"Idling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... superbly mounted cavaliers and the various paths were alive with handsome girls and their gallants, while interspersed amid the better classes were gorgeously attired peasants of both sexes, some simply idling about, others vending ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... buildings, of villas and a park and the bathing circle. The sea swings around the projecting cape of the citadel into a deeply notched bay, small and still, and on its edge which meets the town you find pavilions and beach-chairs and their usual accompaniment of idling humanity. The Casino stands boldly up, a little to the right, and in front of it, on the Alameda, the band will play in the coming summer evenings for ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... and while the troops were encamped round it, some of the young patricians began to dispute which had the best wife. They agreed to put it to the test by galloping late in the evening to look in at their homes and see what their wives were about. Some were idling, some were visiting, some were scolding, some were dressing, some were asleep; but at Collatia, the farm of another of the Tarquin family, thence called Collatinus, they found his beautiful wife Lucretia ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... push her way through a crowd of men idling in the entrance, and one or two accosted her, but she went by them in ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... and there are those to follow who will entertain you better than I can. But I propose to close with a little story which I heard; and it was in church that I heard it, in an excellent sermon. Just after the war of 1812, our laboring men stood, as they stand to-day, idling about the wharves and public places. That was the case in a little town to the east of Boston. They had enterprising men, as we have now; and one day a gentleman stepped into a bank, and said to the president, "Mr. President, I am going to build a ship."—"What ...
— Parks for the People - Proceedings of a Public Meeting held at Faneuil Hall, June 7, 1876 • Various
... frank, dashing gait. Ah! I was very different to the fat, pursy, old ale-wife who discourses with you now—in the glass. Without more ado I cut off my long black hair close to my head, stained my hands with walnut juice, (for they had grown white and soft and plump from idling about in the Great House), and went off to a Crimp in the Liberty that was enlisting men (against the law, but here many things are done against both Law and Prophets), for the King of ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... grubs his way through a good estate, and not a little ready money. Then, after a long sojourn in the pupa or puppy state—longer far than that of any other maggot—he emerges a perfect butterfly, vain, empty, fluttering, and conceited, idling, flirting, flaunting, philandering, until the summer of his ton is past, when he dies, or is arrested, and expiates a life of puerile vanity in Purgatory or ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... of the ambition I had as a kid, before Hetty and all that trouble had crushed it out of me; you came down here to the office and talked and planned, and took it for granted that I was going to pull myself together and stop idling, and kicking, and fooling away my time; and all through these six weeks of rough sailing, you've let me go up there to the Hall and tell you everything—and then you wonder if I could ever be jealous!" His tone, which had risen almost ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris
... see the man when he came to Pittsburg, and spent an hour or two in his cell. The next morning he was free to go, but he had stayed a week longer, making a pair of red morocco shoes for the jailer's little girl,—idling over them: when they were done, tying them on, himself, with a wonderful bow-knot, and looking anxiously in her clean Dutch face to see if she ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... pork which has been successfully treated by the proper processes is declared to be pickled. If the formula did not work the child was not educated. He sat in school with a dunce-cap upon his head, or else played hookey and spent his hours in fishing, swimming or idling. ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... passengers, for they were all on board. But if the boat had returned that night to Pictou, some of the passengers might have left her and gone west by rail, instead of wasting two, or three days lounging through Northumberland Sound and idling in the harbors of Prince Edward Island. If the steamboat would leave at midnight, we could catch the railway train at Pictou. Probably the officials were aware of this, and they preferred to have our company to Shediac. We mention this so that the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Idling at his work he fell in with other idlers and has left a vivid description in a Daily News article called, "The Diabolist," of ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... ship under his foot, good officers over him, and good messmates to serve with, why need he wear and tear his feelings about those he leaves behind? Or rather, why need he grieve to part from those who are better pleased to see him vigorously doing his duty rather than idling in other people's way at home? Or wherefore should he sigh to quit those enjoyments in which he cannot honourably participate till he has earned his title to ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... of his time, with the mean-visaged Lewis of France or the meanly-clad Ferdinand of Aragon. But Edward's work was the same as theirs and it was done as completely. While jesting with aldermen, or dallying with mistresses, or idling over new pages from the printing press at Westminster, Edward was silently laying the foundations of ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... she in silence throned herself, Ere from the trees, or flower-coves of the shore, Or gliding in from idling on the sea, Her maids of honor came, a virgin train, Like a bright constellation clustering round The central star, most glorious of them all. One, in a crimson blossom, torn away From its far moorings, nestled at her ease, Was seen slowly to skim the silver ...
— The Arctic Queen • Unknown
... from the dry herb closet—an handful of knot-grass, and the like of shepherd's pouch, and of bramble-seeds, and of plantain. Now, mark thou, the top leaves of the plantain only! Leave me not find thee idling; but have yonder row of pans as bright as a new tester when I come, and the herbs ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... Glencoe several squads of idling and marching men were passed, all of whom bore the earmarks of the I.W.W. Sight of them made Kurt hug his gun and wonder at himself. Never had he been a coward, but neither had he been one to seek ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... my beloved, to the other shore, And I should never see you any more, I love you so I know that I should fall Into dejection utterly, and all Love's pretty pageantry, wherein we bore Twin banners bravely in the tumult's fore, Would seem as shadows idling on a wall. So daintily I love you that my love Endures no rumor of the winter's breath, And only blossoms for it thinks the sky Forever gracious, and the stars above Forever friendly. Even the fear of death Were frost wherein its ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... genius also earned a meed of my neighbor's disparagement. He was a worthless, trifling "boy," an idling dreamer, an irresponsible, inconsequent visionary, in whose baseless fancies it was astounding that a woman of her years should fatuously ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... plans. And—-about the tie—I wouldn't have made one for any one else. I remembered your face. You know I was go often at your home, and I wondered how it would suit you. You should take that interest as a compliment. And I am lonesome here, and you are idling, you say, and why should we not be good friends for the summer? The men in town annoy me, and the girls here are not bright enough for you. Let us be cronies, will you not? Take me fishing to-morrow. I want you to teach me how to catch bass in ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... afternoon in June I walked about a long time thinking of youthful harlots, but saw none, or if I did could not distinguish them. At length I saw two young girls idling about, looking in at the shop windows on the other side of the way. One was dressed all in black, and was taller and stouter than the other. They were not got up in any showy way, but looked like the children of ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... them past the mill. It was too cold for outdoor idling. Every window was curtained with frost, and not a soul saw them as they tramped along past the place and down to continue on the ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... right. I supposed you had been idling your time over the paper. Go and ask Mr. Murdock what time it is. I ...
— Fame and Fortune - or, The Progress of Richard Hunter • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... shall do our best and rush things in order to get through with the work. Besides, if you will come this way with me, you will see that there is no idling; we are just now going to fell an oak, and before a quarter of an hour is over it will be lying on the ground, cut off as neatly as if ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... Clarice draws better than I do," I said. "But she has even less time than I have, for she is busy from morning till night; there is no time to spare for amusement of any sort. Uncle Jeff would not approve of our 'idling our time,' as he would call it, in that ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... sticky, and insects coming against these are entangled. The Latin name of Silena arose from an old legend that it belonged first to a young man whom the goddess Minerva employed to catch flies for her owls. She found him one day idling about, and in her anger turned him into a plant which should be always catching flies. Yorkshire has a night-flowering plant of this kind, with pale flowers and a forked stem. Then there is the white or evening campion of our hedgerows, which opens generally in the twilight, sending forth a perfume. ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... were drained in a single tremendous surge and the auxiliary generator started. It in turn awoke to life the other power plants, to leave them sleeping, idling, but ready for instant use to develop power such as man never before had dreamed of holding and molding ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... The idling engines were speeded up and the flying boat moved slowly across the harbor. A tug with smoke curling from her single thick funnel lay near ...
— Tom Swift and His Giant Telescope • Victor Appleton
... tents of the Y. M. C. A. and the Exchange and the photographer; elsewhere are the officer's big conical tents, each with the luxury of a stove; and in still another spot is the doctor's tent, not far from the shelter-tents of the band. Men are idling everywhere, and working everywhere also. The long line of trucks is drawn up not far from the field entrance, and the drivers are tinkering them ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... whereas the impetuous nature soon tires, or is injured, and the climb is over, half-finished. The founders of New England did not believe in "chances." They did believe in work. The young man who thinks to get on by mere smartness and by idling, meets failure at last. ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... if you are," she retorted. "People are simply shirking work nowadays. And you're as bad as anyone. You've not tried to pick up the threads again—you're just idling round." ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... he would build a place like that, only with a different roof. Then he would jump up, because he felt he ought to go somewhere and do work, for he was bored and ashamed of idling; at times he would long for the manor-fields over which he had guided the plough, where the settlement now stood. Then a great fear would seize him that he would be powerless when the Germans, who had felled forests, shattered rocks and driven away the squire, should ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... forbade Susy to speak of it, explaining to her that he needed an interval of rest. His wife instantly and exaggeratedly adopted this view, guarding him from the temptation to work as jealously as she had discouraged him from idling; and he was careful not to let her find out that the change in his habits coincided with his having reached a difficult point in his book. But though he was not sorry to stop writing he found himself unexpectedly oppressed by the weight ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... they are to walk out and take exercise, it must be alone, and this can be done in the United States with more security than elsewhere, from the circumstance of everybody being actively employed, and there being no people at leisure who are strolling or idling about. I think that the portion of time which elapses between the period of a young girl leaving school and being married, is the happiest of her existence. I have already remarked upon the attention and gallantry shewn by the Americans to the women, especially to the unmarried. ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... settee, and clutched Master Gibbs with both hands around his hairy throat until his face turned livid purple and his eyes started from the sockets. "That's all, is it, you drunken beast? That's all you have to tell after idling away the summer, losing anchors and boats, and more than half my crew, and bringing a hornet's nest down about our ears! That's all, is it? And what would you say, now, if I should order the doctor to cut off your other leg close behind your ears, ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... California, began to wear the ugly clothes the Gringos brought out from Boston. And so the times changed, children, and our people learned to do everything as the Americans did it and to work hard and save money instead of dancing and idling away the time. ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... tobacco, Master Parson," said Amyas; "for we must be up and away again to-morrow. We have been idling here three mortal ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... laugh. "Perhaps now you'll believe me when I say that I'm not always lazy when I seem so—that a man must have time to think, and smoke, and dawdle, if he's to write anything decent, and can't always rush at the first job that offers. When you thought I was idling—I wasn't! I was gathering up impressions. Then came an attractive piece of work—one that suited me—and I rose to it. There, ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... the very first individual they saw in Big Run was Sanchia Murray. She was in white and looked fresh and cool and girlish and inviting as she sat idling upon the porch at the hotel. When she saw them, she ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... hunt early. The night was clear, the thermometer down to 24 deg. Fahrenheit, and the ice thick on the pails when we rose. One of our parties came in with six deer: the captain and Mr. C. remained out. The camp was pleasant enough to an idling observer like myself, but it was not so agreeable to find the mountain-side, where Mr. T. and I were looking for game, alive with mosquitos. I lit on a place where the bears had been engaged in some rough-and-tumble games: the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... "Idling down there on the beach to see the boys off fishing!" she could not help saying. "You needn't be up afore the break o' ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... current; stop at any one of a hundred landings, draw your boat up on the gravel, spring out and plunge into the thickets, flushing the blackbirds from their nests, or unpack your luncheon, spread your mattress, and watch the clouds sail over your head. Don't be in a hurry. Keep up this idling day in and day out, up and down, over and across, for a month or more, and you will get some faint idea of how picturesque, how lovely, and how restful this rarest of all the sylvan streams ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... these things were no better than the gun—it was idling, anyway. Natural History as a pastime was excellent, and sportsmanship for exercise and recreation had its place, but the business of life must not be neglected—Charles should get himself to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... ladies approached the big bronze statue of Dom Calmet, the historian, they passed a small cafe. Suddenly a man idling within over a newspaper sprang to his feet in surprise, and next second drew back as if in ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... this last day upon the Santa Maria. Beltran the cook had scalded his arm. I dressed it each day, and dressing it now, half a dozen idling by, watching the operation, I heard again a kind of talk that I had heard before. Partly because I had shipped as Juan Lepe an Andalusian sailor and had had my forecastle days, and partly because men rarely fear to speak to a physician, and partly because in the great whole ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... wandered down town on weekday mornings, loitering into the post-office, idling an hour away in the Library, drifting home to mutton stew or Hamburg steak when the clock in the town hall struck twelve. Sometimes Martie watched the big eastern trains thunder by, looking with her wistful young blue eyes at the card-playing men and the flushed, ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... Idling over the fire in the evening, Fanny's eye was caught by a stain upon her armchair. It was sticky; it might well be champagne—the champagne which stuck even now to the bottoms of the ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... said brightly, 'I am very nearly as fit as I ever was, and more eager than I ever was to get to work. The idling of it is the worst part of illness. However, in a month from now I must be at my living, and I can only hope it will ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... well, they shall go far with little;' and it is certain there never was so much done, with so poor an Income, to remedy all our natural Indisposition, to Labour, and Thought, and Industry; to rouse up Thousands who were asleep, and set Numbers on contriving and working, who were dreaming and idling before; and to stop our People from runing abroad, by Wages and Business, and an hope of living to purpose at Home. They gave Premiums, to heighten the Manufacture and Dying of our Woollen Cloths; of our Silks, and our Velvets; of our Blankets; of our Worsteds; of our Cottons; of our Coffoys; ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... cousin!" interposed my lord. (The face over the tambour-frame looked up for one instant.) "A young fellow must not have it all idling and holiday. Let him mix up something useful with his pleasures, and go to the fiddles and pump-rooms at Tunbridge or the Bath later. Mr. Warrington has to conduct a great estate in America: let him see how ours in England are carried on. Will hath shown him the kennel and the stables; and ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... really a contest between the despotic power of Napoleon Bonaparte and the productive genius of James Watt. All this vast and teeming future was hidden from the good grandmother, as she saw the boy idling over the teakettle. "James," she said, "I never saw such an idle young fellow as you are. Do take a book and employ yourself usefully. For the last half-hour you have not spoken a single word. Do you know ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... reminiscently, tenderly, as he thought of "the boy Shelby" whom he had read into John Fairfield's letter; "the boy Shelby" who was twenty-two years old and the only child; "the boy Shelby" whom he had blamed with such easy severity for idling at Fairfield; "the boy Shelby" who was no boy at all, but this white flower of girlhood, called—after the quaint and reasonable Southern way—as a boy is called, by the surname of ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... car at the curb, slamming its door behind him and walking briskly to the entrance. Hard, handsome in the Slavic tradition, dedicated, Ilya Simonov was young for his rank. A plainclothes man, idling a hundred feet down the street, eyed him briefly then turned his attention elsewhere. The two guards at the gate snapped to attention, their eyes straight ahead. Colonel Simonov was in mufti and didn't ...
— Freedom • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... are all travelling through; and over it there is always the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, to tell us which way to go. I make up tales to myself about the people in the wilderness; and how they watch the pillar, and how it keeps them from idling in their work, or selling bad iron, or doing anything that is horrid or mean, because it is a sign to them that God is with them, just as it used to be to the ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... start and an errand which at the last moment Paula wanted done in Chicago, it was getting on toward four o'clock when Pete drove Mary up to the loading platform of the old apple house at Hickory Hill. The farm Ford was standing there idling in a syncopated manner and apparently on the point of departure somewhere. Where, was explained a moment later by the emergence of Sylvia Stannard in her conventional farm costume of shirt and breeches with a two-gallon jug ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... you men, why are you idling about here instead of finishing what you came to do? When ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... accounts the latter seem to have behaved well—a little excited at first, but full of pluck. Let the siege only last a week and they will be capital soldiers, and then we shall no longer be called upon, to believe the assertions of military men, that it takes years of drill and idling in a ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... they learnt how easy it is to be content in Venice without doing anything at all, though I used to fancy that he would have been rather glad to indulge in that content himself. How far he was from the pleasant Venetian habit of idling all day, his Venetian etchings, at which he was working that spring—the etchings that on their appearance in London were the innocent cause of a stirring chapter in The Gentle Art—are an enduring proof. And ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... so, with all my heart," Sigurd murmured. "When all brave men are fighting abroad or serving the King at home, it is great shame for me to be idling here." And he sighed heavily as Helga ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... eight days must be made; there was no idling for man or beast. When the express rode up to the station, both rider and pony were always ready. The only delay was a second or two as the saddle-pouch with its precious burden was thrown on and the rider leaped into his place, ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... spend their time in the streets of the town where they chance to be moored,—and they seldom are moored elsewhere than at the larger towns,—exchanging greetings and chatting with such acquaintances as they there meet, or idling up and down the river in the luxurious small boats of their river-made friends. This type of house-boater himself is generally spoken of in brisk naval asides as a "duffer," the kitchen of his boat is a wine-closet, and, to look at him poring ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... She had lingered down the garden descent; for sweet herbs were giving their souls to the summer night there; and not a cloud of a sail yet appeared on the river. Some fishing-boats lay at the wharf, but no men were idling around under the full moon. It was pleasanter to visit and smoke from door to ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... his own efforts could carry him, he found his work as tough and tedious as he could wish or fear, and by the end of the morning was thoroughly fagged. Then would have been the refreshing time for recreation in that pleasant idling-place, the Hollywell drawing-room. Any other time of day would have suited Charles as well for the reading, but he liked to take the hour at noon, and never perceived that this made all the difference to his friend of a toil or a pleasure. Now and then Guy gave tremendous yawns; and once when ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sitting-room was scarcely more attractive than my chamber; so I went out upon the porch and took a chair. Several loungers were here; hearty, strong-looking, but lazy fellows, who, if they had anything to do, liked idling better than working. One of them leaned his chair back against the wall of the house, and was swinging his legs with a half circular motion, and humming "Old Folks at Home." Another sat astride of a chair, with his face turned toward, and his chin resting ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur
... for Larkin. These men evidently thought that he was some ambitious puncher on the lookout for rustlers. Up to this time he had kept silent, borrowing no trouble and trusting to his ability to identify himself. But now at the prospect of idling here all night and part ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... supposed to the catacombs. It was no uncommon thing for the Duke to rise up out of a tunnel and appear in the midst of a gang of workmen when they were little expecting him, and when, perhaps, they were idling their time, or making uncomplimentary ...
— The Portland Peerage Romance • Charles J. Archard
... among Lads," he found that those big boys whom one sees idling about corners of streets, fancying themselves men, smoking with obvious dislike and pretended pleasure, and on the highroad to the jail and the gallows—that those boys were enticed into classes opened for carpentry, ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... shouted the old shepherd with sudden wrath. "Why do ye stare so? You're not drunk. Ah! down yonder they'll be getting drunk without me. Enough of your idling and staring!" ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... their improvement, or to facilitate its progress. During his subsequent career, India appears to have been totally forgotten, or remembered only as the scene of an exile, in which he had found nothing to compensate for the loss of literary society and the learned idling away of time, from which so much was expected, and ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... outgrown your old habits of gossipping and idling,' said Lady Merton; 'I believe I may trust you; and it may be inconvenient to Mrs. Woodbourne to find room ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... their idling they had days when they worked intensely, and Ludlow was as severe with Cornelia's work as he was with his own. He made her rub out and paint out, and he drew ruthless modifications of her work all over ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... some of his neighbors were sunning themselves in Farmer Green's pasture one day. And while they were idling away the afternoon Sandy Chipmunk scurried past on top of the stone wall, with his cheek-pouches ...
— The Tale of Sandy Chipmunk • Arthur Scott Bailey
... work, Mr Pringle, if you indulge in the bad habit of idling and gossiping as soon as my ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... And the next afternoon he reappeared, and sat silent, preoccupied, for a long time, in the peculiar hushed attitude of a man who listens. But the door-bell did not ring and the only sound in tile house was from Ailsa's piano, where she sat idling ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... in the women's seats across the aisle. I heard the old pastor's voice in the solemn calm, and my tears fell upon her picture that had called up the vision. It was as if a voice spoke to me and said to get up and be a man; that if I wanted to win Elizabeth, to work for her was the way, and not idling my days away on the road. And I got right up, and, setting my face toward Buffalo, went by the shortest cut back ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... how soon the ardent young spirit might tire of that monotony of labour; how distasteful the utter loneliness and uneventfulness of forest life might become to the undisciplined lad, accustomed, as he shrewdly guessed, to a petted and idling boyhood. ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... the little station, watching the trains come and go and dive into the heart of the hills and vanish. No one said anything to him for idling about; people are kind-hearted and easy of temper in this pleasant land, and children and dogs are both happy there. He heard the Bavarians arguing and vociferating a great deal, and learned that they meant to go too and wanted to go with ...
— The Nuernberg Stove • Louisa de la Rame (AKA Ouida)
... his companions were idling beneath the wooden awning or shed which extended over the sidewalk, and in the open doorway, briefly silhouetted against the yellow light, Blake noted a man clad in a shining rubber coat. Although the picture was fleeting, it caught ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... the gunwale of a light little canoe, and idled about its margin, I named the sheltered little cove the Lost Lagoon. This was just to please my own fancy, for as that perfect summer month drifted on, the ever-restless tides left the harbor devoid of water at my favorite canoeing hour, and my pet idling place was lost for many days—hence my fancy to call it the Lost Lagoon. But the chief, Indian-like, immediately adopted the name, at least when he spoke of the place to me, and as we watched the sun slip ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson
... set the atmosphere motors idling. The dome slid open, showing the flicker of the auroras, where areas of intense heat and cold set up atmospheric tension by rapid ...
— A World is Born • Leigh Douglass Brackett
... for legislation to interfere. The aversion to labour and the habit of idle lounging were visibly on the increase.(4) Cato proposed to have the market paved with pointed stones, in order to put a stop to the habit of idling; the Romans laughed at the jest and went on to enjoy the pleasure of loitering and gazing ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... as the spot where they appear he nears, Surprised at these unwonted signs of idling, He hears—alas! no music of the spheres, But an unhallowed, earthly sound of fiddling! A melody which made him doubt his ears, The cause being past his guessing or unriddling; A pipe, too, and a drum, and shortly after— A most ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... passing in the street below, to which her attention seemed somewhat anxiously directed. She had been but a few minutes at her post of observation, before she was apprised, by the hooting of boys, and the gibes and laughter of the idling soldiers, with whom the street, at this hour, was commonly thronged, that some unusual spectacle was approaching. And peering forward through the folds of the curtains, she beheld, amidst a slowly-advancing crowd, a meanly clad, simple looking country youth wearing a ragged ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... fashionable. Moreover, as he measured success by the crowd's measure, it was the way of life oftenest successful, the way of his father. He did not see the difference between the father's toiling up that way and his idling down it. So, at any rate, agreed the indulgent Gilmores, reading him quite through in a few glances, while all about the boat those who thought they knew best pronounced him more like Gideon Hayle in his regard for "folks just as folks" than were either the twins or ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... answered, "I think it is impossible you can love me as much as I do you, but you must agree, that a life of inactivity is now disgraceful; and even my pretty Constance would despise me, if she saw me loitering about, idling away my best days, when all the kingdom is in arms." "I never can despise a dutiful son," answered she; and Eustace found in that avowal such an unanswerable argument on the side of filial obedience, that he was able, not only to ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... Detroit and Port Huron and Sarnia are big and sumptuous, and upon them one sits under awnings in midsummer, and if knowing, takes much delight in the wonderful scenery passed. The St. Clair River pours into St. Clair Lake, and Lake St. Clair is one of the great idling places of those upon this continent who can afford to idle. It is a shallow lake, upon the American side stretching out into what are known as the "Flats," a vast area of wild rice with deep blue waterways through them, the haunt of the pickerel and black bass and of duck and wild geese. Upon ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... He stood idling in the moonlight as he justified himself to this woman. Surely it was only standing by his new colours to try to make his position seem right to her. He had no hope in it—no hope of persuading her, least of all of bringing her nearer ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... which I have often seen, of the staff of the Grands Magasins du Louvre trooping into its prison at 7.30 a.m. to spend a happy day of eleven and a half hours in humouring the whims of the great shopping classes, I was charmed to watch this handsome and vapid creature idling away whole hours at her window and enjoying the gaze of persons like myself. She never read. Once when I had a bit of a discussion with her husband at lunch upon an intellectual matter, she got up and walked away with an impatient gesture of disdain, ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... between Peckham Rye and Rotherhithe. When it was necessary for him to set forth to the train, he muttered imprecations, for a mood of inactivity possessed him; he would gladly have stayed in his comfortable sitting-room, idling over books or ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... last few days idling at home; but I am usually more or less my own man, Miss Sinnet. ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... Morrison," Cary murmured, glancing apprehensively at the troopers idling in the road and very plainly interested in what the small group were doing, "do you really think you'd better—on ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... gives us two beautiful pictures to illustrate what it means; and it repays us to linger over them. First, there is the Treasure Finder. He is in the country, digging perhaps in another man's field, or idling in the open; and by accident he stumbles on a buried treasure. Palestine was like Belgium—a land with a long history of wars fought on its soil by foreigners, Babylon or Assyria against Egypt, ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... I have," came with curt honesty from Mrs. McGregor. "I've six children and they leave me little time for idling. But when I do take time away from 'em, I plan to take it to some purpose. Just now I have nothing more important to do than nurse this baby. It's my first job. So don't be worrying about my work. Luckily it is Saturday and Mary, Carl, and Timmie will look after ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... carried out, and if consequently he should be compelled to remain in town over Sunday. On the street corners and in front of the newspaper offices little knots of men, wearing bits of white ribbon in their buttonholes, were idling. They were quiet, curious, dully waiting to see what this preposterous stroke might mean for them. In the heavy noonday air of the streets they moved lethargically, drifting westward to the hall where the A. R. U. committees ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... appointed a committee of themselves to correct abuses in the state and in the King's household. He got some money on these conditions, and directly set off with Gaveston to the Border-country, where they spent it in idling away the time, and feasting, while Bruce made ready to drive the English out of Scotland. For, though the old King had even made this poor weak son of his swear (as some say) that he would not bury his bones, but would have them boiled clean in a caldron, and carried before the English army until ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... the world. He has been forgetful, Sheila. He has been led away by these people, you know, and has not been aware of what you were suffering. When I put the matter before him, you will see it will be all right; and I hope to persuade him to give up this constant idling and take to his work, and have something to live for. I wish you and I together could get him to go away from London altogether—get him to take to serious landscape painting on some wild coast—the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... this?" asks Maxime, of a man he knows. He is idling now, with an amused smile. He catches a glimpse of the tall form of Philip Hardin in the front row of players, near the yellow ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... was done with a desire for solitude and he went below. A half score of men were idling upon the lower deck. He began his restless pacings again, stroking his faded beard with a strangely white hand. Finally he stopped, gazing wistfully at the dark beauty of the ferry tower, sending its winsome shaft up into the quivering night. A ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... long while Mrs. Ferrall sat in troubled silence, her hand shading her eyes. Sylvia, leaning over her desk, idling with pen and pencil, looked around from time to time, as though awaiting the opinion of some specialist who, in full possession of the facts, now had become ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... staggers me, I confess," said the pendulum.—"Then I hope," resumed the dial-plate, "we shall all immediately return to our duty; for the maids will lie in bed, if we stand idling thus." ...
— Parker's Second Reader • Richard G. Parker
... all assembled in the standing room, "I propose, during this trip, at the suggestion of Captain Littleton, who would have carried out the plan if he had come with us,—I propose to instruct you a little in the practical duties of seamanship to give you something to think about, while we are idling around the decks. You see that bell, ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams
... bushy banks, we heard the babel of the washerwomen's voices as they gossiped and beat their clothes on the stones. A fisherman or two gave one a hint that idling was understood here, as elsewhere, as being a fine art for those who possess the talent of never being pressed for time. A peasant had brought his horse to the bank; the river, to both peasant and Percheron, was evidently ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... to a garden near the lake, and sat down by a little table at their beer. The consumers were few and silent. The garden was dimly lighted, for the spring came slowly up that way, and the air was not yet conducive to out-door idling. The greasy young man laid a dirty hand on the arm of ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... of thirty days has its termination, and Tobit McStenger became a free man. He returned to his old life, opening oysters during part of the time, idling and drinking during the other part. He made no attempt to spoil the peace of Aubrey Pilling, and he only laughed when he heard of the disappearance of ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... town, and through the street in which Joanna lived, to look up at her window. It was almost always lighted up; and one evening he saw the shadow of her face quite plainly on the window blind; that was a glorious evening for him. His master's wife did not like his always going out in the evening, idling, wasting time, as she called it, and she ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... looking at Buster severely. "Are you idling this lovely day away? You don't seem to be making ...
— The Tale of Mrs. Ladybug • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Peace! Once it contained few; now there are many. Where once the dark forest shaded the land, see the cabins, the farms, the horses, the cattle! Field on field of waving, golden grain shine there under your eyes. The earth has blossomed abundance. Idling and fighting made not these rich harvests. Belief made love; love made wise eyes; wise eyes saw, and lo! there ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... surpassed by the high finish of his apple-trees, and the elaborate nothingness of his general choice of subject. In the foreground of the picture, the artist has, however, most aptly introduced the two vagabonds invariably to be seen idling in the foregrounds of landscapes of this class—two rascally scouts who have put in appearance from time immemorial; they are here just as in the works alluded to, the one sitting, the other of course standing, and courteously bending to receive the remarks of his friend. By the side of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... bait along the water to imitate the swimming of a real fish; this is generally done by a long line attached to the stern of a sailing-boat. The word of old signified sauntering or idling about. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... idling about the parlor, dusting the already dusted furniture as they entered. The face was as impassive as a bronze statue. "Go and ask Miss Phillis, Harriet, if she is able ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... to have this done when he was away every year instead of keeping the servants idling about the house on board wages, and the house was then left in my charge, as I told you, sir, and after the servants went to the country it was my custom to live at home till Sir Horace returned, coming over ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... on. * * * * * Jackson went on leave. To his deep disgust he had to wait a few hours in London on his way to more civilised parts, and fate led him idling to Brownhill's. He flattened his Celtic nose on the window and stared fascinated at the array of super-pipes displayed there. After a furtive glance along the street he crept into the temple. A white-coated ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 12, 1917 • Various
... then with Mr. Colvill to the new Excise Office in Aldersgate Street, and thence back to the Old Exchange, to see a very noble fine lady I spied as I went through, in coming; and there took occasion to buy some gloves, and admire her, and a mighty fine fair lady indeed she was. Thence idling all the afternoon to Duck Lane, and there saw my bookseller's moher, but get no ground there yet; and here saw Mrs. Michell's daughter married newly to a bookseller, and she proves a comely little grave woman. So to visit my Lord Crew, who is very sick, to great danger, by an irisipulus;—[Erysipelas.]—the ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... will not stay here. It cannot be right for a man to idle away his time as you are idling it; besides, you can never win back Pennington thus. If I were you I would find work, and I would honourably make ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... am always haunted by the thought that at any time while I am sitting idling here I may be missing an opportunity for seeing Hal. For aught we know he may be prisoner to one of these newly come Emirs. There, don't try to stop me. The more I am out about the city the less likely am ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... must go on; he had not meant to sit idling by the road-side. He went through the fields, his heavy step crushing the snow, a dry heat in his blood, his eye intent, still, until he came within sight of the farm-house; then he went on, cool and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... are all staked, and there isn't the ghost of a show for us to get any first class ground hereabouts. Let's light out, blaze a new trail for ourselves, and prospect in the likeliest places during the winter instead of idling away our time here, eating up high-priced grub and hating ourselves. I'm sick of this camp. What ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... activity. There were many tinselled booths at which games of chance or marksmanship were played, or at which articles of ornament or household decoration were displayed for sale, and about these were throngs of low-class French idling away their afternoon in that mad pursuit of pleasure which is so characteristic of this race. In the centre of the place was a carrousel from which came the blare of a steam orchestrion playing the "Marseillaise," one of their popular songs. From where I sat I could perceive the circle ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... out to view the march of Cleopatra, as she went in triumph to the Shrine of Serapis. For although she would not pass till within two hours of the midday, yet these people of Alexandria have so great a love of shows and idling that had we not presently set forth, by no means could we have come through the press of the multitudes who were already gathering along the highways where the Queen must ride. So we went out to take our places upon a stand, built of timber, that ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... every day, that you are in the real world and in the real conflicts thereof, instead of in college with its practise conflicts, and handle yourself precisely as you would if your whole career depended upon each task set for you. If you mean to go to college for the principal purpose of idling around, wearing a small cap and good clothes, and being the adoration of your mother and your sisters on your vacation, you had a good deal better be at work at some gainful occupation. College is not helping you if that is what you are ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... day after Cartoner landed in England on his return from America. Deulin saw his friend emerge from a club in Pall Mall and walk westward, as if he had business in that direction. Like many travellers, the Frenchman loved the open air. Like all Frenchmen, he loved the streets. He was idling in Pall Mall, avoiding a man here and there. For we all have friends whom we are content to see pass by on the other side. Deulin's duty was, moreover, such that it got strangely mixed up with his pleasure, and it often ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... second pipe produced from the compact stores in the knapsack. In the web of encounters and escapes, he placed his little questions now and then; no, Waring had no plan for exploring the region, no intention of settling there, was merely idling away a summer in the wilderness and would then go back to civilization never to return, at least, not that way; might go west across the plains, but that would be farther south. They talked on, one much, the other little; after a time, Waring, whose heart had been warmed by his flask, ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... Hector's brow, till Catharine gaily exclaimed, "Come, Hector! come, Louis! we must not stand idling thus; we must think of providing some shelter for the night; it is not good to rest upon the bare ground exposed to the night dews.—See, here is a nice hut, half made," pointing to a large upturned root which some fierce whirlwind had hurled from the lofty bank into ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... me my Varus to his flame, As I from Forum idling came. Forthright some whorelet judged I it Nor lacking looks nor wanting wit, When hied we thither, mid us three 5 Fell various talk, as how might be Bithynia now, and how it fared, And if some coin I made or spared. "There was no cause" (I soothly said) "The ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... yours, and take care you do not stay idling here till the dinner hour is over.—I will add this work to your ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... But you are also idling, Crichton. (Making himself comfortable on the ground.) We mustn't waste time. ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie
... rose, and going to the door he bade his page who was idling in the anteroom go summon the captain. Then he paced slowly back, not to the place he had lately occupied at table, but to the hearth, where he took his stand with his shoulders squared to ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... successes left him little time for the sports which should be a boy's most profitable form of idling. He ran no races after he left Taunton, where he was known for the fleetest pair of heels in the school; he played no games, neither cricket nor football, not even bowls or rounders—but these amusements he probably missed the less as they were not popular at Belfast, ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... would you have us do nothing? Would you have us make Christ such a drudge as to do all, while we sit idling still? ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... happiness and brings back memories of summer days spent idling in a quite so still that we could hear the rustle of the bamboo grasses on the hillside down below; or, still more dear, the evenings passed close by thy side, watching the brightened into jade each door and ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... seen that Milton turned back from his unaccomplished tour because he "deemed it disgraceful to be idling away his time abroad for his own gratification, while his countrymen were contending for their liberty." From these words biographers have inferred that he hurried home with the view of taking service in the Parliamentarian army. This ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... too, on their right, stretched the splendid rampart of the Gribun cliffs, a soft sunlight on the grassy greens of their summits; a pale and brilliant blue in the shadows of the huge and yawning caves. And so still it was, and the air so fine and sweet: it was a day for the idling ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... present. If children were wanted they were sent for. It was not seemly for them to be idling in the drawing-rooms. ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... family, and their old firm. Acton was pleasantly at home in the Melrose, Liggett, and Von Behrens houses, the very maids loved him, and his quiet singling out of Leslie for his devotion had satisfied everyone's sense of what was fitting and delightful. Pretty Leslie, back from a summer's idling with Aunt Annie and the little boys, in California and Hawaii, had found Acton's admiration waiting for her, with all the other joys of ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... Spandau machine guns. Then he glanced along the line of ships making up the first flight. Yes, they were ready, awaiting his signal, their idling motors purring like so many contented cats. The smiling, blond von Herzmann lifted his hand in signal. The purring sound changed to the deafening roar of a hundred infuriated jungle cats. The leading plane raced along the green field, and a moment later ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... are hundreds of these cafes lining the boulevards, where one may sit for hours before the small tables reading the newspapers, writing letters, or merely idling. In the morning, from eight to eleven, employees, men-about-town, tourists, and provincials throng the cafes for cafe au lait. The waiters are coldly polite. They bring the papers, and brush the table—twice for cafe creme (milk), and three times for cafe complet ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... and quiet, and Clemens worked when his arm permitted. He was alone there with Mrs. Clemens, and they wandered about a good deal, idling and picture-making, enjoying a sort of belated honeymoon. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... and fields, as it originally did. Mr. Hall gave some amusing illustrations of his experience at Hastings, where, for several weeks, he had been preaching on the beach to large congregations. He was idling there, he said, for health's sake, and one evening, seeing a number of men loafing about, he proposed to one of them that he should give them an address. This gentleman declined the address, but added, characteristically ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... Henry's sharp retorts quickly silenced them, and they soon grew to respect and like him. He was an earnest student. He stayed indoors and read in the evenings, while the other young fellows were idling about the town. He was eager to do something in the world. His opportunity soon came in the ordinary course of his daily work. His fine handwriting attracted the notice of the chancellor, a very able lawyer. ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... you not speak?" she exclaimed, seizing Elsie by the arm and shaking her violently. "Answer me this instant. Why have you been idling all the morning?" ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... idling be prevented in the Socialist Commonwealth when men are no longer compelled by economic necessity and free competition ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... reach by hard work. In this sense Cullingworth was the greatest genius that I have ever known. He never seemed to work, and yet he took the anatomy prize over the heads of all the ten-hour-a-day men. That might not count for much, for he was quite capable of idling ostentatiously all day and then reading desperately all night; but start a subject of your own for him, and then see his originality and strength. Talk about torpedoes, and he would catch up a pencil, and on the back of an old envelope from his pocket he would sketch out some novel contrivance for ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... patience with the sort of trash you send me out by way of books; except Scott's novels, and three or four other things, I never saw such work, or works. Campbell is lecturing—Moore idling—S * * twaddling—W * * drivelling—C * * muddling—* * piddling—B * * quibbling, squabbling, and snivelling. * * will do, if he don't cant too much, nor imitate Southey; the fellow has poesy in him; but he is envious, and unhappy, as all the envious are. Still ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... bottle from the shelf above her with the air of one who closes a discussion. "Here, run down to the Bridge and get me this bottle full of vinegar at Jacob's store. Be smart, too, d'ye hear! I ain't going to have you idling around the Bridge neither. If you ain't back in twenty minutes, it won't be well ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... was idling, whittling, gossiping in the road, when the Turner cavalcade came in sight—and for ten miles up and down the river people were ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... watchmaker of him, the boy might, after an apprenticeship of five or seven years be able to take apart and put together a watch; but all through life he would be working uphill and seizing every excuse for leaving his work and idling away his time. Watchmaking ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... intercourse. The call on board then became part of her daily round. She walked hesitatingly up the slanting planks of the gangway amidst the encouraging shouts and more or less decent jokes of the men idling over the bulwarks. There she sold her wares to those men that spoke so loud and carried themselves so free. There was a throng, a constant coming and going; calls interchanged, orders given and executed with shouts; the rattle of blocks, ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... flinging away the scabbard, said that he would either return victor or be hanged. So home, where I found the house full of the washing and my wife mighty angry about Will's being here to-day talking with her mayds, which she overheard, idling of their time, and he telling what a good mayd my old Jane was, and that she would never have her like again. At which I was angry, and after directing her to beat at least the little girl, I went to the office and there reproved Will, who told me that he went thither by my ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... away for rest and repair. Group Two was idling at extreme radar range, making a convincing blip, and he designed some false messages to be beamed toward it with the expectation of interception. The impression he wanted to give was that Group Two was the Force that had been bombarding Coar, coming in now to join him. Actually, the latter ...
— Tulan • Carroll Mather Capps
... been dealt with dishonestly. In both cases you would be exceedingly angry with the traders, and justly so. But consider, do you always act justly with your employers? When you are hired for a day's work, do you give good work? And is the time just measure? Or is there much idling and talking when you ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould
... was doubtless one of the reasons why he got (or was it only that it seemed so to him in his old age?) so little from Harvard College; but at any rate he graduated with honors, and afterwards enjoyed the blessed boon of two care-free years of idling and study in Germany and Italy. For six years, as private secretary to his father on one of the most difficult and successful diplomatic missions in the history of his country, he watched history in the making, and gained an ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... my Calyste," said Sabine. "Young noblemen in these days ought to busy themselves about recovering in the eyes of the country the ground lost by their fathers. It isn't by smoking cigars, playing whist, idling away their leisure, and saying insolent things of parvenus who have driven them from their positions, not yet by separating themselves from the masses whose soul and intellect and providence they ought to ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... twenty yards' width of luxuriant greensward on either side of the road, and each and every tree sheltering groups of natives, resting, idling, washing their clothes in some silent pool, or tending a few grazing buffaloes, form a truly Arcadian scene for mile after mile next day. These buffaloes are huge, unwieldy animals with black, hairless hides, strong and heavy almost ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... said his father: "there's to be no idling, no half attention to study, in those hours; you are to give your whole minds to your lessons, and I shall be very strict in exacting ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... into Andrews' cheeks. "When you have been in the Confederate army a little while, young man, as I have," he said, "you'll learn to obey orders and ask no questions. Why don't you go serve your country, as other young men are doing, instead of idling around at a ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins |
