"Listless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... will look in vain," says Pelleas; "I shall try to go very far away." They separate. Arkel enters. He tells Melisande that he has pitied her since she came to the castle: "I observed you. You were listless—but with the strange, astray look of one who, in the sunlight, in a beautiful garden, awaits ever a great misfortune.—I cannot explain.—But I was sad to see you thus. Come here; why do you stay there mute and with downcast eyes?—I have kissed you but once hitherto, ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman
... him as having grown tired and listless—more listless than a merely physical fatigue would warrant. He interrupted now to ask her with a touch of compassion if she too had been very ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... to Albinia than dawdling. She left the girls' choice of employments, but insisted on their being veritably occupied, and many a time did she encounter a killing glance from Sophia for attacking her listless, moody position in her chair, or saying, in clear, alert tones, 'My dear, when you read, read, when you work, work. When you fix your eye in that way, you are ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... entering the royal chariot, and of ordering the driver to take them out around the golf links, since it was still very early. Then, settling back with what purported to be a sigh of bliss, he regarded Marie sitting small and still and listless beside him. The glow of the chrysanthemums had already faded. Marie, with all the girlish prettiness she had ever possessed, and with an added charm that was very elusive and hard to analyze, seemed to have lost all of her ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... has a marked effect on the mental and physical vigour of people not born and raised in the tropics. This is manifested in many ways, and men, women and children who are not actually ill, seem to lose their energy, become listless, irritable, and forgetful, and find the least exertion burdensome. This is much aggravated in the hot season, and very few individuals manage, without permanent mental and physical deterioration, to live through many hot seasons ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... a rag; that voyage in the Scotia has killed me. I went to Dr. Abercromby, and he told me I was on the verge of an attack of jaundice. I am certainly better, but feel far from well. Listless, worried in body, not a bit in spirits, and as if I had eaten copper. I want to get into the position of delighting to accept and do His will, yet I feel so very much inclined to wish His ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... I have followed your instructions to the letter. My hero is as listless as I fear my readers will be, and he is not yet in love. In fact, he is only captivated with himself. I have made ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... the pipes glowed in the dusk; then the Long Arrow rose. The listless spectators stirred and leaned forward. The maid, too, was moved, feeling that at last the moment of decision was near. She was surprised to see that he had none of the savage excitement of the morning. He was as quiet and tactful in speech as the ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... THOUSAND miles beyond this sun-steeped wall Somewhere the waves creep cool along the sand, The ebbing tide forsakes the listless land With the old murmur, long and musical; The windy waves mount up and curve and fall, And round the rocks the foam blows up like snow,— Tho' I am inland far, I hear and know, For I was born the sea's eternal thrall. I would that I were there and over me The cold insistence ...
— Rivers to the Sea • Sara Teasdale
... sunk; the night had all but fallen; the men were all on board; Amyas in command of one canoe, Cary of the other. The Indians were grouped on the bank, watching the party with their listless stare, and with them the young guide, who preferred remaining among the Indians, and was made supremely happy by the present of Spanish sword and an English axe; while, in the midst, the old hermit, with tears in his eyes, prayed God's ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... sort of listless. "I don't know," says he. Then he turns to Uncle Noah. "Uncle," says he, "how will those scuppernongs be about now on the big arbor in front of ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... "In listless quietude of mind I yield to all The change of cloud and wave and wind; And passive, on the flood reclined, I wander with the waves, and ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... bridge. He remained with his head bowed, unhearing. The bos'n himself came, cursing. He called to Harrigan, and getting no answer shook him by the shoulder. He put his hand under Harrigan's chin and raised the listless head. It rolled heavily back and the dull ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... one's wandering glances; but this was apparently not the case from the superior altitude of the main-royal yard, for presently I observed a change in the attitude of the man up there from that of listless indifference to awakened curiosity and interest. His gaze grew earnest and attentive; then he shaded his eyes with his hand, and his body assumed an attitude and expression of alertness. Long and steadily he maintained ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... out of his reach in haste, lest he should take and eat, and live for ever. How earnest, then, should be our care lest this gracious treasure which we carry within us should be lost by our own fault, by the unhealthy excitements, or the listless indolence, to which our nature invites us! "Quench not the Spirit," says the Apostle; surely our privilege is a burden heavy to bear, before it turn to a principle of life and strength, till Christ be formed in us perfectly; and we the while, what cause have we to watch, and pray, and ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... glorious, although she was the Esther to this poor Vashti, and their fates might be supposed to stand in some respects as contrasts to each other. When Liddy came into the room a second time the beautiful eyes which met hers had worn a listless, weary look. When she went out after telling the story they had expressed wretchedness in full activity. Her simple country nature, fed on old-fashioned principles, was troubled by that which would have troubled a woman ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... still seated in the library chair. His head was sunk forward on his chest; his hands were extended listless, palms up, along the arms of the chair; his eyes were vacant and troubled. Hardly once in the long hours had he shifted by a hair's breadth his position. His body was suspended in an absolute inaction while his spirit battered at the walls of an impasse. For, strangely enough, Orde did not ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... the time hanging very heavy on her hands, disappointed, unhappy, frequently irritated, Ellen became at length very ready to take offence, and nowise disposed to pass it over or smooth it away. She seldom showed this in words, it is true, but it rankled in her mind. Listless and brooding, she sat day after day, comparing the present with the past, wishing vain wishes, indulging bootless regrets, and looking upon her aunt and grandmother with an eye of more settled aversion. The only ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... yet still, O listless woman! weary lover! To feel once more that fresh, wild thrill I'd give—but who can live ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... done when the food had been consumed. Now and then one or the other would use the shovel in a listless way for a few moments at a time, but each had become so weak that any prolonged exertion was out ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... room in a listless way, looking about at the various familiar objects that he was to see no more, and one of the first things to strike him was a teacup on the washstand, containing Mrs Millett's infusion, bitter, nauseous, and sweetened to sickliness; and it struck ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... their afflicted condition. In many cases, even of the greatest apparent suffering and distress, instead of showing any anxiety to communicate the causes of their distress, or to relate their privations, and their longings for their homes and their friends and relatives, they lay in a listless, lethargic, uncomplaining state, taking no notice either of their own distressed condition, or of the gigantic mass of human misery by which they were surrounded. Nothing appalled and depressed me so much as ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... which had fallen from his lips. But when it came to almagest and astrolabe, the counting of figures and reckoning of epicycles, away would go her thoughts to horse and hound, and a vacant eye and listless face would warn the teacher that he had lost his hold upon his scholar. Then he had but to bring out the old romance book from the priory, with befingered cover of sheepskin and gold letters upon a purple ground, to entice her wayward mind back to ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... words passed by the child's ears as the summer wind passed. Perhaps it was all a bit of temper and would disappear and leave no trace behind. At the same time, there WAS something queer about the little thing. She had a listless way of sitting staring out of the window and seeming to have no desire to amuse herself. She was too young to be listless and she did not care for her food. Dowson asked permission to send for the doctor and, when he came, he ordered ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... depressing to a sympathetic nature," he declared. "For example, it constantly depresses me to observe the effect of the cotton mills on the girls in my employ. They come in from the country, fresh, blooming, and eager to work. Within a few months perhaps they are pale, anaemic, listless. Not infrequently a young girl contracts tuberculosis and dies before one realizes that she is ill. It wrings the heart to ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr
... eyelashes contributed to add still further to the peculiarity of his looks, and to give his countenance, with those who did not note the keen, bright orbs that occasionally peeped from their usually impenetrable coverts, a sleepy and listless appearance. He now sat on the top of a high wood-box, placed near one corner of the chimney, with his legs dangling over one end of the box, and his head drooping sluggishly towards the fire, apparently as unconscious of ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... did not see O'Reilly that night, nor, in fact, did any one. But the next morning he appeared before General Gomez. He was haggard, sick, listless. The old Porto-Rican had heard from Lopez in the mean time; he ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... Pete was undone in the lazy, listless life of the sheep-camp. There was a certain slow progressiveness about it, however, that saved it from absolute monotony. Each day the sheep grazed out, the distance being automatically adjusted by the coming of night, when they were bunched and slowly drifted back to the bedding-ground. A day ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... scene of John's adventure on the previous night. I had never been in this part of the house before, as it contained no facilities for heating, and so often remained shut in the winter months. I found a listless pleasure in admiring the pictures which lined the walls, most of them being portraits of former members of the family, including the famous picture of Sir Ralph Temple and his family, attributed to Holbein. I had reached the end of the gallery and sat down in the ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... whimsical nerves, peevish tempers, indolent minds, and depraved morals. They become but wrecks of what they were when they first entered the school. This has been called "the stiff and starched system of muslin education," and is the nursery of pale, sickly, listless, peevish children. ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... hour and then he began to feel faint. He had eaten but little breakfast and he needed a fresh supply of food to restore his strength. How he could hold out till evening he could not tell. Already his head began to ache and he felt weary and listless. ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... implores thy aid; Let all behold; and thou, imperious Jove, On me direct thy lightning from above: Now all its force the poison doth assume, And my burnt entrails with its flame consume. Crest-fallen, unembraced I now let fall Listless, those hands that lately conquer'd all; When the Nemaean lion own'd their force, And he indignant fell a breathless corse: The serpent slew, of the Lernean lake, As did the Hydra of its force partake: By this, too, fell the Erymanthian boar: ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... of the people?' she asked, glancing at the listless crowd within. 'O are you quite sure ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... not gain and may even lose in weight. It no longer exhibits its usual energy and playfulness, but is either listless and indifferent or cross, fretful and irritable, and is apt to sleep poorly. It grows pale and anaemic and its tissues become soft and flabby. When the milk is scanty it will often nurse a long time at the breasts, sometimes three quarters of an ...
— The Care and Feeding of Children - A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses • L. Emmett Holt
... foot of yonder nodding beech, That wreathes its old, fantastic roots so high, His listless length at noontide would he stretch, And pore upon the ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... very tired, and she was sitting in an old easy chair waiting for the manager to come to take her to the hotel. She leaned back in a listless manner, with her inclined head leaning upon her right hand. It was a small hand, and very white. Her dark hair partly shrouded her face of singular beauty and sweetness. But lines of care were plainly visible, ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... hay is hauled home, but eat, gossip and sleep? To bed at nine, and out of it at eight in the morning, smoking and dozing between the slow performance of his few daily duties, he becomes at last as listless and dull as a hibernating bear. In the summer he has perpetual daylight, and need not hurry. Besides, why should he give himself special trouble to produce an unusually large crop of flax or barley, when a single night may make his labours utterly ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... was not listless—-far from it. On the contrary Dave fairly ran to dressing quarters, hustled under a shower and then ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... those who toil in lowly spheres Employ such artful ways To charm the dull and listless ears That such may sound their praise, Why should the artist of the mind Shrink from that noble aim That seeks to elevate mankind, And light a deathless flame! Or why should he who shapes the lives And destiny of man, Be less exact than he ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... as eloquent as many of his old ones; but it had a hundredfold more power. His hearers had often been pleased and touched before; now they were stirred, and made uncomfortable. Their responsibilities, as each one the keeper of his brother's soul, were solemnly laid before them. The listless, contented indifference to the sins and sorrows of their fellow-men was rudely shaken. Their satisfaction in their own safety was attacked. As clearly as words could put it, they were told that ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... his remaining laws is that which declared disfranchised a citizen who in a party conflict took neither side; apparently his object was to prevent any one regarding home politics in a listless, uninterested fashion, securing his own personal property, and priding himself upon exemption from the misfortunes of his country, and to encourage men boldly to attach themselves to the right party and to share all its ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... cross she did, about with her, coming in, and going out, for many a weary day. There was no change in her habits or demeanour; she was never listless for a moment in her school; she was more gay and amusing than ever, when she gathered her little ones around her for a story: but still there was the unseen burden, grinding her heart slowly, till she felt as if every footstep ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... are failures, human wrecks, who are a burden to others. If you like we will try this evening to get to a midnight mission and see the poor wretches waiting in crowds for the doors to open. They have a worn, listless expression, but when the doors are open they wake up and rush in, fill all the benches in the large hall, and go to ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... moved than he was willing to have it appear, trying, in his turn, to hide all his artistic and patriotic anxieties under that firm exterior which his colleague of the Department of Foreign Affairs wore, a dull-eyed, listless face, and cheeks that ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... kept a watchful eye on the progress of events. He was always alert to seize an opportunity and proclaim in trumpet tones the voice of conscience, the demands of eternal righteousness. But he waited. His hour had not yet come. He bided his time. It was not a listless waiting, it was intensely earnest and active. Far more than he could realize, he was in training for the stupendous responsibilities which should in due time fall upon him. It is fortunate for all that he did not learn to limit his ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... commander of the cavalry, a gentleman whose gold leaves were as dazzlingly new as the senior's were old and withered, and just about to be changing into silver, the silver of the lieutenant-colonel. The contrast between Major White's spirited handling of his battalion of foot and Major Chrome's listless management of a similar body of horse was vivid in the last degree. The latter and two of his troops belonged to Atherton's fine regiment, the —th, the other two troops, Cranston's and Truman's, were, as we know, of the Eleventh, and here ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... on trunk Beneath the gory waters sunk, Still o'er their drowning bodies press New victims quick and numberless; Till scarce an arm in HAFED'S band, So fierce their toil, hath power to stir, But listless from each crimson hand The sword hangs clogged with massacre. Never was horde of tyrants met With bloodier welcome—never yet To patriot vengeance hath the sword More ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... uselessness, covering the leg in which gangrene was far advanced, and telling her death was at hand. But her despair insisted on action, her own suffering made her remorseless. The clamor of their arguing voices surrounded the moribund figure lying motionless with listless eyes as though already half initiated into new and profound mysteries. Once, his mother's voice rising strident, he asked her to let him rest in peace, ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... suggested the tramp of marching feet, but there was a curious unevenness in its rhythm, and the crescendo one of the listeners looked for never came. The room was almost dark now, but none of those who sat there seemed to notice it as they listened to the listless tramp of marching feet. Then the harmonies drowned it again, and ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... the confined air of the shop, and the odour of the leather, and the stooping posture consequent on his trade, began to tell painfully upon him. He wondered what was the matter that he did not now ever feel bright and hopeful. He went about his work mechanically, was listless and silent. His features assumed a cast of anxiety unnatural in a child, and painful to notice. Still, no duty was neglected, nor did the Walters notice the change in his looks, since all allotted services were duly rendered. The young spirit was gradually ...
— Watch—Work—Wait - Or, The Orphan's Victory • Sarah A. Myers
... traces of which still survived in the nineties— resembled very much the border forays for which Northumberland is still famous; and, walking through the palm-groves towards the Arab village, they talked of the Arab race, listening all the while to the singing of doves and of streams, Owen listless ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... wall at the back, into the gardens behind the house. There was not much in the way of flowers to look at, but he moved about quite unconscious of any deprivation. A cluster of greenhouses, massed against the southern side of the mansion, attracted his listless fancy, and he walked toward what appeared to be an entrance to them. The door was locked, but he found another further on which opened to his hand. The air was very hot and moist inside, and the place was so filled with broad-leaved, umbrageous tropical ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... up stream, and pushes back the hurrying waters. With no less calm and solemn footsteps, nor less certainly, does a great mind bear up against public opinion, and push back its hurrying stream. Therefore should every man wait;—should bide his time. Not in listless idleness,—not in uselesspastime,—not in querulous dejection; but in constant, steady, cheerful endeavours, always willing and fulfilling, and accomplishing his task, that, when the occasion comes, he may be equal to the occasion. And if it ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... augmented during the day by the arrival of half a dozen men and women from, the city brain-fagged, listless, and smart. The big cottage now was full, the company complete for three weeks at least. She looked ahead, this fresh, vigorous young Englishwoman, and wondered how she was to endure ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... of his kindred. He has a preference for dense woods of beech and maple, moves slowly amid the lower branches and smaller growths, keeping from eight to ten feet from the ground, and repeating now and then his listless, indolent strain. His back and crown are dark blue; his throat and breast, black; his belly, pure white; and he has a white spot on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... her pleasure. Her face proved that at all events the physical influences of this day in the open air were beneficial. The soft breeze had brought a touch of health to her cheek, and languid inattention no longer marked her gaze at sea and shore; she was often absent, but never listless. When she spoke, her voice was subdued and grave; it always caused Mallard ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... Hippolyto Thucydides, the son of Mrs. Johnson, who had just arrived on a visit to his mother from the State of New Hampshire. He was a heavy and loutish youth, standing upon the borders of boyhood, and looking forward to the future with a vacant and listless eye. I mean this was his figurative attitude; his actual manner, as he lolled upon a chair beside the kitchen window, was so eccentric that we felt a little uncertain how to regard him, and Mrs. Johnson openly described him as peculiar. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... girls are listless, easily tired, nervous, with little appetite, poor digestion, ...
— Treatise on the Diseases of Women • Lydia E. Pinkham
... apartment. It was kept open only one hour before and one hour after midnight, and that only on two nights of the week, and that only when Parliament was sitting. Its attractions were not numerous, consisting chiefly of tobacco and tea. The conversation was generally listless and often desultory; and occasionally there would arise the great and terrible evil of a punster whom every one hated but no one had life enough to put down. But the thing had been a success, and men liked to be members of the Universe. Mr. Bonteen was ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... surprise, Grinsell and Dickon were gone; no one but the squire was in the room, and he was sitting in a big chair, limp and listless, his eyes fixed ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... them two unused rooms in their house at a low figure. They were not lacking in sympathy for young "Mrs. Lennox," but their disposition to ask questions made Anna shun them as she would have an infection. After her mother's death, they tried harder than ever to be kind to her, but the listless girl, who spent her days gazing at nothing, was hardly aware of ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... indignity, and have had their lives endangered by the violence of the white mob. In 1816, the white rabble of Barbadoes, collected together, and totally destroyed the Methodist chapel. The destruction of the chapel occupied two successive nights, and so listless were the authorities, that no attempt was made to prevent it. And when the governor issued a proclamation, offering a reward to any person who should apprehend the leaders in this outrageous proceeding, the mob immediately issued a counter proclamation, threatening with death any one who ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... had his studies led him to dissect the bodies of animals that had died in their dens in the Jardin des Plantes! Often in the first generation of cage-life, almost always in the second, invariably in the third, they grow dull, listless, the fire goes out of their eyes, the litheness out of their limbs: they forget to eat, they cough, and soon they die. Of what? Consumption. Once our fathers were wild and lived in the open air: they scarcely ever died, as we do, of consumption. Crowded cities, bad drainage, overwork, want of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... thou thereby Mayst serve with faith, with fear, in truth and love, That God that did at first thy spirit move To ask it to his praise, that he might be Thy God, and that he might delight in thee. If I should here particulars relate, Methinks it could not but much animate Thy heart, though very listless to inquire How thou mayst that enjoy, which all desire That love themselves and future happiness; But O, I cannot fully it express: The promise is so open and so free, In all respects, to those that humble be, That want ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... campaign was unusually listless. Parker did not inspire enthusiasm, although a man of undoubted integrity and ability, and the personality of Roosevelt was the controlling force. Only at the close of the canvass did a passing interest appear in some charges made ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... you saw it yourself?" Flint asked, partly from listless curiosity, and partly with an eye to the society ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... and all hands. There are few things so annoying to a sailor at sea as a calm. A gale of wind, even a hurricane, with its life, its energy, its fury, though it may bring the conviction of danger, is preferred by an old sailor to the dull, listless monotony of ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... the house was not likely to get much backing-up in its new efforts from Felgate, looked likely enough to be fulfilled. While everyone else was full of athletic and scholastic fervour, he remained listless and even sulky. Some said it was because Ainger had proposed the great scheme, and Felgate disdained to play second riddle even to the captain. Others said it was because he could not win anything ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... through the town and talked to people who had been living there; and it was when I talked to the people that I began to realise what had been happening. The few ruined buildings and riddled walls conveyed little to me. But when one found man after man thin, listless, and (in spite of the joy of salvation) dispirited; talking with a tired voice and hopeless air, and with a queer, shifty, nervous, scared look in the eye, ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... king sat bowed beneath his crown, Propping his face with listless hand; Watching the hour-glass sifting down ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... and let it fall from her listless fingers. Her eyes went again to the portrait in the glass. Very slowly she rose and studied herself standing. The lacy softness of her negligee fell away from her slenderly rounded throat. The creamy whiteness of arms and ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... were tabulated by the author Hyrummetricus. The Professors of this Science [of land surveying] are honoured with a more earnest attention than falls to the lot of any other philosophers. Arithmetic, Theoretical Geometry, Astronomy, and Music are discoursed upon to listless audiences, sometimes to empty benches. But the land surveyor is like a judge; the deserted fields become his forum, crowded with eager spectators. You would fancy him a madman when you see him walking along the most devious paths. But in truth ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... half-shell Pale green and white-lined of sea-urchin, knew What her eyes sought as often children know Of grief or sin they could not name or think of Yet sooth or shrink from, so I saw and longed To heal her tender wound and yet said naught. The energy of bygone joy and pain Had left her listless figure charged with magic That caught and held my idleness near hers. Resentful of her power, my spirit chafed Against its own deep pity, as though it were Raised ghost and she the witch had bid it haunt me. What's more I knew this slave by rights should ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... herself,—her new self, which was to be so different from the old. How strange it all was! What should she do now, to prove the new Hilda and try her strength? Something must be done at once; the time for folded hands and listless ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... to the same point. It was far easier than to determine the sun's position either from day to day, or from month to month; for the stars, being hardly visible at the actual rising and setting of the sun, the idea of the sun's conjunction with certain stars could not suggest itself to a listless observer. The moon, on the contrary, progressing from night to night, and coming successively in contact with certain stars, was like the finger of a clock, moving round a circle, and coming in contact with one figure ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... the rattle of their passing ceases the silence wakes him. His listless eye falls upon a half-defaced poster on a wall opposite— the ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... leading strings, and her attempt to put them on would ruin all. But the time went on; grew late; and she was dying for her tea, which she had chosen should wait also. Maude sat before the fire in a large chair; her eyes, her hands, her whole air supremely listless. ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Yellow or greenish-colored droppings, listless attitude, refusal of food and great thirst are the more readily observed symptoms. The disease runs a rapid course, death resulting in about three days. The death rate is very high. The disease is spread by droppings and dead birds, ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... slept very little, for the disquiets of my mind prevailed over my weariness, and kept me awake. I considered how impossible it was to preserve my life in so desolate a place, and how miserable my end must be: yet found myself so listless and desponding, that I had not the heart to rise; and before I could get spirits enough to creep out of my cave, the day was far advanced. I walked awhile among the rocks: the sky was perfectly clear, and the sun so ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... little too early, I sat down upon the edge of a tombstone to wait, as, for aught I knew, the beautiful Countess might have wise reasons for not caring that I should enter the grounds of the chateau earlier than she had appointed. In the listless state induced by waiting, I sat there, with my eyes on the object straight before me, which chanced to be that faint black outline I have described. It was right before ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... latitude duly recorded, makes for himself a meal of bitter-sweet; and that your truest dulcamara is to read with glasses the faded notes jotted down hurriedly in rain, in sun, in wind, in camps, by flooded rivers, and in the long and listless hours of heat — in fact, to see again your life, as it were, acted for you in some camera obscura, with the chief actor changed. But diaries, unless they be mere records of bare facts, must of necessity, as in their nature they are autobiographical, be false guides; ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... in her sleep, and turned. "Will you go?" said the mother very roughly in her ear. She opened listless, senseless eyes. She had no wish to go. "She wanted to come last week," we said. The mother hardened, and pushed the child, and rolled her over with her foot. "She will ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... the convention could not longer survive. The listless delegates, the absence of enthusiasm, and the uncrowded galleries, showed that all hope of a nomination was abandoned, especially since the friends of Douglas, who could prevent the selection of another, declared that the Illinoisan would not withdraw under any contingency. It is dreary ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... He lay there listless, nerveless, careless of life almost, an Ishmael with every man's hand against him—worse off than Ishmael, he thought, since Ishmael had a desert in which to wander, and he was tied ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... standing in a listless, indifferent attitude near the door, not taking the smallest part in the active proceedings which were going forward, was for the first time aroused to interest by the expression on Rosalind's face. She moved a step or two into the crowd, and when one or two timid bids were heard for the coveted ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... sight; but now was to be the bitterest of all. I felt it, and I remained with the handle of the door in my hand, gasping for breath— blinded with the tears that coursed each other rapidly down my cheeks. I remained a minute in this state, when I felt that Sarah touched my other listless hand. ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... on Main Street sounded a man's voice, laughing. The door of the express office banged. George Willard arose and crossing the room fumbled for the doorknob. Sometimes he knocked against a chair, making it scrape along the floor. By the window sat the sick woman, perfectly still, listless. Her long hands, white and bloodless, could be seen drooping over the ends of the arms of the chair. "I think you had better be out among the boys. You are too much indoors," she said, striving to relieve the embarrassment of the departure. "I thought I would take a walk," replied George Willard, ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... did every thing to bring it to completion. He passed from battle to battle, from victory to victory, and after conquering Egypt and taking up his residence in Cairo, he at once began to organize the newly-won country, and to introduce to the idle and listless East the culture of the earnest and progressive West. But Egypt would not accept the treasures of culture at the hand of its conqueror. It rose again and again in rebellion against the power that held it down, and hurled its flaming ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... the previous day he was exhausted and listless, and spoke unwillingly. His fingers twitched, and from his face it could be seen that he had a ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... was sure of it—I couldn't tell you, but I was sure you must see!" Her pen was thrown aside and she drooped in her chair, her hands listless in her lap. ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... saddened Joy lit candles in the front room there came the rattle of wheels without, and a buckboard stopped in the bar of light from the door. Bailey's anxiety was replaced by a mask of listless surprise as the voice of Ross Turney ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... Her father observed her listless air and averted face for a moment with contracted brow, then quietly remarked, "Graydon Muir may return at any ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... retains its appetite, but as the severity of the disease increases the animal shows less and less disposition to suck, and has lost all vivacity, lying dull and listless, and, when raised, walking weakly and unsteadily. Flesh is lost rapidly, the hair stands erect, the skin gets dry and scurfy, the nose is dry and hot, or this condition alternates with a moist and cool one. By this time the mouth and skin, as well as the breath and dung, exhale the peculiar, ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... and listless lady patron examined the handbags in a leading jeweler's shop in New York City. The clerk exhibited one bag five inches square, made of platinum and with one side almost covered with a setting of diamonds. This was offered at a price ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... listless and dreary air of waiting somebody's pleasure, and the most talkative of the ladies had to speak quite rigidly to repress a yawn. This lady, whose name was Camilla, very much reminded me of my sister, with the difference that she was older, and ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... had indeed worn her out. For the rest of the evening she was quiet and listless; and she went upstairs very early to bed, leaving Herrick to sit alone with his dog, smoking his pipe, and facing the future with ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... sweetheart's side. His arm fell about her shoulders. She did not offer to remove it, but sat listless, unresponsive, her eyes lifted to a narrow window beyond which the hot ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... she corrected me, still in that quiet, listless, almost indifferent tone. 'Oh, yes. ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... reading when Marguerite was announced, for an open book lay on a table beside her; but it seemed to the visitor that mayhap the young girl's thoughts had played truant from her work, for her pose was listless and apathetic, and there was a look of grave trouble upon ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... Borough-buying, and their embosom'd Thirst for the poorest Power, the meanest Places, and the basest Gain; and in a Word it wou'd be the Destruction, of all those dirty Jobbs, that enrich private Rogues and beggar Nations. How, dear Tom, cou'd you expect such dissipated Minds, such a listless pleasurable Gentry, wou'd ever contribute a Thought, or a Shilling to improve Ireland, who won't improve one Thousand Acres, to help their Children and feed their Families? Who will not even take the Trouble, or be at ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... in my study I was listless and ill at ease, And my fingers twiddled idly With the novel upon my knees. I know not where I was straying On the poppy-clustered shore, But I suddenly struck on a Sparkler Which fairly made ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 27, 1892 • Various
... been deceiving her. That whole afternoon how quiet he had been, how listless. Quite gentle, quite affectionate, but listless and untalkative. She had thought he must be tired; worn out with his long journey across from Europe. She had made allowances for him; been sympathetic, been considerate. And look at him now. Never had she seen him with ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... the next, she insisted on getting up; and Dr. Donaldson gave his consent to her returning into the drawing-room. She was restless and uncomfortable in every position, and before night she became very feverish. Mr. Hale was utterly listless, and incapable of ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... The listless indolence of her father's life, and the almost complete absence from home of her brother, who was pursuing his studies at the Dublin University, had given over to her charge not only the household, but no ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... brisk; but the best evidence of health was in the clearness of their eyes. Fever shows its touch in the "gooseberry" eye, dull and clouded; in the moist pallor of the skin, and in a general listlessness. Even if they are free from fever, white men in Central Africa often grow listless because of insufficient nutriment. Their flesh-diet is chiefly the white meat of birds, and their blood-cells are really starved by the small amount of nitrogenous matter. A deficient diet in its turn is a frequent cause of diarrhoea ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... sweet antiphonies, A long procession through the splendid hall Wended slow way, and bearing in the King, The suffering Amfortas in his pain, Still lying listless on his royal couch. Before him walked a company of boys Clothed in pale blue, and bearing high aloft A mystic shrine in cloth of deepest crimson, To signify the royal blood beneath. And others followed bearing silver flagons With wine, and baskets of the finest ...
— Parsifal - A Drama by Wagner • Retold by Oliver Huckel
... a short silence between them. It was not until then, that he realised how dear during these last few months her companionship had been to him. He looked into the fire with sad, listless eyes. After all, what was success worth? He had grasped at the shadow, and Cicely with her charming little ways, her glorious companionableness and her dainty prettiness, was lost to him for ever. ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... up from the corral. The boy had gone without sleep or rest until his eyes were heavy and his movements listless. Like the women of Palomitas he also had worked overtime at the call of Tula, and Kit wondered at the concerted activity—no one ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... the case is neglected, and if the adenoids have existed for a long time, the growth of the child is impaired. He remains small and stunted, and the expression of the face is dull and stupid. The temperament and disposition are affected also; such children are languid, listless and depressed. ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague
... and his hands were clasped upon his saddle-bow, while the reins fell loosely from between his listless fingers. ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... aspect of death—the visible and the invisible part of dying. For the visible part, you have the body of the princess in all the desolation and abandonment of death. The attitude of the figure is as if she had thrown herself over in a convulsion, and died. The body is lying listless, simply covered with a sheet, through every fold of which you can see the utter relaxation of that moment when vitality departs, but the limbs have not yet stiffened. Her hand and a part of the arm are hanging down, exposed to view beneath ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... thinks him strangely thoughtful and considerate in keeping away, as he does, after a few short visits at The Oaks. The truth is, he is wofully disappointed at the change in his cousin's looks. This pale, listless, hollow-eyed girl is not the one who set him to reading 'Taming of the Shrew.' That her beauty of color and of outline could ever return, he does not consider; and in swift revulsion of feeling ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... the remnants of a routed army had been passing through the City. They were not troops, but disorganized hordes. The men had long, dirty beards and tattered uniforms; they walked with a listless gait, without flag nor formation. All seemed exhausted, worn out, incapable of thought or resolve, marching only by force of habit and dropping with fatigue as soon as they stopped. One saw for ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... away; the rainbow bridge throbbed out into the air, under it the wailing of the Rhine daughters and the singing of the Rhine. But Thea was sunk in twilight; it was all going on in another world. So it happened that with a dull, almost listless ear she heard for the first time that troubled music, ever-darkening, ever-brightening, which was to flow through so many years ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... walla,' or hat wearer, as they call the English, in full regimentals and cocked hat, seated on a clumsy, ill-formed thing meant for a horse. Then add to these English, French, and Dutch toys, which generally lie pell-mell in every corner where the listless, toy-satiated child may have thrown or ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... with meditative head against the windowpane, listless as a caged and sullen eagle, but his soul was far ahead, swooping above the swells that cut into the murky sky. His eyes studied every rod of soil as he retraced his way up that great wind-swept slope, noting every change in vegetation or settlement. Five ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... be dull without it, and to hate the hours when he could not see it; and all the time it grew or seemed to grow stronger and sleeker; his mother soon began to notice that he was not well; he became thin and listless, but his eyes were large and bright; she asked him more than once if he were well, but he only laughed. Once indeed he had a fright; he had been asleep under a hawthorn in the glen on a hot July day; and waking saw the cat close to him, watching ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... to explain to him that the long option which he held on that San Bernardino mine will expire in one more month. The work had been going on in a listless way for three years. All at once some time back they struck a wonderfully rich lode, and vein has been followed far enough to show that it is bound to be ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... letters from him during his absence and were, accordingly, unable to tell when he expected to get back. Since his return from India Gwen had given evidence of a reviving interest in life, but now that he was again away, she relapsed into her old listless condition, from which we found it impossible to arouse her. Alice, who did her utmost to please her, was at her wit's end. She could never tell which of two alternatives Gwen preferred, since that young lady would invariably ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... day was told what deeds of night Were done; the web had vanished quite; With it the strange opposing pair; And listless waved on vacant air, For her adieu to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... noticed that she scarcely tasted food at breakfast, and she has kept her room for most of the day, lying down for a greater part of the time. I left her on the bed when I went to dinner. She did not complain of indisposition, but seemed listless and out of spirits. I ordered tea sent up, but, as you perceive, it has not been tasted. On my return, I found her in the condition in which she now lies—apparently in ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... deck in a hundred listless postures. Some leaned idly over the bulwarks, and looked wistfully away from the ship, as if they fancied they saw all that I inferred but could not see. As the perfume, and sound, and climate changed, I could see many a longing eye sadden and grow moist, and as ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... finished Katherine led the way to the living-room. To his unspeakable pride, Rhoda took Billy Porter's arm and he guided her listless footsteps carefully, casting pitying glances on his less favored friends. Jack wheeled a Morris chair before the fireplace—desert nights are cool—and John DeWitt hurried for a shawl, while Katherine gave every one orders that no one heeded in ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... listless days went by, followed by nearly sleepless nights, and then came Viola's answer, apparently by the postmark from some place ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... then suppose two children taken silently through a museum of curiosities, the one active and lively, the other dull and listless. It would be found on retiring, that the former would be able to give an account of many things which he saw, and that the other would remember little or nothing. In this case, all the objects in the exhibition were seen by ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... that he will presently have a fit, or be sent for, or come to some kind of an end. But when you gradually open to the conviction that vis inertiae rules the hour, and the thing which has been is that which shall be, you wax listless; your chariot-wheels drive heavily; your end of the pole drags in the mud, and you speedily wallow in unmitigated disgust. If he broaches a subject on which you have a real and deep living interest, you shrink from unbosoming yourself to him. You feel that it would be sacrilege. He feels nothing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... of one's head; disconcert, discompose; put out, confuse, perplex, bewilder, moider^, fluster, muddle, dazzle; throw a sop to Cerberus. Adj. inattentive; unobservant, unmindful, heedless, unthinking, unheeding, undiscerning^; inadvertent; mindless, regardless, respectless^, listless &c (indifferent) 866; blind, deaf; bird-witted; hand over head; cursory, percursory^; giddy-brained, scatter-brained, hare-brained; unreflective, unreflecting^, ecervele [Fr.]; offhand; dizzy, muzzy^, brainsick^; giddy, giddy as a goose; wild, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... was the search for the key in the chill of the early morning, or whether it was that she ate too heartily of grandma's good things, certain it was that when Edna waked up the morning after Thanksgiving, she felt very listless and miserable. Her father was already up and dressed, and her mother was making her toilet when the little girl turned over and watched her with ...
— A Dear Little Girl's Thanksgiving Holidays • Amy E. Blanchard
... make you glad, To make you glad and free, Till your light smiles glance And your bright eyes dance Like sunbeams on the sea? Read some rhyme that is blithe and gay Of a bright May morn and a marriage day?" And she sighed in a listless way she had,— "Do not read—it ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... character, in devotional thought and emotion, or in the emotions of affection, I have felt with vehement and absorbing intensity,—felt till my mind is exhausted, and seems to be sinking into deadness. Half of my time I am glad to remain in a listless vacancy, to busy myself with trifles, since thought is ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... a tall, burly, red-haired young man, with a resolute face but a listless manner. He carried under his arm a flat, grey portfolio of black-and-white sketches, which he had sold with more or less success to publishers ever since his uncle (who was an admiral) had disinherited him for Socialism, because of a lecture which he had delivered against ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... Wood and Dead Flat stage coach was waiting before the station. The Pine Barrens mail wagon that connected with it was long overdue, with its transfer passengers, and the station had relapsed into listless expectation. Even the humors of Dick Boyle, the Chicago "drummer,"—and, so far, the solitary passenger—which had diverted the waiting loungers, began to fail in effect, though the cheerfulness of the humorist was unabated. The ostlers had slunk back into the stables, the station keeper ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the listless answer. "I presume likely you mean the news about the appropriation, and the editorial dig at yours truly? Yes, I've seen it. They don't bother me much. I've got more important things on ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln |
