"Busy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... drily. 'It had struck me that you were not very busy just now,' he added, by way ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... of the cazique's attendants busy sketching, and found that he was drawing the Spaniards, their costumes, and arms. This was the picture writing of the Aztecs, and the chief informed him that the pictures would be sent to Montezuma. ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... lay, in neat rolls, more money than he had ever seen in all his life—a fortune for a prince, as it seemed to him in his youthful inexperience. The admonitions and counsel of his mother fell on deaf ears. Tom's busy brain was planning a thousand ways in which his wealth might be expended. He would go forth. He would see the world. He would win fame and fortune. He would never return to Gablehurst until he brought with him a name which should cause the ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the sheep, and put Silvermane to his fleetest to beat Black Bolly down the level stretch where once the gray, even with freedom at stake, had lost to the black. Then back to camp and fire and curling blue smoke, a supper that testified to busy Piute's farmward trips, sunset on the rim, endless changing desert, the wind in the cedars, bright stars in the blue, ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... help the doctor; and while so employed, he once set fire to the ship as he was engaged investigating, by candlelight, the contents of a bottle of ether. The fire was soon extinguished, but not without considerable noise and confusion. Lord Nelson, when the accident happened, was busy writing his despatches. 'What's all that noise about?' he demanded. The answer was, 'Loblolly boy's set fire to an empty bottle, and it has set fire to the doctor's shop!' 'Oh, that's all, is it?' said Nelson, 'then I wish you and loblolly would put the fire out without making ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... and the next and the next it was the same. Mrs. Forcythe was busy every moment. There were a thousand things to do, another thousand to remember. People kept coming in to say good-by. Peter wandered out on the door-steps when Mary's back was turned, took cold, and was threatened ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... Wallace (68. 'The Malay Archipelago,' vol. ii. 1869, p. 276. Riley, Sixth 'Report on Insects of Missouri,' 1874, p. 115.) saw two males of Leptorhynchus angustatus, a linear beetle with a much elongated rostrum, "fighting for a female, who stood close by busy at her boring. They pushed at each other with their rostra, and clawed and thumped, apparently in the greatest rage." The smaller male, however, "soon ran away, acknowledging himself vanquished." In some few cases ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... that need be counted, will find their hard-learned mathematics sadly superfluous there. The memory of earthly geometry and arithmetic will grow pale amid that floating incense and music, where dialectic, if it survives at all, will have to busy itself on ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... invaded by any foreign or domestic enemies, he peaceably existed in the palace of Ravenna, while the tyrants beyond the Alps were repeatedly vanquished in the name, and by the lieutenants, of the son of Theodosius. [150] In the course of a busy and interesting narrative I might possibly forget to mention the death of such a prince: and I shall therefore take the precaution of observing, in this place, that he survived the last siege ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... under the tropical sun to make good his promises to the Crown, Margarite and Buil, having safely come home to Spain from across the seas, were busy setting forth their view of the value of his discoveries. It was a view entirely different from any that Ferdinand and Isabella had heard before, and coming as it did from two men of position and importance ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... Aconcagua, by which we had descended, and reached in the evening a cottage near the Villa de St. Rosa. The fertility of the plain was delightful: the autumn being advanced, the leaves of many of the fruit-trees were falling; and of the labourers,—some were busy in drying figs and peaches on the roofs of their cottages, while others were gathering the grapes from the vineyards. It was a pretty scene; but I missed that pensive stillness which makes the autumn in ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... Mr. Dixey turned me to the vaudeville stage. I could write playlets, I thought. So while Mother was busy sewing at nights I devoted myself to writing. And at last the first sketch was finished. At the Temple Theatre that week was the popular character actor, William H. Thompson. To him I showed the manuscript of the sketch, which was called "The Matchmaker." ...
— Making the House a Home • Edgar A. Guest
... the Captain at his busy desk, hurriedly making out his papers for the Customs—'Who's there?' Oh! how that harmless question mangles Jonah! For the instant he almost turns to flee again. But he rallies. 'I seek a passage in this ship ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... the hop harvest will come between our two great harvests, the small grain and Indian corn, without interfering with either but in England the case is otherwise: the small grain and hop harvest come in together, and create a great scarcity of hands, it being then the most busy season of the year. It is found, by experience, that the soil and climate of the eastern states are more favourable to the growth of hops than Great Britain; they not being so subject to moist, foggy weather of long continuance, which is most injurious to hops; ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... variety of affairs which occurred during this busy period, we have almost overlooked the marriage of the princess Mary with William, prince of Orange. The king concluded not this alliance without communicating his intentions to the parliament, who received the proposal with satisfaction.[*] This was the commencement of the connections with the family ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... not see the Highlander again for two or three days. It was Christmas week, and, in spite of the war panic, there was festivity enough in the barracks to keep the errand-boy very busy. ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... streams have been busy filling with delta deposits the bays into which they empty. By these steps a coast gradually advances to MATURITY, the stage when the irregularities due to depression have been effaced, when outlying islands formed by subsidence ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... combination of the two names, as Shangdu Keibung. It appears in D'Anville's map under the name of Djao-Naiman Sume. Dr. Bushell, who visited Shangtu in 1872, makes it 1103 li (367 miles) by road distance via Kalgan from Peking. The busy town of Dolonnur lies 26 miles S.E. of it, and according to Kiepert's Asia that place is about 180 miles in a ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... of the poem is a drawing of a pair of stocks, labelled 'The only good American securities,' Willis seems to have been too busy to Boswellise this season, but we get a glimpse of him in his letters to Miss Mitford, and one or two of the notes in his diary are worth quoting. On April 22 he writes to the author of Our Village in his usual flattering style: 'I am anxious to see your play and your next book, and I quite agree ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... my companion or guardian," and when the Greek and Roman Christians finally separated themselves from the great body of pagan worshippers they apologized for celebrating the birthday of their Savior on the 25th of December, saying that "they could better perform their rites when the heathen were busy with theirs." We are assured that the early Christians no less than the Maji acknowledged Mithras as the first emanation from Ormuzd, or the God of Light. He was the Savior which in an earlier age had represented returning life—that which follows the cold of winter. It was ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... to stay here for four or five months, and the doctor is busy in finding him a suitable home and getting him ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... Grande Hotel do Porto, Hotel de Paris) is a busy commercial city with much English colouring; e.g. church, hospital, doctor, club, and full modern facilities for locomotion by tramways, cabs and excursion carriages. The chief sights are:—(1) Cathedral, (2) Bishop's Palace, (3) Church of ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers
... When not busy with some form of the witch hunt, the Puritan found an outlet for his repressed instincts in the ferocity with which he fought the Indians or worked to achieve the conquest of Nature and lay up worldly goods for ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... darned happy, either. They're too busy. Guess it's a good thing I went back to me grasshopper in the last verse. And now, ladies and gents, this is posituvely the last appearance of the noted electrocutionist, Sundown Slim; ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... say that they have not time thus to enter into the ideas and occupations of their children. They are engrossed with the serious cares of life, or busy with its various occupations. But it does not require time. It is not a question of time, but of manner. The farmer's wife, for example, is busy ironing, or sewing, or preparing breakfast for her husband and sons, who are expected every moment to come in hungry ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... pause for rest and refreshment, with a short consultation between my uncle and me as to our plans, which resulted in a busy hour at work, two of the mules being laden then with ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... this busy day were of a nature which could not fail highly to gratify the feelings of our hero. He also received, either on this day or the following, a most kind, friendly, and highly satisfactory epistle, from the Earl of St. Vincent; ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... nice of you to come, when I know how busy you were teaching Wickham piquet. Sit down. This is the reason I sent for you. As one of my best friends, I want your candid ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller
... Commerce Commission knows this and knows it well, yet it makes no determined and persistent attempt to compel railroads to give to their colored passengers accommodations equal to those which they furnish their white ones. It is too busy attending to the more important business relating to the property rights and interests of shippers and capitalists to spare the time to break up an evil which makes the existence of colored interstate passengers an unbroken experience of bitter hardships and humiliations. Surely there are ...
— The Ballotless Victim of One-Party Governments - The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 16 • Archibald H. Grimke
... answered that he had been very busy all morning making a new tunnel between his bed-room and drawing-room. He then took his friend's arm, and away they went over the green meadows, where the cowslips and buttercups grew, making the grass look as if it were dotted all over with gold. Sometimes ...
— The Butterfly's Ball - The Grasshopper's Feast • R.M. Ballantyne
... a busy time on the farm. Only when the day's work was over and they were gathered in the sitting-room was there time for the long talks with Uncle Robert that they all enjoyed ...
— Uncle Robert's Geography (Uncle Robert's Visit, V.3) • Francis W. Parker and Nellie Lathrop Helm
... power which enables all this to be done, the rubber stores. Here people were busy sorting and packing the precious material into baskets ready to be carried to the Barge which ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman
... music had only pleased, and that I would welcome its repetition. Where upon she left me with a little bow and an invitation to join them that day at dinner, while I departed into the town on my own errands. I returned before midday, and was seated at an arbour in the garden, busy with letters, when there hove in sight the gaunt figure of Oliphant. He hovered around me, if such a figure can be said to hover, with the obvious intention of addressing me. The fellow had caught my fancy, and I was willing to see more of him. His ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... to find my way—in the realm of science, of course; but what is life—the life of the sage but applied knowledge? And why should not old Horapollo, for once before he dies, try what his brains can contrive to achieve in the busy world of outside human existence? Pleasant as you may think it to be in Memphis with your lover, fair heart-breaker, you will have to make way for the plaything you have so lightly tossed aside! Aye, you certainly will, depend upon that my ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... (we will not supply the date, but presume it to be somewhere about 1800) "a petted child of ten years old, born and bred in the country, and as shy as a hare." The schoolmistress, a Mrs. S—-, "seldom came near us. Her post was to sit all day, nicely dressed, in a nicely-furnished drawing-room, busy with some piece of delicate needlework, receiving mammas, aunts, and godmammas, answering questions, and administering as much praise as she conscientiously could—perhaps a little more. In the school-room she ruled, like other rulers, by ministers and delegates, of whom the French teacher ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... that, when a slave wishes to visit his wife on another plantation, his own master is busy or from home, and therefore he cannot get a pass. He ventures without it. If there be any little spite against his wife or himself, he may be asked for it when he arrives, and, not having it, he may be beaten with thirty-nine stripes, and sent away. On his return, he may be seized by the ...
— Narrative of the Life of Moses Grandy, Late a Slave in the United States of America • Moses Grandy
... about it. Further down on the same side of the street, the Widow Martin's cottage, with porch vine covered and windows bright with flowers, hid itself under a great spreading maple. In front of the cottage the Widow Martin herself was busy in the garden. He liked the Widow Martin but found her not sufficiently exciting to hold him this spring morning. A vacant lot or two and still on the same side came the blacksmith's shop just at ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... having tea, Susan was busy in their bedroom laying out their gowns and Henrietta, chancing to pass the open door, peeped in. The bed was spread with the rose-pink and apricot dresses of their choice, with petticoats of corresponding hues, ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... agreed Pepper. "I never thought of that; the truth is, I was so busy with Monkey that ...
— The Boy Scouts Patrol • Ralph Victor
... important business than is customary now. The old and the young heads began to work together sooner. Perhaps they felt that there was less time to spare. In spite of instances of longevity, life was shorter for the average of busy men, for the conditions of ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... cavalry scouts brought in that word this morning. We've heard also that Johnston and McClellan fought a big battle at a place called Seven Pines, and that after it McClellan hung back, waiting for McDowell, whom Old Jack has kept busy. General Johnston was wounded at Seven Pines and General Robert Edward Lee is now in ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... their sides, and their travel-stained and weather-beaten appearance, their rusty hulls, discoloured funnels, and the generally dingy and unpretentious look about them showed that they were kept far too busy to trouble about external appearances. The only token of their nationality was the wisp of tattered red bunting fluttering at the stern of each; the gallant old Red Ensign which, war or no war, still dances triumphantly on practically ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... about with his wicker-cases as a pedlar, or else selling fruit or cooked provisions, with a stove to keep them warm; or sitting, in the primitive style, under a tamarind tree, with silver and copper coinage before him to cash notes. And the river is as busy as the shore; there are always groups of people bathing; men and women are washing clothes; boats of all sizes, and for all purposes, laden with produce, or crowded with people, are constantly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... friends just the same,' she said, more naturally than she had spoken hitherto. 'But don't ask us to come and dine just now. All through this winter we shall be very busy, both of us. Indeed, we have decided not to ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... its arms doth mirth unfold, And every heart foregoes its cares, And hope is busy in the old; The bridal robe my sister wears, And I alone, alone am weeping; The sweet delusion mocks not me; Around these walls destruction sweeping, More ...
— The Growth of Thought - As Affecting the Progress of Society • William Withington
... Marzio in sour tones, "every word you say convinces me that I have done right. Besides, I am busy—you see—you disturb my ideas. If you do not like my house, you can leave it. I will not keep you. I daresay I can educate another artist before I die. You are really only fit to swing a censer behind Paolo, or at the ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... Vassilyevitch put on his coat, took a pen in one hand, and a book in the other, and trying to look as though he were very busy he went into the study. There the visitor was awaiting him—a large stout lady with a red, beefy face, in spectacles. She looked very respectable, and her dress was more than fashionable (she had on a crinolette of four storeys and a high hat with a reddish ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the windows of the flat in Edenhall Mansions, and looked down at the busy thoroughfare below. Hither and thither men and women hurried about their business; there seemed few indeed nowadays of the leisured loiterers through life. A tube strike had only recently been brought to a conclusion, and ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... mills and manufactories, and on either side were the homes of hundreds, dependent on its power for their daily bread. Railroads carried the products of these establishments to the limits of our own and to foreign countries, and brought to the busy city from the East and from the West all the necessaries and all the luxuries of life. Can it be that the dead of past generations, who sleep on the hillside which overlooks the valley, have seen this transformation, ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... been exceedingly busy ever since you went away. In the first place we have had to rejoice two or three times every day at your having such very delightful weather for the whole of your journey, and in the second place we have been obliged to take advantage of the very delightful weather ourselves ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... satisfaction of Cesar and Anselme, betrayed by looks diplomatically exchanged, the glance full of hope which Popinot cast now and then at Cesarine, proclaimed some great event and gave color to the conjectures of the clerks. In their busy and half cloistral life the smallest events have the interest which a prisoner feels in those of his prison. The bearing of Madame Cesar, who replied to the Olympian looks of her lord with an air of distrust, seemed to point to some new enterprise; for in ordinary times ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... for all those awful things you have said to me and about me, Jessie Sanderson," Marjorie threatened, good-naturedly. "I'd do it now, only I'm too busy trying to think up ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... They are voices which foster fear and suspicion and intolerance and hate. They seek to destroy our harmony, our understanding of each other, our American tradition of "live and let live." They have become busy again, trying to set race against race, creed against creed, farmer against city dweller, worker against employer, people against their own governments. They seek only to do us mischief. They ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... turning away with a shrug of his shoulders. "Unpractical as ever, ain't you? Think it over, my son. Glad to have met you, Mr. Priest, and as I'm always busy I guess Dubois and I will ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... not tell you, James," was the reply, as his wife peered anxiously over his shoulder, and out of the window. "All that I know about it is this: I was busy in the pantry, when Rob put his head in, and asked if he could have the Christmas tree, as nearly everything had been taken off of it; so I said 'Yes,' and there he goes with it, sure enough. I do hope the wax from the candles has not spotted the ...
— Harper's Young People, December 30, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... shed its last rays and warmth upon a busy and sorrowful scene, around thy roaring cataract, Oh, cruel unrelenting fall of waters softly painting with mellow light the trees, rocks and thy wild children, unmindful alike, of the sad though customary, preparations for the sacrifice hurriedly proceeding: the women decking with shells ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah
... was seldom that ice was seen; and it was never more than half an inch thick. When, as on this Sunday, the wind was lulled and the sky was clear, the climate was as mild as in spring on the mainland. As soon as the aspect of the sunrise showed the experienced that the day would be fair, busy hands moved into the old roofless chapel the pulpit and benches which the pastor had brought with him—the pulpit being a mere desk of unpainted wood, and the benches of the roughest sort. For these the interior space of the old building had been cleared during the week; the ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... nothing dull or depressing about the starting point, at the Motor Parkway. Before the busy row of repair pits throbbed and panted some of the cars, surrounded by their force of workers; in other camps the men stood, watch in hand, timing the machines already out. Reporters vibrated everywhere; surrounded by an admiring group, two world-famous ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... My harmless sheep Love hath no power on me; 'Tis idle soules Which he controules, The busy man is free. ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... of time in going from shop to shop was indeed a waste which the busy bitterly complained of," I said; "but as for the ladies of the idle class, though they complained also, I think the system was really a godsend by furnishing a device to ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... daytime of the 11th of December I was busy reading in the large drawing-room. Ned Land and Conseil watched the luminous water through the half-open panels. The Nautilus was immovable. While its reservoirs were filled, it kept at a depth of 1,000 yards, ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... enemy's fleet thenceforth kept the shelter of the harbour of Ephesus, and, as it could not be induced to risk a second battle, the fleet of the Romans and allies broke up for the winter; the Roman ships of war proceeded to the harbour of Cane in the neighbourhood of Pergamus. Both parties were busy during the winter in preparing for the next campaign. The Romans sought to gain over the Greeks of Asia Minor; Smyrna, which had perseveringly resisted all the attempts of the king to get possession of the city, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... thousand blessings would be the result. The revenues would be increased; and self-restraint be found far more than now, in close attendance on industrious habits. (20) Nay further, crimes and villainies take root and spring less freely among busy workers. ...
— Hiero • Xenophon
... boundless empire. The commercial history of England has shown that mail facilities have uniformly gone hand in hand with the extension of trade; and wherever British subjects are found forming communities, there do we find the hand of the government busy in supplying the means of easy and safe communication with the mother country. With a view to this, we have beheld England increasing her steam marine at an enormous expense, and sustaining packet lines connecting ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey
... Passover Feast drew crowds from everywhere to Jerusalem. Jesus coming into the temple areas, with the crowds, one day, is struck at once with the strange scene. Instead of reverent, holy quiet, as worshippers approached the dwelling-place of God, with their offerings of penitence and worship, the busy bustle of a market-place greets His ears. The noise of cattle and sheep being driven here and there, the pavement like an unkempt barnyard, loud, discordant voices of men handling the beasts and bargaining over exchange rates at the brokers' tables—strange ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... had been a tremendous success, and, not having acquired the formality of a copyright in America, the play pirates were busy with it. Frohman, after having seen the performance of "The Professor's Love Story," had cabled Barrie, asking him to make a play out of the charming Scotch romance. Barrie at first declined. Frohman, as usual, was insistent. Then followed the ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... brigand, and ten of the reactionists, are now in prison. The Society Deputies, however, do not seem much concerned about their wounded friend. Yes, they are concerned, but in another direction and on weightier matters. For the telegraph wires on the following day were kept busy. And in the afternoon of the second day after the event, the man who helped Shakib to save Khalid from the mob, comes to save Khalid's life. The Superintendent of the Telegraph himself is here to inform us that Khalid was accused to the Military Tribunal as a reactionist, and ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... accompanied Ferdinand to the apartment of the king, at the doors of which their ears were invaded with a strange sound, being that of a human voice imitating the noise of a drum. The captain, hearing this alarm, made a full stop, and, giving the Count to understand that his majesty was busy, begged he would not take it amiss, if the introduction should be delayed for a few moments. Fathom, curious to know the meaning of what he had heard, applied to his guide for information, and learned that the king and the major, whom he had nominated to the post of his general-in-chief, ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... space, or the forms which productive imagination describes therein, we do cognize much a priori in synthetical judgements, and are really in no need of experience for this purpose, such knowledge would nevertheless amount to nothing but a busy trifling with a mere chimera, were not space to be considered as the condition of the phenomena which constitute the material of external experience. Hence those pure synthetical judgements do relate, though but mediately, to ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... penitence. Lo, there began a joyous game! The words frollicked with me everywhere! They laughed and gamboled around this saying. Before that there was scarcely a word in all the Scriptures more bitter to me than "penitence," though I was busy making pretences to God and trying to produce a forced, feigned love; but now there is no word which has for me a sweeter or more pleasing sound than "penitence." For God's commands are sweet, when we find that they are to be read not in books ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... low, these winter nights are cold; I'd fain to bed, and take my usual rest, But duty cries, "There's work for thee to do; Stir up the embers, fetch another log, To cheer the empty hearth. This is the hour When fancy calls to life her busy train, And thou must note the vision ere ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... observed that an English flag had just been placed at half-mast on a building a hundred yards away. I and my friends were busy in an instant trying to imagine whose death, among the island dignitaries, could command such a mark of respect as this. Then a shudder shook them and me at the same moment, and I knew that we had jumped to one and the same conclusion: ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... each other when the meeting time comes. But they cannot be idle. Out through the snow-covered forest, along the shores of frozen lakes and on wide bleak marshes the trapper has one hundred traps at least, and some of them as many as three hundred. The men must keep busy to look after them properly, and so, after a Sunday's rest together they again separate and are away on their snowshoes hauling ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... word was a nod. "I am too busy to get married. I don't want a husband yet. He'd be so in the way." She looked at him, eyebrows slightly raised. "I don't think that expression on your face suits you. And if I've got to look at it all through supper it ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... that mean by bookish business To earn their bread, or holpen to profess Their hard-got skill, let them alone for me Busy their brains with deeper bookery. Great gains shall bide you sure, when ye have spent A thousand lamps, and thousand reams have rent Of needless papers; and a thousand nights Have burned out ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... inn, where they found Mackenzie busy with a heap of letters and newspapers that had been sent across to him from Stornoway. The whole of the breakfast-table was littered with wrappers and big blue envelopes: where was Sheila, who usually ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... discovery of her son's whereabouts. They told her they could not promise her anything, but that they would attend to the matter. After she had left the police office, she wandered about the streets, in the hopes of meeting her child, and she felt more friendless and forsaken among the busy crowds than she did in the midst of the ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... the government than before he began.' 'I could not but know,' Mr. Gladstone wrote on this incident long years after, 'that I should inevitably be regarded as fastidious and fanciful, fitter for a dreamer or possibly a schoolman, than for the active purposes of public life in a busy ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... Faith went upstairs to the unrobing room, where the latter was immediately taken into consultation by Miss Harrison on some matters which promised to keep them both busy for some time. Mr. Linden meanwhile received a very cordial welcome from Judge ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... found small opportunity to make himself obnoxious by becoming a civic missionary before the time. He was busy enough with his adjustment to the business life of "Delafield and Madison county," this being the declared commercial sphere of the John W. Farwell Hardware Company. J.W. always had known hardware, but hitherto ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... the doctor's family were busy talking over and over all the events of the past few weeks, from the arrival of little Nora to Elsli's final departure. On the tenth day came a long letter from Elsli, which gave food for farther conversation. The mother and the aunt and the four brothers and sisters were all equally impatient ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri
... been busy for the past day or two setting my house in order. I start to-morrow for Paris. All my little affairs are comfortably settled, and I can set out on my little trip to Avernus via Paris and the habitat of Captain Vauvenarde with ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... from the steep, 'midst scatter'd farms and groves, Our eye through Honiton's fair valley roves; Behind us soon the busy town we leave, Where finest lace ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... way in a two-penny 'bus to one of those busy courts in the City where Mr. John Short practised as a solicitor. Mr. Short's office was, Eustace discovered by referring to a notice board, on the seventh floor of one of the tallest houses he had ever seen. However, up he went with a stout heart, and after ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... power and training of the individual; here they are fragmentary and discursive, there drawn tight together into a coherent scheme. Where they are weak they mingle with the animal motives and curiosity like travellers in a busy market-place, but where the sense of self is strong they become rulers and regulators, self-seeking becomes deliberate and sustained in the case of the human ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... and operation of civilization, and all efforts were mainly directed to the maintenance of friendly relations and the preservation of peace and quiet on the frontier. All this is now changed. There is no such thing as the Indian frontier. Civilization, with the busy hum of industry and the influences of Christianity, surrounds these people at every point. None of the tribes are outside of the bounds of organized government and society, except that the Territorial system ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... not likely to be spoiled, is almost always safe from any danger of having any more halo crowded upon him than he wants, or than anybody wants him to have. One might put it down as a motto for heroes, "Keep your halo busy and it won't hurt you." Modern democracy will never have a chance of being what it wants to be as long as it keeps on throwing away great natural forces like halos and pedestals. There is no reason why we should not believe in halos and pedestals, not to wear or stand on, ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... He was busy with a venerable-looking volume in old Irish and made the remark to me that he did not believe there was a man living who could read old Irish with ease (which I now observe to myself was "fished" out of Sir W. Betham). We discussed several gypsy words and phrases. I met him in ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... that it seems hard to realize that its history with him is only a matter of a few weeks. He brought his regiment down to Washington early in May, arriving thin as a greyhound, his voice hoarse with drilling; but flushed and happy to know he was busy and useful at last. ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... at my boys as we go along," replied John. "The afternoons are not especially busy. The evenings are full, though, with classes, and clubs, and games, and ...
— Old Valentines - A Love Story • Munson Aldrich Havens
... the men coming down stairs, half awake and yawning, in their shirt sleeves and their stocking feet, and pushing on their boots and clattering out to the stable, and shouting to the horses that are stamping in their stalls; and then you yoursef busy as Thop's wife laying the cups and saucers, and sending the boys to the well for water, and filling the big crock to the brim, and hanging the kettle on the hook, and setting somebody to blow the fire while the gorse flames and ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... the chair of the Advocate, and a pretty uneasy seat I find it, so far. It occurs to me that we might be able to do something for each other. Will you give me a call here between three and four one afternoon this week, if you are not too busy.—Yours sincerely, Henry Arncliffe.' ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... Smith was still busy on the little machine when they returned to the cube. He said that one part of it had disappeared, and was busily engaged in filing a bit of steel to take its place. As soon as it was ready, he thought, they could ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... girl came into her papa's study, as she always did Saturday morning before breakfast, and asked for a story. He tried to beg off that morning, for he was very busy, but she would not let him. ...
— Christmas Every Day and Other Stories • W. D. Howells
... hand, and sat down mechanically to watch, as in the days and nights just passed. But as she became composed and thought grew busy, the deep peace of the sleeper seemed imparted to her. In vivid imagination she followed him to the home and greetings that he had so joyously anticipated. She saw him meet her mother and sister, and other loved ones who had gone before. She saw him at his Saviour's feet, blessed and crowned. ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... do what you can to help your aunts." Then he went on more nervously. "Think of me sometimes. I shan't be able to come and see you very often, you know—too busy. But I shall like to know that you're thinking ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... motion of the train drew it up in clouds that made it impossible to keep the windows raised, and the sun, beating down pitilessly from a brazen sky, added to the general discomfort. Cooling drinks were at a premium, and the porters were kept busy making trips to the buffet car, from which they returned with tinkling glasses and cooling ices. Collars wilted and conversation languished. Women glanced listlessly over the pages of the magazines. Men drew their traveling caps over their eyes and settled down for a doze. Here ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... from half-hidden houses which at first we had not noticed. At some distance stand the women and children in timid amazement, and then begins a chattering, or maybe a whispered consultation about the arrival of the stranger. We are in the midst of human life, in a busy little town, where the sun pours through the gaps in the dark forest, and flowers give colour and brightness, and where, after all, life is not so very much ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... The lawyer was busy drawing up a document, and touching the bell ordered a clerk to go across to Mr. Rawlins, justice of the peace, and ask him to step ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... was busy at work one day, Amongst a crowd of Bowery boys, When CHARITY happened to come that way; And she stopped to listen—though, sooth to say, She seldom is fond of ...
— Nothing to Say - A Slight Slap at Mobocratic Snobbery, Which Has 'Nothing - to Do' with 'Nothing to Wear' • QK Philander Doesticks
... advanced up the river as far as the foot of the torrential rapids where now stands the city of Montreal. Cartier was seeking a route to the Far East. He half believed that this impressive waterway drained the plains of China and that around the next bend he might find the busy life of an oriental city. The time came when it was known that a great sea lay between America and Asia and the mystery of the pathway to this sea long fascinated the pioneers of the St. Lawrence. Canada was a colony, a trading-post, a mission, the favorite field of Jesuit activity, but ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... back with his tea, Mr. Tebrick said: "I shall not require you upstairs. Pack your own things and tell James to have the waggonette ready for you by seven o'clock to-morrow morning to take you to the station. I am busy now, but I will see you ...
— Lady Into Fox • David Garnett
... memory of that kiss, which had never been repeated, for Elmira had never seen Lawrence alone since, had been to her her sweetest honey savor of life. Lucky it was for her that young Lawrence, if the taste had not been in his heart as in hers during his busy life in other scenes, had still the memory of its ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... words he had missed that magical intercourse, the intercourse with the mind of a child. How often had she come to him for a story, and he had been dull and preoccupied—with words; how often asked him to take her a walk up the lane, but he had been too busy—with words! ...
— The Worshipper of the Image • Richard Le Gallienne
... separate exit into the hall. Through the folds of the curtain he had a complete view of the further apartment. The little lady had changed her gown of stiff white satin for one of flimsier material, and, seated in the easy-chair, she was busy pouring herself out some coffee. She took a cigarette from a silver box, and lighting it, curled herself up in the chair and composed herself as though to listen. To her as well as to Peter Ruff, as he crouched in his hiding place, the moments seemed to pass slowly enough. Yet, as he realised ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... plentiful allowance, to a weekly ration, which scarcely sufficed to preserve existence; when the storehouses were almost empty of provisions, and the boundless ocean presented no object of relief to the aching and strained eyes of the sufferers; and when the busy mind painted to itself the dangers, inseparable from a voyage of such length, which might intervene to delay the arrival of succours, until horror and wretchedness should have been heightened to the utmost; no inclination to laborious exertion existed, and no hand had the power to wield ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... kinship in ambition and aim. No more were the days too long from being but half-filled with work with which he had no sympathy, and diversions that gave him no pleasure; none held sufficient hours for all that he wanted to put into it. And in this busy atmosphere, where his own studies took so much of his time and energy, and where everybody else was in some way similarly employed, that dismal self-consciousness which so drearily looked on himself shuffling along through fruitless, uncongenial days was cracking off him ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... the Confederate army; leaving Lee with only Anderson's and McLaws's divisions,—some seventeen thousand men,—with which to resist the attack of thrice that number, which Hooker, should he divine this division of forces, could throw against him, the while he kept Jackson busy with the troops on his ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... the passage. 'Your friend is at the door of the theatre,' said he; 'do not let him go home alone to-night the streets of Naples are not always safe.' I immediately remembered that some of the Calabrian bravos had been busy within the city the last few weeks, and asked Cetoxa, who was with me, ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... some woes. I should be better for a few reverses." And then she went on in a lower voice, and turning her head away, "In our family there is no woman older than I am to whom I can go with questions that trouble me. Hope is like a boy, as I said, and plays with Ted, and my father is very busy with his affairs, and since my mother died I have been very much alone. A man cannot understand. And I cannot understand why I should be speaking to you about myself and my troubles, except—" she added, a little wistfully, "that you once said you were interested in me, ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... to the protection accorded by Henry II. of England to the men of letters of his day. "He could speak French and Latin well, and is said to have known something of every tongue between'the Bay of Biscay and the Jordan.' He was probably the most highly educated sovereign of his day, and amid all his busy active life he never lost his interest in literature and intellectual discussion; his hands were never empty, they always had either a bow or a book" (Dict. of Nat. Biog.). Wace and Benoit de Sainte-More compiled their histories at his bidding, and it was in his reign that Marie ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... was built on a flat space, and the country was flat on all sides of it. It was on no river, brook, or creek. It was as unbeautiful in location as it was in architecture. It was just a homely, common, busy little Iowa village, and even so late in the evening it was as hot as Sahara; but Eliph' Hewlitt knew it at once for a good town, for the street was knee deep in dust, which meant much trade, and ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... proceeding onwards, strike full against the net, which is instantly lowered by the men attending to it, and the birds are left struggling in the water, or on the ground, entangled in its meshes, whilst the natives are busy paddling in their canoes, or scampering towards the net on the ground, to wring their necks off, and get the instrument of destruction raised again, to be ready for the next flight that may come. Should the birds fly too high, or be inclined to take ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... as you may suppose. You will have to divorce me, and I must marry some respectable Kadee. I have been too 'lazy Arab,' as Omar calls it, to go on with my Arabic lessons, and Yussuf has been very busy with law business connected with the land and the crops. Every harvest brings a fresh settling of the land. Wheat is selling at 1 pound the ardeb {188} here on the threshing-floor, and barley at one hundred and sixteen piastres; I saw ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... sound of his monotonous periods Listened attentively the young, until he slowly enunciated Fifteenthly, in the division of his elaborate discourse. Then gadded away their busy thoughts to the Thanksgiving dinner, Visioning ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... the father and mother left the cozy Glasgow home and the busy life of that busy city, and came over sea and land with their little girl and baby boy to Winnipeg. There they lived for two years, till with the land-yearning in their hearts they came out from the town to this far-back spot away beyond the Marshes. Here they cut out ...
— Beyond the Marshes • Ralph Connor
... little, for she was not clever, she knew. She was slow at understanding things, afraid of deciding quickly; would she ever be able to guide any one else? She thought about it that afternoon, when Betty had taken her nephew out for a walk and she was busy darning his stockings. They were in dreadful holes, and Angel, as she sat in the parlour window seat with the basket by her side, remembered what she had heard about the way boys wore out their clothes. It made her ...
— Two Maiden Aunts • Mary H. Debenham
... yours, your own—only not to hurt you. So now let us talk of the first of November and of the poems which are to come out then, and of the poems which are to come after then—and of the new avatar of 'Sordello,' for instance, which you taught me to look for. And let us both be busy and cheerful—and you will come and see me throughout the winter, ... if you do not decide rather on going abroad, which may be better ... better for your health's sake?—in which case ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... I agree with you there," said Mr. Swift. "Sitting around idle isn't good for anyone—man or boy, young or old. So don't think I'm finding fault because you're busy." ...
— Tom Swift and his Photo Telephone • Victor Appleton
... The breezy Call of Incense-breathing Morn, The Swallow twitt'ring from the Straw-built Shed, The Cock's shrill Clarion, or the ecchoing Horn, No more shall wake them from their lowly Bed. For them no more the blazing Hearth shall burn, Or busy Houswife ply her Evening Care: No Children run to lisp their Sire's Return, Or climb his Knees the envied Kiss to share. Oft did the Harvest to their Sickle yield, Their Furrow oft the stubborn Glebe has ...
— An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard (1751) and The Eton College Manuscript • Thomas Gray
... the death of Herod permitted them to return from Egypt was the simple home of a carpenter. It would appear to have been shared by the children of Joseph, and our Lady would have been the house-mother, busy with many cares. We know, too, that under this commonplace exterior of a poor household there was a life of the spirit of far reaching significance. Mary was ceaselessly pondering many things—the significance of all those happenings which, as the years flowed on without any ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... wisdom and honesty to act accordingly, we should have a very happy world. Most people like to control the conduct of others. They love to write rules, and pass laws for the benefit of their neighbors, and the neighbors are pretty busy at the same business. People, as a rule, think that they know the business of other people better than they do their own. A man watching others play checkers or chess always thinks he sees better moves than the players ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... the habit had become so strong that chains could not have restrained him. It was what he considered a graceful way of dropping out of notice, at the same time giving the impression that he was constantly busy. ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... some of you that have heard that Voice too often to be much touched by it. There are some of you too busy to attend to it, who hear it not because of the clatter of the streets and the whir of the spindles. There are some of you that are seeking to drown it in the shouts of mirth and revelry. There are some of you ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... cries; "this way! Take this—go, now, and hurry back, if you please. This way!" And in a moment they are busy carrying out, and to places of safety, plate, jewels, robes, and the lighter and costlier pieces of furniture. "This way, please, gentlemen; that is only the ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... was an incident precisely contemporaneous, which shows how completely France had fallen under the fascination of the American cause. Voltaire, the acknowledged chief of French literature in the brilliant eighteenth century, after many years of busy exile at Ferney, in the neighborhood of Geneva, where he had wielded his far-reaching sceptre, was induced, in his old age, to visit Paris once again before he died. He left his Swiss retreat on the sixth ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... order to dose undisturbed. A doctor warned him not to work after dinner, and to take frequent holidays in the mountains; he neglected both rules. He was inclined to despise rest. He used to say: "When I want a thing to be done quickly, I always go to a busy man: the unoccupied man never has any time." He, himself, did not know how to be idle; yet he was painfully conscious of overwork and brain-fag. He told his friend Castelli that he was tormented by ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... world (in the shape of house-hunting), quite unaccompanied by the deceitfulness of riches, have, I am sorry to say, eaten up every hour of my time not otherwise absorbed by official visits and presentations, &c., since we reached—a week ago—this pretty, busy, but ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... hand. He wouldn't know how, you see; but he had a Mexican cowboy along with him who is up to all these tricks—Spanish Joe. When we were busy in that store, he crept up and fixed this thorn under your saddle. Of course, as soon as you sprang into your seat, your weight just drove one of these tough little points in deeper. And, as the horse jumped, every movement was so much more ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... letter, which (p. 227) was the 19th day of August nigh noon, unto the making of these simple letters. What in getting and enarming of as many small vessels as we might, doing brew both ale and beer, purveying wine and other victual, for to charge with the same vessels, we have done our busy diligence and care, as God wot. In which vessels, without [besides] great plenty of other victuals, that men of your city of London aventuren for refreshing of your host to the coasts where your sovereign presence is in, we lowly send with gladdest will unto your sovereign ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... People were still very busy in Harry Warrington's time (not that our young gentleman took much heed of the controversy) in determining the relative literary merits of the ancients and the moderns; and the learned, and the world with them, indeed, pretty generally pronounced in favour ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and Italy, busily suggesting to rustic uninformed peasants that we had gone to France for conquest of France, and intended to keep some of her land. What is she telling them now? I don't know. Something to her advantage and their disadvantage, you may be sure, just as she is busy suggesting to us things to her advantage and our disadvantage—jealousy and fear of the British navy, or pro-German school histories for our children, or that we can't make dyes, or whatever you please: the only sure thing is, that the Germany of yesterday is the Germany of to-morrow. ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister |
