"Listless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... extent; but in spite of all that unfashionable critics have said, Vivian Grey has just produced a volume under the title of the Voyage of Captain Popanilla, with as much of the aforesaid qualities as the most listless drawing-room or boudoir reader could require. Nevertheless, "the voyage" has many touches of wit, humour, and caustic satire, and it has the soul and characteristic of wit—brevity; for we read the volume in little more than an hour; and, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 322, July 12, 1828 • Various
... when the opportunity occurs; because, as Augustine says (De Doctr. Christ. i, 28), we must look upon this as a matter of chance. For this reason he says (De Verb. Dom. xvi, 1) that "Our Lord warns us not to be listless in regard of one another's sins: not indeed by being on the lookout for something to denounce, but by correcting what we see": else we should become spies on the lives of others, which is against the saying ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... side and replaced by a long green baize table littered with papers; the doors leading on to the verandah were closed, and a stifling atmosphere bore down upon the five occupants who were ranged about the table in various attitudes of listless exhaustion. ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... followed by questions upon the sermonette, it might thus become very useful. But a catechesis in which the catechist simply tells a simple story or gives an amusing anecdote, or when questioning, so puts his inquiries that "yes" and "no" are the listless replies that are drawn forth from the lads and girls, is not interesting or profitable. Whenever I have the opportunity I go to an afternoon catechetical service. Some failed by being made into the time of a small preachment; some because in a few minutes the catechist easily asked questions and ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... effect, for when the front line jumps to the LEFT, the second jumps to the RIGHT, the third to the LEFT again, and so on; until the action acquires due intensity, when all simultaneously and suddenly stop. The excitement which this dance produces in the savage is very remarkable. However listless the individual may be, laying perhaps, as usual, half asleep; set him to this dance, and he is fired with sudden energy, and every nerve is strung to such a degree that he is no longer to be recognised as the same person until he ceases to dance, and comes to you again. ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... state, and reminds them of its approach while it fits them for it. Their time is regularly distributed; one duty succeeds another, so that they are not left open to the distraction of unguided choice, nor lost in the shades of listless inactivity. There is a certain task to be performed at an appropriated hour, and their toils are cheerful, because they consider them as acts of piety by which they are always advancing towards ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson
... that he needed encouragement and guidance. She pictured him with his fiddle under his chin, masterful, confident, miraculous, throwing a spell over everyone within earshot. But actually she saw him listless and vanquished in the basket chair, and she perceived that only a strongly influential and determined woman, such as herself, could save him from disaster. No man could do it. His tears had shaken her. She was willing to make allowances ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... large foot-marks went, No further than to where his feet had stray'd, And slept there since. Upon the sodden ground His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead, Unsceptred; and his realmless eyes were closed; While his bow'd head seem'd list'ning to the Earth, 20 His ancient mother, for ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... implores thy aid; Let all behold; and thou, imperious Jove, On me direct thy lightning from above: Now all its force the poison doth assume, And my burnt entrails with its flame consume. Crest-fallen, unembraced I now let fall Listless, those hands that lately conquer'd all; When the Nemaean lion own'd their force, And he indignant fell a breathless corse: The serpent slew, of the Lernean lake, As did the Hydra of its force partake: By this, too, fell the Erymanthian boar: ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... visible over leagues of labouring sea! O thus through use to reign again, to drink The cup of peradventure to the lees, For one dear instant disimmortalised In giving immortality! So dream the gods upon their listless thrones. Yet sometimes, when the votary appears, With death-affronting forehead and glad eyes, Too young, they rather muse, too frail thou art, And shall we rob some girl of saffron veil And nuptial garland for so slight a thing? And ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... down at her with a great love and a greater pity shining in his eyes. She thought that she had thrown up her arms to close about him with the frantic joy of a rescued person, only to have them meet in empty air and fall listless at ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... led to his being peremptorily ordered home as soon as he was convalescent, and the sea voyage had worked wonders and built up his weakened constitution. But he was altered, none the less. There were hard lines about his mouth and forehead, and in his eyes was a listless, weary, cynical look—the look of a man who finds life a care and a burden almost ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... at the moment he began to speak, silence had just been restored, and, although his voice was very soft and gentle in its touch, every one heard his question. Buckingham turned round, and looked at the tall thin figure, and the listless expression of countenance of his questioner. Probably the personal appearance of Manicamp, who was dressed very plainly, did not inspire him with much respect, for he replied disdainfully, "Who may ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... burning indignation against the training school committee. In his bewilderment Phillotson entered the adjacent cathedral, just now in a direly dismantled state by reason of the repairs. He sat down on a block of freestone, regardless of the dusty imprint it made on his breeches; and his listless eyes following the movements of the workmen he presently became aware that the reputed culprit, Sue's lover Jude, was ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... so I sometimes dream— I've swum the dark, the silent stream, So cold, it takes the breath away, That parts the dead world from the day, And see upon the further strand The lazy, listless angels stand, And with their frank and fearless eyes The comrades whom I most did prize: Then, clean, unburdened, careless, cool, I'll saunter up from that grim pool, And join my friends: then you'll come by, The Captain of our Company: Call me ...
— Thoughts on religion at the front • Neville Stuart Talbot
... done when the food had been consumed. Now and then one or the other would use the shovel in a listless way for a few moments at a time, but each had become so weak that any prolonged exertion was out of ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... glance swept her companion searchingly, and, in that brief scrutiny, Susan observed with inward complacency how pale the other was, and how listless her manner! Their common secret, however, made Susan's outward demeanor sweetly solicitous and gently sympathetic. Her mind, passing in rapid review over recent events, dwelt not without certain satisfaction upon results. True, every night she was still forced to witness Constance's success, ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... may even lose in weight. It no longer exhibits its usual energy and playfulness, but is either listless and indifferent or cross, fretful and irritable, and is apt to sleep poorly. It grows pale and anaemic and its tissues become soft and flabby. When the milk is scanty it will often nurse a long time at the breasts, sometimes three quarters of an hour, before stopping. At other times ...
— The Care and Feeding of Children - A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses • L. Emmett Holt
... waiting behind that on a certificate of deposit. But was it not the irony of life, was it not life itself, that the little buncher, who only the other day would have thrilled to her marrow at the mere thought of all these things, should have won her lady's glories only when she was too strangely listless ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... proceeded, undismayed, to make good his accusation. He had dropped back into his slightly listless air of thinly veiled persiflage, and he appeared to address the lady, to explain the situation to her, rather than to justify ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... So, if I shot birds in winter with my firelock, I caught fish in summer, or attempted so to do, with my angle. I was not quite so successful, it is true, with the latter as with the former—possibly because it afforded me less pleasure. It was, indeed, too much of a listless pastime to inspire me with any great interest. I not unfrequently fell into a doze whilst sitting on the bank, and more than once let my rod drop from my hands ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... That Rome's proud walls might fall before their swords; Exhausted, wet with brothers' blood, Alone sat Brutus, in the dismal night; Resolved on death, the gods implacable Of heaven and hell he chides, And smites the listless, drowsy air With his fierce ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... think, far from being an idle boy. I neglected my studies, not to become listless and unemployed, but that I might earn more time for other, and, as most persons would think, less edifying pursuits, and was therefore invariably devoted to cricket, ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... seem very ill by day, only heavy, listless and dull, unable to eat, too giddy to sit up, and unable to help crying like a babe, if Stephen left him for a moment; but he never fell asleep without all the horror and dread of the sentence coming over him. ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... desire to live or even to rise up again, he was so utterly powerless and lacking in energy. The majority of his fellow-soldiers appeared, too, to be in the same mood, stretching their weary limbs on the ground in listless apathy, as if caring for nothing; they did not either seem to be affected by hunger or thirst, although it was more than twelve hours since they had broken their fast; the fury of the fight had satiated them, taking away all stamina ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... peace! A beauteous boy, Couched listless by the rivulet's glassy tide, 'Mid nature's tranquil scene, He views the lambs that skip with innocent joy, And crop the meadow's flowering pride:— Then with his flute's enchanting sound, He wakes the mountain echoes round, Or ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... also to an astonishing extent mere spectators in the arduous work of hauling the cobles one by one on to the steep bank of shingle. A tackle hooked to one of the baulks of timber forming the staith was being hauled at by five women and two men! Two others were in a listless fashion leaning their shoulders against the boat itself. With the last 'Heave-ho!' at the shortened tackle the women laid hold of the nets, and with casual male assistance laid them out on the shingle, removed any fragments of fish, and generally prepared them for ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... gone out of prize-day, and no coaxing can bring it back. The Fifth, and after them the Sixth, advance and receive their rewards amidst the listless indifference of the audience, and uncheered by the faintest spark of enthusiasm. No one takes the trouble to cheer anybody. Even Raleigh, the captain, comes in and out almost unheeded; and when at last the final name is reached, it is a ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... of progress, while your son began by absorbing the old order. In our most intimate talks he has never once abused Tatistchev or Burenin, and that's a bad sign. You are a hundred times as liberal as he is, and it ought to be the other way. He utters a listless and indolent protest, he soon drops his voice and soon agrees, and altogether one has the impression that he has no interest whatever in the contest; that is, he looks on at the cock-fight like a spectator and has no cock of his own. And one ought to have one's own ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... to read, and with a listless indifference she opened it, starting as there dropped into her lap a small carte de viste, a perfect likeness of Guy, who sent it, he said, because he wished her to have so much of himself. It would make him happier to know she could sometimes look at him just as he should gaze ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... them, the newcomers were surrounded by sailors eager to learn the last news from England—how the war was going on, and what prospect there was of peace. As soon as their curiosity was satisfied, the crowd speedily dispersed. Julian was struck with the air of listless indifference that prevailed among the prisoners, but it was not long before he quite understood it. Cut off from all news, without hope of escape or exchange, it was difficult for even the most light-hearted to retain ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... lost in a deep agony of thought. The face was wonderfully pure and beautiful; and the anguish seemed not the anguish of remorse, but the pain of looking upon things both sweet and beautiful, and of yet being unable to take a share in them. The whole figure denoted a listless melancholy. It was the work of a famous French sculptor, who seemed to have worked under close and minute direction; and my friend told me that no less than three statues had been completed before ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... contest;[2] and though Mr. Dayton had not received a majority support, his nomination was nevertheless at once made unanimous. Those who are familiar with the eccentricities of nominating conventions when in this listless and drifting mood know how easily an opportune speech from some eloquent delegate or a few adroitly arranged delegation caucuses might have reversed this result; and imagination may not easily construct the possible changes ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... remained at a little distance, unmoving, her eyes cast down. Before any other word was said, the door opened quickly, and Mrs. Enderby ran in with a smothered cry. Throwing her arms about her husband, she clung to him in a passion of grief and tenderness. In a moment she had been changed from the listless, childish woman of the last few months to a creature instinct with violent emotion. Her mingled excess of joy and anguish could not have displayed itself more vehemently had she been sorrowing night and day for her husband's loss. Maud was terrified at the scene, ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... perpetuated the notion that servants' duties were for persons of dark complexion. The debate over a segregated branch that had engaged the civil rights leaders and the Navy since 1932 was over, but it had left a residue of ill will; some were bitter at what they considered the listless pace of reform, a pace which left the impression that the service had been forced to change against its will. To some extent the Navy in the 1950's failed to capitalize on its early achievements because it had for so long missed the point of the integrationists' arguments about ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... her eye stole itself round into his face, and then her face was turned quickly to the ground. Her parasol which had been raised drooped listless from her hand. All unconsciously she hastened her steps and became aware that the tears were streaming from her eyes. For a moment or two it seemed to her that all was still hopeless. If he had no more to say than that, certainly ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... facts continued in the courthouse until seven in the evening, and the nights were passed in consultation with counsel. Attendants upon this celebrated trial declared that Toombs's manner in the courtroom was indifferent. That, while other lawyers were busy taking notes, he seemed to sit a listless spectator, rolling his head from side to side, oblivious to evidence or proceeding. And yet, when his time came to conclude the argument, he arose with his kingly way, and so thorough was his mastery of the case, with its infinite detail, its broad ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... our return from the river, the weather clouded, but afterwards cleared up with a change of wind from the South-East, which, from its heat, and from the listless sensations it caused, resembled the hot land-wind of Port Jackson: this seems to afford additional ground for the hypothesis that the interior of this immense island is occupied by vast ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... yourself?" Flint asked, partly from listless curiosity, and partly with an eye to ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... facility, equally delighted with the sturdy Plutarch. His nature was passionate and inconstant, his sensibilities morbidly acute, and his imagination lively. He hated all rules, precedents, and authority. He was lazy, listless, deceitful, and had a great craving for novelties and excitement,—as he himself says, "feeling everything and knowing nothing." At an early age, without money or friends, he ran away from the engraver to whom ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... previous day he was exhausted and listless, and spoke unwillingly. His fingers twitched, and from his face it could be seen that he ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... death shocked me very much, and I felt very certain that he was himself aware of his own condition. I observed, during my intercourse with him latterly, a listless melancholy in his manner, a circumstance that puzzled me a good deal in contrast with his powerful frame, and vigorous appearance, and blunt, offhand manner. I think I understand now, and can compassionate certain expressions in his last note to me, which, when I received it, ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... cloven, for one blinding instant, by the levin-fires of Hell. He knows thenceforward what he will do, as he walks with the pale Chaplain between the shell-torn houses, and along the littered streets, where men and women and children, thin and haggard and listless with hunger, and the deadly inertia of long confinement, pass and repass as indifferently as though no guns were battering and growling from the low grey hills south and east, and the incessant rattle of rifle-fire were the ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... animal in my nature. I felt sure I could never tell that woman that I loved her, or that she pleased me, or even that she was beautiful; there was nothing on my lips but a desire to kiss her, and say to her: "Make a girdle of those listless arms and lean that head on my breast; place that sweet smile on my lips." My body loved hers; I was under the influence of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... worked by men they will be liable to the imperfections belonging to all things human. Though their machinery may be perfect and their organisation as complete as skill and forethought can make it, workmen will at times be forgetful and listless; and a moment's carelessness may lead to the most disastrous results. Yet, taking all circumstances into account, the wonder is, that travelling by railway at high speed should have been rendered ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... depressing to a sympathetic nature," he declared. "For example, it constantly depresses me to observe the effect of the cotton mills on the girls in my employ. They come in from the country, fresh, blooming, and eager to work. Within a few months perhaps they are pale, anaemic, listless. Not infrequently a young girl contracts tuberculosis and dies before one realizes that she is ill. It wrings the heart ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr
... 30. I have been so lazy and negligent these last four days, that I could not write to MD. My head is not in order, and yet it is not absolutely ill, but giddyish, and makes me listless; I walk every day, and hope I shall grow better. I wish I were with MD; I long for spring and good weather, and then I will come over. My riding in Ireland keeps me well. I am very temperate, and eat of the easiest meats as I am directed, and hope the malignity will go off; ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... by auditing or narrating anecdotes, discussing policy, or detraction; and in case it be summer, and the day of a fine texture, they scatter themselves into little crowds on the chapel-green, or lie at their length upon the grass in listless groups, giving ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... Most of the tram-lines were running, and the metro gave full service until eleven at night, employing many young women as conductors—and they made neat, capable workers. Many of the shops, especially along the boulevards, were open for a listless business, although the shutters were often up, with the little sign on them announcing that the place was closed because the patron was mobilized. And there was a steady stream of people on the sidewalks of all main thoroughfares,—at least while daylight lasted, ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... surprise of all present, however, the knight thus preferred was nowhere to be found. He had left the lists immediately when the conflict ceased, and had been observed by some spectators to move down one of the forest glades with the same slow pace and listless and indifferent manner which had procured him the epithet of the Black Sluggard.[87-17] After he had been summoned twice by sound of trumpet and proclamation of the heralds, it became necessary to name another ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... and flirt in our listless style While the waltzes dream in the drill-room arch, What would we do if the order came, Sudden and sharp—"Let the Seventh march!" Why, we'd faint, of course; our cheeks would pale; Our knees would tremble, our fears—but stay, That order I think has come ere this To those ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.
... with mossy brink Where the cattle came to drink. They trilled and piped and whistled With the thrush and bobolink, Till the kine in listless pause, Switched their tails in mute applause, With lifted heads and dreamy eyes, ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... A rich and listless lady patron examined the handbags in a leading jeweler's shop in New York City. The clerk exhibited one bag five inches square, made of platinum and with one side almost covered with a setting of diamonds. This was offered at ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... against its resonant sides. Bees seemed less and less numerous. An air of idleness, almost dissoluteness and despair, brooded over some of the hives. The strong robbed the weak; and the weak contented themselves with gathering in listless groups, murmuring plaintively. If the hives were inquiringly tapped, instead of a furious and instant alarm and angry outpouring of excited and wrathful citizens, eager to sacrifice themselves in the ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... dropped his spade. He tumbled down beside it, and lay fast asleep. One after the other each of the troop dropped his pickaxe or shovel from his listless hands, and lay fast asleep ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... in," her cousin advised, but the light of battle had died out of his eyes, leaving them listless. "It's nothing to me. I only came to ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... that the house was not likely to get much backing-up in its new efforts from Felgate, looked likely enough to be fulfilled. While everyone else was full of athletic and scholastic fervour, he remained listless and even sulky. Some said it was because Ainger had proposed the great scheme, and Felgate disdained to play second riddle even to the captain. Others said it was because he could not win anything even if he tried. Others darkly hinted that he was one of the authors of the house's present ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... dreamed of lands afar where they might find that liberty for which their souls thirsted as the hart for the water-brook. Far from their native country, without the blessings of the Church, or the warmth of substantial friendship, they fell into a listless condition, a somnolence that led them to stagger against some of the regulations of the Province. Their wandering was not inspired by any subjective, inherent, generic evil: it was but the tossing of a weary, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... any consciousness that we were doing for him more than might under the circumstances be expected. His glance seemed sometimes to bespeak puzzled thoughts. But he accepted all our ministrations and labors with either the listless indifference of a man ill unto death, or the composure of an aristocrat who took personal service ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... same eagerness noticeable which used to boast openly that its rewards consisted in the consciousness of work well done. Instead, idleness became the badge of gentility, and trade a slur upon a man's reputation. No city can long survive so listless and languid an ideal. The Archbishop, therefore, denounced this new method of usurious traffic, and hinted further that to it was due the fierce rebellion which had for a while plunged Florence into the horrors of the Jacquerie. Wealth, he taught, should not of itself breed wealth, but only ...
— Mediaeval Socialism • Bede Jarrett
... with polished accuracy. His only object seems to be to stimulate himself and his readers for the moment—to keep both alive, to drive away ennui, to substitute a feverish and irritable state of excitement for listless indolence or even calm enjoyment. For this purpose he pitches on any subject at random without much thought or delicacy—he is only impatient to begin—and takes care to adorn and enrich it as he proceeds with "thoughts that breathe and words that burn." He composes (as he himself has said) whether ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... currents of the world, he might forget that there existed other and more pressing interests than that of art. But, in such a place, it was hardly possible to write; he could not drug his conscience, like the painter, by the production of listless studies; he saw himself idle among many who were apparently, and some who were really, employed; and what with the impulse of increasing health and the continual provocation of romantic scenes, ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... broken, and the conversation started afresh. But the girl who had passed the Yorkshire relish sat silent and listless, her food untouched, and her wine untasted. She was small and thin; her face looked haggard. She was a new-comer, and had, indeed, arrived at Petershof only two hours before the table-d'hote bell rang. But there did not seem to be any ...
— Ships That Pass In The Night • Beatrice Harraden
... author Hyrummetricus. The Professors of this Science [of land surveying] are honoured with a more earnest attention than falls to the lot of any other philosophers. Arithmetic, Theoretical Geometry, Astronomy, and Music are discoursed upon to listless audiences, sometimes to empty benches. But the land surveyor is like a judge; the deserted fields become his forum, crowded with eager spectators. You would fancy him a madman when you see him walking along the most devious paths. But in truth he is seeking for the traces ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... She loathes the listless strain And peril of his plight. Beseeching Heaven to send him home again, She ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... to have been blotted out in that whirlpool, for she only bowed her head formally, and gave no look of recognition, though she, too, allowed Berenger to salute her listless, dejected hand. 'One would hardly have known him again, continued the King, in a low husky voice; 'but I hope, sir, ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... masters are like children, from the constant waiting upon that they receive. One would think, where one class does all the thinking and the other all the working, that masters would be active thinkers and slaves ready workers; but neither result seems to happen—both are listless ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... open gate in the wall at the back, into the gardens behind the house. There was not much in the way of flowers to look at, but he moved about quite unconscious of any deprivation. A cluster of greenhouses, massed against the southern side of the mansion, attracted his listless fancy, and he walked toward what appeared to be an entrance to them. The door was locked, but he found another further on which opened to his hand. The air was very hot and moist inside, and the place was so filled with broad-leaved, umbrageous ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... interest. A couple of traveling men, waiting for the early morning train, were playing a listless game of billiards at one of the tables; a pair of Jap sugar-beet workers and a negro section hand sat half-asleep and leaned against the wall; "Red" Jackson, Sabota's chief lieutenant, with an air of utter boredom, lounged behind the soft-drink ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... the little hand that was not engaged with the book and lay abandoned, outstretched, listless and shining on her knee. Solomon's needle snapped. She frowned and roused herself heavily to secure another from the basket on the floor at her side. Miriam, flashing hatred at her, caught Fraulein's fascinating gaze fixed on Ulrica; ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... tell, and conversation flagged and finally died out utterly. The squeak-squeaking of the saddles grew very distinct; occasionally somebody sighed, or started to hum a tune and gave it up; now and then a horse sneezed. These things only emphasised the solemnity and the stillness. Everybody got so listless that for once I and my dreamer found ourselves in the lead. It was a glad, new sensation, and I longed to keep the place forevermore. Every little stir in the dingy cavalcade behind made me nervous. Davis and I were riding side by side, right after the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Yet, indeed, In current Gallic light not hard to read. Woman, with angel-wings, and mournful face, What are the plans those listless fingers trace? What are the visions those fixed eyes survey? The War-dog fierce lies couchant in your way. The instruments of Art are scattered round. Mistress of charm in form, in tint, in sound, Of engineering might, mechanic skill, That ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 29, 1893 • Various
... looks clost you observes a brace of bucks, and each packin' a black-snake whip. Them's kettle-tenders,—floor managin' the baile they be; an' if a buck who's dancin' gets preeoccupied with thinkin' of something else an' takes to prancin' an' dancin' listless, the way the kettle-tenders pours the leather into him to remind him his fits of abstraction is bad form, is like a religious ceremony. An' it ain't no bad idee; said kettle-tenders shore promotes what Colonel Sterett calls the elan of the dancin' ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... she asked; but her tone was listless, apathetic, as of one who though uttering a question is incurious as to what the answer ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... limbs were lean; his scattered hair, Sered by the autumn of strange suffering, Sung dirges in the wind: his listless hand Hung like dead bone within his withered skin; Life, and the lustre that consumed it, shone As in a furnace burning secretly From ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... shadow of disappointment crept over the face that had been so eager. Something was lacking. Everything was in the remembered order, but it did not seem the same. She studied it for a minute or two, then walked away and sat down on a sunny doorstep. The mother found her there a little later, a listless, quiet ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various
... careful attention I bestowed upon this production. It was a very modest attempt,—a bit of landscape, with two horses grazing and a man at work in the foreground. Quiet in tone, and half-concealed by the shaded casement, it was only by degrees, and to ward off the ennui of a listless half-hour, that I gradually became absorbed in its examination. There were some masterly lines, clever arrangement, a true feeling, and a peculiar delicacy of treatment, that implied the hand of a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... at the door, and looked with listless inquiry into the face of the Minister of Marine, who, picking up an official paper from his table, ran an eye down it, marked a point with the sharp corner of his snuff-box, and handed it over to his ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... shadows, pierced here and there by the spiked helmets of pines. There was no trace of habitation, yet the voices were those of some monotonous occupation, and Lance distinctly heard through them the click of crockery and the ring of some household utensil. It appeared to be the interjectional, half listless, half perfunctory, domestic dialogue of an old man and a girl, of which the words were unintelligible. Their voices indicated the solitude of the mountain, but without sadness; they were mysterious without being awe-inspiring. They might have uttered the dreariest commonplaces, ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... all know what it is to put out an empty hand into the darkness and the void, and to grope for a touch which we know, whilst we grope, that we shall not find. And these poor, helpless disciples, by their forlorn sense of separation, by their yearning that brought no satisfaction, by their very listless despair, were saying, during these hours of agony into which an eternity of pain was condensed, 'Oh! that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... vaguely both before and after all her calamities; she was too soft to be hurt. But by the aid (or rather under the orders) of a strenuous niece she always kept the remains of a clientele, mostly of young but listless folks. And there were actually five inmates standing disconsolately about the garden when the great gale broke at the base of the terminal tower behind them, as the sea bursts against the ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... wait-awhile flower fair, And the "some time other" scents the air, And the soft-go-easy grow? It lies in the Valley of What's-the-use, In the province of Let-her-slide. That old tired feeling is native there, It's the home of the listless I don't ...
— Rhymes of the Rookies • W. E. Christian
... burning, maddening sense of outrage had passed, and pride stood with lowered crest and listless hands, love lifted its head and tried to speak. He was not without excuse, love pleaded; his life had been miserable; his lot hard and unendurable; he had been given a stone for bread, and for wine, the waters of ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... months the border was quiet. The rangers lolled, listless, in camp. And then—bringing joy to the rusting guardians of the frontier—Sebastiano Saldar, an eminent Mexican desperado and cattle-thief, crossed the Rio Grande with his gang and began to lay waste the Texas side. There were indications ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... in mind, the Mole left him for a time and busied himself with household matters; and it was getting dark when he returned to the parlour and found the Rat where he had left him, wide awake indeed, but listless, silent, and dejected. He took one hasty glance at his eyes; found them, to his great gratification, clear and dark and brown again as before; and then sat down and tried to cheer him up and help him to relate ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... her hand into her breast, and drawing out the pass on the back of which she had written her last message to him, she thrust it between his listless fingers. It should speak for her. Then she leant over him, and watched his sleeping face, a very incarnation of infinite, despairing tenderness, and love that is deeper than the grave. And as she watched, gradually her feet and legs grew cold ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... never end, although no one took anything. In time even the fun and laughter, which had at first helped to keep the thing going, died away, and the fellows lolled back in the chairs in a listless, bored way. It was vain for me to try to lead the talk; I could not have done it even if I had had the spirit, and there was precious ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... more frequent opportunities to observe the cheerfulness, the exuberance of spirits even, of Eastern women, they would soon and more easily be convinced of the untruth of all those stories afloat about the degraded, oppressed, and listless state of their life. It is impossible to gain a true insight into the actual domesticity in a few moments' visit; and the conversation carried on, on those formal occasions, hardly deserves that name; there is barely more than the exchange of a few commonplace remarks—and it is questionable ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... surprise, Grinsell and Dickon were gone; no one but the squire was in the room, and he was sitting in a big chair, limp and listless, his eyes fixed ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... and I remained with the handle of the door in my hand, gasping for breath— blinded with the tears that coursed each other rapidly down my cheeks. I remained a minute in this state, when I felt that Sarah touched my other listless hand. ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Croce, the great church, stretched forward beyond her into the distances of grey mist and cold spaces of light. Its bare vastness was damp like a vault. And she lay in the midst listless, heavy-lidded, apart, with the half-smile, as it seemed, of some secret mirth. Round her the great candles smoked and flickered, and mass was sung at the High Altar for her soul's repose. Sandro stood ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... clung about the streets like ragged grave-clothes, and at the edge of the pavement half a dozen fiacres were ranged in a melancholy line, the wretched horses dozing as they stood, the drivers huddled into their fur capes and numbed by the clinging cold. Everywhere was darkness and chill and the listless misery of a winter dawn, when vitality is at its lowest ebb and the passions of man ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... feast, and afterwards we sought our state barge and the perils of the return journey. The newly married couple came down to see us off, still bearing themselves with a preoccupied and listless air. The orchestra remained until the next day, and we threaded the water lanes in quiet, emerging at last on the full-breasted river. The home journey consumed only three hours, and was comparatively uneventful. ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... a cricket's cymbals play, A scarecrow lightly flapped his rags, And a pan that hung by his shoulder rang, Rattled and thumped in a listless way, And now the wind in the chimney sang, The wind in the chimney, The wind in the chimney, The wind in the chimney, Seemed to say:— "Dream, boy, dream, If you anywise can. To dream is the work Of beast or man. Life is the west-going ...
— Chinese Nightingale • Vachel Lindsay
... boat! The same gear! The same crew, but how different! A crew of bent heads and wearied limbs! Listless-eyed, despairing! A ghastly crew, with black care riding in the ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... pressing operations of Moses and his myrmidons. Neither the Mayor nor the corporation were to be found anywhere, nor were the keys of the principal stores forthcoming until Moses began to apply the axe. The citizens were lolling about the streets in a listless manner, and showing no great signs of discontent. They had left to their women the task of resisting the commissaries—a duty which they were fully competent to perform. No soldiers but those on duty were visible in ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... biting north-east wind did not add to the appearance of Number 29, as she stood, dejected, listless, with head drooping, in the centre of the farmers and horse-dealers who were attending the sale of cast Army horses. She looked as though she realised that her day had waned, and that the bright steel work, the soft ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... can talk a great deal better." Arline began a listless unfastening of her fluffy lingerie frock, her ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... Northern France saw with amazement the presence of a real king, and an orderly government. In 1422 King Henry died; a few weeks later Charles VI. died also, and the face of affairs began to change, although, at the first, Charles VII. the "Well-served," the lazy, listless prince, seemed to have little heart for the perils and efforts of his position. He was proclaimed King at Mehun, in Berri, for the true France for the time lay on that side of the Loire, and the Regent Bedford, who took the reins at Paris, was a vigorous and powerful prince, who ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... from the Tickle to the sea—to an outer cove, high-cliffed, frothy, sombre, with many melancholy echoes of wind and breakers and listless human voices, where is a cluster of hopeless, impoverished homes. 'Tis a wilful-minded path, lingering indolently among the hills, artful, intimate, wise with age, and most indulgently secretive of its soft discoveries. ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... experienced, that scenes through which a man has passed, improve by lying in the memory: they grow mellow. Acti labores sunt jucundi[896]. This may be owing to comparing them with present listless ease. Even harsh scenes acquire a softness by length of time[897]; and some are like very loud sounds, which do not please, or at least do not please so much, till you are removed to a certain distance. They may be compared to strong coarse pictures, which will not bear to be viewed near. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... dissatisfaction sits heavily on her, toning down to rather a too cruel a degree the bright expectancy of her face. He had said he would come, and now——She drums in a heavy-hearted listless fashion on the table with the tips of her pale gloves, and noticing, half consciously in so doing, that they have not been sufficiently drawn up her arm, mechanically fits them closer ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... to her, she would miss what they said, beg their pardon, and ask them to repeat it; and sometimes, even then, become bewildered. They tried reading to her, but she did not seem to listen, and her half-closed eye had the expression of listless dejection, that her father knew betokened that, even as last night, her heart refused to accept promises of ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... try like a good boy to get well. She told him firmly that he could, if he wanted to. She made her suggestions with gently persuasive voice, coloring all she said with the warmth of a heart peculiarly open to the unknown needs of the listless child. To those unknown needs she opened wide her spirit, crying within ...
— Old Mr. Wiley • Fanny Greye La Spina
... distance in front of the whole, marched the individual, who, by his position and air, appeared to be the leader of the band. He was a tall, sun-burnt, man, past the middle age, of a dull countenance and listless manner. His frame appeared loose and flexible; but it was vast, and in reality of prodigious power. It was, only at moments, however, as some slight impediment opposed itself to his loitering progress, that his person, which, in its ordinary gait seemed ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... a plentiful application of spring water, with a quantum sufficit of soap. The whole scene was depressing; for it argued, at the first glance, at least a stagnation of industry, and perhaps of intellect. Even curiosity, the busiest passion of the idle, seemed of a listless cast in the village of Tully-Veolan: the curs aforesaid alone showed any part of its activity; with the villagers it was passive. They stood, and gazed at the handsome young officer and his attendant, but without any of those quick motions and eager looks that indicate the earnestness with ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... an artist in travel, wishing to provide them with delicious memories, while they were English and omnivorous of facts and scenes. When he learnt from various rebuffs that they would not confide themselves to him, he lost all pleasure in the tour. It was a listless and disgusted upper servant, most unlike the man I knew, whom I found in gorgeous raiment sitting by the cook's fire in the gardens of Damascus, which were then a ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall |
