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More "Lassitude" Quotes from Famous Books
... condition, three diverse aspects of his need and misery. The 'covert' and the 'hiding-place' imply tempest, storm, and danger; the 'river of water' implies drought and thirst; 'the shadow of a great rock' implies lassitude and languor, fatigue and weariness. The view of life that arises from the combination of these three bears upon its front the signature of truth in the very fact that it ... — Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... first, that the disbanded soldiers of the Commonwealth and the other relics of the Puritan party still remained the most moral and respectable element in the country; and secondly, that the period of lassitude which follows great efforts, whether of men or nations, is not altogether the condemnation of the effort, but partly the weakness of humanity. Nations as well as men, if they aim high, must sometimes overstrain themselves, and weariness must ensue. Nor did the Commonwealth ... — Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... ashpits and waterways and broken ships and dry canals are girls and garlands and all the old lovely things that help the human heart to float and flow along its winding courses. If you inform the palate of the mind by flavours, then life in Queen's Gate must be a round of labour and lassitude, and, from the rich faces that pass you in the Isle of Dogs, you know that it must always be the time of roses there. Stand by the crazy bridge at the gates of West India Dock, at six o'clock, when, through the lilac dusks, comes that flock of chattering ... — Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... reddening in streaks through the trees. Several hours must have passed since I stood there before, watching the ascending figures, and the memory of it now came back to me horribly, like an evil dream. Oh, how tired it made me feel, that ceaseless raging wind! Yet, though the deep lassitude of a sleepless night was on me, my nerves were tingling with the activity of an equally tireless apprehension, and all idea of repose was out of the question. The river I saw had risen further. Its thunder filled ... — Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... man may never be sick, he yet may have his physical and mental vigour greatly impaired by prolonged exposure to heat is thus lost sight of. No man can do his best work, either physical or mental, if he is hot and uncomfortable. The same feeling of lassitude and indisposition to exertion is experienced at home during the hot summer, which after a ... — The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... inhabitants of these two dwellings. Incessantly occupied with the wants of his family, to whom the day is hardly long enough, seeing a mad perversity reducing his salary, the artisan will be cast down and worn out; the hour of repose will not be sound to him; a kind of sleep like lassitude alone interrupts his daily toil. Then, on awaking from this mournful drowsiness, he will find himself overwhelmed with the same racking thoughts of the present, with the same ... — Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... removed. Durtal was at this point; he could not return on his steps, for the way he had quitted horrified him. He would rather have died than return to Paris, there to begin again his carnal experiences, to live again his hours of libertinage and lassitude; but if he could not again retrace his road, neither could he advance, for the road ended in a blind alley. If earth repulsed him, heaven at the same time was ... — En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... its exhausted cravings, we perceive already the symptoms of that unnamed malady which was the plague of imperial Rome. The tyrants and the suicides of the Empire expand before our eyes a pageant of their lassitude, relieved in vain by festivals of blood and orgies of unutterable lust. It is not that ennui was a specially Roman disease. Under certain conditions it is sure to afflict all overtaxed civilisation; and for the modern world no one has expressed its nature ... — Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... by showing himself docile; but though he strove to eat out of complaisance, the singular contrast between his present situation and that which he had occupied on the same spot when the envoy of princes and the victor in combat, came like a cloud over his mind, and fasting, lassitude, and fatigue oppressed his bodily powers. El Hakim examined his hurried pulse, his red and inflamed eye, his heated hand, and ... — The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... quality, and does not create it. The selfish languor and indifference of to-day's possession is the consequence of the selfish ardour of yesterday's pursuit: the scorn and weariness which cries vanitas vanitatum is but the lassitude of the sick appetite palled with pleasure: the insolence of the successful parvenu is only the necessary continuance of the career of the needy struggler: our mental changes are like our grey hairs or our wrinkles—but ... — The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the water was like burnished steel. The heat became so stifling that even the Africans were gasping for breath, and we envied them their freedom from all impediments. The least exertion was irksome, and attended with extreme lassitude. During the afternoon thin cirri clouds, flying very high, spread out over the western heavens like a fan. As the day lengthened they thickened to resemble the scales of a fish, bringing to mind the old saying, "A mackerel sky and a mare's tail," etc. The signs were all unmistakable, ... — The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... well beyond Middletown. Out of each extended cloud, now at right angles, came rumblings as of thunder. The column beneath the Front Royal cloud was moving rapidly, halts and delays apparently over, lassitude gone, energy raised to a forward blowing flame. That on the Valley pike, the six-mile-long retreat from Strasburg, was making, too, a progress not unrapid, considering the immensity of its wagon train and the uncertainty of the ... — The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... singing a dreary lecherous song and showing an immense quantity of frilled underclothing, had occupied five or six minutes in boring the audience before The Girl Gets Left began; and an air of lassitude had enveloped the men who were sitting in relaxed attitudes in the theatre. Their eyes seemed to become dull, and they paid more attention to their pipes and their cigarettes than they paid to the young woman's underclothing.... ... — The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... smouldering under those airs of lassitude. She exasperated me by the provocation of her nonchalance, by something elusive and defiant in her very form which I wanted ... — 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... the bicycle rides ceased. Violet was overtaken, first, with a dreadful lassitude, then with a helplessness as great as Granville's. And with it a sullenness that had no sweetness in it, for Violet defied her fate. And now when she raised her old cry again, "I can't see why ... — The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... yet never giving her any overt cause of complaint. He could worry and sting her under the politest exterior, and he knew very well that the most effectual form of annoyance was the persuading his master that any discomfort or lassitude was to be removed by some form of narcotic. This would have the further advantage of stupefying Mr. Egremont, and making him more ready to lapse under the old influence; while the duration and strength of the new one was already a surprise ... — Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... felt a profound desire to quit this world and enter a higher world; but this desire is rather dejection than strength, a lassitude than an upsoaring." ... — Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... with the mellow September glow, Gertrude was softly summoned to the pleasant upper chamber, which smelt sweetly of lavender, rose leaves, and wild thyme, where beside the open casement lay Reuben, in a snow-white bed, his face sadly wasted and white, and his eyes closed as if in the lassitude ... — The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... just ten o'clock when we came into the street. A hot dead wind drifted in great puffs through the city, and ragged masses of vapor swept the purple sky; an unsavory night altogether, one of those nights of hopeless lassitude when one feels, if one is at home, like doing nothing but drink mint ... — Black Spirits and White - A Book of Ghost Stories • Ralph Adams Cram
... remarks cross and clash; and were it not for the dilapidated outlook, the sunken lines of the trench that buries us on the hillside, and the veto on our voices, we might fancy ourselves in the rear lines. But lassitude weighs upon all of us, our faces are jaundiced and the eyelids reddened; through long watching we look as if we had been weeping. For several days now we have all of us been sagging ... — Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... is scarcely a parody of the strict surveillance under which Dick lived, but from a mixture of lassitude and good nature it did not seem to annoy him too much, and he appeared to be most troubled when Kate murmured that she was tired, that she hated the profession and would like to go and live in the country. For ... — A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... guessing what his decision would be. But on reflection she found hope in his deferring reply. It was all that was left to her. She had done her utmost, the rest lay with him. She sighed deeply, she had never felt such weariness of mind and body. As she gave way to a feeling of growing lassitude drowsiness came over her which she was too tired to combat and for some time she slept heavily. She awoke with a start to find Gillian, wide-eyed with concern, kneeling beside her, the girl's slim warm fingers clasped closely ... — The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... Mr. Browne at last, unable to pretend lassitude any longer. Taking up a racket he brandishes it wildly, presumably to attract attention. This is necessary. As a rule nobody pays any attention to ... — April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... the feebleness of senility, and has one of the most certain marks of that stage of authorship, the attempt to imitate himself in those points in which he was once strong. When "glad no more, He wears a face of joy, because He has been glad of yore." Or it is an "oeuvre de lassitude," a continuation, with the inevitable defect of continuations, that of preserving the forms and wanting the soul of the original, like the second parts of Faust, of Don Quixote, and of so many ... — Milton • Mark Pattison
... feeders of the press would shrink from,—assumed and performed,—when her friends were to be served, I have often observed with wonder, and with fear, when I considered the near extremes of ill-health, and the manner in which her life heaped itself in high and happy moments, which were avenged by lassitude ... — Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... anxiety to every pedestrian. The exceptions to this rule are apt to go to the other extreme, and wear a defiant, obtrusive kind of indolence which suggests quite as much inward disquiet and unrest. The shiftless lassitude of a gambler can never be mistaken for the lounge of a gentleman. Even the brokers who loiter upon Montgomery Street at high noon are not loungers. Look at them closely and you will see a feverishness and anxiety under the mask of listlessness. They do not lounge—they ... — Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... furtively watch his man's face. The orchestra ceased; the curtain rose, and the valet gazed mechanically at the stage. In his way, Francois was as blase as his master, only, of course, he understood his position too well to reveal that lassitude and ennui, the expression of which was the particular privilege of his betters. He had seen many great actresses and heard many peerless singers; he had delved after his fashion into sundry problems, and had earned as great a right as any of the nobility to satiety and defatigation ... — The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... 'enfeebles all internal strength of thought,' as a course of dram-drinking destroys the tone of the stomach. The faculties of the mind, when not exerted, or when cramped by custom and authority, become listless, torpid, and unfit for the purposes of thought or action. Can we wonder at the languor and lassitude which is thus produced by a life of learned sloth and ignorance; by poring over lines and syllables that excite little more idea or interest than if they were the characters of an unknown tongue, till the eye closes on vacancy, and the book drops from the feeble hand! I would rather be a ... — Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... "that was the exciting thing. In home affairs, social questions, and the ordinary events of the day not much change was noticeable. A certain Oriental carelessness seemed to have crept into the editorial department, and perhaps a note of lassitude not unnatural in the work of men who had returned from what had been a fairly arduous journey. The aforetime standard of excellence was scarcely maintained, but at any rate the general lines of policy and outlook were ... — Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... great number and variety of plays, he had been attentively inconspicuous in several really good week-end parties. He had spent a golden October in North Italy with his mother, and escaped from the glowing lassitude of Venice for some days of climbing in the Eastern Alps. In January, in an outbreak of enquiry, he had gone with Lionel Maxim to St. Petersburg and had eaten zakuska, brightened his eyes with vodka, talked with a number of charming people of the war that was then ... — The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... thirty miles off, not at all. The clouds are a brownish grey, the air moist and motionless, and the mercury has varied from 82 degrees in the day to 80 degrees at night. The household is afflicted with lassitude and loss of appetite. Evening does not bring coolness, but myriads of flying, creeping, jumping, running creatures, all with power to hurt, which replace the day mosquitoes, villains with spotted legs, which bite and poison one without the warning hum. The night mosquitoes are legion. There are ... — Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... buffalo hunting, any one of which can hardly be called an indoor sport. These are the four animals that are classed as "royal game" in game law parlance, and each one when aroused is sufficiently diverting to dispel any lassitude produced by the climate. It is wakeful sport—hunting these four kinds of game—and in my experience elephant hunting is the "most ... — In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... it had been a voluntary blindness! In this transition one punishes oneself by distrust of one's sentiments; one tortures one's enthusiasm with doubt, one feels even the good conscience to be a danger, as if it were the self-concealment and lassitude of a more refined uprightness; and above all, one espouses upon principle the cause AGAINST "youth."—A decade later, and one comprehends that ... — Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... had watched him drink two cups of coffee and devour the food—she guessed he had had no lunch—did she allow him to talk, first lighting his cigarette and finding a place for herself on the arm of his chair. By this time Stefan's extreme lassitude, and with it his despair, had vanished. He brightened perceptibly. "You wonder," he exclaimed, catching her hand and kissing it, "now I can tell you about it." With his arm about her he described all his experiences, the fiasco of the Jensen affair and his ... — The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... weary, broken men, many of them wounded, all of them terror-stricken, staggering in speedless haste with the last remnants of their strength into the shelter which it was their vain illusion the town would afford them. Eyes glazed with lassitude and fear looked up piteously out of haggard faces at Mr. Blood and his companion as they rode forth; hoarse voices cried a warning that merciless pursuit was not far behind. Undeterred, however, young Pitt rode amain along the dusty road by ... — Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... been less rapt and triumphant he must have wondered more at that icy lassitude, and at the cloak of ceremony she wrapped about her to hide a terror. It was queer to hear the chill urbanity of her: "This is Christopher, Nelson; Christopher, this is your father's servant, Nelson." It was queerer still to see the fastidious decorum ... — O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... eat. He felt a great lassitude in all his limbs. He slept soundly enough, but he awoke with no sense of refreshment; on the contrary he felt a peculiar exhaustion. And the energetic little man, who could not bear the thought of lying in bed, had to make an effort to force himself out of his bunk. After a few ... — The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... be classified as physical losses, economic losses, and social losses. The immediate physical effect is exhilaration, but this is succeeded by lassitude and incompetency. The stimulus gained is momentary, the loss is permanent. It is well established that even small quantities of alcohol weaken the will power and benumb the mental powers. Habitual use depletes vitality and so predisposes to disease. ... — Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... basest envy. The School Committee had lately tendered her again her old position, which she had declined with thanks. She was too weak to labor now, either with hands or brain. What did this strange lassitude, this ... — Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... always give to the inferior portions of his work only such inferior attention as they require; and according to his greatness he becomes so accustomed to the feeling of dissatisfaction with the best he can do, that in moments of lassitude or anger with himself he will not care though the beholder be dissatisfied also. I believe there has only been one man who would not acknowledge this necessity, and strove always to reach perfection, Leonardo; the end of his vain effort being merely that he would take ten years to a picture ... — Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... especially in coastal areas near Hong Kong and opposite Taiwan, where foreign investment helped spur output of both domestic and export goods. On the darker side, the leadership has often experienced in its hybrid system the worst results of socialism (bureaucracy and lassitude) and of capitalism (windfall gains and stepped-up inflation). Beijing thus has periodically backtracked, retightening central controls at intervals. The government has struggled to (a) collect revenues ... — The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... shimmering green, while the more distant fields of grain were dark against the light ash of plowed land. Above, the sun shone slanting from the blue of an early June sky. The air, clean and clear, was already pervaded with the drowsy lassitude ... — The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... of Haldin's death gave Razumov the feeling of general lassitude which follows a great exertion or a great excitement. He kept very still on the sofa, but ... — Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... the rooms too small, to admit of their ever being rendered desirable habitations. They work very hard all the week. We know that the effect of prolonged and arduous labour, is to produce, when a period of rest does arrive, a sensation of lassitude which it requires the application of some stimulus to overcome. What stimulus have they? Sunday comes, and with it a cessation of labour. How are they to employ the day, or what inducement have they to employ it, in recruiting ... — Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... mature poet sometimes appeals to the orthodox for sympathy when his daring religious questing threatens to plunge him into despair. The public is too quick to class him with those whose doubt is owing to lassitude of mind, rather than too eager activity. Tennyson is obliged ... — The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... whether Molly heard anything of this exposition; she may well have missed one or two steps in a carefully reasoned argument. Hers was that state of absorbent lassitude when the words and acts put to you sink into the floating mass of your weakness. The late shocking grief hovers felt about you: a buzz of talk, a rain of caresses, hold the spectre off, and so are serviceable—but no more. The cold cheek, the clay-cold ... — Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... to run now. The lassitude of months was gone from his limbs. He wanted to fling aside that clogging crowd, run, leap, arrive. How long was this hour? Where was he? He tried to see the housetops to know, but the glow was in his eyes. He felt the hands of ... — O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... political considerations and remonstrances winding up with demands for offices! What cantatas that begged for subsidies! Everywhere demands: demands for subsidies, demands for grants, demands for help, demands for decorations! Nothing but harass, enervation, lassitude, deafening clamor. They wished to kill him with their shouts: ... — His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... the lassitude which besets me, and strive in vain to be either sensible or jocose. I ... — Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... rowed. The fresh air, and the exercise, soon did their work. Cyril at first could only take one scull, and that only for a short time, but at the end of a fortnight was able to manage both for a time, or to row with one for hours. The feeling of lassitude which had oppressed him passed away speedily, the colour came back to his cheeks, his muscles strengthened, and he began to ... — When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... victory when an orderly and two troopers arrived with a riderless horse, bearing the command of Colonel Cumner for the beggar to appear at once at the Palace. The beggar looked doubtfully at the orderly a moment, then rose with an air of lassitude and languidly mounted the horse. Before he had got half-way to the Palace he suddenly slid ... — The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... you force your lagging brain to take up the thread of work. There will invariably come a new supply of energy, a "second wind," enabling you to forge ahead with a freshness and vigor that is surprising after the previous lassitude. ... — Initiative Psychic Energy • Warren Hilton
... intellect and conduct of Napoleon during the Hundred Days no sign of enfeebling: I find in his judgment and actions his accustomed qualities." In a passage quoted above (p. 449) Mollien notes that his master was a prey to lassitude after some hours of work, but he says nothing on the subject of disease; and in a man of forty-six, who had lived a hard life and a "fast" life, we should not expect to find the capacity for the sustained intellectual efforts of the Consulate. Meneval noticed nothing worse in his master's ... — The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... produced a lassitude impossible to describe; it was overpowering, and I had no choice but to yield to it. I dropped back in my chair, leaned forward on the table, and instantly fell into a heavy sleep, ... — David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... the pursuits which formerly interested me, I yawned over Ab Gwilym, even as I now in my mind's eye perceive the reader yawning over the present pages. What was the cause of this? Constitutional lassitude, or a desire for novelty? Both it is probable had some influence in the matter, but I rather think that the latter feeling was predominant. The parting words of my brother had sunk into my mind. He had talked of travelling in strange ... — Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Her weakness, lassitude, and despondency are more than apparent; yet bravely buckling to her work, and encouraged by her success with Fontenelle, she Englished with rare skill his Theory of the System of Several New Inhabited Worlds, prefixing thereto ... — The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... him curiously as he reacted into lassitude and despondency after the strain and tension ... — A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... it, threading in and out among the toiling crowd, Willy Cameron had a chance to observe the change in the other man, his drooping shoulders and the almost lassitude of his walk. He went ahead, charging the mass and going through it by sheer bulk and weight, his hands in his coat pockets, his soft hat pulled low over his face. Neither of them noticed that one of the former clerks ... — A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... discreet person, Tomlinson, the two retired to their room at an early hour. The butler pressed them hospitably to try the house's special blend of Scotch whisky, but they had declined resolutely. Both acknowledged to an unwonted lassitude and sleepiness—symptoms which Hilton Fenley might expect and inquire about. When they were gone, the major domo sat down to review ... — The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... moment or so I took the vessel and filled it and gave it to Schwartz. Then it seemed to me that my responsibility had ended. A sudden great dreamy lassitude came over me. I knew I needed food, but I had no wish for it, and no ambition to search it out. The man in the corner mumbled at me with his toothless gums. I remember wondering if we were all to starve there peacefully ... — Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... sea-coast of Hindustan, in Ceylon, in the West Indian Islands, at New Orleans, and in other places whose situation is similar. The vital powers languish under this oppression, which produces in the European a lassitude of body and a prostration of mind that wholly unfit him for active duties. On the Asiatic, however, these influences seem to have little effect. The Cha'b Arabs, who at present inhabit the region, are a tall and warlike race, strong-limbed, and muscular; ... — The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson
... business worries were not all, nor the worst of his troubles: his physical powers were waning. To all appearances he was as strong as ever, but a strange bodily lassitude hampered him; he tired easily, and against this handicap he was forced to struggle continually. He had never rightly valued his amazing equipment of energy until now, when some subtle ailment had begun to sap it. The change ... — The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... near surrender several times. There were afternoons of belated ripened warmth, a kind of summer that had been long in the bottle, with a certain lassitude in the air and a blue haze among the trees, that made her feel the folly of all resistances to fate. Why, after all, shouldn't she take life as she found it, that is to say, as Sir Isaac was prepared to give it to her? He wasn't really so bad, ... — The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... cannon-ball crashed through the room among them, as if to enjoin haste in bringing the proceedings to a close. The council listened to what was already but too well known. Already the finger of fate pointed undeviatingly to the inevitable result. A general lassitude had fallen upon the spirits of the soldiers. The situation ... — Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... physician to prescribe for him, as he cannot see himself as he sees others; so I called a physician, and he advised me to try a little chemical food, or a bottle of hypophosphates. I took two or three bottles of the chemical food with no apparent benefit. My lassitude and indisposition seemed to increase, my food distressed me. I suffered from neuralgic pains in different parts of my body, my muscles became sore, my bowels were constipated, and my prospects for recovery were not very flattering. I stated ... — The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... had called him intolerable and incorrigible, and had threatened a second report to the headmaster, because this was the tenth successive Greek grammar lesson in which he had failed. Added to all this, he was suffering from headache and lassitude. And now his father's letter was the cumulus of his misfortunes. A rebellious, indignant, and violent spirit rose in him. Was he always, for no fault of his own, to be bullied, baited, driven, misunderstood, and crushed in this way? If it was of no use trying ... — St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... manner the majority hands in its resignation. Through inertia, want of forethought, lassitude, aversion to the electoral hubbub, lack of political preferences, or dislike of all the political candidates, it shirks the task which the constitution imposes on it. Most certainly is has no taste for the painstaking ... — The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... After the lassitude of a day spent in the strolling manner, which is usual with men of pleasure in this town, and with a head full of a million of impertinences, which had danced round it for ten hours together, I came to my lodging, and hastened to ... — The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... time was passing, and the poison was not telling, as far as he, the poisoner, could judge from appearances, on Douglas Dale. He never complained of illness, and beyond a slight lassitude, he did not seem to have anything the matter with him. This would not do. It behoved Carrington to expedite matters. His project was to accomplish the death of Douglas Dale by poison, throwing the burthen ... — Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... late, and late as it was, Rosie did not make her appearance at it. Graeme had still a very pleasant remembrance of the evening; but it was not altogether unmixed. The late breakfast, the disarrangement of household matters, Rosie's lassitude, and her own disinclination to engage in any serious occupation, was some drawback to the remembrance of her enjoyment. All were more or less out of sorts, some from one ... — Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... reacts, he rebels, he storms. A dozen poems hardly exhaust his gall. It is not merely that beauty and joy and love are transient, now, but in their going they are corrupted into their opposites, — ugliness, pain, indifference. And his anger once stilled by speech, what lassitude follows! ... — The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke • Rupert Brooke
... Rosalie Bourdon, doubtless the one under which she had travelled. She appeared quite indifferent to all that went on around her. On entering this prison, where she knew her mother was, she showed absolutely no emotion. She remained in this state of resigned lassitude for two days. Licquet, who came to see her several times, endeavoured to keep her under the impression that her imprisonment had no other cause than Delaitre's infringement of the maritime regulations; he even took the precaution of pretending ... — The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... a day, with scrupulous care and exactness, lest a drop or a crumb of the food that was more precious than diamonds should be lost. The men had all become accustomed to short allowance now, and experienced no greater inconvenience than a feeling of lassitude, which feeling increased daily, but by such imperceptible degrees that they were scarcely conscious of it, and were only occasionally made aware of the great reduction of their strength when they attempted to lift any article which, in the days of their full vigour, they could ... — The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... time they were both eating an appetizing lunch in the attractive restaurant of the Occidental. Just before the arrival of coffee and cheese, Mitchell sat back in his chair with a sigh of physical content. The Martini had warmed his chilled body, and the lassitude which comes after a hearty meal was stealing over him. Miller had proved an agreeable companion, able to talk upon any subject—except one, in spite of the detective's hints in its direction. Their table was in one corner apart from the others, and there was no danger of ... — I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... sweetest, and soil with their excrements the combs they frequent. The patient workers, their eyes steadily fixed on the future, will silently set things right. From noon till three, when the purple country trembles in blissful lassitude beneath the invincible gaze of a July or August sun, the drones will appear on the threshold. They have a helmet made of enormous black pearls, two lofty, quivering plumes, a doublet of iridescent, yellowish velvet, ... — The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... took a new expression as he heard these words. The lassitude and weariness passed out of it, and a curious light crept into his eyes. Roger and the ranger continued to talk together of many things, but their silent companion still sat motionless beside the hearth. Over his face was stealing a look of purpose — such purpose as follows a struggle ... — In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... doctrine of non-resistance preached by Leo Tolstoi was attuned to the mood prevailing among educated Russians, for, in the words of the Russian poet, "their hearts, subdued by storms, were filled with silence and lassitude." ... — History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... pass the necessary examination—then not a very severe one—while he could be at the same time learning the native languages, which would be of immense benefit to him after he had entered the army. Coming out as they had done in the cold season, none of the four exhibited any of that pallor and lassitude which, at any rate during the summer heats, are the rule throughout the ... — In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... 5, on the next Monday morning at breakfast-time. It did not at first attract the attention of James. The Sunday exertions had again left a mental and physical lassitude, showing how much care and privation had told upon his strength; and Isabel's still tardy convalescence weighed him down with anxiety for the future, and almost with despair, as he thought of the comforts for want of which she suffered, though ... — Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... visited the same States, and South Carolina and Georgia for the first time since the war. What a transformation! But for the genial climate the busy factories would have recalled New England, while a keen business air had taken the place of that old-time lassitude which in ante-bellum days seemed inseparable from the institution of slavery. The Southern people have all the acuteness of the Yankee, with a genuine bonhomie which brightens the most ordinary incidents of life. New conditions have called into play valuable qualities which were torpid until ... — The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... right," said Nan indifferently. The lassitude of seasickness had left her, and the excitement of new surroundings was beginning. She felt gently stirred by the give and take of the light conversation in the Sherwoods' room; and, although she did not quite realize it, she was responding to the stimulation of having made a good impression. ... — The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... revolutionary theories at the house-fronts; and the pavement seemed to be their property—all the pavement touched by their feet, all that old battleground whence arose intoxicating fumes which made them forget their lassitude. ... — His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... gases, oxygen and nitrogen, and in every one hundred parts of common air there are about seventy-five parts of nitrogen and twenty-five of oxygen, subject to expansion from heat and of contraction from cold. This accounts in part for the general lassitude felt in a warm atmosphere, while a corresponding degree of vigor obtains in a cold one. The condensation, the result of a cool temperature, gives to the lungs a much larger amount of oxygen at a single inspiration, and, of course, for the day the difference is truly wonderful. ... — Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill
... she feels an unconquerable sense of lassitude. For the first time, her feet begin to fail her. For the first time, she, who traversed, with firm and equal footsteps, the moving lava of torrid deserts, while whole caravans were buried in drifts of fiery ... — The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... following days, while the sense of spring and warmth slowly gave life to those who could breathe the air on deck, Conyngham lay in his little cabin and heeded nothing; for when the fever left him he was only conscious of a great lassitude, and scarce could raise himself to take such nourishment as the steward, with a rough but ... — In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... was telling this entrancing story, a look of devoted love spread over the beautiful countenance of Pearl. She gradually became instinct with life, and before he had finished speaking, the lassitude and exhaustion which had seemed to threaten her very life entirely disappeared. A rosy look came over her face, and her coal-black eyes flashed with ... — Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... and starved. I had had no news of the world, nor of her who was dear to me, nor of Juste Duvarney save that he lived, nor of our cause. But succeeding the thrill of delight I had at thought of seeing the open world again there came a feeling of lassitude, of indifference; I shrank from the jar of activity. But presently I got upon my feet, and with a little air of drollery straightened out my clothes and flicked a handkerchief across my gaiters. Then I twisted my head over my shoulder as if I were noting ... — The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... restraints he did not like; and by undermining the intrigues and power of so mighty an enemy of European liberties as Louis XIV. His heroism shone brilliantly in defeat and disaster, and his courage and exertion never flagged when all Europe desponded, and when he himself labored under all the pains and lassitude of protracted disease. He died serenely, but hiding from his attendants, as he did all his days, the profoundest impressions which agitated ... — A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... A weary lassitude had come over him; he seemed incapable of exertion, and shook his head in answer to Maud's appeal; but again some hidden motive stung him into action, and taking his seat at the writing-table, he seized ... — M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... appetites. But Wakeman ate, gorged himself, to the astonishment even of the kitchen orderlies. Plateful after plateful of stewed meat and potatoes, steaming and savoury, disappeared. Yet there was no sign about the boy of the lassitude of repletion. His eyes remained bright and glanced rapidly here and there. His body was still alert, the movements of his hands ... — Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... lassitude that brought them back to Marietta for another summer. Through a golden enervating spring they had loitered, restive and lazily extravagant, along the California coast, joining other parties intermittently and drifting from Pasadena to ... — The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... as spun-glass, and neatly confined under one of those high Norman caps of which the long starched frills, encircling the face, lend a cold, severe expression to the wearer: her gait was stooping, her steps feeble, and her whole appearance denoted lassitude and weakness. She was, as I guessed, the wife of the elder and the mother of the younger of my companions; and the glance she threw at these when she saw them told as plainly as the language of a wife's and mother's eyes ... — Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... was audible only to himself. To anyone looking on, it only seemed as if a sudden dreamy lassitude had overtaken him; his head sank back against the chair, his eyes closed, his face grew calm and peaceful, and, like a tired child, ... — The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... springs in play, in a word, puts him into that agreeable activity, for the want of which the enjoyment of happiness itself cannot compensate him. Action is the true element of the human mind; as soon as it ceases to act, it falls into disgust, sinks into lassitude. His soul has the same occasion for ideas, ... — The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... gazed at the awe-inspiring phenomena which surrounded him in the semicircle of the hospital theatre, he had slept during the operation. His simple heart had not worked out the lesson which sleep, the greatest mistress on earth, teaches. After the operation everything had been veiled by mortal lassitude. This had continued, but in the afternoon and at night they had mixed something heavy, like a stone ball, into his drinking-cup, and waves of warmth had flowed to the toes of his healthy foot from the cup. Thoughts chased one another swiftly, like tiny quicksilver balls through ... — Selected Polish Tales • Various
... familiarly, his old tradition, before the sea of faces. A few faint hand-claps instead of the old expectant laughter welcomed him. A generation had apparently risen that knew not Petit Patou. His heart sank. The heat of the footlights shimmered like a furnace and smote him with sudden lassitude. He began his tricks. Took his tiny one-stringed broomstick handled fiddle and played it with his hands encased in grotesquely long cotton gloves. Presently, with simulated impatience, he drew off the gloves, ... — The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... ultimate act of the intelligence accepts. This it is which the will deliberately confirms. And that is why Faith though an act of the Will is Moral. If the Ordnance Map tells us that it is 11 miles to [a place] then, my mood of lassitude as I walk through the rain at night making it feel like 30, I use the Will and say "No." My intelligence has been convinced and I compel myself to use it against my mood. It is 11 and though I feel in the depths of my being to have gone 30 miles and more, I know ... — Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... him with avid eyes. No mask on her face now. The eyes brooded over him, over the fair hair, the bare throat, the pale, hard young face, that showed the lassitude following on ... — The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... I did not rest. My fever, or my lassitude, or probably some presentiment of the troubled career into which I was to be plunged, made "tired nature's sweet restorer" a stepmother to me. I can never endure hearing the dreams of others, and thus I cannot suffer myself to inflict them on my hearers; but ... — Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... was dismissed he sank back in his chair by the class-room window. It was wide ajar to-day for the first time since winter. April, like an early-morning housemaid, was throwing open all the windows of the world. Litton felt a delicious lassitude; he was bewildered with leisure. A kind of sweet loneliness fell on him. He had made no provision for ... — In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... uncomfortable inconclusive way—"muddling along"; that they wanted nothing very definitely nor very urgently, that mean fears enslaved them and mean satisfactions decoyed them, that they took the very gift of life itself with a spiritless lassitude, hoarding it, being rather anxious not to lose it than to use it ... — The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... for the vizier, who attended; when he said, "Vizier, my mind is so uneasy that nothing will amuse me." "Enter then," replied the minister, "into thy cabinet, and look at thy jewels, the examination of which may perhaps entertain thee." The sultan did so, but it had no effect on his lassitude; when he said, "Vizier, this dispiritedness will not quit me, and nothing gives me pleasure within my palace; let us, therefore, walk out in disguise." "To hear is to obey," replied the vizier. They then retired into a private chamber, and putting on the habits of dervishes ... — The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... face. She never did mention the incident to her father or to anybody else. But from that day a change took place in her, as if the springs of her pride were relaxed. She became capricious, had fits of lassitude, a curl of disgust in her smile, and sometimes she yielded to sudden outbursts of wrath against her father, and cast scornful glances upon him, rebuking him for his failure to ... — The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... was actually passing from his possession. He summoned in vain the emotions which, he told himself, were appropriate. The profound discouragement within him would not be lifted to emotional heights: lassitude settled ... — Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... but twittered here and there among the woods; the sun was not yet up, but the eastern sky was barred with solemn colours. Half-starved and over-weary as they were, they lay without moving, sunk in a delightful lassitude. And as they thus lay, the clang of a bell ... — The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... never think of troubling you to such an extent. No doubt this feeling of lassitude will pass away shortly. It was very foolish of me, but I left the fan with my wraps at the hotel. It can be recovered when we go ... — Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... you very much," he said. "The effect of Bromocine," he went on, speaking with the quiet precision of one who was lecturing on the subject to an interested audience, "is peculiar. It reduces the subject to a condition of extreme lassitude, so that really nothing matters or seems to matter. Whilst perfectly conscious the subject goes obediently to his death, behaves normally and does just what he is told—in fact, it destroys ... — The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... ground that the enemies found in advancing, after having driven in our right, enabled our them to rally and to resist. But this resistance was of short duration. Every one had been engaged in hand-to-hand combats; every one was worn out with lassitude and despair of success, and a confusion so general and so unheard-of. The household troops owed their escape to the mistake of one of the enemy's officers, who carried an order to the red coats, thinking ... — Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... of Europe, are bound to lie for long years after in the trough of disillusionment. The national mood with them will be more than ever that of inquiry and exploit. With us, unless I make a mistake, after a spurt of hedonism—a going on the spree—there will be lassitude. Every European country has been overtried in this hideous struggle, and Nature, with her principle of balance, is bound to take redress. For Americans the war, nationally speaking, will have been but a bracing ... — Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... Lawford, in deadly lassitude, meant only one thing—insanity. A blazing, impotent indignation seized him. He leaned near, peering as it were out of a red dusky mist. He snatched up the china candlestick, and poised it above the sardonic reflection, as if to throw. ... — The Return • Walter de la Mare
... its full height. There was a look of nervous energy about her which Effie had not observed for many a long day. The curious phase into which her mother had entered had an alarming effect upon the young girl. It frightened her far more than her father's look of lassitude and the burning touch of his hands. She tried to turn her thoughts from it. After all, why should she become nervous herself, and meet ... — A Girl in Ten Thousand • L. T. Meade
... remind the wind to fulfil its duty. The sun shone out of the sky, without a cloud to temper its heat, and its rays made one side of the ocean shine like molten gold. Every one was suffering more or less from the lassitude produced by excessive heat; the pitch was bubbling up from the seams of the deck; a strong, hot, burning smell pervaded the vessel; the chickens in the hencoops hung their heads and forgot to cackle; the ducks ... — Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... additional objection, that through the same cause his studies were partial, temporary, and irregular. His mind was amply stored with acquired knowledge, much of it perhaps the fruits of early reading and application. But, while engaged in the hurry of composition, or overcome by the lassitude of continued literary labour, he seems frequently to have trusted to the tenacity of his memory, and so drawn upon this fund with injudicious liberality, without being sufficiently anxious as to accuracy of quotation, or even of assertion. If, on the other hand, he ... — The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... admission of my friend, of his incapacity to make a sailor, for it was the first intimation I heard of his intention. I had remarked a certain want of energy, in various situations that required action, in Rupert, but no want of courage; and I had ascribed some portion of his lassitude to the change of condition, and, possibly, of food; for, after all, that godlike creature, man, is nothing but an animal, and is just as much influenced by his stomach and digestion as ... — Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... broke, there was no question of Io's going that day, even had accommodations been available. A clogging lassitude had descended upon her, the reaction of cumulative nervous stress, anesthetizing her will, her desires, her very limbs. She was purposeless, ambitionless, except to lie and rest and seek for some resolution of peace out of the tangled web ... — Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... first returning strength, freed from lassitude and stupor, Graydon began whispering joyous words of love to Jane. His eyes were bright with the gladness that his pain had brought. She checked his weak outbursts at first, but before many days had passed ... — Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... possible consequences, I sat down on a chair beside the sufferer, felt her pulse, and as well as I could, made inquiries after her health. Her pulse was quick, her tongue white and thickly furred, and extreme lassitude was shown by her dejected countenance. Uncertain as to the nature of her disease, and unable to offer any alleviation of her sufferings, I retired to my apartment. There I did reflect on the danger which I had incurred, and the possibility of the widow having ... — The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... vapour was more dense than ever, but I welcomed the sight of open ground after the reptile-infested thicket. Alas! it was a snare, a death-trap, a sort of morass, in which we sank up to our knees. Pah! it was filthy—vile! And I became aware of great—lassitude, do you say?— whilst Valera's panting breath told that he had almost reached the end ... — Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... unsentimental acts of the creatures who never wander from nature. Now, excess of obedience is, to one who manages most exquisitely, as bad as insurrection. Happily Mrs. Doria saw nothing in her daughter's manner save a want of iron. Her pallor, her lassitude, the tremulous nerves in her face, exhibited an ... — The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... was unyoked—he could hear it being led away—but the ache in his head grew almost intolerable and his lassitude more intense. For a while he had no idea what was going on; and then a hoarse cry, which seemed one of alarm, rang out sharply. There was a patter of running feet, a thud of hoofs on the soft soil, and, breaking through these sounds, a rhythmic ... — Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... me alone." But she checked herself. She doubted if she could exert her will another time like that. Already beads of perspiration stood out on her brows. A feeling of extreme lassitude crept over her and she slipped back into the hammock with a sensation of nausea. Then unconsciousness bound her with invisible cords and the brave ... — The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes
... eventful life shall I tell you the people who have made me the most weary? It is not the bad people, nor the foolish people; we can get along with all such because of a streak of common humanity in us all, but I cannot survive without extreme lassitude the decorous people; those who slip through life without sound or sparkle, those who behave themselves upon every occasion, and would pass through a dynamite explosion without rumpling a hair; those who never have done anything out of the way and never will, simply for the same reason ... — A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... and refreshment (ease tenfold sweet after such labours) prevail over the sagest counsels, and the apprehension of certain evil outweigh the prospect of contingent danger. They expostulated, that the nerves of Ulysses seemed to be made of steel, and his limbs not liable to lassitude like other men's; that waking or sleeping seemed indifferent to him; but that they were men, not gods, and felt the common appetites for food and sleep. That in the nighttime all the winds most destructive to ships are generated. That black night still required to be served with meat, ... — Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... more likely to engender bitter thoughts than idleness and ennui. Occupations should be selected with a view to improve and amuse; they should be varied, to prevent the lassitude resulting from monotony; serious meditations and abstract studies should be relieved by the lighter branches of literature; music should be assiduously cultivated; nothing more refines and exalts the mind; not the mere performance of mechanical ... — The Jewish Manual • Judith Cohen Montefiore
... worry and its twin brother, despondency. The remedy for the evil lies in training the will to cast off cares and seek a change of occupation, when the first warning is sounded by Nature in intellectual lassitude. Relaxation is the certain foe of worry, and 'don't fret' one of the ... — Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... were firmer than marble. Salammbo, who was accustomed to eunuchs, yielded to amazement at the strength of this man. It was the chastisement of the goddess or the influence of Moloch in motion around her in the five armies. She was overwhelmed with lassitude; and she listened in a state of stupor to the intermittent shouts of the sentinels as they ... — Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... supervise the work as efficiently from the tent as they could at a yard or two from its shelter, they gradually gave up the struggle, yielding day after day more completely to the seductive feeling of lassitude which seemed to ... — The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... disappeared—to be next heard of in some distant part of France, or perhaps in Corsica, Sardinia, or Italy. It is not surprising that even in these early days, and in spite of Balzac's exuberant vitality, there are frequent mentions of terrible fatigue and lassitude, and that the services of his lifelong friend, Dr. Nacquart, were often in requisition, though his warnings about the dangers of ... — Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... him, and went home just in time to dress. There were some people to dinner, at which Jane appeared. Her lassitude had vanished, and, as was her manner when in good spirits, she was very humorous and amusing. Also I had never seen her look so beautiful, for her colour was high and her dark eyes shone like the diamond stars in her hair. But again I observed that she ate nothing, although she, ... — Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... oppressive heat for a moment. At times one fairly gasps for breath and looks involuntarily about in forlorn search of some place of escape, if only for a moment, from the stifling atmosphere. A feeling of utter lassitude and loss of ambition comes over one; the importance of accomplishing one's object diminishes, and the necessity of yielding to the pressure of the fearful heat and taking things easy becomes the all-absorbing theme of the imagination. A supreme and heroic effort of ... — Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... reddening, and stretching herself with fatigue she threw herself back on a couch. She did not feel weary exactly, for the lassitude she felt in every limb had a peculiar pleasure in it. She felt as if she had come out of a hot bath, and since her father had roused her she seemed to hear, again and again, the sound of the inspiriting music which she had followed arm in arm with Pollux. Now and again she smiled, now and again ... — Uarda • Georg Ebers
... James was ill and tired, and disillusioned; his head ached so that he could hardly bear the pain, and in all his limbs he felt a strange and heavy lassitude. He wondered why he had troubled himself about the woman who cared nothing—nothing whatever for him. He repeated about her the bitter, scornful things he had said so often. He fancied ... — The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... know which way led to Kish Taka. When the first faint glint of dawn sweetened the air he was lying on his back; he felt, rather than saw, that a new day was blossoming. He collected his wandering faculties, fought with the lassitude which stole upon him whenever his senses were not on the alert and sat up. And he would have cried out aloud at what he saw were not his throat and mouth and lips so dry that he was beyond calling out. For yonder, a blurred moving shape came toward him. The ... — The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... out of her, and was frightening her mother. Even if things went no further, here was partial failure. She had intended to make an inevitably rising force of Eve, and here at the very outset were lassitude and a glance ... — The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... precipitously as at Menton, the shelter from the northerly winds is less complete. At the same time the vast olive groves screen the locality from cold blasts and temper them into healthful breezes, imparting a pleasing freshness to the atmosphere, and removing sensations of lassitude often experienced in too well-protected spots. The size of the sheltered area gives patients a considerable choice of residences, which can be found either close to or at varying distances from the sea, according to the requirements of the case; while the numerous wooded valleys, ... — The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... the Criterion bar and sat down. The clock showed seventeen minutes to nine. His piece was advertised to start at eight-thirty precisely. The Criterion Bar is never empty, but it has its moments of lassitude, and seventeen minutes to nine is one of them. After an interval a ... — A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... to the hotel along Main Street the lassitude that had so long held her half-paralyzed was gone. She was the old Rose again; the Rose ... — The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... make so many wretched, characters. They coloured some of the most attractive prose among the French, and the most fascinating verse in the pages of Byron. It might be asked, by a profane inquirer (and I have touched on this before), what effect a life nearly similar—a life of luxury, indolence, lassitude, profuse, but heartless love, imparted to the deep and touching wisdom in his page, whom we consider the wisest of men, and who has left us the most ... — Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... back in their nice, cosy sitting-room, and a feeling of not altogether unpleasant lassitude stole over Mrs. Bunting. It was a comfort to have Daisy out of her way for a bit. The girl, in some ways, was very wide awake and inquisitive, and she had early betrayed what her stepmother thought to be a very unseemly and silly curiosity concerning the lodger. "You might ... — The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... struggle with the difficulties of his position with insufficient means. He tried intrigue and oppression; he banished, suspended, disorganized parliament; everything was an obstacle to him, nothing aided him. After a long struggle, he sank under lassitude and weakness; I dare not say from incapacity, for had he been far stronger and more skilful, had he been a Richelieu or a Sully, he would still have fallen. It no longer appertained to any one arbitrarily to raise money or to oppress the people. It must be said in his excuse, that ... — History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... company to carry these arrangements into effect, the first result of which was that everybody looked more cheerful than they had been since the completion of the house, after finishing which some dulness and lassitude had been observable in the men, coupled with a tendency ... — The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... worth mentioning—that aristocratic oval which the most graceful portrait painters of the fifteenth century were rather fond of exaggerating. The refined features had that subtle expression of suffering and lassitude which lends the human charm to the Virgins of the Florentine tondi of the time of Cosimo. A soft and tender shadow, the fusion of two diaphanous tints—violet and blue, lay under her eyes, which had ... — The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... country, rain in a village, rain at sea, are sufficiently wearying, even to those whose mental activity is amused or occupied by books or the concerns of life; but who can comprehend the insufferable lassitude and despondency that overwhelm an African resident, as he lies on his mat-covered arm-chest, and listens to the endless deluge pouring for days, weeks, months, upon ... — Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... amiable and useful characteristics. By a deplorable consequence of these pretended miracles of grace we frequently see sorrow succeed to enjoyment, a gloomy and unhappy state to one of innocent gayety, lassitude and chagrin to activity and hilarity, and slander, intolerance, and zeal to indulgence and gentleness; nay, what do I say? cruelty itself to humanity. In a word, superstition is a dangerous leaven, that is fitted to corrupt even ... — Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... Willis arrived on deck, pale, and with an air of fatigue and lassitude altogether unusual. He gazed anxiously into every nook and cranny of ... — Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... them, their feet torn by thorns and brambles, their provisions exhausted, and dying with thirst, they were fain to subsist on a few seeds, wild fruit, and the palm cabbage. At length, oppressed with hunger and thirst, with lassitude and loss of strength, they seated themselves on the ground without the power of rising, and, waiting thus the approach of death, in three or four days expired one after the other. Madame Godin, stretched on the ground by the side of the corpses of her brothers and other companions, stupified, delirious, ... — Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... the bushed and grass-covered slope to where Lynette, all the guests supplied, had thrown herself down to rest on a stone under a tree. She had taken off her hat, and her hair was flecked with sunshine as she leaned her head back with a little air of lassitude and weariness against the scarred bark. But in spite of weariness she was smiling and content. The rest was delicious, the peaceful quiet enchanting, the air sweet after the fetid odours of the town; and it was sweet, too, whenever she glanced at the Reverend Julius ... — The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... eruptive fevers, so in scarlatina, the patient begins with complaining of shivering, pain in the thighs, lassitude, and rapidly augmenting debility; frequently also of headache, which, when severe, is accompanied with delirium, nausea and vomiting. The fever soon becomes very high, the pulse increasing to upwards of 120 to 130 strokes in a minute, and more; the heat is extreme, raising ... — Hydriatic treatment of Scarlet Fever in its Different Forms • Charles Munde
... Oh! it was so sad to see how soon the manly gait would change to the drunkard's stagger. To see eyes once bright with intelligence growing vacant and confused and giving place to the drunkard's leer. In many cases lassitude supplanted vigor, and sickness overmastered health. But the saddest thing was the fearful power that appetite had gained over its victims, and though nature lifted her signals of distress, and sent her warnings through weakened nerves and disturbed functions, and although they ... — Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... extracting from under the box-seat a piece of old blanket, he covered over his sleeves, resumed the reins, and cheered on his threefold team (which, it may be said, had so completely succumbed to the influence of the pleasant lassitude induced by Selifan's discourse that it had taken to scarcely placing one leg before the other). Unfortunately, Selifan could not clearly remember whether two turnings had been passed or three. Indeed, on ... — Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... those days, seemed always like some foreign military station in the tropics. The long, low, white buildings, with piazzas and verandas on the water-side; the general impression of heat and lassitude, existence appearing to pulsate only with the sea-breeze; the sandy, almost impassable streets; and the firm, level beach, on which everybody walked who could get there: all these suggested Jamaica ... — Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... science of the universe, bears the impress of their habitat. The Eskimo's hell is a place of darkness, storm and intense cold;[69] the Jew's is a place of eternal fire. Buddha, born in the steaming Himalayan piedmont, fighting the lassitude induced by heat and humidity, pictured his heaven as Nirvana, the cessation of all ... — Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... portion of the kingdom; from the cottage to the court, from the cradle to the grave, the French invariably dance when they can seize an opportunity. Nay, the older the individual, the more vigorous seems to be the passion. Wrinkles may furrow the face, but lassitude never attacks ... — Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... sickness; the full, girlish mouth had a pinched and pained expression; and though she was dressed richly and with excellent taste, for a mere call in the country, there was something about her small figure which showed that it had once been fuller and rounder, and that she had fallen into lassitude ... — Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... in positions and occupations altogether inconsistent with the idea of their being savage, wary, or revengeful. Their demeanour when undisturbed is indicative of gentleness and timidity, and their actions bespeak lassitude and indolence, induced not alone by heat, but probably ascribable in some degree to the fact that the night has been spent in watchfulness and amusement. A few are generally browsing listlessly on the trees and plants within reach, others ... — Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... have been a prevision of this beech-wood. Mrs. Underwood, with Felix and Wilmet, tied up the plates, knives, and forks, and then the mother, taking Angela with her, went to negotiate kettle-boiling at the cottage. Geraldine would fain have sketched, but the glory and the beauty, and the very lassitude of delight and novelty, made her eyes swim with a delicious mist; and Edgar, who had begun when she did, threw down his pencil as soon as he saw Felix at liberty, and the two boys rushed away into the wood for a good tearing scramble and climb, like creatures intoxicated with the freedom ... — The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Joan's help, was managed so well that when Eve made her appearance she was told that Uncle Zebedee, tired like herself, was not yet awake, while Jerrem, brisked up by several nips of raw spirit, was lounging about in a state of lassitude and depression which might very well be attributed ... — Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... the freedom and adventure of a two years' voyage to China,—so probable, in all respects, that the fact should appear an impossible nightmare? In the experiences of his life he had abundant material to furnish forth the facts of such a voyage, and in the weariness and lassitude that should follow a day's walking equally after a two years' voyage and two years' imprisonment, he had as much physical proof in favor of one hypothesis as the other. It was doubtless true, also, as he said, that he had gone to his house at dawn, and sat down on the threshold of his ruined home; ... — Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... bald spots on his cranium; and since his fall from his horse, he had been troubled by a slight stiffness in his right leg, which stiffness became perfect lameness in threatening weather. Premature lassitude pervaded his entire person, and when he relaxed in vigilance even his eyes betrayed a distaste for everything—weariness, satiety as it were. All the same, however, he bore himself with an undeniable air of distinction, albeit the haughtiness of his manner indicated an ... — The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... brightness seventy years or more had not dimmed. The group was completed by Mrs. Gregory's bachelor brother, older than his sister by fifteen years. This brother, Simon Jefferson, though stockily built and evidently well- fed, wore an air of lassitude, as if perennially tired. As he leaned back in a hall chair, he seemed the only one present who did not care ... — Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... malicious word the old woman said lodged in her brain and arose to confront her at the most inopportune times—in the middle of a recitation or when she roused enough to turn over in her bed at night. The more vigorously she threw herself into her school work, the more she realized a queer lassitude, creeping over her. She kept squaring her shoulders, lifting her chin, and brushing imaginary cobwebs from before ... — A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... bored. The sensation of lassitude, even in its less acute degrees, was rare with her; for she possessed a nature of so fresh a buoyancy that she was able, as a rule, to extract diversion from any environment. Her mind took impressions with the vivid clearness of a mirror, and also, it should be owned, with ... — Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... backward in the wilds of the Adirondacks. Sometimes it is a love of adventure and freedom that sends men out of the more civilized conditions into the less; sometimes it is a constitutional physical lassitude which leads them to prefer the rod to the hoe, the trap to the sickle, and the society of bears to town meetings and taxes. I think that Old Mountain Phelps had merely the instincts of the primitive man, and never any hostile civilizing intent as to the wilderness ... — Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... of a possible peace will begin to get stated towards the end of 1916, and a certain lassitude will creep over the operations in the field.... The process of exhaustion will probably have reached such a point by that time that it will be a primary fact in the consciousness of common citizens of every belligerent ... — What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... in our camp until five, when we embarked. Why should I relate to you our dull progress through fields of rice—through intricate channels, and amidst myriads of ducks and wild water fowl. This day has been hot, beyond any experience on the journey. I sank back in my canoe, in a state of apathy and lassitude, partly from the heat, and partly from indisposition. My thoughts were employed upon home. A thousand phantoms passed through my head. I tried to imagine how you were employed at this moment, whether ... — Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... in its setting of white muslin, has regular and noble features; dull, expressionless eyes, the whites of which appear beneath the balls that are half concealed by the drooping lashes; his expression is that of exceeding melancholy, a supreme lassitude, a supreme ennui. He has an appearance of benignity, and is really kindhearted, according to what they say who know him. (If the people of Fez [Footnote: Fez: a city in northern Morocco.] are to be believed, he is even too much so—he ... — Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... should be read with the same spirit with which it has been written. In that case, fatal must be the reception of this—for the writer frankly avows, that during the time she has been writing it, she has suffered every quality and degree of weariness and lassitude, into which no other ... — A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... furiously, "There is nothing to you except that you are stronger than I, and you know it—and that is brutal!" She paused a long moment, quivering, and then relapsed into spent, defeated lassitude,—"and I like it," she added under her breath, looking down ... — Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... down in a heavy plait on either side the white column of her warmly white throat. Her face was refined to a transparency of colouring, even as it seemed of texture, from confinement to the house and from lassitude following upon fever, which, while he recognized its loveliness, caused him a pretty sharp pang. Still she looked content, as he told himself. Her glance was frank and calm, without suggestion ... — Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... are freely given for accomplishments, hundreds would be refused for bodily health and bloom, is to doubt the parents' sanity. If the father were fully satisfied that Miss Mary could exchange her stooping form, pale face, and lassitude for erectness, freshness, and elasticity, does anybody suppose he would hesitate? Fathers give their daughters Italian and drawing, not because they regard these as the best of the good things of life, but because they form a part of ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... with the smell and taste of some powerful volatile spirit, and the vague vision of Mr. Bradley still standing at the window of the mill and vibrating with the machinery; this changed presently to a pleasant lassitude and lazy curiosity as he perceived Mr. Bradley smile and apparently slip from the window of the mill to his bedside. "You're all right now," ... — A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... irresistibly engrossed by the tyranny of custom; all that passes in regulating the superficial decorations of life, or is given up in the reciprocations of civility to the disposal of others; all that is torn from us by the violence of disease, or stolen imperceptibly away by lassitude and languor; we shall find that part of our duration very small of which we can truly call ourselves masters, or which we can spend wholly at our own choice. Many of our hours are lost in a rotation ... — The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... hunting more dangerous than lion, rhino, or buffalo hunting, any one of which can hardly be called an indoor sport. These are the four animals that are classed as "royal game" in game law parlance, and each one when aroused is sufficiently diverting to dispel any lassitude produced by the climate. It is wakeful sport—hunting these four kinds of game—and in my experience elephant hunting is the ... — In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... interest, to give you an account of what befals me, when accident recovers[1092] me from your immediate care. The journey of the first day was performed with very little sense of fatigue; the second day brought me to Lichfield, without much lassitude; but I am afraid that I could not have borne such violent agitation for many days together. Tell Dr. Heberden, that in the coach I read Ciceronianus which I concluded as I entered Lichfield. My affection and understanding ... — Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... to say that he was dazed or that he behaved like a man in a dream. Those are stock terms that in themselves are quite inadequate to convey his peculiar state of mind and body. It was something more than lassitude, yet it was not quite fatigue. It was rather as if some integral part of ... — The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... arrived at No. 5, on the next Monday morning at breakfast-time. It did not at first attract the attention of James. The Sunday exertions had again left a mental and physical lassitude, showing how much care and privation had told upon his strength; and Isabel's still tardy convalescence weighed him down with anxiety for the future, and almost with despair, as he thought of the comforts for want of which she suffered, ... — Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a week at Sandbeach, lodging at the inn, but spending most of his time with Honor. He owned that he had been unwell, and there certainly was a degree of lassitude about him, though Honor suspected that his real motive in coming was brotherly kindness and desire to see whether she were suffering much from the death of Owen Sandbrook. Having come, he seemed not to know how to go away. He was too fond of children to become ... — Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... movements. Occasionally there were exhibitions of quickened sensibility, which have been interpreted as symptoms of an irregular epilepsy; but in general his senses, like his expression, were dull. He had premonitions of a painful disease (dysuria), which soon developed fully. His lassitude was noticeable, and when he roused himself it was often for trivialities. In other campaigns he had stolen away from Paris in military simplicity; this time he had brought the pomp of a court. He planned, too, to bring theater companies and opera troupes to ... — The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... still a dream, but a dream growing momentarily more wonderful and thrilling. The stupor in her head was passing away, and there was nothing painful in the lassitude which remained. She was just weak and languid, content to lie still in the sunshine, her head resting on one of the cushions from the overturned cart, her eyes turning instinctively to the bronzed face which bent over ... — Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... you speak to Macdonald?" said Forbes, dropping into a chair with a curious lassitude of manner which ... — Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... chair, silent, pale, and as weak as a child. The blow of her husband's desertion seemed to have stopped all the springs of action. Neither the chaplain, the post-surgeon, nor Mrs. McGillicuddy, singly or united, could rouse Mrs. Lawrence from the deadly lassitude of a broken heart. Both the chaplain and the surgeon had seen such cases, and nothing in ... — Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... intolerable and incorrigible, and had threatened a second report to the headmaster, because this was the tenth successive Greek grammar lesson in which he had failed. Added to all this, he was suffering from headache and lassitude. And now his father's letter was the cumulus of his misfortunes. A rebellious, indignant, and violent spirit rose in him. Was he always, for no fault of his own, to be bullied, baited, driven, misunderstood, ... — St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... is, judging from our own experience, that the people who go to the Water Cure are for the most part not suffering from real and tangible ailments, but from maladies of a comparatively fanciful kind,—such as low spirits, shattered nerves, and lassitude, the result of overwork. And our readers may be disposed to think, with ourselves, that the change of air and scene, the return to a simple and natural mode of life, and the breaking off from the cares and engagements of business, have quite ... — The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... choose.' I had power and brain and money. A man who could see clearly and who had words to choose from might have stood firmly in the place to which he was born and have spoken in a voice which might have been listened to. He might have fought against folly and blindness and lassitude. I deliberately chose privately to sneer at the thought of lifting a hand to serve any thing but the cold fool who was myself. Life passes quickly. It does not turn back." He ended with a short harsh laugh. "This is Fear," he said. "Fear clears a man's mind ... — The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... over I turned such unhappy thoughts in my seething brain, until the faintest sound from without had died away. I may have spent hours thus, while De Noyan slept on peacefully as a tired child. At last a wild desire for action overcame my lassitude, conquered all lingering discretion. There arose before me, clearly as a painted picture, the pleading face of her I loved. I knew that to no other was she looking for aid in her despair. There might be little I could accomplish for her succor, yet it ... — Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... before, the 'philosopher' made no reply. Bersenyev did not in general err on the side of talkativeness, and when he did speak, he expressed himself awkwardly, with hesitation, and unnecessary gesticulation. And at this time a kind of special stillness had fallen on his soul, a stillness akin to lassitude and melancholy. He had not long come from town after prolonged hard work, which had absorbed him for many hours every day. The inactivity, the softness and purity of the air, the consciousness of having attained his object, the whimsical and careless talk of his friend, ... — On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... I was past my ebb, and sat in a seat upon the parade, and watched the brightening of those rising clouds of chilly fire that made the ruddy west seem tame. My midday lassitude was going, my blood was running warmer again. And as the twilight and that filmy brightness replaced the dusty sunlight and robbed this unfamiliar place of all its matter-of-fact queerness, its sense of aimless materialism, romance returned to me, and passion, and my thoughts of honor ... — In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... after noon, and the day was warm and still. No one was stirring in Waddy. Professor Thunder had given up the idea that his eloquence could conquer the general lassitude, and was snoring in the tent of the Egyptian Mystic. Madame Marve was shopping in the township, and Matty Cann, the Living Skeleton, had come down from his throne and was curled up on a horse-rug. Ammonia, the orang-outang, ... — The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... we camped for the night. The evening was most oppressively hot and sultry, so much so that the slightest exertion made one feel as if he were in a state of suffocation. The dampness of the atmosphere prevented any evaporation, and gave one a helpless feeling of lassitude that I have never before experienced to such an extent. All the party complained of the same symptoms, and the horses showed distinctly the effect of the evening trip, short as it was. We had scarcely turned in half an hour when it began to rain, some heavy clouds ... — Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... deck, pale, and with an air of fatigue and lassitude altogether unusual. He gazed anxiously into every nook and ... — Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... rises in a kind of regular confusion, "Shade above shade, a woody theatre," and has in front this noble river, on which the ships continually passing present to the delighted eye the most charming moving picture imaginable; I never saw a place so formed to inspire that pleasing lassitude, that divine inclination to saunter, which may not improperly be called, the luxurious indolence of the country. I intend to build a temple here to the charming goddess ... — The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... been mere impostors, ostentatious pedants, or ignorant hypocrites—acted somewhat like domestic chaplains in the houses of their patrons. They gratified an amateur taste for wisdom, and helped to while away in comparative innocence the hours which their masters might otherwise have spent in lassitude or sleep. It was no more to the credit of Epaphroditus that he wished to have a philosophic slave, than it is to the credit of an illiterate millionaire in modern times that he likes to have works of high art in his drawing-room, and books of ... — Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... recorded in a former chapter, he sat himself down in a cheerful frame of mind on the sunny side of a large rock, and gave himself up to the enjoyment of thorough repose, as well mental as physical. The poor lad was in that state of extreme lassitude which renders absolute and motionless rest delightful. Extended at full length on a springy couch of heath, with his eyes peeping dreamily through the half-closed lids at the magnificent prospect of mountains ... — Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... aroused from mid-morning lassitude allowed their chairs to come down with a thump upon divers mercantile porches, and fell in behind the two principal citizens of Tinkletown. Something terrible must have happened or Marshal Crow wouldn't be summoned in any such ... — Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... was published on the last day of 1817. The toughness of the job was caused by constant pain, and by struggles with "the lassitude of opium." So seldom sentimental, so rarely given to expressing his melancholy moods in verse, Scott, while composing "Rob Roy," wrote the beautiful poem "The sun upon the Weirdlaw Hill," in which, for this once, "pity of self through all ... — Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... definite and perhaps disagreeable tasks. Another unfavorable influence was the reaction—after Waterloo—from the extreme energy of Napoleonic times, bringing about in France a general feeling of lassitude and vague fear. This may explain to some extent why Mrime very rarely gave himself completely to a cause and why he appeared to the world as ... — Quatre contes de Prosper Mrime • F. C. L. Van Steenderen
... community is a gossip and there are others still blooming and tender, who we know will live to be leathery and hard. That the life-insurance actuaries do not recognize this truth is a shame to their perception. Ancestral lesions should bulk for them no bigger than any slightest taint of keyhole lassitude. For it is by thinking of ourselves that we die. It leads to rheums and indigestions and off we go. And even an ignoble altruism would save us. I know one old lady who has been preserved to us these thirty years by no other nostrum than ... — Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... blessedness of boyhood may itself be but a symptom of the same complaint, for the two effects are strangely similar; and the frame of mind of the invalid upon the Alps is a sort of intermittent youth, with periods of lassitude. The fountain of Juventus does not play steadily in these parts; but there it plays, and possibly ... — Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... but finding, or fancying, that they could supervise the work as efficiently from the tent as they could at a yard or two from its shelter, they gradually gave up the struggle, yielding day after day more completely to the seductive feeling of lassitude which seemed to have laid ... — The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... and I dearly liked to be left there alone. In company, a wretched idiosyncracy forbade me to see much or to feel anything. In unfamiliar company, where it was necessary to maintain a flow of talk on the subjects in presence, half an hour would knock me up, with a combined pressure of physical lassitude and entire mental incapacity. I never yet saw the well- reared child, much less the educated adult, who could not put me to shame, by the sustained intelligence of its demeanour under the ordeal of a conversable, sociable visitation of pictures, historical sights or buildings, ... — Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... effort, the foundation of some ridiculous little academy of literary busybodies and hangers-on, the public recognition of this or that sociological pretender or financial "scientist," and a little polite jobbery with picture-buying, relapse into lassitude and a contented acquiescence in the rivalry of Germany and the United States for the moral, intellectual and material leadership ... — An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... exceptionally busy one, and her strong feelings and sense of responsibility made even small domestic affairs matters for close attention; yet in the diaries and letters of her later life there are no entries which betray either the lassitude or the restlessness of fatigue. She was not one of those busy women who only keep pace with their interests by deputing home management to others. This power of endurance in a deeply feeling nature is one of the first facts which any one attempting to tell the ... — Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... for twelve years, but it shows the vigorous political health, the alert common-sense, and the essential patriotism of the country, which are the earnest of the success of any wise reform. The war which naturally produced the lassitude and indifference to the subject which were evident twelve years ago had made reform, indeed, a vital necessity, but the necessity was not then perceived. The dangers that attend a vast system of administration based to its least detail upon personal ... — American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... any instance on record in which a cab-horse has performed three consecutive miles without going down once. What of that? It is all excitement. And in these days of derangement of the nervous system and universal lassitude, people are content to pay handsomely for excitement; where can it be procured at ... — Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... religious world grows more broad-minded, the mature poet sometimes appeals to the orthodox for sympathy when his daring religious questing threatens to plunge him into despair. The public is too quick to class him with those whose doubt is owing to lassitude of mind, rather than too eager activity. Tennyson is obliged to ... — The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... a new expression as he heard these words. The lassitude and weariness passed out of it, and a curious light crept into his eyes. Roger and the ranger continued to talk together of many things, but their silent companion still sat motionless beside the hearth. Over his face was stealing a look of purpose — such purpose as follows a struggle ... — In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... fourteen hours a day, I tried total abstinence, but I found myself dyspeptic and stupid, and was obliged to resume my accustomed potations. I have found that any unusual amount of alcohol, while stimulating mental activity for a time, soon produced lassitude and sleepiness. ... — Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade
... This resolution should be founded on sober reflection, and a thorough conviction of your error; otherwise it will be as wavering as the wind, and become the sport of conflicting passions, which will occasion such a lassitude in your exertions as to render your studies of little avail. To insure permanency, think seriously of the advantages which are to be derived, on the one hand, from the steady pursuit of a course of study to be ... — Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... listener has no mind of her own; and in either case silence were golden. In this connection it were well to recall the really brilliant epigram of the Abbe de Saint-Real, that 'On s'ennuie presque toujours avec ceux que l'on ennuie.' For not even a lover can fail to be bored at last by the constant lassitude of assent expressing itself in twin sentiments to his own. 'Coquetting with an echo,' Carlyle called it. For, tho it may make a man feel mentally masterful at first, it makes him feel mentally maudlin at last; and, as the Abbe says, to be bored ... — Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... the stone, leaned a very little against his shoulder, and tried to think over her adventure. But her mind refused to entertain any ideas, except those of the present. Mingled with the dreamy lassitude that grew stronger every moment, was a sense of delight in her situation. She was alone on a wild mountain, in the night, with this borderman, the one she loved. By chance and her own foolhardiness this had come about, yet she was fortunate to have it tend to some ... — The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... of lassitude was over her these mornings, so that it was all she could do to drag herself through two hours of practice in the parlor, scrupulously given over by Mrs. Neugass, who moved constantly and audibly ... — Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... dizziness or vertigo. The effects of an excessive quantity of food are first felt by an uneasiness and oppressive fulness of the stomach. This is succeeded by a general distension or fulness of the blood-vessels, particularly about the head; general lassitude; sluggishness and dulness of intellect, with a great aversion to mental effort. These sensations are accompanied by a general uneasiness throughout the whole system, with more or less pain. It also brings into exercise every unholy temper. It makes people fretful, ... — A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... which puts families on the rack. For them there is no such thing as mystery; they see the reverse side of society, whose confessors they are, and despise it. Then, whatever they do, owing to their contact with corruption, they either are horrified at it and grow gloomy, or else, out of lassitude, or some secret compromise, espouse it. In fine, they necessarily become callous to every sentiment, since man, his laws and his institutions, make them steal, like jackals, from corpses that are still warm. At all hours ... — The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... men, many of them wounded, all of them terror-stricken, staggering in speedless haste with the last remnants of their strength into the shelter which it was their vain illusion the town would afford them. Eyes glazed with lassitude and fear looked up piteously out of haggard faces at Mr. Blood and his companion as they rode forth; hoarse voices cried a warning that merciless pursuit was not far behind. Undeterred, however, young Pitt rode amain along the dusty ... — Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... world did not provide her with the means of regaining her lost health. On the contrary, from the time they first put in their appearance she grew far worse, suffering not so much from convulsive attacks as from an increasing lassitude. She complained that eating was a great tax on her strength, and that rising and walking were out of the question. Unable to comprehend this new turn of affairs, her attendants lost all patience, declared that if she had made up her mind to die she might as well do so as at once, and tried to force ... — Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... preventing him ever again feeling with such acuteness. From time to time he fell into deadness of all sensation, when he hoped that the worst of his suffering was over; but always it struggled up out of the numbness again, as insistent as before. He fought his lassitude of spirit as stubbornly as the periods of active pain, but both with the same result, the opposition probably only making both last the longer. He would doubtless have pulled through more quickly if he had gone away, joined Killigrew ... — Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... life; after struggling against so many wives that did not belong to me, exhausting myself in conflict with so many personages called up from nothingness, and joining so many battles, I feel an intellectual lassitude, which makes me see everything in life hang, as it were, in mournful crape. I seem to have a catarrh, to look at everything through green spectacles, I feel as if my hands trembled, as if I must needs employ the second half of my existence and of my book in apologizing for the follies ... — Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... and excitement for the little girl. The heavy lassitude of her steerage days had fallen from her, and already that first morning a delicate glow of returning vigour ... — A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... pas!—He dances like an Englishman." At the first ball this comforted the suitors, and most the Comte de Belle Chasse; but this very circumstance drew Ormond and Dora closer together—she pretended headaches, and languor, and lassitude, ... — Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... the rest with a divided interest. Her mind had gone off to her basket of bananas, and was besides occupied with a little lurking wonder at Reuben's impracticability. But with nothing strongly, the feeling of weakness and lassitude was so taking the upper hand of every other. The relaxing now began to tell of the great tension she had borne for a day or two; the relaxing was entire, for what the basket had begun Reuben's appearance had finished. Faith was sure he had a letter ... — Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... my inactivity, I have a sort of horror of plunging into London; which, except for a shilling concert, and a peep at the pictures, is desperate to me. This is my fault, not London's: I know it is a lassitude and weakness of soul that no more loves the ceaseless collision of Beaux Esprits, than my obese ill-jointed carcase loves bundling about in coaches and steamers. And, as you say, the dirt, both of earth and atmosphere, in ... — Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... there was a sameness in their very dress as well as address, of which peers and peeresses had become weary. They therefore welcomed this rustic candidate for the honour of giving wings to their hours of lassitude and weariness, with a welcome more than common; and when his approach was announced, the polished circle looked for the advent of a lout from the plough, in whose uncouth manners and embarrassed address they might find matter both for ... — The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... universe, bears the impress of their habitat. The Eskimo's hell is a place of darkness, storm and intense cold;[69] the Jew's is a place of eternal fire. Buddha, born in the steaming Himalayan piedmont, fighting the lassitude induced by heat and humidity, pictured his heaven as Nirvana, the cessation of all ... — Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... whip, Abel touched the mare lightly on her glossy flank. After that single pang his suffering had left him—for six weeks of sleepless nights and tormented days had exhausted his endurance and reduced him to a condition of emotional lassitude. In his brief reaction from spiritual revolt into a state of apathetic submission, he approached his mother's permanent austerity of mind as closely as he was ever likely to do in the whole of his experience. The mere possibility of a fresh awakening of feeling filled ... — The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... to see how soon the manly gait would change to the drunkard's stagger. To see eyes once bright with intelligence growing vacant and confused and giving place to the drunkard's leer. In many cases lassitude supplanted vigor, and sickness overmastered health. But the saddest thing was the fearful power that appetite had gained over its victims, and though nature lifted her signals of distress, and sent her warnings ... — Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... modelling of emotion before you, with every vein visible; she leaves nothing to the imagination, gives you every motion, all the physical signs of death, all the fierce abandonment to every mood, to grief, to delight, to lassitude. When she suffers, in the scene, for instance, where Armand insults her, she is like a trapped wild beast which some one is torturing, and she wakes just that harrowing pity. One's whole flesh suffers with her flesh; her voice caresses and excites ... — Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... plates, knives, and forks, and then the mother, taking Angela with her, went to negotiate kettle-boiling at the cottage. Geraldine would fain have sketched, but the glory and the beauty, and the very lassitude of delight and novelty, made her eyes swim with a delicious mist; and Edgar, who had begun when she did, threw down his pencil as soon as he saw Felix at liberty, and the two boys rushed away into the wood for a good tearing scramble and climb, like creatures intoxicated ... — The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... smile. She looked down the bushed and grass-covered slope to where Lynette, all the guests supplied, had thrown herself down to rest on a stone under a tree. She had taken off her hat, and her hair was flecked with sunshine as she leaned her head back with a little air of lassitude and weariness against the scarred bark. But in spite of weariness she was smiling and content. The rest was delicious, the peaceful quiet enchanting, the air sweet after the fetid odours of the town; and it was sweet, too, whenever she glanced at the Reverend Julius Fraithorn, ... — The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... the sunshine of the fields; she would show it flowers and birds, sing songs to it, tell it stories, recall its original beauty. Even in her moods of depression and revolt, one recognises the fatigue of the strong. It is never for a moment the lassitude of the feeble, the weary spite of a sick and ill-used soul. As she was free from personal vanity, she was also free from hysteria. On marriage—the one subject which drove her to a certain though always disciplined violence—she clearly felt more ... — Mauprat • George Sand
... heroic treatment he would never have accomplished had his master been conscious. The fever ebbed, and in a few days Rezanov was able to continue the journey by shorter stages, although heavy with an intolerable lassitude. But his will sustained him until he reached Yakutsk, not at the end of twenty-two days, but of thirty-three. Here he succumbed immediately, and although his sickbed was in the comfortable home of the agent of the Company, and he had medical attendance of a sort, his fever and convalescence ... — Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... The lassitude with which we did our work and tore down part of the hut in order to build that raft, our only way of salvation, was too pitiful to watch. We absolutely had no strength at all. When we pulled the liane ... — Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... man," she had said he would feel. Well he felt it already—the lassitude of his body feebly revolting against the impending bracing, his eyes watering at the glare. Health and inspiration, Marthe had said, dreamless sleep, an insatiable appetite and perfect peace in which to finish his novel. "Think how quiet it will be," she had said. As if the country were ... — Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... morne, ecorche, Il sembla le flairer avec sa tete basse; Ce forcat, ce damne, ce patient, fit grace; Il rassembla sa force eteinte, et, roidissant Sa chaine et son licou sur ses muscles en sang, Resistant a l'anier qui lui criait: Avance! Maitrisant du fardeau l'affreuse connivence, Avec sa lassitude acceptant le combat, Tirant le chariot et soulevant le bat, Hagard il detourna la roue inexorable, Laissant derriere lui vivre ce miserable; Puis, sous un coup de ... — La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... are remarkable for that lassitude which distinguishes the eastern nations; but there are no men more active and persevering when once their passions are excited. These very women, too, whom you behold as indolent as the odalisks of a seraglio, upon some occasions give most striking proofs of attachment. There is ... — Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... Utter lassitude, and the sense of unexpected comfort, made that mass of men inaccessible to every thought but that of rest. Though the artillery of the left wing of the Russians kept up a steady fire on this mass,—visible like a stain now ... — Adieu • Honore de Balzac
... nearly ten months before entering the Hooghly. While ascending the stream, the lassitude produced by the climate was so great that Martyn's spirits sank under it: he thought he should "lead an idle, worthless life to no purpose. Exertion seemed like death; indeed, absolutely impossible." Yet at the least he could write, "Even if I should never ... — Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the courtyard. Endymion and the Secretary, after sitting on a pier-end watching some barges, and airing their nautical views in a way they would never have done had any pukka seafaring men been along, were stricken with the very crisis of spring fever and lassitude. They considered the possibility of hiring one of the soldiers' two-tiered beds for the afternoon. Perhaps it is the first two syllables of Hoboken's name that make it so desperately debilitating to the wayfarer in an April noonshine. Perhaps it was a kind of old nostalgia, for ... — Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... and dirt. She held in her hand the fragment of a hat, and her dolman had disappeared. Her husband was not in much better plight; his waistcoat and shirt were rent open, his coat was filth-smeared, and it seemed likely that he had lost the sight of one eye. Sitting there in drunken lassitude, he breathed nothing but threats ... — The Nether World • George Gissing
... some traces of ordinary, rational existence, such traces as may be found in a sick man's dying struggles. And so the revelry was laid away and buried, like carnival of a Shrove Tuesday, by masks wearied out with dancing, drunk with drunkenness, and quite ready to be persuaded of the pleasures of lassitude, lest they should be forced to admit ... — The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... reason for avoiding them. But let it be remembered, first, that the disbanded soldiers of the Commonwealth and the other relics of the Puritan party still remained the most moral and respectable element in the country; and secondly, that the period of lassitude which follows great efforts, whether of men or nations, is not altogether the condemnation of the effort, but partly the weakness of humanity. Nations as well as men, if they aim high, must sometimes overstrain themselves, and weariness must ensue. Nor did the Commonwealth of England come to ... — Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... conflicts with Bonaparte, not only the Ministry, not only the Army, but also its independent parliamentary majority; that a troop of Representatives had deserted its camp out of a fanatic zeal for harmony, out of fear of fight, out of lassitude, out of family considerations for the salaries of relatives in office, out of speculations on vacancies in the Ministry (Odillon Barrot), or out of that unmitigated selfishness that causes the average bourgeois to be ever inclined to sacrifice the interests of his class to this or that private ... — The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx
... can't love her. They're not capable of it!" to the time when they had exchanged that long reckless gaze over Elly's head! And now there was the triumphant glory of security which had been in his kiss . . . why, that was this morning, only a few hours ago! Even through her cold numbed lassitude she shrank again before the flare-up of that excitement, and burned in it. She tried to put this behind her at once, to wait, like all the rest, till this truce should be over, and she should once more be back in that melee of agitation ... — The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... traitant a leur guise, ils me petirent et me pincerent tant avec les [Footnote: C'est ce que nous appelons masser. Cette methode est employee dans beaucoup de contrees de l'Orient pour certaines maladies.] mains que, de fatigue et de lassitude, je m'endormis ... — The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt
... waiting and feeling, were now cross and inclined to belittle the affair and to be angry at Arenta and themselves for their lost day. And men, young and old, all went back to their ledgers and counters and manufacturing with a sense of lassitude ... — The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... think of troubling you to such an extent. No doubt this feeling of lassitude will pass away shortly. It was very foolish of me, but I left the fan with my wraps at the hotel. It can be recovered when ... — Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... informed me, that he acquired the habit of using tobacco in college, and had continued the practice for a number of years; but he found, by experience, his health materially impaired, being often affected with sickness, lassitude, and faintness. His muscles also became flabby and lost their tone, and his speaking was seriously interrupted by an elongation of the uvula. His brother, an intelligent physician, advised the discontinuance of his tobacco. He laid it aside. Nature, freed from its depressing influence, soon gave ... — A Dissertation on the Medical Properties and Injurious Effects of the Habitual Use of Tobacco • A. McAllister
... hung up his hat and took a seat. But his agitation did not permit him to remain still, and almost immediately he arose and began to pace the floor. Hearing presently advancing footsteps, he dropped into a chair, and leaning back and shutting his eyes, assumed an expression of pain and lassitude. In a moment the door of the room was opened, and a comely woman of middle age entered, dressed ... — The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... nothing in sight, no vessel had passed them during the night; and then he and Charley turned into their bunks, with the expectation of having a better "caulk" than they had had all the time the Muscadine had lain at anchor in Beyrout Roads, for while there, the heat and lassitude produced by their having almost nothing to do had so banished sleep that they hardly cared when the time came for their "watch below." Now, however, it was all different; as what with the bustle of preparation in storing ... — Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... and then a sudden lassitude and an immense sadness came over him. Holding his head between his hands, he wept for a ... — Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert
... measure hypochondriacal. The vapors is a malady common to people in fortunate situations: the tears I frequently shed, without reason; the lively alarms I felt on the falling of a leaf, or the fluttering of a bird; inequality of humor in the calm of a most pleasing life; lassitude which made me weary even of happiness, and carried sensibility to extravagance, were an instance of this. We are so little formed for felicity, that when the soul and body do not suffer together, they must necessarily endure separate inconveniences, ... — The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... articulation are vainly exerted. The noise is oppressive, though a rebound, comparatively tuneful, takes place, till the wedge is driven home; but afterwards, the blows fall dead, and produce a painful jarr on the nerves, which affected me for several hours with a sense of general lassitude. The gardens of this sensible manufacturer evince considerable taste, and produce that agreeable effect which always results from the combination of comfort, rural beauty, and useful industry. A manufactory ... — A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... the fabrication of this beverage, Jen added mysterious rites, during which the door of the still-room was locked, barred, and the keyhole blinded, while Eben and Rob, my uncles, stood without vainly asking for a taste, or simulating by their moans and cries the most utter lassitude and fatigue. ... — The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... summer's day, and my invariable reflection used to be, "It is not nearly so hot out of doors as one fancies it would be." Then there is none of the stuffiness so often an accompaniment to our brief summers, bringing lassitude and debility in its train. The only disadvantage of an unusually hot season with us was, that our already embrowned complexions took a deeper shade of bronze; but as we were all equally sun-burnt there was no one to throw ... — Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... in business—which, dissected, Was like all business a laborious nothing That leads to lassitude, the most infected And Centaur Nessus garb of mortal clothing, And on our sofas makes us lie dejected, And talk in tender horrors of our loathing All kinds of toil, save for our country's good— Which grows no better, though 't ... — Don Juan • Lord Byron
... that disgrace, which lassitude and negligence may bring at last upon the greatest performances, it is necessary to proportion carefully our labour to our strength. If the design comprises many parts, equally essential, and therefore not to be separated, the only time for caution is before we engage; the powers of the ... — The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... class was dismissed he sank back in his chair by the class-room window. It was wide ajar to-day for the first time since winter. April, like an early-morning housemaid, was throwing open all the windows of the world. Litton felt a delicious lassitude; he was bewildered with leisure. A kind of sweet loneliness fell on him. He had made no provision for times ... — In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... means unhealthy, and in the hottest parts, having the coast range nearly on the coast, there is, within a few miles, a tableland of from 2,000 to 4,000 feet elevation, where the climate is cool and bracing, and where the jaded man or woman can soon throw off the feeling of lassitude brought about by the heat and humidity of the seaboard. In autumn the weather soon cools off, drier conditions supervene, and living again becomes a pleasure in one of the best and healthiest climates to be met with anywhere. Practically all the district under review has a sufficient rainfall for ... — Fruits of Queensland • Albert Benson
... discontented when we compare the enormous luxury and wealth of others with the mediocrity of our own state. But here we surrender ourselves easily to pleasure, and we have the brilliancy of luxury without the lassitude ... — The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... totally unacquainted with lassitude and spleen, the lust of variety, and the impatience of curiosity. In a state of society our ideas habitually succeed in a certain proportion, and an employment that retards their progress, speedily becomes disagreeable and tedious. But children, not having yet felt this effect of civilization, ... — Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... of coldness and hardness under John Weightman's hands grew sharper and more distinct. The feeling of bodily weariness and lassitude weighed upon him, but there was a calm, almost a lightness, in his heart as he listened to the fading vibrations of the silvery bell-tones. The chimney clock on the mantel had just ended the last stroke of seven as he lifted his head from the table. Thin, pale strips of the city morning ... — The Mansion • Henry Van Dyke
... serious duties, selecting those which have a directly opposite tendency, cannot be justified. Of course, if a person feel that the previous day's diversions have shortened the hours of needful repose, or induced a lassitude of mind or body, instead of invigorating them, it is certain that an evil has been done, which ... — A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... can endure a great deal; when she is nearest, perhaps, the ideal of feminine beauty and perfection. Of this we saw illustrations in Chapter VIII. In our environment, however, there is a little danger that this age once well past there will slowly arise a slight sense of aimlessness or lassitude, unrest, uneasiness, as if one were almost unconsciously feeling along the wall for a door to which the key was not at hand. Thus some lose their bloom and, yielding to the great danger of young womanhood, slowly lapse to a anxious state ... — Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... went into the Criterion bar and sat down. The clock showed seventeen minutes to nine. His piece was advertised to start at eight-thirty precisely. The Criterion Bar is never empty, but it has its moments of lassitude, and seventeen minutes to nine is one of them. After an interval a ... — A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... had been just enough. She couldn't help him out of his intellectual quandaries—yet. But under the discouragement and lassitude of defeat, couldn't she help him? She remembered how many times she had gone to him for help like that. In panicky moments when the new world she had been transplanted into seemed terrible to her; in moments when she feared she had made hideous mistakes; and, ... — The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... is the heritage of every thinking Russian, he yielded without resistance to thoughts and memories as morbid and as dreary as those on which his mother, years ago, had fed her dread disease. So, after a few midwinter weeks of brooding, lassitude, and sleepless fasting, his personal servants, there being no friend at hand to replace them, ventured to remonstrate with their master. Piotr was now as much his devoted slave as was old Sosha, who had recently retired from active ... — The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... seemed always like some foreign military station in the tropics. The long, low, white buildings, with piazzas and verandas on the water-side; the general impression of heat and lassitude, existence appearing to pulsate only with the sea-breeze; the sandy, almost impassable streets; and the firm, level beach, on which everybody walked who could get there: all these suggested Jamaica or the East Indies. Then the head-quarters at the end of the beach, ... — Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... months in the lassitude that malarial fever leaves behind it. Susannah had need to support her, as well as herself, by the small fees which her day-scholars could afford. She had had the satisfaction of seeing Elvira restored in a great degree to health, but so capricious and fantastic ... — The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... from that awful life of immurement and entombment. She herself had sorrowed too deeply: it was no longer possible for her to remount the current of existence; but she was unwilling that Benedetta should in her turn lead a life contrary to nature, in a voluntary grave. Moreover, similar lassitude and rebellion were showing themselves among other patrician families, which, after the sulking of the first years, were beginning to draw nearer to the Quirinal. Why indeed should the children, eager for action, liberty, and sunlight, perpetually keep up the quarrel ... — The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... serves the poor Highlander for at once lamp and candlestick, and bent me over your fourth page, to scan the Sabbath returns of a Scottish railroad. But my rugged journey and the beating of the storm had induced a degree of lassitude; the wind outside, too, had forced back the smoke, until it had filled with a drowsy, umbery atmosphere, the whole of my dingy little apartment: Mr. M'Neill seemed considerably less smart than usual, and more than ordinarily offensive, and in the middle of ... — Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... difficult to walk much in this climate; lassitude and feverish symptoms follow on the slightest exertion; but—if one can disregard the evil smells which everywhere catch one's breath—Cosenza has wonders and delights which tempt to day-long rambling. To call the town picturesque is to use an inadequate word; at ... — By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... the grand central depot of Italy for foreign consumptive patients, Dr Burgess says: 'The excess of humidity and warm temperature of the Pisan climate depress the vital force, induce an overwhelming lassitude, and are, in my opinion, most unfavourable elements in a climate so generally recommended for pulmonary consumption. Whatever effect the humid mildness of the air may have in diminishing excitability, ... — Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... their revolutionary theories at the house-fronts; and the pavement seemed to be their property—all the pavement touched by their feet, all that old battleground whence arose intoxicating fumes which made them forget their lassitude. ... — His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... played with a child about nine or ten years of age. Still young, she had the brown complexion of Southern women, and her beautiful black hair fell in curls about her face. Her flashing eyes occasionally betrayed hidden passions, concealed, however, beneath an apparent indifference and lassitude, and her wasted form seemed to acknowledge the existence of some secret grief. An observer would have divined a shattered life, a withered happiness, a ... — CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARTIN GUERRE • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... not dead!" She repeated these words several times, and Jacob grew more and more pleasurably excited. His joy awakened the holy spirit in him, and he knew that she spoke the truth.[293] The spirit of prophecy never visits a seer when he is in a state of lassitude or in a state of grief; it comes only together with joy. All the years of Joseph's separation from him Jacob had had no prophetic visions, because he was always sad, and only when Serah's words reawakened the feeling ... — The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... not move from this dismal place that evening. He was too weary to paddle far. He sat on the canoe to rest himself, and, whether from fatigue or other causes, fell asleep. His head heavily dropping on his chest partly woke him several times, but his lassitude overcame the discomfort, and he slept on. When he got up he felt dazed and unrefreshed, as if sleeping had been hard work. He was extremely thirsty, and oppressed with the increasing heat. The sun had sunk, or ... — After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... him drink two cups of coffee and devour the food—she guessed he had had no lunch—did she allow him to talk, first lighting his cigarette and finding a place for herself on the arm of his chair. By this time Stefan's extreme lassitude, and with it his despair, had vanished. He brightened perceptibly. "You wonder," he exclaimed, catching her hand and kissing it, "now I can tell you about it." With his arm about her he described all his experiences, the fiasco of the Jensen affair and his subsequent interviews ... — The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... refuge where I might enjoy the congenial peace suited to some new artistic creation. In consequence, however, of thoughtlessly indulging in ices, I soon got an attack of dysentery, which produced the most depressing lassitude after my previous exaltation. I wanted to flee from the tremendous noise of the harbour, near which I was staying, and seek for the most absolute calm; and thinking a trip to Spezia would benefit me, I went there by steamer a week later. Even this excursion, which lasted ... — My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... surrounded them was the normal silence of any quiet house, hardly disturbed by the faint noises of a respectable quarter of the town. He was very cool—and it was quite coolly that he thought how much better it would be if neither of them ever spoke again. She sat with closed lips, with an air of lassitude in the stony forgetfulness of her pose, but after a moment she lifted her drooping eyelids and met his tense and inquisitive stare by a look that had all the formless eloquence of a cry. It penetrated, it stirred without informing; ... — Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... freed from lassitude and stupor, Graydon began whispering joyous words of love to Jane. His eyes were bright with the gladness that his pain had brought. She checked his weak outbursts at first, but before many days had passed she was obliged to resort to a firmness that shocked him into ... — Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... seem under a spell of lethargy—the lassitude of fatigue. They have ridden a long way, and need rest. They might go to sleep alongside the log, but none of them thinks of doing so, least of all Clancy. There is that in his breast forbidding sleep, and he is but too glad when Woodley's next words arouse him from the torpid repose to which he ... — The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... still had an uneasy feeling in her waist and her elbow. There was not a soul in the drawing-room; there was only one candle burning. Madame Lubyantsev sat on the round stool before the piano, motionless, as though expecting something. And as though taking advantage of the darkness and her extreme lassitude, an oppressive, overpowering desire began to assail her. Like a boa-constrictor it gripped her limbs and her soul, and grew stronger every second, and no longer menaced her as it had done, but stood clear before her ... — The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... and went home just in time to dress. There were some people to dinner, at which Jane appeared. Her lassitude had vanished, and, as was her manner when in good spirits, she was very humorous and amusing. Also I had never seen her look so beautiful, for her colour was high and her dark eyes shone like the diamond stars in her hair. But again I observed that she ate nothing, although she, ... — Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... sign of the Prussians. At one o'clock, at two, it was the same, and a reaction of lassitude and doubt began to prevail among the troops. Derisive jeers were heard at the expense of the generals: perhaps they had seen their shadow on the wall; they should be presented with a pair of spectacles. A pretty set ... — The Downfall • Emile Zola
... came back to power as Lord Chatham, Hawke became First Lord of the Admiralty, and so remained till 1771. It was a time of unbroken peace, succeeding a period of continuous wars extending over a quarter of a century; consequently there was in naval and military matters the lassitude usual to such a period. Hawke is credited with formulating the principle that "the British fleet could only be termed considerable in the proportion it bore to that of the House of Bourbon;" that is, to the combined navies of France and Spain, over which that ... — Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... wild and unbounded regions of imagination. Some charitable dole is wanting to these, our often very unhappy brethren, to fill the gloomy void that reigns in minds which have nothing on earth to hope or fear; something to relieve in the killing languor and over-labored lassitude of those who have nothing to do; something to excite an appetite to existence in the palled satiety which attends on all pleasures which may be bought, where Nature is not left to her own process, where even desire is anticipated, and therefore fruition defeated by meditated schemes and ... — The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... added atmosphere to the incontinence portrayed by the stage pictures, and proclaimed in the text. It is not dangerous music, however, for it is impotent, with all its blatant pretense. The composer seeks to fill the opening scene with languor and lassitude; he fills it with ennui instead. If De Lara's music were a hymning of anything, I should say it was a hymning of sensuality in its lowest terms; but there are neither eloquent melodies nor moving harmonies in the score. De Lara is a feeble ... — Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... teacher too often experience a disappointing relapse the moment the teacher absents herself. The peculiar stimulus being gone, they not only fail to rise to the occasion by conceiving such questions as she might ask; but even after the questions are put, they are overcome by a strange mental lassitude and make little response. The stimulus to work must come from within rather than from without, if one's state is ... — How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... weak figure was drawn up to its full height. There was a look of nervous energy about her which Effie had not observed for many a long day. The curious phase into which her mother had entered had an alarming effect upon the young girl. It frightened her far more than her father's look of lassitude and the burning touch of his hands. She tried to turn her thoughts from it. After all, why should she become nervous ... — A Girl in Ten Thousand • L. T. Meade
... and stretching herself with fatigue she threw herself back on a couch. She did not feel weary exactly, for the lassitude she felt in every limb had a peculiar pleasure in it. She felt as if she had come out of a hot bath, and since her father had roused her she seemed to hear, again and again, the sound of the inspiriting ... — Uarda • Georg Ebers
... for one instant a weird effect, as though the ghost of some Babylonian watchman were waving a lit torch from its summit,—but the lurid glare soon faded and a dead gray twilight settled solemnly down over the melancholy landscape. With a sudden feeling of dejection and lassitude upon him, Alwyn, heaving a deep sigh, went onward, and soon perceived, lying a little to the north of the river, a small, roughly erected tenement with a wooden cross on its roof. Rightly concluding that this must be Elzear of Melyana's hermitage, he quickly made his ... — Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... precursors of his awakening, disappeared by the secret passages through which she had entered. An hour rolled by before Taddeo could triumph over his sleep. His heavy eyes shut together in spite of himself, and his eyelashes rested on each other. All sensation was lost in general lassitude. In the first disorder of his mind, he asked himself if he had not again dreamed of the appearance of La Felina. Had he not seen her approaching his bed just as he sunk to sleep, he would have been sure of it. He shuddered at the thought that he had lost the ... — The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... a touch of lassitude in his voice. "I beg to call your attention, first, to the fact that this train stands between two platforms, and can be entered from either side. Any man familiar with the station for years would be aware of that ... — The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... again, but her first feeling of elation did not return. With her hands clasped about one knee, in her characteristic attitude, she stared at a festoon of dusty cobwebs hanging from the ceiling, and there gradually crept over her a feeling of lassitude. ... — The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... like an excited animal in a cage. A tentative "Hadn't you better go to bed now?" produced no effect whatever; and Mr Verloc, abandoning the stony contemplation of his brother-in-law's behaviour, crossed the parlour wearily, cash-box in hand. The cause of the general lassitude he felt while climbing the stairs being purely mental, he became alarmed by its inexplicable character. He hoped he was not sickening for anything. He stopped on the dark landing to examine his ... — The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... sedentary work had begun to tell upon him; and while Tom Thurnall's chest, under the influence of hard work and oxygen, measured round perhaps six inches more than it had done sixteen years ago, Elsley's, thanks to stooping and carbonic acid, measured six inches less. Short breath, lassitude, loss of appetite, heartburn, and all that fair company of miseries which Mr. Cockle and his Antibilious Pills profess to cure, are no cheering bosom friends; but when a man's breast-bone is gradually growing into his stomach, ... — Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
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