"Idle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... apparent. Senator Platt of Connecticut, a careful statesman of the old school, averred: "The questions of whether the bill would be operative, of how it would operate, or whether it was within the power of Congress to enact it, have been whistled down the wind in this Senate as idle talk and the whole effort has been to get some bill headed: 'A bill to punish trusts,' with which to go to the country." Whatever its purpose, its effect upon existing trusts and upon the formation of new combinations was negligible. It was practically unenforced ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... for a time the craze and idol of the hour, "Never," said he, "never; I will play second to no one but John Kemble!" I am certain that when his better nature had the ascendency no one would have more generously acknowledged the merits of Kemble than Edmund Kean. It is idle to say that because his style was solemn and slow, Kemble was not one of the greatest actors that our stage has produced. It is only those whose natures make them incapable of approbation or condemnation in ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... related to this writer, of Whiteley's worth and eccentricities; but the humour and oddity of them were of a kind not only too coarse for general perusal, but so dependant for effect upon the manner of telling them, that it would be idle to relate them here. Their first meeting, however, and the conversation on that occasion may be hazarded. A gentleman of the name of Mills, an old friend of W's and much in his good graces, introduced our youth to him, having previously obtained his consent to see the lad, and consider ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... shifted to the southeast, but still there was not enough of a sea to give them any trouble; and in a few minutes they were under the bows of The Southern Cross. Dan hailed a seaman who was leaning over the gunwale and watching them with idle curiosity. If the man replied in French, it was in a variety of that tongue that Tom's limited attainments did not understand, and, annoyed by the incomprehensible replies, he asked for "le captaine". At length,—possibly attracted by the altercation at the bows,—the authoritative-looking ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... this idle habit of retailing the sayings of others, is worse than folly. It's a great wrong to yourself and ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... exchanged, the populace were not idle. With enthusiastic vigor they had removed the horses from the equipages meant for the royal party, and now, through a spokesman, begged permission to draw the carriages themselves as a token of their devoted ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... methods Putnam employed to keep them out of mischief—these raw and undisciplined militia, accustomed to do as they liked and to take orders from no man—for he kept them actively employed all the time. "It is better to dig a ditch every morning, and fill it up at evening, than to have the men idle," said Old Put, and though the men grumbled the results soon showed ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... disputing that! But I remember Ruskin's insisting—I think in Sesame and Lilies—that no true artist ever talks much of his art. The greatest are silent. 'The moment,' says Ruskin, 'a man can really do his work he becomes speechless about it. All words become idle to him—all theories.' And he goes on to ask, in his vivacious way, 'Does a bird theorise about building its nest?' Well, as to that one cannot be sure. But I take it we may ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... forces, and formed a perfect line of separation in the territories of our opponents. Thenceforth, they could not cross it save by stealth, and the military affairs on its west bank became unimportant. Grant's army had seemingly completed its share of the work of war, and lay, as it were, idle for a time. In person General Grant went to New Orleans to confer with General Banks, and his victorious army was somewhat dispersed. Parke's corps (Ninth) returned to Kentucky, and afterward formed part of the Army of the Ohio, under General Burnside; Ord's corps (Thirteenth) was sent down ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... have I been ever since you went away to have spoken so unkindly to Mrs.... Heaven forgive me for it, and send her a happier conclusion to her life than the beginning might warrant. If you have an idle lover, my dear, present over to him my sermon, for those were ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... the table against the back of the sofa in front of the fireplace. It was a massive leather-and-parchment tome, with imitation medieval brass clasps and hinges. He opened it carelessly, seeking reassurance in idle action. ...
— A World Apart • Samuel Kimball Merwin
... orgy—all of the old rights of the husband have been converted into obligations. He no longer has any control over his wife's property; she may devote its income to the family or she may squander that income upon idle follies, and he can do nothing. She has equal authority in regulating and disposing of the children, and in the case of infants, more than he. There is no law compelling her to do her share of the family labour: she may spend her ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... conceit of his half-knowledge; and this chastened him. He felt his pride at stake—he who could so expertly, with almost demoniac ingenuity, force the costliest and most cunningly constructed burglar-proof lock; he whose not idle boast was that he was handy with his fingers! Slippy McGee baffled, at bay before a butterfly? And in the presence of a mere priest and a girl-child? Never! He'd show us what he could do when he really tried ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... imaginable toss of the head), he was angry at me, an' misca'd me, an' I said I was juist as the Lord had made me, an'——" "Well, Tibbie?" "An' he said the Lord could hae had little to dae whan he made me." The idea of Tibbie being the work of an idle moment was one, the deliciousness of which was not likely to be relished ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... articles deal with sacerdotal celibacy, recommending that priests be allowed to marry, and calling for the suppression of many of the cloisters. It is further urged that foundations for masses and for the support of idle priests be abolished, that various vexatious provisions of the Canon Law be repealed, and that begging on any pretext be prohibited. The twenty-fourth article deals with the Bohemian schism, saying that Huss was wrongly {72} burned, and calling for union with the ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... "It would be idle, Major White, to feign ignorance of what you refer to, but let me say right here and now that you have been utterly misled as to that young officer's character, and I doubt if you properly ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... Mrs. Mallory sees him again at lunchtime he's all costumed as a Major in the Greek army, and is about to start for the scene of atrocities. That's Skid, all over. He wasn't breathin' out any idle gusts, either. He not only rebuilds their bloomin' old line better'n new, so they can rush soldiers and supplies to the front; but after the muss is all over he springs his order book on the gover'ment and lands such a whackin' big contract for steel rails ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... good wishes go with them," he said, good-naturedly. "If I were an enchanter, you should never grow any older from this day forward." And his speech was something more than an idle compliment. There was something touching to him, too, in the fact of the child's leaving her childhood behind her, and confronting so ignorantly the unconscious dawn of a womanhood which might hold so much of the ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... dying for lack of summer moisture it is idle to do much for them until you can give them irrigation right after the fruit ripens. The cherry tree takes kindly to cutting back and will give good new fruit-bearing shoots if the roots are in good ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... the On Time might be had. Also that she might be called the Spot Cash. She had lain idle in the harbour since her skipper had gone off to the mines at Sidney to make more money in wages than he could take from the sea. But how ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... stop-cylinder press, commercial necessities often demand a sacrifice of quality to speed, and this has brought the two-revolution press into very general use. As the name implies, the cylinder makes two revolutions, one to print the sheet, and the other, an idle one, to allow the bed to return. While the bed is returning, the impression cylinder is lifted to clear the type-form. As the cylinder rotates continually at a uniform speed, the type-bed must also travel at a constant speed. The reversal of the movements of the bed must, therefore, ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... "Those are merely idle words," said Katie. "There is one thing, and one only, that I wish, and that you can give: that one thing you have no right to keep from me, and yet it is useless to ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... cuckoo to the instinctive love of their offspring observable in almost all birds! After the eggs are laid the parent bird has no further trouble with them; no period of incubation to bare the breast of the brooding bird; no anxiety about her young ones, as some idle, wanton lad hunts amongst the trees and bushes, destroys both nest and eggs, or tortures the helpless fledglings! "But, papa," said Willy, "how does it happen that the young birds hatched in the same nest ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... moved on without taking any further notice; Mr. Platitude exclaimed as they passed, in broken lingo, 'I hope we shall find the holy doctors all assembled,' and as they returned, 'I make no doubt that they will all be rejoiced to see me.' Not wishing to be standing an idle gazer, I went to the chaise and assisted in attaching the horses, which had now been brought out, to the pole. The postillion presently arrived, and finding all ready took the reins and mounted the box, whilst I very politely opened the door for the two travellers; Mr. Platitude got ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... language, and that he had gone so far as to begin the poem in Virgilian hexameters. Reflection upon the altered conditions of society in that age led him, however, to reconsider the matter; and he was resolved to tune another lyre, 'suited to the sense of modern men.' 'For,' said he, 'it is idle to set solid food before the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... the Life within me, the joy that hides in my life, though the days perplex my path with their idle dust. ...
— Fruit-Gathering • Rabindranath Tagore
... stocking, a silken robe, a lace kerchief, a pretty slipper on the foot, a tasty ribbon on the head do not make an ugly woman pretty, but they make a pretty woman beautiful, without reckoning the hands, which gain by all this; the hands, among women particularly, to be beautiful must be idle. ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... which Sergey Ivanovitch belonged, nothing was talked of or written about just now but the Servian War. Everything that the idle crowd usually does to kill time was done now for the benefit of the Slavonic States. Balls, concerts, dinners, matchboxes, ladies' dresses, beer, restaurants— everything testified to sympathy ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... him, and so great his partiality for the English, that the finger of his brethren would point to his cabin as the residence of Logan, "the friend of white men." "In the course of the French war, he remained at home, idle and inactive;" opposed to the interference of his nation, "an advocate for peace." When his family fell before the fury of exasperated men, he felt himself impelled to avenge their deaths; and exchanging the pipe of peace, for the tomahawk of war, ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... eaten the hotel supper with a printed brief for company, Kirkwood went to the Bartletts', but no one answered his summons and he turned away disappointed. Thinking they were probably at some neighbor's house he decided to walk about and return later. His idle roaming led him past Center Church. It was prayer-meeting night, and through the open windows floated a hymn sung waveringly by the small gathering of the faithful. It was here, on just such an April night, that he and Lois had sworn to love and cherish each ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... idle addition to the many various impressions already existing in our literature of Goethe's masterpiece, but an edition prepared for the use of those students of German who read without a master. First we have ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 184, May 7, 1853 • Various
... thoroughness in many, many times as long a period! And if any one who has been pressed for time, or who has been in a panic about an impending examination, or who has been too much troubled with Discontinuity, too ill in general health, or too idle, to do more than superficially glance at my lessons—if any such person doubts his competency to accomplish as much as the diligent student of average ability has done, then let him turn back and really and truly MASTER my System [for he does not even KNOW ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)
... most loved, most beautiful, most sacrificed of the Albany uncles; J. J. the younger—they were young together, they were luckless together, and the combination was as strange as the disaster was sweeping; and the daughter and sister, amplest of the "natural," easiest of the idle, who lived on to dress their memory with every thread and patch of her own perfect temper and then confirm the tradition, after all, by too ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... I lifted that curtain, by the side of one who has left you for ever, and I saw you in his arms. I followed him out of the house; I walked by his side to Vaux Abbey, and I told him what I have told you. I wasted no time in idle threats. I told him what power was mine, and I said 'Choose!' He ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... well. The wind continued light and in the right quarter all the first week. Jack and his companions were not idle, and always went aloft with the watch when there was occasion to make any change with the sails. This was at first a trial for Arthur Hill; but Jim Tucker was an old hand at it, and Jack, who had often had to make his way up the Bessy's ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... shorn meadow—down the hill, Red with the tiger-lily blossoms, till We stood upon the borders of the lake, That like a pretty, placid infant, slept Low at its base: and little ripples crept Along its surface, just as dimples chase Each other o'er an infant's sleeping face. Helen in idle hours had learned to make A thousand pretty, feminine knick-knacks: For brackets, ottomans, and toilet stands - Labour just suited to her dainty hands. That morning she had been at work in wax, Moulding a wreath of flowers for my room, - Taking her patterns from the living blows, In all ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... be idle to represent that the amigo played his pranks upon that shipload of long-suffering people with final impunity. The time came when they not only said something must be done, but actually did something. It was by the hand of one of the amigo's sweetest and kindest friends, namely, that ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... they take from it each one a model for himself. Each one has something similar, quite at his own expense; they do not spare their pains. But when a worthless, lazy, dirty, negligent fellow betakes himself thither with an idle family, then is it imputed as a fault to the house, while a good house is being kept in bad repair. And this is often the case; a storm comes on and breaks the tiles and gutters; then a careless owner takes no heed to put up others. A shower comes on and streams ...
— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus
... to free his kinsmen. Then he marched to Jerusalem, where the soldiers who were with the Roman general Silo joined his own, as did many from the city because they feared his power. Herod did not lie idle, but seized Idumea and held it with two thousand footmen and four hundred horsemen. He also removed his mother and all his kinsmen, who had been at Masada, to Samaria. And when he had settled them securely, he marched to capture the remaining parts of Galilee, and ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... between July and December, 1907, during which time only the enlargement and bench of the Central Shaft headings was being taken out from the western end—was 60 cu. yd. per shift. As the shovels were generally idle for one shift out of three, the quantity actually handled averaged 90 cu. yd. per shift during the shifts the shovel worked. All these quantities were "measured in place," and, as previously noted, ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 - The Bergen Hill Tunnels. Paper No. 1154 • F. Lavis
... his voice sad. "Not a thing! My Svengali pass didn't work. I was as the idle wind to her. Therefore, I withdrew and ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... fleet, which was to have swept the very name of the Portuguese from the face of the earth, lay idle before the harbor. Its captains were burning with ambition, but the Admiral would not give the command, and ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... who had aspired and been idle while Captain Golden had toiled for her, who had mourned and been idle while Una had planned for her, and who had always been a compound of selfishness and love, was more and more accustomed to taking her daughter's youth to ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... batter, two the catcher, three the pitcher, four the first fielder, etc. Thus, each in order secured his turn "at bat," the coveted position. Sometimes, when the party was larger, more than one striker was allowed, and in that case, not only to give the idle striker something to do, but to offer extra chances for putting him out, one or more bases were laid out, and having hit the ball he was forced to run to these. If he could be hit with the ball at any time when he was between ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward
... the horse's foot is useful, it would be idle to deny; but that it is absolutely essential, even to safe progression, no one who has paid attention to the results of plantar neurectomy will maintain. On several occasions for years I have hunted, hacked, and driven ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... Every one has heard of the colossal amount of work which was done by volunteer workers for organizing relief during the London dock-labourers' strike; of the miners who, after having themselves been idle for many weeks, paid a levy of four shillings a week to the strike fund when they resumed work; of the miner widow who, during the Yorkshire labour war of 1894, brought her husband's life-savings to the strike-fund; of the last loaf of bread being always ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... made the worlds! Yes, I very often think of this, when I see the cruelties committed on some overworked animal, in a cart, or ridden by an unfeeling person; and the mischief, the wicked mischief, that Satan finds for idle hands to do, in the field, or by the way-side, where the poor ass is quietly nibbling at such coarse weeds as neither horse, nor cow, nor sheep would touch. The little foal too, with its innocent face, and broad forehead ...
— Kindness to Animals - Or, The Sin of Cruelty Exposed and Rebuked • Charlotte Elizabeth
... and mortified as he was, Simon Kenton was not the man to waste the minutes in idle lamentation. Since the first part of the former attempt to outwit him had succeeded, he felt there was no reason why the second part should triumph. He therefore started down the stream as rapidly as he could force his ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... time an idle threat, or, at most, an ebullition of jealous feeling at the contrast between the situation of their own women and that of the "white chiefs' wives." Some months after, how bitterly was ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... north and west of Compiegne. Hence he so wrought that he made a pact with the captain of the French in Gournay, a town some four leagues north and west of Compiegne, whereby the garrison there promised to lie idle, and make no onslaught against them of Burgundy, unless the King brought them a rescue. Therefore the Duke went back to Noyon on the Oise, some eight leagues north and east of Compiegne, while his captain, Jean de Luxembourg, led half his army west, towards Beauvais. ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... Grizel, and she was leaning forward to catch his words as if this were no play, but life or death, and he knew what she longed to hear him say, and he said it: "I love you very much, Elspeth, but however much I love you, it would be idle to pretend that I don't love ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... man is full of life and spirits, and leads an idle life in a town like this, what else can you expect?" asked Mlle. d'Esgrignon. She could not understand ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... Undoubtedly Hanoverian! Apparently the Landgraf and Monseigneur had not thought of that. But Munchhausen of Hanover, spies informing him, had. The Bailiff (Vogt, AdVOCATus) has gathered twenty JAGER [official Game-keepers] with their guns, and a select idle Sunday population of the place with or without guns: the Vogt steps forward, and inquires for Monseigneur's passport. 'No passport, no need of any!'—'Pardon!' and signifies to Monseigneur, on the part of George ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... The idle Greek fine gentlemen of Tarentum sat in their theatre one day, overlooking the sea, shaded by dyed awnings from the afternoon sun, listening entranced to some grand play,—the Oedipus King, perhaps, or Alcestis, ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... the mere sight of her without converse—that of an idle and vulgar flirtation with a timber-merchant's pretty daughter, grated painfully upon him now that he had found what Grace intrinsically was. Personal intercourse with such as she could take no lower form than intellectual ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... above doing any thing that required one; that God blessed them more and more, and blessed their papa and mamma, and their uncles and aunts, and cousins, for their sakes. "And there was a happy family, my dear loves!-No one idle; all prettily employed; the Masters at their books; the Misses at their books too, or at their needles; except at their play-hours, when they were never rude, nor noisy, nor mischievous, nor quarrelsome: and no such word ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... feeling and sense of right compelled Captain Zeb to check idle enjoyment from going too far—i. e., further than himself. Every other member of his family but himself, however good the times might be, must work away as hard as ever, and earn whatever victuals it should please the Lord to send them. There was always a job to be found, he knew that, ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... why we earnestly hope that Your Majesty will be convinced that the desire with which we are always animated to second his designs, so far as depends on us, particularly in a matter so closely concerning his august person, has been rendered idle by the absolute absence of power, and we entreat him to receive this sincere declaration as testimony of our really paternal affection." This was the beginning of the quarrel between the Pope and the Emperor. ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... British. If they should not have left the harbour of New York, he purposed to block them up in that place; supposing that his operations in that quarter would be of more service to the common cause, than his remaining in the bay, an idle spectator ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... plants in his garden which bear neither fruit nor flowers? Will a man keep stock on his farm which will only eat and never make profit; or a servant in his house who will not work? Much more, will a man keep a servant who will not only be idle himself, but quarrel with his fellow servants, lead them into sin and shame, and teach them to disobey their master? What man in his senses would keep such plants, such stock, such servants? And yet God ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... society, he suddenly discovered a woman obviously belonging to an utterly different and more cultured life. A woman of uncommon beauty and distinction; a woman, who, to his mind, fulfilled some essentially mannish ideal, an ideal that, in idle moments, had stolen in upon a wholly reposeful mind. ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... relation of war to human instincts, on the one hand, and to human ideals, on the other, is the issue about which most recent observation and discussion has centered. It seems idle to assert that hostility has no roots in man's original nature. The concrete materials given in this chapter show beyond question how readily the wishes and the instincts of the person may take the form of the fighting pattern. On the other ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... separate him from the troops on the march from Italy, Charles moved on Landshut with some six thousand men, not much more than a tenth of the opposing force. He was determined, he wrote, to remain in Germany alive or dead, rejecting as idle vanity the notion that it was beneath his dignity to lead a small force. At Landshut he met papal auxiliaries under Ottavio Farnese and Alessandro Vitelli, with detachments of light horse sent by the Dukes of Florence and Ferrara. When the Spanish foot and Neapolitan cavalry ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... and bears out wonderfully the truth of God's words. But I did not mean to give a lecture on history. It is out of place here. I meant to do you good yesterday, and discourage you from becoming an idle rhymer—a vain dreamer. You are not getting angry I hope, little girl, ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... said Lydia. The less Christ's messengers are at home with Christ's neglecters, the calmer their own hearts, and the more potent their message. They give the lie to it, if they voluntarily choose as their associates those to whom their dearest convictions are idle. Christian charity does not blind to distinctions of character. A little common sense in reading these will save many a scandal, and much weakening ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... that already, I hope!" he answered, laughing. "I've an idea you will find occupation enough for one while, in learning to be idle. Sit still now and look about ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... that, Miss Inches said they must begin to lead a regular life, and Johnnie must study. Johnnie had been to school all winter, and in the natural course of things would have had holidays now. Mamma Marion, however, declared that so long an idle time ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... dwellings, although all intercourse between us and the living is difficult. But cease from praise; I do not like eulogies and the confused sounds of glory have always offended my ears. That is why I fled from Rome, where I was known to the idle and curious, and laboured in the solitude of my beloved Parthenope. And then I am not so convinced that the men of thy generation understand my verses that should be gratified by thy praises. Who ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... my dear father was reading in the newspapers some account of the discoveries of Dease and Simpson in the neighbourhood of the famous North-west Passage. Looking at me over his spectacles with the perplexed air of a man who has an idle son of sixteen to start in the race of ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... events the true chain of cause and effect, selecting the facts that are most valuable and significant and explaining the relation between general causes and particular effects, are all very different and belong to different types of mind. It is idle to expect a writer with the gifts of a Clarendon, a Kinglake, or a Froude to write history in the spirit of a Hallam or a Grote. Writers who are eminently distinguished for wide, patient, and accurate research have sometimes little power either of describing or interpreting the facts which they ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... this very moment riding on a poker with great delight, not at all regretting that it is not a gold one, and much less wishing it an Arabian horse which he would not know how to manage. I am reading an idle tale, not expecting wit or truth in it, and am very glad it is not metaphysics to puzzle my judgment, or history to mislead my opinion. He fortifies his health by exercise; I calm my cares by oblivion. The methods may appear low to busy people; but if he improves his strength, and I forget ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... different were the methods by which the majority of his fellow-passengers endeavoured to beguile the time. Amongst the least objectionable of these were concerts, theatricals, billiards, and all kinds of games. Much time was spent by the ladies in idle chat, to which the gentlemen added the seductions of cigar and pipe. There were not a few of the passengers, moreover, who resorted to the vicious excitement of betting; and "Cobbler" Horn marked with ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... enjoy his transgressions with the full abandon which he would have liked. Her stately, cold, unbending reserve was like a constant chill and blight. How much more happy they might have been if they had chosen! The world held many a worse man than Lord Basset; he was rather idle and careless than wicked, though idleness and carelessness are very often the seed of wickedness, when left to go to flower. If she would only have dropped that haughty coldness, he thought, he could have felt interest in her, and have ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... approaches, and my father keeps the keys of the gates. Him alone, in my wretchedness, do I dread; he alone obstructs my desires. Would that the Gods would grant I might be without a father! Every one, indeed, is a God to himself. Fortune is an enemy to idle prayers. Another woman, inflamed with a passion so great, would long since have taken a pleasure in destroying whatever stood in the way of her love. And why should any one be bolder than myself? I could dare to go through flames, {and} amid swords. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... their meaning than the idle-hearted mind. Many a friend can prove unfriendly, many a kinsman less than kind: He who shares his comrade's portion, be he beggar, be he lord, Comes as truly, comes as duly, to the battle as the board— ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... they were away on their journey to Jericho he would feel easier. But all these hours I shall suffer, he said. But, Master, they know the cottage to be empty. One never can think, my good Esora, whither idle men will be wandering, and the risk is great. Having gone so far we must have courage, Esora answered. Now give me the key, and I'll lock myself in with him; we'll take it in turns, and the day will not be as long passing as you think for. It is now six o'clock, he answered: twelve hours will ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... piled high. These, if well drawn, he would look at; while he turned his back on palms and jungles and things tropical in paint, the sight of which made him perspire like a harvest hand. As Richard's idle glance came back from the window, it caught the brown eyes of Mr. Pickwick considering him through a silvery, fringy thicket of hair. Mr. Pickwick was said to be royally descended; however that might have been, indubitably his pedigree harbored ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... seventh month, to catch spiders and put them into an incense-box for purposes of divination. On the morning of the eighth day the box was opened; and if the spiders had spun thick webs during the night the omen was good. But if they had remained idle the omen was bad. ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... fortunes being at stake was not a matter of idle words. Jack, Hal and Eph well understood that, if they came out successful, they would also be at least moderately well off. Messrs. Farnum and Pollard were not of the kind to be niggardly in ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... Docwray, who commanded another body of troops, took the Castle of Derry, and put garrisons into Newton and Ainogh; and having seized the monastery of Donnegal, near Balishannon, he threw troops into it, and defended it against the assaults of O'Donnel and the Irish. Nor was Sir George Carew idle in the province of Munster. He seized the titular earl of Desmond, and sent him over, with Florence Macarty, another chieftain, prisoner to England. He arrested many suspected persons, and took hostages from others. And having got a reenforcement of two thousand men from England, he threw himself ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... murmured. "She'll carry forty per cent. more than her registered tonnage; if I had the loading of her she'd carry fifty per cent. more, at certain seasons of the year. I wonder why her owners have let her lie idle for eight years? I'll have to ask Jerry Dooley. He knows everything about ships that ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... increasing in wisdom as well as in stature, and no longer sought the bubble reputation in official visits to the headmaster's study. In short, Jack had improved with his surroundings. He and Valentine, in addition to their fretwork, had taken up carpentry; and on wet afternoons, when idle hands were steeped in mischief, they were always to be found in the shed which had been set apart for the boys to use as a sort of workshop. As far as the Fifth Form was concerned, only one incident happened to relieve the monotony of a somewhat ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... to go to the Bible, on this subject. I mean, it is idle to pretend to do so, when we mean not so much. Men who incline to wine and other alcoholic drinks, plead the example and authority of the Bible. Yet you will hardly find a man who drinks wine simply because he believes the Bible ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... my last remark. It was 'Good night!' You Idle Rich may not need any sleep, but I've got to be bright and fresh in the morning. ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... of Torres on learning the surprise of the escort and capture of his friend, and his grief was warmly sympathized in by the other officers of the regiment, with whom Herrera was a universal favourite. But Torres was not the man to content himself with idle regrets and unavailing lamentations, and he resolved to rescue Herrera, if it were possible, even at the hazard of his own life. He confided his project to the colonel of his regiment, who, with some difficulty, was induced to acquiesce in it, and to grant him leave ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... exactly opposite direction? If he can, then is it as marvellous a thing in him, as if a man were able simultaneously to go through the demonstrations of two distinct problems in Euclid. Nor, strictly investigated, is there any incongruity in this comparison. It may be but an idle whim, but it has always seemed to me, that the extraordinary vacillations of movement displayed by some whales when beset by three or four boats; the timidity and liability to queer frights, so common to such whales; I think that ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... return the little ones were asleep. She lit the lantern and began to peel off the withered leaves from the birches which were to be made into brooms; she was tired after the long eventful day, but could not idle. The strong fragrance from the birches was penetrating, and she fell asleep over her work. Thus ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... was a detective I might have seen him, but he insisted that he had not been to London for years and years. He originally came from the States. And I was once a detective! Good Lord, how I have lost my old cleverness! But to be sure I have been idle these ten years." ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... try it in balances. It would have been hard to say what look there was, cold, attentive, and sinister, as of a man maturing plans, which still brooded over the unconscious guest; it was here, it was there, it was nowhere; it was now so little that Herrick chid himself for an idle fancy; and anon it was so gross and palpable that you could say every hair on ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... His idle thoughts were never finished. A ripping crash like the crackle of lightning in the vaulted room! Then a voice—the mountain itself was speaking—speaking in words whose familiar accent brought a sob into ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... historian to whom we are indebted for an acquaintance with the letter of Guaras, "that Alva communicated Elizabeth's offers to the queen mother and the King of France, but he was more foolish than he gave the world reason to believe him to be if he let such a weapon lie idle in his writing-desk."[924] And so that inconstant, unprincipled Italian woman, on whose fickle purpose the fate of thousands was more completely dependent than even her contemporaries as yet knew, at last reached the definite persuasion that Elizabeth was preparing ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... of Three Mile Slope the man on the pony could see the town of Dry Bottom straggling across the gray floor of the flat, its low, squat buildings looking like so many old boxes blown there by an idle wind, or unceremoniously dumped there by a careless fate and left, regardless, to carry out the ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... had been less idle, she would have had no time to think about "nerves." But the manservant and his wife whom she had installed in the little brick house were well-trained and competent to the last degree, and the menage ran like clock-work without any help from her. ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... 'Only take this for a corollary and conclusion; as thou tenderest thine own welfare in this and all other melancholy, thy good health of body and mind, observe this short precept, give not way to solitariness and idleness. "Be not solitary, be not idle."' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... like others, and their friendships would not satisfy me. I don't try to be odd; I long to be quiet and satisfied, but I cannot; and when I do what Prue calls wild things, it is not because I am thoughtless or idle, but because I am trying to be good and happy. The old ways fail, so I attempt new ones, hoping they will succeed; but they don't, and I still go looking and longing for happiness, yet always failing to find it, till sometimes I think I ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... peace of mind or greater security in respect of his affairs." The beaten Venetians accepted their defeat with such a mixture of humility and dignity as soon changed their position in Italy. They began by providing all that was necessary for the defence of Venice herself; foreigners, but only idle foreigners, were expelled; those who had any business which secured them means of existence received orders to continue their labors. Mills were built, cisterns were dug, corn was gathered in, the condition of the canals was examined, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... to hurt, only excite me, and give me strength. They were like spurring to a horse; and as I hit out, my tongue was not idle, for I kept on taunting and gibing at him, asking if that one did not make him groan and this one did not need the doctor, while all the time he was perfectly silent, save that as he glared at me and fought ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... Idle fancies! I know well enough what we shall be like when that time comes. I see a sitting-room with a fireplace in the corner, or rather many sitting-rooms with many fireplaces, and many old men seated, chin in hand, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian • Various
... me." On hearing this, the chamberlain said to himself, "What is passing in his mother's breast? What have I not done I can yet do, and it were better that I preserve this youth some days, for such a rose may not be wounded through idle words, and such a bough may not be broken by a breath. For some day the truth of this matter will be disclosed, and it will become known to the king when repentance may be of no avail." So he went before the king and said, "That which was ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... this dreaded arbiter of modes had threatened that he would put the prince regent out of fashion. Alas! for the peace of the British monarch, this was not an idle boast. His dangerous rival resolved in the unfathomable recesses of a mind capacious of such things, to commence and to carry on a war whose terror and grandeur should astound society, to administer to audacious royalty a lesson which should never be forgotten, ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... he replied, 'but what you predicted, and which, had I not been the most conceited dolt in existence, I, too, must have foreseen. You know that good-looking, idle, and, I fear, irreclaimable young ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... going out to offer his life for the country for which she is giving her strength so gladly. She is not a light woman. She is moved by deep and beautiful emotions. And if a marriage before he goes out to fight is inconvenient or impossible—the war made it so, and God will understand. Of course the idle woman, the vain woman, the foolish woman in these times in England finds ample excuse for her folly and vast opportunity to indulge her folly in the social turmoil of the war. And she is going the pace. Her men are gone, who restrain her, ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... not been idle all that time, man, Dacie and Lyman have been working; O'Connel has been using his eyes and ears—I hope; and we have ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... animals, therefore, to the care of their owners, we dismounted, and went into some of the cabins, the inhabitants of which appeared to be as simple as the situation of their abodes had prepared us to expect. The men were all goatherds, and the women seemed to be as idle as their countrywomen in Portugal, sitting at the doors of their houses, surrounded by groups of half-naked and filthy-looking children. If it be fair to judge from their dress and the furniture of their hovels, they were miserably poor, though perfectly contented; they did not ask us for money, ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... of treasure should be lying idle did not commend itself to the mind of so astute a financier as Sir Thomas Gresham. He accordingly suggested to Sir William Cecil by letter (14 Aug., 1569) that the queen should cause it to be minted into her own ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... sarcasms such as, in moments of spleen, dropped but too easily from the lips of the keenwitted Dorset. Caermarthen, a Tory, and a Tory who had been mercilessly persecuted by the Whigs, was disposed to make the most of this idle hearsay. But he received no encouragement from his master, who, of all the great politicians mentioned in history, was the least prone to suspicion. When William returned to England, Preston was brought before him, and was commanded to repeat ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... worth the effort of a lifetime than ever before. Here was a woman of mind and heart, one not bounded by narrow sectionalism, but seeing the good wherever it might be. He felt that he had behaved like a prig and a fool. Why should he be influenced by the idle words of some idle man in the street? He was not Lucia Catherwood's guardian; if there were any question of guardianship, she was much better fitted to ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... sophistries involved in the conventional praise of liberty. Of old the mediaeval serf or the negro slave had some one who was responsible for him, some one interested in his physical well-being. The new conditions too often meant nothing but liberty to starve, liberty to be idle, liberty to slip back into the worst indulgences, while those who might have governed stood by regardless and lent no help. Such from an extreme point of view appeared the policy of laisser-faire; and he was neither moderate nor impartial ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... severely. This must have ultimately disqualified him for good work, and when his debts accumulated in greater proportion even than his receipts, in place of having recourse, like Rubens, to his painting-room, Van Dyck tried a shorter road to get rich, by following the idle example of Sir Kenelm Digby in his pursuit of alchemy ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... at that moment to talk to some acquaintances seated a short distance way. Mr. Watson, passing within a few yards of them, was brought to a standstill by Dominey's greeting. They talked for a moment or two upon idle subjects. ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... dramatic poetry in instructing us, correcting us, inviting us to virtue?"[35] It has been sometimes said that Diderot would have exulted in the paintings of Hogarth, and we may admit that he would have sympathised with the spirit of such moralities as the Idle and the Industrious Apprentice, the Rake's Progress, and Mariage a la Mode. The intensity and power of that terrible genius would have had their attraction, but the minute ferocities of Hogarth's ruthless irony would certainly have revolted him. Such a scene as Lord Squanderfield's visit to ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... ounce of fact in such things is worth more than many volumes of idle speculation, and it is remarkable that facts so recent, so numerous, and so near at hand, should escape the notice of those who question the Negro's ability to serve the artillery organizations. Negro artillery, both light and heavy, ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... M. Comte, ought to have known that ever since the nomad mode of life was exchanged for the agricultural, the latter tendencies have been always gaining ground on the former. All experience testifies that regularity in domestic relations is almost in direct proportion to industrial civilization. Idle life, and military life with its long intervals of idleness, are the conditions to which, either sexual profligacy, or prolonged vagaries of imagination on that subject, are congenial. Busy men have no time for them, ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... "Oh! they are not idle," replied the soldier. "The bastilles are armed, and those of Montrouge and Aubervilliers are provisioned. The horse-artillery at Vincennes are ready, on the instant, to gallop into the capital. Seventy ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... pieces, some of which, though very difficult, she rendered by ear with expression and fidelity. Laura's talent was fully known to Ivy, who on this occasion found the sweet sounds chiming in with her own idle fancies. ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... a hideous mistake," he rushed on; "but we can't help that now. All we can do is to get away and forget it." He cleared his throat needlessly. "It's this getting away that I've arranged for since I've been here. I've not been entirely idle the last week, and every detail is complete. There are three relays of horses waiting between here and the railroad. One team is all ready at the ranch house the minute I give the signal. They'll get us to town before morning. You've ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... myself in my studies, to win by my exemplary conduct the encomiums of the sisters Dulorre—all this made no impression upon cruel Georgette. She made no secret of her preference for a dull, idle, blustering fellow of nine years old, who won all the races, who could fling a ball farther than anyone else, carry two huge dictionaries under his arm, and administer ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... of an active, restless disposition or he would hardly have been out so early. Lithe and idle, he sat see-sawing in the floating end of the boat, uncertain how to amuse himself. He returned Susannah's greeting with a lively ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... she could never take her to mademoiselle's apartments; that mademoiselle, at her age, with the burden of her years, and an aged person's need of tranquillity, could never endure the constant noise and movement of a child. And then, the little girl's presence in the house would cause idle gossip and set the whole street agog: people would say she was her child. Germinie made a confidante of her mistress. Mademoiselle de Varandeuil knew the whole story. She knew that she had taken charge of her niece, although she had pretended not to know it; she had chosen to see nothing in order ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... Middleton still lay unconscious—at death's door, it was said. And one whispered to another that it was, perhaps, better so, that it would be a blessing to the minister if she were to be taken away. She had been worse than a drag upon him all these years. Foolish, idle, lazy, extravagant, she had exaggerated her physical delicacy and given herself up to indolence and self-indulgence, running the household into debt until it was a disgrace to the minister and to the church. Mr. Middleton, dear saint, hadn't known order nor comfort nor companionship ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... along, pretending not to see any thing in particular; and so, taking up an easy attitude, I waited for the denouement. It was a terrible position too. That child-angel! I would have laid down my life for her, but I had to stand idle, and see her rush to fling her life away. And all because I had not happened to have the ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... there is no talk but of some species of diversion, of banquets, bargains, pedigrees, stories, news, and the like. There is no mention of God, except in idle swearing and cursing; whereas the poor and the sick, who know nothing of ease, have God in their mouths and their ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... work of others and try to make them happy, and see that no one is idle and that the laws are obeyed. For that work I am paid, just as the others are paid for the work they do. I do this work because my people ask me to do so, and they pay me a certain number of coins for the work, the same as the man is paid for ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Conquest of the Savages • Roger Thompson Finlay
... hopelessly deformed, though still strongly set and muscular. Albeit, a sum of money—about fifty pounds—scraped together by thrifty self-denial during a dozen years of servitude, amply compensated in the eyes of several idle and needy young fellows for the unlovely outline of her person; and Anne, with an infatuation too common with persons of her class and condition, and in spite of repeated warning, and the secret misgivings, one would ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... you love, which you would recognise again, meet it where you will; it marks the whole landscape; it determines probably the geography and the society of a whole district. It draws you, too, to itself by an indefinable mesmeric attraction. If you stop in a strange place, the first instinct of your idle half-hour is, to lounge by the river. It is a person to you; you call it—Scotchmen do, at least—she, and not it. How do you know that you are not philosophically correct, and that the river has a ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... of apostolic and catholic Christianity, and if all three had conspired to draw together into one the various temperaments and tendencies of the German Americans in the unity of the Spirit with the bond of peace, may seem like an idle historical conjecture, but the question is not without practical interest to-day. Perhaps the Moravians would have been the better for being ballasted with the weighty theologies and the conservative temper of the state churches; it is very certain that ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... her zeal for humanity, lends a delightful feature to her books. It gives a glow and a consecration to her work, and makes her as great a prophet as positivism is capable of creating. And it is no idle power she awakens in her positivist faith in man. She shames those who claim a broader and better faith. Zeal for man is no mean gospel, as she gives life and meaning to it in her books. To live for others, too many are not likely to do. She made altruism beautiful, she ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... pipes also extend along the streets with openings at convenient intervals. Extensive coal mines are located near the town, but for some reason they were not profitable and the cars and docks for handling coal are now nearly all idle. On one of the lagoons is a rather artistic Chinese temple of concrete, well built and ...
— Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese
... end and a new beginning, as if one day of creation were finished and a new one begun. The different formations lie unconformably upon each other, which means revolution of some sort. There has been a strike or a riot in the great mill, or it has lain idle for a long period, and when it has resumed, a different product is the result. Something happened ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... this port—Genoa—last night. All day we have been discharging cargo. Half my crew has gone ashore, set on liquoring and wenching after the manner of unregenerate sailor-men all the world over. The other half follows their bad example to-morrow, as we shall be lying idle in honour of the Christmas festival. On board discipline is as strict as I know how to make it, but ashore my hand is lifted off them. So long as they turn up on time they are free to follow their fancy, even ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... native works for the diffusion of knowledge. We found in our little parcel a complete guide (save the mark!) to the Fauna and Flora of the Celestial Empire, besides a treatise headed "Philosophy for the Young," in which children are shown that to work for one's living is better than to be idle, and that the strength of three men is powerless against Li. Now as Li means "abstract right," and as it is an axiom of Chinese philosophy that "right in the abstract" does exist, we are gravely informed that neither the moral or physical violence of any three men acting in concert ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... success; bringing home ropes of enormous pearls from India in addition to the fantastic sums paid him by enraptured native princes. But while Morgan Ruyler believed that rich men should work and make their sons work, if only because an idle class was both out of place in a republic and conducive to unrest in the masses, it was quite otherwise with women. They were for men to shelter, and it was their sole duty to be useful in the home, and, wherever possible, ornamental in public. Nor had he the least faith ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... the day had hardly begun, and the idle salesman saw the wink. Jack walked up to him ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... (uncover) his house, at the same time commanding him to place every divot he had cast in statu quo. John obeyed with fear and trembling, and, returning to his master, told what had happened. The farmer laughed at his credulity, and, anxious to cure him of such idle superstition, ordered him to take a cart and fetch home ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... spirit, is not inspired with the truth, he knows nothing of the words that are spirit and life; and his objection is less worth heeding than that of a savage to the assertion of a chemist. His assent equally is but the blowing of an idle horn. ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... broidery frame; how, gone so soon? No maid about? Reach me some skein of silk. What, are you come, fair lord? Now by my life That lives here idle, I am right glad of you; I have slept so well and sweet since yesternight It seems our dancing put me in glad heart. Did you ...
— Chastelard, a Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Mountains and the ranges in the southern part of Cassia County. The mines all about Silver City, the county seat and mining center, were well represented. The South Mountain district, south of Silver City, was represented by ores from some of the reopened mines which had been idle for ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... production of numbers of young men who have somehow or other, educated themselves up to the belief that they were created to make their living by doing nothing. Every city, town, and village in the land is filled to overflowing with young men who are idle—hunting clerkships, or some place where they hope to obtain a living without work. Numbers are hanging around, living from hand to mouth, living upon some friend, waiting for a vacancy in some overcrowded store; and, when a vacancy occurs, offering ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... vested interests with which he would have to deal were too much for a man whose nerve was weakened by philosophy and experience, and Laelius by his retreat justified, if he did not gain, the soubriquet which proclaimed his "sapience".[299] But why was Scipio himself idle? The answer is to be found both in his temperament and in his circumstances. With all his dash and energy, he was something of a healthy hedonist. As the chase had delighted him in his youth, so did war in his manhood. While ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... gossips, because the nights were long, and she could not spend the whole time either in sleep or in solitary watching. But her supplications availed her nothing, for the fool was determined that all Arezzo should know their shame, whereof as yet none wist aught. So as 'twas idle to entreat, the lady assumed a menacing tone, saying:—"So thou open not to me, I will make thee the saddest man alive." Whereto Tofano made answer:—"And what then canst thou do?" The lady, her wits sharpened by Love, rejoined:—"Rather than endure the indignity ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... censure. But, tried by this standard, Rip Van Winkle, as Mr. Jefferson plays it, is far from an immoral play. The picture as he paints it is moral in the same sense that nature is moral. No man, shiftless, idle, and drunken, afraid to go home, ashamed before his children, without self-respect or the regard of others, however gentle and sweet, and however much a favorite with the boys and girls and animals he may be, is a man whose courses those ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... her old tactics, however, she had spent no time in idle dreaming. She had cultivated Dr. Sommers's acquaintance, and he had already accompanied her and her sister through a wild valley, on the occasion of a visit to one of his patients. Little Jack had improved under his care, and Mrs. Muir was growing serene, rested, and eager ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... object of my love? Do not be startled, I entreat you. Not one of the Webers, surely? Yes, one of the Webers,—not Josepha, not Sophie, but the third daughter, Constanze. I never met with such diversity of dispositions in any family. The eldest is idle, coarse, and deceitful—crafty and cunning as a fox; Madame Lange (Aloysia) is false and unprincipled, and a coquette; the youngest is still too young to have her character defined,—she is merely a good humoured, frivolous girl; may God guard her ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... state and his own exorbitantly early hours in a suite of rooms assigned him, through one of whose windows, arrayed in a velvet cap and gown of brocade, he was rivalling the lark and greeting the rising sun, and, while sipping his chocolate in the intervals, moved, with the nimble irregularity of idle and active-minded age, about ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... I spent a comfortable evening together. There was no question of Lackaday. For her part, she raised none. For mine—why should I disturb her superbly regained balance with idle chatter about our morrow's meeting? We talked of the past glories of the day; of an almost forgotten day of disastrous picnic in the mountains of North Wales, when her twelve-year-old sense of humour detected the artificial politeness with which I sought ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... the maids of Hellas, though they be rich and fair, With the daughter of Polycrates, oh! who shall then compare? Then dry thy tears—no idle fears should damp our joy to-day— And let me see thee smile once ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... In short, at that period, there was no fresh device in love invented, that had not its origin in the good convent of Poissy. You may be sure there is a good deal of untruth and hyperbolical emphasis, in these proverbs, jests, jokes, and idle tales. The nuns of the said Poissy were good young ladies, who now this way, now that, cheated God to the profit of the devil, as many others did, which was but natural, because our nature is weak; and ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... backbone, just between the shoulders. His body was oblong, and particularly capacious at bottom; which was wisely ordered by Providence seeing that he was a man of sedentary habits, and very averse to the idle labor of walking. His legs were short, but sturdy in proportion to the weight they had to sustain; so that when erect he had not a little the appearance of a beer barrel on skids. His face, that infallible index of the mind, presented a vast expanse, unfurrowed by those ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... in it. If the thaw would only cease before the ice bottom so laboriously constructed was destroyed! Radway vibrated between the office and the road. Men were lying idle; teams were doing the same. Nothing went on but the days of the year; and four of them had already ticked off the calendar. The deep snow of the unusually cold autumn had now disappeared from the tops of the stumps. Down in the swamp the covey of partridges were beginning to hope that ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... at the "great house." Long after his ailment has been cured he will be seen daily going up to the manor house for his allowance of meat; somehow or other he "can't get a job nohow." The fact is, he has got the name of being an idle scoundrel, and no farmer will take him on. It is some time before you are able to find him out; for as he goes decidedly lame as he passes you in the village street, he generally manages to persuade you that he is very ill. Like a fool, you take ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... rather ugly and had straight hair. Curls in my childhood days were something very much sought for. Although Sarah was pretty in the face she had very rude ways; she would not speak kindly and politely; would not help her hard working mother; but was idle and quarrelsome, always wanted some one to wait on her; while Mary was the reverse; would pick up chips to make a fire, would sweep the yard and bring water, and was kind to all, especially to her mother. ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... as the penalty. And what shall I propose on my part, O men of Athens? Clearly that which is my due. And what is my due? What return shall be made to the man who has never had the wit to be idle during his whole life; but has been careless of what the many care for—wealth, and family interests, and military offices, and speaking in the assembly, and magistracies, and plots, and parties. Reflecting that I was really too honest ...
— Apology - Also known as "The Death of Socrates" • Plato
... mother had exhausted the joys of the Carnival, she permitted me to leave Rome for this place, where we arrived last Friday evening. My impression is that if we had stayed in Rome much longer we should never have left. There is something idle and afternoony about the air which whittles away ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... appearance—from my casual inspection of it—of being genuine; and, if so, the island might possibly exist, although uncharted. Moreover, O'Gorman had not seized the brig and become a pirate merely to satisfy an idle curiosity as to the accuracy of the document he had produced; he was going there for a certain definite purpose; to search for something, probably; and, if so, nothing short of our arrival at that particular island ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... smiled at her approach; their mothers rose and courtesied with affectionate respect. How many names and how many wants had she to remember! yet nothing was forgotten. Some were rewarded for industry, some were admonished not to be idle; but all were treated with an engaging suavity more efficacious than gifts or punishments. The aged were solaced by her visit; the sick forgot their pains; and, as she listened with sympathising patience to long narratives of rheumatic griefs, it seemed her presence in each old ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... bowing acquaintance of many years. This till the moment of indiscretion last May; when, encountering his dashing attractions in the boredom of a dull resort, far from her mother's restrictive eye, she had for an idle fortnight allowed the relation between them to become undeniably changed. Foolish indeed; but really she had thought—or now really thought she had thought—that the impossible youth took it all no more seriously than she. Not till her return home last month had he revealed his complete ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison |
