"Idly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... heart, stayed at home with an uncle, and chafed grievously as he saw company after company of militia pass through his native town on the way to the South. Where was his father? This he asked himself twenty times a day. And must he, the son, stand idly by whilst thousands of the flower of the land were rushing forward to fight on one side or the other in the great conflict? "I must enlist!" George had cried, more than once. "Pshaw!" replied his uncle; "you are too young—a mere child." ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... concerned," said Tom, idly defacing the rocks in his neighbourhood by tearing the lichen from them. And Mrs. Marx watched him, ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... next they cut off the head of the man that even they, in their benighted ignorance, had deemed meritorious of no more than twenty years' imprisonment. And there was nothing he could do. He could only sit idly and take what these lords of life measured out to him. Once, he got in a panic, and the sweat upon his body turned cold; but he fought his way out of it. He endeavoured to resign himself to his fate by ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... with blue sky above and blue sea beneath, poor Mr. Carson allowed himself a temporary relaxation. He smoked his pipe and read his paper, and for a little while at least the hard lines round his mouth softened, and his anxious eyes grew easy. He finished his Italian journal, lay idly watching the scenery, chatted, dozed, and finally stretched out his hand for one of Lorna's books. It happened to be an Anthology of Poetry which Irene had lent her, and which contained one of the ballads that Mrs. Cameron had recited ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... implore you to search for it. Major, it may have been dropped in the bower. Go look for it, sir. Captain Arbald and Lieutenant Marvin, why do you stand idly there? Do you refuse to search for my jewel? I've lost a bracelet, I tell you, sirs. Is this the way you attend upon the wishes ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Love in '76 - An Incident of the Revolution • Oliver Bell Bunce
... made itself felt, those watching saw one of the arms slowly loosen its grip. Another floated upward, as a strand of rope idly drifts in the current. Tom saw this, and called ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... sanguine moments; but even on the slimmest chance of accomplishing my own deliverance I had a very natural human objection to leaving behind me the wealth that I had found through such peril—only to lie there for a while longer idly, and then to be lost forever when the galleon sank to the ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... should do. I turned my back on the piteous figure of Jimmie Time. I moved idly off, as if the spectacle of his ignominy had never even ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... 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 ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... voice to nightingales was given; Your idly graceful movement to the swans; Your grace to fluttering vines, dear wife in heaven; Your trustful, wide-eyed glances ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... read it idly. Read it with discrimination. And do not read it without discussing it with your little family. The war in Manchuria, the character of a public man, the policy of an administration, the state of the Nation's business—all ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... above the rest of his body, resting in the crotch of a great oak-tree, and he lay with his vest open and his hat off, idly sucking the pith from a young sapsago-tree that he had just broken off. Near him, on the top of a tall bulrush, sat the little fairy Ting-a-ling. They had been talking together for some time, and Tur-il-i-ra said, "Ting-a-ling, you must come and see me. You ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... wander over their golden harps, or they stroke idly their violins. Clearer and clearer the note of each instrument ascends like larks arising from the dew, till suddenly they all blend together and a new melody is born. Thus, every morning, the musicians of King Nehemoth make a new marvel in the ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... Cornish gentleman was difficult to discern in him as he sat there still wearing the caftan of cloth of silver over his white tunic and a turban of the same material swathed about his steel headpiece that ended in a spike. Idly he swung his brown sinewy legs, naked from knee to ankle, with the inscrutable calm of the fatalist upon his swarthy hawk face with its light agate eyes and black forked beard; and those callous seamen who had assembled there to jeer and mock him ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... Sir," thundered Jonathan; "and, unless you find him, you shan't hold your place a week. I don't threaten idly, as you know. And you, Austin; and you Langley, I say the ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the least what she was doing, she scrutinized the closely tied packet. She wondered idly why he treasured so many missives. Each and every one, oddly enough, was written on differently sized and variously colored note-paper. And it could be seen at a glance that they were from as many different people. The outside letter was the most clearly visible. Miss Courtenay wrote a ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... after this had been done; and Diana was sitting again in the elm shadow at the door of the lean-to. Not idly this time; for a pan of peas was in her lap, and her fingers were busy with shelling them. Still her eyes were very much more busy with the lovely light and shade on meadow and hill; her glances went up and down, from her pan to the sunny landscape. Mrs. Starling, bustling ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... when she had turned, the lugger had made only about eight miles along the coast to the east, and an equal distance seaward, for the tide had set against her. The morning was bright and clear, the sea was perfectly smooth. As yet, the sails hung idly down, but there were dark lines on the water that showed ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... race! on whose condition much care has been vainly bestowed, much generous sympathy idly wasted! I say wasted, since the aborigines of this continent are either above or below sympathy. I confess my feeling for them has been much changed by a near view of their condition and a better knowledge ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... not follow her. Alone, in the kitchen he drummed idly on the window-pane, watching the first few drops of a shower that had been darkening the sky ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... fallen, it was almost considered a violation of the proprieties. We do not wish to be understood as saying more than we mean, however, for we have no manner of doubt that a large portion of the dissentients even, are so idly, and without reflection; or for the very natural reasons already given by our heroine; but we do wish to be understood as meaning that such is the outward appearance which American society presents to every stranger, ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... forward and idly watched the limpid little stream flowing beneath his feet. Stretching into the swale, it came creeping between an impenetrable wall of magnificent wild flowers, vines, and ferns. Milkweed, goldenrod, ironwort, fringed gentians, cardinal-flowers, ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... it happened that on a certain day two vessels passed in the Strait of Gibraltar. The smaller, a trim white yacht, was speeding toward the east, and on her deck sat a young woman who gazed with sad eyes upon a diamond-studded locket which she idly fingered. Her thoughts were far away, in the dim, leafy fastness of a tropical jungle—and her heart ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... see them, for when he looked at me, although he said no word, it was as if he knew me apart from everyone else in the world, even as I know every one of my master's sheep. I felt that he knew too how I had been looking at that cot in the vale and dreaming idly, forgetful of my lambs. Therefore, though he said no word of rebuke to me, I felt my cheeks grow hot, and I hung my head and spake not. Only, when we reached the top of the hill, he turned and answered me at last. 'Thou judgest right, friend,' he said, 'I was indeed a shepherd in my young years. ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... officer or professor had before ever threatened to report him to Mr. Lowington. Mr. Hamblin was as ignorant as a baby upon nautical matters, and while the Josephine rolled easily on the waves, and the sails flapped idly against the masts, he ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... longer keep in; blab, of a secret; blurt out, of passionate feeling. To chat is to talk in an easy, pleasant way, not without sense, but without special purpose. Chatting is the practise of adults, prattling that of children. To prate is to talk idly, presumptuously, or foolishly, but not necessarily incoherently. To jabber is to utter a rapid succession of unintelligible sounds, generally more noisy than chattering. To gossip is to talk ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... a back of oak, His earth-brown cheeks are full of hollow pits; His gnarled hands wander idly as he sits Bending above the hearthstone's feeble smoke. Threescore and ten slow years he tilled the land; He wrung his bread from out the stubborn soil; He saw his masters flourish through his toil; He held their substance in his ...
— Silhouettes • Arthur Symons
... bitter anger, Walter returned to the great schoolroom, where he was received with sympathy and kindness by the others in his class. It was the dark part of the evening before tea-time, and the boys, sitting idly round the fire, were in an apt mood for folly and mischief. They began a vehement discussion about Paton's demerits, and called him every hard name they could invent. Walter took little part in this, ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... right, say the learned doctors of the law; therefore, my billy, entertain as well as possibly thou canst that hypogastrian lower sort of troglodytic people, that their chief pleasure may be placed in the case of sempiternal labouring. Give order that henceforth they live not, like idle gentlemen, idly upon their rents and revenues, but that they may work for their livelihood by breaking ground within the Paphian trenches. Nay truly, answered Panurge, Friar John, my left ballock, I will believe thee, for thou dealest plain with ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... written in pencil by A.I. Konovalov, Minister of Commerce and Industry in he Provisional Government, and then scratched out as the hopelessness of the situation became more and more evident. The geometrical figure beneath was probably idly drawn while the Ministers were waiting ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... 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 she wore an old-fashioned faded gingham ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... one day, after the boy had been lying in this condition for a long time, getting neither better nor worse, always confined to bed, but with an extraordinary appetite—one day, while sadly revolving these things, and standing idly at his forge, with no heart to work, the smith was agreeably surprised to see an old man, well known for his sagacity and knowledge of out-of-the-way things, walk into his workshop. Forthwith he told him the occurrence which had ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... wans to their own complexion be batin' us black and blue. Up to now 'twas: 'Sam, ye black rascal, tow in thim eggs or I'll throw ye in th' fire. 'Yassir,' says Sam. 'Comin',' he says. 'Twas: 'Wow Chow, while ye'er idly stewin' me cuffs I'll set fire to me unpaid bills.' I wud feel repaid be a kick,' says Wow Chow. 'Twas: 'Maharajah Sewar, swing th' fan swifter or I'll have to roll over f'r me dog whip.' 'Higgins Sahib,' says Maharajah Sewar, 'Higgins ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... had been filling up. Around each of the big windows overlooking the Avenue were gathered groups of men, young and old, smoking, chatting, and gazing idly out. Captain ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... locked the door in order to breathe freely. There were traces of tears upon her face when she returned into the drawing-room half-an-hour afterwards, walking straight and demurely up to her former place, where Cynthia still sate and gazed idly out of the window, pouting and displeased; Mrs. Gibson, meanwhile, counting her stitches aloud with great ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... is any way connected with home duties and cares. I tell you there is the closest connection. If any one thing caps the sum of the argument for the rights of woman, it is the fact of those domestic duties which some idly array against it. What has a man at stake in society? What has he to risk by his ballot? Ask him at the ballot-box, and you will hear his statement. You will hear it in a thousand ways, and in a thousand voices. His own personal ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... acquired a warmer shade of colour; but as the question had been idly asked by the solicitor while regarding the surrounding flocks and fields, he answered after a moment ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... by night—all these are active sources of a passive pleasure. And to lie at length upon the tawny sand, watching, through half-closed eyes, the heaving waves, that mount against a dark blue sky wherein great silvery masses of cloud float idly on, whiter than the sunlit sails that fade and grow and fade along the horizon, while some fair damsel sits close by, reading ancient ballads of a simple metre, or older legends of love and romance—tell me, my eater of the fashionable lotos, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... days the intermittent clouds of vapour sent up from the crater assume the most fantastic shapes—trees, ships, men, birds, animals—ever changing like the forms of Proteus. It would seem as if the Spirit of the Mountain were idly amusing himself, like a child blowing bubbles, or a vendor at a fair-stall carving out little figures of gingerbread to tickle the fancy of country boys and girls. The clouds so formed sometimes cause amusement by their uncanny ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... room, and realising how like a prison-cell it was compared with what he had expected, he felt oppressed as with the want of air. He sought vainly about the window for latch or hinge to open it, and as he did so glanced along the castle wall painted yellow by the declining sun. He noticed idly that some one was putting out upon the sill of a window on a lower stage what might have been a green kerchief had not the richness of its fabric and design suggested more a pennon or banneret. It was carefully placed by a woman's hands—the woman ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... is no matter. What this girl is, though you lived a thousand years, you would never have the grace to imagine. She gave you her young love, in childish blindness, not knowing what she did, and you killed it idly, wantonly, as a beast tortures its frail victim, for sport. You find her again, still weak and bleeding from her wounds, and you fling her marriage, in words whose every syllable is an insult. Marriage! When every fibre of her nature must cry out against you, if she is woman. Take ...
— The Faith Healer - A Play in Three Acts • William Vaughn Moody
... from behind the flowing false beard, as he read over the faded prescriptions he had idly picked up. It was a powerful agent of evil—a tool of ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... idly it is our custom to say, I shall never forget! that the words scarcely cause a ripple of comment in the mind; whereas, in fact, they are among the most audacious which we ever take upon our lips. How know we what law of selection our memories will ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... hand to the little golden stopper, perhaps hermetically sealed, he thought idly, at about the time of the accidental discovery of glass itself by the Phoenicians. Amory was not imaginative, but as he thought of the possible age of the wine, there lay upon him that fascination communicable ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... in arrest to my 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 men's apparel ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 2 • P. H. Sheridan
... befall the land of cotton, a thousand of our merchant ships would rot idly in dock; ten thousand mills must stop their busy looms, and two million mouths would starve for lack of food to ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... and marveled at a young person who spent her languid existence idly lounging in a rocking-chair, eating candy, and reading novels, whilst her mother bustled about, provoking by her activity an occasional remonstrance from her indolent daughter. "Do, ma, keep still," she would say, with ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... vagrants, and of all who had joined the camp in the blind hope of plunder and martyrdom. The common impulse drove them onwards to the wall; the most audacious to climb were instantly precipitated; and not a dart, not a bullet, of the Christians, was idly wasted on the accumulated throng. But their strength and ammunition were exhausted in this laborious defence: the ditch was filled with the bodies of the slain; they supported the footsteps of their companions; and of this devoted vanguard ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... Glory was waving idly in the gentle summer breeze and the boys, doffing their hats, gave three cheers and a tiger for it, in which Professor Zepplin joined ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... the habit, of the Widow Lewis to sit idly when she liked, but her attitude now was not that of idleness. Intentness, reposeful acceptance of life, rather, showed in her motionless, long-sustained position. She was patient, as women are; but her strong pose, its freedom from material support, her restrained ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... and, half an hour later, went down to the doorway, where he stood as if idly watching the flow of traffic. A quarter of an hour later, he saw Roger approaching. He looked the character that he had assumed, to the life. He had dirtied his hands and face, and smudged his smock with stains of mud. He strolled along, with a free step and head erect. ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... Captain Wragge stopped and looked idly over the parapet at the barges in the river. It was plainly evident that he had no particular destination to reach and nothing whatever to do. While he was still loitering, the clock of York Minster chimed the half-hour past five. Cabs rattled by him over the bridge on their way to meet ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... as Captain Strong and Tom were idly discussing the forthcoming screening operations on Venusport, they were surprised to see Roger climb down the ladder from the ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... with mortal eyes Hell itself—where those who die In their sins forever lie, In the fire that never dies. He shall see, in blest fruition, Where the happy spirits dwell. But of this be sure as well— He who without true contrition Enters there to idly try What the cave may be, doth go To his death—he'll suffer woe While the Lord doth reign on high. Who this day shall set you free From ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... him at his word and began to ransack the house, while Mordecai and Leah, paralyzed with fear, great beads of perspiration starting from their foreheads, sat idly by and watched the work of destruction. Not an article of furniture was left entire in the wild search for treasure, which, according to popular belief, every Jew was supposed to possess. Finding nothing, they bestowed a few resounding curses upon the inmates of the house, ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... the offices of the Moniteur and to the printing works of L'Ami du Peuple. He had seen the citizen Dufour at the Club and, presumably, had spent the rest of his time wandering idly about the streets of the quartier, for he did not return to the rue des ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... lovely spring evening, she stood leaning over the low wall at the garden's end, idly watching the river flow by beneath, she turned round, and saw fixed on her, with a curiosity not unmingled with interest, the dark eyes of "Maddalena." Somehow or other, the two girls ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... sudden death was as though a cloud- burst had broken over the village, dealing utter and hopeless destruction. To the little community of simple workaday folk living round Briar Farm it was a greater catastrophe than the death of any king. Nothing else was talked of. Nothing was done. Men stood idly about, looking at each other in a kind of stupefied consternation,—women chattered and whispered at their cottage doors, shaking their heads with all that melancholy profundity of wisdom which is not wise till after the event,—the children were less noisy in their play, checked by the grave ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... gives him abundant food, and he lives idly, immersed in innumerable superstitions that Ala (the sorcerer) enjoins him to always ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... drifting on your thought, you count for the hundredth time the figures upon the curtains of your bed; you trace out the flower-wreaths upon the paper-hangings of your room; your eyes rest idly on the cat playing with the fringe of the curtain; you see your mother sitting with her needle-work beside the fire; you watch the sunbeams, as they drift along the carpet, from morning until noon; and from noon till night you ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... of evil prevail? No, Mr. Haynerd, I could not, if I would. Mr. Ames is being used by evil; and it is making him a channel to ruin Mr. Wales. Shall I stand idly ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... plunge it into Robinson's back. As the front assailants neared them, true to his promise, Robinson fired across George, and the outside man received a bullet in his shoulder-blade, and turning round like a top fell upon his knees. Unluckily George wasted a blow at this man which sung idly over him, he dropping his head and losing his knife and his powers at the very moment. By this means Robinson, the moment he had fired his pistol, had no less than three assailants; one of these George struck behind the neck so furiously ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... idly expended in despatching a flag of truce to the governor of Cronenburg Castle, to ask whether he had received orders to fire at the British fleet; as the admiral must consider the first gun to be a declaration of war on the part ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... his promotion came also the fatal order to a distant shore. Why did they send such an order to him, who had at the department an office in which he could render valuable services, while so many of his comrades, waiting idly in port, watched anxiously, and with almost feverish impatience, for a chance to go into ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... impression, however, as to the way he should go, which was part instinct and partly remembrance of what the boy on the moving wagon had told him. The people he had left were too inert to think of giving him any instructions. But down the road he passed the big boys of the house sitting idly by the roadside. They had heard with satisfaction their father's opinion as to Steve's going in search of "larnin'." As Steve came in sight one of them nudged the other and said, "Less ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... now with all thoughts but cricket! The ball we have been tossing about idly is taken into custody by the umpire; Steel is behind the wickets, looking round to see if we fielders are all in our places, and motioning one or two of us to stand deeper or closer in, as he deems advisable. The Westfield batsman who is to receive the first over is getting "middle"; ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... himself to all hearts, while you have borne a trifling reverse of fortune with sullen discontent and conspicuous incapacity. He has perfected himself in a lofty and distinguished profession during years spent by you, Sir, in idly cumbering the earth of Eton and Oxford. Shall I allow him to suffer by a purely accidental coincidence? Never! I owe him reparation, and it shall be paid to the uttermost penny. From this day, I adopt him as my eldest son, and the heir to my earldom, and all other real and personal effects. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 February 15, 1890 • Various
... Spaniards had been forced, and was growing. "I vowed to your Royal Highness that I would have Montezuma prisoner, or dead, or subject to your Majesty," wrote Cortes to Carlos V. of Spain, from Vera Cruz; and "Think you we were such Spaniards as to lie there idly?" wrote Bernal Diaz, the soldier-penman, afterwards. Yet there was some disaffection in the camp, a portion of the men, wearied of inaction and fearful of dangers, desiring to return to Cuba. Here Cortes's ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... the fact that the canoes were very large and heavy and took time to get well in motion, we must have been overtaken, for the wind seemed to be playing with our sail, one moment filling it out, the next letting it flap idly as the boat rose and fell ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... sigh—yet feel no pain; To weep-yet scarce know why; To sport an hour with beauty's chain, Then throw it idly by; To kneel at many a shrine, Yet lay the heart on none; To think all other charms divine But those we just have won:— This is love-careless love— Such as kindleth hearts that rove. To keep one sacred flame Through life, unchill'd, unmov'd; ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... off the habit of a lifetime, and rose, still void of ideas, but with preternatural composure, to make a speech. The guests rattled on the table, and cried, "Hear!" most vociferously, as if now, at length, in this foolish and idly garrulous world, had come the long-expected moment when one golden word was to be spoken; and in that imminent crisis, I caught a glimpse of a little bit of an effusion of international sentiment, which it might, and must, and should ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... returned to the dining-room, and while one pilgrim strayed idly through the names in the visitor's book, the other sketched Petrarch's cat, before mentioned, and Petrarch's inkstand of bronze—a graceful little thing, having a cover surmounted by a roguish cupid, while the lower part is supported ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... remote from the shouting thousands massed so near them. They had become the sole arbiters of their fate, and their impressive isolation struck Henry Seeley anew as the most dramatic feature of this magnificent picture. He must sit idly by and watch his only son battle through the most momentous hour of his young life, as if he were ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... industry, it is also true that he was exceptionally lucky. Yet his good fortune has been far exceeded by that of numerous adventurous spirits in Colorado, within the last twelve months. Some measure of prosperity generally awaits the patient and energetic worker, and seldom comes to those who idly wait for ...
— The Young Miner - or Tom Nelson in California • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... very infantine thoughts and actions when they wait; the battle-field of life is temporarily fenced off by a hard and fast line—the interview. Cytherea fixed her eyes idly upon the streak, and began picturing a wonderful paradise on the other side as the source of such a beam—reminding her of the well-known good deed ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... am lonely. When I do not think of what is to come, I think of what has been and is no more—my Eagle, beating with tireless wings the void, soaring toward what was ever his sun, the flaming ideal of human freedom. I cannot sit idly by and wait the great event that is his making, though he is not here to see. He devoted all the years of his manhood to it, and for it he gave his life. It is ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... empty of this far shape, his glance would range at once to a dead pine standing sole on a naked and splintered shoulder of the mountain which he knew as "Old Baldy." There he was almost sure to see the great bird sitting, motionless and majestic, staring at the sun. Floating idly and smoking, resting after his long battle with the rapids, he would watch, till the immensity and the solitude would creep in upon his spirit and oppress him. Then, at last, a shrill yelp, far off and faint, but sinister, would come from the pine-top; and the eagle, launching himself on ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... room had precisely three articles of furniture to its name—two armchairs and a coffee table. After Judith left him, Philip set his brief case on the floor and sat down in one of the chairs. He wondered idly how she expected to make the trip to Pfleugersville. He had seen no car in the driveway, and there was no garage on the property in which one could be concealed. Moreover, it was highly unlikely that buses serviced the village any more. Valleyview had been bypassed quite some time ago by one of ...
— The Servant Problem • Robert F. Young
... pulled ashore in due time, if all went well for him. She knew that Winifred Waverly had never been in such desperate straits. And finally she understood, and the knowledge was infinitely sweet to her in her moment of need, why the man yonder had been sitting his horse so idly in the rain, and just ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... I idly flit away, All my sunny summer day, Dancing round from flow'r to flow'r; What shall grace my winter bow'r? No, I'll not wander with the bee, So tempt ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... into great golden transparencies the lowered shades in the living room where Geraldine stood, pensive, distraite, idly twirling her crop by the loop. Presently it flew off her gloved forefinger and fell clattering across the carpetless floor. She bathed and dressed leisurely; later, when luncheon was brought to her, she dropped into a low, wide ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... small voice would sing idly or prattle with an imaginary being that had a habit of peeking over the edge of the basket or would shout a greeting to some bird or butterfly and ask finally: 'Tired, ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... his journey, found him straying about the Cathedral Close. A mere half-purpose, a vague wavering intention, which might at any moment be scattered by common sense, drew his steps to the door of the Cathedral, where people were entering for morning service; he moved idly within sight of the carriages which drew up. Several had discharged their freightage of tailoring and millinery, when two vehicles, which seemed companions, stopped at the edge of the pavement, and from the second alighted the young ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... should have liked to say something natural and kind, but words stuck against my will, and I stood awkward and ill at ease, noticing idly that the silent one wore a gray flannel shirt like mine. Steve looked me over, and saw in my pocket the newspaper which I had brought from the railroad and on which I had pencilled a few expenses. He asked me, ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... very tired. His head was heavy, his heart troubled. He lay down among the ferns, looking idly at the foxglove spires above him and turning over in his mind the things he had heard and seen at Domremy. Presently he fell ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... consciousness of a mutual obligation, and mutual responsibility. All that we get, we get on trust, as trustee for them. I remember that Thring says somewhere, that "no beggar who creeps through the street living on alms and wasting them is baser than those who idly squander at school and afterwards the gifts ...
— Three Addresses to Girls at School • James Maurice Wilson
... uncommon occurrences in 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
... schools of Rome, which are 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 ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... comes into Jasper's mind to say, as he idly examines the keys, 'I have been going to ask you, many a day, and have always forgotten. You know they sometimes call you Stony ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... stole hatless through the lilac bushes; she looked tired after her night journey, and sat idly on a chair in the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of the treeless hills—a riotous tangle of grasses and wild flowers—looking out to sea across Sky Pond. He had a rod; and as he stood he idly switched the gaily coloured ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... bright bars along the vault of the arch, playing on them. The stream arranges the sand in the shallow in bars, minute fixed undulations; the stream arranges the sunshine in successive flashes, undulating as if the sun, drowsy in the heat, were idly closing and unclosing his eyelids ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... saw Adrian, and overtook him. The boy was sauntering idly along, counting aloud. The burgomaster's wife called to him, and asked why he was not at school and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Jeanie Morrison, The thochts o' bygane years Still fling their shadows owre my path, And blind my een wi' tears; They blind my een wi' saut, saut tears; And sair and sick I pine, As memory idly summons up The blithe blinks ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... when we shall no longer talk about God idly, nay, when we shall talk about him as little as possible. We shall cease to set him forth dogmatically, to dispute about his nature. We shall put compulsion on no one to pray to him, we shall leave the whole business of worship within the sanctuary ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... Bishop Jewel, "here to cast them on land: the queen of her gracious pity hath granted them harbor. Is it become so heinous a thing to show mercy?" "They are our brethren," continued their noble-minded advocate, "they live not idly. If they have houses of us, they pay rent for them. They hold not our grounds but by making due recompense. They beg not in our streets, nor crave anything at our hands, but to breathe our air, and ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... you'd ever been in France," said Lindsay, idly picking a dandelion clock and blowing it to find ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... and the result of the quarrel which Burnes picked with him was that he shunned coming in and paying homage to Shah Soojah, for which default he was to suffer cruel and unjustifiable ruin. The sepoys were put on half, the camp followers on quarter rations, and the force for eleven days had been idly consuming the waning supplies, when at length, on April 6th, Keane came into camp, having already formally assumed the command of the whole army, and made certain alterations in its organisation and ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... the two great fleets were still lying but a mile and a half apart, calmly gazing at each other, and rising and falling at their anchors as idly as if some vast summer regatta were the only purpose of that great assemblage of shipping. Nothing as yet was heard of Farnese. Thus far, at least, the Hollanders had held him at bay, and there was still ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... trotted idly off to the forest, back of the Place, for a desultory ramble in quest of rabbits or squirrels. This they had done because they were bored. For, the Mistress and the Master had driven over for the morning ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... deck chair on the N. D. L. liner Bayern, bound for Singapore, I was smoking a pipe and idly speculating. I had cultivated the acquaintance of my table neighbor, a Japanese, Baron Huraki, and was at the moment, expecting him to come up the companionway and take his place in his deck chair beside me. Instead came two officers of the ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... the stage; where, with much mummery and grimace, he seats himself down, with a canvas money-bag in his hand, to divide the spoil. In this situation he is attacked by the Prince and Poins, whose tin swords hang idly in the air and delay to strike till the Player Falstaff, who seems more troubled with flatulence than fear, is able to rise: which is not till after some ineffectual efforts, and with the assistance (to the ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... passionately. Her little hand closed fiercely; proudly her eyes burned into his. "Think you I have taken this step idly? That it is but the caprice of a moment? Oh, no; no! It was necessary to flee from the court. But to whom could a woman turn? Not to any of the court—tools of the king. One person only was there; he whose life was as good as forfeited. Do ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... any of the others. The instant of choice had come at last, the pistol was at his head. On the pavement before he could hear the policeman idly stir and stamp, for the ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... the Blue Star despot presently, "all I've got to say to you, Mike Murphy, is that you're certainly a hell of a seaman to stand idly by and see that young Joey do me up like this. Give ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... many, even in England, the name of "Flora Temple" will not sound strange: her great feat of the mile in two minutes nineteen seconds has never yet been equaled, and for the last three years she has rested idly on her laurels, in default of any challenger to dispute her sovereignty of the turf. Her owner, W. Macdonald, Esq., resides within a short distance of the city, and, I doubt not, would receive any stranger with the same courtesy that he extended to me. His ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... seated himself at his desk, in company with a comforting cigar, to think of any possible men whom he might beat up at their homes as he went westward. While he thus meditated—and while blackness settled down upon his soul, for of none could he think available for his purpose—he looked idly at the list of hotel arrivals in the morning paper that chanced to lie beside him; and suddenly he arose with a great shout of joy, for in this list he beheld the name, "Van ...
— A Border Ruffian - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... imploring aid, the slow blending of certain scarlet patches of fluid with the surrounding water, and then a return to silence and peace, and the calm of an unruffled sea. But if it is indeed the Fool that floats so idly below them, the boatmen know that much meat will presently be theirs. The swimmer cautiously approaches the great lazy fish, which makes no effort to avoid him. Then the gently agitated fingers of a human hand are pressed against the monster's side just below the fins, and fish and man rise to the ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... Diana was disposed for a trip to Switzerland, or Norway, or even Iceland, but she wanted to go in a party, and not just they two and a chaperon. Meryl was not enthusiastic and it nettled her a little, so that, on the wide window-seat, there was a cloud on her face as she drummed idly with her fingers and watched ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... men when their affairs are in an extreme and desperate condition, had become reckless. Every where throughout the city disorder and idleness reigned supreme. The men spent their time in strolling about from place to place, or sitting idly at home, or gathering in crowds at places of public diversion. They had abandoned all care or concern about public affairs, trusting to Pyrrhus to save them from the impending danger. Pyrrhus perceived, accordingly, that an entire revolution ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... third is to put in practice [2611]that which they think or speak. Savanarola, Rub. 11. tract. 8. cap. 1. de aegritudine, confirms as much, [2612]"when he begins to express that in words, which he conceives in his heart, or talks idly, or goes from one thing to another," which [2613]Gordonius calls nec caput habentia, nec caudam, ("having neither head nor tail,") he is in the middle way: [2614] "but when he begins to act it likewise, and to put his fopperies ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... knolls. The artillery thundered loudly and now vibrated augustly through the air. Coleman quickened his pace, to the despair of the little men carrying the traps. They finally came up with one of these black bodies of men and found it to be composed of a considerable number of soldiers who were idly watching some hospital people bury a dead Turk. The dragoman at once dashed forward to peer through the throng and see the face of the corpse. Then he came and supplicated Coleman as if he were hawking him to look at a relic and Coleman ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... not quite fifteen, so the girls, while chummy as sisters, had few interests in common. Dolly wandered away, leaving the other two to continue their appraisal of the new neighbours. She went to her own room, which also looked out toward the Roses' house. Idly glancing that way from her window, she saw a girl's face in a window next door. She seemed about Dolly's age, and she had a pretty bright face with a mop of ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... I have not. It is only sometimes that the busy world outside seems to me like a ship sailing idly before the wind. More often, I am back in the midst of it again—planning, hoping, praying! I am young, you know, and have had to suffer so much—there was so much I wanted to do. (Lifts a handkerchief to his forehead. HAAKON helps ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... the Judge, with a sweet smile of benevolence stealing over his stern features; "properly invested, it would buy you that which passeth all price. Dropped into the missionary-box, who can tell what heathen, now idly and joyously wantoning in nakedness and sin, might be brought to a sense of his miserable condition, and made, through that three cents, to feel the ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... again looking idly out of window, "is like a French journal: full of the news of the day ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban
... two insects, as one follows idly one gull out of a flock, he could look with interest, and without emotion. He saw them drift, touch and part, and each be blown its way, helpless mote in the dust of the great plain. From one to the other he turned his eyes. The Manvers gnat flew the ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... made many improvements in this park, and took much pleasure in riding, sporting, and idly strolling here. He might often be seen with half a dozen dogs at his heels, lounging along by the banks of the ponds, feeding the ducks with his own delicate royal hands. The foolish people were greatly moved and delighted at this, thinking that a king, who could ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... keep up a series of general and impersonal reflections till the swagman lost his individuality—say, five or six hours—but I was rescued from this tyranny by the faint rattle of a buggy on the other side of the river. Idly turning my glass on the two occupants of the vehicle, I recognised one of them as a familiar and valued friend—a farmer, residing five or six miles down the river, on the Victorian side. I rose and walked to the brink ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... sources of the increase of mankind is dried up by this war. I affirm, what I can well prove, that the waste has been less than the supply. To say that in war no man must be killed is to say that there ought to be no war. This they may say who wish to talk idly, and who would display their humanity at the expense of their honesty or their understanding. If more lives are lost in this war than necessity requires, they are lost by misconduct or mistake: but if the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... of the sky, Awake each echo to a soft reply,— Say, canst thou not my bosom-grief befriend, And bid one drop upon my heart descend? When all thy songsters soothe themselves to sleep. Ah! must these aching eyes for ever weep? And must their frequent waters, like thine own, Drop, idly drop, on unimpressive stone? Or, when my beauteous fair shall deign to grace The humid foliage of thy mossy base, Canst thou not tell how many a rock below Impedes to kiss thy waters as they flow? In her mind canst thou not the feeling rear To stop, or ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... he was a failure, yet like most young men mentally weak, he insisted that he could not be held altogether to blame. Secretly, too, he despised these sober, industrious people who seemed contented with the crumbs of comfort thrown to them. What, he wondered idly, was their secret of getting on? How were they able to lead such well regulated lives when he, starting out with far greater advantages, had failed? Oh, he knew well where the trouble lay—in his damnable weakness of character, his love for drink. That was responsible for everything. ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... All 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 ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... holiday seas—the yachts, the sail vessels, the puffing steamers, moving swiftly from one headland to another, or loafing about the blue, smiling sea, are all on pleasure bent. The vagrant vessels that are idly watched from the rocks at the Pier may be coasters and freight schooners engaged seriously in trade, but they do not seem so. They are a part of the picture, always to be seen slowly dipping along in the horizon, and the impression is ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Henry had brought home the sheep, and having seen them safe in the fold, was sitting on the ground outside the cottage door eating his supper. One arm rested on the neck of a large dog, that was idly reposing by his side, as if tired with the toils of the day, for it was the shepherd's dog, and its duty was to guard the flocks as they were feeding in the fields, and warn his master if any danger seemed near them. At length the boy arose and ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... Sitting idly by, I could not for the life of me see just what good it did for me to be there, and I said as much. ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... was the more welcome because the moment before his mind had been idly yet disquietingly filled with the shortcomings of George, his eldest child, and only son, aged ten, who didn't seem to show that sense of responsibility which his position and advanced years called for—even evading his duties to his fond mother when he should be constituting ...
— The Blossoming Rod • Mary Stewart Cutting
... Mike let his gaze wander idly over the other people in the cafeteria. He was wondering how much longer he could talk to ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... set The child, and while with vague regret We parted, pleased that we had met, My heart did with herself confer; With wholesome shame she did repent Her reasonings idly eloquent, And said, "I might be more content: But God go with ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... out to see. Nick, idly watching, saw the native hand him something on a salver which Will took to the lamp by which he had been working. Dead silence ensued. From far away there came the haunting cry of a jackal, but near at hand there was no sound. A great ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... the ladies waited for the men to rejoin them, Joyce was in a tremor of anxiety. But she carried herself with an indifference that was superb. She had taken a chair at the far end of the long parlor close to a French window opening upon a porch. Apparently she was idly interested in a new novel, but never had she been more watchful. If she had a chance to play her hand she would win; if the luck broke against ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine |
