"Idly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tendency is certainly normal. To abandon herself to her lover, to be able to rely on his physical strength and mental resourcefulness, to be swept out of herself and beyond the control of her own will, to drift idly in delicious submission to another and stronger will—this is one of the commonest aspirations in a young woman's intimate love-dreams. In our own age these aspirations most often only find their expression in such dreams. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... on, under the arching trees, and over their tranquil shadows in the water. The bargeman skulking on the opposite bank of the stream, went on after it. Sparkles of light showed Riderhood when and where the rower dipped his blades, until, even as he stood idly watching, the sun went down and the landscape was dyed red. And then the red had the appearance of fading out of it and mounting up to Heaven, as we say that blood, guiltily ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... floor lay Balder dead; and round Lay thickly strewn swords, axes, darts and spears, Which all the Gods in sport had idly thrown At Balder, whom no weapon pierced or clave; But in his breast stood fixt the fatal bough Of mistletoe, which Lok the Accuser gave To Hoder, and unwitting Hoder threw; "Gainst that alone had Balder's life no charm. And all ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... just look at the ocean," suggested Amy, when they had walked some distance down the beach, and while they were thus idly employed, and when the afternoon was waning, they spied a solitary figure approaching them down the stretch ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Ocean View - Or, The Box That Was Found in the Sand • Laura Lee Hope
... and all felt that the time was near which would try the courage of the stoutest. The struggles of the troops on the right with overwhelming numbers and reports of adversities, caused a general expectation that the troops lying so idly at the Clifton House would be ordered to the point of danger. They ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... fourpence in the shilling more than it cost for ready money in England; oil, wine, &c., and cheese, in regard of the hazard of bringing, &c., excepted. The evils which were springing, &c., were: 1. Many spent much time idly, &c., because they could get as much in four days as would keep them a week. 2. They spent much in tobacco and strong waters, &c., which was a great waste to the Commonwealth, which by reason of so many commodities expended, could not have subsisted to this time, but ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... have got a move on in sending up his successor," said I idly. "When did he write this?" For there was no envelope, and only Montreal, with ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... the least attention," says the King. [OEuvres de Frederic, vi. 26.] He gives no date to this curious statement; nor does anybody else mention it at all; but we may fancy it to have been of Winter, 1769-1770,—and leave it with the curious, or the idly curious, since nothing came of it ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... She sat down idly before her dressing-table and met again her sallowed face in the mirror. The sight stirred her anger vigorously once more. Wrathfully she wanted to do something—anything—and, to keep her fingers busy, pulled open ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... the city were compelled to issue a notification to the people, and this in the end had the effect of quieting the general anxiety. But in the castle never was a decision further from being arrived at, and, whilst time was being thus idly wasted, the envoy was constantly demanding an answer. So at last they decided that it would be best to arrange the affair quietly, to give the foreigners the articles they wanted, and to put off sending an answer to the letter—to ...
— The Constitutional Development of Japan 1863-1881 • Toyokichi Iyenaga
... it, Jack?" asked Percival as he joined Jack a short distance from the group of men now standing idly about. ...
— The Hilltop Boys on the River • Cyril Burleigh
... the world, with powers Fresh, undiverted to the world without, Firm to their mark, not spent on other things; Free from the sick fatigue, the languid doubt, Which much to have tried, in much been baffled, brings deg.. deg.165 O life unlike to ours! Who fluctuate idly without term or scope, Of whom each strives, nor knows for what he strives, And each half lives a hundred different lives; Who wait like thee, but not, like thee, in hope. ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... Among the coward crew who could not bear The harm themselves had done, which others bore. My young life yet may fill some fatal breach, And I will take no pardon, not my own, Not God's—no pardon idly on my knees; But it shall come to me upon my feet And in the thick of action, and each deed That carried shame and wrong shall be the sting That drives me higher up the steep of honor In deeds of duteous service to that Spain Who nourished me on her expectant breast, The heir of highest ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... aspiring mind. She glanced at the pile. Reran, minus the style. Darwin, minus the modesty. A comic edition of the book of Job, by "Excelsior," Pittsburgh, Pa. "The Beginning of Life," with diagrams. "Angel or Ape?" by Mrs. Julia P. Chunk. She was amused, and wondered idly what was passing within his narrow but not uninteresting brain. Did he suppose that he was going to "find out"? She had tried once herself, but had since subsided into a sprightly orthodoxy. Why didn't he read poetry, instead ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... knows how long I remained there motionless, my mind elsewhere, drifting idly backward to the old home, reviewing the years of war that had transformed me from boy to man as though by some magic. The varied incidents of march, camp, and battle were like dreams, so swiftly did they pass across the retina of the ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... least one pieza; and to him who has capital, in proportion to that capital, and to his length of residence here. Thus many may be induced by this pieza to take service, who otherwise would not serve, but would be wandering about idly, and gambling, to the corruption ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various
... day, long gone among the summer days that come but to go, a lad of twelve years was idly and recklessly swinging in the top of a tall hickory, the advance picket of a mountain forest. The tree was on the edge of a steep declivity of rocky pasture-land that fell rapidly down to the stately chestnuts, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... roses fell idly from her hands, and made bright patches of blush pink about her. Ashe ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... we take sandwiches of chick, And go off on a merry pick-a-nick; Sometimes we in hammocks idly swing, At other times we ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells
... Stevens ranch nestling in the bottomland, the house half hidden among the cottonwoods. Through the last hours of the afternoon he watched it hungrily. The big corral ran down to the water's edge, and he noted idly that three panels of the fence extended out into the river, and that the muddy water was creeping steadily up until at sundown the posts of the first panel barely showed above ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... sleep or remain quiet for a moment. He was among men what the cat is among quadrupeds, the emblem of anxiety and impatience, at the same moment. A restless cat can no more remain the same place than a silk thread wafted idly to and fro with every breath of air. A cat on the watch is as motionless as death stationed at is place of observation, and neither hunger nor thirst can draw it from its meditations. D'Artagnan, who was burning with impatience, ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a one will bitterly regret that he was ever induced to attempt (as he perceives ship after ship sailing gallantly on to these favoured regions) what he considered a shorter route, from the want of the means of transit, while he is himself compelled idly to waste his time, a prey to pestilence and to the "hope deferred ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... idly till a penciled marking caught his eye. Under Number 4's time was scrawled, just below Saguache, the word Tin Cup, and opposite it the figures 10:19. The express was due to leave Saguache at 9:57 in the evening. From there it pushed up to the divide ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... of greener grass covered with ground ivy and violets. On this mound is built a rude brick campanile, of the commonest Lombardic type, which if we ascend towards evening (and there are none to hinder us, the door of its ruinous staircase swinging idly on its hinges), we may command from it one of the most notable scenes in this wide world of ours. Far as the eye can reach, a waste of wild sea moor, of a lurid ashen grey; not like our northern moors with their jet-black pools and purple heath, but lifeless, the color of sackcloth, ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... gentleman has enjoyed the privilege of still another interview, in which (as I am pleased to see) his dignity has not prevented his doing very well for himself. I wonder that you should care to prevaricate with me so idly." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... disposed for a trip to Switzerland, or Norway, or even Iceland, but she wanted to go in a party, and not just they two and a chaperon. Meryl was not enthusiastic and it nettled her a little, so that, on the wide window-seat, there was a cloud on her face as she drummed idly with her fingers and watched the traffic ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... seen her beauty wither in the dull room to which I must hasten in an hour? No! a thousand times no! I should leave her with her sisters in the garden here, with her cousins, the birds and butterflies, while I worked for both. Lilies must neither 'toil nor spin.' How idly I am dreaming! She is far away from this worky-day world; I shall never see her again, but in dreams, as now! Little sister! with starry eyes, and soft curls clustering around the sweet infant face; so many nights the same bright vision—with ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... sat in a rocking chair with her long hands folded idly in her lap. On the hands were white "half mits"—something Janice knew were long out of fashion but which were once considered ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... the terms and attempting no revolution? And when he hesitated, and did not at once reply, Callimedon, the Carabus, a hot partisan and professed enemy of free states, cried out, "And if he should talk so idly, Antipater, will you be so much abused as to believe him and not carry out your own purpose?" So the Athenians received the garrison, and Menyllus for the governor, a fair-dealing man, and one of ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... had been spent, his work had come to an end. And more desolate should be the man to-day who does not feel the passion of an earnest life, who does not yearn for some noble activity. He who sits with folded arms in the craft of civilization to be borne idly along while others ply the oars, must soon part company with the brave, loyal sons of activity to launch his idle bark in the dead waters of life, where the currents never come and the winds of energy are ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given
... idly on the edge of his drawing-board, leaned back to survey the child's head that developed under his pencil. "She will not come this morning, then?" he ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee
... duties of which she had just spoken seemed suddenly to have melted away, for she sat down quite idly and watched him. ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller
... a dug of the first rate; nor wanted excrescences in form of teats, at which a crew of ugly monsters were greedily sucking; and, what is wonderful to conceive, the bulk of spleen increased faster than the sucking could diminish it. "Goddess," said Momus, "can you sit idly here while our devout worshippers, the Moderns, are this minute entering into a cruel battle, and perhaps now lying under the swords of their enemies? who then hereafter will ever sacrifice or build altars to our divinities? Haste, therefore, to the British Isle, ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... the men of letters of that age. His whole life seems, accordingly, to have been divided, with equal success, between his duties as a servant of the dukes of Modena, both military and civil, and the prosecution of his beloved art of poetry,—a combination of pursuits which have been idly supposed incompatible. Milton's poetry did not hinder him from being secretary to Cromwell, and an active partisan. Even the sequestered Spenser was a statesman; and poets and writers of fiction abound in the political histories of all the great nations of Europe. When a man possesses ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... himself suddenly fully awake, and as it seemed to him once more in possession of himself. A dull, dumb anguish lay behind him, already half effaced; and the words of a psalm familiar at school and college ran idly through his mind: "My soul hath escaped as a bird out of the snare ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to think that the form of representation which, in such times as the present, has been found amply sufficient for the purpose of protecting the interests and securing the happiness of the people, should be idly and wantonly disturbed from any love of experiment or any predilection for theory. Upon this subject I think it right to state the inmost thoughts of my mind; I think it right to declare my most decided opinion that, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... 'tis done! I'm very glad 'tis done! I've done the thing I ought. From my disgrace This lord shall lift me 'bove the reach of scorn— That idly wags its tongue, where wealth and state Need only beckon to have crowds to laud! Then how the tables change! The hand he spurned His betters take! Let me remember that! I'll grace my rank! I will! I'll ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles
... was on her way to the Maples, and had not proceeded far when she observed a Robinson Crusoe-looking figure in one of those grotesque fur caps and impossible hooded blankets that the fashionable Briton in Canada so fondly affects. She was speculating idly upon whom ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... She is not looking at him now, so does not see the expression in his eyes. He is listening breathlessly for her answer, but she knows nothing. She is gazing idly, happily into ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... window, and more muttering between the two doctors. Sudden came wandering up, tiptoed to his chair on the porch, and sat down rather heavily and twirled a cigar in his fingers without lighting it. Mary V pulled a magazine toward her and began turning the leaves idly, her lips pressed tight together, her ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... in the engine room loafin' on the job an' gettin' ready to soak you a dollar an' a half an hour overtime to-night an' Sunday," McGuffey informed the skipper. "An' that hurts me. I don't mind takin' a poke at you myself but I'll be shot if I'll stand idly by an' see somebody else do it. With your kind permission, Scraggs, I'll climb into my dungarees an' make things hum in that ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... after his, departure she sat quietly at the table, toying idly with the rich food in front of her. Absorbed in her own thoughts she paid no attention to what was transpiring around. She was singularly depressed that evening, she knew not why. It was very foolish, for she had ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... sweet wench, I would not idly thus intrude,"— Mary look'd downward on the bench, O'erpower'd by ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield
... battle under the mulberry trees. There is one more! "Whose is this image?" It is that of David bringing the ark from Kirjath-jearim, and playing his harp and dancing before it. What a goodly array of pictures! All—all about the glories and successes of David. David paces idly through the halls, he sees the tapestries and paintings, but he regards them not, "My sin is ever before me." He sees only one picture, which is not upon the wall, which the flattering painter has omitted, his guilt ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould
... Mr. Bayne," she was saying idly. "I understood that you were to drive an ambulance ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... fling off the habit of a lifetime, and rose, still void of ideas, but with preternatural composure, to make a speech. The guests rattled on the table, and cried, "Hear!" most vociferously, as if now, at length, in this foolish and idly garrulous world, had come the long-expected moment when one golden word was to be spoken; and in that imminent crisis, I caught a glimpse of a little bit of an effusion of international sentiment, which it might, and must, ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... profession of being idle—it's essential for you—but you aren't treating it seriously. You have to be a professionally idle man. Which means that you haven't got a moment to spare. When I advised you to try idleness, I didn't mean you to be idle idly. That's worse than useless. You've got to be idle busily. You aren't doing half enough. Do you ever ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... Chambers, The Awakening, turned on a sudden conversion—the "awakening," in fact, referred to in the title. A professional lady-killer, a noted Don Juan, has been idly making love to a country maiden, whose heart is full of innocent idealisms. She discovers his true character, or, at any rate, his reputation, and is horror-stricken, while practically at the same moment, ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... she had turned, the lugger had made only about eight miles along the coast to the east, and an equal distance seaward, for the tide had set against her. The morning was bright and clear, the sea was perfectly smooth. As yet, the sails hung idly down, but there were dark lines on the water that showed that a breeze ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... looked ugly, and, while I had no love for the red-haired man, I did not wish to see murder or robbery committed and stand idly by. The match of the afternoon had given me a fine notion of my prowess, though. Had I reflected, my pistol was in its case at home, and I had no weapon but a hazel staff. Happily in youth the blood is quicker than the brain, and without a thought I ran into ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... beat idly on the obstinacy of the king. The printer of the bold letters was prosecuted, and the petitions and remonstrances of London were haughtily rejected. The issue of the struggle verified the forebodings of Burke. If, as Middlesex declared, and as the strife itself proved, the House of Commons had ceased ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... nearly killed him before he had gone a yard. But the astute animal, making the best use of his legs till he could get the advantage of the first ditch, ran, and crept, and jumped absolutely through the pack. Then there was shouting, and yelling, and riding. The men who were idly smoking threw away their cigars. Those who were loitering at a distance lost their chance. But the real sportsmen, always on the alert, always thinking of the business in hand, always mindful that there may be at any moment a fox just before the hounds, ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... loitered along, gazing idly at the brook, ever listening and longing for the wren song, I was suddenly struck motionless by a loud, shrill, and peculiar cry. It was plainly a bird voice, and it seemed to come almost from the stream ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... on your thought, you count for the hundredth time the figures upon the curtains of your bed; you trace out the flower-wreaths upon the paper-hangings of your room; your eyes rest idly on the cat playing with the fringe of the curtain; you see your mother sitting with her needle-work beside the fire; you watch the sunbeams, as they drift along the carpet, from morning until noon; and from noon till night you watch them playing on the leaves, and dropping ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... to take my last leave of thee at parting, for, depend upon it, thou wilt never see us again. Whether we in the ship may come off any better at last I cannot resolve thee; but this I will answer for, that we will not give up our lives idly, and in cool blood, as thou art going to do; we will at least preserve ourselves as long as we can, and die at last like men, not like fools, trepanned by the wiles ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... and she would think her so cold and cruel. She must really try to cry a little when Aunt Margaret came, even though she didn't feel sorry that John was dead. The stove-pipes had been removed, and she sat by the empty pipe-hole listening idly to the sound from below. She could hear John Coulson's low, deep voice, and Sarah Emily's loud lamentations. She wished she could act like Sarah Emily, it seemed so much more sympathetic. Her mind seemed ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... and then awhile stood mute, And idly struck sweet chords upon his lute, Watching Yolande's fair, frowning face the while, With eyes that held a roguish, wistful smile. She, meeting now these eyes of laughing blue, Felt her cheeks burn, ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... many about the King that would be glad of any occasion to take him out of the world, he standing in their ways; and seemed to mean the Duke of Monmouth, who spends his time the most viciously and idly of any man, nor will be fit for any thing; yet bespeaks as if it were not impossible but the King would own him for his son, and that there was a marriage between his mother and him; which God forbid should be if it be not true, nor will the Duke of York easily be gulled in it. ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... collection of soot on the window-sill off to the left knee of my trousers. I removed it with an air of apology. The temperature was eighty-eight. One of the dotted-veiled ladies demanded the closing of two more ventilators, and spoke loudly of Interlaken. I leaned back idly in chair No. 7, and looked with the tepidest curiosity at the small, black, bald-spotted head just visible above the back of ...
— Options • O. Henry
... of the universe is progress. Every generation that passes idly over the earth without adding to that progress by one degree remains uninscribed upon the register of humanity, and the succeeding generation ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... idly in bed dreaming beautiful dreams. The sunny morning hours were slipping away, but she was so happy in dreamland, that she did not remember that her little maid had called her ...
— Stories of King Arthur's Knights - Told to the Children by Mary MacGregor • Mary MacGregor
... erect the parochial schools of Rome, which are nothing more nor less than schools of dogmas, and these dogmas are incubators of anarchy, for without education and without love of country, anarchy is as certain to follow as the day is certain to follow night, but still Protestantism stands idly by and allows Catholicism to villify her institutions, and at the same time permits Catholicism to place her followers in a position to draw salaries from the institutions which they despise and hate with ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... consciousness he lay upon the hard ground and Chester was bending over him. Shifting his position slightly the lad saw what was left of his troop standing idly about. At the same moment he felt a hand grasp his and heard ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... addressed, accepted Charley's suggestions, cheerfully, and he and the captain departed to carry out their own task. When they returned laden with the balance of the canoe's cargo, Walter was standing idly by the fire watching ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... yesterday, And white-winged boats at sunset drew To anchor in the crimsoning blue. The boats lie on the grassy plain, Nor tug nor fret at anchor chain; Their errand done, their impulse spent, Chained by an alien element, With sails unset they idly lie, Though morning beckons brave and nigh; Like wounded birds, their flight denied, They lie, and long ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... or lay around, idly discussing of the news, and congratulating ourselves that we were featly quit of our incubus, to us along the meadow path, his shadow jumping on the corn, came the very ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... person of an unblamed life made ridiculous or odious by the artifice of lying? But it is the disease of the age; and no wonder if the world, growing old, begin to be infirm: old age itself is a disease. It is long since the sick world began to dote and talk idly: would she had but doted still! but her dotage is now broke forth into a madness, and ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... and clear as the mountain-air. The whole temper of the man was painted in a dream of his youth. It seemed to him as though heaven lay, a stately palace, amid the gleaming hill-peaks, while the women reaping in the corn-fields of the valley became harvest-maidens of its king. They reaped idly, and Anselm, grieved at their sloth, hastily climbed the mountain side to accuse them to their lord. As he reached the palace the king's voice called him to his feet and he poured forth his tale; then at the royal bidding ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... Jeanie Morrison, The thochts o' bygane years Still fling their shadows ower my path, And blind my een wi' tears: They blind my een wi' saut, saut tears, And sair and sick I pine, As memory idly summons up The ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... minds are at ease the while; but it is an employment which is trying to the nerves when long continued, at the best; and nothing can be worse for the harassed, and for those who want to escape from themselves. Writing is bad. The pen hangs idly suspended over the paper, or the sad thoughts that are alive within write themselves down. The safest and best of all occupations for such sufferers as are fit for it, is intercourse with young children. An infant might beguile Satan and his peers the day after they were couched ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... made;[21] Love the Artist sets his signature beneath the soul which he has created;[22] Love the Helmsman steers the soul, like a winged boat, over the perilous seas of desire;[23] Love the Child, playing idly with his dice at sundawn, throws lightly for human lives.[24] Now he is a winged boy with childish bow and quiver, swift of laughter and speech and tears;[25] now a fierce god with flaming arrows, before whom life wastes away like wax in the fire, ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... He drummed idly with his forefinger upon the table. His eyes were wandering around the room absently. His face was calm ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... corner of the building, smoking his cigarette and gazing idly at the workmen. Then he chanced to glance around and caught sight of the Rovers. He at once poked his head back into the building and said something to ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer
... had been leisurely but steadily gathering up her toilet accessories preparatory to making her morning ablutions. Jerry, who stood idly watching her chum, suddenly realized that time was on ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... awkwardness of the situation. [He thought of Ali Musjid, and he thought of Isandula; he saw himself reflected in the mirror, and he declared that he gave it up.] An aide-de-camp stood at the door hiccupping idly. He was known to have invested all his paper currency in Sackville Street; and he felt in honour bound to say that the riddle was a little hard on the army ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... finally became a cloud. I watched it and wondered about its fate. Before the day was past, it might darken in its might, hurl forth thunders and jagged light, and lose its very substance in down-poured liquid. Or, after drifting idly high in air, the still-born cloud might garb itself in rich purple and gold for the pageant of the west, and again descend to brood over the coming marvel of ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... moved, and I caught in her muttering these lines, which she said over two or three times, and they seemed to bring peace and contentment to her. I set them down, thinking they might have some connection with her letter and be useful; but it was not so; they were a mere memory, floating idly in a tired mind, and they have no ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... mingled message of bacon and cheese from the very general dealer's—in whose window hung what seemed three hams, and only he who looked twice would discover that the middle object was no ham, but a violin—while at every corner lurked a scent of gillyflowers and southernwood. Idly supreme, Portlossie the upper looked down in condescension, that is in half concealed contempt, on the ant ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... that the news came from Plymouth, in New Hampshire,—whither he had gone with Ex-President Pierce,—that Hawthorne was dead. Afterward, it was recalled with a kind of awe that through many years of his life Hawthorne had been in the habit, when trying a pen or idly scribbling at any time, of writing the number sixty-four; as if the foreknowledge of his death, which he showed in the final days, had already begun to manifest itself in this indirect way long before. Indeed, he had ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... settled myself in a chintz-covered chair and was idly turning the pages of one of the latest of the Parisian comedies when I heard the swish of a gown and the patter of two small slippered feet hurrying across the hall. I rose to regard my hostess with a feeling of tender curiosity mingled with resentment over her treatment of my ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... Idly employed with his cigar, he sipped his coffee. In time aware that she had turned her attention elsewhere, he ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... nothing more. Where was he now? Had he passed through that great change called death? By a great effort he opened his eyes, and was bewildered. He was in a strange room. By an open window sat a young girl. She had been reading, but the book was now lying idly in her lap, and she was looking apparently into vacancy. The rays of the setting sun streamed in through the windows, and touched hair and face and clothes with its golden beams. Calhoun thought he had never seen a being so lovely; her beauty was ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... he had to divide it into three parts, which were posted on different heights, and his tents whitened the sides of the neighboring hills. When the encampment was formed the army remained gazing idly at the castles. The artillery was upward of four leagues in the rear, and without artillery all ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... closed, and the steam-yacht warped up slowly to the pier. There was little or no noise on her, only a voice raised occasionally in an authoritative command, and the rattling of chains that paid out through the donkey-engine. Idly I moved to the stone quay when the gangway was let down, but only one man descended. The passengers, if there had been any, had long since reached town from Tilbury, saving themselves that uninteresting trudge up the ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... for a moment and I mused idly on the boyhood of little Fyne. I could not imagine what it might have been like. His dominant trait was clearly the remnant of still earlier days, because I've never seen such staring solemnity as Fyne's except in a very young baby. But ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... of this put us again in a quake, and now, the snow beginning to fall pretty heavily, we went into the shed to cast about as to what on earth we should do next. There we sat, glum and silent, watching idly the big flakes of snow fluttering down from the leaden sky, for not one of us could imagine a way ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... nonchalantly, paused for an instant to pass his hand through his long chestnut hair, and then said, looking idly at a large, round watch ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... of what the lips can no longer keep in; blab, of a secret; blurt out, of passionate feeling. To chat is to talk in an easy, pleasant way, not without sense, but without special purpose. Chatting is the practise of adults, prattling that of children. To prate is to talk idly, presumptuously, or foolishly, but not necessarily incoherently. To jabber is to utter a rapid succession of unintelligible sounds, generally more noisy than chattering. To gossip is to talk of petty ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... I should fashion images to rest idly on their pedestals, nay but by every trading-ship and plying boat forth from Aigina fare, sweet song of mine, and bear abroad the news, how that Lampon's son, the strong-limbed Pytheas, hath won at Nemea the pankratiast's crown, while on his cheeks he showeth not as yet ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... fine weather, and fishing on the Thames is lazy fishing; for the gudgeons bite freely, and there is little labor in "landing" them. It is therefore the perfection of the dolce far-niente, giving leisure for talk, and frequent desire for refreshment. Idle time is idly spent; but the wit and fun of Mr. Hook that day might have delighted a hundred by-sitters, and it was a grief to me that I was the only listener. Hook then conceived—probably then made—the verses he afterwards gave the "New Monthly," ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... fugues of the eighteenth. But in all these exotic and archaic reflections of times and countries through which his fancy wanders, one recognises the gay, intelligent countenance of a Frenchman on his travels, who idly follows his inclinations, and does not trouble to enter very deeply into the spirit of the people he meets, but gleans all he can, and then reproduces it with a French complexion—after the manner of Montaigne in Italy, who compared Verona to Poitiers, and Padua to Bordeaux, and who, when he was ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... and realising how like a prison-cell it was compared with what he had expected, he felt oppressed as with the want of air. He sought vainly about the window for latch or hinge to open it, and as he did so glanced along the castle wall painted yellow by the declining sun. He noticed idly that some one was putting out upon the sill of a window on a lower stage what might have been a green kerchief had not the richness of its fabric and design suggested more a pennon or banneret. It was carefully placed by a woman's hands—the woman herself ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... late in the afternoon. She had never had such a day, and the great thing about it was that it seemed a mere beginning, just an opening up. A new day had dawned; a day which meant, not the death of the dream days, but their reincarnation into life. Those hours when she sat idly beneath blue skies, looking dreamily out upon beautiful vistas it seemed she should have been painting—how well, after all, they had done their work! Dreams which she had not understood were making themselves plain to her now. The love days were translating themselves in ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... impression, however, as to the way he should go, which was part instinct and partly remembrance of what the boy on the moving wagon had told him. The people he had left were too inert to think of giving him any instructions. But down the road he passed the big boys of the house sitting idly by the roadside. They had heard with satisfaction their father's opinion as to Steve's going in search of "larnin'." As Steve came in sight one of them nudged the other and said, "Less throw him off ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... Grip; I don't want to see," she said; and she began idly to pick up scraps of wild thyme and toss at the dog, who vainly kept on making rushes toward the slope ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... idly by and neglect to earn money to provide food, shelter and education for our loved ones, but between times we should seek the wealth that comes from right ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... the girls entered the shop. While Dona made her purchase, Marjorie stood by the counter, staring idly out into the road. She saw the door of the post office open, and Miss Norton appeared. The mistress looked carefully up and down the village, then walked hurriedly across the road, and bolted into "The Royal George" opposite. Marjorie gasped. That the august house mistress ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... sentries stood just inside the heavy doors. One shifted his weight, to lean partially on his pike, partially against the stonework. Idly, he looked out at the road which led through the village, staring directly through the place ...
— Millennium • Everett B. Cole
... little vessel bounded gaily over the waves, her canvas bellying in the wind. For some hours they sailed on thus, and Odysseus recited to his men all that he had heard from Circe. Then suddenly the wind dropped, and the sail hung idly to the mast. Having furled and stowed the sail, they took to their oars, while the sea went down, and at last sunk to a level calm. In the distance a low-lying coast appeared, which Odysseus knew to be the island of the Sirens, Forthwith he began to make his preparations to meet the danger ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... of Minas Somewhat apart from the vil|lage, and nearer the Basin of Minas. But a celestial bright|ness—a more etherial beauty. And the retreating sun the sign of the scorpion enters. In-doors, warmed by the wide-|mouthed fireplace idly the farmer, Four times the sun had ris|en and set; and ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... I awakened, it was to find myself abed in an elegant apartment, spacious and sunlit, that was utterly strange to me. For some seconds I was content to lie and take no count of my whereabouts. My eyes travelled idly over the handsome furnishings of that choicely appointed chamber, and rested at last upon the lean, crooked figure of a man whose back was towards me and who was busy with some phials at a table not far distant. Then ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... his troubles in sleep. For some time Topsy wandered aimlessly from room to room; then preferring Pan's society to no society at all—she did not feel kindly towards human beings since her late whipping—she leaped lightly on to the table and curled up near him. For fully half an hour she sat idly with half-closed eyes, while Pan slept on, a perfect picture of innocent slumber. Then his paws began to jerk excitedly; his mouth twitched, and the tip of his tail waved like a pennant in a stiff ...
— The Book of the Cat • Mabel Humphrey and Elizabeth Fearne Bonsall
... three hundred acres; and their labour, which is mostly confined to tending stock, is not only very light, but of the quality most agreeable to the negro. Half the day you will see him on horseback with his legs idly swinging—as he goes along, or seated on a shaft-horse driving his wagons. He is quite in his glory; nothing delights a negro so much as riding or driving, particularly when he has a whole team under his control. He takes ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... He was idly surprised at the latter; he had not known that orange groves had been planted and survived in Georgia. Woolfolk gazed more attentively at the shore, and made out, in back of the luxuriant tangle, the broad white facade of a dwelling. A pair of marine glasses ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... spent either on the water or in the saddle, and his love of exercise of all sorts excited the wonder and even the amusement of his companions, who for the most part preferred spending the time at their disposal in sleep, in idly looking out from a shaded room at what was going on outside, or in visits to friends and relations at the auberges of the langues to which they belonged. The natural consequence was, that by the time he reached the end of his three years' pageship, Gervaise was indisputably superior in strength, ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... the yard, where she stood, sun-bonneted to shelter her face from the burning attentions of the summer sun, leaning idly against a water barrel standing at the corner of the barn, she watched the farmyard comedy which was rapidly threatening to disturb the general peace. A large hen with a late-hatched brood of chicks, whose colors suggested the polygamous conditions under which her matrimonial affairs ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... of the ship is seen from mainmast to stern; sailors busy with ropes, groups of knights and their esquires lounging. Tristan stands apart from the rest, with folded arms, staring abstractedly over the water. His servant Kurwenal lies idly outstretched at his feet. Isolde's eyes at once find the half-averted figure; her absorption in it becomes equal to his in the unknown object of the thoughts engrossing him. She does not hear this time the sailor at the topmast singing over again the song she had before ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... veil from the deep valleys below, with here and there a white dot of a cluster of buildings gleaming out from the sombre land like the flicker of a heliotrope, and at intervals the base of the coast bursting forth in a long, heavy fringe of foam, as the lazy breakers chafed idly about the rocks of some projecting headland. Nearer, too, were the dark succession of waving blue lines in parallel bars and patches of the young land wind, tipping the backs of the rollers in a fluttering ripple of ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... the center occupied one-fourth, the rest being in dense forest. The three soon had their lines in water, and they waited full of anticipation, but they waited in vain until long after night had come. Not one of the three received a bite. The lines floated idly. ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... almost in a whisper, "God knows that I do not wish to make you unhappy, nor do I wish to make you do what is wrong. I spoke so because I could not help it. Do you think that I can love you, and know you to be what you are, and then stand idly by and see you passing to another? I believe in silence and endurance, but not in such silence and endurance as that. It is too much! God never asks it of ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... Idly Tom watched the RED STREAK. It was cutting through the water at a fast rate, throwing up curling foam on either side of the sharp bow. "He seems to be heading this way," mused Tom. "Well, I'm not going to race ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton
... without seeing, busy with his own uncheerful thoughts. But after a while he began to speculate idly on the scene around him, turning to the outward and material for distraction, if not for actual comfort. And so the stream of carriages and hansoms, and the conspicuously well-favoured human beings occupying them, began to intrigue his attention. He questioned whom they might be and ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... said one of our party, "think themselves extremely fortunate to be employed here, and accept work gladly. They come from the most barren parts of Carolina and Georgia, where their families live wretchedly, often upon unwholesome food, and as idly as wretchedly, for hitherto there has been no manual occupation provided for them from which they do not shrink as disgraceful, on account of its being the occupation of slaves. In these factories negroes are not employed as operatives, and this gives the calling ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... getting root in the minds of his children: it is in his power to continue to make his children hearers, when he is reproving servants for idleness, or commending them for industry and care: it is in his power to keep all dissolute and idly-talking companions from his house: it is in his power to teach them, by his uniform example, justice and mercy towards the inferior animals: it is in his power to do many other things, and something ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... Ronny said idly, "You know, in spite of the fact that I'm a third generation United Planets citizen and employee, I'm just beginning to realize how far out some of our member planets are. ...
— Ultima Thule • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... Betty play some of the songs they had loved in those service-filled days at the Hostess House. As the girlish voices rang out in one patriotic song after another, Joe Barnes, who was seated on the edge of a table with one foot swinging idly, fidgeted uneasily, while over his face came a ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope
... sat idly on the patchwork counterpane of his bed and gazed at the sky. He was feeling a little happier, a little less unsettled, for his stomach was empty and his mind had begun to fix itself with pleasure on the images of hot toast and jam. He 'wanted ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... to his service. Sometimes she might be wayward and capricious; but her repentance was bitter, her return entire, and even this inequality of temper suited him who was not formed by nature to float idly down the ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... time of day the gates of the port city were open and the guards lounged idly. Their captain recognized Amschel Mayer and did no ...
— Adaptation • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... at his desk scribbling idly on his blotting-pad, and rose to his feet with a look of alarm when his wife and family entered. His usually ruddy colour had disappeared, and he was white-faced and haggard in appearance; looking like a man who had received a severe shock, and who had not yet recovered ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... Doctor Joe and the boys, with the tide to help them, worked the big boat down through The Jug and past the Point into Eskimo Bay. In the shelter of The Jug, which lay in the lee of the hills, the sails flapped idly and it was necessary to bring the long oars into service. But beyond the sheltered harbour a light north-west breeze caught and filled the sails, the oars were stowed, the rudder shipped, and with David at the tiller Doctor Joe lighted his pipe and settled himself for a quiet smoke ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... still loved each other. Olivier took refuge in his work, and by applying himself to it regularly, though with even less conviction than before, won through to tranquillity. Jacqueline had nothing. She did nothing. She would stay in bed for hours, or dawdle over her toilette, sitting idly, half dressed, motionless, lost in thought: and gradually a dumb misery crept over her like an icy mist. She could not break away from the fixed idea of love.... Love! Of things human the most Divine when it is the gift of self, a passionate and blind sacrifice. ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... In manly beauty Milton stood before him, Gazing in reverent awe,—Milton, his guest, Just then come forth, all life and enterprise; While he in his old age,... ... exploring with his staff, His eyes upturned as to the golden sun, His eyeballs idly rolling." ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... world with a mind furnished against all exigencies, with expedients to extricate myself from every difficulty, and sagacity to provide against every danger; I was, therefore, in haste to give some specimen of my prudence, and to show that this liberality of instruction had not been idly lavished upon a ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... no work that day. In the afternoon, with Gertrude, he got into one of the boats and floated about with idly-dipping oars. They talked a good deal of ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... pilgrims from every land, who value human worth and human liberty, bring here their tributes of respect. And here, while the Government that he saved endures, shall throng his patriot countrymen, not idly to lament his loss, but to resolve that from this honored dead they take increased devotion to that cause for which he gave the last full measure of devotion; that the dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... never missed a Sunday. There was another fixture, always in the same spot, a little woman with gray, powdered hair and a lace handkerchief around her pink face; a pastel somewhat worn by years, who smiled sweetly in the discreet light of a window recess, her hands lying idly upon her lap, in fakir-like immobility. Jenkins, always in good humor, with his beaming face, his black eyes, and his apostolic air, went about from one to another, known and loved by all. He too never missed one of Felicia's days; and in very truth he displayed great patience, for all the sharp ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... sorrow, that they had not arrived, and I supposed that they had either been seized on the way by the Carlists, or that my letter had miscarried. I then thought of applying to England for a supply, but I abandoned the idea for two reasons. In the first place, I should have to remain idly loitering, at least a month, before I could receive them, at a place where every article was excessively dear; and, secondly, I was very unwell, and unable to procure medical advice at Santander. Ever since I left Coruna, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow |
