"Languor" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... facing it when present, is observable in both. The Britons, however, display more ferocity, [51] not being yet softened by a long peace: for it appears from history that the Gauls were once renowned in war, till, losing their valor with their liberty, languor and indolence entered amongst them. The same change has also taken place among those of the Britons who have been long subdued; [52] but the rest continue such as the ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... sentences, he says his (the supreme lord's) name is Pranava (i.e., Om); its muttering (should be made) and reflection on its signification; thence comes the knowledge of the transcendental spirit and the absence of the obstacles (such as sickness, languor, doubt, &c., which obstruct the mind of an ascetic). But they indicate, at the same time, the further course which superstition took in enlarging upon the mysticism of the doctrine of the Upanishads. For, as soon as every letter of which the word Om consists ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... only changed its character to something far more touching and impressive than health itself with all its blooming hues could have bestowed. Her features were certainly thinner, but there was visible in them a serene but mournful spirit—a voluptuous languor, heightened and spiritualized by purity and intellect into an expression that realized our notions rather of angelic beauty than of the loveliness of mere woman. To all this, sorrow had added a dignity ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... near the camp, and begged with great diligence from hut to hut, he could only procure a few handfuls of ground nuts, which he readily shared with me. Hunger, at first, is certainly a very painful sensation; but when it has continued for some time, this pain is succeeded by languor and debility: in which case, a draught of water, by keeping the stomach distended, will greatly exhilarate the spirits, and remove for a short time every sort of uneasiness. Johnson and Demba were very much dejected. They lay stretched upon ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... to her, as she walked home that afternoon, to be the last touch needed to push her into a state of utter despondency. The oppressive languor of the day had exhausted her strength, and when she left Dinard's she felt too indifferent, too spiritless even for the drive in the Park. It was still light when she got out of the stage at Twenty-third Street, and while she strolled listlessly ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... zeal will do for me. It has enabled me to keep drowsiness, fatigue, and languor at bay during a long night. Converse with thee, heavenly maid, is an antidote even to sleep, the most general ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... that was inconvenient," said he, with all the languor of a millionaire. "Forget what it was about. Some take in, I'll swear. Never mind, a debt's a debt, and here goes. How much ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... former pages will readily believe. Her health still continued so delicate as frequently to occasion her aunt some anxiety. Through the winter, strange to say, she had not suffered, but the spring brought on, at intervals, those depressing feelings of languor which Mrs. Hamilton hoped had been entirely conquered. The least exertion or excitement caused her to suffer the following day, and therefore, except at very small parties, she did not appear even at home. ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... man, rousing from his languor. And then, in his own language, he said to Kitty: "Little lady, where are you going? Are ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... Lucian, he invented in French the words indolence and indolent, to describe a momentary languor, rather than that habitual indolence in which sense they are now accepted; and in translating Tacitus, he created the word turbulemment; but it did not prosper any more than that of temporisement. Segrais invented the word impardonnable, which, after having been rejected, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... breath passed over Renee's temples and touched her neck, a puff of wind kissed and cheered her. Gradually she began to lose all consciousness of her physical being, the sensation and fatigue of living; an exquisite languor took possession of her, and it seemed to her as though she were partially freed from her material body and were just ready to pass away in the divine sweetness of all these things. Every now and then she nestled closer to her father like a child who is afraid ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... repeating an "office," or carrying on a course of private devotions, from his looks. Rome had established her dualism in his mind. He had no longer the unity of an Englishman trained to do one thing at a time, and to do it with his might. He sat in a kind of languor, carrying on within himself a thread of thought, to which his external occupation gave no clue; yet at the same time suffering no indication to escape him of the real condition of his mind. The three were consequently far ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... successfully finished by the taking of Jerusalem, Robert returned into Europe. He had acquired great reputation in that war, in which he had no interest; his real and valuable rights he prosecuted with languor. Yet such was the respect paid to his title, and such the attraction of his personal accomplishments, that, when he had at last taken possession of his Norman territories, and entered England with ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... eagerly repeated, "Ill! of what does he complain?" "Of general and universal pain and suffering," replied Chamilly. "And the female who was here last night, how is she?" "Nearly as bad, madam; she arose this morning complaining of illness and languor, which increased so rapidly, that she was compelled to be carried to one of the nearest beds, where she now is." All this tormented me to the greatest degree, and I dismissed Chamilly for the purpose of rising, ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... eyes had the brightness and fulness of the antelope's, but, owing to their long silken lashes, were yet more expressive of softness than of spirit; and at this time they evinced more than usual languor. She was in a rich undress, and was apparently an invalid. Her long raven locks hung with careless grace, partly behind, and partly over, a neck that might have served as a model for the sculptor. She was looking wistfully on a bunch of flowers in her hand, which ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... afternoon I was tired and hot—it really called for a grimmer resolve than mine to shovel sand through the languor of a Leeward Island afternoon. Instead, I slept in my hammock, and dreamed that I was queen of a cannibal island, draped in necklaces made of the doubloons now hidden under the sand in the ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... was one of strange languor and fatigue; certainly no fright, and very little wonder; rather as if I had been stunned or charmed by opiates into a kind of waking slumber. I have never felt anything like it before ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... and who had been raised to the grandeur of a transfiguration; so tender he would not bruise the broken reed, so gentle his yoke was rest; raying out with compassion and love wherever he went; healing alike the pangs of grief and the languor of disease; whom some believed to be the Messiah, and others thought a prophet; whom the masses followed, and the priests feared;—this is the third member ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... majesty continued to transact business, but it was under such oppressive weakness, that it was clear to his medical attendants that his end was approaching. There was no active disease, indeed, but a general languor and weakness, which foretokened dissolution. His last days were spent in preparing for eternity; nothing seemed to give him greater pleasure than the presence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who attended him, and from whose hands he received ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... picture and letters," said Constantia, lifting her head from Mrs. Mellicent's bosom, where she had sunk, from the extreme languor that succeeded the violent hysterics into which the terrors of this alarming night had thrown her. A more lovely or interesting object could scarcely be conceived than this charming girl, just ripening into woman, her mind mature ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... recurring succession of events in the sick chamber for the first ten days of Eveline's illness; then there was a change; the violent symptoms of disease were reduced, and a state of dreamy languor succeeded, with rare intervals of excitement, and those of the mildest type; but consciousness did not return, and the father had the satisfaction of knowing that the secrets of the place were his own. He had now but little fear that ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... 26th of the same month, was interred in general Monk's vault in Westminster-Abbey: leaving no issue, his titles devolved on his nephew, George late earl of Hallifax.—Considered as a poet, his lordship makes a less considerable figure than the earl of Dorset; there is a languor in his verses, which seems to indicate that he was not born with a poetical genius. That he was a lover of the muses, there is not the lead doubt, as we find him patronizing the poets so warmly; but there is some difference between ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... its regulations, inattention to its recommendations, if not disobedience to its authority, not only in individuals but in States, soon appeared with their melancholy consequences—universal languor, jealousies and rivalries of States, decline of navigation and commerce, discouragement of necessary manufactures, universal fall in the value of lands and their produce, contempt of public and private faith, loss of consideration and credit with foreign nations, and at length in discontents, ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... parson came out robed at this moment, and the clerk put on his ecclesiastical countenance and looked in his book. Lady Constantine's momentary languor passed; her blood resumed its courses with a new spring. The grave utterances of the church then rolled out upon the palpitating pair, and no couple ever joined their whispers thereto with ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... skips as he went along. Already he seemed like a different boy. All the droop and languor had gone, and given place to an exhilaration which half frightened Clover, who had constant trouble in keeping him from doing things which she knew to be imprudent. Dr. Hope had warned her that invalids often harmed ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... more slowly and expressively at each repetition, as if the singer felt overcome at the sweetness of life and of his own expression, and languished somewhat at the close; its effect is like that of the perfume of the honeysuckle, infecting the mind with a soft, delicious languor, a wish to lie perfectly still and drink of the same sweetness again and ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... had aroused her every year through ten thousand generations she knew that spring was coming. It was not a scorching, hard, dusty day like the treacherous intruder of a week before, but soaked with languor, softened with a milky light. Rivulets were hurrying in each alley; a calling robin appeared by magic on the crab-apple tree in the Howlands' yard. Everybody chuckled, "Looks like winter is going," and "This 'll bring the frost ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... a whole group or family of words which continued much longer in Scotland than with us; of which some perhaps continue there still; these are but a few of them; 'wanthrift' for extravagance; 'wanluck', misfortune; 'wanlust', languor; 'wanwit', folly; 'wangrace', wickedness; 'wantrust' (Chaucer), distrust, [Also 'wan-ton', devoid of breeding (towen). Compare ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... Morland mounted silently, screwing himself up to put things to the touch. Noel too mounted silently, thinking: 'I will kiss him if he kisses me!' Eagerness, and a sort of languor, were running in her veins; she did not look at him from under her shady hat. Sun light poured down through every chink in the foliage; made the greenness of the steep wood marvellously vivid and alive; flashed on beech leaves, ash leaves, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... representing us as a divided people, who anxiously wish to return to our connexion with England. In this they have two objects equally important to them. 1st. They encourage England to continue a war, which they expect to see terminated by our own weariness and languor; and 2dly. They put such a face upon their affairs as will entitle them on a negotiation to make demands at our expense, which they would not presume to think of, if the mediators were acquainted with our firm resolution never to return to our obedience to their Government. ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... to human life, fleeting, turbulent, treacherous, yet grandly beautiful. Yielding to that mood in which the judgment and the will are suspended, and the passive brain is played upon by every sight and sound, he sat in an easy chair smoking, lost in sensuous languor, like an Asian prince. He was, for the time, possessed by the sensation of being royal. He enjoyed by anticipation the prerogatives of sovereignty, the power, the luxury, the voluptuous pleasure. The objects of his ambition appeared then how easy of attainment! To accomplish seemed ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... interest, from its hopes, its aspirations, its victories, into the visible presence of death—and he did not quail. Not alone for the one short moment in which, stunned and dazed, he could give up life, hardly aware of its relinquishment, but through days of deadly languor, through weeks of agony, that was not less agony because silently borne, with clear sight and calm courage, he looked into his open grave. What blight and ruin met his anguished eyes, whose lips may tell—what brilliant, broken plans, what baffled, high ambitions, what sundering ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... could make her tone indifferent to the point of languor, but she could not keep the gleam of jealousy out of her eyes. "Gordon is a fortunate man to have such an ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... dove color, with faint touches of blue, was effective, and she knew it. Nevertheless, she was a little pale, and her manner lacked that note of quiet languor which generally characterized it. She talked rather more than usual, chattering idly about the acquaintances to whom she was continually nodding and bowing. Her face hardened a little as the Marchioness, on her way through the room with a party ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the day after the dance, and it was not merely the languor of the girl who has fatigued herself ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... neighbor were also, on their side, very quiet, talking but little and never looking at each other. The young man had his elbows on the table and was chatting with another woman who was showing him her necklace and bracelets. My mistress sat motionless, her eyes fixed and filled with languor. I watched both of them during the entire supper and I saw nothing either in their gestures or in their faces that could betray them. Finally, at dessert, I dropped my napkin, and stooping down saw that they were still ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... ill-will of Garrick, who appears to have done everything that ability and zeal could do, and who, from selfish motives, would, of course, have been well pleased if "Virginia" had been as successful as "The Beggar's Opera." Nay, Crisp complained of the languor of the friends whose partiality had given ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... to Margaret of Scotland, who led a mournful existence at the French court, where she felt herself a desolate alien. Her death at the age of twenty was possibly due to slander. "Fie upon life," she said on her deathbed, when urged to rouse herself to resist the languor into which she was sinking. "Talk to ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... great curiosity, replied that, if it was quite agreeable, she would come to Cowfold for two or three days to make the acquaintance of Mrs. Brooks and obtain a change of air, as she had suffered somewhat from feelings of languor of late and a little fever on the nerves. Accordingly she came, and in a short time saw what was the state of affairs between Miriam and her father. She rather liked Miriam, chiefly for her defects; and as Giacomo had been a little ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... described in "Lavengro" and "The Romany Rye," in chapters which justify to the full Mr. Birrell's enthusiastic admiration when he wrote: "The delightful, the bewitching, the never sufficiently to be praised George Borrow—Borrow, the Friend of Man, at whose bidding lassitude and languor strike their tents and flee; and health and spirits, adventure and human comradeship, take up the reins of life, whistle to the horses ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... consequence, followed by a state of complete prostration under Tukultiassurbel and Assurnirari: the country was now forced to pay for the glories of Assurishishi and of Tiglath-pileser by falling into an inglorious state of languor and depression. Its kings, conscious that their rule must be necessarily precarious as long as they did not possess a larger stock of recruits to fall back on, set their wits to work to provide by various methods ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... heavy-heartedness that oppressed her at other times, and she felt a comparative comfort in sitting half-asleep by her child's grave, dreaming confusedly of happier days. She started almost fretfully when Ann Holland's voice broke in upon her drowsy languor. ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... given for such a craftsman? The hardness, coarseness, and animal crudity of the Roman school are absent; so also is their vigor. But where the grace of form and color is so soft and sweet, where the high-bred calm of good company is so sympathetically rendered, where the atmosphere of amorous languor and of melody is so artistically diffused, we cannot miss the powerful modelling and rather vulgar tours de force of Giulio Romano. The scala of tone is silvery golden. There are no hard blues, no coarse red flesh-tints, no black shadows. Mellow lights, the morning ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... had changed her riding-costume for a white silk neglige that fell round her in loose, graceful folds. She wore no flowers, jewels, or ribbons, but the dark masses of her hair were unfastened, and hung round the white neck; there was a warm, bright flush on her face, with the least touch of languor in her manner. She threw herself back in her lounging chair, saying, with ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... mournful sea. There was something so unutterably sad about Felicita's condition that it awed the simple, cheerful nature of Madame. It was more than illness and exhaustion. The white, unsmiling face, the drooping head, the languor of the thin, long hands, the fathomless sorrow lurking behind her dark eyes—all spoke of a heart-sickness such as Madame had never seen or dreamed of. The children did not cheer their mother. When she saw that, Madame felt that there was nothing to be done but to leave ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... in April, that year, before the last of the winter's snow disappeared, and the robins and blue-birds darted in and out among the naked trees. But, as the sun grew high, and the days long, and the spring languor filled the air, Pen felt an ever-increasing dissatisfaction with his position in his grandfather Walker's household, and an ever-increasing desire to relinquish it. Not that he was afraid or ashamed ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... believe, grandfather, that I don't wish to ride her," said Eloise, her customary languor of manner gone and her voice hard. "Mother is more ambitious for me than I am for myself. I should be very much obliged if she would allow me to ask ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... notwithstanding all his fortitude, the spirits of the youth were depressed, and his faculties chilled by such humiliating neglect, and such reiterated disappointments. Who is he that would not, under such circumstances, sink into languor? It cannot be doubted that dejection every day detracted from his powers, and that by a kind of irresistible gravitation, he descended like a falling body in the physical world, with accelerated velocity, till at last he reached the very bottom of the profession. Reader, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... N. weakness &c adj.; debility, atony^, relaxation, languor, enervation; impotence &c 158; infirmity; effeminacy, feminality^; fragility, flaccidity; inactivity &c 683. anaemia, bloodlessness, deficiency of blood, poverty of blood. declension of strength, loss of strength, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... languor and a lack of power to lift a hand toward the light, too much a trusting of the shadow. "I have flung roses, roses riotously with the throng, to put those pale lost lilies out of mind." Always verging ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... life when every one pointed to her as the mother of a hero. All these things were like pictures hung in the secret chambers of her mind, to which she could go back in silent moments, in the twilight seated by the fire, or in the balmy afternoon, when languor and sweet thoughts are over the world. Sometimes at such moments there would be heard from her a faint sob, called forth, it was quite as likely, by the recollection of the triumph as by that of the deathbed. ...
— Old Lady Mary - A Story of the Seen and the Unseen • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... stirred from the far-away river, no coolness came with the dark, no relief from the brooding, sultry heat. It was no hotter than many nights in any break in the rains, but the guests invited by Mrs. Wilder felt the languor of the air, and felt it more profoundly because their hostess herself ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... different natures. Florence has passionate devotees, who are insensible to the artistic grace of Venice or the stately quiet of Versailles. In Cairo one experiences an exquisite bien être, a mindless, ambitionless contentment which, without being languor, soothes the nerves and tempts to indolent lotus-eating. Like a great hive, Rome depends on the memories that circle around her, storing, like bees, the centuries with their honey. Each of these cities must therefore leave many people unmoved, who after a ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... thus, it certainly would never have occurred to him to represent him as a pygmy monster. No, no! Alexander's artistic eye knew the difference well between the beautiful and the ugly—and the exhausted man lying on the divan, was no hideous dwarf. A dreamy languor spread over his nobly chiselled features An expression of pain but rarely passed over them, and Caesar's whole appearance reminded the painter of the fine Ephesian gladiator hallistos as he lay on the sand, severely wounded after his last fight, awaiting the death-stroke. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Stanley Hall that, "The chief enemy of active virtue in the world is not vice but laziness, languor and apathy of will;" that "mind work is infinitely harder than physical toil;" that (as another says) "all that does not rouse, does not set him to work, rusts and taints him the disease of laziness destroys ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... declivity the climate changes, the increase of muscular strength and the sensation of well-being, which we experience as we advance into strata of cooler air, have always appeared to me less striking than the feeling of languor and debility which pervades the frame, when we descend towards the burning plains of the coast. But such is the organization of man; and even in the moral world, we are less soothed by that which ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... combination of powers exhibited in the works we have enumerated. We have left unnoticed the wonderful extent and accuracy of the learning, the compass and profundity of the thought, the inexhaustible spirit, ever preserving the happy mean between mental languor and nervous excitement. In these twenty-seven volumes of criticism, scarcely an error has been detected, scarcely a single repetition is met with; there is scarcely a page which a reader, unpressed for time, would be inclined to skip. Where you least agree with the author, there ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... the same defect in the cultivated roses. While the odours are rich, often of cloying sweetness, or even, as in certain white roses, having a languor as of death, they never for me equal the fragrance of the wild sweet rose that grows all about these hills, in old tangled fence rows, in the lee of meadow boulders, or by some unfrequented roadside. No other odour I know awakens quite such a feeling—light ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... of refreshed nature, as in her pretty pink muslin, her white drapery folded round her, and her bright hair unbonnetted, she sat reclining in a low garden chair, at the door of the conservatory, a little pale, a little weak, but with a sweet happy languor, ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... speak of the woodbine, the primrose, and the wild mint. The scent was so strong that the ephemeron was almost intoxicated by it. The day was long and pleasant, full of gladness and sweet perceptions; and when the sun set, the little insect felt a sort of pleasing languor creeping over it after all its enjoyments. Its wings would no longer carry it, and very gently it glided down upon the soft blade of grass that was slightly waving in the evening breeze; there it drooped its tiny head, and fell into a ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... gave a view far up the street, becoming a post of observation for the gallant young officers within, who invariably arranged themselves here "for inspection," at the usual hour for the ladies' promenade, looking as became interesting invalids, returning with becoming languor the glances of bright eyes in which shone the pity which we are told is "akin to love." Later these knights being permitted to join in the promenade, made the very most of their helplessness, enjoying hugely the necessary ministrations so simply and kindly given. Among these officers ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... known how easy it all is, I would have gone by sea to East London and seen the Knysna and George district, and the primaeval African forest, the yellow wood, and other giant trees. However, 'For what I have received,' &c., &c. No one can conceive what it is, after two years of prison and utter languor, to stand on the top of a mountain pass, and enjoy physical existence for a few hours at a time. I felt as if it was quite selfish to enjoy anything so much when you were all so anxious about me at home; but as that is the best symptom of all, I ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... which gives flavor to life. Mere existence without object and without effort is a poor thing. Idleness leads to languor, and ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... an undecided mood in the small passageway leading up-stairs he felt the pressure of a finger on his shoulder. Looking up, he met the eyes of Amabel, who was leaning toward him over the banisters. She was smiling, and, though her face was not without evidences of physical languor, there was a charm about her person which would have been sufficiently enthralling to him twenty-four hours before, but which now caused him such a physical repulsion that he started back in the effort to rid his shoulder from ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... stealthy glances sometimes each to see how the other face looked; what tokens of wear and tear it was showing; taking in at a rapid view the lines of weariness, the marks of anxiety, the faded colour, the languor of spirit which had gradually taken the place of the earlier energy. In word and action they showed none of all this. All the more, no doubt, when each was alone and the guard might be relaxed, a very grave ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... of her first languor and weariness were over, and she was beginning again to feel and look like herself. The weather was hot and the city disagreeable now, for it was the end of June; but they had pleasant rooms upon the Battery, and Fleda's windows looked out upon the ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... country people most unlike the ordered life of the Eastern States. Adam Smith in "Wealth of Nations" makes clear that the practise of many occupations induces emotional conditions. Between each two economic processes there is generated for the worker at varied trades a languor, which burdens and confuses the work of the man who practises many trades. This languor is the source of the emotional ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson
... Frank felt his eyes begin to grow dim and an unaccountable languor fill his limbs. His head swam round and he desired nothing so much as to lie down and sleep—-and yet a compelling power forced him to keep his eyes fixed on the column of smoke over which the aged Krooman was now stooping ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... strident, bustling West, that because she neither sighed them nor trumpeted them, she had no passions? Allez, allez!) but I can close my eyes at any moment and smell the challenge of her Atlantic winds here on the Mediterranean or feel the heady languor of her miraculous "Indian Summer" there in a London drizzle. It is strange that I, who have said many unhandsome things of her country as a whole, should thus rush into apologia for my mother's birthplace. And yet to think ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... come, my life's delight! Let me not in languor pine! Love loves no delay; thy sight The more enjoyed, the more divine. O come, and take from me The pain of being deprived ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... he had not meant to speak of his love for her, only to urge her to make that effort over her languor and her indifference which the great physician said she must make before her health could be restored. Nan lay looking at him, the tears drying on her pale cheeks, her lips parted, her eyes unusually bright; but ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... corn-sheaves—or on a couch of snow—and that they are all as warm as so many pies; while, instead of feeling what you call "the lack of vigour attendant on the loss of sleep, which is as enfeebling and as distressing as the languor that attends the want of food," they are, to use a homely Scotch expression, "neither to haud nor bind;" the eyes of the young lads being all as brisk, bold, and bright as the stars in Charles's Wain, while those of the young lasses shine with ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... that the mere sound of a word could inflict such torment upon a heart as the sound of the word amore, coming from the boatman's lips, now inflicted upon hers. Each time it came, with its soft beauty, its languor of sweetness—like a word reclining—it flayed her soul alive, and showed her ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... theatre cannot be of the first class, and legitimately rouse the enthusiasm of the public; every dramatic or lyrical artist cannot invariably, by sheer force of talent, overcome the coldness, the languor, or the indifference of an audience; yet the general effect of the representation would suffer much if all applause, including that of a premeditated and, indeed, purchased kind, were entirely withheld; the timid would remain timid, ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... sovereign balm. "Some charitable dole," says he, "is wanting to those, our often very unhappy brethren, to fill the gloomy void that reigns in minds which have nothing on earth to hope or fear; something to relieve the killing languor and over-laboured lassitude of those who ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 352, January 17, 1829 • Various
... irresistibly engrossed by the tyranny of custom; all that passes in regulating the superficial decorations of life, or is given up in the reciprocations of civility to the disposal of others; all that is torn from us by the violence of disease, or stolen imperceptibly away by lassitude and languor; we shall find that part of our duration very small of which we can truly call ourselves masters, or which we can spend wholly at our own choice. Many of our hours are lost in a rotation of petty cares, in a constant ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... a few more days before going far from camp, because he fancied that the girl rested easier when she could see him near at hand. And on the first day her languor appeared to leave her in a renewed grip of life. She awoke stronger from each short slumber; she ate greedily, and she moved about in her bed of boughs; and always, it seemed to Venters, her eyes followed him. He knew ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... Demirep's last novel, a bath well dashed with eau de cologne, and some glasses of Anisette after the fatigue-duty of unharnessing, restored him a little; but he was still weary and depressed into gentler languor than ever through all the courses at a dinner party at the Austrian Embassy, and did not recover his dejection at a reception of the Duchess of Lydiard-Tregoze, where the prettiest French Countess of her time asked him if ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... desolation and danger. We had not sailed more than one hundred miles on the Atlantic before it blew a strong head wind, and several on board with myself were greatly affected by the motion of the ship. It threw me into such a state of languor, that I felt as though I could have willingly yielded to have been cast overboard, and it was nearly a week before I was relieved from this painful sensation and ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... favorable to story-telling. There was an autumnal languor in the air, and a dreamy haze softened the dark green of the distant pines and the deep blue of the Southern sky. The generous meal he had made had put the old man in a very good humor. He was not always so, for his curiously undeveloped nature was subject to moods which were ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... as in former periods, to invert the common order of things: by day he read, refreshed himself with the aspect of nature, conversed or corresponded with his friends; but he wrote and studied in the night. And as his bodily feelings were too often those of languor and exhaustion, he adopted, in impatience of such mean impediments, the pernicious expedient of stimulants, which yield a momentary strength, only to waste our remaining fund of it more speedily ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... entry into life, and a satisfying vision of the universe. And if secularists have not always grasped this necessity, we may perhaps find therein one main reason why secularism has not met with so enormous and enthusiastic a reception as the languor and formalism of the churches seemed to ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... ruddy glow of health with his wife's countenance, which even rouge could not enliven, it is not necessary to say which a gourmand would give the preference to. Their vulgar dance of spirits were infinitely more agreeable to his fancy than her sickly, die-away languor. Her voice was but the shadow of a sound, and she had, to complete her delicacy, so relaxed her nerves, that she became ...
— Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft
... stretching as wide as the sea at twilight, looking down on thousands of people in the orchestra below, up at a vast golden dome lighted by glowing spheres hung with diamonds, forward at a towering proscenic arch above which slim, nude goddesses in bas-relief floated in a languor which obsessed her, set free the bare brown laughing nymph that hides in every stiff Una ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... I opened my eyes to the light of reason and of day, I lay in a large, old-fashioned room which I had never seen before. The bed was soft and easy, and a delicious languor seemed to possess me. I felt no pain, but I was as helpless as a baby. Perfect stillness prevailed, and, like a tired child, I dropped off into a deep sleep. How long I lay thus I know not, but presently, when I woke to consciousness again, the air seemed to be soft and balmy, and much of the ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... with driven raiment, conquering wings, And smiling queens of Cnidos, turned and sought A more inviolate beauty that should keep Their secret dream. Their grave sweet geniuses Of love and death, of rapture or of sleep, Are delicately severed from all excess.— Ah! suppliant, honey-white, the languor cleaves About the dolorous weak body He, The Dark Eros, with staunchless spear-thrust grieves; Heavy the seal of that mortality. No wounds disgrace the haughty acolytes Of ...
— The Hours of Fiammetta - A Sonnet Sequence • Rachel Annand Taylor
... master-touch, Sophocles has made the end of "Antigone" the dead after-calm of evil action—a desolate despair. Slowly the group upon the stage melted away. Creon, with his hopeless cry upon his lips, "Death! Death! Only death!" moved with a weary languor toward the palace and slowly disappeared in the darkness beyond the ruined portal. There was a pause before the chorus uttered its final solemn words. And then—not as though obeying a stage direction, but rather ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... Gerald's languor had vanished, and a glint had appeared in his eye that would have reminded Orde of Miss Bishop's most mischievous mood could he have ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... Phthisis, although it partakes of what is called the scrofulous diathesis. In the negro constitution, as the Frenchman would say, "l'arbre arteriel cede sa prominance a l'arbre veineuse," spreading coldness, languor and want of energy over the entire system. The white fluids, or lymphatic temperament, predominating, they are not so liable as the fair race, to inflammatory diseases of the lungs, or any other organ; but ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... is my soul! it is my name! That mighty name, which throbs with guns and bells, Clashes and thunders, ceaselessly reproaches Against my languor with its bells and guns! Silence your tocsins and your salvos! Poison? What need of poison in the prison-house? I yearn to broaden history!—I am A pallid visage watching at a window. If I could only rid myself of doubt! You know me ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand
... pleased with the suggestion, however much he might like it—and in his own mind he felt that he really needed just such a complete rest and change of scene, soft climate, and freedom from all care and anxiety, to enable him to shake himself free from a strange feeling of dulness and languor that had been stealing over him lately, and a sort of mental depression that was harder to bear than actual illness. But three months away from his pupils and work seemed absolutely out of the question to Mr. Clair, therefore ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... hurt my poor admirer," said the lady, in a tone of languor and condescension that was unusual to her. Breaking from his captives, Helwyse ran back and begged her to cast her mantle into the fire. She replied by throwing a fold of it above her head and smiling as she said, "Farewell. Remember me ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... Mme. de Longueville was stricken with smallpox which, fortunately, did not impair her beauty; it was said, on the contrary, that in taking away its first flower it left all the brilliancy which, joined to her culture and charming languor, made her one of the most attractive persons in France. La Rochefoucauld has left the following picture of her: "This princess had all the advantages of esprit and beauty to as great a degree as if nature had taken pleasure in completing, in her person, a perfect work; but these qualities shone ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... it, saw that he must be rowed to land as quickly as possible if he were to be saved. She saved him. When he regained consciousness he found himself propped up before the warm fire in the lighthouse kitchen, with the most delicious feeling of languor stealing through his whole frame, instead of the cruel numbness which had been the last sensation before he became unconscious. And it added materially to his enjoyment that a bright-eyed, dark-haired young woman hovered around him, ministering to his wants in ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... talking in a soft low voice in the most affectionate and considerate manner, and with good taste and judgment that exceedingly struck and pleased the new curate. It was the more surprise to him to find the congregations thin, and a general languor and indifference about the people who attended the church. There was also a good deal of opposition in the parish, some old sullen seceders who went to a neighbouring proprietary chapel, many more of erratic tastes haunted the places of worship of ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... having an Opportunity of entertaining themselves with their favourite Diversions were highly delighted, and full of Gaiety. Nasica alone, seem'd insensible in the midst of all these Entertainments. She retired at a Distance to avoid the Conversation of the gallant Nobility. The soft Languor of her Eyes sufficiently declar'd the Sorrow of her Heart, and that the proper Person was wanting to dissipate it. Zeokinizul, chose this Time to begin his Addresses. Charming Nasica, says he, his Eyes sparkling with Love, ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon
... in the cramped ova Tearing and rending asunder its living cells... Wars, arts, discoveries, rebellions, travails, immolations, cataclysms, hates... Pent in the shut flesh. And the young men twist on their beds in languor and dizziness unsupportable... Their eyes—heavy and dimmed With dust of long oblivions in the gray pulp behind— Staring as through a choked glass. And they gaze at the moon—throwing off a faint heat— ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... reeling brain; darkness, pierced by a thousand gleaming, twinkling lights, brilliant as stars, then came a void and nothingness. Slowly at last he felt himself struggling up out of the void, battling, fighting for consciousness, then came a delicious sort of languor. If this was dying, it was very pleasant. Forms seemed to be flitting before his half-opened eyelids and the hum of voices seemed to float in his ears. One voice irritated him greatly; it was faintly familiar in its loud ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... seeks to diversify them; he is willing to give them fresh zest; arrived at opulence, when he has run over the whole circle of wants, when he has completely exhausted their combinations, he falls into disgust. Dispensed from labour, his body amasses humours; destitute of desires, his heart feels a languor; deprived of activity, he is obliged to participate his riches, with beings more active, more laborious than himself: these, following their own peculiar interests, take upon themselves the task of labouring for his advantage; ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... dinner was announced, and that amidst a babel of tongues he was being led by, or was leading, Lady Durwent into the dining-room. He heard the resolutionist and Dunckley both talking at once, and felt the melancholy languor of Pyford floating like incense through the air. He had an obscure recollection of sitting down next to his hostess; that the table, like Arthur's, was a round one; that Johnston Smyth was seated beside Miss Durwent and was ogling ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter |
