"Idle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... remarkable was the peculiar circumstance, that crouching up close beside him sat two peasant girls; two chubby little wenches, from the seriousness, not to say anxiety, of whose faces it was possible to conclude that no mere idle freak had lodged them there by the side of the old gentleman. The cold wet night froze the blood in the veins of the aged man, his wolfskin bunda could not keep him warm enough, and, therefore, they placed close beside him two young peasant ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... are complaining bitterly that Great Britain is ruining their Trade, and there is great Reason to complain; but I think much greater, to complain of too many of the Citizens thro' the Common wealth who are imitating the Britons in every idle Amusement & expensive Foppery which it is in their Power to invent for the Destruction of a young Country. Can our People expect to indulge themselves in the unbounded Use of every unmeaning & fantastick Extravagance because they would follow the Lead of Europeans, & ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... once that this, at least, was no idle threat. The police might arrive at any instant; she had only to vacate the marble at the moment of their entry—and what could he do? How could he explain its presence? The gates of Portland or Dartmoor ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... nest in the thick bough of a tree which overhung a high paling. Here they fancied themselves secure from the prying eyes of idle boys or marauding cats. The hen laid her eggs in her new abode, and in due time several fledgelings were hatched, which her faithful mate assisted her to rear. While in the full enjoyment of their happiness, watching over their helpless young ones, they one day saw ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... has paced the centuries continually since the coming of the friars. One might have asked of her the kindness of a fellow-feeling. She and he alike were so habited as to show the world that their life was aloof from its "idle business." By some such phrase, at least, the friar would assuredly have attempted to include her in any spiritual honours ascribed to him. Or one might have asked of her the condescension of forbearance. "Only fancy," said the Salvation Army girl, watching the friar out of sight, "only ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... upon this grayish water, and the surface crisped by the wind; occasionally I extended my walk as far as the chateau metamorphosed into a barrack, and the public gardens, a miniature St. Cloud, with its cascade, its dolphins, and its other aquatic monsters all standing idle. A very good sinecure is that of a Triton in a Louis Quinze basin! I should ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... in the proceedings of this day. It is a day which will not soon pass from the recollection of those who have partaken in its admirably-conducted festivities. In assembling to do honour to the memory of Burns, in no idle or frivolous spirit, but impressed with those elevated emotions which have so plainly animated the whole of this mighty gathering, we have a right to feel that we do honour to ourselves as individuals, and as a nation. Our assembling ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... The Agent, roaming o'er foreign lands, and seeing how, with small means and great ingenuity and perseverance, great ends were effected, comes back sadly to his own country, whose wealth he sees absurdly wasted, whose energies are misdirected, and whose vast capabilities are allowed to lie idle. . . ." [Here should follow what I have only hinted at previously, a vivid and terrible picture of the degradation of our table.] ". . . Oh, for a master spirit, to give an impetus to the land, to see its great power directed ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... wont to carry up my frugal breakfast; yet it was very rarely that I allowed her to break the current of my thoughts, or to draw my mind by her idle chatter from weightier things. This morning, however, for once, she found me in a listening mood, and with little prompting, proceeded to pour into my ears all that she knew ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... say, 'He is a sport, a good sport!' For I am old who should be young. The splendid vigour of my youth I flung Under the feet of a mad, unthinking throng. My strength went out with wine and dance and song; Unto the winds of earth I tossed like chaff, With idle jest and laugh, The pride of splendid manhood, all its wealth Of unused power and health - Its dream of looking into some pure girl's eyes And finding there its earthly paradise - Its hope of virile children free from blight - Its thoughts of climbing to some noble height Of great achievement—all ...
— Poems of Purpose • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... so luxuriously dressed, so well supplied with money. She had heard of this system under which the girls in the streets were exploited as thoroughly as the girls in the houses. In all the earth was there anyone who was suffered to do for himself or herself without there being a powerful idle someone else to take away all the proceeds but a ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... and a vitality which had magically transformed her. But now, as under the spell of a new encompassment of her own weaving, she seemed to revert to her former self, sinking, relaxed, into a wicker lounge beside the basin, one long and shapely hand in the water, the other idle in her lap. Her eyes, he remarked, were the contradiction in her face. Had they been larger, and almond-shaped, the illusion might have been complete. They were neither opaque nor smouldering,—but Western eyes, amber-coloured, with ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... regrets the ruin of so lovely a place, but the monks had grown idle and self-indulgent, and were as different from the founders of their order as could well be imagined. The old, self-sacrificing spirit had passed away; and the days were gone, too, when the monastery had stood as the sole centre of light in a dark age, at once the substitute for school, ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... twenty-two millions of acres of farm lands in the state but fifteen millions are actually under cultivation, leaving, therefore, from six to eight millions of acres within the farms of the state but lying idle. That is, we have a Massachusetts enclosed within our farms which is non-productive as far as direct returns are concerned. Yet there is really no waste land in New York, as every square foot of the state which is covered with any soil at all is capable of producing ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... does not trouble you much, I suppose; perhaps it would have been much better for me if... But no more of this idle talk; I do not say what ...
— The Love-Tiff • Moliere
... islands at the edge of it; that for two or three thousand years the Latin society has learnt how to drink wine, and how not to drink too much of it. Dickens did not in the least understand the Latin society: but he did understand the wine. If (to prolong an idle but not entirely false metaphor) we have called Carlyle a man who saw and Arnold a man who knew, we might truly call Dickens a man who tasted, that is, a man who really felt. In spite of all the silly talk about his vulgarity, he really had, in the strict and serious sense, good taste. All ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... of the boys' fortunes being at stake was not a matter of idle words. Jack, Hal and Eph well understood that, if they came out successful, they would also be at least moderately well off. Messrs. Farnum and Pollard were not of the kind to be niggardly in ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... recorded in this volume end in the middle of the trip of 1890. Muir's notes on the remainder of the journey have not been found, and it is idle to speculate how he would have concluded the volume if he had lived to complete it. But no one will read the fascinating description of the Northern Lights without feeling a poetical appropriateness in the fact that his last work ends with a portrayal of the auroras—one ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... as much as you like, but let me tell you that the life of a clergyman's wife—honoured, respected, and useful—is a more profitable one than the idle existence which you lead, utterly purposeless and lazy. You never do one single thing from ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... hat. This honour, however well merited, served only to arouse the ire of the king. He declared that by the time the hat should arrive Fisher should have no head on which to wear it, and to show that this was no idle threat a peremptory order was dispatched that unless Fisher and More took the oath before the feast of St. John they should suffer the penalty prescribed for traitors. Fisher, together with some monks of the Carthusians, was brought to trial (June ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... questions and speculations concerning the going of Malcourt, which for a while struck Hamil merely as selfish ebullitions; but later it came to him by degrees that this rich, selfish, over-fed, over-pampered, and revoltingly idle landowner, whose sole mental and physical resources were confined to the dinner and card tables, had been capable of a genuine friendship for Malcourt. Self-centred, cautious to the verge of meanness in everything which did not directly concern his own comfort ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... Millennium's come (And I should be extremely glad Could I but feel assured, like some, It had): They tell me of a bright To Be When, freed from chains that tyrants forge By the Right Honourable D. Lloyd George, We shall by penalties persuade The idle unrepentant Great To serve (inadequately paid) The State,— All working for the general good, While painful guillotines confront The individual who could And won't: But horny-handed sons of toil, Who now purvey our meats and drinks, ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... to trouble you," answered Germain. "Perhaps you have something to do here. I myself am tired of watching the dancing and standing idle. I will go to see your cattle, and I will soon join ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... the direct ones; and because I am willing for you to know me from the beginning, with all my weaknesses and foolishnesses, ... as they are accounted by people who say to me 'no one would ever think, without knowing you, that you were so and so.' Now if I send all my idle questions to Colburn's Magazine, with other Gothic literature, and take to standing up in a perpendicular personality like the angel on the schoolman's needle, in my letters to come, without further leaning to the left or the right—why the end would ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... Labour, Labour without skill, He would have busy, too; Nay, he would find some Labour still For idle "hands" to do. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 18, 1891 • Various
... immediately improvise a spindle, by sticking a reed through a piece of camel-dung, with which they would spin the wool into thread, as they walked with the caravan. My Tokrooris had never been idle during the time they had been in my service, but they were at work in the camp during every spare minute, either employed in making sandals from elephant's or buffalo's hide, or whips and bracelets from the rhinoceros' skin, which they cleverly polished. Upon our arrival at Gallabat, ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... not idle spectators, judging from the loud talking, yeh-yeh-ing, and unintelligible lingo, that resounded all about. We saw Raed paying the most polite attentions to a very chubby, fat girl with a black fur jacket and ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... your hands until you have reached an age when you will be able to judge for yourself whether or no you will choose to investigate what, if it is true, must be the greatest mystery in the world, or to put it by as an idle fable, originating in the first place in a ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... Convent of S. Margherita at Monza (Dandolo, Signora di Monza, p. 132). 'Experience of similar cases has shown how dangerous to your holy state is the vicinity of soldiers, owing to the correspondence which young and idle soldiers continually try to entertain with monasteries, sometimes even under fair and honorable pretexts.... Wherefore we have heard with much displeasure that in those places of our diocese where there are convents of nuns and congregations of virgins, ordinary lodgings for the soldiery ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... are every Hour wantonly and wickedly calling for Damnation on themselves and others, which may be ('tis much to be feared) too near them already. Add to this the Lewdness and Debauchery that prevail amongst the lowest People, which keeps them idle, poor, and miserable, and renders them incapable of getting an honest Livelihood for themselves and Families; the Number of lewd Houses, which trade in their Vices, and which must at any rate be paid for making Sin ...
— A Letter from the Lord Bishop of London, to the Clergy and People of London and Westminster; On Occasion of the Late Earthquakes • Thomas Sherlock
... need be spent. The committee named in it differs from the committee really named by the Provincial Congress, and the proceedings nowhere implicate the men actually proved guilty. In other words, the whole publication is a clumsy Tory forgery, put forward with the same idle story of "captured papers" employed in the "spurious letters" of Washington, and sent forth from the same press (J. Bew) from which that forgery ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... the hours of morning school. Miss Ramsay, seated at the head of the baize-covered table with her spectacles on, looked decidedly formidable, and each of the children gazed at their governess with anxious eyes. Mary and Lucy were always good little girls, but Philip and Conrad were as idle as boys could possibly be, and did their utmost to evade Miss Ramsay's endeavors to instill learning into their small heads. Orion sat between his two little boy cousins, but for some reason or other Orion did not look well that morning. His little face, not unlike Diana's in appearance, ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... leave us long idle," said Sarrion, when the man had gone, and he had hardly spoken when the servant ushered in a second visitor, a man also of the road, who handed to Marcos a crumpled and dirty envelope. He had nothing to say about it, so bowed and withdrew. He was a man of the newer ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... out of his character. Feeling certain that he has placed his hero before us in strong outlines, Shakespeare lets himself go, and at once we catch him speaking and not Othello. In "antres vast and deserts idle" I hear the poet, and when the verse ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... with important matters concerning the forthcoming ranch sale of stock still unsettled, Dick promptly cleared out at the stroke of eleven. Up she was, he knew, for he had heard her singing. As he waited, seated at his desk, for once he was idle. A tray of letters before him continued to need his signature. He remembered this morning pilgrimage of hers had been originated by her, and by her, somewhat persistently, had been kept up. And an adorable thing it was, he decided—that soft call of ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... doubt of this; but this was not all. Besides catching cold, and doing her best to bring it about, Miss Fortune had overtasked her strength, and by dint of economy, housewifery, and smartness, had brought on herself the severe punishment of lying idle and helpless for a much longer time than she at first ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... of her shoulders. She is still lying on the rug, her face resting on the palms of her hands. Again she lifts her eyes slowly to Rylton; it is an entirely inconsequent glance—a purely idle glance—and yet it suddenly occurs to Mrs. Bethune, watching her narrowly, that there is coquetry in it; undeveloped, certainly, but there. She is now a ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... death of Giuliano, Antonio, being a man who was not willing to stay idle, made two large Crucifixes of wood, one of which was sent into Spain, while the other, by order of the Vice-Chancellor, Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, was taken by Domenico Buoninsegni into France. It ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... world such an account of the case, and such a description of my wife's person, as would inevitably summon to the next exhibition of her misery, as by special invitation and advertisement, the whole world of this vast metropolis—the idle, the curious, the brutal, the hardened amateur in spectacles of wo, and the benign philanthropist who frequents such scenes with the purpose of carrying alleviation to their afflictions. All alike, whatever might be their motives or the spirit of their actions, would rush (as to some grand ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... a little at a nonplus, as he never had undergone the operation which he had described. Fortunately for the support of his veracity, it happened that during one of his piratical excursions, in an idle fit, he had permitted one of his companions to tattoo a small ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... were all arranged upon successive shelves. Then I dropped down into the old velvet arm-chair, my head thrown back and my hands joined over it. I lighted my long crooked pipe, with a painting on it of an idle-looking naiad; then I amused myself watching the process of the conversion of the tobacco into carbon, which was by slow degrees making my naiad into a negress. Now and then I listened to hear whether a well-known step was on the stairs. No. Where could my ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... Parter of passionate atoms that travail to meet And be mixed in the death-cold oneness, — innermost Guest At the marriage of elements, — fellow of publicans, — blest King in the blouse of flame, that loiterest o'er The idle skies yet laborest fast evermore, — Thou, in the fine forge-thunder, thou, in the beat Of the heart of a man, thou Motive, — Laborer Heat: Yea, Artist, thou, of whose art yon sea's all news, With his inshore ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... buildings are now used but once in a fortnight or so for grange meetings, and remain idle the rest of the time. May it not be possible to devise some equitable and satisfactory arrangement whereby they may be made available for the constant use of all the people as community buildings and still ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... riot, splendor, luxury, are attempts to get a pleasure out of life that is not our due, and so Nemesis provides her penalty for the idle and gluttonous. ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... party, and it is to be noted that idle and contradictory as all the attempts made to identify them have been (for instance, the most confident interpreters hesitate between Oisille and Parlamente, an aged widow and a youthful wife, for Margaret herself), it is not to be denied that the ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... proceeded with his examination his face grew more and more grave. At length he said, "It is idle for me to try to conceal the truth from you, Mr. Mowbray. You are a very sick man. The inflammation has become general over both lobes of the lung. The walls of the vessels and the surrounding tissues have lost their vitality; ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... tough bit of Toryism in the grain of these northern dalesfolk. Their threat was idle; no other laird ever came. Matthew married, and had one daughter only. He farmed his few acres with poor results. The ground was good enough, but Matthew was living under the shadow of the family tradition. One day—it was Sunday morning, and the sun shone brightly—he ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... How idle it was, to posture and use grandiose words! Why did she shrink from the complete submission that her presence here implied? No amount of self-assertion would do away with the natural law of which he had contemptuously reminded her, the law which distinguishes man and woman, and denies ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... manufacture his speeches. We may add that Fannius himself was no contemptible Orator: for he pleaded a number of causes, and his Tribuneship, which was chiefly conducted under the management and direction of P. Africanus, was very far from being an idle one. But the other C. Fannius, (the son of M.) and son- in-law of C. Laelius, was of a rougher cast, both in his temper, and manner of speaking. By the advice of his father-in-law, (of whom, by the bye, he was not remarkably ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... had doubted their relative positions from the first, Elf took the first opportunity after arriving in his kingdom to ask a seemingly idle question in order to ascertain the truth. He asked the pretended queen how she knew the hour had come for rising when the winter days were short and there was no light to announce the coming of morn, and she replied that, as she ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... though all present (Tom Pinch and his sister especially) appeared to be disposed to differ from her views. For such is the rash boldness of the uninitiated, that they will frequently set up some monstrous abstract principle, such as humanity, or tenderness, or the like idle folly, in obstinate defiance of all precedent and usage; and will even venture to maintain the same against the persons who have made the precedents and established the usage, and who must therefore be the best and most impartial ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... that time in Paris an idle fellow called Harrel; he had been a 'chef de battalion', but he had been dismissed the service, and was consequently dissatisfied. He became connected with Cerracchi, Arena, Topino-Lebrun, and Demerville. From different ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... not been idle, I see; nor have I," he exclaimed. "I have made good progress with my still, and I hope to get it into working order ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... together in one body, in sewing or planting their crops, though their fields were divided by proper marks, and their harvest is gathered separately. The Cherokees and Muscogees [Creeks] still observe that old custom, which is very necessary for such idle people." [Footnote: ib., ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... in the maritime republics, the army, idle and unwarlike as it was in most cases, continued to be one of the three careers open to the younger sons of good family; the civil service and the Church were the other two. In Genoa, nobles had engaged in commerce with equal honor and profit; nearly every ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... knees by the bed. He did not know what to say. No prayer that he had ever prayed was of use here. The old, beautiful formulas, which had soothed and helped the passing of many a soul, were naught save idle, empty words to Naomi Clark. In his anguish of mind Stephen Leonard gasped out the briefest and sincerest prayer his lips ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... of St. Ambrose's life was the conversion of Augustine. This youth was the son of a good and holy mother, St. Monica; but he had not been baptized, and he grew up wise in his own conceit, and loving idle follies and vicious pleasures. For many years he was led astray by heretical and heathenish fancies; but his faithful mother prayed for him all the time, and at last had the joy of seeing him repent with all his heart. He was baptized at Milan; and it is said that ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the mariners were not idle. Spike moved his brig, and moored her, head and stern, alongside of the wreck, before the people got their breakfasts. As soon as that meal was ended, both captain and mate set about their duty in earnest. Mulford carried out an anchor on the off-side of the ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... having been wearied out for many years with offering vain, idle, visionary thoughts, and at length utterly despairing of success, I fortunately fell upon this proposal, which as it is wholly new, so it hath something solid and real, of no expense and little trouble, full in our own power, and whereby we ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... enduring faith in this old prophecy. But others, who had seen more of the world, had watched and waited till they were weary, and had beheld no man with such a face, nor any man that proved to be much greater or nobler than his neighbors, concluded it to be nothing but an idle tale. At all events, the great man of the prophecy ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... priest officiated in it, and the organist took charge of the music. All prospered; yet the boat-builder and the three brothers were never quite contented, for they had roamed the seas too long; and they longed for a new enterprise for their idle valor. They thought they had found this when one day they found on the sea-coast a group of women tearing their hair, and when they asked the explanation, "Senor," said an old woman, "our sons and our husbands have again fallen into the hand of ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... only ill circumstance in his future. He had been idle for some eighteen months, superintending his new edition, hanging on to settle with the publisher, travelling in the Highlands with Willie Nichol, or philandering with Mrs. M'Lehose; and in this period the radical part of the man had suffered irremediable hurt. He had lost his habits ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... nothing under sixteen francs a yard. "But cheap, cheap, CHEAP stuff," she expostulated—"stuff you would make lampshades of, or dusters. It's only for a fancy dress." The idle little girls assumed a special air. Fanny looked round the shop in desperation. It was like all the shops in Metz—the window dressed, the saleswomen ready, the shelves scrubbed out and polished, the lady waiting at the pay ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... political life and threatens our industrial system with destruction. It promises an end to commercialism, that subtle falsehood that leads men to appraise everything by its money value, and to determine money value often merely by the caprices of idle plutocrats. It promises a world where all men and women shall be kept sane by work, and where all work shall be of value to the community, not only to a few wealthy vampires. It is to sweep away listlessness and pessimism ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... brief for company, Kirkwood went to the Bartletts', but no one answered his summons and he turned away disappointed. Thinking they were probably at some neighbor's house he decided to walk about and return later. His idle roaming led him past Center Church. It was prayer-meeting night, and through the open windows floated a hymn sung waveringly by the small gathering of the faithful. It was here, on just such an April night, that he and Lois had sworn to love and cherish each other to the ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... Idle Ben was a naughty boy (If you please, this story's true), He caused his teachers great annoy, ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... this forms no bar to a professional burglar, but there is nothing inside to tempt cracksmen, and these professional men seldom stray into the woods. The shutters serve to keep out cattle, small boys, and stray fishermen whose idle curiosity might tempt them to meddle with the contents of a house ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... comment as Lafe fitted the strap about her shoulders. In fact, there was nothing for the woman to say, when the violet eyes were fixed questioningly upon her. Peggy thought of the hunger which would be bound to come if any hands were idle, so she muttered in excuse, "There's nothin' like gettin' used ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... acquainted not only with the several disguises which are there put on, but also with the fantastic and capricious behaviour of the Passions, who are the managers and directors of this theatre (for as to Reason, the patentee, he is known to be a very idle fellow and seldom to exert himself), may most probably have learned to understand the famous nil admirari of Horace, or in the English phrase, ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... days Hubert and Frank remained with Mr Oliphant, riding out among the hills and into the town, as pleasure or business called them. But an idle, objectless life was not one to suit Hubert; and Frank, of course, could not continue much longer as a guest at "The Rocks." It was soon settled that the nephew should assist his uncle, and Frank determined to look-out ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... life, inevitably imply some general intimacy. The lady may be in full dress or not, as she pleases. She is so completely at home that a stranger who has been received in her box may call on her next day at her residence. The foreign visitor cannot at first understand this life of idle wit, this dolce far niente on a background of music. Only long custom and keen observation can ever reveal to a foreigner the meaning of Italian life, which is like the free sky of the south, and where a rich man will not endure a ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... become a Senator of the United States, and the other Minister Plenipotentiary to Russia. Randolph stated at a public dinner in Norfolk, that he still possessed the Cordery of Tazewell. I have heard Mr. Tazewell say that Randolph was very idle at school, that he was flogged regularly every Monday morning and two or three times during the week, and that he was the most beautiful boy at ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... to go to a bright school Where Youth and Frolic taught in turn; But idle scholar that I was, I liked to play, I would not learn; So the Great Teacher did ordain That I should ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... Arabs about under the 'generic term "Johnny."' He began to tire of the scene, although, as he confesses, he had willingly paid more money for less strange and lovely sights. Jenkin was not a dreamer; he disliked being idle, and if he had had a pencil he would have amused himself in sketching what he saw. That his eyes were busy is evident from the particulars given in his letter, where he notes the yellow thistles and 'Scotch-looking gowans' which grow there, along with the cistus ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... verdant walls of which were to separate him forever from the world of cities. Henceforth, he could be himself, could move freely, dress as he wished, or give way to his dreaming, without fearing to encounter the ironical looks of idle and wondering neighbors. For the first time since his departure from his former home, he experienced a feeling of joy and serenity; the influence of the surroundings, so much in harmony with his wishes, unlocked his tongue, and made ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... through his part as in a dream. He smiled to order, made many introductions, and danced with his wife, and no other. Obedient to her example, he made idle conversation while they danced together, though his heart was on fire with longing; and when he was not dancing with her, he could but watch her from the doorways, remembering the existence of friends only ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... visited all the empire and had come to Cuzco where he was served and adored, being for the time idle, he remembered that his father Pachacuti had called the city of Cuzco the lion city. He said that the tail was where the two rivers unite which flow through it[112], that the body was the great square and the houses round it, and that the head was wanting. It would be for some son ...
— History of the Incas • Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa
... of exiles, Two whom the politics of state revenge, In final issue of long civil broils, Have houseless driven from your native France, To wander idle in these English woods, Where now ye live; most part Thinking on home and all the joys of France, Where ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... soliciting subscriptions, ordering instruments and batteries, and leasing stations, Kate had kept pretty much in the background. True, she had not been idle. She had covered a great deal of paper with calculations, and had issued certificates of stock, all in her own plain handwriting, to those persons who had put money into the treasury of the company. And she had received all that money, had kept accurate account of it, and had locked ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton
... one I cannot answer. But I know 'Tis handsome of our Pities so to sing The praises of the dreaming, dark, dumb Thing That turns the handle of this idle show! ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... it to do good deeds. It is called Christianity. Christianity is love. If you will love the Great Spirit you will love your wives, your children, your brothers, your friends, your foes—you will love the palefaces. No more will you idle in winter and wage wars in summer. You will wear your knife and tomahawk only when you hunt for meat. You will be kind, gentle, loving, virtuous—you will have grown wise. When your days are done you will meet all your loved ones in the beautiful forest. There, where the flowers ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... young men of the working-class. I say to you: Love honest women. Do not love harlots, nor imitations of harlots. Do not admire the idle women of the ruling class, nor those who ape them, and thereby glorify them. Do not admire languid limbs and pouting lips and the signs of haughtiness ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... this is only 42; the odd numbers are on the other side. I must cross. What a lot of rubbish on the road; and do you think I would let my girl stand out bareheaded like that, gossiping with a lot of idle young chaps?" Thus thinking and moralizing Mrs. Rowles went down the street towards ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... not speak of the innumerable instances in which profligate and idle men live upon the earnings of industrious wives; or if the wives leave them, and take with them the children, to perform the double duty of mother and father, follow from place to place, and threaten to rob them of the children, if deprived of the rights of a husband, as they call them, planting ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... wonderful thing than all the wild works of nature around us. I admire men, like our friend Camille Langis, who know how to build these bridges. What a fine fellow he is! Most men, with his wealth, lead idle, useless lives. But there he is now, building bridges across mountains just as wild as these, in Hungary. Why don't you marry him, my dear? He is madly in love with you, and you have known him all ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... their contents were spread about on the roadway. Then the Rendell girls massed themselves in the porch-room, and while they manufactured needle-books, and scattered bran over the floor in the wholesale manufacture of pincushions, Lilias played the part of Sister Anne, sitting with idle hands, reporting progress to the workers, and sounding a bugle-note of warning when any object appeared which demanded attention. The numberless packing-cases were baffling to feminine curiosity, but the furniture itself was so unique that the most prosaic articles assumed ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... essays, the beauty of "Still Waters," and the obviousness of these others, I am brought back again to wondering what Sharp would have done had all his time been his to do as he would with. Such wonderment is, of course, idle, idle as that as to what Keats would have done had he lived, for a man's art is judged by what it is, with no tempering of the appraisement by what the man's life has been. Fortunately there is inspiring work ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... uneasily, tumbling and rolling, but within a very little while—before eleven, I think—there was no breeze at all; and there I lay, with Folkestone harbour not a mile away, but never any chance of getting there; and I whistled, but no wind came. I sat idle and admired the loneliness of the sea. Till, towards one, a little draught of air blew slantwise from the land, and under it I crept to the smooth water within the stone arm of the breakwater, and here I let the anchor go, and ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... beloved and esteemed by her people for her piety, her charity and her wisdom. If such records as are there to be read by earnest seekers after truth be not sufficient to convince, and to reveal those others whom I have named in the light of their true baseness, then were it idle for me to set up in these pages a passing refutation of the falsehoods which it has grieved me ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... then turned his attention to the reform of the whole monastic institution, but with an eye also to its entire destruction. Cromwell hated the monks. They were lazy, ignorant, and debauched. They were a great burden on the people, and were as insolent and proud as they were idle and profligate. The country swarmed with them. The roads, taverns, and the houses of the credulous were infested with them. Cranmer, who sympathized with the German reformers, hated them on religious grounds, and readily cooeperated with Cromwell; while the king, whose extortion ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... hardier than her companions, "but on the 14th of July you would have besieged and bombarded the city; and on the 6th of October you wanted to flee to the frontier." She answered, in the gentlest tone, that "these were idle stories, which they were wrong to believe; tales like these were what caused at once the misery of the people and that of the best of kings." Another woman addressed her in German. Marie Antoinette declared that "she did not understand what she said; that she had become so completely French ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... and Theatres are less offensive to decency than ours. Drunkenness is scarcely known; at first sight I should pronounce them an idle, indolent people; the streets are almost always full; the gardens, public walks, &c., swarm at all hours with saunterers. According to my ideas a Frenchman's life must be wretched, for he does not seem at all ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... all this, and of its probable consequences, the instructors had not been idle in another direction. They had used their utmost endeavours to learn how the pupil had been dealt with by his former tutor. But all their inquiries were fruitless. Titus had kept his secret so effectually, that even Timothy knew ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... find it, you know. I believe that there is a leg of mutton for dinner if there is nothing else, because instead of minding his own business I saw George going off to Boisingham to fetch it this morning. At least, that is what he said he was going for; just an excuse to gossip and idle, I fancy." ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... lay back languidly, her hands idle upon her lap. The shock of Bob's death had exhausted her, and she found herself spent, physically and emotionally. A book lay open upon her knees, but her eyes closed wearily, or stared unseeing into space. She was thinking of all that Bob's life had meant to her of companionship ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... conquest-summers Cannot heed such weak advising. Bring to me my battle-armor. Bring my magic mail of copper, Bring me too my father's broadsword, Keep the old man's blade from rusting; Long it has been cold and idle, Long has lain in secret places, Long and constantly been weeping, Long been asking for a bearer." Then he took his mail of copper, Took his ancient battle-armor, Took his father's sword of magic, Tried its point against the oak-wood, Tried its edge upon the sorb-tree; ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... to think of pleasure only, I decided to write a play during the summer. I would thus be improving my Vacation hours, and, I considered, keeping out of mischeif. It was pure idleness which had caused my Trouble during the last Christmas holidays. How true it is that the Devil finds work for idle Hands! ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... who, having worn one evening a diamond necklace which excited her Highness's admiration, was waylaid on the way home and the jewels torn from her neck by a crowd of masked ruffians among whom she is said to have recognised one of the ducal servants. These are doubtless idle reports; but it is certain that Trescorre's appointment engaged him still more to the Duchess by enabling him to protect her from such calumnies; while by increasing the land taxes he has discharged the worst of her debts and thus made himself popular ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... occasion to set poor men's children to learn handicrafts, and thereby to make trifles and such like, which the Indians and those people do much esteem; by reason whereof, there should be none occasion to have our country cumbered with loiterers, vagabonds, and such like idle persons. ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... man that came to him at the eleventh hour. This man was idle all the day long. He had a whole gospel day to come in, and he played it all away save only the last hour thereof. But at last, at the eleventh hour, he came, and goes into the vineyard to work with the rest of the labourers, that had borne the burden and heat of the day. Well, but how was ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... falls in with too obstinate a preconception [17] in the human race, which has in every age hypochondriacally regarded itself as under some fatal necessity of dwindling, much to have challenged public attention. As real paradoxes (spite of the idle meaning attached usually to the word paradox) have often no falsehood in them, so here, on the contrary, was a falsehood which had in it nothing paradoxical. It contradicted all the indications of history and experience, which uniformly had pointed ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... in which there was a frightful tragedy. The doctors and surgeons standing by these empty beds, wandering through operating-theatres magnificently appointed, asked God why their hands were idle when so many soldiers of France were dying for lack of help, and why Paris, the nerve-centre of all railway lines, so close to the front, where the fields were heaped with the wreckage of the war, should be a world away from any work of rescue. It was the same ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... only will it be applied, and, of course, for their benefit, it not being presumable that such appeals as were made to the benevolence of the country in the instances of the inhabitants of St. Domingo and Caracas will often occur. How, then, shall this revenue be applied? Should it be idle in the Treasury? That our resources will be equal to such useful purposes I have no doubt, especially if by completing our fortifications and raising and maintaining our Navy at the point provided for immediately after the war we ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson
... thinking, is employed in so many different senses that it will be well first of all to come to an understanding as to its various uses. Four different types of thinking which we shall note are:[5] (1) chance, or idle, thinking; (2) thinking in the form of uncritical belief; (3) assimilative thinking; and ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... despise the contrite and humbled heart of that chaste and sober widow, so frequent in almsdeeds, so full of duty and service to Thy saints, no day intermitting the oblation at Thine altar, twice a day, morning and evening, without any intermission, coming to Thy church, not for idle tattlings and old wives' fables; but that she might hear Thee in Thy discourses, and Thou her in her prayers. Couldest Thou despise and reject from Thy aid the tears of such an one, wherewith she ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... so baldly, through the mail—it had symbolized his depths of despair. Through all his hurt he had clung, not only to the picture, but also to some fond belief that Ailsa loved him still; that the words she had spoken and the things she had done, in the days of their courtship, had not been mere idle falsehoods. ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... other hand, the woman who has servants and rears no children should be pushed by public opinion into some outside occupation; women have no more right to idle than men. All unmarried women, when past the years that may properly be devoted to education, should certainly enter upon some useful vocation; and there is no reason why (with a few obvious exceptions) any occupation save ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... about Daniel; that there was something in him which he had never before noticed in any one. Even his outer distress was a challenge to greater activity, while his inner agitation never permitted his associates to rest in idle peace. ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... was cooking indoors; for the host intended to refuse his guests nothing that was good. The song of mallets and hammers rang out, and the timbers began to come together; but the master framer was idle. Over by the old house door sat grandfather. He positively refused to lend a hand to the enterprise unless treated to his rum. For a time the work progressed rapidly; then there came a halt. There was a place where the timbers would not fit. After much delay and ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... master of suspense, and in this book he reveals his usual talents. All of the characters are very well drawn, and we are even amused by the cowardly and idle antics of a young Scottish Highlander, who is not at all typical of the noble and ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... from their remaining in these islands result many great inconveniences. In the first place, on account of their greed, they have taken to the cultivation of gardens and other real estate; whence it follows that all the native Indians live idle and vicious lives, without anyone urging them to labor. The Chinese have risen, by buying and selling and bringing provisions to the community, to be the retailers of supplies. From this it results that this country is so expensive to live in that where a fowl used to ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume X, 1597-1599 • E. H. Blair
... It resumed, that night, in Flint's luxurious study at "Idle Hour," his superb estate on the Palisades. Waldron paid only a perfunctory court to Catherine, who manifested her pleasure by studied indifference. Both magnates felt relieved when she withdrew. They had other and larger matters under ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... Miss,' I said. 'We get all the fun there is going, and don't have to be idle, either. And whoever told you we weren't used to money ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... with the business of war; besides, I have no wish for it. On arriving, I shall give the necessary orders for disarming, and for burning the standard used for Ferdinand's proclamation. Use every endeavor that it may be felt to be no idle form." ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... most difficult link of the whole hospital chain to be uniformly well organised and equipped. It is needed at short notice, and often for a short period, and it is difficult to maintain a regular staff of officers ready for any emergency without keeping a certain number of men idle. ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... witnesses of a remarkable incident in connection with a boiling topic of current scandal,—glaringly illustrative of it, moreover,—were unlikely to keep close tongues, even if they had been sworn to secresy. Fleetwood knew it, and he scorned to solicit them; an exaction of their idle vows would be merely the humiliation of himself. So he tossed his dignity to recklessness, as the ultraconvivial give the last wink of reason to the wine-cup. Persecuted as he was, nothing remained for him but the nether-sublime of a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... me!" As I know it is the custom to have some device on the arms of every country, I supposed this might be intended for the arms of North America. As I have nothing to do with public affairs, and as my time is perfectly my own, in order to divert an idle hour I sat down to guess what might have been intended by this uncommon device. I took care, however, to consult on this occasion a person acquainted with heraldry, from whom I learned that it is a rule among the learned in that science that the worthy properties ...
— The True Story of the American Flag • John H. Fow
... poor tailor of China, father of Aladdin, killed by illness brought on by the idle vagabondism of his son.—Arabian Nights ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... that Galliard should lie idle, and not call upon him to go forth again to lend him the aid he had pledged himself to render when Crispin should demand it. He marvelled, as the days wore on, that Galliard should appear to have forgotten that task of his, ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... more or less conviction and indignation. But, whatever might chance to be the truth about that, it was plain that the duchess had something to say for herself when she declined to receive the lady. Her refusal was no idle freak, but a fixed determination, to which she would probably adhere. And, in fact, adhere to it she did, even under some considerable changes ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... that of being a man's woman. In my rich black dress and my rings and bracelets I felt like an Eastern Empress; I felt that I could adequately reward homage with smiles, and love with fervid love. And I felt like a cat—idle, indolently graceful, voluptuously seeking warmth and caresses. I enveloped Frank with soft glances, I dazed him with glances. He ordered a wine which he said was fit for gods, and the waiter brought ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... the duty and affection which you owed to me to another. Go to him who has pampered your appetites, clothed you with soft raiment, and brought you up daintily to lead the idle life of a gentleman. I disown all ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... to his brethren, they met him with the witness that they had seen the Lord, and he met them as they had met the witnesses that brought the same message to them. They had thought the women's words 'idle tales.' Thomas gives them back their own incredulity. I need not remind you of what I have already had occasion to say, how much this frank acknowledgment that none of these, who were afterwards to be witnesses of the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... confidence is that employed by a priest of his acquaintance. This person's plan was to tie the bride and bridegroom to a pillar and administer to them with his own hand the stimulus with which the pedagogue awakens the genius of idle and sluggish pupils; after this flagellation they are unbound and left together, amply provided with such restorative and stimulants as are proper to maintain the condition so favourable to Venus, in which he had placed them. The result was in the ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... which are about the passions as about their proper matter, cannot be without passions. The reason for this is that otherwise it would follow that moral virtue makes the sensitive appetite altogether idle: whereas it is not the function of virtue to deprive the powers subordinate to reason of their proper activities, but to make them execute the commands of reason, by exercising their proper acts. Wherefore just as virtue directs the bodily limbs ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... from the mere sight of her without converse—that of an idle and vulgar flirtation with a timber-merchant's pretty daughter, grated painfully upon him now that he had found what Grace intrinsically was. Personal intercourse with such as she could take no lower form than intellectual communion, ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... as I might study another person, and I possess, shut up in my five foot eight inches, all the incoherences, all the contrasts possible; and those who think me vain, extravagant, obstinate, high-minded, without connection in my ideas,—a fop, negligent, idle, without application, without reflection, without any constancy; a chatterbox, without tact, badly brought up, impolite, whimsical, unequal in temper,—are quite as right as those who perhaps say that I am economical, modest, courageous, ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... "my homage deep Ah, not your rank, your wealth command! These idle baubles, lady, keep. Give ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various
... could just be idle all day today," Anne told a bluebird, who was singing and swinging on a willow bough, "but a schoolma'am, who is also helping to bring up twins, can't indulge in laziness, birdie. How sweet you are singing, little bird. You are just putting the feelings of ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... How idle for a spurious fame To roll in thorn-beds of unrest; What matter whom the mob acclaim, If thou art master ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... we to sit idle and let these ruffianly thieves make off with our money—children—wives! One good man-o'-war could teach the scamps such a lesson as would scare half of 'em off the seas! Why, if I'd had even a good culverin aboard the Indian ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... had been perfection, hardly a drop of rain, and just the gentlest breezes to waft them slowly along. A suitable soothing idle life for one who had but lately been near death. And each day Paul's strength returned, until his father began to hope they might still be home for his birthday the last day of July. They had crept up the coast of Italy now, when ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... but if these speeches were all that was there said and done, the coach and four, and the time spent, seem to me wasteful. The speeches ended, 'we departed, and went to visit Mr. Peters (Hugh Peters), the minister, who lodged in the castle; whom we found reading an idle pamphlet come from London that morning.' He said—what gives proof, if proof be needed, that there was idle talk current in that time, as indeed ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... conclusion of this train of thought, she experienced again a sting of regret, (as she fancied) she should not have given way to such idle thoughts and missed attending to the ballads; but when she once more came to listen, the song, by ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... which lies to the westward of the White Tower is held by some to be within this ward. The principal streets and places contained in it are Great Tower Street, part of Little Tower Street and Tower Hill, part of Thames Street, Mark Lane, Mincing Lane, Seething Lane, St. Olave Hart Street, Idle Lane, St. Dunstan's Hill, Harp Lane, Water Lane, and Bear Lane, with the courts and ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales
... motive in adopting and following the career of a soldier was a praiseworthy one. The whole country was aglow with patriotic fervor, and in no section did the flame burn with a purer luster than in that where Deborah was nurtured. It was not idle curiosity nor mere love of roving, that incited her, in those straitlaced days, to abandon her home and join in the perilous fray where the standard of freedom was "full high advanced." She had evidently counted the cost of the extraordinary step which she was about to take, but found ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... others who must have seen and heard him. The attraction of the tavern must have been increased to a great extent when their patrons stood a chance of catching the crumbs that fell from the wit's table. "To give you total reckoning of it," says Erle, "it is the busy man's recreation, the idle man's business, the melancholy man's sanctuary, the stranger's welcome, the inns a court man's entertainment, the scholar's kindness, and the citizen's courtesy. It is the study of sparkling wits, and a cup of canary their book, ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan
... courier; and as he has been interrupted, dans sa derniere course, that is the cause of my delay. When you receive this, employ all diligence to fly a theatre where you are about to appear and disappear for the last time. It were idle to recall to you all the reasons that expose you to peril. The last step that should place you sur le sopha de la presidence, but brings you to the scaffold; and the mob will spit on your face as it has spat on those whom you have judged. Since, then, you have accumulated here a sufficient treasure ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... no politics. There was no noise of labor. I did not perceive that they were weaving or spinning. Yet I did detect, when the wind lulled and hearing was done away, the finest imaginable sweet musical hum as of a distant hive in May, which perchance was the sound of their thinking. They had no idle thoughts and no one without could say their work, for their industry was not in knots and excrescences embayed. Yet I find it difficult to remember them. They fade irrevocably even while I speak. It is only after a long and serious effort to recollect that I became ...
— Life's Enthusiasms • David Starr Jordan
... people take the excitement of a solemn sensation as they do that of a strong drink. Thus the abandoned court of Louis XIV. had on fast days its sacred concerts, doubtless entering in some degree into the religious expression of the music, and thus idle and frivolous women at the present day will weep at an oratorio. So the sublimest effects of landscape may be sought through mere indolence; and even those who are not ignorant, or dull, judge often erroneously of such effects of art, because their very openness to all pleasant and sacred ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... going to be finished any time before next Christmas. One wonders where the wrist-pin man is, Mr. Stump. Does he intend to come in at all, or will he just snooze his little head off all day? One wonders what to say to the plant manager, Mr. Stump. How do you tell him that twenty men are standing idle on Sub-Assembly Line 3-A because, through a laughable oversight, there is no one to put in a wrist-pin? How do you explain it so ...
— All Day Wednesday • Richard Olin
... when he died. His son suffered no injury from Caesar; but, it is said, he grew idle, and was thought to be dissipated among women. In Cappadocia, he stayed at the house of Marphadates, one of the royal family there, who had a very handsome wife; and continuing his visit longer than was suitable, he made himself the ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... you an' valued the services of a good navigatin' officer an' a good engineer, I'd just take a little run along the waterfront an' cool off. Somethin' tells me that if you stick around here argyin' with me you'll come to grief—which same is no idle fancy, you snipe." ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne |
