"Busy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Monday morning and see to poor Nep in his kennel before they were down? Oh, yes, they had heard of it from the stable-boy, and had charged him to take care the gentleman came in to breakfast, but he could not persuade him. Such a pity he was too busy to come to-day! ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the mines. There was a dressing room at the mine where we stripped off our prisoners' garb and donned working clothes. We stayed in the mines until 3.30 in the afternoon and the "staggers"—our pet name for the foremen—saw to it that we had a busy time of it. Then we changed back into our prison clothes and marched to barracks, where a bowl of turnip soup was given us and a half pound of bread. We were supposed to save some of the bread to eat with our coffee in the morning. Our hunger was so great, ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... Century or Doubleday, Whether Macmillan or the Harpers pay, The Publisher prints new books every Year; The Critics will keep Busy, anyway! ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Cayenne • Gelett Burgess
... melancholy mood; he felt that he had certainly seen the old man for the last time. When he arrived at home he found Rosalie busy hacking. The following morning, by earliest dawn, they were to travel toward Lemvig. Otto had not been there within these two last years. In old times the journey thither had always been to him a festival, now it was ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... to that," replied Dick. "Perhaps I'd better go back now and tell them to get busy with ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman
... are right, my friend. But this is extraordinary," he said, taking the driver into his confidence. "I have been so busy comparing the hyoides and the caracoides—yes, that's it. I will catch Sinard in the act. At the next session of the Institute he will have to ...
— A Street Of Paris And Its Inhabitant • Honore De Balzac
... And here her busy fingers commenced unbuttoning them. Released from confinement, out started my prick—stiff as iron, and as large as that of a youth of eighteen. Indeed, I was better hung than one boy selected out of five ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... you? And you, O beloved Oxford-street! whom the 'Opium Eater' called 'stony-hearted,' and whom I, eating no opium, and speaking as I find, shall ever consider the most kindly and maternal of all streets—the street of the middle classes—busy without uproar, wealthy without ostentation. Ah, the pretty ancles that trip along thy pavement! Ah, the odd country cousin-bonnets that peer into thy windows, which are lined with cheap yellow shawls, price L1. 4s. marked in the corner! Ah, the brisk young lawyers flocking from their quarters ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various
... "While I have been busy with one Indian, another has entered the camp and slain Fred and Hank! He is now after me! There will be no hesitation this time ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... didn't seem to worry none somehow. He was one of the sort that, put him down anywheres and he'd be busy at something. If he was set down on a sand bar beside a creek he'd reach around to find some sticks; and, first thing you know, he'd be building a house out of 'em—he just always was making things somehow. ...
— The Man Next Door • Emerson Hough
... copies are very indifferently executed. The late Mr. George Baker had the completest l.p. copy of this catalogue in existence. Before we proceed to give an account of subsequent book-sales, it may be as well to pause for a few minutes—and to take a retrospective view of the busy scene which has been, in part, described: or rather, it may be no incurious thing to lay before the reader for a future century (when the ashes of the author shall have long mouldered into their native dust) a statement of the principal book-sales which took place from November, 1806, to November, ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... busy season of the year, Guly had of late been so confined to business that it had been impossible for him to slip away and visit Blanche as he had done formerly. Occasionally, he had written her a note and sent it by his friend the dwarf, making such errands the occasion ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... did—of a reason for our eagerness, we might have had it in the way our evening's entertainment invariably turned out to be the legitimate sequel of our day's work. For there wasn't a cabaret of them all that did not reflect somehow the things we had been busy studying and wrangling over ever since our arrival in Paris, the merit they shared in common being their pre-occupation with the art and literature of the day to which they belonged. The tiresome performance known as a Revue, which is all the vogue just now in the London music-halls, ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... of the sparkling Burdette, is another hill city; and also a beautiful one; unquestionably so; a fine and flourishing city, with a population of twenty-five thousand, and belted with busy factories of nearly every imaginable description. It was a very sober city, too—for the moment—for a most sobering bill was pending; a bill to forbid the manufacture, exportation, importation, purchase, sale, borrowing, lending, stealing, drinking, smelling, or possession, by conquest, inheritance, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... turning aside to busy herself over little things that were not required of her, in order to shut her eyes to the one thing needful—a ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... four hundred yards from the river in a dense clump of oak and elm and listened. He could hear no sound that betokened the approach of the Indians, nor did he consider further pursuit likely. They would be too busy with their intended attack on Fort Prescott to be searching the woods in the night for a lone fugitive, who, moreover, had shown ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Between anger at his coachmen, alarm for the child, and interest in its preserver, he was quite shaken out of his wonted equanimity, which was composed equally of indolent good-nature, self-complacency, and a disposition to satirize the busy, earnest world around him. It was apparent that he was somewhat nonplussed by Miss Burton's manner and words, and those who knew him well enjoyed his perplexity, although at a loss themselves to imagine what object Miss Burton could have ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... an indescribable air of sadness. "And he is all the happier for leaving life alone. He is too busy living it to think about it. My mistake was in ever opening ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... no nonsense," he answered, very shortly, and he set his eye along his level, as if I had offended him. Not knowing how to assert myself and declare that I had spoken my honest thoughts, I merely sat down on the bench and waited for him to speak again to me. But he made believe to be very busy, and scarcely to know that I was there. I had a great mind to cry, but resolved not ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... a religious police; and you always know them by the great white diapers they wear. On week days they are quite as busy as on Sundays; to the great terror of the inhabitants, going all over the island, and spying ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... was light and easy, and appeared rather amusing than otherwise, being the spinning of hemp and flax, with small light wheels, turned with the foot, these children, who were obliged to be spectators of this busy and entertaining scene, became so uneasy in their situations, and so jealous of those who were permitted to be more active, that they frequently solicited with the greatest importunity to be permitted to work, and often cried most heartily if this favour ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... coming here? I hadn't heard. I've been so busy getting straightened out after my ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... Heath, my husband," she went on, carelessly rising and smoothing her skirts. The captain, who had risen too, bowed vaguely at the introduction, but Barker extended his hand frankly. "I found Stacy busy," he said in answer to his wife, "but he is coming to dine with ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... many different thoughts were busy in his restless brain that night. Strange memories came back to him, as he lay staring at the red chasms and craggy steeps in the fire—memories of a time so long gone by, that all the personages of that period seemed to him like the characters in a book, or the figures in a picture. He saw their ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... of Minervy bearing a tray temptingly arranged with a dainty supper, served to silence the boy, who at seeing her, threw himself upon all fours and appeared to be busy with the fire. The woman, a big raw-boned field hand, set her burden awkwardly down on a table, and after staring comprehensively around, addressed the boy in a low rich voice, "Dar ain't no mo' call to bodda wid dat fiar, you ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... worked capitally. "Educatrix" received fifty answers to her advertisement, and was busy more than a week calling at the houses of those who desired an interview with her. The ladies were all in good circumstances, and, without an exception, were the wives of men who had made sudden fortunes, after the manner ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... saves labor. Makes cooking pleasurable, easy and delightful. Without previous experience or instruction, by the aid of this magic volume, the busy housewife can quickly learn to make hundreds of savory, appetizing, nourishing dishes, plain or ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... the man's recommendation to his brother janitor was that Theodore secured the promise of all the brass cleaning in the Laramie Building also, and that with one or two small jobs kept him busy until dark when he went home with a light heart and with the sum of three dollars and fourteen cents in his pocket. To be sure he had worked hard all day to earn it, but Theodore never had been lazy and he was willing enough ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... plane-trees across the road are beginning to riot in their green bravery, as if intoxicated with the golden wine of spring. My French window is flung wide open, and on the balcony a triangular bit of sunlight creeps round as the morning advances. My work-table is drawn up to the window. I am busy over the first section of my "History of Renaissance Morals," for which I think my notes are completed. I have a delicious sense of isolation from the world. Away over those tree-tops is a faint purpurine pall, and below it lies London, with its strife ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... occupied by Clare a possible way of sending her a message occurred to Stonor. The woman was busy at some paces' distance. Stonor was sitting on a flat stone with his feet in the sand. Carelessly picking up a stick, he commenced to make letters in the sand. Clare, whose eyes never left him for long, instantly became aware of what he was doing; but so well did ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... shades of night come softly stealing, Softly stealing o'er the window sill; When the busy day is slowly ending, Slowly ending peacefully and still,— Christian, with thy heart adoring Heaven, Sweetest glories falling from above, Go to God in secret, silent pleading, Tell to him ...
— Food for the Lambs; or, Helps for Young Christians • Charles Ebert Orr
... first winter in the wild woods of Indiana the little boy must have lived a very busy life. There was much to do in building the cabin which was to take the place of the "camp," and in cutting down trees and making a clearing for the corn-planting of the ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... a busy place of small extent but containing for its size a large population. The enormous development of industry in the surrounding districts during the Great War must have brought the number of folks in and around Poole to nearly ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... you have been away from home over two years now. Dear me, it seems like ten. Lou is still the tantalizer she always was. Father keeps busy and well as usual. We all look forward to having you back at summer holidays. When do you expect to arrive? Be sure and let us know ahead. Frankie Arling was in the other day, and asked about you. Hoping to ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... up and down, and ran around in circles, mewing with all her might. What had happened she did not know; she only knew some heavy thing was dragging at her tail and pinching it fearfully. Every one in the back of the house was busy; no one but Eddo heard Zee's cries. He ran to the maid to ask "what made the kitty sing so sorry?" Whenever she mewed he called ...
— Jimmy, Lucy, and All • Sophie May
... the Forest of Rossendale. Lodges of water and beautiful reaches of the winding river gleamed in the evening sun, among green holms and patches of woodland, far down the vale; and mills, mansions, farmsteads, churches, and busy hamlets succeeded each other as far as the eye could see. The moorland tops and slopes were all purpled with fading heather, save here and there where a well-defined tract of green showed that cultivation had worked up ...
— Th' Barrel Organ • Edwin Waugh
... assist anyone, surprised us. You were so different from us all that we could not help wondering who you were; but I don't think any of us really suspected that you were Captain Bullen's son, till that fight. I know that when I was busy fighting, sorely pushed as we were, I wondered when I heard you shout in English; and I had heard you call out so often, when you were playing cricket with the officers, that I ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... have no conception of the possibilities of masculine joy in a fight for its own sake, or of the masculine sense of honour which compelled the meeting of a challenge half-way. Of course it was mightily unpleasant to be talked about, as the heroine of such a business. The village tongues had been busy, and would never altogether stop wagging for the remainder ...
— Bulldog And Butterfly - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... told me that Kouski went off on horseback at five o'clock this morning, and came back at nine, bringing provisions. It is going to be a grand dinner!—a dinner fit for the archbishop of Bourges! There's a fine bustle in the kitchen, and they are as busy as bees. The old man says, 'I want to do honor to my nephew,' and he pokes his nose into everything. It appears the Rougets are highly flattered by the letter. Madame came and told me so. Oh! she had on such a dress! ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... I didn't think I'd have time to finish it, when they said the Czar was coming to look at us; but I suppose he's too busy amusing himself to care about us ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... exterior (to which we could only approach by wading through rank grass as high as our knees) is one of the most interesting of its kind. During our admiration of all that was curious in this venerable edifice, we were struck by our old friends, the penitents,—busy in making confession. In more than one confessional there were two penitents; and towards one of these, thus doubly attended, I saw a very large, athletic, hard-visaged priest hastening, just having slipt on his surplice in the vestry. Indeed I had been ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... landward gently creeping, No longer sullen break; All nature now is still and softly sleeping, And why art thou awake? The busy din of earth will soon be o'er, Rest thee, oh rest ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones
... men rich, just because they recognized the possibilities of utilizing the newspapers to bring streams of buyers into neighborhoods that could be made busy locations by irrigation—by drawing people from ...
— The Clock that Had no Hands - And Nineteen Other Essays About Advertising • Herbert Kaufman
... sheltered from the storms and cold of winter, and into which they moved from their open camp. Here they remained, two loving brothers of congenial tastes, during the months of January, February, March and April. Solitary as their life must have been probably, every hour brought busy employment. Each day's food was to be obtained by the rifle. Wood was to be procured for their fire. All their clothing, from the cap to the moccasin, was to be fashioned by their own hands from ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... the thoughts of little Christopher were busy with this strange far-away land which Marco Polo described. All night long he dreamed of the marvelous sights to be seen on those distant shores. Many a time he went down to the water's edge to watch the queer ships as ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... good deal of his time in the two pools, the one inland and the other opening into the sea. The busy-bodies (they had some in those days as well as now) were set to wondering why he always kept a kihei, or mantle, on his shoulders; and for such a handsomely shaped, athletic young man, it was indeed a matter ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... Struve busy in his private office, but he leaped to his feet on her entrance and came forward, offering ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... to help him; would it be reasonable in you to complain that you didn't find the scaffold at all a comfortable place to live in?—that it was draughty and cold? This World is that scaffold; and if you were busy carrying stones and mortar for the palace, you would be glad of all the cold to cool the glow of ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... told you much; but now you will care to hear. It is a good way from this place, in Foster county, and not very far from a busy little manufacturing town; but it stands alone in the country, in the midst of fields and woods that I used to love very much when I was a boy. The place never came into my possession till about seven or eight years ago; and for much longer than that it ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... filled. I kept myself busy so that I wouldn't have a chance to think about the future, though of course I didn't really know how I dreaded it. I talked to the only girl who was near enough to me ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... and his wife than she had learned at her brother's house in London, where she had been staying for a few weeks, and where Mistress Daisy was not held in very high esteem. And all the time she talked, Bessie's little hands were busy with the folds of the black dress on the woman's knee, rubbing and smoothing it with the restlessness of an active, nervous child. But Miss McPherson would hardly have minded if the hands had worn holes in her dress, so interested ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... say," returned Mr. Dinneford. "It is hell pushing itself into visible manifestation—hell establishing itself on the earth, and organizing its forces for the destruction of human souls, while the churches are too busy enlarging their phylacteries and making broader and more attractive the hems of their garments to take note of this fatal ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... it was a busy day enough and did not lag. She did her shopping and called on a town friend or two. In the late afternoon she ran in to several art-stores where pictures were on exhibition. It was at the last of these ...
— The Very Small Person • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... conversation. Marty opened the door, and there stood Mercy herself, holding in her hands some wreaths of laurel and pine, and a large earthen dish with ferns growing in it. It was the day before Christmas; and Mercy had been busy all day, putting up the Christmas decorations in her rooms. As she hung cross after cross, and wreath after wreath, she thought of the poor, lonely, and peevish old woman she had seen there weeks before, and wondered if she would have any Christmas ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... a tree at the top of the coombe near the Church," she replied. "He was busy with his writing, and I told him I would just run across the hill and see if you were coming. I had a sort of fancy you would be tramping home this morning! And where have you ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... Baron, known to the notary by the name of Thoul, had drawn all the eight thousand francs that were to have been paid to him in fixed sums once a quarter," replied Josepha. "We have heard no more of the Baron, neither I nor Monsieur d'Herouville. Our lives are so full, we artists are so busy, that I really have not time to run after old Thoul. As it happens, for the last six months, Bijou, who works for me—his—what shall ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... "No, no! Me busy cookee," Sing Pete, who had been listening from the open doorway, jabbered and darted, frightened, back into ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... destroyed on these shows, and the bombers did magnificent work at vital points. At 2 A.M. they dropped eggs on the German Somme headquarters. An hour later they deranged the railway station of a large garrison town. For the remaining time before sunset they were not so busy. They merely destroyed an ammunition train, cut two railway lines, damaged an important railhead, and sprayed ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... that your husband's disposition is much changed; that he is no longer the sweet-tempered, ardent lover he used to be. This may be a mistake. Consider his struggles with the world—his everlasting race with the busy competition of trade. What is it makes him so eager in the pursuit of gain—so energetic by day, so sleepless by night—but his love of home, wife, and children, and a dread that their respectability, according to the ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... work in airnest—I had nothin' much in view But to drownd out rickollections—and it kep' me busy, too! But I slowly thrived and prospered, tel Mother used to say She expected yit to see me a wealthy ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... was very terrible as he gazed down there, and once more imagination was busy, and he mentally saw poor Melchior falling with lightning speed down, down through that purply-blackness, to lie at last at a tremendous depth, jammed in a cleft where the crevasse grew narrower, ending wedge-shape in ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... looked awkwardly round me. I was as much a stranger in it, in my thoughts, as I was in the Brazils, when I first went on shore there; and as much alone, except for the assistance of servants, as I was in my island. I knew neither what to think nor what to do. I saw the world busy around me: one part labouring for bread, another part squandering in vile excesses or empty pleasures, but equally miserable because the end they proposed still fled from them; for the men of pleasure every day surfeited of their vice, and heaped up work for sorrow and ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... haste, Otho's by delay. He argued thus: 'The whole of Vitellius' force has now arrived and he has few reinforcements in his rear, for the Gallic provinces are in a ferment, and it would be fatal to abandon the Rhine with all those hostile tribes ready to swarm across it. The troops in Britain are busy with their own foes and cut off by the sea: the Spanish provinces can scarcely spare any troops: the Narbonese are seriously alarmed by their recent reverse and the inroads of our fleet. The country across the Po is shut in by the Alps and denied all supplies by sea,[284] and, besides, ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... distance. Not even a brace game of faro-bank, nor yet any sim'lar dead-fall, prevails ag'inst me. I flatters myse'f; for onct in a way, I've organized my destinies so that, for six months at least, they've done got to run troo." "'It's after supper; our sport, who's been so busy all day treein' the chances an' runnin' of 'em out on a limb, is loafin' about the bar. O'casionally he congratulates himse'f on havin' a long head like a mule; then ag'in he oneasily reverts to the faro game that's tossin' ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... handsome granite structure, and the ruins of the railroad depot, which were still smouldering. Occasionally a few citizens or cavalry could be seen running across the streets, and quite a number of negroes were seemingly busy in carrying off bags of grain or meal, which were piled up ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... way which was to lead us to the castle; but, having reached the height, I rubbed my eyes, for I thought the fairy had been busy during the night, and, by a stroke of her wand, had swept away every vestige of the castle. Certain it was that not a stone was left,—not a solitary piece of wall or tower, to satisfy our curiosity! A pretty little girl of fifteen, who had hurried after us, now approached, and offered to be our ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... jolly parties, and on account of Richard's quickly acquired popularity were constantly being invited to dinners, dances, and less formal but most amusing Bohemian supper-parties. During these days there was little opportunity for my brother to do much writing, but he was very busy making mental notes not only for his coming book on the English people, but for a number of short stories which he wrote afterward in less strenuous times. We returned to New York in August, and Richard went to Marion to rest from his ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... continues as follows: "The number of deaths from this cause is already appalling and is steadily and rapidly increasing. In some of the busy centres the tables of mortality show that the proportion of nerve deaths has multiplied more than twenty times in the last forty years, and that now the nerve deaths number more than one-fourth of all the deaths recorded. What is most shocking in these returns, this fearful loss ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... know your fears, and what this busy little neighborhood will say. I care no more for all its ideas of life than for the wind, while I feel right here," said Mr. Wyman, placing his hand upon his heart. "The time has come for all to live individual lives. I would not for a moment have your name sullied, ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... girl did little credit to-day to her nickname of "the water-wagtail;" her little feet shuffled through the shelly gravel, her head hung wearily, and when one of the myriad insects, that were busy in the morning sunshine, came within her reach she beat it away angrily with her fan. As she came up to Mary she greeted her with the usual "All hail!" but the child only nodded in response, and half turning her back went ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... in to light the lamp, which she placed on a square table in front of the fire; then she fetched her distaff, her ball of thread, and a small stool, on which she seated herself in the recess of a window and began as usual to spin. Gasselin was still busy about the offices; he looked to the horses of the baron and Calyste, saw that the stable was in order for the night, and gave the two fine hunting-dogs their daily meal. The joyful barking of the animals was the last noise that awakened the echoes slumbering among ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... lands the busy brains and hands which have guided the plow and the locomotive, driven the machinery of the mine, the foundry, the factory, the home, the mental and the physical labor which have brought material prosperity, broadened the mind, subdued the brutal ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... afraid of lamp-posts," said Quarrier, "if I had that somnambulistic habit. Why haven't you looked in lately? Men of infinite leisure must wait upon the busy." ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... civilization punishes as it does begetting children. For poisoning food by adulterating it you may get fined fifty dollars, but if you have children they call it a miracle—as it is—and then they get busy and condemn you to a lifetime of ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... in an unbroken stream. The tables were always occupied. I went from one to another, unwound bandages, held up limbs for amputation, fetched splints, padding, gauze, or new bandages. I was too busy to think or to feel any horror. I was vaguely conscious of nausea and of a hot, stifling atmosphere heavy with the fumes ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... five weeks at Oxford, visiting the Cowells in just the same way that I am visiting my Sister here. I also liked Oxford greatly: but not so well I think as Bath: which is so large and busy that one is drowned in it as much as in London. There are often concerts, etc., for those who like them; I only go to a shilling affair that comes off every Saturday at what they call the Pump Room. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... a busy one for Evelyn, as he then brought out his two great masterpieces Sylva and the Kalendarium Hortense, of which more anon, as well as the translation of a French work on Architecture. His official duties in connection with the maintainance of the Dutch prisoners also became so heavy that the ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... and there had three duckings over head and eres, because she was a common scold and fighter." The cucking-stool, a very elaborate engine of the law, cost 1L. 3S. 4D. Men were ducked for beating their wives, and if that custom were revived the profession of cucking-stool maker would become busy and lucrative. Penances of a graver sort are on record in the registers. Margaret Sherioux, in Croydon (1597), was ordered to stand three market days in the town, and three Sundays in the church, in a white sheet. The sin imputed to her was a dreadful one. "She stood ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... the routine of daily life was resumed. The days and weeks and months passed, busy with work and study. Anne welcomed the mild spring days which came at last and allowed out-of-door games. During the autumn, the boxwood playhouse had been a place of delight to her and Dunlop and Arthur. Now, after a spring cleaning patterned after Mrs. Marshall's, she and Honey-Sweet ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... Yankee race came to improve them. Standing at its mouth, look up its sparkling stream to its source,—a silver cascade which falls all the way from the White Mountains to the sea,—and behold a city on each successive plateau, a busy colony of human beaver around every fall. Not to mention Newburyport and Haverhill, see Lawrence, and Lowell, and Nashua, and Manchester, and Concord, gleaming one above the other. When at length ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... unshaken. The "small private meeting" of which he wrote was a committee of directors of the Gardeners' Chronicle, and on the 25th he was preparing to rise and dress to attend this, but was persuaded to go back to bed. In bed, he was still busy reading and marking Blue-books which bore upon the case of the unorganized workers. The papers so prepared were, by his direction, set aside for the service of the Women's Trade-Union League. They were delivered next morning, but the messenger who took them carried with them the tidings ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... "Busy! No, Miss Torringley. Are these the sketches you told me Colonel Torringley made when he was in New Zealand?" and as he extended his hand for the book, the hot blood surged to ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... husband, the Duke of Saxony. This family concord was at once broken by Richard's flat refusal to swear fealty to his elder brother for Aquitaine. Already the Aquitanian rebels had begun to look to the young Henry for help against his brother, and Bertran de Born had been busy sowing strife between them. In the rebellion of the barons that followed, young Henry and his brother Geoffrey acted an equivocal and most dishonourable part. Really doing all they could to aid the rebels against Richard, ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... of course," answered the girl, "and 'tis busy we'll be with only Ann and me and the men-servants, for Will never goes to the cynos; he doesn't like farm work, and now he's studying so hard and all 'twould be foolish for him to sit up ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... and the few who dropped in had a half-shamed air at being there and got out as quickly as possible. He could go to Hallsboro, but Hallsboro no longer bore even a semblance to the little town in which he had been born—had, indeed, become something of a big city, bustling, busy, and new, and offensively up-to-date; and nowhere else did he feel so much a stranger as in the place he had once called home. He was but twelve when his parents moved away, and eight months later died within a week of each other, and for years he had not been back. Had there been brothers and ...
— How It Happened • Kate Langley Bosher
... from place to place. It is wrong to ask us to pay for the time spent by you in persuading your engine to behave, and it is indecent to become abusive when we act on that assumption. If I had not been so busy I should have refused to pay at all and forced you to summon me; but who has time for such costly formalities? And I might have had to lose my temper, which I have not done (much) since I read an article by a doctor ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various
... exclaimed the blind man, who was standing before the window with his back to the crimson sunset, "you can tell her ladyship, Hill, that I'm very busy, and I shan't come in to dinner to-night. Just serve a snack here ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... La Chine on the fifteenth of June, and pushed up the rapids of the St. Lawrence, losing a man and damaging several canoes on the way. Ten days brought them to the mouth of the Oswegatchie, where Ogdensburg now stands. Here they found a Sulpitian priest, Abbe Piquet, busy at building a fort, and lodging for the present under a shed of bark like an Indian. This enterprising father, ostensibly a missionary, was in reality a zealous political agent, bent on winning over the red allies of the English, retrieving French prestige, and restoring French trade. Thus ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... retained ever since; the romantic and fruitless quest he had made for the fair original in after days; and the strange and fateful interest in her which had grown up in his heart since then, he now knew had only been lulled to sleep in the busy preoccupation of the last six months, for it all came back to him with redoubled force. His present mission and its practical object, his honest zeal in its pursuit, and the cautious skill and experience he had brought ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... best, was not felicitous with them. Valerie felt herself caught by the wrist, a trifle roughly she remembered afterwards, and hurried across the cobbles to the tethered horses, with which Rabecque was already busy. She saw Garnache raise his foot to the stirrup and hoist himself to the saddle. Then he held down a hand to her, bade her set her foot on his, and called with an oath to Rabecque to lend her his assistance. A moment later she was ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... had been open to her. The coastwise trade was also enormous. From seventy to eighty sail of vessels had cleared in one day. Long Wharf, at the foot of State Street, was one of the most interesting and busy places. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... and of milder vein When Laelius' wisdom, from the busy scene And crowd of life, the vulgar and the great. Could with their favourite satirist retreat, Lightly they laugh'd at many an idle jest, Until their frugal feast of herbs ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... take up much of your time, Senor Scott," said Lazaro, in a soft, musical voice. "I know you are a very busy man. I have called to make inquiries about this railroad they say is soon to be built in my country. I hear you ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... to-morrow, a flourish of Swadeshi speeches the day after, and so on." A "great commotion may with advantage be made over small incidents," but "it must always be remembered that these do not constitute our real effort, and are very trifling accompaniments" which serve to keep the enemy busy and the country awake "whilst we are training," and the training consists in the organization, discreetly and silently, of bands of young men "with power to conceal secret counsel" and "to remain under complete obedience." Every band must "recognize the cultivation of physical ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... my home-coming were busy ones, for my place in the office had been vacant. Clayton Anderson had devoted himself to the Whately affairs, although nobody but those in the secret knew when Judson gave up proprietorship and went on a clerk's pay again where he belonged. Springvale ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... was his ship, floating majestically overhead, but no one would give it a glance. He pointed to it. These men must follow his excited gestures and look up; but they were busy calling suggestions to the line of ponies who had taken over the runway. Boswellister felt as if he were standing in a desert, surrounded by a mob of phantoms from ...
— The Glory of Ippling • Helen M. Urban
... by shooting out a stiff one flush to the point of Bennett's jaw. The redcoat ducked but the Dubliner lifted him with a left hook, the body punch being a fine one. The men came to handigrips. Myler quickly became busy and got his man under, the bout ending with the bulkier man on the ropes, Myler punishing him. The Englishman, whose right eye was nearly closed, took his corner where he was liberally drenched with water ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... loss. Our two patients Maitland and Kirby deadly sick; whatever can be wrong with them I can't imagine; the latter has been ailing off and on for some time and has got dispirited in the rough country. Busy this morning cutting up the flesh of the horse and tying it on the lines to dry; had he been in good condition it would take a good judge to distinguish his flesh from beef; it makes most excellent hash and soup. One of our horses ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay
... a rage.) Why, you little story-telling creature, coming here to impose upon your good uncle! You know that no one has been here—not a soul;—and as for yourself, you have been too busy looking after a certain gentleman ever to think of your poor uncle;—that you have;—taking advantage of his illness to behave in so indecorous a manner. I would have told him everything, but I was ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... finds its way into the marshy bottom of Foster's Creek, and from Sandy Creek, where the earthworks ended, to the river at the mouth of Foster's Creek, is about twenty-five hundred yards. Save where the axe had been busy, nearly the whole country was covered with a heavy growth of magnolia trees of great size and beauty. This was a line that, for its complete defence against a regular siege, conducted according to the strict principles of military science, ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... elevation, the spectator, on turning to the south, has before him the principal part of the busy capital. The Castle Hill, crowned by a variety of buildings, and encircled by the old walls of its Moorish fortifications, stands conspicuously on the left. Its northern slope is planted with olive-trees, which add to its picturesque appearance, and afford an ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 569 - Volume XX., No. 569. Saturday, October 6, 1832 • Various
... investigate a subject by constant labor, I doubt whether she would have stood the test. At school she was a parlor-boarder, attended outside lectures on the sciences, went to concerts and the opera, frequented museums, had small blank-books in which she took voluminous notes, and was constantly busy with some new scheme of improvement. In looking at her I often thought that could her aunt's dreams be realized, could her intellect ever approach the unusual symmetry and beauty of her face and form, it would indeed be an achievement. But ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... relating to sacrifice and the fruits also, O ruler of men, that sacrifice yields. Formerly, on one occasion Sakra performed a particular sacrifice. While the limbs of the sacrifice were spread out, the Ritwijas became busy in accomplishing the diverse rites ordained in the scriptures. The pourer of libations, possessed of every qualification, became engaged in pouring libations of clarified butter. The great Rishis were seated around. The deities were summoned one by one by contented ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... anybody to be Marshal of France; but to buy the honor with the life I am leading here would be too much." He recounts the last news from Fort Duquesne, just before its fall. "Mutiny among the Canadians, who want to come home; the officers busy with making money, and stealing like mandarins. Their commander sets the example, and will come back with three or four hundred thousand francs; the pettiest ensign, who does not gamble, will have ten, twelve, or fifteen thousand. ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... about that. I didn't have much time to look at him. I was busy trying to escape being hit ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... When the busy Countess came forth from her interview with Seraphina, it is not too much to say that she was beginning to be terribly afraid. She paused in the corridor and reckoned up her doings with an eye ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Opposition was busy over the marriage of their chief supporter, the Prince of Wales; and Mr Pasquin duly chronicles the event in his advertisements of the 28th of April, observing that his company "by reason of the Royal Wedding ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... "Get busy then, with your first aid," Tommy ordered. "Get some of his clothes off and get to work with snow, or his fingers and toes will drop off as ...
— Boy Scouts in Northern Wilds • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... toots. Unwieldly cascos are poled down the river, laden heavily with cocoanuts and hemp. Small floating islands whirl along in the swift current, and are carried out to sea. At the Muelle del Rey—the "King's Dock"—lie the inter-island steamers, and the gangs of laborers are busy loading and unloading them. Carabao drays are hauling fragrant cargoes of tobacco and Manila hemp, while over the gangplank runs a chain of men, gutting the warehouse of its merchandise. The captain of the Romulus stands on the bridge, daintily smoking a cigarette, and supervising ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... once a house of trade,—a centre of busy interests. The throng of merchants was here—the quick pulse of gain—and here some forms of business are still kept up, though the soul be long since fled. Here are still to be seen stately porticos; imposing staircases; offices roomy as the state apartments in palaces—deserted, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... attacked, and after three days' fighting, was taken. Roland was killed, and I was cast out with my child. Afterwards they repented that they had let me go, and searched far and wide for me; but I was hidden in the cottage of a woodcutter. They were too busy in hunting down others whom they proclaimed to be enemies of the king, as they had wrongfully said of Roland, who had but done his duty faithfully to Queen Isabella, and was assuredly no enemy of her son, although ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... Celestin Nanteuil "had the air of one of those tall angels carrying a censer or playing on the sambucque, who inhabit the gable ends of cathedrals; and he seemed to have come down into the city among the busy townsfolk, still wearing his nimbus plate behind his head in place of a hat, and without having the least suspicion that it is not perfectly natural to wear one's aureole in the street." He is described as resembling ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... used for crushing the rock is set in motion by these streams. On every side the men, women, and children employed on the works are seen moving about in all directions, like a busy colony of ants. The ore is ...
— The Mines and its Wonders • W.H.G. Kingston
... merged into a beautiful lawn, site of the Division Hospital, where all were as busy as beavers in placing this indispensable adjunct in order. Here the work of July 1 was clearly suggested. Proceeding, wading and rewading streams, we bivouacked beyond the artillery on the heights of El Poso, an old sugar plantation, about four miles off, in plain ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... confirmed a posteriori. The highest of all sciences is natural philosophy, since it considers not sense-objects only, not (like mathematics) the objects of reason only, but the actual itself in its true character. Hence it is the divine science, while the human sciences busy themselves only with our ideas or the relations ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... to be daylight in the city of Boston; and as the gray east gradually brightened and grew red in the coming of day, a young man looked out upon the busy world around him, with that feeling of utter loneliness which one so often feels in a great city where all is new and strange to him. Scarcely four weeks had passed since the notes of a tolling bell had fallen ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... was growing to dark. A white mist lay over the sea. The solitary lamps were being lit along the Parade, each golden star shining sharply in the pale purple twilight, but a more confused glow of orange showed where the little town was busy in its narrow thoroughfares. She got hold of a small boy, gave him the letter, a sixpence and his instructions. He was to ask if the gentleman were in the hotel. If not, had he left Penzance, or would he return that night? In ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... at last, "I might make conventional excuses. I might say that I have engagements; that I am very busy. Ordinarily one does not find it worth while to tell the truth in this social world of ours. But somehow I feel impelled to ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... experiences of the last few years. Nyoda told her about her teaching and the guardianship of the Winnebagos. "Camp Fire Girls?" said Mrs. Bates. "How delightful! I think that is one of the best things that ever happened to girls. If I were not so frightfully busy I would take a group too—I may yet. But I wish you would bring your girls out to visit us. We're living on the Lake Shore for the summer. Camp Fire Girls would certainly know how to have a good time at our place. We have a launch ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... war is still raging, they are busy with comprehensive plans for the economic struggle which will succeed it. Nor are they content to weave schemes. They have already begun to carry them out. To mention but a few of the less important enterprises, as symptoms of the German solicitude for ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... we were indeed all very fearful that the audience would go very much prejudiced against it. But now, there can be no doubt of its success, as it has certainly got through more difficulties than any comedy which has not met its doom the first night. I know you have been very busy in writing for Sheridan,—I don't mean copying, but composing;—it's true, indeed;—you must not contradict me when I say you wrote the much admired epilogue to the Rivals. How I long to read it! What makes it more certain is, that my father guessed it was yours the first time ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... in the way of seeing any or all of the State institutions to the best advantage. The governorship of an American State, let me add, is no ornamental sinecure. This was not only a man in high position, but a very busy man. Is there any other country where a mere letter of introduction is so generously honoured? If so, it is to me ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... Friday, and have spent our time most happily with our excellent friend Mrs. Marcet. His children are all so fond of Dr. Marcet, we see that he is their companion and friend. They have all been happily busy in making a paper fire-balloon, sixteen feet in diameter, and thirty feet high. A large company were invited to see it mount. It was a fine evening. The balloon was filled on the green before the house. The lawn slopes down to the lake, and opposite to it magnificent Mont Blanc, the setting ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... of the President of the University, or with whom she came in contact at Hull House or some of the other settlements. But such diversions she was obliged to deny herself. They would have taken time from her too-busy hours; and she had not the strength to do her work according to her conscience, and then to drag herself halfway across town, merely for the amiability of making her bow and eating an ice in a charming house. Not but that she enjoyed the atmosphere of luxury—the elusive sense ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... low; dogs grow sleepy and eat grass; waterfowl dive much; fish will not bite; flies are more than ordinary troublesome; toads crawl about; moles, ants, bees and insects are very busy; birds fly low for insects; swine, sheep and cattle are uneasy; and it is not without its ...
— The Teesdale Angler • R Lakeland
... taken unprepared: Armentieres, Charleroi, Douai, and Tournay had but insufficient garrisons, and they fell almost without striking a blow. Whilst the army was busy with the siege of Courtray, Louis XIV. returned to Compiegne to fetch the queen. The whole court followed him to the camp. "All that you have read about—the magnificence of Solomon and the grandeur of the King of Persia, is not to be compared with the pomp that attends the king in his ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... at him. Drenched violets would have been dull and colourless beside the living tint of her eyes, the raindrops clinging to her lashes. "Because he was too busy," she replied, ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... dared to resent aloud the bandying of her name, the insult of their searching eyes upon her beauty. It seemed to her that she heard a half-muttered exclamation from Bill, but his face belied it. And in reality the man's thoughts were as busy as never before. ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... will not supply the date, but presume it to be somewhere about 1800) "a petted child of ten years old, born and bred in the country, and as shy as a hare." The schoolmistress, a Mrs. S—-, "seldom came near us. Her post was to sit all day, nicely dressed, in a nicely-furnished drawing-room, busy with some piece of delicate needlework, receiving mammas, aunts, and godmammas, answering questions, and administering as much praise as she conscientiously could—perhaps a little more. In the school-room she ruled, like ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... lay before him, he saw a garden in the rear of the building and beyond that fields with hedges and bushes, but there was not a soldier in sight on that side. The Prussians were busy on the other side of ...
— The Children of France • Ruth Royce
... very busy in examining my vessel and my ship's company. The schooner was a beautiful model, very broad in the beam, and very low in the water; she mounted one long brass thirty-two-pounder forward on a circular sweep, so that it could be trained in every direction; abaft, she had four brass ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... Meanwhile the Lacedaemonians at home were quite alive to the fact that moneys had been sent into Hellas, and that the bigger states were leagued together to declare war against them. It was hard to avoid the conclusion that Sparta herself was in actual danger, and that a campaign was inevitable. While busy, therefore, with preparations themselves, they lost no time in despatching Epicydidas to fetch Agesilaus. That officer, on his arrival, explained the position of affairs, and concluded by delivering a peremptory summons of the state recalling him to the assistance ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... listening to the despairing father vainly trying to explain how his daughter's assailant had been able to escape from him? Why bury ourselves with our work in obscure retreats in the depths of woods, if it may not protect us against those dangerous threats to life which meet us in the busy cities? ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... while they were busy dressing, and Nick made the narrow speed boat wabble fearfully with his movements as ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... another, and felt shut out from all. "I can't go and wake her like the Prince did, but I do wish she'd get up and do something, now I can see. I daren't throw a stone, it might hit some one, or holler, it might scare her. Pussy won't help, and the sparrows are too busy scolding one another. I know! I'll fly a kite over, and that will please her any way. Don't believe she has ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... resistlessly [Page: 120] onward to make more crowded our overcrowded tenements, to enlarge our overgrown cities, to cause suburb to spread beyond suburb, to submerge more and more the beautiful fields and hilly slopes which used to lie near the busy life of the people, to make the atmosphere more foul, and the task of the social reformer ...
— Civics: as Applied Sociology • Patrick Geddes
... character, it may be the most important for many a day to the father. If he answers with sympathy and interest this question on a "foul ball" or on marbles or peg-tops, he has opened a door that will always stay open so long as he approaches it with sincerity; if he slights it, if he is too busy with those lesser things that seem great to him, he has closed a door into the boy's life; it may never be opened again. Children learn life through the life they are now living. Real preparation for the world of business and larger responsibilities comes by the child's experiences ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... clothes—we've got to make a start." The other came to himself and went inside quietly with the settler. The dark man stretched himself, crossed the kitchen and looked down at the sleeping child; he returned to the fire without comment. The wildness had left his eyes. The bushwoman was busy putting some tucker in a sugar-bag. "There's tea and sugar and salt in these mustard tins, and they won't get wet," she said, "and there's some butter too; but I don't know how you'll manage about the bread—I've wrapped it up, but you'll have ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... the ignorant and indolent rabble.— Populus. The common people, tradesmen, mechanics, and the like. Hence, aliud agens, which implies that they were too busy with something else of a private nature, to give much attention to public affairs or the concerns of their neighbors.—Populus and vulgus are brought together in a similar way, Dial. de Clar. Orat. 7: Vulgus quoque imperitum et tunicatus ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus |
