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verb
Busy  v. t.  (past & past part. busied; pres. part. busying)  To make or keep busy; to employ; to engage or keep engaged; to occupy; as, to busy one's self with books. "Be it thy course to busy giddy minds With foreign quarrels."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Busy" Quotes from Famous Books



... Stephenson, now grown a man, is thus busy with his primer, his copy-book, and "four rules," let us reflect upon the uncanny circumstances of his early life. He had no luxuries, few real comforts. The people around him lived half the time underground in mines that were dark, damp, and dangerous—in constant war with ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various

... British hands would be a source of grave danger. The easy capture of Fort Ticonderoga led him to underrate difficulties. If Ticonderoga why not Quebec? Nova Scotia might be occupied later, the Acadians helping. Thus it happened that, soon after taking over the command, Washington was busy with a plan for the conquest of Canada. Two forces were to advance into that country; one by way of Lake Champlain under General Schuyler and the other through the forests of ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong

... for had come, but it was too late. Forty years he had passed in public life and he could not now take up again the interests and occupations of his youth. Agriculture had no more charms for him; he was too infirm for sport; he could not, like his father, pass his old age in the busy indolence of a country gentleman's life, nor could he, as some statesmen have done, soothe his declining years by harmless and amiable literary dilettanteism. His religion was not of that complexion that he could find ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam

... dear friend? I have long expected you. You cannot imagine the pleasure it gives me to meet you at home. I have watched your peregrinations in the busy, tiresome world with much interest. Sit down, sit down; take a chair,’ and he ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... wipe his hands on her bosom; a thousand dinars it cost me, too. I was chosen priest of Augustus without paying the fee, and I hope that I won't need to blush in my grave after I'm dead. But you're so busy that you can't look behind you; you can spot a louse on someone else, all right, but you can't see the tick on yourself. You're the only one that thinks we're so funny; look at your professor, he's older than you are, and ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... Irregulars, who come pouring out of Glatz Country; disturbing the Prussian posts towards that quarter; and do not let us want for Small War (KLEINE KRIEG) so called. General Browne, it appears, is got back to Glatz at this early season, he and a General Lentulus busy there; and these are the compliments they send! A very troublesome set of fellows, infesting one's purlieus in winged predatory fashion; swooping down like a cloud of vulturous harpies on the sudden; fierce enough, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... Florence: can Pisa then be secure? Flanders can be no safe road; and is any part of France so? I told you in my last of the horrors at Avignon. At Madrid the people are riotous against the war with us, and prosecuted I am persuaded it will not be; but the demon of Gaul is busy every where. The Etats, who are as foolish as atrocious, have printed lists of the surnames which the late noblesse are to assume or resume; as if people did not know their own names. I like a speech I have heard of the Queen. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... whole and entire truth. It falls out often, that when we think of delivery from death and wrath, we forget in the mean time the end and purpose of that, which is, that we may be freed from sin, and serve the living God without fear. And if at any time we consider, and busy our thoughts about freedom from the law of sin, and victory over corruption, such is the scantiness of room and capacity in our spirits, that we lose the remembrance of delivery from death and condemnation in Christ Jesus. Thus we are tossed between two extremes,—the ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... not to be supposed that the Joei Shikimoku represents the whole outcome of Kamakura legislation. Many additions were made to the code during the fourteenth century, but they were all in the nature of amplifications or modifications. Kyoto also was busy with enactments in those times—busier, indeed, than Kamakura, but with ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... The sky is cloudless, and the water sparkles like the top of a glass of champagne. We intend by and by to sit down and look at it for half a day, basking in the sunshine and pleasing ourselves with the shifting and dancing of the waves. Now we are busy running about from side to side to see the islands, Governor's, Castle, Long, Deer, and the others. When, at length, we find Fort Warren, it is not nearly so grim and gloomy as we had expected, and is rather a pleasure-place than ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... Woman should go: So Caesar, the Fisherman, and the rest, hiding behind some thick Reeds and Flowers that grew in the Banks, let us pass on towards the Town, which was on the Bank of the River all along. A little distant from the Houses, or Huts, we saw some dancing, others busy'd in fetching and carrying of Water from the River. They had no sooner spy'd us, but they set up a loud Cry, that frighted us at first; we thought it had been for those that should kill us, but it seems it was of Wonder and Amazement. They were all naked; and we were dress'd, so as is most commode ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... time to run down to the dock again, and your father is busy there. A big load of fish came in, and he has to see that they get iced, so they won't spoil. Hurry and tell your mother—Oh, here she comes now!" exclaimed Bunker Blue, as Mrs. Brown came to the door. Sue and Sadie West stood ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue and Their Shetland Pony • Laura Lee Hope

... answered Dave, who well knew what a fondness for his sister the senator's son possessed. "But, as you know, Roger had to go home on a business matter for his father. Senator Morr is very busy in Washington these days, so Roger has to take care of quite a ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer

... is not monotonous, though there is a sameness in its character, for the lines in that crystal air are always changing, and day after day the panorama unrolls, with its fields of waving tobacco and blossoming cotton, where workers are lazily busy. ...
— Harper's Young People, January 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... tell exactly; but my corner is a good stand, and I am busy doing errands nearly all day. I suppose I make from ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau

... quite destroy a picture of Mirabelle, walking down the aisle out of step to the wedding march. Her arms were loaded with exotic flowers, of which each petal was a crisp yellow bank-bill. He wanted to laugh, he wanted to snort in deprecation, and he did neither. He was too busy with the consciousness that at last he was in a position to capitalize his information. He knew what nobody else did, outside of Henry and his wife, Mirabelle, Mr. Archer and probably Judge Barklay and if he flung himself into the ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall

... see the new moon with full hands, that is, with busy hands, you will be busy, full of work, all the ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various

... true of Miss Burton. With admirable tact, with a tireless patience, and an energy out of proportion in one so fragile, she kept herself quietly and unobtrusively busy among the miscellaneous people of the house. Her charity was wide enough for all. Wherever she could discover gloom, despondency, dulness, or pain, there she tried to shine like a sunbeam, as if that ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... got up early and had sunshine with me when I strolled through the Claddagh. I saw no extreme poverty there. Most of the houses were neatly whitewashed; all were superior to the huts among the ruins at Athenry. The people were very busy, very comfortably clothed, and, in a way, well-to-do looking. Some of the houses were small and windowless, something the shape of a beehive, but not at all forlornly squalid. They make celebrated fleecy flannel here in Claddagh. They make and mend nets. They fish. I saw some ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall

... long life an' will soon be a hund'ed, I guess. I's glad dat slav'ry is over, 'cause de Bible don't say nothin' 'bout it bein right. I's a good Christian. I gits sort-a res'less mos' o' de time an' has to keep busy to keep ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Mississippi Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... but, the more the merrier - proof of prosperity. Hard by Snow Hill and Warwick Lane, you shall see the little children, inured to sights of brutality from their birth, trotting along the alleys, mingled with troops of horribly busy pigs, up to their ankles in blood - but it makes the young rascals hardy. Into the imperfect sewers of this overgrown city, you shall have the immense mass of corruption, engendered by these practices, lazily thrown out ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens

... Cuban ladies rarely stir abroad except in a vehicle, and whatever their domestic habits may be, they are certainly good housekeepers in this respect. While our ladies are busy sweeping the city sidewalks with their trailing dresses, these wisely leave that business to the gangs of criminals detailed from prison to fill that office, with their limbs chained and a heavy ball ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... themselves to be. John Pope was perhaps his worst instance. An incompetent general, he was capable of things still less excusable. Just after McClellan had so tragically failed in the Seven Days, when Lincoln was at the front, Pope was busy with the Committee, assuring them virtually that the war had been won in the West, and that only McClellan's bungling had saved the Confederacy from speedy death.(7) But somehow Lincoln trusted him, and continued to trust him even after he had proved ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... contretemps; intrusion; anachronism &c 115. bad time, wrong time, inappropriate time, not the right occasion, unsuitable time, inopportune time, poor timing. V. be ill timed &c adj.; mistime, intrude, come amiss, break in upon; have other fish to fry; be busy, be occupied. lose an opportunity, throw away an opportunity, waste an opportunity, neglect an opportunity &c 460; allow the opportunity to pass, suffer the opportunity to pass, allow the opportunity to slip, suffer the opportunity to slip, allow the opportunity to go by, suffer ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... being busy at that moment unsaddling his horse, which he hobbled and turned to graze. He came over to the fire where Mackenzie was baking biscuits in a tilted pan, and sat down, dusty from ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden

... see a new steel process," she wrote; "the Duplex, with immense tilting furnaces and the Bessemer blast. I know a great deal about iron now; far more than a Howat Penny who should be an authority. Jim is frightfully busy, but lately he has been able to sleep after the night shift, which makes it better for every one. He is one of the best men here, and that comes from the Works, and the reorganization is slowly but surely progressing, and we are progressing with ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... I'd rather have one good steady voice purring along for him, and then I know he's all right. Carolyn has been too busy lately. What seems to ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller

... Though kept busy as a bee from morning to night, yet General Putnam found life in New York irksome, and was glad enough when ordered by Washington over to Long Island, to command at Brooklyn Heights and to supersede Sullivan, who had superseded Greene, then sick with ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober

... part, I said nothing either. I knew the man too well to bother him with questions or the weather, and so took a seat and a cigarette. Presently the three others turned up and after that we spent a comfortable and busy hour at dinner. ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson

... that have made to my knowledge the bravest boasting and the loudest puffing (though of this I am loth to speak, never having had a stomach for the work), the writings often perish neglectfully and nothing said, some, writing afar in quiet places removed from the busy rabblement of towns, not seldom steer their course to fame and riches, whereof, thanks be to Heaven, I never yet had covetousness, deeming theirs the happier lot to whom a dry crust with haply a slice of our good country cheese and a draught of the foaming cider bring contentment. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 23, 1891 • Various

... passes on. O it hurts one to have a fellow Christian ask in the quiet evening at her own house, "Would you object to our bringing out the cards?"—"I could not touch them," was all the answer, and the drawer stayed shut. But I wish a Nonconformist Church could rise up in these days. We are so busy calling ourselves Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, that we seem to forget the old far-better name which should include all. In the war it was only loyal or disloyal: and New York was proud of the Wisconsin boys that were all six feet two; and Ohio wept for those of Massachusetts ...
— Tired Church Members • Anne Warner

... improvement, they see not the wide fields, waving fair with grass and wheat, but think it was better when the dense forest shut out the breeze and reflected the sunbeams down with greater strength on the corn, so dearly loved by the American. They hear not the sound of the busy mill when they mourn for the fish-deserted brooks, and forget that when moose meat was more plentiful than now bread stuffs were ground in the wearying hand-mill. One of this respectable class of grumblers was our present acquaintance, and here ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan

... cheerily, and turning my back on my precious grandson, called Josephine's attention to the beauties of the landscape in a series of philosophic utterances. As for Winona herself, she was Spartan enough to restore the little lad to his baby-carriage, and to busy herself in reflecting whether the spot of blood on her robin's-egg blue morning wrapper would wash out. Within three minutes more Master Baby had ceased to sob, and was playing contentedly again with the rustling autumn leaves, when the regular practitioner ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant

... in the consciousness of her appropriateness to such a setting as Kingdon Hall were only momentary, and many of those busy hours of work were interspersed with lonely fits of weeping, when even Nora was excluded from her mistress's room. The good creature, who had never been burdened with mentality, went steadily on with her work and asked no questions; yet it was not unknown to her that Bettina's unhappiness depended ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder

... of public affairs, are the principal subjects of history; but the number of persons interested in these busy scenes is very different, according to the different condition of mankind. In great monarchies, millions of obedient subjects pursue their useful occupations in peace and obscurity. The attention of the writer, as well as of the reader, is solely confined to a court, a capital, a regular army, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... of pegging at it with despatch-pens, as nearly all our chiefs have been doing, approved and began to follow the example set. This is the only way to act when the time for action comes in the East, and the net result is that we have been unendingly busy. There have been expeditions, raids, and native Christians pouring in and demanding sanctuary within our lines. One story is worth telling, as showing how we are ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale

... the sunshine was falling upon the fields of maize, when the wind was busy setting their ribbon-like leaves flapping, and rocking the tree-tops, Ephraim Croom was disturbed in his private room by ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall

... was laughing when he began to pitch odd screws and bolts at your car—he was never angry for a moment, just playing, as you were. But she was all excited over losing; when she saw he had both hands busy and you were forcing them back again, she snatched something out of the open box Corrie had got the bolts from and threw it at you, herself. She didn't know what she had thrown or done, until she saw you fall stunned across your steering-wheel ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram

... at Frankfort may seem, it marks the first open appearance of English Puritanism, and the beginning of a struggle which widened through the reign of Elizabeth till under the Stuarts it broke England in pieces. But busy as they were in strife among themselves, the exiles were still more busy in fanning the discontent at home. Books, pamphlets, broadsides, were written and sent for distribution to England. The violence of their language was incredible. No sooner had Bonner issued his injunctions ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green

... keep it. By-and-by it was found so troublesome to send out for it, and so hard to come by even then, that people left off selling it at all, and if any one wanted it he must think it out at home as best he could; this was troublesome, so by common consent the world decided no longer to busy itself with the continued personality of successive generations—which was all very well until it also decided to busy itself with the theory of descent with modification. On the introduction of a foe so inimical to many of our pre-existing ideas the ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler

... more wretched than he had ever felt in his life. He had a severe cold. He had a splitting headache. His hands and feet were frozen. His eyes smarted. He was hungry. He was thirsty. He hated cheerful M. Feriaud, who had hopped out and was now busy tinkering the engine, a gay Provencal air upon his lips, as he had rarely hated any one, even Muriel ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill

... a reply, there came a sharp gasp from the other end of the line, a wailing cry and a thud as of a falling body; then silence. All efforts to raise Leland's number merely resulted in "busy" or ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various

... rifles cracked in a steady drum-fire. Every man and boy who could raise a muzzle aimed and fired and aimed and fired again. Every woman was busy—running bullets, filling powder flasks, loading rifles and leaning them ready for the eager, groping hands, and serving ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin

... bold glance darted across at the Electoral pair; they were busy talking and eating; nobody was ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... nettles, nay, the very goose-grass which covers waste places, is cut up and taken for the cows. You see the little children standing in the streets of the villages, in the streams which generally run down them, busy washing these weeds before they are given to the cattle. They carefully collect the leaves of the marsh-grass, carefully cut their potato tops for them, and even, if other things fail, gather green leaves from the woodlands. One can not help thinking continually of the enormous waste ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... without a word, working intently, swiftly, dexterously. At first the head nurse was too busy in handling bowls and holding instruments to think, even professionally, of the operation. The interne, however, gazed in admiration, emitting exclamations of delight as the surgeon rapidly took one step after another. Then he was sent for something, and the head nurse, her chief duties ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... Septimius Severus, when, scarcely allowing himself time for sleep or food, marching on foot and in complete armour, he crossed the Alps at the head of his columns to punish the wretched Didius Julianus and to avenge Pertinax. It was there in 238 that Pupienus was busy assembling his army to oppose Maximin when he received the news of the death of his enemy ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton

... attack, Kenneth stammered: "Why, I—er—I have been very busy." Not laid eyes on him, indeed! What was her game? "Now that I come to think of it," he went on, recovering himself, "it is fully a week since I've seen you. Don't you ever come down ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon

... Meanwhile Ben was as busy as myself in making the ascent. He had resigned his hold of me, as soon as he perceived that I caught the branch; and was now using all his energies, and all his craft too, to get out of the way of the lion. Unfortunately the limbs ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid

... the time when I could take my horse to Horncastle Fair and sell him, I settled at a busy inn on the high-road, where, in return for board and lodging for myself and horse, I had to supervise the distribution of hay and corn in the stables, and to keep an account thereof. The old ostler, with whom I was soon on excellent terms, was a regular ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... all these operations had been a busy, although not a very dangerous one. The only share he had taken in the active fighting had been in the battle at Malavilly, where, having been sent with a message to Colonel Floyd, just before he led the cavalry to the assault of the column that had attacked ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty

... as much a stranger in it, in my thoughts, as I was in the Brazils, when I first went on shore there; and as much alone, except for the assistance of servants, as I was in my island. I knew neither what to think nor what to do. I saw the world busy around me: one part labouring for bread, another part squandering in vile excesses or empty pleasures, but equally miserable because the end they proposed still fled from them; for the men of pleasure every day surfeited ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... While the fire was busy heating the water, he was busier preparing a bottle for baby—making a hole through the cork of a phial, putting the broken stem of a clean tobacco pipe he had found in the street through the hole, tying a small lump of cotton wool over the end of the pipe- stem, and covering that with ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald

... prosecuted. Under this view of the right of suffrage such person cannot fail to see there has been unauthorized interference by the United States, with the duties and rights of the State of New York. And while Uncle Sam was thus busy last winter over the prosecution of women citizens of the State of New York, the State itself submitted in its Legislature, a resolution looking towards the recognition by the State of the right of tax-paying ...
— An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony • Anonymous

... Richardson of being long! You must have forgotten how much trouble, pains, busy movement, it costs to bring the smallest undertaking to a good issue,—to end a suit, to settle a marriage, to bring about a reconciliation. Think of these details what you please, but for me they will be full of interest if they are only true, if they bring out the passions, ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley

... We then noticed that he was holding his shoulders in a curious manner, and realized that his arms were bound with his own belt. The two soldiers pushed him into an inner room, but the officials were busy, so he ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon

... I wish euen in true and honest zeale to my Countrey, that we were all perswaded that there is no such assured meanes for the safetie of our estate, as to busy him with a well furnished armie in Spaine, which hath so many goodly Bayes open, as we may land without impeachment as many men as shall be needfull for such an inuasion. And hauing an armie of 20000 roially ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt

... talking and disputing, the one compelled to be idle, the other stitching away as fast as he talked. They seemed as if they had never missed Sylvia; no more did her mother for that matter, for she was busy and absorbed in her afternoon dairy-work to all appearance. But Sylvia had noted the watching not three minutes before, and many a time in her after life, when no one cared much for her out-goings and in-comings, the straight, upright figure of her mother, fronting the setting sun, ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell

... brushing was finished to the regret of the servants, who had kept an amused eye on Antonio's performance, while pretending to be busy on some trivial tasks near the Patio or court. In her own room, the Senorita was faint with laughter as she watched Antonio dusting the two ...
— Frontier Boys on the Coast - or in the Pirate's Power • Capt. Wyn Roosevelt

... the most memorable incidents in Charlemagne's career are connected with Italy. While he was busy in the Saxon war, he had been summoned to protect Pope Hadrian I. (772-795) from the attack of the Lombards. To please his mother, Charles had married, but he had afterwards divorced, the daughter of the Lombard king ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... the corner, trying to seem busy doing nothing, noticed the stranger's approach with gathering interest. "That's an odd sort of a walk of yours, young man," thought the constable. "You take care you don't fall down ...
— Passing of the Third Floor Back • Jerome K. Jerome

... papa passed right by me when I was sitting with my back to the fire and stitching away on his book-mark without my once seeing him! But he was so busy talking to mamma that he never saw what I was doing, and I huddled it under a newspaper before he came back again. Well, I have got papa's present done, but I cannot keep out of mamma's way. Matty, dear, if I will sit in the sun and ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale

... and the benefit of his colliers were what engrossed his mind; and with his sister to render his home happy, everything else was secondary. When it did occur to him to think of love, it was for Theodora; but he had no more time for such thoughts than most other busy practical men. ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... had sent their bird arrows showering down among the birds, and were busy placing the killed ones together in the kayaks. And then suddenly a kayak came in sight on the sunny side. And when that stranger came nearer, they looked eagerly to see who it might be. And when Kiliteraq came nearer—for it was Kiliteraq ...
— Eskimo Folktales • Unknown

... a stupid smile, unconscious that he was smiling, or that he had been asked a question. The whole of the previous night he had spent tossing about and groaning, and poor Nina Alexandrovna had been busy making cold compresses and warm fomentations and so on, without being very clear how to apply them. He had fallen asleep after a while, but not for long, and had awaked in a state of violent hypochondria which had ended in his quarrel with Hippolyte, and the solemn cursing of ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... painful endeavors, these midnight vigils, these weary studies, before which heart and flesh are failing? What have I gained? I have pushed my researches wide and far; my life has been one long and weary lesson; I have shut out from me the busy and beautiful world; I have chastened every youthful impulse; and at an age when the heart should be lightest and the pulse the freest, I am grave and silent and sorrowful,' and the frost of a premature age is gathering around my heart. Amidst these ponderous ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... advantage of such a plan was so obvious that it was at once adopted. The porters and servants wore the queen's livery; and all notices of the regulations to be observed were signed "In the queen's name.[1]" Yet so busy were her enemies at this time, that even this simple arrangement, devised solely for the benefit of the people who were intimately concerned in every thing that tended to diminish the royal expenditure, gave rise ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... The singular formation of the rocks, their rich and varied colors, and the strange manner in which Nature has grouped them together, afford an endless variety of interesting studies. The utter isolation of the inhabitants from the busy world, their rude and primitive mode of life, their simplicity, hardihood, and daring; the rigors of climate to which they are subject, and their strong attachment to their sea-girt homes and perilous pursuits, render the trip interesting ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... that night, and a dream, in which I did the deed over again. For a time my mind was busy with thoughts of confessing to the police, and of giving myself up. If I had not belonged to a respectable family, I should have done it. From generation to generation there had been no stain on our good ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins

... half-scattered senses came back to her, and with them a reticence she would not break. The countess-dowager hardly knew whether she deserved pitying or shaking, and went off in a fit of exasperation, breaking in upon her son-in-law as he was busy looking over ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... years of my life, therefore, I had been my own care, my own and only friend, and oftentimes my own—but not only—enemy. Occasionally my father chatted with me, but that was mostly when I was in good humour, and would not let him get an insight into the secret workings of my busy little heart. But, even supposing I had, with a child's instinctive confidence in its parent, gone to him in my lonely hours, and thrown my hands convulsively about his neck, to tell my tale of trifling woes, what ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... take physical exercise or busy themselves with public services or functions, others apply themselves to reading. Leaving these studies all are devoted to the more abstruse subjects, to mathematics, to medicine, and to other sciences. There is continual debate and studied argument amongst them, and after a time they ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... one single note of passion's fugue.... Just consider. I don't spend my nights supping with ladies of the theatre; but we all know what an actress is. It is an animal generally agreeable to see and hear, always badly brought up, spoilt first by poverty and afterwards by luxury. Very busy into the bargain, which makes her as unromantic as anybody can well be. Something like a concierge turned princess, and combining the petty spite of the porter's lodge with the caprices of the boudoir and the fagged nerves ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France

... on day after day, meeting with various adventures, and apparently with narrow escapes. At one time a shoe was off from the horse's foot, and the king stopped at a blacksmith's to have it replaced. While the smith was busy at the work, the king, standing by, asked him what news. "No news," said the smith, "that I know of, since the grand news of beating the rogues, the Scots, at Worcester." The king asked if any of the English officers who were with the Scots had been taken since the battle. "Some had been captured," ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott

... as if nothing had happened. I returned to the Commandant's, and seated myself as usual near Marie. Her father was absent and her mother busy with household duties. We spoke in subdued tones. Marie reproached me gently for the pain my quarrel with Alexis gave her. "My heart failed me," she said, "when I heard you were going to fight with swords. How strange men ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin

... bought in town that day, and Appleman had no difficulty in giving reasons for the lateness of his home-coming. Next day, though, he was a busy man. By the exercise of main strength, and the leverage afforded with a strong ironwood handspike, he succeeded in rolling both those barrels into the cave and uptilting them, and leaving them standing high and dry. The cave was as dry as a bone. He noted ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo

... a lovely month. The men were busy in the hills. She wandered, extending her range. Sometimes with a strange fear. But it was a fear of the elements rather than of man. One day she went along the high-road with her letters, towards the village of Casa Latina. The high-road was depressing, ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence

... debauchery as to neglect the work of murder. It was his boast that, even during his hours of recreation, he cut out work for the Revolutionary Tribunal. To those who expressed a fear that his exertions would hurt his health, he gaily answered that he was less busy than they thought. "The guillotine," he said, "does all; the guillotine governs." For ourselves, we are much more disposed to look indulgently on the pleasures which he allowed to himself than on the pain which he inflicted ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... enough to admit an old beaver; and in this manner proceed till they have found out all their places of retreat, or at least as many of them as possible. While the principal men are thus employed, some of the under-strappers and the women are busy in breaking open the house—which at times is no easy task, for I have frequently known these houses to be five or six feet thick; and one, in particular, was more than eight feet thick in the crown. When the beavers find that their habitations are invaded, they fly to their holes ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid

... staff, and soon Harry, Dalton and the others were busy carrying orders for a great march that Jackson was about to begin. Many of these orders related to secrecy. The ranks were to be kept absolutely close and compact. If anybody straggled he was to ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler

... to remember any of these stanzas except to tell Krafft-Ebing about them when I get to Vienna." When Fisher had finished copying a verse for him Mark put it into his pocket, saying, "Livy [Mark's wife, Olivia] is so busy mispronouncing German these days she can't even attempt to get ...
— 1601 - Conversation as it was by the Social Fireside in the Time of the Tudors • Mark Twain

... and asked them all if any one could tell her of the Fairy whom she sought; but the birds looked wonderingly at her with their soft, bright eyes, and still sang on; the flowers nodded wisely on their stems, but did not speak, while butterfly and bee buzzed and fluttered away, one far too busy, the other too idle, to stay and tell her ...
— Flower Fables • Louisa May Alcott

... had now collected, and when Madame Marve dragged her husband into the tent all attention was turned upon Nickie, who cowered against the tree, his mind busy on a way out of the peculiarly unpleasant situation. Thunder was still storming inside, and presently he reappeared, and hurled an armful of shirts, boots, trousers and other human habiliments into the air. These were the belongings of ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson

... knocked, and Madame Rousseau opened the door. "Come in, gentlemen," she said, "you will find my husband." We passed through a very small antechamber, where the household utensils were neatly arranged, and from that into a room where Jean Jacques was seated in an overcoat and a white cap, busy copying music. He rose with a smiling face, offered us chairs, and resumed his work, at the same time taking a part in conversation. He was thin and of middle height. One shoulder struck me as rather higher than the other ... otherwise he was very well proportioned. He ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... it out. There ain't been any Sun-dance, which is usual 'fore they get busy. Guess it ain't no rising. Big Wolf's too clever. If it was spring round-up or fall round-up it 'ud seem more likely. Guess some feller's been and fired the woods. Which, by the way, is around Jason's farm. Say, Dan Lawson, you living that way, ain't it ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum

... found several hundreds of people of all ages, from six years old to four score, employed in the various parts of the manufacture, some spinning, some weaving, others dying the worsted, and in short all busy, singing and whistling, with the appearance of general cheerfulness, and their neat dress shewed them in a condition of ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott

... capable of taking care of herself. But her smile was spiritless and non-combative; and finally they let her alone and concentrated their torment upon Valerie, who endured it with equanimity and dangerously sparkling eyes, and an occasional lightening retort which kept those young men busy, especially when the epigram was in Latin—which hurt ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers

... creek close by, right over against the cornfield, in which, on the preceding evening, we had comfortably pitched our camp. The bugle wound an early reveille; then came the call to strike tents, though one half of the brigade was yet busy in hurried preparations for breakfast, and presently the assembly sounded. We were on the march again by the time the sun would have liked to greet us with his broad, level-thrown smile for 'good morning,' if the sky had been clear and open enough, instead of covered, as it was on ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... Carmichael twins had turned the batteries of their eyes on two solemn, faultlessly dressed subalterns, and had already reduced them to the verge of capitulation; and busy, bustling Dr. Sleeper cracked witticisms with all who offered him the fee of their attention, and the dinner went ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers

... town seemed to have been informed how devoted Hiram was to his sick mother. Nobody knew, however, of the secret of the little room adjoining, and of our hero's busy ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... trim to come into a dacent workshop, but you know necessity has no law;—it isn't my clo'es that will work, but myself; an', indeed, if you do employ me, it's not much I'll be able to do this many a day; but the truth is, if I don't get something to keep me busy, I doubt I won't be able to stand against what I feel both ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton

... friends would not willingly do us harm; but there are those who call themselves friends who do not deserve the name, who pretend to be such, but who are in reality secret enemies. But go, dearest, to your room; I am busy just now talking with Henry: he, at least, is a trusty friend. When I have done, you shall come ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne

... as we have said, with a glance of withering contempt, which caused the shrivelled frame to shake and quiver. Yet memory had been busy at his heart, when he heard her voice come softly through the curtain, as once through the green shade of the whispering woods, in his summer time of love and hope. There was a tremulous softness in his tone, a sad deprecating ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... the trees, and playing an important part in a landscape which at brief distance seems as wild and as unconscious of the presence of man as if it were a part of the wilderness of Oregon rather than the adjunct of a busy town which feels continually the stir and impulse of the huge city only a ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)

... and evidently would have liked to share in the conversation, but he was too busy drinking his tea and only nodded his head approvingly. He emptied one tumbler after another and grew warmer and warmer and more and more comfortable. The talk continued on the same subject for a long ...
— Master and Man • Leo Tolstoy

... Marie-Aimee used to say that he laughed as though he enjoyed it. Sometimes Sister Marie-Aimee was ill. Then he used to go up and see her in her room. We would see Madeleine passing with a teapot and two cups. She was red in the face and very busy. ...
— Marie Claire • Marguerite Audoux

... the cabin, and Bluewater took a seat in an arm-chair, in deep meditation. For quite half an hour the former was busy on the poop, with his two quarter-masters, going through the slow and far from easy duty of making night-signals, as they were then practised at sea. It was some time before the most distant vessel, the Dover, gave any evidence of comprehending the first order, and then the same ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... of Faith, primed with some simple and satisfying creed, will be sent out on a mission of evangelisation. At ordinary times, when the high spiritual temperature of a Crusade would be unhealthy, the Men of Faith will be quietly and earnestly busy with the great work of education. In the upbringing of the Herd, humanity's almost boundless suggestibility will be scientifically exploited. Systematically, from earliest infancy, its members will be assured that there is no happiness to be found except in work and obedience; ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley

... but did not speak. Each boy, carrying his food, turned his back upon him and moved away in the direction of the camp. When they had gone a slight distance, Jack looked back and saw the Indian bent over the carcass of the buck and busy with his knife in securing a meal for himself. A few minutes later the parties were out of sight ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis

... While busy with my professional duties I found time to amuse myself as well. My friends at the club had put my name up as a member. I was soon elected. You will doubtless smile when I tell you what happened the first time I entered the club as a full member. It had been a very hot day. A visiting ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon

... that, I will assure you, I walked all over the town yesterday, incognita, in my slippers, without receiving one spot of dirt; and you may see the Dutch maids washing the pavement of the street with more application than ours do our bed-chambers. The town seems so full of people, with such busy faces, all in motion, that I can hardly fancy that it is not some celebrated fair; but I see it is every ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas

... hand that clasps in silence the hand of the helpless and waits its time. The strong form their league by a combination of powers, driving the weak to form their own league alone with their God. I know I am crying in the wilderness when I raise the voice of warning; and while the West is busy with its organisation of a machine-made peace, it will still continue to nourish by its iniquities the underground forces of earthquake in the Eastern Continent. The West seems unconscious that Science, by providing it with ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore

... time wandering about the streets of Brussels. The animation and life of the cheerful city—where all the people except the market-women are young—pleased her. It was long since she had seen any of the cheerfulness that belongs to a busy street. She walked slowly along, up one street and down another, looking into the shops. She made two or three little purchases. She looked into a place filled with Tauchnitz Editions, and bought two or three books. She was beginning to think ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins

... restraint and endurance. As for the boy, no one could long resist the shrewd, kind youngster, who could spend an hour with the most unlikely invalid and leave him all the better for it. I was unusually busy just then, Clelie frankly hated and feared the man upstairs, my mother had her hands full, and there were many heavy and lonesome hours which Laurence set himself the task of filling. I left this to the boy himself, offering ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler

... been passed, since we met, either profitably or agreeably. A very short period after my last visit, an incident occurred with which, I fear, you are not unacquainted, as report, in many mouths and more than one paper, was busy with the topic. That, naturally, gave me much uneasiness. Then I nearly incurred a lawsuit on the sale of an estate; but that is now arranged: next—but why should I go on with a series of selfish and silly details? ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... el la gardistoj. Sxi rapide diris kelkajn vortojn al li, kaj tuj li ankaux komencis sercxi cie. Mi tre kompatis la ploreman sinjorinon, kaj kiam la policano preteriris, mi demandis cxu mi ne povas helpi. Mi diris ke mi ne estos okupata ("busy") gxis la alveno de la vagonaro. Li respondis ke la filo de tiu virino estas perdita, kaj li donis al mi la sekvantan priskribon de la infano, laux la vortoj de la patrino: la knabo estas agema brunhara ...
— A Complete Grammar of Esperanto • Ivy Kellerman

... of which I now speak, in the midsummer of the year of grace 1621, as I sat upon my doorstep, my long pipe between my teeth and my eyes upon the pallid stream below, my thoughts were busy with these matters,—so busy that I did not see a horse and rider emerge from the dimness of the forest into the cleared space before my palisade, nor knew, until his voice came up the bank, that my good friend, Master John Rolfe, was without ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston

... a personal point of view, as the results of conclusions arrived at in the course of a busy working life which has left but few intervals for the elaboration of theories apart from practice, and such as they are, these papers are now offered to the wider circle of students and workers in the arts of design as from ...
— Line and Form (1900) • Walter Crane

... you, that ye should follow us. (10)For also when we were with you, this we commanded you: If any will not work, neither let him eat. (11)For we hear of some who walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busy-bodies. (12)Now such we command, and exhort, in the Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness working, they eat their ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various

... place for Protestant worship testified to the remarkable change. The men had brought all the timber, by hand, a distance of from three to five miles, and it sometimes required thirty men to bring one piece. Women and children brought water, earth, and stones; and women were still busy in plastering the walls, so that a meeting might be held there before ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson

... Prince had started by seven o'clock to inspect a model factory near Bolton, while there was a long and busy day before them, the Queen made a little entry in her journal which will find a sorrowful echo in many a faithful heart, "This day is full of sad recollections, being the anniversary of the loss of my beloved Louise (Queen of the Belgians), that kind, ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler

... Everybody was methodically busy in one way or another behind the long rank of Legionaries who stood at the loops, the butts of the Lebel rifles ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers

... getting, though you may have sorrow packed along wi' it. Out of my way, maid; I must be busy overstairs." And old Madgy went to ply the second part of her trade, for she washed the dead as well as the newly-born; she laid coins on the eyes of the old and flannels on the limbs of the young with the same smile between her rheumy lids ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse

... the strong boxes had been bedded in sheet iron was just behind the little sanctum, where the cashier was busy. Doubtless he was balancing his books. The open front gave a glimpse of a safe of hammered iron, so enormously heavy (thanks to the science of the modern inventor) that burglars could not carry it away. The door ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... busy in relieving his country from its dependence on England, his enemies accused him of the wish to reduce it once more to Spanish tyranny. Francis Aarsens, son to him who proved himself so incorruptible when attempted ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... the Putney gardeners were busy replacing Mr. Brumley's doubtful roses by recognized sorts, ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... with mosquitoes today, also the big "bull-dog" fly, which, whenever the kitchen door was left ajar, came into the house in myriads; but we find that Keating's powder most effectually destroys them, and in a very few seconds. We have been busy making a mattress and pillow for Mr. H——, really one does not realise how clever one is until our genius is put to the test in an establishment like this. E—— and I drove up to the tent after supper with our handiwork, and had great pleasure in seeing it filled with hay. ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall

... the terms of a lease. But as regards the coal-mining industry, he "toils not, neither does he spin." I do not say that reproachfully, for he (and his number has been estimated at 4000) is doubtless a good husband, a kind father, a busy man, and a good citizen. But as regards this industry he performs no essential function beyond allowing the colliery-owners ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various

... America comes last to my mind. Wolfe Tone, a political fugitive who has served Ireland well and come through danger to safety, is busy laying the foundations of a happy and prosperous future, with a beloved wife and sister and young children to brighten his home. An estate near Princeton, New Jersey, has been all but bought, possibilities ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox

... lynching and mob violence that springs up, now in one part of our country, now in another. Each section, North, South, East, or West, has its own faults; no section can with wisdom spend its time jeering at the faults of another section; it should be busy trying to amend its own shortcomings. To deal with the crime of corruption It is necessary to have an awakened public conscience, and to supplement this by whatever legislation will add speed and certainty in the execution ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... lose, but I must do so like a man, and, above all, without giving the least suspicion that I was a greenhorn. I even affected to be listening to the music. The wheel spun again; the game was declared, the rake was busy, but I did not move. At last the man I had displaced touched me on the arm and whispered, "Better make a straddle and divide your stake this time." I did not understand him, but as I saw he was looking at the board, ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte

... few people within, most sleeping on the benches and along the floor by the walls. In the chancel there were others, masked by the lights, busy with some offices. A wave of sudden song issued from among them as Dawson and the woman entered, and gave way again to the high, nervous voice of a map that stood before the altar. All along the sides of the church ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon

... educating the spirit of a people in this respect, except by War, and that too under bold Generals. By it alone can that effeminacy of feeling be counteracted, that propensity to seek for the enjoyment of comfort, which cause degeneracy in a people rising in prosperity and immersed in an extremely busy commerce. ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz

... trust to these things," said the king. "Some enchanter may have deprived it of its power, it may be worn out, someone may have substituted a common Persian rug; anything may happen. You must learn to depend on yourself. Now, be off with you, I'm busy. And remember, you don't stir without ...
— Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia - being the adventures of Prince Prigio's son • Andrew Lang

... refuge with him. He petted her, listened to her troubles, and said he would find her friends for her. Then he put her in a state-room with his children and told them to be kind to her (the adults of his party were all busy with the wounded) ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... I'm busy," I retorted, and climbed onto the seat. It was not a diplomatic reply, I'm afraid, but I was too exhilarated by the keen morning and the spirit of adventure to stop to think of a better answer. Mifflin clucked to Peg, and off ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley

... was evidently in no way unduly elated by his success. Jack rightly thought that he had been too busy to dream of making love to the lawyer's fair daughters, attractive as one and all ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston

... had a curious sense that he was occupied only with me. It was not that he said so much directly to me or looked so much at me; I do not know how I got the feeling. There was Miss Cardigan at the head of the table busy and talking as usual, clever and kind; yet the air seemed to be breathed ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell

... into Hellas, and that the bigger states were leagued together to declare war against them. It was hard to avoid the conclusion that Sparta herself was in actual danger, and that a campaign was inevitable. While busy, therefore, with preparations themselves, they lost no time in despatching Epicydidas to fetch Agesilaus. That officer, on his arrival, explained the position of affairs, and concluded by delivering a peremptory summons of the state ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon

... grip and ignored her; she sat back, silently watching my busy activities; the calculations of the shifting conditions of gravity, pressures, temperatures; a checking of the score or more of instruments on the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various

... on, ye dead! 'Tis no rude hand disturbs your resting-place; But those who love the spot have come at length To beautify your long-neglected homes. How loud ye have been speaking to us all! But the mammon and the fading pleasures Of this busy world hath made ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent

... "They've captured a freight outfit and killed the drivers. We'll cross the river below their camp if we can." As he spoke, he was busy unlocking the handcuffs of the prisoner. To Dinsmore he gave ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine

... the mother's mouth. "Surely, I remember the day he was born as well as though it were yesterday." She sighed a little, her hands busy with the buttons of the little girl's dress, her eyes gazing dreamily through the window. "We were still in Amsterdam, in dear old Holland, with our own people. Do you remember, Jacob, how on the day when he was made a 'Son of the Covenant,' your old uncle acted as godfather ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger

... after they had spent the entire day in the saddle, he went after supper to look at one of the horses that was suffering from a cracked hock. Curtis was busy in the kitchen, and Sybil betook herself to the step to wait for her husband. She often sat in the starlight while he smoked his pipe. She knew that he liked to ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... doth mirth unfold, And every heart foregoes its cares, And hope is busy in the old; The bridal robe my sister wears, And I alone, alone am weeping; The sweet delusion mocks not me; Around these walls destruction sweeping, More near ...
— The Growth of Thought - As Affecting the Progress of Society • William Withington

... natives in great numbers: the Resolution's mast was landed, and the astronomical observatories erected on their former situation. I landed, with another gentleman, at the town of Kavaroah, where we found a great number of canoes, just arrived from different parts of the island, and the Indians busy in constructing temporary huts on the beach, for their residence during the stay of the ships. On our return on board the Discovery, we learned, that an Indian had been detected in stealing the armourer's tongs from the forge, for which he received a pretty severe flogging, and was ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis

... in the text, that when a man takes a new wife he shall stay at home at least one year to cheer and comfort her. If they propose to have children, the responsible duties of parents should be equally shared as far as possible. In a busy commercial life, fathers have but little time to guard their children against the temptations of life, or to prepare them for its struggles, and the mother educated to believe that she has no rights or duties in public affairs, can give no ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... that the consul's chief duty was to uphold the flag of his own country by the examination and certification of divers invoices sent to his office by the manufacturers. But, oddly enough, these business messengers were chiefly women,—not clerks, but ordinary household servants, and, on busy days, the consulate might have been mistaken for a female registry office, so filled and possessed it was by waiting Madchen. Here it was that Gretchen, Lieschen, and Clarchen, in the cleanest of ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte

... hardly a yarn, Miss Norah," he said, his eyes twinkling in a way that made them look astonishingly young, despite his white hair and his wrinkles. "That was only a small happening, though it capped a day of bad luck. I had been busy in camp all the morning cooking, and had laid in quite a supply of tucker, for me. I'd cooked some wild duck, and roasted a hare, boiled a most splendid plum-duff and finally baked a big damper, and I can tell you I was patting myself on the back because I need not do any more cooking for ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce

... remember it, she saw that the grandfather clock marked it as half-past two. Now was the time that she must go for her walk. The children would be back at school, the men would be at work, and the women still busy cleaning up after their midday meal. She was afraid now to walk on the Yaverland lands for fear of finding Goodtart, the cattleman, standing quite still in some shadowed place where she would not see him till it was too late to avoid touching him as she passed, ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... seen the warning change in his mother's expression, and he was thinking that she was still a remarkably pretty woman. "With pleasure," he returned. "I shall be busy all day, but I'll look it over to-morrow. To-night I am ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow



Words linked to "Busy" :   intrusive, occupy, tied up, busyness, work, fussy, dabble, drudging, busybodied, in use, engaged, interfering, toiling, laboring, up to, labouring, overbusy, diligent, putter, officious



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