"Leisure" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had been gathered hastily from among the citizens of West Sedgwick who chanced to be passing; and as it was after eleven o'clock, they were, for the most part, men of leisure, and occupants of the handsome homes ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... was a changed man. He sang and whistled merrily as he went about his work, and bore himself like a prosperous citizen. His cheeks filled out, and his eye grew bright; no longer did he waste his leisure in lamentations, but dug and planted his little garden until it yielded him richly of the fruits of the earth, and the proceeds helped to swell the silver coins in his good wife's stocking. The farmer who had before employed him when ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... as an exercise for my leisure hours, while attending the Oneida Conference Seminary during the past winter. As it is the first attempt that, to my knowledge, has ever been made to reduce the Chippeway language to any system, it cannot be expected to be otherwise ...
— Sketch of Grammar of the Chippeway Languages - To Which is Added a Vocabulary of some of the Most Common Words • John Summerfield
... I saw your letter in the London Magazine, which I had not before had an opportunity of seeing, and I now take the first interval of leisure for replying to it. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... this old man, who divided the leisure of his life, where there was so little leisure, between gardening in the daytime and contemplation at night? Was not this narrow enclosure, with the heavens for a ceiling, sufficient to enable him to adore God in his most divine works, in turn? Does not this comprehend ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... stayed. Not so; everything goes on most vigorously— lumbering, carting, cutting wood for summer's need. Ladies seem always busy; yet as it is often seen, those who have most to do can best arrange to be at leisure. There is an education of forethought caused by having to watch against the heat and cold; this has deeply interested me in the practical manner in which they are going to work in furnishing this Eastern Townships' ...
— God's Answers - A Record Of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the - Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada • Clara M. S. Lowe
... have no record as to how far the Hebrews made use of this freedom, for, as already pointed out, the Holy Scriptures were not written to chronicle their scientific achievements. But there can be no doubt that, given the leisure of peace, it is a priori more likely that they should have taught astronomy to their neighbours, than have learnt it ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... your own hands," Sir Abel went on, not without a hint of annoyance. "If you need amusement, leisure, rest, they are ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... wonderful than in the wide-spread diffusion of knowledge. The ordinary people now understand more of nature's secrets than the wise men of old. They are to-day interested in researches that a former generation would have relegated to the scholar and the man of leisure. No department of knowledge is retained for the researches of a favored few. The farmer, the mechanic, and the man of business are alike interested in a knowledge of prehistoric times. The rude implements of the past appeal to the curiosity of all. We arise from a study of the past ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... of teaching, to which the public lecturer is in some degree compelled by his situation. A private preceptor, who undertakes the instruction of several pupils in the same family, will examine with care the different habits and tempers of his pupils; and he will have full leisure to adapt ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... had departed from its communion; and it was confessed on all sides that the most scandalous licentiousness of manners prevailed among great numbers of those who affected the name of Christians. A Pagan magistrate, who possessed neither leisure nor abilities to discern the almost imperceptible line which divides the orthodox faith from heretical depravity, might easily have imagined that their mutual animosity had extorted the discovery of their common guilt" ("Decline and Fall," Gibbon, vol. ii., pp. 204, 205). ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... of—what?—an idea—an abstraction,—a thought:—I say this was wonderful enough, even in the glow of the first excitement. But now that the Jersey winter is fresh in men's memories, and Lexington and Bunker Hill are forgotten, and all have found leisure and learning to count the cost; it were expecting miracles indeed, to believe that this army could hold together with a policy like this. Every step of this retreat, I say again, treads out some lingering ...
— The Bride of Fort Edward • Delia Bacon
... prevent their getting rusty. But now, having been stricken to the ground by a most severe blow of fortune, and being discharged from all concern in the republic, I seek a medicine for my sorrow in philosophy, and consider this study the most honourable pastime for my leisure. For I may look upon it as most suitable to my age, and most especially consistent with any memorable exploits which I may have performed, and inferior to no other occupation in its usefulness for the purpose of educating my fellow-countrymen. Or even if this be too high a view ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... of travel are enormous to a man prepared to profit by them. He sees Nature working by herself, without the interference of human intelligence; and he sees her from new points of view; he has also undisturbed leisure for the problems which perpetually attract his attention by their novelty. The consequence is, that though scientific travellers are comparatively few, yet out of their ranks a large proportion of the leaders in all branches of science ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... is only attracted by the history of the great, and yet from that knowledge little use can be derived."—"Father," I rejoined, "from your manner and your observations, I perceive that you have acquired much experience of human life. If you have leisure, relate to me, I beseech you, the history of the ancient inhabitants of this desert; and be assured, that even the men who are most perverted by the prejudices of the world, find a soothing pleasure in contemplating that happiness ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... Another reviewer mingles praise and criticism quite ingeniously. "He astonishes and charms his hearers by a rare mastery over sentences. He is a skilful word-marshal. Hence his popularity as a lyceum lecturer. However much of elegant leisure the more solid and instructive lecturers may have, Mr. King is always wanted. He is, in some respects, the most popular writer and preacher of the two denominations which he equally represents, being a sort of soft ligament between the Chang of ...
— Starr King in California • William Day Simonds
... Jacaro's, waiting until either Von Holtz had secured the information that was wanted, or until an assault in force upon the laboratory would net them a catapult ready for use—to be examined, photographed, and duplicated at leisure. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... thing to discuss at leisure, theoretically, and quite another to have to put one's ideas into practice, especially when one has to make up one's mind quickly.... Those are frightful moments when the great tide surges through the depths of the hearts of men! They thought they were ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... these circumstances to be considerable delay before I could continue my journey, I passed my leisure time under the hospitable roof of Mr. and Mrs. Chance, and was glad of the opportunity to renew my acquaintance with the Indians whom we had met last fall. I had hoped that Mr. Chance would have been ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... despair which had so ceased to be aggressive—not to forgive a great deal of apathy to a temper which had so unlearned its irritability. Roderick said frankly that Switzerland made him less miserable than Italy, and the Alps seemed less to mock at his enforced leisure than the Apennines. He indulged in long rambles, generally alone, and was very fond of climbing into dizzy places, where no sound could overtake him, and there, flinging himself on the never-trodden moss, of pulling his hat over his eyes and lounging away the hours in ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... evolution. Barbarous societies show only the germs of literary life. But advancing civilisation, bringing with it increased conquest over material agencies, disengages the mind from the pressure of immediate wants, and the loosened energy finds in leisure both the demand and the means of a new activity: the demand, because long unoccupied hours have to be rescued from the weariness of inaction; the means, because this call upon the energies nourishes a greater ambition and ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... got near the cross road that led to Whitelees. He wanted to see Evelyn, and Mrs. Halliday had told him to come when he liked, but it was perhaps significant that he wanted also to get on with his draining plans. Seeing Evelyn was a satisfaction he unconsciously reserved for his leisure; she was not, like Carrie, to some extent his working partner and critic. He took the road to Whitelees and smiled. Perhaps Carrie was patient when he thought her keen: it was possible ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... glamour; and douce folk, finding how they were transgressing over their usual bounds, would have looked about them for the wooden pin that auld Michael Scott the warlock drave in behind the door, leaving the family to dance themselves to death at their leisure. ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... agents, town councilors, commissioners of public welfare or administration,[2117] even against their will. Too bad for them if the responsibility is expensive or dangerous, if they have no time for leisure, if they do not feel themselves qualified for it, if the rank or services seems to them to lead to a prison or the guillotine; when they declare that the work is forced labor we reply that they liable to work for the State.—Such is, henceforth, the condition of all ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... "Some time, when you have leisure, write a treatise on 'Who killed the man?'" he said, as if to turn the subject, "and keep going back to first causes. You'll find startling results; you may decide that 'twas your ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... back upon, when happiness failed him. Pelle set to work in earnest, and the man who was at the head of the prison shoemaking department liked to have him, for he did much more than was required of him. In his leisure hours he read diligently, and entered with zest into the prison school-work, taking up especially history and languages. The prison chaplain and the teachers took an interest in him, and procured books for him which were generally unobtainable by ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... detain him, then to send them supplies of men and money. They were to remind him, that "it concerned his dignity and his honour, not to abandon his allies; and it likewise concerned the safety of his kingdom, not to leave the Romans at full leisure, after ruining the nation of the Aetolians, to carry their whole force into Asia." What they said was true, and therefore made the deeper impression on the king; in consequence of which, he immediately supplied the ambassadors with the money ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... suggestion to offer? You got us out of the last scrape, and though this is not quite so bad as that, it is unpleasant enough. The frigate when she comes near will see that the Sea-horse is a slow sailer, and will probably leave her to be picked up at her leisure, and will go off in chase either of the brig or us. The brig is to make for the north-west and we shall steer south-east, so that she will have to make a choice between us. When we get the breeze we shall either of us give her a good dance before she catches us—that ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... and critical writings also afforded employment for many intelligent Romans; and every part of the empire seems to have been filled with cultivated men, who, possessing wealth and leisure, gave themselves to literary studies. Aulus Gellius, one of the best known of the grammarians, lived during the period of the Antonines. His Noctes Atticae is a critical work in twenty books, ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... will come to lie down. Now there is a seat near the entrance of the room, and upon this she will lay her garments as she takes them off one by one; and so thou wilt be able to gaze upon her at full leisure. And when she goes from the chair to the bed and thou shalt be behind her back, then let it be thy part to take care that she sees thee not as ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... allied themselves to the history of aging single women in lonely New England village houses,—pathetic sisters lingering upon the neutral ground between the faded hopes of marriage and the yet unrisen prospects of consumption. The work implies an imperfect yet real love of beauty, the leisure for it a degree of pecuniary ease: the thoughts of the sisters rise above the pickling and preserving that occupied their heartier and happier mother; they are in fact in that aesthetic, social, and intellectual mean, in ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... impossible, while the 58th were coming to closer quarters with them, to fire from the plains below without risk to the assailants. As a natural consequence, therefore, the Boers, skilled as they are in marksmanship, were able at their leisure to pick off each man as ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... first issue of the local newspaper after the death, to explain without offence that Silas had taken "a day off." It was more than a day, but from the record it appears that well within a month Mr. Deemer made it plain that he had not the leisure to be dead. ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... could not entirely discern until lights were set upon the table. He then looked around him with some curiosity; and, as the thief-taker was occupied in giving directions to his attendant in an undertone, ample leisure was allowed him for investigation. At the first glance, he imagined he must have stumbled upon a museum of rarities, there were so many glass-cases, so many open cabinets, ranged against the walls; but the next convinced ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... sort of gesture with his head as though his wife should speak; and she said in a low and somewhat husky voice, with a rapid utterance, "We have a matter, Father, we would ask you about—are you at leisure?" Father Thomas said, "Ay, I am ashamed to be not more busy! Let us go within the house." They did so; and even in the little distance to the door, the Father thought that his visitors behaved themselves very strangely. They peered round from left to right, and ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... completely. Even the little hotel kept by old Giorgio, standing alone halfway between the harbour and the town, escaped looting and destruction, not by a miracle, but because with the safes in view they had neglected it at first, and afterwards found no leisure to stop. Nostromo, with his Cargadores, was pressing them too ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... traffic, and bring down profits—all would have a special and recognized value and be appreciated by his mercantile associates, who would further the young man's advancement. Thence he could at his leisure make inquiries concerning his father's family, and doubtless in the course of time be restored to ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... came here in force, and most likely (if they've gotten out of the enclosure, yet) they've surrounded the house, waiting for you or Hade to come in or go out. If that doesn't work, they plan to wait till you're asleep, and then get in, by this gallant youngster's help, and cut your throat at their leisure and loot the house and take a good leisurely hunt for the treasure. It calls for more sense than I thought they had .... How did they find the tunnel?" he continued, to ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... this while our gloomy charioteer sat down to a good square meal, the third he had had since three o'clock, over which he consumed exactly five-and-twenty minutes, keeping us waiting while he disposed of it at his leisure, in a fit ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 25, 1890 • Various
... up, and, seeing the cloth and the places set, pulled his chair to the table, and passively took the food she brought him. She moved about the room between shelves and fire, and, when she had served him, seated herself at leisure to begin her own supper. Uncle Ramon was a peon of some substance, doing business in towns and living comparatively well. Besides the shredded spiced stew of meat, there were several dishes for supper. Genesmere ate the meal ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... waiting in the counting-room of Luke Conway's store. Albert Gregory had just preceded him. The merchant was writing, and he had requested the boys to be seated a short time, till he was at leisure. Before he finished his work, a slow, feeble step was heard approaching, and an old ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various
... wrote the powerful Quarterly Review article of 1810, wherein Flinders' cause was valiantly championed, had resort to this material. A valuable paper by Flinders, upon the use of the marine barometer for predicting changes of wind at sea, was also the fruit of his enforced leisure. It was conveyed to England, read before the Royal Society by Sir Joseph Banks, and published in the Transactions of that ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... a City man, with a nautical turn, and a telescope, the size of a six-pounder, who has his instrument pointed seawards, so as to command every pleasure-boat, herring-boat, or bathing-machine that comes to, or quits, the shore, &c., &c. But have we any leisure for a description of Brighton?—for Brighton, a clean Naples with genteel lazzaroni—for Brighton, that always looks brisk, gay, and gaudy, like a harlequin's jacket—for Brighton, which used to be seven hours distant from London at the ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the work, but without seeing fit to revise his material. It bore the title Acts and Monuments, but it was at once popularly styled the Book of Martyrs. When he was attacked by Alan Cope (Nicholas Harpsfield) for his inaccuracy, Foxe replied: "I hear what you will say: I should have taken more leisure and done it better. I grant and confess my fault, such is my vice, I cannot sit all the day (Moister Cope) fining and mincing my letters, and combing my head, and smoothing myself all the day at the glass of Cicero. ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... colonel—in colloquial phrase at least—went everywhere. After the six months of comparative seclusion which decency exacted of his widowerhood—and thereby afforded him ample leisure to complete and publish his Lichfield Legislative Papers prior to 1800—the colonel, be it repeated, went everywhere; and people found him no whit the worse company for his black gloves and the somber ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... finding fault with the harmless amusement of my leisure hours. It's not very interesting here, if your Honor would please to remember. I have no society—none, sir. What ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... spirits that survived the bankruptcy of Romanticism. He excels in the description of country nooks and corners; of that polite rusticity which knows nothing of the delving laborers of 'La Terre', but only of graceful and learned leisure, of solitude nursed in revery, and of passion that seems the springtide of germinating nature. He possesses great originality and the passionate spirit of a 'paysagiste': pictures of provincial life and family-interiors ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... gift out of the pocket of her riding-habit, but she would not stop to open it then. That should come presently, when she had the whole garden to herself, and all the leisure of the long summer morning before her. She felt that in a sense ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... near the Reservoir has long borne the name of "The Monument," though it has been said it was built more as a strange kind of pleasure-house, where the owner, a Mr. Perrott, could pass his leisure hours witnessing coursing in the day-time, or making astronomical observations at night. Hence it was often called "Perrott's Folly." It dates from 1758—See ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... of Chaucerian biography which, whether interesting or not in themselves, have to be determined before Chaucer's life can be written. They are not "all and some" mere antiquarians' puzzles, of interest only to those who have leisure and inclination for microscopic enquiries. So with the point immediately in view. It has been said with much force that Tyrwhitt, whose services to the study of Chaucer remain uneclipsed by those of any other scholar, would have composed ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... attention, and that she has no greater satisfaction than in gratifying my wishes!" On this we had some farther talk, and I took nearly the whole of the lodgings at a hundred guineas a year, that (as I said) she might have a little leisure to sit at her needle of an evening, or to read if she chose, or to walk out when it was fine. She was not in good health, and it would do her good to be less confined. I would be the drudge and she should no longer be the slave. I asked nothing in ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... Assassinations and the like; but these are nothing to the more Exquisite Heads in the Moon. For they have the subtillest Ways with them, that ever were heard of. They can make War with a Prince, on purpose to bring him to the Crown; fit out vast Navies against him, that he may have the more leisure to take their Merchant Men; make Descents upon him, on purpose to come Home and do nothing; if they have a mind to a Sea Fight, they carefully send out Admirals that care not to come within half a Mile of the Enemy, that coming off safe they may have the boasting Part ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... heroism which has grown old, ambitions which are sated, fortunes which are made, seek, demand, implore, solicit, what? A shelter. They have it. They take possession of peace, of tranquillity, of leisure; behold, they are content. But, at the same time certain facts arise, compel recognition, and knock at the door in their turn. These facts are the products of revolutions and wars, they are, they exist, they have the right to install ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... to the agricultural classes of India generally, and I have found among them some of the best men I have ever known. The peasantry in India have generally very good manners, and are exceedingly intelligent, from having so much more leisure, and unreserved and easy intercourse with those above ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... led to it. Naturally this house, within a mile of the city of Haarlem, became a resort of the artists, then mixing freely in great society, giving and receiving hints as to the domestic picturesque. Creatures of leisure—of leisure on both sides—they were the appropriate complement of Dutch prosperity, as it was understood just then. Sebastian the elder could almost have wished his son to be one of them: it was the next best thing to the being an influential ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... never resist fine pictures, and followed her hostess into an adjoining room, where the portfolio was placed upon a table, and she was invited to inspect its contents at her leisure, Mrs. Seabrook excusing herself to prepare some ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... litter, he would not allow even one of the knights who was prominent to accompany him, still less a senator. On the occasion of festivals or so often as anything similar was going to afford the people leisure, he would go the evening before to one of the Caesarians who lived near the places where there was sure to be a large crowd and there pass the night. His object was to make it possible for the people to meet him with ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... said to have been the first handsome book the young student owned, and it was earned by the work of his pen. In this same year, too, we find him hurrying with his lessons (not slighting them), that he might get leisure to read and think. "Leisure," he wrote his father, "which is to me one of the sweetest things in the world." ... "I wish I could read and ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... worker an extra supply of energy upon which to fall back to produce greater output and to get greater wages. If his energy is not all utilized in his working hours, then, as will be shown more clearly under "Welfare," there is that much more left for him to enjoy in his own leisure time. ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth
... but at this hour I am seldom at leisure—not but what I am always at the service of a constituent, that is, a voter! Mr.—, I beg your pardon, I did not ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the visit was to be a surprise for us. Sir Lionel knew the owner, who had asked us all to lunch, for the "dragon's" sake; and it looked quite an appropriate resting-place for a dragon of elegant leisure. It was as interesting within as without; and after luncheon they took us over the castle; best of all, down in the deep dungeon where Archie Armstrong, a chief of moss-troopers, was forgotten and starved to death by his captor, Sir Thomas Swinburne, ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... to your camp," shouted Tom. "To-morrow I'll try to find time for a good and sociable talk with all of you. Try to enjoy your few leisure hours all you can, but remember that the men who can't get along without liquor and gambling are the kind of men we don't want here. Any man who is dissatisfied can get his pay from Mr. Renshaw tonight or to-morrow ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... had prepared by the Cummins to discredit all that Carrick might say in his defense, turned with a look of contempt toward him, and said, "You have persuaded to act like a madman, and as maniacs both yourself and your son shall be guarded till I have leisure to consider any rational evidence you may in future ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... will now trouble you, She often frolicks with one G. P. M. As New Year approaches, she whispers of coaches, And lockets and broaches [See Notes], without any end, Of sweet rosy pleasure, of joy without measure, And plenty of leisure to share with ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... were published, and Christmas-Day fixed on for the wedding. Mary, at her lover's express desire, quitted her mistress's family to reside with a widow, a distant relative of his own, from whose house she was to be married. Delightful to the young people was this short period of leisure and uninterrupted intercourse, for the gold mania was now beginning to tell upon the excited imaginations of all, and Henry had already thrown up his situation; and it was settled their wedding trip should be to the ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... requires better mechanics, manufacturers, foremen, architects, farmers, and engineers—men whose creative genius will help to awaken the aspirations of the race to master the forces of nature and bring in an era of more convenience, comfort, and leisure for the cultivation of ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker
... had risen early that morning, and got her lessons all ready, and so she could enjoy the pleasant walk freely; for you know, or if you do not know I hope you will learn, that it is always those who are busiest at their work that can be merriest in their hours of leisure. Nothing gives us such an appetite for enjoyment as hearty work. So Amy tripped on, humming a cheerful hymn, while poor Kitty kept on saying over and over again the words of her hymn, and vainly trying to stop her ears from hearing and her eyes ...
— Amy Harrison - or Heavenly Seed and Heavenly Dew • Amy Harrison
... the words of haste, makes her audience wait to hear them. Nothing more incongruous than Juliet's harry of phrase and the actress's leisure of phrasing. None act, none speak, as though there were such a thing as impulse in a play. To drop behind is the only idea of arriving. The nurse ceases to be absurd, for there is no one readier with a reply than she. Or, rather, her delays are so ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... go to the office to-morrow, and tell our commandant what you know," said Schubert, "you might be suitably compensated. You would certainly be given facilities for leaving the country in comfort at your leisure." ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... Faatoai church three times this Sunday—stood while we lolled at ease. Courtesy here seems a native trait, though even a little native blood improves on the white as far as politeness is concerned. En passant, the average white here is not of the leisure class, in which manners are an occupation; the native, on the other hand, is of a leisure class by heredity, and it is only when tainted by a desire to make money quickly or much of it that he ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... leisure to attend to my fluctuations. After debating with myself on what was to be done, I concluded that compliance was best, and, leaving the money at the bar, resumed ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... full for another day. But the other day was slow to arrive, and, meantime, the sly squirrels were hard at work, scampering up and down the old elm-trees stowing the nuts away till their holes were full, then all about the crotches of the boughs, to be removed at their leisure. Their funny little ways amused the boys, till ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... he has first been seen to play the last, and doubtless the hardest act of his part, because there may be disguise and dissimulation in all the rest, where these fine philosophical discourses are only put on; and where accidents do not touch us to the quick, they give us leisure to maintain the same sober gravity; but in this last scene of death, there is no more counterfeiting; we must speak plain, and must discover what there is of pure ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... woman whilst, quite heedless of such things, others of her age were occupied with youthful games? The end of it might be that her brain would break and she would die or become crazy, and then what good would so much wisdom do her? It was necessary that she should have more leisure and other children with whom ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... Nature's laws are inexorable, and we can not escape the penalty affixed to their violation. Those whose occupations are sedentary should seek amusements which require the exertion of the physical powers, and should spend as much as possible of their leisure time in the open air. We must, however, use good judgment in this matter as well as in eating. Too much exercise at once, or that which is fitful and violent, is often exceedingly injurious to those whose occupations have accustomed them to little ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... position in the village stood the tavern—a two-story building, with a long piazza running along the front. Here an extended seat was provided, on which, when the weather was not too inclement, the floating population of the village, who had plenty of leisure, and others when their work was over for the day, liked to congregate, and in neighborly chat discuss the affairs of the village, or the nation, speculating perchance upon the varying phases of the great civil contest, ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... large works were going forward Holbein was busy with many others; private commissions for Froben, occasionally for other printers, and for altar-pieces or portraits. All through his life his industry and accomplishment left him small time for leisure or the dissipations of leisure. Nor is there any year of his life when his work does not attest a clear eye and a firm hand. These things are their own certificate of conduct; at any ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... in the same ship which was to take Mrs. Judson back to that country, but the Board decided to detain him some time in this country for further preparation. In June, 1823, he entered on theological studies in the seminary at Andover, and employed all his leisure hours in reading those books in the library which treated of the manners, customs, ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... tired, and out of spirits as he was, he nevertheless felt a certain pleasurable sensation as he left St. Pancras, driving homeward through the hot crowded streets. Erica would be waiting for him at home, and he had a comparatively leisure afternoon. There was the meeting on the Opium Trade at eight, but he might take her for a turn in one of the parks beforehand. She had always been a companion to him since her very babyhood, but now he was able to enjoy her companionship even more than in the olden times. ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... visited me; but I was not deprived of the enjoyments of inanimate society, for I soon struck up an intimate acquaintance with an excellent Pen in the inkstand by my side, and we passed our leisure hours very pleasantly in communicating to each other our past adventures. His knowledge of life was limited, having resided in that inkstand, and performed all the writing of the family, ever since he was a quill. But his experience was wise and virtuous; and he could bear witness ...
— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown
... historians demonstrate the development of the wealthy classes, by the aid and support of which alone the letters and the arts arise and flourish. In the earliest stages of society, the struggle for life absorbs all possible energy; a little comfort and security, and consequent leisure, bring in the arts. The half-starved hunting-dog follows the game steadily, stealthily, without a superfluous sign or motion; after the chase, and the subsequent feast and the subsequent luxurious slumber, he awakes ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... which, in place of idle pictures, might be seen his plans and calculations as a land surveyor, especially those that happened to be at present in operation or under consideration. So he kept his business before his eye, on the chance of a good idea striking him at a leisure moment. ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... In truth, the Indian on the pyre Of her dead husband, half consumed, As well might there be false, as I To those abhorred embraces doomed, 510 Far worse than fire's brief agony As to the Christian creed, if true Or false, I never questioned it: I took it as the vulgar do: Nor my vexed soul had leisure yet 515 To doubt the things men say, or deem That they are other than ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... information that it would be a full week before she could sail for England. That meant that the inflammable Eustace would have over two weeks to conduct an uninterrupted wooing, and Mrs. Hignett's heart sank, till suddenly she remembered that so poor a sailor as her son was not likely to have had leisure for any strolling on the deck during the ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... into a Citizen.—It is important to enter into the spirit of the young people who prefer the streets and blocks of the town to the winding country roads, and are willing to sacrifice what there is of beauty and leisure in rural life for the ugliness, sordidness, and continuous drive of the city; to understand that a greater driving force, stirring in the soul of youth and thrusting upon him with every item of news ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... afford the said anchorite, Nicholas de Denton, greater leisure for holy exercises, and to support him during his life, or so long as he should be a hermit on the aforesaid mountain, granted him six quarters of corn, to be paid by the Sheriff of Shropshire out of ...
— Handbook to the Severn Valley Railway - Illustrative and Descriptive of Places along the Line from - Worcester to Shrewsbury • J. Randall
... thing. I can play him at my leisure and land him when I choose. He was all ready to be caught, days and days ago —I saw that, very well. He will vote for our bill—no fear about that; and moreover he will work for it, too, before I am done with ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... no less than the breaking up of our whole commercial system, and the giving it an entire new form, one would imagine that the Board of Trade would have sat day and night to model propositions, which, on our side, might serve as a basis to that treaty. No such thing. Their learned leisure was not in the least interrupted, though one of the members of the Board was a commissioner, and might, in mere compliment to his office, have been supposed to make a show of deliberation on the subject. But he knew that his colleagues ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... but we intended to lay this with plank, and as we had no means of getting them except by our small saw, and they would require some time to dry, we resolved to attend, first, to several other things that were of more necessity, and finish the floor at our leisure. We carpeted the ground, which was quite dry, with green palmetto leaves, and that rendered it sufficiently comfortable for the present. We now formally entered our new house, which we had built from floor to chimney without ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... himself together in a fixed resolve, and said, 'I will.' That is what we have to do. A languid seeker will not find; an earnest one will not fail to find. But if half-heartedly, now and then, when we are at leisure in the intervals of more important and pressing daily business, we spasmodically bethink ourselves, and for a little while seek for the light of God's felt presence to shine upon us, we shall not get it. But if we lay a masterful hand, as we ought to ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... empty them of their contents. Those who complain of the shortness of life, let it slide by them without wishing to seize and make the most of its golden minutes. The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are, the more leisure we have. If any one possesses any advantage in a considerable degree, he may make himself master of nearly as many more as he pleases, by employing his spare time and cultivating the waste faculties of his mind. While one person is determining ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... thus once upon a time," said Manuel, sighing, "but nowadays there is a bond upon me to provide for my wife, and for my child too, and I have not much leisure left for anything else." ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... small poets themselves. He was at this time an old gentleman of (p. 098) over seventy, and was preparing to make a creditable close to his career by performing the task, which seems to assume the shape of a duty to every literary Englishman of leisure, of translating the Iliad and the Odyssey. Not unnaturally he was more familiar with the way the wrath of Achilles manifested itself than with the shape taken by the wrath of the men of his race beyond the sea. On one occasion he condoled with Cooper because of the quarrelsomeness ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... Emperor's inclination towards literary and philosophical society perhaps justifies the belief that the youth he admitted to his friendship had imbibed Greek culture, and had been initiated into those cloudy metaphysics which amused the leisure of semi-Oriental thinkers in the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... weary of exercising a lenity which has degenerated into weakness. Your son is at perfect liberty to marry my mistress, since he has seen fit to desire it, and he shall do so, or repent his obduracy in the Bastille, where he will have time and leisure to learn the respect which he ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... the contest by both the contestants being wealthy men, and with youth as well as means to carry it out on expensive lines. They were equally independent of parliament as a means of living, and being men of leisure were merely anxious for office to raise them from the rank and file of nonentityism. Independent means are a great advantage to a member of parliament. The penniless man elected on sheer merit, to whom the country could look for good things, becomes ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... credit may be given me, but the time gives space only to suffer; and thus do we have to accommodate ourselves to it, and to check our desires, drawing strength from weakness. I must content myself with writing, which would be a pleasant task, if I could do it at my leisure, and not so hastily as I have made known in certain letters that I have sent to your Reverence—not losing or neglecting any occasion at which I could write. And so that this opportunity should not pass without a letter from me, I ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... me no word of the letter which I sent to you by Master William Brown at Easter. Isent you word that time that I should send you mine expenses particularly; but as at this time the bearer hereof had a letter suddenly that he should come home, & therefore I could have no leisure to send them to you on that wise, & therefore I shall write to you in this letter the whole sum of my expenses since I was with you till Easter last past, and also the receipts, reckoning the twenty shillings that I had of you to Oxon wards, with ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... could come at him: But he frequented a particular little Coffee-house, where he triumphed over every body at Trick-track and Baggammon. The way to pass his Office well, was first to be insulted by him at one of those Games in his leisure Hours; for his Vanity was to shew, that he was a Man of Pleasure as well as Business. Next to this sort of Insinuation, which is called in all Places (from its taking its Birth in the Housholds of Princes) making one's Court, the most prevailing way is, by what ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... leisure to build the palace for himself, which appears to have been not a very large building, though the Chinese names of its gates are those belonging to the two which were peculiar to the palaces of the kings of Ku in the subsequent ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... official papers and correspondence of men in public life, and of manuscript memorials affecting the property and domestic history of great county families. But even in the case of men of the sixteenth or seventeenth century in official life who, as often happened, devoted their leisure to literature, the autographs of their literary compositions have for the most part perished, and there usually only remain in the official depositories remnants of their writings about matters ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... we of the twentieth century can agree upon any one thing, it is this: That life without toil is a crime, and that any one who enjoys leisure and comfort and the luxuries of living without paying the price of toil is a social parasite. I believe that it is an important function of public education to impress upon each generation the highest ideals of living as well as the arts that are essential to the making of a livelihood, ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... sentinel stirred languidly. He stretched himself, yawned, rose in splendid leisure. Then a shout broke from him. Like a frightened rabbit he dived through the hatchway, yelling at the top ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... supplies? Why should a housekeeper be allowed to thieve? Why should slovenly and drunken servants exist? Why should a domestic staff be suffered in indulge in bouts of unconscionable debauchery during its leisure time? Yet none of these things were thought worthy of consideration by Manilov's wife, for she had been gently brought up, and gentle nurture, as we all know, is to be acquired only in boarding schools, and boarding schools, as we know, hold the three ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... de litterature, 1888, ii. p. 295. Cf. Le Moyen Age, x. (1897), p. 91: "These books [treatises on historical method] are seldom read by those to whom they might be useful, amateurs who devote their leisure to historical research; and as to professed scholars, it is from their masters' lessons that they have learnt to know and handle the tools of their trade, leaving out of consideration the fact that the method of history is the same as that of the ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... this conclusion may be drawn—that it is not "conscious inability" alone, but often a love of leisure, which prevents us from undertaking any work. Many, to whom nature had given a certain degree of genius, have lived without sufficiently exercising that genius, and have, therefore, bequeathed no fruits of it to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 348, December 27, 1828 • Various
... founded the fortunes of the family. I don't mind telling you the Pedgifts have had a publican among them; there's no false pride about me. 'Worth makes the man (as Pope says) and want of it the fellow; the rest is all but leather and prunella.' I cultivate poetry as well as music, sir, in my leisure hours; in fact, I'm more or less on familiar terms with the whole of the nine Muses. Aha! here's the punch! The memory of my great-uncle, the publican, ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... in style and in thought. It gave expression to the power of commerce. For more than a century traders had been characterized as dishonest and avaricious, because playwrights and pamphleteers generally wrote for the leisure classes, and were themselves too poor to have any but unpleasant relations with men of business. Now merchants were becoming ambassadors of civilization, and had developed intellect so as to control distant and, as it seemed, mysterious sources of wealth; by a stroke of the pen and largely ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... intercourse with Lord Lyttelton produced a very considerable change in Mr. Robinson's domestic deportment. They were constantly together, and the neglect which I experienced began to alarm me. I dedicated all my leisure hours to poetry; I wrote verses of all sorts; and Mr. Robinson having mentioned that I had proposed appearing on the stage, previous to my marriage, in the character of Cordelia, Lord Lyttelton facetiously christened ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... thousands of subjects in which we might all take an interest, and do good work, if we would, selecting one, give it a little attention, and by easy process proceed to learn it. As it is, in general society the man or woman who has any special pursuit, accomplishment, or real interest for leisure hours, beyond idle gossip and empty time-killing, is a great exception. And yet I sincerely believe that in perhaps a majority of cases there is a sincere desire to do something, which is killed by simple ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... early life he was in an attorney's office (!), that he there contracted a love for the law which never left him, that as a young man in London he continued to study or dabble in it for his amusement, to stroll in leisure hours into the Courts, and to frequent the society of lawyers. On no other supposition is it possible to explain the attraction which the law evidently had for him, and his minute and undeviating accuracy in a subject where no layman who has indulged in such ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... want to hurt you,' struck in the first, coming nearer, 'but if you gives tongue, I'll make cold meat of you, and gouge your pockets at my leisure, before ever a ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... sometimes and imprisonment, with the many ills which make the heart sick, and when at length we return into port, instead of obtaining rest we have to refit ship, take in stores and provisions, and seldom enjoy a moment of leisure till we are once more ready for sea. I was very far, even in the days of which I speak, of complaining of this. I chose my profession. I loved it. I delighted in action, and all I wish to impress on my readers is the nature and duties of a sailor's life. Still, had I again to begin ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... M.,—You are a witch, a spirit, and I love you! Is that what you desire of me, most original of girls? Perhaps you are only seeking to amuse your provincial leisure with the follies which are you able to make a poet commit. If so, you have done a bad deed. Your two letters have enough of the spirit of mischief in them to force this doubt into the mind of a Parisian. But I am no longer master of ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... rest of the day on business so urgent that I had not leisure to think much on the nocturnal adventure to which I had plighted my honor. I dined alone, and very late, and while dining, read, as is my habit. I selected one of the volumes of Macaulay's Essays. I thought to myself that I would take the ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... had elapsed between his return home from Joyfields and the assizes, Felix had much leisure to reflect that if Lady Malloring had not caused Tryst to be warned that he could not marry his deceased wife's sister and continue to stay on the estate—the lives of Felix himself, his daughter, mother, brother, brother's ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... me, and I then even wished you would obstinately have denied obedience to my just commands; have pursued your criminal flame, and have left me raving on my undoing: for when you were gone, and I had leisure to look into my heart, alas! I found, whether you obliged or not, whether love or honour were preferred, I, unhappy I, was either way inevitably lost. Oh! what pitiless god, fond of his wondrous power, ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... fancy did guide, To passe away time, but increasing their treasure (When Jack is on cock-horse hee'l galloping ride, But falling at last, hee'l repent it at leisure). The widow, the fatherlesse, gentry and poore, The tradesman and citizen, with a great many, Have suffer'd full dearly to heap up their store; But twelve Parliament men shall be ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... them, when weary and exhausted with previous fighting; and when they were at last fairly worn out and incapable of further exertion, to "gobble them up" (to use an expressive, though not elegant phrase) or destroy them in detail and at leisure. The theory was admirable, and both brain and heart were necessary to prevent its being carried out ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford |
