"Languid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I'm sure," was the languid answer. "I've only been here three years. Try 'Tonio there. ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... leave of my stately and blooming Western beauty, I see that she is both a blonde and a brunette. She has all the dreamy, languid grace of the South combined with the verve and force of the North. She is dark and she is fair, with blushing cheeks and dewy lips, sound-hearted, strong, lofty, self-reliant, a true queen of the woods, more stately than Diana, and more ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... been lively, for the guests were mainly young, and the wines such as Hawkins can afford; but when we had assembled in the drawing-room, conversation seemed to slow down somewhat, and to pass over to a languid discussion of the house ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... Regent Street, with a slight and rather more refined-looking companion, is the obscure Samuel Johnson, quite unknown to fame. He is walking with Richard Savage. As Signor Handel, 'the composer of Italian music,' passes by, Savage becomes excited, and nudges his friend, who takes only a languid interest in the foreigner. Johnson did not care for music; of many noises he considered it the ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... steel in a jewelled sheath. The long sleeves of her tunic were drawn upon her arms into hundreds of minute folds, and where the delicate stuff hung in an oblong lappet over her hands, there was fine needlework and embroidery of gold. She moved easily, with a languid grace of secure motion; and she bent her head a little as Atossa came quickly to ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... craft across the frigate's bow, and the moment he was hidden beyond her, bore broad away, passing close along the opposite side of the warship, from which hundreds of eyes watched his movements with languid curiosity. ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... engaged for North Australia, was diverted to Port Phillip. The men were promptly employed. The considerable flockmasters were desirous of a regular supply, while the colonists in general were far less cordial. Opposition was, however, languid; and the occasional apathy of the public and the indecision of the press were construed ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... mounted like a cloud, A golden cloud of languid scent; Robed priests before the altar bowed, Expecting ...
— Silhouettes • Arthur Symons
... of their three pair of eyes. Suddenly the little girl burst out of the room, and ran screaming along the passage. "Mamma, mamma, here's a man come," cried the wonderful colonial child. A few minutes afterwards their mother appeared, languid and faded as before. Perhaps she had been even prettier than Nettie in her bright days, if any days had ever been bright for Fred Rider's wife. She was fairer, larger, smoother than her sister; but these advantages ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... was to recover health and strength. The sea air helped her a little, but the heaviness of her heart kept her frame languid. At first she could walk only the shortest distances; as soon as she reached the sands, she would sit down wearily and fix her eyes seawards, gazing with what other thoughts than when that horizon met her vision for the first time! She had great need of uttering all her sorrow, but could not do ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... slowly those grey streams glide, Drifting along with a languid motion, Lapping the reed-beds on either side, Wending their way to the Northern Ocean. Grey are the plains where the emus pass Silent and slow, with their staid demeanour; Over the dead men's graves the grass Maybe is waving a trifle greener. Down in the world where men toil and ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... one emotion filled His heart. He forgot all about weariness, and hunger, and retirement, and 'He was moved with compassion towards them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd, and He began to teach them many things.' Such a picture may well shame our languid, self-indulgent service, may stir us to imitation and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... about him, he entered his sledge. It was a bleak winter's day. Pale, languid and coughing incessantly, he rode along the lines of his troops. He returned in a profuse perspiration, and was soon seized with a relapse, which was aggravated by the disastrous tidings he was receiving from Sevastopol. ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... her place and took no more notice of him. He attempted to approach Hemerlingue, but the good man seemed absorbed in his conversation with Maurice Trott. Then he went to sit down near Mme. Jenkins, whose isolation seemed like his own. But, even while talking to the poor woman, as languid as he was preoccupied, he was watching the baroness doing the honours of this drawing-room, so comfortable when compared with his ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... among groups of students arriving from all parts of the place, and pausing for Synthesis gossip, which Cornelia could not have entered into yet if she had wished. She escaped, and walked home to her boarding-house with rather a languid pace, and climbed to her little room on the fifth story, and lay down on her bed. It was harder work than teaching, and her back ached, and her heart was heavy with the thought of five years in the Synthesis, when she barely had money enough ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... Fritz, who was in a deep sleep, she rose to her feet and began to fly. Her light footsteps scarcely bent the grass beneath her; she ran on and on, up the hill; Friedland turned his head round with a careless glance, then stretched out once more his languid limbs, and ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... letters were so close. I should have been sorry if such had not been the case, as it appeared to me throughout highly interesting. It is observable that the very same information which we have previously collected, perhaps with rather languid attention, from printed books, when placed before us in familiar manuscript, and comprising the actual experience of a person with whom we are acquainted, acquires a new and vital interest: when we know the narrator we ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... and the languid reign of Charles IV have been treated by historians with derision. He forgot the general welfare of the empire in his eagerness to enrich his own house and aggrandize his paternal kingdom of Bohemia. The one remarkable law ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... landscape whirling past; fun to see the deft-handed waiters nipping about with trays or teacups; and fun to observe the occupants of the other tables in the car. There was a fat, good-natured Frenchman who amused Irene, a languid English lady who annoyed her, an elderly gourmand who excited her disgust, and a neighboring party, one member of which at least aroused her interest and caused her to cast cautious side glances in the ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... was cleared for him, and he played to them as to the pit at Blackfriars. They laughed and wept and swore with delight,—all save the Spaniard, who was ever like a thundercloud, and Paradise, who only smiled like some languid, side-box lord. There was wine on board, and during the long, idle days, when the wind droned in the rigging like a bagpipe, and there was never a cloud in the sky, and the galleons were still ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... but the other observes, impudent and languid like: You see, there's no future in a thing like that—is there? . . Oh! no, says Cloete. Certainly not. I don't mean this to have any future—as far as you are concerned. It's a 'once for all' transaction. Well, what do you estimate your future at? he asks. . . The fellow more listless than ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... exhaustion and of pleasure to my hostess, and I was rather surprised to find that she showed not a trace of the nervous excitement which had marked her entrance into the box. She sat there, an excellent imitation of a woman of fashion, languid, unmoved, apparently a little bored, but finely conscious of doing the ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... friend, observing that he was taking but a languid interest in the scheme, was loud in his praises. "I should never 'ave known you," he declared. "Why, it's wonderful! Why didn't you tell me you could act ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... soft, and faintly beat against its side; Such is that sound, which fond designs convey, When, true to love, the damsel speeds away; The sails unshaken, hung aloft unfurl'd, And simpering nigh, the languid current curl'd; A crumbling ruin, once a city's pride, The well-pleased eye through withering oaks descried, Where Sadness, gazing on time's ravage, hung, And Silence to Destruction's trophy clung - Save that as morning songsters swell'd their lays, Awaken'd Echo ...
— Inebriety and the Candidate • George Crabbe
... well; or I must think so, let him say of me what he will. All my fear is, that, as he knows I am in disgrace with a family whose esteem he is desirous to cultivate; and as he has obligations to my uncle Harlowe and to my father; he will be but a languid acquitter—not that I am afraid of what he, or any body in the world, can hear as to my conduct. You may, my revered and dear friend, indeed you may, rest satisfied, that that is such as may warrant me to challenge the ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... down shallow vales: through stone-fenced lanes; now in the shade of old trees; now along a seashore partially overflowed by languid waves, he went, lighter in step than heart, for he was in the mood by no means uncommon, when the spirit is prophesying evil unto itself. He was sensible of the feeling, and for shame would catch ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... college wasn't strong on the sciences," said Shelby, speculating whether this particular crotchet required humoring. As the young man's own interest in the topic seemed languid, he decided against this course and frankly told him that he wanted to talk with him. "Suppose we move away from the clatter of the ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... though he is occasionally able to go into the library, to talk a little with his infant children in their turns, and to see near relatives from time to time. Soon the nights get less good, the days more languid, and he is seldom able to leave his room. For about a fortnight (April 4-17) there seemed a slight improvement, but this did not last, and on April 28 there was a great change for the worse. Sir W. Jenner, Sir W. Gull, and Mr. Sims held a consultation, ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... unfortunately, many graven images of Shakespeare. They are perhaps passable portraits of the languid, half-witted, hydrocephalic creatures who made them. As representations of a bustling, brilliant, profound, vivacious being, alive to the finger tips, and quick with an energy never since granted to man, they are as ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... determined upon beginning with Waverley, and reading through (not for the first time certainly) the whole series. And what a world did I enter upon! The wholesome vigour of every page seemed to communicate itself to my nerves; I ceased to be languid and fretful, and though still a cripple, I certainly enjoyed myself most completely, as long as my treat lasted; but this was a shorter time than any one would believe, who has not found how such volumes melt, before the constant reading of a long idle day. When it was over, however, ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... honey-fever grass, But I cannot bring back to mind just when We rooted them out of the ping-wing path To stop the mad bees in the rabbit pen. I often try to think in what sweet month The languid painted ladies used to dapple The yellow bye road mazing from the main, Sweet with the golden threads of the rose-apple: I have forgotten, strange, but quite remember The poinsettia's ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... action was, it seemed, to be laid upon her. She would accept it calmly, dutifully. So the summer waned, drawing towards autumn. The atmosphere grew heavy and mellow. The garden was languid with its weight of bearing plants and with its fruits. Mists rose at evening in the woods, clouding the trunks of the trees, and spreading melancholy as a sad tale that floats, like a mist, over those who hear it. And, one ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... experience. There will be so much the more air and sunshine in our thoughts. The callous palms of the laborer are conversant with finer tissues of self-respect and heroism, whose touch thrills the heart, than the languid fingers of idleness. That is mere sentimentality that lies abed by day and thinks itself white, far from the ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... bade me farewell as I set out twenty years before for my vice-royalty in Yucatan. But the air of the hall was different to what it had been in those old days. Then it was pure and sweet. Now it was heavy with some scent, and I found it languid and oppressive. ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... dark, but when he entered in obedience to her languid "Come in," the fire light made a rosy glow and filled the ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... Margaret Grey rode homeward from the market-town, she noticed that Rab, the pony, was languid and slow, that he hung his head dejectedly, and made no effort to browse along the hedge-rows as usual. She supposed that he was tired with his day's work, but trusted that he would be well in the morning. Alas! when the morning came, poor, faithful old Rab was found dead, ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... numerous—in the records of human surgery, resembling this. A person has been bitten by a dog, he has paid little or no attention to it, and no application of the caustic has been made. Some weeks, or even months, have passed, he has nearly or quite forgotten the affair, when he becomes languid and feverish, and full of fearful apprehensions, and this appearing perhaps during several days, or more than a week. The empoisonment has then ceased to be a local affair, the virus has entered into the circulation, and its impression is made on the constitution generally. Fortunately the ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... penetrate far enough into the inmost secrets of the mystery of form; you do not seek with love enough and perseverance enough after the form that baffles and eludes you. Beauty is a thing severe and unapproachable, never to be won by a languid lover. You must lie in wait for her coming and take her unawares, press her hard and clasp her in a tight embrace, and force her to yield. Form is a Proteus more intangible and more manifold than the Proteus of the legend; compelled, only after long wrestling, to stand forth manifest in his true ...
— The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 • Honore De Balzac
... "plezierig" (cheerful); Betty Kruger (mother died few days ago in hospital), sweet little girl; languid dark brown eyes; much ...
— Woman's Endurance • A.D.L.
... soon became oppressive and irksome to me, and no one who did not realise my condition, and show signs of sympathising with it, could excite my interest, and even then it was a very languid one. So I made up my mind in the middle of the severe winter weather, and notwithstanding the fact that for the present I was quite unprovided with the necessary means, and was consequently obliged to take all sorts of tiresome precautions, to carry out my excursion to Paris. I felt a growing ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... Gladwyne! There was no doubt that he was a handsome man. He was tall and held himself finely; he had a light, springy figure, with dark eyes and hair. Besides, there was a certain stamp of refinement or fastidiousness upon him which was only slightly spoiled by the veiled hint of languid insolence in his expression. ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... Square he felt a sudden relapse into discouragement, like a votary who has watched too long for a sign from the altar. Perhaps, after all, he should never find his face... The air was languid, and he felt tired. He walked between the bald grass-plots and the twisted trees, making for an empty seat. Presently he passed a bench on which a girl sat alone, and something as definite as the twitch of a cord made him ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... none!"—Will the reader consent to a few compressed glances into the extinct Dubourgay Correspondence; much compressed, and here and there a rushlight stuck in it, for his behoof. Dubourgay, at Berlin, writes; my Lord Townshend, in St. James's reads, usually rather languid in answering:— ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... encouraged her daughter's social activity, and as Hamilton's name entered the rapid accounts of revels and routs in the most casual manner, she endeavoured to persuade herself that the madness had passed with a languid afternoon. She was a woman of the world, but the one experience that develops deepest insight had passed her by, and there were shades and moods of the master passion over which her sharp eyes ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... sunshine, Insects skated on the water Filled the drowsy air with buzzing, With a far-resounding war-cry. 60 Down the river came the Strong Man, In his birch canoe came Kwasind, Floating slowly down the current Of the sluggish Taquamenaw, Very languid with the weather, 65 Very sleepy with the silence. From the overhanging branches, From the tassels of the birch-trees, Soft the Spirit of Sleep descended; By his airy hosts surrounded, 70 His invisible attendants, Came the Spirit of Sleep, Nepahwin; Like the burnished Dush-kwo-ne-she, Like a ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... to get from the moment what it is meant to bring. Even the very shrinking back from a bitter duty, the indolent rejection of the thought that touches one's elbow, bidding one again and again arise and go, means something; to defer one's pleasure, to break the languid dream, to take up the tiny task, what strength is there! Thus no burden seems too heavy, too awkward, too slippery, too ill-shaped, but one can lift it. The yoke is easy, because one bears it in quiet confidence, not overtaxing ability or straining hope. Instead of watching ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... was still a dream, but a dream growing momentarily more wonderful and thrilling. The stupor in her head was passing away, and there was nothing painful in the lassitude which remained. She was just weak and languid, content to lie still in the sunshine, her head resting on one of the cushions from the overturned cart, her eyes turning instinctively to the bronzed face which bent over ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... their vast grand-stand, were a number of pitiful vestiges of the Waterloo of women-kind. There was a shattered Elswick bicycle, about sixteen yards and a half of nun's veiling, and fifty-three tortoise-shell side-combs. I gazed on the debris with apathy mingled with contempt. My movements were languid, my plans of the vaguest. I knew that I wished to avoid my wife, but had no clear idea how the avoiding was ...
— The War of the Wenuses • C. L. Graves and E. V. Lucas
... was an exhausted artist—unnerved, unstrung, unfitted for the world, yet only showing it in a languid appreciation which her host and hostess were the first to understand. Indeed, it was the great lady who carried her off, bowing with her platform bow, and smiling that smile, before the banquet was at ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... him, if possible. It was no fault of his; he only carried out his orders, and so on. Gwen is silent about her experience; she will not raise false hopes. Besides, she is only half grieved for the old chap—has only a languid sympathy in her heart for him who, tampering with implements of Death, becomes Cain unawares. If she is right, he will know in time. Meanwhile it will be a lesson to him to avoid triggers, and will thus minimise the exigencies of Hell. Also, she has ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... diversified talent. Hood certainly takes a rather more rational view than Keats did of his subject as a moral invention, or a myth having some sort of meaning at its root. A serpent transformed into a woman, who beguiles a youth of the highest hopes into amorous languid self-abandonment, is clearly not, in morals, the sort of person that ought to be left uncontrolled to her own devices. Keats ostentatiously resents the action of the unimpassioned philosopher Appollonius in revealing the true nature of the woman-serpent, ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... prophesied by Dr. Mangan, had proved to be a sufficiently emphatic one. Larry's recovery was slow, and during his languid convalescence, he found himself becoming sincerely attached to the Big Doctor and Mrs. Mangan, and their high place in his affections was shared by the nurse provided by Miss Coppinger. The bond of a common faith was one that, at this stage of his development, had but little appeal to Larry, but ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... dales of dream A tranquil life is leading us, We shall land from the languid stream, The musing shades, unheeding us, Will share their veils of angelhood, Thoughts that are tranced with mystic food, Still broodings tinct ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott
... in December with a sort of incredulous disgust, until one morning when he did not appear at breakfast. He spent the next week in bed, and at the end of that time, while he was able to be about, it was in a languid and spiritless fashion, and he was shaken and exasperated by a persistent cough. The season was and had been unusually inclement even for that region, where the thermometer sometimes changes fifty degrees ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... Osra agreed to go. Moved by some strange impulse, she put on her loveliest gown, dressed her hair most splendidly, and came into his chamber looking like a goddess. There lay the marquis, white as a ghost and languid, on his pillows; and they were left, as they thought, alone. Then Osra sat down, and began to talk very gently and kindly to him, glancing only at the madness which brought him to his sad state, and imploring ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... balmy, languid morning about two weeks after O'Reilly's return to the City among the Leaves. The Cubitas Mountains were green and sparkling from a recent shower; wood fires smoldered in front of the bark huts, sending up their wavering ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... piled-up blocks of coal in a grate, they grow to be a half blocked up entrance to some unknown place. There is a large shining black portal, half ruined, surrounded with debris. By degrees Hazel's languid curiosity is excited, and she wonders whither it leads. Why should she not explore?... The next match which takes fire lights up the slight form leaning far back in the big chair, with the soft, golden brown hair half loosened, and the dark, shadowed eyes fast ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 356, October 23, 1886. • Various
... assisted by his apprentice and Gascoyne, washed and bathed the great gaping wound in the side, and bound it with linen bandages. Myles lay with closed eyelids, still, pallid, weak as a little child. Presently he opened his eyes and turned them, dull and languid, to ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... pacha!" she cried in the delirium of joy. "My son is pacha! and my nephews will die of envy!" But her triumph was not to be of long duration. A few days after his installation, Elmas began to feel strangely languid. Continual lethargy, convulsive sneezing, feverish eyes, soon betokened a serious illness. Ali's gift had accomplished its purpose. The pelisse, carefully impregnated with smallpox germs taken from a young girl suffering from this malady, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... himself was ailing, it was Corny who tended him with terrified solicitude, foraged for his wood, and cooked his rations. "When Drake was ailing!"—that was often. His courage was undaunted, his hope perhaps higher, but he had grown perceptibly weak and languid; and there were days—many, alas!—when he lay quietly on the ground, giving an occasional lazy touch to his cathedral, while Corny, as he laughingly said, ruled in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... room with two new visitors; presumably two new sightseers delayed by the accident. The foremost was a tall, fair, rather languid-looking man with a bald brow and a high-bridged nose; his companion was a younger man with light, curly hair and frank, and even innocent, eyes. Symon scarcely seemed to hear the newcomers; it seemed almost ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... took great interest in Hooker's motorcycle—more interest than the languid, indifferent fellow had seemed to show over anything else except his cigarettes. Even one rather severe fall from the machine, which sadly soiled his elegant and immaculate clothes, did not deter him from ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... him eternally, for any efforts he should make to withdraw himself from, their power. It is thus the doctrine of a future life has been made fatal to the human species: it plunged whole nations into sloth, made them languid, filled them with indifference to their present welfare, or else precipitated them, into the most furious enthusiasm, which hurried them on to such lengths that they tore each other in pieces in order ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... lost his memory for some hours, and was racked with excessive pain in his head. When the vessel sailed, he revived considerably, but during three days no medical aid could be obtained. He scarcely ever spoke; and only once did he for a moment, on a Saturday night, lift his languid eye, as he lay on deck enjoying the breeze, to catch a distant sight of Patmos. We watched him with agonizing anxiety till we reached Smyrna and the village of Bouja. Though three miles off, yet, for the sake of medical aid, he rode ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... quiet, gray old forest. By and by the fire died down, and not a single sound could be heard, not the rustle of a bough, the tinkling of the stream, or the stirring of any forest creature. The moon sailed over the treetops, and a ghostly dreaminess lulled every sense, not to sleep, but to languid repose. Fatigue, thus far, there had been none, but physical and mental excitement plenty, and hence the writer's sleep during her first night of camping out lasted about one half hour. She watched the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... facts and figures, but the Cap'n listened with only languid interest. He kept sighing and wrinkling his brows, as though in deep rumination on a matter far removed from the stumpage question. When the agreement of sale was laid before him he signed with a blunted lead-pencil, still ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... From the languid, though free and easy, way in which Simion Petrovitch Kollomietzev, a young man of thirty-two, entered the room; from the way in which he brightened suddenly, bowed slightly to one side, and drew himself ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... front expands the open sea; straight to the south runs the indented coast, bay and beach, point after point, to where, sixty miles distant, the great blue promontory of Syracuse makes far out. On the land-side Etna fills the south with its lifted snow-fields, now smoke-plumed at the languid cone; and thence, though lingeringly, the eye ranges nearer over the intervening plain to the well-wooded ridge of Castiglione, and, next, to the round solitary top of Monte Maestra, with its long ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... alone on this particular occasion, though, as a general rule, he was accompanied in his rambles by one if not all three of his friends. Utter solitude was with him a rare occurrence, and his present experience of it had chanced in this wise. Lorimer the languid, Lorimer the lazy, Lorimer who had remained blandly unmoved and drowsy through all the magnificent panorama of the Norwegian coast, including the Sogne Fjord and the toppling peaks of the Justedal ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... interested in these things than in the display of photographs, picture-cards, and figures of saints that adorned the walls, carefully arranged in patterns to show to the best advantage. Here were colored reproductions of actresses in languid attitudes, of peasants dancing, of babies smiling, of elaborate young people with carefully dressed hair making love with "Molti Saluti!" "Una stretta di Mano!" "Mando un bacio!" "Amicizia eterna!" and other expressions of friendship and affection, scribbled in awkward handwritings across ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... meet a maid or butler at the door. I see conventional furniture, conventional rooms. I am shown into a conventional waiting room, and I wait conventionally for the hostess to come forward with a stiff backbone, a forced smile, and a languid hand shake. ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... to week, and from month to month, to see how much I was improved or reformed. Alas! this labor, though fatiguing, was of but little service, because I trusted in my own efforts. I wished indeed to be reformed, but my good desires were weak and languid. ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... Loupe go how he would. But Loupe judged it was best to get home and have some refreshment, so he bestirred himself. Daisy had time to lie down a little while before her dinner; nevertheless she was languid and pale, and disposed to take all the rest of the ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... the reasons for the length of a child's time, and for the brevity of the time that succeeds. The child lets his moments pass by and quickly become remote through a thousand little successive oblivions. He has not yet the languid habit of recall. ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... there a truer maxim. The two years which change the girl to the woman often seal for ever the happiness or the hopeless misery of her whole life. They decide whether she is to become a healthy, helpful, cheerful wife and mother, or a languid, complaining invalid, to whom marriage is a curse, children an affliction, and ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... Being a busy man, he naturally disliked idlers, and therefore unlashed some food from his sledge and served out their supper by way of giving them something to do. They ceased idling at once, but after supper sat down on their tails again to watch as before, though in a more languid ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... direction of the shop. But he was deceived by the specious nature of Scott's remark. Visions rose before his eyes of sitting back in one of Scott's armchairs, watching a fag toasting muffins, which he would eventually dispatch with languid enjoyment. So he followed Scott to his study. The classical parallel to his situation is the well-known case of the oysters. They, too, were eager ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... signalize his official actions, he held up the Bill for a moment in silence; he looked steadily around him on the last agony of the expiring Parliament. He at length repeated, in an emphatic tone, 'As many as are of opinion that this Bill do pass, say aye.' The affirmative was languid but indisputable; another momentary pause ensued; again his lips seemed to decline their office; at length, with an eye averted from the object which he hated, he proclaimed, with a subdued voice, 'The Ayes have it.' The fatal sentence was ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... only half-serious, and Marchmont's in deadly earnest under that deuced languid manner of his. I tell you what, he's a very limited ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... with commiserating inquiry behind her languid eyelids. 'You have all the latest?' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... year 1582, the military operations on both sides had been languid and desultory, the Prince of Parma, not having a large force at his command, being comparatively inactive. In consequence, however, of the treaty concluded between the United states and Anjou, Parma had persuaded the Walloon provinces that it had now become absolutely necessary for them ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... gallants whispered that something at least of their curve was due to art, as was also the exceeding smoothness of those delicate cheeks). The face was somewhat long and thin; the nose aquiline; and the languid mouth showed, perhaps, too much of the ivory upper teeth; but the most striking point of the speaker's appearance was the extraordinary brilliancy of his complexion, which shamed with its whiteness that of all fair ladies round, save where open on each cheek a bright red spot gave warning, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... gold-rimmed quizzing-glass, and directed through that powerful weapon of offence an eye of supreme displeasure upon the singer. He could not contain his rage, yet from his languid tone none would have suspected it. "Sir," said he, "ye've a ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... than I thought," Mr. Raymond said to me, regarding me for the first time with languid curiosity. "I expected to see a velvet-coated little fellow of Helen's size. What is ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... the glorious landscape and park of Les Aigues seem as luxuriantly beautiful as it did just then. The first autumn days were beginning, when the earth, languid from her procreations and delivered of her products, exhales the delightful odors of vegetation. At this time the woods, especially, are delicious; they begin to take the russet warmth of Sienna earth, and the green-bronze tones which form ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... supper-party in my rooms. We were twelve in all. My friend Eustace brought his gondolier Antonio with fair-haired, dark-eyed wife, and little Attilio, their eldest child. My own gondolier, Francesco, came with his wife and two children. Then there was the handsome, languid Luigi, who, in his best clothes, or out of them, is fit for any drawing-room. Two gondoliers, in dark blue shirts, completed the list of guests, if we exclude the maid Catina, who came and went about the table, laughing ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... monstrous, feathery tree-ferns waving languid fronds in a breeze that came from beyond them. The telescope seemed to be pointing at a gentle slope, and those tree-ferns cut off a farther view, but there was an impenetrable tangle of breast-high foliage between the instrument and that slope, and halfway up the incline there ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... wore away. Pauline grew up a queen. A shadow fell across my sunny path;— A hectic flush burned on my mother's cheeks; She daily failed and nearer drew to death. Pauline would often come with sun-lit face, Cheating the day of half its languid hours With cheering chapters from the holy book, And border tales and wizard minstrelsy: And mother loved her all the better for it. With feeble hands upon our sad-bowed heads, And in a voice all tremulous with ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... admit that there are many who derive great benefit from their early morning swim, their matutinal walk, or their tennis before breakfast. But it should be distinctly borne in mind that there are others with whom such early morning exercise does not agree. They get as a result a weary, languid feeling which lasts throughout the entire day. Now, they are apt to imagine it is the exercise in itself which produces this effect. But the truth is, it arises from the time of day at which the exercise ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... Ste. Irenee, was spending a morning hour with Ethel in the pavilion of the Government Fish Station at Anse a l'Eau, watching the great herd of captive salmon, circling round and round in restless imprisonment in their warm shallow pool. The splendid fish were growing a little dull and languid in their confined quarters, freshened only by the inflowing of a small brook, and exposed to the full glare of the sun. Many of them bore the scars of the nets in which they had been captured. Others had red wounds ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... following year; but my mother's hopes were disappointed, war having rendered impossible all communication with our colonies. In despair, at a separation which placed her nearly two thousand leagues from her husband, and ignorant how long it might continue, she soon after fell into a languid condition; and death deprived us of her, at the end of five years of suffering. My grandfather, at whose house we had hitherto lived, now became both father and mother to us; and I owe it to the good old man to say, that his care ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... leave their nest, Bid man be valiant ere he merit such: Her glance how wildly beautiful! how much Hath Phoebus wooed in vain to spoil her cheek, Which glows yet smoother from his amorous clutch! Who round the North for paler dames would seek? How poor their forms appear! how languid, wan, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... He had had his bad half-hour before McLean came; had had to stand by, wordless, and see Harmony trying to smile, see her dragging about, languid and white, see her tragic attempts to greet him on the old familiar footing. Through it all he had been sustained by the thought that a day or two days would see the old footing reestablished, another woman in the house, life again worth the ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... were held to be witches; he consulted Hebraic healers; he shut himself up in his dormitory with these suspicious characters, and the neighbors trembled at seeing his windows glow with an infernal fire in the small hours of the night. Some of his male slaves grew pale and languid as if their lives were being sucked away. The people whispered that the knight commander was using their blood for magic drinks. Don Priamo wished to renew his youth; he was eager to reanimate his body with vital fires. The Grand Inquisitor of Majorca hinted at the possibility of paying a ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... first time the dress rehearsal of A Terrible Trial. Heretofore the patient little plodder had found in her occupation only the sordid satisfaction of drawing her wages, but now the resplendent costumes, the tragedy in the gestures of the villain, the languid grace of Lord Algernon, and the haughty treble of the leading lady struck the spark that fired ambition in ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... the last session it was anticipated that the progressive diminution of the public revenue in 1819 and 1820, which had been the result of the languid state of our foreign commerce in those years, had in the latter year reached its extreme point of depression. It has, however, been ascertained that that point was reached only at the termination of ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Monroe • James Monroe
... just as day was coming. A new Bland, fresh shaven,—with Johnny's razor,—and with a certain languid animation in his manner that was in sharp contrast to his extreme dejection ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... heart? Come thou with me to Erech Su-bu-ri[2] To Anu's temple Elli-tar-du-si, And Ishtar's city where great Izdubar Doth reign, the glorious giant king of war; Whose mighty strength above his chiefs doth tower, Come see our giant king of matchless power." Her flashing eyes half languid pierce the seer, Until his first resolves all disappear. And rising to his feet his eyes he turned Toward sweet Joy,[3] whose love for him yet burned; And eyeing both with beaming face he saith, "With Sam-kha's love the seer hath ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... farm road had brought him to, until he reached the cottage at the avenue gate. On the threshold drooped a figure that the sight of set his heart beating with a stifling pulse in his throat, and he floundered on till he made out that this languid figure was Adeline. He could have laughed at the irony, the mockery of the anti-climax, if it had not been for the face that the old maid turned upon him at the approach of his footfalls, and the pleasure that lighted up its pathos when she ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... message to the representative of a beloved family was Bartholomew day, the anniversary of the ejection of his two thousand brethren. That morning a friend called to tell him that he had put to the press his "Meditations on the Glory of Christ." There was a moment's gleam in his languid eye, as he answered, "I am glad to hear it: but, O brother Payne! the long wished for day is come at last, in which I shall see that glory in another manner than I have ever done, or was capable of doing in this world." A few hours of silence followed, and then that glory was revealed. ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... insignificant circumstances. How pitiably weak she was! So, with an effort, she turned her attention to Mrs. Needham and Bertie, who had slipped into an argument, as they often did, respecting the best and most effective method of dealing with the poor. In this Katherine joined with somewhat languid interest, quite aware that Errington and Miss Bradley grew more and more absorbed in their conversation, till Miss Payne, feeling herself de trop, left her place to speak with Mrs. Needham, while Katherine and Bertie gradually ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... a flood of Indians on their return home. The boat from Calcutta came in while they were there, and suddenly all the cells were tenanted, and the cave was full of spoiled children, tawny nurses, pale languid mothers, and dyspeptic fathers. These were to be fellow-travellers homewards with Bertram ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... [)i] in: spirit, family, credible, visible, charity, unity, sanity, humanity, ruin, promise, divide, divisible, dissolve, languid, negative, similar, abominable, imitate, ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... recruiting meeting, however, he seemed to have forgotten all about it. He was very listless, and languid, and depressed. He was like a man who wanted to hide himself from the crowd, and he slunk along the streets as though apologizing for ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... and gentlemen of another fashion, not so new, but very elegant, who have agreed to put a smooth glaze on the world and to keep down all its realities. For whom everything must be languid and pretty. Who have found out the perpetual stoppage. Who are to rejoice at nothing and be sorry for nothing. Who are not to be disturbed by ideas. On whom even the fine arts, attending in powder and walking backward ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... back to animation, with the patronage with which well people hail a convalescent. Lydia looked across the estrangement of the past days with a sort of inquiry, and Hicks chose to come forward and accept a cold touch of the hand from him. Staniford saw, with languid observance, that Lydia was very fresh and bright; she was already equipped for the expedition, and could never have had any doubt in her mind as to going. She had on a pretty walking dress which he had ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... and becoming expedient in order to place the Treasury on a footing of the highest respectability is entirely obvious. The credit of the Government may be regarded as the very soul of the Government itself—a principle of vitality without which all its movements are languid and all its operations embarrassed. In this spirit the Executive felt itself bound by the most imperative sense of duty to submit to Congress at its last session the propriety of making a specific pledge of the land fund as the basis for the negotiation of the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Tyler • John Tyler
... abstract forms; on the contrary, it is on the sense of "music, love, and beauty" that he specially insists. What he does demand is that these shall be not merely outward adornments, but the instinctive utterance of a deeper harmony within; that they shall be such as not merely to "furnish a languid mind with fantastic shows and indolent emotions, but to incorporate the everlasting reason of man in forms visible to his sense, and suitable to it". [Footnote: Miscellanies, i. 297.] The "reason" is no less necessary to poetry than its sensible ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... little pent-roof over the doorway. She could no longer see it without opening her window and stretching out her head. It was there, just out of sight; and it seemed more terrifying to her than while she could watch its languid and ghostlike progress. ...
— The Christmas Child • Hesba Stretton
... at Sarah's earnest entreaties, took a palm-leaf fan. But he did not use it. He sat peacefully under the cool trail of the great elm all the forenoon, while little Dan'l played with her doll. The child was rather languid after her shock of the day before, and not disposed to run about. Also, she had a great sense of responsibility about the old man. Sarah Dean had privately charged her not to let Uncle Daniel get "overhet." She continually glanced up at him with ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... time, full of the same kind of reckless swing and sense of intoxication that had possessed her at Bridgefield. Not that there was an excessive amount of actual gaiety. Hot rooms and late hours were soon found not to agree with Mrs. Egremont. She looked faded and languid after evening parties; and, as her husband really cared more to have her ready to wait upon him and amuse him than for anything else, he did not insist on her going out more than might be needful to establish her position, or when it suited him ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... went to dinner at his Second Avenue boarding-house, Mrs. Scott introduced him to a new boarder, a young lady, Miss Conway. Miss Conway was small and unobtrusive. She wore a plain, snuffy-brown dress, and bestowed her interest, which seemed languid, upon her plate. She lifted her diffident eyelids and shot one perspicuous, judicial glance at Mr. Donovan, politely murmured his name, and returned to her mutton. Mr. Donovan bowed with the grace and beaming smile that were rapidly winning for ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... love's mendicancy who never tried, How little of your almsman me you know! Your little languid hand in mine you slide, Like to a child says—'Kiss me and let me go!' And night for this is fretted with my tears, While I:-'How soon this heavenly neck doth tire Bending to me from its transtellar spheres!' Ah, heart all kneaded out of honey and fire! Who ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... was bowed by a sorrow resulting from affection, she declared she could not survive Brunoro. She caused a tomb to be made, in which their remains could be united; and, after seeing the work completed, she gradually sank into a languid state, which terminated ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... instead of Sir Robert Peel!" On which, unless we are mistaken, Lord John shrugged his shoulders in silence. His opposition to the income-tax, on going into, and while the bill was in, committee, was temperate, and even languid; and he stood in the dignified attitude worthy of his ancient name, and of personal character, far aloof from those who, throughout the session, pursued a line of conduct unprecedented in parliamentary ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... thanes of the isles to appear before him, and swore that if any of them should oppress the poorer inhabitants, he would visit the actors with condign punishment. His threats not being enough to deter the depredators, active measures were taken to punish the offenders. Meantime the king fell into a languid sickness, which baffled the skill of his physicians. A rumour was circulated that he was suffering under the incantations of certain far-famed witches at Forres. The report reaching the king's ears, he caused certain confidential servants to investigate the case secretly. Donevald, ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... an assumption of languid interest, was watching Lady Caroline narrowly for some hint of suppressed knowledge of Youghal's ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... bright afternoon sunshine we hurried over the Channel, empty of any sign of war, unless war showed in its very emptiness. Next to me sat a young Frenchman, different from those we had met before hurrying home to fight. Good-looking, tall, and rather languid in manner, he spoke English with an English accent, and you would have taken him for an Englishman. A big canvas bag full of golf-clubs leaned against the wall behind him, and he had been trying to play golf at one of the east-coast seaside places in England. ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... her mind ceased to race. She grew languid and sleepy. The warmth of the blankets stole over her. She had no idea of sleeping, yet she found sleep more and more difficult to resist. Time that must have been hours passed. The fire died down and then brightened; the shadows darkened and then lightened. ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... ready to be amused at any new plaything. Leonora admitted to Rafael that she could have lived to old age submissively at Keller's side, pampering his whims and selfish caprices. But one day Keller deserted her, as she had deserted others, to take up with a sickly, languid contralto, whose best charms could have been hardly comparable to the morbid delicacy of a hot-house flower. Leonora, mad with love and jealousy, pursued him, knocking at his door like a servant. For the first time she felt the voluptuous ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... temperaments, the eye and the visual imagination are addressed with such force and felicity that the inquiries which attempt to answer these questions must for ever appear impertinent. They may add some languid interest to the contemplation which is sated with admiring the impeccable mastery of the Knight; for that plate always seems to me the mere illustration of a literary idea, a sheer statement of items which require to be connected by some story, and some ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... sea-alcove, from what mermaid's milliner's shop, hast thou emerged, Selvagee! with that dainty waist and languid cheek? What heartless step-dame drove thee forth, to waste thy ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... languid expression; yellow hair, lank and without gloss; with a soft sunny sort of complexion, seems ever to indicate physical weakness. Indeed, pale colors in all nature point to brief existence, want of stamina ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... held one languid arm in his, and had the small hand tight folded to his breast for warmth. It was the hand she had stretched out to him with her last smile; the hand that had led him on through all their wanderings. Ever and anon he pressed it to his lips; ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... equally essential from the point of view of orthodoxy and of art. The effect is the same as in the case of Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar," which, having proceeded with matchless vigour up to the flight of the conspirators after Antony's speech, becomes comparatively tame and languid, and cannot be revived even by such a masterpiece as the contention between Brutus and Cassius. It is to be regretted that Milton's extreme devotion to the letter of Scripture has not permitted him to enrich his latter books with any corresponding episode. ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... rehearsal of a dramatic version of Scott's Woodstock. This has been written by Your Humble Servant who is at the same time engaged on a historic romance. At intervals in the languid rehearsing, endless discussions take place: between Oldershaw and G.K. on Thackeray, between Oldershaw, his father and G.K. on Royal Supremacy in the Church of England. The boys, walking between their two houses, "discuss Roman Catholicism, Supremacy, ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... the fox in the Warren, the song of the answering nightingales, wandered in at the open casements. And, along with these, came the sweetness of the beds of wild thyme from the grass slopes, and the rich, languid scent of the blossom of the little, round-headed, orange trees set, in green tubs below the carven guardian griffins, on the flight of steps leading up to the main entrance. That which had been lovely, continued lovely still. And, therefore perhaps,—she could hope it even in the fulness of her ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... this state of things should not continue indefinitely; and it would be a long story to say just why it did not continue. What every one knows is that the French revolution took place, that armies of French democrats overran all these languid lordships and drowsy despotisms, and awakened their subjects, more or less willingly or unwillingly, to a sense of the rights of man, as Frenchmen understood them, and to the approach of the nineteenth century. The whole of Italy fell, directly or indirectly, under French sway; the ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... upstairs to the nursery, and did her best to comfort Jessie, but the poor child was languid and fretful, and could hardly put away the thought of her ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... three children. Everything about them indicated extreme poverty; and, worse than this, lack of cleanliness and industry. The woman and children had a look of health, but the man was evidently the subject of some wasting disease. His form was light, his face thin and rather pale, and his languid eyes deeply sunken. He was very far from being the able-bodied man Mr. Prescott had expected to find. As the latter stepped into the miserable room where they were gathered, the light of expectation, mingled with the shadows of mute suffering, came into their countenances. Mr. Prescott was a ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... religion until there's no longer a divine message from on high, no God in Israel; only a fashionable pulpiteering to minister to languid minds, the cultivation of foolish fads and the flaunting of fine feathers— the church becoming a mere Vanity Fair or social clearing- house, a kind of esthetic forecourt to hades instead of the gate to heaven. At the opposite extreme we find ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... weapon. But the muzzle of my pistol covered him, he was not in a posture from which he could spring, and at a sharp word from me he dropped his hand; the tigerish glare which flickered for an instant in his eyes gave place to a languid smile, and he shrugged ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... sleep, others while walking about, and others while otherwise engaged, without any regard to what they were doing. And the body shewed no change from its previous colour, nor was it hot as might be expected when attacked by a fever, nor indeed did any inflammation set in, but the fever was of such a languid sort from its commencement and up till evening that neither to the sick themselves nor to a physician who touched them would it afford any suspicion of danger. It was natural, therefore, that not one of those who had contracted the disease expected to die from it. But on the same day ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius |
