"Indolent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... on his arrival at Alexandria that his mother and sisters were about to leave for England. Mrs. Blagrove had become seriously indisposed, the result, as she maintained, of the climate, but which was far more due to her indolent habits, for she never took any exercise whatever. Her general health was greatly impaired, and the two Italian doctors who attended her—there being no English medical men resident there—had most strongly advised that she should return home. They ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... her scanty black gown, with her rosary hanging at her side, her soft dark eyes cast down, and an expression of mingled melancholy and devotion on her face. She looked simply like a sad, spiritual-minded old lady, amiable and indolent, like her race, but sweeter and more thoughtful than their wont. Her voice heightened this mistaken impression. She was never heard to speak either loud or fast. There was at times even a curious hesitancy in her speech, which came near being a ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... recovered from that Sir Isaac fell ill again, the first of a series of relapses that necessitated further foreign travel—always in elaborately comfortable trains with maid, courier, valet, and secretary, to some warm and indolent southward place. And few people knew how uncertain her liberties were. Sir Isaac was the victim of an increasing irritability, at times he had irrational outbursts of distrust that would culminate in passionate ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... first a little surprised to find the natives of the North so slow, indolent and improvident. We have an idea that a cold climate is bracing and stimulating—ergo, the further north you go, the more active and energetic you will find the people. But the touch of ice is like that of fire. The tropics relax, the pole benumbs, and the practical ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... a rapid improvement was observed in them both. Isabella's talents were remarkable, but neither herself nor her family were sufficiently aware of this while they received only an irregular and imperfect cultivation. She was remarkably modest, and inclined to be indolent when she had no particular object in view; but set one before her, and her perseverance was unconquerable. She had always been a great reader, and had therefore an excellent stock of general information; but till she went to school, she never could give her attention ...
— Principle and Practice - The Orphan Family • Harriet Martineau
... table, they admitted, had been to blame, and pretty damnably. To be sure they were drunk, every man Jack of them, the Collector included. The Collector, indolent by nature but capable of long stretches of work at a pinch, had been at his desk since six o'clock in the morning. The news brought by the Fish-hawk had reached him at five; and after bathing, dressing, ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... mustaches, also the year round. He certainly did not look to the casual eye like a shameless homicide, but rather like an English country gentleman given to dogs. He was fifty-four years old, a hard worker for all his indolent eye, and his favorite diversion was about twelve holes of golf on Sunday morning, and his next favorite one table of bridge by night in the ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... to believe is such a salutary discipline to the lower classes. That is the whole principle of religion, surely, Aphrodite? It is not for people like ourselves. You know how indolent Dionysus is, but he always attended the temple when ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse
... fact that Stanton, usually so languid and nonchalant, had been for once thoroughly aroused. Between anger at his coachmen, alarm for the child, and interest in its preserver, he was quite shaken out of his wonted equanimity, which was composed equally of indolent good-nature, self-complacency, and a disposition to satirize the busy, earnest world around him. It was apparent that he was somewhat nonplussed by Miss Burton's manner and words, and those who knew him well enjoyed his perplexity, although ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... when the Audience is in no farther Expectation, and (as I may say) grows indolent, he will direct him to rouse them that Instant with ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... crossing the two neighbouring fields to seek the shade of a clump of elms at a good distance from the cottage. He lay on the grass and smoked his pipe all the morning. Mrs Fyne wondered at her brother's indolent habits. He had asked for books it is true but there were but few in the cottage. He read them through in three days and then continued to lie contentedly on his back with no other companion but his pipe. Amazing indolence! The live-long ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... his health, Scott returned to Edinburgh, and resumed his studies in the law, which had been interrupted by illness. He states his progress to have been neither slow nor unsatisfactory, though by others he is said to have been an indolent student. He speaks of his "severe studies" occupying the greater part of his time, and amidst their dulness he seems to have underrated the incidents of his private life, which he afterwards related to the world with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 571 - Volume 20, No. 571—Supplementary Number • Various
... may see by his path upon the snow. He has a very sneaking, insinuating way, and goes creeping about the fields and woods, never once in a perceptible degree altering his gait, and, if a fence crosses his course, steers for a break or opening to avoid climbing. He is too indolent even to dig his own hole, but appropriates that of a woodchuck, or hunts out a crevice in the rocks, from which he extends his rambling in all directions, preferring damp, thawy weather. He has very little discretion or cunning, and holds a trap in utter ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... attention to the particular parts that, being near the town, might have been at all times productive. Now, that sugar and cotton are no longer in such demand, nearly half the fazendas or factories are ruined, and such is become the indolent temper of the people, that rather than seek to redeem their estates, they will take the smallest ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... slenderly-built lad of sixteen, speaking in a somewhat indolent way; then suddenly he paused to look down through the trees to where the river ...
— The Boy Scouts Patrol • Ralph Victor
... difficult not to feel that everything is somehow "arranged," and one finds it difficult to become acutely anxious while the hundreds of crowded cafes are running full blast until one o'clock every morning and the seal in the Tiergarten has the bottom of his tank covered with fresh fish he is too indolent to eat. ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... that seen in dreams by man. In plenteous streams the candles' tears do drop, but for whom do they weep? Each particle of grief felt by the flowers is due to anger against me. It's all because the maids have by indulgence indolent been made. The cover over me I'll pull, as I am loth to laugh and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... members of a shiftless, indolent family who had lived on the edge of Millville for ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... and the ideal of learning to know and to master that mysterious water. His dream, in time, was realized; he not only became a pilot, but—which is infinitely more significant—he changed from a callow, indolent, unobservant lad, with undeveloped faculties, to a man, a master of the river, with a knowledge which, in its accuracy and minuteness, was, for its purpose, ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... much as so indolent a man ever could, at Pembroke College, Oxford. His parents died when he was young, leaving to him a very considerable estate, which fortunately some relative administered for him, until, owing to this supervisor's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... which he constantly reminded his neighbours of his own greatness and of their littleness. He did not at this time profess the austere devotion which, at a later period, gave to his court the aspect of a monastery. On the contrary, he was as licentious, though by no means as frivolous and indolent, as his brother of England. But he was a sincere Roman Catholic; and both his conscience and his vanity impelled him to use his power for the defence and propagation of the true faith, after the example of his renowned predecessors, Clovis, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Though the trouble the indolent may shock, I rub with all my power; And having return'd them to the stock, I stew them for more than an hour; Then of younger peas I take some more, The mixture to improve, Thrown in a little time before The soup from the ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... men in my position seem to me dull and unattractive. I have little fancy for the whirl of society, and none for the jostle of politics. Lady Burlesdon utterly despairs of me; my neighbours think me an indolent, dreamy, unsociable fellow. Yet I am a young man; and sometimes I have a fancy—the superstitious would call it a presentiment—that my part in life is not yet altogether played; that, somehow and some day, I shall mix again in great affairs, I shall again spin policies in a busy ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... face which rural solitude might wear To the unenlightened swains of pagan Greece. —In that fair clime, the lonely herdsman, stretched On the soft grass through half a summer's day, With music lulled his indolent repose: And, in some fit of weariness, if he, When his own breath was silent, chanced to hear A distant strain, far sweeter than the sounds Which his poor skill could make, his fancy fetched, Even from the blazing chariot of the sun, A beardless Youth, who touched a golden ...
— Philosophy and Religion - Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge • Hastings Rashdall
... will pay the least attention to him. It is, at all events, too late in the day for we 'Saxons' to be either cajoled or amused by such nonsense. An overwhelming majority of the Irish people have been proved indolent beyond all parallel, and not much more provident than those unhappy savages who sell their beds in the morning, not being able to foresee they shall again require them at night. A want of forethought so remarkable, and indolence so abominable, ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... have been poor, but over there that is a rare thing. Wealth brings opportunity and quick recognition. Guglielmo had this advantage, but if he had not also possessed an earnest, painstaking and brilliant mind he could have gained no distinction. Most of his acquaintances led pleasure-loving, easy, indolent lives and he could have done the same thing. Therefore, what credit is due Guglielmo for the great success he ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... title remind people, by so much as the place of the word "civilisation," of Buckle. It seems a ridiculous caution, but the indolent part of the public (a large part!) on such ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... person, preferring to associate with children rather than with older persons. He read much in the literature of the mystics, and was laughingly said to prefer paganism to Christianity. He had a feminine temperament, was full of sensibility, and of an indolent turn of mind. Emerson was attracted to him, and at one time had great expectations concerning his genius. His paper, published in The Dial, under the title of "The Two Dolons," was much admired by some of the Transcendentalists when it was printed there; and ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... paid, and she had drawn on one long, tawny glove. Even this act was a luxury to watch, so full it was of the feminine, of the stretching, indolent ease that the flesh and the spirit of this creature invariably seemed to move with. But why didn't she go? This became my wonder now, while she slowly drew on the second glove. She was taking more time ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... should like to live in thy cabin—to rove uncontrolled through thy green glades, and to listen in dreamy and indolent repose to the merry music of ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... safe!" said he, with an arrogant little air of satisfaction. "I was born under an indolent star, but I confess to you, privately, of the two I would rather gather my harvests with the sickle than the sword. How does your ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Surely that was a sound principle; and one which, so far as I can see, cannot be applied without stimulating competition. The doctrine, indeed, is unpalatable to many Socialists. To me, it seems to be one to which only the cowardly and the indolent can object in principle. Will not a society be the better off, in which every man is set to work upon the tasks for which he is most fitted? If we allowed our teaching and our thinking to be done by blockheads; our hard labour to be done by men whose muscles were less developed than their ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... what instructions Mr. Monroe may bring, I am perfectly satisfied they will require a precise and prompt notice. I am very fearful, from the little progress I have made, my government will consider me as a very indolent negotiator." ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... task to bring into training minds so ignorant and so utterly undisciplined as those of her little pupils. Left entirely to themselves, as they had been for many months, with a mother too indolent to trouble herself about any systematic plan of government, and a father too easy and good-natured to carry out the many plans he was ever forming for their "breaking in;" scolded and fretted at by their older sisters, to whom they were perfect torments; ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... a young West Indian, tall and delicately formed, with a clear olive complexion, languishing dark hazel eyes and dark, bright chestnut hair and beard. In temperament he was ardent as his clime. In character, indolent, careless and self-indulgent. In condition he was the bachelor heir of a sugar plantation of a thousand acres. He loved not the chase, nor any other amusement requiring exertion. He doted upon swansdown sofas with springs, ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... told that this is already done; that there are no poor in this country save those who are either incompetent or indolent or vicious. If that could be proved, the question would still remain whether the incompetency and the indolence and the viciousness may not, to a considerable degree, be the effects of causes for which society is responsible, and which, in a thoroughly Christianized ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden
... members of the official aristocracy of all countries have more or less of the same defects, for certain it is that they everywhere attach paramount or undue importance to the conventional learning of the grammar-school and the drawing-room, and the ignorant and the indolent have everywhere the support of a great majority. ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... veins flows the blood of one man. The word "jukes" means "to roost." It refers to the habit of fowls to have no home, no nest, no coop, preferring to fly into the trees and roost away from the places where they belong. The word has also come to mean people who are too indolent and lazy to stand up or sit up, but sprawl out anywhere. "The Jukes" are a family that did not make good homes, did not provide themselves with comforts, did not work steadily. They are like hens that fly ...
— Jukes-Edwards - A Study in Education and Heredity • A. E. Winship
... instance, he had been to the Carmelite's school at ——, and instead of showing any aptitude for work, he had played truant with a keener delight than any of his school-fellows. His was an eminently contemplative nature, kindly and indolent, but proud and almost savage in its love of independence; religious, yet opposed to all authority; somewhat captious, very suspicious, and inexorable with hypocrites. The observances of the cloister inspired him with but little ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... nature, noble lady; trust my words! Have you not yourself seen, even in your short life, that what is highest and greatest can in its excess, be all that is most hideous? A noble pride, if not kept within bounds, becomes overweening ambition; the lovely grace of humility degenerates into an indolent sacrifice of opinion and will; high-hearted enterprise into a mad chase after fortune, in which we ride down everything that comes in the way of success. What is nobler than a mother's love, but when she fights for her child she ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... found another family—she had so frequently become a mother in the past. But month succeeded month, and she for ever disappointed me, and at last I abandoned hope. In solitude and exile Mercedes degenerated sadly; got monstrously fat; too indolent to gnaw, let her teeth grow to a preposterous length; and in the end died of ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... same time with strong artistic instincts and capacities for the enjoyment of varied form, and light, and shade, in pursuit of which enjoyment his life is passed, as the lives of other men are, for the most part, in the pursuit of what they also like,—be it honor, or money, or indolent pleasure,—very irrespective of the poor people living by the stagnant canal. And, in some sort, the hunter of the picturesque is better than many of these; inasmuch as he is simple-minded and capable of unostentatious and economical delights, which, ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... compeers in the Continental cities, which rang with the scandals, controversies, and duels engendered by her numerous conquests. This sort of social stimulus had become necessary from long use as an ally of professional effort; and, lacking it, Gabrielli became insufferably indolent and careless. She would not take the least trouble to please fastidious London audiences, then as now the most exacting in Europe. She chose to remain sick on occasions which should have drawn forth her finest efforts, and frequently sent her sister Francesca to fill her great ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... they had not appeared so forward in raising and collecting their own produce for sale as in some other countries, it was to be imputed to the Slave-trade: but remove the cause, and Africa would soon emerge from her present ignorant and indolent state. Civilization would go on with her as well as with other nations. Europe three or four centuries ago was in many parts as barbarous as Africa at present, and chargeable with as bad practices. For, what would be said, if, so late as the middle ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... From time to time some unusually turbulent spirit would rise against such paternal despotism, and break away to his old savage life. But these cases, we are told, were of rare occurrence. The California Indians were for the most part indolent, apathetic, and of low intelligence; and as, under domestication, they were clothed, housed and fed, while the labour demanded from them was rarely excessive, they were wont as a rule to accept the change from the hardships of their former rough existence to the comparative ...
— The Famous Missions of California • William Henry Hudson
... evolution. Such a tale will squeeze into fifty or a hundred pages what Fenimore Cooper or G. P. R. James would have distended into three volumes of slow-moving narrative, whereby infinite labour is saved to the hasty and indolent reader of these ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... Mrs. Saunders, who sat by, in an indolent abeyance. "Oh! I ain't allowed to open my mouth ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... settled, and the men sent away, to be watched by several pairs of apparently indolent police eyes, Dundee turned to the bridge table, Nita's leaving of which had provided her murderer with ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... not indolent beggar and bold enough, Fain would I learn both to knit and to sew; I've two little brothers at home, when they're old enough, They will work hard for the gifts you bestow; Pity, kind gentlemen, friends of humanity. Cold blows the wind, and the night's ...
— The Anti-Slavery Harp • Various
... always some bed Or some border to mend, Or something to tie or stick: And Harry rose early His garden to tend, While snoring lay indolent Dick. ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... my nights absorbed by work and fatigue. I have passed all my days with Pauline [Viardot] in walking, playing at billiards, and all this makes me so entirely go out of my indolent character and lazy habits that, at night, instead of working quickly, I fall stupidly asleep at every line....Viardot [Louis Viardot, the husband of Pauline] passes his days in poaching with my brother and Papet; for the shooting season has not yet begun, and they brave the ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... their nature, than upon the Magdalena, and other great rivers that run into it. These rivers flow through a low country within the tropics; their climate is of the hottest kind, and consequently most suitable to the development of the great reptiles. The indolent character of the natives, too— half-Indian, half-Spanish—prevents them from attacking and destroying these creatures with that energy that is exhibited by the inhabitants of our own country. The consequence is, that the animals in their turn are less afraid of man, and often ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... the Germans is that they were not lazy enough. In the middle of Europe, a thoroughly disillusioned, indolent and delightful old continent, the Germans were a dangerous mass of energy and bumptious push. If the Germans had been as lazy, as indifferent, and as righteously laissez-fairish as their neighbours, the world would have been ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... of the joy of living. Dusk was falling. A soft bronze glowed in the western sky. Over the earth lay the tranquil purple of spent refulgence, the after-glow of a red day, for the sun had shone hot since early morn through a queer, smoky screen of haze. There was a deep stillness over everything. Indolent Nature slept in the shadows, as if at rest after the weary day, with scarcely a leaf stirring. And yet there was a subtle coolness in the air, the feel of a storm that was yet unborn—the imperceptible shudder of a tempest that was drawing its ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... sharply: "For shame, Katy! give your sister her doll at once!" which Katy, much surprised, did; while Clover purred in triumph, like a satisfied kitten. Clover was sunny and sweet-tempered, a little indolent, and very modest about herself, though, in fact, she was particularly clever in all sorts of games, and extremely droll and funny in a quiet way. Everybody loved her, and she loved everybody, especially Katy, whom she looked up to as one ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... mission of authority is not to constrain, but to counsel; not to command, but to help accomplish; not to absorb individual activity, but to develop it. It does not pretend to raise a convenient indifference on the part of government, nor the indolent withdrawal of all protective influence to the dignity of a principle. To say, on the other hand, that the laisser faire and laisser passer of the economists means: Let robbery alone; let fraud alone etc., is to amuse ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... sweeping statement? There may be just a few students at Hamilton I don't happen to be informed about. You will give our friends here the impression that I am a busybody. Remember I am now a junior. Try to treat me with more respect." Helen smiled indolent good nature as she thus ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... committed to our trust," if our influence is to depend simply on our popularity? Is it not our very office to oppose the world? Can we then allow ourselves to court it? to preach smooth things and prophesy deceits? to make the way of life easy to the rich and indolent, and to bribe the humbler classes by excitements and strong intoxicating doctrine? Surely it must not be so;—and the question recurs, on what are we to rest our authority when the ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... of time which must elapse before the trial could come on was dreadful. Suspense was the evil they found most difficult to endure. Suspense may be easily borne by persons of an indolent character, who never expect to rule their destiny by their own genius; but to those who feel themselves possessed of energy and abilities to surmount obstacles and to brave dangers, it is torture to remain passive—to feel that prudence, virtue, genius avail ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... prayed to do so. Bad-tempered parents frightened the children by saying that they would call Le Sa to drink them up. In cases of sickness the patient went and weeded some piece of bush land as an offering to Le Sa; and the consequence was often a wonderful cure to the indolent dyspeptic! ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... not indolent, in any sense. He had no dreaminess—meditation was no part of his mental habit—a poetical fancy would, in him, have been an indication of insanity. If he reclined at the foot of a tree, on a still summer day, it was to sleep: if he gazed ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... be a reaction type, its laws must be psychological. According to the view of modern psychopathology, the essence of insanity is regression with indolent thinking as opposed to progressive and energetic mentation. One can look on stupor as being a profound regression. Effort is abandoned (apathy and inactivity), while the ideational content expresses a desire for a retreat from the world in ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... her a fitting wife for him. And yet the attraction of character was very great. He wanted a wife who would be above all things able to help him in his work—work of reform and of philanthropy: a selfish, luxurious, indolent woman could be no mate for him. Janetta Colwyn was the woman that he had been seeking since first he thought of marriage; and yet—ah, there was nothing wrong with her except that she was not Margaret. But of Margaret he ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... are so indolent and so somnolent that Antonio gets away with all our wild birds, then do we deserve to ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... and in a constitution often racked by malarial fever. Dirt and squalor were too frequently found in the squatter's cabin, and education and the refinements of life were denied to him. Often shiftless and indolent, in the intervals between his tasks of forest-felling he was fonder of hunting than of a settled agricultural life. With his rifle he eked out his sustenance, and the peltries furnished him a little ready cash. His few ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... Scott confirms the assertion. "A lady," writes Sir Walter, "who, then a girl, was residing in Lord Lovat's family, described to us the unexpected appearance of Prince Charles and his flying attendants at Castle Downie. The wild and desolate vale on which she was gazing with indolent composure, was at once so suddenly filled with horsemen riding furiously towards the Castle, that, impressed with the idea that they were fairies, who, according to men, are visible only from one twinkle of the eyelid to another, she strove to refrain from the vibration which she believed ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... preceding, on the west. He was a native of Ch'an (陳), and forty-eight years younger than Confucius. Tsze-kung said, 'Not to boast of his admirable merit; not to signify joy on account of noble station; neither insolent nor indolent; showing no pride to the dependent:— these are the characteristics of Chwan-sun Shih.' When he was sick, he called (his son) Shan-hsiang to him, and said, 'We speak of his end in the case of a superior man, and of his death in the case ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge
... rural tavern he could not avoid the cooking. Thus he smothered his conscience. Lunch at Costebelle seemed to justify his choice of an abiding-place. The surroundings of the hotel were dangerously charming to a man whose natural inclination was towards indolent enjoyment. It was a place to "Loaf and invite your soul," as Walt Whitman phrases it. Plonville, who was there incognito, for he had temporarily dropped the "De," strolled towards the sea in the afternoon, with the air of one who has nothing on his mind. No one to see him would have suspected ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... Spanish residents at Manilla are exceedingly indolent. As persons in the government service form the great proportion of the white population, a sketch of the habits of one of them may not be uninteresting;—say those of an average officer of the Hacienda, for instance. He usually gets out of bed about six, or a little after, to enjoy the cool ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... erroneous to suppose that women when nursing require to be much more highly fed than at other times: a good nurse does not need this, and a bad one will not be the better for it. The quantity which many nurses eat and drink, and the indolent life which they too often lead, have the effect of deranging their digestive organs, and frequently induce a state of febrile excitement, which always diminishes, and even sometimes ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... wire, and leather, and who were busily engaged at their trade, repairing the coverings for the feet. I remarked at this time, as well as on several other occasions, that the natives are by no means so indolent as they are generally represented to be, but, on the contrary, that they avail themselves of every favourable opportunity of earning money. All the caravansaries at the entrance of the town were crowded, ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... a monarch's cares oppress'd, O Atreus' son! canst thou indulge the rest?(78) Ill fits a chief who mighty nations guides, Directs in council, and in war presides, To whom its safety a whole people owes, To waste long nights in indolent repose.(79) Monarch, awake! 'tis Jove's command I bear; Thou, and thy glory, claim his heavenly care. In just array draw forth the embattled train, Lead all thy Grecians to the dusty plain; E'en now, ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... the fatigue induced was a fatigue, not of sinew and muscle, but of nerve and brain, which, if it did not quite disqualify me for my former intellectual amusements, at least greatly disinclined me towards them, and rendered me a considerably more indolent sort of person than either before or since. It is asserted by artists of discriminating eye, that the human hand bears an expression stamped upon it by the general character, as surely as the human face; and I certainly used to be struck, during this transition period, by the relaxed and idle ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... which it is watered, and above all from the fertility of the soil, languishes for want of cultivation. Berthier has often told me that large tracts of country may be traversed without perceiving the impress of the hand of man. The women even, who are regarded as the most beautiful of Italy, are indolent, and their minds evince no activity even in the ordinary duties of life. The inhabitants have all the ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... theological aspects of the subject. The somewhat timid ventures of "Broad" and "Evangelical" men in one direction, and the fearless breaking of bounds in the other direction by those of "Ritualist" sympathies, have done much to liberate this important communion from slavish uniformity and indolent traditionalism; and within a few years that has been accomplished which only a few years earlier would have been deemed impossible—the considerable alteration and improvement of the ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... 'professionals,' including an unusually prepossessing likeness of Schneider, decked the walls. Satin tights, exquisitely pink, hung out of a half-open trunk. The danseuse was seated at a small table, her own profuse golden hair coiled after an indolent fashion, while her diamonded fingers were hard at work saturating some superb yellow tresses in a saucerful of colorless fluid, a bleaching agent for continuing the lustre of blond hair. A clamorous parrot trolled a bar or two of 'Un ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... the outcome, Philip?" said Mr. Strawn. "I know that things are not as they should be, but how can there be a more even distribution of wealth without lessening the efficiency of the strong, able and energetic men and without making mendicants of the indolent and improvident? If we had pure socialism, we could never get the highest endeavor out of anyone, for it would seem not worth while to do more than the average. The race would then go backward instead of lifting itself higher ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... the Plata, the waters may for a long distance be distinguished by their black and red colours. In the evening, the wind being not quite fair, as usual we immediately moored, and the next day, as it blew rather freshly, though with a favouring current, the master was much too indolent to think of starting. At Bajada, he was described to me as "hombre muy aflicto" — a man always miserable to get on; but certainly he bore all delays with admirable resignation. He was an old Spaniard, and had been many years in this country. He professed a great ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... that his search was fruitless; for after a few moments of indolent and listless examination, he suffered his huge frame to descend the gentle declivity, in the same sluggish manner that an over fatted beast would have yielded to the ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... we conjecture, a consequence of that other and more fundamental flaw to which we have already drawn attention. If Miss Coleridge's artificers played truant, it was because she lacked strength to keep them at their task. For an indolent and lawless imagination force of character is the only whip, force of intellect the only guide. Miss Coleridge was deficient in both respects, and so her fancy sat playing with chips and pebbles, making mud-pies when it should ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... foolish, must be content to play an inferior part among the learned and the wise. Some instances there are of men who have united both characters, but it will be found that these have had frequent laborious intervals, that though they may have been vicious, they have never been indolent, and that their minds have never slumbered and lost by disuse the power of exertion. Reflections of this sort make me very uncomfortable, and I am ready to cry with vexation when I think on my misspent life. If I was insensible to a higher order of merit, and indifferent to a nobler kind ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... one advantage; the greatest sceptic, after a glance at them, can no longer invoke chance, the great Deus ex machina of the ignorant and indolent. ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... fortune, and in the end was forced to bend his neck to the yoke of Cromwell to save his life. When Charles II returned to the throne, he easily forgave Sir Richard his enforced apostasy, but failed to return his estates, forgiveness being so much easier than restitution to an indolent selfish nature. ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... matter was not arranged. At boarding-school I had associated much with younger and weaker boys, and had been ridiculed much for my cowardice in sports, but at the city school I moved with my equals and won their recognition. Our gymnasium director was middle-aged and of an indolent disposition. He liked to recall his youthful erections and to answer my sexual queries too fully, and cheerfully volunteered information on brothels. Yet I doubt whether he had an evil purpose in conversing with me. I thought I should ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... this life so our activities in the second heaven are determined by our mental aspirations and they produce our future physical environment, for in the second heaven, the spirit becomes part of the nature forces which work upon the earth and change its climate, flora and fauna. A spirit of an indolent nature, who indulges in day dreams and metaphysical speculations here, is not transformed by death respecting its mental attitude any more than regarding its moral propensities. It will dream away time in heaven, glorying in its sights and sounds. Thus it ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel
... domestic. True it is, he used sometimes to be weary of the slight and frivolous complaints unnecessarily brought before him, and in which he was requested to interest himself. Hence he had sometimes incurred the charge of being too proud as a nobleman, or too indolent as a man of wealth, and one who was too much addicted to the pleasures of the field and the exercise of feudal hospitality, to bestir himself upon all and every occasion when the Fair Town would have desired his active interference. But, notwithstanding that this occasioned some slight murmuring, ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... days, quite free from the danger of being considered “slow”; I might ever after live on upon my reputation, like “single-speech Hamilton” in the last century, or “single sin—” in this, without being obliged to take the trouble of doing any more harm in the world. This was a great temptation to an indolent person, but the motive was not strengthened by any sincere feeling of anger with the Nazarene. Whilst the question of his life and death was debated he was riding in front of our party, and there was something ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... the silk and satin dresses, all of the brightest colors, which adorn the women, and the gayly-embroidered jackets of the men, make the eyes ache which gaze upon them. Almost every specimen of the Eastern races may be seen here—all taking their pleasure in the same indolent way which distinguishes Eastern enjoyment. The Circassian and Georgian women are certainly very beautiful, as far as regularity of features, bold flashing eyes and great symmetry of form can make them; but they lack expression, the highest feminine charm, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... Mrs. Eyrecourt, "you are constitutionally indolent, and you want startling. Go into the next room directly. Mr. Romayne ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... her complexion were not of one tint; but her features were good, and there could be no question of her captivating laugh, and her charming mouth, which she was always pulling down with demure irony. She was like her mother in her looks, but her indolent, droning temperament must have been from her father, whose memory was lost in that antiquity which swallows up the record of so many widows' husbands, and who could not have left her what was left of her mother's money, for none of it had ever been his. It was still ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... kings to humble refugees, from peripatetic philosophers to indolent aborigines, the testimony of her charm can be gathered. I speak as a victim. I love England with a fervour born of admiration (without admiration no one ever falls in love). I love her ways and her mind, I love her chilly dampness and her hot, glowing fires (attempts to analyse and classify ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... necessary to convey a full idea of his poetry. His language may not be intelligible, but his manner is not to be mistaken. It is clear that he is either mad or inspired. In company, even in a tete-a-tete, Mr. Wordsworth is often silent, indolent, and reserved. If he is become verbose and oracular of late years, he was not so in his better days. He threw out a bold or an indifferent remark without either effort or pretension, and relapsed into musing again. He shone most (because he seemed most roused and ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... their servants to wealth. Accustomed to ease, and unequal to the struggles incident to an infant society, the affluent emigrant was barely enabled to maintain his own rank by the weight of his personal superiority and acquirements; but, the moment that his head was laid in the grave, his indolent and comparatively uneducated offspring were compelled to yield precedency to the more active energies of a class whose exertions had been stimulated by necessity. This is a very common course of things, even in the present state ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... picture of him—a young, high-bred face, marred somewhat by dissipation and late hours, yet beneath that dim light appearing almost boyishly fresh, and bearing upon its every feature the plain impress of reckless humor, and indolent content. It was the face of a youth rather than a man; of one more accustomed to looking upon gay companions at the club than on the horrors of a battlefield; one who could justly be expected to boast ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... of scientific training, indolent manners, effeminate appearance, hidden energy, and absolute courage, lounged through the doors of the Atlas Building. Since his rescue from the volcanic island that had witnessed the piratical murder of his old employer, Doctor Schermerhorn, ...
— The Sign at Six • Stewart Edward White
... costs his readers, that [134] slow Latinity which Johnson imitated from him, those lengthy leisurely terminations which busy posterity will abbreviate, all breathe of the long quiet of the place. Yet he is by no means indolent. Besides wide book-learning, experimental research at home, and indefatigable observation in the open air, he prosecutes the ordinary duties of a physician; contrasting himself indeed with other students, "whose quiet and unmolested doors afford no such distractions." ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... on particularly good terms with most of the fellows. He was one of Newall's cronies. Waterman was an easy-going fellow, who was on friendly terms with everybody, so long as they did not disturb him too much. He was one of those indolent boys, with plenty of talent, if they only care to exercise it. The disposition to do so, however, only came by fits and starts. In another respect, too, he was like a great many other boys—ay, and ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... enclosure where the night before there had been four. He wasted no time in surmises, but wheeled and dashed back towards the hotel, and his vigorous shouts brought Old John to the door, sleepy and peevish. Old John's mouth dropped open as he beheld his habitually indolent host marking off long distances on the sand with ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... that time reached a portentous size, wherefore it is quite possible that the official readers may have been lenient, or cursory, over their work; but when Pius V., the strenuous ascetic foe of heresy, stepped into the place of the indolent Pius IV., jurist and politician rather than Churchman, it is more than probable that certain amateur inquisitors at Bologna, fully as anxious to work Cardan's ruin as to safeguard the faith, may have busied themselves in hunting through his ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... Castlewood house. He had three pupils, his lady and her two children, at whose lessons she would always be present; besides writing my lord's letters, and arranging his accompts for him—when these could be got from Esmond's indolent patron. ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... innate susceptibility of my nature— qualities which were brought home to me in my relations with members of my circle—I gradually became conscious of a certain power of transporting or bewildering my more indolent companions. ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... clime the lonely herdsman, stretched On the soft grass through half a summer's day, With music lulled his indolent repose; And, in some fit of weariness, if he, When his own breath was silent, chanced to hear A distant strain far sweeter than the sounds Which his poor skill could make, his fancy fetched Even from the blazing chariot ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... appreciation, all but blinded Scott's eyes to the utter inadequacy of either of these men, especially the latter, to supply the deficiencies of his own character for conducting business of this kind with proper discretion. James Ballantyne, who was pompous and indolent, though thoroughly honest, and not without some intellectual insight, Scott used to call Aldiborontiphoscophornio. John, who was clever but frivolous, dissipated, and tricksy, he termed Rigdumfunnidos, ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... glazing; but the greater number of them are imported from Bantam. The original Sumatran vessel for boiling rice, and which is still much used for that purpose, is the bamboo, that material of general utility with which bountiful nature has supplied an indolent people. By the time the rice is dressed the utensil is nearly destroyed by the fire, but resists the flame so long as there is ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... less openly the discrimination against his race, and this resentment may range from impertinence to sullenness and even to dreams of social equality imposed by force. Some have a smattering of education while others, who have been subjected to little training or discipline, are indolent and shiftless. The thoughtless, however, are likely to include in this classification the industrious, intelligent negro who orders his conduct along the same lines ...
— The New South - A Chronicle Of Social And Industrial Evolution • Holland Thompson
... better he is to come home and live on the cattle-ranch. Mother is heart-broken over it; for you know, Polly, that Edgar will never endure such a life; and yet, dearly as he loves books, he is n't doing well with his studies. The president has written father that he is very indolent this term and often absent from recitations; and one of the Santa Barbara boys, a senior, writes Philip that he is not choosing good friends, nor taking any rank in his class. Mother has written him such a letter this morning! If he can read ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... the muscles, and then spend one day inactively, than it is to take a proper amount of food for several days, and then withdraw this supply for a day. The industrious mechanic and the studious minister suffer as surely from undue confinement as the improvident and indolent. The evil consequences of neglect of exercise are gradual, and steal slowly upon an individual. But sooner or later they are manifested in muscular weakness, ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... remained for several years at Thierry, indolent, except in his reading, and neglecting his business and his family. His "Adonis" was written at this time. His good nature and simplicity are well illustrated by an anecdote which is told of him. An officer was in the constant habit of visiting ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... looked upon his namesake with any other feeling rather than pride. Ephraim had one way, and George Washington had another. The eldest was noisy and boisterous and delighted in malicious fun, and was continually, as the neighbors said, "up to some kind of mischief;" while the other was too indolent even to do mischief; he had one of those disagreeable sulky natures which we sometimes meet with always grumbling and out of humor with himself and every one else. Then there were three little girls, ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... the life of some worthy (whose name I forget) that he was one of those 'who loved hospitality and respect': and I profess to belong to the same classification of mankind. Civility is with me a jewel. I like a little comfortable cheer, and careless, indolent chat, I hate to be always wise, or aiming at wisdom. I have enough to do with literary cabals, questions, critics, actors, essay-writing, without taking them out with me for recreation, and into all companies. I wish at these times to pass for a good-humoured ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... heretical desire, but in her inmost heart was even now a wish that her dear Jim held religious opinions that would not interfere with his showing to the country how talented, noble and valiant he was; while the fair-haired, sunburnt, indolent young Hercules idly gazing out to sea was fired with no higher ambition for himself than to be able soon to erect on the Head another small house like that of his father, to which he might bring "the sweet little girl who loved him, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... perhaps, aware that bears, being of rather an indolent disposition, are not accustomed to hoard up a store of provision for their wants in winter, but prefer—in their own country, at least—sleeping through the short dreary days and long bitter nights, and thus avoid the necessity of taking food for some weeks, although ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes
... in judgment from closed eyes and hardened hearts. In some instances and to some extent, the parables, while they conveyed the doctrine to one portion of the audience, concealed it from another. In those cases "they are like the husk which preserves the kernel from the indolent, and for the earnest."[6] It is the method, not unknown in other departments of the divine government, of making the same fact or law at once profitable to the humble, and punitive to the proud. Not only the Lord's word, but also the Lord himself, partakes of this twofold ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... please. Do you dine at seven at Clifftop, Mrs. Kinsolving? So kind of you to run in for a chat before dinner! I love those little touches of informality with a guest. They give such a home flavour to a visit. So sorry; I must be dressing. I am so indolent I always postpone it ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... obscurity floating on the water. The watchman, who had the intention to stretch himself in one of the deck chairs, catching sight of the owner's wife, walked straight to the lamp that hung under the ridge pole of the awning, and after fumbling with it for a time went away forward with an indolent gait. ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... knight could scarcely have been recognized as the savage sea-robber, once too ferocious and turbulent even for his own wild country in the far North, while, at the same time, he bore as little resemblance to the cruel and voluptuous French noble, at once violent and indolent. The new war-cry of Dieu aide was as triumphant as that of Thor Hulfe had been of old, and the Red Cross led to as many victories as ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... towards the water's edge. The moonlight fell full upon them with all the splendor of the tropics, and lit the night with a brilliant, dazzling radiance. From where Miss Cameron sat on the veranda in the shadow, Sir Charles could see only the white outline of her figure and the indolent movement of her fan. Collier had left his wife and was returning slowly towards the step. Sir Charles felt that if he meant to speak he must speak now, and quickly. He rose and placed himself beside her in the shadow, ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... blank time are the original plays which, perhaps in accordance with some clause in his agreement, he produced at his theatre in the first week of January in each year. A list of them cannot be spared in this place to the most indolent of readers, since it offers, in a nutshell, a resume of what the busy imagination of Ibsen was at work upon up to his thirtieth year. His earliest new-year's gift to the play-goers of Bergen was St. John's Night, 1853, a piece which has not ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... an indolent creature, all the boatmen and cab-drivers in Port-of-Spain are Barbadians. As we know, the Badians have an inordinate opinion of themselves and of their island. Whilst I was in Trinidad, General Baden-Powell came there in the course of his world-tour inspection ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... I know!" interrupted Harry; "it was given me for a certain purpose, to wit, the reconquest of the country and its restoration to its former owners. But since the people are too indolent and too self- indulgent to allow me to do this for them, of course I have no claim upon the treasure, and could not possibly dream of appropriating ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... directed our course towards Santander. The man who accompanied us as guide, and from whom I hired the pony on which I rode, had been recommended to me by my friend the merchant of Oviedo. He proved, however, a lazy indolent fellow; he was generally loitering two or three hundred yards in our rear, and instead of enlivening the way with song and tale, like our late guide, Martin of Rivadeo, he scarcely ever opened his lips, save to tell ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... silver to give his daughter, he had formed her mind, and had presented her with the sole jewel of his family-a pearl as large as a bean. Such was her sole dower, but the accomplished Aunt may excel the indolent Prince. ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... striking a covered mallet on the straw, and against the tree below the band. This should be attended to every day during the short season of their ascent, and all will be destroyed. Burn the straw about the last of May. But those who are too indolent or busy to do this often till their season is past, may melt India-rubber over a hot fire, and smear bandages of cloth or leather previously put tight around the tree. This will prevent the female moth from crossing and reaching the limbs. Tar is used, but India-rubber is better, as weather will ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... mother had died but recently), their aunt, a staid, elderly matron, who seemed installed as housekeeper, and a fat, careless gentleman in shirt sleeves, with a cigar in his mouth, who impressed me as an indolent and improvident poor relation of my host, as, indeed, he proved. There was present, also, the child of a neighbor, a little fair-haired girl, called Nelly, who, hearing my nationality mentioned, would not approach me, which ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... There are indolent styles of the spirits in which, indisposed to talk ourselves, the talk of others is pleasant to our listless ears; and I gazed on, pleased with the ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... spirited warfare, it is not to be supposed that Louis was tranquil; for, though naturally of an indolent temperament, there was in him a fund of latent emulation, which only wanted a stimulus such as the present to rouse him to action. Louis was a boy of no mean ability, and now, fired with the hope of distinguishing himself, and gaining ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... left of this valley rises an extensive and picturesque mountain, cultivated almost to the summit, and dotted here and there with villages and gentlemen's houses. Looking into the valley at early morn, you will see the lazy buffalo, driven by an equally indolent ploughman, dragging a Lilliputian plough through the slimy paddy-field; the lazy Javanese labourer going to his work in the field; the native women reaping, with the hand only, and stalk by stalk, the ripe paddy ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... Longueville had naturally a great fund of wit, and was, moreover, a woman of parts; but her indolent temper kept her from making any use of her talents, either in gallantries or in her hatred against the Prince de Conde. Her languishing air had more charms in it than the most exquisite beauty. She had few ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... out an indolent hand into which the eager Josef dropped it for examination. First the obverse, then the reverse were inspected with apparently slight interest. To Carter's appreciation of character, however, it was evident that not the slightest scratch on its surface had escaped those drooping ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... some two hundred a year, so that I could afford to wait and look round. My only real taste was for literature. I wanted to write, but I had no very pressing aspirations or inspirations. I may confess that I was indolent, fond of company, but not afraid of comparative solitude, and I was moreover an entire dilettante. I read a good many books, and tried feverishly to write in the style of the authors who most attracted me, I settled down at home, more or less, in a country ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... authorized to police their property. The mighty house of Tamerlane had become a political nonentity, the empire of the Great Mogul was divided among nominal viceroys who were really independent sovereigns, gorgeous but indolent. The teeming millions of India were, for the most part, as unfitted by nature and occupation for the fatigues of war, as were the countless host which Xerxes led into Greece, or Darius hurled upon the steel-crested phalanxes of that bloody prototype of John Bull, Alexander the Macedonian ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... dull, flat, and unthrifty district, or neighborhood, surrounded by a white population of the lowest order, indolent and drunken to a proverb, and among slaves, who seemed to ask, "Oh! what's the use?" every time they lifted a hoe, that I—without any fault of mine was born, and spent the first ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... long time he was unsuspected, and indeed, if he had been, he cared very little about it. He went from tribe to tribe, living an indolent life, which suited his taste perfectly; and as he was very necessary to the Indians as an interpreter during their bartering transactions with the Whites, he was allowed to do just as he pleased. He was, however, fond of shifting from ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... tragedy that darkened his childhood, Thomas Lincoln seems to have been a cheery, indolent, good-natured man. By means of a little farming and occasional jobs at his trade, he managed to supply his family with the absolutely necessary food and shelter, but he never got on in the world. He found it much easier to gossip with his friends, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... process of digestion is finished, to enable it to recover its tone before it can again enter upon the vigorous performance of its function. As a general rule, then, five or six hours should elapse between meals. If the mode of life is indolent, a greater time is required; if active, less time will suffice. Where the usages of society will allow the principal meal to be taken near the middle of the day, the following time for meals is approved by physiologists generally: breakfast ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... not morality, but that which deepens the moral impression, and sends the thrill of spiritual beauty throughout the whole being. But its appeals, says an eloquent writer, are mainly 'to those affections that are apt to become indolent and dormant amidst the commerce of the world;' and it aims at the 'revival of those purer and more enthusiastic feelings which are associated with the earlier and least selfish period of our existence. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various
... glamour. Father, I have lived Arabian nights. I have sat out a dance with the evening star. But it was all in a past existence, in the days of Babylon, and I am myself again. But he has been chivalrous always. If the slothful, indolent creature I used to be has improved in any way, I owe it all to him. I am slipping back in many ways, but I am determined not to slip back altogether—in memory of him and his island. That is why I insisted on your telling ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie
... Against this bright afterglow the hills of Imbros stood almost black. I stared at them. Then the luminous green turned to the blue of the zenith, and the hills were lost. And the cold of the Gallipoli night chilled me, as I lay there, too indolent and despairing to ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... may be better than total blindness, but has been of no advantage to me, I can assure you. Men expect one to take into account their fine linen. But I never could get up any enthusiasm about these things. Oh! it's a failing; it's a failing; and then comes a soft evening; a lot of men too indolent for whist—and a story. ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... indifference, diving occasionally and regaling himself on the unsuspecting fish. A boat comes out from the shore, rowed by an industrious guide, with an angler, picturesquely protected by mosquito net, sitting in the stern. The mother loon pushes and urges her indolent pair in the direction of safety. How slow they must seem as she hurries and encourages them! The trio moves at a snail's pace compared with her ordinary speed, but the young ones show no inclination to dive out of ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... waster away of life in such a world as that I live in. I find in every place so much to read about, and study over, and think upon, that I now feel as if life itself would not be long enough to do all I should like to effect. One thing is certain, Charley; I cannot be indolent without feeling that, with the motives and stimulus of this tour pressing upon me, I ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... now they must also have natural ability which education will improve; that is to say, they must be quick at learning, capable of mental toil, retentive, solid, diligent natures, who combine intellectual with moral virtues; not lame and one-sided, diligent in bodily exercise and indolent in mind, or conversely; not a maimed soul, which hates falsehood and yet unintentionally is always wallowing in the mire of ignorance; not a bastard or feeble person, but sound in wind and limb, and in ...
— The Republic • Plato
... enthusiasm; an inquisitive character to discover, and a bold one to display, every corruption and every error of Government; these are the qualities which recommend a man to a seat in the House of Commons, in open and merely popular elections. An indolent and submissive disposition; a disposition to think charitably of all the actions of men in power, and to live in a mutual intercourse of favours with them; an inclination rather to countenance a strong use of authority, ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... capable business organizers; in England, the land where irresponsible realized wealth is at a maximum, a public-spirited section of the irresponsible, inspired by the tradition of an aristocratic functional past, qualifies the financial influence with an amateurish, indolent, and publicly unprofitable integrity. In Germany an aggressively functional Court occupies the place and plays the part of a permanently ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... the ninth preparatory grade, under the direction of the indolent M. Tavernier, always busy polishing his nails, like a Chinese mandarin, the child had for a professor in the eighth grade Pere Montandeuil, a poor fellow stupefied by thirty years of teaching, who secretly employed all his spare hours in composing five-act tragedies, ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... was short-sighted and a bit indolent, hated the weekly task of inspecting the newly returned laundry in search of missing buttons and rents, all of which were to be recorded in her little black book and checked off when the owners testified that the said garments had been made ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... eyes were hard and untrustful, so that she looked much older than she really was. Her life was of two parts. There was little to be told of the first part; she was an English girl who had come from a manufacturing town to study art and live alone in Paris, where she had been too indolent to work, and too brilliant to remain long without companions eager for her society. Through them and the stories of her wit and her beauty, she had come to know the King of Messina, and with that meeting the second part of her life began; for she ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis
... insinuating, lively melodies, his eccentricities making him an imposing figure to the young of both sexes, and an annoyance to the old, exciting the attention of everybody, and then suddenly disappearing, his person uniting in the most seductive manner aristocratic bearing and tone with indolent dissipation, his moods alternating between uproarious spirits and deep depression,—in all ways he resembled a figure from some romantic poem, wholly unlike anything seen before in ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... of the suave, amused drawl, and looked upon a dark, slim young man of picturesque appearance. He was bowing to her with an obvious intention of overdoing it. Voice and manner had the habit of the South rather than of the West. A kind of indolent irony sat easily upon the swarthy face crowned with a black sleek ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... desired colored help, we must seek it at the intelligence office, which is in one of those streets chiefly inhabited by the orphaned children and grandchildren of slavery. To tell the truth these orphans do not seem to grieve much for their bereavement, but lead a life of joyous and rather indolent oblivion in their quarter of the city. They are often to be seen sauntering up and down the street by which the Charlesbridge cars arrive,—the young with a harmless swagger, and the old with the generic limp which our Autocrat has already noted ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... caused so much sensation among his people. A boy was looking over his shoulder, in dull curiosity, completing the group. More in the background eight or ten warriors lay half recumbent on the ground, or sat with their backs reclining against trees, so many types of indolent repose. Their arms were near them all, sometimes leaning against the same trees as themselves, or were lying across their bodies in careless preparation. But the group that most attracted the attention of Deerslayer ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... "Come unto me all ye pleasure hunters, ye indolent and ye lazy;" but "Come all ye that labor and are ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... formed such an odd trait in the character of a man so imperious by nature. When acting alone, he spoke his own opinions. When in a situation where public opinion was concentrated against him, he submitted to modifications of his views with a curious and indolent indifference. ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge |
