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More "Inactivity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... system. In other words, the activity of the central substance is lowered, and the result of this is plainly seen in what is usually thought of as the characteristic feature of sleep, namely, a transition from vigorous mental activity or intense and clear consciousness, to comparative inactivity or faint and obscure consciousness. The cause of this condition of the centres is supposed to be the same as that of the torpidity of all the other organs in sleep, namely, the retardation of the circulation. But, though there is no doubt as ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... his pride as a soldier, and his jealousy as a prince. He was sensible, that the people over whom he ruled were at once fickle in their disposition, impatient of long repose, and full of hatred against their neighbours; and he almost dreaded the consequences of the inactivity to which a long truce might reduce them. The risk was now incurred, however; and to display even more than his wonted splendour and liberality, seemed the best way of reconciling the wavering ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... the Boers had remained so inert that the British returned in small force to Colenso and removed some stores—which seems to suggest that the original retirement was premature. Four days passed in inactivity—four precious days for us—and on the evening of the fourth, November 9th, the watchers on the signal station at Table Mountain saw the smoke of a great steamer coming past Robben Island. It was the 'Roslin Castle' with ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Cassy then. She had lapsed back into the primitive. Like Armide, she could have burned the palace that enchanted her. None the less, she did nothing. To do nothing may be very important. The inactivity saved her. During it, the vitriol vaporised; the hate fell by. She was still trembling, her hands were unsteady, but the fever was departing, the crisis had passed, the primitive had slunk back into the cellars of the subconscious, and, ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... which this decision was arrived at, had been a period of intense anxiety for the High Commissioner. With the spectacle of the increasing activity of England's enemies, and the increasing dismay of England's friends, before his eyes, his protests against the inactivity of the Home Government had become more urgent. In the middle of August he declared that he could no longer be responsible for the administration of South Africa unless he were provided immediately with another military adviser. General Forestier-Walker was then appointed, and after the ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... the exertions that he makes to avoid these evils, by procuring food, and building himself a covering, are the exercises which form and keep in motion his faculties, which otherwise would sink into listless inactivity. From all that experience has taught us concerning the structure of the human mind, if those stimulants to exertion which arise from the wants of the body were removed from the mass of mankind, we have much more reason to think ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... great mass of Russian cavalry, which he had presently descried himself, as also its change of direction southward across the Causeway ridge; and after giving Lord Cardigan "parting instructions" which that officer construed into compulsory inactivity on his part when a great opportunity presented itself, he had galloped off at speed to overtake Scarlett and give him directions for prompt conflict with the Russian ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... they had turned their backs, or in indulgences of loafing of all sorts which leave a narcotic stupidity in their wake. He had plenty of time, therefore, for thought, and he could think while walking either in the fresh air, or back and forth in his study. Men of success detest inactivity. It is a hardship for them to be as if dead for a single moment. So, when my father could not walk out-of doors during meditation, he moved back and forth in his room, sturdily alert, his hands clasped behind him, quietly thinking, his head either bent forward ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... iniquities which every great city offers liberally to such handsome, fine gentlemen as himself. He actually proposed, just so soon as Katherine could conveniently spare him, to decline from the splendid inactivity of the Guards, upon the hard work of some line regiment under orders for foreign service. Ormiston was quite affected by contemplation of his own good resolutions. He appeared to himself in a really pathetic ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... it tends to set this man a little higher or that a little lower in situation and power. All the void has been filled up with invectives against coalition, with allusions to the loss of America, with the activity and inactivity of ministers. The total silence of these gentlemen concerning the interest and well-being of the people of India, and concerning the interest which this nation has in the commerce and revenues of that country, is a strong indication of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Sir Francis Drake came near involving him in serious trouble, but ultimately ended by procuring him the commission he had so long desired. Tired of a life of inactivity, anxious to foil the Spanish in the New World, and sick to death of the busy idleness of the court, Sidney at length determined to go with Drake to a new world and a new career. Accordingly, he made ready, and actually went as far as Plymouth, where ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... was falling rapidly and with it the dust that obscured the landscape. That the storm was over he was convinced, but he chafed at the inactivity the low visibility put upon him, nor did conditions better materially before night fell, so that he was forced to await the new day at the very spot at which the tempest had deposited him. Without his sleeping silks and furs he spent a far from comfortable night, and it was with feelings of ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... branches. In being directed to "dress" and to "keep" the garden, the goodness of God appears in providing him with an employment adapted to a state of primitive innocence, and calculated by a proper occupation of his time to promote his happiness. A slothful inactivity is not only incompatible with true enjoyment in our fallen state, but would have been inconsistent with the bliss of original paradise; and even when our nature shall have attained its greatest perfection in a future world, an incessant ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... the acquirement of sight by the normal newly-born child and the infant with that of those born blind, we should, above all, bear in mind that the latter in general could make use of only one eye, and also that on account of the long inactivity of the retina and the absence of the crystalline lens, as well as in consequence of the numerous experiences of touch, essential differences exist. Notwithstanding this, there appears an agreement in the manner in which in both cases vision is learned, the eye is practiced, ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... time, and their insolent, threatening air had roused the quiet British blood in Frank's veins. The feeling of hatred that had been growing against these people consequent upon the horrors he had seen and heard, and the irritation produced by inactivity and his disappointments, drove away all thought of the risk he might run, and the feeling grew strong that if attacked he must ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... period a revolt of the southern and western provinces of Spain, which, owing to inactivity on the part of government, had actually ripened into a regularly organized rebellion against the throne. News at last reached the queen that regular bodies of troops had been raised and enlisted, under well known leaders, and that unless instant ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... of abandoning all the efforts and all the activities which had made it what it was alike for himself and for others. He was rallying slowly and painfully from his blow; a repetition of it would be the certain penalty of any strenuous mental exertion or any sustained strain of labour. In inactivity, in retirement, in the placid existence of a recognised invalid he might live years, indeed probably would; but otherwise the authorities declined to promise him any life at all. His body had played him false in the end. Constantine ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... character of his opponent's power, and he called upon the good within him to meet and overcome it. The inner forces stirred and trembled in response to his call. They did not at first come readily as was their habit, for under the spell of glamour they had already been diabolically lulled into inactivity, but come they eventually did, rising out of the inner spiritual nature he had learned with so much time and pain to awaken to life. And power and confidence came with them. He began to breathe deeply and regularly, ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... All quiet in the West, except for sniping. The weather is such that no offensive can take place. The English will never have a better excuse for inactivity than this—"It is raining." Thank God for that! Less dust to swallow to-day! Odd that here in Belgium we are delighted with the rain, while in Germany they are watching ...
— "Crumps", The Plain Story of a Canadian Who Went • Louis Keene
... to record: Julian Bargus Yonge, after long inactivity from broken health, sold the property at Otterbourne to Major Robert Scarlett, and removed to London, where he died a few days ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... by long inactivity, had been approached by both sides. The regiment held a meeting to decide what action to take. Resolved, that the regiment remain neutral, and continue its present activities-which consisted in ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... fairly happy or at least tranquil (when not writhing in agony) at the end of that period. I can still see him in the sunny garden, his clothes hanging about an emaciated body—a skeleton in a deck-chair, a death's head among the roses. Humiliated in this inactivity, he used to lie dumb for long hours, watching the butterflies or gazing wistfully towards those distant southern mountains which I proposed to visit later in the season. Once a spark of that old throttling instinct flared up. It was when a kestrel dashed overhead, bearing ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... seemed wise to pursue a policy of masterly inactivity. But the mere fact of having settled on a course of action cleared the air, cheered them. In place of a despondent lethargy there was a nervous tension, as before a battle. They laughed and joked amid the bobbing stable lanterns as they harnessed and saddled; and they rode away from Talapus ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... a salutary spirit of emulation was produced. This created new wants, which had to be supplied by increased labor, their manners were softened, and if their morals did not gain, they were, at least, aroused from the listless inactivity of an almost savage life ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... that he himself would go forth with them to war, and would share all their hardships and dangers. For nearly a hundred years, ever since the time of the great Theodosius, no Eastern Emperor apparently had conducted a campaign in person; and the announcement that this inactivity was to be ended and that a Roman Imperator was again, like the Imperators of old time, to march with the legions and to withstand the shock of battle, roused the soldiers to extraordinary enthusiasm. The very men who, a little while before, had been bribing the officers to procure ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... and their new friend weary with suspense and their long inactivity. All longed for a stroll in the open air, a chance to stretch their legs, and an unlimited supply of water to drink. It almost seemed that their meager allowance of a pint and a half each for the twenty-four hours did little more than increase ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... buffaloes have very large horns. My opinion is that there are elements wanting in the Ceylon pasturage (which is generally poor) for the formation of both horn and ivory. Thus many years of hunting and shooting are rewarded by few trophies of the chase. So great is the natural inactivity of the natives that no one understands the preparation of the skins; thus all the elk and deer hides are simply dried in the sun, and the hair soon rots and fills off. In India, the skin of the Samber deer (the Ceylon elk) is prized ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... insure the security of the German troops and to act as sureties for the inactivity of the population of Rheims, the personages named below have been seized as hostages by the General commanding the German army. At the least sign of disorder these hostages will be hanged. Also the city will be entirely or partly burned and its inhabitants hanged if any infractions whatsoever ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... the snow melted off the ground. Frequent observations of the other camp taught them nothing. This apparent inactivity puzzled Garth, since the others must know that the game of starving them out was blocked with the arrival of Charley. They waited in momentary expectation of attack, or a ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... restless, and rising, began to wander aimlessly about the room; but her uneasiness only increased, and finally, in desperation, she resolved to venture out into the corridor and look about her, no matter at what risk. Anything would be better than this enforced inactivity and suspense. She tried the door with a trembling hand, dreading to find herself locked in, but it was not fastened, and seeing that all was dark outside, she took up a small lamp, that had been left burning on a side table, and boldly setting ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... wherever the eye might fall; one, perhaps, representing a whole army with supports, another a solitary horseman dragging some ammunition, another nothing but a dummy that might paralyse the efforts of a corps, and overawe it into a ruinous inactivity. To uncover these cards and unmask the forces for which they stood was the duty of the cavalry vedettes, whose movements were governed by an elaborate and most vexatious set of rules. It was necessary to feel ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is requisite. Precipitancy is as great an evil as inactivity. It is, to use the language of the alchemists, just as bad to scorch the tender blossoms by a forced and hasty fire (that in spite of its intensity may be merely a straw fire), as to let go out the fire which should be continuously kept alight, and to let grow cold the materia. The process of ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... young commander that he was not to rust in inactivity, as had been the case of late off Mobile Bay, and a wide field of operations was open to him. His instructions were minute, but they did not confine his ship to the immediate vicinity of the mouth of the Cape Fear River. It was evident that the speed of the St. Regis had been an important factor ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... if they cannot do it without me, they cannot do it with me." One of the Macphersons, named Alexander, one of Rob's original profession, videlicet, a drover, but a man of great strength and spirit, was so incensed at the inactivity of this temporary leader, that he threw off his plaid, drew his sword, and called out to his clansmen, "Let us endure this no longer! if he will not lead you I will." Rob Roy replied, with great coolness, "Were the question about driving Highland stots or kyloes, ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... charged tongue—and by the torpor of mind and body. In a word, all the symptoms point to a deficient aeration of the blood, or a kind of half way asphyxia. A torpid state of the system, listlessness and inactivity almost approaching to asphyxia from the diminished quantity of oxygen consumed by the lungs of the negro, form a striking contrast with the energetic, active, restless, persevering Anglo-Saxon, with a tendency to phlogosis and phthisis ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... includes the name of every man of prominence in the England of King James. And the tone of many of these productions discloses an affectionate familiarity that speaks for the amiable personality and sound worth of the laureate. In 1619, growing unwieldy through inactivity, Jonson hit upon the heroic remedy of a journey afoot to Scotland. On his way thither and back he was hospitably received at the houses of many friends and by those to whom his friends had recommended him. ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... of nearly two months had been accompanied by a marked change in the situation. The advance of the Union cause which had depressed Democratic expectations in the spring, had been succeeded by inactivity and doubts which revived Democratic hopes in August. The postponement which had been ordered that they might avail themselves of any unfavorable course of affairs, thus deluded them into a bold abandonment of all reserve. Changes in the military situation were sometimes sudden and swift. ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... same time these causes without an exaggeration of their effect, would hardly explain the long states of inactivity which took place in military operations, in former times, in Wars undertaken about interests of no great importance, and in which inactivity consumed nine-tenths of the time that the troops remained under arms. This feature in these Wars, is to be traced principally to the influence which ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... in the dining-room and kitchen), was the "fly-gallery"—a wonderful array of multicolored tissue-paper festooned artistically from the ceiling or around the gas-pipes to lure or induce the fly into moments of inactivity. There was no extermination in this device—it was purely preventive in its function—the idea being that since there must be fly-specks, better to mass them as much as possible on places where they would show the least and could be removed the ...
— The Long Ago • Jacob William Wright
... who had stolen her affections. To a direct exhibition of misery Lady Moseley was always sensible, and, for the moment, she became alive to its causes and consequences; but a timely and judicious safeguard against future moral evils was a forecast neither her inactivity of mind ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... insurrections of the Irish obliged the king to make an expedition into that country, which he reduced to obedience; and he recovered, in some degree, by this enterprise, his character of courage, which had suffered a little by the inactivity of his reign. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... must climb step by step, and not expect to fly at once to the top of the ladder. Finding that he cannot do everything, Sordello sees no alternative but to do nothing. Consequently his state comes to be a virtual indolence or inactivity; though it is in reality that of the top, spinning so fast that its motion is imperceptible. Poet and man of action, for he contains more than the germ of both, confound and break down one another. He meets finally with a great temptation, ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... lose itself in a queer sort of mist—a something I cannot describe except by saying it must have been made up of lazy inactivity. Through this mist I saw and heard indistinctly ...
— From Plotzk to Boston • Mary Antin
... Mr. Stanley in the House at that period, who insisted on the growing power of Turkey, and asserted that the Turks of that day 'were more and more imitating our manners, and emerging from their inactivity and indolence; that improvements of every kind were being introduced among them, and that even printing-presses had been lately established in their capital.' That was the opinion of a Gentleman anxious to defend Turkey, and speaking in this House more than sixty years ago; we are now living sixty ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... Christianity, no better men and women, than I have known and still know among those who not blindly, but intelligently, hold the doctrines and maintain the testimonies of our early Friends. I am not blind to the shortcomings of Friends. I know how much we have lost by narrowness and coldness and inactivity, the overestimate of external observances, the neglect of our own proper work while acting as conscience-keepers for others. We have not, as a society, been active enough in those simple duties which we ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... gone from his eyes, which flashed with energy and purpose; the face was thinner and in places lined; the figure, always upright, had become more muscular. From a merely handsome man he had developed into a striking personality, released from the bonds of an enforced inactivity and an objectless destiny. By just so much Stafford had altered for the worse. His character was too strong and rigid to allow an absolute breakdown. He still carried himself well; to all intents and purposes, as far as his duty was concerned, he was as hard-working and conscientious ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... take his purchase-money; I thanked him warmly for his friendly thoughts of me; and having put on the coat, hat, and other garments he had sold me, set out once more, after a day's and night's repose, which were complete enough to make further inactivity impossible. ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... the Narayaniya, we see that in all essentials they agree, but in two points they differ. Both preach a doctrine of activity in pious works, pravritti, in conscious opposition to the inactivity of the Aupanishadas and Samkhyas; but the Narayaniya does not dwell much on this topic, and limits activity to strictly religious duties, while the Bhagavad-gita develops the idea so as to include everything, thus sketching out a bold system for the ...
— Hindu Gods And Heroes - Studies in the History of the Religion of India • Lionel D. Barnett
... inner energies into activity and a new solar life cycle is begun. And thus it is with all the worlds; they are born, grow and die; only to be reborn. And thus it is with all the things of shape and form; they swing from action to reaction; from birth to death; from activity to inactivity—and then back again. Thus it is with all living things; they are born, grow, and die—and then are reborn. So it is with all great movements, philosophies, creeds, fashions, governments, nations, and all else-birth, growth, maturity, decadence, death-and then new-birth. The swing ...
— The Kybalion - A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece • Three Initiates
... and the occasional raids had provided poorly for the wants of the town. But since October matters had improved, largely because of the criticism of the English Whigs in Parliament. These pointed out the inactivity of the troops, the humiliation of the situation, the sickness and want in Boston. In order that nothing should be left undone to remedy the last, the perplexed ministry spent money lavishly to provision its garrison. Five thousand oxen, fourteen thousand sheep, with a great number of ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... reformer, nor a crank, but Dr. James Copeland says: "Tobacco weakens the nervous powers, favors a dreamy, imaginative, and imbecile state of mind, produces indolence and incapacity for manly or continuous exertion, and sinks its votary into a state of careless inactivity and selfish enjoyment of vice." Professor L. H. Gause writes: "The intellect becomes duller and duller, until at last it is painful to make any intellectual effort, and we sink into a sensuous or sensual animal. ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... gloomy inactivity, is every day begun and ended: the happiness that I have been so long procuring is now at an end, because it has been procured; I wander from room to room, till I am weary of myself; I ride out to a neighbouring hill in the centre of my estate, from whence all my lands ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... rapidly, resolutely, directly toward my front, the odds would be too overwhelming; if they should tarry, or if I should succeed in causing them to hesitate until I have got my Bohemian corps in line, I should defeat them. Let us try it, therefore; let us feign inactivity and timidity, so that they may not become active. Cunning is the best ally of a general; let us try to ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... Austrians deserved to be hanged, if they did not attack. Frederick himself was somewhat uneasy, and would have moved away on the Friday night, had he not been waiting for the arrival of a convoy of provisions from Bautzen. Still, he relied upon Daun's inactivity. ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... artillery, whose inactivity prior to the German attack was intended to ensure against discovery by ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... sought. When, after a sleepless night, she rose, it was with the maze of disaster still unthreaded. Her usual ingenuity of resource was become impotent. Raging against her own supineness, she was yet forced into ignoble inactivity. ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... England, he went to Switzerland on the 9th April 1880. During this period of inactivity he was offered by the Government of the Cape of Good Hope the command of their colonial forces on L1500 per annum, but his reply was, "Thanks for telegram just received; I do not feel inclined to accept an appointment." In the beginning of May, however, he accepted the ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... of the party hurrying on board, the silence and inactivity of the Shawanoes were incomprehensible. That they had been partially dazed was fair to believe, but it could not continue long. The presence of the boat, with its sail still spread, against the bank, must tell the story to the fierce red men, who ought to be as ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... chatter had wrought a change in Dotty. During the two weeks that had just passed she had become peevish and fretful from enforced inactivity and now the thought of getting up and going downstairs had brought the smiles to her face and the ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... example, condemn her to inactivity and seclusion, for it is advisable to lead a moderately active life during pregnancy. Of course, such obvious indiscretions as prolonged exertion, violent exercise, and fatiguing journeys should be avoided, for transgression of the laws of health ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... stated, been kept in a half-dazed condition, and although my strength had been slowly coming back to me, I was weak compared with the time when I had been taken a prisoner at Pendennis Castle. My food had been drugged, and my enforced inactivity had made my sinews soft like a woman's. Besides, I felt I had met with a skilled fighter, and I knew by the blow he gave me that he was a strong man. Moreover, I doubted Eli's ability to engage with the other serving-man, and this made ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... forget Pyrrhic victory, Parthian dart, and Homeric laughter; quos deus vult and nil de mortuis; Sturm und Drang; masterly inactivity, unctuous rectitude, mute inglorious Miltons, and damned good-natured friends; the sword of Damocles, the thin edge of the wedge, the long arm of coincidence, and the soul of goodness in things evil; Hobson's choice, Frankenstein's monster, Macaulay's ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... I must once more beg leave to declare that, unless the Assembly will pass an act to enforce military law in all its parts, I must decline the honor that has been so generously intended me. I see the growing insolence of the soldiers, and the indolence and inactivity of the officers, who are all sensible how limited their punishments are, compared with what they ought to be. In fine, I can plainly see that under the present establishment we shall become a nuisance, ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... dispositions of his sons, was of opinion, that if they had been blended in one person, they would have produced a character more fit to govern in his stead, than either of them alone: ALMORAN, he thought, was too volatile and warm; but he suspected, that HAMET would sink into inactivity for want of spirit: he feared alike ALMORAN'S love of enterprize, and HAMET'S fondness for retirement: he observed, in HAMET, a placid easiness of temper, which might suffer the reins of government to lie too loose; and, in ALMORAN, a quickness of resentment, and jealousy of command, which might ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... both Bonaparte and the directory. The independent conduct of that general in Italy, his ambition, which, from time to time, burst through his studied simplicity, rendered his presence dangerous. He, on his side, feared, by his inactivity, to compromise the already high opinion entertained of his talents: for men always require from those whom they make great, more than they are able to perform. Thus, while the directory saw in the ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... the boys' plan. He knew how bad for them was this shut-up life, and how the very sense of fret and compulsory inactivity might predispose them to the contagion. If they could once get beyond the limits of the city, they might be far safer than they could be here. It would be a relief to have them gone—to think of them as living ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... was not difficult to account for the lamentable fate of my lost favourite. I found that I had increased two stone two pounds during my six weeks comparative inactivity in the King's Bench; for, although I had taken much more exercise than my fellow prisoner, Mr. Waddington, yet it was so very different from, and so much less than, that which I had been in the habit of taking when ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... her back, but the long years of self-effacement and inactivity had left her inert, with capacity only for suffering. That very suffering to which she had become accustomed had of late assumed fresh phases. She was hurt continually in new ways, yet, after the first shock ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... had an immense army which was fast getting properly equipped, month faded into month without his advancing against the enemy. Again the popular cry was raised, "On to Richmond!" It was at this moment of military inactivity and popular restlessness that charges of peculation were brought forward ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... degree of aristocratic refinement about Voblinsky's features, last ghastly traces of his ancient nobility. He vaguely recalled to my mind a long-ago Continental trip of my childhood, and an unfortunate elephant in the Marseilles Jardin des Plantes who, from long inactivity in the corner of his cage, had become overgrown with moss. There was the same incongruous touch of erstwhile nobility, the same decay, the same earthy smell. By what shady and circuitous paths had the unfortunate count reached this unhappy pass? Perhaps his wife ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... eminent service to rouse us from the state of lethargy in which we indulged, and to make us acquainted with our rights, our glory, and the inviolable duty which we owe to our holy religion and our monarch. We wanted some electric stroke to rouse us from our paralytic state of inactivity; we stood in need of a hurricane to clear the atmosphere of the insalubrious vapours with which it was loaded.'—The unanimity with which the whole people were affected they rightly deem, an indication of wisdom, an authority, and a sanction,—and they refer it to its highest source. ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... words of Arjuna, Uttara cast off all inactivity. And he speedily alighted from the tree, bringing with him Arjuna's weapons. Then Arjuna addressed him, saying, 'Yes, I will fight with the Kurus and recover thy kine. Protected by me, the top of this car will be to thee as a citadel. The passages and alleys and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... fanatical follower of Alibaud, mixing up his own grievances against society with those of the people against monarchy, and waking up every morning in the hope of a revolution which in a fortnight or a month would turn the world upside down. At last, disgusted at the inactivity of his brethren, enraged at the obstacles that retarded the realisation of his dreams, and despairing of the country, he entered in his capacity of chemist into the conspiracy for the use of incendiary bombs; and he had been caught carrying gunpowder, of which he ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... an angle formed between Leopold Island and North Somerset, there was evidently a pack; for an ice-blink, which moved daily about in that direction, showed that the mass was acted upon by the winds; and at last the southerly wind drove it up into Wellington Channel. To be condemned to inactivity, with such a body of water close at hand, was painful to all but those whose age and prudence seemed to justify in congratulating themselves on being yet frozen in; and trying as had been many disappointments we experienced in the Arctic regions, there was none ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... incongruity. We might say that the stone moves toward the earth by the properties of the matter composing it; and according to this mode of presenting the phenomenon, the stone itself might without impropriety be called the agent; though, to save the established doctrine of the inactivity of matter, men usually prefer here also to ascribe the effect to an occult quality, and say that the cause is not the stone itself, but the weight or gravitation of ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... to the point of fatigue, while the other organs rest; as e.g. the lungs, in speaking, while the other parts are quiet; on the other hand, it is not well to speak and run at the same time. The idea that one can keep the organism in better condition by inactivity, is an error which rests upon a mechanical apprehension of life. Equally false is the idea that health depends upon the quantity and excellence of the food; without the force to assimilate it, it acts fatally rather than stimulatingly. True strength arises ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... one day would be only to establish a precedent for day after day of inactivity. The prevailing winds would be head winds. We clung to the shoddy hope held out by that magic name—Milk River. We knew too well that Milk River was only a snare and a delusion; but one must fight toward something—it makes little difference what you ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... some time since an unfruitful peace plunged the members of the Gun Club into deplorable inactivity. After a period of some years, so full of incidents, we have been obliged to abandon our works and stop short on the road of progress. I do not fear to proclaim aloud that any war which would put arms in our ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... of any kind to George Cannon's request for an immediate interview, allowing day after day to pass in inactivity, and wondering the while how she might excuse or explain her singular conduct when circumstances should bring the situation to a head. She knew that she ought either to go over to Turnhill, or write him with an appointment ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... fairly rollicking with satisfaction at being once more on the move. Capitan, too, was gay. He had found the canon dull, spite of its refreshing shade and cool water. He longed for sheep. He did not understand this inactivity. The puzzled look on his face had made Ramona laugh more than once, as he would come and stand before her, wagging his tail and fixing his eyes intently on her face, as if he said in so many words, "What in the world are you about in this canon, and do not you ever ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... The inactivity of the Irish horse, throughout the long sieges of Athlone and Limerick, except only upon the occasion of the raid upon the siege train, is almost inexplicable. They had nothing to fear from the enemy's cavalry, to whom they proved ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... and with his back against the heavy piece of furniture he faced the mob. His hat was gone, and as he stood there, big body braced, mouth set, and hair crested above his smoldering eyes, he made a splendid picture of force and strength which seemed for an instant to awe the Mexicans into inactivity. ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... it is that gives efficacy to conscience, which, by turning the mind upon this regard, chills the ardour of resolution, checks the vigour of enterprize, and makes the current of desire stagnate in inactivity. We may suppose that he would have applied these general observations to his own case, but ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... said, one day, rousing herself from a reverie, "what a good fellow Cousin Philip is, after all! I used to feel a certain dislike for what seemed to me irresolution and inactivity in him. But ever since I was taken sick he has been just like a brother ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... upon this sluggishness and inactivity of the two German monarchies. His skilful plan was to sever the coalition, and suddenly invade Belgium before Prussia could take the field. Had Dumouriez alone framed and carried out his own plan, the fate of Belgium and Holland was sealed; but La Fayette, who was ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... last relief from our inactivity came to us. On 21st November, just before 5 a.m., Lashly woke me and said the ponies had arrived. Out we all popped to find Atkinson with poor, old "Jehu," Wright with "Chinaman," and Keohane with ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... the offer gladly, and his young officers, in all eagerness, seconded him. They were tiring of inactivity, and of the cramped and painful life in the trenches. To be on horseback again, riding over hills and across valleys, seemed almost Heaven to them, and, as Colonel Hertford walked away, earnest injunctions to use his influence to ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... he got straight out of bed. That was characteristic of him all his life. He was all for activity. The prostrated inactivity of two ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... news and transportation to the eager and impatient Charles, who had irked under the inactivity of a hot summer in New York. Gustave added ten dollars and instructed his brother to buy a new suit, for the Frohman family funds were in a ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... us and our allies[3]. We had been now twelve days in Tezcuco, where the presence of so large a force occasioned some scarcity of provisions, and even our allies began to grow somewhat impatient of our inactivity. From all these considerations, Cortes determined upon an expedition to Iztapalapa, against which place he marched at the head of 13 cavalry 220 infantry, and the whole of our Tlascalan allies. The inhabitants had received a reinforcement of 8000 Mexican ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... by, reminding him that to-day his instincts were still the same. The same fiery, militant spirit that had driven him from one end of his country to the other still left him yearning for the ruthless battle of wild places and wilder men. The long months of inactivity, the long days of peace, the longer nights of his gambler's craft, were for the moment gone. He was setting out, as in the old days, surrounded by all in life he cared for, offering a challenge to all the world, ready to grapple with whatsoever the gods of war might choose ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... Captain Sutter's environment and the results of his enterprises were in significant contrast to the inactivity and backwardness of his neighbors. He showed what an energetic man could accomplish with exactly the same human powers and material tools as had always been available to the Californians. Sutter himself was a rather short, ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... man of wealth and free from all ties of family or business, should have voluntarily chosen such a home, and been contented to remain there, in a state of idle inactivity, for the space of seven or eight years, can be accounted for only by ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... moment when they were uniting their efforts, a series of ghastly disasters had come one after the other: the kidnapping of little Jacques, Daubrecq's disappearance, his imprisonment in the Lovers' Tower, Lupin's wound, his enforced inactivity, followed by the cunning manoeuvres that dragged Clarisse—and Lupin after her—to the south, to Italy. And then, as a crowning catastrophe, when, after prodigies of will-power, after miracles of perseverance, they were entitled ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... an "imperative demand for prompt and vigorous action arises, not only from the importance of restoring the prestige of the army, and averting the dispiriting and injurious results that must attend a season of inactivity, but from the necessity of reoccupying the country upon the supplies of which the proper subsistence of our ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... done in order to salvation. No man expects to reach heaven by inaction. Even the indifferent and supine soul expects to rouse itself up at some future time, and work out its salvation. The most thoughtless and inactive man, in religious respects, will acknowledge that thoughtlessness and inactivity if continued will end in perdition. But he intends at a future day to think, and act, and be saved. So natural is it, to every man, to believe in salvation by works; so ready is every one to concede that heaven is ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... at last die away—had almost died in the Time I saw. To adorn themselves with flowers, to dance, to sing in the sunlight: so much was left of the artistic spirit, and no more. Even that would fade in the end into a contented inactivity. We are kept keen on the grindstone of pain and necessity, and, it seemed to me, that here was that hateful ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... with our small party, we should assuredly have been victimized! The very evening of the failure the rajah came up the river. I would not see him, and only heard that the chiefs got severely reprimanded; but the effects of reprimand are lost where cowardice is stronger than shame. Inactivity followed; two or three useless forts were built, and Budrudeen, much to my regret and the detriment of the ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... proper nourishment. Disturbances of the stomach and anemia are common. The heart is not affected. There may be only a few joints affected, or many, with great deformity, before the disease reaches the period of inactivity. ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... borne witness that Jesus was the One for whom he had been sent to prepare. With the inauguration of Christ's ministry, John's influence had waned, and for many months he had been shut up in a cell, chafing under his enforced inactivity, doubtless yearning for the freedom of the open, and for the locusts and wild honey of the desert. Jesus was increasing while he decreased in popularity, influence, and opportunity; and he had affirmed that such ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... quoting. Fronto speaks of Marcus's victories and eloquence in the usual strain of high praise, and then continues.(1) 'The army when you took it in hand was sunk in luxury and revelry, and corrupted with long inactivity. At Antiochia the soldiers had been Wont to applaud at the stage plays, knew more of the gardens at the nearest restaurant than of the battlefield. Horses were hairy from lack of grooming, horsemen smooth because their hairs had been pulled out by the roots(2) ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... of our theory—the plumpness of the prince, overlooked as a mere accident, by critics and actors. It is a physiological propriety that he should be of a phlegmatic temperament—a temperament often united to an acute intellect, but also, to a sluggish and heavy person. A weak, wavering inactivity, fickleness of purpose, a keen sensibility, or sensitiveness, are also noticeable; while the subtlety of his theories is sharply penetrating, and forms the keystone to the arch ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... to explore the Lizard promontory. But our patience availed us little. The next morning, there was the soft, thick, misty Cornish rain still falling, just as it had already fallen without cessation for twenty-four hours. To wait longer, in perfect inactivity, and in the dullest of towns—doubtful whether the sky would clear even in a week's time—was beyond mortal endurance. We shouldered our knapsacks, and started for the Lizard in defiance of rain, and in defiance of our landlady's reiterated assertions that ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... the fast include coldness, due to low blood sugar as well as a consequence of weight loss and slowed circulation due to lessened physical activity. People also dislike inactivity which seems excruciatingly boring, and some are upset by weight loss itself. Coldness is best handled with lots of clothes, bedding, hot water bottles or hot pads, and warm baths. Great Oaks School of Health was in Oregon, where the endlessly rainy winters are ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... were to decay here in inactivity, he might as well decay genially, taking his pleasure by the way. He was doing it. Like a gentleman and an officer he tippled the evenings out. Rarely was he drunk beyond a genteel limitation—and after ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... our late reverses, and our heavy losses fully prove. I admit that a blind confidence in persons around the late envoy—a total want of forethought and foresight on his part—unaccountable indecision at first, followed by cessions which, day by day, rendered our force more helpless—inactivity, perhaps, on some occasions—have led to these reverses; but we must not overlook the effects of climate, the difficulty of communication, the distance from our frontier, and the fanatical zeal of our opponents. No doubt your lordship can cause an ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... to the King of England has had great influence on the affairs of Europe. His mediation, joined with that of Prussia, would certainly have kept Denmark quiet, and so have left the two empires in the hands of the Turks and Swedes. But the inactivity to which England is reduced, leaves Denmark more free, and she will probably go on in opposition to Sweden. The King of Prussia, too, had advanced so far, that he can scarcely retire. This is rendered the more difficult by the troubles he has excited in Poland. He cannot, well abandon the party ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... a week of inactivity in which Brant felt a singular resemblance in this Southern mansion to the old casa at Robles. The afternoon shadows of the deep verandas recalled the old monastic gloom of the Spanish house, which even the presence of a lounging officer or waiting ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... how I first heard of the return of Bonaparte from Elba. Wonder at his temerity was the impression made by the news, but wonder unmixed with apprehension. This inactivity of foresight was universal. A torpor indescribable, a species of stupor utterly indefinable, seemed to have enveloped the capital with a mist that was impervious. Everybody went about their affairs, made or received ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... be confined to the city at such a time was inexpressibly irksome to the gallant young Frenchman, who had a genuine love of fighting in him, and longed for the first sensation of danger and the first shower of whistling bullets. But his inactivity was inevitable, and he was obliged to submit with the best grace he could, hoping only that all might not be over before he was well enough to tramp out and see some service with ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... that "Misfortune comes to all men and to most women" is endowed with double force. At such times the faithful child of the Sun is a prey to the whitest and most funereal thoughts, and even the inspired wisdom of his illustrious ancestors seems more than doubtful, while the continued inactivity of the Sacred Dragon appears for the time to give colour to the scoffs of the Western barbarian. A little while ago these misgivings would have found no resting-place in the bosom of the writer. Now, however—but the matter must be ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... bones! How Marianne had deformed and moulded him at her fancy, and he still thought of her only with unsatisfied longings for her kisses and ardor! Ah! women! Woman! Yes, indeed, yes, woman was the great source of moral weakness and inactivity. She used politics in her own way, in destroying politicians. If he had only left office with head erect and not dragging the chain-shot of debt! But that bill of ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... 16th was followed by inactivity on the part of the British, and Washington securely established himself on Harlem Heights. The chief excitement was the occurrence of the great fire on the night of the 21st of September, which broke out near Whitehall Slip, in New York, and destroyed a fourth of the city. In ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... was in progress, the heavy guns were heard booming the salute. Our boys listened for a moment, and then, as if all inspired with new life, they made the welkin ring with their cheers. The bands, roused from their long inactivity, pealed forth stirring national airs, and the Commander-in-Chief issued an address to his array, in which he praised its gallantry and firmness, declared that he himself had established the new line, and that if the enemy would ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... Fitzmaurice was advised by his friends never to engage in so complex a business as a manufacture, in which he must of necessity become a merchant, also engage in all the hazard, irksomeness, etc., of commerce, so totally different from his birth, education, ideas, and pursuits; but tired with the inactivity of common life, he determined not only to turn manufacturer, but to carry on the business in the most spirited and vigorous manner that was possible. In the first place he took every means of making himself a complete master of the business; ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... in the house augmented her alarm. She started at once, alone and thinly dressed, to go and meet her son. The night was dark and rainy; the terrible Leopardo had fulfilled the prophetic forebodings of his rider. The poor lady, brought up in habits of extreme inactivity, had taken but two walks in all her life. The first had been to surprise her son at Passy, when released from the Revolutionary prison. The second was to meet and escort back his lifeless body, found senseless by ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... determine the kind of development. As to the second alternative, I see no reason for supposing that the small heterochromosome of a pair is in any different condition, as to activity, from the large one. The condensed condition may not mean inactivity, but some special form of activity. And, moreover, it has been shown that in certain stages of the development of the oocyte of one form, Aphrophora quadrangularis, there are pairs of condensed chromosomes corresponding to those of ...
— Studies in Spermatogenesis - Part II • Nettie Maria Stevens
... put the letter into his pocket without reading it. In his chamber he looked it over, and found that it meant business, and he was delighted with the idea of having something to do before he reached the port for which the ship was bound, for the inactivity of the blockade was not wholly to his mind. He slept as soundly as usual, for already he had come to regard war as the business in which he was engaged, and he had but little ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... interchangeable mechanism about the breech-blocks, and the officer who posted off in hot haste to Paris succeeded with the greatest difficulty in securing five thousand of the missing implements. Their inactivity, again, was another matter that kept him on pins and needles; why did they idle away their time for two weeks? why did they not advance? He saw clearly that each day of delay was a mistake that could never be repaired, a chance of victory ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... course, the simple and hardy education proper to the natives of the mountainous island of his birth, and in his infancy was not remarkable for more than that animation of temper, and wilfulness and impatience of inactivity, by which children of quick parts and lively sensibility are usually distinguished. The winter of the year was generally passed by the family of his father at Ajaccio, where they still preserve and exhibit, as ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Supplementary Number, Issue 263, 1827 • Various
... from the presence of parasites or gallstones in the ducts, forming a mechanical obstruction to the onward flow of bile. The conditions under which jaundice most commonly calls for treatment are when cattle have been highly fed and kept in a state of inactivity. At such time there is an excess of nutritive elements carried into the blood, which is associated with increased fullness of the portal vein and hepatic artery. When continued high feeding has produced this congested state of the liver, the functions of that organ become disordered, ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... replied the sculptor; "to guess would be almost vain. The fearful strain upon the muscles, their utter helplessness and inactivity, the frightful swellings, the effect of weight upon the racked and tortured sinews, appal me too much even ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... exertion in searching for animals beyond what might be necessary for their own support. It is much to be regretted that these poor men, during their long intercourse with Europeans, have not been taught how pernicious is the grief which produces total inactivity, and that they have not been furnished with any of the consolations which the Christian religion never fails to afford. This, however, could hardly have been expected from persons who have permitted their own offspring, the half-casts, to remain in ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... future; who ever fears his work will not be recognized or appreciated; or that after all, it is really not worth while, will never live his best. He is dulling his capacity for real progress by his hypnotic course of excuses for inactivity, instead of a strong tonic of ...
— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan
... a superstitious multitude, impatient of the tedious forms of judicial proceedings. The enemies of gods and men expired under their cruel insults; the lifeless bodies of the archbishop and his associates were carried in triumph through the streets on the back of a camel; * and the inactivity of the Athanasian party was esteemed a shining example of evangelical patience. The remains of these guilty wretches were thrown into the sea; and the popular leaders of the tumult declared their resolution to disappoint ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... the explorers had dived into the leafy wall. The strange loneliness of the place seemed to clutch me hard at that moment, and I mentally abused myself for not making a stronger protest against the whole affair. But I knew as I damned my own inactivity that protest would have been useless as far as the Professor was concerned, and the filial affection of the two girls would not allow the old ancient ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... their hunting was interrupted, not so much by the severity of the weather as by the absence of game; fortunately, the supply of fresh meat was not yet quite exhausted. They found themselves accordingly condemned to new inactivity; for a fortnight, from the 11th to the 25th of May, only one incident broke the monotony of their lives; a serious illness, diphtheria, suddenly seized the carpenter; from the swollen tonsils and the false membrane in the ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... him, chance which had been luckless for Jimmy Montague. Montague, he said, had been selected as the logical man to meet Fanchette, the man whose record entitled him to the choice, long before any word of the proposed match had been given to the public. But Fanchette, after his prolonged inactivity, had demurred at meeting, immediately, so formidable an opponent. So they had selected Blair, merely as a work-out for the title-holder. And the unforeseen had happened. Fanchette had proved to be through. Anyone—anyone could have ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... fathers sent as settlers to Sinuessa, that this frontier might be protected from the Samnite foe: which now not the neighbouring Samnite wastes with fire, but a Carthaginian foreigner, who has advanced even thus far from the remotest limits of the world, through our dilatoriness and inactivity? What! are we so degenerate from our ancestors as tamely to see that coast filled with Numidian and Moorish foes, along which our fathers considered it a disgrace to their government that the Carthaginian fleets should cruise? We, who erewhile, ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... read was not easy to the girl, however much pains she might take. Nevertheless, the princess would not give up the spelling, for here, at the foot of the immense sacred mountain at whose summit she gazed with mixed horror and longing, she was condemned to inactivity, which weighed the more heavily on her in proportion as those feelings had to be kept to herself which she longed to escape from in work. Uarda knew the origin of her mistress's deep grief, and revered her for it, as if ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... natives, which would ultimately tend to increase our knowledge of them and the interior; this after our subsequent discovery of Adelaide river became of still greater moment. The existence of the out-station would also form a change for the settlers, and journeys thither would remove the dreary inactivity of a new settlement at certain periods. The absence of this fence may account for Captain Grey's party having seen signs of buffalo on the mainland; he discovered the tracks of a cloven-footed animal, which one of his ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... presentiments. Sechard senior living at a distance, far from the workshop and the machinery which possessed such a fascination for him, reminding him, as it did, of days when he was making his way, could feel that there were disquieting symptoms of inactivity in his son. The name of Cointet Brothers haunted him like a dread; he saw Sechard & Son dropping into the second place. In short, the old man scented ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... of the first year of the war, during the "masterly inactivity" of the Army of the Potomac. For almost eight months McClellan had been lying idle in his encampment, holding in check that splendid army, which, with one blow, could have crushed out the rebellion, and allowing the rebels ample time to encircle their capital with fortifications, ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon
... paid him every attention, grateful to him for the service he had rendered, the old man, however, appeared at length to grow weary of inactivity, and began to speak of taking his departure with ...
— The Frontier Fort - Stirring Times in the N-West Territory of British America • W. H. G. Kingston
... thus, at any cost, recover Wilna by the shortest road. Scarcely was his mind made up, when the means of effecting it were presented. General Corbineau, formerly despatched by General St. Cyr to assist the Bavarians, found himself at liberty on account of their inactivity; and conceiving the idea of rejoining the great army, he crossed the Berezina by a ford which he had long known, and brought Napoleon 700 horse, a valuable reinforcement at such a moment of extreme distress. He learned at the same time, that Marshal Oudinot had driven the Russians ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... down the wretched doors and windows, —a summary and effectual mode of ejection still practised in some remote parts of Scotland, when a tenant proves refractory. The gipsies, for a time, beheld the work of destruction in sullen silence and inactivity; then set about saddling and loading their asses, and making preparations for their departure. These were soon accomplished, where all had the habits of wandering Tartars; and they set forth on their journey to seek new settlements, where ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... John Milton, 1608-74). This is the most stately and pathetic sonnet in existence. The soul enduring enforced idleness and loss of power without repining. Inactivity made ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... night over the wide expanse of sea, straining my eyes at each sail, and conjecturing to what distant shore they were tending. The hopes which at first sustained, at last deserted me, as week after week passed over, and no prospect of escape appeared. The life of inactivity gradually depressed my spirits, and I fell into a low and moping condition, in which my hours rolled over without thought or notice. Still, I returned each day to my accustomed spot, a lofty peak of rock that stood over the sea, and from which the view extended for miles on every side. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... of results by indirection, the endeavor to thwart the intention, if not the expressed letter of the law (the will of the people), a disregard of the rights of others, a disposition to withhold what is due, to force by main strength or inactivity a result not justified, depending upon the weakness of the claimant and his indisposition to become involved in litigation, has created a sentiment harmful in the extreme and a disposition to consider anything fair that ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... his presence, and in which God is implored "to grant His protection to the Emperor William, to give him health and inspiration for the fulfilment of his mission towards the nations." To-day, reduced to inactivity by his illness and by the consequences of his folly, he has ample leisure to reflect on the psalm which he is so fond of singing, with the mitre of the summus episcopus on his head: "The kings of the earth are the instruments ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... had been kept inactive, by the orders of the Khalifa and by the want of stores. They had, for months, been suffering great privations; and while remaining in enforced inactivity, they had known that their enemy's strength was daily increasing; and that what could have been accomplished with the greatest of ease, in August, had now become ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... soldiers considerably surpassed the ferocity of the Gauls in their ardour for arms and battle; it by no means met the approbation of the dictator when no urgent necessity existed to run any hazard against an enemy, whose strength time and inconvenient situation would daily impair, in total inactivity, without provisions previously laid up or any fortified situation; besides, being persons of such minds and bodies, that all their force lay in brisk exertion, whilst the same flagged by short delay. On these considerations the dictator protracted the war, and denounced ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... accomplished great things; but who will deny that without that hereditary taint they would have done more and done it better? The latter, it is well known, was much dependent on moods, and spent long periods in mental inactivity. The labors of the other were fitful, and his views of life betray the influence of the same cerebral defect that led to so much domestic woe. The narrow-chested, round-shouldered person, whose lungs barely oxydize blood enough to maintain life, is not expected to walk a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... been thankful to escape from this irksome inactivity, and to join the band going south; but the condition of Griffeth withheld him, for the youth was very ill, and he often felt that this winter of hardship up in the mountain air was killing him by inches, although ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... there are plenty of other proofs which will show that motion is the source of what is called being and becoming, and inactivity of not-being and destruction; for fire and warmth, which are supposed to be the parent and guardian of all other things, are born of movement and of friction, which is a kind of motion;—is not this the origin ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... and hold myself liable to be called into service at your excellency's pleasure, precisely as if in full pay, and barely on furlough; reserving to myself only the privilege of judging of the sufficiency of my health during the present appearance of inactivity. My anxiety to be out of pay arises in no measure from intention or wish to avoid any requisite service. But too great a regard to malicious surmises, and a delicacy perhaps censurable, might otherwise hurry me unnecessarily into service, to the prejudice ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... been there once. If you went back it's just possible that into the fellow's dull mind might steal a ghost of suspicion. I'm ready to take my turn now, though I hate the damned inactivity. I am a presumed illiterate. I struggle over the printed page—and with me loafing in his office he would chat away ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... blindly, but intelligently, hold the doctrines and maintain the testimonies of our early Friends. I am not blind to the shortcomings of Friends. I know how much we have lost by narrowness and coldness and inactivity, the overestimate of external observances, the neglect of our own proper work while acting as conscience-keepers for others. We have not, as a society, been active enough in those simple duties which we owe to our suffering fellow- creatures, in that abundant labor of love and self-denial which ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... In this gloomy inactivity, is every day begun and ended: the happiness that I have been so long procuring is now at an end, because it has been procured; I wander from room to room, till I am weary of myself; I ride out to a neighbouring ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... lately considered monastic life. Imlac says of the monks:—'Their time is regularly distributed; one duty succeeds another, so that they are not left open to the distraction of unguided choice, nor lost in the shades of listless inactivity.... He that lives well in the world is better than he that lives well in a monastery. But perhaps every one is not able to stem the temptations of publick life; and, if he cannot conquer, he may properly retreat.' See also post, March 15, 1776, and Boswell's ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... instance, could put all of Emerson's admonitions into practice, a constant permanence would result,—an eternal short-circuit—a focus of equal X-rays. Even the value or success of but one precept is dependent, like that of a ball-game as much on the batting-eye as on the pitching-arm. The inactivity of permanence is what Emerson will not permit. He will not accept repose against the activity of truth. But this almost constant resolution of every insight towards the absolute may get a little on one's nerves, if one is at all partial-wise to the ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... driven by pride and shame to come out and fight them. However, Pericles thought that it would be a very serious matter to fight for the very existence of Athens against sixty thousand Peloponnesian and Boeotian heavy-armed troops, and so he pacified those who were dissatisfied at his inactivity by pointing out that trees when cut down quickly grow again, but that when the men of a state are lost, it is hard to raise up others to take their place. He would not call an assembly of the people, because he feared that they would force him to act against ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... which she goes husband-hunting for her daughters. The very energy and ability which fit her for other pursuits disqualify her for match-making. She is too impatient and too fond of action to adopt the purely passive expectant attitude, the masterly inactivity, which is here the great secret of success. She is always feeling that something should be said or done to help on the business, and prematurely scares the shy or suspicious bird. Many a promising love-affair has been nipped in the bud simply because the too eager mother has drawn ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... inhabitants of Ladysmith now began to realise that they were doomed to a long period of inactivity if to nothing more serious. The days immediately following the Boer attempt of 9th November were quiet, rain and mist interfering with the enemy's bombardment. November 12 was, however, a somewhat eventful day, owing to the birth of the first siege-baby, and the arrival in camp of an Irish-American ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... oppose the boys' plan. He knew how bad for them was this shut-up life, and how the very sense of fret and compulsory inactivity might predispose them to the contagion. If they could once get beyond the limits of the city, they might be far safer than they could be here. It would be a relief to have them gone—to think of them as living in safety in the fresh air of the ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Orinoco, the Rio Magdalena, the river Guayaquil, or Rio Chagres (I mention the four rivers where the insects are most to be dreaded) at first obtain some relief by covering their faces and hands, but they soon feel it difficult to endure the heat, are weary of being condemned to complete inactivity, and finish with leaving the face and hands uncovered. Persons who would renounce all kind of occupation during the navigation of these rivers, might bring some particular garment from Europe in the form of a bag, under which they could remain covered, opening ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... apparently has for its object the destruction of the human race by the production of a race of bodiless women. If I am to be a pessimist, I will be one out and out, and seek to destroy the race in a high-handed and manly way. Indoor life, inactivity, lack of oxygen in the lungs, these are things which in time produce a white skin, but do it by sacrificing every other ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... in the hands of their soldier boys and bravely sent them away. After the good-byes were said there was nothing for these women to do but to go back and wait, wait, wait. The excitement of battle was not for them. It was simply a season of anxiety and heartrending inactivity." Now the fact is, when a great call to arms is sounded for the men of a nation, women enlist in the industrial army. If women did indeed sit at home and weep, the ...
— Mobilizing Woman-Power • Harriot Stanton Blatch
... his oxen in the field, and the skillful tailor handled his gun with as much indifference as he would his smoothing-iron. It was only the reserve guard who were restless; not from fear, but from dissatisfaction with their own inactivity. At times a bold fellow would steal into the house, behind Anton's back, in order to have a chance of firing off his gun in front, and Anton was obliged to place the superintendent at the court-door to prevent this courageous way ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... fancied that his light was more sorrowful than the light of the setting sun should be, and I began to feel very heavy at the heart. No sooner had the last brilliant spark of his light vanished, than I felt the stone under me begin to move. With the inactivity of a dreamer, however, I did not care to rise, but wondered only what would come next. My seat, after several strange tumbling motions, seemed to rise into the air a little way, and then I found that I was astride of a gaunt, bony horse—a skeleton horse almost, only ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... its hundreds of defenseless women and children gathered in from the country round about, against hostile half-breeds without and treacherous half-breeds within the stockade, and against swarming bands of Indians hungry for loot and thirsting for blood. And there Irvine, chafing against inactivity, eager for the joyous privilege of attack, spent the weary anxious days of the next six weeks, held at his post by the orders of his superior officer and by the stern necessities of the case, and meantime finding some slight satisfaction in scouting and scouring the country for ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... the outer darkness in the wake of the highwayman returned presently. Mere impulse and swift natural reaction from their former enforced inactivity rather than any hope of success had sent them hot-foot on the pursuit. The noisy, windy night, the absolute dark, obviated all possibility of coming up with him. Grumbling and theorising, they returned to the room and ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... and unnecessary gesticulation. And at this time a kind of special stillness had fallen on his soul, a stillness akin to lassitude and melancholy. He had not long come from town after prolonged hard work, which had absorbed him for many hours every day. The inactivity, the softness and purity of the air, the consciousness of having attained his object, the whimsical and careless talk of his friend, and the image—so suddenly called up—of one dear to him, all these ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... him, and gave him every day new marks of his affection, proposed to afford a still higher demonstration by resigning his throne to him, and he accordingly acquainted his grand vizier with his intentions. "I fear," said he, "lest my son should lose in the inactivity of youth those advantages which nature and my education have give him; therefore, since I am advanced in age, and ought to think of retirement I propose to resign the government to him, and pass the remainder of my days in the satisfaction of seeing him reign. I have borne the fatigue ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... boldly setting his commands at defiance, but checked and reprimanded for their disobedience; while the other divine warriors, who in the previous and subsequent cantos are so active in support of their favourite heroes, repeatedly allude to the supreme edict as the cause of their present inactivity."—Mure, vol. i. p 257. See however, Muller, "Greek Literature," ch. v. Section 6, and Grote, vol. ii. ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... was well aware that inactivity is, of all things, the most dangerous and dispiriting to the soldier, who, used to the bustle and array of camps, doth fear nothing so much as a quiet home and ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... therefore, my mind had rest from its numerous troubles and trials, and I had determined to pass the remainder of my days unconnected with public life, it was not my intention to waste my valuable leisure in indolence and inactivity, or, engaging in servile occupations, to spend my time in agriculture or hunting[37]; but, returning to those studies[38] from which, at their commencement, a corrupt ambition had allured me, I determined to write, in detached portions[39], ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... letter into his pocket without reading it. In his chamber he looked it over, and found that it meant business, and he was delighted with the idea of having something to do before he reached the port for which the ship was bound, for the inactivity of the blockade was not wholly to his mind. He slept as soundly as usual, for already he had come to regard war as the business in which he was engaged, and he had but little sickly sentiment ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... no means of subsistence. I was unknown to my neighbours, and desired to remain unknown. I was unqualified for manual labour by all the habits of my life; but there was no choice between penury and diligence,—between honest labour and criminal inactivity. I mused incessantly on the forlornness of my condition. Hour after hour passed, and the horrors of want began to encompass me. I sought with eagerness for an avenue by which I might escape from it. The perverseness of my nature led me on from one guilty thought to another. I took refuge ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... "Of his fulness have all we received." But we constantly need fresh supplies. We naturally run dry. The anaconda, it is said, can live three months on one meal. But he can do this only in a state of absolute inactivity. God does not expect us to live in a state of constant inactivity as this serpent does; he expects us to work for him, and the workingman has need of daily food and drink. Let us so live that we may all joyfully ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... afternoon of forced inactivity Stern spent in his favorite habit of going about among the Folk, closely mingling with them and watching all their industrial processes and social life, and trying, as usual, to pick tip words and phrases of the very far-degenerated speech that once had been ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... foreign ones, is glutted with English goods, which it can only slowly absorb, the industrial movement comes to a standstill in almost every branch, the small manufacturers and merchants who cannot survive a prolonged inactivity of their invested capital fail, the larger ones suspend business during the worst season, close their mills or work short time, perhaps half the day; wages fall by reason of the competition of the unemployed, the diminution of working-time and the lack of profitable ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... of the situation demanded that the main American fleet be released. Cervera must be destroyed or held in some other way than at the expense of inactivity on the part of the American warships. Santiago could not be forced by the navy. Two methods remained. The first and simpler expedient was to make the harbor mouth impassable and in this way to bottle up the Spanish fleet. ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... we speak of are more frequently men of action than thinkers. They are not gifted with keen foresight, nor could they be, as this quality generally conduces to doubt and inactivity. They are especially recruited from the ranks of those morbidly nervous, excitable, half-deranged persons who are bordering on madness. However absurd may be the idea they uphold or the goal they pursue, their ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... life of strenuous activity he had, in one single hour, been doomed to one of loneliness and inactivity. His friends sympathised, as indeed the whole British public had done; but in a month the tragic affair and its attendant mysterious gossip had been forgotten, as in truth had the very name of Sir Henry Heyburn, whom the Prime Minister, though his political opponent, ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... that beautiful expression of his resignation to God's will in which, under the image of the varieties of service that may be required by some great monarch, he contrasts his own stationariness and inactivity with the energy and bustle of so many of his contemporaries. In No. 2, addressed to Cyriack Skinner, he treats of the same topic, only reverting with pride, as he had done several times in prose, to the literary labour that had brought on his calamity. ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... inactivity of the army under the Archduke Charles has as much surprised us as the defeat of the army under General von Mack; but from what I know of the former, I am persuaded that he would long since have pushed forward had not his movements been unfortunately ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... to knock about for seven days under a sweltering tropical sun—taking advantage of whatever little breeze we could get that aided our progress to the equator, until we emerged from the retarding influence of this zone of inactivity, some three degrees to the northward of the Line, when we fortunately succeeded in sailing into the south-east ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... men in our navy are burning to imitate the deeds of their comrades on land. Whenever an opportunity has arisen, they have shown themselves equal to the enemy. Our navy knows, and that is a consolation for the men during inactivity, that the lofty task of breaking England's power will fall to their share. The men know that the final purpose of this world war can only be attained with their help, they know what is before them, and that the enormous stake demands and deserves ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... see those four stout horses, who appear to me so impatient of their state of inactivity that I do not believe in a long resistance of the muscles, tendons, and cartilages of M. ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... where he had been hurled against the sharp edge of one of the stone seats as he had been borne to the floor. But it was not painful, and was nearly closed. And we could feel the return of strength even through the stiffness caused by the inactivity of ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... of interest, and gives up in despair. The desire to be free from debt spurs many a man into effort. But make the difficulties in his way so large as to appear insurmountable, and he will fold his hands in helpless inactivity. Thousands of dollars are lost every year in consequence of creditors grasping after too much, and breaking down the hope ...
— Words for the Wise • T. S. Arthur
... time passed until the opening of the New Year. Our men, like most fresh soldiers, were anxious for a fight, and were heartily tired of what they considered inglorious inactivity. Many of them expressed great fears that they would be obliged to return home without ever hearing the sound of battle. How greatly they were mistaken we shall see as we trace the bloody campaigns of more than ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... fellows, isolates him in the very heart of society, and turns his energy inward so that he preys upon himself. The root of a great deal of that pessimism which has found expression in modern literature is found in inactivity. He who contents himself with looking at life as a spectator sees its appalling contradictions and its baffling confusions, and misses the steadying power of the common toil, the comprehension through sympathy, the slow but deep unfolding and ...
— Essays On Work And Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... before the gray dusk of Arctic night began to gather about them Philip began to feel the effect of their strenuous pace. Hours of cramped inactivity on the sledge had brought into Celie's face lines of exhaustion. Since middle-afternoon the dogs had dragged at times in their traces. Now they were dead-tired. Blake, and Blake alone, seemed tireless. ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... 30. Inactivity of N.—N will scarcely unite chemically except on being set free from compounds. It has, however, an intense affinity for boron, and will even go through a carbon crucible to unite with it. It is not combined with O in the air; but the two form a mixture (page ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams
... enjoy health, or be able to find subsistence. Every creature, except man, takes as much of it as is necessary: he alone deviates from this original law, and suffers accordingly. Weak nerves, and glandular obstructions, which are now so common, are the constant companions of inactivity. We seldom hear the active or laborious complain of nervous diseases: indeed many have been cured of them by being reduced to the necessity of labouring for their own support. This shews the source from which such disorders flow, and the means ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... attempts to prove is, that the Catholic religion in Ireland had sunk into torpor and inactivity, till Government roused it with the lash: that even then, from the respect and attachment which men are always inclined to show towards government, there still remained a large body of loyal Catholics; that these only decreased in ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... one of the great laws of living Nature; man and woman are subject to it the same as all other creatures, and can not transgress it, especially at a ripe age, without their organism suffering more or less in consequence."[59] Debay quotes among the diseases, caused by the inactivity of the sexual organs, satyriasis, nymphomania and hysteria; and he adds that celibacy exercises upon the intellectual powers, especially with woman, a highly injurious effect. On the subject of the harmfulness of sexual abstinence by woman, Busch says:[60] "Abstinence has in all ages ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... of inactivity, received a fresh impulse at the same time as Florence. Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, or Razzi, called Il Sodoma, was born at Vercelli about 1477. He studied in his youth under Lionardo da Vinci, training his own exquisite sense of natural beauty in that scientific school. From Milan, after a certain ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... heavy misfortune to commence with; but as I had taken the precaution in case of such an accident to provide a spare one it was by no means irremediable; the other boat was all ready for launching within half an hour, for by not allowing the men to remain in a state of inactivity, and by treating the matter lightly, I hoped to prevent their being dispirited ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... the development of a morbid state of mind, no conditions could have been more favourable than the enforced inactivity to which, with many another, he was condemned for the long dark months during which the ice put a stop to navigation. To his restless, energetic nature, such prolonged inaction was little suited under ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... the count informed me, was the owner of large estates in Castelveleruno; but owing to a natural inactivity of mind, and the absence of any exciting or useful occupation, he sank into a state of mental torpor, which terminated in insanity. When he was brought to the Casa dei Matti, Count Pisani drew him aside, under the pretense of having a most important communication ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... sort of consideration to make the inactivity any easier to endure. She might have rebelled, had it not been for that germinant idea of hers. It wouldn't do, she saw, in the light of that, to give them any excuse for ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... epoch, without the pale of the Carlovingian dynasty—Eudes in 887 and Raoul in 923—gave proofs of a valor both discreet and effectual. The Carlovingians did not, as the Merovingians did, end in monkish retirement or shameful inactivity even the last of them, and the only one termed sluggard, Louis V., was getting ready, when he died, for an expedition in Spain against the Saracens. The truth is that, mediocre or undecided or addle-pated as ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... decision. Lieutenant Sutch, in a word, was to be employed again. He was feverish to begin his employment. He dreaded the short interval before he could begin, lest some hindrance should unexpectedly occur and relegate him again to inactivity. ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... immobility, inertia, quiet, suffering, deliberation, inaction, passion,[A] repose, suspension. endurance, inactivity, quiescence, rest, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... while; but as day after day passed, and no appearance of action presented itself, he could not choose but increase in courage. His soul, like a sword-blade too long in the scabbard, was beginning to get fuliginous by inactivity. He looked upon the point of his own needle, and the bright edge of his scissors, with a bitter pang, when he thought of the spirit rusting within him: he meditated fresh insults, studied new plans, and hunted out cunning ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... France; but the miners had fled, and left the plain doubly desolate. "Can those," said he, "be the miners returning to their homes? for if not, I am afraid that we shall have speedy evidence of the hazards of inactivity." But the twilight was now deepening, and neither of us could discern any thing beyond an immense mass of men, in grey cloaks, hurrying towards the city. I proposed that we should ride forward, and ascertain the facts. He checked my rein. "No! Amadis de Gaul, or Rolando, or by whatever ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... For some time our burghers had been complaining of inactivity, and the weary and monotonous existence was gradually beginning to pall on them. But it became evident that April would be an eventful month, as the enemy had determined not to suffer our presence in these parts any longer. A huge movement, ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... through long years of anxiety, had been trained to fight. In a way they had been trained to fight a losing war, for they could not hope to defeat their greedy neighbor on the east. But now they found themselves fighting almost not at all, condemned to inactivity, to being almost passively slaughtered by enemy artillery, and to living under such conditions as would have sapped the courage ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... of Emerson's working faculties went on gently and gradually, but he was not condemned to entire inactivity. His faithful daughter, Ellen, followed him with assiduous, quiet, ever watchful care, aiding his failing memory, bringing order into the chaos of his manuscript, an echo before the voice whose words it was to shape for him when his mind faltered ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... feeling that they are just as worthy of such splendor—the protest against "bad luck," to which they attribute failure. Hope forever flutters before these unfortunates, blinding them with the flash of its golden mail, keeping them in a wretched despondent inactivity. They wait and they trust, without any clear idea of how they are to attain glory and wealth, wasting their lives in impotence, to die ultimately "with their boots on," on ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... which, when all was done, would scarce yield oil enough to dress a salad or to supply his lamp in the long winter evenings. Epicurus himself, who places happiness in the profoundest quiet and sluggish inactivity, as the only secure harbor from the storms of this troublesome world, could not but confess that it is both more noble and delightful to do than to receive a kindness; (Almost the same words with those of our Saviour, ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... the romantic personal adventures of the king when on a crusade, and in his continental dominions. Henry's second son John reigned from 1199 to 1216. Although of good natural abilities, he was extraordinarily indolent, mean, treacherous, and obstinate. By his inactivity during a long quarrel with the king of France he lost all his provinces on the Continent, except those in the far south. His contest with the Pope had ended in failure and humiliation. He had angered the barons ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... the strangest, the most unexpected of all the things that had happened since his awakening. It had something of the quality of that inactivity that comes in dreams. A tumult, the stupendous realisation of a world struggle between Ostrog and himself, and then this confined quiet little room with its mouthpieces and ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... their new friend weary with suspense and their long inactivity. All longed for a stroll in the open air, a chance to stretch their legs, and an unlimited supply of water to drink. It almost seemed that their meager allowance of a pint and a half each for the twenty-four hours did little more than increase ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... that Freda could be in love with any one. She had refused so many, and was so different from other girls, that the thought never entered his mind, and he had left her alone with Colonel Vaughan, and would have done so with Cupid himself, quite thoughtless of results. Moreover, his own natural inactivity and love of ease, led him to allow her to take her own course, as long as she left him alone to ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... the earl would be able to raise, might compass by force the object which they had in view. By some delay in the return of the messenger, added to the dilatoriness or reluctance of James, this plan was frustrated; but some time after Essex, impatient alike of the disgrace and the inactivity of his present restraint, urged Montjoy to bring over his forces without waiting for the tardy co-operation of the king of Scots. The lord deputy replied, "that he thought it more lawful to enter into such a course with one that had interest in ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... red herd his thefts of cattle for that time had not been more than enough to supply meat for his men. Of late no drives had been reported from Sterling or the villages north. And Venters knew that the riders had wondered at Oldring's inactivity in that particular field. He and his band had been active enough in their visits to Glaze and Cottonwoods; they always had gold; but of late the amount gambled away and drunk and thrown away in the villages had given rise to much conjecture. Oldring's more frequent visits had ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... enthusiasm that attends the establishment of a new movement. The chief features of the Mahayana may be pronounced to be its less exacting standard of practical morality, its willingness to descend to the level of the multitude, its subtle metaphysical distinctions, its meditative inactivity, its elaborate ceremonial, and its more extensive Canon ...
— Religion in Japan • George A. Cobbold, B.A.
... the mercury 87 degrees in the shade as early as 8:30, and we all suffered, more or less, from it in our cramped position and enforced inactivity. At nine, having been fourteen hours on the river, we came on a small cleared space, from which a bronzed, frank-faced man, dressed in white linen, hallooed to us jovially, and we were soon warmly greeted by Captain Murray, the British Resident in the State of Sungei ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... always taken especial care to keep in the best possible "shooting order," hung in its accustomed place, all covered with dust. His fishing-rod and basket were in the same condition; and Bravo, his fine hunting-dog, which was very much averse to a life of inactivity, made use of his most ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon
... around, with the guards who rejoiced that the hour of relief from long and wearisome watching was at hand. As his strength wasted away, delirium stirred up the brain from its long and inglorious inactivity. The pageant of ambition returned. He was again a Lieutenant, a General, a Consul, an Emperor of France. He filled again the throne of Charlemagne. His kindred pressed around him again, re-invested with the pompous ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... one of the Fine Arts," and it is certainly the fine art which receives most attention in our schools. "So far as the body is concerned," said Horace Mann of these institutions, "they provide for all the natural tendencies to physical ease and inactivity as carefully as though paleness and languor, muscular enervation and debility, were held to be constituent elements in national beauty." With this denial of the body on one side, with this tremendous stimulus of brain on the other, and with a delicate and nervous national ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... at the edge of the field, tying the reins loosely and building up the sideboards, gradually shorter, each above the other, pyramid-like, until they reached higher than his own head as he stood in the wagon-box. Stiff from the jolting and inactivity of the drive, he jumped out upon the uneven surface ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... Congress, make laws up to the very maximum of its rights and duties under the Constitution; let the States, taking up their neglected duties and privileges, relieve the Government of those cares and responsibilities forced upon it by the inactivity of the States and which it should never have had to assume. With the burden thus equitably readjusted, with the dignity of the two powers of Government working out their individual problems in the harmony of a fuller understanding, let us face the results. If it ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... had been approached by a magnificent lion and lioness, which had succeeded in getting within about a hundred yards of the herd ere the latter had discovered their presence. Then the gazelles had faced round upon their formidable foes, and stood at gaze, apparently paralysed into inactivity, while the lions were evidently quite aware that any attempt to make a dash at the herd would at once put it to flight and send it hopelessly beyond their reach. So there the two groups remained about a hundred yards apart, the gazelles motionless. The lioness also was motionless, ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... enemy. He hid himself under the dead leaves, lay close to the branches of trees, and crept along brooks and ravines. It was often he who was selected to find a place of vantage for the flag. But he was never willing to act as its guardian, for he feared nothing so much as inactivity, preferring to chase his comrades through the woods. The short journey to the Bellevue woods was passed in the elaboration of various plans, and arguing about those of his friends; he always wanted to have the last word. The return journey was enlivened by biting criticism, ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... forget that it does not behoove us to criticise the actions of the generalissimo, and that our sole duty is to obey. Do as I do; let us be silent and submit. But let us rejoice that something will be done at length. Just bear in mind how long this inactivity and suspense have lasted already. The battle of Aspern was fought on the 22d of May, to-day is the 3d of July; and in the mean time nothing has been done. The enemy remained quietly on the island of Lobau, nursing his wounded, reorganizing his troops, erecting TETES-DE-PONT, ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... was evidently necessary, where the criminals were among the highest officials and nobles, seconded by the restless and formidable machinations of the Jesuits. When his proofs were complete, he crushed the conspirators at a single grasp. His singular inactivity had disarmed them; and nothing but the most consummate composure could have prevented their flying from justice. On the 12th of January 1759, they were found guilty; and on the 13th they were put to death, to the number of nine, with the Marchioness of Tavora, in the square of Belem. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... physical condition, during which man separates himself from external objects by the inactivity of his senses, and has only ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... pluit tota—an excellent recipe for a mob, so they have been quiet accordingly, as we are informed. Two or three other wet nights would do much to weary them out with inactivity. Milman, whom I remember a fine gentlemanlike young man, dined here yesterday. He says the fires have never ceased in his country, but that the oppressions and sufferings occasioned by the poor's rates are very great, and there is no persuading the English farmer that an amended ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... where I was bought by an Arab merchant, and taken off to India. I served with this master for several years, till by his death I obtained my liberation. My next destination was Zanzibar, where I took service in the late Imaum's army, and passed my days in half-starved inactivity, until the lucky day when, at Chongue, you saw and gave ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... Inactivity of Parties.*—A second important fact respecting the parties of Switzerland is their all but total lack of organization and machinery. Parties are little more than groups of people who hold similar views upon public questions. Of office-seekers there are few, and of professional ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... almost careless of the circumstances under which she felt them. Nay, had she been without his arm, she would soon have known that she needed it, for she wanted strength for a two hours' saunter of this kind, coming, as it generally did, upon a week's previous inactivity. Fanny was beginning to feel the effect of being debarred from her usual regular exercise; she had lost ground as to health since her being in Portsmouth; and but for Mr. Crawford and the beauty of the weather would soon ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... governess does the girls. They are all visited every day by the governor, and a clergyman attends them every evening. By this humane institution a number of people are rendered useful and industrious in a country where the poor, from the indulgence of the climate, are too apt to prefer a life of inactivity, though attended with wretchedness, to obtaining the comforts of ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... was begun: it was finished "in about a week. It came like a breath of inspiration." The subject had for many years been turned about in the poet's mind, which, of course, was busy in these years of apparent inactivity. At this time (August 1868) Tennyson left his old publishers, the Moxons, for Mr Strahan, who endured till 1872. Then he was succeeded by Messrs H. S. King & Co., who gave place (1879) to Messrs Kegan ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... conclusive to most men. His sight had long been failing. He had already lost the use of one eye, and was warned that if he imposed this additional strain upon his sight, that of the other would follow. He had seen the greatest astronomer of the age condemned to inactivity and helplessness, and could measure his own by the misery of Galileo. He calmly accepted his duty along with its penalty, without complaint or reluctance. If he could have performed his task in the spirit with which he undertook it, he would have produced a work more sublime ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... the strange religious apathy which was dominant not in England only, but the Continent. Her writers generally acknowledge the greater part of the eighteenth century to have been a period of comparative inactivity,[312] broken at last only by the violent stimulus of the Revolution. Many thought that Romanism continued to gain ground in England, and some cried out that still stricter laws were needed to suppress the Papists. It is doubtful, however, whether ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... known throughout the northwestern territories by the sobriquet of Ben Buzz—extensively as to distances, if not as to people. By the voyageurs, and other French of that region, he was almost universally styled le Bourdon^ or the "Drone"; not, however, from his idleness or inactivity, but from the circumstances that he was notorious for laying his hands on the products of labor that proceeded from others. In a word, Ben Boden was a "bee-hunter," and as he was one of the first to exercise his ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... force, Harold at length tempted them to quit their close order by a pretended flight. Then the English columns burst in among them, and a carnage ensued, the extent of which may be judged of by the exhaustion and inactivity of Norway for a quarter of a century afterwards. King Harald Hardrada, and all the flower of his nobility, perished on the 25th of September, 1066, at Stamford Bridge; a battle which was a Flodden ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... for a considerable period, until, indeed, his men began to murmur at their protracted inactivity. The cause of this inaction will hardly be divined from the character thus far developed of this stupendous freebooter; but it was the tender passion! He had among his prisoners a beautiful Spanish lady, who attracted his particular attention. She was a native of Spain, and the wife of an opulent ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... The country shall hear of my wrongs. Sprucehill shall have redress for the insult put upon her favorite daughter. In all that General Grant has done in the way of omission, nothing approaches the inactivity which has wrung my heart, as wet blankets are twisted in the strong ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... After all, the prison makes one weak. The awful thing about it is the enforced inactivity. There is nothing more tormenting. We stay a week, five weeks. We know how much there is to be done. The people are waiting for knowledge. We're in a position to satisfy their wants, and there we are locked up in a cage like animals! That's ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... half-dazed condition, and although my strength had been slowly coming back to me, I was weak compared with the time when I had been taken a prisoner at Pendennis Castle. My food had been drugged, and my enforced inactivity had made my sinews soft like a woman's. Besides, I felt I had met with a skilled fighter, and I knew by the blow he gave me that he was a strong man. Moreover, I doubted Eli's ability to engage with the other serving-man, ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... off to see some neighbour possessed of two or three pretty daughters. He would flirt serenely and unconcernedly with one of them, play blind-man's-buff with them, return home rather late and promptly fall into a heroic sleep. He could never be bored, for he never gave himself up to complete inactivity; and in the choice of occupations he was not difficult to please, and was amused like a child with the smallest trifle. On the other hand, he cherished no particular attachment to life, and at times, when he chanced to get a glimpse of the track of a ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... have been disappointed, or he may have been pleased at the inactivity of the bishop. He made no sign one way or the other. Of course he was no more than human: he would have regarded a letter of remonstrance from the bishop as a personal compliment; he had certainly expected such a letter, for he had already put together the heads of the reply he would make—and ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... stepped forth before the fearful guard; reluctantly, but in full command of his nerves now that the wearing inactivity was ended and something definite was about to happen. Which proves but once again the wisdom of the gods in not allowing man to read the future. For could Jim Holden have foreseen the precise experience awaiting them, his nerve ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... closer inspection of the hotels. At the door of the largest a pair of children sported in the solitude, as fearlessly as the birds on Selkirk's island; looking into the hotel, he saw a few porters and call-boys seated in statuesque repose against the wall, while the clerk pined in dreamless inactivity behind the register; some deserted ladies flitted through the door of the parlor at the side. He recalled the evening of his former visit, when he and Isabel had met the Ellisons in that parlor, and it seemed, in the retrospect, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... spreads from one heart to another. Zeal for a native, or detestation of a foreign sovereign, hope of sudden greatness or riches, friendship or emulation between particular men, or, what are perhaps more general and powerful, desire of novelty and impatience of inactivity, fill a camp with adventurers, add rank to rank, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... age is so far from being necessarily a state of languor and inactivity, that it generally continues to exert itself in that sort of occupation which was the favorite object of its pursuit in more vigorous years. I will add, that instances might be produced of men who, in this period of life, have successfully applied ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... business till the summerites had begun to take their vacations. There was a curious psychological fact. It had always been Father, the brisk burden-bearer, who had comforted the secluded Mother. He had brought back to the flat the strenuousness of business. But inactivity was hard on his merry heart; he fretted and fussed at having nothing to do; he raged at having to throw away unused bread because it was growing stale. It was Mother who reminded him that they couldn't ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... vetoed by the Federal headquarters and government, whose first and ruling idea was to keep the Army of the Potomac between Lee and Washington. Hooker was thus compelled to follow Lee's movements. Ewell's men were raiding unchecked as far north as the Susquehanna, while Hooker was compelled to inactivity before the forces of Hill and Longstreet. The Federal general, within his limitations, acted prudently and skilfully. The Army of the Potomac crossed that river only one day later than Lee, and concentrated at Frederick. But Hooker ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... rebeldom conquered yet, but the Old Guard has been 'up and at 'em' through the year. There has been some hard fighting, rivers of ink have flowed, and the Washington dawdlers have signalized themselves by a 'masterly inactivity.' The political campaign has been an anxious one; some of the leaders have deserted; some been mustered out; some have fallen gallantly, and as yet have received no monuments. But at the Grand Review the Cross of the Legion of Honor ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... bust, and a few other of his best things, were to be transferred to Rivenoak, and there kept under lock and key. Often had the baronet felt that he would like to look at the achievements of his hopeful time, but he never summoned courage to mount to the attic. His years went by in a mouldering inactivity. Once or twice he escaped alone to the Continent, and wandered for weeks about the Italian sculpture-galleries, living in the sunny, ardent past; he came back nerve-shaken and low in health. His death was sudden—'failure of the heart's action,' said ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... at Bull Run was followed, as the reader knows, by a long period of masterly inactivity, so far as the Army of the Potomac was concerned. McDowell, a good soldier but unlucky, retired to Arlington Heights, and McClellan, who had distinguished himself in Western Virginia, took command of the forces in front ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... jumbled together, we may often observe such Traces and Footsteps of noble Thoughts, as, if carefully pursued, might lead us into a proper Path of Action. There is so much Rapture and Extasie in our fancied Bliss, and something so dismal and shocking in our fancied Misery, that tho' the Inactivity of the Body has given Occasion for calling Sleep the Image of Death, the Briskness of the Fancy affords us a strong Intimation of something within ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... rashness in criminating this retirement from every-day political conflicts which is, to say the least, very short-sighted. Extreme radicalism spurns the comparative inactivity, and says, "Lo, a sluggard!" Extreme conservatism spurns it, and says, "Lo, a coward!" It is only too true that cowards and sluggards both may take shelter under a shield of indifference; but it is equally true that any reasonably acute mind, if only ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... to men older in life and the banking business than himself? At times Evan felt underfitted for the bank, and at other times overfitted. His spirits varied accordingly. Most of the time, however, his mental attitude "balanced," and inactivity of thought was the result. He had reached inertia of mind before his conversation that ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... details one cannot understand the inactivity of the French: it would seem that the authorities had lost their heads. We cannot otherwise explain the lack of foresight of the officers absent from their posts, the pusillanimous orders of the governor to M. de Vaudreuil, his imprudence in sending too weak ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... infidel governments did I behold such squalid wretchedness as I have seen since my return in the very heart of a Christian country. And what are your remedies? After months of inaction, and months of action worse than inactivity, at length comes forth the grand specific, the never-failing nostrum of all state physicians, from the days of Draco to the present time. After feeling the pulse and shaking the head over the patient, prescribing the usual course of warm ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... sneer at after they had turned their backs, or in indulgences of loafing of all sorts which leave a narcotic stupidity in their wake. He had plenty of time, therefore, for thought, and he could think while walking either in the fresh air, or back and forth in his study. Men of success detest inactivity. It is a hardship for them to be as if dead for a single moment. So, when my father could not walk out-of doors during meditation, he moved back and forth in his room, sturdily alert, his hands clasped behind him, quietly thinking, his head either ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... guarantee the existence of the workman by work. It undertakes to guarantee work to every citizen." On March 9 public works were started and 3,000 men employed. March 15 saw 14,000 on the pay-rolls, most of them unoccupied because there was no suitable work. Those not working received "inactivity pay" of a franc a day. The end of April saw 100,000 on the pay-rolls. In May a minister ventured to suggest that it was the workman's duty to work! There were murmurs of disapproval, but the public treasury was nearing bankruptcy, ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... first almost given up hope, when, a few days after her arrival at Quebec, she learned the fatal intelligence contained in the letter already referred to; but soon perceiving, as he did, that nothing was to be achieved by useless murmuring or hopeless inactivity, she shook herself, as free as her strength would permit, from the dreadful incubus of the sorrow that bowed her to the earth, and turned whatever talents she possessed to good account; working night and day to accomplish the ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... equal to new, and the hull showed indications of great taste and care. Not a speck of dirt or disorder could be seen anywhere; and notwithstanding the jolly entertainments, vocal and otherwise, they had on board each others' vessels almost every night, the life of inactivity became so dreary that they longed for the time when orders would be given to proceed to the Crimea. It was not mere change they longed for, but they craved to see the fighting on shore, and, better still, the bombardment of towns and ports by the warships from the sea. Many ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... favourable, seek to accomplish his objects. Nor should he, when the opportunity is at hand, persecute his foe.[311] Giving up lust and wrath and pride, the king should, acting with heedfulness, continually watch for the laches of his foes. His own mildness, the severity of his punishments, his inactivity and heedlessness, O chief of the gods, and the deceitful contrivances well applied (by his foes), ruin a foolish ruler. That king who can conquer these four faults and counteract the deceitful contrivances of his enemies succeeds, without doubt, in smiting them all. When only one minister (without ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... other six if needs be. We leave this accursed island in two days. Between my friends and my enemies I have fought the length and breadth of it twice over. Am I to spend my whole host killing Christians? A little more inactivity, good mother, and I shall be in league with the Soldan against Philip. Bring the lady to Acre, and I ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... in La Guaira for a short while, but inactivity was distasteful. Through the efforts of a Spanish friend, he obtained a passport from Monteverde and left the port for Curaao at the ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... yourself. I have remarked your late estrangement from Ellen; and while I guessed, I felt that, however painful to me, I ought to remove, the cause: she loves you—though perhaps you know it not—much and truly; and since my earlier life has been passed in a selfish inactivity, I would fain let it close with the reflection of having served two beings whom I prize so dearly, and the hope that their happiness will commence ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... having existed.—Mrs. Lesbia Faircloth, at the Inn, the Vicar's wife left out of the count.—If Sir Charles Verity and Damaris had hurried away, gossip would have run after them with liveliest yelpings. But this practise of masterly inactivity routed criticism. How far was it studied, cynical on the part of the father, or innocent upon that of the daughter, she could not tell one bit; but that practically it carried success along with it, she saw to be indubitable. "Face the music and the band stops playing"—so she put ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... enabled them to perform such prodigious labour during the last seven days, had now subsided. The incessant fatigue which they had endured, both of body and mind, their long abstinence from their natural sleep, and the sudden change from bustle to inactivity, threw the whole of the men into such a state of languor and debility, that they were found lying on the bare planks of the deck, having sunk exhausted, and incapable of making any exertion. This state of stupor continued several hours; some days, indeed, elapsed ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... man of prominence in the England of King James. And the tone of many of these productions discloses an affectionate familiarity that speaks for the amiable personality and sound worth of the laureate. In 1619, growing unwieldy through inactivity, Jonson hit upon the heroic remedy of a journey afoot to Scotland. On his way thither and back he was hospitably received at the houses of many friends and by those to whom his friends had recommended him. When he arrived in ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... being a slur, and indeed an insult on themselves personally, their anger however being excited rather against Lord Gambier than against Cochrane himself. The fleet, indeed, was in a state of general disorganization approaching mutiny, at the inactivity in which they had been kept and at various measures that had been carried out by the admiral. As he might have had to wait for a long time before the fire-ships arrived from England, Cochrane obtained from Gambier several craft which he fitted up as fire-ships. The others, ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... that make holy.' Holiness is a burning fire that extends itself, that seeks to consume what is unholy, and to communicate its own blessedness to all that will receive it. Holiness and selfishness, holiness and inactivity, holiness and sloth, holiness and helplessness, are utterly irreconcilable. Whatever we read of as holy, was taken into the service of the Holiness ...
— Holy in Christ - Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as He is Holy • Andrew Murray
... an army in a good position may even for a prolonged period cover the ulterior object, which is usually territory. An army in position, moreover, is always doing something to exhaust its opponent and redress the unfavourable balance, but a fleet in inactivity is too often permitting the enemy to carry on operations which tend to exhaust the resources of its ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... account gave you a state of news down to March, since which nothing material has happened. The enemy, wearied and disappointed in their last winter's campaign, still continue in a state of inactivity at New York and Brunswick. The Congress is returned to Philadelphia. General Washington remains at Morristown, and occupies the same posts as when the last despatches were sent you. The principal ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... with alacrity, for the drills were ever a relief from the enforced inactivity of restless little bodies. Moreover, they were vastly more enjoyable than mathematical perplexities or troublesome state ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... grieve is past recovery. Sorrow, for which there is no cure, should cease to be grieved for, at any rate openly. If Lord Ballindine were to die you would not allow his death to doom you to perpetual sighs, and perpetual inactivity. No; you'd then know that grief was hopeless, and ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... then you ought to know that a man such as I am cannot condemn himself to inactivity, unless he wants to die. I do not want any more money; what I want is an outlet for my ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... 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
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