"Idly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... an exclamation of delight when he recognized the graceful young warrior, who was holding the stock of his gun in his left hand, with the barrel resting idly in the hollow of his right arm. Fred jumped across the brook, with hand extended ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... thought of returning to the lower deck, and so strolled idly aft with a half-formed notion ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... idly what had aroused him. He saw with a frown that there was food beside him as before. But it had been there some time. It was cold, and sand had drifted ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... of flowers, shells, and feathers, and containing a sacred image and many charms against evil. The twin vessels were striped with black and yellow, figures of big birds with men's heads were at the prow, and on calm days, when the sails hung idly, forty oarsmen pulled the royal ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... along the curving road to the Common where she was to receive her guests. Reaching the long narrow green, where a few cows nibbled placidly as in the days when a green in the center of the village was a necessary defensive measure, she walked idly up and down. The straggling road under the great elms passed the plain white meeting-house, dating from 1813, the Academy with its belfry, the little general store and post-office combined, and wound out of sight between dignified old houses, "like Aunt Abigail's—mine ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... day, long gone among the summer days that come but to go, a lad of twelve years was idly and recklessly swinging in the top of a tall hickory, the advance picket of a mountain forest. The tree was on the edge of a steep declivity of rocky pasture-land that fell rapidly down to the stately chestnuts, to the orchard, to the cornfields in the narrow valley, and the maples ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... was a born gambler, and his fingers had already closed on the cards. Picking them up idly he dropped them once, twice, thrice on the table, his eyes gleaming with the play-fever. "If I win?" he said doubtfully. "What then? Let us have it ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... of principles, he had seated himself at the piano, and idly began running his fingers over the keys. Suddenly he began to sing a German song, which I got Abbe Miollens to translate for me, and which is not long. The hero of the song is an amorous pine, standing on the summit of a barren ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... more restful than to watch some one else busy under a warm sun. As I sat there, my mind ranged idly over large subjects and small. I thought of love and chicken farming. I mused on the immortality of the soul. In the end I always returned to the professor. Sitting, as I did, with my back to the beach, I could see nothing but his boat. It had the ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... made by a former chief of police in Chicago when he successfully cleared the streets of their presence, demonstrates that legal suppression is possible. At least this obvious temptation to young men and boys who are idly walking the streets might be avoided, for in an old formula one such woman "has cast down many wounded; yea, many strong men have been slain by her." Were the streets kept clear, many young girls would be spared familiar knowledge that such a method of earning money is open to them. ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... him to travel to Genoa in time for the chance of meeting her there, or of receiving a letter from her telling of some other destination—all which must have implied a miraculous foreknowledge in her, and in Deronda a bird-like facility in flying about and perching idly. Still he was there, and though Grandcourt would not make a fool of himself by fabrications that others might call preposterous, he was not, for all that, disposed to admit fully that Deronda's presence was, so far as Gwendolen ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... pleasure that brings content; And the heart looks up with a smile of gladness, And wonders idly when sorrow went Out of the life that seemed ...
— Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... concerns an excursion on Windermere with Captain Hamilton, the author of Cyril Thornton, which had at that time made its mark. He had recently received a new boat, which had been built for him in Norway. He expected great performances from her, and as there was a nice fresh wind idly curling the surface of the lake, he invited us to come out with him and try her, and in a minute or two we were speeding merrily before the breeze towards the opposite shore. But about the middle of the lake we found the water a good deal rougher, and the wind began ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... crew were looking out idly upon the Wavecrest as the steamship slipped by. A cook in a white cap came to one port and threw some slop into the sea. As he emptied the bucket my eyes roved to the very next port aft. There somebody sat peeling vegetables. ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... had thrown himself with a small body of determined men into the gate-house, while Burley, with a few who could hold their muskets straight, took up his post among the alder-bushes. The rest stood idly by while their comrades fought. For about an hour Hackston held the gate till his powder was spent. He sent to Hamilton for more, or for fresh troops, but the only answer he received was an order to retire. He had no choice but to fall back on ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... of that," she said—"I ran away; because I hadn't been talking idly; because you were mistaken in me, because I was deceiving you, because I could never marry you, and because—suddenly— I came to know that, if I didn't go then and there, I might never find the strength to leave you, ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... late afternoon, turning to dusk. She lifted up on one elbow and half turned away from me to switch on the bedside lamp. The light came on and I looked down at her, lovingly, admiringly. Idly, I started to ask her, "How did you get those little scars on your leg there and ... those little scars? Like buckshot! Julia! Once, along about ten years ago—you must have been a little girl then—in the mountains—sure. You were hit ...
— Inside John Barth • William W. Stuart
... had returned to her deserted home, and was sitting disconsolately on the doorstep, with her torch burning in her hand. She had been idly watching the flame for some moments past, when, all at once, it ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... our time away very idly and pleasantly at a Mrs. Leishman's, Chase, Enfield, where, if you come a-hunting, we can give you cold meat and a tankard. Her husband is a tailor; but that, you know, does not make her one. I know a jailor (which rhymes), but his wife was a ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... younger boys, proud of their office, raced down to the further end to set up the goal-posts. The rest lounged idly about without attempting to begin operations, except the new boy Kiffin, who was seen walking apart from the rest, diligently studying the "rules of the game of football," as laid down in a small Boy's Own Pocket Book and Manual of Outdoor Sports, with which he had been careful ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... honest, above other men.[15] The old woodland race were never in any wolfish sense 'free,' but in a most human sense Frank, outspoken, meaning what they had said, and standing to it, when they had got it out. Quick and clear in word and act, fearless utterly and restless always;—but idly lawless, or weakly lavish, neither in deed nor word. Their frankness, if you read it as a scholar and a Christian, and not like a modern half-bred, half-brained infidel, knowing no tongue of all the world but in the slang of it, is really opposed, not to Servitude,—but ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... the least bored who might have been and was seen on that wintry afternoon in Nineteen hundred, lounging with one shoulder to a wall of the dingy salesroom and idly thumbing a catalogue of effects about to be put up at auction; but his insouciance was so unaffected that the inevitable innocent bystander might have been pardoned for perceiving in him a pitiable ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... of Beausejour. There, in long, dark lines, stood nearly a thousand French troops, drawn up on parade. The light from the ruined village gleamed in blood-red flashes from their steel, and over them the banner of France flapped idly with ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... improvements in this park, and took much pleasure in riding, sporting, and idly strolling here. He might often be seen with half a dozen dogs at his heels, lounging along by the banks of the ponds, feeding the ducks with his own delicate royal hands. The foolish people were greatly moved and delighted at this, thinking that a king, ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... which he had heard in the distance was now close by, and he turned idly to watch it pass. He did not know then that this slight action, performed almost involuntarily, was to change his whole life, and not only his, but the lives of a number of other people of whose existence he was not then ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... only hope of protecting Barbara Morgan from Haydon and Deveny was in an offensive war. He could not expect to wage such a war by remaining idly at the Rancho Seco, to await the inevitable aggressions of the outlaws, for he did not know when they would strike, nor how. It was certain they would strike, and it was as certain they would strike when he ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... nearest it had many things to wish; and,—bless me, whither am I going? Sure, 'tis the death's head I see stand before me puts me into this grave discourse (pray do not think I meant that for a conceit neither); how idly have I spent two sides of my paper, and am afraid, besides, I shall not have time to write two more. Therefore I'll make haste to tell you that my friendship for you makes me concerned in all your relations; that I have a great ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... from the shelf of Brother Inchbald, whose past avocations had included the registering of Births, Deaths and Marriages somewhere in Wiltshire. But of late, as sometimes happens in old age, books had lost their savour for him, and he preferred to let his eyes rest idly on life's passing show as reflected in the camera obscura of ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... idly sighing, 'Destiny is mightiest,' Sesamum holds oil in plenty, but it yieldeth ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... power was draining away. The Abomination fastened on Oleron's power. The steady sapping sometimes left him for many hours of prostration gazing vacantly up at his red-tinged ceiling, idly suffering such fancies as came of themselves to have their way with him. Even the strongest of his memories had no more than a precarious hold upon his attention. Sometimes a flitting half-memory, of a ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... revulsion seized the Jew. From the hortator, the great man glanced at him; and when he dropped his oar all the section of the ship on his side seemed aglow. He heard nothing of what was said; enough that the chain hung idly from its staple in the bench, and that the chief, going to his seat, began to beat the sounding-board. The notes of the gavel were never so like music. With his breast against the leaded handle, he pushed with all his might—pushed until ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... below, His body, at the centre of the moan, Obeyed the motions whence the moaning grew; Now, now, in circle slow revolved, and now Swayed like a wind-swung bell, now swept along Hither and thither, idly to and fro, Heedlessly wandering through the heedless sea. Its fascination drew her onward still— On to the ridgy rocks that seaward ran, And out along their furrows and jagged backs, To the last lonely point where the green mass Arose and sank, heaved slow and forceful. There ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... publicly recognised as really a great singer, would impress him in a new way; he might overcome his impartial way of regarding her. The result, outwardly, answered his fullest hopes. Beatrice had not idly risked what would have been a deplorable fiasco; she had the encouragement of those who did not speak in vain, and her ambition had fired itself as she perceived the results of her conscientious labour. Her nervousness throughout the day of the concert was terrible, ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... it happened that on a certain day two vessels passed in the Strait of Gibraltar. The smaller, a trim white yacht, was speeding toward the east, and on her deck sat a young woman who gazed with sad eyes upon a diamond-studded locket which she idly fingered. Her thoughts were far away, in the dim, leafy fastness of a tropical jungle—and her heart was ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... in the Regency, had established his power on the King's recovery. The Whigs had lost all hope of possession, and they turned in their despair to the work of faction. Their cry was now Parliamentary Reform. No cry was ever more insincere, more idly raised, carried on in a more utter defiance of principle, or consummated more in the spirit of a juggler, who, while he is bewildering the vulgar eye with his tricks, is only thinking of the pocket. The Reform Bill has since passed, but ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... Baron's eyes were but three feet above the floor. His gaze, wandering idly, as that of a man who is just awake and collecting his ideas, fell on a door painted with flowers by Jan, an artist disdainful of fame. The Baron did not indeed see twenty thousand flaming eyes, like the man condemned to death; he saw but one, of which the shaft was really more piercing than the ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... Mary idly, watching the kaleidoscope of gay colors moving dizzily about beneath her. ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... the loving, pitying heart of Christ than all the men who forced her down. And who shall say that Jesus loves her less than He does those who profess to be His followers and the soldiers of His cross, and yet stand silently and idly by while all ...
— From the Ball-Room to Hell • T. A. Faulkner
... fell back as one who had been dealt a blow. For months he had been idly hatching an addled villainy. The revenge that he had promised himself for spurned and outraged love—the revenge that he had named ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... moment, please," he commanded. "I want to say to you here and now: you are the gentlest, loveliest woman I have ever known. I don't say it idly. I mean it. If you gave him half as good as he sent, I rejoice in your spirit. Now, I want to ask if you expect to go back to live with the ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... over the expanse of heaven; and from the heated sands a damp radiation was shimmering, giving tremulous, hazy outlines to objects in the distance. Nothing was going on along the beach itself. The casa del bous, where the launching oxen were idly chewing their cud, rose with its red roof and its blue trimmings, over long lines of boats drawn up on shore to make a sort of nomad city with streets and cross roads, much like a Greek encampment of the Heroic Age, when the triremes were used for entrenchments. The ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... great assembly of the neighboring nobles. But the image of war was here unfortunately turned into the thing itself. Edward and his retinue were so successful in the jousts, that the French knights, provoked at their superiority, made a serious attack upon them, which was repulsed, and much blood was idly shed in the quarrel.[**] This rencounter received the name of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... the entrance to the market where his mates had promised to meet him, but he found that he had still half an hour to spare, as he had come down early to mark a pak-ah-pu ticket at the Chinaman's in Hay Street. So he lit a cigarette and sauntered idly through ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... if that may not prove true, I shall deserve whatever punishment you may command." The king asked, "What may that be?" He said: "If a peasant bring thee a cup of junket, two measures of it will be water and one spoonful of it buttermilk. If thy slave spake idly be not offended, for great travellers deal most in the marvellous!" The king smiled and replied, "You never in your life spake a truer word." He directed them to gratify his expectations, and he departed ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... he went into the drawing-room. She was sitting idly in the corner of the sofa, her favourite seat; and there were circles under her eyes, as though she had ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... afternoon in one of those broad bay windows such as one finds still in some old country inns, just thinking about starting once more on our way, when suddenly Nicolete, who had been gazing out idly into the road, gave a little cry. I followed her glance. A carriage with arms on its panels had stopped at the inn, and as a smart footman opened the door, a fine grey-headed military-looking man stepped out and strode hurriedly up the ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... special relish, and roguish boys spin their tops with equal zeal. Clouds of toy-balloons, of various colors and sizes, flash high above the heads of itinerant vendors, while the sparkling fountains throw up softly musical jets everywhere. Soldiers off duty, strolling idly about, dot the scene with their various uniforms, their shining helmets, and elaborate gold lace. The busy road-way is crowded by a thousand turnouts, drawn by high-stepping horses. Delighted youths, of both sexes, mount wooden horses in the merry-go-rounds ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... morning Mr. Rowles went out to look up and down the river, and to prophesy the weather. It was still and cloudless and warm. While he was standing idly beside the running water, listening to the twitter of birds and the lowing of cows, he heard yet another cry, that of a man; and presently he saw on the far-off bank the figure of a big, burly ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... me!" she thought idly and faintly. "He noticed—he guessed." Further than this her thoughts would not go, and she sank into an oppressive despondency. The nausea, the spiritless stillness beyond the window that replaced the noise, disclosed ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... wear the softest down To hide their prickles till they're grown, And then declare themselves, and tear Whatever ventures to come near; So a smooth knave does greater feats Than one that idly rails and threats; And all the mischief that he meant, Does, like ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... longer keep in; blab, of a secret; blurt out, of passionate feeling. To chat is to talk in an easy, pleasant way, not without sense, but without special purpose. Chatting is the practise of adults, prattling that of children. To prate is to talk idly, presumptuously, or foolishly, but not necessarily incoherently. To jabber is to utter a rapid succession of unintelligible sounds, generally more noisy than chattering. To gossip is to talk of petty personal matters, as for pastime or mischief. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... flies! the vessel flies, that bears away To distant shores my Daphne, fair as May. Guard her, ye loves! be lull'd each ruder gale; Let Zephyrs only fill the swelling sail; Ye waves flow gently by the vessel's side, While pensive she surveys you idly glide; Ah! softly glide, prolong her reverie, For then, ye Gods! 'tis then she thinks of me. When near the nodding groves that shade the shore, To her, ye birds, your sweetest warbling pour; No sounds ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... him would not be a fact, and whether or not he was born great we don't know, but one thing is certain, and that is, he has acquired greatness. And when I say so, I wish it to be distinctly understood that I am not talking idly or glibly, but with all the sincerity of my heart. With the same sincerity that has characterised all my actions since I was first called to the Bar, and made of me what I am to-day. With the same sincerity that characterises every successful member ...
— Duty, and other Irish Comedies • Seumas O'Brien
... a book I went to look on, it was at one or two fields off from a large rick-yard which was near to the farm buildings. There was a half-made hay-stack with a ladder against it, up which without any object I went idly, and laying down went on reading. It became cloudy, the headman calling out said, "We'll have rain, cut off all on yer, and get the hay up into cocks, yes you,—you,—yes you too" (I did not know who he was talking to.) Men and women crossed the rick-yard, and went off in the distance, Pender was ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... there beside the long-bleached skeletons of my horses, but that one day chance or fate led me back to the path of reason. I had been sleeping off the effects of the berries, and lay, beneath the shade of a rock close to the pool, idly tossing about the tiny pebbles of the little patch of shingle close to its brink playing with them as a child might. And suddenly a glint on the corner of one of these little stones arrested my wandering attention; there was ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... he will presently make some tragic blunder. Good God, Knox, to think that this man had sought my aid, and that I stood by idly whilst he walked out to his death. I shall never forgive myself." He banged the table with his fist. "Even now that these unknown fiends have achieved their object, I am helpless, helpless. There was not a wisp of smoke to guide me, Knox, and one man ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... change its raiment when the world cries shame! We smile to see our little ones at play So grave, so thoughtful, with maternal care Nursing the wisps of rags they call their babes; Does He not smile who sees us with the toys We call by sacred names, and idly feign To be what we have called them? He is still The Father of this helpless nursery-brood, Whose second childhood joins so close its first, That in the crowding, hurrying years between We scarce have trained our senses ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... quite unconscious of this cloud of witnesses, but followed Parkinson with an idly attentive eye till he took himself and his absurd spear into the farther room of Bruno. Then he abandoned himself to such abstract meditations as always amused him—calculating the angles of the mirrors, the angles ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... replied, almost in a whisper, "God knows that I do not wish to make you unhappy, nor do I wish to make you do what is wrong. I spoke so because I could not help it. Do you think that I can love you, and know you to be what you are, and then stand idly by and see you passing to another? I believe in silence and endurance, but not in such silence and endurance as that. It is too much! God never asks ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... are dim with childish tears, My heart is idly stirr'd, For the same sound is in my ears Which in those days ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... yet more close and cautiously, except they were sure of his company. Then he would carry it openly, be as they, say, damn them and sink them[41] as they. If they railed on good men, so could he; if they railed on religion, so could he; if they talked beastly, vainly, idly, so would he; if they were for drinking, swearing, whoring, or any the like villainies, so was he. This was now the path he trod in, and could do all artificially as any man alive. And now he thought himself a perfect man, he thought he was always ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... to consciousness he lay upon the hard ground and Chester was bending over him. Shifting his position slightly the lad saw what was left of his troop standing idly about. At the same moment he felt a hand grasp his and heard a well-known ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... occupy conspicuous seats in every theatre, and it is often quite an entertainment in itself to watch their goings on. The leader gives the signal to begin and the sign to stop; and if any man of his band applauds too idly, that man is openly rebuked, and instructed by vehement gesture ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... had expected, he felt oppressed as with the want of air. He sought vainly about the window for latch or hinge to open it, and as he did so glanced along the castle wall painted yellow by the declining sun. He noticed idly that some one was putting out upon the sill of a window on a lower stage what might have been a green kerchief had not the richness of its fabric and design suggested more a pennon or banneret. It was carefully placed ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... often badly cut up. The rebels had a battery of three guns, with which they were constantly dodging from one point to another, always taking good care, however, to keep out of reach of the gun-boats. On the second day Frank arrived at his station, and while running idly about—for his orders from Captain Wilson were to "keep moving"—a steamer passed them on her way up the river, and Frank ordered the pilot to round-to and follow her. The order was obeyed, but they had not gone more than half ...
— Frank on the Lower Mississippi • Harry Castlemon
... Madge rowed out into the middle of the river with long, regular strokes. They were in their own little, green boat, called the "Water Witch." Lillian sat in the stern, trailing her white hands idly in the water. Eleanor sat quietly looking ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... trains if they really wanted to, and slyly intimating that all the destruction thus far effected was at the hands of paid emissaries of the managers themselves, officials of a great State and of a great city, sworn to preserve peace and good order and enforce the laws, dared to look idly on and trust the masses, to whom they betrayed the honor of the commonwealth, for the vindication of a re-election. Within three days of the start, passenger traffic, except on the two or three roads in the hands of the Federal courts, was practically ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... drop loyally. And, indeed, with Ching Po and French Eva both out of the way, she had become quite normal again. Of course, if I would not let her question me, I could not in fairness question her. So we talked on idly, neither one, I dare say, quite sure of the other, and both ostensibly content to wait. Or she may have had reasons as strong as mine for wishing to forget ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... while working together, with no one present to question their claims, should score such a success in deceiving President Lincoln? Was it for the meritorious services Schofield rendered, while sitting idly in Doctor Cliffe's house, utterly indifferent to the reports coming to him of the preparations of the enemy for assault; and was it for the gallantry he displayed when he skedaddled to the fort across the river as soon as the firing ...
— The Battle of Franklin, Tennessee • John K. Shellenberger
... and over for my amusement, and found it always grow brighter and brighter the more I examined it. At length I became fascinated, and gave loose rein to self-illusion. The aspect of the world seemed changed; the trifle which I had picked up idly had proved to be a talisman of inestimable value, and had opened a door through which I caught glimpses of a strange and interesting transformation. Then came one who told me that the stone was not mine, but that ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... broke into the song with the order to let go the anchor. As the ship swung to the tide the steersman, who wore neither coat nor waistcoat, could be seen idly handling the wheel still, though his duties were necessarily at an end. He was a young man, and a gay salutation of his unemployed hand toward the assembled people—as if he were sure that they were all friends—stamped him as the light-hearted singer, ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... fellows, Chang and Ching, Over their chopsticks idly chattering, Fell to disputing which could see the best: At last they agreed to put it to the test. Said Chang: "A marble tablet, so I hear, Is placed upon the Bo-hee temple near, With an inscription on it. Let us go And read it (since you boast your optics so), Standing together at a certain ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... Thus for Browning, in differing moods and contexts, the mind of man becomes now a transparent pane, opening directly upon the truth as God sees it, now a coloured lens, presenting truth in blurred refraction, now an opaque mirror idly bodying forth his ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... there. When he felt a little stronger and began to look about him, he found a note at his elbow. It was a small, common-looking letter, sealed with a B, that might signify Blondel or Basterga, or, for the matter of that, Baudichon. He did not know the handwriting, and he opened it idly, in the scorn of small things ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... availed us little, for there was no wind at all. We lay for over two hours under the weird light, over-canopied by the red- brown cloud, while the explosions shook the foundations of the world. Nobody ventured below. The sails flapped idly from the masts: the blocks and spars creaked: the three-cornered waves rose straight up and fell again as though reaching ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... affairs that seemed more important, the subject did not interest me greatly. But one cold Sunday afternoon, as I made my way, in answer to her invitation, to see Nancy Willett, I found myself wondering idly whether she might not be by way of making a shrewd guess as to the object of Hambleton's affections. It was well known that he had entertained a hopeless infatuation for her; and some were inclined to attribute ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... was almost a desert. If the unmistakable sounds of revelry by night meant anything, nearly the whole population was behind him in the Ottoman bar. But in the middle of the next block, two ragged men, standing idly and talking together, turned at the sounds of the young man's steps. One of them, revealed by a near-by shop-light, had straggly gray whiskers, vacant eyes, and a bad foolish mouth. Both of them stared at Varney ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... the manipulation of chenille and beads might be, however, her work did not prevent her keeping a tolerably sharp watch upon those two figures by the open piano: Clarissa with one hand wandering idly over the keys, playing some random passage, pianissimo, now and then; George Fairfax standing by the angle of the piano, bending down to talk to ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... stranger entering the room have supposed that this young man idly lounging in a chair, and toying with a pencil, was resting under an accusation of robbery, and was about ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... whole world was off its axis. Her House that Jack built had tumbled down; she thought so, not accepting this strange block that had come to be wrought in. She had been counting little brick after little brick that she had watched idly in the piling; now there was this great weight that she could not deal with, laid upon her hands for bearing and for using; she let it crush her down, not knowing that, fitting it bravely into her life that was building, ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... possibility of its having gone to the Biltons occurred to her. But she didn't believe it had,—they hadn't the same butcher any longer. Meanwhile there was so little to do. It was too dark to read or sew, and she sat idly at the window looking out at the passers and the driving snow. Everybody else was in a hurry. She wished she, too, had occasion to hasten down for a last purchase, or to light the lamp in order to finish a last bit of dainty sewing, as she used to do when she was a girl. She seemed ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... came the most welcome soft roar of muted rockets. A huge shape swept over the high wall, soared directly over the Gorm, and nestled down in little jets of flame until the stern rested on the solid rock, and the bow swung idly over the ...
— Pirates of the Gorm • Nat Schachner
... to Arthur Chappell,—thanks to him Whose every guest henceforth not idly vaunts "Sense has received the utmost Nature grants, My cup was filled with rapture to the brim, When, night by night,—ah, memory, how it haunts!— Music was poured by perfect ministrants, By Halle, Schumann, ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... right," said Eileen Cavendish. She moved idly about the room examining photographs and puffing her cigarette. "But even the War isn't going to make me fall on the neck of a woman I don't like. But I'm talking like a cat. It's not seeing Bill for ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... pondering in my mind the ques-ti-on what to do with the butter and the veg-et-ables. Here was butter, and here was green corn and lima-beans and trophy tomats, far more than I ere could use. And here was a horse, idly cropping the fol-i-age in the field, for as my employer had advis-ed and order-ed I had put the steed to grass. And here was a wagon, none too new, which had it the top taken off, or even the curtains roll-ed up, would do for a li-cen-ced vender. With the truck and ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... the subject; one not knowing Vera would have supposed that she was not even interested in it, but I knew that she had learned what she wanted. Idly she looked down the company street. "What are ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... steamer finished loading he strolled through the city visiting his cousins, the manufacturers, or remaining idly in the cafes. He looked with interest on the human current passing through the Ramblas in which were mingled the natives of the country and the picturesque and absurd medley brought in ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... thou dost not choose to go and sleep at a smithy, or at some place of common resort, but here thou pratest much and boldly among many lords and hast no fear at heart. Verily wine has got about thy wits, or perchance thou art always of this mind, and so thou dost babble idly. Art thou beside thyself for joy, because thou hast beaten the beggar Irus? Take heed lest a better man than Irus rise up presently against thee, to lay his mighty hands about thy head and bedabble thee with blood, and send thee hence from ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... was not likely to be very trying to the men. The water of the harbour lay placid as a lake, with the ships of war far out from the shore, and here and there native canoes moving slowly along or resting idly on the surface; and the hills and valleys were green and shaded from the sun, and wore that refreshing appearance which is notable when the trees and the grass have been bathed in dew, and when the sun's rays are strong enough only to make the dewdrops ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... has gone. The river flows visible; and now that its days of higher beauty and grace have come, it climbs high up its banks to show that it is ready for new usefulness. It would be dreary for the great logs to see new verdure springing all around them, while they lay idly rotting or sprouting with uncouth funguses, not unsuspect of poison. But they will not be wasted. Lumbermen, foes to idleness and inutility, swarm again about their winter's trophies. They imprint certain cabalistic ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... soft cover, which had slipped off when Leslie cut the rushes binding it on, turning it idly in her hands. Suddenly she stopped and stared at its inner side, then excitedly stooped where Dorothy was feeding the lamb and ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... idly did I stray, Reckless of the lives wasting there away; "Draw the ponderous bars! open, Warder stern!" He dared not say me nay—the hinges ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... made down their beds, rolled up in their blankets, and were soon asleep. Appleton and Tom sat in the smoke of a smudge, gossiping idly as the twilight approached. From the south came the distant voice of the sea, out of the north rolled the intermittent thunder of those falling bergs, from every side sounded a harsh chorus of water-fowl. Ducks whirred past in bullet-like flight, ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... experience has sobered the hopeful tints of youth's gilding; when, approaching the evening of life, the shadows are reversed, and the mind turns retrospectively, it is not to be supposed that I would abandon lightly, or idly put on trial, the party to which I have steadily adhered. It is rather to be assumed that conservatism, which belongs to the timidity or caution of increasing years, would lead me to cling to, to be supported by, rather than to cast off, the organization with which I have ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... rather the enlistment of new levies advisable. The movements of the troops in France momentarily threatened a surprise, and the commotions within the provinces demanded, more than ever, the utmost vigilance on the part of the government. Hitherto, they said, the German Protestants had looked idly on during the struggles of their brethren in the faith; but will they continue to do so, especially when we are lending our aid to strengthen their enemy? By thus acting shall we not rouse their vengeance ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... previous night, which he made a point of doing perhaps because he wished to talk over the matter of the snakes that had found their way into his pockets, had shown me a bell in it which he said rang outside his door. He called it an "emergency bell." I remarked idly that it was improbable that I should have any ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... encountered her, had produced one of those mental inhibitions in which the mind, to save the reason, obliterates temporarily not only all memory of the past, but also all present sights and sounds which may serve to recall it. She looked idly at the body of the dead man, and I was sure that she saw nothing but the worn ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... lined The Street, leading from the Rock to the Fort, and of these the highest on the northerly side was that of Captain Standish, built so near to the Fort indeed, that John Alden, if so idly minded to amuse himself, could easily salute each gun of the little battery with a pebble upon its nose. He was in fact thus occupied on this especial evening, while the captain sitting upon a bench beside the cottage door smoked a ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... his bread idly. It was too bad. She had not produced upon him the impression that she was the sort of woman whose imagination embraced the belief in spirits. "Where does ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... started off smoothly with the wind at their backs, scarcely seeming to make any headway. The breeze was irregular, at one moment filling the sail and then letting it flap idly along the mast. The sea seemed opaque and lifeless, and the sun was slowly approaching the horizon. The lulling motion of the sea had made them silent again. Presently Jeanne said, "How I ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... leisurely mid-day journey towards the pasturage, a baker's cart came rattling round the corner. The west wind was rustling in the elms, bending the shrubs upon the lawn almost to the ground. She watched them idly, already a little shrivelled and tarnished with ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... be called burning lust than by such an honorable title." "This burning lust ... begets rapes, incests, murders." "It rages with all sorts and conditions of men, yet is most evident among such as are young and lusty, in the flower of their years, nobly descended, high fed, such as live idly, at ease, and for that cause (which our divines call burning lust) this mad and beastly passion ... is named by our physicians heroical love, and a more honorable title put upon it, Amor nobilis, as Savonarola styles it, because noble men and women make a common practice of it, and are ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... embroidered night dress, with her brilliant red hair pushed back from her forehead, she began idly to follow the histories of the people whom she knew, and it seemed to her that each of them was in some particular circumstance more fortunate than she. But she would have changed place with none, not even with her best friend, Laura Wilde, ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... hostess, it would seem, had placed herself in an awkward predicament by her temerity. Sir Giles was not a man to threaten idly, as all who had incurred his displeasure experienced to their cost. His plan was to make himself feared; and he was inexorable, as fate itself, to a creditor. He ever exacted the full penalty of his bond. In this instance, according to his own notion, he had acted ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... blush to say How idly I would play With my tail or silly spool upon the floor— Till one unlucky day Three children came to stay— After that I wasn't happy ...
— The Wonderful Bed • Gertrude Knevels
... nest;— Heaven forgive me! Its merry architects so small Had scarcely finished their wee hall, That empty still and neat and fair Hung idly in the summer air. The mossy walls, the dainty door, Where Love should enter and explore, And Love sit caroling outside, And Love within chirp multiplied;— I took the wren's nest;— ...
— The Adventures of A Brownie - As Told to My Child by Miss Mulock • Miss Mulock
... he had found among his father's papers, was one which described at length a ball in this very ballroom. Was it in celebration of his marriage, or of his home-coming after a tour abroad? Richard could not remember. But he idly recalled portions of other letters, as he stood with his elbow on the mantel ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... when, upon entering the arbiter's dread presence, she saw Frederic Chilton, standing on the opposite side of the table from that at which sat her brother at his ease, his white fingers still idly interlaced, his pale patrician face emotionless as that of the bust of Apollo upon the top of the bookcase behind him. It was Frederic who led her to a chair, when she stopped, trembling midway in the apartment, and his touch upon her arm inspirited ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... with the edge of his chisel resting idly upon the plaster mold in front of him, pondering these things. Presently he heard Margaret's voice, as if somewhere ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... worst description; and they must either have given away some of the good things they possessed in enormous quantities, or have suffered them to spoil and moulder. So, many of the people missed what it was more agreeable to get idly than to work for; and the monks who were driven out of their homes and wandered about encouraged their discontent; and there were, consequently, great risings in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. These were put down by terrific executions, from which the ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... the terrible Gorgons! They lay fast asleep, soothed by the thunder of the sea; for it required a tumult that would have deafened everybody else to lull such fierce creatures into slumber. The moonlight glistened on their steely scales, and on their golden wings, which drooped idly over the sand. Their brazen claws, horrible to look at, were thrust out, and clutched the wave-beaten fragments of rock, while the sleeping Gorgons dreamed of tearing some poor mortal all to pieces. The snakes, ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... of Great Britain, it is your business—it is your duty,—to give to negro slavery no rest, but to put it down—not by letting the trunk alone, while you idly busy yourselves in lopping off, or in aiding others to lop off, a few of the straggling branches—but by laying the axe at once to its roots, and by putting your united nerve into the steel, till this great poison-tree ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... If a rainy day lacks sunshine, it has vigor for a substitute. The wind whistles briskly among the chimney tops. There is so much life on wet and windy days. Yesterday Nature yawned, but today she is wide awake. Yesterday the earth seemed lolling idly in the heavens. It was a time of celestial vacation and all the suns and moons were vacant of their usual purpose. But today the earth whirls and spins through space. Her gray cloud cap is pulled down across her nose and she leans in her hurry against the storm. The heavens ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... of clouds hastening to blot it out of sight—seemed to mirror the chaos threatening my better impulses; and, idly keeping it in view, I rode on, hardly conscious of my course till the rapid recurrence of several well-known landmarks warned me that I had taken the longest route home, and that in another moment I should be skirting the grounds of The Whispering Pines, our country ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... Idly employed with his cigar, he sipped his coffee. In time aware that she had turned her attention elsewhere, ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... envies his employer and wishes that he could go into business for himself, be an employer too but it is too much work to make the effort to rise above a clerkship. He likes to take life easy; and he wonders idly whether, after all, it is worth while to strain and strive and struggle and study to prepare oneself for the sake of getting up a little higher and making ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... this, however, for Mr. Smith had promised to telegraph me at once if anything occurred. I felt quite sure that the mayor of Morganton was as eager for information and as watchful as could have been myself. The paper told me nothing new. It dropped idly from my hand; and I ...
— The Master of the World • Jules Verne
... to the youth that he saw everything. Each blade of the green grass was bold and clear. He thought that he was aware of every change in the thin, transparent vapor that floated idly in sheets. The brown or gray trunks of the trees showed each roughness of their surfaces. And the men of the regiment, with their starting eyes and sweating faces, running madly, or falling, as if thrown headlong, to queer, heaped-up corpses—all were comprehended. ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane |
