"Idle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... been idle. They had got old Clover, the cart-horse, but she would do nothing but graze, so we decided not to use her in the bull-fight, but to let her be the Elephant. The Elephant's is a nice quiet part, and she was quite big enough for a young one. Then the black pig could ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... It was of course none of his business what Dock did with himself, though he might think the other was a mean shirk to hang around idle when his people needed every dollar ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster
... was yet in its baby clothes, and people were not as wise as they are nowadays, there dwelt in the good town of London a poor tailor's apprentice named Bartlemy Bowbell. He might be called poor in a double sense; for not only was he such a lazy, idle fellow that he scarcely ever took a stitch, and so seldom had a copper of his own, but he was a miserable workman, and, like an organ-grinder's monkey, or a blind man's dog, obtained more kicks ...
— Funny Big Socks - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... doth not bar them to write, so that it be some new invention of their own; but we weave the same web still, twist the same rope again and again; or if it be a new invention, 'tis but some bauble or toy which idle fellows write, for as idle fellows to read, and who so cannot invent? [91]"He must have a barren wit, that in this scribbling age can forge nothing. [92]Princes show their armies, rich men vaunt their buildings, soldiers their manhood, and scholars vent their toys;" ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... to gratify their idle curiosity, but the very return of her brightness, and her unwillingness to talk about the matter, only added to the foolish desires of outsiders to find out what had really occurred. So some of these naughty busybodies began questioning the children ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young
... says Gladstone, "was singularly free of vices ... one point only we reserve, a certain tinge of occasional vindictiveness. Was he envious? Never. Was he servile? No. Was he insolent? No.... Was he idle? The question is ridiculous. Was he false? No; but true as steel and transparent as crystal. Was he vain? We hold that he was not. At every point in the ugly list ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... Parliament, for then they need not change, but your people are appointed by you and not by me (nominally), and therefore, unless they were to vote against my Government (which would be awkward), they need not change. You may rely upon my care that you shall have proper people, and not idle and not too young, and Lord Melbourne has already mentioned several to me who ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... of the kind, perhaps," replied Haviland, contemptuously; "but I looked upon them only as the silly vaporings of a few disaffected creatures, who, having heard of the rebellious movements in the Bay State, have thrown out these idle threats with the hope of intimidating our authorities, and so prevent the holding of a court, which they fear might bring too many ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... had become insupportable, and he asked permission to return to Flanders, whence he had been summoned. Philip V. allowed him to depart, and Madame des Ursins lost not one jot of her authority. But the complaints, the murmurs, the idle talk continued, the incessant repetition of which could not fail at last to make an impression upon a weak mind. In the end the King grew wearied, and vexed, especially at the reports relating to such ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... satisfactory. Celestina worked so steadily that she would soon have left Biddy behind had Biddy been as idle as had often been the case under Miss Millet. And Mrs. Vane was pleased to think that the plan had ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth
... say nothing of its agricultural possibilities, will render the construction of a line imperative, at any rate as far as the city of Yakutsk. The prolongation of this as far north as Gijiga is no idle dream, for I have frequently heard it seriously discussed, and even advocated, by the merchant princes of Irkutsk. A railway to Gijiga would open up Kamtchatka, with its valuable minerals, furs, and lumber, and also Nelkan, near Ayan, where gold ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... against it was it meant waiting over another day, till the funeral outfit got down from Denver—all hands having chipped in to give Hart a good send-off, and telegraphed his size to a first-class Denver undertaker, with orders to do him up in style. Making him wait around so long, sort of idle, was what Santa Fe kicked hardest against at first. But after his talk with the Hen, as was remembered afterwards, he didn't do any more kicking; and some of the boys noticed he was a little nervous, and kept asking, ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier
... of March Wednesday 1805 a fine day visited by Mr. Mckinsey one of the Clerks of the N W Companey, the river riseing a little- maney Inds. here to day all anxiety for war axes the Smiths have not an hour of Idle time to Spear wind ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... walls as soon as they were made; but Kheyr-ed-Din from the city watched the progress of the bombardment gloomily, as he saw and knew that the fall of the Goletta was but a matter of days. All this time he was far from idle; sortie after sortie did the dauntless old warrior lead in person against those engaged in the task of bombardment. Time and again he heartened the Arab and Berber levies to attack, but the sallies were repulsed, and the lightly armed Africans were driven like chaff ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... begun out of idle admiration; he had continued from inclination; but to-night it was plus fort que lui, and he knew he ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... finance. Amongst the characters, those geniuses, who perceive everything at a glance, but penetrate nothing, are conspicuous. People of quick perception, whom we use to admire, are despised by the Potuans, who look upon them as idle loungers, that, though always moving, make no progress. Prudent men, on the contrary, who measure their own strength, and advance cautiously, are greatly esteemed by that nation, though with us they pass for fools or cowards. The Potuans and Martinians are ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... power of doing such things without being judged. Sometimes they see that a child is really unable to learn, when the others perceive no difference; and it would be very harsh and cruel to oppress one who is out of order for fear little silly, idle, healthy things should think themselves ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with Liz and Cissy across the fields from Endleigh, the trio came upon a group of the idle boys of the village who were assembled in front of an inclosed paddock containing Farmer Giles's brindled bull, a savage animal, whose implacable viciousness was the talk of the place; not even the ploughman, with whom he was more ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... eye, which belong to the best examples. We respect even the humbler ones; for they at least hate sentiment, they do not comprehend or approve of humor, and they never relish wit. What does a taste for these qualities indicate, but an idle and frivolous mind, devoted to trifles: and how fatal is such a taste, in the pursuit of wealth ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various
... drudge, slave; operate, manipulate, perform; ferment, effervesce. Antonyms: shirk, idle, dabble, loaf, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... sarcasms such as, in moments of spleen, dropped but too easily from the lips of the keenwitted Dorset. Caermarthen, a Tory, and a Tory who had been mercilessly persecuted by the Whigs, was disposed to make the most of this idle hearsay. But he received no encouragement from his master, who, of all the great politicians mentioned in history, was the least prone to suspicion. When William returned to England, Preston was brought before him, and was commanded to repeat the confession which had already ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... me your purpose of retiring from the government, though I felt all the magnitude of the event, I was in a considerable degree silent. I knew that to such a mind as yours persuasion was idle and impertinent; that, before forming your decision, you had weighed all the reasons for and against the measure, had made up your mind on full view of them, and that there could be little hope ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... little—wrote notes and letters, and am alone, which Locke says, is bad company. 'Be not solitary, be not idle.'—Um!—the idleness is troublesome; but I can't see so much to regret in the solitude. The more I see of men, the less I like them. If I could but say so of women too, all would be well. Why can't I? I am now six-and-twenty; ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... idle boy, I sought its grateful shade; In all their gushing joy Here, too, my sisters played. My mother kissed me here; My father pressed my hand;— Forgive this foolish tear, But let that old ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... Phoenicians to the Greeks. The Phoenicians were certainly using it with freedom in the 9th century B.C.; with so much freedom, indeed, that they must have been in possession of it for a considerable time before we can trace it. With the materials available up to August 1910 it would be idle here to attempt to trace its earlier history. Great discoveries in Cappadocia, Assyria and Egypt were then only at their beginning, and any statement was liable to be quickly disproved by the appearance of new evidence. The prevalent ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Aratov, after a preliminary apology for his boldness, for the strangeness of his visit, delivered the speech he had prepared, explaining that he was anxious to collect all the information possible about the gifted artist so early lost, that he was not led to this by idle curiosity, but by profound sympathy for her talent, of which he was the devoted admirer (he said that, devoted admirer!) that, in fact, it would be a sin to leave the public in ignorance of what it had lost—and ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... men and more women can be happy idle when they're single, but once you marry them to each other they've got to find work or they'll find trouble. Everybody's got to raise something in this world, and unless people raise a job, or crops, or children, they'll raise Cain. You can ride three miles ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... with a careless, idle air gazing on the gentlemen and ladies as they disembarked. None specially excited her interest. Many were there greeting relatives and friends; but she had no friend or relative, and what were ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... "d'ye think I brook Being worse treated than a cook? Insulted by a lazy ribald With idle pipe and vesture piebald? You threaten us, fellow? Do your worst! Blow your pipe there ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... forth in a monster cavalcade by the Paseo de la Vega to meet him some miles out of the city, and escort him back to the palace. All this was pleasant and exciting, but wise heads saw that this was no time for idle pleasure, and some impatience was manifested ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... France, divided and subdivided since the Revolution of 1789, into departments, arondissements, and cantons, is filled with chateaux, which, in the reign of Louis XV., were inhabited by those gold-be-spangled marquises, those idle, godless abbes, and those obese financiers, whom the secret memoirs of Grimm and Bachaumont, and the letters of the Marquis de Lauraguais, have held up to such unsparing ridicule and contempt. This milky and cheese-producing ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... "my homage deep Ah, not your rank, your wealth command! These idle baubles, lady, keep. Give ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various
... idle, and because I dreaded inexpressibly going back to my still house, I went with her. Her ways were a kind of entertainment, and I remember that I believed ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... with renewed interest, although she had not been idle during the summer by any means. With her pen she had copied nature in every possible phase, and had brought home, for her winter's campaign, rich treasures of ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... was that without conscious effort, without even a proof of merit beyond her appearance, Lorelei had arrived at the point where further advancement depended upon study and hard work; but, since these formed no part of the family program, she remained idle while Mrs. Knight and Jim arranged so many demands upon her time that she had no leisure for serious endeavors, even had she desired it. Proficiency in stage-craft of any sort comes only at the expense of peonage, and this girl was being ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... idle schoolboy, the unknown forsook his own course, turning from the road when Johnnie turned, and went with her up the steep, rocky gulch where the door of a deserted cabin flung to and fro on its hinges. At sight ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... be of publique matters 'tis not (aside) Like to be talke or idle fault finding, On which the coward onely spends his wisedome: These are all men of action and of spirit, And dare performe what ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... Ethics because they are convinced, on general principles, that only a mind hopelessly lost in the dark night of medieval speculation could conceive of philosophy in such ultra-deductive fashion. Reason was for so long servile to idle theology, it is not at all surprising that a work exemplifying reason to such high degree as does the Ethics, should receive scant respect from intrepid empiricists. It is so easy to confuse the rationalizations of reason with the ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... that is what annoys me. The others are all busy with your affairs or mine. But this idle one follows me like my shadow, and looks at me all the time. It is not at all polite. I fear he has a vacant mind and has ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... nor Carnot did the name of Ombreval mean anything. Robespierre's subscription of the document was accepted by each as affording him a sufficient warrant to append his own signature, and although Carnot asked a question or two, it was done in an idle humour, and he paid little attention to such ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... not allow him to remain idle. He was continually engaging in some daring enterprise, in which it must not be supposed he displayed nothing more than headlong recklessness. That quality was supplemented by coolness and skill, without which he never could have attained ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... to that censure. But, tried by this standard, Rip Van Winkle, as Mr. Jefferson plays it, is far from an immoral play. The picture as he paints it is moral in the same sense that nature is moral. No man, shiftless, idle, and drunken, afraid to go home, ashamed before his children, without self-respect or the regard of others, however gentle and sweet, and however much a favorite with the boys and girls and animals he may be, is a man whose courses those boys will wish to imitate or who will make vice more tasteful ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... spirit of it. I cannot tell you of the countless things she has sent away—bedding, clothes, shoes, furniture, food—everything. I do not know why the workers' shacks around the vineyard should remain idle practically all the time—there must be others in damp cellars in that crowded city who have become diseased, and who could be healed by the pure cold air up among my ancestral pines. I will see what can ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... friends, such as "Glory be to God on high," "Prosper Thou, O Lord, the work of our hands," "Innocency is never better lodged than at the sign of labour," "The industrious man hath no leisure to sin; and the idle man hath ...
— Little Gidding and its inmates in the Time of King Charles I. - with an account of the Harmonies • J. E. Acland
... all have laid to heart that maxim, 'Pain first and pleasure after.' (10) And in regard to pleasure of the senses, of all men I know, he is the most continent; so that these also are powerless to make him idle at the expense of duty. You must consider the matter then and tell me, as befits you, what you can ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... extent, combined the tastes of an aristocracy with the insight and verve of men of business. These are pushed out, so to say, by the dirty crowd of little men. After a generation or two they retire into idle luxury. Upon their immense capital they can only obtain low profits, and these they do not think enough to compensate them for the rough companions and rude manners they must meet in business. This constant levelling of our commercial houses is, too, unfavourable ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... "Yet, verily, is some of his advice important, and I should imagine commendable, yet I do not find my remedy therein. 'Avoid idleness'—yes, that is sage counsel—and employment to one that hath not employed himself may drive away thought; but I have never been idle, and mine hath not been love in idleness; 'Avoid her presence'—that I must do; yet doth she still present herself to mine imagination, and I doubt whether the tangible reality could be more clearly ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... again now as she noted the network of scratches upon his outstretched palms. "You certainly have not been idle," she ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... knowing the temper of the times under Nero, in which indolence was wisdom. He maintained the same tenor of conduct when praetor; for the judiciary part of the office did not fall to his share. [22] In the exhibition of public games, and the idle trappings of dignity, he consulted propriety and the measure of his fortune; by no means approaching to extravagance, yet inclining rather to a popular course. When he was afterwards appointed by Galba to manage an inquest concerning ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... uncertain language. It is fair to conclude that some insincerity, or some lack of a correct basis for sentiment, is betrayed in every pointless flirtation. It is hopelessly bad form. Young people who gratify vanity by idle "conquests," so called, make a sufficiently conspicuous show of ill-breeding; but a married flirt is ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... known anything else—! Well, he would like to see her at closer range. He lit another cigarette and studied her profile as she slipped out of the organ bench and settled herself nearer the window. He could hear the man's voice reading now. Some of the words drew his idle attention: ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... saint. Twice a week there was the sound of fiddling and dancing feet in a certain wooden hall that stood near the river; and there, with the men and women of the worldly sort, Ann and her sister danced. It was their amusement; they had no other except the idle talking and laughing that went on over the table at which Ann sold her home-brewed beer. Ann's end in life was just the ordinary one—respectability, or a moderate righteousness, first, and after that, pleasure. She was a strong, vigorous, sunbrowned maiden; she worked ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... he intended to keep his copy of the Iliad in it. This fact is mentioned by many historians; and if the legend which is current among the people of Alexandria; on the authority of Herakleides, be true, the poems of Homer were far from idle or useless companions to him, even when on a campaign. The story goes that after conquering Egypt, he desired to found a great and populous Grecian city, to be called after his own name, and that after he had fixed upon an excellent site, ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... founde to honestie and godlines. In our forefathers tyme, whan Papistrie, as a standyng poole, couered and ouerflowed all England, fewe bookes were read in our tong, sauyng certaine bookes of Cheualrie, as they sayd, for pastime and pleasure, which, as some say, were made in Monasteries, by idle Monkes, or wanton Chanons: ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... Rotherham line was contemplated, "A hundred and twenty inhabitants of Rotherham, headed by their vicar, petitioned against the bill, because they thought the canal and turnpike furnished sufficient accommodation between the two towns, and because they dreaded an incursion of the idle, drunken, and dissolute portion of the Sheffield people as a consequence of increasing the facilities of transit." For a time the opposition was successful but eventually the Lord's Committee yielded to the perseverance of the promoters of ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... said Maverick in his letter, "that Adele, while having a thorough womanly education, should grow up with simple tastes. I think I see a little tendency In her to a good many idle coquetries of dress, (which you will set down, I know, to her French blood,) which I trust your good sister will see the prudence of correcting. My fortune is now such that I may reasonably hope to put luxuries within her reach, if they be desirable; but of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... investigation started by Innocent VIII., in 1489. In this communication the abbot and his monks were charged with the grossest licentiousness, waste and thieving. Lina Eckenstein, in her interesting work on "Woman Under Monasticism," says: "It were idle to deny that the state of discipline in many houses was bad, but the circumstances under which Morton's letter was penned argue that the charges made in it should be accepted with some reservation." ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... squirrel cried, 'Trust him not, Lettice, trust, oh trust him not!' And many another woodland tongue beside Rose softly in the silence—'Trust him not!' Then cried the Pedlar in a bitter voice, 'What, in the thicket, is this idle noise?' ...
— Songs of Childhood • Walter de la Mare
... compelled to leave it according to our habit when we are at fault, and much as the poet leaves it here. In the case of the man, we think we understand. In that of the dog, our difficulty appears to defy solution: it is no question of argument, assertions are idle, dogma has no place. On the one hand we have those principles that come to man's aid, but of which it would be unbecoming now to speak. The vast majority of Christian men are enabled to ride out the storms of life without confidence wholly giving way, and with the first of sheet-anchors fixed in ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... and looks upwards, on the prodigy of design, and skill, and perseverance, and tributary wealth, he may image to himself the multitudes that, during successive ages, frequented this fane in the assured belief, that the idle ceremonies and impious superstitions, which they there performed or witnessed, were a service acceptable to heaven, and to be repaid in blessings ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... too late to do anything with the book, so put it away and tried for teaching, sewing, or any honest work. Won't go home to sit idle while I have a head and pair ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... completely than a man. Miss Hitchcock was a full generation ahead of the others in her conception of inherited, personal rights. As the dinner dragged on, there occurred no further opportunity for talk until near the end, when suddenly the clear, even tones of Miss Hitchcock's voice brought his idle musing ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... was a matter of experiment! As if you could take it up or lay it down as an idle frolic! As if the dire goddess that presides over it, with her murderous spear in hand, and her gorgon at her breast, was a coquette to be flirted with! We ought with reverence to approach that tremendous divinity, ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... persons, please be tremendously brave. Don't let anything turn you into cowards—we've all got to be worthy of each other's sacrifice; the greater the sacrifice may prove to be for the one the greater the nobility demanded of the remainder. How idle the words sound, and yet they will take deep meanings when time has given them graver sanctions. I think gallant is the word I've been trying to find—we must be gallant ...
— Carry On • Coningsby Dawson
... being recognized, little Bobby's teaching was carefully directed. He was not discouraged in his varied activities; but the bigger practical principles of American life were inculcated. These may be very briefly stated. An American must not idle; he must direct his energies toward success; success means making one's way in life; nine times out of ten, for ninety-nine men out of a hundred, that means the business world. To seize the business opportunity; to develop that opportunity ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... of his visit to Monseigneur Lourde, and the details of what was going forward in Manitou so far as he had learned. Also the ubiquitous Osterhaut had not been idle, and his bulletin had just been ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Germans were not idle. If their infantry was held back from making a counter-attack, their heavy guns, and here and there, machine-guns, were not idle. And these weapons tore big holes in the ranks of the Sammies. But ever the holes were closed up—comparatively closed up, that is, for the fighting ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... for idle loafers; they offer an excuse for shunning one's duty. 'I want to read a bit,' they say when told to do something. 'Oh, let me just finish this page, it is so interesting,' they plead, when asked to quickly fetch some article. This is what Adele used to do, but I nipped ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... said Albert in a firm, calm voice; "you love me too well to wish me to remain useless and idle with you; besides, I ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... what fervour He addresses his prayers to the insensible Image! Ah! may not his sentiments be inspired by some kind and secret Genius, Friend to my affection? May it not be Man's natural instinct which informs him... Be silent, idle hopes! Let me not encourage an idea which takes from the brilliance of Ambrosio's virtue. 'Tis Religion, not Beauty which attracts his admiration; 'Tis not to the Woman, but the Divinity that He kneels. Would He but address to me the least tender expression ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... be idle. Some hunted; some fished; some labored at the houses and defences. To the large building made by La Salle he added four lodging-houses for the men, and a fifth for the women, besides a small chapel. ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... must not be imagined that Ito was an idle man. On the contrary, he was exceedingly hard working and ambitious. His dream was to become a statesman, to enjoy unlimited patronage, to make men and to break men, and to die a peer. When he returned to Japan from his wanderings with exactly two shillings in ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... manhood as the genteel youth of that epoch were wont to spend them. He had tasted the sweetness as well as the bitterness of the cup of fashionable life, had recited and declaimed, had practised literature and made verses in his idle hours, had prosecuted love-intrigues of every sort, and got himself initiated into all the mysteries of shaving, curls, and ruffles pertaining to the toilette-wisdom of the day, as well as into the still more mysterious art of always borrowing and never paying. But the flexible ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... another time would have earned the speaker an admonition or a cuff. They fell on Gerard now like idle air. He paid the lad in silence, and descended the hill alone. The brook was silvery; it ran murmuring over little pebbles, that glittered, varnished by the clear water; he sat down and looked stupidly at them. Then ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... garrison of the Residency was not idle. On the day of the arrival of the British at Dil Koosha flag-signals from the towers of that palace had established communication with the Residency, and it was arranged that as soon as the relieving ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... remained in ignorance of the fact that she ever thought of the young man, except when he was present, or his name introduced by others. To her, all that related to marriage was too serious to form the theme of ordinary conversation, light jests, or idle chit-chat. Rarely indeed would she have any thing to say, when others spoke lightly or jested on the subject. This being the case, now that her own mind had become deeply interested in a matter of most vital importance to her future welfare, she had no one to disturb the even balance of her ...
— Married Life; Its Shadows and Sunshine • T. S. Arthur
... could not beautify, and beautifying where it could not hide, like Christian charity; gave a most exquisite lesson to the world, of how much more mighty is spirit than matter. Diana did not see it, as she had seen the June day; her arms were folded, lying one upon another in idle fashion; her face was grave and fixed, the eyes aimless and visionless, looking at nothing and seeing nothing; cheeks pale, and the mouth parted with pain and questioning, its delicious childlike curves just now all gone. So sitting, and so abstracted in her own thoughts, she ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... an epistle addressed by Martyr to Cardinal Mendoza, dated at Granada, April, 1492, he alludes to the promise of a liberal recompense from the queen, if he would assist in reclaiming the young cavaliers of the court from the idle and unprofitable pursuits, in which, to her great mortification, they consumed their hours. The prejudices to be encountered seem to have filled him with natural distrust of his success; for he remarks, "Like their ancestors, they hold the ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... making definite plans for departure in the New Year. She could not satisfy herself with an idle life, though Tommy vehemently opposed the idea of her going. Monck never opposed it. He listened silently when she spoke of it, sometimes faintly smiling. She often saw him. He came to the Green Bungalow in Tommy's company at all hours of the day. She met him constantly at the Club, and he never ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... terminating at the castle of the Governor, and the other in the market. These are of some width, there being space for a dozen camels to pass abreast. There are, besides, many little squares before the houses of the grandees, where the people lounge: the streets are always full of idle people. ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... resolved almost at once to walk. Though hampered considerably by crowds of rustics who gathered, gaping, at every point in the line of march, he had made good progress. The German troops had strict orders to reply to no questions, with the result that little time was lost in idle chatter, and in a couple of days it was seen that the army of the Fatherland was bound, barring accidents, to ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... and his mule Boomerang are growing old together, and I guess my colored helper is 'seeing things,' as well as hearing them. But, as you say, it may be that the house is going to be rented. It's too valuable a property to let stand idle. Did you hear how long Andy was going ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton
... this windfall, I can get over that difficulty by taking you to the sea to grill my bacon for me, and the Lump to keep you occupied while you are not grilling it, that Satan may not find some mischief still for idle hands ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... raiment thin and spare Was idle mail 'gainst the barbed air, For it was just at the Christmas time; 260 So he mused, as he sat, of a sunnier clime, And sought for a shelter from cold and snow In the light and warmth of long ago; He sees the snake-like caravan crawl O'er the edge of the desert, black and small, 265 Then nearer ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... the upper house, petitioned that he might be admitted to bail; but this indulgence was refused, and the commons seemed bent upon prosecuting him with such severity as gave disgust to men of moderate principles. Meanwhile the tories were not idle. They boldly affirmed that the whigs had formed a design to pull down the church, and that this prosecution was intended to try their strength before they could proceed openly to the execution of their project. These assertions were supported, and even credited by great ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... thought that our own guns, though seldom mentioned, are idle all this while. They do not waste ammunition, for a very good reason, but wait their opportunity for effective reply to the enemy's batteries, and when a naval 12-pounder or the "Lady Anne" comes into action the Boer fire is apt to be hurried and wildly inaccurate ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... an' fairies be Sent frae the deil to fleetch[37] us to our ill; That kye hae tint[38] their milk wi' evil ee; An' corn been scowder'd[39] on the glowin' kiln. O mock nae this, my friends! but rather mourn, Ye in life's brawest spring wi' reason clear; Wi' eild[40] our idle fancies a' return, And dim our dolefu' days wi' bairnly[41] fear; The mind's aye cradled whan ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... sound that speedeth o'er the land! Behold the sword in fratricidal hand! 'Tis duty calls thee, Lincoln, and thy trust Demands that all thy acts be wise and just. No idle task to thee has been assigned, But work that's worthy of a giant mind— And on the issue hangs the nation's fame As a free people who deserve the name. So, walk thou in the way the fathers trod; Be true to ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... have been idle and absent at Baden, or I should sooner have answered your letter and told you with what pleasure we will execute your commission. [Footnote: See post, p. 54.] I was very sorry to have missed you here, though ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... bairnie's soft cosseting he aye fled to Auld Jock and the rough hospitality of the sheep fold. Being exact opposites in temperaments, but alike in tastes, Bobby and Auld Jock were inseparable. In the quiet corner of Mr. Traill's crowded dining-room they spent the one idle hour of the week together, happily. Bobby had the leavings of a herring or haddie, for a rough little Skye will eat anything from smoked fish to moor-fowl eggs, and he had the tidbit of a farthing bone to worry at his leisure. Auld Jock smoked his cutty ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... go to the workhouse. She'll have an idle enough time there," said the duke who was ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... to work no more. But he was not used to being idle, and time passed slowly,—the days seemed ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... "I sit by him just now; I take off the flag and look at his face, so calm, look so happy, so good, I almost tink he smile at me, and then I cry. Oh! Massa Tommy, all because you idle boy." ...
— Masterman Ready - The Wreck of the "Pacific" • Captain Frederick Marryat
... by way of epilogue. The "Reminiscences" contain a catalogue raisonne of such works as were published up to the year 1836. Since then the author has not been idle. The "Tour into the North of England and Scotland," in two super-royal octavos, studded with graphic gems of a variety of description—and dedicated to the most illustrious female in Europe, for the magnificence of a library, the fruit chiefly ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... of Valladolid, on the other hand (How it Strikes a Contemporary), is not so much a study of a poet as of popular misconception and obtuseness. A grotesquely idle legend of the habits of the "Corregidor" flourishes among the good folks of Valladolid; the speaker himself, who desires to do him justice, is a plain, shrewd, but unimaginative observer ("I never wrote a line of verse, did you?"), and makes us acquainted with everything but the inner nature of ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... gaze and meditate upon the Great Stone Face. According to their idea of the matter, it was a folly, indeed, but pardonable, inasmuch as Ernest was industrious, kind, and neighborly, and neglected no duty for the sake of indulging this idle habit. They knew not that the Great Stone Face had become a teacher to him, and that the sentiment which was expressed in it would enlarge the young man's heart, and fill it with wider and deeper sympathies than other hearts. They ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... Or perhaps a languid, idle, good-for-nothing domestic delicacy, who liked only to make toilettes, to sit for hours together before the mirror, and in the evening read novels by lamp-light. What a jest it would be to mock her, to make her stare at country work, to spoil her precious ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... princess, released by Huldbrand from the power of some wicked enchanter of the forest. If she or her husband were questioned about it, they gave evasive answers; Father Heilmann's lips were sealed on all such idle topics, beside which, he had left them soon after they arrived, and returned to his cloister: so the citizens were left to their own wondering conjectures, and even Bertalda came no nearer the ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... front the bunch is o' Jane's. But, land, 'Queenie,' you best not wait fer the cap'n. Best keep a doin', an' onct you're at it again, the holler'll come all right. Like myself—jest let me stan' up afore this here tub an' the wash begins to do itself, unbeknownst like. Don't you idle. Keep peddlin' er patchin', though peddlin's the least lonesome, an' the time'll fly like lightnin'. It's them 'at don't do nothin' 'at don't know what to do. Ain't many them sort in the Lane, though, thank the ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... possible sequence of events with the real course of history, to estimate the good lost and evil got through events which at the time seemed to vindicate the moral governance of the world, is no idle exercise of the imagination. It may serve to give caution to the judgment: it may guard us against an arbitrary and fanciful interpretation of the actual. The generation which witnessed the fall of Napoleon is not the only one which has seen Providence in the fulfilment of its own ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... no part in it: turning, he said sternly, "Do we risk our lives together, then, to skulk off when danger offers and leave one to suffer for all? Let's have no more of such idle talk. While things promised to run smooth you was welcome to the boast of havin' fired first shot, but now every man aboard fired it; and let he who says he didn't stand out and say ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... far too much for the legislator. And therefore, as I said before, in most places they will not endure to have the truth spoken without raising a tremendous outcry, but in this state perhaps they may. And if we may assume that our whole discussion about the state has not been mere idle talk, I should like to prove to you, if you will consent to listen, that this institution is good and proper; but if you had ...
— Laws • Plato
... is idle thus to speculate. We have been born into the world during the nineteenth Century, whether we wish it or not. We have been nourished, (GOD be thanked!) in the bosom of the Christian Church, whether we would or no. The glory of the Gospel has informed our natural reason, and we cannot undo ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon |
