"Inactivity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... chair, and with his back against the heavy piece of furniture he faced the mob. His hat was gone, and as he stood there, big body braced, mouth set, and hair crested above his smoldering eyes, he made a splendid picture of force and strength which seemed for an instant to awe the Mexicans into inactivity. ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... leaders, that they always become "machines," bureaucratically organized like governments. Lagardelle adopts Rousseau's view that the essence of representative government (all existing governments that are not autocratic being representative) is "the inactivity of the citizen" and urges that political parties, like society in general, are divided between the governing and the governed. While there is much truth in this analysis,—this being the situation which it is sought to correct both in government and within political ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... it was converted into allylpyridine (48 grammes), and this by reduction with sodium yielded alpha-propylpyridine, a body in almost every respect identical with coniine. The more important difference was its optical inactivity, but he succeeded in splitting up a solution of the acid tartrate of the base by means of Penicillium glaucum. Crystals separated which had a dextro-rotatory power of [a]{D} 31 deg. 87' as compared with the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various
... in lonely splendour in a sumptuous West Side hotel, with a father compelled to seek a semblance of social life at the hotel bar, and a mother deprived of even this contact with her kind, and reduced to illness by boredom and inactivity. Poor Mrs. Spragg had done her own washing in her youth, but since her rising fortunes had made this occupation unsuitable she had sunk into the relative inertia which the ladies of Apex City regarded as one of the prerogatives of affluence. ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... when Prince Maurice and several of his officers were also there. The conversation turned upon the prospects of the campaign of the ensuing spring. Lionel, of course, took no part in it, but listened attentively to what was being said, and was very pleased to find that the period of inactivity was drawing to an end, and that their commanders considered that they had now gathered a force of sufficient strength to assume ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... they bombarded the chief town without inflicting any particular damage, while the Moros withdrew into the interior, and awaited the Spaniards (who, indeed, did not venture to land) in a well-equipped body of five thousand men. After months of inactivity the Spaniards burnt down an unarmed place on the coast, committing many barbarities on the occasion, but drew back when the warriors advanced to the combat. The ports of the Sulu archipelago are closed to trade by a decree, although it is questionable ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... devoured every scrap of news that came from the front in the half dozen papers that he read daily. He kept in close touch with the international situation, he fumed constantly at the inactivity of his own government in view of her state of unpreparedness for a war into which she must sooner or later be inevitably plunged. He lost all patience with what he considered the timidity of the President, and what he called the stupidity of congress. Was not the youngest and ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... were granted, peace was concluded, and Aymon, having married Aya, led her to the castle of Pierlepont, where they dwelt most happily together, and became the parents of four brave sons, Renaud, Alard, Guiscard, and Richard. Inactivity, however, was not enjoyable to an inveterate fighter like Aymon, so he soon left home to journey into Spain, where the bitter enmity between the Christians and the Moors would afford him opportunity to fight ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... perfect man; and it is not the ideal of the cultivated, of the sensitive folk. It is more also a woman's than a man's ideal. For, now, suddenly, into the midst of the sorrow of the house, every one wailing, life full of penury and inactivity, there leaps the "gay cheer of a great voice," the full presence of the hero, his "weary happy face, half god, half man, which made the god-part god the more." His very voice, which smiled at sorrow, and his look, which, saying sorrow was to be conquered, proclaimed to all the world ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... in researches into the plot. Extreme caution was evidently necessary, where the criminals were among the highest officials and nobles, seconded by the restless and formidable machinations of the Jesuits. When his proofs were complete, he crushed the conspirators at a single grasp. His singular inactivity had disarmed them; and nothing but the most consummate composure could have prevented their flying from justice. On the 12th of January 1759, they were found guilty; and on the 13th they were put to death, to the number ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... half-dazed condition, and although my strength had been slowly coming back to me, I was weak compared with the time when I had been taken a prisoner at Pendennis Castle. My food had been drugged, and my enforced inactivity had made my sinews soft like a woman's. Besides, I felt I had met with a skilled fighter, and I knew by the blow he gave me that he was a strong man. Moreover, I doubted Eli's ability to engage with the other serving-man, and this ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... which were formed in this, as in every other district of France. On this account the peculiar ill-will of the Republican Government was directed against them. In France, at that time, political inactivity was an impossibility. Revolt against the Republic, or active participation in its measures, was the only choice left to those who did not choose to fly their country, and many of the seigneurs of Anjou and Poitou would ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... wars, restricting their activities to the exertion of their various influences for as just a settlement as was possible under the circumstances when the time for settlement had arrived in 1913. In spite of the inactivity of the powers there can be no doubt that their respective attitudes at that time toward the various Balkan States and their ambitions had an important influence on the latter's attitude toward the various powers after the war of 1914 ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... the challengers breathed from time to time wild bursts expressive of triumph or defiance, while the clowns grudged a holiday which seemed to pass away 10 in inactivity; and old knights and nobles lamented in whispers the decay of martial spirit, spoke of the triumphs of their younger days, but agreed that the land did not now supply dames of such transcendent beauty as had animated the justs ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... encomiums of Old England being a delightful feature of the year. It would be gratifying to speak of Maurice W. Moe's splendid style and terse English at this point, for he is one of our very foremost essayists; but his enforced inactivity in amateur journalism this year has deprived us of any current specimens save the brief editorial ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... shouts, and cheers, and prayers, and curses, the roof of the palace fell in with a crash, which produced amid the besiegers an awful and momentary silence, but in an instant they started from their strange inactivity, and rushing forward, leapt into the smoking ruins, and at the same time completed the massacre and achieved ...
— The Rise of Iskander • Benjamin Disraeli
... Line,— those north, these south. There the bush is fetid, and the clammy air gives a sense of deadly depression; here the atmosphere is pure, the land is open, and there is enjoyment in the mere sense of life. The effete matter in the blood and the fatty degeneration of the muscles, the results of inactivity, imperfect respiration, and F. Po, were soon consumed by the pure oxygen of the highland air. I can attribute this superiority of the Congo region only to the labours of an old civilization now obsolete; none but a thick and energetic population could ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... Tarzan, "we shall not quarrel over the money. I must live, and so I must have it; but I shall be more contented with something to do. You cannot show me your friendship in a more convincing manner than to find employment for me—I shall die of inactivity in a short while. As for my birthright—it is in good hands. Clayton is not guilty of robbing me of it. He truly believes that he is the real Lord Greystoke, and the chances are that he will make a better English lord than a man who was born and raised in ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a composite nature. At the time it was published in 1879, the foreign policy of Lord Lawrence was a burning question, and in connection with the Afghan War then running its course, renewed attention was directed to the two essays, "Masterly Inactivity" and "Mischievous Activity," first published in The Fortnightly Review in December 1869, and March 1870, respectively, by a comparatively young Bengal Civilian, the late J.W.S. Wyllie, C.S.I. (1835-1870). Beyond the fact that these essays and certain other papers by the same brilliant ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... weeks preceding the fall of Detroit, had been characterized by much bustle and excitement, those which immediately succeeded, were no less remarkable for their utter inactivity and repose. With the surrender of the fortress vanished every vestige of hostility in that remote territory, enabling the sinews of watchfulness to undergo a relaxation, nor longer requiring the sacrifice of private interests to the public good. Scarcely had the ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... correct the expression of your metaphor," said Mr. Silton: "that is not always rust which is acquired by the inactivity of the body on which it preys; such, perhaps, is the case with me, though indeed I was never cleared from my youth; but (taking it in its first stage) it is rather an encrustation, which nature has given for ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... kept inactive, by the orders of the Khalifa and by the want of stores. They had, for months, been suffering great privations; and while remaining in enforced inactivity, they had known that their enemy's strength was daily increasing; and that what could have been accomplished with the greatest of ease, in August, had now become a ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... of wasting our wits in conversation and our strength in luxurious idleness. It is our mission to benefit mankind both here and hereafter, by despatching useless persons to Paradise and thus cheering the lives of the friends they leave on earth. Assured of this, as we are, all inactivity is unbearable to us. At the present moment we are, so to say, unemployed philanthropists; we are but a potential and passive blessing to our fellow-creatures, though we burn to be doing good to all! I appeal to my friend, Count ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... intellectual reawakening with a cosmopolitan outlook, and, Bjoernson was destined to become its leader, much as he had been the leader of the national movement of an earlier decade. During these years of seeming inactivity, comparatively speaking, he had read and thought much, and the new thought of the age had fecundated his mind. Historical and religious criticism, educational and social problems, had taken possession ...
— Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson • William Morton Payne
... are not taxed by the support of such massive viscera, nor the digestion of so bulky a food; and, as a consequence, there is greater locomotive energy and considerable vivacity. If, again, we contrast the stolid inactivity of the graminivorous sheep with the liveliness of the dog, subsisting on flesh or farinaceous matters, or a mixture of the two, we see a difference similar in kind, but still greater in degree. And after walking through the Zoological Gardens, ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... man anchors himself to some mere platitudes of submission to the Divine Will, misunderstanding and misinterpreting and misapplying the great and sublime law of obedience and translating it into conditions of spiritual and mental inactivity that are only a degree less degrading than the cowardice and ignorance that rushes into suicide; and the third, of learning the great lesson involved in the disappointment. Submission to the Divine Will is ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... generalized into the three following attitudes; either we wish to act upon something, or be acted on by it, or to maintain a neutral position; in other words we either intend to project a force, or receive a force or keep a position of inactivity relatively to some particular object. Now the judgment determines which of these three positions we shall take up, the consciously active, the consciously receptive, or the consciously neutral; and then the function of the will is simply to maintain the position we have determined upon; and ...
— The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... of Caesar are such as reflect the man himself. The majesty of his character consists chiefly in the imperturbable calmness and equanimity of his temper; he had no sudden bursts of energy and alternations of passion and inactivity. The elevation of his character was a high one, but it was a level table-land. This calmness and equability pervades his writings, and for this reason they have been thought to want life and energy. The beauty of his language ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... their chief had rendered distrustful and suspicious. Besides, he occupied only a subordinate position in this new expedition, the principal direction of which had been committed to the Lord of Roberval. The division of authority seems to have worked badly. Cartier had spent a year of inactivity in Canada before the Viceroy was prepared to join him, so seeing no prospect of success, he left for France, just as Roberval reached Canada. Without the co-operation of his lieutenant, the leader could ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... man from Belleville or La Villette dreads neither Prussians without, nor anarchy within. If he could only find a leader he would blow up himself and half Paris rather than submit to the humiliation of a capitulation. Anything he thinks is better than this "masterly inactivity." Above the din of the crowd the cannon could be heard sullenly firing from the forts; but even this warning of how near the foe is, seemed to convey no lesson to avoid civil strife. Unless General Trochu is a man ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... had spent four years, sharing the chambers of a young barrister in the Temple Gardens. His London career was uneventful. Taciturn in manner, he made few friends. His mind had a tendency toward contemplative inactivity. Of physical energy he had very little, and this may have been partly due to his infirmity. Late at night he would walk alone in the Strand: the teeming life of the city, and the mystery of its silence after midnight, had a strong fascination for him. In these rambles he came to know some of the ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... Mover; not an inert Eternity, such as the Platonic Eidos, but one always acting, His essence being to act, for otherwise he might never have acted, and the existence of the world would be an accident; for what should have, in that case, decided Him to act, after long inactivity? Nor can He be partly in act and partly potential, that is, quiescent and undetermined to act or not to act, for even in that case motion would not be eternal, but contingent and precarious. He ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... thus lost in inactivity, Eben Dudley could never precisely tell. He always stoutly maintained it could not have been long, since his watch was not disturbed by the smallest of those sounds from the woods, which sometimes occur in deep night, and which ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... are born into country homes, learn the common occupation, and of necessity in most cases make it their means of livelihood. Rural people are accustomed to hard labor for long hours. There are seasons when comparative inactivity renders life dull; there are individuals who enjoy pensions or the income of inherited or accumulated funds, and so are not compelled to resort to manual labor, and there are directors of agricultural industry; there are always a shiftless ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... he had much rather be a peasant slave upon the earth than reign over all the dead. So much did the inactivity and slothful condition of that state displease his unquenchable and restless spirit. Only he inquired of Ulysses if his father Peleus were living, and how ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB
... Sedgwick's inactivity and the information received from Stuart, Lee, on Wednesday afternoon, had been led to suspect that the main attack might be from the columns crossing above, he had immediately ordered Anderson to occupy Chancellorsville ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... therefore, form only a feeble idea of the world of knowledge imparted by a smell to a dog, a mole, a hedgehog, or an insect. The instruments of smell are the antennae. A poor ant without antennae is as lost as a blind man who is also deaf and dumb. This appears from its complete social inactivity, its isolation, its incapacity to guide itself and to find its food. It can, therefore, be boldly supposed that the antennae and their power of smell, as much on contact as at a distance, constitute the social sense of ants, the sense which allows them to ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... once a memorable evidence and a striking illustration of his faculty on the military side of his official career. He sets forth specifically, and in the alternative, two plans of operation, and with skill and caustic severity he contrasts the inactivity and delays of General McClellan, with the vigor of policy and activity of movement which characterized the campaign on the part of the enemy. He brings in review the facts that General McClellan's army was superior in numbers, ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... and exertion that the germ will thrive, but also only in the sunshine of victory. Once it becomes a STRONG TREE, it will stand against the fiercest storms of misfortune and defeat, and even against the indolent inactivity of peace, at least for a time. It can therefore only be created in War, and under great Generals, but no doubt it may last at least for several generations, even under Generals of moderate capacity, and through considerable periods ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... had been hitherto a failure, Vincent Holroyd could not be pronounced a success. He had been, certainly, more distinguished at college; but after taking his degree, reading for the Bar, and being called, three years had passed in forced inactivity—not, perhaps, an altogether unprecedented circumstance in a young barrister's career, but with the unpleasant probability, in his case, of a continued brieflessness. A dry and reserved manner, due to a secret shyness, had kept away many whose friendship might ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... though always on civil, would never be on intimate terms with him. Far different has been the Duke's own career, for he has, throughout the Session, displayed a dignity, candour, and moderation, without any tameness or indifference or inactivity, which raise him to the highest rank as a statesman and a patriot, and show him equally mindful of his own honour and his country's good. He alone has moderated the rancour of Lyndhurst, kept in check the violence of Brougham, and restrained the ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... futile attempts at self-expression, he returns to his street corner subdued and so far discouraged that when he has the next impulse to vigorous action he concludes that it is of no use, and sullenly settles back into inactivity. He thus learns to persuade himself that it is better to do nothing, or, as the psychologist would say, "to ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams
... "that I have ever conducted." A study of these pages will transform that vague idea into wonder and admiration. Big the business might well be called, since it is nothing less than the bringing back, almost to normal life, of men apparently condemned to an existence of helpless inactivity and dependence. Few things will strike you more forcibly in this book than its practical common sense. That and an unsentimental optimism seem to be the dominant notes of all Sir ARTHUR'S effort. Without doubt the success of this has been beyond measure helped by the fact that the originator was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 11, 1919 • Various
... no means of subsistence. I was unknown to my neighbours, and desired to remain unknown. I was unqualified for manual labour by all the habits of my life; but there was no choice between penury and diligence,—between honest labour and criminal inactivity. I mused incessantly on the forlornness of my condition. Hour after hour passed, and the horrors of want began to encompass me. I sought with eagerness for an avenue by which I might escape from it. The perverseness of my nature led me on from one guilty thought ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... sceptical view of the gloom in which we are placed is the true one, and that the Christian's is false; which, nevertheless, is likely to be not merely the happier, but the nobler being,—he who sits down in querulous repining or slothful inactivity, as the result of doubt, or he who, buoyant with faith and hope, encounters the gloom, and, while longing for the dawn, is confident that it will come? But if that sketch be a true one,—if the trial ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... George, convinced by Harry's earnestness, but by no means pleased to be condemned to an interval of ignorance and inactivity. 'I shall hold my tongue and close my eyes. But you agree with me that Gabriel ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... he was met half-way by the news of the Indian Mutiny; how promptly and magnanimously he took on himself the responsibility of sacrificing the success of his own expedition by diverting the troops from China to India; how, after many weary months of enforced inactivity, the expedition was resumed, and carried through numberless thwartings to a successful issue—these are matters of history with which every reader must be acquainted. But those who are most familiar with the events may find an interest in the following ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... encouraging one. It is an immense thing for me to be still able to work at all, and keep myself from helpless dependence upon any one.... The occupation, the mere business of the business, will, I am persuaded, be good rather than bad for me; for though one may be strong against sorrow, sorrow and inactivity combined are too much for any strength. Such a burden might not kill one, but destroy one's vitality to a degree just short of, and therefore worse than, death—crush, instead ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... was evidently a pack; for an ice-blink, which moved daily about in that direction, showed that the mass was acted upon by the winds; and at last the southerly wind drove it up into Wellington Channel. To be condemned to inactivity, with such a body of water close at hand, was painful to all but those whose age and prudence seemed to justify in congratulating themselves on being yet frozen in; and trying as had been many disappointments we experienced in the Arctic ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... of sight by the normal newly-born child and the infant with that of those born blind, we should, above all, bear in mind that the latter in general could make use of only one eye, and also that on account of the long inactivity of the retina and the absence of the crystalline lens, as well as in consequence of the numerous experiences of touch, essential differences exist. Notwithstanding this, there appears an agreement in the manner in which in both cases vision is learned, the eye is practiced, ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... cannot tell," replied the sculptor; "to guess would be almost vain. The fearful strain upon the muscles, their utter helplessness and inactivity, the frightful swellings, the effect of weight upon the racked and tortured sinews, appal me too much ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Every creature, except man, takes as much of it as is necessary: he alone deviates from this original law, and suffers accordingly. Weak nerves, and glandular obstructions, which are now so common, are the constant companions of inactivity. We seldom hear the active or laborious complain of nervous diseases: indeed many have been cured of them by being reduced to the necessity of labouring for their own support. This shews the source from which such disorders flow, and the means by which they may ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... were gone abroad again or not. I go to London toward the end of April: can't you manage to wait in England? I suppose you will only be a day or two in London before you put foot in rail, coach, or on steamer for the Continent; and I excuse my own dastardly inactivity in not going up to meet you and shake hands with you before you start, by my old excuse; that had you but let me know of your coming to England, I should have seen you. This is no excuse; but don't put me out of your books as a frog-hearted wretch. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... me to a public school on Greenwich Avenue. The janitor wanted an assistant. I was so weary with my inactivity, that any kind of a job at any kind of pay would have been acceptable. The janitor showed me over the school, told me what his work was. Finally, he took me to the cellar where he had piled up in a corner ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... well what you ought to say, seeing that it is listened to by so many. Let the public records contain nothing [of your saying] which any need blush to read. The good governor not only has no part nor lot in injustice; unless he is ever diligently doing some noble work he incurs blame even for his inactivity. For if that most holy author [Moses?] be consulted, it will be seen that it is a kind of priesthood to fill the office of the Praetorian Praefecture in a ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... was not difficult to account for the lamentable fate of my lost favourite. I found that I had increased two stone two pounds during my six weeks comparative inactivity in the King's Bench; for, although I had taken much more exercise than my fellow prisoner, Mr. Waddington, yet it was so very different from, and so much less than, that which I had been in the habit of taking when I was ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... present, nothing," Marley replied. "So long as the man in the hospital remains unconscious I can do no more than pursue what Beaconsfield called 'a policy of masterly inactivity.' I have told you a good deal more than I had any right to do, but I did so in the hope that you could assist me. Perhaps in a day or two you will think ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... of the two limp women who formed a neutral-tinted background to his impressive outline. His pictures of course fetched high prices; but he worked slowly—"painfully," as his devotees preferred to phrase it—with frequent intervals of ill health and inactivity, and the circle of Keniston connoisseurs was still as small as it was distinguished. The girl's fancy instantly hailed in him that favorite figure of imaginative youth, the artist who would rather starve than paint a pot-boiler. It is known to comparatively few that the ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... loyal Roman Catholics who clung to him. None seemed discontented but old Marshal Biron, who, when he met the King coming out of the fray with battered armor and blunted sword, could not help contrasting the opportunity his Majesty had enjoyed to distinguish himself with his own enforced inactivity, and exclaimed, "Sire, this is not right! You have to-day done what Biron ought to have done, and he has done what the King should have done." But even Biron was unable to deny that the success of the royal arms surpassed all expectation, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... has been of eminent service to rouse us from the state of lethargy in which we indulged, and to make us acquainted with our rights, our glory, and the inviolable duty which we owe to our holy religion and our monarch. We wanted some electric stroke to rouse us from our paralytic state of inactivity; we stood in need of a hurricane to clear the atmosphere of the insalubrious vapours with which it was loaded.'—The unanimity with which the whole people were affected they rightly deem, an indication of wisdom, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... the time she got there, the woolly red-and-gray blankets were saturated with sunlight, and she sometimes fell asleep as soon as she stretched her body on their warm surfaces. She used to wonder at her own inactivity. She could lie there hour after hour in the sun and listen to the strident whir of the big locusts, and to the light, ironical laughter of the quaking asps. All her life she had been hurrying and sputtering, as if ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... testified and had openly borne witness that Jesus was the One for whom he had been sent to prepare. With the inauguration of Christ's ministry, John's influence had waned, and for many months he had been shut up in a cell, chafing under his enforced inactivity, doubtless yearning for the freedom of the open, and for the locusts and wild honey of the desert. Jesus was increasing while he decreased in popularity, influence, and opportunity; and he had affirmed that such condition ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... attitude of masterly inactivity could not be kept up for so long, for a problem, bequeathed him by his predecessor, pressed upon him, demanding action, just where action might, as he well knew, mean a match dropped in the heart of a powder-magazine. On an island in the very harbour of Charleston itself stood Fort Sumter, ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... amendment to the Address, and had urged upon the House, in very strong language, the expediency of showing, at the very commencement of the session, that the country had returned to Parliament a strong majority determined not to put up with Conservative inactivity. "I conceive it to be my duty," Mr. Mildmay had said, "at once to assume that the country is unwilling that the right honourable gentlemen opposite should keep their seats on the bench upon which they sit, and in the performance of that duty I am called upon ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... captive generals were slaughtered, together with four thousand Athenian prisoners. Conon, however, made his escape. So disgraceful and unnecessary was this great calamity, that it is supposed the fleet was betrayed by its own commanders; and this supposition is strengthened by its inactivity since the battle of Arginusae. This crowning disaster happened in September, B.C. 405, and caused a dismay at Athens such as had never before been felt—not even when the Persians were marching through Attica. Nothing was now left to the miserable city but to make what preparation it ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... altogether unexampled—deliberately throwing away his opportunities, and consigning himself to a slumber of thirty years, which might almost justify us in terming him the "Rip Van Winkle" of British art. The causes of this strange decadence, this singular mental inactivity, which seem to us to have been hitherto very little or at best very imperfectly understood, we ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... health, is normal. All healthy children, even men, are active. Activity means growth and development. Inactivity means decay and death. The man who has no useful work to do sometimes expresses himself in wrong-doing and crime, for he has to do something industriously to live. Even our so-called "idle rich" and leisure classes are strenuously active in their ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... not especially dark, for the moon was looking through a mist of hazy clouds. It was bitingly cold, and though the boys became numb from the many minutes of inactivity, not one of them moved. For fully an hour they had remained motionless, when faintly over the water was heard the splash, splash, splash, ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... the United States with distinguished honors gained by successful foreign diplomacy, Mr. Adams was not allowed to remain long in inactivity. In 1802 be was elected to the Senate of Massachusetts, from the Boston district. During his services in that body, he gave an indication of that independence, as a politician, which characterized him ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... been the motive of that party for its policy of inactivity and indecision on this question heretofore, there are not wanting signs of a change of that policy presently into one of activity and decision. It seems probable that reduction of representation of its Southern wing in its National Conventions ...
— The Ballotless Victim of One-Party Governments - The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 16 • Archibald H. Grimke
... is to be feared; this inactivity, to my mind, proves it. He is waiting; the moment is not ripe. There are many sentimental fools in this world. One has only to step into the street and shout 'Down with!' or 'Long live!' to ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... 'Middle Florida' is considerably behind all the rest in all stages of educational progress. The usual plea is that this is due to the intolerable burden of Negro education, and a general discouragement and inactivity is ascribed to this cause. The following figures are given to show that the education of the Negroes of Middle Florida does not cost the white people of that section one cent. Without discussing the American principle ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... inhabitants of Ladysmith now began to realise that they were doomed to a long period of inactivity if to nothing more serious. The days immediately following the Boer attempt of 9th November were quiet, rain and mist interfering with the enemy's bombardment. November 12 was, however, a somewhat eventful day, owing to the birth of the first siege-baby, and the arrival in camp of ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... Hindoo institutions a woman cannot reign, she is the legal regent of a kingdom during the minority of the heir—and minorities are frequent, the lives of the male rulers being so often prematurely terminated through their inactivity and excesses. When we consider that these princesses have never been seen in public, have never conversed with any man not of their own family, except from behind a curtain; that they do not read, and if they did, there is no book in their ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... exclaimed Napoleon, sarcastically. "But why so late? We have lost nearly a month, and your mediation, from its long inactivity, has become almost hostile. It appears that it no longer suits your cabinet to guarantee the integrity of the French empire? Be it so; but why had you not the candor to make me acquainted with that determination at an earlier ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... part of the world, were attended with the worst effects to the trade and agriculture of the islands. On the peace of 1814, the condition of the country was truly deplorable, as, during a long period of isolation and inactivity, abuses had multiplied to an alarming extent, and the minds of the Indian population especially had become divided between superstition and sedition, from each of which a sanguinary catastrophe resulted. Public opinion at the time fastened on the priests ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... late in the month, having grown ashamed of inactivity, I carried my knapsack down to the river and put it into the Otter's smallest boat, which he called the prissoire, although it was not really a canoe. He was the chief builder of it, and as a contrivance for bringing home to man the solemn truth that life hangs to a thread or floats upon ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... third of September, a beautiful day. Sophia, suffering from an unimportant relapse, had remained in a state of inactivity, and had scarcely gone out at all. She loathed the flat, but lacked the energy to leave it every day. There was no sufficiently definite object in leaving it. She could not go out and look for health as she might have looked for flowers. So she remained in the flat, and ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... furiously. He was a fine fellow, that captain. He had been a sublieutenant in the Zouaves, was tall and thin and as hard as steel, and during the whole campaign he had cut out their work for the Germans. He fretted in inactivity, and could not accustom himself to the idea of being a ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... been back at the Mission Station more than three weeks, quite long enough for me to begin to be bored with idleness and inactivity, when that call for which I had been ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... Brown and the getting possession of his chart was the one stimulant that helped Ann to endure this long day of inactivity. It was like a small thimbleful of wine to one who longed for a generous draught; there was nothing else to do but to wait, alert for all chances that might help her. Evening closed in; the sisters were left alone. Christa ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... be the highest wisdom to trust everything to his new ally in this manner; but what else could he do, except stand by in forced inactivity while the momentous duel was being fought out? Just then, at all events, he ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... had hitherto been engaged, were of a private complexion, arising out of literary disputes and rivalry. But the country was now deeply agitated by political faction; and so powerful an auxiliary was not permitted by his party to remain in a state of inactivity. The religion of the Duke of York rendered him obnoxious to a large proportion of the people, still agitated by the terrors of the Popish Plot. The Duke of Monmouth, handsome, young, brave, and courteous, had all the external requisites for a popular idol; ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... Supreme Government; one of them being that he had married publicly, with great pomp, a woman of Royalist tendencies. Quarrels were sure to arise between these two men of very different character. At last the Civil Governor began to complain of his inactivity and to hint at treachery, which, he wrote, would be not surprising in a man of such antecedents. Gaspar Ruiz heard of it. His rage flamed up, and the woman ever by his side knew how to feed it with perfidious words. I do not know whether really the Supreme ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... myself one of the complacent hosts of a party of merry chattering young women, who seemed to be quite satisfied with our attention. All of us were just beginning to be very jolly, and I had actually forgotten my hard destiny of inactivity, when who should come into the room but an officer on crutches, who happened to be an acquaintance of each of our guests but was unknown both to me and my other just too elderly male friends. In an instant we were alone, and alone we remained for certainly ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 25, 1914 • Various
... had succeeded but too well. The vote which called William to the throne would not have passed so easily but for the extreme dangers which threatened the state; and it was in consequence of his own dishonest inactivity that those dangers had become extreme, [141] As this accusation rests on no proof, those who repeat it are at least bound to show that some course clearly better than the course which William took was open to him; and this they will find a difficult task. If indeed he could, within a few weeks ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... possible to do so. He never resented the personal discourtesies. He never wearied of the fruitless task of urging him on. He never refused to let him have his own way provided he could show a reason for it. But his persistent inactivity wore out the patience of the country and finally of the army itself. With the exception of northern democrats with southern sympathies, who from the first were sure of only one thing, namely, that the war was a failure, the clamor for the removal of ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... digging on the hill of Montmartre, and paid twenty sous per day. Remember that the wharves and quays are covered with them, that the Hotel-de-Ville is invested by them, and that, around the palace, they seem to be a reproach to the inactivity of disarmed justice." Daily they grow bitter and excited around the doors of the bakeries, where, kept waiting a long time, they are not sure of obtaining bread. You can imagine the fury and the force with which they will ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... at times the strangest, the most unexpected of all the things that had happened since his awakening. It had something of the quality of that inactivity that comes in dreams. A tumult, the stupendous realisation of a world struggle between Ostrog and himself, and then this confined quiet little room with its mouthpieces and bells and ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... fretted as much as one of his buoyant nature could fret under this forced inactivity. The sunshine, the beautiful surroundings, and the presence of friends, made him forget France at times, and think only of the present. And Denise absorbed his thoughts of the present and the future. She was a constant puzzle to him. There seemed to be two ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... C.). No, I don't; whenever my various ailments confine me to my bed, I chafe—positively chafe at the terrible inactivity. I want to be up and about, shooting, riding, cricket, football, judo, the usual ...
— I'll Leave It To You - A Light Comedy In Three Acts • Noel Coward
... the afternoon, after their destroyers had carefully swept the anchorage in search of mines; and it was my hope that—we having left them alone for the preceding two days—they would by this time be getting suspicious of such unwonted inactivity on our part, and consequently would send out one, or perhaps even two ships, to guard against a possible coup ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... chief, met and talked and carried on their busy intrigues, and played their Sibyl—Sibylle de carrefour, says one of the historians indignantly—against the Maid, who, all discouraged and downcast, fretted by caresses, sick of inactivity, dragged out the uneasy days in an uncongenial world; but Jeanne has left no record of the sensations with which she saw these days pass, eating her heart out, gazing over that rapid river, on the other side of which all the devils ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... interment in the village church seemed to rouse the afflicted parents to exertions, that, though intimately connected with the loss that had befallen them, were almost a relief to Mrs. Middleton, after the inactivity of the last ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... Parnell attempts to prove is, that the Catholic religion in Ireland had sunk into torpor and inactivity, till Government roused it with the lash: that even then, from the respect and attachment which men are always inclined to show towards government, there still remained a large body of loyal Catholics; that these only decreased in number from ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... negotiate a loan. His leaning to Christians aroused further opposition to his rule, and in January 1908 he was declared deposed by the ulema of Fez, who offered the throne to Hafid. After months of inactivity Abd-el-Aziz made an effort to restore his authority, and quitting Rabat in July he marched on Marrakesh. His force, largely owing to treachery, was completely overthrown (August 19th) when near that city, and Abd-el-Aziz fled to Settat ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... includes the name of every man of prominence in the England of King James. And the tone of many of these productions discloses an affectionate familiarity that speaks for the amiable personality and sound worth of the laureate. In 1619, growing unwieldy through inactivity, Jonson hit upon the heroic remedy of a journey afoot to Scotland. On his way thither and back he was hospitably received at the houses of many friends and by those to whom his friends had recommended him. When he arrived in Edinburgh, the burgesses met to grant him the freedom of ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... must not let my pen run away too fast with me! I am leaping to the end, before the end has come. But, as I say, I have no heart to write of all those weary months of wearing inactivity, wherein the spirit of the Maid chafed like that of a caged eagle, whilst the counsellors of the King—her bitter foes—had his ear, and held him back from following the course which her spirit and her ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... observed on another occasion, that these two species, though sometimes encamped on the same beach, always kept at a great distance asunder, and had no communication. A strong rank stench is common to them, as well as to all other seals; a circumstance as well known to the ancients, as their inactivity and drowsiness whilst they lie ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... sea-goddess Thetis, who is said to have dipped her son, when a babe, in the river Styx, and thereby rendered him invulnerable, except in the right heel, by which she held him. When the boy was nine years old it was foretold to Thetis that he would either enjoy a long life of inglorious ease and inactivity, or that after a brief career of victory he would die the death of a hero. Naturally desirous of prolonging the life of her son, the fond mother devoutly hoped that the former fate might be allotted to him. With this ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... Sardinia, should take the same course, France would be in dire straits. It was therefore suggested in the Assembly that a blow should be struck at the house of Savoy, in order to awe both that and the other courts of Italy into inactivity. The idea of an attack on Sardinia for this purpose originated in Corsica, but among the friends of Salicetti, and it was he who urged the scheme successfully. The sister island was represented as eager to free itself from the control of Savoy. In order to secure Paoli's influence not only in his ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... a corner of the reserve trench. The fifteen inches of half-frozen mud caused my old wound from an Afghan bullet to ache viciously. I longed for some wounded to arrive—anything to end this chilly inactivity. A tall officer in staff uniform jumped into the ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 9, 1914 • Various
... was he more successful against Moldavia, and November arrived with its promise of snow to block the mountain-routes before he had advanced more than four miles into Rumanian territory. Mackensen, too, was held up in the Dobrudja, and a month's inactivity was only relieved by rival raids across the Danube. But by 20 October he had received reinforcements in the shape of two Turkish divisions and one German. The Russo-Rumanian line was broken, and on the 21st the railway between Constanza and Tchernavoda. ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... circumstances is to alternate the feedings; one feeding from both breasts of the mother, and the next an artificial food. Some arrangement of this kind is the just and the safest way, because a very large percentage of mothers suffer from inactivity while lying in bed after a confinement. This inactivity expresses itself in a failure of some of the organs to perform their duty properly. This may affect the quantity, and sometimes the quality, of the milk, but it is, as a rule, quickly rectified as soon as the mother ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... the first indication of the necessity of deviating from what had previously seemed the most natural course—a direct retreat on Nizhni-Novgorod. The army turned more to the south, along the Ryazan road and nearer to its supplies. Subsequently the inactivity of the French (who even lost sight of the Russian army), concern for the safety of the arsenal at Tula, and especially the advantages of drawing nearer to its supplies caused the army to turn still further ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... detestation of a foreign sovereign, hope of sudden greatness or riches, friendship or emulation between particular men, or, what are perhaps more general and powerful, desire of novelty and impatience of inactivity, fill a camp with adventurers, add rank to ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... the rear lines movement could only be made ON THE TOP and fully exposed to enemy snipers, who, suffering badly from forced inactivity and ennui, delighted to exercise their shooting powers by a few minutes' pleasant ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... tolerate the inactivity of imprisonment better than their inferiors. We find that our ordinary malefactors cannot endure solitary imprisonment for more than a year—seldom indeed so long. The Italian prisoners whom I have known, Zucchi, Borsieri, Poerio, Gonfalonieri, and Pellico, endured imprisonment lasting from ten ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... human species, but he took care that all was done properly. Putting one of his big boots a little in advance, and drawing himself up to his full shortness, he watched the operation attentively, as if the smallness of his stature had nothing to do with his inactivity. When all was ready, he climbed up to his seat, and at a signal from the station-keeper, who watched with paternal pride all the movements of the little prodigy, we dashed off at a pace rarely attained ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... and tottering towards the grass. And yet it is certain, that what was written on his own tombstone implied much less the hope of another life, than the gloomy satisfaction of having partners in the darkness and inactivity of death. The reader will see it in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, where a short ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... me the impression, but I think I never was in a more melancholy and deserted town of the same magnitude. The population is only 4,000; but, to judge from its extent, it might contain at least three times that number. It is difficult to account exactly for the causes of this inactivity, but I should be inclined to think some blame attaches to its government, as here are no traces of that beneficial superintendence which is so perceptible at Berne, This city cannot even boast of a public library. There are at Lucerne ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard
... temperaments, and their traditions, and not only will a new variety of human being emerge, but the mixing of opposites in idea and temperament will quicken self-consciousness and heighten mental power and speed up its activity. The opportunity of the blond beasts of prey has lain in the torpor and inactivity and ignorance of the multitude. But I find no torpor in California. And where there is no one that will allow himself to be preyed upon, even blond beasts take up the new enterprise of co-operation among ...
— Is civilization a disease? • Stanton Coit
... the question is how it was that, Pallas-like, the faith sprang ready-armed from the ground, conquering and to conquer, and why, the weapons dropping from its grasp, Islam began to lose its pristine vigor, and finally relapsed into inactivity. ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir
... of May; their hunting was interrupted, not so much by the severity of the weather as by the absence of game; fortunately, the supply of fresh meat was not yet quite exhausted. They found themselves accordingly condemned to new inactivity; for a fortnight, from the 11th to the 25th of May, only one incident broke the monotony of their lives; a serious illness, diphtheria, suddenly seized the carpenter; from the swollen tonsils and the false membrane in the throat, the doctor could not be ignorant of ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... month of accustoming himself to these new conditions, Breed had visited Shady but twice. He had the companionship of coyotes to fill his time and the lonesome howls of the she-wolf were unanswered. It is the stock dog without steady occupation that reverts to the wild. Mere inactivity, even if coupled with kindness, is insufficient to still his natural restlessness and fill his life; he must have careful training and active employment to be content,—and ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... and joy and love in their rarest habiliments. How he endured the suspense, the torture of uncertainty, the craving for the life that others were enjoying, he could not understand. Big, strong and full of vigor, his inactivity was maddening; this virtual captivity grew more and more intolerable with each succeeding day. Would they never take him from the tomb in which he was existing? A hundred times had he, in his desperation, concluded ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... when indolence seems the only resource, a sitz of ten minutes at noon will suffice to protect against the enervating effect of heat, and to rouse from listlessness and inactivity. ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... which surrendered, after three days' bombardment, on August 16, contrary to Napoleon's expectation. Antwerp had meanwhile been put in a state of defence, and was now protected by the enemy's fleet, while French and Dutch troops were pouring down to the Scheldt. After ten days of inactivity, Chatham advanced his headquarters to Bath, found that further advance was impossible, and recommended the government to recall the expedition, leaving 15,000 men to defend the island of Walcheren. This advice was adopted, but the ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... sobriquet of Ben Buzz—extensively as to distances, if not as to people. By the voyageurs, and other French of that region, he was almost universally styled le Bourdon^ or the "Drone"; not, however, from his idleness or inactivity, but from the circumstances that he was notorious for laying his hands on the products of labor that proceeded from others. In a word, Ben Boden was a "bee-hunter," and as he was one of the first to exercise his craft in that portion of the country, so was he infinitely the most ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... she attended a few committee meetings. The rumor had been persistently circulated that she was to resign the presidency of the National-American Association and retire to private life. In fact, she never had the slightest intention of giving up active work. She realized that inactivity meant stagnation and hastened both physical and mental decay, and she was determined to keep on and "drop in the harness" when the time came to stop.[115] It was evident, however, that she must have relief in her immense ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... no remembrance how I first heard of the return of Bonaparte from Elba. Wonder at his temerity was the impression made by the news, but wonder unmixed with apprehension. This inactivity of foresight was universal. A torpor indescribable, a species of stupor utterly indefinable, seemed to have enveloped the capital with a mist that was impervious. Everybody went about their affairs, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... the peasants, so it seemed to Pyotr Mihalitch, looked at him enigmatically and with perplexity, as though they wanted to say "Your sister has been seduced; why are you doing nothing?" And he reproached himself for inactivity, though he did not know precisely what action he ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... displayed an almost equal want of courage; and La Fayette, disheartened and perplexed, though the number of his troops still more than doubled those opposed to him, retreated into France, and remained there in a state of complete inactivity. ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... picture of repose. The distance between the two was about a league; and Bonnie was sufficiently familiar with the formation of the land and of the position of the vessels, to be quite aware that this inactivity on the part of those whose duty it was to protect the rights of the Queen, proceeded from their utter ignorance of the proximity of their neighbor. The thicket which bounded the Cove and the growth of oaks and pines that stretched along the narrow sandy spit of land quite to its extremity, ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... and with it the dust that obscured the landscape. That the storm was over he was convinced, but he chafed at the inactivity the low visibility put upon him, nor did conditions better materially before night fell, so that he was forced to await the new day at the very spot at which the tempest had deposited him. Without his sleeping silks and furs he spent a far from comfortable night, ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... being scarcely convalescent when Richard drew in his forces, he had been left in command of Pontefract in place of Sir Robert Wallingford, who went with the King. But lately his strength was coming back to him with swift pulsations and he was growing irritably impatient of his forced inactivity and of the obligation of office which held him stagnant while his sovereign rode to the wars. For as yet, no news had reached this distant section of the actual happenings in the South and the bloodless collapse of ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... no longer arduous, for often entire days would pass without a single casualty demanding their attention. The cold weather resulted in much sickness among the soldiers, however, and Gys found during this period of military inactivity that his medicine chest was more in demand than his case of ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... crack of Sumter's guns as they opened in broadside on Dupont's fleet. That memorable assault accomplished nothing unless it might be to ascertain that Charleston could not be taken by water. The expedition returned to Hilton Head, and a period of inactivity followed, enlivened only by unimportant raids, newspaper correspondence, and the small quarrels that naturally arise in ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... features, last ghastly traces of his ancient nobility. He vaguely recalled to my mind a long-ago Continental trip of my childhood, and an unfortunate elephant in the Marseilles Jardin des Plantes who, from long inactivity in the corner of his cage, had become overgrown with moss. There was the same incongruous touch of erstwhile nobility, the same decay, the same earthy smell. By what shady and circuitous paths had the unfortunate count reached this unhappy pass? Perhaps his wife was responsible; for ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... so much out of repair machine from breaking to pieces." The difficulties, indeed, of supporting a government every way so feeble in what constitutes the true strength of a state, perplexed our hero in no small degree. He saw, every where, that inactivity and indecision which so little accorded with his own prompt and active mind; and he languished for the busy scenes of action, from which he was detained by the alarms of their Sicilian Majesties, and the constant claims on the wisdom of his councils, ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... tangible; he shall plunge thee deep beneath the surface of the mantled pool, the viscous spume shall draw over thy miserable head its dank and dismal shroud; or perhaps, more ingenious in mischief, he shall chain thee up in inactivity, a conscious statue, the silent and passive witness of the usurped joys that once thou fondly fanciedst ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... three or four years. He continues in the letter to Bridge, just quoted: "I long to get into the country, for my health latterly is not quite what it has been for many years past. I should not long stand such a life of bodily inactivity and mental exertion as I have lived for the last few months. An hour or two of daily labor in a garden, and a daily ramble in country air, or on the sea-shore, would keep all right. Here, I hardly go out once a week. Do not ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... way when they began to sink, and Bjoern said with a laugh, "What Ran enfolds I trust she will keep." Even King Helge was with difficulty got ashore, and the survivors were forced to stand in helpless inactivity while Ellida's great sails slowly sank beneath the horizon. It was thus that Frithiof sadly saw his native land vanish from sight; and as it disappeared he breathed a tender farewell to the beloved country which he ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... all human effort. His mysticism only intensified this feeling. Assured as of a certain truth that, corrupt, fallen, and earthly as human nature is, there is nevertheless in the soul of every man 'the fire and light and love of God, though lodged in a state of hiddenness, inactivity, and death, ... overpowered by the workings of flesh and blood,'[531] it seemed to him the one worthy object of life, by purification and by mortification of the lower nature, to remove all hindrances to the enlightening efficacy of the Holy Spirit. ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... wretched and unhappy by unwarrantable promotions, nor must extraordinary talents be kept back to the detriment of the service on account of mere rules and regulations. Great abilities will justify exceptions; but ignorance and inactivity will not make up for years spent in ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck |
