chinese trade in China instead of Manila, and the opposition of the Portuguese. China he describes as a country "full of rivers and towns, and without a palmo of ground left lying idle." Meanwhile the third vessel of Luis Perez's fleet, commanded by Luis Ortiz, reaches Camboja, where he and his companions join the Spanish, Portuguese, and Japanese already there. This small force, which ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... himself Lord Ruthven, an idle and dissolute sybarite, who under the circumstances promised to push his devotion so far as to wear a cuirass; then, sure of this important accomplice, he busied himself with finding ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Of the higher castes, of the priest, of the prince. But not of the people. The ideal was not for them, salvation either. It was idle even to think about it. Set in hell, they had to return here until in some one of the twenty-four lakhs of birth which the chain of migrations comports, and which to saint and soudra were alike dispensed, they arrived here in the purple. Then only was the opportunity theirs to rescale ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... of state cannot indulge with impunity in Andalusian dreams, but Lord Roehampton was well served. His under-secretaries of state were capable and experienced men, and their chief had not been altogether idle in his wanderings. He had visited Paris, and the capital of France in those days was the capital of diplomacy. The visit of Lord Roehampton had settled some questions which might have lingered for years, and ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... for almost every Prince in Italy, and being now old, he returned to Cortona, where, in those last years of his life, he worked more for pleasure than for any other reason, as one who, being used to labour, neither could nor would stay idle. In this his old age, then, he painted a panel for the Nuns of S. Margherita at Arezzo, and one for the Company of S. Girolamo, which was paid for in part by Messer Niccolo Gamurrini, Doctor of Laws and Auditor of the Ruota,[9] who is portrayed from life ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... is. I didn't realise that I needed it a bit until I actually found myself here, with nothing to do except rest and play. It's doing everybody good. You should have heard the plans at breakfast to-day. Although it's been so hot, nobody has been idle a minute. I've been fishing all day with Lanse and Fred and Celia. Andy, do you know what I think? I admit I didn't think it till Lanse put it into my head, but I believe ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... gate leading to the meadow, down the foot-path, up the mountain-road, jumping from stone to stone, courageous and intrepid as a true daughter of the Tyrol. Now she stood at the portal of the castle, in front of which some of the Bavarian soldiers were lying in idle repose on a bench, while others in the side-wing of the castle allotted to them were looking out of the windows, and dreamily humming a Bavarian song, frequently ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... more afterward). If he prays, faith must indite his prayer; if he obey, faith must work; if he live, it is faith that must quicken him; and if he die, it is faith that must order him in death. And wheresoever faith is, it will do wonders in the soul of that man where it is; it can not be idle; it will have footsteps, it sets the whole man on work; it moveth feet, and hands, and eyes, and all parts of the body. Mark how the apostle disputeth: "We having the same spirit of faith, according ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... tearing yourself away purse-whole, it is only to fall a victim to some painted fans of so exquisite a make and decoration that escape short of possession is impossible. Opposed as stubbornly as you may be to idle purchase at home, here you will find yourself the prey of an acute case of shopping fever before you know it. Nor will it be much consolation subsequently to discover that you have squandered your patrimony upon the most ordinary articles of every-day use. If in despair you turn for refuge ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... Trevor; that is what I mean. You are a young man. I don't know you, but you come recommended to me, by my very learned friends. You have not the cares of the church to trouble you, and so you fill up your idle time with writing.'—'My lord!'—'Nay, Mr. Trevor, you write very prettily. I could write too, but I have not time. I never had time. I had aways a deal of business on my hands: persons of distinction ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... words were not idle, for the channel of the mighty river changes with the caprice of a maiden's heart. With irresistible momentum the tawny flood rolls over the continent, now impatiently ploughing its way across a great bend, destroying plantations and abruptly leaving towns and villages many miles ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... particular duties, or of the uses and purposes of our natural faculties, creatures of impulse, slaves of circumstances, the pleasures of this hour fill them with vanity, the devotion of the next with enthusiasm, or perhaps terror. Charmed by worldly follies because they are ignorant or idle, and without resistance to vice because they have never learned self-command, they seek to extirpate all the natural emotions and desires which they do not know how to regulate, and so give up the world. But they deceive themselves; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... during the years in which she was "finished" in Edinburgh, and never saw a map then. She felt interested in geography when her children were learning it. No boy in Mr. Murray's school was allowed to be idle; every spare minute was given to arithmetic. In the parish school boys of all classes were taught. Sir David Brewster's sons went to it; but there were fewer girls, partly because no needlework was taught ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... the silence of the population, drifted over one's head across the bridges, and the fantastic architecture and the coffee-drinking and music in the Piazza San Marco, everything fitted into my lazy, idle nature and weakness of body, as if I had been born to the manner of it and to no other. Do you know I expected in Venice a dreary sort of desolation? Whereas there was nothing melancholy at all, only a soothing, lulling, rocking atmosphere which if Armida had lived in a city rather than ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... movement. They do far more than this, for seeds sown in the early days which they describe would have fallen upon ground so stony that if they had sprung up they would soon have withered away. The pioneers in the work for the redemption of women found an unbroken field, not fallow from lying idle, but arid and barren, filled with the unyielding rocks of prejudice and choked with the thorns of conservatism. It required many years of labor as hard as that endured by the forefathers in wresting their lands from undisturbed nature, before the ground was ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... consulted his bonne amie, Madame de Montbrune. This lady determined that if Bonaparte and his wife were desirous to be served, or waited on, by persons above them by ancestry and honour, they should pay liberally for such sacrifices. She was not therefore idle, but wishing to profit herself by the pride of upstart vanity, she had at first merely reconnoitred the ground, or made distant overtures to those families of the ancient French nobility who had been ruined by the Revolution, and ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... light. From the hour when they crawl from their comfortless bed to the hour when they lounge back into it again they never live one moment of real life. Recreation, amusement, companionship, they know not the meaning of. Joy, sorrow, laughter, tears, love, friendship, longing, despair, are idle words to them. From the day when their baby eyes first look out upon their sordid world to the day when, with an oath, they close them forever and their bones are shoveled out of sight, they never warm to one touch of human sympathy, never thrill to a single thought, never start to a single hope. ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... and I watched him as he dwindled down the long grey road that wound along the river-side until in the end he was lost to view—for all time, I hoped; and well had it been for me had my idle hope been realized. ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... occupy themselves with the arts common among them. The same kiva thus serves as a temple during a sacred feast, at other times as a council house for the discussion of public affairs. It is also used as a workshop by the industrious and as a lounging place by the idle. ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... liked to busy himself in the department of writing also,—he knew how to do that beautifully, as you are aware; but his hands shook so, and he could not hold the pen properly.... He was always reproaching himself: 'I'm an idle dog,' he said. 'I have done no one any good, I have helped no one, I have not toiled!' He was very much afflicted over that same.... He used to say, 'Our people toil, but what are we doing?...' Akh, Nikolai Nikolaitch, he was a fine man—and he loved ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... required. Her position, when not asleep, is with her bare feet bent under her in Turkish fashion, and there she sits all day long before her fire, engaged in making clothing, cooking, or other household duties, and is seldom idle. When at work she lifts up her voice and sings. The tune lacks melody but not power. It is a relief to her weary soul, and few would be cruel enough to deprive her of that comfort, for her pleasures are not many. She is the slave of her children and her ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... gambolled or quarrelled uproariously, and came freely, moreover, and looked into the window of our parlor. When we ventured out, we were followed by the gaze of the whole town: people standing in their door-ways, old women popping their heads from the chamber-windows, and stalwart men—idle on Saturday at e'en, after their week's hard labor—clustering at the street-corners, merely to stare at our unpretending selves. Except in some remote little town of Italy, (where, besides, the inhabitants had the intelligible stimulus of beggary,) I have never been honored ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... ark, half lost among the reeds, is cast the impregnable shield of His purpose. All things serve that Will. The current in the full river, the lie of the flags that stop it from being borne down, the hour of the princess's bath, the direction of her idle glance, the cry of the child at the right moment, the impulse welling up in her heart, the swift resolve, the innocent diplomacy of the sister, the shelter of the happy mother's breast, the safety of the palace,—all these and a hundred more trivial ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... third day of mellow, delicious, sunshiny weather. I am writing this in the recesses of the old woods, my seat on a big pine log, my back against a tree. Am down here a few days for a change, to bask in the Autumn sun, to idle lusciously and simply, and to eat hearty meals, especially my breakfast. Warm mid-days—the other hours of the twenty-four delightfully fresh and mild—cool evenings, and early mornings perfect. The scent of the woods, and the peculiar aroma of a great yet unreap'd maize-field ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... conservation of our natural resources, such as forests and waterways; it is hoped that this book will show the vital importance of the conservation of human strength and health, and the irreparable loss to society of energy uselessly dissipated, either in idle worry or in aimless activity. Most of us would reproach ourselves for lack of shrewdness if we spent for any article more than it was worth, yet few of us consider that we daily expend on domestic and business tasks an amount of energy ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... for occupancy before the winter storms set in and the whole forest world was buried in snow. Still the inmates of "Castle Beaver," as Donald named their cosy dwelling, were by no means idle nor did an hour of time hang heavily on their hands for lack of occupation. Ah-mo had gathered an immense supply of flags and sedge grass, from which she not only braided enough of the matting, so commonly used among the northern ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... same time had not been idle in his little navy yard at Black Rock near Buffalo, where he had assembled a small brig and several schooners. In December Chauncey inspected the work and decided to shift it to Presqu' Isle, now the city of Erie, which was much less exposed ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... day and idle, with little to feed the mind—and the barber was a mischievous man with an irritated ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... Colonel, "and deputed me to act for her. I have to beg that you will treat our children as the children of strangers: reward them with favour when they are good, and punish them when they are otherwise. We have confidence in our friends, therefore shall never listen to any idle tales; but my little girl," he continued, as he fondly stroked the hair from the forehead of his youngest daughter, "will I know ...
— The Boarding School • Unknown
... the shore, flocks of pelicans are observed upon the rocks, and that most awkward of birds, the penguin, is seen in idle groups. He is a good swimmer, but his apologetic wings are ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... subjects, therefore, young persons should be taught to think justly, and write clearly, neatly, and succinctly, lest they come from school into the world without any acquaintance with common affairs, and stand idle spectators of mankind, in expectation that some great event will give them an opportunity to exert ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... The reminiscences of idle men are apt to be more entertaining than those of busy men. The idler, passing his time in search of amusement, can hardly fail to communicate it when he yields up his store of experiences. Being ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... Their idle tales brought no relief to the anxious monarch, and at length, when his artists showed him pictures of the bearded Spaniards and strings of glittering beads from Cortes, the emperor could doubt no longer, and exclaimed: "Truly this is the Quetzalcoatl we expected, he who ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... opinion, the Europeans themselves are to blame for the large sums they have to pay for servants. They saw the native princes and rajahs surrounded by a multitude of idle people, and, as Europeans, they did not wish to appear in anyway inferior. Gradually the custom became a necessity, and it would be difficult to find a case where a ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... stir in the air also became perceptible, and the idle sails, that had so long flapped against the yards lazily only with the roll of the ship as she lurched to port or starboard with the ocean swell, were crumpled out a bit, as if they half felt inclined to expand their folds; but there was not wind ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... purpose is the text in Hebrews: "He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and He is a rewarder of such as diligently seek Him." If then the religious sentiments thrill us not in vain—if all attempts of all men to commune with God have not always and everywhere been idle—there must be ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden
... foiled. There is not the slightest fear of the "Boycotters" running their heads against Winchester rifles and army revolvers, and the convoy need apprehend nothing hotter or harder than curses and groans, which, "like the idle wind, hurt ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... the Cabinet balls of Lord Westmoreland. There was, moreover, hanging over the minds of men the electric pressure of the wonderful events with which France shook the Continent, and made the Islands tremble. There was hasty hope, or idle exultation, or pious fear, or panic terror, in the hearts of the leading spectators of that awful drama, according to the prejudices or principles they maintained. Over all the three kingdoms there was ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... Beckets and cleats, fixed into the walls of the sitting-room, held and secured against any possible damage the pipes, fish-lines, dolphin-grains, and sou'westers of the worthy Captain; and here he and his sat, when he was at home, through the long winter evenings, in simple and not often idle content. The kitchen, flanked by the compendious outhouses which make our New England kitchens almost luxurious in the comfort and handiness of every arrangement, was the centre of Hepsy Ann's kingdom, where she reigned ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... who, subscribing in London for their passage to and from the Rhine in a given time, and for a trifling sum, find themselves in a few hours transported from the bustle of Oxford Street, Ludgate Hill, or the Strand, to the happy, idle, fat, laughing, easy enjoyment of a German Thee-Garten, in the midst of four or five hundred men, women, and children—all eating, drinking, and smoking as if time, cares, and business had no influence over them. It is a life so new to him, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various
... superior numbers, although we had 15,000 idle troops at Norfolk within hearing of the battle. The government would not interfere, and Gen. Huger refused to allow the use of a few ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... wholly confined to youngsters and idlers, who are ever ready to seize upon novelty and enter upon bustle; but further off, it extended to old and young, hale and infirm, asthmatic and long-winded, grave and gay, taught and untaught, respectable and disreputable, industrious and idle, till it reached a compass of twenty miles at least, extending not only to the Forth and Tay, but stretching inland from their opposite shores. In short, men who had never climbed a mountain all their lives ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various
... interesting experiment to attempt to reconcile these hereditary enemies. He welcomed anything that would occupy his time and his mind beyond the filling of his belly and the gloomy thoughts to which he fell prey the moment that he became idle. ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... significance in the effect at once produced in the sugar-raising islands by the passage of the Payne Bill: idle fields were planted to cane, and the elections took an unmistakable americanista trend. There is no better peacemaker than the pay-master. The Assembly, it is true, fulminated against the bill: success, prosperity, contentment under its operation might mean the ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... and drone is ever idle. The happy-go-lucky bumblebee, which buzzes so near us on these warm summer days, is always on the go, although she is easy-going and happy-go-lucky. Mrs. Bumblebee isn't an over-particular person, as bee persons go. She is not a careful housekeeper, like her cousin Mrs. Honey-Bee, but ...
— Little Busybodies - The Life of Crickets, Ants, Bees, Beetles, and Other Busybodies • Jeanette Augustus Marks and Julia Moody
... "ingenious argument," Mr. Raymond said: "It seems to me idle to enter into such calculations, which depend on a series of estimates, each one of which can not be any thing more than a wild and random guess. I take it that we all know perfectly well that the great masses of the Southern people 'voluntarily adhered to the insurrection;' ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... way of putting things that I don't know how to contradict you, though I still think I'm right," she said gravely. "Mac likes to idle as well as you, but he is not going to do it because he knows it's bad for him to fritter away his time. He is going to study a profession like a wise boy, though he would much prefer to live among his beloved books or ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... even by taking away from this city a name which is the name of kings. All that thou hast we will duly render thee; nay more, if thou lackest anything, we will supply it bountifully. Depart therefore as a friend might depart; for though this fear be idle, yet it troubles thy countrymen who think that they shall not be quit of kingship till they be quit of all that bear a king's name." To these words Collatinus at the first could answer nothing, so astonished was he at the matter; and afterwards, ...
— Stories From Livy • Alfred Church
... ordinary noises of the forest. His acute senses, the old inherited primitive instinct, noticed at once the jarring note. He moved ever so little but an extraordinary change came over his face. The idle look of luxury and basking warmth passed away and the eyes became alert, watchful, defiant. Every feature, every muscle was drawn, as if he were at the utmost tension. Almost unconsciously his figure sank down farther against the log, until it blended perfectly with the bark ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... smiled, which was not often. Men with that curious, far-off look in their eyes are not uncommon among the lonely islands of the wide Pacific. Sometimes it comes to a man with long, long years of wandering to and fro; and you will see it deepen when, by some idle, chance word, you move the memories of a forgotten past—ere he had even dreamed of the existence of the South Sea Islands and for ever dissevered himself from all links and associations ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke
... any proposal to go anywhere any day or days this week. Fresh air and change in any amount I am ready for. If I could only find an idle man (this is a general observation), he would find the warmest recognition in ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... old term of reproach for idleness, and is here quoted only as bearing upon the nautical lubber. In the "Burnynge of Paule's Church, 1563," it is thus explained—"An Abbey-lubber, that was idle, well-fed, a long lewd lither loiterer, that ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... That he is proud of them goes without saying. Nobody could possibly have whiskers like them without feeling proud of them. I feel that if I had such whiskers I should never be away from the looking-glass. And consider the pleasurable employment they give in idle moments. Satan, it is said, has mischief still for idle hands to do. But no one with such streamers as Sir Edward's can ever have idle hands. When you have nothing else to do with them you stroke your whiskers and purr. Certainly they ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... survive him. And in truth one who spends his time in this manner, lives in quiet contemplation and without being molested by those ambitious desires which are almost always seen, to their shame and loss, in the idle and unoccupied, who are for the most part ignorant. And even if it comes about that our virtuous man is sometimes smitten by the malign, so powerful is the force of virtue that time covers up and buries the malice of the wicked, and the virtuous man, throughout ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari
... morning newspapers before a table still covered with breakfast dishes. It was nearly ten o'clock, long past the hour when most people begin the day's work, and there was nothing, either in the men's dress or manner, to suggest that they belonged to the effete and useless idle class. On the contrary, in appearance they were typical business men—energy, prosperity, masterfulness, showing in their every word and gesture, in every line of their clean-cut, strong-featured faces. On this particular morning they were not ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... fury that seemed indeed to have something positively devilish in it, Sanghurst turned and strode away, leaving Raymond to make what he could of the vindictive threats launched at him. Had this man, in truth, some occult power of which none else had the secret; or was it but an idle boast, uttered with the view of terrifying one who was but a ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... quiet sky, Idle sail and anchored boat, Just a snowflake gull afloat, Drifting like a feather— And the gray hawk crying, And a man's heart sighing— That is blue-bird weather:— And the high hawk crying, And a maid's heart sighing Till lass and lover come ...
— Blue-Bird Weather • Robert W. Chambers
... however, concerning Madame la Marquise. You have doubtless heard of her. For Lizzie has not, even yet, found a time wherein to be idle; she has been busied since the hour of her birth in acquiring first, plain publicity, and then social power, and every other amenity of life in turn. I had not the least doubt even then of her ending where ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... the Spaniards idle. In 1682 one expedition was made, and at least two pueblo towns were destroyed by them. In 1689 the entire country was reconquered. Some tribes were nearly exterminated, and all more or less weakened and a great many ruins date from that time. It was the beginning of a decline for the ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... thus engaged with the most dangerous of the men, it is not to be supposed that I was idle. The three companions of the ruffian started to his aid when Whistling Jim began operations—their hesitation suddenly turning into indignation when they beheld the spectacle of a negro assaulting a white man. The foremost went down under the chair with which I struck ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... with the white man the Indian tended to deteriorate. He frequented the settlements often to the annoyance of the men and the dread of the women and children; he got into debt, was incurably slothful and idle, and developed an uncontrollable desire to drink and steal. Where the Indians were not a menace, they were a nuisance, and the colonies passed many laws concerning the Indians which were designed to meet the one condition ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
... despatched to the King. On his way he was joined by another courier, who pressed him for his news. The first courier knew that if he gave up his news, the other, who was better mounted, would outstrip him, and be the first to carry it to the King. He told his companion, therefore, an idle tale, very different indeed from the truth, for he changed the defeat into a great victory. Having gained this wonderful intelligence, the second courier put spurs to his horse, and hurried away to the King's camp, eager to be the bearer of good tidings. He reached the camp first, and was ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Labor.—A static assumption excludes enforced idleness on the part of able-bodied men. The changes which throw such men out of employment are not taking place, and there is no reserve of efficient but idle labor. In the actual state, which is highly dynamic, such a supply of unemployed labor is always at hand, and it is neither possible nor normal that it should be altogether absent. The well-being of workers requires that progress should go ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... has been much discussion of his style, which seldom achieves beauty, and sometimes falls short of correctness, but which still more seldom lacks force and adequacy to his own purpose. On the whole, to write with the shorthand necessary here, it is idle to claim for Balzac an absolute supremacy in the novel, while it may be questioned whether any single book of his, or any scene of a book, or even any single character or situation, is among the very greatest ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... spur of research had taught him how to concentrate upon his studies. He did not neglect the out-of-doors life, however, and he still had the swimming championship to defend, but every minute that he was not actively at play he was hard at work. Idle minutes were scarce. Nor did he fail of his reward. Just before the spring examination he received a letter from the Bureau of Fisheries telling him that his application for the next summer had been accepted and assigning him to duty at Woods Hole, the station where he ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... Martyn founded a new congregation. At Kilwarlin, Basil Patras Zula revived a flagging cause. If the Moravian Church was small in England, it was not because her ministers were idle, or because they were lacking in ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... the stream the population is rare; from time to time one descries a troop of slaves loitering in the half-desert fields; the primeval forest recurs at every turn; society seems to be asleep, man to be idle, and nature alone offers a scene of activity ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... asked her about Fred once; I gave her a bit of a warning. But she assured me she would never marry an idle self-indulgent man—nothing since. But it seems Fred set on Mr. Farebrother to talk to her, because she had forbidden him to speak himself, and Mr. Farebrother has found out that she is fond of Fred, but says he must not be a clergyman. Fred's heart is fixed on Mary, that I can see: it gives ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... at the doors of the Churchill-Fontenay, saying he would idle about and watch for the others in case they should arrive ahead ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... might do better, ne make so good a translation that he ne might be better. Therefore Origines made two translations, and Jerome translated thrice the Psalter. I desire not translation of these the best that might be, for that were an idle desire for any man that is now alive, but I would have a skilful translation, that might be ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... the picturesque scenery on every hand. The little valleys and nooks in which nestle the country houses are perfect pictures, and the abrupt and broken country presents delightful changes at every turn. I saw but few signs of diligent cultivation. The negro race is here, as everywhere else, an idle and thriftless one; and the purlieus of the town where they are congregated are dilapidated and squalid. The statue of Josephine in the Savannah is a very fine specimen of sculpture. It represents ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... makes it possible for these fellows to spend their days in pleasant exercise in the fields. The soldier bears civilization on his back, he supports all the rest, he is the pedestal which bears without complaint the civilian as an idle ornament. The soldier, in short, is the real man, the only ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... drifted along without any definite program of future action being disclosed; but the President was not idle. He decided—though he held the power himself—to ask Congress for authority to protect American shipping on the high seas by providing merchantmen with naval guns and gunners. There was a freight congestion in Atlantic ports, due to the reluctance of American shipowners to sail ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... Laplander. Even his love for pictures ran away to scenes of snow and wind-whipped wolds with drifts piled high. These, if well drawn, he would look at; while he turned his back on palms and jungles and things tropical in paint, the sight of which made him perspire like a harvest hand. As Richard's idle glance came back from the window, it caught the brown eyes of Mr. Pickwick considering him through a silvery, fringy thicket of hair. Mr. Pickwick was said to be royally descended; however that might have been, indubitably ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... lesser moods afterward, he would probably seem to most people a somewhat teetering person, diffused, chaotic, or contradictory. It could hardly be helped—with the raw materials of a great man all scattered around in him, great unaccounted-for insights, idle-looking powers all as yet unfused. But a man in the long run (and longer the better) is always worth while, no matter how he looks in the making, and it certainly does seem reasonable, however bad it may look, that this is the way he is made, that in ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... 'There are remedies for all things but death.' When a Parlement refuses registering, the remedy, by long practice, has become familiar to the simplest: a Bed of Justice. One complete month this Parlement has spent in mere idle jargoning, and sound and fury; the Timbre Edict not registered, or like to be; the Subvention not yet so much as spoken of. On the 6th of August let the whole refractory Body roll out, in wheeled vehicles, as far as the King's Chateau of Versailles; there shall the King, holding ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... guns were not idle. Wortley fired at the leading elephant, which had passed under Banda's feet, just as he was crossing the brook on our left. His shot did not produce any effect, but I killed him by a temple-shot as he was passing on. Palliser, who was on our right, killed ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... temperament. The following characteristic paragraph refers to the opinions of the Epicureans with regard to the appearance of a new star, which they ascribed to a fortuitous concourse of atoms: 'When I was a youth, with plenty of idle time on my hands, I was much taken with the vanity, of which some grown men are not ashamed, of making anagrams by transposing the letters of my name written in Latin so as to make another sentence. Out of Ioannes Keplerus came Serpens in akuleo (a serpent in his sting); but not being ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... bring him to my feet with a word. Was this the truth, or only an idle boast? No matter; I would not owe even his love to this woman. 'I can live without you, Giles,—my Giles,' I whispered; but hot tears burnt my ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... pretty figure in a becoming scarlet riding-habit, and to be looked at with obvious homage by the young officers quartered hard by, as she rode along the Norfolk lanes; 'dissipated' by simply hearing their band play in the square, and made giddy by the veriest trifle: 'an idle, flirting, worldly girl,' to use her own words. Then came the eventful day when 'in purple boots laced with scarlet' she went to hear William Savery preach at the Meeting House. This was the turning- point of her life, her psychological moment, as the phrase goes. ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... an armorer's, Who, with back turn'd, and bow'd above his work, Sat riveting a helmet on his knee, He put the self-same query, but the man Not turning round, nor looking at him, said: "Friend, he that labors for the sparrow-hawk Has little time for idle questioners." Whereat Geraint flash'd into sudden spleen: "A thousand pips eat up your sparrow-hawk! Tits, wrens, and all wing'd nothings peck him dead! Ye think the rustic cackle of your bourg The murmur of the world! What is it to me? O wretched set of sparrows, one and all, Who pipe of nothing ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... secure possession, by the stage, of the public mind, is of the first importance to the poet who works for it. He loses no time in idle experiments. Here is audience and expectation prepared. In the case of Shakspeare there is much more. At the time when[532] he left Stratford, and went up to London, a great body of stage-plays, of all dates and writers, existed in manuscript, ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... for the support of their natural dependents; the militia becomes no other than an addition to, or augmentation of, a standing army, enlisted for the term of three years; the labour of the men is lost to the community; they contract the idle habits and dissolute manner of the other troops; their families are left as incumbrances on the community; and the charge of their subsistence is, at least, as heavy as that of maintaining an equal number of regular forces. It would not, we apprehend, be very easy to account for ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... publique instruccion and edifying of the vnlearned multitude.... It is nowe no newes in Englande to see young damisels in nobles houses and in the Courtes of Princes, in stede of cardes and other instrumentes of idle trifleyng, to haue continually in her handes, eyther Psalmes, Omelies, and other deuoute meditacions, or elles Paules Epistles, or some booke of holye Scripture matiers: and as familiarlye both to reade or reason thereof in Greke, Latine, Frenche, ...
— Roister Doister - Written, probably also represented, before 1553. Carefully - edited from the unique copy, now at Eton College • Nicholas Udall
... this henbane and antimony, the nourishment of my health and vigour—that any one should write of these as pernicious, deadly, and fatal to existence! Is it error or malignity? or but the wanton freak of an idle imagination?" ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... Mendicant friars, England was dotted with convents and religious houses belonging to the different orders of Benedictines, which, though enormously rich, devoured the substance of the poor. There were more than twenty thousand monks in a population of three or four millions; and most of them led idle and dissolute lives, and were subjects of perpetual reproach. Reforms of the various religious houses had been attempted, but all reforms had failed. Nor were the lives of the secular clergy much more respectable than those of the great body of monks. They are accused by all historians ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... mine own due time. Verily, I say unto you, that it is meet in mine eyes that she should go up unto the land of Zion, and receive an inheritance from the hand of the Bishop, that she may settle down in peace, inasmuch as she is faithful, and not to be idle in her days ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... thought in my heart is resting As I face the path I must tread ere long, When wearied with life's unending questing, Its tawdry joys and its idle jesting, I shall pass to the midst ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... he wrote much of "Henry Esmond," and stayed there when his house was in the painters' hands—the room occupied was that known as the "Dryden." Here the Staff would make no attempt at self-repression; and I have been told how the idle and the curious would congregate outside upon the pavement and listen to the voices of the wits within, and wait to gape at them as they passed ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... out, and when they sha'n't? Thank goodness! if one shop shuts, another keeps open; and I always think it a duty I owe to myself to go to the shop that's open last: it's the only way to punish the shopkeepers that are idle, and give themselves airs ...
— Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures • Douglas Jerrold
... the officers and men who could be spared from duty were not idle. Parties went hunting and sketching. Many scientific observations were made by dredging. Photographs were taken also. The Musk ox gave the hunters some sport, and Doctor Moss records that all the animals met with, though presumably they had ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... peach-trees of their wealth, in which labour of love they were eagerly assisted by the flying-foxes during the night, whilst any that had escaped these nocturnal depredators became the spoil of two or three idle boys, who loafed about all day, seeking mischief, and, as always happens, succeeding in finding it, even in this sequestered region. From this it will be seen that my efforts in the direction of husbandry were attended with some difficulty, and, despite a real liking for the animal world, I had ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... never idle here; in fact, that would be impossible with Gaston. He has established here an academy of the fine arts, and also revived the gymnasia; and my sister and myself have schools—only music and dancing; Gaston does not approve of letters. The poor people have, of course, their primary schools, ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... confidence in him, and invited him to become his confidential political correspondent; fifteen out of his seventeen letters were written in this capacity. These letters show us the man as clearly as if we had his diary before us. Caelius is no idle scamp or lazy Epicurean; his mind is constantly active: nothing escapes his notice: the minutest and most sordid things delight him. He is bright, happy, witty, frivolous, and doubtless lovable. It is amusing ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... you're good for? You're more likely to idle about here doing nothing than find any ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... is no idle theory. It may have been theoretical, though it was thoroughly sincere, when that great Virginian gentleman declared it in surroundings that still had something of the character of an English countryside. It is not merely theoretical now. There is nothing to prevent America ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... Council located at Paris to forget his pledges for the time required in transcribing them. That was not a very creditable proceeding, but in exposing Freemasonry ordinary ethical considerations seem to be ruled out of court, and it is idle to examine methods when we are in need of documents. By these documents, and by the editorial matter which introduces and follows them, Leo Taxil, as already observed, created the Question of Lucifer. Premising that a dual object governed ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... repeater watch, but, alas! it was still very early—only ten minutes to nine. He couldn't go to bed yet. Perhaps he would do well to join a club. He had always thought rather poorly of men who belonged to clubs—most of them were idle, lazy fellows; but ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... the combined sitting and dining-room and then into the kitchen. At the door of the tiny spare bedroom, he stopped and turned away. What was the use of wandering about the house in this disconsolate manner? Eleanor had gone and it was idle to pretend that he might suddenly come to her in some corner of the flat. It was much too early to go to bed and, since he could not sit still indoors, he resolved to go out and walk off his mood of depression and loneliness. The trees on Hampstead Heath stood up in deep ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... Restoration saw a marked recrudescence of similar measures. How great was the need of men at that time, and how exigent the means employed to procure them, may be gathered from the fact, cited by Pepys, that in 1666 the fleet lay idle for a whole fortnight "without any demand for a farthing worth of anything, but only to get men." The genial diarist was deeply moved by the scenes of violence that followed. They were, he roundly declares, "a shame ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... this day, And filled your hearts with revel and with play. But to my mind that day is basely spent Which passes by without accomplishment Of some bright deed of arms or chivalry. We rust in indolence. As well not be, As be the minions of an idle court Where all is gallantry and girlish sport! Some bold adventure let our thoughts devise, To stir our courage and to cheer our eyes." And lo! while yet he spoke, from far away In the thick shroud of the departed day, Upon the frosty air of evening borne, Came the faint ...
— Gawayne And The Green Knight - A Fairy Tale • Charlton Miner Lewis
... in the cyanide jar for ten minutes a day without killing him," mused Mr. Flint. "But," disgustedly, "what'd be the use? When he came to and found he'd been that long idle he'd die of heart-failure." He pushed aside the window screen, and the two shook hands heartily. Then the boy, wringing my hand again, walked away without another word. I felt a bit desolate—there are times when I could envy women their solace of tears—as if he figured in his handsome young ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... rich maturity. The boy was rather delicate in organization, and not much given to outdoor amusements, except skating and swimming, of which last exercise he was very fond in his young days, and in which he excelled. He was a great reader, never idle, but always had a book in his hand,—a volume of poetry or one of the novels of Scott or Cooper. His fondness for plays and declamation is illustrated by the story told by a younger brother, who ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... procure coffee, tea, and sugar. She went there, did her errand, and returned to the hut as quickly as she could possibly could. As she suddenly opened the door she was struck with consternation by seeing the wheel idle and Nora and Herman seated close together, conversing in a low, confidential tone. They started up on seeing her, confusion ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... lapsed into learning again. Mrs. Gallilee improvised an appropriate little lecture on Canada—on the botany of the Dominion; on the geology of the Dominion; on the number of gallons of water wasted every hour by the falls of Niagara. "Science will set it all right, my dears; we shall make that idle water work for us, one of these days. Good-night, Miss Minerva! Dear ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... It would be idle to pretend that clothing, in itself considered, is a source of warmth to our bodies. It is only so by the relation it bears to our bodies; or, in other words, by the circumstances in which it is placed. Our own bodies—their internal, living machinery, rather—are the principal sources ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... education open. But for Monsieur de Beaujolais, why should he not lend his talents to business enterprises, to great commercial undertakings which make for the prosperity and stability of a country as surely as even its army or navy? Thus also will he create happiness for himself, because, if idle, at five and twenty, having enjoyed all that rank and fortune can give him, he will be unhappy from not knowing what to ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... the brigantine had not been idle, for scarcely had I given the order to prepare the oil bag when her people proceeded to set their jib, close-reefed topsail, and double-reefed mainsail, with the evident determination of escaping from our neighbourhood with as little ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... not accompanied by search, it will be in most cases merely idle. A sight of papers may be demanded, and papers may be produced. But it is known that slave-traders carry false papers, and different sets of papers. A search for other papers, then, must be made where suspicion justifies it, or else ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... to pay servants," she persisted, "why should I idle about the house? Why should not I, an able-bodied person, be out helping in the world's work somehow—and also helping ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... souls with a cheering incredulity. But now, in this time of shadows, dread belief clutched us and wrung us with terror. If there had been one wise older friend to tell us, in serious fashion, that we need not be afraid, that the Enterprise paragraph was naught save the idle report of a deluded fanatic, it would have been well for us. But there was not. Our grown-ups, instead, considered our terror an exquisite jest. At that very moment, Aunt Olivia, who had recovered from her ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... two hundred pounds of Beaver, or as many moose skins, in lieu thereof, towards making good the damage sustained by individuals. They added that they were poor and had been kept from hunting by the idle stories of John Allan and ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... and soon after, his crime being proved, was condemned to be broken alive on the wheel. Vervins had long been menaced with an attack by the Abbe. Vervins was an agreeable, well-made man, but very idle. He had entered the army; but quitted it soon, and retired to his estates in Picardy. There he shut himself up without any cause of disgust or of displeasure, without being in any embarrassment, for on the contrary he was well to do, and all his affairs ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... would accept no excuses; the machinery of its vast, admirable business could not be thrown out of gear for an hour or a day, and stand idle while the clerks waited for the holder of Claim Number One to come from some distant part and step into his own. So there was a good deal of nervousness and talking, and speculating and crowding forward in the waiting line, as the hour for opening ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... alluring. As the colony became established beyond the fear of failure, and life fell from an artificial and self-conscious venture to be but a natural experience, as wealth increased and opportunities for relaxation and idle amusement multiplied, the elemental instincts of human nature, stronger than decrees of state, would not be denied. During the third decade after the founding, the Christmas festival found its way into the colony, and "dancing in ordinarys upon the marriage ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... appeared and lighted groups of candles on either side of the altar. A hushed stirring of feet in the choir-loft indicated that the service was to be accompanied by music. Some loiterers, attracted by the bell, some idle strangers, a few acquaintances and citizens not directly invited appeared ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... century wore a modified cap—sometimes swelling out into ornamental proportions, at others shrinking into the primitive simplicity of the Phrygian or Greek cap. Shall we confess it, fastidious reader?—we strongly suspect the cap worn by that idle fellow Paris, when he so impudently ogled the goddesses on Mount Ida, to have been very similar to the good old bonnet de nuit of our grandfathers—(shall we whisper it, of ourselves?) Yes, that little cocked-up corner at the top looks like a budding tassel; he never had ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... the questions of perspective, anatomy, dramatic expression, lyric suggestion, architectural decoration, were established, in however rudimentary a manner, as soon as painting was ordered to leave off doing idle, emotionless Christs, rows of gala saints and symbols of metaphysic theology, and told to set about showing the episodes of Scripture, the things Christ and the Apostles did, and the places where they did them, and the feelings they felt ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... of Italy all that is corruptible and corrupting is assembled. The young are idle, the old lascivious, and each sex and every age abounds with debasing habits, which the good laws, by misapplication, have lost the power to correct. Hence arises the avarice so observable among the citizens, and that greediness, not ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... at this time of day is an idle task. After being overshadowed for a little, it has taken its place finally among the masterpieces of English fiction, along with Jane Austen and the Vicar of Wakefield. There has never been a more delightful and tender study of English village life, or one in which insight is ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... arises as much from the difficulty of getting good and trustworthy servants, as from any other cause. The master's eye cannot be everywhere, and the overseer's is seldom to be trusted. Lazy shepherds keep sheep in till ten A. M. in place of turning them out at six. Idle watchmen shift the folds twice a week, instead of every day. Fifty other cases of this kind take place on a large sheep-farm, that never could occur on a small establishment. In damp weather, the watchman's neglecting to shift ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... I cannot now recall a single instance of my availing myself of the interviews he accorded so gladly to any attentive student to get at difficult passages, and so on. In my time I suspect his classes included a larger number than usual of bad and idle young scaramouches, who deserved to be turned out of the class, instead of the sort of over-forbearance their Professor showed. I feel sure now that a more truculent character than his would have enforced order better, with advantage to the weak and wavering pupils. He treated boys too much ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... it will be perceived, is but little practised in the ways of literature; much less is he gifted with that prophetic spirit which can anticipate the judgment of the public. It may be that he is too idle or too apathetic to think anxiously or much about the matter; and yet he has been amused, in his earlier days, at watching the first appearance of such few books as he believed to be the production of some powerful intellect. He has ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... a time of great financial distress; in the border slave States the pursuits of peace were interrupted; all was in turmoil and confusion; rolling-mills, machine-shops, foundries, forges, and sawmills were all idle, and many of the mechanics had gone to the war. The timber for the boats was still growing in the forests; the iron was not yet manufactured. And so short was the time that two or three factories alone, no matter how well equipped they might be, were not to be depended upon. Yet Eads ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How
... old beliefs in the divinity of kings and those about 'em, the more he overhauled the case in this light, the more strongly did his poor wife's conduct in improving the blood and breed of the Petrick family win his heart. He considered what ugly, idle, hard-drinking scamps many of his own relations had been; the miserable scriveners, usurers, and pawnbrokers that he had numbered among his forefathers, and the probability that some of their bad qualities would have come out in a merely corporeal child, to give him sorrow in his old age, turn ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... the time that has already been mentioned—the detective and his assistants had not been idle. There had not been a day or a night when he and Chick and Patsy and Ten-Ichi had not been engaged in searching some part of the city for Black Madge, or for some ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... and he was not a man to remain idle. He was good in mathematics, and did a little surveying now and then; in fact, with true democratic courage, he turned his hand to any useful employment. He did not regard these things as having any bearing on his career. He was only waiting for the time to come when he could found ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... light scheme of colour, where they may appear indeed as guests of honour—invited from the past to be courted by the present. It is not often that such pieces are offered as parts of a scheme of modern decoration, and the fingers of to-day are too busy or too idle for their creation, yet it sometimes happens that a valuable piece of drapery of exceptional colour belongs by inheritance or purchase to the fortunate householder, and in this case it should be used as a picture would be, for an independent bit ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... the dog into barking like that. But look here; father said he did not like to see men idle, and that Dinass had been well punished, and he would consent if the Colonel agreed. So I want you to ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... the big house to herself—every bit of it and with it freedom from obligation, from comment, from demand or exaction; freedom from restraint; liberty to roam about, to read, to dream, to idle, to remember! Ah, that was what she needed—a quiet interval in this hurrying youth of hers to catch her breath once more, and stand still, and look back a ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... expression. For four years have I waited, hoped and prayed for the dark clouds to break, and for a restoration of our former sunshine. To wait longer would be a crime. All hope for peace is dead. My prayers have proved as idle as my hopes. God's will be done. I go to see and share the ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... from his regiment which didn't much regret him; They found for him an office-stool, and on that stool they set him, To play with maps and catalogues three idle hours a day, And draw his plump retaining ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... seemed completely idle during the assault. It is true he ordered several detachments to drive the English from the town after it had been taken; but, remembering that the fortifications of Athlone, nearest to his camp, had not been razed, and that they were now in possession of the enemy, ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... draught strap is fastened. Thanks to the excellent protection against the harness galling which the bushy coat of the dogs affords, little attention is needed for the harness, and I have never seen a single dog that was idle in consequence of sores from the harness. On the other hand, their feet are often hurt by the sharp snow. On this account the equipment of every sledge embraces a number of dog shoes of the appearance shown in the accompanying woodcut. They are used ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... priest is given reverential right of way. We meet scarcely an English face, however, and of our own travel-loving countrymen none at all. At noon the band plays in the music pavilion, and by degrees the idle world drifts in that direction. The round cafe-tables under the trees gradually sort out their little coteries, and white-aproned gentry skate about with liqueur-bottles, clinking glass beer-mugs, baskets ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... unreasonable multitude would be of little importance if left to itself, and might end in idle clamor; it is the industry of one or two evil spirits which generally directs it to an object, and makes it mischievous. Among the officers of Columbus were two brothers, Francisco and Diego de Porras. They were related ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... alone—in heart and feelings, at least. Margery now mingled with all his views for the future; and he could no more think of abandoning her in her present situation, than he could of offering his own person to the savages for a sacrifice. It was idle to think of attempting such a journey in company with the females, and most of all to attempt it in defiance of the ingenuity, perseverance, and hostility of the Indians. The trail could not be concealed; ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... had finished, 'Poor Arthur! I loved him fondly, devotedly; and his image will live forever in my heart. But at such a crisis it is worse than folly—it is madness to waste time by giving way to grief. Reason teaches us to bow before the inevitable. It is idle to repine at the decrees of Fate. I am alone, now—alone, without a friend or a protector. No matter; I have a stout heart, and the mercy of Providence is above all. But to business: After the death of Mr. Livermore, what became ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... battle. This spirit finally manifested itself in feuds, charges, complaints, and, laterally, by actual hostilities. The king of Dahomey felt that he had but one rival, the king of Ashantee. He felt quite sure of victory on account of the size, spirit, and discipline of his army. It was idle at this time, and was ordered to the Ashantee border. The first engagement took place near the Volta. The king of Dahomey had succeeded in securing an alliance with the armies of Kawaku and Bourony, but the valor and skill of the Ashantees were too much for the invading armies. ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... so fine that, before going to Bayonne, I have come down as far as Royan. Ships heavy with white sails ascend slowly on both sides of the boat. At each gust of wind they incline like idle birds, lifting their long wings and showing their black bellies. They run slantwise, then come back; one would say that they felt the better for being in this great fresh-water harbor; they loiter in it and enjoy its peace after leaving ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... wall at a convenient distance, she did not glance in its direction. For an hour she had not smoothed her hair, nor pulled her ribbon bow into jaunty erectness, nor indicated by any other of the familiar forms of self-betrayal the all-absorbing importance of her personal appearance. Her hands lay idle in her lap, and her face was pale, ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... and the only one in which damage might escape detection while the ship was in harbour? At sea there is constant gun drill, during which the electrical controls and the firing-tubes are always tested, but in harbour the guns are lying idle most of the time. It was evidently the intention of the enemy, who cut these wires, that the Antinous should go to sea before the defect was discovered, and that her fire control should be out of ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... use in idle words?— Forward, O warriors of the soul! There will be breaking up of swords When that new ...
— The Lord of Misrule - And Other Poems • Alfred Noyes
... deserts; together they dug for it, found it, shared it when all was done. Together they heeded the warning of falling leaf and chilling night winds, and with buckskin bags comfortably heavy went down the mountain trail to San Francisco, that ugly, moiling center of the savagery, to idle ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... and the leaders of the fifty were Mrs. Constantine, Mrs. Maxse, Miss Purves, a Mrs. Tempest (a large black tragic creature), and Miss Grace Trenchard—and they had for their male supporters Colonel Maxse, Mr. William Tempest, a Mr. Purdie (rich and idle), and the Reverend Paul. Maggie discovered that the manners, habits, and even voices and gestures of this sacred Fifty were all the same. The only question upon which they divided was one of residence. The richer and finer division spent several ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... Under the influence of his touch and the sound of his voice, the girl calmed. She nestled close to his side, and for a moment abandoned herself to the delight of being with him. But her thoughts would not remain idle for long. Suddenly she released herself and moved ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... better now. That tall woman . . . those gloomy brows that meet in the middle . . . those nightblack eyes . . . they glow with so fierce a fire, yet are so cold. . . . That woman . . . did Hosea love her, father? Tell me; I am not asking from idle curiosity!" ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a modest child, not forward or bold in her manners; very fond of play, and sometimes idle; but (to her praise be it said) she was ...
— Susan and Edward - or, A Visit to Fulton Market • Anonymous
... again, seized a four-branched candlestick on the table, and ran back, tearing down with a furious jerk the curtain that swung stupidly in his way, but after putting the candlestick on the table by the bed, he remained absolutely idle. There did not seem anything more for him to do. Holding his chin in his hand he looked down intently at her ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... the caravan now seemed to be, that this was an idle threat of some dozen bandits, and that the people generally would ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... the north and west of Compiegne. Hence he so wrought that he made a pact with the captain of the French in Gournay, a town some four leagues north and west of Compiegne, whereby the garrison there promised to lie idle, and make no onslaught against them of Burgundy, unless the King brought them a rescue. Therefore the Duke went back to Noyon on the Oise, some eight leagues north and east of Compiegne, while his captain, Jean de Luxembourg, ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... let idle visions fly, No phantom of the night molest: Curb Thou our raging enemy, That we in chaste ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... was in twilight yet; its various contents shewing dimly, the phoebe who had built her nest under the low roof just astir, but the wood work was going on briskly. Not indeed under the saw—that lay idle; but with the sort of noiseless celerity which was natural to him, Reuben Taylor was piling the sticks of this or yesterday's cutting: the slight chafing of the wood as it fell into place chiming with the low notes ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... or Fairholme could vaguely guess her intention she whipped a revolver out of her pocket. It would be idle to deny that they were startled, but the woman paid not ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... too much to understand them. But every Englishman loves and desires a pedigree. And in that he is right. King Demos must be bred like all other Kings; and with Must there is no arguing. It is idle for an individual writer to carry so great a matter further in a pamphlet. A conference on the subject is the next step needed. It will be attended by men and women who, no longer believing that they can live for ever, are seeking for ...
— Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion • George Bernard Shaw
... rather than resolve the obscurity of his mind. He will learn that mysticism is a philosophy, an illusion, a kind of religion, a disease; that it means having visions, performing conjuring tricks, leading an idle, dreamy, and selfish life, neglecting one's business, wallowing in vague spiritual emotions, and being "in tune with the infinite." He will discover that it emancipates him from all dogmas—sometimes from all morality— and at the same ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill
... want to hang that up?" asked Christopher, watching her with idle interest. "Do let me do it, Mrs. Eliot, you'll fall off those steps if you go higher. I can't promise to catch you, but I can promise to hang curtains much better than you can." Mrs. Eliot, who ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... idlers had one and all set out for the Legislative Assembly, some to work, others still to idle, Mr. Kilshaw felt interest enough in the fate of his late henchman to drop in at the police office on his way to the same destination. He was well known, and no one objected to his walking in and making for the door of the Superintendent's room. An officer to whom he ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... over the glass cases of minerals, sometimes studying the hieroglyphics on an Egyptian mummy, and some times trying, with nearly equal success, to comprehend the allegorical paintings on the lofty ceilings. Whilst I was gazing about in this idle way, my attention was attracted to a distant door, at the end of a suite of apartments. It was closed, but every now and then it would open, and some strange-favored being, generally clothed in black, would steal forth, and glide ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... that I should marry, said those who knew the step I had taken; but that I should follow that old idyl; and accept the destiny of a garret and a crust with a poet, was incredible! Therefore, being apart from the diversions of society, I had many idle hours. One day when my husband was sitting at the receipt of customs, for he had obtained a modest appointment, I sat by a little desk, where my portfolio lay open. A pen was near, which I took up, and it began to write, wildly ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... lying in state in the rotunda of the Exchange in Baltimore, I remained at his head long hours, watching the faces of the people passing. Truly they were mourners, not the idle, ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... else abandon her intention. For a moment she was sorry that she had not been satisfied with some less troublesome destruction of her foe, even at the risk of chance suspicions. But having thus begun it, she would not turn back, and be angry with her idle fears when she came to ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... a rich, idle fellow; De Rochemont, and we want rich, idle fellows to come and look into all this and do something for us. You must let me take you with ...
— Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... This was no idle boast, for Bayard's company was composed of picked men, the greater number of whom had been commanders themselves, but who preferred the honor of serving under the noted chevalier to leading companies ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... without exchanging another word we walked together to the house. There I found the remnant of my troop standing beside their horses, chaffing with a dozen idle Yankee cavalrymen who were lounging on ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... families many pairs of stockings are needed, and all must be homemade. This is work which the little girls can do while the mother is busy with heavier labors. The knitting work becomes a girl's constant companion, and there are few moments when her hands are idle. ...
— Jean Francois Millet • Estelle M. Hurll
... contrast with Dryden, who devoted his life to literature and won his success by hard work, is Samuel Butler, who jumped into fame by a single, careless work, which represents not any serious intent or effort, but the pastime of an idle hour. We are to remember that, though the Royalists had triumphed in the Restoration, the Puritan spirit was not dead, nor even sleeping, and that the Puritan held steadfastly to his own principles. Against these principles of ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... yachtsman whiling away an idle month in cruises up and down that New England coast which, once stern and rock-bound, has come to be the smiling home of midsummer pleasures, encounters at each little port into which he may run, moldering and ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... well taken. Punishments or rewards last through all eternity; with the unredeemed, in added degrees to the punishment in Hell; with the redeemed, in added rewards in Heaven. And they need to realize that with both classes this applies to the smallest deeds: "But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment."—Matt. 12:36. "And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin
... courage to come out of the groove which he had so laboriously made for himself, and to leave a large and prosperous business, saying, "I have now enough of this world's goods; let younger men have their chance." He settled down at his rural retreat in Kent, but not to lead a life of idle ease. Industry had become his habit, and active occupation was necessary to his happiness. He fell back upon the cultivation of those artistic tastes which are the heritage of his family. When a boy at the High School of Edinburgh, he was so skilful ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... be worse than "idle, for it would be hypocritical and unfeeling, if I "were to disguise that I close this episode in my life "with feelings of very considerable pain. For some "fifteen years in this hall, and in many kindred places, "I have had the ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... uses wood, whether to build, fence, burn, box his goods, or timber his mine, is directly interested in a cheap and plentiful supply of timber. Every acre burned, every cut-over acre lying idle, raises the price for him without furnishing any revenue with which to help pay it. Every acre saved from fire, every acre of young growth, lowers it for him and puts ...
— Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest • Edward Tyson Allen
... particular they tried whether the princes of their own blood might at length be brought to think the cause of kings, and of kings of their race, wounded in the murder and exile of the branch of France, of as much importance as the killing of a brace of partridges? If they were absolutely idle, and only eat in sloth their bread of sorrow and dependence, they would be forgotten, or at best thought of as wretches unworthy of their pretensions, which they had done nothing to support. If they err from our interests, what care has been taken to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... ambush for those that went out for provisions. So these men obeyed the orders of Antigonus, and got together a great number of armed men about Jericho, and sat upon the mountains, and watched those that brought the provisions. However, Herod was not idle in the mean time, for he took ten bands of soldiers, of whom five were of the Romans, and five of the Jews, with some mercenaries among them, and with some few horsemen, and came to Jericho; and as they found ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... to you. I do not like the general stile of Mr. Wherry's letters, they too much talk of government affairs. It is our duty to take care of the Smyrna trade, as well as all other, and it never has yet been neglected; but Great Britain, extensive as her navy is, cannot afford to have one ship lay idle. Be assured, my dear Sir Sidney, of my perfect esteem and regard, and do not let any one persuade you to the contrary: but my character is, that I will not suffer the smallest tittle of my command to be taken ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... are too old to learn new ones: but since wars are only accidental things, and have intervals, let us consider those things that fall out every day. There is a great number of noblemen among you, that are themselves as idle as drones, that subsist on other men's labour, on the labour of their tenants, whom, to raise their revenues, they pare to the quick. This indeed is the only instance of their frugality, for in all other things ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... had sent in, some seven of them, every one of whom loved their mistress with the faithful fidelity of a dog. These women knew Ellen Courtrey as not even the master of the Stronghold himself knew her. They knew her in her idle hours, at her small tasks, at her bedside, in the loving solicitude she displayed for all of them—and they knew her on her knees in prayer, for Ellen had a strange and simple religion, half Catholic and half ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... avoid all that would be impossible or even improbable. The labors performed by the children in the story were not unknown to my own hands, in childhood, nor would they form tasks too severe for many little hands now idle in the cities. ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... journeyman, in as good a reputation as it was possible for a young man to have. But having by that time got a good quantity of clothes, and about ten pounds in his pockets, he began to think himself too good to work, and unfortunately falling into the company of some idle debauched persons of both sexes, they soon led him into a road of ruin. Amongst these was one Bradley, a fellow of his own business, whose company of all others, he most affected. This fellow having addicted himself to the pursuit of the most scandalous ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... the breath of Autumn's breeze, From pastures dry and brown, Goes floating, like an idle thought, The fair, white thistle-down,— Oh, then what joy to walk at will ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... may be changed by man, others are by his utmost effort immutable. God has implanted in you a right reason by which, when it is well trained, you can infallibly distinguish between the two, avoiding thus all unworthy fretfulness and all idle kicking against the pricks. Therefore he has made you for happiness; for the joy of men is an achievement; and their misery in the coveting of the unattainable end. If you would fulfil his benevolent design, seek only what has been placed in your power, frankly resigning all that lies beyond; ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... you!" broke out the landlord. "I stood and watched you myself, you were looking at the play. Get you gone, you idle vagabond," he added, in high dudgeon, "get you gone, and bring ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... not idle," replied Ramsay; "but observe the state of bitter variance between William and the House of Commons, which represents the people of England. What can religion have to do with that? No, Wilhelmina; although, in this country there are few who do not rejoice at their king being ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... winter mantle as yet to find a holding ground. You felt pity for the shivering blade of grass, which, at your feet, was already drooping under the cold and icy hand that would press it down to mother earth for nine long months. Talk of "antres vast and deserts idle,"—talk of the sadness awakened in the wanderer's bosom by the lone scenes, be it even by the cursed waters of Judea, or afflicted lands of Assyria,—give me, I say, death in any one of them, with the good sun and a bright heaven ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... ambition, and pleasure, and to turn it to the contemplation of spiritual things. Yet on the first attack of a depressing illness I cease to be a gentleman, I am rude to ladies who do their best and kindest to serve me, and I talk to the friend who comes to cheer and comfort me as if he were an idle vagrant who wanted to sell me a worthless book with the recommendation of the pretence that he wrote it himself. Now that I am in my right mind, I am ashamed of myself, ashamed that it should be possible for ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... great rate, in these months and years; now on Maria Theresa's side, deluded by shadows from Vienna, and getting into Russian Partition-Treaties; anon tickled by Belleisle into the reverse posture; then again reversing. An idle, easy-tempered, yet greedy creature, who, what with religious apostasy in early manhood, what with flaccid ambitions since, and idle gapings after shadows, has lost helm in this world; and will make a very bad voyage ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... genius, or his misfortunes, were objected to him; for the greatest malice found no particular crime with which it could reproach this unhappy prince. He was accused of incapacity for government, of wasting his time in idle amusements, of neglecting public business, of being swayed by evil counsellors, of having lost, by his misconduct, the kingdom of Scotland, and part of Guienne; and to swell the charge, even the death ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... writing what I tole yer," he whipped out suddenly, just becoming aware that Roy's pencil had been idle. Peggy breathed hard. There was menace in the man's ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... after and took her up in Fenchurch Streete and away through the City, hiding my face as much as I could, but she being mighty pretty and well enough clad, I was not afeard, but only lest somebody should see me and think me idle. I quite through with her, and so into the fields Uxbridge way, a mile or two beyond Tyburne, and then back and then to Paddington, and then back to Lyssen green, a place the coachman led me to (I never knew in my life) and there ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... countries there were gleams of hope in slavery. In fiction and in truth the black slave had a chance. Once converted to Islam, he became a brother to the best, and the brotherhood of the faith was not the sort of idle lie that Christian slave masters made it. In Arabia black leaders arose like Antar; in India black slaves carved out principalities ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... onwards Vera had sat idle in the dusk by the feeble light of a candle, her head supported on her hand, leaning over the table, while with her other hand she turned over the leaves of a book at which she hardly glanced. She was protected from the cold autumn air from the open window, by a big white woollen shawl ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... mission. Jewish history is a "tissue of sheer follies, shameful deeds, deceptions, and cruelties, the chief motives of which were self-interest and lust for power." The New Testament is also the work of man; all talk of divine inspiration, an idle delusion, the resurrection of Christ, a fabrication of the disciples; and the Protestant system, with its dogmas of the Trinity, the fall of man, original sin, the incarnation, vicarious atonement, and eternal punishment, ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... slowly ripens and prepares the resurrection body in the grave. As a seed must be buried for a season in order to spring up in perfect life, so must the human body be buried till the day of judgment. During this period it is not idle, but is busily getting ready for its consummation. He says, "There are four distinct stages through which those parts constituting the identity of the body must necessarily pass in order to their attainment of ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... the childish amusements of her own ignorant and degraded people. What more, indeed, he asked himself savagely,—what more could be expected of the base-born child of the plaything of a gentleman's idle hour, who to this ignoble origin added the blood of a servile race? And he, George Tryon, had honored her with his love; he had very nearly linked his fate and joined his blood to hers by the solemn sanctions of church and state. Tryon was not a devout man, but he ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... her fingers, and wondering at the whiteness of her hand, when their father coming in, rebuked their obtrusiveness. He made them gather up the pile of flax, with the spindles and distaffs now lying idle on the floor, and invited the ladies to take possession of the cushions, which, after a Moorish custom still lingering here, the girls ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... confuted by that slow and gradual process that in the generation of things, which would seem to be but a vain and idle pomp or a trifling formality if the moving power were omnipotent; as also by those errors and bungles which are committed where the matter is inept and contumacious; which argue that the moving power be not irresistible, and that Nature is such a thing as is not altogether ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... gesticulations common still to the popular narrators of romance on the Mole of Naples, or in the bazars of the East, entertain the audience with some mythological legend. It was so clear that during this recital the chorus remained unnecessarily idle and superfluous, that the next improvement was as natural in itself, as it was important in its consequences. This was to make the chorus assist the narrator by ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... assistance of sundry idle persons we held the horse still enough for my friend to take his seat beside Alphonse, while I and the luggage found place behind them. We dashed out of the gate at a speed and risk which gave obvious satisfaction to our driver, and our progress up the narrow High ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... piping down banks than for washing the dirt; and often the sluice is almost idle for want of dirt, while the water, after being thrown against the hillside, runs away without doing any service at washing. Blasting, therefore, by loosening the earth, enables the hydraulic miner to have an abundant and regular ...
— Hittel on Gold Mines and Mining • John S. Hittell
... thought it was idle curiosity that prompts me, but you know it is not. Your language and manner are those of a man of too much sagacity not to see that I have ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... long after noon-time before Barton actually rallied his aching bones, his dizzy head, his refractory inclinations, to meet the fluctuant sympathy and chaff that awaited him down-stairs in every nook and corner of the great, idle-minded hotel. ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... accomplished a world of valuable service; but fatigue was telling upon him, now, and he was quiet and speechless—for once. Below, a few Senators lounged upon the sofas set apart for visitors, and talked with idle Congressmen. A dreary member was speaking; the presiding officer was nodding; here and there little knots of members stood in the aisles, whispering together; all about the House others sat in all the various attitudes that express weariness; some, tilted back, had one ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and four hundred more by Chaumette,[3409] the Commune has 850,000 francs per month for its military police. Other bleedings at the Treasury cause more public money to flow into the pockets of its clients. One million per month supports the idle workmen which fife and drum have collected together to form the camp around Paris. Five millions of francs protect the petty tradesmen of the capital against the depreciation in value of certificates of credit. Twelve thousand francs a day keep down the price of bread for the Paris poor.[3410] ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... himself had not been idle. When once he made up his mind to do a thing he was not content with half measures. Night and day he worked on the case, preparing evidence, seeing witnesses and experts, until he had gradually built up a bulwark of defense which the police would find difficult to tear down. ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... make a note of it so that as much as possible of this detail work is accomplished before the sight is taken. Next, take your sextant and test it for index error. This should be done regularly before each series of sights as it is impossible to tell what may have happened when the sextant is lying idle, except by the above test. Now, with your sextant, watch and notebook, go to the place from which you have decided to take your observations and, at the proper watch time, start taking your altitudes. It is always advisable to take a number of sights, closely ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper
... was by no means an idle one, or a life to be envied. Many persons, misled by the magnificent pedestal that the stage gives to a woman, suppose her in the midst of a perpetual carnival. In the dark recesses of a porter's lodge, beneath the tiles of an attic roof, many a poor girl dreams, on returning from the ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... archdeacon or his surrogate and put upon his or her oath as to all the most private affairs of life; as to relations between husband and wife; as to relations between either and any woman or man with whom the name of either might be associated by scandal; as to contracts to marry, as to idle words, as to personal habits, and, in fact, as to anything whatever which happened to strike the ecclesiastical lawyer ...
— The Elizabethan Parish in its Ecclesiastical and Financial Aspects • Sedley Lynch Ware
... be like my father. Necessity had made me more ambitious. I dreamed now of the power and fame of a Washington, a Webster, a Grant—names which stood to me as symbols of accomplishment. So what my parents at first brushed aside as the idle dreaming of a boy they soon realized to be a vague but persistent purpose which must be beaten down. They gave me a certain dignity by descending to debate. What did I want to be? How could I answer, who could not even name the vocations in which men won their way to coveted heights? My mother ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... Thereupon, early in 1840, Mr. Calhoun introduced resolutions declaratory of international law on this point, and setting forth that England had no right to interfere with, or to permit, the escape of slaves from vessels driven into her ports. The resolutions were idle, because they could effect nothing, and mischievous because they represented that the sentiment of the Senate was in favor of protecting the slave-trade. Upon these resolutions, absurd in character and barbarous in ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... to explain how this system of demonstration can be worked in connection with any class of operation in the field. It is certainly slow, and takes a long time, but no one is ever idle and every one is constantly learning something fresh, for the simple reason that, although one may know every detail of the subject, the ground constantly differs and requires to be dealt with in a common sense and skillful manner. The men are interested throughout, and one morning spent ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... would go forth to the world such an account of the case, and such a description of my wife's person, as would inevitably summon to the next exhibition of her misery, as by special invitation and advertisement, the whole world of this vast metropolis—the idle, the curious, the brutal, the hardened amateur in spectacles of wo, and the benign philanthropist who frequents such scenes with the purpose of carrying alleviation to their afflictions. All alike, whatever might be their motives or the spirit of their actions, would rush (as to some grand ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... curate once more, "there never was any Felixmarte of Hircania in the world, nor any Cirongilio of Thrace, or any of the other knights of the same sort, that the books of chivalry talk of; the whole thing is the fabrication and invention of idle wits, devised by them for the purpose you describe of beguiling the time, as your reapers do when they read; for I swear to you in all seriousness there never were any such knights in the world, and no such exploits or nonsense ever ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... brought with her, that was thus left standing in the court below. 'I brought her with me for the sake of her company on the road,' said she; 'pray give the girl some work to do, that she may not be idle.' The old king could not for some time think of any work for her to do; but at last he said, 'I have a lad who takes care of my geese; she may go and help him.' Now the name of this lad, that the real bride was to help in watching the king's geese, ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... had arrived and entered the church. It would be idle to remain longer; and, turning on her heel with an air that betokened disappointment, the lady glided across the portal, and ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... go thither, Illo. I must stay And wait here for the Countess Tertsky. Know 70 That we too are not idle. Break one string, A second ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... avoiding the High Street, and choosing the coast line for his walk, he lazily smoked a pipe, and thought, in that idle indifferent way with which men of his stamp always do exercise their mental faculties, about his future. His past, his present, his possible future rose up before the young fellow. He was harassed by duns, he was, according to his own ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... street there were many dogs lying idle in the sunshine or biting each other. A small wagon with a team of nine dogs carried a quantity of tea and sugar from the Variag's boats to a warehouse. When the work was finished I took a ride on the wagon, and was carried at good speed. I enjoyed the excursion ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... for the fortunate (I now call it) accident that broke off the affair for ever. One time she took a fancy for yachting, and all the danglers about her—and she always had a cordon of them—young aides-de-camp of her father the general, and idle hussars, in clanking sabertasches and most absurd mustachios—all approved of the taste, and so kept filling her mind with anecdotes of corsairs and smugglers, that at last nothing would satisfy her till I—I who always would rather have waited for low water, and waded the Liffey in all its ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... said, "hence they can not be more than companions for our idle hours. But you will have idle hours enough, and there would be many who would call themselves blessed to share themselves with thee. ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... beauty which Ruth possessed; such a credit to the house, with her waving outline of figure, her striking face, with dark eyebrows and dark lashes, combined with auburn hair and a fair complexion. No! diligent or idle, Ruth Hilton ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... machine shop, Mike spotted the Security man through the open bulkhead—just standing there while Paul and Tombu grimly worked on; and Millie sat idle, watching. ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... she wanted a box that she could not allow to have opened. The clerk then went up to the Sieur Picard's bedroom, but came back saying that what the marquise demanded was for the time being an impossibility, for the commissary was asleep. She saw that it was idle to insist, and went away, saying that she should send a man the next morning to fetch the box. In the morning the man came, offering fifty Louis to the commissary on behalf of the marquise, if he would give her the box. But he ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... in the meantime, has not been idle. With his old, rusty, unloaded musket, he has gathered in enough to make his old heart swell with pride, and to this number he has added many by using "rough on rats," a preparation that never killed anything except those that were ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... instrument in the hands of the legislator for the prevention of crime. The true instruments of reformation are employment and reward; not punishment. Aid the willing, honour the virtuous, and compel the idle into occupation, and there will be no deed for the compelling of any into the great and ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... voice was, and how deaf the ears that should hear, unless he could bring God's might to his help? and who could honestly remind God of His promises and forget his own responsibilities? Prayerless work will soon slacken, and never bear fruit; idle prayer is worse than idle. You cannot part them if you would. How much of the busy occupation which is called 'Christian work' is detected to be spurious by this simple test! How much so-called prayer is reduced by it to mere noise, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... man that came to him at the eleventh hour. This man was idle all the day long. He had a whole gospel day to come in, and he played it all away save only the last hour thereof. But at last, at the eleventh hour, he came, and goes into the vineyard to work with the rest of the labourers, that had borne the burden and heat of the day. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... symptomatic of the evolution of the race. In the growth of the individual we find, for example, something analogous. A child, who has been given pencil and paper, is almost certain to produce grotesque drawings of men and animals; whereas the idle and half-conscious scribblings which a man may make upon his blotting-paper are ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... you saucy puss: How dare you contradict me thus; But more than this, you idle clack, You rail'd at me behind my back Two years ago, I have been told;" "How so? I'm not a twelvemonth old," The lamb replied; "So I suspect Your honor is ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... voyage is smooth and the Cheerful One is denied the joy of making sea-sick folk feel sicker, he is disappointed but not idle, for he may still extort confessions from untravelled persons. You know him: the solid, red-faced man who dresses for dinner and sits at the head of the table eating fried things loud and long when it is rough. He wears travel as though it were the Order of the Garter, and tells ...
— Ship-Bored • Julian Street
... a provident young person, she might have improved those idle hours during that interminable winter by continuing her study of stenography. But, instead, she crouched on the floor by the window, holding her active young body motionless, while her thoughts like distracted imprisoned ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... present knowledge, would have stepped between the two and easily steered the two little boats into safe currents on a joint and prosperous journey. So little would have been needed, a little hint, a loving word of direction, a gentle stay - and everything would have been well. But these are idle and tormenting after-thoughts, perhaps ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... doubt that I was not far from the end of my own resources. I began to be light-headed and to be tempted to let go—now arguing that I was certainly arrived within a few feet of the level and could safely risk a fall, anon persuaded I was still close at the top and it was idle to continue longer on the rock. In the midst of which I came to a bearing on plain ground, and had nearly wept aloud. My hands were as good as flayed, my courage entirely exhausted, and, what with the long strain ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to the cabman before taking his seat. The word "station" was the only one I caught, and I wondered whether it was to be Bow Street again. My companion's next words, however, or rather the tone in which he uttered them, destroyed my capacity for idle speculation. ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... because a man is so much more active in another. The mind possessed with the liveliest interest in one subject buries itself in it, and, because of this, cannot give itself up to another which before had engrossed the attention. Thus it appears more idle than it is, or rather it appears to be idle just because it is more industrious. This is especially the case in passing from one subject of instruction to another. The pupil should acquire such a flexibility ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... else.] A prolonged fit of idleness might make me marry ... a clever woman. But I've never been idle for more than a week. And I've never met a clever woman ... worth calling ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... imagine two communities, one of which should, with their children and their children's children, diligently devote the Lord's day to purposes of moral, religious and intellectual improvement, while the other community should waste the day in idle and frivolous dissipation, what unmeasured progress would ultimately be made by one beyond that made by the other. And to which of these two classes will that favored people belong to whom will be awarded the high privilege of introducing ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... by way of epilogue. The "Reminiscences" contain a catalogue raisonne of such works as were published up to the year 1836. Since then the author has not been idle. The "Tour into the North of England and Scotland," in two super-royal octavos, studded with graphic gems of a variety of description—and dedicated to the most illustrious female in Europe, for the magnificence ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... war was a matter of experiment! As if you could take it up or lay it down as an idle frolic! As if the dire goddess that presides over it, with her murderous spear in hand, and her gorgon at her breast, was a coquette to be flirted with! We ought with reverence to approach that tremendous divinity, that loves courage, but commands ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... exercise, and the French internat is the engine the most effective for hindering the exercise of this one.—The youth, from the first to the last day of his internat, has never been able to deliberate on, choose and decide what he should do at any one hour of his schooldays; except to idle away time in study-hours, and pay no attention at recitations, he could not exercise his will. Nearly every act, especially his outward attitudes, postures, immobility, silence, drill and promenades in rank, is only obedience to orders. ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... it may be said, what is it in man's nature which is really admirable? It is idle for us to waste our labour in passing Reineke through the moral crucible unless we shall recognise the results when we obtain them; and in these moral sciences our analytical tests can only be obtained ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... the ranch at which he lived for the greater part of his time as a long, low, story-high house of hewn logs, clean and neat, and with many rooms. It faced the river, and in front was a long, low veranda, where one might idle on a clear, warm day to his heart's content. Inside, the main room contained a shelf full of the owner's favorite outdoor books and the walls half-a-dozen pet pictures. Rifles and shot-guns stood handy in corners, and on pegs and deer horns hung overcoats of wolf or coon skin and gloves ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... quite forgotten her idle promise when, on the following Monday morning, she stood in the registrar's office, waiting to get a record card for chapel attendance in place of one she had lost. The registrar was busy. Eleanor waited while she discussed the pedagogical ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... many pairs of stockings are needed, and all must be homemade. This is work which the little girls can do while the mother is busy with heavier labors. The knitting work becomes a girl's constant companion, and there are few moments when her hands are idle. ...
— Jean Francois Millet • Estelle M. Hurll
... They're skilled indeed to sing the siren's song, And play with flattery on honest minds. I feel 'twere well to journey to these Isles In company with Francos, at thy will, Thus guarding him from every idle tongue, Which might make impress on an open heart. Caesar: Sweet Quezox, thou art wise, it shall be done. And as you journey, meditate and plan To lop off every head that blocks thy way, Or lacks in sympathy for thy great work. For Francos ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... charge of number five shot. Squalling like an infuriated cat, the shadow crashed down through tree-ferns and orchids and thudded upon the earth at his feet, and, still squalling its rage and pain, had sunk its human teeth into the ankle of his stout tramping boot. He, on the other hand, was not idle, and with his free foot had done what reduced the squalling to silence. So inured to savagery has Bassett since become, that he chuckled again with the glee ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... tell me his name," I said. "Indeed, it is not merely idle curiosity. I just feel as if I must know it—that it is for something very important. Now you need not smile. I'm very earnest, and I shall not sleep until I know. I really felt a presentiment that ...
— Edna's Sacrifice and Other Stories - Edna's Sacrifice; Who Was the Thief?; The Ghost; The Two Brothers; and What He Left • Frances Henshaw Baden
... them into a wreath. The tempest howled louder, the darkness was greater, and the earth quaked still more than in the Copper Forest; the Welwa of the Silver Wood rushed upon Petru with seven-fold greater fierceness than the other Welwa had done. But he was not idle either. The battle again lasted for three days and three nights, and at dawn on the fourth morning our ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... Hebrews in the copper-mines; they are a refractory crew that must be held tight. You know me well, fear is unknown to me—but I feel great anxiety. The last fuel is now burning in this fire, and the smelting furnaces and the glass-foundry must not stand idle. Tomorrow we must ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... demon of madness, she remained as before: a gentle, good-humored creature, quiet and diligent at her work, under the women who had charge of her, and now in the common work-shop. It was only when she was idle that her craziness became evident, and of this the other girls took advantage for their ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... unwarrantable desires, that they never once attend to the business of the place; the sound of the preacher's words doth not so much as once interrupt them. Some have their minds wandering among idle, worldly, or vicious thoughts. Some lie at catch to ridicule whatever they hear, and with much wit and humour provide a stock of laughter, by furnishing themselves from the pulpit. But, of all misbehaviour, none is comparable to ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... here to consider how far this conception of the duty of parents towards children is justified, and whether or not peace is the best preparation for a world in which struggle dominates. All these questions about education are rather idle. There are endless theories of education but no agreement concerning the value of any of them, and the whole question of education remains open. I am here concerned less with the duty of parents in relation to their children than with the duty of children in relation ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... have borne but the smallest proportion to his acquirement at Mr. Blackmore's. Yet to seek to identify, without help from himself, any passages in his books with those boyish law-experiences, would be idle and hopeless enough. In the earliest of his writings, and down to the very latest, he worked exhaustively the field which is opened by an attorney's office to a student of life and manners; but we have not now to deal with his numerous varieties of the genus ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... plans, she had no real intention of attempting a scheme so mad. Subconsciously she confessed to herself it was just the merest idle fancy, not a thing to be actually ventured, ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... comparing, classifying, and labelling their skeletons for the instruction of an age of science. But there was a time when the wisest believed in their existence as an article of faith, and when the boldest shuddered to hear them named. What are now idle fancies were once the most portentous of realities; and in this lies the secret of the almost universal diffusion of certain typical tales, beliefs, and observances, and of the fascination which they have not ceased to exercise over the imagination ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... corridor had heard, but a glance showed they paid no attention to what they considered an idle threat. They didn't know ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... chief difficulty in translating arises from the fact that instead of a single adjective, adverb, or noun, we often have a phrase or a clause taking the place of one of these; for Latin, like English, has adjective, adverbial, and substantive clauses and phrases. For example, in the sentence The idle boy does not study, the word idle is an adjective. In The boy wasting his time does not study, the words wasting his time form an adjective phrase modifying boy. In the sentence The boy who wastes his time ...
— Latin for Beginners • Benjamin Leonard D'Ooge
... the Moravians [204] every one had spoken well to me. He was not the least enthusiastic about his poor black sheep, but he said that if they were not better than the average English labourer, he did not think them worse. They were called idle; they would work well enough if they had fair wages and if the wages were paid regularly; but what could be expected when women servants had but three shillings a week and found themselves, when ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... of idle admiration; he had continued from inclination; but to-night it was plus fort que lui, and he knew he was ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... "Mirror for Magistrates" again gave hints to SPENSER in allegory, and may also "have possibly suggested to SHAKSPEARE the idea of his historical plays." When indeed we find that that great original, HOGARTH, adopted the idea of his "Idle and Industrious Apprentice," from the old comedy of Eastward Hoe, we easily conceive that some of the most original inventions of genius, whether the more profound or the more agreeable, may thus be tracked in the ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... see your wife, is she at home? Ford. I, and as idle as she may hang together for want of company: I thinke if your husbands were dead, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... at country-houses or at the sea-side or in the mountains of the island or the continent. The comely young giants who stalked along the pavement of Pall Mall or in the paths of the Park are off killing grouse; scarcely a livery shows itself; even the omnibus-tops are depopulated; long rows of idle cabs are on the ranks; the stately procession of diners-out flashing their white shirt-fronts at nightfall in interminable hansoms has vanished; the tormented regiments of soldiers are at peace in their barracks; a strange ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... many steps after this observation, before we met with a practical illustration of it. A number of the apprentices had been ordered that morning to cart away some dirt to a particular place. When we approached them, Mr. D. found that one of the "wains" was standing idle. He inquired of the driver why he was keeping the team idle. The reply was, that there was nothing there for it to do; there were enough other wains to carry away all the dirt. "Then," inquired the overseer with an ill-concealed irritation, "why did not go to some other ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... any. Sometimes the long waits were tiresome to a youth who loved action. But Johnny had been schooled to the monotony of a range line-camp, and if he could have ridden over the country while he waited, he would not have minded being left idle most of ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... instantly a squall of conflicting emotions burst in her breast, angry emotions for the most part, because he was no longer with her in either sense of the word, because he was indifferent to all that concerned her inmost soul, and was content to live like a lady himself, a trivial idle life, the chief business of which was pleasure, unremunerative pleasure, upon which he would have had her expend her highest faculties in return for what? Admiring glances ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... the statement came within the grasp of the daughter, who was looking across the idle churn with her mind fixed in singleness of purpose upon remedies, and yet she felt that there was some other element in the matter not yet accounted for. The hopeless tone of the older woman, however, goaded her young spirit into forgetting ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... privilege with his white brethren, and that you may all so conduct yourselves as to give the lie direct to those who have affirmed that the only idea you have of liberty is that it will enable you to indulge in idle habits and licentious pursuits. When liberty casts her benignant smiles on this beautiful island, I trust that the employer and the laborer will endeavour to live on terms of friendship and good will with one another.—When the labourer receives a proper remuneration for his services—when ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... work with the furnaces to-day," was the Professor's first observation. "The ore we found yesterday is too good a thing to lie idle. You will remember I told you some time ago that we want some of these metals to be working ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... on me,—idle enough, for it never can be answered in the affirmative or the negative, Whether it was not these same refitted Jomsburgers who appeared some while after this at Red Head Point, on the shore of Angus, and sustained a new severe ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... death as the penalty. And what shall I propose on my part, O men of Athens? Clearly that which is my due. And what is my due? What return shall be made to the man who has never had the wit to be idle during his whole life; but has been careless of what the many care for—wealth, and family interests, and military offices, and speaking in the assembly, and magistracies, and plots, and parties. Reflecting that I was really too honest a man to be a politician and ...
— Apology - Also known as "The Death of Socrates" • Plato
... that Philip had gone into the Catholic church and entered a monastery at Montreal. Like his friend, Ashe had left the Clergy House as soon as he had come to the decision to which his doubts led. He had seen Maurice, and had talked to him unreservedly of his faith and of his plans. It was idle to attempt to move him; and it was after bidding the proselyte good-by that Maurice was talking of him to Mrs. Staggchase, ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... and said in great anger, "Alas! what marvel am I now beholding? Here is my spear upon the ground, but I see not him whom I meant to kill when I hurled it. Of a truth Aeneas also must be under heaven's protection, although I had thought his boasting was idle. Let him go hang; he will be in no mood to fight me further, seeing how narrowly he has missed being killed. I will now give my orders to the Danaans and attack ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... other avenues closed to them, there is still left to them sabotage, assassination, and civil war. These can neither be outlawed nor even effectively guarded against if there are individuals enough who are disposed to wield them. And it is not by any means idle speculation that a country which can sit calmly by and face such evils as are perpetrated by this vast commerce in violence, by this class use of the State, and by such monstrous outrages as were committed in ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... removal to the window guarded her from observation. She kept her post, fearing to look round, but was much pleased when Mrs Delvile, with great indignation answered "I am sorry, Lady Honoria, you can find any amusement in listening to such idle scandal, which those who tell will never respect you for hearing. In times less daring in slander, the character of Mortimer would have proved to him a shield from all injurious aspersions; yet who shall wonder he could not escape, and who shall contemn the inventors of calumny, ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... the year in Minneapolis in the home of her good friends, Bishop and Mrs. Joyce. She was never content to be idle, and after a few months of rest she gave several addresses in the churches of Minnesota and North Dakota, awakening interest in the cause she represented wherever she went. She so won the hearts of the young people that ...
— Notable Women Of Modern China • Margaret E. Burton
... have never done so. And this their obstinacy, as it is called, will not by this time, I think, appear unreasonable to any sensible man; and he will now be able to appreciate the justice of that idle cant about "the carnal Jews," and their "worldly-minded" expectation of a temporal prince, as their Messiah. Certainly, the Jews had very good reason, from their prophecies, to expect no Messiah but a Messiah who should sit on the ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... Terram"—the motto of the marines. Its parchment, though black and scented with woodsmoke, was limp and mildewed; and I began to tighten up the straps—under which the drumsticks had been loosely thrust—with the idle purpose of seeing if some music might be got out ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... nicknamed, "The Impractical Joker." Life had grown exceedingly unpleasant. Benz avoided everyone that he could, imagining that the whole college was turned against him. He remained close within the seclusion of his room during idle moments; practiced football somewhat indifferently; scarcely ever opened his mouth except when it came time to eat; and above all things he kept out of Judd's sight. He was very thankful that Judd had been suspended. This kept the ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman
... conceding that the vehement energy with which we do our work is due altogether to greed. We probably idle less and play less than any other race, and the absence of national habits of sport, especially in the West, leaves the man of business with no inducement to abandon that unceasing labor in which ...
— Wear and Tear - or, Hints for the Overworked • Silas Weir Mitchell
... "monistic dogma." The closing word of the discourse, "ignorabimus," was translated as a present, and this "ignoramus" taken to mean that "we know nothing at all"; or, even worse, that "we can never come to clearness about anything, and any further talk about the matter is idle." The famous "ignorabimus" address remains certainly an important rhetorical work of art; it is a "beautiful sermon," characterised by its highly-finished form and its surprising variety of philosophico-scientific pictures. It is well known, however, that the ...
— Monism as Connecting Religion and Science • Ernst Haeckel
... permit her to harbour, even for an idle moment, the idea of leaving her shelter and going away? At this the thin, dark face grew rigid and stern. But too well the man knew the folly of setting up active opposition to any young thing straining against the door ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... glance made the lad's hot face yet hotter. "That's the last thing I will do. If a man means to work, he may marry whom he will. But if he has made up his mind to be idle, he is a contemptible cur if he will let his wife keep him in his idleness." He spoke very quietly in his soft voice, and leaned ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... with declamations for the ceremonies, when there is need of pressing the power of godliness upon the consciences of people, and when there are many more necessary things to be urged. The press also sends forth idle discourses and defences of the ceremonies which might be ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... able to cite one instance) a hand had touched them or a breath had brushed their cheek which had no visible human source, and could be traced to no mortal presence. Not much in all this, but it served after a while to keep the house empty, while its reputation for mystery did not lie idle. Sounds were heard to issue from it. At times lights were seen glimmering through this or that chink or rift in the window curtain, but by the time the door was unlocked and people were able to rush in, the interior was still and dark and seemingly ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... long shadows. When their work was done the boys hurried to join the little group under the big willows. They were all there. Ben was set there in the big armchair, Mrs. Boyle with her knitting, for there were no idle hours for her, Margaret with a book which she pretended to read, old Charley smoking in silent content, Iola lazily strumming her guitar and occasionally singing in her low, rich voice some of her old Mammy's songs or plantation ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... the frightened pair what they had said, and was pleased to find that they answered him truly. Then he bade them reflect that if he had great wealth, he had great demands upon it; that he who had a nation to govern could not lead an idle life; and told them "to be more cautious in future, as walls had ears." He then dismissed them, after giving them a quantity of cloth and a good supply of cacao,—the coin of the country. "Go," he said; "with the little you now have, ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... the cypresses of Bello Sguardo, and has paced the centuries continually since the coming of the friars. One might have asked of her the kindness of a fellow-feeling. She and he alike were so habited as to show the world that their life was aloof from its "idle business." By some such phrase, at least, the friar would assuredly have attempted to include her in any spiritual honours ascribed to him. Or one might have asked of her the condescension of forbearance. "Only fancy," said the Salvation Army girl, watching ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... after their return home Eunice had a hard and anxious life. Christopher was idle and dissipated. Most people regarded him as a worthless fellow, and his uncle washed his hands of him utterly. Only Eunice never failed him; she never reproached or railed; she worked like a slave to keep things together. Eventually her patience prevailed. ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... corrupting elections, gaining partisans, in dividing the people among themselves. By these means, from being temporary they became perpetual; from elective, hereditary; and the state, agitated by the intrigues of the ambitious, by largesses from the rich and factious, by the venality of the poor and idle, by the influence of orators, by the boldness of the wicked, and the weakness of the virtuous, was convulsed with all ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... was a little recovered I had great trouble to keep off the men, who wished to ask him a thousand questions; but I would not allow him to be tormented by their idle curiosity, in a state of body and mind whose restoration evidently depended upon entire repose. Once, however, the lieutenant asked why he had come so far upon the ice in so ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... way she treated the unfortunate nuns. The younger and prettier they were, so much the more she boxed, beat, and martyred them, even striking them with the broom-stick. And if they ever smiled or seemed happy talking to one another, she abused and reviled them, calling them idle wantons, who thought of nothing but matrimony. None were permitted outside the convent gates, not even to visit their parents: they should not be flying back with their crumbs of gossip about brides and weddings, forsooth, and such-like improper thoughts. Neither ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... in respect of his affairs." The beaten Venetians accepted their defeat with such a mixture of humility and dignity as soon changed their position in Italy. They began by providing all that was necessary for the defence of Venice herself; foreigners, but only idle foreigners, were expelled; those who had any business which secured them means of existence received orders to continue their labors. Mills were built, cisterns were dug, corn was gathered in, the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... said the curate, mincingly, as he indicated the treasures of cloisonne and of porcelain; "he does not frivol away his money as so many do, on idle dissipations and ephemeral pleasures. On the contrary, he devotes it ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... according to nature that there should be different and unequal positions; some, by brains and good conduct, make capital, and get a footing upon the ways of competence and progress; others, being dull, or idle, or disorderly, remain in the straitened and precarious condition of existence depending solely on wages. Throughout the whole extent of the social structure, in the ranks of labor as well as of property, differences and inequalities of position are produced ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... hostilities had sent a large number of natives from the adjoining districts into Kimberley, and these added to the permanent coloured population increased our responsibilities. There was not sufficient work for so many. This idle host was a menace to the maintenance of law and order, and unless something was done for it internal trouble of a serious kind was sure to arise. These men had no money wherewith to buy food, and although they could not get liquor to drive them to deeds of desperation, hunger ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... masterly in any of his books. From the first low mutterings of the storm to its last terrible explosion, this frantic outbreak of popular ignorance and rage is depicted with unabated power. The aimlessness of idle mischief by which the ranks of the rioters are swelled at the beginning; the recklessness induced by the monstrous impunity allowed to the early excesses; the sudden spread of this drunken guilt into every haunt of poverty, ignorance, or mischief in the wicked ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... Flexibility of mind, a disposition easily biassed by others, is an attribute which you know I am not very desirous of obtaining; nor has Frederica any claim to the indulgence of her notions at the expense of her mother's inclinations. Her idle love for Reginald, too! It is surely my duty to discourage such romantic nonsense. All things considered, therefore, it seems incumbent on me to take her to town and marry her immediately to Sir James. When my own will is effected contrary to his, I shall have some ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... calculated to deceive, if not fairly conditioned. As we have seen, it is claimed on excellent authority that the equivalent of 4,000 candles appeared in an arc by expending 40,000 foot pounds of energy at the generator, but with everyday conditions it is at present idle to expect such efficiency. Commercially we can give by our own system 3,000 candles for 40,000 foot pounds absorbed; this may be done for an indefinite length of time and leave nothing to be desired on the score of steadiness. Unfortunately there is no ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 315, January 14, 1882 • Various
... this matter; nay, hinting agreement with Konig's opinion. But was met by such a storm, that he withdrew from the deliberations; which henceforth went their own bad course, unanimous though slow. And so the matter pendulates all through Winter, 1751-52, and was much the theme of idle men." ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... expences of a long journey had much diminished the sum Madame de Joinville had collected before her departure from France, and the most rigid economy was necessary to prevent them from becoming burthensome to others. In these circumstances, Frederic could not bear the idea of leading an idle life; he greatly wished to follow the profession of his father, but the anxious fears of his grandmother and sister long opposed his inclinations: however, he at length prevailed, and entered a regiment that was ordered ...
— A Week of Instruction and Amusement, • Mrs. Harley
... the historian used the expression, "when they were in the field." Thereby Moses indicates that the murderer Cain had watched his opportunity to attack his brother when both were alone. All the circumstances plainly show that Abel was not idle at the time; for he was in the field, where he had to do the things his father committed to him. From Moses' statement we may infer that Abel's parents felt absolutely no fear of danger. For, although ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... the true chain of cause and effect, selecting the facts that are most valuable and significant and explaining the relation between general causes and particular effects, are all very different and belong to different types of mind. It is idle to expect a writer with the gifts of a Clarendon, a Kinglake, or a Froude to write history in the spirit of a Hallam or a Grote. Writers who are eminently distinguished for wide, patient, and accurate research have sometimes little power either of describing or interpreting ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... this time Fitz and the agent had preserved the outward appearance of two idle gentlemen visiting a friend in the country, with no interest beyond the fresh air and the environments of a charming hospitality. With the unrolling of this map, however, and the discovery of the very boundary points insisted on by Chad in Bedford Place, their excitement ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... was so complete, that, after careful consideration and inquiry, Pyrrhus could see, with the resources he had at his command, no hope of recovering his throne. But, being of an ambitious and restless spirit, he determined not to remain idle; and he concluded, therefore, to enter into the service of Demetrius in his war against Cassander. There were two considerations which led him to do this. In the first place, Cassander was his most formidable enemy, ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... receiving." This is one of the profoundest utterances on record; and yet like all great truths, so simple as to be rarely comprehended. It contains the whole philosophy of History. It utters a truth which, had it been recognized, would have saved men an immensity of vain, idle disputes, and have led them into the clearer paths of knowledge in the Past. It means this,—that all truths are Truths of Period, and not truths for eternity; that whatever great fact has had strength ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... children, took possession of the quiet bachelor's abode. The furniture had been sold to pay the expenses of the funeral, and a few trifling bills; and, save the kitchen and the two attics, the empty house, uninhabited, was surrendered to the sportive mischief of the idle urchins, who prowled about the silent chambers in fear of the silence, and in ecstasy at the space. The bedroom in which Caleb had died was, indeed, long held sacred by infantine superstition. But one day the eldest ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... and in living out our love, we certainly have the clew to the heavenly life. We shall continue in the doing of the things we have here learned to do. Life in glory will be earth's Christian life intensified and perfected. Heaven will not be a place of idle repose. Inaction can never be a condition of blessedness for a life made and trained for action. The essential quality of love is service—"not to be ministered unto, but to minister;" and for one who has learned ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... He had too much sense to pay an idle compliment. "If that be the tragedy, Miss Vashti," said he, "then we are wise in our folly, which bids us rest our hopes in our work though its permanence be all an illusion. We cannot cheat ourselves with a tale that we shall not grow old, but we are able to believe, however vainly, that ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... survey The restless flood. No object meets our eye. But hark what sound is that approaching near, "Down close," The wild-ducks come, and darting down, Throw up on ev'ry side the troubled wave; Then gayly swim around with idle play, With breath restrain'd, and palpitating heart, I view their movements, whilst my well-taught dogs Like lifeless statues crouch. Now is the time, Closer they join; nor will the growing light Admit of more delay—with ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... and teacher, and so treated him, whether present or absent. Leaving that employment, he went forth to the Filipinas, where he arrived, as we have said, in June of the year one thousand five hundred and ninety-five. During the voyage he was not idle, but rather kindled the fervor of all on the ship with discourses and sermons, as I was told in his praise by the commander of the fleet, and by the father commissary of the Holy Office in the province of Pintados, the associate of the right reverend bishop of Sebu. I conducted him to Leite ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... Belinden, to which reference has just been made. "If, my dear one, you can picture to yourself a Goethe who, in a laced coat, and otherwise clad from head to foot with finery in tolerable keeping, in the idle glare of sconces and lustres, amid a motley throng of people, is held a prisoner at a card-table by a pair of beautiful eyes; who in alternating distraction is driven from company to concert and from ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... courteous in the home, and will share cheerfully in all the little duties of the household. Some one has said that idleness is "the chief author of all mischief." And surely any individual who chooses to be idle rather than to be usefully employed, is exceedingly ill-bred. Children should be taught the nobility of labor, and to respect those who faithfully perform the humblest duties of life, just as much as those who ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... I to be prepared to meet him with any feeling answerable to his own? He took me wholly by surprise. I had not an idea that his behaviour to me before had any meaning; and surely I was not to be teaching myself to like him only because he was taking what seemed very idle notice of me. In my situation, it would have been the extreme of vanity to be forming expectations on Mr. Crawford. I am sure his sisters, rating him as they do, must have thought it so, supposing he had meant nothing. How, then, was I to be—to be in love with him the ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... office—which is situated directly opposite to Charing Cross Station—and returned. Then lighting a cigar, he took the friendly and indefatigable "Who's Who" upon his knee, and began to turn the pages indolently. It is a most interesting volume for an idle moment, full of scattered romance, tales of struggle and adventure, compressed into a few lines, peeps of history, and the ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... all indignities cut deep where a man's soul feels keenest. And when transport after transport sailed out of the San Francisco harbor, loaded with regiments for the Philippines, and still the Twentieth Kansas was left in idle waiting on the dreary sand lots of Camp Merritt and the Presidio reservation, the silent campaign that really makes a soldier was waged daily ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... to night I am myself a dreamer, And slight things bring on me the idle mood. Well, sir, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... undertakings, however enterprising, Belzoni was aided and cheered by the presence of his wife. The expedition to Nubia was, however, thought too hazardous for her to undertake. But in the absence of her husband she was not idle; she dug up the statue of Jupiter Ammon, with the ram's head on his knee; which is ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... here. It's the best place for letting blood. For only consider, the blood from the arm comes from the vein, but here it is of no consequence. The doctors don't know that and don't understand it, how should they, the idle drones, the wretched Germans? It's the blacksmiths who go in for it. And aren't they skilful! They get a chisel, give it a tap with a hammer and it's done! ... Well, while I was thinking it over, it got quite dark, it was time for bed. I went to bed and Tresor, of course, ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... Spirits. Now though every Body rallies upon these Fellows when they are absent, and looks upon 'em as Fools that have lost their Senses by some violent Distemper, yet they allow 'em to visit the Sick; whether it be to divert 'em with their Idle Stories, or to have an Opportunity of seeing them rave, skip about, cry, houl, and make Grimaces and Wry Faces, as if they were possess'd. When all the Bustle is over, they demand a Feast of a Stag and some large Trouts for the Company, who are thus regal'd at ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman
... him, but he insisted that he had not been to London for years and years. He originally came from the States. And I was once a detective! Good Lord, how I have lost my old cleverness! But to be sure I have been idle ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... Hohenzollern, burgrave of Nuremberg, was invested with the margravate of Brandenburg and the electoral dignity. The Hohenzollerns, a few exceptions aside, have been a thrifty, energetic and successful family. Slowly, but with the precision of destiny, their motto, "From rock to sea"—once apparently an idle boast—has realized itself to the full, until they now stand foremost in Europe. It would pertain rather to a history of the Prussian monarchy than to a sketch like the present to trace, even in outline, the steps ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... province of Anhui. These risings had been produced, as always, by excessive oppression of the people by the government or the governing class. As, however, the anger of the population was naturally directed also against the idle Manchus of the cities, who lived on their state pensions, did no work, and behaved as a ruling class, the government saw in these movements a nationalist spirit, and took drastic steps against them. The popular leaders now altered their programme, and acclaimed a ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... philosophy be the most ancient and most exalted of human disciplines, it is not infrequently charged with being the most unprofitable. Science has amassed a fortune of information, which has facilitated life and advanced civilization. Is not philosophy, on the other hand, all programme and idle questioning? In the first place, no questioning is idle that is logically possible. It is true that philosophy shows her skill rather in the asking than in the answering of questions. But the formal pertinence of a question is of the greatest significance. ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... was stricter than Mirza Ahmak himself in all the exteriors of religion, and scrupulous to a fault about things forbidden as unclean. I was in want of a pair of yakhdans, or trunks, and a pair belonging to the doctor, which were lying idle in an unfrequented room, were frequently the objects of my contemplation. How shall I manage to become master of these? thought I: had I but half the invention of Dervish Sefer, I should already have been packing ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... a sister; in the happy days gone by, You'd have known her by the merriment that sparkled in her eye; Too innocent for coquetry,—too fond for idle scorning,— O friend! I fear the lightest heart makes sometimes heaviest mourning! Tell her the last night of my life—(for, ere the moon be risen, My body will be out of pain, my soul be out of prison), I dreamed I stood with her, and saw the yellow sunlight shine On the vine-clad ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... to shiver the sky and wrench the stars apart, Till the Devil grunted behind the bricks: "It's striking, but is it Art?" The stone was dropped at the quarry-side and the idle derrick swung, While each man talked of the aims of Art, and each in an ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... so that as much as possible of this detail work is accomplished before the sight is taken. Next, take your sextant and test it for index error. This should be done regularly before each series of sights as it is impossible to tell what may have happened when the sextant is lying idle, except by the above test. Now, with your sextant, watch and notebook, go to the place from which you have decided to take your observations and, at the proper watch time, start taking your altitudes. It is always advisable to take a number ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper
... early exhibited an unusual talent for drawing, however, greatly preferring the employment of his pencil to the more serious duties of the school. His instructors and companions considered him a dull boy, though all admitted that he showed no disposition to be idle. All his leisure time was spent either in drawing, or in visiting the shops of the mechanics in the place and eagerly watching their operations. He displayed a remarkable talent for mechanism, which was greatly ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... "but it would not be so easy to execute. These mountain defiles are terrible, and you may be sure that the king will not be idle while you and the Saxons are marching to ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... Barre to let his devil enter into competition with the boys of his seventh form; but Barre, instead of frankly accepting the challenge in the devil's name, hemmed and hawed, and opined that the devil was justified in not satisfying idle curiosity. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - URBAIN GRANDIER—1634 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... would say, "Wake up, wake up, child! Only the idle sit and stare at nothing and think of nothing. You'll be growing up an idle, trifling boy if you give way to such ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... not been idle. A great army was raised of people of every rank and condition, Catholics as well as Protestants uniting in the defense of the country; while in every port round, the din of preparation was heard. ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... he was angry with himself, was sick of his idle life. But he did not feel within him the strong certainty that he would be able to take his life in hand and transform it, which drives doubt and sorrow out of a man. He kept on saying, "I must!" But he ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... About one in the afternoon fire broke out in the seminary buildings. The inhabitants hastened up from all directions to the spot and attempted with the greatest energy to stay the progress of the flames. Idle efforts! The larger and the smaller seminary, the priests' house, the chapel barely completed, were all consumed, with the exception of some furniture and a little plate and tapestry. The cathedral was saved, thanks to the efforts of the state engineer, M. Levasseur de Nere, who succeeded ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... loom, an ith frame, Ther's melody mingled ith' noise; For th' active ther's praises, for th' idle ther's blame, If they'd harken to th' saand of its voice. An when flaggin a bit, how refreshin to feel As you pause an look raand on the throng, At the clank o' the tappet, the hum o' the wheel, Sing this plain unmistakable song:— Nick a ting, nock a ting; Wages keep pocketing; ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... that if this be tolerated we shall have societies for the prevention of cruelty to chairs and tables, or cutting clothes amiss, or wearing them to tatters, or whatever other absurdity may occur to idle and unkind people; the whole discussion, therefore, should be ordered out of ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... mutum or a couple of monkeys and, on one occasion, a female tapir. Thus feasting to repletion, we failed to notice that the lucky strikes came at longer intervals; that the animals were deserting our part of the forest. During these three weeks we were not wholly idle. The Chief had the men out every day making excursions in the neighbourhood to locate the caoutchouc trees. As soon as a tree was found, they set to work bleeding the base of it to let the milky sap ooze out on the ground where it would collect ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... During his first idle day, Harry's attention was drawn to a handbill which had been posted up in the store, the post office, the tavern, and other public places in the village. ...
— Bound to Rise • Horatio Alger
... limestone, which is found only along the coast or at a great depth. It has been brought here from a considerable distance. Indians may have done the work, but they never did it willingly. If they did it at all, it was as slaves. But we have no time for idle speculation. Let's walk along it and see ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... as he would, the echoes of the rumbling of the Pit reached Jadwin at every hour of the day and night. He stayed at home over Christmas. Inactive, he sat there idle, while the clamour of the Pit swelled daily louder, and the price of wheat ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... which gladdens thy world, and contemplation of the objects which are here to expand thy mind and quicken the pulses of thy heart!... I will pray ye to observe how much of our positive misery originates in our idle speculations in matters of faith, and in our blind, our fearful forgetfulness of facts—our cold, heartless, and, I will say, insane indifference to visible causes of tangible evil, and visible sources of tangible happiness. Look to the ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... new beginning, as if one day of creation were finished and a new one begun. The different formations lie unconformably upon each other, which means revolution of some sort. There has been a strike or a riot in the great mill, or it has lain idle for a long period, and when it has resumed, a different product is the result. Something happened ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... Reader we find the story of the idle boy who talked with the bees, dogs, and horses, and having found them all busy, reformed himself; of the kind girl who shared her cake with a dog and an old man; of the mischievous boys who tied the grass across the path and thus upset ...
— A History of the McGuffey Readers • Henry H. Vail
... been used. I wonder why it did not get another tenant." He smiled sadly over this fancy but went on with it. "Well I've had thoughts enough concerning people and I've had the use of these lips and a tongue but I've let them lie idle. When my Ellen was here living with me I let her think me cold and unfeeling while something within me was straining and straining ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... past an armorer's, Who, with back turn'd, and bow'd above his work, Sat riveting a helmet on his knee, He put the self-same query, but the man Not turning round, nor looking at him, said: "Friend, he that labors for the sparrow-hawk Has little time for idle questioners." Whereat Geraint flash'd into sudden spleen: "A thousand pips eat up your sparrow-hawk! Tits, wrens, and all wing'd nothings peck him dead! Ye think the rustic cackle of your bourg The murmur of the world! What is it to me? O wretched set of sparrows, one and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... well to take his advice, though not particularly relishing the manner in which it was given. She did use her eyes, and as she and the cuckoo made their way along the flower alleys, she saw that the butterflies were never idle. They came regularly, in little parties of twos and threes, and nibbled away, as she called it, at flowers of the same colour but different shades, till they had got what they wanted. Then off flew butterfly No. 1 with perhaps the palest tint of maize, or yellow, or lavender, ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... is a thing absolute; it is not altered by circumstances, especially for a circumstance so trivial as a young man's idle fancy." ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... an idle solitary mariner, lying at length in his vessel at rest on one of these canals, waiting for his company or for a fare; the tiresomeness of which situation is somewhat alleviated by the songs and poetical stories he has in memory. He often raises his voice as loud as he can, which extends ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... journey alone as with a boor. But "thou shalt speak of them by the way," says Deuteronomy of the commandments, and this (to say nothing of the danger) was one of the reasons why solitary travelling was disapproved. A man walking alone was more likely to turn his mind to idle thoughts, than if he had a congenial partner to converse with, and the Mishnah is severe against him who turns aside from his peripatetic study to admire a tree or a fallow. This does not imply that the Jews were ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... indeed, Miss, I'd no heart to sweeping an' fettling, an' washing pots; so I sat me down i' th' muck—who should come in but Maister Weston! I started siding stuff then, an' sweeping an' doing; and I expected he'd begin a-calling me for my idle ways, as Maister Hatfield would a' done; but I was mista'en: he only bid me good-mornin' like, in a quiet dacent way. So I dusted him a chair, an' fettled up th' fireplace a bit; but I hadn't forgotten th' Rector's words, so says I, "I wonder, ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... Nakanit and her daughter," she said. "My mother taught her a good deal, and she often comes to see me. Those are surely white children. I wonder what the trouble is. Old Nakanit knows that the Sabbath is not a day for idle visits, and indeed, Rose, it does not become us to be stretching our heads out of the window. There, they are on the porch now. Why, Rose!" For with a quick exclamation the girl had run from the room and when Mrs. Freeman followed she found her ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis
... own situation. During three hours that he stayed at Mrs. Luttridge's, Mr. Vincent never joined any of the parties at play; but, just as he was going away, he heard some one say—"How comes it, Vincent, that you've been idle all night?" This question revived Mr. Hervey's suspicions; and, uncertain what report he should make to Lord Delacour, he resolved to defer making any, till he had ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... in the maritime republics, the army, idle and unwarlike as it was in most cases, continued to be one of the three careers open to the younger sons of good family; the civil service and the Church were the other two. In Genoa, nobles had engaged in commerce with equal honor ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... rude, representation of a human figure standing erect, with outstretched arm. The rest of them bore also some little resemblance to alphabetical characters, and Peters was willing, at all events, to adopt the idle opinion that they were really such. I convinced him of his error, finally, by directing his attention to the floor of the fissure, where, among the powder, we picked up, piece by piece, several large flakes of the marl, which ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the tranquillity which tells of good masters, and I heard the joyful barking of dogs. 'Truly,' I said to myself, 'the history of the variations of animals was written here, and observations must be going on, for Darwin is never idle.' I did not suspect that I was walking above the dwellings of those lowly beings called earthworms, the subject of his last work, in which Darwin showed once more how little causes in the long run produce great effects. He had been studying them for thirty years, but ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... likewise to be dependent on the rates. Thus the vice of lazy and shiftless poverty was bequeathed from pauper sire to son. In the case of the ordinary man or woman there was no incitement to industry and perseverance. The idle pauper would be fed in any case, and no matter how hard he worked at the ordinary labor within his reach he could only hope to be poorly fed. Indeed, even the man who had an honest inclination for honest labor was very much in the condition of the Irish cottier tenant, ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... anchoring, or communicating with the shore. The captains by such ships are pretty deeply, if not very loudly, abused by all hands, passengers especially, who are perhaps the most dissatisfied, because the most idle, of mortals. Shortly after leaving Madeira, which is in 32-1/2 deg. north latitude, a ship may expect to meet the Trades; but she cannot calculate with any certainty upon catching them till she arrives at the parallel of 28 deg.. On first reaching ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... how, surprised us; and you dared Neither advance nor turn back: so, we stood Laughing and crying until Gerard came— Once safe upon the turf, the loudest too, For once more reaching the relinquished prize! How idle thoughts are, some ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... been doing some very good work on the Gentians in the interests of the business of being idle. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... utmost moral and strict seclusion, but she found in her room an aperture through which she could witness all that took place in the neighbouring room of a maison de passe; but being a great philosopher, she in time regarded it all as the "butterfly passing show" of a theatre, the mere idle ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... farmlands, with their stodgy, bovine people—all of these things are sketched in simply, and yet almost magnificently. I know, indeed, of no book which better describes the American hinterland. Here we have no idle spying by a stranger, but a full-length representation by one who knows the thing he describes intimately, and is himself a part of it. Almost every mile of the road travelled has been Dreiser's own road in life. He knew those unkempt Indiana towns in boyhood; ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... labour, the paid and the unpaid, went on side by side without active rivalry. No doubt slavery helped to foster idleness, as it did in the Southern States of America before the Civil War;[79] no doubt there were plenty of idle ruffians in the city, ready to steal, to murder, or to hire themselves out as the armed followers of a political desperado like Clodius; but the simple necessities of the life of those who had no slaves of their own gave employment, we may be ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... recognized in this bronzed and maimed officer the little Oscar Husson he had formerly taken to Presles. Madame Husson, at last a widow, was as little recognizable as her son. Clapart, a victim of Fieschi's machine, had served his wife better by death than by all his previous life. The idle lounger was hanging about, as usual, on the boulevard du Temple, gazing at the show, when the explosion came. The poor widow was put upon the pension list, made expressly for the families of the victim, at fifteen ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... they must henceforth assume. A law so living, which stands at every point in immediate contact with reality, which is at war with traditionary custom, and which proceeds with constant reference to the demands of practical life, is no mere velleity, no mere cobweb of an idle brain, but has as certainly arisen out of historical occasions as it is designed to operate powerfully on the course of the subsequent history. A judgment pronounced in accordance with the facts can therefore ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... said, in a low voice, "I have said naught of it before—I feared it would sound but an idle boast, an idle dream; but I am pledged to the search after the lost treasure. If it yet lies hid, as men say it does, Cuthbert Trevlyn will ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... any alternative to these Indian wars. It is idle folly to speak of them as being the fault of the United States Government; and it is even more idle to say that they could have been averted by treaty. Here and there, under exceptional circumstances or when a given tribe was feeble and unwarlike, the whites might gain the ground ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... golden gate she stands, With drooping head, with idle hands Loose-clasped, and bent beneath the weight Of unseen woe. Too late, too late! Those carved and fretted, Starred, resetted Panels shall not open ever To her who seeks the ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... night to awaken her apprehensions and to stir her feeling of loyalty to the depths. The suggestion that Pierce Phillips was in the slightest degree responsible for the death of Count Courteau had roused her indignation and her fighting-blood. Unable to endure the suspense of idle waiting, she had sought relief by assuming a sort of sentinel post where she could watch developments. It was something to be close to his affairs. It was next to being close to him; hence the reason of her presence and her ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... (though here not so considered), immediately above the ground-floor, and directly under the first-floor. In this building, some of the entresols are inhabited by the shopkeepers below; some, by women of no equivocal calling, who throw out their lures to the idle youths sauntering under the arcades; and others again are now become maisons de pret, where pawnbrokers ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... before next Christmas. One wonders where the wrist-pin man is, Mr. Stump. Does he intend to come in at all, or will he just snooze his little head off all day? One wonders what to say to the plant manager, Mr. Stump. How do you tell him that twenty men are standing idle on Sub-Assembly Line 3-A because, through a laughable oversight, there is no one to put in a wrist-pin? How do you explain it so he will understand, ...
— All Day Wednesday • Richard Olin
... mother: they are only lent to us for a part of our lives, and no memory of sensible, useful work will be to us the same pleasure in after years as the thought of the time that passed more pleasantly for a mother because we spent it in idle (!) talk, or the knowledge that a father had enjoyed the feeling that we were always at hand if he wanted us. A strong-minded woman might consider matters differently, and feel that a language learnt, or a district visited, was of more value, but we shall not be able to reason so ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... attend them; but they persevered, and were more successful. "Now," Richard Carey writes, (February 7, 1769,) "it is mortifying to many of the inhabitants that they have obtained their wishes, and that such numbers of ladies attend. It is a bad thing for Boston to have so many gay, idle people in it." There is much comment, in the letters and journals, upon these balls and concerts, and some of it not very flattering to the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... subsequent course of events. No one suffered more severely and more persistently from its application than the Tractarians; no one was more ready to apply it to them than Dr. Hampden with his friends; no one approved and encouraged its vigorous enforcement against them more than Dr. Whately. The idle distinction set up, that they were not merely unsound but dishonest, was a mere insolent pretext to save trouble in argument, and to heighten the charge against them; no one could seriously doubt that they wrote in good faith as much as Dr. Whately or Dr. Faussett. ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... mistake he made when he cast Lily off, but it could not now be helped. No tears, no regrets, could bring back the dear little form laid away beneath the grassy sod, and so he would not waste his time in idle mourning. He would do the best he could with 'Lina. He did believe she loved him. He was almost sure of it, and as a means of redressing Lily's wrongs he would be kind ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... fruits he scorned to till, These vales the idle Indian trod; Nor knew the glad, creative skill, The joy of him ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... and idolized by the blind disciples who had taken him for their guide. This portrait was Mrs Thompson's peculiar property. There were no other articles of virtu in the spacious apartment; but cleanliness and decorum bestowed upon it a grace, the absence of which no idle decoration could supply. Early as the hour was, a saucepan was on the fire, whose bubbling water was busy with the supper that at half-past eight must meet the assault of many knives and forks. John Thompson and two sons—the eldest—were working in the shop. They ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... Cantemir had turned religious, owing to the taking hold upon him of a mortal disease; and though he had not been about to undo any of his schemes in Cedric's case, yet he intended to do so as soon as he was able. He was not idle, however, as he wrote many letters and received visits from the ones who were foremost in the fight. Nor was he long in discovering that their feelings were already changed toward Ellswold, for they saw 'twas unpopular ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... of Natalie and Theodosia was received yesterday, and will be answered to-morrow or next day. It seems that you write once a fortnight. Two such idle sluts might find half an hour daily to give a ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... of the old ignorant preachers? And how is any race to rise without intelligent leaders of their own in every locality? These will naturally be found in their men of education and property, in their ministers, physicians, lawyers, editors, teachers and political representatives. It is idle and wrong to repress or ignore the ambition of negroes of talent to be something more than laborers and servants, bootblacks and whitewashers. They must have the chance that others have, in proportion to their numbers; no more, no less. And all these rising colored men must have correspondingly ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 39, No. 08, August, 1885 • Various
... extend congruously, or may contradict and totally annul. If physical science should remove those threats of destruction to follow upon sin which Christian prophecy contains, or if it should prove that what brings destruction is just that unworldly, prayerful, all-forgiving, idle, and revolutionary attitude which the gospel enjoins, then physical science would be incompatible with Christianity; not with this or that text of the Bible merely, about the sun standing still or the dead rising ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... been twice married, the second time to the widow West. She had brought with her to her new home a good-looking, long-legged, black-eyed, black-haired ne'er-do-well of a son, a year or so younger than Hiram. He was a shrewd, quick-witted lad, idle, shiftless, willful, ill-trained perhaps, but as bright and keen as a pin. He was the very opposite to poor, dull Hiram. Eleazer White had never loved his son; he was ashamed of the poor, slack-witted oaf. Upon the other hand, he was very fond of Levi West, ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... her passionately. Complete idleness, these kisses in broad daylight while he looked round in dread of some one's seeing them, the heat, the smell of the sea, and the continual passing to and fro before him of idle, well-dressed, well-fed people, made a new man of him; he told Anna Sergeyevna how beautiful she was, how fascinating. He was impatiently passionate, he would not move a step away from her, while she was often ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Sight of the black horse grazing near seemed to prompt the trenchant replies. Spades belonged to Jean Isbel. He had been stolen by her father or by one of her father's accomplices. Isbel's vaunted cunning as a tracker had been no idle boast. Her father was a horse thief, a rustler, a sheepman only as a blind, a consort of Daggs, leader of the Hash Knife Gang. Ellen well remembered the ill repute of that gang, way back in Texas, years ago. Her father had gotten in with this famous band of ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... of the air in some part of the respiratory tract. Nasal polypi, thickening of the membrane, pharyngeal polypi, deformed bones, paralysis of the wing of the nostril, etc., are occasional causes. The noisy breathing of horses after having been idle and put to sudden exertion is not due to any disease and is only temporary. Very often a nervous, excitable horse will make a noise for a short time when started off, generally caused by the cramped position in which the head and neck are forced ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... the heading "Literary Humbug," which evidently has reference to the contents of his own work, Schmidt then meets numerous objections. Here vigorous epithets are bandied about, as, for instance, "absolute nonsense," "muddler," "foolish and senseless prattle," "idle talk," etc.; and from Dodel he copies the words with which the latter once sought to annihilate me: Job, verse 10, "Thou hast spoken like one of the foolish women." And he ventures to express indignation at Loofs' "invectives." As a compliment to Lasson he declares that he could easily conceive ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
... his instruments. It was said of him that when he wanted any work done he chose the persons best able to do it, let their general character be what it might. The rank and file of the patricians, proud, idle, vicious, and self-indulgent, might be left to their mistresses and their gaming-tables. They could do no mischief unless they had leaders at their head who could use their resources more effectively than they could do themselves. There were two men only ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... Madame, coming forward pleasantly. "This is my husband. You know him by name, I expect." She whispered, "The celebrated river painter. Most successful. And such a worker. Never idle for ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... they had never come. Cubans did not make Cuba a republic, Americans made Cuba a republic and then abandoned us. Of course, confusion followed. And in the revolution of 1906 and other revolutions, the Americans meddled, and yet did nothing. It is idle to deny that American influence is strong here! But what does it amount to? We are neither really ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... support the Hollanders in that unequal contest in which they were engaged, he yet protracted his declaration, and employed the time in naval preparations, both in the ocean and the Mediterranean. The king of Denmark, meanwhile, was resolved not to remain an idle spectator of the contest between the maritime powers. The part which he acted was the most extraordinary: he made a secret agreement with Charles to seize all the Dutch ships in his harbors, and to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... Well, speculation now was idle, he told himself, as he noted that his speedometer had dropped from sixty to thirty in his preoccupation. He speeded again, but was soon forced to stop and ask his way into Primrose Meadows. The vague ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... fumiter and furrow-weeds, With burdocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers, Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow In ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... not been long in the cleaning shed before his trials began. The man who had offered him beer on his first day was Jem Whatman's father, and Dick's quiet refusal had angered him greatly, and his threat to make him know better had not been an idle one. ...
— Dick Lionheart • Mary Rowles Jarvis
... Wilson Sewing-Machine Company was then doing a comparatively small yet rapidly growing business at Watertown, Connecticut. The Terroy & Barnum clock factory was standing idle, almost worthless, in East Bridgeport, and Wheeler & Wilson saw in the empty building, the situation, the ease of communication with New York, and other advantages, precisely what they wanted, provided they could procure the premises at a rate ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... heard the voice of that young lady, mingled with others, approaching along the veranda. At the same moment he experienced acute regret at the whim of fortune which had made himself and that sprightly young lady fellow-passengers from Panama, and at the idle impulse which had prompted him to flirt ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne
... place for idle people," he said, "or it is a very good place if your family has been settled here for a long time, and you have made acquaintances and got your relations round you; or if you have got a good big house ...
— The American • Henry James
... command of that fort is not idle," said Mr. Flint, who had been using his glass very industriously since the firing ceased. "The soldiers are busy setting up the guns ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... window also rock-cut and is only to be approached by a narrow stairway of the same structure. Outside, at the foot of the cliff, is the convent, in which reside two or three priests and as many kalogheri, constituting the community, for the convents of the Orthodox church are not communities of idle devotees, but of men who are mostly engaged in the culture of the land belonging to the convent, when not engaged in the performance of the rites of the church. The hegumenos I found to be more a man of war than one of ritual, and really the commander of an outpost of observation ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... a week after his return from Lidford. He had come to business early that morning, had initialed a good many accounts, and written half-a-dozen letters already, and had thrown himself back in his easy-chair for a few minutes' idle musing—musing upon that one sweet dream of his new existence, of course. From whatever point his thoughts started, they always drifted into ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... of his time, at some periods of his reign, in idle amusements, lounging about his palace, playing at tennis in the tennis court like a boy, and then weighing himself afterward to see how much he was gaining. In the afternoons and evenings he would ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... said to the broker, "O most ill-omened of brokers, this day thou hast brought to our market naught save this gibing baggage to flout at all who are therein, one after other, and fleer at them with flyting verse and idle jest?" And he came down from his shop and smote on the face the broker, who took her an angered and carried her away, saying to her, "By Allah, never in my life saw I a more shameless wench than thyself![FN465] Thou ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... disappeared, as if they had been carried away by the wind. He did not even venture to employ her to correct his proofs, having ascertained that she had cut out of an article an entire passage, the sentiment of which offended her Catholic belief. And thus she remained idle, prowling about the rooms, and having an abundance of time to watch for an occasion which would put in her possession the key of the large press. This was her dream, the plan which she revolved in her mind during her long silence, ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... pestered for five hours with a parcel of idle rumours of ruin and destruction, which rather diverted than alarmed me, for though the Prince de Conde, distrusting his brother the Prince de Conti, had surprised him in bed and carried him off with him to Saint ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... labor, strive; drudge, slave; operate, manipulate, perform; ferment, effervesce. Antonyms: shirk, idle, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... went into partnership. It has been a success. We have made money, but it left little time for anything else. Nevertheless, Mr. Carrothers has never lost his enthusiasm in regard to The Veiled Mariposa, and that has kept up my flagging interest. We have not been idle about it either; but have kept prospectors down there almost all the time. Ydo went over the ground two or three years ago. But this year, we had decided to make a special effort. We were to send down some great ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... times under Nero, in which indolence was wisdom. He maintained the same tenor of conduct when praetor; for the judiciary part of the office did not fall to his share. [22] In the exhibition of public games, and the idle trappings of dignity, he consulted propriety and the measure of his fortune; by no means approaching to extravagance, yet inclining rather to a popular course. When he was afterwards appointed by Galba to manage an inquest concerning the offerings which had been ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... sufferings. The after progress of the little colony was for some time slow and painful. The system of common property[324] had excited grievous discontent; this tended to create an aversion to labor that was to be productive of no more benefit to the industrious than to the idle; in a short time it became necessary to enforce a certain degree of exertion by the punishment of whipping. They intrusted all religious matters to the gifted among their brethren, and would not allow of the formation of any regular ministry. However, the unsuitableness of these systems ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... in that way they might eventually get 70 horse power in a boat of that size, because the weight of the motor was not great. With regard to the formation of a film on the surface, no doubt a film of sulphate of lead was formed if the battery stood idle, but it did not considerably reduce its efficiency; as soon as it was broke through by the energy being evolved from it, it would give off its maximum current. They knew by experience that, with properly ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 430, March 29, 1884 • Various
... were not idle spectators, judging from the loud talking, yeh-yeh-ing, and unintelligible lingo, that resounded all about. We saw Raed paying the most polite attentions to a very chubby, fat girl with a black ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... their dotage if, forty years later, they had extolled the literature of their nonage. One does not care to dwell long on such a point: but it may just be observed that the present writer's withers are hardly even pinched, let alone wrung, by the strictest application, to his case, of this rather idle notion. For some of what he is praising as the best novels were written before he was born; many while he was in the nursery; most before he had left school, and practically all before he had ceased to be an undergraduate. Now acute ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... lubberly louts, cozening foxes, ruffian rogues, paltry customers, sycophant-varlets, drawlatch hoydens, flouting milksops, jeering companions, staring clowns, forlorn snakes, ninny lobcocks, scurvy sneaksbies, fondling fops, base loons, saucy coxcombs, idle lusks, scoffing braggarts, noddy meacocks, blockish grutnols, doddipol-joltheads, jobbernol goosecaps, foolish loggerheads, flutch calf-lollies, grouthead gnat-snappers, lob-dotterels, gaping changelings, codshead ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... those two, the woman of forty, an age in itself terrible, and that hopeless young "wrong 'un" of twenty-three (also well connected I believe) had some sort of subdued row in the cleared rooms: wardrobes open, drawers half pulled out and empty, trunks locked and strapped, furniture in idle disarray, and not so much as a single scrap of paper left behind on the tables. The maid, whom the governess and the pupil shared between them, after finishing with Flora, came to the door as usual, but was not admitted. She heard the two voices in dispute before ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... from a pipeful of tobacco. I dropped into a comfortable Morris, touched the gas-logs, and fell into a pleasant dream. It was not necessary for me to start for the Twenty-third Street ferry till nine; so I had something like three-quarters of an hour to idle away. . . . What beautiful hair that girl had! It was like sunshine, the silk of corn, the yield of the harvest. And the marvelous abundance of it! It was true that she was an artist's model; it was equally true that she had committed a mild impropriety in addressing me ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath
... John Mangles. "We shall be forced to come to that, and I think it is useless to waste our time in idle discussion." ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... are idle, and I must forget All that they tend to. I must cease to fret, Moth as I am, for stars beyond the reach Of mine up-soaring; and in milder speech I must invoke thy blessing on the road That lies before me,—far from thine ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... hair; say your prayers; go to church and hear Mass. Say 'Good Morning' to every one you meet. Then have breakfast, first crossing your mouth. Say grace, thank Jesus for your food, and say an Ave for the souls in pain. Then set to work, and don't be idle. Scripture tells you, if you work, you must eat what you get with your hands. Be true in word and deed; truth keeps a man from blame. Mercy and Truth are the two ways to heaven, fail not to go by them. ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... was forced to be idle. But at last, in 1779, he was given command of a squadron of five vessels, and in August sailed from France. Passing along the west coast of Ireland, the fleet went around the north end of Scotland and down the east coast, capturing and destroying vessel after ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... correct speaker, is always able to command attention and doors are thrown open to him which remain closed to others not equipped with a like facility of expression. The man who can talk well and to the point need never fear to go idle. He is required in nearly every walk of life and field of human endeavor, the world wants him at every turn. Employers are constantly on the lookout for good talkers, those who are able to attract ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... in their jockey vocation, or in wielding the cachas, the Callees, or Gypsy females, are seldom idle, but are endeavouring, by various means, to make all the gain they can. The richest amongst them are generally contrabandistas, and in the large towns go from house to house with prohibited goods, especially silk and cotton, and occasionally with tobacco. They likewise purchase ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... an English lady said, I forget in what connection, that a man of honour should never risk sitting down to dinner at an hotel unless he felt inclined, if necessary, to fight. The remark was very true at that time, when one had to draw the sword for an idle word, and to expose one's self to the consequences of a duel, or else be pointed at, even by the ladies, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... you are gone," his father shot after him, "I will think out my plan for changing your life in such a way as to save whatever good may be in you, and to knock a lot of foolish, idle ...
— The High School Pitcher - Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond • H. Irving Hancock
... themselves from the lethargy that had taken hold of them when they were stunned by the realization of all the woe that had been visited upon them. How nobly they responded to the call of duty! How much of the heroic there is in our people when it is needed! No idle murmurings of fate, but true to the god-like instincts of manhood and fraternal love, they quickly banded together to do the best that the ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton
... to which Sergey Ivanovitch belonged, nothing was talked of or written about just now but the Servian War. Everything that the idle crowd usually does to kill time was done now for the benefit of the Slavonic States. Balls, concerts, dinners, matchboxes, ladies' dresses, beer, restaurants— everything testified to sympathy with the ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... who spoke, and he spoke without special interest, simply expressing his thought of what might happen in so whimsical an event as that harped upon by Valentine. But Valentine seemed painfully struck by the almost idle words. ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... was not pleased with the dream, and told him he feared, lest as places struck with lightning are held sacred, and not to be trodden upon, so the gods might by this let him know the city should not be taken. Pyrrhus replied, that all these things were but idle talk, full of uncertainty, and only fit to amuse the vulgar; their thought, with their swords in their hands, should ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... Isn't it real idle to dish up those old stories now? Haven't we something more important to do?—I may be wrong, but it seems to me that we have, mother.—I've had no notion until to-day of what Rose means to me. Otherwise I'd have ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... most places they will not endure to have the truth spoken without raising a tremendous outcry, but in this state perhaps they may. And if we may assume that our whole discussion about the state has not been mere idle talk, I should like to prove to you, if you will consent to listen, that this institution is good and proper; but if you had rather not, I ...
— Laws • Plato
... round into currents that might be hard to overrule. After the absolute restoration to health, a man is very apt to say,—'Now, then, how shall I use my health? To what delightful purpose shall I apply it? Surely it is idle to carry a fine jewel in one's watch-pocket, and never to astonish the weak minds of this world, by wearing it and flashing it in their eyes.' 'But how?' retorts his philosophic friend; 'my good fellow, are you not using it at this moment? Breathing, for instance, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... Athens did not cease with the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War in 431. The city was full of sculptors, many of whom had come directly under the influence of Phidias, and they were not left idle. The demand from private individuals for votive sculptures and funeral reliefs must indeed have been abated, but was not extinguished; and in the intervals of the protracted war the state undertook important enterprises with an undaunted ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... pulling the ox out of the hole. Ananzi seeing this, ran up as fast as he could, and tugging at the tail with all his might, fell over into the river, but he still had hold of the tail, and contrived to get across the water, when he called out to Quanqua, 'You idle fellow, you couldn't take care of the ox, so you shan't have a bit of the tail', and then on he went. When he was gone quite out of sight, Quanqua took the ox home, and ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... fantasm, no evil dream of a night; we wake up to it again for ever and ever; we can neither forget it nor deny it nor dispense with it. We can welcome experience as it comes, and give it what it demands, in exchange for something which it is idle to pause to call much or little so long as it contributes to swell the volume of consciousness. In this there is mingled pain and delight, but over the mysterious mixture there hovers a visible rule, that bids us learn to will and seek ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... less than a year—could I. If you ask me what is an ordinary marital quarrel I will tell you, that it is a difference about nothing; I mean, these nothings which, as Mr Powell told us when we first met him, shore people are so prone to start a row about, and nurse into hatred from an idle sense of wrong, from perverted ambition, for spectacular reasons too. There are on earth no actors too humble and obscure not to have a gallery; that gallery which envenoms the play by stealthy jeers, counsels of anger, amused comments or words of perfidious compassion. ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... illustrious square The first epistolary bell. Sounding by fits upon the air, Of parting pennies rung the knell; Warned by that tell-tale of the hours, And by the day-light's westering beam, The young Iaenthe, who, with flowers Half crowned, had sat in idle dream Before her glass, scarce knowing where Her fingers roved thro' that bright hair, While, all capriciously, she now Dislodged some curl from her white brow, And now again replaced it there:— As tho' her task was meant to be One endless change of ministry— A routing-up of Loves ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... complaints, and, laterally, by actual hostilities. The king of Dahomey felt that he had but one rival, the king of Ashantee. He felt quite sure of victory on account of the size, spirit, and discipline of his army. It was idle at this time, and was ordered to the Ashantee border. The first engagement took place near the Volta. The king of Dahomey had succeeded in securing an alliance with the armies of Kawaku and Bourony, but the valor and skill of the Ashantees were too much for the invading ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... this is but an idle tale?" said Sir George Templemore with a concern, which, in despite of his good breeding, compelled him to put a question that, under other circumstances, would ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... one day the Life within me, the joy that hides in my life, though the days perplex my path with their idle dust. ...
— Fruit-Gathering • Rabindranath Tagore
... forlorn foster-child! Behold here a force which I will make dig and plant and build for me'? Not so, but, 'Here is a recruit ready-made to my hand, a piece of destroying energy lying unprofitably idle.' So she claps an ugly gray suit on him, puts a musket in his grasp, and sends him off, with Gubernatorial and other godspeeds, to do duty as ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... know they have it as cold as this? I expect it's far warmer where they are, among the mountains; and you can take your oath they're not lying idle. Those boys have shown what ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... with annoyance at our host, "if this Cingalese is too idle to tell us the full facts, I suppose we had better find them out for ourselves." Then turning to the man ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... scene was only one unoccupied individual, or rather occupied only with his own sad thoughts. This was Papa Prevost, leaning against rather than sitting on a dresser, with his arms folded, his idle knife stuck in his girdle, and the tassel of his cap awry with vexation. His gloomy brow, however, lit up as Mr. Harris, for whom he was waiting with anxious expectation, entered, and summoned him to the presence of Lord ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... nothing under sixteen francs a yard. "But cheap, cheap, CHEAP stuff," she expostulated—"stuff you would make lampshades of, or dusters. It's only for a fancy dress." The idle little girls assumed a special air. Fanny looked round the shop in desperation. It was like all the shops in Metz—the window dressed, the saleswomen ready, the shelves scrubbed out and polished, the lady waiting at the pay desk—but the ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... are pleased, my son, but it would be idle to disguise my disappointment. I had hoped that you would have been a son to me upon whom I might lavish all my wealth, but it is not to be. You must make your own way. You are young and independent, your brave heart is unquestionable, do as it dictates. I am your friend always. ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... metaphysician. He does not care, and very likely does not know, how this tangle of existence came into being. He is only concerned to disentangle it a little, to reduce the chaos of the world to some sort of seemliness and order"? Is it an idle and presumptuous curiosity which enquires whether we are to consider him co-ordinate with the Veiled Being, and in that case probably hostile, or subordinate, and in that case instrumental? Are we, in a word, to consider ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... might have been when the fields were better cultivated and more mines were worked; but the people have chosen to die off, and those who remain are idle and lazy, and will not work," answered the ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... actions tended to weaken and discredit the Union—nominated an able ticket. The latter party were soon conscious of defeat, and began to hint mysteriously at a power stronger than the ballot-box, that would be invoked in defence of 'Southern rights.' To many, indeed to most persons, this seemed an idle threat. Not so to Frank Blair. He had imbibed from Benton the invincible faith of the latter in the settled purpose of the 'nullifiers' to subvert and destroy the government. And in a private caucus of the leaders of the Union party, on ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... lake, Itself disturbed by slightest stroke. Reflects the invulnerable rock. He hears report of battle rife, He deems himself the cause of strife. I saw him redden when the theme Turned, Allan, on thine idle dream Of Malcolm Graeme in fetters bound, Which I, thou saidst, about him wound. Think'st thou he bowed thine omen aught? O no' 't was apprehensive thought For the kind youth,—for Roderick too— Let me be just—that friend so true; ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... in the tropics are subject you may have understood a pleasant languor,—a painless disinclination to effort in a country where physical effort is less needed than elsewhere,—a soft temptation to idle away the hours in a hammock, under the shade of giant trees. Perhaps you have read, with eyes of faith, that torpor of the body is favorable to activity of the mind, and therefore believe that the intellectual powers can be stimulated and strengthened by tropical influences:—you suppose that ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... I had some matter of work likewise," observed Barbara; "I have been used to work hard, early and late, nor it liketh me not to sit with mine hands idle. Needs must that I pray my Lady of ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... could not but be justly offended, gave, relative to him, the appearance of ingratitude to my indolence, and yet I felt my heart so little culpable that, had it been in my power to do M. le Blond the least service, even unknown to himself, I am certain he would not have found me idle. But indolence, negligence and delay in little duties to be fulfilled have been more prejudicial to me than great vices. My greatest faults have been omissions: I have seldom done what I ought not to have done, and unfortunately ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... would be an idle dream have had their hopes more centred in Croatia. They told the world that horrible affairs took place, that there has been a revolution, several revolutions, that castles have been sacked and that the statesman, Radi['c], was imprisoned. If you met this little pear-shaped man, who is ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... "It is idle for us to try to discuss with intelligence the currency question until we are impressed with the truth, the universality, and the immutability, of this axiom. Many of the crude ideas now advanced spring from ignoring it. The most ingenious sophistries are answered by it. It is the governing principle ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... to lack of mounts. It is imperative to find the means for forming a mounted infantry, for there is an insufficient number of advanced cavalry troops to meet an emergency. It would be advantageous if large brigades now idle could be moved for operations in Eastern China. Past experience in China has emphasized the great importance of cavalry ...
— Operations Upon the Sea - A Study • Franz Edelsheim
... Essex. In his speech defending his refusal and that of three colleagues to assent to the divorce, he wrote: "One of my lords (my lord of Winchester) hath avowed it, that he dislikes that maleficium; that he hath read Del Rio, the Jesuit, writing upon that argument, and doth hold him an idle and fabulous fellow.... Another of my lords (my lord of Ely) hath assented thereunto, and maleficium must be gone. Now I for my part will not absolutely deny that witches by God's permission may have a power over men, to hurt ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... he knew it. Let the King speak and there would be no hesitancy, little pity. In his rapid rise he had kicked many rivals from the ladder of Court favour, and climbed yet higher by trampling them underfoot, caring little what gulf of disgrace or worse swallowed them. And the King's threat was no idle boast; the hand which had raised could drag down, not only to irremediable disaster, but to the very grave itself. A hand? A beckoning finger to those who waited at the door would be ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... By all the odds the most interesting figure there was that of a stout peasant serving-girl, dressed in a white knitted jacket, a crimson neckerchief, and a bright coloured gown, and wearing long dangling earrings of yellowest gold. For hours this idle maiden balanced herself half over the balcony rail in perusal of the people under her, and I suspect made love at that distance, and in that constrained position, to some one in the crowd. On another balcony a lady sat; at the ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... she looked. He went at once to the royal chamber, and asked the bride who it was she had brought with her and had left thus standing in the court below. "Oh!" replied the bride, "I brought her with me to keep me company on the journey; give the girl something to do, that she may not be idle." But the old King had no work for her, and couldn't think of anything; so he said, "I've a small boy who looks after the geese, she'd better help him." The youth's name was Curdken, and the real bride was made to assist ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... last, and rumored of in Newspapers and the idle brains of men, have been very many,—no limit to their numbers; it MAY be anybody: an intending purchaser, though but possessed of sixpence, is in a sense proprietor of the whole Fair! Through Schulenburg we heard his own account of them, last Autumn;—but the far noblest ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... him impenetrable and enigmatical like a curtain hiding vast spaces full of unexpected surprises. This was only his fancy, but it was absorbing enough to make him accept the sudden appearance of a head, coming out of the gloom, as part of his idle fantasy or as the beginning of another short dream, of another vagary of his overtired brain. A face with drooping eyelids, old, thin, and yellow, above the scattered white of a long beard that touched the earth. A head without a body, only a foot above the ground, ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... outrageous. What must the boys think of me to hear such a Message ordered to be delivered to me by a 'Master'? Better let him take away my life than ruin my 'Character'. My Conscience acquits me of ever 'meriting' expulsion at this School; I have been 'idle' and I certainly ought not to talk in church, but I have never done a mean action at this School to him or 'any one'. If I had done anything so 'heinous', why should he allow me to stay at the School? Why should ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... the blood of the Caucasian peoples. Not that the mystery with which Rutton had ever shrouded his identity had not inevitably of itself been a provocation to Amber's imagination; he had hazarded many an idle, secret guess at the riddle that was Rutton. Who or what the man was or might have been was ever a field of fascinating speculation to the American, but his wildest conjecture had never travelled east of Italy or Hungary. He had always fancied that one, at least, of Rutton's ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... have tried in vain, Sincerely striving for a goal, Than to have lived upon the plain An idle and a timid soul. ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... fashions have combined to make Boston belles pink, pretty,-and piquante; while the western states, by drawing fully half their male population from New England, make the preponderance of the female element apparent at a glance. The ladies, thus left at home, have not been idle: their colleges, their clubs, their reading-classes are numerous; ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... pretended to be very exact in their Account of its Demensions, and were positive it could not be above 7 or 8 Miles wide, but knew no more of the Matter than Star-gazers know of the Distance of the Fixt Stars. At the Same time, they were Simple enough to amuse our Men with Idle Stories of the Lyons, Panthers, and Alligators, they were like to encounter ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... question, and exclaimed, "Is it really possible that such beings can exist? Here no one able to work would dream of living an idle and useless life; their natural self-respect ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... been a tangled business somehow, for all it seemed—look at it one way—as plain as water's water; but, big a puzzle as it was, it hadn't got the better of Riley. Mr. Tulliver took his brandy-and-water a little stronger than usual, and, for a man who might be supposed to have a few hundreds lying idle at his banker's, was rather incautiously open in expressing his high estimate ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... with seared consciences and nerves of iron, pluck the coveted fruits of pleasure, wear the diadems of society, and sweep through the world in pomp. The virtuous suffer undeservedly from the guilty. The idle thrive on the industrious. All these things sometimes happen. In spite of the compensating tendencies which ride on all spiritual laws, in spite of the mysterious Nemesis which is throned in every bosom and saturates the moral ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... obliged every town to work together in one body, in sewing or planting their crops, though their fields were divided by proper marks, and their harvest is gathered separately. The Cherokees and Muscogees [Creeks] still observe that old custom, which is very necessary for such idle people." ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... to gather the taxes and will be of no little service to those who contribute them. I mean that they will bring in whatever they owe in an appointed order and little by little, instead of remaining idle a short time and then having the entire sum demanded ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... to the grave. His education will be that of one who has never had to struggle; who has always felt that he has nothing to gain; who has had the first dignity given him; who has never seen common life as in truth it is. It is idle to expect an ordinary man born in the purple to have greater genius than an extraordinary man born out of the purple; to expect a man whose place has always been fixed to have a better judgment than one who has lived by his judgment; to expect a ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... Spanish conquest there has been no such process of selection in operation amongst the Indians. The most indolent can obtain enough food, whilst the climate makes clothing almost a superfluity. The idle and improvident live their natural terms of years, and increase their kind even faster than the provident and industrious. The tribal feeling is destroyed; the selfish and sensual instincts are developed, and year by year ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... Jerusalem, too, the natives were sent to labour on the roads and to clean up some of the filth that the Turks had allowed to accumulate for years, if not for generations, inside the Holy City. The Army not merely provided work for idle hands but enabled starving bodies to be vitalised. Food was brought into Jerusalem, and with the cash wages old and young labourers could get more than a sufficiency. The native in the hills proved to be a good road repairer, and the boys and women showed an eagerness to earn ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... their enemy they were largely outnumbered, and they fought mostly from ambush, striking their blows when least expected and vanishing so suddenly and by such hidden paths that pursuit was usually idle. Much of their strength lay in their horses. No Cossacks or cowboys could surpass them as riders, in which art they were far superior to the Spanish cavalry. Many stories are told of women who rode in their ranks and wielded the machete as boldly and skillfully ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... aliquid inveniant, he doth not bar them to write, so that it be some new invention of their own; but we weave the same web still, twist the same rope again and again; or if it be a new invention, 'tis but some bauble or toy which idle fellows write, for as idle fellows to read, and who so cannot invent? [91]"He must have a barren wit, that in this scribbling age can forge nothing. [92]Princes show their armies, rich men vaunt their buildings, soldiers their manhood, and scholars vent their toys;" they must read, they must ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... when felt too late, bring vices in their train; the desire for good, when chilled, turns to evil. The mind, never idle, if debarred from the best, leans inevitably toward the worst. Angry with herself, her very soul embittered within her, Lady Baltimore feels more and more a sense of passionate wrong against the man who had wooed and won her, and sown the ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... unseaworthy boats describing a jerky circle to the squeaking of tin whistles and purposeless thrumpings of a drum. Close by a crop-eared lurcher, tied beneath one of the vans, dragged choking at his chain and barked himself frantic under the stones and teasing of a knot of idle boys. A half-tipsy slut of a woman threatened a child, who, in soiled tights and spangles, crouched against the muddy hind-wheel of a wagon, tears dribbling down his cheeks, his arm raised to ward off the impending blow. From the menagerie—an amorphous huddle of gray ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... who believed from an opinion adopted in the world that heavenly happiness consists in an idle life in which they would be served by others; but they were told that happiness never consists in abstaining from work and getting satisfaction therefrom. This would mean everyone's desiring the happiness ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg
... had an idle and light character; whilst young Sylvain from the beginning showed strong reasoning powers, ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... hour's entertainment, for the luxury of a harmonized impression, or for the mere ostentation of his frolic, to feed his gamesome humour, to make us stare at his unconsciousness, to show what gems he can crush in his idle cup for a draught of pleasure, or in pure caprice and wantonness, confounding all our notions of sense, and manliness, and human duty and respect, with the boundless wealth and waste of his ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... where too steep for the winter mantle as yet to find a holding ground. You felt pity for the shivering blade of grass, which, at your feet, was already drooping under the cold and icy hand that would press it down to mother earth for nine long months. Talk of "antres vast and deserts idle,"—talk of the sadness awakened in the wanderer's bosom by the lone scenes, be it even by the cursed waters of Judea, or afflicted lands of Assyria,—give me, I say, death in any one of them, with the good sun and a bright heaven to whisper hope, rather than the solitary horrors ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... Bulawayo in October, 1895, thousands of oxen were drawing hundreds of waggons along the track between those towns. When, a month later, I travelled from Fort Salisbury to Chimoyo, then the terminus of the Beira line, I passed countless waggons standing idle along the track, because owing to the locusts and the drought which had destroyed most of the grass, the oxen had either died or grown too lean and feeble to be able to drag the loads. Hence the cattle-plague ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... reproach at my egoism and vanity! Yes! yes! it's useless talking of one's-self; it's useless bragging. We have no one yet, no men, look where you will. Everywhere—either small fry, nibblers, Hamlets on a small scale, self-absorbed, or darkness and subterranean chaos, or idle babblers and wooden sticks. Or else they are like this: they study themselves to the most shameful detail, and are for ever feeling the pulse of every sensation and reporting to themselves: "That's what I feel, that's what I think." A useful, rational occupation! ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... biographical paragraphs, and the like. To answer such requests and furnish the material asked for, were it desirable, would interfere seriously with the necessary work of almost any writer. The first impulse is to pay no attention to them, putting them aside as mere signs of the ill-bred, idle curiosity of the age we live in about people and their private affairs. It does not seem to be supposed possible that authors can have any natural shrinking ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... to the sound that speedeth o'er the land! Behold the sword in fratricidal hand! 'Tis duty calls thee, Lincoln, and thy trust Demands that all thy acts be wise and just. No idle task to thee has been assigned, But work that's worthy of a giant mind— And on the issue hangs the nation's fame As a free people who deserve the name. So, walk thou in the way the fathers trod; Be true to freedom, country, and to God; Then truth ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... wise maiden, instruct the bride as to her future life. Osmotar told her that she must henceforth be thoughtful and not foolish, that she must love her husband's kinsfolks as her own. Osmotar told her, too, never to be idle, and then instructed her in all the many household duties of the wives of Kalevala, but at the same time impressed it upon her how wicked she would be if with all this she were to forget her own parents. After this Osmotar turned to the bridegroom and bade him ever love his ...
— Finnish Legends for English Children • R. Eivind
... Poor-law Commissioners, not more than 68,000 could in any one year, since the establishment of the Poor-law, be induced to accept the relief which Parliament provided for them;" and for this reason it is, that the condition of the most idle and indolent people in Europe is compassionated, as if it resulted from the misconduct of others rather than their own; and that "the patient endurance" of the most turbulent and bloodstained peasantry on earth is pronounced, in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... consisting of a few men who controlled the preliminary steps which led to the nomination of candidates and then decided the election, so far as their control of the regular party members could do this. It would be idle, said the advocates of these popular rights, to make the best of laws in behalf of the people and allow them to be enforced by representatives and judges chosen, under whatever disguise, by the great capitalists. And so these Progressives, bent on trusting implicitly ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... ne make so good a translation that he ne might be better. Therefore Origines made two translations, and Jerome translated thrice the Psalter. I desire not translation of these the best that might be, for that were an idle desire for any man that is now alive, but I would have a skilful translation, that might be ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... that face of yours, so bonnie, Sir, for all it is so grave, and, seeing never a wrinkle on the forehead, nor a white hair among the black, how could she call you father? No, it will not do, though so kindly meant. Your friends would laugh at you, Sir, and idle tongues might ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... idleness is an evil, he concluded that they who busy themselves about anything that is good are indeed employed; but that gamesters and debauched persons, and all who have no occupations, but such as are hurtful and wicked, are idle. Now, in this sense, is it not ...
— The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates • Xenophon
... trust fund is making more money for me by lying idle than I could accumulate in a century by hard work as a grocer or an undertaker," he was prone to philosophise when his uncles, who were merchants, urged him to settle down and "do something." Not that there were grocers or undertakers ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... solemnly burnt in the galley fire, they were fully aware of their new captain's notions on the engrossing subject of drink. Accordingly, to please him, and to show that they were not the hardened sinners, seasoned reprobates, and generally idle and dissolute characters he perhaps might take them for, they fell in at divisions on that Sabbath morn wearing their most cherubic and innocent expressions, and their newest ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... appointed by you and not by me (nominally), and therefore, unless they were to vote against my Government (which would be awkward), they need not change. You may rely upon my care that you shall have proper people, and not idle and not too young, and Lord Melbourne has already mentioned several to me who ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... happiness, the welfare of the body that began its decay with its birth? Genius of mental creation was the most mysterious, the most God-like of all gifts, as well as the rarest; the herd of small composers counted no more than the idle gossip that filled up awkward pauses. Great gifts were not without purpose bestowed; and as they should be exercised for the good of the inarticulate millions so should they be carefully tended until Time alone extinguished them. In Warner this great gift of poetic imagination combined with ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... no entreaties, "Am I a madman," he said, "that I am stripped of my arms? Are you going to bind my hands and give me up to Caesar? As for the sword I can do without it; I need but hold my breath or dash my head against the wall. It is idle to think that you can keep a man of my years alive against his will." It was felt to be impossible to persist in the face of this determination, and a young slave-boy brought back the sword. Cato ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... Idle speculation, however, was suddenly drowned in delight when, his sleep-numb faculties clearing, he realised that the Autocratic was resting without way, and a glance out of the stateroom port showed him the steep green slopes of Fort Tompkins ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... was one of your lot," rejoined the Wolf, "so make no more such idle excuses." He then seized the poor Lamb, carried him off to the woods, and ate him, but before the poor creature died he gasped out, feebly, "Any excuse will serve ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... answering questions! They would have felt that there are some places where the missionary work is not a failure. The figures I have not by me, but since Mr. Walker has been absent, the church has increased, the congregation has increased; and that it is not an idle increase is shown by the fact, that this one congregation has, in the year of the missionary's absence, contributed four hundred dollars for the support and spread of the Gospel; for schools, two hundred and forty; for the poor (a year of high prices ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... Gerard Vossius directed his studies; and by a letter[750] of thanks from Grotius to him, we learn that he was of an indolent turn. "The exhortations you give Peter are worthy of the friendship you have always entertained for me and mine. I cannot think why my children should be so idle; perhaps it is because they see their father's diligence has ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... best and brownest," while the landless labourer despised "night-old cabbage," "penny-ale," and bacon, and asked for fresh meat and fish freshly fried.[2] There is plenty of rough comfort and coarse enjoyment in the England through which "Long Will" stalked moodily, idle, hopeless, and in himself exemplifying many of the evils which he condemned. The England of Langland is bitter, discontented, and sullen. It is the popular answer to the class prejudice and reckless greed ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... a dozen," hastily replied Neal, who had not remained idle. Both he and Barr were working like mad men moving boxes and barrels against the walls to make a breastwork capable of stopping the bullets ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... advance of popular opinion in his political and moral speculations. He would like to bring military glory into contempt; he would set all sorts of idle people to profitable occupation, including in the same class, priests, women, noblemen, gentlemen, and 'sturdy and valiant beggars,' that the labour of all may be reduced to six hours a day. His dislike of capital punishment, ...
— The Republic • Plato
... their care of him, and when it was repeated that it was all the Lord's doing, "Then," said he, "you are the instruments, and what a blessed thing it is to have parents who guide and instruct us in the way;" and added, "O what will become of those children who idle about on the Sabbath day, who swear and steal. O shocking! shocking! O what a blessing to have good parents." On requesting to see his brothers, they came to him; and taking them by the hand, he asked them how they did. To his little brother Henry he said, "Be a good boy, do not ...
— Stories of Boys and Girls Who Loved the Saviour - A Token for Children • John Wesley
... was a little plait of hair Such as friends in a convent make To wear, each for the other's sake,— {780} This, see, which at my breast I wear, Ever did (rather to Jacynth's grudgment), And ever shall, till the Day of Judgment. And then,—and then,—to cut short,—this is idle, These are feelings it is not good to foster,— I pushed the gate wide, she shook the bridle, And the palfrey bounded,—and so we ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... "It happens, by idle chance, that my enemies have become yours. The men who destroyed your ship thought they were injuring me. I have just pointed out to Capitano De San Benavides the precise outcome of this attack. Until a few moments ago we shared the delusion ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... little family of pussies out in the barn, and the only possible danger to the cat babies was the St. Bernard dog's drinking dish which was set down into the barn floor, very near the wall, and kept filled with water. One of the grooms had arranged it one idle afternoon, more for his own amusement than for any real ...
— The Book of the Cat • Mabel Humphrey and Elizabeth Fearne Bonsall
... anything definite amid so many moonbeams, gliding ghosts, whistling reeds, and feasts of shells, has a very debilitating effect on the mind. There is too much weeping: one is constantly saying with Tennyson, "Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean." Yet, no one can dip into Macpherson without being rewarded by some phrase of an impressive or ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... rays in a cloudless sky: when the time for action comes and the battle's on, I intend it shall dazzle the eyesight o' m' foes. (Patting his sword). Verily I would condole with this m' sword, lest he lament and be cast down in spirit, forasmuch as now full long hath he hung idle by m' side, thirsting, poor lad, to meet his fellow 'mongst the foe," and ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... impression was that France, now that the war was over, had made up her mind to set to and get going again just as fast as she possibly could. There was not an idle person to be seen, even the children were collecting bricks ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... South-Eastern, more lazily, at all events, than in the upper air. I have but to sit here thinking as idly as I please, and be whisked away. I am not accountable to anybody for the idleness of my thoughts in such an idle summer flight; my flight is provided for by the South-Eastern and ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... rifle across my shoulder, and strode straight ahead until I came out upon the river bank. Turning to the right I worked my way rapidly up the stream, passing numerous groups of lounging soldiers, who made little effort to bar my passage, beyond some idle chaffing, until I found myself opposite the ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... will not be more sorrowful, more awkward and more baneful than those which we are leaving; and how shall we explain that these have come about after so many millions of others which should have opened the eyes of the genius of infinity? It is idle to persuade ourselves, as Hindu wisdom would, that our sorrows are but illusions and appearances: it is none the less true that they make us very really unhappy. Has the universe elsewhere a more ...
— Death • Maurice Maeterlinck
... immediately followed by a multitude of cooks and inferior ministers, employed in the service of the kitchen and of the table. The main body is composed of a promiscuous crowd of slaves, increased by the accidental concourse of idle or ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... the monopoly of the Northwestern woods became an established fact. The lumber trust came into "its own." The new social alignment was complete, with the idle, absentee landlord at one end and the migratory and possessionless lumber jack at the other. The parasites had appropriated to themselves the standing timber of the Northwest; but the brawny logger whose labor had made possible the development ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin
... these solicitations and counsellings from outside persons were unnecessary and idle. Lincoln's far-seeing and practical mind had already grasped, more surely than had his would-be advisers, the ultimate wisdom and justice of the emancipation of the slaves. But he was resolved to do nothing rashly. He would wait till the time was ripe, and then abolish slavery on grounds that ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... summed it up—but in the first vital freshness, when it was spoken with a logic, force, and fire that carried conviction to many a mind. Thurston looked upon the judge—his face was stern and grave. He looked upon the jury—they were all strangers, from distant parts of the county, drawn by idle curiosity to the scene of trial, and arriving quite unprejudiced. They were not his "peers," but, on the contrary, twelve as stolid-looking brothers as ever decided the fate of a gentleman and scholar. Thence he cast his eyes over ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... ever on the alert for a sentence of doom. He has been cuffed, kicked, caned, flogged, shut up in the dark, fed on bread and water, sent hungry to bed, subjected to a variety of cruel and humiliating punishments, terrified with idle—but to him appalling—threats. In his misery he has shed a whole ocean of tears,—the salt and bitter tears of hopeless grief and helpless anger, not the soul-refreshing tears which are sometimes distilled from sorrow by the sunshine of love. But of ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... while at another it needs but little; and if its neighbours are all farmers, they are all in the same situation. If the weather is fit for ploughing, they and their horses and men are all employed. If it is not, they are all idle. In winter they have all of them little to do; in harvest-time they are all overrun with work; and crops frequently perish on the ground for want of the aid required for making them. Now, it would seem to be quite clear that if there existed some other mode of employment that would find a demand ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... Absalon replied calmly that he was not there in that capacity, but as an attendant on his King, and must follow where he went. It appeared speedily that the Emperor's real object was to get Valdemar to own him as his over-lord, and this he did, to Absalon's great grief, on the idle promise that Frederick would join him in his war upon all the Baltic pagans. However, it was to be a purely personal matter, in nowise affecting his descendants. That much was saved, and Absalon lived long enough to fling back, as the counsellor of Valdemar's son, from behind ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... effect of our large fleet in the world's markets is thus to hold up rates, for so long as this great fleet in one hand holds a fixed rate others will only barely underbid. If we hold up rates an increasing number of our ships will be idle as the private fleet grows. On the other hand, if we reduce rates we shall be underbid until the government margin of larger operation cost causes us ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg
... and Latin fields! here is thine assured home, thine home's assured gods. Draw not thou back, nor be alarmed by menace of war. All the anger and wrath of the gods is passed away . . . And even now for thine assurance, that thou think not this the idle fashioning of sleep, a great sow shall be found lying under the oaks on the shore, with her new-born litter of thirty head: white she couches on the ground, and the brood about her teats is white. By this token in thirty revolving years shall Ascanius found a city, Alba of bright name. My prophecy ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... the magic spell By which my thoughts were bound; And burning dreams of light and love Were wakened by the sound. My heart beat quick when stranger-tongues, With idle praise or blame, Awoke its deepest thrill of joy To tremble at ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... is it possible that God was idle an eternity and only yesterday made the world? For thousands of years and thousands of worlds before this one are after all as yesterday in ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... Hunter was earnest, persuasive and often eloquent. He possessed, in a remarkable degree, a talent for refined sarcasm, and knew how to use most effectively its piercing shafts against the idle objections, or disingenuous cavils of all triflers with the great truths of religion. In his advanced years the infirmities of old age greatly contracted the extent of his useful labors without impairing the vigor of his mental powers ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... with all 'the varying weather of the mind,' he traversed in every zone the restless ocean of a great nation's shifting and complex politics, without many a faulty tack and many a wrong reckoning, would indeed be idle. No such claim is set up by rational men for Pym, Cromwell, Walpole, Washington, or either Pitt. It is not set up for any of the three contemporaries of Mr. Gladstone whose names live with the three most momentous transactions of his age—Cavour, Lincoln, Bismarck. To suppose, again, that in every ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... or at a great depth. It has been brought here from a considerable distance. Indians may have done the work, but they never did it willingly. If they did it at all, it was as slaves. But we have no time for idle speculation. Let's walk along it and see how far ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... many months!—that is a long while to be idle. You must make money. Tell me, have you brought back ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... the long course of development, that the mucous membranes of the natural orifices, through the sensitiveness gained in their own offices, all become agents to thrill the soul in the contact of love; it is idle to discriminate high or low, pure or impure; all alike are sanctified already by the extreme unction of Nature. The nose receives the breath of life; the vagina receives the water of life. Ultimately the worth and loveliness of life must be measured by the worth and loveliness for ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... afterwards regretted making the charge against Lupin when he saw his castle delivered over to the gendarmes, the procureur, the judge d'instruction, the newspaper reporters and photographers, and a throng of idle curiosity-seekers. ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... this, Legislators! Boards of Health throughout the country, hear it! Then you will be able to judge how exceedingly frivolous the idle opinions and reports are which you have obtruded so industriously ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... our sense our slave. But this true course is not embraced by many: By many! scarce by any. For either our affections do rebel, Or else the sentinel, That should ring 'larum to the heart, doth sleep: Or some great thought doth keep Back the intelligence, and falsely swears They're base and idle fears Whereof the loyal conscience so complains. Thus, by these subtle trains, Do several passions invade the mind, And strike our reason blind: Of which usurping rank, some have thought love The first: as prone to move Most frequent tumults, ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... returned from long and unsuccessful voyages, especially if in bad repute,—as was Jones, —are obliged to take such employment as offers, and are often glad to get a ship much smaller than their last, rather than remain idle. Moreover, in Jones's case, if, as appears, he was inclined to buccaneering, the smaller ship would serve his purpose—as it seems it did satisfactorily. Nor is the fact that Bradford speaks of him—although previously so well acquainted—as "one Captain Jones," to ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... not the outcome of a need—the famous need of self-expression which artists find in their search for motives. The necessity which impelled me was a hidden, obscure necessity, a completely masked and unaccountable phenomenon. Or perhaps some idle and frivolous magician (there must be magicians in London) had cast a spell over me through his parlour window as I explored the maze of streets east and west in solitary leisurely walks without chart and compass. Till I began to write that novel I had written ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... pelted him, and which testified how much confidence the numerous Athenians had in their unproved champion. The brawl of voices drew newcomers from far and near. The chariot race had just ended in the adjoining hippodrome; and the idle crowd, intent on a new excitement, came surging up like waves. In such a whirlpool of tossing arms and shoving elbows, he who was small of stature and short of breath stood a scanty chance of getting close enough to the crier's stand to have his wager recorded. Such, at least, was the fate of a ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... and what they be, That now do go on pilgrimage with thee; Say, Here's my neighbour, Mercy, she is one That has long time with me a Pilgrim gone. Come, see her in her virgin race, and learn 'Twixt idle ones and Pilgrims to discern. Yea, let young damsels learn of her to prize The world which is to come, in any wise. When little tripping maidens follow God, And leave old doting sinners to His rod; 'Tis like those days wherein the young ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... his nickname in the regiment, and I was christened Oxford. I was on stable sentry duty at some idle high noon of mid-summer, and a playful chum of mine, whose name was Barlow, laid a little trap for me. "Oxford," says he, "who do you think is the ugliest beggar in the regiment?" I answered, without hesitation, "Sergeant So-and-So;" and ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... public-house, and next day resumed his idle search for employment. The weather was mild and beautiful, his wants were simple, a cup of coffee and a roll, a couple of sausages, and the day passed in a sort of morose and passionless contemplation. He thought of everything and nothing, least of all of how he should find money for the ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... greatest horror is an armed Highlander, or a loaded gun; and there he stands, listening to the Baron's instructions concerning the protest; ducking his head like a sea-gull at the report of every gun and pistol that our idle boys are firing upon the fields; and undergoing, by way of penance, at every symptom of flinching, a severe rebuke from his patron, who would not admit the discharge of a whole battery of cannon, within point-blank distance, as an apology for neglecting a discourse, in which the honour ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... the South were coming home to roost at the North. There appeared everywhere a noticeable subsidence of the sectional spirit. Reform was needed alike in the State Governments and the National Government, and the cry for reform proved something other than an idle word. ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... fastest around, Gwenwyn threw out some praises of the fastness and strength of my castle, in a manner which intimated it was these advantages alone that had secured me in former wars from defeat and captivity. I spoke in answer, when I had far better been silent; for what availed my idle boast, but as a fetter to bind me to a deed next to madness? If, I said, a prince of the Cymry shall come in hostile fashion before the Garde Doloureuse, let him pitch his standard down in yonder plain ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... us daily more than we can ever get by working for it!—if we would but seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, all other things would be added to us; and we should find that he who loses his life should save it. And this way of looking at God's earth would not make us idle; it would not tempt us to sit with folded hands for God's blessings to drop into our mouths. No! I believe it would make men far more industrious than ever mere self- interest can make them; they ...
— Twenty-Five Village Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... to the great annoyance of the Pilgrims, two vessels came into the harbor of Plymouth, bringing sixty wild and rude adventurers, who, neither fearing God nor regarding man, had come to the New World to seek their fortunes. They were an idle and dissolute set, greedy for gain, and ripe for any deeds of dishonesty or violence. They had made but poor provision for their voyage, and were almost starved. The Pilgrims received them kindly, and gave them shelter and food; and ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... though losing myself at times in a whirl of excitement; your name, your face, with your wonderful eyes, from nearly every album I handled, and I was again in subjection; perchance you had been recalled to my memory by some idle word in the moonlight when I became an iceberg to my companion, and my whole being going out to meet yours, when, for return, an aching loneliness. Listen, my king, my master," and she started to her feet powerfully agitated, every pulse throbbing, Trevalyon stood up quickly, coming to her ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... occasional poetry of Jonson has a peculiar merit. His theory demanded design and the perfection of literary finish. He was furthest from the rhapsodist and the careless singer of an idle day; and he believed that Apollo could only be worthily served in singing robes and laurel crowned. And yet many of Jonson's lyrics will live as long as the language. Who does not know "Queen and huntress, chaste and fair." "Drink to me only with thine eyes," or "Still ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... from whom I borrow these details, passed through Vincennes, the number of the French was reduced to a hundred individuals, most of whom were about to pass over to Louisiana or to Canada. These French settlers were worthy people, but idle and uninstructed: they had contracted many of the habits of savages. The Americans, who were perhaps their inferiors, in a moral point of view, were immeasurably superior to them in intelligence: they were industrious, ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... Express observes, "But another great evil resulting from the present law is, that most of the writers of our own country are utterly precluded from advancing our native literature, since they can derive no emolument or compensation for their labours; and it is idle to urge that the devotees of literature, any more than the ingenious artisan or mechanic, can be indifferent to the ultimate advantages which should result alike to both from the diligent use and studious application ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... exhibit the power of the engine, having met another steam-carriage which was unsupplied with water, Mr. Stephenson caused it to be fastened in front of ours; moreover, a wagon laden with timber was also chained to us, and thus propelling the idle steam-engine, and dragging the loaded wagon which was beside it, and our own carriage full of people behind, this brave little she-dragon of ours flew on. Farther on she met three carts, which, being fastened in front of ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... delight in twisting his wisdom into the most fantastic forms, which he also made the sport and butt of formal logic; knowing always, in his own heart, the evil that was wrought in him by those bitter reflections that formed the refuge of his idle hours. Ah! Had Nathalie ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... ordinary present use, as one addicted to idle tittle-tattle, and it seems to bear no relation whatever to its etymology and first meaning. The same three steps, however, which we have traced before will bring us to its present use. 'Gossips' are, first, the sponsors, brought by the act ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... her dejection, support in her fears, nor aid in her preparations; so I bore with her feeble-minded wailings and selfish lamentations as well as I could, and did my best in sewing for her and packing her dresses. It is true, that while I worked, she would idle; and I thought to myself, "If you and I were destined to live always together, cousin, we would commence matters on a different footing. I should not settle tamely down into being the forbearing party; ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... when we had destroyed their whole fishing fleet, the affair appeared much clearer than in the ingenious volumes of Grotius or Selden. Another Dutchman presented the States-General with a ponderous reply to Selden's Mare Clausum, but the wise Sommelsdyke advised the States to suppress the idle discussion; observing that this affair must be decided by the sword, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... getting into the next one. Obviously!" the agent promptly replied. "And he'd have to fight that beachmaster. Evidently! And so on every few feet he went. Besides, the very moment his back was turned a neighboring bull would steal some of his cows. Certainly! Or, an idle bull would ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... kind be done—unless some great and radical change be effected, and some little compensation made for the wrongs and injuries we inflict—I feel thoroughly satisfied that all we are doing is but time and money lost, that all our efforts on behalf of the natives are but idle words—voces et preterea nihil—that things will still go on as they have been going on, and that ten years hence we shall have made no more progress either in civilizing or in christianizing them than we had done ten years ago, whilst every day and every hour ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... or rather a paper, harvest from the throng. The Boulevards and public gardens were forsaken; parties of pleasure took their walks in preference in the Place Vendome, which became the fashionable lounge of the idle, as well as the general rendezvous of the busy. The noise was so great all day, that the Chancellor, whose court was situated in the square, complained to the Regent and the municipality, that he could not hear the advocates. Law, when applied to, expressed his willingness ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... 'He is very idle, though,' added Wilmet; 'such caricatures as there are all over his books! Edgar's were bad enough, but Lance puts pig- tails and cocked ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... said the master glover; "go call him, the idle Highland loon. He was not seen last night during the fray neither, at least I saw him not. Did any ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... bed, but bears the trace of your attention. I trust, however, that you will not be offended if I say that you take better care of your garden than of yourself. You are old, unsavoury, and very meanly clad. It cannot be because you are idle that your master takes such poor care of you, indeed your face and figure have nothing of the slave about them, and proclaim you of noble birth. I should have said that you were one of those who should ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... ever led a more crowded life, though outwardly a quiet one. He never had an idle moment. When not playing, composing or teaching, he would be found engraving music on copper, since that work was costly in those days. Or he would be manufacturing some kind of musical instrument. At least two are known to be of ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... sure it is our Leader, who has led us astray. He makes us toil for nothing, while he himself remains idle. ...
— The Cycle of Spring • Rabindranath Tagore
... a little girl, her bosom still scarcely perceptible, but she could be married because she had reached the legal age. She really was beautiful, and the only thing that might be thought unattractive was her big masculine hands which hung idle now like ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... cottage without farm attached, in the pleasant little village of Llanblethian close by Cowbridge in Glamorganshire; of this he took a lease, and thither with his family he moved in search of new fortunes. Glamorganshire was at least a better climate than Bute; no groups of idle or of busy reapers could here stand waiting on the guidance of a master, for there was no farm here;—and among its other and probably its chief though secret advantages, Llanblethian was much more convenient both for ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... half-trained men and our untrained men could not master the science of war at a moment's notice, and a moment's notice was all they got. The enemy were a nation apprenticed in arms, we were not even the idle apprentice: we had not deemed apprenticeship worth our while. There was courage enough running loose in the land, but it was like unharnessed electricity, it controlled no forces, it struck no blows. There was no time for the heroism and the devotion ...
— When William Came • Saki
... latest move, it's very true, Appears to be a rather rum thing, But yet for idle hands to do We know that Someone will find something. Will fashionable hopping last? Well, this it's safe to lay your cash on, Before another year has passed There'll be another ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 1, 1892 • Various
... no reason—idle, weak as it must be—thou wilt refuse me even an excuse for thy perjury?" rung on the still air, in the excited tones of Arthur Stanley. "Wealth, beauty, power—ay, they are said to be omnipotent ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... how matters stood, he didn't lose much time in finding out that she was willing to be his wife, and a mother to his boy and girl. That she was, a patient loving one. Oh! it often sticks me like a knife, when I think how many times I fretted her with my foolishness and my idle ways, and how 'twas a long time before I'd call her "mother." Often, when my father would be going to chastise Richard and myself for our provoking doings, especially the day that we took half-a-dozen eggs from under the hatching hen, to play "Blind Tom" with them, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... time to alter the helm, when the yacht went round like a top, though the shore was too close to be pleasant. It only shows how easily an accident may occur. Both our fishermen-mates could not bear to be idle, and always considered looking out an insignificant occupation, and so neglected that important duty to assist with ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... week ago! Was it a week ago since—since what? And what had he been doing here? Listening! He! Father Pedro, listening like an idle peon to the confidences of two lovers. But they had talked of him, of his crime, and the man had pitied him. Why did he not speak? Why did he not call after them? He tried to raise his voice. It sank in his throat with ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... to the Abbe, his godfather, who very early taught him to recite the "Mosiad," a metrical effusion wherein the mistakes of Moses were related in churchly Latin, done first for the divertisement of sundry pious monks in idle hours. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... Session the object of all men's contempt. And the Advocates being disobliged by the regulations did endeavour, as far as in them lay, to discover to the people the errors of those who had opprest them: and they being now become numerous, and most of them being idle, though men of excellent parts, wanting rather clients than wit and learning, that society became the only distributor of fame, and in effect the fittest instrument for all alterations: for such as were eminent, did by their authority, ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath, nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... its full force? Language establishes between souls a very close and mysterious union, and this is why discretion, prudence and reserve are so necessary in regulating its use. This is why Jesus Christ warns us in the Gospel, that we shall render an account of every idle word, if indeed we may call idle a thing that entails such frightful consequences or ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi
... letter, but it is impossible for me to spend time in refuting idle stories. What's more, I cannot see that my private concerns are a fit subject for discussion at a public meeting, as I understand they have been made. You are at liberty to read this note when and where you please, and in that intention let me add that the cause of Socialism will not be advanced ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... some cause unknown to my friend, prematurely old, and wizened, and decrepit. It was long since he had first come to reside in the small house opposite mine, and from the very day of his arrival I had observed him with singular interest, and conjectured variously in my idle moments about his probable history and circumstances. For many months after his establishment "over the way," this old gentleman used morning and evening to perambulate the little country road which divided our respective dwellings, ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... dischairgin' yer duty to my bairns, to set them the example o' hingin' at a quean's apron-strings, and fillin' her lug wi' idle havers? Ca' ye that dischairgin' yer duty? My ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... 1622) by Cardinal Federigo Borromeo to the Prioress of the Convent of S. Margherita at Monza (Dandolo, Signora di Monza, p. 132). 'Experience of similar cases has shown how dangerous to your holy state is the vicinity of soldiers, owing to the correspondence which young and idle soldiers continually try to entertain with monasteries, sometimes even under fair and honorable pretexts.... Wherefore we have heard with much displeasure that in those places of our diocese where there are ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... comment on human vanity for you! Why, blast it, I was under the impression that I could get such a situation as that any time I asked for it. But I don't want it. No paper in the United States can afford to pay me what my place on the Enterprise is worth. If I were not naturally a lazy, idle, good-for-nothing vagabond, I could make it pay me $20,000 a year. But I don't suppose I shall ever be any account. I lead an easy life, though, and I don't care a cent whether school keeps or not. Everybody knows me, and I fare ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... would thus be improving my Vacation hours, and, I considered, keeping out of mischeif. It was pure idleness which had caused my Trouble during the last Christmas holidays. How true it is that the Devil finds work for idle Hands! ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... has remembered little more of him or them than two phrases 'suspense of judgment'—this for the intellectual side of philosophy; 'impassibility'—this for the moral. The doctrine is a negation of doctrine, the idle dream of idle men; even Pyrrho once, when surprised in some sudden access of fear, confessed that it was hard for him 'to get rid of the man in himself.' Vigorous men and growing nations are never agnostic. They decline to rest in mere suspense; they are extremely the opposite ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... words from Mrs. Ella Sheppard Moore, president of the Tennessee Association, tell the whole story. These once unhappy and largely idle women in practical Christian effort are now employed in Christ's name, intelligently, radiant in the joy ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 4, April 1896 • Various
... the archbishop idle at this time. He proceeded to give rules to the new Audiencia as to the manner in which it was to conduct itself, declaring that recourse to it in cases of fuerza and banishment was faulty; and a little later, when urged to absolve Governor Vargas, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... pierce the sky, and the unnumbered miles of forests that clothe with green garments the ridges and slopes of this vast wilderness, who can ever forget them? How wonderful are these wild and rugged scenes, still fresh from the hand of God! Call us idle triflers if you will, but we shall ever try to read the messages from these stone pages from the book of God, where all day long the breezes whisper messages fuller of meaning than any lines from the ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... stayed with me till it was time to go down. She must have found me a very unsociable companion this time, for Rachel's last words rang in my ears. But still I hoped, I trusted they had no foundation but in some idle rumour of the servants from what they had seen in Lady Lowborough's manner last month; or perhaps from something that had passed between their master and her during her former visit. At dinner I narrowly observed both her and ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... in silent cogitation, with despair almost paralysing his heart. He is unable to think steadily, or clearly. Doubtful, unfeasible schemes shape themselves in his mind; idle thoughts flit across his brain; all the while wild tumultuous emotions ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... to himself; "an idle tabby malkin, that perhaps never caught a mouse in his life, and I dare say is not descended from a better family than myself, has the honour to sit at table with my mistress: I would fain know whether he loves her so ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... unreasoning interest in that man. He found himself thinking of him as the train hurried on, wondering whether his wife was there waiting for him, and whether he had other children besides the one he was carrying. And all the time, through his idle musings, he could hear one sentence ringing in his ears, the last that his lawyer had said to him after the long consultation of ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... eliciting or as men say learning, out of a single recollection all the rest, if a man is strenuous and does not faint; for all enquiry and all learning is but recollection. And therefore we ought not to listen to this sophistical argument about the impossibility of enquiry: for it will make us idle; and is sweet only to the sluggard; but the other saying will make us active and inquisitive. In that confiding, I will gladly enquire with you into the ...
— Meno • Plato
... could have been sure of that, I need not have burnt all my correspondence! But you are an idle young lady and would certainly never have concentrated on so ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... this Herod took Joppa, and then he marched to Masada to free his kinsmen. Then he marched to Jerusalem, where the soldiers who were with the Roman general Silo joined his own, as did many from the city because they feared his power. Herod did not lie idle, but seized Idumea and held it with two thousand footmen and four hundred horsemen. He also removed his mother and all his kinsmen, who had been at Masada, to Samaria. And when he had settled them securely, he marched to capture ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... children, how shall he do with six or eight? A true teetotaller can certainly pay double the rent which may be extracted from a man who drinks. Shall the normal tenant earn wages beyond what he gets from the land under his own tillage? Shall the idle man be made equal to the industrious,—or can this be done, or should it be done, by any philanthropy? Statesmen sitting together in a cabinet may resolve that they will set the world right by eloquence and benevolence combined; but the practices to which ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... of property is hockable for ready cash. A watch, a ring, an outworn suit of clothes, a chair, a set of books, all these will find willing purchasers. But a manuscript which happens not to meet the fancy of the editors must perforce lie idle in your drawer though it sparkle with the brilliants of wit, and five or ten years hence collectors may list it in their catalogues. No mount of piety along Sixth Avenue will accept it in pawn, no Hartford Lunch will exchange it for corned beef hash and dropped egg. This ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... watching too. He knew that the Padre's threat had been no idle one, but he meant to forestall its operation. The Padre was away to his home by now. Nothing that he could do could operate until the morning, when these men were sober. He had got this night, at least, in which to satisfy his ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... own; He thinks of the claims, not to be disputed or avoided, which the Creator makes on the creature. He feels the reality of God dominating the whole of life, He breathes in the fear of the Judge who requires an account for every idle word, and has power to destroy body and soul in hell. "No man can serve two masters; ye cannot serve God and Mammon; where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." This monotheism is not to be ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... and the pathos lay in the way Mistress Marjory told it, sitting in the shadows before the open wood fire, with her hands, so seldom idle, folded listlessly in her lap, and her beautiful gray eyes looking far into the past. What a pretty picture she was in her black silk dress, with its lace kerchief crossed on her bosom, with her hair, white as snow, drawn back high from her brow! I like to think of her as she looked that ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 5, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 5, May, 1886 • Various
... be idle to deny that the ingredient which, more than its humour, or its wisdom, or the fertility of invention or knowledge of human nature it displays, has insured its success with the multitude, is the vein of farce that runs through it. It was the ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Agrippa, and Friar Bacon, he was ready, during the short period of his stay, to lift the veil which separates the present from the future. Not being actuated in the slightest degree by a lust for gain, the illustrious exile would not consent to gratify mere idle curiosity, and to afford amusement to the gay and frivolous; but where an earnest, inquiring mind was intent upon discovering the hidden things of life, upon investigating the secrets of the past, or searching into futurity, the Wanderer would give his mighty assistance. By books and ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... solemnly, "I am not one as troubles my master when things are straightforward. But them foreigners, you never know when you have 'em. And an idle man about an establishment, that is, so to speak, under nobody, and for ever a-kicking of his heels, and following the women servants about, and not a blessed hand's turn to do"—a tone of personal offence came into Williams' ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... shown cause to doubt whether in the faithful bosom of real nature they would yield so fair a harvest as in the more accommodating soil of fiction. But we should have met him with undivided sympathy, as no idle talker on no idle theme. This, however, his worst genius interferes to prevent. He has only a half faith in the cause he has espoused, and dares not let go his interest with the other party. It is as if, having, in sport or curiosity, raised the veil of truth, he had ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... side, the reactionaries, although never dreaming of the fate which hung over them, had not been idle. In 1857 the astounding question had for the first time been propounded with contumely, 'What, then, did we come from an orang-outang?' The famous 'Vestiges of Creation' had been supplying a sugar-and- water panacea for those who could not escape from the trend of evidence, and who yet ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... BLINKER Rich, idle, careless of responsibility, and as much a victim to his own station as is Florence; slightly affected; but must not lose ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... season was unfavourable to the crops, or that the cultivation of the land was relinquished for the allurements of the city, and of public harangues; for both causes are assigned. And the patricians accused the commons as being idle; the tribunes of the commons complained sometimes of the fraud, at other times of the negligence of the consuls. At length the commons prevailed, without opposition on the part of the senate, that ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... Rheims, with all the accustomed pomp. At this period the people's love for Louis XVI. burst forth in transports not to be mistaken for party demonstrations or idle curiosity. He replied to this enthusiasm by marks of confidence, worthy of a people happy in being governed by a good King; he took a pleasure in repeatedly walking without guards, in the midst of the crowd which pressed around him, and called ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... and Eben walked at a little distance from the party, apparently taking no more interest in the affair than one of idle curiosity. ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... armistice was signed on November 11, the German armies still maintained cohesion, with an unbroken line on foreign soil. Surrender was made inevitable by internal breakdown and revolution, the first open manifestations of which appeared among the sailors of the idle High Seas ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... individually poor, might be collectively rich; and all the famous monasteries came gradually to be as well endowed as Oxford and Cambridge universities were. This proved, in the end, an evil, since the monks became lazy and luxurious and proud. They could afford to be idle; and with idleness and luxury came corruption. The austere lives of the founders of these monasteries gave them a reputation for sanctity and learning, and this brought them wealth. Rich people who had no near relatives were almost ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... thousand / first he ferried o'er, Whereafter came his own men. / Of others still were more, For squires full nine thousand / he led unto that land. That day no whit was idle / that valiant knight of ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... eight Sessions of Oyer and Terminer and Jail-Delivery usually holden in London in a Year, many of which, through the great Number of Prisoners try'd, continue four or five Days successively; during which time, the Old-Bailey-Yard is crouded with an idle disorderly Crew of Persons of both Sexes, who have no other Business but to obstruct those who have any unwish'd for Avocation to the Place——In one Corner stands a Circle, compos'd of, perhaps, a Baker's-Boy, a Journeyman-Shoemaker, a Butcher's-'Prentice, and a Bailiff's-Follower, ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson
... here, they suggest artistic ceramic possibilities for architectural purposes of which we have taken little advantage. Considering the fact that we have quantities of good clay and that so much original good decorative design is lying idle, this inactivity in architectural ceramics in California is distressing. So far as I know, Batchelder, in Pasadena, still has the monopoly on architectural tiles ...
— The Art of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... with its clerks clashed down to the receiving-caisson; the hostlers displaced the engineers at the idle turbines, and Tim, prouder of this than all, introduced me to the maiden of the photograph on the shelf. "And by the way," said he to her, stepping forth in sunshine under the hat of civil life, "I saw young Williams in the Mark Boat. I've asked him ...
— With The Night Mail - A Story of 2000 A.D. (Together with extracts from the - comtemporary magazine in which it appeared) • Rudyard Kipling
... story for the unknown personage whom, in my wandering fancy, I began by creating a grandee of Portugal, invested with rank honors, and riches; but who, effeminated by the habits and usages of his country, had become the mere idle voluptuary, living a life of easy and inglorious indolence. My further musings were interrupted at this moment for the individual to whom I had been so complimentary in my revery, slowly arose from his recumbent ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... with my honor, and you stand apart, fettered to yours.... We have shaken our chains in play, the links still hold firm and bright; but if we break them, then, as they snap, our honor dies forever. For what I have done in idle ignorance forgive me, and leave me to my penance, ... which must last for all my life, cousin.... And you will forget.... Hush! dearest lad, and let me speak. Well, then I will say that I pray you may forget! Well, then I will not say that to grieve you.... I wish you to remember—yet not ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... appearance, but in actuality. How then could he have for wife a slip of a sixteen-year-old maid that you may have met before in Mr HEWLETT's romances? This however is the real story, which (pardon me) I do not mean to tell. If it is no tremendous matter, it will at least please an idle hour, which will be almost time enough for you to enjoy every ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 8, 1916 • Various
... Allan Quatermain, come to the weirdest (with one or two exceptions perhaps) of all the experiences which it has amused me to employ my idle hours in recording here in a strange land, for after all England is strange to me. I grow elderly. I have, as I suppose, passed the period of enterprise and adventure and I should be well satisfied with the lot that Fate has given ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... me with idle threats," she answered haughtily, "you have no power to harm me, and I feel assured that as your love is worthless, so in the end your ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... smiled Lydia. Then she asked, "How'd you happen to start out?" She had heard the simple reason many times; but she loved his talk, and her idle mind preferred ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... that, ye have been overwhelmed with terrible calamity. Do thou strike off, therefore, this my head today. I am the worst of men, and the exterminator of my race. I am a wretch. I am addicted to wicked courses. I am of foolish understanding. I am idle and a coward. I am an insulter of the old. I am cruel. What wouldst thou gain by always being obedient to a cruel person like me? A wretch that I am, I shall this very day retire into the woods. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... steel should be kept from rust. Young men, keep your weapons in their scabbards, until God and your country call them forth; then draw according to the knowledge—according to the faith that is in ye; but a truce to idle brawling." ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... sources of indolence, vice, and poverty. From several of these, the writer has learned, that, by their own personal investigations, they have ascertained, that there are large establishments of idle and wicked persons, in most of our cities, who associate together, to support themselves by every species of imposition. They hire large houses, and live in constant rioting, on the means thus obtained. Among them, are women who have, or who hire the use of, infant children; ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... dine Tuesday next week if you like, or come Sunday for supper." This privilege of intimacy can, however, be abused. An engagement, even with a member of one's family, ought never to be broken twice within a brief period, or it becomes apparent that the other's presence is more a fill-in of idle time ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... But he doesn't. I'll say this for Mudie; he doesn't force you to take particular books. You can always leave what you don't want. All these people who are (alleged to be) crying out for a censorship—they're merely idle! If they really want a censorship they ought to exercise it themselves. Robinson has a daughter, and he is shocked at the idea of her picking up a silly sham-erotic novel by a member of the aristocracy, or a first-rate ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... sing no idle songs of dalliance days, No dreams Elysian inspire my rhyming; I have no Celia to enchant my lays, No pipes of Pan have set my heart to chiming. I am no wordsmith dripping gems divine Into the golden chalice of a sonnet; ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... inserting some of his essays, we have filled the head of this petty writer with idle chimeras of applause, laurels and immortality, nor suspected the bad effect of our regard for him, till we saw, in the postscript to one of his papers, a wild[2] prediction of the honours to be paid him by future ages. Should any mention of him be made, or his writings, by posterity, it will, probably, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... thought, child, when He had been so good to me, it was very bad of me to do nothing for Him in return; nothing to show Him I'm grateful, you see. I shook my fist, and I said to myself, You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Mother Manikin! you little idle, ungrateful ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... respectable precedent for allowing their families to violate the order of the Sabbath? You and your children sail about on the lake, with minds and hearts, I doubt not, elevated and tranquillized by its quiet repose; but Ben Dakes, and his idle, profane army of children, consider themselves as doing very much the same thing when they lie lolling about, sunning themselves on its shore, or skipping stones over its surface the ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... communicated, like that of electricity, through the country to a distance of hundreds of miles. Canals, railroads, and all public works, have been discontinued, and the Irish emigrant leans against his shanty, with his spade idle in his hand, and starves, as his thoughts wander back ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... General dispatched in the Virginia, with instructions, the seventeenth of June, 1610, Robert Tyndall, master of the De la Warre, to fish unto, all along, and between Cape Henry and Cape Charles within the bay.... Nor was the Lord Governor and Captain General in the meanwhile idle at the fort, but every day and night he caused the nets to be hauled, sometimes a dozen times one after another. But it pleased not God so to bless our labours that we did at any time take one quarter so much as ...
— The Bounty of the Chesapeake - Fishing in Colonial Virginia • James Wharton
... my loss of fortune as a gain to myself," said Graham, manfully. "Had I been a rich man, my experience of Paris tells me that I should most likely have been a very idle one. Now that I have no gold, I must dig in ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Recognizing these limitations upon his work, he often finds it difficult to avoid one or the other of two dangers that beset all efforts to teach a vernacular literature; the student must not think his reading an idle pastime, nor, on the other hand, must he think it a repellent task. In the first case, he is likely never to read anything well; in the second case, the things best worth reading he will probably never read at all. Of the two dangers, the first ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... of apes, And eke of many a maze* therewithal; *wild imagining Men dream of thing that never was, nor shall. But since I see, that thou wilt here abide, And thus forslothe* wilfully thy tide,** *idle away **time God wot, *it rueth me;* and have good day.' *I am sorry for it* And thus he took his leave, and went his way. But, ere that he had half his course sail'd, I know not why, nor what mischance it ail'd, But casually* the ship's bottom rent, *by accident And ship and man under the water ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... from sleep and idle dreams abraid, A man awaked calls home his wits again; So in beholding his attire he played, But yet to view himself could not sustain, His looks he downward cast and naught he said, Grieved, shamed, sad, he would have died fain, And oft he wished ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... living out our love, we certainly have the clew to the heavenly life. We shall continue in the doing of the things we have here learned to do. Life in glory will be earth's Christian life intensified and perfected. Heaven will not be a place of idle repose. Inaction can never be a condition of blessedness for a life made and trained for action. The essential quality of love is service—"not to be ministered unto, but to minister;" and for one who has learned love's lesson, happiness never can be found in a state in which there ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... their part, were not idle. Two spots had been chosen in the pathway for the defense At each of these the face of the cliff extended sharply out in an angle, and it was on the side of this angle next to the amphitheater that the preparations ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... upon the Commons of Lower Canada came at an unfortunate period. Both provinces were suffering. Agriculture and commerce were in distress. Agricultural and commercial distress had also afflicted the mother country. People were unwillingly idle, and consequently, discontented. The regulations then existing in Great Britain, with respect to the importation of grain and flour from the Canadas were alleged to amount almost to a prohibition. To the operation of these regulations Canadian distress was attributed. ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... house, which are (as I much fear) now utterly lost, excepting the fragment or two cited out of them by Pliny the elder and Cornelius Tacitus; as he would also have stuck at no price for a grammar printed at Tavistock, commonly called The long Grammar. When he went abroad he was never idle, but if he could not meet with things of a better character, he would divert himself with looking over Ballads, and he was always mightily pleased if he met with any that were old. Anthony a Wood made good collections, with respect to ballads, but he was far outdone ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... not for poor people long to waste themselves in idle lamentations. The problem of the future was forced upon Mrs. Ramsay for solution. If they had been able only to live comfortably on the earnings of the dead husband, what should they do now when the strong arm that delved for them was silent in the cold ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... down, and it must hang as long as possible. He was aware when he walked away again that even Fleet Street wouldn't at this juncture successfully touch him. His manager might wire that he was wanted, but he could easily be deaf to his manager. His money for the idle life might be none too much; happily, however, Venice was cheap, and it was moreover the queer fact that Milly in a manner supported him. The greatest of his expenses really was to walk to the palace to dinner. He didn't want, ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... many a home. "One silent, both happy," is an old motto well worth observing. But often a single appreciative word will brighten the whole sky. One of Franklin's plain phrases has its wise lesson: "As we must account for every idle word, so we must for every idle silence." Frederika Bremer says: "Marriage has a morrow, and again a morrow." You will need to bear with each other, and to so act, each to the other, that every day may be made beautiful and happy, and the whole future ...
— The Wedding Day - The Service—The Marriage Certificate—Words of Counsel • John Fletcher Hurst
... hospital chain to be uniformly well organised and equipped. It is needed at short notice, and often for a short period, and it is difficult to maintain a regular staff of officers ready for any emergency without keeping a certain number of men idle. ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... 19th of January we crossed the Line, in longitude about 160 deg.. We continue on a straight course, making an average of about 240 miles a day. It already begins to get cooler, as we are past the sun's greatest heat. It is a very idle, listless life; and I lie about on the hen-coops all day, reading, or sitting down now and then to write up this log, which has been written throughout amidst discomfort and under ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... half-an-hour, Laura," said the Marchesa to Mrs. Sinclair, "then you must come and work with me for the delectation of these idle people, who are going to spend the afternoon talking scandal ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters
... would not anything were done, But would for ever sit on this soft seat Each sweet recurrent Saturday, and run An idle pencil o'er the foolscap sheet, The free unrationed blotting-pad, and scrawl Delightful effigies of those who speak, But not myself say anything at all, Only be mute and beautiful and ...
— Punch, Volume 156, January 22, 1919. • Various
... human beings, or, as it is called, cannibalism, is no idle tale invented by travellers. Men of the highest character for truth, who have had ample opportunity for observation, from the time of Cook to the present day, have assured us that the natives of those lovely regions are cannibals: that they not only eat the bodies of enemies ...
— The Cannibal Islands - Captain Cook's Adventure in the South Seas • R.M. Ballantyne
... rattled; spurs jingled; the horses whinnied from their stables, woven of pine boughs, near by; and in and out of the general's tent played his two boisterous setters, Nip and Tuck, the companions of his idle hours. We all messed together, under a broad canvas, at one table: music resounded; songs were sung; Sweeney, soon, alas! to be dead, was yet king of the woodland revels; Stuart joined in his songs, to the music of the banjo; and not seldom did the ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... this great drain sharply locked up in the London safes as reserves against paper, and cannot be utilised in enterprises or manufacture. Therefore trade stands still, and factories are closed, and ship-yards are idle, and beautiful vessels are stored up doing nothing by hundreds in dock; coal mines left to be filled with water, and furnaces blown out. Therefore there is bitter distress and starvation, and cries for relief works, and one meal a day for Board ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... known among us as that of Alexander; the house too was painted yellow, and had a green roof, and white columns, and a pediment with an escutcheon on it. The architect had designed both buildings with the approval of the deceased Odintsov, who could not endure—as he expressed it—idle and arbitrary innovations. The house was enclosed on both sides by the dark trees of an old garden; an avenue of lopped pines led up ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... negotiations were attempted; and the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had threatened the last sentence of the Church against Llewelyn and his adherents, was sent over to Snowdon to hold a conference. Llewelyn had already been warned that it was idle to expect assistance from Rome. He was now summoned to submit at discretion, with a hope—so expressed as to be a promise—that he and the natives of the revolted districts would have mercy shown them. In private he was informed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... storm which has been gathering over this province must break upon Quebec. This is the old city of destiny. And we shall accept our destiny, Lieutenant," said the Governor, rising from the table, and advancing toward Roderick. "We have not been idle during your absence. Much can be done in a day and a half, and we have done it. We have done so much that we can await the arrival of Arnold with some assurance. I see, however, from the despatches you bring me, that Colonel McLean is in some danger at ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... Moore, Esq., General Mitchell and N. Ferguson from the city. It was opposed by Jacob Alter from Cumberland, who declared that although there were a great many public schools and colleges and places of that kind scattered over the State, he never knew any good they did, except to breed up a set of idle and odious ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... head of a grown person; judge, then, what effect it must have upon that of a child. It is with the prattle of children as with the prediction in the almanac. It would be strange if, amidst such a number of idle words, chance did not now and then jumble some of them into sense. Imagine the effect which such flattering exclamations must have on a simple mother, already too much flattered by her own heart. Think not, however, that I am proof against ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... tried to understand Darwin; but he still fancied he might get the best part of Darwinism from the easier study of geology; a science which suited idle minds as well as though it were history. Every curate in England dabbled in geology and hunted for vestiges of Creation. Darwin hunted only for vestiges of Natural Selection, and Adams followed him, although he cared nothing about Selection, ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... forgetful of his example if I permitted any one to do so who looked to me for counsel or direction. No, gentlemen, let us all, laymen or clergymen, call to mind his life and his death, and let public rumor blow past us as the idle wind. ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... a willing heart. Our women can do much, for men are widely severed in opinion; and the social element, woman's true and noble sphere, must be made available to bring about a better feeling. Let her so arrange that we shall see more of each other socially, not in grand fetes, tiresome dinners, idle pomposities, but in simple and hospitable greetings, in frequent, unrestrained, and easy commune. She must learn to take a conversational part in the great questions of the day, soothing asperities, and bringing hearts together as she ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... years ago a rude cabin within whose walls Abraham Lincoln passed his childhood. An "unaccountable" man he has been called, and the adjective was well chosen, for who could account for a mind and nature like Lincoln's with the ancestry he owned? His father was a thriftless, idle carpenter, scarcely supporting his family, and with but the poorest living. His mother was an uneducated woman, but must have been of an entirely different nature, for she was able to impress upon her boy a love of learning. During her life, his chief, in fact his only book, was the Bible, and ...
— Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days • Annie L. Burton
... place nice. She hasn't got the patience. You think she's doing the dusting; and you find her groaning about what she'd do if she was rich. 'Yes,' I tell her; 'it's all very well to do that; but you'd far better be doing something useful,' I say. 'Instead of wasting your time on idle fancies.'" ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... not care if they do have a good fight. It would be a little diversion, for it is horribly tedious here. Ah, how long is this to last? How long am I to sit here and wait until Prussia and the king call upon me to drive Napoleon out of the country? How long am I to be idle while Bonaparte is gaining one victory after another in Russia? I have not much time to spare for waiting, and—well," he suddenly interrupted, himself, quickly stepping up to the window, "what is that? Is not that a carriage driving ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... this local drama," said Adine, resuming her challenging attitude. "And you brush the tragedies into the wastebasket like mere dross. A while ago, you were assigning me to big jobs in the congested areas while you were to idle around in the wide open spaces. Just now, I would put you back in some city as a public relations officer, a Mister Fixit, to diagnose and cure personal and community ills. You would fix 'em or discard ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... the twenty-two millions of acres of farm lands in the state but fifteen millions are actually under cultivation, leaving, therefore, from six to eight millions of acres within the farms of the state but lying idle. That is, we have a Massachusetts enclosed within our farms which is non-productive as far as direct returns are concerned. Yet there is really no waste land in New York, as every square foot of the state which is ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... as a vain and insolent favourite, who did ill the greatest work given him to do—the reduction of Ireland; who did it ill from some unexplained reason of spite and mischief; and who, when called to account for it, broke out into senseless and idle rebellion. This was the end. But he was not always thus. He began life with great gifts and noble ends; he was a serious, modest, and large-minded student both of books and things, and he turned his studies to full account. He had imagination and love of enterprise, ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... But there idden much reaedship in that. Whether vo'k mid have childern or no, Wou'dden meaeke mighty odds in the main; They do bring us mwore jay wi' mwore ho, An' wi' nwone we've less jay wi' less pain We be all lik' a zull's idle sheaere out, An' shall rust out, unless we do wear out, Lik' do-nothen, rue-nothen, ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... some time now from working for the government in detecting the smugglers, but, as you may well suppose, he had not been idle. Inventing a number of small things, including useful articles for the house, was a sort of recreation for him, but his mind was busy on one great scheme, which I will tell you ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... the short time I remained at that curious old Dutch place, Cape Town. I saw the table-mountain and the tablecloth on the top of it, and then a sloop of war called there, and the commodore, who was there, ordered me and Peter Pongo a passage back to Sierra Leone. I was never idle, for I found ample employment in teaching Peter to read, and wonderful was the progress he made. He was a great favourite on board the corvette on account of his intelligence and amiable manners, and the gallant way in which he had preserved ...
— My First Cruise - and Other stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... away abroad, he sold one of our two cows, and took the proceeds with him. (He, the father, was a reckless spendthrift, idle, and fond of the public inn.) A rich neighbor directly offered to loan us money enough to buy another; this kind proposal we gratefully accepted. Although we did not understand much about bargains of this kind, ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... from the character of the nation. His three sons were only lieutenants of the Romans, analogous to the rajahs of India under the English dominion. Antipater, or Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee and of Peraea, of whom Jesus was a subject all his life, was an idle and useless prince,[1] a favorite and flatterer of Tiberius,[2] and too often misled by the bad influence of his second wife, Herodias.[3] Philip, tetrarch of Gaulonitis and Batanea, into whose dominions Jesus made frequent journeys, was a much better sovereign.[4] As to Archelaus, ethnarch of Jerusalem, ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... they are never idle in their houses; and when other occupations fail them, the spinning-wheel, or loom, is brought out, and materials for clothing their families are prepared. In the country, the women share equally with their husbands and children in agricultural labours; early and late whole ...
— Sketches of Japanese Manners and Customs • J. M. W. Silver
... enclosure looked more cheerful, when there was no market held, and when the boys of the town played in the deserted place. In the last warehouse left in a state of repair, the crane was generally idle; the windows were mostly shut up; and a solitary man represented languishing trade, idling at a half-opened door. The muddy river rose and fell with the distant tide. At rare intervals a collier discharged its cargo on the mouldering quay, or an empty barge took in ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... pieces to the doors of their abodes, and after some hours' toil leave off work, and many of the bits of grass may be seen collected around the orifice. They continue out of sight for perhaps a month, but they are never idle. On one occasion, a good bundle of grass was laid down for my bed on a spot which was quite smooth and destitute of plants. The ants at once sounded the call to a good supply of grass. I heard them ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... creating my lover by the spell of desire, and I could see his face in the vortex my fingers made as I moved them to and fro. I gazed and gazed and gazed, and then, suddenly, some fear gripped me, for the face became a face of a man, with the idle water swilling across it. But it was a face: my mind battled against the realization till the fact governed it. It was a face, brown and keen and smiling with a gleam of white teeth, and then a hand met my hand in the water and drew me forward. ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... so learned to prize English honor and English generosity, that there is not a living American, North or South, who values English opinion, on any point of national right, duty, or manliness, above the idle whistling of the wind. Who considers it of the slightest consequence now what England may think on any matter American? Who has the curiosity to ask after an ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... she mean? Counterparts visiting the nuns in the twilight... at night! Who are these counterparts?" Evelyn asked herself. "The idle fancies of young girls, of course." But she was curious to hear what these were, and on the first favourable opportunity she introduced the ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... establish the era of temperance, and some secretly hoping that the project would fail. A generous dinner was cooking indoors; for the host intended to refuse his guests nothing that was good. The song of mallets and hammers rang out, and the timbers began to come together; but the master framer was idle. Over by the old house door sat grandfather. He positively refused to lend a hand to the enterprise unless treated to his rum. For a time the work progressed rapidly; then there came a halt. There was a place where the timbers would not fit. After much delay and many vain attempts ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... interrupt you, my dear Mdlle. Adrienne," said the doctor, still perfectly calm and affectionate: "nothing can be more unfavorable to your cure, than to cherish idle hopes: they will only tend to keep up a state of deplorable excitement: it is best to put the facts fairly before you, that you ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... leveled the site and made it a public promenade. A stately arcade of solid masonry supports it on the brink of the rock, and an iron parapet incloses it; there are a few seats to lounge upon, and some idle old guns for the children to clamber over and play with. A soft twilight had followed the day, and there was just enough obscurity to hide from a willing eye the Northern and New World facts of the scene, and to bring into more romantic relief the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... felt momentarily an amused feeling at sight of her worshippers, it was quickly lost at sight of the positive unhappiness expressed in these faces of the abandoned. A visit to the Tamiya Inari is not necessarily either one of idle curiosity or without results. Some exceedingly painful impressions can be ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... This habit of uselessly wasting time is the whole difficulty; and it is vastly important to you, and still more so to your children, that you should break the habit. It is more important to them, because they have longer to live, and can keep out of an idle habit before they are in it easier than they can get out after they are in. You are now in need of some money; and what I propose is that you shall go to work, 'tooth and nail,' for somebody who will ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... young Welland's thoughts had been very busy; ay, and his conscience had not been idle, for when mention was made of that great curse strong drink, he vividly recalled the day when he had laughed at Sam Twitter's blue ribbon, and felt uneasy as to how far his conduct on that occasion had helped Sam ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... and anxiety with which Von Barwig put this question made it clear to Miss Stanton that it was not merely idle curiosity that prompted him to ask, so stifling her first impulse to ignore the question ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... attracted by a slight noise from their room. The stillness of the night made it audible to him in spite of the closed door. At first he listened out of idle curiosity, and to get away from his own feverish thoughts. Finally he got up without any clear idea of what he was doing, or why he did it. He began to tremble even as he moved on tip-toe across the room. At the door he had to kneel ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... them with food and relieve the distressing want that is in so many places threatening their very lives; and steps are to be taken immediately to organize these efforts at relief in the same systematic manner that they were organized in the case of Belgium. By the use of the idle tonnage of the Central Empires it ought presently to be possible to lift the fear of utter misery from their oppressed populations and set their minds and energies free for the great and hazardous tasks of political reconstruction which now face them on every hand. Hunger does ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... at everything that met his eyes, with an idle and exact curiosity new to him; and every feature was drawn for him in relief to such a degree that it seemed to him as though he were feeling it with his fingers... There a peasant woman passed by. Over her shoulder is a yoke staff, ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... thoroughly frightened I shall be offered my freedom at a price. A sort of up-to-date game of holdup! The penalty of being a wealthy man! If you had named your figure to begin with, we would have saved a lot of idle talk, and you would have had ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... empire were hastily collected, and, as they in turn reached Paris, were reviewed on the Carrousel and sent forward to concentre on the battle-ground that was to decide his fate. No branch of art was idle that could contribute to the approaching conflict. Cannon were cast with unprecedented rapidity, and the material of war was turned out to the extent of human ability. But he was deficient in everything that constitutes an army. Men, horses, arms, equipage, all were wanting. The long succession ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... Robin into the church at an unaccustomed time, without which sermon-book they would never have met Priscilla in the churchyard and driven her out of it. Thus are all our doings ruled by Chance; and it is a pleasant pastime for an idle hour to trace back big events to their original and sometimes absurd beginnings. For myself I know that the larger lines of my life were laid down once for all by—but what has this to do with Priscilla? Thus, I say, are all our ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... detail work is accomplished before the sight is taken. Next, take your sextant and test it for index error. This should be done regularly before each series of sights as it is impossible to tell what may have happened when the sextant is lying idle, except by the above test. Now, with your sextant, watch and notebook, go to the place from which you have decided to take your observations and, at the proper watch time, start taking your altitudes. It is always advisable to take a number of sights, closely following each other, so ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper
... not take up your Majesty's time with idle words," said the Abbe, glancing at a written memorandum which he held in his hand. "My master, King Louis, sends greeting to his royal brother, and hopes that no cause of difference may ever arise to darken the blue sky of peace that now hangs over two kings, potent as are your Majesty and ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... is an inimitable performance. Thou art a strange impenetrable creature. But let me most earnestly conjure thee, and the idle flutterer, Tourville, from what you have seen of poor Belton's exit; from our friend Lovelace's phrensy, and the occasion of it; and from the terrible condition in which the wretched Sinclair lies; to set about an immediate change of life and manners. For my own part, I am determined, ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... leg, and the sound of the hickory pole, both hollowly ringing along every plank. But ere he entered his cabin, a light, unnatural, half-bantering, yet most piteous sound was heard. Oh, Pip! thy wretched laugh, thy idle but unresting eye; all thy strange mummeries not unmeaningly blended with the black tragedy of the melancholy ship, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... at an end; and we suspect the reader will give a shudder at the news, as having a very material share in the infliction. Yet the reader's case has this great alleviation, that he takes up this narrative in an idle hour, and Charles encountered the reality in a very busy and anxious one. So, however, it was: not any great time elapsed after the retreat of Zerubbabel, when his landlord again appeared at the door. ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... there swaying on his heels, clutching at the rope above him with his one uninjured hand, and sawing upward with his head for air. There came a murmur from the shadows, and a dozen breech-bolts clicked. There seemed no disposition to lie idle while the holiest thing in a ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... the Indians retired from before Boonesboro, one hundred and twenty-five pounds weight of bullets were picked up by the garrison, besides many that stuck in the logs of the fort. A conclusive proof that the Indians were not idle, during the continuance of ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... whisper consolation, they shuddered at the veiled face so near their own. Such were the terrors of the black veil even when Death had bared his visage. Strangers came long distances to attend service at his church with the mere idle purpose of gazing at his figure because it was forbidden them to behold his face. But many were made to quake ere they departed. Once, during Governor Belcher's administration, Mr. Hooper was appointed to ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... remarked: Mr. Langston, you do the Court injustice in supposing the remarks were called out as a mere idle form, or would not get a respectful consideration ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... Mr. Windham that he had never read through the Odyssey completely. Windham's Diary, p. 17. At college, he said, he had been 'very idle and ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... employment of his friend Denham, who opened a thriving business on Water Street. But after an engagement of four months he was left idle by Mr. Denham's death, and, finding nothing better to do, returned to his old employer, Keimer. Here he received good wages as foreman of the shop, but soon discovered that he was engaged only to teach Keimer's raw hands the trade, and was to be dismissed as ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More
... without answering its purpose. Now ensued a long delay, during which the troops, the provincial levies, the transports destined to carry them, and the ships of war which were to serve as escort, all lay idle. In the interval Loudon showed great activity in writing despatches and other avocations more or less proper to a commander, being always busy, without, according to Franklin, accomplishing anything. One Innis, who had come with a message from the Governor of Pennsylvania, and had waited above ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... luck. If it fall and they step over they step back. They say if somebody sweep under your feet you won't marry that year. Folks didn't visit round much. They had some place to go they went but they had to work. They work together and done mighty little—idle vistin'. Folks took the knitting long visting lest it ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... prison walls shambled the guards, blanketed like Indians, and with faces and hearts of wolves. Other Rebels—also clad in dingy butternut—slouched around lazily, crouched over diminutive fires, and talked idle gossip in the broadest of "nigger" dialect. Officers swelled and strutted hither and thither, and negro servants loitered around, striving to spread the least amount of work over the greatest ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... had finished Peter was feeling warmed and friendly, the Australians had been joined to their company, and the four spent an idle afternoon cheerfully enough. There was nothing in strolling through the busy streets, joking a little over very French picture post-cards, quizzing the passing girls, standing in a queue at Cox's, and finally drawing a fiver in mixed French notes, or in wandering through a huge ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... the privilege of a small minority, for it is idle to talk of education when the workman's child is forced, at the age of thirteen, to go down into the mine or to help his father on the farm. It is idle to talk of studying to the worker, who comes home in the evening ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... their heads into every iron pot that stood outside the kitchen door, until chance might give her "a sight o' the squire afore he wint out, or afore he wint in;" and after spending her entire day in this idle way, at last the squire made his appearance, and Judy presented her son, who kept scraping his foot, and pulling his forelock, that stuck out like a piece of ragged thatch from his forehead, making his obeisance to the squire, while his mother ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... native bitterness. He wreaked his revenge upon his colleagues, and towards Franklin he cherished an envious hatred which developed into a monomania. Perhaps Franklin was correct in charitably saying that at times he was "insane." He began by asserting that Franklin was old, idle, and useless, fit only to be shelved in some respectable sinecure mission; but he rapidly advanced from such moderate condemnation until he charged Franklin with being a party to the abstraction of his dispatches ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... flesh, underdone and possibly raw, of mammoth and rhinoceros. If, then, this living man recalls a type of the past, it is of a remoter past, a more primitive man, the volume of whose history is missing from the geological record. To speculate on such a subject seems idle and useless; and when I coveted possession of that head it was not because I thought that it might lead to any fresh discovery. A lower motive inspired the feeling. I wished for it only that I might bring it over the sea, to drop it like a new apple of discord, suited to the spirit ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... "I have one more thing to say. Some of you here are in my house, and every one of you, I see, is in my form in Third School. You are most of you idle boys, and, as you know, there are plenty in the same Form better behaved ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... To Godfrey? Idle talk! Stein himself can't bear Godfrey, and he knows what I am worth to him. I need not sing my own praise. Show me a forest anywhere in the whole district that can be compared to mine.—Do you hear? Why, there he is back again. Sit down. And if he comes in, act ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... and he is desired to repeat the experiment till he succeeds. General Macaulay's fastidious nature led him to take my father's line regarding your uncle, and my youthful soul was often vexed by the constant reprimands for venial transgressions. But the great sin was the idle reading, which was a thorn in my father's side that never was extracted. In truth, he really acknowledged to the full your uncle's abilities, and felt that if he could only add his own morale, his unwearied ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... Maoris with breathless interest. A story told of the madcap days of Brougham's youth gives some idea of the welcome he would extend to Rutherford. One evening, after Brougham and some other gay spirits had supped together in London, they saw a mob of idle scoundrels beating an unfortunate woman with brutal ferocity. The young fellows went to her rescue. Their interference increased the tumult, and all the watchmen in the neighbourhood were soon about ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
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