"Busy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... been placed close to the sofa for the convenience of the invalid, and Hector was leaning against his cushions watching her little hands flying in and out of her work. Peggy always made a great affectation of being busy, and had at least half-a-dozen pieces of fancy work hidden away in as many drawers, waiting completion at that indefinite period when she should remember their existence. She glanced at him now, and ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... on the day of Gloria's visit with the District Nurse that Mr. McAndrew came home to luncheon, which was rather an unusual proceeding for the busy attorney during hot weather. Mrs. McAndrew, seated with her mending on the shady piazza, could see a worried expression upon her husband's face even before he reached ...
— Gloria and Treeless Street • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... live by promptly satisfying the wants of the visitors to the bazaar in the shape of a pipe or an ice, a cup of sherbet or of coffee, or a basket of delicious fruit. The passengers were few, and all seemed busy: some Armenians, a Hebrew physician and his page, the gliding phantoms of some winding-sheets, ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... that my master was no favourite with them of Stationers' Hall, and, moreover, that he was addicted to disorderly practices contrary to the Acts binding printers. But so well did he keep his own secret, and so busy was I with my own affairs, that it all passed from my mind, and now only returned when I saw that what had been said of him ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... was busy getting the children ready for bed; so by and by it got dull and tedious, and me and Tom took a turn in the moonlight, and fetched up in the watermelon-patch and et one, and had a good deal of talk. And Tom said he'd ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... across his brow, for ever since dinner he had never left his writing-table, so busy had he been with the great pile of documents which had been brought that afternoon by special messenger from the ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... the first and most plausible lie that occurred to him, and it answered his purpose. He returned to Kensky with his information, and the old man producing a map of London, he marked the spot with a red cross. All this time Malcolm Hay was busy making preparations for departure. He would have been glad to stay on, so that his leaving London would coincide with the departure of the Grand Duchess, but his sleeper had already been booked, and he had to make a ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... to myself that when once he was grown up we should have him always with us, to recall our youth and to enliven our hearts. His mother was always thinking of getting him married and having children again to care for. You know women always will busy themselves about others. As for me, I thought of him working near my bench and singing his new songs; for he has learned music and is one of the best singers at the Orpheon. A dream, sir, truly! Directly the bird was fledged, he took to flight, and remembers neither ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... two or three blocks in this direction, avoiding carefully the few persons whom he met, he turned again. The streets were growing lighter and wider now, and there were more people on them, and that was something to be thankful for. Finally he reached a busy, well-lighted thoroughfare, and turned into it, with a sigh of relief. He had not walked very far along it before he saw, over to the right, surrounded by lights, a long, low building, in the middle of an open square. It occurred to him, suddenly, that this was the railroad ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... thy mild countenance beam upon me, soften and heal my aching heart. Look you, when I lay my head thus upon your shoulder, it seems to me I have escaped all trouble; that only far away in the distance do I hear the noise and tumult of the restless, busy world; and I hear the voice of my mother, even as I heard it in my childish days, whispering of God, of paradise, and the angels. Still, still, friend, let me dream thus ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... then journeyed down the eastern shores of this immense inland sea, about twenty miles. They were delighted with the beauty of the scenery opening before them, and were very busy in taking observations and exploring the country through which they passed. Far out in the lake there was seen a very attractive and densely wooded island. Colonel Fremont had with him an india rubber boat, which, with inflated air chambers, ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... not kissed her for two years, for he was a very busy man: he had not time for soft demonstration. He was rich, he was religious, and he was looked upon as a model citizen ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... such a list of questions or not, he must at least have definitely in mind the exact purpose of his visit and the precise questions he wants answered. In the majority of cases the reason that interviewers meet with such unwelcome receptions from great men is that the latter are too busy to waste time with pottering reporters. Certainly the men themselves say so. President Wilson declares that of the visitors to the White House not one in ten knows precisely why he has come, states definitely ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... We are busy in preparing for our little journey and voyage: but I will be ill, I will be very ill, if I cannot hear you are better before ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... most other birds, but it is because you don't look for me. Like all other owls I keep quiet during the day, but when night comes on, then my day begins. I would just as soon do as the other birds—be busy during the day and sleep during the night—but really I can't. The sun is too bright for my eyes and at night I can see very well. You must have your folks tell you why ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [May, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... left alone one instant. Four small and lively kittens in the house are indeed things of beauty, and a joy as long as they last. Four fluffy little Angora balls they were Chin, Chilla, Buffie, and Orange Pekoe, names that explain their color. And Jane, wet nurse and waiting-maid, had to keep as busy as the old woman that lived in a shoe. Jane it was who must look after the infants when Lady Betty wished to leave the house. Jane it was who must scrub the furry quartet until their silky fur stood up in bunches the wrong way all over their chubby little sides; Jane must sleep ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... fold previously to enliven thereupon to earn busy she heaved a deep sigh I have acquainted myself with what is going on from what ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... the girl very often. She lives at some little distance. He was busy,—you know how he worked,—and she was chained at home, more or less. Occasionally he slipped away for a week-end, to see her. One time—the last time, about two months ago—he managed to get in a whole week. It was as near happiness as Ferguson ever got, I imagine; for they were able to fix ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... same thought had occurred to a few political leaders. Charles Sumner held it, though too wise, politically, to advance it in the face of the growing Northern determination to preserve the Union. It lay at the bottom of his increasing bitterness toward his old friend Charles Francis Adams, now busy in schemes intended, apparently, to restore the Union by compromise, and it led Sumner to hope for appointment as ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... Bas, he reflected, was busy to-day conferring with those leaders of the riders from whom he ostensibly stood aloof, and the man who was hunting him down followed trail after trail along roads that could be ridden and "traces" that must be tramped. Casual inquiries along the highway served only to send him hither and ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... miracles, to prove the Divine origin of a religion. The tendency has been of late to fall back on these attractive parts of the argument, which admit of such varied handling and expression, and come home so naturally to the feelings of an age so busy and so keen in pursuing the secrets of human character, and so fascinated with its unfolding wonders. But take any of them, the argument from results, for instance, perhaps the most powerful of them all. "We cannot," as Mr. Mozley says, "rest too much upon ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... men labored with the work of their hands. For this reason did it come to pass that none could set up the Tabernacle, for I want all Israel to see that it cannot stand if thou dost not set it up." Moses replied: "O Lord of the world! I do not know how to put it up." But God answered: "Go, get busy with its setting-up, and while thou art busy at it, it will rise of its own accord." And so it came to pass. Hardly had Moses put his hand upon the Tabernacle, when it stood erect, and the rumors among the people that Moses had arbitrarily put up the ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... for all those awful things you have said to me and about me, Jessie Sanderson," Marjorie threatened, good-naturedly. "I'd do it now, only I'm too busy trying ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... had a long walk to the Rue St. Maur, to meet by appointment our kind friend De Pressense to visit the schools for mutual instruction. At this season of the year the children are more busy with their parents than usual; but in winter there are 200 boys, 200 girls, and 200 children in the infant school, with an evening school for adults. Scripture extracts are made use of, and also the Scriptures themselves. We were struck with the quiet and good order of all these ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... her, the dear companion of my exile, who, like a busy village girl, smiles on her errand of ceaseless service and ...
— The Fugitive • Rabindranath Tagore
... of an innocent life, no busy-body, nor self-seeker: neither touchy nor critical: what fell from him was very inoffensive, if not very edifying. So meek, contented, modest, easy, steady, tender, it was a pleasure to be in his ...
— A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers • William Penn
... The eager, busy hum of work slackened—discipline is not perhaps quite so taut in the French as it is in the British Navy—for both men and officers were one and all eager to see the lady who had ventured out in the Neptune with their commander. ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... being is so full; and the effect upon me is, in consequence, as a matter of necessity, as confusing as if it denied that I am in existence myself. If I looked into a mirror, and did not see my face, I should have the sort of feeling which actually comes upon me, when I look into this living busy world, and see no reflexion of its Creator. This is, to me, one of those great difficulties of this absolute primary truth, to which I referred just now. Were it not for this voice, speaking so clearly in my conscience ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... possess, namely, thy own folly? And thou desirest with the multitude of sophists to deceive thyself and others, despising the mathematical sciences in which truth dwells and the knowledge of the things which they contain; and then thou dost busy thyself with miracles, and writest that thou hast attained to the knowledge of those things which the human mind cannot comprehend, which cannot be proved by any instance in nature, and thou deemest that thou hast wrought a miracle in spoiling ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... not long idle at the door. There was daily duty to discharge, and daily work to do—for such commonplace spirits that are not heroic, often work hard with their hands—and Harriet was soon busy with her household tasks. These discharged, and the poor house made quite neat and orderly, she counted her little stock of money, with an anxious face, and went out thoughtfully to buy some necessaries for ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... being dry, we walked out to view the wonders of this great commercial city of England, Liverpool. The side-paths were filled with an active and busy population, and the main streets thronged with heavily-laden waggons, conveying to the docks the manufactures of the country, or carrying inward the productions of foreign nations. It was an animating ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... with ours. There is no competition. The Schweinhuende Englaender have no interest there—yet. They are too busy with the Uganda railroad." ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... bags—the money bags lived in the brown leather bag—and the grave had to be fastened down. Altogether it was a good bit of work. I'd just got it open, and the money spread out, when he turned bad—a sort of collapse like the one you saw; and I was so busy getting him to bed that I forgot the cursed grave and the money—just as I forgot to put away the knife-and-fork before you called the first time, and you ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... Greatest Living Authorities;" "Leader in the Modern School;" "Of Powerful Influence Upon the Artistic Production of the Age." The story of the unknown mountain girl's abduction and escape was a news item of a single day; but the disappearance of James Rutlidge kept the press busy for weeks. It may be dismissed here with the simple statement that the mystery has ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... to the army. Weeks passed away, and the women and children, as well as the old men, were all busy in getting in the bounteous harvest with which this year God had blessed the earth. Alfgar and Bertric worked like the theows themselves, and slowly the precious gifts ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... fair-day in Coventry, and this gave what no doubt is an unusual bustle to the streets. In fact, I have not seen such crowded and busy streets in any English town; various kinds of merchandise being for sale in the open air, and auctioneers disposing of miscellaneous wares, pretty much as they do at musters and other gatherings in the United States. The oratory of the American auctioneer, however, greatly ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... whar he been settin' at. He stuck his head out, he did, an' look all 'roun', an' den he went whar de fier wuz an' try fer ter warm hisse'f. He aint been dar long 'fo' here come Brer Wolf an' Brer Fox, an den he got busy. ...
— Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit • Joel Chandler Harris
... cooking utensils, she began housekeeping. Often she started out at six in the morning, not to return until dark. Most frequently she read the Bible to those who could not read. Sometimes she gave cheer to mothers busy over the washtub. Sometimes she would teach the children to read or to sew. Often she would write letters for those who had been separated from friends or kindred in the dark days. She wrote hundreds and hundreds of such letters; and once in ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... with the Borneans. The Portuguese went to the settlement, and the Borneans went to the vessels. In regard to the forts, the king had built one up the river where the people are gathered. It is named Talin, and is made of palm-trees three or four estados high. They are now busy constructing a mosque. This witness had heard that as soon as the said mosque was completed, galleys would be begun in the ship-yard. There was no fort at Paingaran. There is nothing else; and, the same being read, he declared it true. He appeared to be ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson
... yellow contents of a smooth yellow bowl. Ah! No lumps now; one turn and all resolved into a perfect cadence. Anyone is an artist and a great one who can so resolve a discordant measure. And now she is busy with the brandy! Ah! Sarah, will no temptation accrue from the pouring of the warming draught? "Out upon thee!" says Sarah. "Am I not already as warm over my work as I want to be, and shall I not have my good ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... 1884 the House declined to renew it by a vote of 124 nays, 85 yeas; 112 not voting. The debate was long and heated and almost wholly on the question of woman suffrage itself. Thenceforth the women appeared before the House Judiciary Committee, which, although busy and overworked, had always a good representation present and ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... village politicians. And when they did not come to him, he went to them to talk over public affairs. This so encroached upon his time that he found it necessary sometimes to work until midnight to make up for the hours lost during the day. His political fervour become the talk of the village. While busy one night hammering away at a shoe-sole, a little boy, seeing a light in the shop, put his mouth to the keyhole of the door, and called out in a shrill pipe, "Shoemaker! shoe-maker! work by night and run about by day!" A friend, to whom Drew afterwards told the story, asked, "And did not ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... addressing the deputy. "Yes, even now there is something to hinder, if I was to get busy." Then he coolly dropped his arms and leaned against the rock with one leg crossed before the other in a manner sometimes supposed to reflect social ease and elegance. "But I'm game to take what's ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... reviving past ideas, in some order and method, will be an infinite comfort to you hereafter. I have a thousand times regretted not having done so; it is at present too late for me to begin; this is the right time for you, and your life is likely to be a busy one. Would young men avail themselves of the advice and experience of their old friends, they would find the utility in their youth, and the comfort of it in their more advanced age; but they seldom consider that, and you, less than anybody I ever knew. May you soon ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... to a blunder. The conflict of opinion resulted in the usual compromise. A new commission was to be despatched with a more strongly worded message from the senate; but, as rumour had apparently been busy with the adventures of the "three young men" whom Jugurtha had turned back, it was deemed advisable to select the present envoys from men whose age, birth and ample honours might give weight to a mission that was meant to avert a war.[912] ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... to General McLaws to cover his front, extending across the pike and the plank roads, with a line of breastworks; and long before daylight the soldiers of his division, with the scanty means at their disposal, were busy as beavers ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... Betty's gay and pure-toned voice demanded over the wire. Had he eschewed the theater and all its works for good? Too busy? Was that a reason also for eschewing his friends? He'd never meant to do that? Let him prove it then by coming up to see her.... Yes; at once. Something special to be ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the letter above the spirit can they cause difficulty. In so far as they remove Jesus utterly from the pedantic carefulness for words which marked the scribes they are among the rare treasures of his teachings. The simple spirit will not busy itself about finding something that may be called a needle's eye through which a camel can pass by squeezing, nor will it seek a camel which could conceivably be swallowed, nor will it stumble at a seeming command to hate those ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... intercession. They need not be lengthy. "Use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking." It is quality and not quantity of prayer that counts. And the prayers of a busy man must ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson
... busy with your work, sir, that the arms are in a very bad condition. The first-lieutenant said yesterday that they were a disgrace ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... thoughts of gratitude shall fall like dew 30 Upon thy grave, good creature! While my heart Can beat never will I forget thy name. Heaven's blessing be upon thee where thou liest After thy innocent and busy stir In narrow cares, thy little daily growth 35 Of calm enjoyments, after eighty years, And more than eighty, of untroubled life, [H] Childless, yet by the strangers to thy blood Honoured with little less ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... what ennui is, and everybody knows it most accurately. Nobody would say that it is burdensome, and yet everybody knows, again, that a large group of evil deeds spring from ennui. It is not the same as idleness; I may be idle without being bored, and I may be bored although I am busy. At best, boredom may be called an attitude which the mind is thrown into because of an unsatisfied desire for different things. We speak of a tedious region, a tedious lecture, and tedious company only by way of metonymy—we ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... 1658 was a busy one for our Indian. The settlements are rapidly spreading and land is in demand by incoming colonists. On June 10 he laid out the beach to the westward of the Southampton settlement, giving Lion Gardiner the right to all whales cast up by ...
— John Eliot's First Indian Teacher and Interpreter Cockenoe-de-Long Island and The Story of His Career from the Early Records • William Wallace Tooker
... and Sainte-Croix dropped to the ground as though felled by a lightning stroke. At supper-time, his wife finding that he did not come out from his closet where he was shut in, knocked at the door, and received no answer; knowing that her husband was wont to busy himself with dark and mysterious matters, she feared some disaster had occurred. She called her servants, who broke in the door. Then she found Sainte-Croix stretched out beside the furnace, the broken glass ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... which he towered in what became transcendent statesmanship—the head, the heart, the genius of the war. He never, for one moment, changed his course, but kept it fixed upon the Union, no matter what the winds and tides, the currents and cross-currents were. Thus, while so many lesser minds were busy with flotsam and jetsam of the controversial storm, his own serener soul was already beyond the far horizon, voyaging toward the one sure haven ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... drew near, Pierre heard the girl exclaim: "Mamma is so very busy; speak to her before we leave." And Gerard thereupon replied: "It is understood. You have made me ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... unreal. Like the man, whose sight had been restored by miracle, he beheld men, as trees, walking. His household gods were broken. He had no home. His sympathies cried aloud from his desolate soul, and there came no answer from the busy, turbulent world around him. He did not willingly give way to grief. He struggled to be cheerful,—to be strong. But he could no longer look into the familiar faces of his friends. He could no longer live ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... and joined her, but she took an opportunity by a sign to caution him against doing so, while at the same time he remained somewhat apprehensive of the consequences of bringing her under the notice of his new friend, Greenleaf, who might perhaps think it proper to busy himself so as to gain some favour with the knight who was at the head of the garrison. Meantime the old archer continued his conversation with Bertram, while the minstrel, like many other men similarly situated, heartily wished that his well-meaning companion had been ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... minister had been moved bag, baggage and creed over to Tollman's larger house, and in these days of reaccommodated regime, the road between the two places was one busy with errand-running. On one of these missions Eben had been driving with the slow sedateness which was his wont, when upon pleasant reflections, like shrapnel disturbing a picnic, burst the sense of danger, and the realization of his folly. It struck the ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... were all at work. There were some women and children of the party. The women were busy in front of some rough huts which had been built Indian fashion, something like gipsy tents in England, and covered with large sheets of birch-bark. They were soon made, with a ridge pole, supported by cross-sticks ten feet long. Other ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... are still "defenders of the faith," and ecclesiastical chiefs, they are but nominally such. Though bishops still have civil power, it is not what they once had. Protestantism shook loose the bonds of union; Dissent has long been busy in organising a mechanism for the exercise of religious control, wholly independent of law; in America, a separate organisation for that purpose already exists; and if anything is to be hoped from the Anti-State-Church Association—or, ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... employed in cutting up the light fire-wood which they had brought from the country on their heads, and in binding it into small bundles for sale. Here we paused a moment and looked down upon the busy multitude below. The whole street was a moving mass. There were broad Panama hats, and gaudy turbans, and uncovered heads, and heads laden with water pots, and boxes, and baskets, and trays—all moving and mingling in seemingly inextricable ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... for, to tell the truth, he had eaten a hearty supper, and began to feel drowsy; and I was too much wrapped up in my own busy thoughts to solicit any communications. I found a sort of saddened pleasure in setting a watch for the night, therefore, which had an air of seaman-like duty about it, that in a slight degree revived my old taste ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... all, teaching him to mind what he's about. He'll be a fortnight away out of her sight! Only fancy! She has an uneasy inkling all the time that he'll enjoy himself when he's his own master. And so she's busy now laying all sorts of injunctions upon him, each more imperative than the last, and then she'll take him up to the holy picture and make him swear solemnly that he'll do everything exactly and ...
— The Storm • Aleksandr Nicolaevich Ostrovsky
... one named Punifanga and the other Tafaliu. The one went up by a tree, and the other on a column of dense smoke from a fire kindled by himself for the purpose. We are also told of the woman Sina, or white, who with her child has long been up there. She was busy one evening with mallet in hand beating out on a board some of the bark of the paper mulberry with which to make native cloth. It was during a time of famine. The moon was just rising, and reminded her of a great bread-fruit, looking ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... spirits," he cried, "Ere the fire pierce you; enter in, and list Attentive to the song ye hear from thence." I, when I heard his saying, was as one Laid in the grave. My hands together clasped, And upward stretching, on the fire I looked, And busy fancy conjured up the forms, Erewhile beheld alive, consumed in ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... whom one could venture to take liberties. Presently Sarah Ellen began to feel better. She did not often find such a quiet place, or the quarter of an hour of idleness in which to enjoy it, and was glad to make the most of this opportunity. Just now she felt tired and lonely. She was a busy, unselfish, eager-minded creature by nature, but now, while grief was sometimes uppermost in her mind and sometimes a sense of wrong, every moment found her more peaceful, and the great excitement little by ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... of Chopin, not permitting him the energetic expression of his passions, he gave to his friends only the gentle and affectionate phase of his nature. In the busy, eager life of large cities, where no one has time to study the destiny of another, where every one is judged by his external activity, very few think it worth while to attempt to penetrate the enigma of individual ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... a remote part of the town and walked across the quarter appropriated to the artisans. The workmen were busy at their calling, notwithstanding the intense noonday heat. The baker's men were at work in the open court of the bakehouse, kneading bread—the coarser kind of dough with the feet, the finer with the hands. Loaves of various shapes were being drawn out ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... business," O'Neil remarked after a pause, "but unless you have inside information, or a bigger pull in Washington than the rest of us, I'd advise you to get busy. I'll be on my way to Kyak in the morning with a gang of men." Gordon's attitude puzzled him, for he could not bring himself to believe that such indifference ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... said the Sultan; 'I will be true to my master.' However, the wolf thought he was in joke, and came one night to get a dainty morsel. But Sultan had told his master what the wolf meant to do; so he laid wait for him behind the barn door, and when the wolf was busy looking out for a good fat sheep, he had a stout cudgel laid about his back, that combed ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... once as one of the family. An old army pensioner and Palashka, the one servant, laid the cloth for dinner; while in the square, near the house, the commandant, a tall and hale old man, wearing a dressing-gown and a cotton nightcap, was busy drilling ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... makes you call that great clumsy dog 'Watch'? A watch goes 'tick, tick,' as busy as can be all the time; and this dog is ...
— The Nursery, November 1873, Vol. XIV. No. 5 • Various
... I think I shall keep it," she rejoined, not without a touch of austerity. Then she added: "Mr. Winton will probably never miss it. If he does, you will have to explain the best way you can." And Adams could only say "By Jove!" again, and busy himself with pouring the tea which Ah Foo ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... of locomotive bells. Once or twice, however, when the throb of the traffic momentarily subsided, music rose faint and sweet from the cathedral, and Mrs. Keith turned to listen. She had heard the uplifted voices before, through her open window in the early morning when the city was silent and its busy toilers slept, and now it seemed to her appropriate that they could not be wholly drowned by its hoarse ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... one regret: the butcher-boy was not there to see him—the butcher-boy who had expended so much time over him, had taught him the upper cut, the under cut, every cut that the heart of a butcher-boy delights in. The Biffer was very busy biffing the air with a rapid circular motion of the arms, for Jimmy's fixed scowl and set ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 5, 1916 • Various
... sat speechless in the carriage, and would not even notice the child. He seemed to be half dreaming and to fix his eyes on vacancy. "He appears to think of nothing now," Emily said that evening to Stanbury. But who can tell how busy and how troubled are the thoughts ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... postage rates and wide mail distribution is accountable for an almost overwhelming amount of printed business being transacted. Then, too, the mail is a great time-saver, or should be, an advantage to be considered in our busy, ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... yourself that there is more in my theory than there is in yours. The prosperity of a locality is the greater as the noise in its vicinity increases. It is in the quiet neighborhood that man stagnates. Where do we find great business houses? Where do we find great fortunes made? Where do we find the busy bees who make the honey that enables posterity to get into Society and do nothing? Do we pick up our millions on the cowpath? I guess not. Do we erect our most princely business houses along the ...
— Coffee and Repartee • John Kendrick Bangs
... A piece of code or coding technique that takes advantage of the unprotected single-tasking environment in IBM PCs and the like, e.g., by busy-waiting on a hardware register, direct diddling of screen memory, or using hard timing loops. Compare {ill-behaved}, {vaxism}, {unixism}. Also, 'PC-ware' n., a program full of PC-isms on a machine with a more capable operating ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... steps away from the busy town to the quiet woods and hills, giving a charm to every stroll, and making for each young student hosts of friends whose sweet faces will greet him through life with unaltering truth ...
— Harper's Young People, March 30, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... After busy days of preparation, during which the most splendid raiment that ever clad brave knights was made by Kriemhild and her maidens, Gunther and Siegfried, with several companions, set sail upon the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... be admitted that the seashore by Torre del Greco does not often lend itself as a suitable spot for romantic or solitary communings with nature; it is a busy place where the struggle for life is keen and practical enough, and its inhabitants have little time or inclination to bestow on the pursuit of poetry. As in all the towns of the Terra di Lavoro, as this collection of human ant-hills on the ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... about her. In the silent summer night, when the sound of the horse's hoofs had died away and when her father had quit stirring about the house, she heard another sound. The corn-cutting machine factory was very busy and had put on a night shift. When the night was still, or when there was a slight breeze blowing up the hill from town, there was a low rumbling sound coming from many machines working in wood and steel, followed at regular intervals by the steady ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... however, the animals were safely stowed away in the stable prepared for their use, and each was soon busy at work grinding up the barley served out for his particular benefit, oats being a luxury they were ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... possible in every city and hamlet in America, and are effective not only in times of war but in times of peace, for always their Country needs them—always there is work for their busy hands. ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... "We were busy bailing ourselves out of our own situations, Watson. You don't know what international finance can be. Besides, he dug his grave ... uh ... that is, he made ...
— Adaptation • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... A busy digger paused in his work. He was a sottish-looking fellow, and there was something of the glare of a ghoul ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... is employed, or the output may be augmented by increasing the speed at which the work is performed or the number of hours in the working day. A combination of these methods is frequently used. During dull periods the workers may be busy from a few hours a week to full working time; while in rush periods they may work not only the regular working hours, but in addition a ...
— Wage Earning and Education • R. R. Lutz
... busy giving Mrs. Somers a chair, and certainly looked as if she had nobody to forgive anything in ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... and walls and temples danced In the reeking air—till sunset, noting not The blazing globe roll down, nor evening glide, Purple and swift, across the softened fields; Nor the still coming of the stars, nor throb Of drum-skins in the busy town, nor screech Of owl and night jar; wholly wrapt from self In keen unraveling of the threads of thought And steadfast pacing of life's labyrinths. Thus would he sit till midnight hushed the world, Save where the beasts of darkness in the brake Crept and cried ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... or theatre accessories); or make the effort to consult some authority, in person or by letter: an actor, historian or librarian. It is amazing how near at hand help often is, if we only make our needs known. If the reader is young and busy, dancing and skating and sleeping, and complains, in her winsome way, that "days are too short for such work," we would remind her that as already stated, to carefully study the details of any costume, of any period, means that ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... "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 in ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... his subject. He is bothered with considering how he feels, or what he or somebody else will like to see on his paper. This is debilitating business. He must lean on his subject, if he would have his writing strong, and busy himself with what it says, rather than with what he ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... although the debate that arose on the subject had the effect of showing the existence of a marked public grievance. The feeling at this time in the country was shown in answers given to circulars sent out by Robert Gourlay, an energetic Scottish busy-body, to a number of townships, asking an expression of opinion as to the causes which retarded improvement and the best means of developing the resources of the province. The answer from Sandwich emphatically set forth that the reasons of the existing depression were the reserves of land for the ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... night-nursing; but, according to my informant, the mother was not very anxious to see much of her children, probably because the sight of them, knowing how soon they were to be left motherless, would have agitated her too much. So the little things clung quietly together, for their father was busy in his study and in his parish, or with their mother, and they took their meals alone; sat reading, or whispering low, in the "children's study," or wandered out on the hill-side, hand ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... so happened that the work of discharging his ship had kept Foster very busy during the second week of his stay, and he had paid but one evening visit to Dolly and her father, and was hurrying the cargo ashore with feverish eagerness. Once that was accomplished, he meant to devote himself (1)to proposing to ...
— Foster's Letter Of Marque - A Tale Of Old Sydney - 1901 • Louis Becke
... stood in the way of success, had he not been hampered with instructions which paralyzed what vigor and intelligence he possessed, and had not his soldiers been left to starve by the government they served. Elizabeth was trying to secure a peace with Spain, while Philip and Farnese were busy in contriving the means of an invasion of England; and up to the time the Spanish Armada appeared in the British seas, she and her government were thoroughly cajoled by Spanish craft. Mr. Motley remorselessly exposes, not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... I had had a very busy morning, helping the men bring in a lot of cases of beer, and running into the saloon to talk to Fred and generally looking after things. So I was just dozing off again, when I heard a voice say, 'Well, he's ugly enough!' Then I knew that they ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... might laugh at men's devices, and turn them to his own ends; his craft and energy could not but succeed in every instance; but that was not to say that men and nature had no will of their own, and did not proceed naturally on their respective ways when Jehovah happened to be busy elsewhere. So soon, however, as this dramatic sort of omnipotence was made systematic by dialectic, so soon as the doctrines of creation, omniscience, and providential government were taken absolutely, pantheism was clearly involved. The consequences to moral philosophy were ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... busy world shoves angrily aside The man who stands with arms akimbo set Until occasion tells him what to do; And he who waits to have his task marked out Shall die and leave his ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... was heard, shouting from a distance that he had discharged his commission; for we may observe that no possible inducement could tempt him to enter that or any other house where fever was at work. Mave lost little time in administering to their wants and their weaknesses. With busy and affectionate hands she did all that could be done for them at that particular juncture. She prepared food for Mary, made whey and gruel, and left as much of her little purse as she thought could be spared from ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... effects, marvellously delicate tints of sky, cloud and ice, such effects as one might travel far to see. In spite of our impatience we would not willingly have missed many of the beautiful scenes which our sojourn in the pack afforded us. Ponting and Wilson have been busy catching these effects, but no art can reproduce such colours as the deep ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... or cloister, while in front of us uprose the majestic towers of the bank and its venerable front, which was divided into three deep recesses and adorned with all sorts of marbles and many sculptures. On either side there were beautiful old trees wherein the birds were busy by the hundred, and a number of quaint but substantial houses of singularly comfortable appearance; they were situated in the midst of orchards and gardens, and gave me an impression ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... intemperance and the vagrancy and the immorality that flourish under our very noses. Yes, and the machine-politics that keep them flourishing. Oh, there is so much to be done, and our good men too busy, or—as they claim—too high-minded to ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... churches, and cathedrals. There are majestic rows of buildings; gay shops, splendidly decorated; stately colonnades, and gardens like Paradise. There are streets unrivalled for gayety, forever filled to overflowing with the busy, the laughing, the jolly; dashing officers, noisy soldiers, ragged lazaroni, proud nobles, sickly beggars, lovely ladies; troops of cavalry galloping up and down; ten thousand caleches dashing to and fro. There is ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... listened, was busy with another whose experience had not been dissimilar, but about whom the human coils had been too tightly wound to be ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... myself, especially with sentimental and trashy novels, and had not yet learned to know real literature, and partly because, in my state of humility, I listened to my mistress when she said reading took too much time, that it was better to sew, dust, and the like, when I was not busy with the children. Everything I do, I must do passionately, it seems, even to being a slave. I gave up dances, too, and on my days out dutifully visited my parents. I had no friends or companions and was in all respects what one calls a perfect servant—so perfect that ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... about it when 'e got 'ome, and Ted promised as it shouldn't 'appen agin. He said that 'im and Emma 'ad been so busy talking about getting married that he 'ad forgotten to ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... busy just now—tell him I'm engaged," said the editor, while the perplexed frown deepened ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... as his store was on the most direct way to her home Dixie would naturally drive past it on her return, so he went to the front, taking pains to stand back a few feet from the entrance that his position might not appear to be by design. He was glad that Cahews and Pomp were busy in the rear, and he became conscious of the hope that no stray customer would interrupt him at what seemed such a grave and important moment. Time passed, and still old Bob and the ramshackle wagon were not in sight. Henley cautiously ventured to the door, whence ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... no resentment in him against the jury of his neighbors whose finding had sent him to jail under the cloud of that terrible accusation; he harbored no ill-feeling for the busy, prying little coroner, who had questioned him so impertinently. There was one person alone, in the whole world of men, to blame, and that was Curtis Morgan. He could not have been far away on the day of the inquest; news of the tragic outcome of Ollie's ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... do any good and sometimes it will. You will have to see what your ground needs. For young apple trees I found in my particular situation that nitrate of soda is all I want. I have what is called a Porter's clay soil on the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. I use that and then my trees get busy and grow. They make rapid growth even the first season with a handful of nitrate and for my three year old trees half a pound is enough. That is what my soil seems to need and we must use what the soil is short on. That is ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifth Annual Meeting - Evansville, Indiana, August 20 and 21, 1914 • Various
... of the pieces of bread Pomp gave me, and began to eat mechanically as I walked across the enclosure by the various little groups of settlers and their families, to where my father was busy with the other officers superintending the construction of a barricade outside the gate, so as to divide the Indians in case of an attack, and force them to come up to the entrance one ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... Monday forenoon, while Helen's ever-active hands were still busy clearing away the six empty porridge plates, and the one tea-cup which had contained the beverage which the minister loved, but which was too dear a luxury for any but the father of the family, Malcolm Campbell's large shadow was seen darkening ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... on the following day, 'we sleep to-night at Meitingen, which is our last station. I know the place; it is too busy a house for a coup de main; we must try the charcoal again; but this time we must be ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... sloth fell away; men and munitions were enlisted; the strong hand was put on labour tyranny; conscription succeeded the haphazard voluntary system. Britain got busy and she has buzzed ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... 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 of things ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg |
