"Languid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in the life of Mrs. Morton. She had always been too languid to encounter any excitement of any sort, but she had watched the events of this day with an interest which was as new to herself as it was to all who knew her. And when the young folks declared that they must see the end of the matter, come ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... it was high day, and the light was let into the room as it had not been for a good while. It all looked natural, and yet new; and Matilda's eyes went from one object to another with a sort of recognizing pleasure; feeling languid too, as if her eyelids could just keep open and that was all. But the light seemed sweet. And her gaze lingered long on the figure of Mrs. Laval, who was standing by the mantle-piece; going over with quiet pleasure every graceful outline and pretty detail; the flow of her soft drapery; the ...
— Trading • Susan Warner
... Mr. Dennis is longer, but we are persuaded the reader will not be displeased that we do not take the trouble to transcribe the whole, as it does not improve, but rather grows more languid. How strangely are people deceived in their own productions! In the language of sincerity we cannot discover a poetical conception, one striking image, or one animated line in the above, and yet Mr. Dennis observes to Sir Richard Steele, that these ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... please you, but pleases somebody else. Take one special instance, in further illustration of the general type given above. I did not invent that type, but spoke of a real river, and of real peasantry, the languid and sickly race which inhabits, or haunts—for they are often more like spectres than living men—the thorny desolation of the banks of the Arve in Savoy. Some years ago, a society, formed at Geneva, offered to embank the river for ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... earlier story. In that, his identification of himself with his past grew and grew, and as his fever increased through the small hours of the morning, got more and more the force of a waking dream. And when the dawn came at last, and the gleam from the languid sun followed it, the man who got up and looked out towards its great blue bank of cloud was only half sure he was not another former self, looking out towards another sea, twenty years ago, to see if he could identify the ship that was ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... banana leaves, rustling the palms, and fluttering and setting up a whispering among the lace-leaved algaroba trees. Only intermittently did the atmosphere so breathe—for breathing it was, the suspiring of the languid, Hawaiian afternoon. In the intervals between the soft breathings, the air grew heavy and balmy with the perfume of flowers and the exhalations of fat, ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... Andy Donovan went to dinner at his Second Avenue boarding-house, Mrs. Scott introduced him to a new boarder, a young lady, Miss Conway. Miss Conway was small and unobtrusive. She wore a plain, snuffy-brown dress, and bestowed her interest, which seemed languid, upon her plate. She lifted her diffident eyelids and shot one perspicuous, judicial glance at Mr. Donovan, politely murmured his name, and returned to her mutton. Mr. Donovan bowed with the grace and beaming smile that were rapidly winning for him social, ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... outriders preceding a gorgeous but rumbling coach, in which a Roman noble or plutocrat is idly lounging, reading, dictating to his shorthand amanuensis, or playing dice with a friend; a dashing youth driving his own chariot in professional style to the disgust of the sober-minded; a languid matron lolling in a litter carried by six tall, bright-liveried Cappadocians; a peasant on his way to town with his waggon-load of produce and cruelly belabouring his mule. If you are very fortunate ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... it to another & wiser Generation. But it may be worth Consideration that the work is more likely to be well done, at a time when the Ideas of Liberty & its Importance are strong in Mens Minds. There is Danger that these Ideas will hereafter grow faint & languid. Our Posterity may be accustomd to bear the Yoke & being inured to Servility they may even bow the Shoulder to the Burden. It can never be expected that a people, however NUMEROUS, will form & execute a wise ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... crown, or last the longest in a wall: of the wild beasts, which were best for food, and which the stoutest quarry for the hunter;—thus spending only on the lower creatures and inanimate things his waste energy, his dullest thoughts, his most languid emotions, and reserving all his acuter intellect for researches into his own nature and that of the gods; all his strength of will for the acquirement of political or moral power; all his sense of beauty for things immediately connected with his own person ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... minutes perhaps, she sighed like one awakening from a deep sleep, passed her hand across her forehead and was as she had been, though somewhat languid, as though strength ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... tired slave, song lifts the languid oar, And bids it aptly fall, with chime That beautifies the fairest shore, And mitigates the ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... A languid, hopeless glance at the ground, where he had fallen and sure enough, he could find no blood. He tried to see the wound, but his head could not revolve to a sufficiently wide arc of a circle to see his shoulder-blade, so in due haste ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... town, and there were three miles now between me and my mother's cupboard. When I arrived there I feasted for the remainder of the day and went to bed still hungry. The next few days were flat and languid. In all my boyhood pleasures and excitements I suffered intensely from these reactions. I tormented the family by persistent teasings to go somewhere, or to do something. "Go play, go read your book, go see what Aunt Chloe is doing," they would say. How could I fill the void with such trivial ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... wind like censers, the flowers, pale and languid with an anaemic beauty, smelt of incense, as though the air wafted through the doors of the Cathedral had changed their ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... he, in a languid voice, and fell back into the arms of the astonished Harley. The school-mistress ran for some water—and a smelling-bottle, with the assistance of which they soon recovered the unfortunate Edwards. He stared wildly for some time, then folding his ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... try the air of Derbyshire, but hope to see you before I go. Let me, however, mention to you what I have much at heart. If the Chancellor should continue his attention to Mr. Boswell's request, and confer with you on the means of relieving my languid state, I am very desirous to avoid the appearance of asking money upon false pretences. I desire you to represent to his Lordship, what, as soon as it is suggested, he will perceive to be reasonable,—That, if I grow much worse, I shall ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... into the nearest chair, closing her eyes, while I stood aloof and turned the wheel; but presently the languid lashes lifted, and she became conscious of me. Then her eyes grew big. She remembered me from the day at the Prinzenhof, or the Horse Show, perhaps. Evidently Starr had not named me yet, nor had Miss Van Buren, in descending after our brief encounter, put any questions. ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... dilatory, languid, unready, phlegmatic, lingering, torpid, sluggish, slack, leisurely; (Colloq.) wearisome, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... West Indian strains. There was a minor monotonous theme in them which fascinated the listeners. They heard the beat of the tambourine, and saw the movement of the dance, and with them all the characteristic scenery and association of the tropics filled their imaginations. The languid grace, the rich indolence, the gay profusion of the lands where the banana ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... distracted, if the rarefaction of my blood, occasioned by that Stygian bath, had not burst the vessels, and produced a violent haemorrhage, which, though dreadful and alarming, removed the horrible disquiet — I lost two pounds of blood, and more, on this occasion; and find myself still weak and languid; but, I believe, a little exercise will forward my recovery, and therefore I am resolved to set out to-morrow for York, in my way to Scarborough, where I propose to brace up my fibres by sea-bathing, which, I know, ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... said in disparagement or qualification, Paradise Lost remains the foremost of English poems and the {158} sublimest of all epics. Even in those parts where theology encroaches most upon poetry, the diction, though often heavy, is never languid. Milton's blank verse in itself is enough to bear up the most prosaic theme, and so is his epic English, a style more massive and splendid than Shakspere's, and comparable, like Tertullian's Latin, to a river of molten gold. Of the countless single ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... all three so languid, that though there was much to see and little time in which to see it, when we found three firm and comfortable resting-places among the blocks of white stone in the dockyard, we sat down on them, and contented ourselves with enjoying the beautiful prospect before us. And ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... more rarefied during the nights and the early part of the day, the alligators leave the lakes to seek for winter-quarters, by burrowing under the roots of trees, or covering themselves simply with earth along their edges. They become then very languid and inactive, and, at this period, to sit or ride on one would not be more difficult than for a child to mount his wooden rocking-horse. The negroes, who now kill them, put all danger aside by separating at one blow with an axe, the tail from the body. They are afterwards ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... our myth's oblivion, Darkling, and languid-lipped, we creep and grope Sadlier than those who wept in Babylon, Whose Zion was ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... conscious of everything this morning; it was evident that the stunning effect of the sub-poena, which had affected her so much last night in her weak, worn-out state, had passed away. Mary offered no opposition when she indicated by languid gesture and action that she wished to rise. A sleepless bed ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... freshening deep Purple beneath a rosy gleam. From a high, mist-engirdled steep Thin anthems to the orient beam Came faint as languid waves of sleep That lap ...
— Iolaeus - The man that was a ghost • James A. Mackereth
... tone, by the subtle modulations of the verse in adaptation to its theme, is less one of literary and intellectual than of direct emotional perception, producing the immediate physical impression of an actual presence. The beauty has a subtle enervating charm, languid and voluptuous, at the same time as clear and limpid in tone. The effect produced is one and whole, that of a perfect work of art, and the same impression remains with us afterwards. Smooth limbs, soft and white, ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... arrangement. He had the native ear for music, and he recognized that he was in the presence of a born musician. Ray crept near, and listened with open mouth to this display of musical fireworks. When she had finished, Clara turned to Jonah with a languid smile, the look of the artist conscious of ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... been seated some minutes when Big Ben sent a languid chime over our heads to the stars. It was half-past ten, and a sultry night. Eleven had struck before Raffles awoke from his sullen reverie, and recalled me from mine with a slap on the back. In a couple of minutes we were in the lighted vestibule at ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... is acted upon by two enemies at once, and in the course of the long education necessary for this science, the different disorders of hysteria are produced. Hence the females of the present age, amongst whom this art has been cultivated to excess, are generally found to have a weak and languid constitution, and to be disqualified, more than others, from becoming healthy wives, or healthy mothers, or the parents of ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... another. The lines in her father's face were soft and waving, with a frequent undulating kind of trembling movement passing over them, showing every fluctuating emotion; the eyelids were large and arched, giving to the eyes a peculiar languid beauty which was almost feminine. The brows were finely arched, but were, by the very size of the dreamy lids, raised to a considerable distance from the eyes. Now, in Mr. Thornton's face the straight brows ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... overhead was the roof of leaves, and on the ground was a tangle of undergrowth and decaying vegetation, that gave out a moist earthy smell, which set the lungs labouring for oxygen. The boys were uncomfortable. Their skins were clammy, their eyes were heavy, and their limbs languid. Mr. Hume was glad to sit down, and even Muata showed the effect of the muggy atmosphere in a dulling of his skin. The river-man, sullen and silent, was alone apparently unaffected; but they did not ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... my lord. Your years, indeed, are fewer than mine, by seven or thereabout; but your knowledge is far higher, your experience richer. Our wits are not always in blossom upon us. When the roses are overcharged and languid, up springs a spike of rue. Mortified on such an occasion? God forfend it! But again to the business. I should never be over-penitent for my neglect of needy gentlemen who have neglected themselves much worse. They have chosen their profession ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... White Baldwin luffed his little craft across the frigate's bow, and the moment he was hidden beyond her, bore broad away, passing close along the opposite side of the warship, from which hundreds of eyes watched his movements with languid curiosity. ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... time to be chosen by the people; and thus, for the intervening months, the fight was to be transferred to the arena of popular debate. In such a contest Patrick Henry, being once aroused, was not likely to take a languid or a hesitating part; and of the importance then attached to the part which he did take, we catch frequent glimpses in the correspondence of the period. Thus, on the 19th of February, 1788, Madison, still ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... made up and dressed too soon, waiting in awful idleness with strained smiles and ghastly cheer. I petted and patted them all round and cast an agitated eye over the set. A grimy young stagehand made a minor change for me with a languid, not unkind contempt. "What's the big idea?" he wanted to know. "Goner slip 'em some high-brow stuff? Say, this is the wrong pew, sister. They won't stand for nothing like that here. Up in the Bronx, maybe—" I turned and basely fled. I went out in front and found ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... electricity, gravitation. Of either, we may be quite certain that such phenomena exist, and utterly ignorant of the mode of their operation. It were as utterly unphilosophical to deny that Almighty God could impart nervous energy to the languid limbs of your sick neighbor, because you are ignorant of its origin and means of transmission, as to deny that God could impart spiritual electricity to his paralyzed soul, because you are ignorant of the mode in which he bestows it. And ignorance is all that you can plead in this case. You ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... also some interest in her neighbours. Some women, after they marry and pass girlhood, seem to release their hold on all desire to attract or retain friends. For years Rosalie has given herself up to a chronic semi-invalidism. When the mistress of a house is always depressed and languid and does not return visits, neighbours become discouraged and drop off, ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... is a work of little importance; Deidamia, on the other hand, contains several very beautiful songs. But Dr. Burney, notwithstanding his admiration of it, has to admit that much of it was old-fashioned, in the style of Handel's youth, and sometimes "languid and antique." To Handel's admirers to-day such criticism may seem ridiculous, but to his audiences of 1741 these reversions to an earlier style would ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... than a life of sluggish inaction, unenlivened, as in the present instance, by any of the rencontres, or feats of arms, which keep up military excitement, and gratify the cupidity or ambition of the warrior. The Spanish troops, cooped up within their intrenchments, and disgusted with the languid monotony of their life, cast many a wistful glance to the stirring scenes of war in the centre of Italy, where Caesar Borgia held out magnificent promises of pay and plunder to all who embarked in his adventurous enterprises. He ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... fluctuations in the marriages of England are the results of peace after war, abundance after dearth, high wages after want of employment, speculation after languid enterprise, confidence after distrust, national triumphs ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 27. Saturday, May 4, 1850 • Various
... all. Cyril thought him a bear, and he thought Cyril effeminate. He was effeminate, I suppose, in some things, though he was a very good rider and a capital fencer. In fact he got the foils before he left Eton. But he was very languid in his manner, and not a little vain of his good looks, and had a strong objection to football. The two things that really gave him pleasure were poetry and acting. At Eton he was always dressing up and reciting Shakespeare, and when we went up to Trinity ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... which affected and partly reversed the minds of all Europe, produced a new era in our literature. There was good as well as evil in the new force thus infused into the human intellect. Our poetry had generally become tame and trite; a sort of languid mechanism had brought it into contempt; it was very little read, and still less esteemed. This might be not merely the effect, but also the cause of a deficiency of striking genius in the candidates for the laurel. Collins and Gray were dead; Mason had hung up the ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... Now, mingled with his resolution there was something of desperation. He sat heavily in thought, his glass in his hand; and while he brooded, unheeding, the cafe roared and clattered about him. To his right, a group of white-clad officers chatted over a languid game of cards; at his left, a forlorn man sang dolorously to himself. Others were behind. From these last, as he sat, a word reached him which woke him from his preoccupation like a thrust of a knife. He sat without moving, straining ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... toiled to make Some well-wrought stages for the pageant's sake, Though hardly yet the sparrows had begun To twitter o'er the coming of the sun, Nor through the palace did a creature move. There in the sweet entanglement of love Midst languid thoughts of greater bliss he lay, Remembering no more of that other day Than the hot noon remembereth of the night, Than summer thinketh of the winter white. In that sweet hour he heard a voice ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... lightning to the Golden Cross, and brought the wine just as Butzou had opened his eyes, and was gazing at Thaddeus with a languid agony that penetrated his soul. Mrs. Robson held the water to his lips. He swallowed a little, then feebly articulated, "I am perishing for want ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... these, as a natural consequence, are comparatively free from those tawdry spangles which deface the greater part of the poem. And, moreover, in the episode of "The Indian and the Lady," there is throughout a "keeping in the tone," as painters say, sultry and languid, yet rich and full of life, like a gorgeous Venetian picture, which augurs even better for Mr. Smith's future success than the two scenes just mentioned; for consistency of thought may come with time and training; but clearness of inward vision, ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... a brook that was flowing by, She made of her two hands a nice round cup, And washed the roots of the rose tree high, Till it lifted its languid blossoms up. ...
— Eric - or, Under the Sea • Mrs. S. B. C. Samuels
... fortuitous, in its great operations the march of the mind appears regular, and requires preparation. The intellectual faculties are not always co-existent, or do not always act simultaneously. Whenever any particular faculty is highly active, while the others are languid, the work, as a work of genius, may be very deficient. Hence the faculties, in whatever degree they exist, are unquestionably enlarged by meditation. It seems trivial to observe that meditation should precede composition, but we ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... passions of the stage, I turned with a sigh of exhaustion and of pleasure to my hostess, and I was rather surprised to find that she showed not a trace of the nervous excitement which had marked her entrance into the box. She sat there, an excellent imitation of a woman of fashion, languid, unmoved, apparently a little bored, but finely conscious of doing the ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... not praise easily those whose names are indissolubly connected with his own in the history of literature. It was languid praise, at least; and I observed that he hesitated for mild terms which he could apply to names almost ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... door. Daniel had just finished the mass, and his flock still knelt at their devotions. It was but the day before that he had returned to them, warmed with new fervor, from his meditations in retreat at Sainte Marie. Suddenly an uproar of voices, shrill with terror, burst upon the languid silence of the town. "The Iroquois! the Iroquois!" A crowd of hostile warriors had issued from the forest, and were rushing across the clearing, towards the opening in the palisade. Daniel ran out of the church, and hurried ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... past the city's limits, and yet within seeing distance of its blue-tiled housetops, you will find the palms growing rank in the great swamps, which you must search if you care to hunt for the languid alligators—palms growing so thick and rank that it is quite like looking into some vast conservatory, with the blue dome of the sky for glass. And here grow the magnolias in their wild, barbaric splendor of bloom, and the live-oaks, mighty of girth and spread, ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... didn't he come?" asked Miss Madigan, absently. "He isn't sick, is he? Irene complains of headache and backache, and she's so languid she let Sissy get the wish-bone—I call it the bone of contention—at dinner yesterday without a struggle. I'm half afraid she'll not be able to sing to-night at Professor Trask's concert; but perhaps it's only that she danced too much ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... nitrogenous solid is clasped; yet it is difficult (except with raw meat and flies) to be sure of the result, owing to differences in vigour of different plants. The last experiments which I tried before my plants became too languid are very curious, and were tried by putting microscopical atoms on the gland itself of single hairs; and it is perfectly evident that an atom of human hair, 1/76000 of a grain (as ascertained by weighing a length of hair) in weight, causes conspicuous movement. I do not believe (for atoms ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... for our Metaphorical- and Similitude-Men of the Pulpit, these things to them, are too still and languid! they do not rattle and rumble! These lie too near home, and within vulgar ken! There is little on this side the moon that will content them! Up, presently, to the Primum Mobile, and the Trepidation of the Firmament! Dive into the ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... exhausted, feeble, languid, wearied, faded, half-hearted, listless, worn, faint-hearted, ill-defined, purposeless, worn down, faltering, indistinct, timid, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... and the languid reign of Charles IV have been treated by historians with derision. He forgot the general welfare of the empire in his eagerness to enrich his own house and aggrandize his paternal kingdom of Bohemia. The one remarkable law which emanated from him, and whereby ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... view of the case. The child that is now sitting by your side in perfect health, is suddenly taken sick. Its blooming cheeks turn pale, and it lifts its languid and imploring eyes for help. You call a physician, the most skillful one you can obtain. Do you think of expense? A protracted illness swells the bill of the physician and apothecary to a heavy amount. Do you dismiss the ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble
... seasons; one in summer, of the majority of plants; and the other in winter, of Acanthaceae, Bauhinia, Dillenia, Bombax, etc. Of these the former are abundant, and render the jungle gay with large and delicate white, red, and purple blossoms. Coarse, ill-favoured vultures wheeled through the air, languid Bengalees had replaced the active mountaineers, jackal-like curs of low degree teemed at every village, and ran howling away from the onslaught of my mountain dog; and the tropics, with all their beauty of flower and genial warmth, looked as forbidding and unwholesome as they felt oppressive ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... languid, the last weakly beams Of the departing sun, across the lawn Deep gild the top of the long sweepy ridge, And shed a scatter'd brightness, bright but cheerless, Between the op'nings of the rifted hills; Which like the farewell looks of some dear ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... excitement, like some frantic soul wandering unsuspected in the vast stillness of the coast, had seized upon the body of the lascar at the lead. The languid monotony of his sing-song changed to a swift, sharp clamor. The weight flew after a single whir, the line whistled, splash followed splash in haste. The water had shoaled, and the man, instead of the drowsy tale of fathoms, was calling out ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... slanting across the plain's distant edges. Before them, silent, not a breath stirring the close-packed growth, stretched the marshes. They were miles in extent; miles upon miles of these level bulrush spears threaded with languid streams, streams that curved and looped, turned back upon themselves, narrowed into gleaming veins, widened to miniature lakes on whose bosom the clouds, the birds and the stars were mirrored. They were like a crystal inlay covering the face of the tules with an intricate, shining ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... emphasised; his eyes had a faintly yellowish tinge like the white of a stale egg. In shooting her first lightning observation of him Sally clicked "Bilious." There was a little smile between them, and Gaga went out of the room again, languid and indifferent to everything that was occurring round him. Sally had an impulse to find some reason for going into his room, but she did not dare to go. She sewed busily. Perhaps she would see him later. She peeped into the room ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... island never ventured on it for fear of the serpents that lodged in the hollows of the rocks and lest they might encounter the souls of the dead who resembled livid flames. To the south, orchards and woods bounded the languid Bay of Divers. On this fortunate shore old Mael built a wooden church and a monastery. To the west, two streams, the Clange and the Surelle, watered the fertile valleys of Dalles ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... equally little, it seemed, of the society which the neighbouring district might afford. There was a meagre routine of formal calls kept in languid operation, Thorpe knew, but it was so much in the background that he never came in contact with it. His own notions of the part he ought to take in County affairs had undergone a silent and unnoted, yet almost sweeping, change. What little he ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... to rouse. The heavy eyes, the languid stretch, the unmeaning contemplation of the noontide sunlight, the slow struggles of a somnolent brain. These things were suggested in the gradual stirring of the place to a ponderous activity. The heavy ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... or soon or late, shall bring The dreamless sleep that lulls the dead, Oblivion! may thy languid wing Wave ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... in with a certain slow and languid grace in her movements, and pauses for an instant by the hearth, holding out her hand, that is white and well-shaped, though perhaps a trifle too ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... sting her to the very quick. On the other hand, his admiration, openly expressed in a certain courtly gallantry, nourished her pride but not her heart. Though she tried to keep up her usual routine, her manner was forced before him and languid when alone. But he said, "All this will pass away like a cold snap in spring, and the old zest will come again ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... required a gentler, kindlier atmosphere than that of New York. The poor diseased lungs craved the elixir of pure air; panted for the invigoration of breezes freshly oxygenized by field and forest, and labored exhaustedly in the languid devitalized breath of a city. The medical fraternity copiously consulted, recognized their impotence, but refrained from stating it; and availed themselves of their power of reference to the loftier physician—the boy must be healed, if he was to be healed, by nature. The country, pure air, ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... home and get some breakfast, and go to sleep," Daisy said, looking at him lovingly with her languid eyes. ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Amedroz, in his passive, but gently querulous way, was sorry that Belton was going to leave him, as his cousin had been the creation of some new excitement for him, but he said nothing on the subject; and when the time for going to bed had come, he bade his guest farewell with some languid allusion to the pleasure which he would have in seeing him again at Christmas. Belton was to start very early in the morning before six, and of course he was prepared to take leave also of Clara. But she told him very gently, so gently ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... manner in her lover the girl seemed to repress herself also. "Of course you have seen my fire," she answered with languid calmness, artificially maintained. "Why shouldn't I have a bonfire on the Fifth of November, like other ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... that saw the last of him came to David and drew in a sentence the pathetic picture of the wearied, wounded, broken-hearted, discrowned, desperate monarch, leaning on his spear. You can understand how hard he leaned, with what a grip he held it, and how heavily his whole languid, powerless weight pressed upon it. And that is the word that is used here. 'We lean on Thee' as the wounded Saul leaned upon his spear. Is that a picture of your faith, my friend? Do you lean upon God like that, laying your hand upon Him till every vein on your hand stands out with the force and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... office, less in consequence of military fatigues and marches than from halts made with the ladies of the Opera, or of the Comedie Italienne. Sometimes it was a lady carried in by her servants with drooping head and languid eye, who, weakened by late hours and an irregular life, came to demand from Doctor Mesmer the health she had vainly sought to ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... you 'Stanislaus Joe.' Of course that is not your real name?" (Mem.—Miss Alice had never called him ANYTHING, usually prefacing any request with a languid, "O-er-er, please, mister-er-a!" explicit enough ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... beginning to utter his first delicious, stammering monosyllables, it was with great gravity that she realized that motherhood was approaching her again, that at Thanksgiving she would have a second child. She was wretchedly languid and ill during the entire spring, and found her mother-in-law's and Alice Valentine's calm acceptance of the situation ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... the old days of the Pagoda Tree! Why, the old commissioner always was a woman hater, and absolutely hostile to all social influences!" The Captain was now stealing longing glances at the willowy figure of the beautiful woman whose glistening dark brown eyes were turned to him with a languid glance, as Alan Hawke leaned forward. To prolong the sight of that bewitching half profile, with the fair, low brows, the velvet cheeks, a Provencale flush tinting them, the parted lips a dainty challenge speaking, and the rich ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... some points of interest," said he, in his languid fashion. "May I ask, in the first place, Mr. McFarlane, how it is that you are still at liberty, since there appears to be enough evidence ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... afoot, but his net and box lay there beside him, and his hunt had been without profit, for both were apparently empty. Possibly he had devoted but little time to netting insects. Possibly he had thought to encounter bigger game. If so his zest in the sport must have been but languid, since he had so soon yielded to the drowsy influences of the day. There was resentment in the heart of the girl as this occurred to her, even though it would have angered her the more had anyone suggested she had come in hope of seeing ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... translation is, that it cannot be too literal, provided these faults be avoided: baldness, in which I include all that takes from dignity; and strangeness, or uncouthness, including harshness; and lastly, attempts to convey meanings which, as they cannot be given but by languid circumlocutions, cannot in fact be said to be given at all.... I feel it, however, to be too probable that my translation is deficient in ornament, because I must unavoidably have lost many of Virgil's, and have never without ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... Turkletaub, whose adolescence had been languid and who had never known a woman with a fling, a perfume, or a moue (there had been only a common-sense-heeled co-ed of his law-school days and the rather plump little sister-in-law of Leo's), the dawn of Josie cleft open something in his consciousness, releasing maddened perceptions ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... as if prepared for a ball rather than for the dust of the road. Dowagers, frigid and stately as marble, murmured racy gossip to each other behind their fans. Famous beauties flitted hither and thither, beckoning languid fops with their alluring eyes. Wits and beaux sauntered about elegantly even as at White's. 'Twas plain that this was a party en route for one of the great county ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... where he lived with his parents, though small, was neat and comfortable. We found him lying in bed, awake. He looked languid and lethargic; but his skin was moist and cool; his face displayed no paleness, and no injury of any kind. He had just eaten a good dinner of rabbit-pie, and was anxious to be allowed to sit up in a chair, and amuse himself by looking out of the window. His left side was first examined. A great ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... 'round us, in the room, While Helen sang; and, in the gathering gloom, Vivian reached out, and took my hand in his, And held it so; while Helen made the air Languid with music. Then a step drew near, And voice of Aunt Ruth broke the spell: "Dear! dear! Why Maurie, Helen, children! how is this? I hear you, but you have no light in there. Your room is dark as Egypt. What a way For folks to visit!—Maurie, ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... the door, Sidwell voiced a languid "Come in," and merely shifted in his seat; but his big companion, with the hospitality of inebriation, had returned his glass unsteadily to the table and arisen. He had taken a couple of uncertain steps, as if to open ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... parties), Hogarth's health visibly declined. In 1762, he complained of an internal pain, the continuance of which produced a general decay of the system, that proved incurable; and, on the 25th of October, 1764, (having been previously conveyed in a very weak and languid state from Chiswick to Leicester Fields,) he died suddenly, of an aneurism in his chest, in the sixty-seventh or sixty-eighth year of his age. His remains were interred at Chiswick, beneath a plain but neat mausoleum, with the following elegant ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... When Roses die, in languid August days, We leave the garden to its fallen ways, And seek the shelter of wide porticoes, Where Honeysuckle in defiance blows Undaunted by the ...
— The Englishman and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... held one languid arm in his, and had the small hand tight folded to his breast for warmth. It was the hand she had stretched out to him with her last smile; the hand that had led him on through all their wanderings. Ever and anon he pressed it to his lips; then hugged ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... peculiar heartiness all attempts at realizing history, by evolving its romantic element, and thus demonstrating to the languid and lazy readers of ninepenny nonsense, that the actual heroes and heroines of the world have surpassed in romantic daring the fictitious ones who swell and swagger in most novels and poems. Mr. Gayarre's work is ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... is young, And music warbles from the faltering tongue: Thy ray creative cheers the clouded brow, And decks the faded cheek with rosy glow, Brightens the joyless aspect, and supplies Pure heavenly lustre to the languid eyes: But when Youth's living bloom reflects thy beams, Resistless on the view the glory streams; Love, Wonder, Joy, alternately alarm, And Beauty dazzles with angelic charm. Ah! whither fled! ye dear illusions, stay! Lo, pale and silent lies ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... in a tone of sympathy, for the girl's heavy eyes and languid manner appealed very strongly to her ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... revolvers had very nearly pinked me when I was in the rigging; for the ball passed between my arm and my side, and took out a piece of the former, Captain Rombold," replied Christy, who was beginning to feel languid from the loss of blood, for the drops of red fluid were dropping from the ends of his fingers. "But you exaggerate the service I rendered; for Captain Breaker, suspecting something from the position in which your men were drawn up, had dropped a hawser port, ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... not cheer up. He seemed strangely languid and dispirited. 'That is all true enough,' he said,'if you are right, if your alternatives are exhaustive. But suppose they are something else, something .... What that 'something' might be he had apparently no idea, and very soon ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... the night, would go round to their different apartments, fearful they might be destroyed in their sleep, and ask, "Etes vous la?" when they would answer him from within, "Nous sommes encore ici." Indeed, if, when nature was exhausted, sleep by chance came to the relief of their worn-out and languid frames, it was only to awaken them to fresh horrors, which constantly threatened the convulsion by ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe
... been possessed by such a sense of buoyancy and youthfulness. The road lay straight and smooth before her. The little car, obedient to her strong capable hand, spun along the shining track, counterfeiting by the swiftness of its motion the breeze lacking in the languid spring day. Persis had laid aside her hat, and the rush of air ruffled her abundant hair and rouged her cheeks. As a matter of fact, Persis was not so near flying as she thought. In the most conservative community, there would have been little danger of her arrest for exceeding the speed limit. ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... idler on a summer day Piping with Iris by a dancing brook; And all his world was rife with Pleasures gay, And languid Follies smiled from ...
— ANTHOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS POETS • WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE
... then, just before our lips touched, he opened his eyes and shut them again. So it occurred every morning. Ere even his brain had resumed activity his heart had felt its need of me. This it was that was so wonderful, so overpowering! And the kiss, languid and yet warm, heavy with a human scent, with the scent of the night, honest, sensuous, and long—long! As I lay thus, clasped in his arms, I half closed my eyes, and looked into his eyes through my lashes, smiling, and ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... starts, as it were, of his taste. For some reason, best known to himself, he took it into his head to regard it as a want of delicacy, of respect, of savoir-vivre—of heaven knows what—that poor Theodore, who is still weak and languid, should enter the sacred precinct of his study in the vulgar drapery of a dressing-gown. The sovereign trouble with the bonhomme is an absolute lack of the instinct of justice. He's of the real feminine turn—I ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... garden where we'll walk alone In the autumn sunny evenings; each will see Our walks grow shorter, till at length to thee The garden's length is far, and thou wilt rest From time to time, leaning upon my breast Thy languid lily face. Then later still, Unto the sofa by the window-sill Thy wasted body I shall carry, so That thou mays't drink the last left lingering glow Of even, when the air is filled with scent Of blossoms; and my spirits shall be ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... languid!" cried the little man, using a bit of slang which he had heard from the lips of one ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... roses scented, Languid from a slumber-spell; June in shade of leafage tented;— June the next, with roses scented. Now her Itys, still ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... older than I thought," Mr. Raymond said to me, regarding me for the first time with languid curiosity. "I expected to see a velvet-coated little fellow of Helen's size. What ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... corner of the room, seat himself next to Claudia. A request on her part for the salt sufficed to open a conversation between them; but as it was in German, I could not follow its meaning. I observed, however, that it by and by waxed rather more warm than is customary in the languid hour of a table-d'hote; and, what was more, a silence ensued amongst a considerable number of those within hearing, as if the subject of their conversation were of an interesting character. A kind-looking English gentleman on the opposite side of the table ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... hospital I visited was Mound City, twelve miles from Cairo. It contained twelve hundred beds, furnished with dainty sheets, and pillows and shirts, from the Sanitary Commission, and ornamented with boughs of fresh apple blossoms, placed there by tender female nurses to refresh the languid frames of their mangled inmates. As I took my slow and solemn walk through this congregation of suffering humanity, I was arrested by the bright blue eyes, and pale but dimpled cheek, of a boy of nineteen summers. I perceived he was bandaged like ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... the Duc, when released from his attendance at court, hurrying into the sick chamber of his children, and their languid eyes, lighting up with a momentary animation, and their feverish lips relaxing into a smile, at the sound of his well-known voice. And this is the couple considered to be "the glass of fashion and the mould of form," the observed of all observers, of the courtly ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... very ill all night, and the house was to be kept as quiet as possible. When Anna came in from early Celebration, Aunt Cherry came out looking like a ghost, and very anxious, and gave a sigh of relief on Adrian being reported still sound asleep. Gerald presently came down, pale and languid, but calling himself all right, and loitering over his breakfast till after the boy appeared, so rosy and ravenous as to cause no apprehension, except that he should devour too much apricot jam, and use his new boots ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... us, spotless [2] in array, A white-robed Negro, [3] like a lady gay, Yet downcast [4] as a woman fearing blame; Meek, destitute, as seemed, of hope or aim [5] 5 She sate, from notice turning not away, But on all proffered intercourse did lay [6] A weight of languid speech, or to the same No sign of answer made by word or face: Yet still her eyes retained their tropic fire, 10 That, burning independent of the mind, Joined with the lustre of her rich attire To mock the Outcast—O ye Heavens, be kind! ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... her, the phosphor-bronze propeller showed a single blade cocked crookedly at the end of the broken screw shaft; rudder there was none, the funnel was gone, spar deck and bridge were in wrack and ruin, whilst the cowl of a bent ventilator turned seaward seemed contemplating with a languid air the beauty of the morning and the view of the ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... magic! 75 Hast thou then lured hither, Wonderful Goddess, by thy art, The young, languid-eyed Ampelus, Iacchus' darling— Or some youth beloved of Pan, 80 Of Pan and the Nymphs deg.? deg.81 That he sits, bending downward His white, delicate neck To the ivy-wreathed marge Of thy cup; the bright, glancing vine-leaves 85 That crown his hair, Falling forward, ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... was more alarmed on her account than on Fred's. But for his insistence she would have taken no rest: her brightness was all bedimmed; unconscious of her costume which had always been so fresh and gay, she was like a sick bird with languid eye and plumage ruffled, her senses dulled to the sights and sounds that used most to interest her. Fred's delirium, in which he seemed to be wandering out of her reach, tore her heart. After her first outburst against-Mr. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... arrange that. You can come to my sitting-room. I'll just run and tell Mrs. Eastwood," and away she flew in a happy, childish way, very different to her languid manner previously. Mrs. Eastwood could scarcely believe, her eyes as the girl rushed into the ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... family. After ushering me into the room, he withdrew, and left me alone with Mrs. Leighton. I quietly advanced into the room and paused before her. She was reclining in a large easy chair, and I was much surprised by her changed appearance. She was very thin and pale, and appeared to be weak and languid; and Mrs. Harringford's letter was recalled to my mind when I observed how gray was her once beautiful hair. She extended her hand to me; but, for some moments, was unable to utter a word. When she relinquished the hand I had given her, she ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... from the only one of whom she cared to receive news. There were home and foreign newspapers that she threw carelessly out. And there was one letter at the bottom of all the rest that she lifted up and looked at with languid curiosity. But as soon as her eyes fell upon the handwriting of the superscription the letter dropped from her hand and she sank back in her chair ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... next day, he had a vi'lent cold, as you may suppose, and was low and languid-like, but went on with his writing, and it weren't no good asking him not. 'I want money, Mrs. Pratt,' he said; 'you can't tell how bad I want money, and these people pay me for my stuff as fast as I send it in.' The day after that he was a deal worse, and had a wandering way like, ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... houses are brick—which was unoccupied until two days ago, when it was rented furnished. I live just across the street and hence I notice these things—casually of course, as one does. I watched the cab with languid interest; saw the driver descend from the box, which seemed a bit peculiar; but when, instead of going to the door of the cab, he went up the front steps and into the house—the door of which he opened with ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... go in the right direction," was his next thought, as he still lay feeble and languid, and as if regaining his senses after taking some ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... recruiting juices, must tend to emaciation, and the whole frame be rendered one system of distress and infirmity. The nerves, being thus deprived of a sufficiency of their animal spirits, must become languid, and leave every sense void of the first means of conveying to the mind the only enjoyments ...
— A Treatise on Foreign Teas - Abstracted From An Ingenious Work, Lately Published, - Entitled An Essay On the Nerves • Hugh Smith
... De Maistre was indefatigable. He never belonged to that languid band who hoped to learn difficult things by easy methods. The only way, he warned his son, is to shut your door, to say that you are not within, and to work. 'Since they have set themselves to teach ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... mariners had passed nearly six years in this dismal abode, Feoder Weregin, who had all along been in a languid state, died, after suffering the most excruciating pains. Though his companions were thus freed of the trouble of attending on him, and the grief of witnessing his misery, they were deeply affected by his death. They saw ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... deliberately turned her back on the smart yacht, and gave heed only to the safe lowering of certain trunks from the roof of the omnibus. He heard the manner of her speech to a neatly dressed maid and its languid insolence did not help to dissipate ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... After a quarter of an hour's waiting one of the Roman candles went off with vast eclat, and after it two crackers simultaneously gave chase to the operator half-way round the lawn. One of the Catherine-wheels was also prevailed upon to give a few languid rotations on its axis, and some of the squibs, which had unfortunately got damp, condescended, after being inserted bodily into the lantern, to go off. Presently, however, the wind got into the lantern, and the matches being by this time exhausted, and the starlights refusing to ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... better the next morning after the extra sleep which she had. She still confessed to a slight pain in her scalp when she brushed her hair and was a little languid, but not so much as to call for complaint. She sat up in bed while her daughter prepared the breakfast and her tongue sped as rapidly as heretofore. She said she had a sort of feeling that her brother Patrick must come back from America some time, and she was sure that when ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... of master George was of a disposition entirely the reverse. Feeble, languid, and inert, sitting motionless for hours at her window, or moving her small fingers over the strings of her guitar, to some soft and languishing air, she would have seemed to a stranger incapable of rousing herself from that indolent repose, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... obscure Samuel Johnson, quite unknown to fame. He is walking with Richard Savage. As Signor Handel, 'the composer of Italian music,' passes by, Savage becomes excited, and nudges his friend, who takes only a languid interest in the foreigner. Johnson did not care for music; of many noises he considered ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... likely to veer right round to the east than to shift back again. It was in those conditions that, at seven on the morning of the 21st, the signal for the fleet to bear up and steer east was made. Holding a clear recollection of these languid easterly sighs rippling unexpectedly against the run of the smooth swell, with no other warning than a ten-minutes' calm and a queer darkening of the coast-line, I cannot think, without a gasp of professional awe, of that ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... refused to blow; on the contrary, it was growing more languid every minute, while our speed had dwindled down to a bare two knots; and the thunder-clouds were piling up overhead blacker and more menacing every minute. At length, when we were a bare three miles from the brig, the helmsman reported that we no longer had steerage-way, and as the Francesca slowly ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... little time, Pao-yue felt tired and languid and inclined for his midday siesta. "Take good care," dowager lady Chia enjoined some of them, "and stay with him, while he rests for a while, when he can come back;" whereupon Chia Jung's wife, Mrs. Ch'in, smiled and said with eagerness: "We got ready in here a room for uncle Pao, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... moment that he set foot on African soil Rhodes succumbed to the strange charm the country offers for thinkers and dreamers. His naturally languid temperament found a source of untold satisfaction in watching the Southern Cross rise over the vast veldt where scarcely man's foot had trod, where the immensity of its space was equalled by its sublime, quiet ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... themselves prostrate beside the corpse and sob as if their very hearts would break. They take the dead man by the hand, they stroke him, they straighten out the poor feet which are already growing cold. They coo to him softly, they lift up the languid head, and then lay it gently down. Then in a frenzy of grief one of them will leap to his feet, shriek, bellow, stamp on the floor, grapple with the roof beams, shake the walls, as if he would pull the house down, and finally hurl himself on the ground ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... these. The small house in Kentish Town was hot and stifling in the months of July and August; the children grew pale and pined for the fresh country air which could not be given to them; Lottie herself grew weak and languid, and her husband's pale face seemed to grow more ethereal day by day. At all such times as these did Charlotte Home's mind and thoughts refer back to her mother's story, and again and again the idea returned that a great, ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... propriety, allowed to one who declaimed only in his closet—one who, in relation to public affairs, was what, in England, when speaking of practical jurisprudence, we call a Chamber Counsel—Isocrates is languid, and with little of anything characteristic in his manner to justify a separate consideration. It is remarkable that he, beyond all other rhetoricians of that era, cultivated the rhythmus of his periods. And to this object he sacrificed not only ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... animal is sound, safe, and a child could ride him," asserted Young Pete as he led the languid and underfed pony to the wagon. "He's got good action." Pete climbed to the wagon-wheel and mounted bareback. "He don't pitch, bite, kick, or balk." The horse, used to being shown, loped a few yards, turned and trotted back. "He ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... of seclusion and publicity that made Norwood a place of favorite resort, through the summer, of artists, of languid scholars, and of persons of quiet tastes. There was company for all that shunned solitude, and solitude for all that were weary of company. Each house was secluded from its neighbor. Yards and gardens ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... and she was in her low chair again, propped with cushions, pallid as a snow-drop, weak and languid, but still there, she told her story, simply and without comprehension ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... permanence of the ideas which inspired their action. At the same time they showed their want of confidence in the republican feeling of the country, and both exasperated the royalists and gave them courage to act for themselves. On September 23 the country accepted the scheme, by a languid vote, but with ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... of Life we strayed together; And the luscious apples were ripe and red, And the languid lilac and honeyed heather Swooned with the fragrance which they shed. And under the trees the angels walked, And up in the air a sense of wings Awed us tenderly while we talked Softly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... enough to publish a poem called The Hermit, where the circumstances and catastrophe are exactly the same, only with this difference, that the natural simplicity and tenderness of the original are almost entirely lost in the languid smoothness and tedious paraphrase of the copy, which is as short of the merits of Mr. Percy's ballad as the insipidity of negus is to ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... and hope, the flight and pursuit, the peril and escape, alternate famine and feast, of the savage and the robber, after a time render all course of slow, steady, progressive, unvaried occupation and the prospect only of a limited mediocrity at the end of long labour, to the last degree tame, languid, and insipid. The interesting nature of their exploits may be conceived from the account ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... champagne bottles stood on the tables, and all who liked helped themselves. Boldero was known to several of those present, while two or three were also known to Dick. Boldero introduced them both to his friends. One of these was the Hon. John Emerson, a man of some five and thirty, with a languid air and ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... she smiled, and without turning her head towards him, but giving only to the tone of her voice that inflection of gentle reproach, and languid impertinence, which women and princesses so well know how to assume, she murmured, "I have already hinted, my lord, that you must have taken leave of ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... thymy dew Track'd the hares, and follow'd through Sunny moor or meadow; This dog only crept and crept Next a languid cheek that slept, Sharing ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... be nothing there but languid and monotonous smoke. Yet when the night comes, Fire bursts out, father!' ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... of wonderful fascination; and the weary of body and mind, or the despondent and languid invalid, and no less the strong and healthy, will find their physical faculties invigorated, and the mind and soul elevated by a sojourn among the attractions of that lovely town. It was with the deepest ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... They are in imminent danger of giving themselves over to integrity, to industry, perseverance, and single-mindedness, without looking forward to those posts of usefulness for which these qualities eminently fit them. Fired with the love of learning, they are languid in claiming the honors which learning has to bestow. Eager to become worthy of the highest places, they make no effort to secure the places to which their worth points them. Political supineness is the bane of our society. The one great need is to rouse the ambition of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... birds certainly did pull the frigid mitt! So I wend my way back to the demure Dolores, the houri of my heart, and the next time I'll take a crack at the big guns in Seattle. And I'll sure reward you for your generosity in taking me to Blewett, all the long, long, languid, languorous way——" ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... a description of the season, and the rural pursuits of haymaking and sheep-shearing; passes on to the hot noon, when "nature pants, and every stream looks languid." After describing the tumultuous character of the season in the torrid zone, he returns to England, and describes a thunder-storm, in which Cel[)a]don and Amelia are overtaken. The thunder growls, the lightnings flash, louder ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... interest the earlier stages of the great struggle in America; and she did not falter in her hopes for Italy; by intrigues and smuggling the newspapers which she wished to see were obtained through the courteous French generals. But her spirits were languid; "I gather myself up by fits and starts," she confesses, "and ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... who could conceive and write the character of Elspeth of the Craigburnfoot, as Scott has conceived and written it, had not only splendid romantic but splendid tragic gifts. How comes it, then, that he could so often fob us off with languid, inarticulate twaddle? It seems to me that the explanation is to be found in the very quality of his surprising merits. As his books are play to the reader, so were they play to him. He was a great day-dreamer, a seer of fit and beautiful and humorous visions, but hardly ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the main, There to the slumbering bark the gentle tide Stole soft, and faintly beat against its side; Such is that sound, which fond designs convey, When, true to love, the damsel speeds away; The sails unshaken, hung aloft unfurl'd, And simpering nigh, the languid current curl'd; A crumbling ruin, once a city's pride, The well-pleased eye through withering oaks descried, Where Sadness, gazing on time's ravage, hung, And Silence to Destruction's trophy clung - Save that as morning songsters ...
— Inebriety and the Candidate • George Crabbe
... began to remind him of the last summer's heat, and recalled how he sickened and drooped in the sultry breathless days, he remembered all he had suffered and how very tired and languid he felt. Now the summer would soon be here again, for it was the end of March already, and the doctor had said that if Jeff was not sent away to a cooler ...
— A Little Hero • Mrs. H. Musgrave
... a languid, large-eyed lady in a crimped, half-transparent linen dress, with her black hair very much braided and puffed ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... the letter again. She did so with an air almost of indifference. She had learned the news, and doubtless all this long epistle contained many details of comparatively little interest. But as she read her air of languid grief gave way to an expression of keen interest, and she skimmed through the last page or two with anxious haste. Then she reread it more slowly and carefully, and then throwing it on the table stood up and walked up ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... are proverbial; but that beauty had gradually withered beneath the devastating influence of the slow fever so prevalent among dwellers by the ponds of Aiguemortes and the marshes of Camargue. She remained nearly always in her second-floor chamber, shivering in her chair, or stretched languid and feeble on her bed, while her husband kept his daily watch at the door—a duty he performed with so much the greater willingness, as it saved him the necessity of listening to the endless plaints and murmurs of his helpmate, who never ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of the week Delia, sweetly proud but languid, triumphantly tossed three five-dollar bills on the 8x10 (inches) centre table of ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... turned away, Marco couldn't help slapping on the climax while the thing was hot; so he said with what was meant for a languid composure but was a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain |
