"Aimless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... These are termed novels for the simple reason that we know not what else to call them. The former was begun, in his own words, "with no real idea of how it was to turn out"; its nine volumes, published at intervals from 1760 to 1767, proceeded in the most aimless way, recording the experiences of the eccentric Shandy family; and the book was never finished. Its strength lies chiefly in its brilliant style, the most remarkable of the age, and in its odd characters, like Uncle Toby and Corporal ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... the hush of listening expectancy, which filled the young girl with a vague restlessness, and seemed to even affect a scattered company of crows in the field beyond the house, which rose suddenly with startled but aimless wings, and then dropped vacantly ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... "I think my husband was nailing it up recently." By some strange fatality Carrados's most aimless remarks seemed to involve the absent Mr. Creake. "Do you care ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... went below, I found the captain in my cabin, rummaging everywhere. He had flung out the contents of the lockers, my bedclothes, everything, in a jumble on the deck, which, in a drunken aimless way he was examining by the light of a couple of dip candles, stuck to the edge of the bunk. It was not a time to mind about that. "Sir," I said, "the ship is sinking. Come on deck, sir; take the sail off. The mate says the ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... himself, who lived in Nuremberg, and who was named Ludovic Valcarm. The mother of this young man had been Peter's first cousin, and when she died Ludovic had in some sort fallen into the hands of his relative the town-clerk. Ludovic's father was still alive; but he was a thriftless, aimless man, who had never been of service either to his wife or children, and at this moment no one knew where he was living, or what he was doing. No one knew, unless it was his son Ludovic, who never received much ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... conduct on the part of the prostitute hired by you for love is guaranteed you, and your personality is immune ... even though in the most direct sense, in the sense of a slap in the face, which you, of course, deserve through your aimless, and perhaps tormenting interrogations. But you desire truth as well for your money? Well, that you are never to discount and to control. They will tell you just such a conventionalized history as you—yourself a man of conventionality and a vulgarian—will ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... modernism. The truths corresponding to these three errors are, Unity, Sacramentalism and Unworldliness. Until these three things are won back, Christianity will fail of its full mission, society will continue aimless, uncooerdinate and on the verge of disaster, life itself will lack the meaning and the reality that give both joy in the living and victory in achievement, while the individual man will be gravely handicapped in the ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... beautiful head, and went back to her own bedchamber again. She hardened herself in opposition, putting the invitations of grace from her as she might have put those of temptation. She would yield to weakness, to feverish agitations and aimless longings, no more. Whether sleep elected to visit her or not, she would undress ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... neighbours as a youth of promise and a young man of ripening wisdom, had attracted attention by his genius for political leadership.[1651] He seems never to have been rash or misled. Even an exuberance of animal vitality that eagerly sought new outlets for its energy did not waste itself in aimless experiments. Although possessing the generosity of a rich nature, he preferred to work within lines of purpose without heady enthusiasms or reckless extremes, and his remarkable gifts as an executive, coupled with the study of politics as a fine art, soon made him a manager of ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... poaching adventure with a friend. But at fifteen years of age I was placed in a notary's office; at sixteen I learned to love, and shortly afterwards I saw "Hamlet" played by a touring company. It made a profound impression on me, awakening vast, aimless desires, strange gleams of mystery. A friend of mine, Adolphe de Leuven, himself an ardent versifier, guided me to a first sense of my vocation, and together we set to work ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... performed in the most erratic manner possible. It was the ordinary occupation of the first hour of almost every day of Margaret's life. As soon as she woke in the morning, the fir-wood drew her towards it, and she rose and went. Through its crowd of slender pillars, she strayed hither and thither, in an aimless manner, as if resignedly haunting the neighbourhood of something she had lost, or, hopefully, that of a treasure she expected one day ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... In his aimless wanderings around Boston that night Wilson passed the girl twice, and each time, though he caught only a glimpse of her lithe form bent against the whipping rain, the merest sketch of her somber features, he was distinctly conscious of the impress of her personality. As she was absorbed ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... Plank, in no position to be anything but flattered by such sans gene, laboriously and gratefully splashed through his bath, wallowed amid the breakfast plates, and mounted a hunter for long and apparently aimless gallops ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... he seemed not to know it. His needle worked swiftly on the red one he was making for the madam, and his aimless, random phrases seemed to flow as before; but I knew now where to apply for the details that had been too many for ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... of Earraid, which (because it had a flat top and overlooked the Sound) I was much in the habit of frequenting; not that ever I stayed in one place, save when asleep, my misery giving me no rest. Indeed, I wore myself down with continual and aimless goings and ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... adventurers led up hill and down dale and wound here and there in a fashion that seemed aimless. But always it drew nearer to a range of low mountains and Files said more than once that he was certain the entrance to Ruggedo's cavern would be ...
— Tik-Tok of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... time—all by yourself. And you don't want to be canned, either." With the pointer Marion drew aimless little invisible volutes upon the map, connecting the two spruce cones with an imaginary scroll design. "How touching!" she ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... down at her pencil and drawing aimless designs as she talked, "I suppose it is a good place to go. I've seen the pictures, of course, in the time-tables; and one of the railroad offices on Clark Street used to have some big photographs of the St. Lawrence in the window. I looked at them sometimes, but I never ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... that restless spirit would endure in that ageing body. He shuddered as he thought of the two men who were his father—one a polished gentleman ruling his world, by the power of his keen mind and of his money, the other a self-made vagabond—pursuing an aimless course. ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... carefully selected adults in war has not yet won the right to destroy deliberately even its most inferior vital products in the womb. A civilization guilty of so reckless a waste of life cannot safely be entrusted with this judicial function. The blind and aimless anxiety to cherish the most hopeless and degraded forms of life, even of unborn life, may well be a weakness, and since it often leads to incalculable suffering, even a crime. But as yet there is an impenetrable barrier against progress in this direction. Before we are entitled to ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... aimless impulse, he took a few quick steps towards the door. Then he turned, and throwing himself into his study-chair he plunged back into ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Mike was so extravagant in his praise that they protested. Alvin told the particulars of their trip in the launch from home to Wiscasset and return, omitting of course all reference to Stockham Calvert that would give a hint of his profession and his purpose in making what looked like an aimless ramble through this portion of Maine. The Captain was assured that his boat would not be disturbed where it lay moored under the bank, and he and Chester gave ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... boy, full of the joy of life—for he was just like a boy, then—had to make his home in a second-rate town which had none of the joy of life to offer him, but only dissipations. He had to come out here and live an aimless life; he had only an official post. He had no work worth devoting his whole mind to; he had nothing more than official routine to attend to. He had not a single companion capable of appreciating what the joy of life meant; nothing but ...
— Ghosts - A Domestic Tragedy in Three Acts • Henrik Ibsen
... I borne? Into what region are these wavering sounds Wafted on aimless wings? O ruthless Fate! To what a height thy ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... walks with aimless feet; That not one life shall be destroyed, Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... two workmen standing side by side under the projecting masses of the tall pink cliffs. He hesitated whether he should make one last attempt to save the man Hill. His physical excitement seemed to desert him suddenly, and leave him aimless and helpless. He turned shoreward, stumbling and ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... entirely away from the maternal apron-strings, his impulse was towards the relief of tears, but his wandering gaze encountered the admiring eyes of Eva Gonorowsky and his aimless hand came in contact with the hidden store of chewing-gum with which the absent Patrick was won't to refresh himself, lightly attached to the under surface of the chair. Isaac promptly applied it to the soothing of his spirits, and decided ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... but bearable lives; whilst off them generations of ladies and gentlemen of good breeding and natural capacity are corrupted into drifters, wasters, drinkers, waiters-for-dead-men's-shoes, poor relations and social wreckage of all sorts, living aimless lives, and often dying squalid ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... afternoon Jeb returned to the house after several hours of uneasy, aimless pottering about at barn and woodshed. He stumped and stamped around the kitchen, then in the sitting-room, finally he mustered the courage to look into the bedroom, from which he had slunk like a criminal three hours before. There she ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... under compulsion to be absolutely non-partisan, an expression of all that is best in Judaism and not merely of some particular sect or school or locality or group of special interests; fearless in telling the truth; promoting constructive thought rather than aimless controversy; animated with the vitality and enthusiasm of youth; harking back to the past that we may deal more wisely with the present and the future; recording and appreciating Jewish achievement, not to brag, but to bestir ourselves to emulation and to deepen ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... She felt as one feels when in a dream one falls an unexpected and endless distance. The relief from the pressure of Kut-le's will that had forced her on, for so long, left her weak and aimless. ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... the death of one of them cannot take place but by His permission, has long been the subject of declamation in our pulpits, and the ground of much sentiment in nursery education. But the declamation is so aimless, and the sentiment so hollow, that, practically, the chief interest of the leisure of mankind has been found in the destruction of the creatures which they professed to believe even the Most High would not see perish without pity; and, in recent days, it is fast becoming the only definition ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... you will, and in that frock. It's the prettiest thing I've seen for a long time. Why do you hide yourself from those poor wretches, who keep rowing backwards and forwards in an obviously aimless way, just to get a peep at you en passant? What happiness for us who live near you, and can gaze when we will, without all those absurd manoeuvres. There goes the signal—and now for a ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... aspirations; and through its teaching we are sure of the Holy Spirit which He promised. Other books have been sent us to assist in opening our eyes. We are convinced that this mode of life is not the one for which we were born; that it is a life, not of holiness, but of sin, for it is useless, for it is aimless, for it is against the ...
— Count Ulrich of Lindburg - A Tale of the Reformation in Germany • W.H.G. Kingston
... imagination. In the rotting rooms beneath me lives a worker with a family of six girls and one boy. Capitalism has crucified his carcass for fifty years and now 'laid him off.' He has been looking for work for the last month. I watch the insanity in his restless, aimless movements, and I feel desperate enough to try to get him a job. Unfortunately, he does not drink; so his pipe, ever in his mouth, is the only obstacle between him and the mad-house, or the poor-house. Every morning at six o'clock, his sandwich dinner concealed in his pocket, he makes a brave show ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... high noon Aimless I stand, my promised task undone, And raise my hot eyes to the angry sun That ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... a dull glow still lingered in the western sky, though the shadows of dusk were fallen on the fort and its surroundings, Major Hester passed the sentry at one of the gates and walked slowly, as though for an aimless stroll, as far as the little French-Canadian church. On reaching it he detected a dim figure in its shadow and asked in a low tone, "Is ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... my dwelling in the dim and decaying city by the Rhine. I had no lack of what the world calls wealth. Ligeia had brought me far more, very far more than ordinarily falls to the lot of mortals. After a few months, therefore, of weary and aimless wandering, I purchased, and put in some repair, an abbey, which I shall not name, in one of the wildest and least frequented portions of fair England. The gloomy and dreary grandeur of the building, the almost savage aspect of the domain, the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Glass Cat reached the clearing, it saw a Fox, a Lamb, a Rabbit, a Munchkin boy and a fat Gillikin woman, all wandering around in an aimless sort of way, for they were again searching for the ...
— The Magic of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... should insist upon his living in America, for to go away from mamma and papa and the boys and everybody she cared for was a thing she could not and would not do, not if she adored the man that demanded such a sacrifice of her. What he did say was that he was tired of his aimless life in London, and liked his uncle too well to look forward with any pleasure to succeeding him, and that he should like to have a small property to manage without aid of bailiff, steward, agent, or factotum of any kind. "I could go over whenever I liked, or you needed me, and you ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... Hours aimless-drifting as the milkweed's down In seeming, still a seed of joy ye bear That steals into the soul when unaware, And springs up Memory in the ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone
... force, who in a spirit of adventure or in quest of knowledge had left the hidden bivouac in the valley, and with aimless feet had made his way to the lower edge of a small open space near the foot of the cliff, was considering what he had to gain by pushing his exploration further. At a distance of a quarter-mile before him, but apparently at a stone's throw, rose from its fringe of pines the gigantic face ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... nameless burden of perception, and wastes himself in aimless impulses of emotion and reverie, until finally the method of some art offers a vent to his inspiration, or to such part of it as can survive the test of time and the discipline of expression.... Wealth of sensation and freedom of fancy, which make ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... move on Winter With the trumpet of the March, and the pennon of the May; As gesture outstrips thought; So, haply, toyer with ethereal strings! Are thy blind repetitions of high things The murmurous gnats whose aimless hoverings Reveal song's summer in the air; The outstretched hand, which cannot thought declare, Yet is thought's harbinger. These strains the way for thine own strains prepare; We feel the music moist upon this breeze, And ...
— Sister Songs • Francis Thompson
... oppressed him, he crawled away over the plain on his hands and knees. After drinking deeply, like a wounded beast, at a shallow stream, he assumed an upright posture, and staggered on light-headed and aimless, as if lost amongst the stars of the clear night. A small house seemed to rise out of the ground before him. He stumbled into the porch and struck at the door with his fist. There was not a gleam of light. Gaspar Ruiz might have thought that the inhabitants had fled from it, ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... long in each spot, that it was like being transplanted when I moved myself to the north or the south. And I discovered a few things in each country in which I lived. For one thing, I observed that the little busy bee is not busy all the while; that he does a great amount of aimless, idle snuffing and tasting of all sorts of things besides flowers; especially he indulges in a running accompaniment of gymnastics among the grass-stalks, which cannot possibly have anything to do with honey. I watched one fellow to-day through ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... the follies which it portrays belong to a circle, and, with the imitations of the officers of court and advocates, form a complete whole. Many lines are at once witty sallies and characteristic traits; and some of the jokes have that apparently aimless drollery, which genuine comic inspiration can alone inspire. Racine would have become a dangerous rival of Moliere, if he had continued to exercise the talent which he has ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... eyes; and then directly afterward she would say something very nice and pleasant in precisely the same voice, as if she could not understand that there was any effort on the part of either to assume an advantage. The mother sometimes turned and listened to this aimless talk with an amused gravity, as of a cat watching the gambols of a kitten, but generally she devoted herself to Sheila, who sat opposite her. She did not talk much, and Sheila was glad of that, but the girl felt that she was being observed with some little curiosity. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... of creation the sport of an infant God; is the Logos, sacrificing himself in order to give life to the Universe, a prodigal, working without rhyme or reason, sending forth His intelligence and might in aimless sport and leaving evolution at the mercy of His caprice; did not Brahma, by means of meditation, which, as the Oriental scriptures tell us, preceded creation, practise the gentlest, the most rapid, and the easiest method of guiding beings to the Goal? Is it not sheer ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... own studies, passed away. After that I seemed dimly to recall a period of extreme loneliness when I was left in charge of a private instructor, while my father, as I later learned, bewildered by his great loss, and temporarily driven into a sort of madness, wandered in an aimless track of ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... up to us opportunities boundless in their character and scope. Probably to-day tens of thousands who have hitherto spent aimless lives; whose time, means, gifts have gone in the shallow channel of self, now know something at least of the joy of launching out on to the broad stream of living, loving sympathy. This has been because, though in some ...
— The Discipline of War - Nine Addresses on the Lessons of the War in Connection with Lent • John Hasloch Potter
... store; Her children all are heirs that trace Their lineage through the royal race, And all her wealth is theirs—and more; But one with cunning hand controls The portions that his brothers fed, While thousands—just and worthy souls— In aimless anguish cry for bread! ...
— Oklahoma and Other Poems • Freeman E. Miller
... policy in the West Indies unwise? In these days it is hard to realize the value of those islands. The mention of Hayti conjures up a vision as of a ship manned by gorillas; for there and in Liberia is seen the proneness of the negroes to aimless lounging varied by outbursts of passion. But in the year 1789 Hayti far surpassed Jamaica in wealth and activity. The French possessed only the western third of the island; but the Spanish portion to the ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... them. Men and women, whose distempered minds might have been restored to health by gentleness and skill, were driven into hopeless madness by noxious medicines and brutality. Some few were saved as mere lunatics—they were surrendered to general carelessness, and became simply a prey to ridicule and aimless brutality; but vast numbers were ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... preparing breakfast, as he had for many mornings past, but, instead he swung his little craft into the wind and watched for near an hour the erratic rushes and shivering haltings of the larger ship. But long before this time had passed Thorpe knew he was observing the aimless maneuvers of an ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... near Peerout Castle. They did not seem to be in any haste to reach it. They lingered by brook and stone to say, "Do you remember?" often both at once and about the same thing. They chased each other in aimless fashion. Their chief idea seemed to be to think continually of something new to do, so that there should come no silent pause, and so that the time of getting back to the castle should be put off as long as possible. Neither ...
— Lisbeth Longfrock • Hans Aanrud
... part of a man more or less astray in his wits, he wandered out either late or early, with the vague, aimless step of a dreamer, and stood about, staring vacantly. Leh Shin's shop attracted him, and he would squat on the ground either just outside the narrow entrance, or just within, and, with flaccid, dropping mouth, ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... Confederacy. I had an affectionate regard for General Hood, but it was my belief that neither he nor any other soldier could save the day, and being out of commission and having no mind for what I conceived aimless campaigning through another winter—especially an advance into Tennessee upon Nashville—I wrote to an old friend of mine, who owned the Montgomery Mail, asking for a job. He answered that if I would come right along and take the editorship of the paper he would make me a present ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... dull. How could I forget or enjoy? I put the curtains down, and told Temperance, who was wandering about, not to call me to dinner. I determined, if possible, to surpass my dullness by indulgence. But underneath it all I could not deny that there was a specter, whose aimless movements kept me from stagnating. I determined to drag it ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... fields to air itself. There was nothing special doing. A few enthusiastic athletes had donned their flannels, and were taking practice trots round the half-mile path. Another lot were kicking about a football in an aimless way. Others were passing round a cricket ball at long range. But most were loafing, apparently undecided what to turn themselves to thus ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... taken down to the river every other day to drink. The conduct of many of them was exasperating in the extreme to their riders. When taken down into the stream they would stand and look about in an aimless way as if wondering what on earth they had been brought there for, and would be sometimes ten minutes or a quarter of an hour before the idea seemed to occur to them that they might ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... effort of concentration he would never before have been capable of, he made rapid advance, Kettering generously letting him do such work as he could do most effectively, so that his wages' account mounted week by week. The close attention his work demanded made mind-wandering and aimless thinking impossible; but as time went by and he found himself acquiring skill, his enthusiasm grew, and he threw himself into his new occupation almost with frenzy, taking a sort of savage satisfaction in ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... were completely cowed and broken down those two were the African merchants and his son. Wet, torn, and soiled, they still struggled on in their aimless flight, crashing through hedges and clambering over obstacles, with the one idea in their frenzied minds of leaving miles between them and that fair accusing face. Exhausted and panting they still battled through the darkness and the storm, until they saw the gleam of the surge and heard ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... traced its plan; With frequent bends to left or right, In aimless, wayward curves it ran, But always kept the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... must suffice, as this part of my scheme will most probably be condemned as visionary. Yet even this is possible and real, though it now appears to be something vague and aimless. Organization will make of ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl
... room in the early part of the afternoon, Cecil meets unexpectedly with Mr. Potts, who is meandering in a depressed and aimless fashion all over ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... in the first complete surprise of Flora's message; she walked hastily across her floor. But having done these things, she did not at once give the obviously due reply. She stood by her dressing-table, staring fixedly at the colored woman, the aimless fingers of her left hand continually pulling out and putting back the silver top of a squat cut-glass bottle. She appeared to be thinking, weighing pros and cons: processes surely unnecessary to a pasteboard actor, sliding smoothly toward ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... certainly," said Rachel, longing for the man to go. But when he was gone, she wished him back—anything would be better than this aimless wandering from room to room, and from yard to ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... the character we here claim for it, and is not the mere ordinary result of a morbid and aimless introspection, is plainly shown by the speedy cessation of excessive self-analysis on Father Hecker's part, after he had actually reached the goal to which he was at this period alternately sweetly led and violently driven. But it ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... voice, "in friendly—I might say familiar—relations with this man again. His wife is still living, and as bitter against him as ever, but not likely to give him any pretext for a divorce. You cannot marry him. Why do you provoke people to say ill-natured things about you by continuing so aimless a friendship?" ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... think it a duty to be continually talking,' pursued she: 'and so never pause to think, but fill up with aimless trifles and vain repetitions when subjects of real interest fail to present themselves, or do they really take a ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... the Cynic Demetrius. He had inveighed against Pantomime in just your own terms. The pantomime, he said, was a mere appendage to flute and pipe and beating feet; he added nothing to the action; his gesticulations were aimless nonsense; there was no meaning in them; people were hoodwinked by the silken robes and handsome mask, by the fluting and piping and the fine voices, which served to set off what in itself was nothing. The leading pantomime ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... There exists in his hand the draft of a letter of reply to the verbal admonition of some well-wisher, to whom he evidently feels that he owes deference. His friend seems to have thought that he was yielding to the allurements of aimless study, neglecting to return as service what he had absorbed as knowledge. Milton pleads that his motive must be higher than the love of lettered ease, for that alone could never overcome the incentives that urge him to action. "Why should not all the hopes that forward youth and vanity are ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... stupor of the excursionists passed away, and was succeeded by a frantic and impotent energy. They all ran about upon the plateau of rock in an aimless, foolish flurry, like frightened fowls in a yard. They could not bring themselves to acknowledge that there was no possible escape for them. Again and again they rushed to the edge of the great cliff which rose from the river, but the youngest and most daring of ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Ffoulkes? Surely not, with his gentle blue eyes, which were looking so tenderly and longingly after little Suzanne, who was being led away from the pleasant TETE-A-TETE by her stern mother. Marguerite watched him across the room, as he finally turned away with a sigh, and seemed to stand, aimless and lonely, now that Suzanne's dainty little figure had disappeared in ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... seemed something ominous in this message, delivered apparently from one typical of his class, a worker out of work, a pipe in his mouth, a generally aimless air about his movements. ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... chased by the Bavarians all the way to Mouzon. Some fugitives who had passed through Remilly, mad with terror, had told him that they had been betrayed once more and that de Failly had sold them to Bismarck. Maurice's thoughts reverted to the aimless, blundering movements of the last two days, to Marshal MacMahon hurrying on their retreat and insisting on getting them across the Meuse at every cost, after wasting so many precious hours in incomprehensible delays. It was too late. ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... in a seemingly aimless manner, as he usually did. He was walking straight for her, as if she were something he had been aiming for for hours. And he did not drop at her feet negligently on the steps, as he usually did, and call her some fanciful name like "Queen of the Woodlands," or "Lady Marjorie." He sat ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... lines and practical seclusion from the everyday world were largely responsible for her evil impulses. Mischief is sure to crop up, in one form or another, among the idle and ambitionless. More daring wickedness is said to be accomplished by the wealthy and aimless creatures of our false society than by the poorer and uneducated classes, wherein criminals are supposed to thrive. These sins are often unpublished, although not always undiscovered, but they are no more venial because they are suppressed ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... the streets of Moscow in an apparently aimless manner. The expression on his face was that of a ...
— The Foreign Hand Tie • Gordon Randall Garrett
... confections or sipping coloured wines with chance acquaintances, till again I plucked him by the sleeve and said: "Seth, good comrade—was it not so you called your city just now?—take me to the gates, and I will be grateful to you," then on again down a flowery lane, aimless and happy, wasting my time and his, with placid civility I was led by that ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... surely she was not inextricably destined, and let her be the bright but flawless ornament of a happy home and a choice circle—if not the lady of fashion, in case the student realized one of his fantastic dreams of aimless ambition. The quiet learner felt an immense flame usurp the place of his blood; he seemed gifted with the powers of the athletic Duke of Munich, Christopher the Leaper, whose statue adorned the proscenium, and like him, clearing the orchestra with a bound of twelve feet, he would have grasped the ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... that mankind must be dull and mean. These cogitations took place in a cold hotel, in an eternal Swiss rain, and they had a flat echo in the transalpine valleys, as the lonely ladies went vaguely down to the Italian lakes and cities. Rose guided their course, at moments, with a kind of aimless ferocity; she moved abruptly, feeling vulgar and hating their life, though destitute of any definite vision of another life that would have been open to her. She had set herself a task and she clung to it; but she appeared to herself despicably idle. ...
— The Chaperon • Henry James
... husbandry! Ah, John Law, John Law! Had God given thee the right feeling and contented heart, happy indeed had been these days in this new land of thine own, far from ignoble strivings and from fevered dreams, far from aimless struggles and unregulated avarice, far from oppression and from misery, far from bickerings, heart-burnings and envyings! Ah, John Law! Had God but given thee the pure and well-contented heart! For here in the Messasebe, ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... on the representing pictorial resources I supposed him originally to possess, with such material, and the need he must feel of using it, such a man would suddenly dilate into a form of Pride, Power, and Glory,—a centre, round which asking, aimless hearts might rally,—a man fitted to act as interpreter to the ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... ambassadors, harassed by this constant preoccupation, had little time or inclination left for any serious pursuit, since, to take a moment's repose or an hour's breathing space was to risk falling behind in the endless and aimless race. Strange as it may appear, the knowledge that they owed place and preferment more to chance or intrigue than to any personal merit or inherited right, instead of lessening the value of the prizes for which all were striving, seemed only to enhance ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... influence of his father's wealth invited his procrastination, humored its results, encouraged the laxity of his ambition, "and even now," as John used, in bitter irony, to put it, "it is aiding and abetting me in the ostensible practice of my chosen profession, a listless, aimless undetermined man of forty, and a confirmed bachelor at that!" At the utterance of this self-depreciating statement, John generally jerked his legs down from the top of his desk; and, rising and kicking his chair back to the wall, ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... comparatively an aimless expedition the boys were making. Certainly they were to note down any good sites for stations; but otherwise they roamed about almost wherever Shanter led them. Now it would be down some lovely creek, overhung by wide-spreading ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... outbursts of furious and unreasoning hatred; cruelty and horrors of all kinds were perpetrated, the former oppressors slaughtered wholesale, and there would have been no means of staying the senseless and aimless bloodshed if, fortunately for these countries, our influence and authority had not ultimately quieted the raging masses and turned the agitation into proper channels. After one of the parties, which in those countries were fruitlessly tearing each ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... but under the circumstances Elsa's absence was annoying. Moreover, suddenly the house had become uncomfortable, for every one in it seemed to be running about carrying articles hither and thither in a fashion so aimless that it struck him as little short of insane. Once or twice also he saw Elsa, but she, too, was carrying things, and had no ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... &c adj.; ferment, play at cross-purposes. put out of order; derange &c 61; ravel &c 219; ruffle, rumple. Adj. disorderly, orderless; out of order, out of place, out of gear; irregular, desultory; anomalous &c (unconformable) 83; acephalous^, deranged; aimless; disorganized; straggling; unmethodical, immethodical^; unsymmetric^, unsystematic; untidy, slovenly; dislocated; out of sorts; promiscuous, indiscriminate; chaotic, anarchical; unarranged &c (arrange) &c 60; confused; deranged &c 61; topsy-turvy &c (inverted) 218; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... satisfied if you'll only tell me one thing.' She put her hands to her head with a rapid, aimless movement that showed the extremity of her agitation. 'Oh, what has love done with me?' she cried desperately. 'I was so proud of my brother and so utterly devoted to him. But I loved you so much that there wasn't any room ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... happy-go-lucky light-heartedness. Vere smiled as she listened, but there was a wistfulness in her heart. At that moment a very common desire of young and vigorous girls assailed her—the desire to be a boy; not a boy born of rich parents, destined to the idle, aimless life of aristocratic young Neapolitans, but a brown, badly dressed, or scarcely dressed at ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... in a spirit of submission to his father's wishes. Writing of these days many years later, when as a Minister of the Crown he was in attendance upon her Majesty at Balmoral, he says: "I thought my life was aimless, purposeless, and I wanted something else to do; but events compelled me to what promised to be a dull life and a useless one: the result is that few men have had more ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... I went farther, and wandered about Germany. I tried to amuse myself, and I failed miserably. With the aimless whims of an idle and useless man come all sorts of suggestions for good resolutions. One day I made up my mind that I would go and bury myself in a German university for a time, and live simply like a poor student. I started with the intention of going to Leipzig, ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... people have nothing to do; and idleness, everywhere, is the parent of vice. "There is scarcely anything," says the good old Quaker Wheeler, "so striking, or pitiable, as their aimless, nerveless ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... have resented it hotly. Had she been told that another girl had consented to be his wife, she would have thought that girl to be happy in her destiny. When she heard that he was leading a wretched, moping, aimless life for her sake, her heart was sad within her. It was necessary to the completion of her happiness that Larry should recover his tone of mind and be her friend. "Reg," she said, leaning on his arm out in the park, "I want you ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... face with Realities, and showed him, sharply enough, that at a certain point in a man's life there is a Gate, guarded by the Fates, whose questions he must answer truthfully, or turn sadly aside into the vague thickets of an aimless existence. And never did there live a youth more sincere in his thought. I know nothing more typical of him than his resolute refusal to sit for his portrait until he had done something memorable. "What!" he would cry. "Why, the milk-man, who, I heard, has just had twins, is more ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... "spere," and spoke of her husband as "he." You know the type of woman. That Senator Warfield was anything less than a godlike man who stood very high on the ladder of Fame, she would never believe. So she related garrulously certain incoherent, aimless utterances of Lorraine's, and cried a little, and thought it was perfectly awful that a sweet, pretty girl like that should be crazy. She would have made an ideal witness against Lorraine, her very sympathy carrying conviction of Lorraine's ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... with nine of your fellow-captains of industry, to visit me here on my island for the purpose of considering plans for the reconstruction of society upon a more rational basis. Up to the present, social evolution has been a blind and aimless, blundering thing. The time has come for a change. Man has risen from the vitalized slime of the primeval sea to the mastery of matter; but he has not yet mastered society. Man is to-day as much the slave to his collective stupidity, as a hundred thousand generations ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... indeed a wise decision. There could be no more aimless drifting and brooding. A telegram to Mr. Wayland brought immediate acquiescence in the project, which was arranged more in detail by letters. Madge strove in every possible way to fit herself for the journey, and was surprised at her success. Better than all tonics ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... voices rose, They passed like aimless arrows from his ear— Nor did his heart or ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... wandering eddies which seem to meander about a forest in an aimless sort of way, coming from and going now hither, as if the breeze itself were lost among the still aisles, had touched his wet muzzle; and ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... South, And when I woke once more, I stood alone. My senses sickened at the dismal waste, And caring not, now all things bright were dead, That a volcano rolled its burning tide In fiery rivers far athwart the land, I turned my feet to aimless wanderings. The equatorial sun poured scorching beams, On my defenceless head. The burning winds Seemed drying up the blood within my veins. The straggling flowers that had outlived the storm Won but a feeble, ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... the passion that shook my youth, Of its aimless loves and its idle pains, And am thankful now for the certain truth That only ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... grim. Paths (such as they are) leading hither and yon—(how made I know not, for nobody seems to come here, nor man nor cattle-kind.) Temperature to-day about 60, the wind through the pine-tops; I sit and listen to its hoarse sighing above (and to the stillness) long and long, varied by aimless rambles in the old roads and paths, and by exercise-pulls at the young saplings, to keep my joints from getting stiff. Blue-birds, robins, meadow-larks ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... reach forward and touch the ground according to the ancient habit of the human foot. They swung sideways and rose high and each crossed the line of his flight a little, as one might say, when it came to the ground, for the man's movements reminded me of the aimless flight of a sporting swallow. He zig-zagged from one side of the street to the other. He caught my eye just in time and saved me from breaking down. I watched him until he swung around a corner. Only once before had I seen ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... last on these apparently aimless strolls with a stenographer he visited not only the classrooms and shops but every corner of the great institution. He would return to his office with a notebook full of memoranda of matters to be followed up or changed, and of people to be commended or censured for their efficient or ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... passed through the hall, with her gnarled hands extended on her knees in just that attitude of quiet waiting which one associates with the well-known engraving in which Death is figured as the coming of a friend. But when she was on her feet she moved about with a kind of aimless activity, opening drawers and shutting them and reopening them and speaking to herself the while, until Jeanne, catching my puzzled expression, would whisper loudly in my ear with a tolerant smile, "Elle est ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... eyes and aimless zeal, She hither, thither, goes; Her speech, her motions, all reveal A ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... had been caused by a bomb that had burst and killed several people in the little square outside. Such excitements seem to be things of the past now in Udine. Udine keeps itself dark nowadays, and the Austrian sea-planes, which come raiding the Italian coast country at night very much in the same aimless, casually malignant way in which the Zeppelins raid England, apparently because there is nothing else for them to do, find it easier ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... in Coralio never varied. The recreations of the people were soporific and flat. They wandered about, barefoot and aimless, speaking lowly and smoking cigar or cigarette. Looking down on the dimly lighted ways one seemed to see a threading maze of brunette ghosts tangled with a procession of insane fireflies. In some houses the thrumming of lugubrious ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... on, leaving Mr. Clarkson standing in a dazed condition in the centre of the foot-path. Recovering himself by an effort, he walked slowly away, and, after prowling about for some time in an aimless fashion, made his way back ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... seemed as it were to awake, and her influence and his own reviving energies kindled within him a desire for action which increased with each day that passed. The tiresome and uninteresting work of his daily life seemed aimless to him. He must find some other means of publishing his convictions—this was now clear to him. He went, therefore, to his adviser, ready to engage in any combat into which she might think ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... to him, and during the two past weeks of aimless wandering he had carried with him his service automatic. To reassure himself he laid his fingers on its cold smooth surface. He would wait, he determined, until the musicians had finished their concert and the women and children had ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... before he had crumpled the picture in his hand and dropped it on the floor. He picked it up now and mechanically smoothed it out as he made his observation, through the window. The pack had returned to the stockade. By the aimless manner in which they had scattered he concluded that for the time at least their mysterious enemies had drawn away ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... had aroused his valet and a brace of tall footmen, and dispatched them to the aid of the wounded man in the wood. And then he sought his own chamber, and, after an hour or two of aimless tossing, dropped ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... upon keeping this fetish flow agoing. A fortuitous score of cows in a field are a thousand times happier than a score of people deliberately assembled for the purposes of happiness. These conversationalists say the most shallow and needless of things, impart aimless information, simulate interest they do not feel, and generally impugn their claim to be considered reasonable creatures. Why, when people assemble without hostile intentions, it should be so imperative to keep the trickling rill of talk running, I find it impossible ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... using pine-logs," said Morgan, in a low voice, as amidst the shouting of orders, the tramp of men, and the hissing of the fire, volley after volley was fired from the palisades; but naturally these shots sent forth into the darkness were aimless, and in imagination I could see the enemy, after sending in their arrows, ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... attend the function (as applied by the society reporter); they would naturally discuss her brother's coming marriage, but if she was present, the discussion would not rise above whispers. She wanted to meet the old busybodies in the open; she wasn't afraid. As she dressed, she caught herself doing aimless things, such as approaching the window and watching the clouds, or thoughtfully studying her face in the mirror, or patting the rug impatiently, or sighing. She shook herself vehemently, and went resolutely about the ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... is the use? I do all I can to get right away from New York, and New York comes after me and tracks me down in my hiding-place. A week or so ago, as I was walking down the Strand in an aimless sort of way, out there came right on top of me—who do you think? Fillmore, arm in arm with Mr. Carmyle! I couldn't dodge. In the first place, Mr. Carmyle had seen me; in the second place, it is a day's journey to dodge poor ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... upon the principles of of our fathers, the Union of these States, to me the sacrifice of one unimportant life would be nothing; nothing, sir. But I infinitely prefer to see a peaceful separation of these States, than to see endless, aimless, devastating war, at the end of which I see the grave of public liberty ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... was one of those who had once sought to marry her. She recalled him as an amiable and aimless boy; and after she had gone East she had received with incredulity and then with amusement the news of his venture into altruistic politics. It was his efficiency she had doubted, not his sincerity. Later tidings, contemptuous and eventually irritable utterances of her own father, together ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... this was merely one of the aimless remarks that such folks indulge in. The hope of freedom filled him with such joy that he could not be troubled to consider the words of a man who was no more than a better sort of peasant. He set to work at once, and had filed the ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... essay, however poor, fails to reach some mark. The printed page that to you or me looks so barren and poor, may carry to some soul a message of healing; may to some eyes have the light of heaven about it. And to how many aimless lives, writing has given a purpose which otherwise never might have entered it! John, I believe in writing, and this baby shall be taught to put his ideas into shape as soon as he is taught anything! I never wish him to settle down in the belief that he is a genius and can live on the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... earthquake, and then G.F. TRAIN lectured three nights. Owing to this accumulation of horrors the village is no longer to be found on the maps. TRAIN'S second night did the business for 'em. The once happy villagers are now aimless wanderers, and one poor old man was found in the churchyard, studying a war map of Paris and vicinity in ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 33, November 12, 1870 • Various
... some of the aimless work of this supposed forger. There are many passages in the Collier folio, some of a few lines, others of many, which are entirely stricken out; and of these there is not one that we have noticed which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... movement, adopted in a practical way, to open the door of emigration to young women who are wanted for teachers and for every appropriate, as well as domestic, employment in the remote West, but who are leading anxious and aimless lives ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... Verneuil in a procession, Hermia in the lead, the donkey following, and Philidor, now thoroughly disillusioned, bringing up the rear. He was thinking deeply, his gaze on the graceful lines of her intolerant back, aware that she had paid him in full for his temerity, and wondering in an aimless way how soon she would be taking the train for Paris. He had done what he could to atone but some instinct ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... grew calmer by dint of walking—aimless, fast walking, with a rapt expression of the eyes that on crowded pavements cleared the way for him more effectually than a shouting footman. And then he debouched unexpectedly on to the Embankment. Dusk was already falling on the noble curve of the Thames, and the mighty ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... in the library—aimless and empty enough, for the most part—was talk to the purpose, in one corner of the room, in which Sir Patrick and Blanche ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... imperfect when compared with others. If, then, there is a gradation of animals and plants from the lower to the higher, it is the task of the theory of Descent to explain this gradual perfection. The crude and aimless activity of Darwinian selection, which necessarily operates through "chance," can never explain this perfection, which remains, as far as selection is concerned, one of the greatest enigmas of nature. Far from solving the enigma, ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
... I interrupt the allegory of my mate, no matter how startling its structure. He adventures orally when and in the manner the spirit calls, without rote, form, or tone production. Therefore I kicked my blistered heels in the air and grunted aimless encouragement. ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... on that account that Mrs. Douglas welcomed Helen's confidence when, that same afternoon, the girl came into her mother's room and after a few moments of nervous, restless and aimless talk came and sat down on a low chair near Mrs. Douglas and said, "Mother, I want ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... else never have an opportunity of perusing these strangely neglected writings of my favorite author, I commenced the task of searching out and discovering them myself for mine own delectation. And after a deal of fruitless and aimless labor, (for, unlike Johannes Scotus Erigena, in his quest of a treatise of Aristotle, I had no oracle to consult,) after spending as many days in turning over the leaves of I know not how many volumes of old, dusty, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... shadow cast by the graveyard wall, heavily buttressed against avalanches, a form wriggled out into the moonlight and fell with a dusty thud at my feet, mowing and chopping at the air with its aimless claws. I started back with a sudden jerk of my pulses. The thing was horrible by reason of its inarticulate voice, which issued from the shapeless folds of its writhings like the wet gutturizing of a back-broken horse. Instinct with repulsion, I stood a moment dismayed, when ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... Such a Committee of Conference, holding daily sessions of three or four hours each, would be able in due time to report a carefully digested scheme which could then be intelligently discussed. By this method a flood of frivolous and aimless talk would be cut off without in the slightest degree infringing or limiting the real liberty ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... our harbour, where the world went very well, the eye of Skipper Tommy Lovejoy chanced in aimless roving to alight upon the letter from Wolf Cove, still securely fastened to the wall, ever visible warning to that happy household against the wiles o' women. I fancy that (the twins being gone to Trader's Cove to enquire for us) ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... the floor of his prison, tugging at his chains with an absent, aimless, all but perpetual motion; for he had long since convinced himself that his fetters could not be broken or loosed. The ruby light that had shown him the food and wine placed for him had faded away to the faintest red glow which ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... living in Rome, in the studio that had been my father's. One evening—how well I remember it!—I was attacked by one of those fierce impulses that forbade me to rest or think or sleep, and, as usual, I hurried out for one of those long aimless excursions I had latterly grown accustomed to. At the open street-door stood the proprietress of the house, a stout, good-natured contadina, with her youngest child Pippa holding to her skirt. As she saw me approaching, she started back with an exclamation ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... had not deserted him. On the contrary, it was argumentative, cogent in explanation and in rebuke. It strove to sneer his distress down with stinging epithets, and shot arrows of laughter against his aimless fears. But the combat was, nevertheless, tamely unequal. Common sense was routed by this enigmatic enemy, and at length Valentine's spirits became so violently perturbed that he could ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... symphony Hath need of pause and interval of peace. Some subtle signal bids all sweet sounds cease, Save hum of insects' aimless industry. Pathetic summer seeks by blazonry Of color to conceal her swift decrease. Weak subterfuge! Each mocking day doth fleece A blossom, and lay bare her poverty. Poor middle-agd summer! Vain this show! Whole fields of golden-rod ...
— A Calendar of Sonnets • Helen Hunt Jackson
... in man as contrasted to one hundred degrees in apes, thus giving man the command of almost any point within a sphere of which the two arms are radii. The power of grasping was partly developed from and partly added to the old locomotor function of the fore limbs; the jerky aimless automatisms, as well as the slow rhythmic flexion and extension of the fingers and hand, movements which are perhaps survivals of arboreal or of even earlier aquatic life, are cooerdinated; and the bilateral and simultaneous rhythmic movements of the heavier muscles are ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... least another minute. He had gradually lost his ambition during the few years he had wandered through the Bush of British Columbia. The aimless life was often hard, but it had its compensations, and he had learned to value its freedom from responsibility and care. When he did not like a task he had undertaken, he simply left it and went on again. Still, he had had ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... Two hours afterwards it reached the nest in fifteen minutes; and after another interval of two hours it only required five minutes. After the third trial, the routes became more direct, there was less aimless wandering. The time of the twentieth trial was forty-five seconds; that of the thirtieth, forty seconds. In the thirtieth case, the path followed was quite direct, and so it was on the fiftieth trip, which only required thirty-five ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... often on the verge of a psychosis as the result of their intoxications. Their lying is mostly done for a purpose, to be sure, and hence much would not come under the head of pathological lying, but occasionally veracity is so much interfered with that there seems to be a tendency to aimless lying. This class of cases, however, is sufficiently discussed in special literature pertaining ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... a ghost, a thing, a derelict brig, driving downhill on the billows, like a blind man gadding aimless with a crazy down-look, the rags of her one sail drumming on the gusts; and near, nearer, within a stone's-throw of the Boodah, she swaggered wearily, drab Arab, doomed despondent Ahasuerus of the deep, nomad on the nomad sea; and on into the gloom of the south- ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... her slamming door, loud in the quiet house, broke the spell which held him. His mouth shut, and his clenched hands loosened from their fierce tension. He took an aimless step and drew a long breath. A moment later, quite automatically, he fumbled for his cigarette-case, and finding it, took out a cigarette and lighted it with fingers that were not steady. The familiar ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... and poetry, and romance, in the distant "red light of a cigar" twinkling through the darkness, on some quiet night, than in all the stars of heaven combined; girls who expect that every silent, handsome man, who gives them a passing glance (of aimless curiosity) is a wonderful character, just stepped over the threshold of some of Ouida's or The Duchess' volumes, ready to seize them in his steady arms, if they sprain an ankle, or faint over some fright; ready ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... laughed the girl, with a toss of her head Mr. Gryce would have corrected in one of his grandchildren. "He can have nothing to say about me." And she began to move about the room in an aimless, half-insolent way. ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... funeral pyre The smoke soon rears its cloudy spire. This makes my spirit low and weak, My tongue is slow and loth to speak: My lips and throat are dry for dread, And all my soul disquieted. My lips, relaxed, can hardly speak, And chilling dread has changed my cheek I blame myself in aimless fears, And still no cause of blame appears. I dwell upon this dream of ill Whose changing scenes I viewed, And on the startling horror still My troubled thoughts will brood. Still to my soul these terrors cling, Reluctant to depart, And the strange ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... came about between the ill-mated pair. The women themselves became tired of the moping and inefficient youth, who still remained poor and unsettled, with a father desperately healthy and inexorable. They grew tired and went away,—the wife, like Lady Byron, refusing to go back to such an aimless, rhapsodizing husband. And in truth, the hardship of living with such a man as Shelley, for a woman like Harriet, must have been very great. It is easy to understand how a limited nature like hers should be worn out by the exaction and impracticability of one like Shelley; ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold |
