"Languorous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hollow-chested little man; his delicacy of lung gave him his excuse for playing gentleman farmer. She, half-Spanish, carried bulk for the family and carried it well. The Andalusian showed in her coy yet open air, in her small, broad hand and foot, in a languorous liquidity of eye. Their son, a well-behaved and pretty youth of twelve, and their daughter, two years older, rode behind them on the back seat. The daughter bore one of those mosaic names with which the mixed race has sprinkled California—Teresa del Vinal Morse. A pretty, delicate tea-rose ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... shape." And the scene that rises up in his mind is a ball-room; he sees women all arow, delicate necks and arms of young girls, and young men in black collected about the doorways. Some couples are moving to the rhythm of a languorous waltz, a French imitation of Strauss, a waltz never played now, forgotten perhaps by everybody but him—a waltz he heard twenty long years ago. That waltz has lain ever since forgotten in his brain, but now he hears it all; never before was he able to remember that coda, and it comes ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... one side of their hats. You see no grapes and hanging ribbons in Belgrade and Sofia. They will come there next year or in 1923. The Hungarian women are broad-faced and broad-bosomed, and talk more than they smile. City madam in elegant attire with languorous half-shut eyes and Hungarian drawl is a man's darling. Flesh-coloured stockings greatly abound. One is, however, strongly advised not to judge of Hungary by the people who spend four or five hours of the day sitting in the cafes of Budapest. The poor parts of the city present ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... endless grist of news; to the left, through a sudden dip and down a long decline, a world of sober-sided warehouses, degenerating into slums, circumscribed by sleepy South Street; all, this afternoon, warm and languorous in the lazy breeze ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... voice that was music to her ears. And the powerful odors that impregnated the atmosphere of the cellar and rendered it foul to suffocation—dampness and dog and dregs of wine, and garlic and decaying vegetables—became the languorous breath ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... went their way. The young Baron Rothschild came on to the plateau for a couple of weeks and then disappeared. And still we lingered on, happy, healthy, generally hungry, and intoxicated with the languorous murmur ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... borne on the bosom of the river with oars that beat time to songs? Did he long for the excitement of action?—there was the desert hunt, with steeds fleeter than the antelope and lions trained like dogs. Did he crave rest and ease?—there was for him the soft swell of languorous music and the wreathed movements of dancing girls. Did he feel the stir of intellectual life?—in the arcana of the temples he was free to the lore of ages; an initiate in the society where were ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... behind a bank of graceful exotic plants, struck up a languorous waltz, and the couples, only too eager to respond to the invitation, began to turn and glide over the ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... surrounded with roses and with that languorous lilt in her ear, Crystal felt as if she too were under the influence of some unseen Mesmer, who had lulled the activity of her brain into a kind of wakeful sleep even while her senses remained keenly, vitally on the alert. She knew, for instance, that ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... fast and far to-night as that hombre will," supplemented Miguel with his brief smile, that was just a flash of white, even teeth and a momentary lightening of his languorous eyes. ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... remembered of his treasured book, Notes in a Cathedral, which he always read to himself before going to rest and now so sadly missed. It told how a lady who had listened to a lover longer than her soul's safety could warrant, as he played languorous music in the moonlight and sang soft by her low balcony, and how she being truly penitent, had gathered many roses, the emblems of love (as surely, she said at confession, all the world knows), and when her lover came again by moonlight had cast them all from her from ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... beginning or end to my stay here. How strange it is to look back to July and remember the long, hot days and the languorous nights when, in spite of the war, people walked in the gardens and listened to the music and drank punch out of tea-cups, pretending it was tea. The still, starlit nights ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... the instrument, but Fred raised it above his head and brought it down between his knees with chords that crashed like wedding bells. Then he changed to softer, languorous music, and when he had picked out an air to suit his mood, sat down and turned art loose ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... convincing derision. "What nonsense!" She put her arms round his neck, and her lips close to his. The violet-gray eyes were half closed, the perfume of the smooth amber-white skin, of the thick, wavy, dark hair, was in his nostrils. And in a languorous murmur she soothed his subjection to a deep sleep with, "As long as you give me what I want from you, and I give you what you want from me why should ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... Cleek met Lady Wilding for the first time. He found her what he afterward termed "a splendid animal," beautiful, statuesque, more of Juno than of Venus, and freely endowed with the languorous temperament and the splendid earthy loveliness which grows nowhere but under tropical skies and in the shadow of palm groves and the flame of cactus flowers. She showed him but scant courtesy, however, for she was but a poor hostess, and after dinner ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... was a seduction to the servants of the Lord. Whilst they were thus busied there entered other ten damsels like unto them, high-bosomed maids and of an equal age, with black-eyes and cheeks like the rose, joined eyebrows and looks languorous; a very fascination to every faithful wight and to all who looked upon them a delight; clad in various kinds of coloured silks, with ornaments that amazed man's intelligence. They took up their station at the door, and there succeeded them yet ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... delighted to be with Dorothy, but I did not stand with her on the basis of my former emotional interest. In a way she symbolized the false standards, the languorous aristocracy of the South. She was a presence of romantic music, a warmth that produces dreams. She was not the intense light that shone around Abigail. I had a letter from Abigail in my pocket. Parts of it wedged themselves ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... enough on his own house," Gordon answered drowsily from the depths of the hammock, in which he had almost fallen asleep. He felt incapable of thought. For weeks he had looked forward to the match, and now it was so close he felt strangely languorous, tired in brain ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... Roman striped collar and sash, and had learned to loll back in her cab in imitation of the dashing, black-eyed, sallow women she had seen driving on the Pincio. By Thursday evening she was teasing Papa Gregg for a spray of white aigrets, such as those same languorous ladies wore in feathery ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... eyes were large, of a golden-brown, agleam with sombre fires, her lips were full and sensuous. She was tall and of a shape that in Europe would have been accounted perfect, which is to say that she was a thought too slender for Oriental taste; she moved along beside her lord with a sinuous, languorous grace, gently stirring her fan of ostrich plumes. She was unveiled; indeed it was her immodest habit to go naked of face more often than was seemly, which is but the least of the many undesirable infidel ways which had survived ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... me, and calls for no redemption," said Kit awkward at the regal poise of her, and enchanted by the languorous glance and movement of her. Even the reaching out of her hand made him think of Tula's words, 'a humming bird,' if one could imagine such a jewel-winged thing weighted down with ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... select specimens, are the principal participants in this musical evening: the Scops-owl, with his languorous solos; the Toad, that tinkler of sonatas; the Italian Cricket, who scrapes the first string of a violin; and the Green Grasshopper, who seems to beat a ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... the window, lazily rocking, her long lithe arms clasped about her knees, her face a dream of the day. The seasons single out their favorite moods: a violet of spring-time woos one, a dusky June rose another; to-day the soft, languorous air had, unconsciously to her, charmed the ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... The languorous life of the islands exactly suited Mask Twain. All his life he remembered them—always planning to return, some day, to stay there until he died. In one of his note-books he wrote: "Went with Mr. Dam to his cool, vine-shaded home; ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... its dim corals and the arm of the land. The glossy foliage that, with the exception of a small silver beach, choked the shore might have been stamped from metal. It was, John Woolfolk suddenly thought, amazingly still. The atmosphere, too, was peculiarly heavy, languorous. It was laden with the scents of exotic, flowering trees; he recognized the smooth, heavy odor of oleanders and the ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... that—she has the secret of perpetual youth to help her defy the years. No doubt the soft light favored her, but she might have been Ranjoor Singh's granddaughter as she barred his way and looked him up and down impudently through languorous brown eyes. ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... so welcome to Lycabetta, languorous Lycabetta, as news of the whereabouts of the fool who had caused her so many hours of mortal anguish. Lysidice shivered still in the warm air at the thought of that night when all in the palace of pleasure believed themselves to be plague-stricken, and of the slow relief that came ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... and likewise the rhythm of the dance, were soft and languorous as a July noon. Limply hung the draperies, slowly waved the graceful arms, and at the end, Patty sank slowly, gently, down on a mound beneath the trees, and, her head pillowed on her arm, closed her eyes, while the violin notes faded ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... retrospect now, and giving due recognition to this crescent spirit, I recall that, in spite of it, Omar Khayyam was the favorite poet of many of us, that introspection, which sometimes deepened into pessimism, was in vogue, and that a spiritual or philosophic languorous disenchantment sicklied o'er the somewhat mottled cast ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... He had chosen it fatuously. The rose tints had been of his own making. He viciously snapped his mind shut on the thought. For a while he would feverishly clamp his attention to his work, while outside the sky continued serenely blue, and the breeze that drifted through his window was languorous and soft. But the work was too light. There was not enough of it, nor was it of the nature that demanded his absorbed concentration. He thought of Mr. Mosby, the unwitting cause of it all. And yet he did not blame Uncle ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... beautiful blue bay, with the Andes snowy in the distance, and the islands, like great green gems, to seaward, is lovely beyond words. It was filled with glorious houses, carved and scented, and beautiful with costly things. The merchants lived a languorous, luxurious life there, waited on by slaves, whom they could burn or torture at their pleasure. It was "the greatest mart for gold and silver in the whole world." There were pearl fisheries up and down the bay, yielding ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... perfect type of the highly developed, highly educated American girl of to-day, a marvellous compound of intense energy and languorous grace. She had done as brilliantly at Vassar as Nitocris had done at Girton and London, and she had also rowed stroke in the Ladies' Eight, and was champion fencer of the College. Yet as far as her physical presence ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... healthiest and manliest; he is one of the "substantial men" of whom Landor speaks. His genius is robust with vigorous blood, and his tone has the cheeriness of intellectual health. The most subtle of minds, his is the least sickly. The wind that blows in his pages is no hot and languorous breeze, laden with scents and sweets, but a fresh salt wind blowing in from the sea. His poetry is a tonic; it braces and invigorates. "Il fait vivre ses phrases:" his verse lives and throbs with life. He is incomparably plentiful ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... human form; beauty of far-distant lands and the varied pageant of their aspect and history; of great rivers flowing seaward; of tombs by the wayside; of the glorious terror of the desert's naked face; of languorous fountain-cooled gardens, close hid in the burning heart of ancient cities; beauty of sound, beauty of words and phrases, above all, of the eternal beauty of youth and the illimitable expectation and ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... know what the softly-lit, luxurious sick-room is like. The couch is delicious for languorous limbs, the temperature is daintily adjusted, the nurse is deft and silent, and there is no sound to jar on weak nerves. But try to imagine the state of things in the sick-room where Ferrier watched when the second gale came away. The smack had no mainsail to steady her, but the ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... valley he had known languorous Februaries when orchard and garden, deceived by a fierce-wooing sun, trustingly put forth their treasures, only to find them blackened and withered when the true spring came. Dear little Jacqueline, glowing, tremulous, ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... of April, 1880, an article appeared in the "Le Gaulois" announcing the publication of the Soirees de Medan. It was signed by a name as yet unknown: Guy de Maupassant. After a juvenile diatribe against romanticism and a passionate attack on languorous literature, the writer extolled the study of real life, and announced the publication of the new work. It was picturesque and charming. In the quiet of evening, on an island in the Seine, beneath poplars instead of the Neapolitan cypresses ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... furnished a royal canopy. A half-moon hung in the sky, whitening a few small clouds that seemed to be painted on the blue-black dome. The air, though not oppressive, was warm enough to make all nature languorous, and the soft breath of the south wind was almost narcotic in its power to soothe. A great forest is never still; even its silence has a note of its own. The trees seem to whisper to each other in the rustling of their leaves. The birds, awakened by ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... moon was fairly crashing its way through, laying out a straight-away course of silver cinders across the harbor, and in all parts of the heavens stars were breaking out like a rash. In two minutes it had become a balmy, languorous ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... Natural Magic, Magical Nature, are joyous tributes to the power of the charm, paid by one who remains master of his heart. Numpholeptos is the long-drawn enchanted reverie of one in the very toils of the spell—a thing woven of dreams and emotions, dark-glowing, iridescent to the eye, languorous to the ear, impalpable to the analytic intellect. In Bifurcation he puts again, with more of subtlety and of detachment, the problem of the conventional conflict of love with duty, so peremptorily decided in love's favour in The Statue and the Bust. A Forgiveness is ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... some dream of youth and happiness, outlying my estate; pictured, apart from me, yet new-creating me with joy. Afar off in earth-meadows, the love-note of the thrush—not for me, yet passing dear and sweet. That slender, languorous moon pointed me to humble village spires and grass-grown paths, pale lovers whispering at a rustic gate. I, poor sprite, stooped down and loved and blessed them, though I sped away to sail forever ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... Malagaski had a double reason for wishing to see Kalora married. While she remained at home he knew that he would be second in authority. There is an occidental misapprehension to the effect that every woman beyond the borders of the Levant is a languorous and waxen lily, floating in a milk-warm pool of idleness. It is true that the women of a household live in certain apartments set aside as a "harem." But "harem" literally means "forbidden"—that is, forbidden to the public, ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... and, for a ship-band, playing very well, the ballet music of Delibes' 'Sylvia'. The musicians had caught that unaccentuated and sensuous swing of the melody which the soft, tropical atmosphere rendered still more languorous. With Mrs. Falchion's hand upon my arm, I felt a sense of capitulation to the music and to her, uncanny in its suddenness. At this distance of time it seems to me absurd. I had once experienced something of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... they visit the intermediate levels. It would be such a lark to watch the mechanicals. They made the drop in a lift. A laughing, riotous party. And Peter was one of them! He felt that he had known them for years. Rhoda clung to his arm, and the languorous glances from under her long lashes set the blood racing ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... discipline which it involves. It is clear that Shakespeare read in such a way as to possess what he read; he not only remembered it, but he incorporated it into himself. No other kind of reading could have brought the East out of its grave, with its rich and languorous atmosphere steeping the senses in the charm of Cleopatra, or recalled the massive and powerfully organised life of Rome about the person of the great Caesar. Shakespeare read his books with such insight and imagination that they became part of himself; and so far as this process is concerned, the ...
— Books and Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... that left the valley in a mystic sheen of gold and blue, and threw their shadows madly into one as they walked. They heard the drowsy chirp of the cricket, now harmless, and the low cry of an owl. They felt the languorous warmth of the night, spiced with a hint of chilliness, and they felt each other near. They had felt this nearness before. One of them had learned to fear it, to tremble for himself at the thought of it. The other had learned to dream of it, and to long for ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... the river, with the jungle on each side of them alive with wild beasts and venomous reptiles, to say nothing of cannibals, and deadly sicknesses worse than any of those. He said so little about the danger. One got an impression of the extraordinary languorous beauty of the tropical vegetation; one smelt it, that African night, with its enormous moon beyond the mists. There was death on every side of him, in every breath he drew. He found what he went for, the antidote ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... them, things they never would have had had they stayed in Dundee or Glasgow, but though they are proud they are lonely. What does grandeur matter if "the Quothquan folk" can't see it? The peepul trees rustle softly overhead, the languorous soft air laps them round, the scent of the East is in their nostrils, but their eyes are with their hearts, and is this what they see? A night of drizzling rain, a street of tall, dingy, grey houses, and a boy, his day's work done, bounding upstairs three ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... ended, the spring vacation come and gone, and the lovely spring term was at full tide in Harding. If you were a freshman, it made you feel sleepy and happy and utterly regardless of the future terrors of the conditioned state in comparison with the present joys of tennis and canoeing or the languorous fascination of a hammock on the back campus,—where one goes to study and remains to dream. If you were a senior it made a lump come in your throat,—the fleeting loveliness of this last spring term, when all the trials of being a Harding girl are forgotten and all the ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... humming with bees, their rich, amethystine rose flung up against the gay April sky in a challenge of beauty and joy. The air was full of the promises of spring, keen, bracing, yet with an undercurrent of languorous warmth. There was a ragged fleece of bloom, sweet and alive with droning insects, over a plum thicket near the woods,—half-wild, brambly things, cousin on the one hand to the cultivated farm, and on the other to the free forest,—while beyond, through ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... still uncertain. Laboured and lifeless epics like Chapelain's La Pucelle, petty ingenuities in metre like those of Cotin, violence and over-emphasis, extravagances of sentiment, faded preciosities, inane pastoralisms, gross or vulgar burlesques, tragedies languorous and insipid, lyrics of pretended passion, affectations from the degenerate Italian literature, super-subtleties from Spain—these had still their votaries. And the conduct of life and characters of men of letters were often unworthy ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... thy side-face rose, who lily art to me! And twixt the dune and down there shows the fairest flower that blooms * Whose fruitage is granado's fruit with all granado's blee.[FN435] Forget my lids of eyne their sleep for magic eyes of him; * Naught since he fared but drowsy charms and languorous air I see.[FN436] He shot me down with shaft of glance from bow of eyebrow sped: * What Chamberlain[FN437] betwixt his eyes garred all my pleasure flee? Haply shall heart of me seduce his heart by weakness' force * E'en as ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... stair-case, the guests ascended slowly in groups of twos and threes, flecking the marble with splashes of colour, radiant, vivid, like clusters of rose leaves strewn on the steps. The perfume was intoxicating, languorous. Light trills as of laughter and snatches of talk, gay and fleeting, mingled with ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... seat slowly, her fan moving languidly, as if she were too conscious of the worth of her voice to be affected by the murmurs of applause and admiration; and Stafford, as his eyes followed her, thought she resembled a superb tropical flower of rich and subtle colouring and soft and languorous grace. ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... through villages and towns we had not seen before. Our horn and our siren shrieked a warning as we shot through. And it seemed wrong. They looked so peaceful and so quiet, did those French towns, on that summer's morning! Peaceful, aye, and languorous, after all the bustle and haste we had been seeing. The houses were set in pretty encasements of bright foliage and they looked as though they had been painted against the background of ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... himself able to take account of what was going on, he closed his eyes again with a deep groan, believing in a vague glimpse of peaceful rest that his last confused sensation was real—that he was dead. But there were no airy aids of languorous ease to perpetuate or encourage this delusion. Sharp pains racked his head; his right arm burned and twinged as though he had thrust it into pricking flames. Loud voices about, but invisible to him, were swearing and gibing. He was lying ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... some injustice from those who would speak thus. The views expressed are often quite foolish and often quite insincere; but the style itself is a manlier and more natural thing than is commonly made out. It is not in the least languorous or luxurious or merely musical and sensuous, as one would gather from both the eulogies and the satires, from the conscious and the unconscious imitations. On the contrary, it is a sort of fighting and profane parody of the Old ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... seemed to be named Olive, being quite unolive in tint, while her livelier companion was apparently christened Ruth. Carl wearied of Olive's changeless beauty as quickly as he did of her silver-handled umbrella. She merely knew how to listen. But the less spectacular, less beautiful, less languorous, dark-haired Ruth was born a good comrade. Her laughter marked her as one of the women whom earth-quake and flood and child-bearing cannot rob of a sense of humor; she would have the inside view, ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... pleasantly on Harry's forehead reminded him of that other wind which had blown so often upon his face at Charleston. But it was not heavy and languorous here. It did not have the lazy perfumes of the breezes that floated up from the warm shores of the Gulf. It was sharp and penetrating. It whipped the blood like the touch of frost. It stirred to action. His cousin's emotions were evidently much like ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... been one of those days that come perhaps only in October—days of rich, languorous sunshine full of a mysterious contentment, days when the heart says, "My cup runneth over," and happy tears suddenly well to the eyes, as though from a deep overflowing sense of the goodness of God. It was really Summer, with the fragrant mists of Autumn in her hair. ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... doubtful whether he suffered. The glow of fever through his drowsiness was rather a grateful warmth, blunted of all responsible thinking, than a recognized affliction, and the realization of the presence near him enveloped him with a languorous contentment. ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... behind him could bear no more. She gave a little choking cry that betrayed her presence. Jasper Dale sprang up and gazed upon her. He saw her standing there, amid the languorous shadows of August, pale ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... towards the light and gazed upward, devouring him hungrily with her great, languorous eyes. She held to his coat lapels, standing close beside him, her warm breath beating up into ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... almost imperceptible perfume, languorous in its appeal to the senses, exuded from this perfect creation; added to this, the subtle, unfailing scent of young womanhood; the warm, alive feel of her presence in the atmosphere; a suggestion of something sensuous, clean, pure, delicious. ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... flew into a passion. He, however, piled up good reasons; it wasn't his fault; didn't she know Homais—did she believe that he would prefer his company? But she turned away; he drew her back, and, sinking on his knees, clasped her waist with his arms in a languorous pose, full ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... not be back until night. But was it the wish of the senores to be seated and rest themselves from their travel and refresh themselves with a drink of cool water? Mead presented Tuttle, who had never seen the girl before, and Amada said, with many flashes of languorous light from under her heavy lids, ah, she had heard of the senor, a most brave caballero, a man whom all women must admire, so brave and skillful. Her carriage and the poise of her body as she stood, or ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... grown quite dark, for the moon had not yet risen; but there was a spring-time sweetness in the air, which was not yet enervated by the languorous heat of summer. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... your Browning in tone for you," whispered the critic. She wished him miles away. The draperies were now slightly parted and into the room filtered the grave, languorous accents of the new tone-poem. Her eyes were fixed by Rentgen's. His expression changed; with nostrils dilated like a hunter scenting prey, his rather inert, cold features became transfigured; he was the man who listened, the cruel judge who sentenced. And she hoped, also the kind friend who ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... delicious reverie, his horse turned of its own accord to the left, and went for some distance up an embowered road; Arthur suddenly roused himself to find that he was passing close to a large sombre house, that had evidently once been fortified, looming very impressively in the languorous air; the gate had been opened for some purpose and not closed again, and he was, in fact, trespassing ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... even in the easiest hours of his old Roman life struck the Prince so convincingly. His old Roman life had had more poetry, no doubt, but as he looked back upon it now it seemed to hang in the air of mere iridescent horizons, to have been loose and vague and thin, with large languorous unaccountable blanks. The present order, as it spread about him, had somehow the ground under its feet, and a trumpet in its ears, and a bottomless bag of solid shining British sovereigns—which was much to the ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... for the mastery of the air. The land-breeze blows down through the pines, resinous, fragrant, cold, bringing breath-like memories of dim, dark woods shaded by myriad pine-needles. The breeze from the Gulf is warm and soft and languorous, blowing up from the south with its suggestion of tropical warmth and passion. It is strong and masterful, and tossed Annette's hair and whipped her skirts about her in bold ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... cities. Recondite scholars in the physical beauty of the Greeks, from Boston, were there; fair women from Washington, whose charms make the reputation of many a newspaper correspondent; spirited stars of official and diplomatic life, who have moments of longing to shine in some more languorous material paradise, had made a hasty flitting to be present at the ceremony, sustained by a slight feeling of bravado in making this exceptional descent. But the favored hundred spectators were mainly from the city-groups of late diners, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... for which he had designed this chamber, this painted atmosphere which gave new color to faces grown dull and withered by the use of ceruse and by nights of dissipation, there were other, more personal and perverse pleasures which he enjoyed in these languorous surroundings,—pleasures which in some way stimulated memories of his past ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... in her languorous voice, "can you not stir a yard without that ugly black dog at your heels? Do you bring him to protect your back? If so, what is the need? Have I not sworn that you ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... of wood horns, the subdued sweet shrilling of multitudes of flutes, Pandean pipings—inviting, carrying with them the calling of waterfalls in the hidden places, rushing brooks and murmuring forest winds—calling, calling, languorous, lulling, dripping into the brain like the very honeyed essence ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... smouldering passion for it, is set flaming by her descriptions! You remember that brief little fortnight that we spent with mother and father in Italy? I seem now to be again under the spell of the languorous airs, the cloudless blue, the white palaces, the grey olive groves, and the art, the art! Oh, Algitha, I must go to the South soon, soon, or I shall die of home sickness! Miss Du Prel says that this is only one side of me breaking out: that I am northern at heart. I think it is true, but meanwhile ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... as fresh ashes. The muscles of his face grew lame from squinting in the vivid light. There was not a human being in sight on either length of curving shore, nor a movement in the thickly covered cliffs. The world was silent, except for the languorous wash of the little waves and the breathing of a soft wind in the foliage. For an hour he made his way mostly under cover around the shore to the mouth of the Inlet, from where he could see ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... monotony; for Spenser was no mere metrist, but a great composer. By the variety of his pauses—now at the close of the first or second foot, now of the third, and again of the fourth—he gives spirit and energy to a measure whose tendency it certainly is to become languorous. He knew how to make it rapid and passionate at need, ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... about. Agapoulos, seated alone in the chair over which he had draped the leopard skin, was busily brushing his moustache and glancing sideways toward the screen which concealed Safryeh. Zahara tilted her head on to her shoulder and cast a languorous glance into the shadows masking the ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... Gee, those birds certainly did pull the frigid mitt! So I wend my way back to the demure Dolores, the houri of my heart, and the next time I'll take a crack at the big guns in Seattle. And I'll sure reward you for your generosity in taking me to Blewett, all the long, long, languid, languorous way——" ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... annoying fly in the ointment, however. Her languorous surrender to love, her physical confession of defeat at the hands of that inexorable power, her sweet submission to the conquering arms of the besieger, left nothing to be desired; and yet there was something that stood between him and utter happiness: her resolute refusal to ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... steps, face ghastly. The amorous song still comes up, and louder now that doors are open. She and TOM do not look at one another. Then, on a languorous swell the music comes to a grating stop. They do not speak or move. Quick footsteps—HARRY ...
— Plays • Susan Glaspell
... happy mind. The little American doctor had sacrificed the cover of one of his beloved 'Saturday Evening Posts' for this portrait, and with extreme neatness had scissored it out and fastened it on the wall—a pleasant change from the cocaine and chocolate-box suggestiveness of the languorous Kirchner type that in 1916 and 1917 lent a pinchbeck Montmartre atmosphere to so many English messes in France ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... fluttering in the sun, and rising lazily were curling columns of blue smoke. The scene was picturesque and reposeful; the vivid hues suggesting the Indians love of color and ornament; the absence of life and stir, his languorous habit of sleeping away ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... No voices sound but fond and clear Of mouths as lorn as is the rose That under water doth disclose, Amid her crimson petals torn, A heart as golden as the morn; And here are tresses languorous As the weeds wander over us, And brows as holy and as bland As the honey-coloured sand Lying sun-entranced below The lazy water's limpid flow: Come, ye sorrowful, and steep Your tired ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... felt himself being carried into the house to be laid upon a bed. Some one gently unbuttoned his shirt at the neck, removed his shoes, and covered him with a blanket. Before he had fully awakened he was left alone, and quiet settled over the house. A languorous sense of ease and rest lulled him to sleep again. In another moment, it seemed to him, he was awake; bright daylight streamed through the window, and a morning breeze stirred the ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... exquisite women of his own country with their lustrous brown eyes, marvellous languorous figures, and well-trained, inherited ideas on love, the man was violently attracted by the whiteness of this girl allied to her indifferent manner and an intense virility which seemed to envelop her from ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... love-lorn weather of June—the shadows of the alders on the winding road to Squid Cove and the sleepy tinkle of the goats' bells dropping down from the slopes of The Topmast into the murmur of the sea. There had been just such favorable auspices of late, however—June moonlight and the music of a languorous night, with Dickie Blue and pretty Peggy Lacey meandering the shadowy Squid Cove road together; and the experience of Scalawag Run was still defied—no blushes and laughter and shining news of a wedding ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... music. These bursts of harmony spread now and then through the diaphanous shimmer of the atmosphere, and the eye might almost have followed their sonorous undulations. Deadened by the thickness of the walls, the music was strangely sweet. It was a song voluptuously sad, wearily languorous, expressing bodily fatigue and the discouragement of passion. It was full of the eternal weariness of the luminous azure, of the indescribable helplessness of hot countries. As the slave passed by the wall, ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... Palmetto Town, Bringing with piney tang the old romance Of Pirates and of smuggling gentlemen; And tongues as languorous as southern France Flow down her streets like water-talk at fords; While through iron gates where pickaninnies sprawl, The sound floats back, in rippled banjo chords, From lush magnolia shade where mockers call. Mornings, the flower-women hawk their wares— Bronze caryatids ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... her voice, with a pleasure he made no effort to conceal. And she, on her part, seemed to surrender herself to the enjoyment of the moment; her eyes remaining longer on his, her tones softening to a slow, tender utterance almost carrying a caress, her face keeping its languorous smile; as if the honey-sweet fragrance from the unseen flowers ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... not too grave, Till the lip of the languorous sea you greet; Wait till the wash of the thirteenth wave Tumbles a jellyfish out at your feet. Not too hopefully, not forlorn, Whisper a word of your earnest quest; Shed not a tear if he turns in scorn And sneers in your face like ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... as she recounted this, there was manifest a nervous expression. Likewise, her features were a trifle flushed. Yet gleaming also through the tears in her languorous eyes there was a sense of relief—one might almost have said ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... "reading" with her little charge on lines directly prescribed and in works profusely supplied by Sir Claude? He had got hold of an awfully good list—"mostly essays, don't you know?" Mrs. Beale had said; a word always august to Maisie, but henceforth to be softened by hazy, in fact by quite languorous edges. There was at any rate a week in which no less than nine volumes arrived, and the impression was to be gathered from Mrs. Beale that the obscure intercourse she enjoyed with Sir Claude not only ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... went to the chiselling of this hilt. Of silver it was, wrought into the shape of a standing woman, her feet poised upon the small, chiselled cross-guard, her head forming the pommel; naked she stood in languorous pose, arms raised and hands locked behind her head. The delicate chiselling of the features was worn somewhat by handling and rough usage, but even so the evil beauty of the face was plain and manifest, the wanton languor of the long eyes, the mocking cruelty of the smiling mouth. The ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... cries with a strange unrest For something lost, in the afternoon; For something missed from the lavish June; For the heart that died in the long ago; For the livelong pain that pierceth so: Thus the Pewee cries, While the evening lies Steeped in the languorous still sunshine, Rapt, to the leaf and the bough and the vine ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... Through the hot, languorous summertime the Dream grew within the brain of Big Ivan. He saw visions in the smoky haze that hung above the Beresina. At times he would stand, hoe in hand, and look toward the west, the wonderful west into which ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... forgotten incarnation. For the music and what it said, monotonously yet fiercely, was old as the beginnings of the world, old and changeless as the patterns of the stars embroidered on the astrological scroll of the sky. The hoarse derbouka, and the languorous ghesbah joined in with the savage tobol and the strident raita; and under all was the tired heart-beat of the bendir, dull yet resonant, and ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... and another time at midnight when he was playing cards. Remembering this, Nadyezhda Fyodorovna flushed crimson, and looked round at the cook as though she might overhear her thoughts. The long, insufferably hot, wearisome days, beautiful languorous evenings and stifling nights, and the whole manner of living, when from morning to night one is at a loss to fill up the useless hours, and the persistent thought that she was the prettiest young woman in the town, and that her youth was passing and being wasted, and Laevsky himself, ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... not spur up courage enough to bolt and run. He welcomed the sight of his own gate as an asylum of refuge. To his horror, Luella stopped and continued her chatter, draping herself in emotional attitudes and italicizing her coquetries. Her eyes seemed to drawl languorous words that her lips dared not voice; and she committed the heinous offense of plucking at Eddie's coat-sleeve and clinging to his hand. Then she walked on like ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... last as a tailor's equestrian advertisement he came striding down again into the hotel office, only to plunge most inopportunely into Miss Von Eaton's languorous presence. ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... sigh and her eyes grew dreamy as she fell to thinking of the future that lay before her. And as she planned with eager confidence her hand moved soothingly over the dog's head in measure to the languorous waltz that ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... the poor man forget his troubles and filled him instead with delightful visions of sunny lands and blue skies and red poppies and fair women and languorous luxury. ...
— A Book Without A Title • George Jean Nathan
... the direct look that accompanied this. Her opinions could not interest him one way or another, and he was going far in assuming that she was deeply concerned in Harwood's welfare. The incongruity of their talk was emphasized by the languorous strains of the newest popular waltz that floated ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... the reader knows from the start. But with what breathless interest do we follow this history of love! We seem to be admitted to the confidences of beings of another sphere, to celestial heights of affection. We hear the heart-beats and see the glances of the languid, languorous eyes. The universe itself seems to stand still for these two lovers. Their heads are among the stars, their hearts in heaven. Their love is as pure as a sonnet of Keats, as ineffable as shimmering starlight. Day by day we trace its ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... in the skins of wolves, hares and stags ran round the tethered bears bearing torches of sweet wood, and a heavy and languorous smoke, like incense, mounted up to the gallery. Viridus' unveiled threat made the necessity for submission come once more into her mind. Other wild men were leading in a lion, immense and lean as if it were a fawn-coloured ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... Thursday of that week he looked in on Sarah and found her, amid a flood of sunshine, putting finishing touches to her white wedding gown. His own heart was full of gaiety, and the sight of the woman who was so soon to be his own so occupied, filled him with a joy unspeakable, and he felt faint with languorous ecstasy. Bending over he kissed Sarah on the mouth, and then whispered ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... shifting of clouds, was repose to his sense of sight. He bathed twice each day in the mountain stream—"a marvel of delicate delight framed in with trees." He read and rested; and wrote but little or not at all. Suddenly the repose of La Saisiaz was broken up; the mood of languorous pleasure and drowsy discontent was at an end. While preparing to join her friend on a long-intended mountain climb Miss Egerton-Smith, with no forewarning, died. The shock was for a time overwhelming. When Browning returned to London the poem La Saisiaz, the record of his inquisition ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... who never ceased talking to her became like one of the Djinns the old ones of the caravan used to tell stories about, in the nights along the roads. The words he spoke became a languorous mist in her ears. She listened and understood only that this man with the black hair slanted across his forehead and the silent eyes, was talking to her. ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... on. Through the open windows came the sound of carriages driven along the dusty way, the shouts of the coachmen to their horses, the jingling of bells, the hooting of motor horns. A lime tree, whose leaves were stirred by the languorous breeze, kept tapping against the window. From a further distance came the faint, muffled voices of promenaders, and the echo of the guns from the Tir du Pigeons. But through it all, Selingman, lying on his back ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... There was no footstep, no sound; a bee lazily humming, a brilliant butterfly darting across the path, something quick and red flashing up a tree—a squirrel frightened by the Danish hounds; that was all. And Marsa was happy with the languorous happiness which nature gives, her forehead cooled by the fresh breeze, her eyes rested by the deep green which hid the shoes, her whole being refreshed by the atmosphere of peace which ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... moving the mighty stone; his knees totter, his blood freezes cold; the very stone he hurls, spinning through the empty void, neither wholly reached its distance nor carried its blow home. And as in sleep, when nightly rest weighs down our languorous eyes, we seem vainly to will to run eagerly on, and sink faint amidst our struggles; the tongue is powerless, the familiar strength fails the body, nor will words or utterance follow: so the disastrous goddess brings to naught all Turnus' valour as he presses on. His ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... from the glad, new light into their native regions of eternal night—the thunder and storm and elemental terrors. Presently I turned to Mr. Winthrop. He was sitting erect in his chair, his eyes no longer closed in languorous enjoyment; when suddenly the measure changed to that delicious passage descriptive of the creation of birds. Mr. Bovyer's voice was a trifle too deep and powerful for the air, but it was sympathetic and ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... image. I cannot touch you, I cannot pay you my dues in return for your priceless gifts. Thus my love is incomplete. Sometimes in the enigmatic depth of your sad look, in your playful words mocking at their own meaning, I gain glimpses of a being trying to rend asunder the languorous grace of her body, to emerge in a chaste fire of pain through a vaporous veil of smiles. Illusion is the first appearance of Truth. She advances towards her lover in disguise. But a time comes when she throws off her ornaments and veils and stands clothed in naked dignity. I grope for that ...
— Chitra - A Play in One Act • Rabindranath Tagore
... that George roused himself to the point of asking why he was here and what—now that he was here—he proposed to do. For two languorous days he loafed, sufficiently occupied with his thoughts. He smoked long, peaceful pipes in the stable-yard, watching the ostlers as they groomed the horses; he played with the Inn puppy, bestowed respectful caresses on the Inn cat. He walked down ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Chevreuse and M. de Putange were too deeply engrossed in their respective companions, or else the state of their own hearts and the tepid, languorous eventide disposed them complacently towards the affair of gallantry upon which their mistress almost seemed to wish to be embarked. They forgot, it would seem, that she was a queen, and remembered sympathetically that she was a woman, and that she had for companion the ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... heaven, the firmament's halls: Under whose sapphirine walls, June, hesperian June, Robed in divinity wanders. Daily and nightly The turquoise touch of her robe, that the violets star, The silvery fall of her feet, that lilies are, Fill the land with languorous light and perfume.— Is it the melody mute of burgeoning leaf and of bloom? The music of Nature, that silently shapes in the gloom Immaterial hosts Of spirits that have the flowers and leaves in their keep, Whom I hear, ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... penetrated to the outer hall, and, merely waving the playwright toward Tinker, swept the same gesture upward to complete it by resting a cordial hand upon the departing guest's shoulder. This personage, a wasp-figured, languorous youth, with pale plastered hair over a talcum face, flicked his host lightly upon the breast with ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... more money with the music or as model?" asked Mademoiselle Emilie, the girl-artist from Madrid, with black hair dyed golden, who always swore by Murillo's Virgins, and who did her work dreamily, as if the motions of her hands were timed to the languorous rhythm of some far-off, daintily-touched guitar beneath ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... she should keep Court-favour: here and there the small bright head, A light of healing, glanced about the couch, Or through the parted silks the tender face Peeped, shining in upon the wounded man With blush and smile, a medicine in themselves To wile the length from languorous hours, and draw The sting from pain; nor seemed it strange that soon He rose up whole, and those fair charities Joined at her side; nor stranger seemed that hears So gentle, so employed, should close in love, Than when two dewdrops on the petals shake To the same sweet air, and tremble deeper ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... quartet, which culminates in a burst of hysterical laughter, is a stroke of genius. In the prison scene Boito rises to still greater heights. The poignant pathos of the poor maniac's broken utterances, the languorous beauty of the duet, and the frenzied terror and agony of the finale, ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... the waiting automobile to be whirled through the city and out to the romantic hacienda where the languorous past so strangely and sweetly blended with the vital present and the throbbing promise of a future filled ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... which would convey at least something of her feelings and wishes towards him. In the depths of her heart, which now and again beat furiously, she had a secret hope that when once the idea was broached Leonard would do the rest. And as she thought of that 'rest' a languorous dreaminess came upon her. She thought how he would come to her full of love, of yearning passion; how she would try to keep towards him, at first, an independent front which would preserve her secret anxiety until the time should come when she might yield herself to his ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... the floor, and leaned against the wall. The pleasant, languorous feeling came once more, but he was roused suddenly by scattered rifle shots, ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... perchance, within your island bowers, The slow departure of the languorous hours, And breathe the sweetness of the ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... orchestra were sounding the preliminary whimpers to a maxixe, a tune full of castanets and facile faintly languorous violin harmonies, appropriate to the crowded winter grill teeming with an excited college crowd, high-spirited at the approach of the holidays. Carefully, Gloria considered several locations, and rather ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... silken draperies, depending edgewise from above, thousands of yards of the most expensive fabrics of the world. From these, as they were gently swayed by the breath of invisible fans, there floated delicious, languorous perfumes, intoxicating to the senses. On any hand within the great room, removed at some distance from the table, were rich, luxurious ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... long time undisturbed, and the air in the room was so close and hot that both became languorous and sleepy. Nor was there any sound except the droning of some flies overhead and this added to the heaviness. Paul finally rose and gazed through the little windows, but he saw only an empty field and the edge of the forest. Save for this ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... beech overarched the grass, Evelyn and Mrs. Chisholm. attired in light draperies, reclined in basket chairs. Carroll, in thin gray tweed, stood near them, talking to Mabel, and Chisholm sat on a bench with a newspaper in his hand. He looked half asleep, and a languorous stillness pervaded the whole scene. Beyond it, the tarn shone dazzlingly, and in the distance ranks of rugged fells towered, dim and faintly blue. All that the eye rested on ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... one listen to the deep, tired, and ghostly voice slowly uttering the laborious ideas of his troubled mind with the somewhat painful pronunciation of the elocutionist (he makes chapell of Chapel); nor mark his languorous movements and the slow swaying action of the attenuated body; one cannot notice all this without feeling that in spite of his great courage and his iron tenacity of purpose, he is a little weary of the battle, and sometimes even perhaps conscious of a ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... along Front Street and pedestrians chose the shady side to-day. Susan thought of the big Oriental liner, the awnings that shaded the decks, the exquisitely cool and orderly little cabins, the green water rushing alongside. And for her the languorous bright ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... gardens of weeds. The girls are not romantic to regard or to talk with. They are not even clean. The secrets of their toilet are not known to me, but I doubt if soap and water ever appear in large quantities. And yet.... They walk or lounge, languorous and heavy-lidded, yet with a curious suggestion of smouldering fire in their drowsy gaze. Rich, olive-skinned faces they have, and hair either gloomy or brassy, and caressing voices with the lisp of Bethnal Green. You may ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... must not possess until that divine moment when Elaine will at last belong to me altogether and for always, but on that delicious little dimple which comes in one of her cheeks when she is happy, when she smiles, and which excited me as much as her voice did with languorous softness, on that evening when our flirtation began, at ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... eyes were languorous and teasing. Bela gave him her eyes and he saw into them a thousand fathoms deep. It was that exquisite moment when the heart sees what the tongue will not yet acknowledge, when nearness is sweeter than touch. Yet he ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... out and the languorous stillness is broken only by the splashing of the fountains in the great marble basins and the drowsy hum of a bee among the blossoms. The lad's head has sunk down upon the lady's knee and she is watching the tears ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Mabel's indignant reply—the momentary passion darting from her hitherto languorous orbs, and vibrating in her accents, in adding—"There are women in whose hearts the monument to departed affection is a hatred that can ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... sensitive neck. He had not been sympathetically inclined towards the fair stranger, a rich and still youthful widow, although he could not deny her unquestioned good breeding, mental refinement, and a certain languorous thoughtfulness that was almost melancholy, which accented her blonde delicacy. But he had noticed that her manner was politely reserved and slightly constrained towards the Harcourts, and he had already resented it with a lover's instinctive loyalty. He had at first attributed it to a want of sympathy ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... I evoked her image, the glowing, ruddy copper of her hair, the dark mystery of her eyes, so heavy-lidded and languorous in their smile. My spirit conjured her to stand before me all white and seductive as I had known her, and my longings were again upon ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... connoisseurs of human beauty. She had also acquired in Mexico a note of her own, which was perhaps due to the clothes she had bought in Mexico City on her way home, of filmy fabric and prominent colors; and her usually taciturn speech had taken on a languorous slowness in imitation of the Mereldas' way of speaking English. In the drawling manner in which she said,—"Hello, Rosy," and nonchalantly accepted Miss Glynn's invitation for the intervening days before school ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... away, when the phonograph in the corner caught her eye and on an idle impulse she started it. By chance, the record left on the machine had been that of the latest tango, and as she listened to the pulsing, languorous strains, Willa commenced half-unconsciously to sway in ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... whom played the tam-tam and another a sort of violin. When the family of our host, together with a few friends, were seated at the end of the room opposite the bayaderes, the signal was given, and the music commenced with a soft and indescribably languorous air. One of the bayaderes rose with a lithe and supple movement of the body not comparable to anything save the slow separating of a white scud from the main cloud which one sees on a summer's day high up in the cirrus regions. She was attired in a short jacket, a scarf, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... the youth of Market Snodsbury had been eating its daily lunch for a matter of five hundred years, and the flavour lingered. The air was sort of heavy and languorous, if you know what I mean, with the scent of Young England and boiled beef ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... before a fluttering crowd of sparrows, pigeons, and squirrels; and, leaning on a rude crutch, a lame old negro woman was dragging a basket of brushwood to the brow of the hill. The scene was very peaceful, wrapped in that languorous stillness which is the pervading charm of the South; and beyond the high spikes of the iron fence, the noise of passing street cars ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... upon a fashionable thoroughfare, the land baron's footstep relaxed and he relapsed into his languorous, indolent air. The shadows of twilight were darkening the streets and a Caribbee-scented breeze was wafted from the gulf across the city. It swept through the broad avenues and narrow highways, and sighed among the trees of the old garden. Seating himself absently ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... I rede thee, 'tis like wizard wight, * None can escape unscathed those eye shafts' glancing flight: In very sooth black eyes, with languorous sleepy look, * Pierce deeper than white swords however these may bite. Be not thy senses by her sweets of speech beguiled, * Whose brooding fever shall ferment in thought and sprite: Soft sided Fair[FN475] did silk but press upon her skin, * 'Twould draw red blood from it, as ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... shall rise, their fond hopes bringing to bridegrooms, Hesperus: soon shall come thy spouse with planet auspicious, Who shall thy mind enbathe with a love that softens the spirit, 330 And as thyself shall prepare for sinking in languorous slumber, Under thy neck robust, soft arms dispreading as pillow. Speed ye, the well-spun woof out-drawing, speed ye, ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... this is anticipating our story. Betty Van Lew, full of the charm and enthusiasm of youth, had just come home from school, and with her had come the Northern friend, to whom the Southern city with its languorous beauty and warm hospitality was a wonder ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... in the air of Long Acre. The day had been warm and languorous, with heavy showers steaming up again in the sun. Clouds were darkening across the twilight for more rain. Harry turned off to stretch his legs and find some freer air across the fields by the Oxford road. But he ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... and confidence expressed in those words! the daring, the ambition! the pride! and the soft, languorous air of the old-world garden round her then, the passion of his embrace! the heavy scent of late roses and of heliotrope, which caused her to swoon ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... of methodical habits, ever have told how long their voyage lasted. It passed, unreal and timeless, in a glorious mist, a delighted fever: the background a blur of glossy white bulkheads and iron rails, awnings that fluttered in the warm, languorous winds, an infinite tropic ocean poignantly blue; the foreground, Miss Forrester. Her white figure, trim and dashing; her round blue eyes, filled with coy wonder, the arch innocence of a spoiled child; her pale, smooth cheeks, rather plump, but coming oddly and enticingly to a point at the mouth and ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... rushed together, they stopped aghast. They looked at each other with blank dismay, They simply hadn't a word to say. He thought with a shiver: "Can this be she?" She thought with a shudder: "This can't be he?" This simpering dandy, so sleek and spruce; This languorous lily in garments loose; They sought to brace from the awful shock: Taking a seat, they tried to talk. She spoke of Bergson and Pater's prose, He prattled of dances and ragtime shows; She purred of pictures, Matisse, Cezanne, His tastes to the girls of Kirchner ran; She raved of Tchaikovsky ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service |
