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More "Listless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a rag; that voyage in the Scotia has killed me. I went to Dr. Abercromby, and he told me I was on the verge of an attack of jaundice. I am certainly better, but feel far from well. Listless, worried in body, not a bit in spirits, and as if I had eaten copper. I want to get into the position of delighting to accept and do His will, yet I feel so very much inclined to wish His ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... I have followed your instructions to the letter. My hero is as listless as I fear my readers will be, and he is not yet in love. In fact, he is only captivated with himself. I have made ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... the pipes glowed in the dusk; then the Long Arrow rose. The listless spectators stirred and leaned forward. The maid, too, was moved, feeling that at last the moment of decision was near. She was surprised to see that he had none of the savage excitement of the morning. He was as quiet and tactful in speech as the ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... THOUSAND miles beyond this sun-steeped wall Somewhere the waves creep cool along the sand, The ebbing tide forsakes the listless land With the old murmur, long and musical; The windy waves mount up and curve and fall, And round the rocks the foam blows up like snow,— Tho' I am inland far, I hear and know, For I was born the sea's eternal thrall. I would that I were there and over me The cold insistence ...
— Rivers to the Sea • Sara Teasdale
... sunk; the night had all but fallen; the men were all on board; Amyas in command of one canoe, Cary of the other. The Indians were grouped on the bank, watching the party with their listless stare, and with them the young guide, who preferred remaining among the Indians, and was made supremely happy by the present of Spanish sword and an English axe; while, in the midst, the old hermit, with tears in his eyes, prayed God's ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... sort of listless. "I don't know," says he. Then he turns to Uncle Noah. "Uncle," says he, "how will those scuppernongs be about now on the big arbor in front of ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... "In listless quietude of mind I yield to all The change of cloud and wave and wind; And passive, on the flood reclined, I wander with the waves, and ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... bridge. He remained with his head bowed, unhearing. The bos'n himself came, cursing. He called to Harrigan, and getting no answer shook him by the shoulder. He put his hand under Harrigan's chin and raised the listless head. It rolled heavily back and the dull ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... one's wandering glances; but this was apparently not the case from the superior altitude of the main-royal yard, for presently I observed a change in the attitude of the man up there from that of listless indifference to awakened curiosity and interest. His gaze grew earnest and attentive; then he shaded his eyes with his hand, and his body assumed an attitude and expression of alertness. Long and steadily he maintained ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... out of his reach in haste, lest he should take and eat, and live for ever. How earnest, then, should be our care lest this gracious treasure which we carry within us should be lost by our own fault, by the unhealthy excitements, or the listless indolence, to which our nature invites us! "Quench not the Spirit," says the Apostle; surely our privilege is a burden heavy to bear, before it turn to a principle of life and strength, till Christ be formed in us perfectly; and we the while, what cause have we to watch, and pray, and ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... glorious, although she was the Esther to this poor Vashti, and their fates might be supposed to stand in some respects as contrasts to each other. When Liddy came into the room a second time the beautiful eyes which met hers had worn a listless, weary look. When she went out after telling the story they had expressed wretchedness in full activity. Her simple country nature, fed on old-fashioned principles, was troubled by that which would have troubled a woman ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... still seated in the library chair. His head was sunk forward on his chest; his hands were extended listless, palms up, along the arms of the chair; his eyes were vacant and troubled. Hardly once in the long hours had he shifted by a hair's breadth his position. His body was suspended in an absolute inaction while his spirit battered at the walls of an impasse. For, strangely enough, Orde did not ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... the time hanging very heavy on her hands, disappointed, unhappy, frequently irritated, Ellen became at length very ready to take offence, and nowise disposed to pass it over or smooth it away. She seldom showed this in words, it is true, but it rankled in her mind. Listless and brooding, she sat day after day, comparing the present with the past, wishing vain wishes, indulging bootless regrets, and looking upon her aunt and grandmother with an eye of more settled aversion. The only ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... yet still, O listless woman! weary lover! To feel once more that fresh, wild thrill I'd give—but who can live ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... done when the food had been consumed. Now and then one or the other would use the shovel in a listless way for a few moments at a time, but each had become so weak that any prolonged exertion was out ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... room in a listless way, looking about at the various familiar objects that he was to see no more, and one of the first things to strike him was a teacup on the washstand, containing Mrs Millett's infusion, bitter, nauseous, and sweetened to sickliness; and it struck ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... their afflicted condition. In many cases, even of the greatest apparent suffering and distress, instead of showing any anxiety to communicate the causes of their distress, or to relate their privations, and their longings for their homes and their friends and relatives, they lay in a listless, lethargic, uncomplaining state, taking no notice either of their own distressed condition, or of the gigantic mass of human misery by which they were surrounded. Nothing appalled and depressed me so much as ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... which had fallen from his lips. But when it came to almagest and astrolabe, the counting of figures and reckoning of epicycles, away would go her thoughts to horse and hound, and a vacant eye and listless face would warn the teacher that he had lost his hold upon his scholar. Then he had but to bring out the old romance book from the priory, with befingered cover of sheepskin and gold letters upon a purple ground, to entice her wayward mind back to ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... words passed by the child's ears as the summer wind passed. Perhaps it was all a bit of temper and would disappear and leave no trace behind. At the same time, there WAS something queer about the little thing. She had a listless way of sitting staring out of the window and seeming to have no desire to amuse herself. She was too young to be listless and she did not care for her food. Dowson asked permission to send for the doctor and, when he came, he ordered ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... depressing to a sympathetic nature," he declared. "For example, it constantly depresses me to observe the effect of the cotton mills on the girls in my employ. They come in from the country, fresh, blooming, and eager to work. Within a few months perhaps they are pale, anaemic, listless. Not infrequently a young girl contracts tuberculosis and dies before one realizes that she is ill. It wrings the heart to ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr
... eyelashes contributed to add still further to the peculiarity of his looks, and to give his countenance, with those who did not note the keen, bright orbs that occasionally peeped from their usually impenetrable coverts, a sleepy and listless appearance. He now sat on the top of a high wood-box, placed near one corner of the chimney, with his legs dangling over one end of the box, and his head drooping sluggishly towards the fire, apparently as unconscious of ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... did not see O'Reilly that night, nor, in fact, did any one. But the next morning he appeared before General Gomez. He was haggard, sick, listless. The old Porto-Rican had heard from Lopez in the mean time; he ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... Pete was undone in the lazy, listless life of the sheep-camp. There was a certain slow progressiveness about it, however, that saved it from absolute monotony. Each day the sheep grazed out, the distance being automatically adjusted by the coming of night, when they were bunched and slowly drifted back to the bedding-ground. A day ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... scene of John's adventure on the previous night. I had never been in this part of the house before, as it contained no facilities for heating, and so often remained shut in the winter months. I found a listless pleasure in admiring the pictures which lined the walls, most of them being portraits of former members of the family, including the famous picture of Sir Ralph Temple and his family, attributed to Holbein. I had reached the end of the gallery and sat down in the ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... whimsical nerves, peevish tempers, indolent minds, and depraved morals. They become but wrecks of what they were when they first entered the school. This has been called "the stiff and starched system of muslin education," and is the nursery of pale, sickly, listless, peevish children. ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... hour and then he began to feel faint. He had eaten but little breakfast and he needed a fresh supply of food to restore his strength. How he could hold out till evening he could not tell. Already his head began to ache and he felt weary and listless. ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... implores thy aid; Let all behold; and thou, imperious Jove, On me direct thy lightning from above: Now all its force the poison doth assume, And my burnt entrails with its flame consume. Crest-fallen, unembraced I now let fall Listless, those hands that lately conquer'd all; When the Nemaean lion own'd their force, And he indignant fell a breathless corse: The serpent slew, of the Lernean lake, As did the Hydra of its force partake: By this, too, fell the Erymanthian boar: ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... of the people?' she asked, glancing at the listless crowd within. 'O are you quite sure ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... not gain and may even lose in weight. It no longer exhibits its usual energy and playfulness, but is either listless and indifferent or cross, fretful and irritable, and is apt to sleep poorly. It grows pale and anaemic and its tissues become soft and flabby. When the milk is scanty it will often nurse a long time at the breasts, sometimes three quarters of an ...
— The Care and Feeding of Children - A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses • L. Emmett Holt
... foot of yonder nodding beech, That wreathes its old, fantastic roots so high, His listless length at noontide would he stretch, And pore upon the ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... very tired, and she was sitting in an old easy chair waiting for the manager to come to take her to the hotel. She leaned back in a listless manner, with her inclined head leaning upon her right hand. It was a small hand, and very white. Her dark hair partly shrouded her face of singular beauty and sweetness. But lines of care were plainly visible, ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... hay is hauled home, but eat, gossip and sleep? To bed at nine, and out of it at eight in the morning, smoking and dozing between the slow performance of his few daily duties, he becomes at last as listless and dull as a hibernating bear. In the summer he has perpetual daylight, and need not hurry. Besides, why should he give himself special trouble to produce an unusually large crop of flax or barley, when a single night may make his labours utterly ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... was not listless—-far from it. On the contrary Dave fairly ran to dressing quarters, hustled under a shower and then ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... those who toil in lowly spheres Employ such artful ways To charm the dull and listless ears That such may sound their praise, Why should the artist of the mind Shrink from that noble aim That seeks to elevate mankind, And light a deathless flame! Or why should he who shapes the lives And destiny of man, Be less exact than he ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... as eloquent as many of his old ones; but it had a hundredfold more power. His hearers had often been pleased and touched before; now they were stirred, and made uncomfortable. Their responsibilities, as each one the keeper of his brother's soul, were solemnly laid before them. The listless, contented indifference to the sins and sorrows of their fellow-men was rudely shaken. Their satisfaction in their own safety was attacked. As clearly as words could put it, they were told that ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... his remaining laws is that which declared disfranchised a citizen who in a party conflict took neither side; apparently his object was to prevent any one regarding home politics in a listless, uninterested fashion, securing his own personal property, and priding himself upon exemption from the misfortunes of his country, and to encourage men boldly to attach themselves to the right party and to share all its ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... cross she did, about with her, coming in, and going out, for many a weary day. There was no change in her habits or demeanour; she was never listless for a moment in her school; she was more gay and amusing than ever, when she gathered her little ones around her for a story: but still there was the unseen burden, grinding her heart slowly, till she felt as if every footstep ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... are failures, human wrecks, who are a burden to others. If you like we will try this evening to get to a midnight mission and see the poor wretches waiting in crowds for the doors to open. They have a worn, listless expression, but when the doors are open they wake up and rush in, fill all the benches in the large hall, and go to ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... moved than he was willing to have it appear, trying, in his turn, to hide all his artistic and patriotic anxieties under that firm exterior which his colleague of the Department of Foreign Affairs wore, a dull-eyed, listless face, and cheeks that ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... kept a watchful eye on the progress of events. He was always alert to seize an opportunity and proclaim in trumpet tones the voice of conscience, the demands of eternal righteousness. But he waited. His hour had not yet come. He bided his time. It was not a listless waiting, it was intensely earnest and active. Far more than he could realize, he was in training for the stupendous responsibilities which should in due time fall upon him. It is fortunate for all that he did not learn to limit his ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... commander of the cavalry, a gentleman whose gold leaves were as dazzlingly new as the senior's were old and withered, and just about to be changing into silver, the silver of the lieutenant-colonel. The contrast between Major White's spirited handling of his battalion of foot and Major Chrome's listless management of a similar body of horse was vivid in the last degree. The latter and two of his troops belonged to Atherton's fine regiment, the —th, the other two troops, Cranston's and Truman's, were, as we know, of the Eleventh, and here ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... on trunk Beneath the gory waters sunk, Still o'er their drowning bodies press New victims quick and numberless; Till scarce an arm in HAFED'S band, So fierce their toil, hath power to stir, But listless from each crimson hand The sword hangs clogged with massacre. Never was horde of tyrants met With bloodier welcome—never yet To patriot vengeance hath the sword More ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... uselessness, covering the leg in which gangrene was far advanced, and telling her death was at hand. But her despair insisted on action, her own suffering made her remorseless. The clamor of their arguing voices surrounded the moribund figure lying motionless with listless eyes as though already half initiated into new and profound mysteries. Once, his mother's voice rising strident, he asked her to let him rest in peace, ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... suggested the tramp of marching feet, but there was a curious unevenness in its rhythm, and the crescendo one of the listeners looked for never came. The room was almost dark now, but none of those who sat there seemed to notice it as they listened to the listless tramp of marching feet. Then the harmonies drowned it again, and ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... the confined air of the shop, and the odour of the leather, and the stooping posture consequent on his trade, began to tell painfully upon him. He wondered what was the matter that he did not now ever feel bright and hopeful. He went about his work mechanically, was listless and silent. His features assumed a cast of anxiety unnatural in a child, and painful to notice. Still, no duty was neglected, nor did the Walters notice the change in his looks, since all allotted services were duly rendered. The young spirit was gradually ...
— Watch—Work—Wait - Or, The Orphan's Victory • Sarah A. Myers
... traces of which still survived in the nineties— resembled very much the border forays for which Northumberland is still famous; and, walking through the palm-groves towards the Arab village, they talked of the Arab race, listening all the while to the singing of doves and of streams, Owen listless ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... wall at the back, into the gardens behind the house. There was not much in the way of flowers to look at, but he moved about quite unconscious of any deprivation. A cluster of greenhouses, massed against the southern side of the mansion, attracted his listless fancy, and he walked toward what appeared to be an entrance to them. The door was locked, but he found another further on which opened to his hand. The air was very hot and moist inside, and the place was so filled with broad-leaved, umbrageous tropical ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... up stream, and pushes back the hurrying waters. With no less calm and solemn footsteps, nor less certainly, does a great mind bear up against public opinion, and push back its hurrying stream. Therefore should every man wait;—should bide his time. Not in listless idleness,—not in uselesspastime,—not in querulous dejection; but in constant, steady, cheerful endeavours, always willing and fulfilling, and accomplishing his task, that, when the occasion comes, he may be equal to the occasion. And if it ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... augmented during the day by the arrival of half a dozen men and women from, the city brain-fagged, listless, and smart. The big cottage now was full, the company complete for three weeks at least. She looked ahead, this fresh, vigorous young Englishwoman, and wondered how she was to endure ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... of his kindred. He has a preference for dense woods of beech and maple, moves slowly amid the lower branches and smaller growths, keeping from eight to ten feet from the ground, and repeating now and then his listless, indolent strain. His back and crown are dark blue; his throat and breast, black; his belly, pure white; and he has a white spot on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... her pleasure. Her face proved that at all events the physical influences of this day in the open air were beneficial. The soft breeze had brought a touch of health to her cheek, and languid inattention no longer marked her gaze at sea and shore; she was often absent, but never listless. When she spoke, her voice was subdued and grave; it always caused Mallard ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... Hippolyto Thucydides, the son of Mrs. Johnson, who had just arrived on a visit to his mother from the State of New Hampshire. He was a heavy and loutish youth, standing upon the borders of boyhood, and looking forward to the future with a vacant and listless eye. I mean this was his figurative attitude; his actual manner, as he lolled upon a chair beside the kitchen window, was so eccentric that we felt a little uncertain how to regard him, and Mrs. Johnson openly described him as peculiar. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... girls are listless, easily tired, nervous, with little appetite, poor digestion, ...
— Treatise on the Diseases of Women • Lydia E. Pinkham
... apartment. It was kept open only one hour before and one hour after midnight, and that only on two nights of the week, and that only when Parliament was sitting. Its attractions were not numerous, consisting chiefly of tobacco and tea. The conversation was generally listless and often desultory; and occasionally there would arise the great and terrible evil of a punster whom every one hated but no one had life enough to put down. But the thing had been a success, and men liked to be members of the Universe. Mr. Bonteen was ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... surprise, Grinsell and Dickon were gone; no one but the squire was in the room, and he was sitting in a big chair, limp and listless, his eyes fixed ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... them two unused rooms in their house at a low figure. They were not lacking in sympathy for young "Mrs. Lennox," but their disposition to ask questions made Anna shun them as she would have an infection. After her mother's death, they tried harder than ever to be kind to her, but the listless girl, who spent her days gazing at nothing, was hardly aware of ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... indignity, and have had their lives endangered by the violence of the white mob. In 1816, the white rabble of Barbadoes, collected together, and totally destroyed the Methodist chapel. The destruction of the chapel occupied two successive nights, and so listless were the authorities, that no attempt was made to prevent it. And when the governor issued a proclamation, offering a reward to any person who should apprehend the leaders in this outrageous proceeding, the mob immediately issued a counter proclamation, threatening with death any one who ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... had his studies led him to dissect the bodies of animals that had died in their dens in the Jardin des Plantes! Often in the first generation of cage-life, almost always in the second, invariably in the third, they grow dull, listless, the fire goes out of their eyes, the litheness out of their limbs: they forget to eat, they cough, and soon they die. Of what? Consumption. Once our fathers were wild and lived in the open air: they scarcely ever died, as we do, of consumption. Crowded cities, bad drainage, overwork, want of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... thou thereby Mayst serve with faith, with fear, in truth and love, That God that did at first thy spirit move To ask it to his praise, that he might be Thy God, and that he might delight in thee. If I should here particulars relate, Methinks it could not but much animate Thy heart, though very listless to inquire How thou mayst that enjoy, which all desire That love themselves and future happiness; But O, I cannot fully it express: The promise is so open and so free, In all respects, to those that humble be, That want ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... campaign was unusually listless. Parker did not inspire enthusiasm, although a man of undoubted integrity and ability, and the personality of Roosevelt was the controlling force. Only at the close of the canvass did a passing interest appear in some charges made ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... you saw it yourself?" Flint asked, partly from listless curiosity, and partly with an eye to the society ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... and all hands. There are few things so annoying to a sailor at sea as a calm. A gale of wind, even a hurricane, with its life, its energy, its fury, though it may bring the conviction of danger, is preferred by an old sailor to the dull, listless monotony of ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... the house was not likely to get much backing-up in its new efforts from Felgate, looked likely enough to be fulfilled. While everyone else was full of athletic and scholastic fervour, he remained listless and even sulky. Some said it was because Ainger had proposed the great scheme, and Felgate disdained to play second riddle even to the captain. Others said it was because he could not win anything ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... through the town and talked to people who had been living there; and it was when I talked to the people that I began to realise what had been happening. The few ruined buildings and riddled walls conveyed little to me. But when one found man after man thin, listless, and (in spite of the joy of salvation) dispirited; talking with a tired voice and hopeless air, and with a queer, shifty, nervous, scared look in the eye, ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... king sat bowed beneath his crown, Propping his face with listless hand; Watching the hour-glass sifting down ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... and let it fall from her listless fingers. Her eyes went again to the portrait in the glass. Very slowly she rose and studied herself standing. The lacy softness of her negligee fell away from her slenderly rounded throat. The creamy whiteness of arms and ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... were tabulated by the author Hyrummetricus. The Professors of this Science [of land surveying] are honoured with a more earnest attention than falls to the lot of any other philosophers. Arithmetic, Theoretical Geometry, Astronomy, and Music are discoursed upon to listless audiences, sometimes to empty benches. But the land surveyor is like a judge; the deserted fields become his forum, crowded with eager spectators. You would fancy him a madman when you see him walking along the most devious paths. But in truth ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... half-shell Pale green and white-lined of sea-urchin, knew What her eyes sought as often children know Of grief or sin they could not name or think of Yet sooth or shrink from, so I saw and longed To heal her tender wound and yet said naught. The energy of bygone joy and pain Had left her listless figure charged with magic That caught and held my idleness near hers. Resentful of her power, my spirit chafed Against its own deep pity, as though it were Raised ghost and she the witch had bid it haunt me. What's more I knew this slave by rights should ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... herself,—her new self, which was to be so different from the old. How strange it all was! What should she do now, to prove the new Hilda and try her strength? Something must be done at once; the time for folded hands and listless ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... to the same point. It was far easier than to determine the sun's position either from day to day, or from month to month; for the stars, being hardly visible at the actual rising and setting of the sun, the idea of the sun's conjunction with certain stars could not suggest itself to a listless observer. The moon, on the contrary, progressing from night to night, and coming successively in contact with certain stars, was like the finger of a clock, moving round a circle, and coming in contact with one figure ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... the rattle of their passing ceases the silence wakes him. His listless eye falls upon a half-defaced poster on a wall opposite— the ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... leading strings, and her attempt to put them on would ruin all. But the time went on; grew late; and she was dying for her tea, which she had chosen should wait also. Maude sat before the fire in a large chair; her eyes, her hands, her whole air supremely listless. ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Yellow or greenish-colored droppings, listless attitude, refusal of food and great thirst are the more readily observed symptoms. The disease runs a rapid course, death resulting in about three days. The death rate is very high. The disease is spread by droppings and dead birds, ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... slept very little, for the disquiets of my mind prevailed over my weariness, and kept me awake. I considered how impossible it was to preserve my life in so desolate a place, and how miserable my end must be: yet found myself so listless and desponding, that I had not the heart to rise; and before I could get spirits enough to creep out of my cave, the day was far advanced. I walked awhile among the rocks: the sky was perfectly clear, and the sun so ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... little too early, I sat down upon the edge of a tombstone to wait, as, for aught I knew, the beautiful Countess might have wise reasons for not caring that I should enter the grounds of the chateau earlier than she had appointed. In the listless state induced by waiting, I sat there, with my eyes on the object straight before me, which chanced to be that faint black outline I have described. It was right before ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... latitude duly recorded, makes for himself a meal of bitter-sweet; and that your truest dulcamara is to read with glasses the faded notes jotted down hurriedly in rain, in sun, in wind, in camps, by flooded rivers, and in the long and listless hours of heat — in fact, to see again your life, as it were, acted for you in some camera obscura, with the chief actor changed. But diaries, unless they be mere records of bare facts, must of necessity, as in their nature they are autobiographical, be false guides; ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... in her sleep, and turned. "Will you go?" said the mother very roughly in her ear. She opened listless, senseless eyes. She had no wish to go. "She wanted to come last week," we said. The mother hardened, and pushed the child, and rolled her over with her foot. "She will ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... the convention could not longer survive. The listless delegates, the absence of enthusiasm, and the uncrowded galleries, showed that all hope of a nomination was abandoned, especially since the friends of Douglas, who could prevent the selection of another, declared that the Illinoisan would not withdraw under any contingency. It is dreary ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... He lay there listless, nerveless, careless of life almost, an Ishmael with every man's hand against him—worse off than Ishmael, he thought, since Ishmael had a desert in which to wander, and he was tied ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... standing in a listless, indifferent attitude near the door, not taking the smallest part in the active proceedings which were going forward, was for the first time aroused to interest by the expression on Rosalind's face. She moved a step or two into the crowd, and when one or two timid bids were heard for the coveted ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... sight; but now was to be the bitterest of all. I felt it, and I remained with the handle of the door in my hand, gasping for breath— blinded with the tears that coursed each other rapidly down my cheeks. I remained a minute in this state, when I felt that Sarah touched my other listless hand. ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... on Main Street sounded a man's voice, laughing. The door of the express office banged. George Willard arose and crossing the room fumbled for the doorknob. Sometimes he knocked against a chair, making it scrape along the floor. By the window sat the sick woman, perfectly still, listless. Her long hands, white and bloodless, could be seen drooping over the ends of the arms of the chair. "I think you had better be out among the boys. You are too much indoors," she said, striving to relieve the embarrassment of the departure. "I thought I would take a walk," replied George Willard, ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... did every thing to bring it to completion. He passed from battle to battle, from victory to victory, and after conquering Egypt and taking up his residence in Cairo, he at once began to organize the newly-won country, and to introduce to the idle and listless East the culture of the earnest and progressive West. But Egypt would not accept the treasures of culture at the hand of its conqueror. It rose again and again in rebellion against the power that held it down, and hurled its flaming ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... the previous day he was exhausted and listless, and spoke unwillingly. His fingers twitched, and from his face it could be seen that he had a ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... was sure of it—I couldn't tell you, but I was sure you must see!" Her pen was thrown aside and she drooped in her chair, her hands listless in her lap. ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... saddened Joy lit candles in the front room there came the rattle of wheels without, and a buckboard stopped in the bar of light from the door. Bailey's anxiety was replaced by a mask of listless surprise as the voice of Ross Turney ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... Her father observed her listless air and averted face for a moment with contracted brow, then quietly remarked, "Graydon Muir may return at any ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... retains its appetite, but as the severity of the disease increases the animal shows less and less disposition to suck, and has lost all vivacity, lying dull and listless, and, when raised, walking weakly and unsteadily. Flesh is lost rapidly, the hair stands erect, the skin gets dry and scurfy, the nose is dry and hot, or this condition alternates with a moist and cool one. By this time the mouth and skin, as well as the breath and dung, exhale the peculiar, ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... and listless lady patron examined the handbags in a leading jeweler's shop in New York City. The clerk exhibited one bag five inches square, made of platinum and with one side almost covered with a setting of diamonds. This was offered at a price ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... listless and dreary air of waiting somebody's pleasure, and the most talkative of the ladies had to speak quite rigidly to repress a yawn. This lady, whose name was Camilla, very much reminded me of my sister, with the difference that she was older, and ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... had indeed worn her out. For the rest of the evening she was quiet and listless; and she went upstairs very early to bed, leaving Herrick to sit alone with his dog, smoking his pipe, and facing the future with ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... sweetheart's side. His arm fell about her shoulders. She did not offer to remove it, but sat listless, unresponsive, her eyes lifted to a narrow window beyond which the hot ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... she corrected me, still in that quiet, listless, almost indifferent tone. 'Oh, yes. ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... reading when Marguerite was announced, for an open book lay on a table beside her; but it seemed to the visitor that mayhap the young girl's thoughts had played truant from her work, for her pose was listless and apathetic, and there was a look of grave trouble upon ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... Borough-buying, and their embosom'd Thirst for the poorest Power, the meanest Places, and the basest Gain; and in a Word it wou'd be the Destruction, of all those dirty Jobbs, that enrich private Rogues and beggar Nations. How, dear Tom, cou'd you expect such dissipated Minds, such a listless pleasurable Gentry, wou'd ever contribute a Thought, or a Shilling to improve Ireland, who won't improve one Thousand Acres, to help their Children and feed their Families? Who will not even take the Trouble, or be at ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... in my study I was listless and ill at ease, And my fingers twiddled idly With the novel upon my knees. I know not where I was straying On the poppy-clustered shore, But I suddenly struck on a Sparkler Which fairly made ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 27, 1892 • Various
... been deceiving her. That whole afternoon how quiet he had been, how listless. Quite gentle, quite affectionate, but listless and untalkative. She had thought he must be tired; worn out with his long journey across from Europe. She had made allowances for him; been sympathetic, been considerate. And look at him now. Never had she seen him with ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... the next, she insisted on getting up; and Dr. Donaldson gave his consent to her returning into the drawing-room. She was restless and uncomfortable in every position, and before night she became very feverish. Mr. Hale was utterly listless, and incapable of ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... The listless indolence of her father's life, and the almost complete absence from home of her brother, who was pursuing his studies at the Dublin University, had given over to her charge not only the household, but no ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... brisk; but the best evidence of health was in the clearness of their eyes. Fever shows its touch in the "gooseberry" eye, dull and clouded; in the moist pallor of the skin, and in a general listlessness. Even if they are free from fever, white men in Central Africa often grow listless because of insufficient nutriment. Their flesh-diet is chiefly the white meat of birds, and their blood-cells are really starved by the small amount of nitrogenous matter. A deficient diet in its turn is a frequent cause of diarrhoea ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... sweet antiphonies, A long procession through the splendid hall Wended slow way, and bearing in the King, The suffering Amfortas in his pain, Still lying listless on his royal couch. Before him walked a company of boys Clothed in pale blue, and bearing high aloft A mystic shrine in cloth of deepest crimson, To signify the royal blood beneath. And others followed bearing silver flagons With wine, and baskets of the finest ...
— Parsifal - A Drama by Wagner • Retold by Oliver Huckel
... a short silence between them. It was not until then, that he realised how dear during these last few months her companionship had been to him. He looked into the fire with sad, listless eyes. After all, what was success worth? He had grasped at the shadow, and Cicely with her charming little ways, her glorious companionableness and her dainty prettiness, was lost to him for ever. ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... up from the corral. The boy had gone without sleep or rest until his eyes were heavy and his movements listless. Like the women of Palomitas he also had worked overtime at the call of Tula, and Kit wondered at the concerted activity—no one ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... the case is neglected, and if the adenoids have existed for a long time, the growth of the child is impaired. He remains small and stunted, and the expression of the face is dull and stupid. The temperament and disposition are affected also; such children are languid, listless and depressed. ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague
... and his hands were clasped upon his saddle-bow, while the reins fell loosely from between his listless fingers. ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... aspect of death—the visible and the invisible part of dying. For the visible part, you have the body of the princess in all the desolation and abandonment of death. The attitude of the figure is as if she had thrown herself over in a convulsion, and died. The body is lying listless, simply covered with a sheet, through every fold of which you can see the utter relaxation of that moment when vitality departs, but the limbs have not yet stiffened. Her hand and a part of the arm are hanging down, exposed to view beneath ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... thinks him strangely thoughtful and considerate in keeping away, as he does, after a few short visits at The Oaks. The truth is, he is wofully disappointed at the change in his cousin's looks. This pale, listless, hollow-eyed girl is not the one who set him to reading 'Taming of the Shrew.' That her beauty of color and of outline could ever return, he does not consider; and in swift revulsion of feeling ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... the remnants of a routed army had been passing through the City. They were not troops, but disorganized hordes. The men had long, dirty beards and tattered uniforms; they walked with a listless gait, without flag nor formation. All seemed exhausted, worn out, incapable of thought or resolve, marching only by force of habit and dropping with fatigue as soon as they stopped. One saw for ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... away; the rainbow bridge throbbed out into the air, under it the wailing of the Rhine daughters and the singing of the Rhine. But Thea was sunk in twilight; it was all going on in another world. So it happened that with a dull, almost listless ear she heard for the first time that troubled music, ever-darkening, ever-brightening, which was to flow through so many years ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... walla,' or hat wearer, as they call the English, in full regimentals and cocked hat, seated on a clumsy, ill-formed thing meant for a horse. Then add to these English, French, and Dutch toys, which generally lie pell-mell in every corner where the listless, toy-satiated child may have thrown or ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... with meditative head against the windowpane, listless as a caged and sullen eagle, but his soul was far ahead, swooping above the swells that cut into the murky sky. His eyes studied every rod of soil as he retraced his way up that great wind-swept slope, noting every change in vegetation or settlement. Five ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... be dull without it, and to hate the hours when he could not see it; and all the time it grew or seemed to grow stronger and sleeker; his mother soon began to notice that he was not well; he became thin and listless, but his eyes were large and bright; she asked him more than once if he were well, but he only laughed. Once indeed he had a fright; he had been asleep under a hawthorn in the glen on a hot July day; and waking saw the cat close to him, watching ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... to explain to him that the long option which he held on that San Bernardino mine will expire in one more month. The work had been going on in a listless way for three years. All at once some time back they struck a wonderfully rich lode, and vein has been followed far enough to show that it is bound to be ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... letters from him during his absence and were, accordingly, unable to tell when he expected to get back. Since his return from India Gwen had given evidence of a reviving interest in life, but now that he was again away, she relapsed into her old listless condition, from which we found it impossible to arouse her. Alice, who did her utmost to please her, was at her wit's end. She could never tell which of two alternatives Gwen preferred, since that young lady would invariably ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... day was told what deeds of night Were done; the web had vanished quite; With it the strange opposing pair; And listless waved on vacant air, For her adieu to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... noticed that she scarcely tasted food at breakfast, and she has kept her room for most of the day, lying down for a greater part of the time. I left her on the bed when I went to dinner. She did not complain of indisposition, but seemed listless and out of spirits. I ordered tea sent up, but, as you perceive, it has not been tasted. On my return, I found her in the condition in which she now lies—apparently in ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... deck in a hundred listless postures. Some leaned idly over the bulwarks, and looked wistfully away from the ship, as if they fancied they saw all that I inferred but could not see. As the perfume, and sound, and climate changed, I could see many a longing eye sadden and grow moist, and as ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... finished Katherine led the way to the living-room. To his unspeakable pride, Rhoda took Billy Porter's arm and he guided her listless footsteps carefully, casting pitying glances on his less favored friends. Jack wheeled a Morris chair before the fireplace—desert nights are cool—and John DeWitt hurried for a shawl, while Katherine gave every one orders that no one heeded in ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... then suppose two children taken silently through a museum of curiosities, the one active and lively, the other dull and listless. It would be found on retiring, that the former would be able to give an account of many things which he saw, and that the other would remember little or nothing. In this case, all the objects in the exhibition were seen by ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... that he will presently have a fit, or be sent for, or come to some kind of an end. But when you gradually open to the conviction that vis inertiae rules the hour, and the thing which has been is that which shall be, you wax listless; your chariot-wheels drive heavily; your end of the pole drags in the mud, and you speedily wallow in unmitigated disgust. If he broaches a subject on which you have a real and deep living interest, you shrink from unbosoming yourself to him. You feel that it would be sacrilege. He feels nothing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... of one's head; disconcert, discompose; put out, confuse, perplex, bewilder, moider^, fluster, muddle, dazzle; throw a sop to Cerberus. Adj. inattentive; unobservant, unmindful, heedless, unthinking, unheeding, undiscerning^; inadvertent; mindless, regardless, respectless^, listless &c (indifferent) 866; blind, deaf; bird-witted; hand over head; cursory, percursory^; giddy-brained, scatter-brained, hare-brained; unreflective, unreflecting^, ecervele [Fr.]; offhand; dizzy, muzzy^, brainsick^; giddy, giddy as a goose; wild, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... was the search for the key in the chill of the early morning, or whether it was that she ate too heartily of grandma's good things, certain it was that when Edna waked up the morning after Thanksgiving, she felt very listless and miserable. Her father was already up and dressed, and her mother was making her toilet when the little girl turned over and watched her with ...
— A Dear Little Girl's Thanksgiving Holidays • Amy E. Blanchard
... make you glad, To make you glad and free, Till your light smiles glance And your bright eyes dance Like sunbeams on the sea? Read some rhyme that is blithe and gay Of a bright May morn and a marriage day?" And she sighed in a listless way she had,— "Do not read—it ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... character, in devotional thought and emotion, or in the emotions of affection, I have felt with vehement and absorbing intensity,—felt till my mind is exhausted, and seems to be sinking into deadness. Half of my time I am glad to remain in a listless vacancy, to busy myself with trifles, since thought is ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... a tall, burly, red-haired young man, with a resolute face but a listless manner. He carried under his arm a flat, grey portfolio of black-and-white sketches, which he had sold with more or less success to publishers ever since his uncle (who was an admiral) had disinherited him for Socialism, because of a lecture which he had delivered against ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... Wood and Dead Flat stage coach was waiting before the station. The Pine Barrens mail wagon that connected with it was long overdue, with its transfer passengers, and the station had relapsed into listless expectation. Even the humors of Dick Boyle, the Chicago "drummer,"—and, so far, the solitary passenger—which had diverted the waiting loungers, began to fail in effect, though the cheerfulness of the humorist was unabated. The ostlers had slunk back into the stables, the station keeper ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the listless answer. "I presume likely you mean the news about the appropriation, and the editorial dig at yours truly? Yes, I've seen it. They don't bother me much. I've got more important things on ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... extent; but in spite of all that unfashionable critics have said, Vivian Grey has just produced a volume under the title of the Voyage of Captain Popanilla, with as much of the aforesaid qualities as the most listless drawing-room or boudoir reader could require. Nevertheless, "the voyage" has many touches of wit, humour, and caustic satire, and it has the soul and characteristic of wit—brevity; for we read the volume in little more than an hour; and, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 322, July 12, 1828 • Various
... when the opportunity occurs; because, as Augustine says (De Doctr. Christ. i, 28), we must look upon this as a matter of chance. For this reason he says (De Verb. Dom. xvi, 1) that "Our Lord warns us not to be listless in regard of one another's sins: not indeed by being on the lookout for something to denounce, but by correcting what we see": else we should become spies on the lives of others, which is against the saying ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... side and replaced by a long green baize table littered with papers; the doors leading on to the verandah were closed, and a stifling atmosphere bore down upon the five occupants who were ranged about the table in various attitudes of listless exhaustion. ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... followed by questions upon the sermonette, it might thus become very useful. But a catechesis in which the catechist simply tells a simple story or gives an amusing anecdote, or when questioning, so puts his inquiries that "yes" and "no" are the listless replies that are drawn forth from the lads and girls, is not interesting or profitable. Whenever I have the opportunity I go to an afternoon catechetical service. Some failed by being made into the time of a small preachment; some because in a few minutes the catechist easily asked questions and ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... effect, for when the front line jumps to the LEFT, the second jumps to the RIGHT, the third to the LEFT again, and so on; until the action acquires due intensity, when all simultaneously and suddenly stop. The excitement which this dance produces in the savage is very remarkable. However listless the individual may be, laying perhaps, as usual, half asleep; set him to this dance, and he is fired with sudden energy, and every nerve is strung to such a degree that he is no longer to be recognised as the same person until he ceases to dance, and comes to you again. ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... state, and reminds them of its approach while it fits them for it. 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. There is a certain task to be performed at an appropriated hour, and their toils are cheerful, because they consider them as acts of piety by which they are always advancing towards ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson
... that he needed encouragement and guidance. She pictured him with his fiddle under his chin, masterful, confident, miraculous, throwing a spell over everyone within earshot. But actually she saw him listless and vanquished in the basket chair, and she perceived that only a strongly influential and determined woman, such as herself, could save him from disaster. No man could do it. His tears had shaken her. She was willing to make allowances ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... large foot-marks went, No further than to where his feet had stray'd, And slept there since. Upon the sodden ground His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead, Unsceptred; and his realmless eyes were closed; While his bow'd head seem'd list'ning to the Earth, 20 His ancient mother, for ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... visible over leagues of labouring sea! O thus through use to reign again, to drink The cup of peradventure to the lees, For one dear instant disimmortalised In giving immortality! So dream the gods upon their listless thrones. Yet sometimes, when the votary appears, With death-affronting forehead and glad eyes, Too young, they rather muse, too frail thou art, And shall we rob some girl of saffron veil And nuptial garland for so slight a thing? And ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... down at her with a great love and a greater pity shining in his eyes. She thought that she had thrown up her arms to close about him with the frantic joy of a rescued person, only to have them meet in empty air and fall listless at ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... led to his being peremptorily ordered home as soon as he was convalescent, and the sea voyage had worked wonders and built up his weakened constitution. But he was altered, none the less. There were hard lines about his mouth and forehead, and in his eyes was a listless, weary, cynical look—the look of a man who finds life a care and a burden almost ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... at the moment he began to speak, silence had just been restored, and, although his voice was very soft and gentle in its touch, every one heard his question. Buckingham turned round, and looked at the tall thin figure, and the listless expression of countenance of his questioner. Probably the personal appearance of Manicamp, who was dressed very plainly, did not inspire him with much respect, for he replied disdainfully, "Who may ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... burning indignation against the training school committee. In his bewilderment Phillotson entered the adjacent cathedral, just now in a direly dismantled state by reason of the repairs. He sat down on a block of freestone, regardless of the dusty imprint it made on his breeches; and his listless eyes following the movements of the workmen he presently became aware that the reputed culprit, Sue's lover Jude, was ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... so I sometimes dream— I've swum the dark, the silent stream, So cold, it takes the breath away, That parts the dead world from the day, And see upon the further strand The lazy, listless angels stand, And with their frank and fearless eyes The comrades whom I most did prize: Then, clean, unburdened, careless, cool, I'll saunter up from that grim pool, And join my friends: then you'll come by, The Captain of our Company: Call me ...
— Thoughts on religion at the front • Neville Stuart Talbot
... glance swept her companion searchingly, and, in that brief scrutiny, Susan observed with inward complacency how pale the other was, and how listless her manner! Their common secret, however, made Susan's outward demeanor sweetly solicitous and gently sympathetic. Her mind, passing in rapid review over recent events, dwelt not without certain satisfaction upon results. True, every night she was still forced to witness Constance's success, ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... may even lose in weight. It no longer exhibits its usual energy and playfulness, but is either listless and indifferent or cross, fretful and irritable, and is apt to sleep poorly. It grows pale and anaemic and its tissues become soft and flabby. When the milk is scanty it will often nurse a long time at the breasts, sometimes three quarters of an hour, before stopping. At other times ...
— The Care and Feeding of Children - A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses • L. Emmett Holt
... waiting behind that on a certificate of deposit. But was it not the irony of life, was it not life itself, that the little buncher, who only the other day would have thrilled to her marrow at the mere thought of all these things, should have won her lady's glories only when she was too strangely listless ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... proceeded, undismayed, to make good his accusation. He had dropped back into his slightly listless air of thinly veiled persiflage, and he appeared to address the lady, to explain the situation to her, rather than to justify ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... So, if I shot birds in winter with my firelock, I caught fish in summer, or attempted so to do, with my angle. I was not quite so successful, it is true, with the latter as with the former—possibly because it afforded me less pleasure. It was, indeed, too much of a listless pastime to inspire me with any great interest. I not unfrequently fell into a doze whilst sitting on the bank, and more than once let my rod drop from my hands ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... That Rome's proud walls might fall before their swords; Exhausted, wet with brothers' blood, Alone sat Brutus, in the dismal night; Resolved on death, the gods implacable Of heaven and hell he chides, And smites the listless, drowsy air With his fierce ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... think, far from being an idle boy. I neglected my studies, not to become listless and unemployed, but that I might earn more time for other, and, as most persons would think, less edifying pursuits, and was therefore invariably devoted to cricket, ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... seem very ill by day, only heavy, listless and dull, unable to eat, too giddy to sit up, and unable to help crying like a babe, if Stephen left him for a moment; but he never fell asleep without all the horror and dread of the sentence coming over him. ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... desire to live or even to rise up again, he was so utterly powerless and lacking in energy. The majority of his fellow-soldiers appeared, too, to be in the same mood, stretching their weary limbs on the ground in listless apathy, as if caring for nothing; they did not either seem to be affected by hunger or thirst, although it was more than twelve hours since they had broken their fast; the fury of the fight had satiated them, taking away all stamina ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... peace! A beauteous boy, Couched listless by the rivulet's glassy tide, 'Mid nature's tranquil scene, He views the lambs that skip with innocent joy, And crop the meadow's flowering pride:— Then with his flute's enchanting sound, He wakes the mountain echoes round, Or ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... also to an astonishing extent mere spectators in the arduous work of hauling the cobles one by one on to the steep bank of shingle. A tackle hooked to one of the baulks of timber forming the staith was being hauled at by five women and two men! Two others were in a listless fashion leaning their shoulders against the boat itself. With the last 'Heave-ho!' at the shortened tackle the women laid hold of the nets, and with casual male assistance laid them out on the shingle, removed any fragments of fish, and generally prepared them for ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... gone out of prize-day, and no coaxing can bring it back. The Fifth, and after them the Sixth, advance and receive their rewards amidst the listless indifference of the audience, and uncheered by the faintest spark of enthusiasm. No one takes the trouble to cheer anybody. Even Raleigh, the captain, comes in and out almost unheeded; and when at last the final name is reached, it is a ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... of progress, while your son began by absorbing the old order. In our most intimate talks he has never once abused Tatistchev or Burenin, and that's a bad sign. You are a hundred times as liberal as he is, and it ought to be the other way. He utters a listless and indolent protest, he soon drops his voice and soon agrees, and altogether one has the impression that he has no interest whatever in the contest; that is, he looks on at the cock-fight like a spectator and has no cock of his own. And one ought to have one's own ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... to read, and with a listless indifference she opened it, starting as there dropped into her lap a small carte de viste, a perfect likeness of Guy, who sent it, he said, because he wished her to have so much of himself. It would make him happier to know she could sometimes look at him just as he should gaze ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... them, the newcomers were surrounded by sailors eager to learn the last news from England—how the war was going on, and what prospect there was of peace. As soon as their curiosity was satisfied, the crowd speedily dispersed. Julian was struck with the air of listless indifference that prevailed among the prisoners, but it was not long before he quite understood it. Cut off from all news, without hope of escape or exchange, it was difficult for even the most light-hearted to retain ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... lost in a deep agony of thought. The face was wonderfully pure and beautiful; and the anguish seemed not the anguish of remorse, but the pain of looking upon things both sweet and beautiful, and of yet being unable to take a share in them. The whole figure denoted a listless melancholy. It was the work of a famous French sculptor, who seemed to have worked under close and minute direction; and my friend told me that no less than three statues had been completed before ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... contest;[2] and though Mr. Dayton had not received a majority support, his nomination was nevertheless at once made unanimous. Those who are familiar with the eccentricities of nominating conventions when in this listless and drifting mood know how easily an opportune speech from some eloquent delegate or a few adroitly arranged delegation caucuses might have reversed this result; and imagination may not easily construct the possible changes ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... remained at a little distance, unmoving, her eyes cast down. Before any other word was said, the door opened quickly, and Mrs. Enderby ran in with a smothered cry. Throwing her arms about her husband, she clung to him in a passion of grief and tenderness. In a moment she had been changed from the listless, childish woman of the last few months to a creature instinct with violent emotion. Her mingled excess of joy and anguish could not have displayed itself more vehemently had she been sorrowing night and day for her husband's loss. Maud was terrified at the scene, ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... perpetuated the notion that servants' duties were for persons of dark complexion. The debate over a segregated branch that had engaged the civil rights leaders and the Navy since 1932 was over, but it had left a residue of ill will; some were bitter at what they considered the listless pace of reform, a pace which left the impression that the service had been forced to change against its will. To some extent the Navy in the 1950's failed to capitalize on its early achievements because it had for so long missed the point of the integrationists' arguments about ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... her eye stole itself round into his face, and then her face was turned quickly to the ground. Her parasol which had been raised drooped listless from her hand. All unconsciously she hastened her steps and became aware that the tears were streaming from her eyes. For a moment or two it seemed to her that all was still hopeless. If he had no more to say than that, certainly ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... facts continued in the courthouse until seven in the evening, and the nights were passed in consultation with counsel. Attendants upon this celebrated trial declared that Toombs's manner in the courtroom was indifferent. That, while other lawyers were busy taking notes, he seemed to sit a listless spectator, rolling his head from side to side, oblivious to evidence or proceeding. And yet, when his time came to conclude the argument, he arose with his kingly way, and so thorough was his mastery of the case, with its infinite detail, its broad ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... our return from the river, the weather clouded, but afterwards cleared up with a change of wind from the South-East, which, from its heat, and from the listless sensations it caused, resembled the hot land-wind of Port Jackson: this seems to afford additional ground for the hypothesis that the interior of this immense island is occupied by vast ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... yourself?" Flint asked, partly from listless curiosity, and partly with an eye to ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... facility, equally delighted with the sturdy Plutarch. His nature was passionate and inconstant, his sensibilities morbidly acute, and his imagination lively. He hated all rules, precedents, and authority. He was lazy, listless, deceitful, and had a great craving for novelties and excitement,—as he himself says, "feeling everything and knowing nothing." At an early age, without money or friends, he ran away from the engraver to whom ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... previous day he was exhausted and listless, and spoke unwillingly. His fingers twitched, and from his face it could be seen that he ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... death shocked me very much, and I felt very certain that he was himself aware of his own condition. I observed, during my intercourse with him latterly, a listless melancholy in his manner, a circumstance that puzzled me a good deal in contrast with his powerful frame, and vigorous appearance, and blunt, offhand manner. I think I understand now, and can compassionate certain expressions in his last note to me, which, when I received it, ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... cloven, for one blinding instant, by the levin-fires of Hell. He knows thenceforward what he will do, as he walks with the pale Chaplain between the shell-torn houses, and along the littered streets, where men and women and children, thin and haggard and listless with hunger, and the deadly inertia of long confinement, pass and repass as indifferently as though no guns were battering and growling from the low grey hills south and east, and the incessant rattle of rifle-fire were the ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... animal in my nature. I felt sure I could never tell that woman that I loved her, or that she pleased me, or even that she was beautiful; there was nothing on my lips but a desire to kiss her, and say to her: "Make a girdle of those listless arms and lean that head on my breast; place that sweet smile on my lips." My body loved hers; I was under the influence of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... worked by men they will be liable to the imperfections belonging to all things human. Though their machinery may be perfect and their organisation as complete as skill and forethought can make it, workmen will at times be forgetful and listless; and a moment's carelessness may lead to the most disastrous results. Yet, taking all circumstances into account, the wonder is, that travelling by railway at high speed should have been rendered ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... 30. I have been so lazy and negligent these last four days, that I could not write to MD. My head is not in order, and yet it is not absolutely ill, but giddyish, and makes me listless; I walk every day, and hope I shall grow better. I wish I were with MD; I long for spring and good weather, and then I will come over. My riding in Ireland keeps me well. I am very temperate, and eat of the easiest meats as I am directed, and hope the malignity will go off; ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... by auditing or narrating anecdotes, discussing policy, or detraction; and in case it be summer, and the day of a fine texture, they scatter themselves into little crowds on the chapel-green, or lie at their length upon the grass in listless groups, giving ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... Most of the tram-lines were running, and the metro gave full service until eleven at night, employing many young women as conductors—and they made neat, capable workers. Many of the shops, especially along the boulevards, were open for a listless business, although the shutters were often up, with the little sign on them announcing that the place was closed because the patron was mobilized. And there was a steady stream of people on the sidewalks of all main thoroughfares,—at least while daylight lasted, ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... surprise of all present, however, the knight thus preferred was nowhere to be found. He had left the lists immediately when the conflict ceased, and had been observed by some spectators to move down one of the forest glades with the same slow pace and listless and indifferent manner which had procured him the epithet of the Black Sluggard.[87-17] After he had been summoned twice by sound of trumpet and proclamation of the heralds, it became necessary to name another ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... and flirt in our listless style While the waltzes dream in the drill-room arch, What would we do if the order came, Sudden and sharp—"Let the Seventh march!" Why, we'd faint, of course; our cheeks would pale; Our knees would tremble, our fears—but stay, That order I think has come ere this To those ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.
... with mossy brink Where the cattle came to drink. They trilled and piped and whistled With the thrush and bobolink, Till the kine in listless pause, Switched their tails in mute applause, With lifted heads and dreamy eyes, ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... A rich and listless lady patron examined the handbags in a leading jeweler's shop in New York City. The clerk exhibited one bag five inches square, made of platinum and with one side almost covered with a setting of diamonds. This was offered at ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... against its resonant sides. Bees seemed less and less numerous. An air of idleness, almost dissoluteness and despair, brooded over some of the hives. The strong robbed the weak; and the weak contented themselves with gathering in listless groups, murmuring plaintively. If the hives were inquiringly tapped, instead of a furious and instant alarm and angry outpouring of excited and wrathful citizens, eager to sacrifice themselves in the ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... dropped his spade. He tumbled down beside it, and lay fast asleep. One after the other each of the troop dropped his pickaxe or shovel from his listless hands, and lay fast asleep ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... in," her cousin advised, but the light of battle had died out of his eyes, leaving them listless. "It's nothing to me. I only came to ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... that the house was not likely to get much backing-up in its new efforts from Felgate, looked likely enough to be fulfilled. While everyone else was full of athletic and scholastic fervour, he remained listless and even sulky. Some said it was because Ainger had proposed the great scheme, and Felgate disdained to play second riddle even to the captain. Others said it was because he could not win anything even if he tried. Others darkly hinted that he was one of the authors of the house's present ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... dreamed of lands afar where they might find that liberty for which their souls thirsted as the hart for the water-brook. Far from their native country, without the blessings of the Church, or the warmth of substantial friendship, they fell into a listless condition, a somnolence that led them to stagger against some of the regulations of the Province. Their wandering was not inspired by any subjective, inherent, generic evil: it was but the tossing of a weary, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... any consciousness that we were doing for him more than might under the circumstances be expected. His glance seemed sometimes to bespeak puzzled thoughts. But he accepted all our ministrations and labors with either the listless indifference of a man ill unto death, or the composure of an aristocrat who took personal service ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... same eagerness noticeable which used to boast openly that its rewards consisted in the consciousness of work well done. Instead, idleness became the badge of gentility, and trade a slur upon a man's reputation. No city can long survive so listless and languid an ideal. The Archbishop, therefore, denounced this new method of usurious traffic, and hinted further that to it was due the fierce rebellion which had for a while plunged Florence into the horrors of the Jacquerie. Wealth, he taught, should not of itself breed wealth, but only ...
— Mediaeval Socialism • Bede Jarrett
... with polished accuracy. His only object seems to be to stimulate himself and his readers for the moment—to keep both alive, to drive away ennui, to substitute a feverish and irritable state of excitement for listless indolence or even calm enjoyment. For this purpose he pitches on any subject at random without much thought or delicacy—he is only impatient to begin—and takes care to adorn and enrich it as he proceeds with "thoughts that breathe and words that burn." He composes (as he himself has said) whether ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... currents of the world, he might forget that there existed other and more pressing interests than that of art. But, in such a place, it was hardly possible to write; he could not drug his conscience, like the painter, by the production of listless studies; he saw himself idle among many who were apparently, and some who were really, employed; and what with the impulse of increasing health and the continual provocation of romantic scenes, ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... broken, and the conversation started afresh. But the girl who had passed the Yorkshire relish sat silent and listless, her food untouched, and her wine untasted. She was small and thin; her face looked haggard. She was a new-comer, and had, indeed, arrived at Petershof only two hours before the table-d'hote bell rang. But there did not seem to be any ...
— Ships That Pass In The Night • Beatrice Harraden
... author Hyrummetricus. The Professors of this Science [of land surveying] are honoured with a more earnest attention than falls to the lot of any other philosophers. Arithmetic, Theoretical Geometry, Astronomy, and Music are discoursed upon to listless audiences, sometimes to empty benches. But the land surveyor is like a judge; the deserted fields become his forum, crowded with eager spectators. You would fancy him a madman when you see him walking along the most devious paths. But in truth he is seeking for the traces ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... She loathes the listless strain And peril of his plight. Beseeching Heaven to send him home again, She ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... to have been blotted out in that whirlpool, for she only bowed her head formally, and gave no look of recognition, though she, too, allowed Berenger to salute her listless, dejected hand. 'One would hardly have known him again, continued the King, in a low husky voice; 'but I hope, sir, ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... masters are like children, from the constant waiting upon that they receive. One would think, where one class does all the thinking and the other all the working, that masters would be active thinkers and slaves ready workers; but neither result seems to happen—both are listless ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... open gate in the wall at the back, into the gardens behind the house. There was not much in the way of flowers to look at, but he moved about quite unconscious of any deprivation. A cluster of greenhouses, massed against the southern side of the mansion, attracted his listless fancy, and he walked toward what appeared to be an entrance to them. The door was locked, but he found another further on which opened to his hand. The air was very hot and moist inside, and the place was so filled with broad-leaved, umbrageous ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... interest. A couple of traveling men, waiting for the early morning train, were playing a listless game of billiards at one of the tables; a pair of Jap sugar-beet workers and a negro section hand sat half-asleep and leaned against the wall; "Red" Jackson, Sabota's chief lieutenant, with an air of utter boredom, lounged behind the soft-drink ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... the little hand that was not engaged with the book and lay abandoned, outstretched, listless and shining on her knee. Solomon's needle snapped. She frowned and roused herself heavily to secure another from the basket on the floor at her side. Miriam, flashing hatred at her, caught Fraulein's fascinating gaze fixed on Ulrica; ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... tell, and conversation flagged and finally died out utterly. The squeak-squeaking of the saddles grew very distinct; occasionally somebody sighed, or started to hum a tune and gave it up; now and then a horse sneezed. These things only emphasised the solemnity and the stillness. Everybody got so listless that for once I and my dreamer found ourselves in the lead. It was a glad, new sensation, and I longed to keep the place forevermore. Every little stir in the dingy cavalcade behind made me nervous. Davis and I were riding side by side, right after the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Yet, indeed, In current Gallic light not hard to read. Woman, with angel-wings, and mournful face, What are the plans those listless fingers trace? What are the visions those fixed eyes survey? The War-dog fierce lies couchant in your way. The instruments of Art are scattered round. Mistress of charm in form, in tint, in sound, Of engineering might, mechanic skill, That ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 29, 1893 • Various
... looks clost you observes a brace of bucks, and each packin' a black-snake whip. Them's kettle-tenders,—floor managin' the baile they be; an' if a buck who's dancin' gets preeoccupied with thinkin' of something else an' takes to prancin' an' dancin' listless, the way the kettle-tenders pours the leather into him to remind him his fits of abstraction is bad form, is like a religious ceremony. An' it ain't no bad idee; said kettle-tenders shore promotes what Colonel Sterett calls the elan of the dancin' ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... she asked; but her tone was listless, apathetic, as of one who though uttering a question is incurious as to what the answer ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... limbs were lean; his scattered hair, Sered by the autumn of strange suffering, Sung dirges in the wind: his listless hand Hung like dead bone within his withered skin; Life, and the lustre that consumed it, shone As in a furnace burning secretly From ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... shadow of disappointment crept over the face that had been so eager. Something was lacking. Everything was in the remembered order, but it did not seem the same. She studied it for a minute or two, then walked away and sat down on a sunny doorstep. The mother found her there a little later, a listless, quiet ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various
... careful attention I bestowed upon this production. It was a very modest attempt,—a bit of landscape, with two horses grazing and a man at work in the foreground. Quiet in tone, and half-concealed by the shaded casement, it was only by degrees, and to ward off the ennui of a listless half-hour, that I gradually became absorbed in its examination. There were some masterly lines, clever arrangement, a true feeling, and a peculiar delicacy of treatment, that implied the hand of a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... at the door, and looked with listless inquiry into the face of the Minister of Marine, who, picking up an official paper from his table, ran an eye down it, marked a point with the sharp corner of his snuff-box, and handed it over to his ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... shadows, pierced here and there by the spiked helmets of pines. There was no trace of habitation, yet the voices were those of some monotonous occupation, and Lance distinctly heard through them the click of crockery and the ring of some household utensil. It appeared to be the interjectional, half listless, half perfunctory, domestic dialogue of an old man and a girl, of which the words were unintelligible. Their voices indicated the solitude of the mountain, but without sadness; they were mysterious without being awe-inspiring. They might have uttered the dreariest commonplaces, ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... all know what it is to put out an empty hand into the darkness and the void, and to grope for a touch which we know, whilst we grope, that we shall not find. And these poor, helpless disciples, by their forlorn sense of separation, by their yearning that brought no satisfaction, by their very listless despair, were saying, during these hours of agony into which an eternity of pain was condensed, 'Oh! that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... vaguely both before and after all her calamities; she was too soft to be hurt. But by the aid (or rather under the orders) of a strenuous niece she always kept the remains of a clientele, mostly of young but listless folks. And there were actually five inmates standing disconsolately about the garden when the great gale broke at the base of the terminal tower behind them, as the sea bursts against the ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... wait-awhile flower fair, And the "some time other" scents the air, And the soft-go-easy grow? It lies in the Valley of What's-the-use, In the province of Let-her-slide. That old tired feeling is native there, It's the home of the listless I don't ...
— Rhymes of the Rookies • W. E. Christian
... burning, maddening sense of outrage had passed, and pride stood with lowered crest and listless hands, love lifted its head and tried to speak. He was not without excuse, love pleaded; his life had been miserable; his lot hard and unendurable; he had been given a stone for bread, and for wine, the waters of ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... months the border was quiet. The rangers lolled, listless, in camp. And then—bringing joy to the rusting guardians of the frontier—Sebastiano Saldar, an eminent Mexican desperado and cattle-thief, crossed the Rio Grande with his gang and began to lay waste the Texas side. There were indications ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... in mind, the Mole left him for a time and busied himself with household matters; and it was getting dark when he returned to the parlour and found the Rat where he had left him, wide awake indeed, but listless, silent, and dejected. He took one hasty glance at his eyes; found them, to his great gratification, clear and dark and brown again as before; and then sat down and tried to cheer him up and help him to relate ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... her hand into her breast, and drawing out the pass on the back of which she had written her last message to him, she thrust it between his listless fingers. It should speak for her. Then she leant over him, and watched his sleeping face, a very incarnation of infinite, despairing tenderness, and love that is deeper than the grave. And as she watched, gradually her feet and legs grew cold ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... never end, although no one took anything. In time even the fun and laughter, which had at first helped to keep the thing going, died away, and the fellows lolled back in the chairs in a listless, bored way. It was vain for me to try to lead the talk; I could not have done it even if I had had the spirit, and there was precious ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... more frequent opportunities to observe the cheerfulness, the exuberance of spirits even, of Eastern women, they would soon and more easily be convinced of the untruth of all those stories afloat about the degraded, oppressed, and listless state of their life. It is impossible to gain a true insight into the actual domesticity in a few moments' visit; and the conversation carried on, on those formal occasions, hardly deserves that name; there is barely more than the exchange of a few commonplace remarks—and it is questionable ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... and I remained with the handle of the door in my hand, gasping for breath— blinded with the tears that coursed each other rapidly down my cheeks. I remained a minute in this state, when I felt that Sarah touched my other listless hand. ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Croce, the great church, stretched forward beyond her into the distances of grey mist and cold spaces of light. Its bare vastness was damp like a vault. And she lay in the midst listless, heavy-lidded, apart, with the half-smile, as it seemed, of some secret mirth. Round her the great candles smoked and flickered, and mass was sung at the High Altar for her soul's repose. Sandro stood ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... clung about the streets like ragged grave-clothes, and at the edge of the pavement half a dozen fiacres were ranged in a melancholy line, the wretched horses dozing as they stood, the drivers huddled into their fur capes and numbed by the clinging cold. Everywhere was darkness and chill and the listless misery of a winter dawn, when vitality is at its lowest ebb and the passions of man ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... feast, and afterwards we sought our state barge and the perils of the return journey. The newly married couple came down to see us off, still bearing themselves with a preoccupied and listless air. The orchestra remained until the next day, and we threaded the water lanes in quiet, emerging at last on the full-breasted river. The home journey consumed only three hours, and was comparatively uneventful. ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... a cricket's cymbals play, A scarecrow lightly flapped his rags, And a pan that hung by his shoulder rang, Rattled and thumped in a listless way, And now the wind in the chimney sang, The wind in the chimney, The wind in the chimney, The wind in the chimney, Seemed to say:— "Dream, boy, dream, If you anywise can. To dream is the work Of beast or man. Life is the west-going ...
— Chinese Nightingale • Vachel Lindsay
... boat! The same gear! The same crew, but how different! A crew of bent heads and wearied limbs! Listless-eyed, despairing! A ghastly crew, with black care riding in the ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... pressing operations of Moses and his myrmidons. Neither the Mayor nor the corporation were to be found anywhere, nor were the keys of the principal stores forthcoming until Moses began to apply the axe. The citizens were lolling about the streets in a listless manner, and showing no great signs of discontent. They had left to their women the task of resisting the commissaries—a duty which they were fully competent to perform. No soldiers but those on duty were visible in ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... biting north-east wind did not add to the appearance of Number 29, as she stood, dejected, listless, with head drooping, in the centre of the farmers and horse-dealers who were attending the sale of cast Army horses. She looked as though she realised that her day had waned, and that the bright steel work, the soft ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... can talk a great deal better." Arline began a listless unfastening of her fluffy lingerie frock, her ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... Northern France saw with amazement the presence of a real king, and an orderly government. In 1422 King Henry died; a few weeks later Charles VI. died also, and the face of affairs began to change, although, at the first, Charles VII. the "Well-served," the lazy, listless prince, seemed to have little heart for the perils and efforts of his position. He was proclaimed King at Mehun, in Berri, for the true France for the time lay on that side of the Loire, and the Regent Bedford, who took the reins at Paris, was a vigorous and powerful prince, who ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... from the Tickle to the sea—to an outer cove, high-cliffed, frothy, sombre, with many melancholy echoes of wind and breakers and listless human voices, where is a cluster of hopeless, impoverished homes. 'Tis a wilful-minded path, lingering indolently among the hills, artful, intimate, wise with age, and most indulgently secretive of its soft discoveries. ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... experienced, that scenes through which a man has passed, improve by lying in the memory: they grow mellow. Acti labores sunt jucundi[896]. This may be owing to comparing them with present listless ease. Even harsh scenes acquire a softness by length of time[897]; and some are like very loud sounds, which do not please, or at least do not please so much, till you are removed to a certain distance. They may be compared to strong coarse pictures, which will not bear to be viewed near. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... dissatisfaction sits heavily on her, toning down to rather a too cruel a degree the bright expectancy of her face. He had said he would come, and now——She drums in a heavy-hearted listless fashion on the table with the tips of her pale gloves, and noticing, half consciously in so doing, that they have not been sufficiently drawn up her arm, mechanically fits them closer ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... to her, she would miss what they said, beg their pardon, and ask them to repeat it; and sometimes, even then, become bewildered. They tried reading to her, but she did not seem to listen, and her half-closed eye had the expression of listless dejection, that her father knew betokened that, even as last night, her heart refused to accept promises of ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... try like a good boy to get well. She told him firmly that he could, if he wanted to. She made her suggestions with gently persuasive voice, coloring all she said with the warmth of a heart peculiarly open to the unknown needs of the listless child. To those unknown needs she opened wide her spirit, crying within ...
— Old Mr. Wiley • Fanny Greye La Spina
... distance in front of the whole, marched the individual, who, by his position and air, appeared to be the leader of the band. He was a tall, sun-burnt, man, past the middle age, of a dull countenance and listless manner. His frame appeared loose and flexible; but it was vast, and in reality of prodigious power. It was, only at moments, however, as some slight impediment opposed itself to his loitering progress, that his person, which, in its ordinary gait seemed ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... a plentiful application of spring water, with a quantum sufficit of soap. The whole scene was depressing; for it argued, at the first glance, at least a stagnation of industry, and perhaps of intellect. Even curiosity, the busiest passion of the idle, seemed of a listless cast in the village of Tully-Veolan: the curs aforesaid alone showed any part of its activity; with the villagers it was passive. They stood, and gazed at the handsome young officer and his attendant, but without any of those quick motions and eager looks that indicate the earnestness with ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... an artist in travel, wishing to provide them with delicious memories, while they were English and omnivorous of facts and scenes. When he learnt from various rebuffs that they would not confide themselves to him, he lost all pleasure in the tour. It was a listless and disgusted upper servant, most unlike the man I knew, whom I found in gorgeous raiment sitting by the cook's fire in the gardens of Damascus, which were then a ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
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