"Lethargical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 23.) 'In him was concentrated every thought for every want of Rome. Indefatigably occupied, he inspected, ordained, regulated all things; in the city, in the army, for peace, or for war. But he was feebly supported, and those he employed were lukewarm and lethargic.' Still his arms prospered. Place after place, fortress after fortress, yielded to the Lieutenant of the Senator: and the cession of Palestrina itself was hourly expected. His art and address were always strikingly exhibited in difficult situations, ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the literary and scientific progress of this period would be incomplete without some notice of progress in higher education. The universities of Oxford and Cambridge with their numerous colleges had in the eighteenth century lapsed into that lethargic condition which seemed to be the common fate of all corporations. They had to a certain extent ceased to be seats of learning. At Oxford the limitations imposed upon colleges by statute or custom in elections to fellowships and scholarships ensured the mediocrity of the ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... character of the agent is often indicated orthographically. For example, vol.334, letter from Galon-Boyer, Brumaire 18, year II. "The public spirit is generally bad. Those who claim to be patriots know no restraint. The rest are lethargic and federalism ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... one language, and her skies never brightened except in color. She came out strong on the Catholic saints, and would toss you up a cleanly-shaven Aloysius, sweetly destitute of expression, or a dropsical, lethargic Madonna that you couldn't have told from an old master, so bad it was. Her faculty of faithful reproduction even showed itself in fanciful lettering,—and latterly in the imitation of fabrics and signatures. ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... constant for a day, or for a week if I could—a constant circulation; the young heart and the old should beat together; it could be done in the lethargic sleep—an artery and a vein—a vein and an artery—I have often thought of it; it could not fail. The new young blood would create new tissue, because it would itself constantly be renewed in the young body which is able to renew it, only expending ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... purplish shadows. The great steel works rose to the south, visibly near, mysteriously remote. The ribbons of fiery smoke from their furnaces were the first signs of the city's awakening from its lethargic industrial sleep. The beast was beginning to move along its score of miles of length. But out here in the vacancies of the lake it seemed ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... superstition, prophesying still, Though still deceived, some stranger's near approach. 'Tis thus the understanding takes repose In indolent vacuity of thought, And sleeps and is refreshed. Meanwhile the face Conceals the mood lethargic with a mask Of deep deliberation, as the man Were tasked to his full strength, absorbed and lost. Thus oft reclined at ease, I lose an hour At evening, till at length the freezing blast That sweeps the bolted ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... oversight which argues a sudden Lethean forgetfulness on the part of Milton; and in many generations of readers, however alive and awake with malice, a corresponding forgetfulness not less astonishing. Two readers only I have ever heard of that escaped this lethargic inattention; one of which two is myself; and I ascribe my success partly to good luck, but partly to some merit on my own part in having cultivated a habit of systematically accurate reading. If ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... yielded to Mayes's threats so far as to undergo the "initiation" he proposed, at the time we were helpless in his hands—of that I have little doubt. I cannot suppose that he would have wasted much time over me, once I had fallen lethargic. When Hewitt burst in he would have found me lying dead, with the Red Triangle on my forehead. It would have saved Mayes a lot of noise ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... down to a period only fifty years ago, the world, looked at from the present vantage-ground, must appear to have been in a dull, lethargic state, with hardly any pulse and a low circulation. As for nerve system it had none. The changes which the Post Office has wrought in the world, but more particularly in our own country, are only to be fully perceived and appreciated by the thoughtful. Now the heart of the nation throbs ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... men without horror and indignation—To see men act as if they had never taken an oath of fidelity to their king, whose interest is inseparable from that of his people, but had sworn to support the ruinous projects of abandoned men (of whatever faction) must rouse the most lethargic, if honest, soul. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... complain because they have no voice; if they don't revolt, it is because they are lethargic; if you say they do not suffer, it is because you have not seen their heart's blood. But the day will come when you will see and hear. Then woe to those who base their strength on ignorance and fanaticism; woe to those who govern through falsehood, and work in the night, thinking that ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... patient one afternoon, he requested a few moments' conversation with Mrs. Arlington. "My dear madam," he said, when that lady had led the way into the morning-room, "has Miss Leicester no friends, with whom she could spend a few weeks? for if she is allowed to remain in this lethargic state, she will inevitably sink. An entire change of air and scene is absolutely necessary. She requires something to rouse her in a gentle ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... Massenbach, old generals, who had served under the great Frederick,—men, says Jomini, "exhumed from the Seven Years' War,"—"whose faculties were frozen by age,"—"who had been buried for the last ten years in a lethargic sleep." ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... only by no means the Joe Roscorla of ordinary life, but a galvanised and gesticulating Joe, whereas the Joe that we knew was of a lethargic bearing and slow habit of speech. Still, it was he, and as he came up to us he stayed all questioning by gasping out the word "Missus!" and then falling into ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... intelligence, however, so much alarmed my English servants, that, with one accord, they left me; nothing could persuade them to remain longer in Ireland. The parting with my English gentleman affected my lethargic selfishness a little. His loss would have been grievous to such a helpless being as I was, had not his place been immediately supplied by that half-witted Irishman, Joe Kelly, who had ingratiated himself with me by a mixture ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... the Prophet, pointing with a lethargic finger towards the staircase, from which, at this moment, arose a ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... which burst upon him, and the variety of characters in constant motion, appeared almost to render him motionless; and several of the would-be characters passed him with a vacant stare, declaring he was no character at all! nor was he roused from his lethargic position till he heard a view halloo, which seemed to come from a distant part of the Garden, and was so delivered, as actually to give him an idea of the party being in pursuit of game, by growing fainter towards the close, as if receding from him. The sound immediately animated ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... their lethargic disposition, young Bulldogs are somewhat liable to indigestion, and during the period of puppyhood it is of advantage to give them a tablespoonful of lime water once a day in their ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... him to some extent for having to come into contact with such an insufferable vulgarian. On the return of the guileless satirist to England the writer of the letter of introduction inquired how he had fared with the consul, and great was his surprise to hear him drawl out, in his habitual lethargic manner: ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... background of spiritual and national indifference that the towering figure of Grundtvig must be seen. For it was he, more than any other, who awakened his people from their lethargic indifference and started them upon the road toward a ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... re-establishing its languid repose. The frequent use of half notes induces a predominance of the minor key, and this, with the constant recurrence of the rhythmical fall, imparts to Semitic and Hindoo music that melancholy, lethargic uniformity which expresses in a striking manner the benumbed energies and undeveloped spirit of the people among whom it is found. When a race has substituted habit and custom for national feeling, its music is necessarily ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... nothing all day long and yet the days seemed all too short. The girl had a native name, but Red called her Sally. He picked up the easy language very quickly, and he used to lie on the mat for hours while she chattered gaily to him. He was a silent fellow, and perhaps his mind was lethargic. He smoked incessantly the cigarettes which she made him out of the native tobacco and pandanus leaf, and he watched her while with deft fingers she made grass mats. Often natives would come in and tell long stories of the old days when the island was disturbed by tribal ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... "I will have recourse to the only means that are congenial to guilt: I will compel you to be silent." Freedom in this matter, as in all others, will engender activity and fortitude; positive institution (Godwin's term for law and constraint) makes the mind torpid and lethargic. It is hardly necessary to reproduce Godwin's vigorous arguments for unfettered freedom in political and speculative discussion, against censorships and prosecutions for religious and political opinions. Even were we secure from the possibility of mistake, mischief and not good would accrue from ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... off a lethargic spell and decided he had better set about several by no means small tasks, if he wanted to get them finished before the hot months. He made a trip to the Sonoyta Oasis. He satisfied himself that matters ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... slumber of utter exhaustion, or whether it was the sweet oblivion which results from a sense of peace long denied, or perhaps the union of both these conditions, the result was that she lay wrapped in an almost lethargic sleep for many hours. Twice Thomas came with the carriage, and twice Griselda sent him away. And the man shook ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... fatalism which is beyond hope and beyond pity—overshadows, like a ghastly image of doom seated upon a remote throne in the chill twilight of some far Ultima Thule, all the events, so curious, so ironic, so devastating, which happen to his lethargic and phlegmatic son. It is this imaginative element in his work which, in the final issue, really and truly counts. For it is a matter of small significance whether the scene of a writer's choice be the uplands of Wessex or the jungles of the tropics, as ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... act of sitting up made me conscious of the fact that I had been lying down. Conscious, too, that I was feeling more than a little dazed. It seemed as though I was waking out of some strange, lethargic sleep—a kind of feeling which I have read of and heard about, ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... state affairs, had power to nullify the most important acts, and even to dissolve the assembly. A single word, pronounced in the vehemence of domestic strife, or by the influence of external corruption, could plunge the nation into a lethargic sleep. And faction went so far as often to lead to the dissolution of the assembly. The treasury, the army, the civil authority then fell into a state of anarchy. Zamoyski also recommended the emancipation ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... In Morocco lethargic patients are given ants to swallow, and to eat lion's flesh will make a coward brave; but people abstain from eating the hearts of fowls, lest thereby they should be rendered timid. When a child is late in learning to speak, the Turks of Central Asia will give it the tongues of certain ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... her, and she languidly opened her eyes. I saw no prospect of being able to impress upon her comatose mind the awful truth I had come to communicate; yet I had no alternative but to make the attempt; and I accordingly proceeded, with as few words as possible, and in a tone of voice suited to the lethargic state of her mind and senses, to inform her that the medicines she was getting from the hands of her husband were fraught with deadly poison, which was alone the cause of all her sufferings and agonies, and would soon be the means of a painful death. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... he passed to other aspects of the matter, but his determination was assured. He meditated elaborately before he took action, for the drug he had taken inclined him to a lethargic and dignified melancholy. In certain respects he modified details. If he left all his property to Elizabeth it would include the voluptuously appointed room he occupied, and for many reasons he did not care to leave that to her. On the other hand, it had to be left to some one. In his clogged ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... saw us, and those of them who could darted away like frightened rabbits, each to his own burrow. An old man who was sitting in the warm afternoon sun on the little bamboo platform before his hut was aroused from his lethargic repose by the scampering away of the children. He arose, trembling upon his tottering limbs, all drawn and twisted, and ...
— An Epoch in History • P. H. Eley
... only the poor cheer of 'Well! you have fallen, get up and go on again!' So men often drug themselves into forgetfulness. They turn away from the unwelcome subject, and forget it at the price of all moral earnestness and often of all happiness; a lethargic sleep or a gaiety, as little real as that of the Girondins singing in their prison the night before being led ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... serpents. Birds have a higher body temperature than man, they are very rapid in their movements and consume a large amount of food proportionate to their weight. They live, as it were, at high pressure. Serpents, on the other hand, have a low body temperature, they are lethargic and can live a long while without food. There is no obvious reason why some animals excrete urea and others uric acid. As uric acid is a satisfactory and unirritating form in which waste nitrogen ...
— The Chemistry of Food and Nutrition • A. W. Duncan
... in the end, seeing more snakes, I dismounted and approached the largest, when exactly the same thing occurred again, the snake rousing itself and coming angrily at me when I was still (considering the dull lethargic character of the deadliest kinds) at an absurd distance from it. Again and again I repeated the experiment, with the same result. And at length I stunned one with a blow of my whip to examine its mouth, but ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... drank, walked, borrowed money and did not return it, and altogether he showed by a series of psycho-physiological acts that he was a living being, possessing a stomach, a will, and a mind—but his soul was dead, or, to be more exact, it was absorbed in lethargic sleep. The sound of human speech reached his ears, his eyes saw tears and laughter, but all that did not stir a single echo, a single emotion in his soul. I do not know what space of time had elapsed. It may have been one year, and it may have been ten years, for the length of such intermissions ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... said, and they stole through the deserted house to get into the street by the atrium. Medius saw them, but he made no attempt to detain them; he had sunk into lethargic indifference. It was not an hour since he had taken stock of his life and means, setting the small figure of his average income against his hospitality to Dada and her little companion; but then, again, he had ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... bitterness was now full to overflowing. Crawling out of the stream, he sank down on the bank in a species of lethargic torpor, from which he awakened next morning in a raging fever. Delirium soon rendered him insensible to his sufferings. The sun rose like a ball of fire, and shone down with scorching power on the arid plain. What mattered it ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... choice. We may, if we will, die fighting to the end a force that must conquer us however we may fight, resisting the irresistible. Or we may die, in lethargic resignation, as dogs die, without hopes or regrets, since the past, without Christ, is as meaningless as the future. Or we may die, like Christ, and with Him, yielding up a spirit that came from the Father back again into His Fatherly hands, ...
— Paradoxes of Catholicism • Robert Hugh Benson
... in high delight. She had not for weeks heard so many words, not to say words of such strength and reason, from her father's lips: day by day he had been growing weaker and more lethargic. He was so much exhausted, however, after this effort, that he asked for another piece of bread and more wine, and fell fast asleep the moment ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald
... the old gentleman takes a fancy, why not indulge him? I'll fetch the kitchen table-cloth." This fit lasted about six days; for he went to sleep, because a baby always slept much: and I was in hopes it would last much longer: but he again went off into his lethargic fit, and, after a long sleep, awoke with a new fancy. My time had nearly expired, and I had written to my new captain, requesting an extension of leave, but I received an answer stating that it could not be granted, and requesting me to join the ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... things in running order. Peyton's drowsiness wrapped him closer and closer. Presently he was remotely aware of the opening of the door, the tread of light feet on the floor, the swish of skirts. But he had now reached that lethargic point which involves total indifference to outer things, and he did not ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... memorable for the expeditions of General Gordon and Lord Wolseley to Khartum, and a considerable number of the Conservative party long held him chiefly responsible for the "betrayal of Gordon." His lethargic manner, apart from his position as war minister, helped to associate him in their minds with a disaster which emphasized the fact that the government acted "too late"; but Gladstone and Lord Granville were no less responsible than he. In June 1885 he resigned ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... of the Beautiful whispers to us of his art, how we were with him when he laid the foundations of the world, and the song is unfinished, the fingers grow listless. As we receive these intimations of age our very sins become negative: we are still pleased if a voice praises us, but we grow lethargic in enterprises where the spur to activity is fame or the acclamation of men. At some point in the past we struggled mightily for the sweet incense which men offer to a towering personality: but the infinite is for ever within man: we sighed for other worlds and found that to be saluted ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... disease thus wonderfully generated, betrayed more terrible symptoms. Fever and delirium terminated in lethargic slumber, which, in the course of two hours, gave place to death. Yet not till insupportable exhalations and crawling putrefaction had driven from his chamber and the house every one whom their ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... crept on. It was half-past nine. Hannah sat lethargic, numb, unable to think, her strung-up nerves grown flaccid, her eyes full of bitter-sweet tears, her soul floating along as in a trance on the waves of a familiar melody. Suddenly she became aware that the others had risen and that her father was motioning to ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... 693. This is, most probably, the asp, a small serpent of Egypt, which is frequently found represented on the statues of Isis. Its bite was said to produce a lethargic sleep, ending in death. Cleopatra ended her life by the bite of one, which she ordered to be conveyed to her in a basket of fruit. Some commentators have supposed that the crocodile is here alluded to; but, as others have justly ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... ways. He was a large, heavy, pale-faced young man, with strange, sleek qualities that appealed to her through their unaccustomedness. But he was scarcely a sleek man in office, and under his drawling, lethargic manner there was an energy that struck her as shocking and out of place. He was like Lawrence, speaking forbidden words and of hidden things. In church he preached embarrassing perfections—she could no longer feel that she had attained the limits of churchmanship with ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... they had accomplices in persons holding high official position, but this was never in any degree proved, and I should say it had no foundation in fact. The idea may have originated in consequence of the lethargic attitude of the officials whose duty it was to see that they were captured. At this time lawlessness was rampant in those parts, and it would have been beyond the capacity of even a more alert and energetic officialism to subdue its ferocious and ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... and the house was still. The lights from the open windows glared out across the night, and the rooms inside were heavy with the fragrance of roses and the smell of champagne. Upstairs in Lorimer's room, Thayer and Bobby Dane were watching the lethargic sleep which had fallen upon their host, and counting the moments until Arlt could bring the doctor back with him. Downstairs, alone in the abandoned dining-room, Beatrix still sat at the disordered table, with her head bowed ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... on this board. He has obtained his great and honourable reputation by conscientiously slumbering through many duties. His tastes are for racing and shooting, but from sheer patriotism he has devoted himself to politics with all the energy of his lethargic manner, which successfully conceals abnormal common-sense. It was he, more than any other man, who saved Ireland from Home Rule, though as an Irish landlord he has not come much to the fore, because his vast English estates are immeasurably more important than those situated round Lismore. ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... Twins, who were growing a trifle lethargic under the technicalities of the subject, roused themselves at this fresh ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... LOOK FORWARD—which is of the essence of fear—to pain in the future. Fear and self-consciousness are closely interlinked. Similarly with animals, we often wonder how a horse or a cow can endure to stand out in a field all night, exposed to cold and rain, in the lethargic patient way that they exhibit. It is not that they do not FEEL the discomfort, but it is that they do not envisage THEMSELVES as enduring this pain and suffering for all those coming hours; and as we know with ourselves that nine-tenths of our miseries really consist in looking forward to ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... comfortably regulated at the present day that Robin Greve, looking back at his trip by air from Croydon Aerodrome to the big landing-ground outside Rotterdam, acknowledged that he had more excitement in his efforts to stir into action a lethargic Dutch passport official in London, so as to enable him to catch the air mail, than in the smooth and uneventful voyage across the Channel. He reached Rotterdam on a dull and muggy afternoon and lost no time in depositing his bag at the Grand Hotel. An enquiry at ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... other interrupted, in the same weary and lethargic manner, "I can get more reliable knowledge from other sources. ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... Barney to aid him. The little hillock was made into a couch by means of the saddles, and the groaning veteran carefully laid upon the by no means uncomfortable refuge. As Jack held the light above him, Jones's eyes closed and he sank into a lethargic sleep. ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... men. I understood their speech, but beyond ribald jests at our expense they said nothing. It was all swift, unreal. Owls hooted in the woods and dogs snarled at us. The groups that remained by the fire peered in our direction, but were too lethargic to come near. I tried for a word with Starling. I feared for ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... as men, as they draw water, work in the gardens, drive the asses, make mats, baskets, &c. in addition to their other domestic duties. People of the better class, or, more properly, those who can afford to procure slaves to work for them, are, on the contrary, very idle and lethargic; they do nothing but lounge or loll about, inquiring what their neighbours have had for dinner, gossip about slaves, dates, &c., or boast of some cunning cheat, which they have practised on a Tibboo or Tuarick, who, though very knowing fellows, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... who wrested the most fun from the situation, for while the rest soon grew weary of the monotony, and lethargic with the heat, groaning aloud every time they had to seek the siding in order to let some great train of laden boats go by, he found fresh enjoyment in every stop, and in blouse and knickerbockers, ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... the good souls could make of her restless agitation. She slept that night from sheer exhaustion, a deep lethargic slumber, apparently broken once or twice by troubled dreams. When she awoke in the morning at the first sound of the voice of the mooddin, the evil dreams seemed to be with her still. She appeared to be moving along in them like one spell-bound by a great dread that she could not utter, as if she ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... I didn't know anything about you." The young man's lethargic conscience gives him a severe prick. He should not have made light of it to Laura and madame, but he did bind them to inviolate secrecy. "If I had seen you I should not have despised you, I should have married you," he says, triumphantly. "If you were ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... past triumphs, would fain regard him as their foe, but, influenced by one of their number, Wolfram von Eschenbach, they welcome him kindly and ask him where he has been. Tannhaeuser, only partly roused from his half lethargic state, dreamily answers that he has long been tarrying in a land where he found neither peace nor rest, and in answer to their invitation to join them in the Wartburg declares he cannot stay, but must wander on forever. Wolfram, seeing him about to depart once more, ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... for our northern brothers some forbearance and a little genuine sympathy, because we have to record that their first act on arriving was to fly to the cooking-lamps, and commence a feast which extended far into the night, and finally terminated in lethargic repose. ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... springs must have slid under the Swede's shoes. Either the prospect of a meal or of having a companion to whom he could lend a hand—nothing so desolate as a man out of work—a stranger at that—had put new life into his hitherto lethargic body. ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... or happiness, honor and enlightenment, on the other, by pursuing one of two paths which are now laid before us for our consideration and choice; may we not, therefore, hope that our people will awaken from their lethargic slumbers, and seek for themselves that future course of conduct which will elevate them from their present position and place them on an equality with the other more advanced races of mankind—may we not hope that they will consider seriously the self-evident ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... if the soul had not already quitted this inert, sluggish, lethargic body, it had at least retreated and concealed itself in depths whither the perceptions of the ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... like one drugged, Rudyard Byng made his way through the streets, oblivious of all around him. His brain was like some engine pounding at high pressure, while all his body was cold and lethargic. His anger at those he left behind was almost madness, his humiliation was unlike anything he had ever known. In one sense he was not a man of the world. All his thoughts and moods and habits had been essentially primitive, even in the high social and civilized surroundings of his youth; and when ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... out always exists, but it is not always equally visible. In some ages governments seem to be imperishable, in others the existence of society appears to be more precarious than the life of man. Some constitutions plunge the citizens into a lethargic somnolence, and others rouse them to feverish excitement. When government appears to be so strong, and laws so stable, men do not perceive the dangers which may accrue from a union of church and state. When governments display so much inconstancy, the danger ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... approached the limit of perfection before all the other sciences; but it was written in the book of destiny that mind and reason were to bend under the yoke of superstition and barbarism, and were only to emerge after centuries of lethargic sleep." ...
— Fathers of Biology • Charles McRae
... still by nature lethargic and placid. I could still occupy myself contentedly With bricks and soldiers, art and history, and trouble no one. But there is still that other element, instilled by Hugh—a love of the open air, of struggle with the elements, ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey
... appearances there, as it happened, without attending to them. In which state man, however furnished with the faculties of understanding and will, would be a very idle, inactive creature, and pass his time only in a lazy, lethargic dream. It has therefore pleased our wise Creator to annex to several objects, and the ideas which we receive from them, as also to several of our thoughts, a concomitant pleasure, and that in several objects, to several degrees, that those ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... found, too, that the slight exhilaration of the alcohol banished mental depression. In this way she got to using it regularly, and finally to such excess that she was often grossly intoxicated. Large doses produce a quiet stupor; additional doses induce a profound lethargic slumber, which lasts in some cases for twenty-four hours. His other customer was a peddler, who came at a certain hour every morning, bought a four-ounce bottle and drank its contents by noon. The man craved the stuff so ardently that he was unable ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... conscious that the gloom, the silence, and the cold were gradually conquering him. The feverish activity of his brain brought on a reaction. He grew lethargic, he sunk down on the steps, and thought of nothing. His hand fell by chance on one of the pieces of candle; he grasped it and devoured it mechanically. This revived him. "How strange," he thought, "that I am not thirsty. Is it possible that the dampness of the walls, which I must inhale with every ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... grass, and overcome by fatigue and the many violent emotions he had that day experienced, soon fell into a lethargic slumber. ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... in his frame of mind should sleep, but nature was at last exhausted, and yielding to the influence of the peculiar atmosphere slowly pervading the room, he fell away into a kind of lethargic slumber, while the work of destruction his own hand had prepared, went silently on around him. First the crimson curtain turned a yellowish hue, than the scorched threads dropped apart and the flame crept into the inner lining of cotton, ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... Enchanted Ground may represent worldly prosperity; agreeable dispensations succeeding long-continued difficulties. This powerfully tends to produce a lethargic frame of mind; the man attends to religious duties more from habit, than from delight in the service of God. No situation requires so much watchfulness. Other experiences resemble storms, which ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... every bete blonde in the Teutonic forest of the fifth century. Truth shifts and changes like a cataract of diamonds; its aspect is never precisely the same at two successive instants. But error flows down the channel of history like some great stream of lava or infinitely lethargic glacier. It is the one relatively fixed thing in a world of chaos. It is, perhaps, the one thing that gives human society the small stability that it needs, amid all the oscillation of a gelatinous cosmos, to save it from ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... berth had been formed with sailcloth. Here he was to remain till he died, which was an event expected every moment; but passing from an atmosphere heated, stagnant, and filled with miasma, into fresher and purer air, which was renewed every instant, he gradually revived from his lethargic state. His recovery dated from the day when he quitted the middle deck; and as it often happens in medicine that the same facts are cited in support of systems diametrically opposite, this recovery confirmed our doctor in his idea of the ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... gravity was in no respect diminished. The sufferer had ceased to cough and to make restless movements, and had become lethargic; later, he spoke deliriously, or rather muttered, for his words were seldom intelligible. Amy had returned to the room at four o'clock, and remained till far into the night; she was physically exhausted, and could do little but sit in a chair by the bedside and shed silent tears, or gaze at ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... lethargic Eastern, unpractical, though deviously subtle, taking no thought for the morrow, uselessly imaginative, submissive, ready to cringe genuinely to authority, then turn and kick the man below him. He was no stagnant pool with only the iridescent lights of corruption upon it. Almost in the English ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... Sparta, why in slumbers Lethargic dost thou lie? Awake, and join thy numbers With Athens, old ally! Leonidas recalling, That chief of ancient song, Who saved ye once from falling— The terrible! the strong! Who made that bold diversion In old Thermopylae, And warring with the Persian To keep his country free; With his three ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... painful and oppressive; but when the weakness consequent to exhaustion came on, and when the probability of death seemed to my physicians greater than that of life, there was an entire change in all my ideal combinations. I remained in an apparently senseless or lethargic state, but in fact my mind was peculiarly active; there was always before me the form of a beautiful woman, with whom I was engaged in the most ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... originated just within the mild but drier margin of the Temperate Zone, where the cooler air of a short winter acted like a tonic upon the energies relaxed by the lethargic atmosphere of the hot and humid Tropics; where congenial warmth encouraged vegetation, but where the irrigation necessary to secure abundant and regular crops called forth inventiveness, cooeperation, and social organization, and gave to the people their first baptism ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence, not troubling further to deceive one so lethargic and simple. "I know that ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... exemplify, during his administration, the truth of Tacitus' words: "He was regarded as greater than a private man whilst he remained in privacy, and would have been deemed worthy of governing if he had never governed." The heat of the canvass cooled, people settled down once more to a condition of lethargic indifference—bought and sold, sowed and reaped, as usual—little realizing that the temporary lull, the perfect calm, was treacherous as the glassy green expanse of waters which, it is said, sometimes covers the location of the all-destroying maelstrom ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... end of a week, I commenced giving stimulants, selecting, as the chief article, sound old Maderia wine. The effect was soon apparent, in a firmer pulse and a quickened vitality. The lethargic condition in which she had lain for most of the time since the commencement of the attack, began to give way, and in a much shorter period than is usually the case, in this disease, we had ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... two ruffians, lethargic after an enormous breakfast, lay about idly in the shade and smoked. As I listened to their lazy, fragmentary conversation vast gulfs of mental vacuity seemed to open before me. I wondered whether after all wicked people were just stupid people—and then ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... swallowed, and after six or seven wet face-cloths have been swallowed, the child is likely to become heavy and lethargic. ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... inner window partially open, because, unaccustomed to a stove, he felt oppressed by its heat. When he threw himself down, he slept deeply, as men sleep after days among snowfields, when a sense of entire security is the lethargic brain's lullaby. ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... after the middle ages. An old divine of our own country says:—"I look upon it as a special piece of providence, that there are, ever and anon, such fresh examples of apparitions and witchcraft as may rub up and awaken their" [the people's] "benumbed and lethargic minds into a suspicion at least, if not assurance, that there are other intelligent beings besides those clothed in heavy earth or clay. In this, I say, methinks the divine providence does plainly interest the powers of the dark kingdom, permitting wicked men and women, ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... that of all South Americans the Paraguayans are the most mild-mannered and lethargic; yet when these people are once aroused they fight with tigerish pertinacity. The pages of history may be searched in vain for examples of warfare waged at such odds; but the result is invariably the same, the weaker nation, whether right or wrong, goes under. Although ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... the pool of a slimy eel or a blundering bullhead or a lethargic sucker is bad enough, but the rush in of the pickerel is the advent of the devil himself. Until he is got rid of, all the delicate machinery for the calculation of chances is hopelessly disturbed; ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Sanskrit language, yet know very little of it. This is only a specimen of what I feel myself to be in every respect. I try to observe, to imprint what I see and hear on my memory, and to feel my heart properly affected with the circumstances; yet my soul is impoverished, and I have something of a lethargic disease ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... has heard of that Irish clerk who used to snore so loudly during the sermon that he drowned the parson's voice. The old vicar, being of a good-natured as well as a somewhat humorous turn of mind, devised a plan for arousing his lethargic clerk. He provided himself with a box of hard peas, and when the well-known snore echoed through the church, he quietly dropped one of the peas on the head of the offender, who was at once aroused to the sense of his duties, and ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... day after day, always in the same feverish lethargic oppression which baffled medical skill, and kept the sick mind beyond the reach of human aid; and so uniform were the days, that her illness seemed to last for months instead ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... could not get near him. It seemed as if his ear were turned away from her cry. She sank into a kind of lethargic stupor. I think, in order to convey to us the spiritual help we need, it is sometimes necessary—just as, according to the psalmist, "he giveth to his beloved in their sleep"—to cast us into a sort of mental quiescence, that the noise of the winds and ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... door, and went in and dwelt in its world. Thus I lived a thronged and busy life, a secret life, full of terror, triumph, wonder, frantic enterprise, a noble and gallant figure among my peers, while to my parents, brothers and sisters I was an incalculable, fitful creature, often lethargic and often in the sulks. They saw me mooning in idleness and were revolted; or I walked dully the way I was bid and they despaired of my parts. I could not explain myself to them, still less justify, having that miserable ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... Indulging dreams his godhead lull to ease, With murmurs of soft rills and whispering trees: The poppy and each numbing plant dispense Their drowsy virtue, and dull indolence; No passions interrupt his easy reign, No problems puzzle his lethargic brain; But dark oblivion guards his peaceful bed, And lazy fogs hang lingering o'er ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... demanded satisfaction for personal injuries. Just as the governor had opened his court to give a hearing to all parties, it pleased God, for our sins, and to our great misfortune, that he was suddenly taken ill of a fever. He remained four days in a lethargic state; after which, by the advice of his physicians, he confessed and received the sacrament with great devotion, and appointed Marcos de Aguilar, who had come with him from Spain, to succeed him in the government. On the ninth day ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... medical books. Sometimes, without any apparent cause, I sank, little by little, into a condition of hemi-syncope, or half swoon; and, in this condition, without pain, without ability to stir, or, strictly speaking, to think, but with a dull lethargic consciousness of life and of the presence of those who surrounded my bed, I remained, until the crisis of the disease restored me, suddenly, to perfect sensation. At other times I was quickly and impetuously smitten. I grew sick, and numb, and chilly, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... of Mrs. Butterby, reaching the fallen man's ear, seemed instantly to quicken his spirits, and, casting off his lethargic humour, he quickly staggered to his feet, while we raised Moll. Then, resting one hand upon the table for support, he craved her pardon for giving so much trouble, but in a ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... to become darker, and in the middle of it, a tall emaciated figure moved about. The old woman stood upright, and in awakening from her lethargic sleep, before even full consciousness had returned to her, in turning upon her side, and raising herself on her elbow, she had extinguished three of the candles which burned near the mortuary bed. Then, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... him to rouse his country men from the apathy and indifference which a timid Administration breathed upon it, and from the lethargic slumber into which the pro-Germans drugged it. During four years, his was the one voice in the United States which could not be silenced. He was listened to everywhere. Men might agree with him or not, but they listened to him, and ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... influenced some people for good and influenced others for evil is beyond all doubt. During the first two years it was a distinct tonic to the intellect and conscience of the people. The sense of national peril quickened the dull and lethargic, steadied the weak drifters, furnished ballast to all the people, made the strong stronger, made the brave more heroic. The first sign of national decay is the note of frivolity. The sure sign of greatness ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... the fact that the sinewy forearms of both men were decorated with gay and fanciful specimens of the tattoo artist's genius. A third man, similarly habited, lay stretched out, apparently sleeping on one of the cots that were arranged around the room. Opening his eyes he greeted the newcomer with a lethargic "'Lo, Redmond!"; then, turning over on his side, he relapsed once more into the arms of Morpheus—his nasal organ ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... evenings, Calyste sat between his mother and the little Breton girl, observed by the rector and Charlotte's aunt, who discussed his greater or less depression as they walked home together. Their simple minds mistook the lethargic indifference of the hapless youth for submission to their plans. One evening when Calyste, wearied out, went off suddenly to bed, the players dropped their cards upon the table and looked at each other as the young man closed the door of his chamber. ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... of character—that proper resort of semi-social egotism and unamalgable individualities—that troublous haven, where the vessel may ride and tack, half-sheltered, but finds no anchorage. Yet even the Lilliputian ligatures of such a sojourn imperceptibly twine round my lethargic habits, and bind me, Gulliver- like, a passive fixture. Once, in particular, I remember to have stuck at the Hotel des Bons Enfants, in Paris—a place with nothing to recommend it to one of ordinary locomotive energies. But there I stuck. Business of importance called me to Bordeaux. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 273, September 15, 1827 • Various
... from lethargic dump, He tweak'd his nose with gentle thump, Knock'd on his breast, as if't had been To raise the spirits lodg'd within; They, waken'd with the noise, did fly From inward room to window eye, And gently op'ning lid, ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... at a speedy relief affected us all in a most remarkable way. Many burst into tears; some looked at each other with a stupid stare, as if doubtful of the reality of what they saw; while several were in such a lethargic condition, that no animating words could rouse them to exertion. At this affecting period, I proposed offering up our solemn thanks to Heaven for the miraculous deliverance."—"Loss of the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... looking after, and the adroit host, skilled in managing all kinds of people and in every condition, induced him to return to his room, under the pretence of wishing to taste his fine old brandy, and then kept him there until the lethargic stage set in as the result of his excess. And so an affair, which might have created much scandal, was smuggled out of sight and knowledge as far as possible. Mrs. Mayhew had been so occupied with whist that she had not observed that anything was amiss, and merely remarked that ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... only way for a man to keep alive. When I've got a hoe in my hand—" He could not quite explain it. He had always had a flow of words on paper, but since he had believed his life was finished his tongue had been more and more lethargic. It would not obey his brain because, after all, what could the brain report of his distrustful heart? Lydia had a moment of bitter mortification because she had not seemed to understand. Anne understood, she knew, and had tried, with ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... rise bow the phantoms behind me, Afar down I see the huge first Nothing—I know I was even there, I waited unseen and always, and slept through the lethargic mist, And took my time, and took no hurt from ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... country nearest his heart, who saw her errors, and wished to correct them; who felt her oppressions, and wished to relieve them; and who had a desire to rouze and awaken an indolent nation from a lethargic disposition, that might prove fatal to her constitution. This temporary opposition but increased the stream of his popularity. He was now looked upon in a new light, and was distinguished by the title of THE DEAN, and so high a degree of popularity ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... dull tapping from the state geologist's quarters as if some woodpecker had flown in to bore for his prey in the cool of the massive building—and then a faint rustle and the light shuffling of the well-worn shoes along the hall, the sounds ceasing at the door toward which the commissioner's lethargic back was presented. Following this, the sound of a gentle voice speaking words unintelligible to the commissioner's somewhat dormant comprehension, but giving evidence of bewilderment ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... to say to myself daily, "Semper ego auditor tantum? Nunquam ne reponam?" "Will no one wake up this unhappily lethargic mass, and by forcing the weapons of knowledge and reason into their hands provoke them and enable them to meet the enemy at the gate?" Every other interest, philosophic, romantic, religious, fell away from me for the time. Wherever I was, whether ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... a very sensible, active man, and one that could easily be wakened: he was not, like some Turks, an hour in recovering their lethargic senses. He was quick in decision and action; and his slaves resembled their master. He despatched a messenger immediately to the grand vizier, that the sultan's safety might be secured; and sent others to the magistrates, in ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... as to the meaning of the words they employ. It is vaguely known that Feng-shui is a powerful weapon in the hands of Chinese officials whereby they successfully oppose all innovations which savour of progress, and preserve unbroken that lethargic sleep in which China has been wrapt for so many centuries: beyond this all is mystery and doubt. Some say the natives themselves do not believe in it; others declare they do; others again think that the masses have faith, but that enlightened and educated Chinese scout the ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... Rudolph to have a care that nothing was done in Germany to interfere with the great design upon England. The King gave warning that he would suffer no disturbance from that quarter, but certainly the lethargic condition of Germany rendered such threats superfluous. There were riders enough, and musketeers enough, to be sold to the highest bidder. German food for powder was offered largely in the market to any foreign ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... not reply. The heavy stupor that deadened every sense bore him down, and took away the power of speech. His eyes closed, and in another moment he had dropped off into a deep, lethargic sleep. ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... more cheerful, more sweet, than she had been for many years. The truth was that, though her bereavement had been the cause of a most genuine and durable sorrow, it had been a relief to her. When Constance was over fifty, the energetic and masterful Sophia had burst in upon her lethargic tranquillity and very seriously disturbed the flow of old habits. Certainly Constance had fought Sophia on the main point, and won; but on a hundred minor points she had either lost or had not fought. Sophia had been 'too much' for Constance, and it had been only by a wearying expenditure ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... he lived with his parents, though small, was neat and comfortable. We found him lying in bed, awake. He looked languid and lethargic; but his skin was moist and cool; his face displayed no paleness, and no injury of any kind. He had just eaten a good dinner of rabbit-pie, and was anxious to be allowed to sit up in a chair, and amuse himself by looking ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... spoke almost in a whisper, her lips, close to the ear of Mrs. Dexter. The words, or at least some of them, had the effect to rouse the latter from her half lethargic condition. Lifting her face from the bosom of her friend, she ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur |
