"Lethargic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... no doubt whatever that she was a very handsome woman, and that her physical type—that of the more lethargic and heavily built Neapolitan—suggested very happily the mad and melancholy Queen. She had superb black hair, eyes profoundly dark, a low and beautiful brow, lips classically fine, a powerful head and neck, ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... his patron in many ways. He was a large, heavy, pale-faced young man, with strange, sleek qualities that appealed to her through their unaccustomedness. But he was scarcely a sleek man in office, and under his drawling, lethargic manner there was an energy that struck her as shocking and out of place. He was like Lawrence, speaking forbidden words and of hidden things. In church he preached embarrassing perfections—she could no longer feel that she had attained the limits of churchmanship with her weekly ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... the most lethargic moment of this drowsy soirees, after the comedians from the Francais had played in a stately manner one act from a tragedy, Jocquelet appeared. Jocquelet, still a pupil at the Conservatoire, showed himself to the public for the first time and by an exceptional grace—Jocquelet, ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... themselves for some infirmity. In this latter case we have a member of our club, that, when Sir Jeffrey falls asleep, wakens him with snoring. This makes Sir Jeffrey hold up for some moments the longer, to see there are men younger than himself among us, who are more lethargic ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... musician, who was as fat as a hog and as red as a beet, was slowly digesting his breakfast, while his lethargic gaze slowly wandered over the magnificent panorama of the Mediterranean,—the Straits of Gibraltar, the accursed rock from which they take their name, the neighboring peaks of Anghera and Benzu, and the distant snows of the Lesser Atlas—when ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... of the reaction from the stormy excitements of the Great Awakening, nothing had seemed to arouse the New England churches from a lethargic dullness; so, at least, it seemed to those who recalled those wonderful days of old, either in memory or by tradition. We have a gauge of the general decline of the public morals, in the condition of Yale College at the accession of President Dwight in 1795, as ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... to be by Giovanni D'Enrico; they will not bear comparison with Tabachetti's St. Joseph. The benefactor was Count Pio Giacomo Fassola di Rassa, a collateral ancestor of the historian. People who have become lethargic in their self- indulgence, or who are blinded through some bad habit, will find relief at this chapel. I have met with nothing to show that there was any earlier chapel with the same subject, and in the 1586 edition of Caccia it is expressly mentioned as one of ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler
... people for good and influenced others for evil is beyond all doubt. During the first two years it was a distinct tonic to the intellect and conscience of the people. The sense of national peril quickened the dull and lethargic, steadied the weak drifters, furnished ballast to all the people, made the strong stronger, made the brave more heroic. The first sign of national decay is the note of frivolity. The sure sign of greatness in a generation is the note of seriousness. In the middle of 1863 James Russell Lowell ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... that of the German Sugar Bakers, whose assembly, by the Minories, we stopped to visit - but there is watchful maintenance of order in every house, and swift expulsion where need is. Even in the midst of drunkenness, both of the lethargic kind and the lively, there is sharp landlord supervision, and pockets are in less peril than out of doors. These houses show, singularly, how much of the picturesque and romantic there truly is in the sailor, requiring to be especially addressed. All ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... but if sleep were descending upon the hero of the prophetic age, twilight would more appropriately have drawn her soft veil over nature, birds would have begun their vespers, clouds would have put on their changing, pensive colors, while cadences of music, breathed by the winds, would have shed lethargic influences into the scene. Inspiration does not trifle with us by really meaning such a preparation for a sleep of ages, and yet informing us, in so many words, that "the Lord would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind." No; going to heaven is not going to sleep, and going ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... a few minutes lethargic sleep. Occasional cold shivers ran through her delicate little body. At last she awoke with ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... nights, this night it being the father's regular turn to perform that duty; but his trip of twenty-five or thirty miles had fatigued him so much that it was judged best for his wife to relieve him,—his slumbers being usually so profound as to be almost lethargic, so that, when once fairly asleep, the loudest noises even in the same room would fail to arouse him, and it being feared, therefore, that the little patient might suffer, if left to his care in his present state of weariness. In the same room slept a young negro girl, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... to her but one song, the flowers or trees spake but one language, and her skies never brightened except in color. She came out strong on the Catholic saints, and would toss you up a cleanly-shaven Aloysius, sweetly destitute of expression, or a dropsical, lethargic Madonna that you couldn't have told from an old master, so bad it was. Her faculty of faithful reproduction even showed itself in fanciful lettering,—and latterly in the imitation of fabrics and signatures. Indeed, with her eye for ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... eyes and protruding notebooks darted feverishly in and out; nor, in the course of his long wait, had he seen so much as one specimen of that invariable concomitant of all screen journalism, the long-haired poet with his flowing tie and neatly ribboned manuscript. Even the office "boy," lethargic, neutrally polite, busy writing on half-sheets of paper, was profoundly untrue to the pictured type. Banneker wondered what the managing editor would be like; would almost, in the wreckage of his preconceived notions, have accepted a woman or a priest in that manifestation, when Mr. Gordon appeared ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... in his frame of mind should sleep, but nature was at last exhausted, and yielding to the influence of the peculiar atmosphere slowly pervading the room, he fell away into a kind of lethargic slumber, while the work of destruction his own hand had prepared, went silently on around him. First the crimson curtain turned a yellowish hue, than the scorched threads dropped apart and the flame crept into the inner lining of cotton, running swiftly through it until the ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... disguise; for ever since I signed that diabolical compact you made me, I have been in a state of terror, agitation, misgiving, and misery—and I thank and bless you for it; for these thorns and nettles they lacerate me, and make me live. They break the dull, lethargic agony ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... that Irish clerk who used to snore so loudly during the sermon that he drowned the parson's voice. The old vicar, being of a good-natured as well as a somewhat humorous turn of mind, devised a plan for arousing his lethargic clerk. He provided himself with a box of hard peas, and when the well-known snore echoed through the church, he quietly dropped one of the peas on the head of the offender, who was at once aroused to the sense of his duties, and ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... had been threatening for so many months on the national horizon, ever since Austria plumped her brutal ultimatum upon little Serbia. There were no vivid debates, no pronounced current of opinion one way or the other, not much public interest in the prolonged discussions at the Consulta; just a lethargic iteration of the belief that sooner or later war must come with its terrible risks, its dubious victories. Given the Italian temperament and the nearness of the brink toward which the country was drifting, one looked for flashes of fire. But Rome, if more normal ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... truths. Far from being so, it makes pretensions of developing the religious feelings to the highest degree; and there is in the writings of its most distinguished disciples something which arouses even the most lethargic minds. But it is far from attaining its end; for although it constitutes itself the supreme judge of Christianity, it does not really adopt one of the leading doctrines of that religion which alone has power over ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... In Morocco lethargic patients are given ants to swallow, and to eat lion's flesh will make a coward brave; but people abstain from eating the hearts of fowls, lest thereby they should be rendered timid. When a child is ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... two last mistakes, in the campaign against the league, Charles, whether as a soldier or statesman, is seen at his best. When once the drums beat to arms there was an end to irresolution. He had that reserve of energy upon which an indolent, lethargic nature can sometimes at a crisis draw. The Netherlands seemed threatened from east to west; yet in perfect calm he ordered his agitated sister Mary to watch her frontiers, but to send every man and gun that could be spared under Buren to the front. Taking advantage of his enemies' ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... to transform the naughtiest, most rebellious of the children, the one whom the teacher designated as in need of "taming," into a lively and attractive little girl, who combed the hair of her companions most carefully, with evident delight. We had only to say to an awkward, lethargic child, who came forward holding out her arms to have her sleeves pulled down for her: "Do it yourself," and there was a flash of intelligence in her eyes, her weary face was lighted up by an expression of satisfied pride and amazement, ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... a state of utmost confusion, as we have pulled all our offices down and are going to rebuild and alter them. I am personally in a state of utmost confusion also, for my cruel wife has persuaded me to leave off snuff for a month; and I am most lethargic, stupid, ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... circumstances, the same blow will evoke responses of different amplitudes. Early in the morning, after the prolonged inactivity of a cold night, we find the plant inclined to be lethargic, and its first answers correspondingly small. But as blow after blow is delivered, this lethargy passes off, and the replies become stronger and stronger. A good way to remove this lethargy quickly, is to give the plant a warm bath. In the heat of the ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... who have a true conception of pedagogy and of life. In this sentence we see the finger-board that points toward high achievements in teaching. If the hurdles are too low, the boy becomes flaccid, flabby, sluggish, and lethargic. The hurdles should be just high enough to engage his full strength, physical, mental, and moral. They should ever be a challenge to his best efforts. But they should never be so high that they ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... reply. The heavy stupor that deadened every sense bore him down, and took away the power of speech. His eyes closed, and in another moment he had dropped off into a deep, lethargic sleep. ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... there is no better evidence of the character and influence of Washington upon the American mind than what has transpired during and since the war. Look, sir, at the South of which you spoke! She was largely a lethargic people prior to the war. She lived in luxury; she was in the midst of a condition which yielded to her abundant support, and eliminated from her life the necessity of hard labor and earnest effort. The war came. We were bound around with a cordon we could not break; we were encircled ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... followed him in, and was standing just behind his chair, head hanging, ears lopping, lethargic patience showing in every contour ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill
... Beautiful whispers to us of his art, how we were with him when he laid the foundations of the world, and the song is unfinished, the fingers grow listless. As we receive these intimations of age our very sins become negative: we are still pleased if a voice praises us, but we grow lethargic in enterprises where the spur to activity is fame or the acclamation of men. At some point in the past we struggled mightily for the sweet incense which men offer to a towering personality: but the infinite is for ever within man: we sighed for other ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... occasional loans; Lady Tressady wanted company, compliments, and "musical sketches'" for her little tea-parties. Mrs. Fullerton was as ready as her husband to supply the two former; and even the children, a fair-haired, lethargic crew, painfully like their boneless father in Tressady's opinion, took their share in the general exploitation of Tressady's mamma. Lady Tressady meanwhile posed as the benefactor of genius in distress; and vowed, moreover, that ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... savages to explain certain proceedings of the sorcerer, priest, or seer. His soul, or one of his souls is thought to go forth to distant places in quest of information, while the seer, perhaps, remains lethargic. Probably, in the struggle for existence, he lost more by being lethargic than ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... lifted belated hands, but met a glance from his wife which made him drop them silently. There was a satire in her eyes, a sort of humorous, half-urging patronage that pierced the hide of his self-satisfied and lethargic mind. She seemed sitting there ready to beat time to his applause, nod her head to it as to a childish strain of jigging music. And this apparent preparation for a semi-comic, semi-pitiful benediction sent his hands ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... serpent.—Ver. 693. This is, most probably, the asp, a small serpent of Egypt, which is frequently found represented on the statues of Isis. Its bite was said to produce a lethargic sleep, ending in death. Cleopatra ended her life by the bite of one, which she ordered to be conveyed to her in a basket of fruit. Some commentators have supposed that the crocodile is here alluded to; but, as others have justly observed, the crocodile ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... affirmatives; she had an uncomfortable feeling that she was being cold-shouldered. That high moralist, Mrs Flint, edged her chair away from the poor lady of set purpose, and Miss Joliffe found herself at last left isolated from all, except Mrs Purlin, the builder's wife, who was far too fat and lethargic to be anything but ignorantly good-natured. Then, in a fit of pained abstraction, Miss Joliffe had made such a bad calculation as entirely to spoil a flannel petticoat with a rheumatic belt and camphor pockets, which she had ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... upon the grass, and overcome by fatigue and the many violent emotions he had that day experienced, soon fell into a lethargic slumber. ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... complaint (though strange, 'tis true) Was banished from my system by a new: Just as diseases of the side or head My to the stomach or the chest instead, Like your lethargic patient, when he tears Himself from bed, and at ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... exhausted, slept tolerably well the next night, complaining of thirst and inability to swallow. On the 2nd day, inflammation, swelling, and fever followed—erysipelas appeared on the neck—patient lethargic—pulse small and frequent. Fourth day, suppuration—symptoms improving—no relapse. The patient completely recovered, without any regeneration of ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... Lady O'Gara said, with sudden energy, "that, fond as I am of Eileen, I think she has not the stuff in her to hold a boy like Terry. There is something lethargic in her. I'm afraid she is a little selfish. She can be very sweet when she likes, but I think at ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... that the good souls could make of her restless agitation. She slept that night from sheer exhaustion, a deep lethargic slumber, apparently broken once or twice by troubled dreams. When she awoke in the morning at the first sound of the voice of the mooddin, the evil dreams seemed to be with her still. She appeared to be moving along in them like one spell-bound by a great ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... of this hate campaign which may be all very well when it is intended to rouse the somewhat lethargic Briton to fight against a race of which he knows next to nothing otherwise; but was doubly dangerous when applied to one's fellow-countrymen in the name of a party, and were it employed, say, against Wales or Scotland would soon prove disastrous, ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... by nature lethargic and placid. I could still occupy myself contentedly With bricks and soldiers, art and history, and trouble no one. But there is still that other element, instilled by Hugh—a love of the open air, of struggle with the elements, ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey
... takes a fancy, why not indulge him? I'll fetch the kitchen table-cloth." This fit lasted about six days; for he went to sleep, because a baby always slept much: and I was in hopes it would last much longer: but he again went off into his lethargic fit, and, after a long sleep, awoke with a new fancy. My time had nearly expired, and I had written to my new captain, requesting an extension of leave, but I received an answer stating that it could ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... it was not more than a whisper as compared with what they were receiving from our side of the line. The German artillery came into lethargic action after the American barrage had been in constant operation for thirty minutes and then the enemy's fire was only desultory. Only an occasional shell from Kulturland came our way, and even they carried a rather tired, listless buzz, as though they didn't know ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... he said, "to tell you that all is safe. Also to bid you good-bye. As soon as I can get employment I shall go down to Thorn to stir them up there. They are lethargic at Thorn." ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... on a palanquin. His coming brought a ray of comfort to the unhappy mothers; the tears, which had been till then restrained through excess of sorrow, now began to flow, and, nature being thus relieved, all the three bereaved ones fell into a lethargic repose. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... try to deny it," answered Jacob, in his calm, lethargic way, still regarding Cuthbert with a look of admiration and curiosity, somewhat as a savage regards a white man, scarce knowing from moment to moment what his acts will be. "Yet for all that I would warn thee to keep away from that house. ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... flutter around her, and seem to seek some fruitless remedy against the violent blow, which had thus suddenly destroyed the child in whom she had not only placed her greatest hopes, but so much of her maternal pride. While engaged in the latter incomprehensible manner, the lethargic Abner turned aside, and swallowing the unwonted emotions which were rising in his own throat, ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... more sweet, than she had been for many years. The truth was that, though her bereavement had been the cause of a most genuine and durable sorrow, it had been a relief to her. When Constance was over fifty, the energetic and masterful Sophia had burst in upon her lethargic tranquillity and very seriously disturbed the flow of old habits. Certainly Constance had fought Sophia on the main point, and won; but on a hundred minor points she had either lost or had not fought. Sophia had been 'too much' for Constance, and it had been only by a wearying ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... by his bedside. Now he slept, now he woke up fitfully, now he fell into a lethargic repose. The doctor and Sir Everard kept watch in an adjoining chamber, within sight of that ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... Sophy slipped into a deep slumber. And whether it was simply the slumber of utter exhaustion, or whether it was the sweet oblivion which results from a sense of peace long denied, or perhaps the union of both these conditions, the result was that she lay wrapped in an almost lethargic sleep for many hours. Twice Thomas came with the carriage, and twice Griselda sent him away. And the man shook his ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... was very singular. Almost down to the last, when in his hammock under the forecastle, he would have a line passed to him whenever he heard fish playing about; and he would catch at it as it was drawn through his fingers, until exhausted nature failing he fell into a lethargic sleep. His situation latterly was peculiarly pitiable. Worldly affairs and a future state were so painfully mingled, that it was impossible to determine whether or not resignation predominated. He evidently recoiled from the awful contemplation of futurity, and sought refuge ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... while he fumbled for his pipe and found some difficulty in lighting it, but he persevered, and lay quiet while he smoked it out. The sunlight was creeping down the gully, it was getting pleasantly warm, and George felt dull and lethargic. Some time had passed when he heard the teamster's shout and saw the man scrambling down the ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... been either discouraged or at the least lethargic, the pretender Tien Wang had been busily engaged in establishing his authority on a sound basis, and in assigning their respective ranks to his principal followers who saw in the conferring of titles and posts, at the moment ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... forearms of both men were decorated with gay and fanciful specimens of the tattoo artist's genius. A third man, similarly habited, lay stretched out, apparently sleeping on one of the cots that were arranged around the room. Opening his eyes he greeted the newcomer with a lethargic "'Lo, Redmond!"; then, turning over on his side, he relapsed once more into the arms of Morpheus—his nasal organ proclaiming that ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... no sleep that night in the Stuart apartments. Mr. Stuart was pronounced out of danger and able to travel, but he still lay in that lethargic trance—not speaking at all, and seemingly not suffering. Next day ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... his cage during the day, and next to him, on the same table, lived a bullfinch—a very handsome bird, but heavy and lethargic to a degree; he sang exquisitely, and for that gift I suppose Verdant admired him, for his delight was to be as near him as possible. Perched on the top of his cage, he gazed down at his friend, and in great measure imitated his singing. Bully, on the contrary, hated Verdant, and ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... other's meaning and wishes, and unhappy under the influence of an ideal source of misery, when actual circumstances created so many that were substantial and real. Gershom was found awake, but, as his sister had described him, stupid and lethargic. The bee-hunter at once saw that, in his present condition, Whiskey Centre would still be an incumbrance rather than of any service, in the event of an occasion for extraordinary exertion. Margery had hinted that it usually took twenty-four ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... of you, who have ever taken part in a gold rush can understand and appreciate the wild excitement that prevailed when the flashing lights revealed the rock of the cave to be seamed and studded with yellow veins and patches. It aroused even the most lethargic of the cowboys. And, truth to tell, none of them were very strongly of that type. They were accustomed to live amid excitement of one kind or another, and this was but ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley - or Diamond X and the Poison Mystery • Willard F. Baker
... indeed down to a period only fifty years ago, the world, looked at from the present vantage-ground, must appear to have been in a dull, lethargic state, with hardly any pulse and a low circulation. As for nerve system it had none. The changes which the Post Office has wrought in the world, but more particularly in our own country, are only to be fully perceived and appreciated by the thoughtful. Now the heart of the nation throbs ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... did not return it, and altogether he showed by a series of psycho-physiological acts that he was a living being, possessing a stomach, a will, and a mind—but his soul was dead, or, to be more exact, it was absorbed in lethargic sleep. The sound of human speech reached his ears, his eyes saw tears and laughter, but all that did not stir a single echo, a single emotion in his soul. I do not know what space of time had elapsed. It may have been one year, and it may have been ten years, for the length of ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... mobs, tarring, feathering, and smoking Tories; Tryon, Galloway, Burgoyne, Prescott, Guy Carleton; paper-money, regulation, and tender; in short, all the men and topics which preserve our polyphilosophohistorical societies from lethargic extinction. "McFingal" hit the taste of the times; it was very successful. But although thirty editions were sold in shops or hawked about by peddlers, there was no copyright law in the land, and Trumbull took more praise than solid pudding ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... the awe of the group, and the increased respect for Sanchez's wisdom, Pereo seemed to fall again into a lethargic slumber. It was late in the evening when he appeared to regain perfect consciousness. "Ah—what is this?" he said, roughly, sitting up in bed, and eying the watchers around him, some of whom had succumbed to sleep, and others were engaged in playing cards. "Caramba! are ye mad? Thou, Sanchez, ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... guilt: I will compel you to be silent." Freedom in this matter, as in all others, will engender activity and fortitude; positive institution (Godwin's term for law and constraint) makes the mind torpid and lethargic. It is hardly necessary to reproduce Godwin's vigorous arguments for unfettered freedom in political and speculative discussion, against censorships and prosecutions for religious and political opinions. Even were we secure from the possibility of mistake, mischief and not good would accrue from ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... we are dissatisfied with last winter's skates, with the old boat, and with the family pony. So the zealot finds the gymnasium insufficient long before he has learned half the moves. To some temperaments it becomes a treadmill, and that, strangely enough, to diametrically opposite temperaments. A lethargic youth, requiring great effort to keep himself awake between the exercises, thinks the gymnasium slow, because he is; while an eager, impetuous young fellow, exasperated because he cannot in a fortnight draw himself ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... of the literary and scientific progress of this period would be incomplete without some notice of progress in higher education. The universities of Oxford and Cambridge with their numerous colleges had in the eighteenth century lapsed into that lethargic condition which seemed to be the common fate of all corporations. They had to a certain extent ceased to be seats of learning. At Oxford the limitations imposed upon colleges by statute or custom in elections ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... Owing to their lethargic disposition, young Bulldogs are somewhat liable to indigestion, and during the period of puppyhood it is of advantage to give them a tablespoonful of lime water once a day in their ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... these visions of the past animated his lethargic memory, he came to recognize them. They took definite shape and form, adjusting themselves nicely to the various incidents of his life with which they had been intimately connected. His boyhood among the apes spread itself ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... knew how long it was before he was roused from his miserable lethargic state by a faint hail, which acted upon him like magic, making him spring to his feet and answer before going back to the edge of the crevasse, and uttering a cry that was doleful in ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... raw, and the two cursed the cold. It made us all lethargic before we had gone far, and when we had left the Half-way House behind, we habitually dozed and shivered and were silent. I dozed off, myself, in considering the question whether I ought to restore a couple of pounds sterling to this creature before losing sight of him, and how it could ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... even left his inner window partially open, because, unaccustomed to a stove, he felt oppressed by its heat. When he threw himself down, he slept deeply, as men sleep after days among snowfields, when a sense of entire security is the lethargic brain's lullaby. ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... a being lethargic after long revelry, clad in torn and stained garments, seemed unready for mirth. Andrew was highly antagonistic. The hound had bristled, growling, at the ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... their speech, but beyond ribald jests at our expense they said nothing. It was all swift, unreal. Owls hooted in the woods and dogs snarled at us. The groups that remained by the fire peered in our direction, but were too lethargic to come near. I tried for a word with Starling. ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... intervals, sent huge shells curving into the forest toward the camp of the Southern army. He also saw near him Warner and Pennington sound asleep on the ground, and then he sank back into his own lethargic slumber. ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... like a creeping thing on the verge of destruction, gripped by ruin in the midst of a whole world ready for lethargic sleep. I rose, oppressed by weird terrors, and took some furious strides down the path. "No!" I cried out, clutching both my hands; "there must be an end to this," and I reseated myself, grasped the pencil, and set seriously to work ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... value of the catch was much diminished) until some fisherman of genius conjectured that the cod lived only too contentedly in those tanks, and suffered from the atrophy of calm. The cod is by nature a lethargic, torpid, and plethoric creature, prone to inactivity, content to lie in comfort, swallowing all that comes, with cavernous mouth wide open, big enough to gulp its own body down if that could be. In the tanks the cod rotted at ease, rapidly deteriorating in their flesh. So, as a stimulating corrective, ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... soothing interpolation of the word "just" he aroused her lethargic enthusiasm. Strutting violently about the room, he simulated a dynamic and irresistible efficiency. "We'll buy ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... "going ahead;" its inhabitants are ever changing; its population is composed of all nations, with a very large proportion of Germans, French, and Irish. But their national characteristics, though not lost, are seen through a medium of pure Americanism. They all rush about—the lethargic German keeps pace with the energetic Yankee; and the Irishman, no longer in rags, "guesses" and "spekilates" in the brogue of Erin. Western travellers pass through Buffalo; tourists bound for Canada pass through Buffalo; the traffic of lakes, canals, and several ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... year that the final transformations take place. Let us pass in silence over this long period of repose, during which the Sitaris, in the form of a pseudochrysalis, slumbers at the bottom of its cell, in a sleep as lethargic as that of a germ in its egg, and come to the months of June and July in the following year, the period of what we might call ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... that it could be induced in him by suggestion. She had only to say to him, "Steven, you're thoroughly worn out," and he was thoroughly worn out. She had more pleasure, because she had more confidence, in this lethargic, middle-aged Rowcliffe than in Rowcliffe young and energetic. His youth had attracted him to Gwenda and his energy had driven him out of doors. And Mary had set herself, secretly, insidiously, to ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... motionless in his lap, forcibly reminding me of an image I had seen of some Oriental god upon his throne. His eyes were scarcely opened, his breathing was almost imperceptible; a gross animal content appeared in him as of a full-fed, lethargic crocodile. Side by side, he and the gaunt, fierce-eyed old man presented no mean allegory of spirit and body. A table was before them, and in the middle of it a toy the like of which I had never seen in this house or elsewhere—a globe of crystal, perhaps the size of an orange, held up ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... trumpets, a roll of drums, a stirring march of warlike melody, startled them out of the lethargic tedium of exhausted hopes and fears. "It is Santa Anna!" said Antonia; and though they durst not stand up, they drew closer to the balustrade and watched for the approaching army. Is there any woman ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... its gravity was in no respect diminished. The sufferer had ceased to cough and to make restless movements, and had become lethargic; later, he spoke deliriously, or rather muttered, for his words were seldom intelligible. Amy had returned to the room at four o'clock, and remained till far into the night; she was physically exhausted, and could do little but sit in a chair by ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... know anything about you." The young man's lethargic conscience gives him a severe prick. He should not have made light of it to Laura and madame, but he did bind them to inviolate secrecy. "If I had seen you I should not have despised you, I should have married you," he says, triumphantly. "If you were free to-day, ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... disrobing, on her couch, and at length fell into a slumber so deep and calm, that her guardians, fearing to disturb it, and aware that her dress was so loose and light, it could not annoy her, retired softly to their own chamber without arousing her. How many hours this lethargic sleep lasted, Marie knew not, but was at length broken by a dream of terror, and so unusually vivid, that its impression lasted even through the terrible reality which it heralded. She beheld Arthur Stanley on the ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... been hypnotized by any of the various processes—the chief are mesmeric passes of the hypnotizer's hands, his eyes fixed into the eyes of his subject, or the latter's on an object so held as to strain his eyes—the first stage of hypnotism is obtained, that of lethargy. In the lethargic state, the subject appears to be sunk in a deep sleep; his body is perfectly helpless; the limbs hang down slackly, and when raised fall heavily into the same position. In this condition all the striated or voluntary muscles react on mechanical excitement. Without ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens
... there. PONIATOWSKI furiously attacks them. But the French are worn out, and fall back to their station before the battle. So the combat dies resultlessly away. The sun sets, and the opposed and exhausted hosts sink to lethargic repose. NAPOLEON enters his tent in the midst of his ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... just pointed out always exists, but it is not always equally visible. In some ages governments seem to be imperishable, in others the existence of society appears to be more precarious than the life of man. Some constitutions plunge the citizens into a lethargic somnolence, and others rouse them to feverish excitement. When government appears to be so strong, and laws so stable, men do not perceive the dangers which may accrue from a union of church and state. When governments ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... what was gospel to every bete blonde in the Teutonic forest of the fifth century. Truth shifts and changes like a cataract of diamonds; its aspect is never precisely the same at two successive instants. But error flows down the channel of history like some great stream of lava or infinitely lethargic glacier. It is the one relatively fixed thing in a world of chaos. It is, perhaps, the one thing that gives human society the small stability that it needs, amid all the oscillation of a gelatinous cosmos, ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... a week, I commenced giving stimulants, selecting, as the chief article, sound old Maderia wine. The effect was soon apparent, in a firmer pulse and a quickened vitality. The lethargic condition in which she had lain for most of the time since the commencement of the attack, began to give way, and in a much shorter period than is usually the case, in this disease, we had the unmistakable ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... her words had made no evident impression upon my patient, who lay quietly and with a more composed expression than when I left her bedside. This assured me, as nothing else could have done, that she was really asleep, or in that lethargic state which closes the eyes and ears to what ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... some instances, it is the chief determining factor which materially influences the outcome of the case. A nervous, excitable animal, that is kept at hard work, may, under some conditions, be expected to experience disturbances which more lethargic subjects escape. Nervous subjects, it is known, are more prone to azoturia than are those of lymphatic temperament. Furthermore, the lymphatic subject often recovers from certain bone fractures which are ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... he threw off his lethargic manner and entered the girl's mood of appreciation of the lavish loveliness of the June. Yet, as Phoebe alighted from the carriage at the little gate of the Metz farm, and after she had thanked him and started through the yard to ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... and thrilling, ran along the line; a hundred answering flags were hauled up through the fleet; the ships of war saluted with full broadsides; and the guns of San Juan, now for the first time waking from their lethargic silence, poured ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... taken an oath of fidelity to their king, whose interest is inseparable from that of his people, but had sworn to support the ruinous projects of abandoned men (of whatever faction) must rouse the most lethargic, if honest, soul. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... essence of fear—to pain in the future. Fear and self-consciousness are closely interlinked. Similarly with animals, we often wonder how a horse or a cow can endure to stand out in a field all night, exposed to cold and rain, in the lethargic patient way that they exhibit. It is not that they do not FEEL the discomfort, but it is that they do not envisage THEMSELVES as enduring this pain and suffering for all those coming hours; and as we know with ourselves that nine-tenths of our miseries really ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... invariably within the first or second day. The most intense symptoms of white scour are complicated by great dullness, weakness, and prostration, sunken eyes, retracted belly, short, hurried breathing, and very low temperature, the calf lying on its side, with the head resting on the ground, lethargic and unconscious or regardless of all around it. The bowel discharges are profuse, yellowish white, and very offensive. As a rule death ensues within 24 ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... perfect specimen of Creole pride? That is the way with all of them. Show me any Creole, or any number of Creoles, in any sort of contest, and right down at the foundation of it all, I will find you this same preposterous, apathetic, fantastic, suicidal pride. It is as lethargic and ferocious as an alligator. That is why the Creole almost always is (or thinks he is) on the defensive. See these De Grapions' haughty good manners to old Agricole; yet there wasn't a Grandissime in Louisiana who could have set foot on the De ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... the most startling evils of the world. One year, the sacred outlines of the human figure are protected against disfigurement by an ardent group of young classicists in Grecian draperies. The next, a fierce young brood of vegetarians challenge a lethargic world to mortal combat over an Argentine sirloin. The year of Beulah's graduation, the new theories of child culture that were gaining serious headway in academic circles, had filtered into the class rooms, and Beulah's mates had ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... ignoramus, the lethargic, the brainless, everything that savours of enthusiasm is a craze. The politician who throws himself heart and soul into a political contest is "off his head," is seized with a craze. The philanthropist who builds and endows ...
— Stamp Collecting as a Pastime • Edward J. Nankivell
... pool of a slimy eel or a blundering bullhead or a lethargic sucker is bad enough, but the rush in of the pickerel is the advent of the devil himself. Until he is got rid of, all the delicate machinery for the calculation of chances is hopelessly disturbed; and no one could ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... indefatigable zeal in support of the American cause, as well as his signal service, gave him such just pretnesions. The intelligence which he brought gave new impulse both to Congress and to the State Legislatures. The lethargic slumbers into which they seemed to be sinking yielded to resolutions of ...
— Memoirs of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... lad felt his limbs grow stiff and almost useless, and a lethargic numbness blunt the keenness of his faculties as the heat went out of him. He had more than usual endurance, and utter cold, thirst, and the hunger that most ably helps the frost, are not infrequently ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... fields and topping the lake with a silvery effulgence. Mrs. Sohlberg was being inoculated with the virus Cowperwood, and it was taking deadly effect. The tendency of her own disposition, however lethargic it might seem, once it was stirred emotionally, was to act. She was essentially dynamic and passionate. Cowperwood was beginning to stand out in her mind as the force that he was. It would be wonderful to be loved by such a man. ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... vibration, resulting in increased molecular mobility, is in other instances attended by increase in the height of response, as will be seen from the two sets of records which follow (fig. 64). Cold, due to prevailing frosty weather, had made the wires in the cell somewhat lethargic. The records in (a) were the first taken on the day of the experiment. The amplitudes of vibration were 45 deg., 90 deg., and 135 deg.. In (b) are given the records of the next series, which are in every case greater than those of (a). This shows that previous vibration, ...
— Response in the Living and Non-Living • Jagadis Chunder Bose
... custom—as the young and inexperienced betray the influence of some more seductive charm. The very bell that called the drowsy student from his bed seemed to rise and fall in accordant sympathy with the lethargic humour that prevailed, tolling in slow and half-sounding notes scarcely audible beyond the college gates. The broken light, that shed its misty hue through the monastic aisle of painted windows and clustered columns, gave an increased appearance of drowsiness to the scene; while ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... had the good of his country nearest his heart, who saw her errors, and wished to correct them; who felt her oppressions, and wished to relieve them; and who had a desire to rouze and awaken an indolent nation from a lethargic disposition, that might prove fatal to her constitution. This temporary opposition but increased the stream of his popularity. He was now looked upon in a new light, and was distinguished by the title of THE DEAN, and so high a degree ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... topic. Sir George Stephen,[15] after describing the long struggle in England against the West Indian interest and other obstacles, says, that, for some time, "worst of all, we found the people, not actually against us, but apathetic, lethargic, incredulous, indifferent. It was then, and not till then, that we sounded the right note, and touched a chord that never ceased to vibrate. To uphold slavery was a crime against God! It was a NOVEL DOCTRINE, ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... on the other hand, there is the genuinely lethargic saleswoman whose mind doesn't seem to register a single syllable that you have said to her; who, with complete indifference to you and your preferences, insists on showing what you distinctly say you do ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... some form of expression of the self. Are we interested in a new book, we must read it; in a new invention, we must see it, handle it, test it; in some vocation or avocation, we must pursue it. Interest is impulsive. It gives its possessor no opportunity for lethargic rest and quiet, but constantly urges him to action. Grown ardent, interest becomes enthusiasm, "without which," says Emerson, "nothing great was ever accomplished." Are we an Edison, with a strong interest centered in mechanical invention, it will drive us day and night in a ceaseless activity ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... the papers were overhauled; the tale of Topelius and the trade was told in appreciative ears and cemented their acquaintance. Trent's suspicions, thus finally disposed of, were succeeded by a fit of profound thought, during which he sat lethargic and stern, looking at and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is only a specimen of what I feel myself to be in every respect. I try to observe, to imprint what I see and hear on my memory, and to feel my heart properly affected with the circumstances; yet my soul is impoverished, and I have something of a lethargic disease ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... and the Baltic brought me to the Swedish capital, whence on the following day I took the small steamer which plies three times a week around the Aland Islands, and then across the Gulf of Bothnia to Korpo, and through the intricate channels and among those low-lying islands to the gray lethargic town of Abo. ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... My lethargic indifference to my situation soon passed away, and was succeeded by a keen sense of fear. I was now convinced, more than ever, that my life was in danger from these hideous animals; for this was the first actual attempt they had made upon my person without provocation. Although my sudden ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... home, forgetful of all but his animal comforts and the superficial interest he felt in such prattle as this. His bodily health improved before his mental activity; perhaps it was owing to the freedom from worry consequent upon this lethargic state of mind that he was able to pick ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... interested eyes into the detection of an oversight which argues a sudden Lethean forgetfulness on the part of Milton; and in many generations of readers, however alive and awake with malice, a corresponding forgetfulness not less astonishing. Two readers only I have ever heard of that escaped this lethargic inattention; one of which two is myself; and I ascribe my success partly to good luck, but partly to some merit on my own part in having cultivated a habit of systematically accurate reading. If I read at all, I make it a duty to read truly and faithfully. I profess allegiance for ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... of brilliancy. The blaze of light which burst upon him, and the variety of characters in constant motion, appeared almost to render him motionless; and several of the would-be characters passed him with a vacant stare, declaring he was no character at all! nor was he roused from his lethargic position till he heard a view halloo, which seemed to come from a distant part of the Garden, and was so delivered, as actually to give him an idea of the party being in pursuit of game, by growing fainter towards the close, as if ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... that sleep well? She was very lethargic in the church, I noticed. Had I not better send ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... accurate, it is neatly said enough. But I am afraid that the facts of the case go farther than one would wish to believe toward bearing out the severe critic's judgment. Assuredly, the arts if not fast asleep, are but beginning to arouse themselves from a very long and lethargic nap in their classic cradle-land. But I think that signs are not wanting that they are beginning to shake off their slumber, and that when they shall have effectually done so, it will once again become evident to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various |
