"Indolently" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... attention was focused indolently upon the hills. He seemed to have forgotten that the ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... with soldiers, who, armed merely with their bayonets, stood grouped in careless attitudes—some with their wives leaning on their arms—others with their children upraised, that they might the better observe the enlivening sports without—some lay indolently with their legs overhanging the works—others, assuming pugilistic attitudes, dealt their harmless blows at each other,—and all were blended together, men, women, and children, with that heedlessness of thought that told how little of distrust existed ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... attempted a more perilous task—the interpretation of passages where the difficulty arises from the peculiar texture of Chapman's thought and style. Such a critical venture seems a necessary preliminary if we are ever to sift truth from falsehood in Dryden's indictment—indolently accepted by many ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... Mr. Randolph, indolently, as he lounged finally out of the room by an open window; which, as did all the windows in the room, served for a door also. By the door by which she had entered, Daisy silently withdrew again, making no effort to change the resolution of either of her parents. ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner
... you going so early?" asked Dr. Hirsch, indolently, as he saw Charlotte, gayly dressed, prayer-book in hand, come slowly down the stairs, followed by Jack, who was once more clad in the pet costume of ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... us to feather hassocks and stretched himself indolently upon our pillowed divan. With an elbow and hand supporting his head he regarded us with his sombre black eyes, his face impassive, an inscrutable smile playing about ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... car was halted, apparently much to the surprise of the solitary passenger, who leaned indolently forward and exchanged ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... and threw the reins loose, which were instantly seized by one of the attendant pages. Without a moment's hesitation the Frank seated himself in the vacant throne of the Emperor, and extending his half-armed and robust figure on the golden cushions which were destined for Alexius, he indolently began to caress a large wolf-hound which had followed him, and which, feeling itself as much at ease as its master, reposed its grim form on the carpets of silk and gold damask, which tapestried ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... there stood a great brown book, which looked like a commercial ledger. Many other books were ranged along a plank between two powder-casks, and there was a great litter of papers, some of which had verses scribbled upon them. All this I took in while he, leaning indolently back in his chair, was listening to the report of his lieutenant. Having heard everything, he ordered the cripple to be carried out again, and I was left with my three guards, waiting to hear my fate. He took up his pen, and tapping his ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... which she spoke these words. That she was yielding, however, there could be little doubt, and whatever doubt remained in his mind was removed on the following day in the park under the lime-trees, where they had been sitting for some time, talking indolently—at least, Ulick had been talking indolently of the various singers who had been engaged. He had done most of the talking, watching the trees and the spire showing between them, enjoying the air, and the colour of the day, a little heedless of his companion, until looking ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... pronunciation! May I sit down?" and, without waiting for the required permission, Lady Blythe sank indolently into the old oaken arm-chair where Farmer Jocelyn had so long been accustomed to sit, and, taking out a cobweb of a handkerchief powerfully scented, passed it languorously across ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... her so well as now. Her point of view was so sane, so reasonable. It asked for no impossible virtues in a man. There was something restful in her genial, derisive understanding of him. She had a silent divination of his moods and ministered indolently to them. ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... reader in defense of my idiotic obstinacy. To have taken advice would have shown my youth. I shook my head—I could not trust my voice. I smiled, but with a sinking heart, and let my stake remain. The ball again sped round the wheel, and stopped. There was a pause. The croupier indolently advanced his rake and swept my whole pile with others into the bank! I had lost it all. Perhaps it may be difficult for me to explain why I actually felt relieved, and even to some extent triumphant, ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... under her care, between a barber and a ballerine, amid the shamelessness of his stepfather's palace, where any day he could have seen his mother beckon indolently to a centurion and pointing to some lover who had ceased to please, make the gesture which signified Death, that the young Enobarbus—Nero, as he subsequently called himself—was ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... Had Zu-tag come indolently, feeding as he came, he might have entered the tribe without arousing notice or suspicion, but when one comes thus precipitately, evidently bursting with some emotion out of the ordinary, let all apes beware. There was a certain amount of preliminary circling, growling, and sniffing, stiff-legged ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... one instance is a kind of conveyancing office where the transaction is duly concluded, each party accepting the others' terms; in the other case, a species of sheep-pen where the flock awaits impatiently and indolently the final consummation. Generally, the means are mistaken for the end, and the opening-up of the possibility of spiritual growth becomes the signal ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... How indolently he lay on the deep, soft cushions! And yet his eyes were every where, and though he had not failed to give due consideration to the preparations for his feast, he devoted all the powers of his mind to the present management of it. As at the entertainments which Hadrian was accustomed ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... smoothness of the sloping forehead. Impossible to say that this face was not eminently handsome; yet, for the majority both of men and women, it was destitute of charm. Women disliked eyes that seemed to be indolently accepting admiration instead of rendering it; and men, especially if they had a tendency to clumsiness in the nose and ankles, were inclined to think this Antinous in a pig-tail a 'confounded puppy'. I fancy that ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... and when Louis XV. came to the throne it passed from the gay to the insipid, the flippant, even the erotic. Shepherds and shepherdesses dressed in court silks and satins with cottony sheep beside them posed in stage-set Arcadias, pretty gods and goddesses reclined indolently upon gossamer clouds, and court gallants lounged under artificial trees by artificial ponds making love to pretty soubrettes ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... came back again in the red sunrise, lording it over the solitary, grass-grown, withered town. In short, I had that incoherent but delightful jumble in my brain, which travellers are apt to have, and are indolently willing to encourage. Every shake of the coach in which I sat, half dozing in the dark, appeared to jerk some new recollection out of its place, and to jerk some other new recollection into it; and in this ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... at the present time seem to lie very much in extremes. A considerable number, animated by the Disruption spirit, contribute greatly more to ministerial support, in proportion to their incomes, than the old Dissenters of the kingdom; but a still larger number, reposing indolently on the exertions of these, and in whom the habit has not been cultivated or formed, give considerably less. It was stated by Mr. Melvin, in the meeting of the United Presbyterian Synod held on Wednesday last, that, 'on an average, the members of weak congregations in ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... of which was in commission, the starboard. The saloon was unattractive, for staterooms marshaled along each side of it; and one caught glimpses of tumbled luggage and tousled berths. A punka stretched from one end of the table to the other, and swung indolently to and fro, whining mysteriously as if in protest, sometimes subsiding altogether (as the wearied coolie above the lights fell asleep) and then flapping hysterically (after a shout of warning from the captain) and setting the ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... size and ornateness. But his rifle was of the latest American pattern, and in place of the conventional Colt's he carried an automatic pistol. As his horse patiently clambered with him up towards the top of the escarpment the man gazed indolently about between half-closed eyelids and inhaled the smoke from an unbroken "chain" of ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... as the consequences of emancipation. Such ought to inquire into the ground of their alarm. They are bound to listen to the voice of facts, and such are given in this book. None of us have a right to make up our minds without inquiry, or to rest in opinions adopted indolently and without thought. It is a great crime to doom millions of our race to brutal degradation, on the ground of unreasonable fears. The power of public opinion is here irresistible, and to this power every man contributes something; so that every man, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... topsy-turvy turned our state. In gallantry I sent the ring, The token of a lovesick king: Under fair Mab's auspicious name >From me the trifling present came. You blabb'd the news in Suffolk's ear; The tattling zephyrs brought it here; As Mab was indolently laid Under a poppy's spreading shade. The jealous queen started in rage; She kick'd her crown and beat her page: "Bring me my magic wand," she cries; "Under that primrose there it lies; I'll change the silly, saucy chit, Into a flea, a louse, a nit, A worm, a grasshopper, a rat, An owl, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... indolence. When faith is not strenuously exercised, when we are indolent in good works, our progress is hindered, so that the prize is not attained. But to such hindrance I do not think Paul here refers. He is not alluding to those who indolently run, but to them who run in vain because missing their object; individuals, for instance, who pursue their aim at full speed, but, deluded by a phantom, miss their aim and rush to ruin or run up against fearful obstacles. Hence Paul ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... and appear truly romantic. The grass and fields of rice are perfectly green, and herds of cattle are everywhere feeding on the banks of the river, and the natives are scattered about, ... some fishing, some driving the team, and some sitting indolently on the bank of the river. The pagodas we have passed are much handsomer and larger than the houses. There are many English seats near the shore.... Oh, what reason we have to be thankful for so pleasant and prosperous ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... couple of officers. Of the two guardians of the tent, only one was there. De Wardes was in the interior of the Hotel de Ville, engaged in attending to the execution of some orders given by De Guiche. At the noise made by Buckingham Manicamp, who was indolently reclining upon the cushions at the doorway of one of the tents, rose with his usual indifference, and, perceiving that the disturbance continued, made his appearance from underneath the curtains. "What is the matter?" he said, in a gentle ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Through mullioned windows, in cathedrals wide Spilled moltenly o'er figures deified In chastest marble, nude of drapery. And so I love it—. Either unconfined; Or plaited in close braidings manifold; Or smoothly drawn; or indolently twined In careless knots whose coilings come unrolled At any lightest kiss; or by the wind Whipped out in flossy ravellings ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... him, and upset several fine monuments that were to have made people remembered for ever. But all this would have seemed scarcely worth mentioning had it not been for a still greater event which occurred on the occasion, no less than the death of the fairy Do-nothing, who had been indolently looking on at this great battle without taking the trouble to interfere, or even to care who was victorious; but being also lazy about running away, when the giant fell, his sword came with so violent a stroke on her head ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... all unnoticed. The smoke-begrimed tepees with their great wooden trailers propped against them; the strings of drying meats stretching along under the boughs of adjacent trees. The bucks huddled, in spite of the warmth of summer, in their parti-colored blankets, gazing indolently at their squaws pounding the early berries into a sort of muddy preserve, or dressing a skin for manufacture into leggings, moccasins, or buckskin shirt. He gave no heed to the swarms of papooses, like so many flies buzzing round the tepees, whooping in imitation of their father braves, ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... warm rays which light up the cemetery, in the eyes of the children who play among the roses of autumn, in the smile of those beautiful brown girls who, the mass being finished, return with steps indolently supple toward the village; in the muscles of all this youthfulness of men, alert and vigorous, who shall soon exercise at the ball-game their iron legs and arms.—And of this group of old men and of boys at the threshold of a church, ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... dependent upon each other than is commonly understood; especially in those constitutions whose digestive and chylopoietic organs are capricious and easily put out of tune, or absorb the "pabulum vitae" indolently and imperfectly: with such, it is only now and then that the "sensorium commune" vibrates with the full tone of accurately considerative, or creative energy. "His favourite dainties were, a leg of pork boiled till it dropped from the bone, ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... man on the dyke always hurls well.' The looker on," says Mr. Trench in explanation, "at a game of hurling, seated indolently on the wall, always imagines that he could improve on the strokes of the actual players, and if you will listen to him, would have played the game much better than they, a proverb of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 235, April 29, 1854 • Various
... light-blue silk and white lace hat, with large solitaires in her ears, her red parasol held airily over her head and her insipid face wreathed in smiles, as she talked to her companion, the handsome Neil, whose dark face was such a contrast to her own, and who reclined indolently at her side, answering her questions mechanically, but thinking always of Bessie, and wondering if she were there in the hired chair, and if she would see him, or, what was more to the purpose, if he should see her among the multitude which ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... impress of shame upon blundering ignorance. In the language of some men, there is a vividness, an energy, a power of expression, which penetrates even the soul of dullness, and leaves an impression both of words unknown and of sentiments unfelt before. Such men can teach; but he who kindly or indolently accommodates himself to ignorance, shall never be greatly instrumental in removing it. "The colloquial barbarisms of boys," says Dr. Barrow, "should never be suffered to pass without notice and censure. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... apace, and, looking to the right towards the sea as he walked beside the horse, Poorgrass saw strange clouds and scrolls of mist rolling over the long ridges which girt the landscape in that quarter. They came in yet greater volumes, and indolently crept across the intervening valleys, and around the withered papery flags of the moor and river brinks. Then their dank spongy forms closed in upon the sky. It was a sudden overgrowth of atmospheric fungi which had their roots in the neighbouring ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... thought Stoner to himself, as he trotted rapidly along the muddy lanes where he had tramped yesterday as a down-at-heel outcast; and then he flung reflection indolently aside and gave himself up to the pleasure of a smart canter along the turf-grown side of a level stretch of road. At an open gateway he checked his pace to allow two carts to turn into a field. The lads driving the carts found ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... twig of the nest is laid," remarked Marufa, indolently eyeing the tusk, "it is difficult to entice ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... atrocity of which she was the victim. She could not have imagined, that, in all the fermentation of civilized depravity, a similar plot could have entered a human mind. She had been stunned by an unexpected blow; yet life, however joyless, was not to be indolently resigned, or misery endured without exertion, and proudly termed patience. She had hitherto meditated only to point the dart of anguish, and suppressed the heart heavings of indignant nature merely by the force of contempt. Now she endeavoured to brace her ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... fatigue: this engages them to appropriate to themselves the fruits of other peoples invention; and they appear to themselves well provided at a small expence, when they have made free with the productions of others. Some again, instead of cultivating their talent, chuse indolently to follow the great torrent of the fashion, and stick to the old tracks, without daring to strike out any thing new, so that their prejudices are, in fact, the principles by which they are governed, and which sometimes serves them for their excuse; since they know better, but do not care to give ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... he had had enough of rolling over and over, Pegasus turned himself about, and, indolently, like any other horse, put out his fore-legs, in order to rise from the ground; and Bellerophon, who had guessed that he would do so, darted suddenly from the thicket, and leaped astride ...
— My First Cruise - and Other stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... of heroes fill'd the stage, That rant by note, and through the gamut rage; In songs and airs express their martial fire, Combat in trills, and in a fugue expire: While, lull'd by sound, and undisturb'd by wit, Calm and serene you indolently sit, And, from the dull fatigue of thinking free, Hear the facetious fiddle's repartee: Our home-spun authors must forsake the field, And Shakspeare to the soft Scarletti yield. 10 To your new taste the poet of this day Was ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... the Muse's bower; His lyre, like that to great Pelides strong, The soft'ning solace of a vacant boor, Its airy descant indolently rung. ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... whole studded with islands covered with woods of the densest foliage. These large marshes, covered with reeds as with a thick mantle, sleep silently and calmly beneath the sun's soft and genial rays. A few fishermen with their families indolently pass their lives away there, with their great living-rafts of poplar and alder, the flooring formed of reeds, and the roof woven out of thick rushes. These barks, these floating-houses, are wafted to and fro by the changing winds. Whenever they touch a bank, it is but by chance; ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... my breakfast I thatched the honey-pot with some leaves, fastened down the lid, and indolently resumed my way in the wake of the party, my blackthorn staff tiptapping against the hard tread of the track ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... hands at that instant indolently readjusted the thick mass of hair and quite as casually disappeared. I failed ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... one's health would mend, after all; and many things be better than was hoped! Sterling was not of a despondent temper, or given in any measure to lie down and indolently moan: I fancy he walked briskly enough into this tempestuous-looking future; not heeding too much its thunderous aspects; doing swiftly, for the day, what his hand found to do. Arthur Coningsby, I suppose, lay on the anvil at present; visits to Coleridge ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... New York, and brother to the proud, dashing Juno Cameron, who once spent a few weeks in town, Wilford knew they were talking about him, but he did not care, and assuming as easy an attitude as possible, he leaned hack in his chair, yawning indolently, and wishing the time away, until the class in algebra was called and Katy Lennox came tripping on to the stage, a pale blue ribbon in her golden hair and her simple dress of white relieved by no ornament except the cluster of wild flowers fastened in her belt and at ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... (as those formed of him). His resentment and indignation at this, excited his imperious temper to harass the army by the rigour of his command; nor could it (the army) however be subdued by any means; such a spirit of opposition had they imbibed. They executed every measure slowly, indolently, negligently, and with stubbornness: neither shame nor fear restrained them. If he wished the army to move on with expedition, they designedly went more slowly: if he came up to them to encourage them in their work, they all relaxed the energy which ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... of this victory, the Pup found himself undisputed leader of the little herd, his late antagonist, after a vain effort to effect a division, having slipped indolently into a subordinate place. This suited the Pup exactly, who was happy himself, and wanted everybody else to be ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... world like one o' Mrs. Johnson's fancy bantams that ain't quit of the shell afore they square off at their own mother. My goodness! Sho! Sho-o-o!" And suiting the action to the word the young lady, still indolently, even in her simulation, swirled around, caught her skirts at the side with each hand, and lazily shaking them before her in the accepted feminine method of frightening chickens as she retreated backwards, dropped ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... still abodes Where fear and strife lie indolently furled, You cannot hear the rushing autumn hurled Against these wanderers bent with futile loads. Our broken dreams like withered leaves are swirled Where wind-dashed lanterns fail upon the roads, And all our tragic gestured episodes End in forgotten graveyards ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer
... gentlemen of the suite, Rostov noticed Bolkonski, sitting his horse indolently and carelessly. Rostov recalled their quarrel of yesterday and the question presented itself whether he ought or ought not to challenge Bolkonski. "Of course not!" he now thought. "Is it worth thinking or speaking of it at such a moment? At a time ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy |
