"Idly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the long afternoon it idly swings and sways; And on the shore the crowd lifts up its hands and prays: Lifts to heaven and wrings the hands so helpless to save, Prays for the mercy of God on him whom the rock and the ways Battle for, fettered betwixt them, and who amidst their strife Straggles ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... night, I lay propped up with pillows, staring idly at the strange shadows thrown by the hidden lamp across the laundry ceiling and over the floor. As I looked it seemed to me that a change came over the ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... that regular alternation of work through the day, and repose through the night, which is enjoyed by ordinary mortals. This is a matter on which so little is known, that we are induced to expatiate upon it. Dear landsmen! would you like to know how idly and jovially a foremast Jack gets through his twenty-four hours at sea? Listen; and when we have 'said our say,' envy poor Jack his romantic calling, and begrudge him his L.2, 10s. or L.3 per month, as much as you can ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... gone by. The self-same spot sought idly. There, Obstruction foiled, the adoring air Caressed a blossom woven of sky And dew, whose misty petals blue, With bliss of being thrilled athrough, Dilated like ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... spurn them not with Thine; Oh turn thy Face from Dalliance unwise, Lay not thy Heart's hand on a Minion! For what thy Proper Pastime? Is it not To mount and manage Rakhsh along the Field; Not, with no stouter weapon than a Love-lock, Idly reclining on a Silver Breast. Go, fly thine Arrow at the Antelope And Lion—let not me my Lion see Slain by the Arrow eyes of a Ghazal. Go, flash thy Steel among the Ranks of Men, And smite the Warriors' Necks; ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... maid's room sat three or four young girls who sat all day long sewing, or making bobbin lace, without once stretching their limbs all day, because the mistress did not like to see idle hands. In the ante-room there sat idly the melancholy Yakob, Egorka, who was sixteen and always laughing, with two or three lackeys. Yakob did nothing but wait at table, where he idly flicked away the flies, and as idly changed the plates. ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... the best marksman of them all. The Seven Lords of Lara had taken no part in this contest as yet, for six of the brothers had been busily engaged in playing chess, and the youngest of them all, Gonzalo Gonzales, had been standing idly by. Piqued, however, by Dona Lambra's praise of her kinsman, young Gonzalo threw himself upon his horse, rode to the river's edge, and hurled his djerrid with such force that he completely shattered the target far on the other side. This unexpected ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... of the hired hands on the ranch was going to his cabin in the dusk; and swinging his hand idly to catch the tops of tall grass by the side of the path, he suddenly touched something warm and soft. Instantly he grasped a handful of the substance. At the same moment some sort of an animal bounded off in the dark. Holding fast to the ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... Penny's excited questions, the detective idly selected letters from the mass of face-up blocks on the table, and spelled out, in a long row, the names of all the guests at Nita's fatal bridge party. Suddenly, and with a cry that startled Penny, Dundee made a new name with ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... idly till a penciled marking caught his eye. Under Number 4's time was scrawled, just below Saguache, the word Tin Cup, and opposite it the figures 10:19. The express was due to leave Saguache at 9:57 in the evening. From ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... one might idly glance at a shrew-mouse in the path. He saw a brown body pitifully lean, a shock black head, a pair of piercing grey eyes. Further, he saw that the child had not on a stitch of clothing, and that he was splashed to the ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... nothing more nor less than schools of dogmas, and these dogmas are incubators of anarchy, for without education and without love of country, anarchy is as certain to follow as the day is certain to follow night, but still Protestantism stands idly by and allows Catholicism to villify her institutions, and at the same time permits Catholicism to place her followers in a position to draw salaries from the institutions which they despise and hate with the ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... could be no sort of doubt that a man of Mr. Farnaby's character would yield, if Amelius could announce that he had the promise of an appointment under Government—with the powerful influence of a near relation to accelerate his promotion. He sat, idly drawing lines on the blotting-paper; at one moment regretting that he had sent his letter; at another, comforting himself in the belief that, if his father had been living to advise him, his father would have approved of the ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... towers," "peak of Teneriffe," &c., are very useful here. Also a large supply of breath. Lake Mahopac may be packed, of course, but any one of a romantic turn of mind, who loves to float with fair women idly upon a summer sea, (in a boat, of course,) 'mid crocuses and lilies, while the air is filled with the melodious sounds from a bass-drum and that sort of thing, and is redolent with the perfume of a thousand flowers, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various
... way indeed, for the most part, with a certain directness, over to the north side; but once that ground was reached his behaviour was noticeably wanting in point. He moved seemingly at random from alley to alley; he stopped for no reason and remained idly agaze; he sat down in a chair and then changed to a bench; after which he walked about again, only again to repeat both the vagueness and the vivacity. Distinctly, he was a man either with nothing at all to do or with ever so much to think ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... of the other brothers, Otto typified strength and beauty, but in his eyes was never a dream, his brain had mastered nothing. He was playing idly with the yellow cat, but he stopped at ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... was born of professional habit, or due to a natural craving for exactness, but in either case it is a voucher for the work, which is meant for all comers—for the passer-by, for the indifferent, and even for my country's foes. My wish is that the veriest looker-on, idly turning these pages, may be confronted only with documents whose authenticity will be self-evident, if he is willing to see, and whose ignominious tale will reach his heart, if ye ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... half-past five in the evening, and then it nearly died away. We were off Brighton when the moon rose. The long stretch of lights along shore, the clear star-lit sky, the bright moon, the ship gently rocking in the almost calm sea, the sails idly flapping against the mast,—formed a picture of quiet during my first night at sea, which ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... sunlight, and yet his feet were to remain fettered in that underworld gloom he had grown to hate. He must still stay an unwilling prisoner in this garden of studied indolence, this playground of invalids and gamblers; he must still dawdle idly about these glittering, stagnating squares, fringing a crowd of meaningless foreigners, skulking half-fed and poorly housed about this opulent showplace of the world that set its appeasing theatricalities into motion only at the touch ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... caravan. The road was narrow, running between two broken banks of sand, and Mr. Bertram's servant rode forward, smacking his whip with an air of authority, and motioning to the drivers to allow free passage to their betters. His signal was unattended to. He then called to the men who lounged idly on before, 'Stand to your beasts' heads, and make room ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... He looked the letter all over again, and examined the envelope idly. The Spanish Gulch postmark bore date ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... right to be queen of a home, unless she is intelligent. In this advanced day, to rear up a family by an illiterate woman might well be considered a crime. As a race, if we would possess the intelligence desired, our children must be kept in school, and not allowed to roam idly through the streets when the schoolhouse is open. Since, in most of the Southern states, countless numbers of our people have been disfranchised, our educated women should institute a movement which will bring about compulsory education and ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... leaving the pavilion. My companions had all ridden away and I was standing on the lawn beyond my library windows, recalling my pleasure with them and gazing somewhat idly, I own, at that bare portion of the old wall where the tree fell a year ago (the place where the moon strikes with such a glitter when it rides high, as it did that night), when—believe it or not, it is all one to me—I became ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... altar's horn of gold Help me to lay my trembling hold, Though stained with Christian gore; - The blood of souls by Thee redeemed, But, while I roved or idly dreamed, Lost to be ...
— The Christian Year • Rev. John Keble
... and clinging limply to his body, might betray him to some keen-eyed marksman. Presently one of the old root-hedges, common to the countryside, barred his path—a queer, twisted line of long, gray tentacles that had once sucked sustenance from the soil, but now reached up idly into a barren element, where the wild grape was covering their grotesque nakedness with masses of kindly beauty. Below him he saw lights shining clearly like the planets, or faintly like the mere star-dust of the ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... and began to search. Barbara waited, gazing listlessly down the street. The sun was shining brilliantly, and its rays fell upon the large cable chain of a gentleman who was sauntering idly up the pavement, making its gold links and its drooping seal and key glitter, as they crossed his waistcoat. It shone also upon the enameled gold studs of his shirt front, making them glitter; and as he suddenly raised his ungloved hand to stroke his ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... wrote idly enough at times: he did not shrink from the phrase, "literary man," abominated by Mr. Birrell. But he rises in sentence after sentence into the great manner, as ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... gently-heaving sea. Over these, countless millions of sea-birds flew or sailed to and fro; some with the busy fluttering of activity, as if they had something to do and a mind to do it; others loitering idly on the wing, or dipping lightly on the wave, as if to bid their images good-morning. Burgomaster, yellow-legged, and pink-beaked gulls, large and small, wheeled in widening circles round him. Occasional flocks of ptarmigan, ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... our wagons and carriages, our farm implements, all our home conveniences, our railroad cross-ties, our trolley and telephone poles, our papers and magazines, and burn them all, the whole world would be roused by the fearfulness of the loss. But we sit idly by and see the materials of which all these things are made and must be made in the future, and with them our shade, our water-sheds, the soil of the forest-lands itself destroyed, with never a word ...
— Checking the Waste - A Study in Conservation • Mary Huston Gregory
... like the footfall of a person who has never known heels, the White Linen Nurse came forward swiftly and sliding in cautiously between the Senior Surgeon and his desk, stood there with her back braced against the desk, her fingers straying idly up and down the edges of the desk, staring up into his face all readiness, all attention, like a soldier ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... time after finishing his letter, Win sat with eyes on Castle Elizabeth, idly speculating about the coming winter. This old-world island, with its differing customs and ancient traditions seemed a place where most interesting things might happen, a land of romance and fairy gold, ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... shrewd enough to say "Yes" when asked if the prisoner were related in any way to her, and was shortly in the presence of the alleged dynamiter. She did not find him walking the floor impatiently, or lying idly on his back counting the cracks in the wall, but seated upon his narrow bed with a book resting on his cocked-up knees, for, unlike most railway employees, ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman
... that fell, she continued her caressing of his hair, while she idly watched a great gray squirrel, boisterous and hilarious, as it scampered back and forth in a distant vista of the redwoods. A crimson-crested woodpecker, energetically drilling a fallen trunk, caught and transferred ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... was not watching the patient, nor the good-looking young surgeon, who seemed to be the special property of her superior. Even in her few months of training she had learned to keep herself calm and serviceable, and not to let her mind speculate idly. She was gazing out of the window into the dull night. Some locomotives in the railroad yards just outside were puffing lazily, breathing themselves deeply in the damp, spring air. One hoarser note than the others struck familiarly ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... the public eye of all these unfortunate beings, a great improvement would appear, and certainly be very soon effected. The pernicious example would be unknown to the young; and the idly disposed would find the fee simple of their present estates devoted to the purchase of useful, industrious, and honest means ...
— Suggestions to the Jews - for improvement in reference to their charities, education, - and general government • Unknown
... watched them idly, attracted, in the beginning, by that sudden raising of the hand. But as they passed me, there came a sudden puff of wind, strong enough to flurry the water into wrinkles. It lifted the gentleman's ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... a theatre, the eyes of men, After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious: Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes Did scowl on Richard: no man cry'd, God save him: No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home, But dust was thrown upon his sacred head, Which with ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... smile and a side glance at me. "It is occasionally met with in man and is easily detected by the blue bye-product it gives off while growing." He twisted the tube slowly round. "It is quite an interesting culture," he continued idly. "Do you observe the uniform distribution of the growth and the absence of any sign of ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... hot-foot after so much sorrow, loss and doubt, that there followed the happiest event of all my life. Utterly tired out and very despondent, I was seated on an arrow-chest awaiting the order to march, idly watching Oliver and Maqueda talking with great earnestness at a little distance, and in the intervals trying to prevent poor Higgs at my side from falling asleep. While I was thus engaged, suddenly I heard a disturbance, and by the bright moonlight caught sight of a man being led into ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... idly shuffling a pack of grimy cards, sat Old Meg, a horrible old hag, wrinkled in face like a mummy, with only the stumps of teeth which had more the appearance of tusks. Her unkempt hair was matted and ugly wisps of it hung down over her bleary eyes. For clothes ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... the run of the sea, at first idly, and with no other feeling than that of wonder that any vessel in the water-logged condition of the barque could continue to live in it, for it was as high and as steep a sea as I had ever beheld, and it broke incessantly over the barque with a fury that rendered her continued ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... back in an instant to the problem that has puzzled so many minds; and as he watched the dragon-fly, a couple of swallows skimmed by him, darted over the wall, and were gone. Then, flopping idly along in its clumsy flight, came a white butterfly, and directly after a bee—one of the great, dark, golden-banded fellows, with a soft, ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... watching the procession with interest, yet somewhat idly, when she caught sight of me, whom, from where she stood, she could scarcely have seen before. Of a sudden her face grew doubtful and troubled, like to that of one who has just received some hurt. She saw the ornament ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard
... The young girl laughed idly. "But you and I, for instance, mother—we have no secrets from each other, have we? Well? Why should any two people who love each other have secrets? And if they have none, why, then, they know all that there is to be known about one another, and each trusts the other, and has a right to be trusted, ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... laugh of Captain Heath, but glanced indifferently around the room as if to leave further conversation to the two men. It was possible that she was beginning to feel that Captain Heath was as de trop now as her husband had been a moment before. Standing there, however, between them both, idly tracing a pattern on the carpet with the toe of her slipper, she looked prettier than she had ever looked as Kitty Carter. Her slight figure was more fully developed. That artificial severity covering a natural virgin ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... and force even the famous rapids at Niagara. Contemplating this incomparable scene, Miss Sommerton forgot all about her objectionable travelling companion. She sat down on a fallen log, placing her sketch-book on her lap, but it lay there idly as, unconscious of the passing time, she gazed dreamily at the great falls and listened to their vibrating deafening roar. Suddenly the consciousness of some one near startled her from her reverie. She sprang to her feet, and had ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... turned his footsteps to the sound. Short of its mark the huge arm idly fell Outstretched, and swifter than his stride he found The Ionian waves. Then rose a monstrous yell; All Ocean shudders and her waves upswell; Far off, Italia trembles with the roar, And AEtna groans through many a winding cell, And trooping to the ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... for that they have to do Suffer still your young desire; Your plumes but bicker at the tips with fire, Tarry their kindling; they will beat the higher. And thou, bright girl, not long shalt thou repeat Idly the music from thy mother caught; Not vainly has she wrought, Not vainly from the cloudward-jetting turret Of her aerial mind, for thy weak feet, Let down the silken ladder of her thought. She bare thee with a double ...
— Sister Songs • Francis Thompson
... found their way into the room. A few cows were making their leisurely mid-day journey towards the pasturage, a baker's cart came rattling round the corner. The west wind was rustling in the elms, bending the shrubs upon the lawn almost to the ground. She watched them idly, already a little shrivelled and tarnished with their endless ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and at peace, watching, wondering idly, soothed by the sense of being swung through space, only vaguely conscious of the plunging pulsations of the ship's engines, hammering away indomitably far in the hold beneath him. His thoughts busied themselves lightly with a number of important questions, ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... in, the boys finally got their booty to the edge of the water line. They could not drag it entirely clear of the water, but got it half way out, the head and upper part of the body remaining exposed, while the tail swished idly to and fro ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... He was strolling idly along the east side of Russell Square as these thoughts passed through his mind. He had completely forgotten the stroller whom he had seen leaning against the railings of the Square gardens; but he was unpleasantly reminded of that gentleman's existence when a hand was laid upon his shoulder, ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... ease—not so my apprehensions for these provinces; yet they too will be cared for. Could my blood flow for many, bring peace to my people, how freely should it flow! Alas! This may not be. Yet it ill becomes a man idly to speculate, when the power to act is no longer his. If thou canst restrain or guide the fatal power of thy father; ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... had fallen upon them. She sat watching where the light of the sun flickered among the birches; and he had the book in his hand, and was turning the pages idly. He read— ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... deeper implanted in a soul than the conviction was in Hetty's that no man was likely to love her. But she was no longer so sure that she herself could not love. Vague and wistful reveries began to interrupt her activity. She would stand sometimes, with her arms folded, leaning on a stile, and idly watching her men at work, till they wondered what had happened to their mistress. She lost a little of the color from her cheeks, and the full moulded lines of her ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... arrayed in his capacious tweed suit, a Stetson felt hat, and a pair of brogues with eloquent Broadway welts, liquidated the business that had detained him in the "Cheshire Cheese" and drifted idly ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... part of Green Valley dribbles into the post-office where friends instantly pair off and mere acquaintances stand idly by and discuss the weather. Besides its mail, Green Valley usually buys two cents' worth of yeast and a dozen of baker's buns and then goes down the street and orders its regular ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... that had been left on the table, and I began, at first half unconsciously, to try and read the meaning of the signal, for such it was I was sure. In the light of her last words, the sting of which still remained with me, I was certain that she had not played with the rose petals idly. I began to go back. She had told Montluc she would escape at the first chance. She had made the attempt this very day, but had apparently accepted defeat. Shortly after coming to the inn there had ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... I was standing idly near the foremast. On the high poop behind sat the maiden, singing beside her old nurse, who, like me, was enjoying the air for the first time to-night. Ludar lolled near me, on a coil of rope, watching ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... put away the car, Sybil joined them and stood with her back to the fire and her hands in the pockets of a short tweed skirt, staring idly at her own small feet in their brown stockings and thick brogues and rousing herself with an abrupt jerk of the head when she wanted ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... morn, With heavenly eyes and tresses streaming, Slow glided o'er a field late shorn Where walked a poet idly dreaming. He saw her, and joy lit his face, "Oh, vanish not at human speaking," He cried, "thou form of magic grace, Thou art the poem I ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... the lights as they serpentined their way to us across the nearly calm water of the bay, idly toying with the ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... idly. "Well, so far as towns go, Rome is as good as another, though, to tell the truth, I find them all quite unendurable. Would I were on leave! but I am pinned here, a watchman with a lantern. I do but lack a rattle, though, to be sure, I could not spring ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... drearily for a moment; then softly seated himself, his hands folded listlessly in his lap, his eyes wandering idly about the familiar room, and his mind journeying on and on in the weary, mechanical manner of a mind over-wrought and stunned by long-continued or ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... leaped from the hammock where I had swung idly during the scene, and, beginning with a balancez and an avant-deux, terminated my terpsichorean exhibition by a regular "double shuffle" and sailor's hornpipe. The delirious laughter, cracked sides, rollicking fun, and outrageous merriment, with ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... headquarters the two disturbers of Conrad's peace of mind, After some little search the East Tennessee woman was found in camp, somewhat the worse for the experiences of the day before, but awaiting her fate content idly smoking a cob-pipe. She was brought to me, and put in duress under charge of the division surgeon until her companion could be secured. To the doctor she related that the year before she had "refugeed" from East Tennessee, and on arriving in Louisville assumed ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... cries. As when a babe in the wood turns with a chill of doubt And perceives nor home, nor friends, for the trees have closed her about, The mountain rings and her breast is torn with the voice of despair: So the lion-like woman idly wearied the air For awhile, and pierced men's hearing in vain, and wounded their hearts. But as when the weather changes at sea, in dangerous parts, And sudden the hurricane wrack unrolls up the front of the sky, At once the ship lies ...
— Ballads • Robert Louis Stevenson
... suspected that your cursed obstinacy would meet me here, as well as elsewhere in your life. You have been a source of trouble and sorrow from your birth; but the time has come to end all this. You know that I never menace idly, and if you refuse to hear reason, I will utterly disinherit you, though you are my only child. Ponder it well. You have been raised in luxury, and taught to believe yourself one of the wealthiest heiresses in the state; contrast your ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... had not proceeded far when she observed a Robinson Crusoe-looking figure in one of those grotesque fur caps and impossible hooded blankets that the fashionable Briton in Canada so fondly affects. She was speculating idly upon whom ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... wild scurryings of men hither and thither to the posts to which they were ordered by their too reckless captain. In that confusion her manceuvre to go about went all awry, and precious moments were lost during which she stood floundering, with idly flapping sails. In his desperate haste the captain headed her straight to leeward, thinking that by running thus before the wind he stood the best chance of avoiding the trap. But there was not wind enough in that sheltered spot to make ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... gilding, agleam in the early sun, and from thence turned my gaze where (hard beside the pool upon the green) rose the grim shape of Sir Richard's new pillory. Just now it stood untenanted and I wondered idly what unhappy wight was destined next to suffer there. Thus stood I some while, staring round me on this peaceful hamlet where all (save only myself) forgot their cares awhile in blessed sleep; the wide road, the gabled cottages, oast-house and fragrant ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... gudgeons bite freely, and there is little labor in "landing" them. It is therefore the perfection of the dolce far-niente, giving leisure for talk, and frequent desire for refreshment. Idle time is idly spent; but the wit and fun of Mr. Hook that day might have delighted a hundred by-sitters, and it was a grief to me that I was the only listener. Hook then conceived—probably then made—the verses he afterwards gave the "New Monthly," ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... deserted except for the teamsters who had come for the tents and the property trunks. A flash of white against the green of the tree caught her eye; for an instant she thought it one of Orlando's poetic effusions, overlooked in the play and since forgotten. Idly curious, she pulled it down and read it—once, ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... the room where they brought Marie. It's strange to think of that, and when you're sitting with a candle in a dark room you can imagine anything. It's odd in this affair how little things affect one. There's a book here, a "Report on New Mexico." I looked at it idly the other day and now I'm for ever picking it up. It always opens at the same page and I find myself thinking, speculating about it in a ridiculous manner. I shall throw the thing away to-morrow, but I know the page by heart anyway. It's an account ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... brother Lorenzo, a wanton madcap favourite of Frederick's, gladly effects the required introduction, and when Curtius interrupts and forbids, Salvator, father to Laura and Lorenzo, promptly turns the quondam lover out of the house. Lorenzo himself is idly pursuing Clarina, wife to a certain Antonio, an abortive intrigue carried on to his own impoverishment, but the enrichment of Isabella, Clarina's woman, a wench who fleeces him unmercifully. Antonio being of a quaint and jealous humour would have his ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... how difficult it was to die, not fighting sword in hand, but slowly and idly, and helplessly, by cholera or fever, hunger or cold. Terrible it is; but the Lord Jesus Christ has felt that too. For three years He looked death in the face—a death of shame and misery such as you can never die—and faced it, and gave Himself up to it of His own free will; and though ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... in the heat, saw the lovely face going by, and marked the peculiarly earnest step, which the sitters in the streets, and consequent sharp students of faces and feet, easily enough recognized as the step of one who was bound upon some especial errand. Clerks looked idly at her from open shop doors, and from windows above; and when she entered the marine region of Water Street, the heavy stores and large houses, which here and there were covered with a dull grime, as if the squalor within had exuded through the dingy red bricks, seemed to glare at her unkindly, ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... where Art advised them quite seriously never to come alone. They had thick soup with a strange flavor, and Art talked with the waiter in Mexican dialect that made Jean glad indeed to feel Lite's elbow touching hers, and to know that although Lite's hand rested idly on his knee, it was only one second from his weapon. She had no definite suspicion of Art Osgood, but all the same she was thankful that she was not there alone with him among all these dark, sharp-eyed Mexicans with their atmosphere of ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... 645; cut blocks with a razor, pour water into a sieve. leak &c (run out) 295; run to waste; ebb; melt away, run dry, dry up. Adj. wasted &c v.; at a low ebb. wasteful &c (prodigal) 818; penny wise and pound foolish. Phr. magno conatu magnas nugas [Lat.]; le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle [Fr.]; idly busy ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Inishbawn towards the deep passage between the end of the breakwater of boulders and the point on which the lighthouse stands. The air was extraordinarily close and oppressive. Even Priscilla seemed affected by it. She lay against the side of the boat with her hands trailing idly in the water. Frank sat with the useless tiller in his hand and watched the boom swing slowly across as the boat swayed this way or that with the current. Miss Rutherford, her face glistening with heat, had gone to sleep ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... existed. We were walking along a country lane to a turning where a trench boyau began. Just at the turning the nose of a "seventy-five" poked across the path. Although the gun was speaking at its high record of twenty shots per minute, several soldiers lolled idly about within a few yards, smoking cigarettes. We stood off at an angle slightly in front, ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... being enacted, Rucker leaned against the stern rail idly picking his teeth, as his dull, hard eye glanced alternately from the vessel's course to the ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... idly threatening what his weak arm could never execute, night came on, and a loud storm of thunder and lightning with rain; and his daughters still persisting in their resolution not to admit his followers, he called for his horses, and chose rather to encounter ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... clearing was again crowded with the entire population of the village, the men having returned from their pursuits of hunting, gardening and patrolling the great slope. Terry and Bronner talked little, each taking his usual seat at window and door to idly watch ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... up at the red spider web that was dotted clear to the eighteenth floor with black dots of workmen. He looked up at the street edge of the gray pit. Black heads peered over the rail, staring idly at the workmen below. Jim felt half a thrill of pride that he was a part of the great work at which they gazed, half a hot sense of resentment that they stared so stupidly ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... rising to his feet, bowed gravely, looking into the girl's face with a light in his eyes which ever afterwards haunted her when his name was mentioned—a light, half wistful, half kindly. For several minutes after they had left, he sat looking idly at the "bill of fare" with the same look on his face. There had been no such ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... memory crowded his mind. When he had first met Niaga, almost a week before, she had been lying on the sandy bank of the stream, idly plaiting a garland of red and blue flowers. Niaga! A copper-skinned goddess, stark naked and unashamed in the bright spot light of sun filtered through the trees. Languorous, laughing lips; long, black hair loosely caught in a net of filmy material ...
— Impact • Irving E. Cox
... that?" demanded Anderson, idly fingering the badge of the New York Detective Association, which for obvious reasons,—it being a very hot ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... sullen, ill-living, brutal Brabantois, who heaped his cart full with pots and pans, and flagons and buckets, and other wares of crockery and brass and tin, and left Patrasche to draw the load as best he might while he himself lounged idly by the side in fat and sluggish ease, smoking his black pipe and stopping at every wine shop or cafe on ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... the annals of Art. Once again heartiest thanks; please also to thank Mr. Manns properly for his excellent conducting of "Mazeppa." Things of that kind are awkward both for conductors and performers. But how can one go on making music with what is idly convenient, even when this is raised into importance under the ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... hour they crowded into a cab to go home, I strolled idly to my club. I was perhaps a little lonely, and it was with a touch of envy that I thought of the pleasant family life of which I had had a glimpse. They seemed devoted to one another. They had little private jokes of their own which, unintelligible ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... young, near-sighted fellows, Chang and Ching, Over their chopsticks idly chattering, Fell to disputing which could see the best; At last, they agreed to put it to the test. Said Chang, "A marble tablet, so I hear, Is placed upon the Bo-hee temple near, With an inscription on it. Let us go And read it (since you boast your optics so), Standing together at a certain place ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... river it had watched so long. He held the blazing match poised midway to its destination while he looked; then he put it to the use he had meant it for, pulled his hat-brim down over his right eye and ear to shield them from the burn of the sun, and went picking his way idly over to the place. ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... hotel, and, refusing the stablehand's offer of care for his horse, sat down quietly on the verandah and lit his pipe. Beyond the loungers in the saloon and old Louis Roiheim no one worth any remark approached him. He sat watching the passers-by, but went on smoking idly. There were some children playing a sort of "King-of-the-Castle" game on a heap of ballast lying beside the track, and these seemed to interest him most. The sheriff stopped and spoke to him, but beyond a monosyllabic reply and a nod Seth gave him ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... lay a farm and its out-buildings, and a pool of water beneath a group of elms. It was vacant in the sunlight, and the water vividly green with a scum of weed. And about half a mile beyond stood a cluster of cottages and an old towered church. He gazed idly down, listening vaguely to the wailing of a curlew flitting anxiously to and fro above the broken solitude of its green hill. And it seemed as if a thin and dark cloud began to be quietly withdrawn from over his ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... next morning Mr. Rowles went out to look up and down the river, and to prophesy the weather. It was still and cloudless and warm. While he was standing idly beside the running water, listening to the twitter of birds and the lowing of cows, he heard yet another cry, that of a man; and presently he saw on the far-off bank the figure of a big, burly man with a ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... Its People possesses ideals in thought, morals, and action—and they are lofty. In these respects the symposium will not prove a disappointment. This instinct for the ideal, however, lies not in idly sighing for it, but is born of an abiding belief that worth is intrinsic, and that applied common sense, practical knowledge, constancy of effort, and mechanical skill will make a place for the patient striver far more secure than the artificial ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... sleep or remain quiet for a moment. He was among men what the cat is among quadrupeds, the emblem of anxiety and impatience, at the same moment. A restless cat can no more remain the same place than a silk thread wafted idly to and fro with every breath of air. A cat on the watch is as motionless as death stationed at is place of observation, and neither hunger nor thirst can draw it from its meditations. D'Artagnan, who was burning with impatience, suddenly threw aside the feeling, like a cloak which he felt ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the youth that he saw everything. Each blade of the green grass was bold and clear. He thought that he was aware of every change in the thin, transparent vapor that floated idly in sheets. The brown or gray trunks of the trees showed each roughness of their surfaces. And the men of the regiment, with their starting eyes and sweating faces, running madly, or falling, as if thrown headlong, to queer, heaped-up corpses—all were comprehended. His ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... taken out a thin notebook, and as they talked he began to make, with light, sure touches, a rough sketch plan of the room. It was a thing he did habitually on such occasions, and often quite idly, but now and then the habit had served him to ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... a crony stood smoking much of the time to-day in the door of the house, looking idly out upon the brown stretch of spent bark, and the gray, weather-beaten sheds, and the dun sky, and the shadowy, mist-veiled woods. The tanner was a tall, muscular man, clad in brown jeans, and with boots of a ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... what a big heart you've got, but that won't do, Aun' Sheba. Can you think I would live idly ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... Idly I leaned down and picked up a bit of metal from the floor and fumbled it in my hand nervously. I looked around the place with my eyes and saw nothing. I gave the whole garage a thorough scanning with my esper and got zero ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... the White House a group of children were staring idly out of the window, watching the village ducks, the only creatures really enjoying the deluge of rain on that ...
— A Big Temptation • L. T. Meade
... of her earliest memories was a small room with spotless floor-cloth, the windows whereof looked out upon the foliage of "ber" and tamarind. During the day a black-bearded man would recline upon the cushions, idly fondling her and calling her "Piyari" ( dearest); and at night a pretty young woman would place her in a brightly-painted "jhula" (swinging-cot) and sing her to sleep. Then the scene changes. He of the black beard is away, and the form of the beloved lies stark beneath a white sheet while ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... of summer skies Growing out of the embers red, Under the lids of my half-shut eyes, With my arms crossed idly under ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... lay around, idly discussing of the news, and congratulating ourselves that we were featly quit of our incubus, to us along the meadow path, his shadow jumping on the corn, came the very ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... well-stocked larder. They had seen with amusement his family of pet cats seated at table with him, and each receiving its rations in due order, like so many children. Keeler told with glee about the old man's horse and mule, idly eating their heads off on the hillside. They had come to Palmer in payment of a debt, and although he had had a fair offer for the mule he had refused to sell, on the ground that without the mule ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... the floor lay Balder dead; and round Lay thickly strewn swords, axes, darts, and spears, Which all the Gods in sport had idly thrown At Balder, whom no weapon pierced or clove; But in his breast stood fixed the fatal bough Of mistletoe, which Lok, the Accuser, gave To Hoder, and unwitting Hoder threw— 'Gainst that alone had Balder's ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... eight yards behind them down the hollow road to the Altenberg, now in the shade, now in the full light, for the moon was shining with astonishing brilliancy. A few clouds floated idly across the zenith, seeming to want to clasp her in their long arms, but she ever eluded their grasp, and her rays, keen as a blade of steel, cut me to ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... reasoning do we refuse to her the power of producing other effects equally incomprehensible to us? Shall we be more instructed, when every time we behold an effect of which we are not in a capacity to develope the cause, we may idly say, this effect is produced by the power, by the will of God? Undoubtedly it is the great Cause of causes must have produced every thing; but is it not lessening the true dignity of the Divinity, to introduce him as interfering in every operation ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... believe in my vaunted power With that confident kind of bluff, But somebody tells me The Conning Tower Is nothing but awful stuff. And I take up my impotent pen that night, And idly and sadly chew it, As I try to write something merry and bright, And I know that ...
— Something Else Again • Franklin P. Adams
... minutes Miss Wingate stood leaning over the top rail of the low gate idly watching a group of Pratts, Turners, Mosbeys, Hoovers and Pikes playing a mysterious game, which necessitated wild dashes across a line drawn down the middle of the Road in the white dust, shrill cries of capture and frequent change of base. The ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... he put the skull down. For a few minutes he stood at the controls, playing with them idly. He could hear the sound of motors outside, the muffled noise of men. Should he go back to the present, where the Speaker waited? He ...
— The Skull • Philip K. Dick
... almost a desert. If the unmistakable sounds of revelry by night meant anything, nearly the whole population was behind him in the Ottoman bar. But in the middle of the next block, two ragged men, standing idly and talking together, turned at the sounds of the young man's steps. One of them, revealed by a near-by shop-light, had straggly gray whiskers, vacant eyes, and a bad foolish mouth. Both of them stared at Varney ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... of Lord Oxford that he was not a very capable minister, and had a good deal of negligence into the bargain. "He used to send trifling verses from court to the Scriblerus Club every day, and would come and talk idly with them almost every night, even when his all was at stake." Pope adds that Oxford "talked of business in so confused a manner that you did not know what he was about, and everything he went to tell you was in the epic way, for he always ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... may be worked until within a fortnight of the time at which parturition is expected to occur. After foaling, the mare should be turned into a grass field (unless the weather is severe) and kept there idly for three or ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... cannot very well be denied by the optimistic Americans who say: "A class struggle is monstrous. Sir, there is no class struggle." The class struggle is here, and the optimistic American had better gird himself for the fray and put a stop to it, rather than sit idly declaiming that what ought not to be is not, and never ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... further the cause of peace and freedom in the world. Much is at stake here, and the Nation and the world are watching to see if we go forward together in the national interest or if we let partisanship weaken us. And let there be no mistake about American policy: We will not sit idly by if our interests or our friends in the Middle East are threatened, nor will we yield ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... Drifting, idly drifting, where thought's varied streams Meet at last and mingle in the realm of dreams, Gladly would I join them in oblivion's deep! Sleep, so dear to me, Sleep, come near ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... always exhilarating motion; yet, if the scenery encountered be charming, you are apparently sitting still, while, river-like, it flows toward and past you, ever giving place to fresh visions of beauty. Above all, the mind is free, as when one lies idly on the grass gazing up into the sky. And, speaking of myself, there is even more than this immunity from any tax on the understanding such as we require in walking; the rhythmic motion, the sensation as of night, acting on the brain like a ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... mounted the box beside the driver, and they drove away. It was the first time she had driven out in solitary splendor, and Theodora felt very dignified and luxurious as she leaned back on the cushions and idly watched the passing show which had grown so familiar to her during the past two weeks. When they came to the lower end of the Avenue, she sat up in quick attention, for she was passing window after window full of books spread out in enticing ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... Mac got that far I blurted it out for what it was worth, prefacing it with the happenings of the trip from Walsh to Pend d' Oreille. He listened without manifesting the interest I looked for, tapping idly on the saddle-horn, and staring straight ahead with an ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... his eyes from the white dazzle of the road; "how hot it is, sure enough!" Scarcely had he spoken, however, when the sun, which had been coquetting for the last half-hour with the majestic white cloud which Cornelia had idly watched from the balcony, suddenly plunged his burning face right into its cool, soft bosom, and immediately a clear, gray shadow gently took ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... watching eye; Trust him to the hand that made him. Mortal love weeps idly by; God alone has power to aid him. Lay him low, lay him low, In the clover or the snow! What cares he? He cannot ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... he saw that for which he searched: a man sitting apart with a blanket over his head. No one spoke to the man, and for his part he never moved. He sat erect with his legs crossed in front of him and his hands resting idly on his knees, a strange and rather grim figure; so motionless, so utterly lifeless he seemed. The blanket reached almost to the ground behind and hung down to his lap in front, and Shere Ali noticed that a leathern begging-bowl ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... storm. Soon after the Snowflake had entered the islands the storm began to abate, as if it felt that there was no chance of overwhelming the little yacht now. That night, and the greater part of the following day, a dead calm prevailed, and the schooner lay among the islands with her sails flapping idly from the yards. ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... roundelays) hath hit on the right simple eclogue after this true ancient guise of Theocritus, before this mine attempt. Other Poet travelling in this plain highway of Pastoral I know none." Presently comes an attack but little disguised on Philips: "Thou will not find my shepherdesses idly piping on oaten reeds, but milking the kine, tying up the sheaves, or if the hogs are astray driving them to their styes. My shepherd gathereth none other nosegays but what are the growth of our own fields, he ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... modify the light for a season, and then disappear to make room for others like ourselves? May not the events of a morning which slides away, and leaves no traces behind it, be correctly likened therefore to the entire course of human life? The one, like the other, may be well or ill spent—idly dissipated or beneficially employed;—and the chequered incidents will be found to be similar to those which mark the ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... my children, an' I'll give her a fittin' send-off," Nancy explained to Sophia Dodona, and her words were not idly spoken. ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer
... slave, by Christian yoke oppressed; Sleepest thou here, forgetful of this thing, That here thy friends lie slain, not laid in chest, Whose bones bear witness of thy shame and scorn! And wilt thou idly here attend the morn?" ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... advance into Spain, as John Stanhope points out, "undoubtedly betrays, both on his part and on that of the Government, a most lamentable ignorance of the real state of that country. Because they heard of Spanish armies in the field, they idly supposed that these were armies in the accepted sense of the word and not a mere collection of peasants, undisciplined and chiefly unarmed, officered by men as ignorant of their profession as themselves ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... thorn, that rose against the sides, and intertwisted their prickly branches atop. The sloe-thorn, and the furze, and the bramble choked up the rails. The fox rustled in the brake; and where his track had opened up a way through the fern, I could see the red and corroded bars stretching idly across. There was a viaduct beside me: the flawed and shattered masonry had exchanged its raw hues for a crust of lichens; one of the taller piers, undermined by the stream, had drawn two of the arches along with it, and lay adown the water-course a shapeless mass of ruin, o'ermasted by flags ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... frame trembled, and she sprang up. "My God! I dream, while he calls me! I am idly musing, and Trenck has need of me. Speak, sir, speak! What do you know of him? Have you seen him? Did he send you ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... feet. Vainly did he distort himself, give himself out to the public as a true "Childe Harold," malign himself; his friends knew that his heart was overflowing with tenderness, and they could not thus be duped. If he had wished to cull some flowers idly, for the sake of scattering their leaves to the breeze, as youth so often does, this sort of amusement would have been difficult for him, for the fine ladies of his choice, if once they succeeded in inspiring him with some kind of tender ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... corner, hurry or no hurry. Until Don Diego shall send home my wings, my flight is with the South-Eastern Company. I can fly with the South-Eastern, more lazily, at all events, than in the upper air. I have but to sit here thinking as idly as I please, and be whisked away. I am not accountable to anybody for the idleness of my thoughts in such an idle summer flight; my flight is provided for by the South-Eastern and is no business ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... inducement, for when he had these upon his feet, people would see, he hoped, that he had cast off the shoes of childhood. He quickly took off his own slippers, and put on the others. A walking-stick, also, with a fine lion's head cut upon the handle, seemed to be standing too idly in the corner; so he seized it, and hurried from the apartment. He hastened to his own room, put on his cloak, arranged his paternal turban, placed the dagger in his girdle, and ran as fast as his feet would carry him, out of the house, and out of the city. Fear of his old ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff
... boat and brought it's keen edge down upon the mooring line. The flat-boat shuddered and moved, slowly at first, then faster as it worked into the current. The Texan gazed dumbfounded at the rapidly widening strip of water that separated them from the shore. But he found scant time to stare idly at the water. All about them it's surface was clogged with floating debris. The river had risen to within a foot of the slender cable that held the boat on its course, and the unwieldy craft was trembling and jerking as uprooted ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... aforetime wrapt in darkness. Such indeed were these boons; and the gains to mankind that were hidden under ground, brass, iron, silver, and gold—who could assert that he had discovered before me? No one, I well know, who does not mean to idly babble. And in one brief sentence learn the whole at once—All arts among the human race are ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus
... friezes. The actual leaf, which is used in the best Byzantine mouldings at Venice, occurs in parts of these Pavian designs. But the Lombard animals are all alive, and fiercely alive too, all impatience and spring: the Byzantine birds peck idly at the fruit, and the animals hardly touch it with their noses. The cinque cento birds in Venice hold it up daintily, like train-bearers; the birds in the earlier Gothic peck at it hungrily and naturally; but the Lombard beasts gripe at it like tigers, and tear it off with writhing lips and ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... face turned hot, and he lowered the glass guiltily. But of course she could not see him—or if she could, he looked no more than a speck on the rock. He lifted the telescope again, and her face jumped into close view. She was still looking up his way, the little mirror turning idly in her hand. Her face was thoughtful; almost wistful, he dared to think. Perhaps she was lonesome, too. She had told him that she had spells of being ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... best of bookes. Whatsoeuer else shee doth forget Noe busines shall her prayers[2] let. Those that bee good, shee prizes most, Noe time with them shee counteth lost. 30 Her chast delights, her mind, aduance Above Lot-games or mixed dance. Shee cares not for an enterlude, Or idly will one day conclude. The looser toungs that filth disclose 35 Are graueolencie to her nose. But when a vertuous man shall court Her virgin thoughts in nuptiall sort: Her faire depor[t]ment, neyther coy Nor yet too forward, fits his ioy, 40 And giues his kisses leaue to seale On her fayre hand his ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 73, March 22, 1851 • Various
... scatter, burn, destroy—but keep them not; I hate, I dread those living witnesses Of varying self, of good or ill forgot, Of altered hopes, and withered kindnesses. Oh! call not up those shadows of the dead, Those visions of the past, that idly blot The present with regret for blessings fled: This hand that wrote, this ever-teeming head, This flickering heart is full of chance and change; I would not have you watch my weaknesses, Nor how my foolish likings roam and range, Nor how the mushroom ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper |
