"Inattentive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... better that the formidable Persians had fallen; they shall hear of [actual] engagements. Whom of the gods shall the people invoke to the affairs of the sinking empire? With what prayer shall the sacred virgins importune Vesta, who is now inattentive to their hymns? To whom shall Jupiter assign the task of expiating our wickedness? Do thou at length, prophetic Apollo, (we pray thee!) come, vailing thy radiant shoulders with a cloud: or thou, if it be more agreeable to thee, smiling Venus, about whom hover the ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... well in the eye of her world; nor did she suffer any of those gross rebuffs which sometimes produce a wholesome reaction of contempt in their victim. Society did not turn away from her, it simply drifted by, preoccupied and inattentive, letting her feel, to the full measure of her humbled pride, how completely she had been the ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... authorities—not to military commanders. But there was a feeling in Congress and the country which sympathized with the radical generals in these anti-slavery decrees, rather than with the law, and the Executive in maintaining it. The Secretary of War, under whom these generals acted, not inattentive to current opinion, also took an extraordinary position, and in his annual report enunciated a policy in regard to the slavery question, without the assent of the President and without even consulting him. Mr. Lincoln promptly directed ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... can power divine perform More grand than it produces year by year, And all in sight of inattentive man? Familiar with the effect we slight the cause, And in the constancy of Nature's course, The regular return of genial months, And renovation of a faded world, See nought to wonder at. Should ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... is in the difference of observation. Schiel says that the observer is not he who sees the thing, but who sees of what parts it is made. The talent for such vision is rare. One man overlooks half because he is inattentive or is looking at the wrong place; another substitutes his own inferences for objects, while another tends to observe the quality of objects, and neglects their quantity; and still another divides what is to be united, and unites what is to be separated. If we keep ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... 32s. per lb.! They were too prone to dilapidate and destroy their dwellings; they were therefore required to pay for the locks, cupboards, and doors. They were instructed in the Christian religion, and displayed considerable aptitude; but of some, it is remarked, that they were inattentive to learning, ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... At the time of our trials the mob had treated us in ruffianly fashion, but now we found a respectful silence. The lawyer Morgan was in an extremely irritable mood. All the way to the Common he poured into our inattentive ears a tale of woe about how his coffee had been cold that morning. Over and over again he recited to us the legal procedure for bringing the matter into the courts with sufficient effect to have the prison governor ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... Consul at Algiers, M. Dubois Thainville, had not remained inattentive, reached us at the moment when we least expected it. We at once made preparations for our departure, and on the 28th of November, 1808, we set sail, steering for Marseilles; but, as the Mussulmen on board the vessel declared, it was written above that we should not enter that ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... the Borderline to look after some children who belonged to a lady until a regularly ordained nurse could come out. The lady said Miss Vezzis was a bad, dirty nurse and inattentive. It never struck her that Miss Vezzis had her own life to lead and her own affairs to worry over, and that these affairs were the most important things in ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... lips, but made no immediate answer, for Helen was still slightly inattentive. She had been thinking about Rachel and which of the two young men she was likely to fall in love with, and now sitting opposite to Hirst she thought, "He's ugly. It's a ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... prepared with the lesson, but she allowed the pupils too long a time to think and guess. A chronology lesson is apt to be dry and uninteresting; and unless the teacher calls upon the pupils in rapid succession, thus keeping them wide awake, the interest will flag, and even good pupils will be inattentive. One of the pupils, after gaping two or three times, indulged in short naps during the recitation; the teacher evidently did not see her. Miss —— marked the pupils judiciously. ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... had reference to Alice, who, folded in her cloak, sat a little apart, profoundly inattentive to his offer ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... three pillars, and five witnesses. It is presided over by the soul. That learned man who knoweth all this is truly wise. O Dhritarashtra, these ten do not know what virtue is viz., the intoxicated, inattentive, the raving, the fatigued, the angry, the starving, the hasty, the covetous, the frightened, and the lustful. Therefore, he that is wise must eschew the company of these. In this connection is cited the old story about what transpired between Suyodhana and (Prahlada), the chief of the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... made up his mind to ignore it, he seemed, just as plainly, to be able to think of nothing else. He seemed unwilling to be alone, and yet to be very bad company, for he was restless, silent, and, when Oliver, with an effort, tried to talk of cheerful things, was completely inattentive. They went into the garden at last to see how the flowers were faring. The sunshine was more unreal than ever, and sudden, fitful gusts of wind were beginning to stir the trees. They had inspected the ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... Gilbert White remarks of his tortoise: "Whenever the good old lady came in sight who had waited on it for more than thirty years, it always hobbled with awkward alacrity towards its benefactress, while to strangers it was altogether inattentive." Of definite learning there are a few records. Thus Professor Yerkes studied a sluggish turtle of retiring disposition, taking advantage of its strong desire to efface itself. On the path of the darkened nest of damp ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... the pitcher. Ben with Beer. Inattentive Boy with hot plates. Inattentive Boy with hot plates. THE TURKEY. Female carrying sauces to be heated on the spot. THE BEEF. Man with Tray on his head, containing Vegetables and Sundries. Volunteer Hostler from Hotel, grinning, And ...
— The Seven Poor Travellers • Charles Dickens
... spread out to look much, not without consciousness of the greatness of the sacrifice. They have not, those two little angels, forgotten, I am sure, the gift they have brought, during that rather weary music-making before the inattentive Madonna. They keep on thinking how Christ will awake to find all those precious things, and they steel their little hearts to the sacrifice. The little bird who has come (invited for like reason) and perched on the curtain bar, understands it all, ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... council unanimously recommended him to the emperor, and requested his approbation of their proceedings. Charles had not been an inattentive observer of Gasca's course. His attention had been particularly called to the able manner in which he had conducted the judicial process against the heretics of Valencia.9 The monarch saw, at once, that he was the man for the present emergency; and he immediately wrote to him, with ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... of an hysterical and passing type—with sensational disturbances, falling exercises, shouts, weeping, and the like. A revival is something far different. A revival is an awakening of the community heart and mind. It is a quickening of dead, backsliding, or inattentive souls. ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... most inattentive girls in the class!" cried Miss Frazer indignantly one day, after a specially bad lapse of memory. "You both did far better at Winterburn Lodge. I cannot understand why your work should have fallen off so much lately. This is the third time this week you have had bad marks. If it ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... stuttering existence of fears and indignations, together with the violence of his end, had passed out of Mr Verloc's mental sight for a time. For that reason, when he looked up he was startled by the inappropriate character of his wife's stare. It was not a wild stare, and it was not inattentive, but its attention was peculiar and not satisfactory, inasmuch that it seemed concentrated upon some point beyond Mr Verloc's person. The impression was so strong that Mr Verloc glanced over his shoulder. There was nothing behind ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... inattentive, and in desperation Cheon humbled himself and apologised handsomely for former scoffings. Not chance, he said, but genius! Never was there white woman like the missus! "Him savey all about," he assured the Maluka. "Him plenty savey gardin." Further, she was a ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... sand, some twenty paces from the camp—an arrangement they appeared highly to disapprove of, giving expression to their dissatisfaction in a manner anything but polite; finding, however, that we were inattentive to their impertinence so long as they confined it to harmless display, they watched their opportunity, and suddenly set fire to the grass in several places at once around the camp, and ran off as hard as they could. As this was ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... and the narrowed mockery of his eyes escaped her; and even what he said made no impression as she stood, brightly inattentive, looking across the little throng at Hamil. And Malcourt's smile became flickering and uncertain when she left the terrace with Hamil, moving very slowly side by ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... fifty. He was tall, spare, with closely shaven face and gray hair, worn rather long. He spoke with the accent of a Southerner, and although to Ford he was studiously polite, he was obviously greatly ill at ease. He had the abrupt, inattentive manners, the trembling fingers and quivering lips, of one who had long been a slave to the drug habit, and who now, with difficulty, was holding ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... an inattentive ear to all these explanations, which she gave in those timid tones, which had lately become habitual to her, but once—when she made a slip, and talked about a share which she possessed in the Russian Company being ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... may justify the following attempt to interpret and to make intelligible, even to the most inattentive reader, the creed of one of the most powerful of those teachers and preachers who have taken such mysterious and uncanny possession of the soul of the German nation. Before 1914 none except a few initiated had ever heard of ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... great fireplace in the hall—for the nights were growing chill—playing games, or listening to Jacqueline's music, or telling stories like children, until nine o'clock; at which hour Mrs. Kildare assembled her household, white and black, read a few prayers in a firm but inattentive manner, and ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... pleasant and friendly impression is not alone good manners, but equally good business. The crude man would undoubtedly show his eagerness to be rid of his visitor, and after offending the latter's self-pride because of his inattentive discourtesy, be late for his own appointment! The man of skill saw his visitor for fewer actual minutes, but gave the impression that circumstances over which he had no control forced him unwillingly to close the interview. He not only gained the ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... attending only to what is essential, constant, and characteristic in objects, and disregarding what is variable and accidental.[46] Thus, we attend, in the first place, to the form of objects, the most constant and characteristic element of all, being comparatively inattentive to colour, which varies with distance, atmospheric changes, and mode of illumination. So we attend to the relative magnitude of objects rather than to the absolute, and to the relative intensities of light and shade rather than to the absolute; for in so doing we are noting what ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... perhaps, that Mrs. Francis should be so negligent of providing for her guests, as she may seem to be thus inattentive to her own interest; but this was not the case; for, having clapped a poll-tax on our heads at our arrival, and determined at what price to discharge our bodies from her house, the less she suffered ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... his admission into the Excise, and continued to the hour of his death. In all that time the superintendence of his behaviour as an officer of the revenue was a branch of my especial province; and it may be supposed I would not be an inattentive observer of the general conduct of a man and a poet so celebrated by his countrymen. In the former capacity, so far from its being impossible for him to discharge the duties of his office with that regularity which is almost indispensable, as ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... paid no heed to what he was saying: only fragments of sentences, sonorous quotations, allusions to illustrious men, including the obligatory tribute to Honorius Hatchard, drifted past her inattentive ears. She was trying to discover Harney among the notable people in the front row; but he was nowhere near Miss Hatchard, who, crowned by a pearl-grey hat that matched her gloves, sat just below the desk, supported by Mrs. Miles and an important-looking ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... continually increasing. No recent census had been taken when I was at Tiberias, but I know that the congregation of fleas which attended at my church alone must have been something enormous. It was a carnal, self-seeking congregation, wholly inattentive to the service which was going on, and devoted to the one object of having my blood. The fleas of all nations were there. The smug, steady, importunate flea from Holywell Street; the pert, jumping puce from hungry France, the wary, watchful pulce with his poisoned ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... shallow discernment, natural disposition, or wilful inattention, is here perfectly described in their faces. One is amusing himself in the course of trial, with other business; another, in all the pride of self-importance, is examining a former deposition, wholly inattentive to that before him; the next is busied in thoughts quite foreign to the subject; and the senses of the last are ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... heard, my brave young friend. Never had people on a single throw More interest at stake; when he, who held For us the die, prov'd false, and play'd us foul. But for a circumstance of that nice kind, Of cause so microscopic, that the tongues Of inattentive men call it the effect Of chance, we must have lost the ...
— Andre • William Dunlap
... careful what I eat. I keep a list, and this isn't on it. I never saw that joint before," he added to me, and lost all interest in Dennison. I thought it a pity that Collier took so much trouble over what he ate; the sight of that unusual joint made him quite silent and inattentive during the rest ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... he was perfectly well acquainted. "It is well," thought he, "that she has filed down her mind, if she must spend her days with a man like him." Mason passed the evening with his uncle, though he was sadly inattentive to his uncle's remarks. Emily and Mr. Benfield took a walk, and on their return did not join the family. Benfield's object in visiting the country at this time was to fix a day for his marriage. The ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... Concerts once, and the music and words which he selected were from Samson Agonistes, and all had reference to his blindness, his captivity, and his affliction. He would beat time with his music-roll as they sang the anthem in the Chapel Royal. If the page below was talkative or inattentive, down would come the music-roll on young scapegrace's powdered head. The theatre was always his delight. His bishops and clergy used to attend it, thinking it no shame to appear where that good man was seen. He is said not to have cared for ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the storm in Marcella's soul. For Patty's sake she must control her temper—and she did. With an effort that left her white and tremulous she crushed back the hot words and said quietly: "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Liddell. I did not mean to be inattentive. Let me show you some of our new lingerie waists, I think ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... had been only mildly disorderly and inattentive while Marcella was speaking, had suddenly flamed, after she sat down, into a fierce confusion and tumult—why, Tressady hardly now understood. A man had sprung up to speak as she sat down who was apparently in bad repute with most of the unions of the district. ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the hut. Enveloped in a huge cloak, he sate silent, and apparently inattentive; but the conversation was now abrupt, and broken down into ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... all retarded. In high first grade. Work all very poor except writing, drawing, and hand work, in all of which he excels. Is quiet and inactive, lacks self-confidence, and plays little. Mentally slow, inert, "thick," and inattentive. ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... sound too early for our friends the natives, who had promised last evening to bring us a hawk's nest that was built upon a rock near the watering-place; at ten o'clock a very large fire was perceived close to the nest; it was no doubt kindled by them, and meant to show that they were not inattentive to their promise. ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... his own life and incidentally his money. An inveterate poker player, he got into a game in Springfield with big players and for high stakes. Sitting by the table, I noticed that he seemed sleepy and inattentive. So I kept a close watch on the other fellows. Presently I observed that one of his opponents was occasionally dropping a card in his hat, which he held in his lap, until a number of cards had been laid away for future ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... sheep. I do not exaggerate. This is a true picture of Europe. Cherish, therefore, the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions; and experience declares that man is the only animal ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... in some measure, debauched by the nature of the service. They are crowded together in transports, where the minute particulars of military order cannot be observed, even though the good of the service greatly depends upon a due observance of these forms. The soldiers grow negligent, and inattentive to cleanness and the exterior ornaments of dress: they become slovenly, slothful, and altogether unfit for a return of duty: they are tumbled about occasionally in ships and boats, landed and re-embarked in a tumultuous manner, under a divided and disorderly ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... brushed past her, inattentive, unlistening. She was not amongst those who counted. He pushed open an ill-fitting door, whose broken glass top was stuffed with brown paper. The room within was almost horrible in its meagreness. The floor was uncarpeted, the wall unpapered. In a three-legged ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... been pacing up and down the deck in his absorbed and inattentive way, dropped his blade across my shoulder and challenged ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... appear as inattentive as themselves; but I was very much provoked at being thus prevented enjoying the only pleasure, which, in such a party, was within ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... epistle, containing the latest information from Mayo, with all particulars of the Macan family, of which she is a worthy member. To her constant hints of the acceptable nature of certain small remittances, the poor general is never inattentive; but to the pleasing prospect of a visit in the flesh from Miss Judy Macan, the good man is dead. In fact, nothing short of being broke by general court-martial could complete his sensations of horror at such a stroke of fortune; and ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... that he was inattentive—no man was ever less so if the subject interested him—but only that the casual, incidental thing seemed not to find a fixed ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... shall be interested in hearing what Harry is like especially; he was a great favourite of mine when a boy. He has now become a fine gallant officer. I wish I could let him know how much I should like to see him; for although Sir Ralph and Lady Castleton have been so inattentive, we should not, therefore, feel the less regard for their son, and I am sure he would not hesitate to come, if he remembered ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... denied anything in her life, except the biblical sanction for the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, shook her head gently and began to talk in the inattentive and anxious manner she had acquired at scantily furnished tables. Ever since the war, with the exception of the Reconstruction period, when she had lived practically on charity, she had managed to exist with serenity, and numerous negro dependents, on the rector's ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... but Davies, though he had fits and starts of vivacity, seemed very inattentive, considering that we were sitting at the feet of so expansive an oracle. It was I who elicited most of the practical information—details of time, weather, and likely places for shooting, with some shrewd hints as to the kind of people to conciliate. Whatever ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... whom nobody older would endure. Who, taking his stand on the floor before them as chief executioner, would be attended by a conventional volunteer boy as executioner's assistant. When and where it first became the conventional system that a weary or inattentive infant in a class must have its face smoothed downward with a hot hand, or when and where the conventional volunteer boy first beheld such system in operation, and became inflamed with a sacred zeal to administer it, matters not. It was the function of the chief executioner ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... revealed the extent of his personal merit, which had corrected or supplied the want of discipline and courage. Fifteen generals, without concert or skill, led through the mountains of Armenia an army of thirty thousand Romans, inattentive to their signals, their ranks, and their ensigns. Four thousand Persians, intrenched in the camp of Dubis, vanquished, almost without a combat, this disorderly multitude; their useless arms were scattered along the road, and their ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... be surprised by the corps descending the Delaware. This would require the concurrence of too many favorable circumstances to be calculated on with any confidence. As the position of General Greene was known, it could not be supposed that Sir William Howe would be inattentive to him. It was probable that not even his embarkation would be made unnoticed, but it was presuming a degree of negligence which ought not to be assumed to suppose that he could descend the river to Philadelphia undiscovered. So soon as his movement ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... should have it, she should pay his uncle Macdermott a visit, and take Izzie with her, but what should he do without Izzie, he asked himself, but with surprising magnanimity, he refused to consider that question. He had been a little inattentive perhaps lately and owed her some amends, so Izzie should go with her. He knew very well that Natalie would never go without her, and, truth to tell, he had his misgivings as to how Izzie would behave without her mother, so, as he really thought it needful, it was as much necessity as kindness, ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... been speaking, Fronto sat, inattentive as it seemed to what was going on. But at these last words he was compelled to give ear, and did it as a man does who has heard unwelcome truths. As Felix ended, the Emperor turned toward him without speaking, and without any look of doubt or passion, ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... 'when the birds began to sing' in the dawn of a day heralded by tempestuous winds laden with perfume from the vales of Sicily, shut his eyes forever from the warm sparkling Mediterranean billows that broke in the roads of Utica, and pricked the memory of inattentive Azrael with the point of a sword. Neither Phaedo, family, nor fame, could coax Cato to respect the prerogative of Atropos; and if he, 'the only free and unconquered man,' quailed and fled before the apparition of numerous advancing years, what marvel that I, who am neither sage nor Roman, should ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... There Constance became inattentive. Mr. Poulter had come up, and wanted to be useful, so she jumped up with a handful of nosegays to instruct him in laying them by each plate, leaving Dolores to herself, which she found dull. The other two, however, came back again, and the work continued, but the talk was entirely between ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of an evening in which my mother had promised, as a special favor, to join us in our walk to the fields of pink amourettes. That afternoon I had been more inattentive than usual, and the Great Ape had threatened to keep me in, and all during my lessons I firmly believed that I was to be punished. This keeping in after school, which shut us away from the beautiful June day an hour ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... thus inattentive, she began to speak with him, and in spite of his indifference, Sir Ulric could but confess that her voice was passing sweet, and her words full of wit and sense. In a long discourse she painted to him the advantage of having ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... he said, looking towards the door; 'bring me my pipe,' and then, impatiently, 'What has become of Steadman? He has been getting inattentive—very inattentive.' ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... mean the doctor's, or this?" said the inattentive and thirsty major, fetching a deep breath, as he put down the huge glass tumbler ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... almost illegible,—"here's another, you didn't read; the porter has just brought it up. It is a paper from our old quarter, 'L'Echo de la Bievre.' I don't know, gentlemen, if you'll be of my opinion, but I think nothing could be better written. It is droll, though, how inattentive these journalists are! most of them write your name without the H; I think you ought to complain ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... to his sister, fearful lest his face should betray what had passed during the extraordinary interview between Lomaque and himself. But, whatever change there might be in his expression, Rose did not seem to notice it. She was still strangely inattentive to all outward things. That spirit of resignation, which is the courage of women in all great emergencies, seemed now to be the one animating spirit that fed the flame ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... due to the deep womanly interest that SHE took in the fortunes of the passengers of the Excelsior that I gave the Mexican authorities early notice of their whereabouts. But, pardon me,"—he stopped hesitatingly, with a slight flush, as he noticed the utterly inattentive face and attitude of Hurlstone,—"I am boring you. I am forgetting that this is only important to myself," he added, with a sigh. "I only intended to ask your advice in regard to the disposition of certain manuscripts and effects of hers, which ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... I may have replied I know not, but it was evidently translated as an affirmative, for in another moment I was being piloted down the side of the long room, while he gossiped in my rather inattentive ear. ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... observant, intent, mindful, wary, alert, circumspect, watchful; courteous, deferential, considerate. Antonyms: See inattentive. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... no hesitation in declaring a thorough and satisfactory explanation. The results of the analysis are undoubtedly, in the main, just; but we can only account for Brewster's pronouncing the Essay a thorough and satisfactory explanation, by supposing him to have bestowed upon it a very cursory and inattentive perusal. In the compendium of the Essay, made use of in the Letters on Natural Magic, it is quite impossible to arrive at any distinct conclusion in regard to the adequacy or inadequacy of the analysis, on account of the gross misarrangement ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... which was to be her own special share of the splendour. She moved shyly towards Mrs. Yaverland, who had gone to the window and was looking down in the night, and said shyly, "This is a very fine room," but, she knew, too softly to reach such markedly inattentive ears. She stood there awkwardly, feeling herself suspended till this woman should take notice of her. If her mother had been with her they would have had a room with two beds, and would have talked before they went to sleep of the day and its wonderful ending in ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... Jefferson, after a memorable controversy between their respective friends, in 1801; and from that period his manner of life has been known to all who hear me. He has lived for five-and-twenty years, with every enjoyment that could render old age happy. Not inattentive to the occurrences of the times, political cares have not yet materially, or for any long time, disturbed his repose. In 1820 he acted as elector of president and vice-president, and in the same year we saw him, then at the age of eighty-five, a member of the convention ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... to ponder over some problem of agriculture or to wrangle with William Henry Matier on what was and what was not a fair day's work. But now, Henry began to scheme to be alone. On the day after he had taken Sheila Morgan to her uncle's farm, he had been so restless and inattentive during his morning's work that Marsh had asked him if ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... an amiable trait in the character of Hector, that his pity in this instance supercedes his caution, and that at the sight of his brother in circumstances so affecting, he becomes at once inattentive to himself and the command ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... woman from a certain Western State seeing God's great, happy, inattentive world for the first time, and rather distressed that it was not like hers. She had always understood that the English were brutal to their wives—the papers of her State said so. (If you only knew the papers ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... is made to depend on the solution of a single circumstance—the answer of Iachimo to the question of Imogen respecting the obtaining of the ring from Posthumus. Dr. Johnson is of opinion that Shakspeare was generally inattentive to the winding-up of his plots. We think the contrary is true; and we might cite in proof of this remark not only the present play, but the conclusion of Lear, of Romeo and Juliet, of Macbeth, of Othello, even of Hamlet, and of other plays of less moment, ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... intently. When he had shut his own door she glanced over at the inattentive Allan, once more busy at his manuscript and ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... carrying out of his design. Still lost in thought and inattentive, Dupont entrained for Nimes and at that station changed to the rapide for Lyons, where duly at four o'clock—with Lanyard still a discreet shadow—he alighted in ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... self-possession with which some of the men near them made jokes to magnificently dressed women with diamond earrings struck them dumb with admiration. Yet, later on, they too were fated to join in the dance, when the stars affected to sleep on the clouds and the moon lay wearily inattentive to the pilgrims of the night, like an invalid in a blue boudoir. On the thick carpet by the wall attendants stood loaded with programmes. One of them, very trim and respectable, in a white cap, was named Clara and offered a drink by an impudent ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... smiling, inattentive, absorbed in her own affairs, still theorising concerning her telegram. She drove on for a while, and might have forgotten the dog entirely had he not once more lifted his voice ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... with Mrs. Bloomfield, we repaired to the schoolroom again, and commenced the business of the day. I found my pupils very backward, indeed; but Tom, though averse to every species of mental exertion, was not without abilities. Mary Ann could scarcely read a word, and was so careless and inattentive that I could hardly get on with her at all. However, by dint of great labour and patience, I managed to get something done in the course of the morning, and then accompanied my young charge out into ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... common brightness, she would make amends to his wounded feelings; such having been her usual mode of reparation in the few instances of disagreement that had occurred between them. But he was disappointed. He found her cold, silent, and abstracted, inattentive when he spoke, and indisposed to speak herself. Her eye was sedulously averted from his; and the casual meeting of their glances only proved that there were feelings in her bosom which he did not share. He was unable to account for this change in ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... at rouge-et-noir, where the circle is more aristocratic and thousands can be lost and won in a night. Everybody looks tired, absent, inattentive; nobody takes much notice of his neighbour or of the spectators looking on; nobody cares to speak; a finger suffices to direct the croupier to push the stake on to the desired spot, a nod or a look to indicate the winner. The game goes on in a dull uniformity; nobody varies his ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... interested in his case, and never spoke of his own initiative to his attorney about it. On May 8, 1911, he was seen for the first time by a psychiatrist. He was then found to be very distractible and inattentive, seemed suspicious and excited and assumed stiff attitudes. He was well oriented, and recognized that he was on trial for murder. It might be mentioned here that although the jail officials apparently noted from the first that the patient was not right, the legal proceedings ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... minister and control, and all things being dependent upon him as the movements of team and wagon are dependent upon the driver, the bishop has no time for indolence, drowsiness and negligence. He must be attentive and diligent, even though all others be slothful and careless. Were he inattentive and unfaithful, the official duties of all the others would likewise be badly executed. The result would be similar to that when the driver lies asleep and allows the team to move at will. Under such circumstances, ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... time when any unsuspected defects, physical, or mental, or moral, begin to show themselves distinctly; when short sight becomes apparent so soon as the child has to learn its letters, when the dull hearing is perceived which makes it seem inattentive, and gives to its manner an unchildlike nervousness; and the weak intellect is displayed in causeless laughter, causeless mischief, causeless passion, imperfect power of articulation, or want of words, and by a ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... most prized. Whether the conversation turned upon government or science, the dry figures of finance, or the more genial topic of diplomatic intrigue, Mr. Gallatin was its easy master, and his words never fell on inattentive ears. ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... mighty hunter, before the Lord! She marked down poor Hilton last cold weather," cooed the silken voice in Roy's inattentive ear. "Of course you know he's one of our coming men! And I've a shrewd idea he was intended for Rose. But in Miss Rose the matchmaker has met her match! She's clever—that girl; and she's reduced the tactics of non-resistance to a fine art. I don't ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... a constrained silence. Foxy, frightened by a covey of partridges, created a diversion by pulling her cord from Hazel's inattentive hand and setting ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... host almost inattentive during the remainder of that afternoon. About five o'clock he dispatched a note, addressed "J. H. McPherson, Euclid House," and astonished and delighted his young waiter by an unusually early putting up of shutters, and of ...
— Three People • Pansy
... of him. Everybody thought him irretrievably insane, and paid no attention to the strange, unconnected discourses which he held. Many of his prophecies are believed to have been lost in this manner. But they were not always destined to be wasted upon dull and inattentive ears. An incident occurred which brought him into notice, and established his fame as a prophet of the first calibre. He was ploughing in a field when he suddenly stopped from his labour, and, with a wild look and strange gestures, exclaimed, "Now, Dick! now, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... think it can only be the inspiration of the tartans; for, though Waverley be always a young fellow of sense and honour, I have hitherto often found him a very absent and inattentive companion.' ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... personal questions, against talking about oneself or one's immediate personal interests, against discussing religion and politics and any such keenly felt matter. No doubt it is necessary at times to protect oneself against clumsy and stupid familiarities, against noisy and inattentive egotists, against intriguers and liars, but only in the last resort do such breaches of patience seem justifiable to me; for the most part our traditions of speech and intercourse altogether overdo separations, the preservation of distances ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... have the least judgment in men, he will be a cold, civil, inattentive husband; a tasteless, insipid, silent companion; a tranquil, frozen, unimpassion'd lover; his insensibility will secure her from rivals, his vanity will give her all the drapery of happiness; her friends ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... being intended, was formal, unimpressive, and undevotional; the singing was languid; but we expected that the sermon would arouse the inattentive, and invigorate the dull. The moment for announcing the text arrived. Our curiosity was excited. With little less than famine in the land, our hearts were appalled at hearing the words, "When they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king, and their God, and look upward." ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... returning home from the evening service; some, the younger, lingering in pleasant promenade with their sweethearts or families, or arm in arm with each other, and having the air of bachelors or maidens unattached. Through this street Kenelm passed with inattentive eye. A turn to the right took him towards the cathedral and its surroundings. There all was solitary. The solitude pleased him, and he lingered long, gazing on the noble church lifting its spires and turrets into the ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... quite glad to see Mr. Brumley again, and no doubt her eyes showed it. She had hoped to see him. Miss Sharsper was sitting nearly opposite to her, a real live novelist pecking observations out of life as a hen pecks seeds amidst scenery, and next beyond was a large-headed inattentive fluffy person who was Mr. Keystone the well-known critic. And there was Agatha Alimony under a rustling vast hat of green-black cock's feathers next to Sir Markham Crosby, with whom she had been having an abusive controversy in the Times and ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... manuscript, by an eye and ear witness. They are trifles, but trifles consecrated by his name. They are genuine; and the philosopher knows how to value the indications of a great and heroic character. There are among them some which may occasion an inattentive reader to forget that they are all the speeches and the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... morning, the very early morning, is the time for this work—say, roughly, between the hours of four and six, when the soldier Chinaman beyond our lines is yawningly arousing himself from his slumbers and squats blinking and inattentive before his morning tea. Then if you are a natural hunter, are inclined to risk a good deal, and something of a quick shot, you may have splendid chances which teach you more than you could ever learn by months in front of targets. Baron von R——, ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... Moussa Isa earned a sharp rebuke for inattentive slacking, as he stood sighing his soul to where it sank in the West over Aden and Somaliland.... Wait till his chance of escape arrived; he would journey straight for the sunset, day after day, until he ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... irritability is less than natural, though it is erroneously supposed to be greater; and the mind is busied in exciting a train of ideas inattentive to external objects; when this train of ideas is dissevered by any unexpected stimulus, surprise is excited; as explained in Sect. XVII. 3. 7. and XVIII. 17. then as the sensibility in these cases is greater, fear becomes superadded to the surprise; and convulsions ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... be it remembered, discoursed to a large and not inattentive audience, and surely the soil was not all unfruitful on which his seed was scattered when he proclaimed that God dwells not in temples of wood and stone, nor wants the ministrations of human hands;[Footnote: ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... the track, and off to the right he plunges through the trees, dashing headlong by the groups of men, till at last the Captain brings him up with one rein broken. A great crowd surround him, questioning, swearing, and jeering, but the Captain sat as silent, immovable, and inattentive as a statue, pointing to the broken rein. It had been cut with a knife. The Captain and his friends claimed that the friends of the Virginian had, unnoticed by him, cut the leather to a bare thread, ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... Madam, be so inattentive in reading the last chapter? I told you in it, That my mother was not a papist.—Papist! You told me no such thing, Sir.—Madam, I beg leave to repeat it over again, that I told you as plain, at least, as words, by direct inference, could tell you such a thing.—Then, Sir, ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... road which led to it, struck into the fields, the strange and solemn beauty of the landscape, lighted up, by numberless lamps, to the verge of the horizon, fascinated my eyes, and rendered me for some time an inattentive listener to the talk ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... some who will wonder that an officer should feel such qualms as Ainsley had over the simple job of a night patrol over the open ground in front of the German trench; but, then, there are patrols and patrols, or as the inattentive recruit at the gunnery class said when he was asked to describe the varieties of shells he had been told of: "There are some sorts of one kind, ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... knew she did not; and yet, I cannot positively say that she always did. I have remarked, that one of the old nuns was always placed in our sleeping-room at night, to watch us. Sometimes she would be inattentive, and sometimes fall into a doze. Jane Ray often seized such times to rise from her bed, and walk about, occasionally seizing one of the nuns in bed, in order to frighten her. This she generally affected; and many times we have all been awakened, ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... not been inattentive to this dialogue, and he now said, in a loud tone that silenced the crowd, "Young Badgeman, thy gallantry pleases me no less than thy skill. Take the arrow, for thou hast won it; but as thou seemest a new comer, it ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of poetry was easy pastime to him, but he was dull or inattentive when the schoolmaster gave him some elementary lessons in mechanics. He wrote beautifully, but was no prodigy in arithmetic. He drew trees, windmills, and pigs on the desks, and admirable portraits of the schoolmaster, Rufus, and other ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... virtues to be cultivated in the child. To permit the child to be indifferent and inattentive when one is trying to amuse or entertain, to be impatient to get at the end of a story or a game, to keep yawning; or making other expressions of weariness when being reproved or reprimanded, cultivates in the child a mental laziness which is as bad as its opposite,—parrot-like facility for ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... singular fact of the alarm that had been given, and the equally singular circumstance of his being thus closely interrogated by the collective body of his officers: he, however, persisted in declaring that he had been in no wise inattentive to his duty, and that no cause for alarm or suspicion had occurred near his post. The officers then, in order to save time, separated into two parties, pursuing opposite circuits, and arranging to meet ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... then that it wouldn't always be there. School boys have limited imaginations. I suppose I thought it was an awfully jolly thing to have it there, to know my way back to it, but there was the school tugging at me. I expect I was a good deal distraught and inattentive that morning, recalling what I could of the beautiful strange people I should presently see again. Oddly enough I had no doubt in my mind that they would be glad to see me . . . Yes, I must have thought of the garden that morning just as a ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... misquoting the entomological authority of the recent "Sunday Supplement"; but his friend on the other side of the fence was inattentive to the lecture. Noble's mind was occupied with a wonder; he had realized, though dimly, that here was he, trying to make starry Julia the subject of a conversation with a person who had the dear privilege of being closely related to ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... were speaking about Janet and her expected visit, and Fanny sat silent and embarrassed. But Nelly, busy in taking away the things, lost nothing of what was said; and Mrs Grove, strange to say, was not altogether inattentive to the changing face of the energetic table maid. An uncomplimentary remark had escaped the lady, as to the state of the overdone fowls, and Nelly "could put this and that together as well as another." ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... Dart was puzzled. She had ridden here through this storm, she had come all the way from El Toyon, for he had not been inattentive while he had been just outside the door before Wanda left the room, and she did not know a single person on the ranch. The very reason for her presence here was a ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... to leave it at that; their quality is simply English with no more individual personality. But Glebeshire has such an individuality, whether for good or evil, that it forces comment from the most sluggish and inattentive of human beings. Mr. Lasher was perhaps the only soul, living or dead, who succeeded in living in it during forty years (he is still there, he is a Canon now in Polchester) and never saying anything about it. When on his visits to London people inquired his opinion of Glebeshire, ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... able colleague say, was to fill in all round it with smaller facts, as a wagoner might heap dirt round a big rock in the road, and thus get his team over without upsetting. So Mr. Myers, starting from the most ordinary facts of inattentive consciousness, follows this clue through a long series which terminates in ghosts, and seeks to show that these are but extreme manifestations of a {321} common truth,—the truth that the invisible segments of our minds are susceptible, ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... left Victorine to attend her, indeed she will not let Victorine go out of her sight; but Valmont thought we had better make our appearance, if only for an hour, at Lisette's fete. The Seigneur has shown much kindness and condescension to Lisette, and it would not do for us to appear inattentive for so much goodness, though I must own I shall not be easy till I return ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin
... Probably the most inattentive mind, even in the holidays, could "tackle" a catalogue like this, or another in which the snuff-box of Xerxes and the boot-jack of Themistocles should be offered for sale. These antiquities seem scarcely less desirable, or less likely to come into the market, than the scissors, pistols, and field-glass ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... February, 1797, to the effect that "there are 3 Negro Children Born, & one dead—at River Farm 1; born at Mansion house, Lina 1; at Union Farm 1 born & one dead—It was killed by Worms. Medical assistance was called—But the mothers are very inattentive to their Young." ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... at home, was slow and generally inattentive in class hours, and had a bad record with his teachers, he always brought home the most wretched reports; at which his father, a tall, carefully dressed gentleman with meditative blue eyes, who always wore a wild flower in his button-hole, shewed ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various |
