"Loiter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is of Mammy's kitchen. Permission to loiter there was a Reward of Merit—a sort of domestic Victoria Cross. If, when company came to spend the day, I made my manners prettily, I might see all the delightful hurley-burley of dinner-cooking. My seat was the biscuit block, a section of tree-trunk at least three feet ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... pass into the "cloud-land, gorgeous land," whose splendor is unveiled only to the eyes of the Immortals. Would you loiter to your inheritance? ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... fell that night; a silent, irresistible mountain snow-storm, without a breath of wind, in flakes as big as a tennis-ball. Down they ambled, seeming to loiter in indolent playfulness on the way. And up, up, mounted the earth's white carpet, thicker and thicker, softer and softer. And at daylight the men confronted eight feet of snow, through which they had to ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... The fire that whispers its domestic joy, Flickering on walls that knew me still a boy, 100 And knew my saintly father; the full days, Not careworn from the world's soul-squandering ways, Calm days that loiter with snow-silent tread, Nor break my commune with the undying dead; Truants of Time, to-morrow like to-day, That come unhid, and claimless glide away By shelves that sun them in the indulgent Past, Where Spanish castles, even, were built to last, Where saint and sage their silent vigil ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... treasures of age. Her very ruins told the history of the times gone by, and every mouldering stone was a chronicle. I longed to wander over the scenes of renowned achievement—to tread, as it were, in the footsteps of antiquity—to loiter about the ruined castle—to meditate on the falling tower—to escape, in short, from the commonplace realities of the present, and lose myself among the ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... that to be long. She drank her broth, admonished Will by a look to finish his—for he was disposed to loiter,—and after sitting still for a few minutes, rose ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt
... England the colder his hopes seemed to grow. Now upon the threshold of the country he had so longed to reach, he was inclined to linger and loiter and to put off his entrance. Everything that was so easy and clear a few thousand miles off began to show itself perplexed and difficult. "When shall I be there?" he used to ask himself on his homeward journey. "What have I come for?" ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... conditions of the nobles in various parts of Italy. In Naples they will not work, and busy themselves neither with their own estates nor with trade and commerce, which they hold to be discreditable; they either loiter at home or ride about on horseback. The Roman nobility also despise trade, but farm their own property; the cultivation of the land even opens the way to a title; it is a respectable but boorish nobility. In Lombardy the nobles ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... blessedness. 660 Ah, desperate mortal! I ev'n dar'd to press Her very cheek against my crowned lip, And, at that moment, felt my body dip Into a warmer air: a moment more, Our feet were soft in flowers. There was store Of newest joys upon that alp. Sometimes A scent of violets, and blossoming limes, Loiter'd around us; then of honey cells, Made delicate from all white-flower bells; And once, above the edges of our nest, 670 An arch face peep'd,—an Oread ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... gambol before him, age forgets his troubles, quits his arm-chair, and welcomes his approach. The maids of the hamlet assemble and dance round the pole, decked with many a flower and many a streaming pendant. The village lovers loiter at the stile, or wander down the retired lane, where the hedges are covered with their white blossoms, and the modest wild rose, emblem of the blushing maid, peeps from the sheltering thorn. Season ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... every side a phrase repeated with delight, and received with laughter, by men with hard hands and dirty faces, by saucy butcher lads and errand-boys, by loose women, by hackney coachmen, cabriolet-drivers, and idle fellows who loiter at the corners of streets. Not one utters this phrase without producing a laugh from all within hearing. It seems applicable to every circumstance, and is the universal answer to every question; in short, it is the favourite slang phrase of the day, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... bark On a strong river boldly hath been launched; 560 And from the driving current should we turn To loiter wilfully within a creek, Howe'er attractive, Fellow voyager! Would'st thou not chide? Yet deem not my pains lost: For Vaudracour and Julia (so were named 565 The ill-fated pair) in that plain tale will draw Tears from the hearts ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... proceeded down the valley, while Joe seemed disposed to loiter, undetermined what to engage in, having cast an occasional curious glance at Boone and his master when engaged in their low conversation, and rightly conjecturing that "something wrong was in the ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... main thing I want is Duval. Establish his true identity and learn where he can be found and you will have done enough. The rest of the work will be for other hands. By the way, if I were you, I would go first to the Quartier Latin, and loiter about there. You know ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... of the king From Norway came his words to bring; And truly for their master they Hard work have done before to-day. We did not loiter on the road, But on we pushed for thy abode: Thy folk, in sooth, were not so kind That we cared much to lag hehind. But Eid to rest safe we found, From robbers free to the eastern bound: This praise to thee, great earl, is due— The skald says ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... tall and fair, I love your shy imperial air, And always loiter on the stair When you are going by. A strict reserve the fates demand; But, when to let you pass I stand, Sometimes by chance I touch your hand And sometimes ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lady of "The Choughs" liked nothing so much as her game of cribbage in the evenings, and the board lay ready on the little table by her elbow in the cozy bar, a sure stepping-stone to her good graces. Tom somehow became an enthusiast in cribbage, and would always loiter behind his companions for his quiet game; chatting pleasantly while the old lady cut and shuffled the dirty pack, striving keenly for the nightly stake of sixpence, which he seldom failed to lose, and laughingly wrangling with her over the last points ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... Strutt had bespoke his new liveries of old Lewis Baboon. This coming to Mrs. Bull's ears, when John Bull came home, he found all his family in an uproar. Mrs. Bull, you must know, was very apt to be choleric. "You sot," says she, "you loiter about ale-houses and taverns, spend your time at billiards, ninepins, or puppet-shows, or flaunt about the streets in your new gilt chariot, never minding me nor your numerous family. Don't you hear how Lord Strutt has bespoke ...
— English Satires • Various
... long, cosy evenings together in the drawing-room, as he luxuriated in her very presence. She would sit on his knees and they would be snug for hours, before they went warmly and deliciously to bed. And in the morning he need not rush off. He would loiter about with her, they would loiter down the garden looking at every new flower and every new fruit, she would wear fresh flowery dresses and no cap on her hair, he would never be able to tear himself away from her. Every morning it would be unbearable to have to tear himself away ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... despite her sudden feeling of kinship to these people of the slums, she did not loiter. For she was the bearer of a message, a message of hope! She wished, as she sped through the crowded streets, that her feet were winged so that she might hurry the faster! She wanted to see the expression of bewilderment on ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... existence, would only indicate the position of the sun, and therefore could give no evidence in the matter. Beside, a sundial is not a portable instrument, and Joshua and his men had something more pressing to do than to loiter round it. Clepsydrae or clocks are of later date, and no more than a sundial are they portable. Many comments, one might almost say most comments on the narrative, read as if the writers supposed that Joshua and his men carried stop-watches, and that their ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... altogether. But there he found that scarcely any of his many companies were with him; for the nets cease when there are no more salmon to be caught in them. So he went on, day and night, where the water was deepest, stopping not to feed or loiter on the way, till at last he came to a wild gorge, where the great river became an angry torrent, rushing wildly over a huge staircase of rocks. But our hero did not falter; and summoning all his forces, he plunged into the Cascades. The current caught him and ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... the ship, the mutineers were puzzled how to proceed. Every man-of-war on the station, they knew, would be swiftly on their track. Every British port was sealed to them. They would be pursued by a retribution which would neither loiter nor slumber. On the open sea there was no safety for mutineers. They turned the head of the Hermione towards the nearest Spanish port, La Guayra, and, reaching it, surrendered the ship to the Spanish authorities, saying they had turned their officers adrift in the jolly-boat. The Spaniards ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... is as sweet as her flowers, frank, honest, loving and tender. Her diary catches for us all the enchantment of an old garden; we hear Mary Powell's bees buzz in the mignonette and lavender; we see her pleached garden alleys; we loiter with her on the bowling-green, by the fish ponds, in the still-room, the dairy and the pantry. The smell of aromatic box on a hot summer of long ago is in our nostrils. We realise all the personages—the ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... promised every thing, took herself off, and was back again as quickly as possible. She did not loiter for a moment upon the road, did not even notice the signals which her Albert made as he came towards her from the distance. She could think ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... aeroplane to its fullest speed, nor did they remain in the air longer than a couple of hours at a time. It had been decided to strike the eastern slope of the range just before dawn, so the Nelson was allowed to loiter on the way. Jack afterwards declared that ...
— Boy Scouts in an Airship • G. Harvey Ralphson
... the terrace tomorrow morning; the peacocks will make the meeting natural enough. I usually loiter away an hour or two there, in the ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard
... quite jumped with annoyance when the song suddenly trumpeted forth. Boys had no right to yell in that manner. He hurried his step to get away from the sound. Two or three other people glanced over their shoulders, but had not time to loiter. A few others listened with pleasure as they drew near ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... still I'm alone, I'm king of the dead—and I make my throne On a monument slab of marble cold; And my sceptre of rule is the spade I hold: Come they from cottage or come they from hall, Mankind are my subjects, all, all, all! Let them loiter in pleasure or toilfully spin— I gather them ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... duties of the cow-herd should lead him to the fields. If without manifesting any inclination for going to the fields he likes to loiter within the village he should not be employed. Similarly the barber's duties require his presence within the village. If without being present there he likes to wander in the woods, he should never be employed, for it may then be presumed that he is wanting ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... All the most brave, all the most warlike, apply to nothing at all; but to their wives, to the ancient men, and to even the most impotent domestic, trust all the care of their house, and of their lands and possessions. They themselves loiter. Such is the amazing diversity of their nature, that in the same men is found so much delight in sloth, with so much enmity to tranquillity and repose. The communities are wont, of their own accord and man by man, to bestow upon ...
— Tacitus on Germany • Tacitus
... wallet—what need we to loiter yonder?" replied Anthony, eyeing the other with an expression ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... Sweet silence there for the harp, Where loiter the ewes and the lambs In the moss and the rushes, Where one's song goes sounding up! And the rocks re-echo it higher and higher In the height where ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... won't please; it ben't pleasing at all. But I forgives you this time, only keep a sharp look-out, lad, in future. Now you just stay here—no, there—under the hedge, and you watches if any person comes to loiter about or looks at the stocks, or laughs to hisself, while I go my rounds. I shall be back either afore church is over or just arter; so you stay till I comes, and give me your report. Be sharp, boy, or it will be worse for you and your mother; ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... fellow at the pleugh, His acre's till'd, he's right eneugh; A country girl at her wheel, Her dizzen's dune, she's unco weel; But gentlemen, an' ladies warst, Wi' ev'n-down want o' wark are curst. They loiter, lounging, lank an' lazy; Tho' deil-haet ails them, yet uneasy; Their days insipid, dull, an' tasteless; Their nights ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... instant the salmon takes the fly, for the rower to pull towards the shore with as much celerity and judgment as possible, neither to drive the boat too swiftly through the water, or loiter too slowly, both extremes endangering the chance of capturing your salmon. That part of the stream where P—— fished, was about forty yards below a rapid, and, indeed, ran with the current of a sluice; and the reader may imagine, that, a very little impetus ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... dependent on immediate employment, are requested to proceed immediately on arrival into the country. The chief agent will consider such persons as may loiter about the ports of landing beyond four days after their arrival, to have no further claims on the protection of his Majesty's agents for assistance or employment, unless they have been detained by sickness ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... "Yes, and don't loiter," directed Father Blossom. "Go straight home and tell Mother if I can I'll be back for supper, but not ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Oak Hill School • Mabel C. Hawley
... in which he takes great pride, slopes gently down to the river, and ends with a stone parapet, over which it is exceedingly pleasant to lean, and watch idly the flowing of the water, which seems to loiter almost reluctantly before passing on to Westminster, and the wharves and docks of the city. On the opposite bank grows a cluster of cedars, with rich, dark-green branches, showing nearly black against the pale blue of the sky. ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... the congenial diners finished an elaborate dessert and strolled gaily out of the Inn. The beauty of the night induced the will to loiter. Some one proposed a walk into Chesterford and a visit to ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... straight and honest one, from the street to the kitchen. When a path is sent on a plain business errand it should never loaf. And yet those lines of a garden's layout which are designed not for business but for pleasure, should never behave as though they were on business; they should loiter just enough to make their guests feel at ease, while not enough to waste time. How like a perfect lady, or a perfect gentleman, is—however humble or exalted its rank—a garden ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... goes forth, not wife nor child nor any other can hold the wayfarer back, though he may loiter for an instant on the brink. The poor medicaments which Angelique brings avail not; these soothing hands and healing tones, they pass through clouds of the middle place between heaven and earth to Antoine. It is only when the second midnight comes ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... off as heaven! The creation is frightfully big! Well, I must not loiter. I came out to say a prayer, then to chop wood ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... why do you loiter here? you cannot find your servants in this place—let us return to ...
— The Dramatist; or Stop Him Who Can! - A Comedy, in Five Acts • Frederick Reynolds
... pound of dried peaches, so that he might have an excuse to loiter, and be able to keep time with the jaws of the Judge. While the order was being filled, he seated himself upon the counter. "You know," said he, "I used to work in ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... sighs and tears, And the long agony of this life will end, And I shall be with thee. If I am wanting To thy well-being, as thou art to mine, Have patience; I will come to thee at last. Ye minds that loiter in these cloister gardens, Or wander far above the city walls, Bear unto him this message, that I ever Or speak or think of him, or weep ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... administer medicine to any persons except at their masters' residences and with the masters' consent. It further forbade all negroes, whether bond or free, to possess offensive weapons or ammunition, to form secret societies, or to loiter on the streets near their churches more than half an hour after the conclusion of services; and it required them when meeting, overtaking or being overtaken by white persons on the sidewalks to pass on the outside, stepping off the walk if ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... yet two, so I had plenty of time. But you will believe that I didn't loiter on that account. I dashed out of the loge—into the street—down the Boulevard St. Michel—into the Bleu, breathlessly. At the far end Nina was seated before a marble table, with Madame Chanve in smiles ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... Don Luiz stamped upon the floor. 'You are too slow of speech, senor. Miguel, make him speak. I have no time to loiter here!'" ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... have been able to say with a comfortable and merry heart as the bird that sings in the spring, that this and more shall not stop them from running to heaven. Sometimes when my base heart hath been inclining to this world, and to loiter in my journey towards heaven, the very consideration of the glorious saints and angels in heaven hath caused me to rush forward—to disdain these poor, low, empty, beggarly things, and say to my soul, Come soul, let us not be weary; let us see what this heaven ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... quite at his ease, the keeper appeared, key in hand. He looked startled at Casanova's strange figure, but the latter, without stopping or uttering a word, passed him, and descended the stairs, followed by the frightened monk. They did not run, nor did they loiter; Casanova was already, in spirit, beyond the confines of the Venetian Republic. Still followed by the monk, he reached the water-side, stepped into a gondola, and flinging himself down carelessly, promised the rowers more than their fare ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... towards one another, and here and there roofs rubbed edges. Sidewalks would have prevented the passage of horse-drawn vehicles, so there were none. The Rue Droite is the principal shopping-street of Grasse. But shoppers cannot loiter indefinitely before windows. All pedestrians must be agile. When you hear the Hue! of a driver, you must take refuge in a doorway or run the risk of axle-grease and mud. Twentieth-century merchandise stares out at you from either side—Paris' hats and gowns, American boots, ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... danc'd, drank, visited, (the whole And great concern of an immortal soul!) Oft have I said, 'Awake! exist! and strive For birth! nor think to loiter is to live!' As oft I overheard the demon say, Who daily met the loiterer in his way, 'I'll meet thee, youth, at White's:' the youth replies, 'I'll meet thee there,' and falls his sacrifice; His fortune squander'd, leaves his ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... you loiter here, madam?" he said, in a stern tone, somewhat tempered by sorrow. "I have held back to give you an opportunity of escape. The hill is invested by your enemies. On that side Roger Nowell is advancing, and on this Sir Thomas Metcalfe and his ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... it is set in the midst of memories of stirring days. Yet it is not for these that one would revisit the little town, but rather that one might walk by the still canal under the high trees in spring, or loiter in the market-place round what the Hun has left of the statue of the famous Admiral with his attendant nymphs, or wander down the winding streets that skirt the ancient church and give glimpses of its ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... to be sure—Hist, I hear a footstep. We are followed—chased, perhaps, I should say, to speak in the language of these sea-gentry. Now is the time to show this Captain Ludlow, how a Frenchman can wind him round his finger, on terra-firma. Loiter in the rear, and draw our navigator on a wrong course. When he has run into a fog, come yourself, with all speed, to the oak on the bluff. There we ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... the roads, they know that it must cross the bridges, so on them they keep up a continuous rain of projectiles, and there you have to take your chance. The Gorizia bridge-head was not a place where I should have cared to loiter. ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... abruptly, and with true feminine imperiousness, which heretofore I had never seen her exercise. "It pleases me best to loiter along by myself. I do not walk ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... interest in their movements and comfort. We would willingly have spent some days at Marie-aux-Mines—no better headquarters for excursionizing in these regions!—but too much remained for us to do and to see in Alsace. We dared not loiter on ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... vases filled with gold and precious stones, told them to carry those carefully to the palace of Santa Claus, and give them to him with the compliments of King Frost. "He will know how to make good use of the treasure," added Jack Frost; then he told the fairies not to loiter by the way, but to do his ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... in which my feet turn, as by instinct, to the woods. I set out upon the winding road with a zest of anticipation whose edge no repetition of the after-experience ever dulls; I loiter at the shaded turn, watched often by the bright, quick eye of the squirrel peering over the old stone wall, and sometimes uttering a chattering protest against my invasion of his hereditary privacy. Here and there along the way of my familiar ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... French and German were posted, embodying regulations governing the village under Prussian military rule. The few inhabitants of Morsbronn who had remained in cellars during the bombardment shuffled up to read these notices, or to loiter stupidly, gaping at the Prussian ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... herself, initiated me in that delicious passion, which in spite of acid disappointment, gin-house prudence, and book-worm philosophy, I hold to be the first of human joys here below! How she caught the contagion I cannot tell.... Indeed, I did not know myself why I liked so much to loiter behind with her, when returning in the evening from our labors; why the tones of her voice made my heartstrings thrill like an AEolian harp; and especially why my pulse beat such a furious ratan when I looked and ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... the people found the churchyard locked up, except during service, when beadles walked there, and desired them not to loiter and disturb the congregation, closing the gates, and showing them out like a flock of sheep the moment the service was over. This was fuel to the already boiling blood of Stockington. The week following, what was their astonishment to find a much frequented ruin gone! it was ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... great temptation to loiter about in the lovely fresh morning air, but I have to be dressed in time for prayers and breakfast at nine; directly after breakfast I go into the kitchen; sometimes, it is only necessary to give orders ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... hear the stranger's gibes, That taunt us with the name of "Peasant Nobles!" Think you the heart that's stirring here can brook, While all the young nobility around Are reaping honour under Hapsburg's banner, That I should loiter, in inglorious ease, Here on the heritage my fathers left, And, in the dull routine of vulgar toil, Lose all life's glorious spring? In other lands Great deeds are done. A world of fair renown Beyond these mountains ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... it. At all events, he was correct in his conclusion that such a lodge could not be carried away, as could those for which Long Bear had sent his braves and squaws through the pass. It was perfectly certain that these would not loiter anywhere, but would go straight on their errand and return, and then the village would once more be under as good a shelter as it knew anything ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... power" was only an idle dream; that, unless some master-mind could be found which was a match for events, the millions would rule in anarchy. His iron will grasped the situation; and like William Pitt, he did not loiter around balancing the probabilities of failure or success, or dally with his purpose. There was no turning to the right nor to the left; no dreaming away time, nor building air-castles; but one look and purpose, forward, upward ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... few days after her removal to the new home, she went almost crazy at not seeing you. You, too, seemed to have discovered her new address somehow, as you used to lose your way after starting for college, and loiter about in front of Sripati's house. Your eyes did not appear to be exactly in search of the Presidency College, as they were directed towards the barred windows of a private house, through which nothing but insects and the hearts of moon-struck young men could obtain access. ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... like a general reform be possible in these times of dispersion and of scattering, keep henceforth our sense of humour in a place better guarded, as something worth a measure of seclusion. It should not loiter in wait for the alms of a joke in adventurous places. For the sense of humour has other things to do than to make itself conspicuous in the act of laughter. It has negative tasks of valid virtue; for example, the standing and waiting within ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... sorrows, and often he had requested her to exert her influence to obtain some pacifying missive from Lady Annabel, which might secure him a quiet evening at Cadurcis; and whenever this had not been obtained, the last words of Venetia were ever not to loiter, and to remember to speak to his mother as much as he possibly could. Venetia returned to a happy home, welcomed by the smile of a soft and beautiful parent, and with words of affection sweeter than music. She found ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... Honora, with a new firmness, "it will be alone. I can't see what you want with a wife, anyway. I've been thinking you over lately. I don't do anything for you, except to keep getting you cooks—and anybody could do that. You don't seem to need me in any possible way. All I do is to loiter around the house and read and play the piano, or go to New York and buy clothes for nobody to look at except strangers in restaurants. I'm worth more than that. I think I'll ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... exquisite Chasm; sheer rock-walls on each side,—high especially on the Daun, or south side;—head-quarters can be in Dresden itself; room for your cavalry on the plain ground between Dresden and the Chasm. A post both safe and comfortable; only you must not loiter in making up your mind as to Finck; for Friedrich has followed on the instant. Friedrich's head-quarter is already Wilsdruf, which an hour or two ago was Daun's: at Kesselsdorf vigilant Ziethen is vanguard. So that Friedrich looks over on you ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... want to follow him, you must make haste," she said, breathlessly; "he is walking townward with Mr. Lamotte; intends to loiter about the town and ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... evening, the secluded neighbourhood, the unusually gorgeous liveries of the clouds packed in a pile over that quarter of the heavens in which the sun had disappeared, were such as to make a traveller loiter on his walk. Coming to a stile, Somerset mounted himself on the top bar, to imbibe the spirit of the scene and hour. The evening was so still that every trifling sound could be heard for miles. There was the rattle of a returning waggon, mixed with the smacks of the waggoner's whip: ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... lands, And loiter through the woods with spring; To them the glory of the earth Is but ...
— Songs from Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... her left the creek with its mirrored vistas, its rippling bends, its comfortable resting-places where sun and shade played together. Inviting as it all was, however, she kept well out on the open where her business lay; only occasionally did she let her gaze wander from its set task to loiter in this more restful scene. She kept on looking for lambs. But after a while she awoke to the fact that she had been walking closer and closer when she ought to be keeping out on the prairie; instead of using it as a guide in her work she was making a companion ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... on the spot where he had left me, unwilling to depart, and yet unknowing why I should loiter there. I looked wistfully into the street we had lately quitted, and after a time directed my steps that way. I passed and repassed the house, and stopped and listened at the door; all was dark, and silent as ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... the influence of thy grace To speed me in thy way, Lest I should loiter in my race, Or turn ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts
... and gaping lips he tells us how he dreams day and night of the brooks of clear water that in cool dewy channels gush down the green Casentine hills. Sinon, the false Greek of Troy, mocks at him. He smites him in the face, and they wrangle. We are fascinated by their shame, and loiter, till Virgil chides us and leads us away to that city turreted by giants where great Nimrod blows his horn. Terrible things are in store for us, and we go to meet them in Dante's raiment and with Dante's heart. We traverse ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... without the box, and struck eastward at a rapid walk; and Desborough, with the same skill and caution that he had displayed in following Teresa, proceeded to dog the steps of her admirer. The man began to loiter, studying with apparent interest the wares of the small fruiterer or tobacconist; twice he returned hurriedly upon his former course; and then, as though he had suddenly conquered a moment's hesitation, once more set forth with resolute and swift steps in the direction ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... of soreness. In fact, I have been ready to return to my duty at any time within the last month," replied Christy very cheerfully. "It would be a shame for me to loiter around home any longer, when I am as able to plank the deck as I ever was. In truth, I think I am better and stronger than ever before, for I have ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... violet-fly: now he shipped it lightly on the wave; now he slid it coquettishly along the surface; now it floated, like an unconscious beauty, carelessly with the tide; and now, like an artful prude, it affected to loiter by the way, or to steal into designing obscurity under the shade of some overhanging bank. But none of these manoeuvres captivated the wary old trout on whose acquisition the Corporal had set his heart; and what was especially provoking, the angler ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... govern'd by prudence And I venture to think the good creature is fortunate also. Yes, she will ever be grateful that I her father and mother Have restored her in you, as sensible children would wish it. But I will loiter no longer; I'll straightway harness the horses, And conduct our friends on the traces of her whom I love so, Leave the men to themselves and their own intuitive wisdom, And be guided alone by their decision—I swear it,— And not see the maiden again, until she my own ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... blessing the sun is. You complain of the heat; but I feel its benefit in the marrow of my bones and still deeper. I no longer run away from the sun. I have been more than forty years in Brazil, and I too often wonder how things look in the old town—whether they still loiter about the well, whether Hannah is still living, and how this one and that one is getting along. But—they have probably got along very much as I have myself, well and ill; they have grown old, if they are not dead already, and they ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... let us be careful, neither to out-go our guide, nor yet loiter behind him; since he that makes haste may miss his way, and he that stays behind lose his guide. For even those that have received the word of the Lord, had need wait for wisdom, that they may see how to divide the word aright: which plainly implieth, that it is possible for one that ...
— A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers • William Penn
... removed; my useless valet sent to loiter, and improve himself in vice, as valets usually are, and I left to meditate on the plan ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... that these written excuses are, after all, a fair test of the real reasons for tardiness? I understand that sometimes boys will tease their fathers or mothers for an excuse, when they do not deserve it, 'Yes sir,' and sometimes they will loiter about when sent of an errand before school, knowing that they can get a written excuse when they ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... conscientious turn of mind, he entered each establishment in succession and meeting now and again various acquaintances, he felt compelled to proffer and accept numerous glasses of the favorite morning beverage—white wine. Turn which way he would, however, loiter as long as he might, there were still no signs of Lecoq. He was returning in haste, a trifle uneasy on account of the length of his absence, when he perceived a cab pull up in front of the Palais gateway. A ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... thou return, when I and thou will load it on thine ass's back. I have scales and weights and all we want, so we can take them with us and thou wilt have nothing to do but to hold the scales and pouch the price; for here we have fish worth twenty dinars. So be fast with the frails and loiter not." Answered the Caliph, "I hear and obey" and mounting, left him with his fish, and spurred his mule, in high good humour, and ceased not laughing over his adventures with the Fisherman, till he came up to Ja'afar, who said to him, "O Commander of the Faithful, belike, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... and the last to go, nevertheless the hermit is little seen throughout its long visit north. It may loiter awhile in the shrubby roadsides, in the garden or the parks in the spring before it begins the serious business of life in a nest of moss, coarse grass, and pine-needles placed on the ground in the depths of the forest, but by the middle of May its presence in the neighborhood of our ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... which he was now entering held a particular significance for Thor, and he began to loiter, pausing often to sniff the air on all sides of him. He was not a monogamist, but for many mating seasons past he had come to find his Iskwao in this wonderful sweep of meadow and plain between the two ranges. He could always expect her in July, waiting for him or seeking him with that strange ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... tabret and singing:—The borage is full sappy,(1) and in leading a brawl or a breakdown, no matter who might be next her, with a fair and dainty kerchief in her hand. Which spells so wrought upon Master Priest, that for love of her he grew distracted, and did nought all day long but loiter about the village on the chance of catching sight of her. And if of a Sunday morning he espied her in church, he strove might and main to acquit himself of his Kyrie and Sanctus in the style of ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... one that interested him strangely. His nurse told him that the sound he was hearing was a shepherd's pipe. The shepherd plays and the flock follows, she said. And when may I see the flock coming home with the shepherd? he asked. To-morrow evening, she answered, and the time seemed to him to loiter, so eager was he to see the flocks returning and to watch the ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... was tormented by the fear that Mrs. Cutter would live longer than he, and that eventually her 'people,' whom he had always hated so violently, would inherit. Their quarrels on this subject passed the boundary of the close-growing cedars, and were heard in the street by whoever wished to loiter and listen. ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... old and gray, A woman walked in a Scottish town; And through the crowd, as she wound her way, One saw her loiter and then stoop down, Putting something away in her old, torn gown. "You are hiding a jewel!" the watcher said— (Ah, that was her heart, had the truth been read.) "What have you stolen?" he asked again; Then the dim eyes filled with a sudden pain, And under the flickering light of ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... sound was coming from the ponderous mass of tubes just then; but in a short space a whole crowd of tones spread from the instrument to accompany the words of a response. Picotee started at the burst of music as if taken in a dishonest action, and moved on in a manner intended to efface the lover's loiter of the preceding moments from her own consciousness no less than from ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... between our birthdays seems to grow apace, When we're young they loiter; when we're old ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden
... (So may Godhead deign Help me!) nowise in humbler way Art fair, nor Venus shall disdain Thy charms, but look! how wanes the day: 195 Forward, nor loiter more! ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... the epic of the tender Springs!— We, who were dumb so many centuries past, Who found no word for frail and lovely things. In tongue-tied wonder at the blossoming earth, We watched the trailing seasons loiter by, Too inarticulate of their transient worth, Beyond the saddened utterance ...
— Ships in Harbour • David Morton
... to the neighbouring town of Lesneven, to rest the horses and await our arrival, leaving us free to examine and loiter as we pleased. No one troubled us. The inhabitants were all away; or sleeping; or eating and drinking; the scene was as quiet and desolate as if the church had been in ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... the stair painfully, as if he were old and tired with much work. But how could he afford to loiter, with all the work he had to do? Every minute, every second, he must be in demand to hook his cold, hard finger about a soul struggling to escape from its putrefying tenement. But probably he had his emissaries, his minions: for ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... exports much cloth, beads, and wire into the far interior, and imports in return much ivory. Her house is after the model of the town houses, with long sloping roof and projecting eaves, affording a cool shade, under which the pagazis love to loiter. On its southern and eastern side stretch the cultivated fields which supply Bagamoyo with the staple grain, matama, of East Africa; on the left grow Indian corn, and muhogo, a yam-like root of whitish colour, called by some manioc; when dry, it is ground and compounded ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... put them to flight, or precipitate a conflict, as is readily seen from the extreme cautiousness of their advance. As I remained perfectly still, however, they approach by short stages, and with many stops for consultation, until near enough to satisfy themselves of my peaceful character. They loiter around until my departure, when they follow behind for a few hundred yards, watching me narrowly until I am past their own little ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... last the train ran out into the full, luminous night, and Siegmund saw the meadows deep in moonlight, he quivered with a low anticipation. The elms, great grey shadows, seemed to loiter in their cloaks across the pale fields. He had not seen them so before. The world ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... No prince, Audrey, or great white knight and hero. Only a gentleman of these latter days, compact like his fellows of strength and weakness; now very wise and now the mere finger-post of folly; set to travel his own path; able to hear above him in the rarer air the trumpet call, but choosing to loiter on the lower slopes. In addition a man who loves at last, loves greatly, with a passion that shall ennoble. A stranger and your lover, Audrey, come to ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... see which is dead of them." And he answered, saying, "Send one who shall see which is dead of them." So the Lady Zubeideh cried out to an old woman, a stewardess, and said to her, "Go to the house of Nuzhet el Fuad in haste and see who is dead and loiter not." ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... That they had been north to breed was undoubted, by the number of young "calves" in every shoal. The affection between mother and young was very evident; for occasionally some stately white whale would loiter on her course, as if to scrutinize the new and strange objects now floating in these unploughed waters, whilst the calf, all gambols, rubbed against the mother's side, or played about her. The proverbial shyness of these fish was ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... on the right, and intimated, in that event, his desire to carry despatches through the thickest of the fray. Death was welcome to Chitty if he could so distinguish himself. Between Chitty and a nap in a wagon, I managed to loiter out the morning, and at three o'clock, a cannon peal, so close that it shook the houses, brought my horse upon his haunches. For awhile I did not leave the village. Cannon upon cannon exploded; the young ladies ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... reasonable compass of a methodical memoir, it would be a pleasant task to loiter for a while in that vanished London of Hogarth, of Fielding, of Garrick;—that London of Rocque's famous map of 1746, when "cits" had their country-boxes and "gazebos" at Islington and Hackney, and fine gentlemen their villas at Marybone and Chelsey; ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... to loiter round all day to watch the fights, and angry housewives would be constantly charging into our kitchen to fling dead cats upon the table, and appeal to Heaven and myself for justice. Our kitchen became ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... of the Lot, taking the work easily, stopping at one place long enough to digest impressions before pushing on towards a fresh point. This valley is so strangely picturesque, so full of the curiosities of nature and bygone art, that if I had not been a loiterer before, I should have learnt to loiter here. ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... bury his talent but he must not bank it with an organization. Each Believer must decide for himself how far he wants to be kinetic or efficient, how far he needs a stringent rule of conduct, how far he is poietic and may loiter and adventure among the coarse and dangerous things of life. There is no reason why one should not, and there is every reason why one should, discuss one's personal needs and habits and disciplines and elaborate one's way of life with ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... closing his eyes, he fell half asleep in his chair. Rachel watched the people for some time longer; she was fascinated by the certainty and the grace of their movements, and by the inevitable way in which they seemed to follow each other, and loiter and pass on and disappear. But after a time her thoughts wandered, and she began to think of the dance, which had been held in this room, only then the room itself looked quite different. Glancing ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... the stress of such severe and unflinching self isolation I do not wonder that his broodings drove him to overstep the bounds of common sense, that he was irresistibly compelled to leave Falerii, to come to Rome, to loiter where he might, at least, behold you at a distance. I shall make sure that he does so no longer. This very day he sets out for Carthage, Theveste and the deserts to the south beyond the lagoons of Nepte. But I cannot be angry with him for being unable to restrain his longing at ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... in half an hour's time was galloping along the muddy roads, on which great puddles gleamed like silver shields. As he rode on, he pondered what manner of man it was whom he had just left, and how, knowing that his life was in danger, he could loiter in the very ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... to talk to him a little; and sometimes one or two of the patients from the eye-ward would grow tired of sitting about in the garden-alleys, and would loiter in, if Lois would give them leave; but their talk wearied him, jarred him as strangely as if one had begun on politics and price-currents to the silent souls in Hades. It was enough thought for him to listen to the whispered ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... of position and authority, who wished to make the most of him before he went back to Marqua. He scarcely saw his brethren at all, except after his Mass, when he went to the refectory for his morning coffee. He had no time to loiter in the garden, and the story of the conversion of the people of Marqua was left to the quiet Fr. Pietro, who told the splendid tales of his Superior's great work, till Father Tomasso and Brother Luigi prayed to be given the opportunity to be Ramoni's servants in the far-away land of the western ...
— The City and the World and Other Stories • Francis Clement Kelley
... inconsistent with, but greatly adorn, the weightier matters of the law and of diplomacy. I could dwell with much satisfaction upon the memory and incidents of the days to which I am now adverting, but am admonished, by the length to which these remarks have already extended, that I may not loiter." [Footnote: Eulogy on John ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... hills, like the hills of heaven, the winding river, and the lake that lay in the winter twilight like a shield of silver. He loved to see the sun flash on the windows of the houses so distant that they could not themselves be seen, but only sparkled like stars. He loved to loiter on the edge of the steep hanging woods in summer, to listen to the humming of the flies deep in the brake, and to catch a sight of lonely flowers; he loved the scent of the wind blowing softly out ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... rejoice That of thy gifts I yet have memory, Wherefore mayst thou depart forewarned and free; Since she that won the golden apple lives, And to her servants mighty gifts now gives To find thee out, in whatso land thou art, For thine undoing; loiter not, depart! For what immortal yet shall shelter thee From her that rose from out the unquiet sea?" Then Psyche moaned out in her grief and fear, "Alas! and is there shelter anywhere Upon the green flame-hiding ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... in its possession of a clear sea-way and harbour her superior, but now forlorn. For in the seventeenth century Holland's ancient enemy overflowed its barriers, and the greater part of Veere was blotted out in a night. What remains is a mere symbol of the past; but there is enough to loiter in with perfect content, for Veere is unique. Certainly no little town is so good to approach—with the friendliness of its red roofs before one all the way, the unearthly hugeness of its church and the magic of its stadhuis tower ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... ye ladies! Look alert! Straight bestir you! Loiter not,—here is the land!— To dame Isolda says the servant of Tristan, our hero true:— Behold our flag is flying! it waveth landwards aloft: in Mark's ancestral castle may our approach be seen. So, dame Isolda, he prays to hasten, for land straight to prepare her, that thither ...
— Tristan and Isolda - Opera in Three Acts • Richard Wagner
... down, his features hardening into a frown. "Anyhow, I cannot afford the time. While I loiter here I am liable to miss a customer. I must give myself entirely to my business, entirely, entirely—every bit of myself. I must forget I ever did any scribbling." "You are taking it too hard, Mr. Tevkin. One can attend to business and yet ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... "I have heard that their minstrels are of many words, and think that they have tales to tell. Come aboard and loiter not." Then Hallblithe waded the surf and lightly strode over the gunwale of the skiff and sat him down. The big man thrust out into the deep and haled home the sheet; but there ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... use ... Plenish the cup for me ... Not now, not now, But in a while; for I am heavy now ... Old Wynoc's potions loiter in my veins, And tides of heaviness pour over me Each time I wake and ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... occupy them very long, and they entered the Cathedral before the anthem was over; but Marian felt that it was not fitting to loiter about the nave while worship was going on within the choir; and the uncomfortable feeling occupied her so much, that she could hardly look at the fair clustered columns and graceful arches, and seemed scarcely to know or care for the gallant William Longsword, when led to the ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge |
