"Listless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Walsingham, and here he once entertained that chivalrous queen. Cowley, the poet, afterwards resided here; and, in a later age Heydegger, the buffoon, who gave an eccentric entertainment to the second Guelph, and contrived to gratify his listless mind by an ingenious surprize, in at first making him believe that he was not prepared to receive him, and then contriving a sudden burst ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... conversation, it would have been impossible to say if our destination were China or Ireland. Not a book nor a map, not a pamphlet nor a paper that bore upon the country whose destinies were about to be committed to us, ever appeared on the tables. A vague and listless doubt how long the voyage might last, was the extent of interest any one condescended to exhibit; but as to what was to follow after—what new chapter of events should open when this first had closed, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... and then he began to feel faint. He had eaten but little breakfast and he needed a fresh supply of food to restore his strength. How he could hold out till evening he could not tell. Already his head began to ache and he felt weary and listless. ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... them spoke a word. From time to time they glanced at the silent and motionless figures on the seats. For the most part, the loiterers there were either asleep or sitting with closed eyes. Here and there they caught a glance from some spectral face, a glance cold and listless. The fires of life were dead amongst these people. The animal desires alone remained; ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... hearing or attaining, a friend acting in behalf of friend will achieve vicariously. And yet, albeit to try and tend a tree for the sake of its fruit is not uncommon, this copious mine of wealth—this friend—attracts only a lazy and listless attention on the part of more than ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... listless sea made a sound like a rattle, very gently and continuously shaken by a very tired baby. Nothing was doing. The air was a little too chilly for pleasure boating. Tony had gone to 'put away up over' the after-dinner hour. I lay down to ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... home, or that apology for it—a bachelor's lodgings—and as I have nothing earthly to do now until I can afford to purchase another horse, I spend my time in sauntering from one club to another, passing many rather listless hours in them before the ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in various knots through the chapel, and amuse themselves by auditing or narrating anecdotes, discussing policy, or detraction; and in case it be summer, and the day of a fine texture, they scatter themselves into little crowds on the chapel-green, or lie at their length upon the grass in listless groups, giving way to ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... finally died. I have seen drunken jelly-fish rolling and tacking through the alcohol-impregnated water for all the world like a company of drunkards.[117] They soon became sober, however, when they were placed in fresh water, but remained listless and inert for some ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... did not precisely criticise these details, but they helped in the impression of lifelessness and gloom that hung about her. It was a faint, gleamy afternoon, and such sun as there was did not shine into the study. The dark panelling looked darker than usual, and as she sat silent and listless in a corner of the old sofa, her hair and face stood out against it almost startling in their blondness and whiteness. She was strangely unlike herself, but Stewart comforted himself by remembering that ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... with verandahs supported on wooden pillars. High walls surround a rather commodious courtyard. There are mysterious little doors, through which you can get a peep of crooked little stairs leading to the upper rooms or to the roof, from dusky inside verandahs. Half-naked, listless, indolent figures lie about, or walk slowly to and from the yard with seemingly purposeless indecision. In the outer verandah is an old palkee, with evidences in the tarnished gilding and frayed and tattered hangings, that it once had ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... She loathes the listless strain And peril of his plight. Beseeching Heaven to send him home again, She ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... pallor of his face, and the tired, listless manner, so unlike himself, Lucy suggested that they go home, and to this Grey readily assented. But first he must see Bessie's grave, and at London he left his aunt in charge of some friends who were going home in the same ship and would see her to Liverpool. ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... thickening round them,—a crowd, which, if it had its will, would stiletto every soldier that pipes to it. And in the recesses of the porches, all day long, knots of men of the lowest classes, unemployed and listless, lie basking in the sun like lizards; and unregarded children,—every heavy glance of their young eyes full of desperation and stony depravity, and their throats hoarse with cursing,—gamble, and fight, and snarl, and sleep, hour after hour, clashing their bruised centesimi ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... very picture of ennui. He put his hands deeply into his coat pockets, and sauntered across the deck. Then he took a stroll up the one side and down the other. As he lounged along it was very evident that he was tired of the voyage, even before it began. Judging from his listless manner nothing on earth could arouse the interest of the young man. The gong sounded faintly in the inner depths of the ship somewhere announcing dinner. Then, as the steward appeared up the companion way, the sonorous ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... If to literature one's mind turns, there is the association with Balzac's birth in the Rue Royale, and his delightful picturings of the city's environment in the "Cure de Tours," "Le Lys dans la Vallee," and "La Grenadiere." Says Balzac of the habitant: "...He is a listless and unobliging individual." But the sojourner for a day will probably not notice this, and, if he should, must simply make allowance, and think with Henry James of the other memories of "this land of Rabelais, Descartes, and Balzac; of good dinners, good company, ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... unexpected shock was given to Baptista's listless mind about an hour after the wedding service. They had nearly finished the mid-day dinner when the now husband said to her father, 'We think of starting about two. And the breeze being so fair we shall bring up inside Pen-zephyr new pier about ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... thought. Two perpendicular wrinkles upon her broad white forehead—so calm, so unclouded in society—told of gnawing cares. Then she stole a look at her husband, as he reclined in his arm-chair, his head lying back against the cushions in listless repose, his eyes looking vacantly at the window, whence he could see only the rain-blurred fronts of opposite houses, blank, dull windows, grey slated roofs, ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... finally died out utterly. The squeak-squeaking of the saddles grew very distinct; occasionally somebody sighed, or started to hum a tune and gave it up; now and then a horse sneezed. These things only emphasised the solemnity and the stillness. Everybody got so listless that for once I and my dreamer found ourselves in the lead. It was a glad, new sensation, and I longed to keep the place forevermore. Every little stir in the dingy cavalcade behind made me nervous. Davis and I were riding side by side, right after the Arab. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Callithrix moloch—one of the kinds called by the Indians "Whaiapu-sai". It is a moderate-sized species, clothed with long brown hair, and having hands of a whitish hue. Although nearly allied to the Cebi, it has none of their restless vivacity, but is a dull listless animal. It goes in small flocks of five or six individuals, running along the main boughs of the trees. One of the specimens which I obtained here was caught on a low fruit-tree at the back of our house at sunrise one morning. This was the only instance of a monkey ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... of it—I shall be glad of your company, old boy." Presently he said, "Do you know what it is to feel sad? I suppose not. I don't mean troubled about anything in particular—there's nothing to be troubled about—but simply sad, in a causeless, listless way?" ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... hot broth the girl was able to take, but she did not show much life, and, after a close look at her immobile countenance, and feeling of the cold and listless ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... the cravings of hunger, the youth might now be seen daily roaming about the streets, idle and listless. One day in this sad condition he was loitering about in the great square of the city, when his attention was attracted by a crowd of people, who seemed to be gathered around one who sold some merchandise by auction. He drew near, and, mixing ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... Maida ceased gradually to worry about Laura, she began to be troubled about Rosie. For Rosie was not the same child. Much of the time she was silent, moody and listless. ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... forgetful, oh! unhappy one, of the flexibility of his own body on being carried up stairs, and, more unhappy still, ignorant of the art of waking. He therefore clenched his fingers harder and harder as he felt my mother trying to unfold them, while his head hung listless, and his eyes were closed as though he were sleeping sweetly. It is needless to detail the agony of shame that followed. My mother begged my father to box his ears, which my father flatly refused to do. Then she boxed them herself, ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... the Philippines has a marked effect on the mental and physical vigour of people not born and raised in the tropics. This is manifested in many ways, and men, women and children who are not actually ill, seem to lose their energy, become listless, irritable, and forgetful, and find the least exertion burdensome. This is much aggravated in the hot season, and very few individuals manage, without permanent mental and physical deterioration, to live through many ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... instruction. This is the work appointed to her youth. If, while her mind is yet ignorant, her judgment inexperienced, and her tastes actually unformed, she indulges any affection or fancy which makes her studies tedious, her companions dull, and her mind and spirits listless, she has fallen into ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... the cedar-branch shadows on the moonlit lawn, and planning schemes of fresh devilry for the sunshiny morrow. From below, strains of the jocund piano declared that the Olympians were enjoying themselves in their listless, impotent way; for the new curate had been bidden to dinner that night, and was at the moment unclerically proclaiming to all the world that he feared no foe. His discordant vociferations doubtless started a train of thought in Edward's mind, for the youth presently ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... of the people,' he said. 'They give the measure of the quality of their work—lazy, slovenly, monotonous repetition, producing nothing splendid but machines, wonderful engines, marvellous ships, miraculous motor-cars, but dull, listless, sodden people—inert. It is the inertia of London ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... It was a secret life. The world in which he moved was a secret world—an invisible world, to whose invisible door he alone held the key. Edgar the Dreamer was himself an invisible person, for the only outward difference between him and his twin brother, Edgar Goodfellow, lay in a certain quiet, listless air and the solemn look in his big, dark grey eyes which his playmates—bored and intolerant—took as indications that "Edgar was in one of his moods," and his foster-father—eyeing him keenly and with marked displeasure—as ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... but passable showing. They seemed to feel that the crowd took but little interest in them. The listless applause that had greeted them in ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... the spring had been particularly trying, and her mother began to feel anxious as day after day found her lying on a couch, listless and weary. The doctor advised change of scene as the best means to recover health and spirits, and Mrs. Gurney decided at last to accept the kind and repeated invitation of a dear friend living in Charlottetown, and send Elsie thither under ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... without one sentiment of pride in the deeds of their illustrious forefathers? What is a Christian's duty, when his country is bled and plundered and ground down to the dust under the iron heel of military despotism, when the political fabric of his native land is crumbling, and his countrymen are listless, selfish, sensual, unpatriotic, not unhappy so long as their bellies are filled and their backs covered? Shall he lift his streaming eyes to heaven with the resigned ejaculation, "Father, not my will, but thine, be done"? —or shall he, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... a profound contempt for poor whites, and never let slip an opportunity for expressing it. He assumed that we shared this sentiment, while in fact our feeling toward this listless race was something entirely different. They were, like Julius himself, the product of a system which they had not created and which they did not know enough ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt
... meal would never end, although no one took anything. In time even the fun and laughter, which had at first helped to keep the thing going, died away, and the fellows lolled back in the chairs in a listless, bored way. It was vain for me to try to lead the talk; I could not have done it even if I had had the spirit, and there was precious little ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... taught Pete was undone in the lazy, listless life of the sheep-camp. There was a certain slow progressiveness about it, however, that saved it from absolute monotony. Each day the sheep grazed out, the distance being automatically adjusted by the coming of night, ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... into her breast, and drawing out the pass on the back of which she had written her last message to him, she thrust it between his listless fingers. It should speak for her. Then she leant over him, and watched his sleeping face, a very incarnation of infinite, despairing tenderness, and love that is deeper than the grave. And as she watched, gradually her feet and legs grew cold and numb, ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... work was done that day in spite of Builder's managing to round up his full crew. The blood offering each worker had given the night before had left them tired and listless. Only four of the fifty-four molds running across the river were filled with sand and gravel that morning and afternoon—there were still nearly fifty to be ...
— Regeneration • Charles Dye
... the ocean it showed some of the party asleep. The others were haggard and worn looking and seemed to have but small concern as to what happened to them. They lolled on the cross seats in a listless way, not at all interested in the beautiful sunrise. They were more concerned in their own welfare than in the ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay
... to bed: and the boy, subsiding at the sound into his usual listless state, crept away as if anxious to avoid notice. It was with a heavy heart that Nicholas soon afterwards—no, not retired; there was no retirement there—followed—to his ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... light in figure, without an ounce of spare flesh, he was able to support the heat, dust, and fatigue better than most; and, as he himself said, it was less trying to be at work, even in the blazing sun, than to lie listless and sweating under the shade of a blanket. There was no necessity, now, to go down the line to make enquiries as to the progress of the stores, or of the laden craft on their way up. the telegraph was established, and the Sirdar, at Atbara, ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... It will have to realize that religion is a "here and now" experience, intended to help people with their human worries to-day, rather than an elaborate system of golden streets, big processions, walls of jasper, and endless years of listless loafing on the shores of the River of Life! The Church has directed too much energy to the business of showing people how to die and teaching them to save their souls, forgetting that one of these carefully saved souls is after all not worth much. Christ said, "He that saveth his life shall lose ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... longer—a wicked soul looked blackly out of the face to which he had raised his eyes. Then the window shut, and the wall was blank again. Without any change in his listless demeanor, the schoolmaster laid his left hand, ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... therefore, of Aguara's words deceiving her into a false confidence, they but strengthen the feeling of repulsion she has all along had for him. Whether listening or not, she makes no reply to what he says, nor even deigns to look at him. Sitting listless, dejected, with her eyes habitually bent upon the ground, she rides on as one who has utterly abandoned herself to despair. Too sad, too terribly afflicted with what is past, she appears to have no thoughts about the future, no hopes. Or, if ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... fixed for ever on the retina of her eye. At the end of the second movement there was more applause, and the conductor tapped appreciation with his stick against the pillar of his desk; the leader of the listless orchestra also tapped with his fiddle-bow and nodded. It seemed to her now that she more and more dominated the piano, and that she rendered the great finale with masterful and ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... was in the clearness of their eyes. Fever shows its touch in the "gooseberry" eye, dull and clouded; in the moist pallor of the skin, and in a general listlessness. Even if they are free from fever, white men in Central Africa often grow listless because of insufficient nutriment. Their flesh-diet is chiefly the white meat of birds, and their blood-cells are really starved by the small amount of nitrogenous matter. A deficient diet in its turn is a frequent cause ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... dressed in a suit of black velvet, cut in the Spanish fashion. His face was strangely pale, but his lips were like a proud red flower. He seemed weary, and was leaning back toying in a listless manner with the pommel of his dagger. On the grass beside him lay a plumed hat, and a pair of riding-gloves gauntleted with gilt lace, and sewn with seed-pearls wrought into a curious device. A short cloak lined with sables ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde
... their slow and listless movements. They returned down another aisle and came out in front of the magnificent doorway of the building. They were just behind two elegantly dressed ladies, who were looking up at ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... unknown bays, at places not mentioned in the guide books, and from the beautiful, desolate islands came out sampans and junks, with the lonely figure of a white man sitting despondent among the naked rowers, eager to get his letters from home. It was his only eagerness, but very dull and listless at that. At night, the islands loomed large and mysterious in the darkness, while now and then a single ray of light from some light house, gleaming from some lost, mysterious island of the southern seas, ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... was vaguely aware that her words passed by the child's ears as the summer wind passed. Perhaps it was all a bit of temper and would disappear and leave no trace behind. At the same time, there WAS something queer about the little thing. She had a listless way of sitting staring out of the window and seeming to have no desire to amuse herself. She was too young to be listless and she did not care for her food. Dowson asked permission to send for the doctor and, when he came, he ordered ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... became listless and dejected on the days he did not see them. Then he asked himself whether he was not a cowardly fool to keep at such a distance. After all he was a man in authority. His friendship was not to be despised, least of all by a family suspected of ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... wardrobe, a broken iron cot in a corner, a wooden box and three or four chairs, and a small square deal table; on the table one candle in a tin candlestick gave light to the two occupants of the room. One of these a woman sitting in a listless attitude before the grate, fireless now, although the evening was damp and chilly. She appeared strong, but just now was almost repulsive to look at as she sat there in her dirty ill-fitting gown, with ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... after day with no change, half conscious, wholly listless.... It seemed to Mrs. Moody to be nothing but a waiting for the end. But she waited for the end as though the sick girl were flesh of her flesh, protesting to heaven against ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... blear-eyed dame. All day long she dozed in her big chair, or crouched with shrivelled hands spread out before the fire. My dream of winsome maidenhood vanished before the reality of a weary-looking, sharp-featured woman of between forty and fifty. Perhaps there had been a time when the listless eyes had sparkled with roguish merriment, when the shrivelled, tight-drawn lips had pouted temptingly; but spinsterhood does not sweeten the juices of a woman, and strong country air, though, like old ale, it is good when taken occasionally, dulls the brain ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... midnight, and that only on two nights of the week, and that only when Parliament was sitting. Its attractions were not numerous, consisting chiefly of tobacco and tea. The conversation was generally listless and often desultory; and occasionally there would arise the great and terrible evil of a punster whom every one hated but no one had life enough to put down. But the thing had been a success, and men liked to be members of the Universe. Mr. Bonteen was a member, and so was Phineas Finn. ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... Frank and Reginald came, but whose dignity did not prevent a certain desire to purchase if he saw fit, and if not, to amuse himself with those who did so. He stood watching the old man with an imperturbable air of gravity, and, hanging on his arm in a state of listless apathy, stood Trevannion, another member ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... hand with such conscious appeal to our eyes? To what end all those rapid octave passages? since in the intervals of easy execution, in the seemingly quiet impromptu passages, the music grew so monotonous and commonplace: the same little figure repeated and repeated, after listless pauses, in a way which conveyed no meaning, no sense of musical progress, but only the appearance of ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... following them as they crossed the broad, brown level of the parade. The snow had disappeared entirely except in dirty hummocks along the pathways and walks whither it had been shovelled after the heavy fall. The post looked even less cheery and attractive than before. The few men moving about had the listless air of soldiers with nothing to do, going fat and "soft" for lack of vigorous exercise. Over in front of the colonel's quarters his sedate bay team was waiting, and presently that veteran, with Mrs. Stone and Tommy Dot and a striker in attendance, ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... that prayer. It was white hot with earnestness. "Lord, save me." It is short, too. Notice that. When you do not want anything, when you have no burden, when you are careless and indifferent and listless, you can get down on your knees and pour out whole hogsheads of mere words. When you are spiritually asleep and morally stupid you can utter platitudes in the form of prayer endlessly. But when the sword ...
— Sermons on Biblical Characters • Clovis G. Chappell
... the silver Thames, alive with steamboats ploughing, white sails bellying, and great ships carrying to and fro the treasures of the globe. From this fair landscape and epitome of commerce she retired each time with listless disdain; she was ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead, Unsceptered; and his realmless eyes ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... of the amount of air and running about to which she had been used, did really tell upon her; she had giddy feelings in the morning, tired limbs, and a weary listless air, and fretted over her lessons at times. So they showed her to the doctor, who came to see Lady Jane every alternate day; and when he said she wanted more exercise, her morning walk was made an hour ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the dance have long been proved by the experience of millions of men and women. Other millions who have not yet tried it will sooner or later make the experiment. They will find that life takes on a new outlook, that instead of listless indifference they are actively interested in many things that they formerly ignored; that with restored bodily vigor they have quickened minds and better appreciation of all their daily contacts with their fellows, and that they are enjoying each day's existence with a ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... to be sure, men who looked bored, and women who were listless, missing the stimulus of any personal interest; but the scene was so animated, the weather so propitious, that, on the whole, a person must be very cynical not ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... a listless voice, monotonous in inflection and lifeless in timbre. The dominion of Valentine over him since the supper at the Savoy had increased, consolidating itself into an undoubted tyranny, which Julian accepted, carelessly, thoughtlessly, a prey to the internal ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... not cheerful. And then Charles came in, listless and tired, and without an appetite. He sat down wearily on the other side of Evelyn, and watched her pour out ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... a drawing-room carrying a large luminous cod," continued the stranger, in his listless way. "How quaint it would be if one could carry it about like a lantern, or have little sprats for candles. Some of the seabeasts would really be very pretty like lampshades; the blue sea-snail that glitters all over like starlight; and some of the red starfish ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... we may conceive wherein consists the great charm of dramatic poetry. Action is the true enjoyment of life, nay, life itself. Mere passive enjoyments may lull us into a state of listless complacency, but even then, if possessed of the least internal activity, we cannot avoid being soon wearied. The great bulk of mankind merely from their situation in life, or from their incapacity for extraordinary exertions, are confined within a narrow circle of insignificant operations. ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... attended was a woman who had suffered for five years with dyspepsia. The trouble had recently become so acute that even the milk diet to which she was now reduced caused her extreme discomfort. Consequently she had become extremely thin and anaemic, was listless, easily tired, and suffered from depression. Early in the proceedings the accounts given by several patients of the relief they had obtained seemed to appeal to her imagination. She followed Coue's remarks with keen interest, answered his questions vivaciously, and laughed very heartily ...
— The Practice of Autosuggestion • C. Harry Brooks
... to be of use to you or not, depends wholly on your reason for wishing to learn to draw. If you desire only to possess a graceful accomplishment, to be able to converse in a fluent manner about drawing, or to amuse yourself listlessly in listless hours, I cannot help you: but if you wish to learn drawing that you may be able to set down clearly, and usefully, records of such things as cannot be described in words, either to assist your own memory of them, or to convey distinct ideas of them to other people; if you wish ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... was guiltless of colours She stood, with a dull, listless air - A creature of dumps and of ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... now enveloped the sun. As Peter, a little encouraged by this last experience but tired with a dull, listless fatigue, crept into the dark channels of Bucket Lane, the rain began to fall with heavy ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... night; the sea was now smooth as glass, and not a breath of air moved in the heavens; the sail of the raft hung listless down the mast, and was reflected upon the calm surface by the brilliancy of the starry night alone. It was a night for contemplation—for examination of oneself, and adoration of the Deity; and here, on a frail raft, were huddled together more than forty beings ready for combat, ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... bit." His voice was strangely listless; in his eyes was the same abstraction which had troubled Appleton during the afternoon. He left the camp and disappeared up the bank of ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... listless as she sat enduring an account of a garden party he had been to the day before. He had thought it might amuse ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... must come to pass As was foreknowledged. In the grass Whereas the Goddess and her mate Stood, one and other, prompt for fate— Listless the first and heavy-eyed, Astrain the second—she espied That strange white flower, unseen before, With chalice pale, which thin stalk bore And swung, as hanging by a hair, So fine it seemed afloat in air, Unlinkt and wafted ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... sail, arm-in-arm, into the drawing-room, and forthwith fall to lively remarks on that neutral ground of conversation, the weather. Mr. Verdant Green is there, dressed with elaborate magnificence; but he continues in a state of listless apathy, and is indifferent to the "lively" rattle of the balloon-like Miss Waters, until John the footman (who is suffering from influenza) rouses him into animation by the magic talisman "Bister, Bissis, an' the Biss "Oneywoods;" when he beams through his spectacles in the ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... protested. The Prior would not hearken. And so in lieu of offering the sublime spectacle of an unpaid apostleship, the powerless instigator of the mischief, bent over his desk, certified the identity of the listless arrivals by sidelong peeps, conscious that he was adding the pain of contact with an excommunicated Jew to the sufferings of his brethren, for whose Sabbath his writing-pen was shamelessly expressing his contempt. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... was five years of age. From the disadvantages under which they laboured, it may be supposed these poor children had not many attractions to boast of. Adrian had the benefit of rather more education than his sister and cousin, as his father would sometimes devote himself to his instruction, but listless from disappointment, and out of humour with a world in which he despaired of his son ever appearing with the distinctions of rank and fortune, his lessons were never regularly given, or enforced in a manner ...
— The Flower Basket - A Fairy Tale • Unknown
... the medal; they have gone about in the world and mixed with clever people, but all the time they were thinking of their own affairs. As if a man's soul were not too small to begin with, they have dwarfed and narrowed theirs by a life of all work and no play; until here they are at forty, with a listless attention, a mind vacant of all material of amusement, and not one thought to rub against another, while they wait for the train. Before he was breeched, he might have clambered on the boxes; when he was twenty, he would have stared at the girls; but now the pipe is smoked out, the snuff-box ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a tendency to sacrifice expression to the mechanics and interpretation of reading. Those acquainted with school work know too well the resulting monotonous, indistinct speech and the self-conscious, listless attitude which characterize so much of the reading of pupils in grades above the third. It is believed that this little book will aid in overcoming these serious faults in reading, which all teachers and parents deplore. The dramatic appeal of the stories will cause the child to ...
— Children's Classics In Dramatic Form • Augusta Stevenson
... you would take the trouble to do it again. And if you had, I should have only loved you the more. I thought you would most likely be rather amused, rather touched, by my importunity. I thought you would take a listless advantage, make a plaything of me—the diversion of a few idle hours in summer, and then, when you had tired of me, would cast me aside, forget me, break my heart. I desired nothing better than that. That is what I must have been vaguely hoping for. But I had no definite scheme. I ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... a few last pansies, looked at them, and as idly flung them away, goes on her listless way through the gardens. A whole long month and not one word from him! Are his social duties now so numerous that he has forgotten he has a ward? "Well," emphatically, and with a vicious little tug at her big white hat, "some people have strange ...
— A Little Rebel - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... narrow lagunes, over which the high trees spread in vaulted cupolas almost impervious to the light of day, there dwells the powerful giant snake (Eunectes murinus, Wagl.), called by the Indians, in their figurative language, yacumaman, "mother of the waters." Stretched in listless repose, or winding round the stem of an old tree, bathing her tail in the cool lagune, she watches wistfully for the animals of the forest who come to the waters to quench their thirst. Whilst she gazes at her distant prey, the fascinating power of her eyes seems to subdue the trembling victim, ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... as he himself sat listless and unoccupied during that gloomy evening. He did his best to acquaint himself, by the aid of papers and circulars scattered about the room, with the work that lay before him. He made a careful tour of the premises, with a view to possible alterations and improvements. ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... entered later he found her listless and preoccupied. "You mustn't look like that to-night," he said. "Don't forget that this is your first important dinner-party: three French members and their wives, and La Colombiere, the new Minister of Finance, to whom you must be as charming as ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... platform were thirty-two pounders. The three sentries, wrapped in their greatcoats, stood motionless, one in the centre and one at each extremity of the platform, facing to seaward, but I judged from their listless attitudes that they were anything but on the alert. Access to the platform was obtained by two broad flights of stone steps, one at ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... Oriental nations. In the subsequent period, this spirit is less marked; but, at all times, a certain vigor and activity has characterized the race, distinguishing it in a very marked way from the dreamy and listless Hindus upon the one hand, and the apathetic ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... days, or the rich and graceful style of the Essayists from the fabrications of little, self-conceited biographers. In short, the whole scene is dashed off in the first style of art; the subject and humour are all over English—true to nature, and so forcible as to seize on the attention of the most listless beholder. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various
... at the vespers' call, Wearily, wearily; I looking up on the darkening wall, Wearily, wearily; The chime so sweet to the boat at sea, Listless and ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... in the bass. A waving phrase grows in the violins, which continues with strange evenness through the entrance of new song where we are surprised by the strange fitness of the Allegretto melody. And the second phase of the latter follows as if it belonged here. So, almost listless, without a hair of rhythmic change (les temps ont toujours la meme valeur), the Finale theme sings again most softly in the strings. It has, to be sure, lost all of its color, without the original throb of accompanying sounds. The phase of the movement is a shadowy procession of former ideas, united ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... kindly interest in my Fliegender Hollander, and was courteously received by him. This man, who in his earlier writings and musical criticisms had seemed to me filled with a fire of energy, now struck me as extraordinarily limp and listless when I saw him by the side of his young wife, who was radiantly and bewitchingly beautiful. From his conversation I soon learned that he also had abandoned even the remotest hope of success for any efforts directed towards the object so dear ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... with mossy brink Where the cattle came to drink. They trilled and piped and whistled With the thrush and bobolink, Till the kine in listless pause, Switched their tails in mute applause, With lifted heads and dreamy eyes, ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... relinquish it for a season. So, if I shot birds in winter with my firelock, I caught fish in summer, or attempted so to do, with my angle. I was not quite so successful, it is true, with the latter as with the former—possibly because it afforded me less pleasure. It was, indeed, too much of a listless pastime to inspire me with any great interest. I not unfrequently fell into a doze whilst sitting on the bank, and more than once let my rod drop from ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... there on the bottom of the schooner stared at the sun in its cloudless sky and gazed off across the sea whose blue was shrouded by the golden haze of a perfect summer's day. Only a lazy roll was left of the sudden turbulence of the night before. A listless breeze with a fresh tang of salt in it lapped the surface of the long, slow surges, and the facets of the ripples ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... tell the truth, his listless, dawdling way rather provokes me, and I have not been sorry to see ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... of thefts and murders increased with astounding rapidity. The police, collected in augmented proportions, lost its head and was swept off its feet. But it must also be said that, having gorged itself with plentiful bribes, it resembled a sated python, willy-nilly drowsy and listless. People were killed for anything and nothing, just so. It happened that men would walk up to a person in broad daylight somewhere on an unfrequented street and ask: "What's your name?" "Fedorov." "Aha, Federov? Then take ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... to a beholder (such as Professor Moorsom, for instance) she would appear to be turning over in her mind profound thoughts about that man sitting at her feet, his shoulders bowed a little, his hands listless—as if vanquished. And, indeed, the moral poison of falsehood has such a decomposing power that Renouard felt his old personality turn to dead dust. Often, in the evening, when they sat outside conversing languidly in the dark, he felt that he must rest his forehead on ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... in all her waking and sleeping intervals. Nothing put them aside, occupation in her weakness only bewildered and distracted her, and even though she was advancing daily towards convalescence, leaving her room, and being again restored to her sister, she still continued listless, dejected, cast down, and unable to turn her mind from this one dreary contemplation. Of Fanny and her sons it was hardly possible to think, and one of the strange perturbations of the mind in illness caused her to dwell far less on them than on the minor misery of the ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... looked thus listless, in her face was no listlessness, nor rest: her eyes were alert and clear, shining like two stars in the heavens of dawn-tide; her lips were set close, her brow knit, as of one striving to shape thoughts hard to understand into words that ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... and again. Yet I was aware that Gennaro was no more happy than I was in his presence. My poor husband would sit pale and listless, listening to the endless raving upon politics and upon social questions which made up or visitor's conversation. Gennaro said nothing, but I, who knew him so well, could read in his face some emotion which I had never seen there before. At first I thought that it was dislike. And then, gradually, ...
— The Adventure of the Red Circle • Arthur Conan Doyle
... moves about, not languidly like Amelia, but in such a graceful, airy way as I never saw. She has dark hair, nearly black, and brown eyes with a sort of tawny light in them,—large eyes which gleam out on you just when you are not expecting it, for she generally looks down. Amelia appears more listless and affected than ever by the side of her, and Charlotte's hoydenish romping ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... outstretched hands and kneeling on the knee; and very sorry and pitiful were the tales, so that often up in the galleries some maid of the palace wept. And very graciously she nodded her head like a listless magnolia in the deeps of the night moving idly to all the ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany
... but it was far insufficient in quantity. The Ragnarok herbs prevented any recurrence of the fatal deficiency disease but they provided virtually no nourishment to help fight the heat and gravity. The stronger of the children lay wasted and listless on their pallets while the ones not so strong died ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... monks built never for the spirit's ease Cloisters more calm—not Cluny nor Clairvaux; Sweet are the noises from the bay below, And cuckoos calling in the tulip-trees. Here, a yet empty suitor in thy train, Beloved Poesy, great joy was mine To while a listless spell of summer days, Happier than hoarder in each evening's gain, When evenings found me richer by one line, One verse well turned, ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... Of course it is. I watch her with great, I may say tender interest. If he would only fall in love with her, seize upon her wandering affections and fancies as the Romans seized the Sabine virgins, lift her out of herself and her listless and weary drudgeries, stop the outflow of this young life which is draining itself away in forced literary labor—dear me, ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... not repelled from thence, it will soon be within your walls, and will scale the citadel and Capitol, and follow you into your very houses. Two years ago the senate ordered a levy to be held, and the army to march to Algidum; yet we sit down listless at home, quarrelling with each other like women; delighting in present peace, and not seeing that after that short-lived intermission complicated wars are sure to return. That there are other topics more pleasing than these, I well know; ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... attend public prayers, under all kinds of disagreeable circumstances; when he rushes into the chapel breathless, with wet feet, half dressed, and with the prospect of a recitation immediately to succeed the devotions,—is it not natural that he should be listless, or drowsy, or excited about his recitation, during the whole ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... foot of yonder nodding beech That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, His listless length at noon-tide would he stretch, And pore upon the ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... to the drawing-room, she secured his lordship at once and managed to keep him. She was a woman who could talk pretty well, and perhaps Lord Walderhurst was amused. Emily Fox-Seton was not quite sure that he was, but at least he listened. Lady Agatha Slade looked a little listless and pale. Lovely as she was, she did not always collect an audience, and this evening she said she had a headache. She actually crossed the room, and taking a seat by Miss Emily Fox-Seton, began to talk to her about Lady Maria's charity-knitting which she had taken up. Emily was so gratified ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Rustum's, and his men lay camp'd around. And Gudurz enter'd Rustum's tent, and found Rustum: his morning meal was done, but still The table stood beside him, charg'd with food; A side of roasted sheep, and cakes of bread, 195 And dark green melons; and there Rustum sate Listless, and held a falcon on his wrist, And play'd with it; but Gudurz came and stood Before him; and he look'd, and saw him stand, And with a cry sprang up, and dropp'd the bird, 200 And greeted Gudurz with ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... explanation was certainly a great excuse to her curiosity; but if Ethelberta had tried she could not have given him a better ground for making light of her objections to his suit. 'I felt that I must marry you, that we were predestined to marry ages ago, and I feel it still!' he continued, with listless ardour. 'You seem to regret your interest in Farnfield; but to me it is a charm, and has been ever since I ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... Erech's men shall bow to thee, In royal raiment thou shalt happy be." Heabani listened to the words that came From Samas, and his brow was lit with shame To hear the god of war urge him to go To earthly happiness—mayhap to woe; But he within his cave now listless turns When Samas ceased; then to his rock returns, And seats himself with calmness on his brow; His thoughts in happy memories now flow, And he recalls the blissful days of yore When he as seer lived on Euphrates' shore, As the queen's bard oft tuned a festive lay, While soft-eyed ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... round him, John was delighted to see that even the two scanty meals they had had, had done wonders for them. The listless, hopeless look of the last few days had disappeared, and occasionally something like a hearty laugh broke out among them, and an hour later the tanner ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... people looked comfortable, but there was no liveliness in them. No trace of vivacity in their faces gave the smallest reason to suppose that my coming had interrupted any enjoyment of the evening. A listless contentment in being at home together, with the day's work done and a fire to sit by, was what was suggested by the whole bearing of the family. Their leisure was of no use to them for recreation—for "making themselves anew," that is—or for giving play to faculties which had lain ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... silent. The hand which had clutched at the sword hilt hung listless at his side. All at once his breast heaved, and with a sound which resembled a groan, he ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... dropped the bridle from his listless hands, and bowed his head. 'Lost!' he murmured. 'Lost! And this was the decisive battle of the war! If I had been able to order my cavalry to charge, the enemy's left wing would have been cut from their main body. But for you,' he continued, fixing his eyes upon Almia with a look of unutterable ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... dream our listless eyes What glorious presence they despise While, in our noon of life, To power or fame we rudely press.— Christ is at hand, to scorn or bless, Christ suffers ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... agent, were presenting a petition to the sub- sheriff. I drew near to learn what it was. They were thin, listless looking witted men. One could not help wondering when they had last eaten a square meal. Half-starved in look, wretched in clothing, stood like criminals awaiting sentence, with dreadfully eager eyes and parched ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... the first time he had found his wife take trouble lying down. As a rule she was readier for a fight than he was. She jumped into a row with the alacrity of a dog: and the change worked on him. He looked at her listless hands, and the sight of those powerful organs hanging so powerlessly wrought on him. Women often forget that their weakness is really their strength. The weakest things in the world are by a queer paradox always the strongest. The toughest stone will wear away under ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... triumphant strain, and the thrilling trumpets breathed forth their most joyful notes till the heavens rang with the melody. Such bursts of music welcomed Napoleon as he returned, flushed with victory, till his eye kindled with exultation. But now they fell on a dull and listless ear. It ceased, and again the mournful requiem filled all the air. But nothing could rouse him from his agonizing reflections. His friend lay dying, and the heart that he loved more than his life was throbbing its last pulsations. What a theme for a painter, and what a eulogy was that scene! That ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... head were unjustly and unwisely neglected. These new troubles embittered the spirit of the fallen Chief; and the first excitement of novelty being over he sank into a state of comparative indolence, and apparently of listless dejection; from which, however, he was, ere long, to be roused effectually, by the course of events in that great kingdom, almost in sight of whose shores he had been most injudiciously permitted to preserve ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... was beginning to think, now that his faith in Folco had been shaken, and he began to realise that he had been strangely torpid and morally listless during the past years. The shock his whole system had received, the long interval during which his memory had been quite gone, the physical languor that had lasted some time after his recovery from the fever, had all combined to make the near past seem infinitely remote, to cloud his judgment of ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... the position so awkward if you are playing a part. And that is what I want—a bit of clever acting. Lean on those railings, and make Siddle believe that your heart is on Mr. Grant's lawn. You know the kind of thing I mean. Dreamy eyes, listless manner, inattention, with smiling apologies. You will annoy Siddle, and a cautious man in a temper becomes less cautious. Force him to avow his real thoughts. You will learn something, ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... her return to Uplands in midsummer she suffered a peculiar restlessness from the tranquil August weather. The long white road irritated her with its aspect of listless patience, and at times she wanted to push back the crowding hills and leave the horizon open to her view. When a squadron of cavalry swept along the turnpike her heart would follow it like a bird while ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... She marked the inevitable false rhyme of Cockney and Yankee beginners, morn and dawn, and tossed the verses on the pile of those she had finished. She was looking over some of the last of them in a rather listless way,—for the poor thing was getting sleepy in spite of herself,—when she came to one which seemed to rouse her attention, and lifted her drooping lids. She looked at it a moment before she would touch it. Then she took hold of it by one corner and slid it off from the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... moorlands, which, the forefathers said, in their simplicity, were first traced by Angels' feet. These, in truth, were trodden and worn by religious men: by the Pilgrim as he paced his way towards his chosen and votive bourne; or by the Palmer, whose listless footsteps had neither a fixed Kebla nor future abode. Dimly visible, by the darker hue of the crushed grass, these strait and narrow roads led the traveller along from one Hermitage to another Chapelry, or distant and inhabited cave; or the byeways ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... fretful crying, passing and belching of gas, colicky pain, disturbed sleep, greenish stools with mucus, are among the more prominent earmarks of unsuccessful nursing. These symptoms appearing in a pale, flabby, listless, indifferent or cross baby, with steady loss of weight continued over a period of three or four weeks, point to "nursing trouble;" which, if not corrected, will lead to ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... large quantities of tea, he walked about aimlessly, and when he sat down he did not budge for a long time. He spent some time drumming on the window with his finger-tips quietly. In his listless wanderings round about the table he caught sight of his own face in the looking-glass and that arrested him. The eyes which returned his stare were the most unhappy eyes he had ever seen. And this was the first thing which disturbed ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... great commercial cities of Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, are not listless or unenterprising men. They are accustomed to the interests, the bustle, the excitement of business. They have heretofore seen their stores crowded with buyers. During the day the interiors of their ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... I received another visit from the man in black. I had been taking a stroll in the neighbourhood, and was sitting in the dingle in rather a listless manner, scarcely knowing how to employ myself; his coming, therefore, was by no means disagreeable to me. I produced the hollands and glass from my tent, where Isopel Berners had requested me to deposit them, and also some lump sugar, then taking the gotch I fetched water from the spring, and, sitting ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... the grandeur of this beautiful earth absorbed all idea of separate and individual existence. Even rain was a pleasure to her. She sat in the window-seat of their parlour (she would have gone out gladly, but that such a proceeding annoyed Mr Bellingham, who usually at such times lounged away the listless hours on a sofa, and relieved himself by abusing the weather); she saw the swift-fleeting showers come athwart the sunlight like a rush of silver arrows; she watched the purple darkness on the heathery mountain-side, and then the pale golden gleam which succeeded. There was ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... politics in this part of the world. How soon our tastes and passions change, with our change of place, and scene, and skies! An Englishman married a Malay woman at Singapore. In six years he lost all his English, nay, European feelings, and became as listless and stupid as the people whose habits and ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... "Mamma, I can't say it; and you know I can't say it. You're a naughty mamma, and you don't love me." Her heart sank within her; but she patiently went again and again over yesterday's ground. Willy cried. He ate very little breakfast. He stood at the window in a listless attitude of discouraged misery, which she said cut her to the heart. Once in a while he would ask for some plaything which he did not usually have. She gave him whatever he asked for; but he could not play. She kept up an appearance of being busy ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... who was standing in a listless, indifferent attitude near the door, not taking the smallest part in the active proceedings which were going forward, was for the first time aroused to interest by the expression on Rosalind's face. She moved a step or two into the crowd, and when ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... the young wide-awake, Miselle saw him deliver the pontil, with the lantern still attached, to a listless individual seated upon a bench whose long iron arms projected far in front of him, while an idle pontil lay across them. This the boy snatched up and departed, while the man, suddenly rousing himself, began to roll the new pontil up and down ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... to talk, but Constance is in no mood to listen. She cuts short her aunt's elocution, and goes with listless weariness ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... regained his feet slowly and passed his father, but not without noticing with the same listless yet ineffaceable perception of childhood that he was hurriedly concealing the paper in his pocket. With the same youthful inconsequence, wondering at this more than at the interruption, which was no novel event, he went slowly out of ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... not move. Instead, he lay gazing up at them and mumbling to himself. With much trouble, they got him to a small, stony knoll, where they made a fire and spread their blankets on a bundle of reeds for him to lie on. Then he spoke, in a faint and listless voice. ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... and heard her voice answer, bidding him to come in. She was sitting in a cane lounge-chair, listless, pale, ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... often children know Of grief or sin they could not name or think of Yet sooth or shrink from, so I saw and longed To heal her tender wound and yet said naught. The energy of bygone joy and pain Had left her listless figure charged with magic That caught and held my idleness near hers. Resentful of her power, my spirit chafed Against its own deep pity, as though it were Raised ghost and she the witch had bid it haunt me. What's more I knew this slave by rights should glean And faggot drift-wood, not lounge there ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... husbandry and handicraft. Moreover, they had great love of the kindreds, and especially of the Woodlanders, and strove to do all things that might pleasure them. And as for those who were dull and listless because of their many torments of the last ten years, they would at least fetch and carry willingly for them of the kindreds; and these last grudged them not meat and raiment and house-room, even ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... arranging her hair in a new fashion she had lately learned, before escorting her down to the dining-room. Lucy had dreaded a good deal her introduction to her uncle, of whom she had not a very pleasant impression. He was a brisk, shrewd-looking man, a great contrast to his listless-looking son; and his manner, though patronizing, was not ungenial, as Lucy had feared it would be, from his harsh opinions, quoted by Stella, in regard to the poor. All the rest of the family she had already seen, Edwin being the only son who had survived, ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... here and there by the spiked helmets of pines. There was no trace of habitation, yet the voices were those of some monotonous occupation, and Lance distinctly heard through them the click of crockery and the ring of some household utensil. It appeared to be the interjectional, half listless, half perfunctory, domestic dialogue of an old man and a girl, of which the words were unintelligible. Their voices indicated the solitude of the mountain, but without sadness; they were mysterious without being awe-inspiring. They might have uttered the dreariest commonplaces, ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... and disappeared. That was all the notice taken of the row by the habitues of the opium den on the high floor. The two or three clients who were stretched on the low couches were either entirely under the influence of the drug or too listless to worry about anything short of an earthquake—if even ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... office chair and rested her heels on the window sill while her cigarette burned to ashes between her listless fingers. For a time she watched the white light of the June moon grow on the line of dimpled foothills, the myriad odors of spring were in the air and the balmy west wind lifted the hair at her temples as it came through the open window. ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... sympathy of Elinor, the devotion of Blake were in it the only bits of brightness. She felt strange—lost—astray. By day, she was dull, listless. At night sometimes, she slept a little; at others she would bury her face in her tumbled pillow, and her lithe body would heave with the wracking of her sobs; for the entire structure of her life had been ruthlessly torn down by the hand of one man. It seemed to her that from its ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... would ruin all. But the time went on; grew late; and she was dying for her tea, which she had chosen should wait also. Maude sat before the fire in a large chair; her eyes, her hands, her whole air supremely listless. ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the girl; not as maid to man, but as one child presses closer to another in the darkness. One of her companion's hands lay listless on his knee, and instinctively, compellingly, she placed her own upon ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... was a circular enclosure of about four acres, with a spiked batten fence round it, and a listless crowd of back-country settlers propped along the fence. Behind them were the sheds for produce, and the machinery sections where steam threshers and earth scoops hummed and buzzed and thundered unnoticed. Crowds of sightseers wandered past the cattle stalls ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... burly, red-haired young man, with a resolute face but a listless manner. He carried under his arm a flat, grey portfolio of black-and-white sketches, which he had sold with more or less success to publishers ever since his uncle (who was an admiral) had disinherited him for Socialism, because of a lecture which he had delivered against ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... soul. What more tempting than to give up private prayer for the easier worship of the liturgy or of the church? What, in short, more natural than for the independent, free-moving, growing Sacculina to degenerate into the listless, useless, pampered parasite of the pew? The very means he takes to nurse his personal religion often come in time to wean him from it. Hanging admiringly, or even enthusiastically, on the lips of eloquence, ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... leave behind me the elm-shadowed square And carven portals of the silent street, And wander on with listless, vagrant feet Through seaward-leading alleys, till the air Smells of the sea, and straightway then the care Slips from my heart, and life once more is sweet. At the lane's ending lie the white-winged fleet. O restless ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known by the name of SLEEPY HOLLOW, and its rustic lads are called the Sleepy Hollow ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... silence, sprawling listless in his chair, staring absently at the rug, as if he had lost all ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... from Molly, and wrote the explanation and request in regard to Bertha, then folding it with a listless gesture, handed it to ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... these Things is never examin'd into. It is possible likewise for a crafty Divine, in order to rouse a listless and dejected Audience, first to awaken them with lively Images of the Torments of Hell and the State of Damnation, and afterwards seem happily to light on an Expedient, that shall create new Hopes, and revive the drooping Spirits of a Multitude; and by this Means the Courage ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... covered with a damask French silk, reposed Madame de Fontanges, attended by three or four young female slaves, of different complexions, but none of pure African blood. Others were seated upon the different Persian carpets about the room, in listless idleness or strewing the petals of the orange-flower, to perfume the apartment with its odour. The only negro was a little boy, about six years of age, dressed in a fantastic costume, who sat in a corner, apparently in a very ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... of the Barons, and they bitterly and loudly upbraided Rienzi for sparing them to this opportunity of mischief. That day the rumours continued; the murmurers for the most part remained within their houses, or assembled in listless and discontented troops. The next day dawned; the same lethargy prevailed. The Tribune summoned his Council, (which ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... When the heat of our mad spurt had passed, depression came on us and we cowered, chilled to the marrow by the mist, on the gratings of the heaving boat. Long we lay thus, Houston and the bo'sun pulling a listless stroke to keep her head to the swell. We had no count of time. Hours must have ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... to allow those on the rock to distinguish his features. The vacant expression of this man's countenance plainly denoted that he was totally unconscious of the vicinity of danger. It expressed the listless vacancy of an Indian in a state of perfect rest—his stomach full, his body at ease, his ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... poetry was then written — Chaucer beautifully enforces the lasting advantages of purity, valour, and faithful love, and the fleeting and disappointing character of mere idle pleasure, of sloth and listless retirement from the battle of life. In the "season sweet" of spring, which the great singer of Middle Age England loved so well, a gentle woman is supposed to seek sleep in vain, to rise "about the springing of the gladsome day," ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... explain to him that the long option which he held on that San Bernardino mine will expire in one more month. The work had been going on in a listless way for three years. All at once some time back they struck a wonderfully rich lode, and vein has been followed far enough to show that it is bound to ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... o'clock, and the closing work of the day was pressing. Mr. Bright was more than busy with his class, and the room was quiet, the pupils devoting themselves to their work assiduously. "Dodd" sat listless for some time, but he finally straightened himself up quietly, his face lighted with interest, and it would have been evident to any one watching him (no one was watching him just at this time) that he was about to do ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... box. They had only just arrived, Holmes, the prisoner, and he, for they had changed their plans so far as to report themselves at a station upon the way. My companion lounged in his arm-chair with his usual listless expression, while Small sat stolidly opposite to him with his wooden leg cocked over his sound one. As I exhibited the empty box he leaned back in his ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... hospitable walls. In fact, we only arrived late at night, and departed early the next morning; but even a six-hours sojourn gave me a solemn and "realizing sense" of its marked worth,—for, when, tired and listless, I asked for a servant to assist me, the waiter said he would send the housekeeper. Accordingly, when, a few moments after, it knocked at the door with light, light finger, (see De la Motte Fouque,) I drawled, "Come in," and the Queen of Sheba stood before me, clad in purple and fine linen, ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... weakness in his handling of domestic matters. The hopes of the younger members of the household were therefore relegated to a distance of one hour and three-quarters—a result that took visible shape in them by a remote and listless look about the eyes—the singing of songs being ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... day was parching, the sky hot blue steel, the wind that blew the dust through the streets like a breath from the sun himself. People went by, all kinds of people, lacking only soldiers. There seemed no soldiers in town. Miriam, alternately listless and feverishly animated, explained matters to the mountain girl. "When there's to be a battle, every one goes to the colours.—Look at that old, old, old man, hobbling on his stick. You'd think that death was right beside him, wouldn't ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... boy, whom they had thought dreamy, dull and listless, now shone with a different light. He thirsted to achieve, to do, to become—yes, to become a greater painter than Claude Lorraine. His employer saw the change and smiled at it, but he allowed the lad to put in backgrounds and add the skies to cheap ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard |
