"Inattentive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... results of the analysis are undoubtedly, in the main, just; but we can only account for Brewster's pronouncing the Essay a thorough and satisfactory explanation, by supposing him to have bestowed upon it a very cursory and inattentive perusal. In the compendium of the Essay, made use of in the Letters on Natural Magic, it is quite impossible to arrive at any distinct conclusion in regard to the adequacy or inadequacy of the analysis, on account of the gross ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... were not inattentive to the situation. They wasted no time in appointing committees to investigate the cause of the difficulty, for it was as clear to them as the noonday sun, as clear as the occasion of our "decadence" should have been to the House of Representatives that appointed ...
— Free Ships: The Restoration of the American Carrying Trade • John Codman
... was inattentive. He was speaking to the boy, Dean Drake, and held a flask in his hand. He reached the flask to his new superintendent. "Drink hearty," said he. "There, son! Don't be shy. Haf you forgot it is forbidden fruit ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... told her of the performance in the ship. Finding a listener neither inattentive nor without sympathy, he went further still and told of the song's effect upon him, and that the sweetness of it still abiding made his hatred of ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... of this nature a style ornamental and luxuriant would have been evidently inapplicable, yet the author has not been wholly inattentive to this particular, but has endeavoured to temper the dry and formal manner of the mere journalist, with something of the historian's ease. Long sequestered, however, from literary society, and from convenient ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... you would like to know?" asked Charles, inattentive and impatient, mainly occupied in trying to hide the nameless exasperation which invariably seized him when he looked at Dare, and to stifle the contemptuous voice which always whispered as he did so, "And you have given up ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... took shape, crystallised, caused him to see a rapid vision of de Batz sneaking into his lodgings and stealing his keys, the guard being slack, careless, inattentive, allowing the adventurer to pass barriers that should have been closed against ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... transmitted by James Anderson, manager, in February, 1797, to the effect that "there are 3 Negro Children Born, & one dead—at River Farm 1; born at Mansion house, Lina 1; at Union Farm 1 born & one dead—It was killed by Worms. Medical assistance was called—But the mothers are very inattentive to their Young." ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... a brigade at "Kripple Kreek," a short time since, and in it was a slim portion of the "1159th" Illinois. Quite a large number of this regiment have deserted upon every occasion offered, the men generally being very inattentive. The commanding officer of "all that is left of them" was severely censured, the other day, for dereliction of duty. The General swore by the Eternal he wished the Colonel of the "1159th" would "go home and ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... For Patty's sake she must control her temper—and she did. With an effort that left her white and tremulous she crushed back the hot words and said quietly: "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Liddell. I did not mean to be inattentive. Let me show you some of our new lingerie waists, I think you ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... He was no longer crying. Had he heard Lupin's words? One might have doubted it, judging by his inattentive air. ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... of Judge Lynch. We took no pains to conceal our horror of unnecessary bloodshed, and shared the views of civilized Christendom about duelling. Now and then, to be sure, a Southerner in one of his sportive moods would stab an inattentive waiter in some Northern hotel, or a chivalrous son of South Carolina, elegantly idling away a few years in a New-England university, would shoot some base-born tutor, or, as an episode in Congressional proceedings, the member from Arkansas would threaten to pull ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... manger," repeated the inattentive little boy to himself, "I knows who that was." So, this important question settled in his mind, he gave himself up to the full enjoyment of his chum and to the giving and receiving secret signals, the pleasure of which ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... now Mary's turn to be inattentive, for she was adding a postscript to her letter, which but for that ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... in doing this, never work after you are tired, nor to "get the thing done," for if it is badly done, it will be of no use to you. The true zeal and patience of a quarter of an hour are better than the sulky and inattentive labour of a whole day. If you have not made the touches right at the first going over with the pen, retouch them delicately, with little ink in your pen, thickening or reinforcing them as they need: you cannot give too much ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... and the like belong to civil and military offices.]), have even drawn a few delighted drops from the eyes of your thoughtless son. I know that you think I have nothing sentimental about me, else you would not so often have poured into my not inattentive ears, 'that to estimate the pleasures of earth and heaven, we must cultivate the sensibilities of the heart. Shut our eyes against them, and we are merely nicely- constructed speculums, which reflect the beauties of nature, but enjoy ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... heard this one-sided dialogue or not, it is difficult to say. She seemed passive and inattentive, and walked on with an abstracted and mechanical motion. Her brother and lover could only get near her occasionally, having found it necessary to watch her mother and sister also. They could perceive, however, not only that the crowd which followed ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... outlay.[223] In discussions on bills effecting the enlargement of Australian constitutions, Mr. Gladstone's views came out in clear contrast with the old school. 'Spoke 11/2 hours on the Australian Colonies bill,' he records (May 13,1850), 'to an indifferent, inattentive House. But it is necessary to speak these truths of colonial policy even to unwilling ears.' In the proceedings on the constitution for New Zealand, he delivered a speech justly described as a pattern of close argument and classic oratory.[224] Lord John Russell, adverting to the concession ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... point Fanny's thoughts wandered to the brave old man in the pulpit. She had heard almost nothing of the service. She looked at him now—at him, and then at his congregation, inattentive and palpably bored. As always with her, the thing stamped itself on her mind as a picture. She was forever seeing a situation in terms of its human value. How small he looked, how frail, against the background of the massive Ark with its red velvet curtain. And how bravely he glared ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... rise and to sit again, bringing and taking away of cushions and robes and tiaras and mitres, and a thousand other little matters that would have enraged any man of weak nerves, if it did not kill him. After two hours of this tedious work (the people in the mean time perfectly inattentive), the ceremony ended, and the Pope was again borne through the church and ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... it remembered, discoursed to a large and not inattentive audience, and surely the soil was not all unfruitful on which his seed was scattered when he proclaimed that God dwells not in temples of wood and stone, nor wants the ministrations of human hands;[Footnote: ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... statement, first, in being simply false. The water under the Castle of Chillon is not a thousand feet deep, nor anything like it.[38] Herein, certainly, these lines fulfil Reynolds's first requirement in poetry, "that it should be inattentive to literal truth and minute exactness in detail." In order, however, to make our comparison more closely in other points, let us assume that what is stated is indeed a fact, and that it was to be recorded, first historically, ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... sitting as if it were an absolute solitude. At last he brought his speech to an end. I rose to reply. He could be seen to breathe again that it was I and no one else. I noticed, gentlemen, that he continued to laugh and be inattentive till I mentioned Chrysogonus. As soon as I got to him my friend roused himself and was evidently astonished. I saw what had touched him, and repeated the name a second time, and a third. From that time men have never ceased to run briskly backwards and forwards, to tell Chrysogonus, I ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... now peering through the church window to rest on the tiny face of his little daughter in the rector's arms at the font. All the village had come to see, for this christening was felt to be one of more than common interest, and while the service went on there was not one inattentive ear. ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... Gregory Nazianzen's works, which had been actually issued in 1778. Very frequently, however, the comparison of professedly different impressions requires, before they can be safely pronounced to be identical, the protracted scrutiny of a practised eye. An inattentive observer could not be conscious that the works of Sir James Ware, translated and improved by Harris, and apparently the progeny of the year 1764, (the only edition, and that but a spurious one, recorded in Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica,) have been skilfully tampered with, and should be justly ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 71, March 8, 1851 • Various
... to lend an inattentive ear to all these explanations, which she gave in those timid tones, which had lately become habitual to her, but once—when she made a slip, and talked about a share which she possessed in the Russian Company being worth L50,000, he corrected her and said it was a good deal more, and gave ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... that which each most prized. Whether the conversation turned upon government or science, the dry figures of finance, or the more genial topic of diplomatic intrigue, Mr. Gallatin was its easy master, and his words never fell on inattentive ears. ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... baldness at the crown of his head. His name was Peter. He had had five children at irregular intervals, of whom Ann Veronica was the youngest, so that as a parent he came to her perhaps a little practised and jaded and inattentive; and he called her his "little Vee," and patted her unexpectedly and disconcertingly, and treated her promiscuously as of any age between eleven and eight-and-twenty. The City worried him a good deal, ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... expecting that, by a smile of more than common brightness, she would make amends to his wounded feelings; such having been her usual mode of reparation in the few instances of disagreement that had occurred between them. But he was disappointed. He found her cold, silent, and abstracted, inattentive when he spoke, and indisposed to speak herself. Her eye was sedulously averted from his; and the casual meeting of their glances only proved that there were feelings in her bosom which he did not share. ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... dissolved in tears, her bosom torn by convulsive sobs, had become as inattentive to her parent's discourse as he had been to her interjections. Photinius at last remarked her distress: he was by no means a ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... thought him irretrievably insane, and paid no attention to the strange, unconnected discourses which he held. Many of his prophecies are believed to have been lost in this manner. But they were not always destined to be wasted upon dull and inattentive ears. An incident occurred which brought him into notice, and established his fame as a prophet of the first calibre. He was ploughing in a field when he suddenly stopped from his labour, and with a wild look and strange gesture, exclaimed, "Now, Dick! now, Harry! O, ill done, Dick! ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... notes for the 'Hints'! You mistake me much by thinking me inattentive to this publication. If I had a friend willing and able to correct the press, it should be out with my good will immediately. Pray attend to annexing additional notes in their proper places, and let ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... friends as usual on Sunday evening, Sidney Kirkwood felt, before he had been many minutes in the room, that something unwonted was troubling the quiet he always found here. Michael Snowdon was unlike himself, nervously inattentive, moving frequently, indisposed to converse on any subject. Neither had Jane her accustomed brightness, and the frequent glances she east at her grandfather seemed to show that the latter's condition was ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... one sex in their vileness, and gives up the other for their weakness, in a kind of silly affectation, to shew her security in her own virtue; at the same time, that she is dancing upon the edge of a precipice, presumptuously inattentive to her ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... town, and leaving to the left the main road which led to it, struck into the fields, the strange and solemn beauty of the landscape, lighted up, by numberless lamps, to the verge of the horizon, fascinated my eyes, and rendered me for some time an inattentive listener to ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... friend leaning over at an angle of "forty-five." To leap forward and catch him in my arms was the work of an instant. On each of these occasions, after setting him upright, I used to give him a tender hug, to indicate my regret at having been so inattentive, and my sympathy with him in his ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... away from in front of it, or setting about some visible business in its presence. Standing ten minutes before a picture or sitting an hour at a concert, with fixed sight or tense hearing, you may yet be quite hopelessly inattentive if, instead of following the life of the visible or audible forms, and living yourself into their pattern and rhythm, you wander off after dramatic or sentimental associations suggested by the picture's subject; or if you let yourself be hypnotised, as pious ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... make manifest and convincing is this point, which argument alone has never been able to hammer into the mass of inattentive minds, that if the human intelligence is applied continuously to the mechanism of war it will steadily develop destructive powers, but that it will fail to develop any corresponding power of decision ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... which represents their teaching as a whole. In chapters 8 and 9 "Wisdom" is personified. Inasmuch as the Hebrew word for "wisdom" is feminine, it is spoken of as a woman. Chapter 9 describes, in a form intended to arrest the attention of the most inattentive, the feast that Wisdom offers to her guests. This is contrasted with Folly's banquet, and the consequences to those who participated in these rival banquets are ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... the Members of Parliament, Mayors of cities, and men eminent in the different professions and literary pursuits. Complaints of inattention were made against some of its members, and at the election for officers after the expiration of the first year, others were substituted for the inattentive and inefficient. The change for the most part was made by unanimous consent; but when a ballot was called for, other names were substituted for those on the house list, recommended by the former committee, and the contest resulted in the rejection ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... in her place, she was not inattentive. The dark chancel with its flowers and incense, the rich dresses and slow movements of the priests, the excitement of the processional hymns—these things caught her and held her. Her look was fixed and eager all the time. ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the society were published. Men who read them in their closers, unwarmed by those sentiments of friendship which had produced them, inattentive to those pains which an approaching separation had excited in the minds of the instituters, politicians, who see in every thing only the dangers with which it threatens civil society, in fine, the laboring people, who, shielded by equal laws, had never seen any difference ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... courtesy which distinguished him through all his long life—he died recently at a very advanced age—he at once put his work away and took her round his studio to show her everything he thought would interest her. But she was restless and inattentive, and by and by leaving the artist talking to her young daughter she began going round by herself, moving constantly from picture to picture. Presently she made an exclamation, and turning they saw her standing before a picture, a portrait of a girl, staring fixedly at it. "Oh," she cried, and ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... clapped with childlike violence and fury. Mr Peake slowly and regularly thumped one fist on the bench, puffing the while. Glasses and mugs could be seen, but not heard, dancing. Mr Arthur Smallrice, Mr Abraham Harracles, Mr Jos Rawnpike, and Mr James Yarlett, entirely inattentive to the acclamations, stepped heavily from the platform and sat down. When Edwin caught Big James's eye he clapped again, reanimating the general approval, and Big James gazed at him with bland satisfaction. Mr Enoch Peake was now, save for the rise and fall of his great chest, as immobile ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... function, on the contrary, is, and always has been, that of the Interpreter only, in the 'Pilgrim's Progress;' and I trust that Mr. Courthope will therefore forgive my arranging his long cadence of continuous line so as to come symmetrically into my own page, (thus also enforcing, for the inattentive, the rhymes which he is too easily proud to insist on,) and my division of the whole chorus into equal strophe and antistrophe of six lines each, in which, counting from the last line of the stanza, the reader can easily catch the word ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... circumstances wherein he and Harriot then were, his conduct must appear injurious, and shame and the secret reproaches of his conscience made him take all possible opportunities of avoiding her presence: if he was obliged to converse with her, it was with an air so restrained and inattentive as made her fear his regard for her was entirely vanished. The sincere affection she had for him rendered this apprehension extremely painful. She would have been contented to have seen another woman his wife, but could not bear the thought ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... you heard, my brave young friend. Never had people on a single throw More interest at stake; when he, who held For us the die, prov'd false, and play'd us foul. But for a circumstance of that nice kind, Of cause so microscopic, that the tongues Of inattentive men call it the effect Of chance, we must have ...
— Andre • William Dunlap
... set the active function would be exercised and will-power would develop on both sides. Do you see? Occultists say that all power results from the continual exercise of active mentation and all weak-mindedness is the direct outcome of this wool-gathering, castle-building, inattentive habit which is an extension of passive mentation into useless channels of thought-force. Conscious attention concentrates and even specializes mental energy as the sun-glass concentrates and intensifies the heat of the rays of the sun. Focus your ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... edge of the tall cask against which the latter was seated, sprang actively upon the top of it. Soon he again descended, and, upsetting the cask, gave it a shove with his foot that sent it rolling into the middle of the cellar. The gipsy, although motionless, and to all appearance inattentive to what passed, lost not one of the muleteer's movements. His head stirred not but his sunken beadlike eyes shifted their glances with extraordinary keenness and rapidity. At the moment when, surprised by the sudden removal of the cask, he screwed his head round to see what was going ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... began to work, looked after herself in a natural way, spoke freely, was entirely oriented and her mood generally presented nothing striking. But her mental attitude was still peculiar when she was questioned. She seemed somewhat inattentive, sulky, sneering. Thus, when asked why she was here, she said, "You will have to ask ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... beside the bier, giving a curious touch of solemnity to a scene composed of the four pleasant ruffians in the loaferish postures which they have learned as facchini waiting for jobs; of the two boys with inattentive grins, and of the priest with wandering ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... Odo Crescenti's theory of the influence of character and climate on the course of history; and this subject soon engrossing both speakers, they wandered on, inattentive to their surroundings, till they found themselves in the thickest concourse of the Toledo. Here for a moment the dense crowd hemmed them in; and as they stood observing the humours of the scene, Odo's eye fell on the thick-set figure of a man in doctor's dress, who was being ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... brisk host almost inattentive during the remainder of that afternoon. About five o'clock he dispatched a note, addressed "J. H. McPherson, Euclid House," and astonished and delighted his young waiter by an unusually early putting up of shutters, and of putting things generally to rights for the night. In fact, it was ...
— Three People • Pansy
... novelist was palpably uncertain as to whom the name belonged. He was not only Unitarian by theology, but inattentive by profession; and, moreover, he had but just returned from a copy-hunting trip in the ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... him, intently. When he had shut his own door she glanced over at the inattentive Allan, once more busy at his manuscript and apparently unconscious of ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... class began to read, each rising while reading, and then sitting down. Bart had observed that Bingham sat with his book closed, and wholly inattentive to the exercise, and quietly placed himself within a ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... She was a fragile, elegant, plaintive little person of the old "lady-like" regime; but for all her gentleness, Garth was somehow conscious that he faced a woman of an iron will. She had the impatient, inattentive manner of one possessed by a single idea. With the result of her examination she appeared but half satisfied; she held out a delicate, ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... are more crabbed, or I am more dull and inattentive, for I cannot fix my Minde on my Book, and am secretlie wearie, Robin wearies too. But I will not give up as yet; the more soe as in this quiete Studdy I am out of Sighte and Hearinge of sundrie young Officers ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... a strained tone that sounded, as she meant it to sound, as though she had been merely inattentive, she made answer: ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... distraite maiden who greeted the visiting swain that night and one so inattentive to his wooing that his silences became long, under discouragement, and his temper sullen. Earlier than was his custom he bade her good-night and ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... I had not been inattentive to the management of my farm. As I had made up my mind not to remain at Rowfant; first, because it was not a profitable farm to occupy; and, second, because the situation of the country being low, and damp in the winter, did not agree with me, and had caused me to suffer very considerable ill ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... only the most inattentive of historical students who can afford to ignore this. No modern aesthetician from the Rhine to the Spree affects to dispute the succession of Teutonic thought, in its various forms of passion, from Beethoven to Goethe, from Schiller, Jean ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... delicate, and no very grateful task, to dissert upon the literature and manners of a nation so dissimilar; and requires an attention and impartiality which would induce us—though perhaps no inattentive observers, nor ignorant of the language or customs of the people among whom we have recently abode—to distrust, or at least defer our judgment, and more narrowly examine our information. The state of literary as well as political party appears to ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... myself, when she was silent. This gave me an opportunity of mentioning many things that had happened in Paris during my long ten years' uninterrupted residence, which were evidently very interesting to her. Had she become grave, or inattentive, I should have drawn back ; but, on the contrary, she grew more and more veille, and her countenance was lighted up with ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... glanced at Mr. Harlowe with an expression of angry surprise. That gentleman, who did not appear to recognize the new-comer, returned his look with a supercilious, contemptuous stare, and passed on with Edith—who had courteously saluted the inattentive Mr. Ferret—followed ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... them think so, when I knew she did not; and yet, I cannot positively say that she always did. I have remarked, that one of the old nuns was always placed in our sleeping-room at night, to watch us. Sometimes she would be inattentive, and sometimes fall into a doze. Jane Ray often seized such times to rise from her bed, and walk about, occasionally seizing one of the nuns in bed, in order to frighten her. This she generally affected; and many times we have ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... confusion and stir of material interests, are not inattentive to the progress of those claims whose growth is as silent as that of the leaves around us, and whose values find ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... writes a most loving and ill-spelled epistle, containing the latest information from Mayo, with all particulars of the Macan family, of which she is a worthy member. To her constant hints of the acceptable nature of certain small remittances, the poor general is never inattentive; but to the pleasing prospect of a visit in the flesh from Miss Judy Macan, the good man is dead. In fact, nothing short of being broke by general court-martial could complete his sensations of horror at such a stroke of fortune; and I am not certain, if choice were allowed ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... thought that my benevolent host had here been my greatest friend; but there was another for whom, to my infinite surprise, I found that I felt far more intensely. Yet it was odd that, in her presence, I was apparently cold and inattentive, and thus, perhaps, it might have ever been, had she not unguardedly attracted my attention by what she meant for a severe rebuke. I happened to be walking with her and a gentleman whose wife had lately experienced, on some occasion, a narrow escape of her life; "and ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... remark merely to be polite and was turning away. As Susan's reply penetrated to her inattentive mind she looked sharply at her, eyes opening wonderingly. "Did you get lost? Are you a stranger in town? Why didn't you ask ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... be feared, were now inattentive. They appeared to listen, but they were merely surveying with acute interest the now revealed lower half of Dave Cowan. The trousers were frayed, the shoes were but wraiths of shoes. The speaker, quite unconscious of this scrutiny, ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... it, he seemed, just as plainly, to be able to think of nothing else. He seemed unwilling to be alone, and yet to be very bad company, for he was restless, silent, and, when Oliver, with an effort, tried to talk of cheerful things, was completely inattentive. They went into the garden at last to see how the flowers were faring. The sunshine was more unreal than ever, and sudden, fitful gusts of wind were beginning to stir the trees. They had inspected the flowers and were halfway across the lawn on their way to ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... at the door with the case, which Gaites was by this time not surprised to find inscribed with the name and address of Miss Phyllis Desmond. He remained watching it, while the men got it on the platform, so wholly inattentive to Birkwall's plot that the most besotted young author could not have failed to feel his want of interest. Birkwall then turned his vision outward upon the object which engrossed his friend, and started with an "Oh, hello!" and slapped him on ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... hadn't got any city wall. Epping Forest and Hainault Forest were there. You could think of them, or you could look at Mr. Propart's nice clean-shaved face while he read about the Crucifixion and preached about God's mercy and his justice. He did it all in a soothing, inattentive voice; and when he had finished he went quick into the vestry as if he were glad it was all over. And when you met him at the gate he didn't look as if Good Friday mattered ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... Miss Fairlie and I shoulder our sketch-books, and go out to misrepresent Nature, under your directions. Drawing is her favourite whim, mind, not mine. Women can't draw—their minds are too flighty, and their eyes are too inattentive. No matter—my sister likes it; so I waste paint and spoil paper, for her sake, as composedly as any woman in England. As for the evenings, I think we can help you through them. Miss Fairlie plays delightfully. For my own poor part, I don't know one note ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... to him—reached the first floor landing—and arrived at a door which shut off the whole staircase higher up; an iron door, as solid as if it belonged to a banker's strong-room, and guarded millions of money. I returned to the hall, inattentive to the servant's not over-civil remonstrances, and, saying that I would wait till I saw the doctor ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... these words of the Brahmana, the sons of Kunti seemed to be, as it were, pierced with darts. Indeed, all those mighty heroes lost their peace of mind. Then the truthful Kunti, beholding all her sons listless and inattentive, addressed Yudhishthira and said, 'We have now lived many nights in the abode of this Brahmana. We have passed our time pleasantly in this town, living on the alms obtained from many honest and illustrious persons. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... their eyes are bright; and if they experience unusual ardor they stammer, talk beside the mark, and are scarcely mistress of themselves. At the same time their private parts become hot and swell. All these signs should convince a husband, however inattentive he may be, that his wife craves for satisfaction" (Zacchiae Quaestionum Medico-legalium Opus, lib. vii, tit. iii, quaest. I; vol. ii, p. 624 ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... act of themselves than a bridle will direct a horse without a rider. If the checking functionaries are as corrupt or as negligent as those whom they ought to check, and if the public, the mainspring of the whole checking machinery, are too ignorant, too passive, or too careless and inattentive to do their part, little benefit will be derived from the best administrative apparatus. Yet a good apparatus is always preferable to a bad. It enables such insufficient moving or checking power as exists to act at the ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... campaign from which he had just returned. Only once was he able to approach the topic of Harry Feversham's disappearance, and at the mere mention of his son's name the old general's face set like plaster. It became void of expression and inattentive as a mask. ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... unusual was visible, that it was All Fools' Day. He was very playful and indulgent; he kept a "squash" racquet ball on his desk, and could throw it with accurate aim if he noticed a boy dreaming or inattentive. He would never when scoring the marks enter a 0, even after an abject failure, always saying, ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... for me to say that I stand here unconnected with this great community. It would be mere affectation not to acknowledge that with respect to local questions I have much to learn; but I hope that you will find in me no sluggish or inattentive learner. From an early age I have felt a strong interest in Edinburgh, although attached to Edinburgh by no other ties than those which are common to me with multitudes; that tie which attaches every man of Scottish blood to the ancient and renowned capital of our race; ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... fancy of tailed men has probably arisen from inattentive observers, seeing people clothed in the skins of beasts, with the tails hanging down. The natives of New South Wales wear tails in imitation of the Kangaroo: Yet, having been closely observed, are ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... just dawned upon her. Randolph, from whom the thought had never been absent from the moment he saw the pillar of flame shooting up over the Traveler's Rest, was startled by the suddenness of her anguish; and an expression of profound grief came over his face, noticeable even to her inattentive eyes, and which comforted her by its sympathy, even in the midst of her ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... Lord went on to pray by Himself; and we have discovered in ourselves the same weariness, the same tendency to sleep, in the presence of what we tell ourselves is the most important of all interests. We call up the scene under the olives, and find that we wander and are inattentive and idle when we most want to be attentive and alert. We place ourselves in the group that surrounds our Lord when the soldiers, led by Judas, come, and ask ourselves shall I too run away? And our memory flashes the answer: You have run away ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... TERENCE) has reproduced from the French a neatly-constructed One-Act piece, in which are all the possibilities of a Three-Act Criterion or Palais Royal Farcical Comedy. So rapid is the action, all over in about forty-five minutes, and so much to the point of the plot is the dialogue, that an inattentive auditor would soon lose the thread of the argument, never to pick it up again anywhere. Miss ELLALINE TERRIS is just that very Mrs. Duncan. BRANDON THOMAS is a breezy, brusque, and Admirable Admiral; and Mr. DRAYCOTT a hearty husband, very much in love with ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 6, 1892 • Various
... ministrations, may be gathered from the description by Clarke, the supercargo of the wrecked Sydney Cove, concerning the natives whom he encountered in the following year (March 1797): "Their hair is long and straight, but they are wholly inattentive to it, either as to cleanliness or in any other respect. It serves them in lieu of a towel to wipe their hands as often as they are daubed with blubber or shark oil, which is their principal article of food. This frequent application of ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... to inattentive ears that Tennyson read his poems. His reading was most impressive, but I think he read Browning's "Ride from Ghent to Aix" better than anything of his own, except, perhaps, "The Northern Farmer." He used to preserve the monotonous ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... Well-behaved Little Boy. The Attentive, Inattentive, Covetous Dilatory, Exact, Quarrelsome, and Good Little Boy. By S. Lovechild 1s. sewed,—Square size, with seven ...
— The World's Fair • Anonymous
... withdraw our feet from the narrow way of life. For here we are likely to be deceived from the very circumstance that our employments are religious; and our end, as being a right one, will engross us, and continually tempt us to be inattentive to the means, and to the spirit in which we pursue it. Our Lord alludes to the danger of multiplied occupations in the Parable of the Sower: "He that received seed among thorns, is he that heareth the word, and the cares of ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... Dalton had finished and Broderick was talking. It was as though each man in turn were making his report to the others. As before not a word came to the ears which she strove futilely to make inattentive. A certain quality in the speaker's voice drew fresh speculation from her. He spoke quietly, with no single interruption from the others and with a positiveness that was like a command, as though he whom she had thought possibly a deputy were coolly telling ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... opportunity to tell the judges some of their failings. The royal ordinances were not observed. Parliamentary decisions ranked above commands of the king. There were divisions and violence. In the civil war some judges had made themselves captains. Many of them were avaricious, timid, lazy and inattentive to their duties. Their behavior and their dress were "dissolute." They had become negligent in judging, and had thrown the burden of prosecuting offences upon the shoulders of the king's attorney, originally appointed merely to look after the royal domain. ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... Uncle John dragged him away from Patricia's door and forced him to play chess. The boy lost every game, being inattentive and absorbed in thought, until finally Uncle John gave up the attempt to amuse him and settled himself on the top stair for a quiet smoke. The boy turned to the table, and took a sheet of paper from the drawer. For an ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... have been my mood that prevented those words from making the impression on me they should have made. Instead of appreciating at once and at its full value this characteristic and amazingly friendly signal of caution, I showed how stupidly inattentive I was by saying: ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... describe particular virtues and vices. The works of the flesh and the fruits of the Spirit must be distinctly pointed out. To preach against sin in general without descending to particulars may lead many to complain of the evil of their hearts, while at the same time they are awfully inattentive to the evil of their conduct.' Take Evangelist's noble counsels at the gate of Vanity Fair, and then take John Bunyan's masterly description of the Fair itself, with all that is bought and sold in it, and you will have a lesson in evangelical preaching that the evangelical pulpit needed ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... cribbage that evening. Mrs. Kavanagh could not understand how her pupil had become embarrassed, inattentive, and even sad, and asked her if she was tired. Sheila said she was very tired and would go. And when she got her candle, Mrs. Lorraine and Lavender had just discovered another duet which they felt bound to try together ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... advertising column is in the scale of domestic service. He must perforce be kind to the poor, and tolerably expert by reason of much practice, and he is generally popular. Dr. Poulain, called in by Mme. Cibot, gave an inattentive ear to the old musician's complainings. Pons groaned out that his skin itched; he had scratched himself all night long, till he could scarcely feel. The look of his eyes, with the yellow circles ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... much of myself; but indeed it is all too true." In similar strain he expressed himself to his wife: "It is very true that I have ever served faithfully, and ever has it been my fate to be neglected; but that shall not make me inattentive to my duty. I have pride in doing my duty well, and a self-approbation, which if it is not so lucrative, yet perhaps affords more pleasing sensations." Thus the consciousness of duty done in the past, and the clear recognition of what ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... inconsequent chatter, which seemed quite impervious to fatigue, while he rested his eyes on the charming prospect at their feet; the ragged descent of red rocks, broken here and there by patches of burnt grass and pink mallows, the little sea-girt chapel of St. Ampelio, and the waste of violet sea. His inattentive ear was caught at last by the name of Lightmark occurring, recurring, in the light eddy of his companion's speech, and he turned to her with an air of ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... forces of war, its tumult and wreckage, there emerges a new quest for truth. Simple souls are troubled with a warlike desire for evidence of immortality. The parson's exhortations to live by faith and unreasoning acceptance of ecclesiastical doctrine fall on inattentive ears. "There is a shocking recrudescence of superstition and devil-worship," said a clergyman to me the other day; "people consult fraudulent mediums ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... Gustavus by Booth; and Christina by Mrs. Harcourt. In spite of this galaxy of talent, the reception of the play was unfavourable. The Duchess of Marlborough "and all her beauteous family" graced the theatre on the first night, but the public was cold and inattentive. Some passages of a particularly lofty moral tone provoked laughter. The Revolution in Sweden, in fact, was shown to suffer from the ineradicable faults which Congreve had gently but justly suggested. ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... speaking, Fronto sat, inattentive as it seemed to what was going on. But at these last words he was compelled to give ear, and did it as a man does who has heard unwelcome truths. As Felix ended, the Emperor turned toward him without speaking, and without any look of doubt or passion, waiting ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... their teachers with the necessary pictures, leaflets, and outline drawings of birds for colouring, over thirty-one million pages of printed information have been distributed. Pupils have taken hold of this bird study with great zest. Many a dull or inattentive boy, who had been a despair to his teacher and parents, responded to this real nature teaching which took him from his ordinarily uninteresting studies into the wide out of doors. Thousands of teachers have written letters filled with expressions of thankfulness for this opportunity which ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... listener was the assurance that such a course would not at present be pleasing in the sight of God. To others, touching upon the matter of superior forces they might have to contend with, he was loftily inattentive. ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... exercise, which brings no personal and individual responsibility upon them. To prevent this the teacher should exercise double vigilance, at such a time. He should often address questions to individuals alone, especially to those most likely to be inattentive and careless, and guard against the ingress of every abuse, which might, without close ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... Charley had galloped away upon a stick in the midst of the narrative of poor Lady Arbella, and I know not whether he would have thought it worth while to tell another story merely to gratify such an inattentive auditor as Charley. But Laurence laid down his book and seconded the request. Clara drew her chair nearer to Grandfather; and little Alice immediately closed her picture-book and looked up into his face. Grandfather had not the heart ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... with another growl, but was content to continue in his lair. These were evidences of intelligence and distrust, to which one as practised as the trapper could not turn an inattentive ear. He again spoke to the dog, encouraging him to watchfulness, by a low guarded whistle. The animal however, as if conscious of having, already, discharged his duty, obstinately refused to raise his ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... from the dawn of manhood to its decline, and considers what he pursued or dreaded, slighted or esteemed, at different periods of his age, will have no reason to imagine such changes of sentiment peculiar to any station or character. Every man, however careless and inattentive, has conviction forced upon him; the lectures of time obtrude themselves upon the most unwilling or dissipated auditor; and, by comparing our past with our present thoughts, we perceive that we have changed our minds, though perhaps we cannot discover ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson |
