"While away" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fill my faithful pipe, To while away the moments glad, With fragrant leaves, so rich and ripe, My mind perceives an image sad, So that I can but clearly see How very ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... a succession of low-lying buttes, and to while away the time until the supper hour, the boys strolled away singly to stretch their legs on the plain after the long day's ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... tobacco does not contain an antidote against contagion, and that, in general, it has no antiseptic power; and is therefore of no special use. There is another class still, who use tobacco because it soothes the irksomeness of life. They fear solitude; and to prevent self-examination, and to while away their probation time, they fly to the pipe, quid, and snuff-box; and soon, by an easy transition, to the ...
— A Disquisition on the Evils of Using Tobacco - and the Necessity of Immediate and Entire Reformation • Orin Fowler
... wake of the other women to while away in desultory small talk that awkward after-dinner interval which splits the evening into halves and involves a picking up of the threads—not always successfully accomplished—when the men at last rejoin the feminine portion of the party. And what is it, after all, but a barbarous relic of those ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... has come, it seems to me, for two patients who have nothing to do but while away the hours for a bit longer, to help each other out. What do you say? I suppose you don't know that I've been lying flat on my back now for a fortnight, getting over a rather bad spill from my car. I'm pretty comfortable ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... I do for you, sir?" He expected to be presented with letters of introduction, and to while away a half-hour in the agreeable ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... the land sloped gradually down to the sparkling river, with its beautiful falls and pools, while away on the other side, beyond the bed of the stream, stretched out a grand expanse of land all on a gentle slope. On the hillier side an equally beautiful expanse, extending for miles, sloped upward toward the mountains, offering pasture that would ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... stage-struck portion of the crew had frequently during the cruise rehearsed portions of various plays, to while away the tedium of the night-watches, they needed no long time now to ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... wife and two children by disease. What had happened to the other child was something of a mystery. I rather supposed it had died while away from home, ...
— Joe The Hotel Boy • Horatio Alger Jr.
... leisure at the end of a day's work or on Sunday, some papers print special feature stories on topics of little or no importance, often written in a light vein. Articles with no more serious purpose than that of helping readers to while away a few spare moments are obviously better adapted to newspapers, which are read rapidly and immediately cast ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... industrial importance, though in the latter respect not so well known as Liege. To the west, however, up the valley of the Sambre, the country presents the usual features of a mining region—pit shafts, tall chimneys issuing clouds of black smoke, and huge piles of unsightly debris. While away to the north stretches the great plain of Central Belgium, southward the Central Meuse offers a more picturesque prospect in wooded slopes rising to view-commanding hilltops. Directly east, the Meuse flows into the precipitous cut on ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... book will make its way among that multitude? And the successful books are but the successes of a season. Heaven knows what pains the author has been at, what bitter experiences he has endured and what heartache suffered, to give some chance reader a few hours' relaxation or to while away the tedium of a journey. And if I may judge from the reviews, many of these books are well and carefully written; much thought has gone to their composition; to some even has been given the anxious labour ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... rebelled against the doctor's orders to keep quiet; and it took all Mrs Jo's authority and the girls' ingenuity to keep him from leaving his sofa long before strained back and wounded head were well. Daisy cooked for him; Nan attended to his medicines; Josie read aloud to while away the long hours of inaction that hung so heavily on his hands; while Bess brought all her pictures and casts to amuse him, and, at his special desire, set up a modelling-stand in his parlour and began to mould the buffalo head he gave her. Those afternoons seemed the pleasantest ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... favorite diversion of the quiet matronly set, each one bringing her own bit of needlework to while away an hour or so in pleasant conversation. One of the number may read aloud, with pauses for comment at will. The thimble bee is a modern version of the good old-fashioned "spend the afternoon and take tea." ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... to his aged host, when they were all sitting around the ample hearth, at the conclusion of their evening meal, "tell me something to while away the hours." ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... merit, the title of "philosophers." These men—many of whom are described as having been mere impostors, ostentatious pedants, or ignorant hypocrites—acted somewhat like domestic chaplains in the houses of their patrons. They gratified an amateur taste for wisdom, and helped to while away in comparative innocence the hours which their masters might otherwise have spent in lassitude or sleep. It was no more to the credit of Epaphroditus that he wished to have a philosophic slave, than it ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... same stately trees borders the lake all around, broken here and there by projecting headlands; while away over the adjacent campo, on the higher and drier ground, are seen palms of other and different species, both fan-leaved and pinnate, growing in copses or larger "montes," with evergreen shrubs and ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... unimpeded. Hence Yeobright sometimes sang to himself, and when obliged to accompany Humphrey in search of brambles for faggot-bonds he would amuse his companion with sketches of Parisian life and character, and so while away the time. ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... just begun a tragedy.(295) We are now in so spiritless a situation that my mind would bend to nothing less sad, even in fiction. But I am very glad something of this kind has occurred to me; it may while away the tediousness of this unsettled, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... wretched surroundings of his childhood, when the only light, of an evening, came from a splinter of pine, steeped in resin, which was held by a strip of slate stuck into the wall; when his folk shut themselves in the byre, in times of severe cold, to save a little firewood and while away the evenings; when close at hand, through the bitter wind, they heard the howling of the wolves: here, it would seem, was nothing propitious to the birth of such tastes, if he had not borne ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... its only literature, excepting books of theology or of devotion. Over acres of such reading, served out in large folios,—the yellow-covered novels of their time,—did the Pizarros and Balboas and Corteses and other young blades while away the weary hours of their camp-life. Glad enough was Cortes out of such a tale to get the noble ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... specimen of the amusements with which the ladies of the Mikado's court while away their monotonous existence. As here shown, it is a private performance, of which the Empress and her principal attendants are the only spectators. The insects are personated by two of her ladies, who mimic their motions and sing praises of the different flowers they pretend ...
— Sketches of Japanese Manners and Customs • J. M. W. Silver
... he wanted something more from the restaurant, and returned forth-with, slipping thermos bottle and all. He bought two packages of chewing gum to while away the time when he could not handily smoke, and when he returned to the car he went muttering disapproving remarks about the rain and the mud and the bottles. He poked his head under the front curtain and into a glum silence. The two men leaned back into the ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... wilderness to create currents and eddies in the sluggish stream which flowed over the colonists, Victor began to compile a book on Indian lore. He took up the work the very first night of his arrival; took it up as eagerly as if it were a gift from the gods, as indeed it was, promising as it did to while away many a long night. He depended wholly upon Father Chaumonot's knowledge of the tongue and the legends; and daring the first three nights he and Chaumonot divided a table between them, the one to scribble his lore and the ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... three girls were by themselves in the comfortable, elegant, well-lighted drawing-room; and, like many similarly situated young ladies, they did not exactly know what to do to while away the time until the tea-hour. The elder two had been at a dancing-party the night before, and were listless and sleepy in consequence. One tried to read "Emerson's Essays," and fell asleep in the attempt; the other was turning ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... undertook to break on the wheel all the possible Clarences of the then House of York, by the great treason-trial at Richmond, some of the lesser fry in that distant Mississippi Valley, which was farther from us than Puget's Sound is to-day, introduced the like novelty on their provincial stage, and, to while away the monotony of the summer at Fort Adams, got up, for spectacles, a string of court-martials on the officers there. One and another of the colonels and majors were tried, and, to fill out the list, little Nolan, against whom, Heaven knows, there was evidence enough,—that ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... rail from Breslau to Oppeln and found himself alone with a lady in a second-class compartment. He vainly endeavoured to enter into conversation with the other occupant of the carriage; her answers were invariably curt and snappish. Baffled in his attempts, he proceeded to light a cigar to while away the time. Then the lady said to him: "I suppose you have never travelled second-class before, else you would know better manners." Her travelling companion quietly rejoined: "It is true, I have hitherto only studied the manners of the first and third-classes. In the first-class the ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... owner of New Place. Ben Jonson was at the very height of his fame, the favorite alike of Court and Commons. Bacon was just rising to power and greatness, his Novum Organum still to come. Raleigh, in prison, was eating his heart out in the desire for freedom, trying to while away the dreary hours with chemical experiments, his great history not yet begun. Of the crowd of lyric writers some were boys at college, some but children in the nursery, and some still unborn. Yet in spite of the ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... family in a certain provincial town of Bengal, brave heretics, made a voyage to Britain and the Continent, and while away from home, it was believed, flung caste restrictions to the winds. On their return, the head of the family gave a feast to all of the caste in the district, and no one objected to the presence of the two voyagers ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... always been as peaceful and quiet as we found it. Its echoes had been awakened by the yells of infuriated men and the reports of hostile rifles, and the very sod upon which Frank sometimes stretched himself after dinner, to while away an hour with some favorite author, had ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... however, arrangements were made with the Royal Free Hospital in Gray's Inn Road. It had no men's medical school attached to it, and the admission of women to the hospital was due to the kind intervention of the Rt. Hon. J. Stansfeld, M.P., who met the Chairman of the hospital, Mr James Hopgood, while away on a holiday, and induced him to persuade the hospital authorities to give the dangerous experiment a trial. So seriously was it regarded, that the women students had to guarantee an indemnity to the hospital of 300 guineas ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley
... four miles in diameter, surrounded by an amphitheatre of hills, beneath whose shadows it reposes in placid and quiet beauty. On the northeast, Ballface Mountain rears its tall head far above the intervening ranges, while away off in the east Mount Marcy and Mount Seward stand out dim and shadowy against the sky. Nearer are the Keene Ranges, ragged and lofty, their bare and rocky summits glistening in the sunlight, while nearer still the hills rise, sometimes with steep and ragged acclivity, and sometimes gently from ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... one of the lower rooms to while away the tedious time of waiting as best they could. Conversation flagged; they tried music, but it had lost its charms for the time being; they turned away from the piano and harp and sank into silence; the house seemed strangely silent, and ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... giving her a glimpse Of a purse, with the air of a man who imps The wing of the hawk that shall fetch the hernshaw, He bade me take the gypsy mother And set her telling some story or other Of hill and dale, oak-wood or fernshaw, To while away a weary hour For the lady left alone in her bower, {460} Whose mind and body craved exertion And yet shrank from all ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... To while away the time we spun yarns—without much point, I am afraid; and sung songs, albeit we did not feel much like singing—till after a while our poor attempts at gaiety fizzled out like a damp match, leaving us silent and depressed. The ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... Mazie!" interrupted Dorothy, with hot indignation. "As if trying to help that poor blind boy to while away a few hours of his ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... the solitary sleepless hours of sentry duty there was nothing to do but think; nothing wherewith to while away the time but an orgy of introspection. First came the almost paralysing sense of responsibility. He must keep, not only awake, but alert to the slightest sound, the slightest movement. Lives of men depended ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... object of the present communication is to procure a concert in the general plan of action, as it is extremely desirable that Virginia and Kentucky should pursue the same track on this occasion. Besides, how could you better while away the road from hence to Kentucky, than in meditating this very subject and preparing something yourself, than whom nobody will do it better. The loss of your brother, and the visit of the apostle ——— to Kentucky, excite anxiety. However, we doubt not ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... brilliant red stars. It was the light shed by these stars as they floated downward that first revealed to the young officer the fact that a thin veil of haze enveloped the ship, through which, scattered here and there, were several small blocks of field ice; while away on the starboard quarter, distant about half a mile, was a much larger mass, standing perhaps two or three feet above the water's surface, which might well be the berg that had done all the mischief. But Dick was horrified, as he stared down into the water, to note how ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... wrote, "like a pallid weevil in a biscuit," a great deal was accomplished in literary work by both husband and wife. There they put together the stories in The Dynamiter, which, as will be remembered, Mrs. Stevenson had made up to while away the hours of illness at Hyeres. When the book came out little credit was given her by the book reviewers for her part in it, a neglect which caused her some mortification. Writing to her mother-in-law, ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... in one of those long, ugly, shapeless boats, which are to be seen congregating in the neighbourhood of Brentford. So seated, they are carried along at the rate of a mile and a half an hour, and usually while away the time in gentle converse with the man at the rudder, or in silent abstraction ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... all, to defend it from God's Word. Every other defense is worthless here. Is she ready to cut off remorselessly the man or the woman, the youth or the maid who dances, however properly and modestly? Is she ready to expel or suspend every minister who shall roll a ten-pin ball, or while away an hour with chess or backgammon? Is she ready to lay violent hands upon every member who fingers a card or handles a cue, or strikes a croquet ball? If so, I tremble for the results of the experiment. She will pause before she undertakes ...
— Amusement: A Force in Christian Training • Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.
... endeavoured to while away the monotony of the journey; but George made no reply. He was doing some rapid thinking. With ordinary luck, he felt bitterly, all would have been well. He could have gone on splashing vigorously under his teacher's care for a week, gradually improving ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... disposed of that important business," resumed the young Greek, "I went out to saunter through the streets of Florence, and while away an hour or two in viewing the splendid appearance of that charming city, when lighted up with the innumerable lamps of its palaces and casinos. At length I entered a dark and obscure street, which I knew must lead toward the river. I had not proceeded far down the street when I heard the ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... the left and center, the fight soon grew earnest, as Hardee dashed resolutely on; the uneasy, broken rattle of the skirmishers gave way to the sustained volleys of the lines, and the artillery joined in the clamor, while away on the right, the voice of the strife swelled hoarser and angrier, like the growl of some wounded monster—furious and at bay. Hardee's line carried all before it. At the first encampment it met not even the semblance of a check. Following close ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... Lyric Club House; but it is not really a good place for the men's health. Lying, as it does, just down by the river, the air is not half so bracing as that of the higher ground. Still, it is undoubtedly very convenient to have a billiard-table or two to while away the men's time in the evening. Without something of the kind time is apt to hang very heavily on their hands. Conversation flags, the chairs feel very comfortable after the day's work, and Morpheus, drowsy god, steals in unawares. Now, this is not only ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... mountainous country is sheep raising and weaving baskets from a very pliable kind of shrub that grows on the slopes of the mountains. I hired as a shepherd to a sheep rancher, and also began to learn to weave baskets to while away the time as I watched the sheep. Before long I learned the language, which is a very simple one, and found that I was in Aeda Land, but that the desert I sought lay far to the south, through the mountain passes. It was already winter high up in ...
— The Enchanted Island • Fannie Louise Apjohn
... the workmen, or in overseeing the preparations that were elsewhere going on, they spent the time in polishing their armor (now long unused), in looking after their weapons, or in providing for the management of their business while away. And Siegfried forgot not his trusty sword Balmung, nor his cloak of darkness the priceless Tarnkappe, which he had captured from the dwarf Alberich ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... same day, between eight and nine o'clock, while Laura was searching the shelves of the library for a book with which to while away the long evening that she knew impended, Corthell's card ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... daily procedure was hermit-like. With the exception of an early morning stroll, alone, on the promenade deck, he took no more chances after that first morning. His meals were served in his stateroom. From the splendid library of the ship he secured ample reading material to while away ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... they had been driven off their legs; but Mr Harding had no occupation. Once or twice he suggested that he might perhaps return to Barchester. His request, however, was peremptorily refused, and had nothing for it but to while away ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... over the capital city. No longer would the stately residences of the Tory element be thrown open for the diversion and the junket of the titled gentry. No more would the soldiery of an hostile army loiter about the street corners or while away the hours at the Taverns or at the Coffee Houses. The Congress was about to return. The city would again become the political as well as the civic center of American affairs. The people would be ruled by a governor of their own accord and sympathy. Philadelphia was to enter ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... the prison registrar, he was, moreover, able to procure many little luxuries, which are never denied to unconvicted prisoners, no matter what may be the charges against them, for they have a right to be considered as innocent until a jury has decided to the contrary. To while away the time, May next asked for a volume of Beranger's songs, and his request being granted, he spent most of the day in learning several of the ditties by heart, singing them in a loud voice and ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... be near. As she ends Comus re-enters in guise of a shepherd, and offers to escort her to his hut where she may rest until her companions are found. She has no sooner left the stage than these enter in search of her, and while away the time with a long discussion on the dangers of the wood and the protective power of virtue. To them at length enters the attendant Spirit, who has certainly been so far very remiss in his duties, in the habit of their father's shepherd Thirsis; and ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... to that grim wilderness Where she was born, and, like a restive colt From whom the galling yoke is just removed, Will rush to freedom, and become once more Untamed and stubborn. But my place is here; Here must I sit and while away the days In meek inaction, burdened with the scorn And scoffing of mankind, mine only task Dully to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... and aghast? What makes this new grief? Or where now rest that doting husband whom the steel has just punished for his shameful love? Keeps he still aught of his pride and lazy wantonness? Holds he to his quest, glows his lust as hot as before? Let him while away an hour with me in converse, and allay with friendly words my hatred of yesterday. Let your visage come forth with better cheer; let not lamentation resound in the house, or suffer the faces ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... rather at a loss to find something to do; so I used to take with me my small house boy, "Minor," whom I was training to be a grand butler; he would carry the trap and, after it had been set and baited, I would make him guide me to the trees where the sweetest persimmons grew; there I would while away the morning and on the next we would find one or more birds fluttering in the trap, which, to Minor's silent disgust, I would ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... Leam was not called on to rack her brains—those non-inventive brains of hers, which could not imagine things that never happened—for stories wherewith to while away the time, as Fina ran alone, happy in picking the spring flowers growing thick on the banks and hedgerows. Thus the one was amused and the other was left to herself undisturbed; which was an arrangement that kept Leam's good intentions intact, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... of his gout by the Due de Guise and the narrator himself, he said on reaching the door of the Queen's closet to his two attendants, "Wait for me here. I will hasten the toilet of my wife that she may not keep my dinner waiting." He was of course obeyed, and the Duke and Bassompierre, in order to while away the time, walked to the balcony that overhung the court of the Louvre, against which they leant watching what passed below, when suddenly the great hawthorn which occupied the centre of the area swayed for an instant and then fell to ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... of industrial peace, says a sporting paper, is more entertainment for the masses. We have often wondered what our workers do to while away ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 29th, 1920 • Various
... and the same paper, because the change of name and proprietorship in 1859[23] brought no change in form or character,—taking them together, I say, they contain a vast quantity of very pleasant, if not very profound, reading. Even apart from the stories, one can do very much worse than while away an hour, now and again, in gleaning here and there among their pages. Among Dickens' own contributions may be mentioned "The Child's History of England," and "Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices"—being the record of an excursion ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... designated depot, he was told it would be ready for him at four with the "clock" installed. Returning at that hour, he learned that it couldn't be ready before six; and too bored and restless to while away two idle hours in a cafe, he wandered listlessly through the streets and boulevards—indifferent, in the black melancholy oppressing him, whether or not he were recognized—and eventually found himself turning from ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... Dan Murdock. "Say, them fellers are swindlers, they are! They came in to git out of the hail and then they started to play cards, just to while away the time, so they said. They asked me to play, and as I couldn't work just then, I consented, and then they got me to put up some money,—just to make it interestin', they said. They let me win a little at first, and then they got me to put up more and more, and then they cheated me and ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer
... wishes. Yet justice was hard between brothers and sisters, especially when Mervyn was in such a suffering state, threatened constantly by attacks of his complaint, which were only warded off by severe and weakening treatment. Phoebe was so necessary to his comfort in waiting on him, and trying to while away his tedious hours of inaction and oppression, that she had little time to bestow upon Bertha, nor, indeed, was talking of any use, as it only gave the young lady an occasion for pouring forth magniloquent sentiments, utterly heedless of the answers. Sad, lonely, and helpless ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... prepared linen and it was placed in a specially prepared coffin ready to be removed to its final home. But an Egyptian grave was a real home where the body was surrounded by pieces of furniture and musical instruments (to while away the dreary hours of waiting) and by little statues of cooks and bakers and barbers (that the occupant of this dark home might be decently provided with food and need not ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... Twynholm, London. This is the largest congregation of all, and will receive consideration later in the chapter. The next place that I broke bread was in a little mission to the Jews in the Holy City. To complete a report of my public speaking while away, I will add that I preached in Mr. Thompson's tabernacle in Jerusalem, and spoke a few words on one or both of the Lord's days at the mission to which reference has already been made. I also spoke in a mission meeting conducted by Mr. Locke at Port Said, Egypt, preached once on the ...
— A Trip Abroad • Don Carlos Janes
... exquisite painting by Pinturicchio at the National Gallery, where the wise king of Ithaca appears under the guise of a red-hosed Italian youth with flowing hair; while his wife sits at her "web" in a Florentine blue dress. In Greene, Penelope is represented telling stories to while away the time, which, unless we endow her with a prophetical gift, are impossibilities. Her first story begins thus: "Saladyne the Souldan of AEgipt, who by his prowesse had made a generall conquest of the south-east part of ye world tooke to wife Barmenissa, the ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... an Hungarian, Who, though far in Debreczin, still With due reverence had remembered The blue eyes of Leonora, And the rats in her old palace. With the stately Leonora To the Rhine came Hiddigeigei. A true house-pet, somewhat lonesome Did he while away his life there; For, he hated to consort with Any of the German cat-tribe. "They may have," thus he was thinking In his consequential cat-pride, "Right good hearts, and may possess too At the bottom some good feeling, But 'tis polish that is wanting; A fine culture and ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... grand, With kegs and bottles on each hand, Her face decked with a winning smile, Her head with cap of ancient style, Crowned arbiter of frolic's fate, Mother McGinty sat in state, And measured out the mountain dew To those whom strong attraction drew Within the circle of her power, To while away a leisure hour. She was the hostess and the host, She kept the reckoning, ruled the roast, And swung an arm of potent might That few would dare to brave in fight; Yet was she a good-natured soul, As ever filled the flowing ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett
... I wandered along a pretty brook that rippled through a narrow valley. I was on the lookout for whatever birds might be wandering that way, but saw nothing of special interest. So, to while away the time, I commenced geologizing; and, as I plodded along my lonely way, I saw everywhere traces of an older time, when the sparkling rivulet that now only harbors pretty salamanders was a deep creek, tenanted by ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... said Yes, and did go, and came back, and asked the pilot whether he would come on board our boat—and he said Yes, and did come on board, and drank another drop of rum. Thus in the practice of the social virtues did we while away the hours—six jolly tars in a twelve-foot cabin—till it was past eleven o'clock, and time, as we say at sea, to tumble in, or tumble out, as the case may be, when a jolly tar wants practice in the art of getting ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... showing her teeth and panting for breath, while Molly Hollister waved the last baby's sunbonnet, holding its denuded owner in her arms. The drive was a long one, but the travellers enjoyed it from first to last. Tom found his companion's conversation quite sufficient entertainment to while away the time, and when at intervals she refreshed herself from Mornin's basket and fell asleep, he enjoyed driving along quietly while he held her small, peacefully relaxed body on his knee, quite as much as another man might have enjoyed a much more ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... alone. To while away the time he began to whistle to himself, and what with whistling, and what with winking and talking to the lantern on the table, and calling himself painful names, he endured his ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... developed, should make her very useful to someone somewhere. She came to Wellesley. About a month after her arrival I was obliged to leave on a two months' trip and Mrs. Babson invited her up to dine the night before I left. I told her that I was going to speak while away on "America's Undeveloped Resources." After dinner she went to my desk and took her pen and scribbled these lines ...
— Fundamentals of Prosperity - What They Are and Whence They Come • Roger W. Babson
... retired commander, twenty campaigns, ten wounds, and a business man, to while away the hours. I hob-nob with the big capitalists, and frequently serve as intermediary between them and the sons of ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... long, long, dreary afternoon and night, which they tried to while away in sleeping, for conversation, under the circumstances, soon became irksome. When they awoke, or, rather, when all were again alert and felt as though the night must have passed, the captain was the first to break ...
— The Boy Volunteers with the Submarine Fleet • Kenneth Ward
... you adopt the foreign custom, So that public shops, one after the other, are opened for Drinking Coffee. A hanging sign of either ivy or laurel invites the passers-by. Hither in crowds from the entire city they assemble, and While away the time in pleasant drinking. And when once the feelings have grown warm, acted upon by The gentle heat, then good-humored laughter, and pleasant Arguments increase. General gaiety ensues, the places about resound ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... manner of their meeting, the silence and mystery, were purely fictional. Socialism at that time revolved round the blowing up of kings, of demolishing established order. Neither kings were blown up nor order demolished, but it was a congenial topic over which to while away an evening. This was in the German states; in Russia ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... of the sort. I confess that it is my humour, my fancy—in the forepart of the day, when the mind of your man of letters requires some relaxation—(and none better than such as at first sight seems most abhorrent from his beloved studies)—to while away some good hours of my time in the contemplation of indigos, cottons, raw silks, piece-goods, flowered or otherwise. In the first place ******* and then it sends you home with such increased appetite to your books ***** not to say, that your outside sheets, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... was in even worse straits. Everywhere shivering birds were to be seen, their feathers all fluffed out, gathering together for flight to summer lands. And many lay dead upon the ground. Going down to the shore, we watched land-crabs in large numbers taking to the sea to find some better home. While away to the Southeast we could see many icebergs floating—a sign that we were now not far from the terrible region ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... dozen women often work together in one sementera to hasten the planting. There are usually two or three little girls with their mothers, who while away the hours playing work. They stuff up the chinks of the stone walls with dirt and vegetable matter; they carry together the few camotes discovered in this last handling of the old camote bed; and they quite successfully and industriously play at transplanting ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... balls were whizzing about, which he did not seem altogether to like, he would make that curious noise which many may have observed as such which a bird like this would make when pursued or frightened. He served, however, to while away many a long and dreary hour pleasantly by his peculiar little ways, and we all became very fond of him: and he grew quite fat on the many tit-bits he received from my comrades and myself during our mess, it being quite marvellous to see how regularly he went to each ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... in my pocket, and, to while away the time, I lay in my narrow berth and began to read. Presently my glance rested upon a paragraph which stated that two days before a dressing-case belonging to Lady Norah Kendrew disappeared in the most ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... fond of rich and costly clothes. In truth, he was in early life a good deal of a dandy. His clothes were made in London; and from his long letters to his tailor we know that he was fussy about their quality and their fit. Even while away from home fighting Indians and making surveys, he did not neglect to write to London for "Silver Lace for a Hatt," "Ruffled Shirts;" "Waistcoat of superfine scarlet Cloth and gold {67} Lace," "Marble colored Silk Hose," "a ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... batteries, hidden in the hedges away on my right, were sending shrapnel across the German lines beyond Hill 60. I could watch the flight of the projectile and its bursting in a sheet of flame over the enemy's line. The opposing guns were hard at it, while away in the distance the rapid rattle of rifle fire told of the tragedies that were being enacted near the crater that Captain Perry had blown in Hill 60. Away to the south a momentary flash like sheet lightning on an autumn evening would light the horizon with a baleful gleam, and ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... the horse-cloth, and settling the mare in a nose-bag, he began to walk up and down the fore part of the harbour, still keeping an eager look-out. As time went on he grew comfortable, exchanged salutations with the harbour-master, and even whistled a little to while away ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... surrounded by white walls and attached to the convent on the neighbouring hill is a pleasant spot to while away the afternoon hours. You can have it to yourself. I have all Alatri to myself; a state of affairs which is not without its disadvantages, for, being the only foreigner here, one is naturally watched and regarded with suspicion. And it would be even worse in less civilised places, ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... going to church; they went to please Lull. The service was long and dull, and though each one of them had a private plan to while away the time they found it ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick
... addition to my bodily sufferings, my ear was tortured by the various pronunciations given to the city's name. No sooner had I mastered one than I heard another! At last, driven to desperation, I tried to while away the time in composing the following 'Ode,' in which my feelings, and the ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... haunted by the idea that he must first bring down his Boche. But since the Boche did not seem to be willing.... Now he is resolved, and more calm; he will go to Paris this very evening. He has only to while away the time till the train is due. The prospect in itself is quieting, and besides Major du Peuty, one of the chiefs of Aviation at Headquarters, and Major Brocard, recently appointed attache to the Minister of Aeronautics, were coming down by the early train. They were sure to ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... to see after the sub-factories; a French official bound for Franceville, which it will take him thirty-six days, go as quick as he can, in a canoe after Njole; a tremendously lively person who has had black water fever four times, while away in the bush with nothing to live on but manioc, a diet it would be far easier to die on under the circumstances. He is excellent company; though I do not know a word he says, he is perpetually giving lively and dramatic ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... up" the date and crush in with them some other day. Then he mooned listlessly up and down the streets for an hour till his clothes were dry, and then turned into a public-house to get a brush down and while away another hour. ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... a moment he thought of rushing out after him to protect his pet kitten; but a glance at the stern brow of the master, as he sat at his desk reading, restrained him; so, crushing down his feelings of mingled fear and anger, he endeavoured to while away the time by watching the boys as they played in the fields before the ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... some clouds passing overhead," remarked Frank, "and we may get a little thunder shower while away; so we'd ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... banquets were carried on, out of sight and reach of the fair gardens and lawns, there were always poor prisoners who were shut away from the daylight for years perhaps, and laboriously carving crests or verses in the stone walls, to while away ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... each girl wore on arrival, in order to be sure that she did not go forth at evening clad in the property of a comrade. Being paid to cultivate suspicion had soured the guardian angels' tempers. One had a novel by Laura Jean Libbey, the other an old-fashioned tale by Mary J. Holmes, to while away odd minutes of leisure; but it appealed to the imagination of neither that any or all of the girls flitting in and out might be eligible heroines for their favourite authors, stolen at birth from parent ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... we would pass the village fetish ground, well defined by the decaying bodies of lizards and birds, a grinning human skull or two, broken pots and pieces of rag fluttering in the wind, all offered as propitiation to the presiding demon of the place, while away in the bush, behind the houses, we saw the giant leaves of the plantain groves that yielded the staple food of this ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... Orleans, on one of our floating river palaces; that we should sit in our state rooms, read, sew, sketch, and chat; and accordingly I laid in a magnificent provision in the way of literature and divers matters of fancy work, with which to while away the time. Some last, airy touches, in the way of making up bows, disposing ribbons, and binding collarets, had been left to these long, leisure hours, as ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... practice periods, he will soon find that it is quite impossible for him to encompass the difficulties of Bach without the closest mental application. In fact, he may also discover that it is possible for him to work out some of his musical problems while away from the keyboard. Many of the most perplexing musical questions and difficulties that have ever confronted me have been solved mentally while I have been walking upon the street or lying ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... now an elegant, educated gentleman, who, among his many accomplishments, numbered that of music, a science he had so thoroughly mastered, and with the "concord of sweet sounds" he helped us all to while away many ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... of The Trellis House had her lonely dinner brought in to her on a tray, and then, perhaps rather too soon—for she was not much of a reader, and there was nothing to while away the time—she went upstairs to her pleasant, cosy bedroom, and so ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... Milwaukee, having recently moved there from York State, where I was born. My father, a bookkeeper of some expertness, not securing a position in our newly adopted city as soon as he had expected, became disheartened, and, to while away the time that hung so heavily, took to drinking beer with some newly acquired German friends. The result was that our funds were exhausted much sooner than they should have been, and mother took it upon herself to turn bread-winner for the family by ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... a hospital while away, to look after one of my poor girls who had been doing well till illness brought her there. As I was passing out I saw a sleeping face, and stopped involuntarily: it was so like Letty's. I never doubted she was dead; the name over the bed was not hers; the face ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... or woman, high or low, educated or ignorant, whose earliest recollections do not cling round the story and the characters of the great Epics. The almost illiterate oil-manufacturer or confectioner of Bengal spells out some modern translation of the Maha-bharata to while away his leisure hour. The tall and stalwart peasantry of the North-West know of the five Pandav brothers, and of their friend the righteous Krishna. The people of Bombay and Madras cherish with equal ardour the story ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... proceeding was to print an elaborate heading to her paper, and while away a quarter of an hour in adding ornamental flourishes to the double lines, and in elaborately darkening the down- strokes of her capitals. Then she would scribble on her blotting-paper, dropping intentional blots upon a clean page, ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... three of them strumming the piano in the drawing-room! At such times, always, though, if he did feel impatient, he immediately demanded of himself: "Are you, then, the kind of husband that begrudges your wife young companions of her own age and tastes to help her while away the hours that you cannot possibly ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... had given a complacent glance to the long shelves of fiction, with which she expected to while away the rest of the summer. There would be other pleasant things, she knew, drives with Mrs. Sherman, long tramps with the girls, and many good times with Elise Walton; but there would still be left hours and hours for her to spend in the library, going from one to another of the famous novelists, ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... dragged at the fall of the fourfold tackle that formed the working end of the halliard, and at each pull the great, heavy, swaying yard slid a few inches up the short, thick mast, as though reluctantly, while away on our weather quarter we heard the fierce shouts of the men in the approaching boat as they encouraged each other, punctuated by the quick jerk of the oars in the rowlocks, and the swish of the water as the oar-blades clipped into it. With the passage of every second those menacing sounds drew ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... and he felt like a fool while one of the ladies did the wooing and the other, as he thought, amused herself with watching it. He was accustomed to be wooed, and to be watched, but he had been trying for some time to bring his mind to like the present wooer. While away from her he fancied that he had begun to succeed, and now he knew well that this sort of talk would drive him wild in a week. It represented nothing real. No; the thing would not do. She was a good woman; she would have ruled his ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... Belle Bellamy doesn't know everything that goes on it isn't from lack of trying. You wouldn't know about room service, either, then—better scan that tape before you go to sleep tonight—what'll you have in the line of a drink to while away enough time so she will know ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... unknown British hero, found near Verbrandenmolen and buried here on March 3rd, 1915," there an empty shell case balanced at a comical angle on a grave, and everywhere between the mounds waved the flowers in the fresh breeze of the morning, while away in the distance loomed the tower of the Cloth Hall of Ypres, like a gigantic arm pointing one finger up ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett
... the sight. To be within reach of this weapon that had sent those blasting, devastating missiles upon the earth! He paced back and forth in the small room to stop and stare again, and resume his pacing that helped to while away the hours they must wait. For there were man-shapes swarming over the land, and the dull, blood-red of their loose uniforms marked them as members of the fighting force spawned by this ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... night, and the Chinese fishermen were richer by the nets and ropes we did not get. I was bankrupt, unable just then to pay sixty-five dollars for a new mainsail. I left my boat at anchor and went off on a bay-pirate boat on a raid up the Sacramento River. While away on this trip, another gang of bay pirates raided my boat. They stole everything, even the anchors; and later on, when I recovered the drifting hulk, I sold it for twenty dollars. I had slipped back the one rung I had climbed, and never again did I ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... had been hard at work the evening before, doing their best to make up the lessons they had missed while away from the school. They doubted if Phil and Ben had studied at all. With considerable curiosity they awaited the opening of the morning classes, to see what might happen. They felt that something was "in ...
— Dave Porter and the Runaways - Last Days at Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... would suppose that such leisure nights she would gladly give up to rest. Not she. Her brother might, at some unforeseen moment, require her aid, and consequently she preferred to be close at hand. A seven-foot telescope planted on the lawn helped to while away the hours of waiting; and it was to the occupation of these hours that science owed the discovery of the comet of 1786, of the comet of 1788, of the comet of 1791, of the comet of 1793, and of that of 1795, now connected with the name of Encke. Many, also, ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous
... did Robin while away the time with his future shipmate until he arrived at the end of his journey, when he parted from Jim Slagg and was met ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... riding with her, and copying music and verses into her albums, and playing at chess with her very submissively; for it is with these simple amusements that some officers in India are accustomed to while away their leisure moments, while others of a less domestic turn hunt hogs, and shoot snipes, or gamble and smoke cheroots, and betake themselves to brandy-and-water. As for Sir Michael O'Dowd, though his lady and her sister both urged him to call ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... kept open house. Our foreman knew that a well-fed man can stand an incredible amount of hardship, and appreciated the fact that on the trail a good cook is a valuable asset. Our outfit therefore was cheerful to a man, and jokes and songs helped to while away the weary ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... have said, we kept silence; but this was only for a time, and our reason for breaking it was a discovery made by George, the younger apprentice. This lad, being no smoker, was fain to do something to while away the time, and with this intent, he had raked out the contents of a small box, which had lain upon the deck at the side of ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... asked, "Supposing you were a little tenement-house girl, cooped up in a tiny, stifling kitchen, with the steamy smell of hot soapsuds always in the air, and you had to lie all day, week in and week out, with not a book nor a toy to help while away the long hours. With not even a glimpse of the world outside to make you forget for a time the ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... such a multiplicity of wants? Do not laugh at me, reader, when I tell you what I did do, after long and anxious debate with myself. I paid a quarter's subscription at Mudie's, so that my poor sister should have something to while away the dreary hours of the long day. With the few shillings left I bought her a bottle of wine ...
— Coralie • Charlotte M. Braeme
... to look in at the opening; but Melchior met them and pointed back over the lake, at the head of which rose a huge mountain mass, snow-clad and glistening, on either side of which glaciers could be seen running sharply down, while away on the left another ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... from the Presidency, Colonel Roosevelt went on a hunting trip in Africa, writing as usual to his children while away. ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt
... had just done for her and her grandfather was worthy of the deepest gratitude; it proved that he did not come to her house, like most of her guests, merely to while away the evening hours. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a bivouac before a fire, in the open air, to the accommodations of a woodman's cabin. Proceeding down the valley to the banks of the Potomac, they found that river so much swollen by the rain which had fallen among the Alleganies, as to be unfordable. To while away the time until it should subside, they made an excursion to examine certain warm springs in a valley among the mountains, since called the Berkeley Springs. There they camped out at night, under the stars; the diary makes no complaint of their accommodations; ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... diversions which serve to while away the tediousness of those winter nights are included the narration of personal adventures passed through by the different hunters in their wild life. Tales of narrow escapes, of Indian fights, of ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... thou art recovered, now thy heart Alone is sick. Ah Love! thou mournest too, No less than I, that we must live apart. 'Tis selfish, yet I thus would have thee do; I would not have thee happy while away From me, sweetheart, thy love ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats
... be a couple of hours before the express train was due, I went to a small hotel and ordered dinner. To while away the time I took a stroll through the main street, where were many mothers and nurses with children, nice black-eyed French babies. As I was always a devoted lover of children and other small creatures, I stepped into a shop and bought a package of confectionery, which I distributed ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... his daily stroll to the pier could not fail to notice the crowds that always gathered nowadays around the little old man from Ruffluck Croft. Jan did not have to sit all by himself any more and while away the long, dreary hours in silent musings, as he had done during the summer. Instead, all who waited for the boat went up to him to hear him tell what would happen on the homecoming of the Empress, more especially ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... Food, too, she had in plenty, for Martha snared the fowl and caught the fish, or she made visits to the mainland, and thence brought eggs and milk and flesh, which, so she said, the boors of that country gave her as much as she wanted of them. Also, to while away the hours, she would read to her out of the Testament, and from that reading Lysbeth learnt many things which until then she had not known. Indeed, before it was done with—Catholic though she was—she began to wonder in what lay the wickedness of these heretics, ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... Winterfeld was also a light sleeper that night, but then he was one of these people who sleep little and play chess problems in their heads to while away the time—and that night he had a particularly difficult ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... upstairs, as they said, "to help with the flats." Then I discovered that a play, or something, was to be given in the drawing-room, the back part of which was full of scenery, showing a castle on the top of a precipice and a view of the Thames Embankment just below it, while away in the small library on the other side of the staircase stood twenty or thirty ballet girls, just come from one ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... explore the alcove. While away a whirlwind comes and scatters the fire among the dead willows and cedar-spray, and soon there is a conflagration. The men rush for the boats, leaving all they cannot readily seize at the moment, and even then they have their clothing burned ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... I coaxed her out here to amuse her. I am just now without anything whatever to attend to, so that, dear brother Chia, you come just in the nick of time. Please walk into my mean abode, and let us endeavour, in each other's company, to while away this long ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... side, on the top of the scraggy corn-field fence, would these three worthies, so strikingly different one from the other, while away the warm summer hours; often, too, long after old Cornwallis, there dozing so contentedly in the shade of the overleaning wood, had dried off and recovered the breath he had not lost. Perhaps, at such times, instead of keeping his eyes on some invisible point in the ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... her grace and charm of manner were such that a gentleman once said of her; 'If I were to see Mrs. Ruxton in rags as a beggar woman sitting on the doorstep, I should say "Madam" to her.' 'To write to her Aunt Ruxton was, as long as she lived, Maria's greatest pleasure while away from her,' says Mrs. Edgeworth, 'and to be with her was a happiness she enjoyed with never flagging and supreme delight. Blackcastle was within a few hours' drive of Edgeworthtown, and to go to Blackcastle was ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... seamanship, and make him well acquainted with the dangers of the coast, he thought that, as Newton was fully equal to the charge of the vessel, he might as well indulge himself with an occasional glass or two, to while away the tedium of embarkation. A stone pitcher of liquor was now his constant attendant when he pulled on board to weigh his anchor; which said pitcher, for fear of accidents, he carried down into the cabin himself. As soon as sail was on the vessel, and her course ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... safety. Only Foster-father in his dungeon was free even from anxiety; for fever had seized on him and he lay unconscious. And in his close prison room, where there was little air and less light, and where Roy racked his brain for stories wherewith to while away the leaden-footed hours, the little Heir-to-Empire lay listless also, yet not ill. Only ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... the drum and gong, has no religious idea whatsoever associated with it. It is played at the caprice of the tribesman, to while away a weary hour, to amuse the baby, or to entertain ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... whispered slyly. "But I do this by the way, simply to while away the tedious hours and to satisfy the persistent demands of ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... appliances are the best. I have furnished myself with vocabularies and hand-books, collected and written down, during the season. I have the post library in my room, in addition to my own, with a free access to that of "mine host" of the Emerald Isle, Mr. Johnston, to while away the time. My huge Montreal stove will take long billets of wood, which, to use the phraseology of Burns, "would mend a mill." The society of the officers and their families of the garrison is at hand. The ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... chair and going to the window.] Then, do you two kind gentlemen take a stroll in the garden. I have need of the services of my—my young woman. But when she has put me in order after the dusty journey, I shall ask you to be good enough to come back and while away an hour for me in this ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... the slave states, of the citizens congregating at the bars of hotels or cafes in the towns and cities to while away the time, renders attendance at such places the readiest means of ascertaining the state of the public mind on any engrossing subject, opinions being here freely discussed, not, however, without bias and anger; on the contrary, the practice ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... clingclang in truth Sounded more pleasing to our youth, For all that we encounter'd there, To us seem'd varied, joyous, fair. As children, monkeys, and mankind To ape each other are inclin'd, We soon, the time to while away, A game at priests resolved to play. Their aprons all our sisters lent For copes, which gave us great content; And handkerchiefs, embroider'd o'er, Instead of stoles we also wore; Gold paper, whereon beasts were traced, The bishop's brow ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... court fool; you both have equal positions; the only difference is that he is dining at the little table with the strange hunter. The fool displays his nonsense at the table, and you carry on an intelligent conversation at the table; both are only to while away the time for me and make my meal taste good: where, then, lies the great difference? Furthermore, it does us good to see a fool who is more stupid than we, who has not the same gifts; why, then, one feels greater oneself and is grateful to heaven; even on that account I ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... of women players, a thing that seemed to me incredible. Shall we see how it would seem here for us two? Let us while away a wet morning by playing ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... dwelling—perhaps the kitchen, if convenient, that, in their swarming season, they may be secured as they leave the parent hive. The apiary is a beautiful object, with its busy tenantry; and to the invalid, or one who loves to look upon God's tiny creatures, it may while away many an agreeable hour, in watching their labors—thus ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... so flippant, Son. If you die while away from us, and if your spirit can return and communicate with me, I shall, indeed, be glad to receive such messages, ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... long-haired sheep and sturdy black goats, cropping the grass and the shrubs, and it was well in keeping with the scene when we passed a shepherd, with his cloak thrown carelessly aside, leaning on his crook, and playing a few simple notes—not a tune—on his flageolet to while away the time. We delayed half an hour at the miserable hamlet of Kineta, to rest one of the horses, exhausted with our fast riding, then began the ascent of our last mountain-pass. A spur of Mount Geroneia runs boldly into the sea, forming a wall between the territories of Corinth ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... And to while away the time Yergunov began to think about Bogalyovka. It was a big village and it lay in a deep ravine, so that when one drove along the highroad on a moonlight night, and looked down into the dark ravine and then up at the sky, it seemed as though the moon were hanging over a bottomless ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... all the time. Of course, since I humbly—but, I trust, helpfully—took to being a worker in the vineyard, I have not touched those devil's picture-books; nor should I have touched them to-night but for my hope that a little game would help to while away your time of tedious waiting. As for playing for money, that would have been quite impossible had it not been for my niece's suggestion that my winnings—in case such came to me—should be added to our meagre parish fund. ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier
... together, and Mistress Cynthia's thoughts were much as they had been the night before she left Castle Marleigh. Where was he? Why came he not? She took up a book of plays that lay upon the table, and sought to while away the time by reading. The afternoon faded into dusk, and still he did not come. Her woman appeared, to ask whether she should call for lights and at that Cynthia became ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... souls can be contented to while away precious hours in a manner so useless, and withal so displeasing to the God who gave them their time for the improvement of themselves and others, is to me absolutely inconceivable! Yet it is certainly done; and that not merely by a few solitary individuals scattered up and down the land; ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... boy, these things are nothing. They look large of course—they look large to a novice, but to a man who has been all his life accustomed to large operations—shaw! They're well enough to while away an idle hour with, or furnish a bit of employment that will give a trifle of idle capital a chance to earn its bread while it is waiting for something to do, but—now just listen a moment—just let me give you an idea ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... left the child-world, in which he longed to linger, to wander among the older children of men, where intuitively the hungry listener follows him into his Temple of Mirth, all should rejoice, for those who knew him not, can while away the moments imbibing the genius of his imagination in the poetry and prose ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... knowledge of things that have transpired before, without knowledge of the persons concerned, without a suspicion of the needs of the situation and its possibilities, they judge the peoples of the earth and divide the world. Stupid talk, with which irreverent officiousness seeks to while away and shorten the period of anxious waiting for customers; but to prepare quietly and wisely and mightily in advance for terms of peace, that is the duty of ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Alderbank and seeing how our young friend Clement Lindsay is; and then, if he was going to have a long time of it, why we could manage it somehow that any friend who had any special interest in him could visit him, just to while away the tiresomeness of being sick. That's it, exactly. I'll stop at Alderbank, Susan Posey. Just clear up these two children for me, will you, my dear? Isosceles, come now,—that 's a good child. Helminthia, carry these sugar-plums down—stairs for me, and take ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... that my place had not been laid nor my coffee prepared. With the unreasonable petulance of mankind I rang the bell and gave a curt intimation that I was ready. Then I picked up a magazine from the table and attempted to while away the time with it, while my companion munched silently at his toast. One of the articles had a pencil mark at the heading, and I naturally began to run my eye ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of the Mulligan fraternity got out a pack of cards and proposed a game to while away the time. There was a young squatter in the carriage who looked as if he might be induced to lose a few pounds, and the sportsmen thought they would be neglecting their opportunities if they did not try to "get a bit to go on with" from him. He agreed to play, and, just ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... It might ha' been death he had in mind, or it might ha' been anything you like. What he said was, 'I'd like to see old Cai fixed up wi' summat to while away his latter years.' That's how he said it, in those exact words, an' nothing could have ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch |
