"Idle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... circumstances that every single thing in the army needs moving at once, they are able to effect considerable economies over the British method, which constantly keeps large numbers of lorries and tractors and cars, together with their drivers and mechanics, idle, since the units to which they are attached are not at the ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... mean to lead an idle life, Paul. I should not feel happy if I did. I was always fond of sewing—that is, in moderation. When I made shirts for that establishment in Broadway, for such low prices, I cannot say that I enjoyed that very much. I ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger
... do with a vacation? And where could I go? I'd look fine at a summer resort, wouldn't I, sitting around with idle fools? If I could only go somewhere to get rid of this damned neurasthenia that all the fool women think they've got, I'd go; but I don't suppose there's such a place this side of ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... reach the front of the cabin. The bear was apparently suspicious of any sort of movement, and continued to growl threateningly. So long as he did not actually start to make an attack Ethan believed he could afford to remain idle, and ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... of the man of resolution in the face of insult and provocation is far more impressive than these idle threats. ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke
... of the multitude, several clubs crossed; blows, aimed at me, fell on other sconces. Presently the whole chapel resounded with rappings and counter rappings: every man's hand was against his neighbour; and Branderham, unwilling to remain idle, poured forth his zeal in a shower of loud taps on the boards of the pulpit, which responded so smartly that, at last, to my unspeakable relief, they woke me. And what was it that had suggested the tremendous tumult? What had played Jabez's part in the row? Merely the branch ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... on with a bee's hum soft and steady, and here it chuckled and chirped, bubbling up in sudden little rapids and cascades. At Judy's feet was a thin flat stone, which rested loosely on the top of another, and flap-flapped, bobbing up and down as the ripple rose and fell. Sitting idle in the firelight, warmed and fed to unwonted contentment, Judy watched it half drowsily for a ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... in Hampstead. So well placed and idle a gentleman was almost bound to be a bad poet and worse dramatist, and this William Popple ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... seems to have chosen the game for her own, and to love to place the reflection of her own cheeks upon those of the players, and to make them ruddy brown as well. But, somehow or other, cricket grows to be rather dull and tedious when the players are idle and will not work. Everything, if it is worth doing at all, is worth doing well: the heart must be in it, and it must be done, as the sailors say, "with a will." When you go to play cricket, it must not happen that you have your mind out in Beechy Wood seeking for woodpeckers' nests; or else ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... youth, of about twenty, with a reputation for singing a comic song. It was understood that the Admiral designed him for College and Holy Orders, but meanwhile time was passing, and Sam sat "with idle hands at home," or more frequently, in the bar ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the youth, recalled to common sense: 'you know that I have lingered at the chateau yonder, partly to study divinity and settle my mind, and partly because my friend Ribaumont begged me to await his return. I will be no longer idle; my mind is fixed. To France I cannot return, while she gives me no choice between such doctrine and practice as I saw at court, and such as the Huguenots would have imposed on me. I had already chosen England as my country before—before this wild ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... frock with an embroidered red line round the neck and detachable black wristlets that preserved the ends of the sleeves from dust and friction, sat idle at her flat desk in what was called 'the small room' at Felix Grig's establishment in Clifford Street, off Bond Street. There were three desks, three typewriting machines and three green-shaded lamps. Only Lilian's lamp was lighted, and she sat alone, ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... had a feelin' heart for the sufferers in this calamity. I tell you, elder, that he's good to everybody, and if he does not take hold to work in the way that father does, his head and heart are never idle. I am sorry that he and father do not see more alike. The boy is goin' to do well in the world. He ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... settled agricultural life, each horde having a chief and a "medicine-man," or priest of their superstitions. They are good-natured and ingenious, excelling most of the other tribes in the manufacture of pottery; but they are idle and debauched, naked except in the villages, and tattooed in numbers of short, straight lines on the face. The Marubos, on the Javari, have a dark complexion and a slight beard; and on the west side of the same river roam ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... States, in 1917, a total of 24,272 ginneries, of which 3,921 were idle. Each active gin produced an average of 526 bales running bales of cotton. The number of gins shows a tendency to decrease every year, not rapidly, but surely, and this despite the opposite tendency of the crop. The Whitney gin of the old days has been improved beyond ...
— The Fabric of Civilization - A Short Survey of the Cotton Industry in the United States • Anonymous
... room to seek more wine. On the flame of my candle blowing aside, I perceived that I had left my door unfastened, so that it now stood ajar. And, truly, this was as culpable a piece of oversight as I could well have committed; for here, had an enemy, or even an idle busybody, been passing, he might very well have entered the little passage and overheard that which had been our ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... father, who was a steady-going old gentleman of strictly conventional methods and ideas. George stood in considerable awe of him, and always felt ill at ease in his presence. No doubt the old soldier frequently remonstrated with him for his indulgence in idle pleasures and lax ideas of duty. As a lad, he probably found it hard to justify himself in his father's eyes, but there is a passage in "Lavengro," written five-and-twenty years later, ...
— George Borrow in East Anglia • William A. Dutt
... is ill, man—and as ill nearly as possible; so much for thy fond romantic advice, that I, of all men, should become a protector of distressed damsels! I tell thee Burgundy is arming, and on the eve of closing an alliance with England. And Edward, who hath his hands idle at home, will pour his thousands upon us through that unhappy gate of Calais. Singly, I might cajole or defy them; but united, united—and with the discontent and treachery of that villain Saint ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... Stapylton had left him, the colonel sat alone in his study, idle now, and musing vaguely. There were no more addenda concerning the descendants of ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... lofty enterprise—a man prompt, capable, and calm, wanting nothing in soldiership except good-fortune. Ever tempted to reverie, he yet refuses, even for one little hour, to yield up the weal of Flanders to idle thought or vacant retrospect. Having once put his hand to the plough of action, with clear foresight, not blindfold bravery, his language is—'Though I indulge no more the dream of living, as I hoped I might have lived, a life of ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... Obviously!" the agent promptly replied. "And he'd have to fight that beachmaster. Evidently! And so on every few feet he went. Besides, the very moment his back was turned a neighboring bull would steal some of his cows. Certainly! Or, an idle bull would try and beat ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... and to hear his glowing description of the house—such a cosy little three-storied brick house, on a street too broad for the neighbors opposite to see into his front parlors, and no houses in the rear from which the prying eye of the curious and idle could spy into back kitchen closets or dinner pots—in brief, Perriwinkle went on with that strain of domestic eloquence, peculiar to new beginners in the arts and mysteries of housekeeping, and after a general detail ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... things is depicted with a few masterstrokes in a popular work in Chinese entitled "Strange Stories of an Idle Student." The first of these tales describes a traveller meeting in the mountains an old man, in the costume of a former dynasty, whose family had there sought a refuge from the anarchy that preceded the fall of the imperial house. ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... you will go to London, and from there to Paris, and lastly to Naples, and at each place prepare for our reception. You will meet us in Naples somewhere from the middle to the last of June. I say last of June, for before we reach Naples we may idle away a fortnight in the Mediterranean. Have ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... eligible cottage without farm attached, in the pleasant little village of Llanblethian close by Cowbridge in Glamorganshire; of this he took a lease, and thither with his family he moved in search of new fortunes. Glamorganshire was at least a better climate than Bute; no groups of idle or of busy reapers could here stand waiting on the guidance of a master, for there was no farm here;—and among its other and probably its chief though secret advantages, Llanblethian was much more convenient both for Dublin and London ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... June 30th, Charles left Ghent, taking his daughter and his treasure away, but a safe shelter for both was not easy to find. The duke's anticipations of the effect of Ghent's actions upon her neighbours were quickly proved to be no idle fears. There were revolts of more or less importance at Mechlin, at Antwerp, at Brussels, and other places. Moreover, there was serious discussion in the estates assembled at Louvain as to whether Charles should be acknowledged as Duke of Brabant, or whether the claims of his cousin, ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... longer. "I'll tell you what it is, my dear," he says one day; "if you persewere in this here sort of amusement," he says, "I'm blessed if I don't go away to 'Merriker; and that's all about it." "You're a idle willin," says she, "and I wish the 'Merrikins joy of their bargain." Arter which she keeps on abusin' of him for half an hour, and then runs into the little parlour behind the shop, sets to a-screamin', says he'll be the death on her, and falls in a fit, which lasts for three ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... of mind we floated over to England and had a fortnight of "the season" in London. But this soon palled on us, and we fell into the idle mood of waiting ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... said slowly, "I am like that foolish philosopher who, walking abroad to read the destinies of nations in the stars, fell down a pitfall dug by idle children and broke his bones and perished there. Never did I guess that with all these glories stretched before thee like mountain top on glittering mountain top, making a stairway for thy mortal feet to the very dome of heaven, thou wouldst ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... "hugely," as he expressed it, and Clara was very willing to aid him in everything he undertook, and he was not an idle dreamer, for though he did dream beautifully, and talked often of the fairy land, as he called the home of his pure, good thoughts, he was a worker in all ways. If a sudden shower threatened the meadow, he was there with the men, doing all he could to aid them, ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... the silence of the open spaces, but this silence of the city had a portentous quality which frightened him. It reminded him of that ominous quiet that had settled down on Fairview after that heartbreaking celebration on Christmas Eve. What were men doing with their idle moments? How were they escaping from the drab to-day? Did the crowded lobbies of the sailors' lodging houses spell the final word in the bleak entertainment that intolerance had left them? Upon one of the street corners a Salvation Army lassie harangued an indifferent handful. But there seemed ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... insisted on her own plan of benevolence, she yielded, and rather sullenly led the way homeward. Ah, what a way it was! down one dirty street and up another,—through vile courts and alleys reeking with filth, swarming with idle, loud-voiced men, wretched-looking women, slatternly girls, and forlorn children. Bessie's heart grew sick and her courage failed her. If she had known the way back, she would gladly have ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... trouble of getting up any one of the hundreds of secret ciphers possible to be developed from the A. L. Telegraphic Code. This was a secret that lay locked in the breast of Mr. Skinner. It is probable, however, that it had occurred to him in an idle moment that a secret cipher might come in handy some day, and Mr. Skinner believed in being ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... dull hours spent in idle and diffuse conversation in the dimly lighted verandah! Oh, the horrid peppered jam in the microscopic pots! In the middle of the town, enclosed by four walls, is this park of five yards square, with little lakes, little mountains, and little ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... mankind to a knowledge of its truths. Its ardent and successful missionaries converted multitudes in Nepaul, Thibet, Birmah, Ceylon, China, Siam, Japan; and in all these states its monasteries are to-day the chief sources of knowledge and centres of instruction to the people. It is idle to class such a religion as this with the superstitions which debase mankind. Its power lay in the strength of conviction which inspired its teachers; and that, again, must have come from the sight of truth, ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... with which in fact she sharply closed their discussion. He opened the door on a sign from her, and she accompanied him to the top of the stairs with an air of having so put their possibilities before him that questions were idle and doubts perverse. "I verily believe I shall hate you if you spoil for me the beauty of ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... me, Calhoun," he said softly. "You've got to do something. You're living an idle life. You're in debt. You've ruined your independent fortune at the tables. There are but two courses open to you. One is to join the British forces—to be a lieutenant, a captain, a major, a colonel, or a general, in time; to shoot and cut and hang ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the bits of steel striking upon each other was like the music of an express train as one hears it in a sleeping car at night. This was "piece-work," of course; and besides it was made certain that the boy did not idle, by setting the machine to match the highest possible speed of human hands. Thirty thousand of these pieces he handled every day, nine or ten million every year—how many in a lifetime it rested with the gods to say. Near by him men ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... It would be idle to imagine that the motives of Cadillac were wholly patriotic. Fur-trading interests were deeply involved in his plans, and bitter opposition was certain. The fur-trade, in its nature, was a constant breeder of discord. The people of Montreal would ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... laughed. He had suddenly recalled his conversation with Boutan respecting the demoralizing effects of that nurse trade, the shameful bargaining, the common crime of two mothers, who each risked the death of her child—the idle mother who bought another's services, the venal mother who sold her milk. He felt cold at heart as he saw one child carried off still full of life, and the other remain there already so puny. And what would be fate's course? Would not one or the ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... preparations were going on the enemy was not entirely idle. In the West Forrest made a raid in West Tennessee up to the northern border, capturing the garrison of four or five hundred men at Union City, and followed it up by an attack on Paducah, Kentucky, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... sculptor's eyes. He wasn't soon to forget them, was to think of them, all unconscious, unintending, preoccupied though they were, as the source of the deepest intellectual sounding to which he had ever been exposed. He was in fact quite to cherish his vision of it, to play with it in idle hours; only speaking of it to no one and quite aware he couldn't have spoken without appearing to talk nonsense. Was what it had told him or what it had asked him the greater of the mysteries? Was it the ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... not to be supposed," he answered, "that the friends of the church are idle at a time of so much importance. Mr. Strathmore is really little better than a Unitarian; or at least he is so lax that he gives ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... Rousseau contrasted the splendour of the French court, the luxury of the opulent, the enlightenment of those who had the opportunity of education, with the hard lot of the ignorant mass of peasants, whose toil paid for the luxury of many of the idle enlightened people who amused themselves at Paris. The horror of this contrast, which left Voltaire cold, was the poignant motive which inspired Rousseau, a man of the people, in constructing his new doctrine. The existing inequality seemed an injustice which rendered ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... conveys the interesting intelligence that THIERS, the renowned statesman and historian, consumes snuff to the amount of a quarter of a pound daily. That M. THIERS is thoroughly "up to snuff" every body knows; but that he has so much idle time on his hands as to be able to use a quarter of a pound of it daily, will be news to most people. Let any one of our readers try it. Let him be ever so "good at a pinch," he will find that to feed his proboscis from a quarter of a pound of snuff until he has reached the last pinch, ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various
... take the horse to the water, if we cannot make him drink," shouts a newsboy in her ear; and with a great deal of tugging and thumping she feels herself driven closer to her books. But idle hands make an idle brain, and the pages ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... Court; demanded, Who were Governors of such and such Countreys? and what was become of some certain Noble-men, whom the King had lately cut off? and also What the common people were employed about at Court, for it is seldom that they are idle. To all which we gave satisfactory answers. Then he enquired of us, Who gave us leave to come down so low? We told him That priviledg was given to us by the King himself full Fifteen Years since at his Palace at Nellemby, when he caused it to be declared unto us, that ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... the panic of September wrought the same effect in the iron-business as in all the other manufactures of the country, and in the spring of 1858 more than half of the iron-works of the United States were standing idle. Mr. Lesley states that the returns received in answer to the circular issued by the Iron-Association, July 1, 1858, were, almost without exception, unfavorable, and that these replies are sufficient to prove a very serious ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... Spohr admired her as a child. But if Chopin has not turned out virtuosos of the calibre of Tausig and Hans von Bulow, he has nevertheless formed many very clever pianists. It would serve no purpose except that of satisfying idle curiosity to draw up a list of all the master's ascertainable pupils. Those who wish, however, to satisfy this idle curiosity can do so to some extent by scanning the dedications of Chopin's works, as the names therein to be found—with a few and mostly obvious exceptions—are ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... he could not help wavering between repugnance and admiration, and he kept asking himself whether this man was really the sort of person that Arthur Stoss had described him to be, no gentleman, a weakling, an idle ragamuffin. ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... Segrim came back, and said, "So, young sirs, have you seen enough of your doting kinsman? The sub-prior bids me say that we harbour no strange, idling, lubber lads nor strange dogs here. 'Tis enough for us to be saddled with dissolute old men-at- arms without all their idle kin making an excuse to come and pay their devoirs. These corrodies are a heavy charge and a weighty abuse, and if there be the visitation the king's majesty speaks of, they will be one of the ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... if you neglect their safety, now brought to the extreme crisis of peril, see that the next turn do not, a little while after, visit yourselves. While we advise thus fraternally and freely, we are meanwhile not idle on our own part: what alone it is allowed to us at such a distance to do, whether for securing the safety of those who are endangered, or for succouring the poverty of those who are in need, we have taken all pains in our power to do, and shall yet take all pains, ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... against the danger. Yet the exaggeration in question was hardly without its meaning. Accordingly we find it stated, that an unsymmetrical profile, with one eyebrow drawn up and the other down, denoted an idle, inquisitive, and intermeddling busy- body, [Footnote: See Jul. Pollux, in the section of comic masks. Compare Platonius as above, and Quinctilian, 1. xi. c. 3. The supposed wonderful discovery of Voltaire respecting tragic masks, which I mentioned in the fourth Lecture, will hardly be forgotten.] ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... north-west part of Lincolnshire, England, lying between the rivers Trent, Idle and Don, and isolated by drainage channels connected with these rivers. It consists mainly of a plateau of slight elevation, rarely exceeding 100 ft., and comprises the parishes of Althorpe, Belton, Epworth, Haxey, Luddington, Owston and Crowle; the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... these thoughts were not clear to her mind; it was rather a confused mixture of ideas, one of which faded ere another came, so that there seemed no real connection between them; and had she embodied them in words, they would have been recognized as the idle fancies of a strange, old-fashioned child. But the picture—there WAS something in it which held Edith motionless, while her tongue seemed struggling to articulate a NAME, but failed in the attempt; and when, at last, her lips did move, they uttered the ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... is a second Pen, but a better fellow, is himself a satire on young men,—on young men who are idle and ambitious at the same time. He is a painter; but, instead of being proud of his art, is half ashamed of it,—because not being industrious he has not, while yet young, learned to excel. He is "doing" a portrait of Mrs. Pendennis, Laura, and thus speaks of his ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... charging an army. If he fired a shot, I thought the bird must come down, and if be flung a net, the largest fish in the river were sure to be in it. His words were always few, but they were always wise; they were not idle, as our words are, they were grave, sober, and strong, and ready on occasion to do their duty. In spite of his antipathy to him, my brother respected and admired the General as much as I did—that is to say, more than ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... months in St. Pierre is certain, sooner or later, to pass an idle half-hour in that charming place of Martinique idlers,—the beautiful Savane du Fort,—and, once there, is equally certain to lean a little while over the mossy parapet of the river-wall to watch the blanchisseuses at work. It has a curious interest, this spectacle of ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... the nation, when it gave up that power, did not give up the advantage; but supposed, and with reason, that government was overpaid in credit, for what it seemed to lose in authority. In such a case to talk of the rights of sovereignty is quite idle. Other establishments supply other modes of public contribution. Our trading companies, as well as individual importers, are a fit subject of revenue by customs. Some establishments pay us by a monopoly of their consumption and their ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... returns and finds the fire low, the dwarf idle, and the sword unfinished, he angrily demands an explanation. Mime then reveals to him that none but a fearless man can ever accomplish the task. As Siegfried does not even know the meaning of the word, Mime graphically ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... the most monotonous and among the most miserable of my life. Early in the sultry mornings, for the heat at this season of the year was great, the soldier servants—prisoners like ourselves—would bring us a cup of coffee, and sitting up in bed we began to smoke the cigarettes and cigars of another idle, aimless day. Breakfast was at nine: a nasty uncomfortable meal. The room was stuffy, and there are more enlivening spectacles than seventy British officers caught by Dutch farmers and penned together in confinement. Then came ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... at Long Lake. With this there developed in her mind a certain feeling of respect and admiration for the young superintendent, due more to her democratic spirit than to anything personal about the man. Then, again, those who were natural appealed to her. As to men of Dr. Sperry's stamp and the idle youths who chattered to her in the world which her mother had forced her into, these ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... question with Carson which would last the longer—the club or the snouts, but in the hope of getting beyond their reach, he climbed to the topmost bough, where he crouched into the smallest possible space. It was idle, however, to hope they would overlook him, for they pushed on up the tree ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... bear appeared determined to revenge himself on the boot; and for some seconds continued to tear it—both with teeth and claws—till nothing of its original shape remained. Then, scattering the fragments over the ground, he desisted from this idle employment; and rushed back to the trunk of the tree up which Pouchskin had climbed. He knew—from having often made the experiment—that he could not climb it; nor did he attempt to do so; but seizing the slender trunk in his powerful ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... worth this drop of ink, A line—or two—were no hard matter, As here, indeed, I need not flatter: But she must be content to shine In better praises than in mine, 40 With lively air, and open heart, And fashion's ease, without its art; Her hours can gaily glide along. Nor ask the aid of idle song. ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... conduct and management are superior to all other copiers of that original; and even the admired Rapin (says Dr. Sewel) is much below him, both in design and success, 'for the Frenchman either fills his garden with the idle fables of antiquity, or new transformations of his own; and, in contradiction of the rules of criticism, has injudiciously blended the serious, and sublime stile of Virgil, with the elegant turns of Ovid in his Metamorphosis; ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... called out of church until people no longer think fit even to laugh or to pity? Are there not hoary-headed midshipmen, antique ensigns growing mouldy upon fifty years' half-pay? Nay, are there not men who would pay anything to be employed rather than remain idle? But such is the glut of professionals, the horrible cut-throat competition among them, that there is no chance for one in a thousand, be he ever so willing, or brave, or clever: in the great ocean of life ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... him? Did he sometimes think of the contrast between these honors offered to his body, which he picturesquely called Brother Ass, and the subversion of his ideal? We cannot tell. If he had feelings of this kind those who surrounded him were not the men to understand them, and it would be idle to expect any expression of ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... were to be appealed to against individual interests. The commerce of luxury was to be abolished. Clearly luxury was not at the command of all mankind. Cafes and theatres were to be closed for ever—all mankind could not go to cafes and theatres. It was idle to expect the masses to combine for anything in which the masses had not an interest in common. The masses had no interest in any property that did not belong to the masses. Programmes of the society to be founded, called the Ligue ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... wanted a box that she could not allow to have opened. The clerk then went up to the Sieur Picard's bedroom, but came back saying that what the marquise demanded was for the time being an impossibility, for the commissary was asleep. She saw that it was idle to insist, and went away, saying that she should send a man the next morning to fetch the box. In the morning the man came, offering fifty Louis to the commissary on behalf of the marquise, if he would give her the box. But ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... the courteous and judicious reader and to none other"; he explains that he refuses to write for "the sottish multitude," that monster "who knows not when aught well is or amiss"; and blames "such idle thieves as do purloin from others' mint what's none of their own coin."[314] In spite of this, his preface makes no mention of Nicholas de Montreux, the original author, and if it were not for the phrase on the title page, "done into English," one would not suspect ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... vigorous strokes and shot her around at the last moment for a perfect landing. The mainsail and jib went up with rapid jerks while the rings rattled their protest. The strenuous physical exercise brought him temporary relief; but, when he had cast off, taken the tiller and after a few moments of idle jockeying back and forth in the light puffs, squared away for the run seaward before the rising wind, his gloomy thoughts returned, to settle like a flock of phantom harpies and feast on ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... "Not idle curiosity, Mr. Detective," replied Yada. "I wanted to know, to make certain, which of the two Chinamen it really was who was there—dead. I saw him. Now I ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... Education Secretary, Captain-General of Teachers, who will actually contrive to get us taught. Then again, why should there not be an 'Emigration Service,' and Secretary, with adjuncts, with funds, forces, idle Navy-ships, and ever-increasing apparatus; in fine an effective system of Emigration; so that, at length, before our twenty years of respite ended, every honest willing Workman who found England too strait, and the ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... upon evil days." He sipped at his wine. "There are none left now," he explained, as he set down his glass. "The last of them died, I believe, in England." His eyes turned full upon the earl, but their glance seemed entirely idle. "It was in consequence of that that my father was enabled to ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... the six girls were occupied. Only Tory Drew's hands were idle. They moved frequently with unconscious gestures characteristic of her temperament and the fact that she had lived a number of years in the Latin countries where the hands are used to communicate one's meaning ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook
... consisted in mere external circumstances and happier conditions of life, it might be so bestowed. But if place and surroundings, and a more exquisite and ethereal frame, are but subordinate sources of it, and its real fountain is union with Jesus and assimilation to Him, then something else than idle desires must wing the soul that soars thither, and His transforming grace, not His arbitrary will, must set us at His own right ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... to preserve the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. You may say that to the whole multitude there is but one heart and one soul, as each one in no respect followeth after his own will or desire, but is diligent to do the will of the Master. They are never idle nor rambling abroad, but, when they are not in the field, that they may not eat their bread in idleness, they are fitting and repairing their armor and their clothing, or employing themselves in such occupations as the will of the Master requireth or their common ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... and you have spoken so ill, can scarcely fail to be turned from its sins by so terrible a visitation. Those who have looked upon the city as I saw it a week ago can scarce return with unchastened hearts to feasting and dancing and idle company." ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... Emperor's apartment when the King of Naples entered, and saw him for the first time. I did not know to what cause to attribute it, but I noticed that the Emperor did not give his brother-in-law as cordial a welcome as in the past. Prince Murat said that he could no longer remain idle at Naples, knowing that the French army to which he still belonged was in the field, and he asked only to be allowed to fight in its ranks. The Emperor took him with him to the parade, and gave him the command of ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Friendship hoard Whatever sainted Love bequeathed, And in some hidden scroll record The vows in pious moments breathed. Vex not the lost with idle suit, Oh lonely heart, be mute, ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... with only an idle curiosity the one hundred and forty-three mediocre prizes on the list, he returned to the perusal. Suddenly the print swam before his eyes, and the great esplanade seemed to rise. Number 77,707 had won the fourth prize of one hundred thousand francs; number 200,013, a prize ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... the cattle next day. This I did not mention however to the men, but I ordered all the good bush hands to be off in search at daybreak. The care of cattle, and particularly of horses on such journeys, requires great attention; to stand idle on a fine morning, unable to proceed, until by some fortunate chance, stray cattle or horses are discovered in a boundless forest, is like a calm on the line, irksome enough; but there is also the risk of losing the men sent in pursuit who, even after coming on the objects ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... an idle tale?" said Sir George Templemore with a concern, which, in despite of his good breeding, compelled him to put a question that, under other circumstances, ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... fairly begun, and her new friend was acknowledging an uncommon attack of hunger, and they were all merry in a sedate way to suit Miss Prince's ideas and preferences. "I have been quite the drudge this winter over my studies, and I feel young and idle again, now that I am making all these pleasant plans." For Mr. Gerry had been talking enthusiastically about some excursions he should arrange to certain charming places in the region of Dunport. Both he and Miss Prince smiled when Nan announced that she was young and idle, and a moment ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... save some dozen of words which I have put above between brackets, was mere idle talk, though the substance of the letter was as important as any letter well could be. It told those that had the key, that the king will take the Viscount Castlewood's passports and travel to England under that lord's name. His Majesty will be at the Lady Castlewood's house ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... on, "when I am really old, I shall be reported of men as drowned in the sea. This will be an idle thought of men. In truth, I shall have returned into the arms of my mother, there to rest under the heart of her breast until the second birth of me, when I shall emerge into the sun a flashing youth of splendour like Maui himself when he ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... Master Philip also in the doctrine of election. In 1555, John Pfeffinger declared in his Quaestiones Quinque (extensively quoted from in the chapter on the Synergistic Controversy), thesis 17: "If the will were idle or purely passive [in conversion], there would be no distinction between the pious and the impious, or the elect and the damned, as between Saul and David, between Judas and Peter. God would become a respecter of persons and the author ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... Mecca pilgrimage are not regarded by the English who know them as a "holy lot"; in fact, they are said to lead idle lives, and to "live like leeches on the toil of their fellow-men," inciting the people "to revolt or to make amok." Doubtless it adds to a man's consequence for life to be privileged to wear the Arab costume and to be styled Tuan hadji. Yet they ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... fall and they step over they step back. They say if somebody sweep under your feet you won't marry that year. Folks didn't visit round much. They had some place to go they went but they had to work. They work together and done mighty little—idle vistin'. Folks took the knitting long ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... nay Neece, if I daunce attendance three hours (alone in her Chamber) with any Lady so neere alide to me, I am very idle yfaith—Mary with such an other I would daunce, one, two, three, foure, and five, tho it cost me ten shillings. And now I am in, have at it! my head must devise something, while my feet are pidling thus, that may bring her to some ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... popularly supposed, pick up all her feet at once, but only one of them at a time. Which one depends upon circumstances. The cow is but an indifferent pedestrian. Hc fabula docet that one should not keep three-fourths of his capital lying idle. V. ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... the veranda, four abreast, a bright-eyed, happy quartette. Mrs. Harlowe greeted her daughter's friends as affectionately as though they were her own children. "Did you bring your work, girls, or is it to be a case of idle hands?" ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... mind his being apparently idle for awhile, and, by a sort of common understanding, the subject was not touched upon between them for some time. Morgan perforce had to live at home, and, as time went by, this very fact caused him a great deal of misery. ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... its own activities accordingly. If the living, experiencing being is an intimate participant in the activities of the world to which it belongs, then knowledge is a mode of participation, valuable in the degree in which it is effective. It cannot be the idle view ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... relinquish so lucrative a source of profit as the sale of powerful Sees, unless the right to sell them were taken away by some tremendous conflict. He therefore prepared for the fight, and forged his weapons and gathered together his forces. Nor would he waste time by idle negotiations; it was necessary to act with promptness and vigor. No matter how great the danger; no matter how powerful his enemies. The Church was in peril; and he resolved to come to the rescue, cost what it might. What was his life compared with ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... idle and wicked, but to the sober and deserving he is a leader, both just and humane. I have known many fond and tender parents, but never have I seen a man whose heart was softer toward his child. You have seen the gray-head in front of his ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... found Len sitting in his big arm-chair, clad in a gorgeous dressing-gown. He was idle, stupefied, and woebegone. With his bushy, snow-white hair and beard, his puffy cheeks, his sagging mouth, and his clumsy bulk he produced an effect half spectral and half fleshly, but quite pathetically ludicrous. His hand trembled violently as he ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... round to within two years, and indeed rather less, of the time for my initiation into the mysteries of the Red Axe, and still I remained at home, an idle boy, playing at single-stick and fence with the men-at-arms, drinking beer in the evening with my bosom cronies, and in the well-grounded opinion of all honest people, likely enough to come to ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... do I, unless they found you snooping about, or thought our party might be on the same lay they are. You know, fellows of that kind will stop at nothing. More than one man has been killed on nothing more than an idle suspicion, in these mountains. A lot more will follow in the same way. But we've been warned, and it will be well to keep a ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... is idle 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 ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... What little there was in the way of merchandise the proprietors seemed utterly indifferent about disposing of, and after visiting a few shops we went away in disgust. The people were a mixture of Cashmeeries, Chinese, Tartars, Bengalees, and Indians of all sorts and sects, and more idle, good-for-nothing looking scoundrels I never laid eyes on. One most amusing group of Mahomedan exquisites reminded one forcibly of PUNCH'S Noah's ark costumes and Bond Street specimens of fashion. They were dressed in exaggerated ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... in Roman Catholic countries provide for, and thereby foster, a large amount of idle and reckless habits. Previous to the Reformation, this was certainly the case in England. Not only the sick, the maimed, and the accidentally necessitous were fed and clothed,—the same indiscriminating charity was extended to ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen
... well-authenticated facts had been turned outside in; and, in fine, the world's dread laugh helped not a little to put down the conviction of ages. That conviction did not relate to the existence of natural hoards of the precious metal. Such idle dreams were left to the fanciful and superstitious, whose stores were usually situated in the bosom of mountains, and guarded by gnomes and demons. The others were more rational and practical: they sought to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 453 - Volume 18, New Series, September 4, 1852 • Various
... ropes of roses, and dragged the car of benevolence; as painted papillons drew chariots of goddesses on ancient classic walls; so in the realm of social economy the ubiquitous law of correlation of industrial force—of conservation of energy—transmuted the arrested labor of the rich and idle into the fostering heat that ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... till again awakened by some new calamity. The leaders of the faction do not, however, entirely depend either on the supineness of their adversaries, or the submission of the people. Money is distributed amongst the idle and indigent, and agents are nightly employed in the public houses to comment on newspapers, written for the purpose to blacken the King and exalt the patriotism of the party who have dethroned him. ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... Ruby Gillis in the Gillis' garden after the day had crept lingeringly through it and was gone. It had been a warm, smoky summer afternoon. The world was in a splendor of out-flowering. The idle valleys were full of hazes. The woodways were pranked with shadows and the fields with the purple of ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... carefully, "this stone is all limestone, which is found only along the coast or at a great depth. It has been brought here from a considerable distance. Indians may have done the work, but they never did it willingly. If they did it at all, it was as slaves. But we have no time for idle speculation. Let's walk along it and ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... sea and quiet sky, Idle sail and anchored boat, Just a snowflake gull afloat, Drifting like a feather— And the gray hawk crying, And a man's heart sighing— That is blue-bird weather:— And the high hawk crying, And a maid's heart sighing Till lass and lover come ...
— Blue-Bird Weather • Robert W. Chambers
... eye fell on the Bambino, resting disgracefully on its wooden head. "Poor little figurine," she murmured, reaching a slender hand to draw it up. She straightened the tumbled finery absently. It slipped to her lap, and lay there. Her hands were idle, her eyes looking far ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee
... approved of Kitty. Her careless, dreamy nature was a constant offence in her eyes; her sudden impulses, her want of concentration, her idle moods, when she sat just thinking and thinking and doing nothing, irritated Mrs. Pike beyond endurance. They were as opposite to each other in tastes and natures as any two persons could be, and neither could understand or make allowance for the other. And Dr. Trenire, seeing ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near; that lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall; that sing idle songs to the sound of the viol; that devise for themselves instruments of music, like David; that drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments; but they are not grieved ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... 'I never shoot otherwise than well. But those idle shooters of the Dusky Ones, whereabouts nigh to thee ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... was nothing to be purchased, although some sutlers' stores lay at the depot, guarded by Provost officers. I persuaded a negro to give me a mess of almost raw pork, and a woman, with a child at the breast, cooked me some biscuit. There were many civilians and idle officers in the town, and the streets were lined with cavalry. Mr. Paine, the landlord, was losing the remnant of his wits, and the young ladies were playing the "Bonnie Blue Flag," and laughing satirically at some young officers ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... get 70 horse power in a boat of that size, because the weight of the motor was not great. With regard to the formation of a film on the surface, no doubt a film of sulphate of lead was formed if the battery stood idle, but it did not considerably reduce its efficiency; as soon as it was broke through by the energy being evolved from it, it would give off its maximum current. They knew by experience that, with properly constructed accumulators, 80 per cent. of the energy put into them was returned ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 430, March 29, 1884 • Various
... i.e. through having cause to be forgiven, which cause lessens the sin; thus a sin that is committed through weakness or ignorance is said to be venial. Secondly, through its issue; thus every sin, through repentance, becomes venial, i.e. receives pardon (veniam). Thirdly, by its genus, e.g. an idle word. This is the only kind of venial sin that is opposed to mortal sin: whereas the objection regards the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... problem, and it must be left to time. Meanwhile Mr. Ancrum was certainly astonished that any love affair should have had such a destructive volcanic power with the lad. For it was no mere raw and sensuous nature, no idle and morbid brain. One would have thought that so many different aptitudes and capacities would have kept ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... but they are not education. You may as well call drawing and fencing education as a general knowledge of botany or conchology. Stuffing birds or playing stringed instruments is an elegant pastime, and a resource to the idle, but it is not education; it does not form or cultivate the intellect. Education is a high word; it is the preparation for knowledge, and it is the imparting of knowledge in proportion to that preparation. We require intellectual eyes to know withal, as bodily eyes for sight. We need ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... Pri. Idle remonstrances! what! shall I have plunged into guilt, and reap no fruits from it but the danger? abbess, Josepha must be mine: remember my power, and ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... and lawes that any of the sixe worke dayes commanded of God will make them unholy and idle dayes when he lyste, or of their owne holy dayes abolished make worke dayes agen, or when they changed ye Saterday into Sondaye.... They have changed God's lawes and turned them into their owne tradicions to be kept above God's precepts."—"Exposition of Daniel the Prophete," ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer
... profound sympathy between music and fine scenery: they both affect us in the same way, stirring strong but undefined emotions, which express themselves in 'idle tears,' or evoking thoughts 'which lie,' as Wordsworth says, 'too deep for tears,' beyond the reach of any words. How little we know what multitudes of mingling reminiscences, held in solution by ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... learn "in its main radicals." It is only by reason of this bond that external nature, the manifestation of Natura naturans, lends itself to the artist so that he too may manifest himself. To attain this end the artist will imitate nature but not copy her. ("What idle rivalry!" he exclaims. Is not a copy of nature like a wax-work figure, which shocks because it lacks "the motion and the life which we expected?") The artist imitates what he perceives to be essential ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... dinners therefore were constructive, a dumb show, a mere empty idle ceremony; our only resource against absolute starvation was tea. Penny-buns were our assured resource. The survivors of those days of peril and hardship are indebted for their existence to the humane interposition and succor of penny-buns. ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... his drive with his wife and sister that afternoon, was in one of those strenuous moods which seem to make one's whole being tick with the clock-work of destiny and cause everything else, all the environment, and the minor happenings of life, to appear utterly idle. Even when he talked, and apparently with earnestness, it was always with that realization of depths, which made his own voice ring empty and strange in his ears. He heard his wife and sister chatter with the sense of aloofness of the inhabitant of another planet; he thought even ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... outbreak of hostilities had sent a large number of natives from the adjoining districts into Kimberley, and these added to the permanent coloured population increased our responsibilities. There was not sufficient work for so many. This idle host was a menace to the maintenance of law and order, and unless something was done for it internal trouble of a serious kind was sure to arise. These men had no money wherewith to buy food, and although they could ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... last picture, a small monograph has been devoted by the Fine Art Society. In this we read: "'Thank goodness my ailment has not interfered with my capacity for work, for I have never had a better appetite for it, nor I believe done better. I was idle for five months in the summer, but since my return I have been working hard and have produced the pictures you see.' Thus he spoke to the present writer [of the monograph in question] as he led the way across his ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... Nowhere idle was that underground plotter against the whites. Even on the street where he happened to meet two or three blacks, he would bring the conversation to his one consuming subject, and preach to them his one unending sermon of freedom and hate. It was then as if his stern voice, with its ...
— Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7 • Archibald H. Grimke
... of a yeoman who held lands near the Baskerville estate. But the young maiden, being discreet and of good repute, would ever avoid him, for she feared his evil name. So it came to pass that one Michaelmas this Hugo, with five or six of his idle and wicked companions, stole down upon the farm and carried off the maiden, her father and brothers being from home, as he well knew. When they had brought her to the Hall the maiden was placed in an upper chamber, ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... heard of such a spirit, and well you know The superstitious, idle-headed eld Received and did deliver to our age This tale of Herne ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... can walk out in it; you can go down to dinner in it. You can say of such what Tully says of his books: Pernoctat nobiscum, peregrinatur, rusticatur. It is a little slatternly—it is a good deal stained—it isn't becoming—it smells of cigar-smoke; but, allons donc! let the world call me idle and sloven. I love my ease better than my neighbor's opinion. I live to please myself; not you, Mr. Dandy, with your supercilious airs. I am a philosopher. Perhaps I live in my tub, and don't make any other use of it—. We won't pursue further this ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... hope, D.V., to put myself in communication with some of our Scripture-reader people, and shall try and visit Christ, who is in the East end in the flesh (Matthew xxv. 34). I feel this is what I shall like; these truths were not given to make a man idle." ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... of July, three ships were seen approaching the mouth of the river. They were part of Kirk's squadron, which had all this time been lying idle, almost within sight of the town. The news of his conduct had excited such anger and indignation in England that, at last, in obedience to peremptory orders from London, he prepared to make the attempt; although, by sending only two store ships and one frigate, it would almost seem as if ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... noticed were George Acworth and William Barker. Acworth had lived abroad during Mary's reign, studying civil law in France and Italy. When Elizabeth came to the throne he was elected public orator of the University of Cambridge, but through being idle, dissolute, and a drunkard, he lost all his preferments in England.[127] Barker, or Bercher, who was educated at St John's or Christ's, was abroad at the same time as Ascham, who may have met him as Hoby did in Italy.[128] Barker seems to have been an idle person—he says that ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... generosity became profusion, and love of pleasure ran into dissipation. Grave men grew uneasy at the idle levity of the Prince, and were seriously offended by the gibes and jests in which the tongue of Gaveston abounded, and at which he was always ready to laugh. In 1305, the Prince made application to Walter Langley, Bishop of Litchfield, the King's treasurer, to supply ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... alleviate her anxiety; but her heart was fresh and young—her health and spirits were unbroken, and the air which was wafted through her casement was bright and pure, and she still hoped on for the best. Meantime the pirates were not idle; and she observed from her window, that they were engaged all day long in strengthening and improving the fortification of the castle, as well as those on the other side of the harbour. They threw up embankments, also, ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... suppose a soul deformed, to be one intemperate and unjust, filled with a multitude of desires, a prey to foolish hopes and vexed with idle fears; through its diminutive and avaricious nature the subject of envy; employed solely in thought of what is immoral and low, bound in the fetters of impure delights, living the life, whatever it may be, peculiar to the passion of ...
— An Essay on the Beautiful - From the Greek of Plotinus • Plotinus
... gifts of free land, stock, and money, it was hard to secure a suitable class of settlers. Many of those who came up from Mexico to live in the pueblos were idle or dissipated, and nearly all uneducated. When, after several years, a Spanish officer was sent down from Monterey to convey to the Los Angeles settlers full title to their lands, he found that not one of the ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... down, and I thrust my idle hands hard into my pockets to keep them from the Devil who would have them out at the moths instantly—an evil job, killing ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... close stone cells, in the yard, which were commonly occupied by negroes and those condemned to capital punishment. The ominous name of this third story was "Mount Rascal," intended, no doubt, as significant of the class of prisoners it contained. It is said that genius is never idle: the floor of these cells bore some evidence of the fact in a variety of very fine specimens of carving and flourish work, done with a knife. Among them was a well-executed crucifix; with the Redeemer, on Calvary-an emblem ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... Mr Elder's, are you?' she said, after another long pause, during which I was not idle, for my trouble being gone ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... East and South, who looked upon the pioneers in general as renegades and vagabonds forming a "lawless rabble" on the outskirts of civilization. To them the first settlers were "lawless intruders" on the public domain, "land robbers," "fugitives from justice," and "idle and profligate characters." Squatters, they held, were those "who had gone beyond the settlement and were wholly reckless of the laws either of God or man." Nay more, they were "non-consumers of the country, performing no duties ...
— History of the Constitutions of Iowa • Benjamin F. Shambaugh
... in the Stream, with a half dozen hours to pass ere we proceeded to sea. It was Sunday, so we were idle, the four of us lounging on the lower bridge deck—the Captain, Briggs, myself, and this human phonograph. It was a pleasant day, and we would have enjoyed the loaf in the warm afternoon sunshine, ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... does a year pass without a certain number of them making off. Yet so gluttonous and idle are my serfs that they are simply bursting with food, whereas I scarcely get enough to eat. I will take any price for them that you may care to offer. Tell your friends about it, and, should they find even a score of the runaways, it will ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... the terrace round the corner of the house, till, through the window of the music-room, he could see Irene at the piano, with lamp-light falling on her powdery hair; withdrawn into herself she seemed, her dark eyes staring straight before her, her hands idle. Jolyon saw her raise those hands and clasp them over her breast. 'It's Jon, with her,' he thought; 'all Jon! I'm dying out of ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... idle to deny that the great principle which lies at the bottom of anti-rentism, if principle it can be called, is the assumption of a claim that the interests and wishes of numbers are to be respected, though done at a sacrifice of the clearest rights of the few. ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... 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 ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... and best may weary if the thoughts mount not in faith to something beyond and above it all. Work is worship only when a noble purpose fills the soul. Woman is equally interested and responsible with man in the final settlement of this problem of self-government; therefore let none stand idle spectators now. When every hour is big with destiny, and each delay but complicates our difficulties, it is high time for the daughters of the Revolution, in solemn council, to unseal the last will and testament of the Fathers—lay ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... consequence is, they bring leanness upon their own souls; and if any impenitent sinners witness their conduct, it helps to rivet upon them their carnal security. "Let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel." And remember, Christ has declared that every idle word shall be brought into judgment. "Seeing, then, that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought we to be, in all ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... lacked. She loved dancing, but, without knowing why, she disliked to dance with the young men of the place. With the yearning of youth for popularity and companionship she felt the growing conviction that she was outside the inner circle. Davy had closed the lips of idle gossipers, but even he was unable to open the hearts of suspicious neighbors. The girl longed to draw to herself human love and loyalty, ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... now in the fifth act of 'Foscari,' being the third tragedy in twelve months, besides proses; so you perceive that I am not at all idle. And are you, too, busy? I doubt that your life at Paris draws too much upon your time, which is a pity. Can't you divide your day, so as to combine both? I have had plenty of all sorts of worldly business on my hands last year—and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 474 - Vol. XVII. No. 474., Supplementary Number • Various
... to his daughter's education. From her earliest years it was a law of the household that her childish questions should not be put off with an idle reply, but must be reasonably answered; and when she was older, he himself instructed her in mathematics, Greek, and physiology. But that for which she feels most indebted to him, as she often says—the grandest training given her—was ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... after a pause, "that we have not much time to waste a in idle moments. Which route do you intend ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell |
