"Idly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... down the highway. They could see a lantern swinging idly to and fro. It was hung under a farm-wagon, and presently they saw the turnout, drawn by a pair of good-looking horses. The wagon was filled with barrels of potatoes, and on the seat sat a raw-boned old farmer, ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... Tanner, he went out of the store the back way and left the captain alone filling his pipe. A short blast of the whistle told him that the steamer was tied up, and idly he lingered to see who ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... By chance he idly gazed up at the ceiling, and saw a naked sword hanging by a single hair directly over his head. He grew pale with terror, the laughter died on his lips, and, as soon as he could move, he sprang from the couch, where ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... Bella was sitting by the open piano in her cosy apartments in a street off the Strand, idly striking a note here and there and humming the air of a new song; but her cough, which was incessant, made singing ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... the world over of vast instruments like national armies being played against each other as idly and aimlessly as the checker-men on the cracker-barrels of corner groceries. And this invention, the kinetoscope, which affects or will affect as many people as the guns of Europe, is not yet understood in its powers, particularly those of bringing back the primitive in a big rich way. The primitive ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... Saint Antonio looked down in the rosy air, itself tinged and brightened by the magical colors which floated round it. And the girls and men of Sorrento gathered in gossiping knots on the old Roman bridge that spanned the gorge, looked idly down into its dusky shadows, talking the while, and playing the time-honored game of flirtation which has gone on in all climes and languages since man and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... the lake had branched to the left, and there an easy ascent led to the hill beyond. On both sides were carpets of flowers and of green, and slender larches that held their arms and hid the sky. Above, an eagle circled, and on the lake a sail flapped idly. ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... head at the sound of a girl's voice. Somewhere rearward to the hedge the girl idly sang—an old song of Thomas Heywood's,—in a serene contralto, low-pitched and effortless, but very sweet. Smilingly the Duke ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... shame it was that he or she hadn't put his or her foot down hard and made Jimmy Blair stay at home instead of letting him go down into that unpronounceable Central American place and get killed in an opera bouffe revolution with which he had absolutely nothing to do except that he couldn't stand idly by and see women and little children shot. Still, it was such a blessing to Kate that she had little Kate to help her bear it all. And she had enough money, too; no one seemed to know how; for Jimmy Blair was a reckless giver and a poor business ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... by a lover, and an eagerness to accept subjection to his will. Such a tendency is certainly normal. To abandon herself to her lover, to be able to rely on his physical strength and mental resourcefulness, to be swept out of herself and beyond the control of her own will, to drift idly in delicious submission to another and stronger will—this is one of the commonest aspirations in a young woman's intimate love-dreams. In our own age these aspirations most often only find their expression in such dreams. In ages when life was more nakedly ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... a few men loitered idly; here as there the proprietor stood behind his own bar. Hodges, a short, squat man with a prize-fighter's throat, chest, and shoulders and a wide, thin-lipped mouth, leaned forward in dirty shirt-sleeves, chewing at ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... Haddon Chambers, The Awakening, turned on a sudden conversion—the "awakening," in fact, referred to in the title. A professional lady-killer, a noted Don Juan, has been idly making love to a country maiden, whose heart is full of innocent idealisms. She discovers his true character, or, at any rate, his reputation, and is horror-stricken, while practically at the same moment, he "awakens" to the error of his ways, and is seized with a passion for her as ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... something more than a small bit of silk or velvet with a flower or feather attached, and the "straw braid" for making them was in great demand. Boys and girls were alike taught to braid, and the long winter evenings were not spent idly. Dr. Mason raised large crops of rye, and each child, almost as soon as he could walk, was taught to braid, and was soon able to do much by it toward clothing himself. At six years of age a dollar a week was easily earned; at eight, three dollars; and in something of that proportion up ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... fear lest praise should make us proud! We know how cheaply that is won; The idle homage of the crowd Is proof of tasks as idly done. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... center occupied one-fourth, the rest being in dense forest. The three soon had their lines in water, and they waited full of anticipation, but they waited in vain until long after night had come. Not one of the three received a bite. The lines floated idly. ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... more power. It is capable of being so trained as to approach daily nearer and nearer to perfection. The thoughts are completely under our own guidance and must never be allowed to wander idly or sinfully; they should be encouraged to dwell on subjects which elevate the mind and shield it from the petty trivialities ...
— The Jewish Manual • Judith Cohen Montefiore
... are dim with childish tears. My heart is idly stirr'd, For the same sound is in my ears, Which in ...
— Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... planting, and dressing an orchard, is not so much by farre, as the labour and feeding of your corne fields, nor for durance of time, comparable, besides the certainty of the on before the other) I see not how any labour, or cost in this kind, can be idly or wastfully bestowed, or thought too much. And what other things is a vineyard, in those countries where vines doe thriue, than a large Orchard of trees bearing fruit? Or what difference is there in ...
— A New Orchard And Garden • William Lawson
... presence in Ireland reached France; and Charles VIII., prompted by the Burgundian duchess, sent him an invitation to repair to Paris. The chance of recognition by the French king was too good to be idly cast away. He went, and was received with every possible mark of honour. Magnificent lodgings were provided for his reception; a handsome pension was settled upon him; and a strong guard was appointed to secure him against the emissaries of the English king. The French courtiers ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... nobody else concerned," said Tom, idly defacing the rocks in his neighbourhood by tearing the lichen from them. And Mrs. Marx watched him, ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... Idly I picked up the cheque-book—and absently fingered the leaves—then my eye caught a counterfoil where I had chanced to open it. It was not in Miss Sharp's handwriting, although this was the house cheque-book which Burton usually keeps, but in my own and there ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... time to speak out. But as I might, per adventure, say to another, "Thou talkest idly, my friend; the love of thy time has little commerce ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... followed by a glass of sherbet cooled with the snows of Lebanon. He presently returns with a narghileh, which we smoke by the effortless inhalation of the lungs. Thus we lie in perfect repose, soothed by the fragrant weed, and idly watching the silent Orientals, who are undressing for the bath or reposing like ourselves. Through the arched entrance, we see a picture of the bazaars: a shadowy painting of merchants seated amid their silks and spices, dotted here ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... Hiram sits, idly regarding the passers by. If you observe particularly, you will perceive that the chair in which he is sitting is of a peculiar construction. It is made so as to be wheeled from one point to ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... pleased God," wrote Bishop Jewel, "here to cast them on land: the queen of her gracious pity hath granted them harbor. Is it become so heinous a thing to show mercy?" "They are our brethren," continued their noble-minded advocate, "they live not idly. If they have houses of us, they pay rent for them. They hold not our grounds but by making due recompense. They beg not in our streets, nor crave anything at our hands, but to breathe our air, and to see our sun. They labor truly, they live sparefully. They are good examples of virtue, ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... voice 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, so different from the Farlingford ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... "Read, that you may be able to mark, learn, and inwardly digest." It is only natural that the boys and girls should read for a hundred reasons, instead of for the one reason of an older day—the pursuit of happiness in the mere reading itself. "How can you sit idly reading a book when there are so many useful things you might be doing?" was the question often put to the children of yesterday by their elders. To-day we feel that the children can hardly do anything likely to prove ...
— The American Child • Elizabeth McCracken
... I am lonely. When I do not think of what is to come, I think of what has been and is no more—my Eagle, beating with tireless wings the void, soaring toward what was ever his sun, the flaming ideal of human freedom. I cannot sit idly by and wait the great event that is his making, though he is not here to see. He devoted all the years of his manhood to it, and for it he gave his life. It is ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... country was made when we piled out from the little train standing patiently awaiting the good pleasure of our descent. That feature strikes me with ever new wonder-the accommodating way trains of the Uganda Railway have of waiting for you. One day, at a little wayside station, C. and I were idly exchanging remarks with the only white man in sight, killing time until the engine should whistle to a resumption of the journey. The guard lingered about just out of earshot. At the end of five minutes C. ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... accidental, could not, for seven years more, appear as a Volume in England;—and had at last to clip itself in pieces, and be content to struggle out, bit by bit, in some courageous Magazine that offered. Whereby now, to certain idly curious readers, and even to myself till I make study, the insignificant but at last irritating question, What its real history and chronology are, is, if not insoluble, considerably involved ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... lose, from the overgrown power of Charles, England, in 1524, abstained from action, and even began to make overtures to Francis. Wolsey repaid Charles's inactivity of the previous year by standing idly by, while the imperial forces with Bourbon's contingent invaded Provence and laid siege to Marseilles. But Francis still held command of the sea; the spirit of his people rose with the danger; Marseilles made a stubborn and successful defence; and, ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... island which was one of the lurking places of the pirates. They had reconnoitred her with their spy-glasses from the shore, and ascertained her character and force. At night a picked crew of daring fellows set off for her in a whale boat. They approached with muffled oars, as she lay rocking idly with the undulations of the sea and her sails flapping against the masts. They were close under her stern before the guard on deck was aware of their approach. The alarm was given; the pirates threw hand grenades on deck and sprang up the ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... lying idly on the table, moved to a newspaper near. He ran his finger along a column heading, his eyes ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... faint hum of early insects lulled him, and to his nostrils came the scent of new-turned earth and manure from the garden where his man was working. He grew drowsy; his dissatisfaction simmered down to a vague ache in the background of his consciousness. Idly he tore the ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... 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 this ghost do ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... to me a marvellous experience; to be here, propped up with pillows in a dimly-lighted room, the night-nurse idly dosing by the fire; the sound of the everlasting wind in my ears, howling outside and dashing the rain like hailstones against the window-panes; to be awake to all this, feverish and ill and sore, conscious of my danger too, and at the same time to be thousands ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... Gillian was idly scanning the list of marvellous little cakes furnished by the menu, and her first cognisance of the new-comer's approach was the vision of a strong, masculine hand gripping the back of the chair opposite her preparatory to pulling it out from ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... incompetent, ten years his junior, had been promoted over his head, because he was somebody's cousin and the kind of fatuous ass that only labours industriously in drawing-rooms and at functions, recuperating by slacking idly in offices and at duties—a paltry but paying game much practised by a ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... Calais. In spite of the rain and the gloomy night, a small crowd had gathered to give the general a send-off. As the ropes were cast off, a feeble cheer was raised; and before the cheer had ended, Durrance found himself beset by a strange illusion. He was leaning upon the bulwarks, idly wondering whether this was his last view of England, and with a wish that some one of his friends had come down to see him go, when it seemed to him suddenly that his wish was answered; for he caught a glimpse of a man standing beneath a gas-lamp, ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... the most part, so very stout an appetite that my bowl stood always first for the refilling, I had no desire for my food that day, but idly sat and stirred, and the burden of my thoughts wore deeply inward with the dwelling of my mind on this view and on that of it. But, on a sudden, what a turmoil, what a rising of maids, what a jumping on chairs, what a drawing up of gowns, and what a scurrying! For, out of a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 23, 1891 • Various
... weather, and fishing on the Thames is lazy fishing; for the gudgeons bite freely, and there is little labor in "landing" them. It is therefore the perfection of the dolce far-niente, giving leisure for talk, and frequent desire for refreshment. Idle time is idly spent; but the wit and fun of Mr. Hook that day might have delighted a hundred by-sitters, and it was a grief to me that I was the only listener. Hook then conceived—probably then made—the verses he afterwards gave the "New Monthly," ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... dissipation, extravagance, from getting root in the minds of his children: it is in his power to continue to make his children hearers, when he is reproving servants for idleness, or commending them for industry and care: it is in his power to keep all dissolute and idly-talking companions from his house: it is in his power to teach them, by his uniform example, justice and mercy towards the inferior animals: it is in his power to do many other things, and something in the way of book-learning too, however busy his life may be. It is completely within his power ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... work, and I have set up over it, now that it is finished, the name of 'The Road of Gratitude' (the road of loving hearts) and the names of those that built it. 'In perpetuam memoriam,' we say, and speak idly. At least so long as my own life shall be spared, it shall be here perpetuated; partly for my pleasure and in my gratitude; partly for others; to continually publish ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... But it is very hard to stand idly by and see young people make mistakes which can only bring them sorrow. I want to tell you to think very deeply before you elect to lead the life of a single woman. It is a life full of temptation to idleness and self-indulgence. ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... Jessie came in from the city one warm morning and found Sylvia sitting idly in the hall. She left her preparations all to Prue, who revelled in such things, and applied herself diligently to her lesson as if afraid she might not learn it as she should. Half way up stairs Mark turned and ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... lay, a cicada set up its shrilling quite close to us. I slipped my head from Carlotta's lap and idly parted the rank grass in search of the noisy intruder, and by good luck I found him. I beckoned Carlotta, who glided down, and there, with our heads together and holding our breath, we watched the queerest little love drama imaginable. Our cicada stood alert and spruce, waving his antenna ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... 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
... and waited, our muscles involuntarily straining, as if to help the boat along; but the sail flapped idly: we might as well have tried to sail on the waxed floor of a ballroom ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... through the wooded banks, and through the arches above which the chateau was built passed great highly colored barges, including a fleet of gondolas to remind the queen-mother of her Italian days—the ancestors perhaps of the solitary gondola which to-day floats idly by the river-bank just before the grand entrance to the chateau. From parterre and balustrade, and from the clipt yews of the ornamental garden, fairy lamps burned forth and dwindled away into dim infinity, as the long lines of soft light gradually lost themselves in the forest. It was a ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... of small freight come aboard and the last belated bill-lading clerk and ejected peddler go ashore. He noted by each mooring-post the black longshoreman waiting to cast off a hawser. He remarked each newcomer who idly joined the onlooking throng. Especially he observed each cab or carriage that hurried up to the wharf's front. He studied each of the alighting occupants as they yielded their effects to the antic, white-jacketed mulatto cabin-boys, ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... Only standing idly on one of those grassy mounds under one of those broken arches, I suddenly saw the Labour problem of London, as I could not see it in London. I do not mean that I saw which side was right, or what solution was reliable, or any partisan ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... conferring with Mr. FitzWilliam, the castellan, and passed across to his lodging on the south. A butcher hurried in, under escort of a couple of men from the gate, with a covered basket and disappeared into the kitchen entry. All these things were observed idly by the dozen guards who stood two at each of the five doors that gave upon the courtyard. Presently, too, hardly ten minutes after the guard was changed, three figures came out at the staircase foot where Sir Amyas had just gone in, and stood ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... the Mogul's six drivers were spinning like so many tops. Flat along the grimy roofs of the heaving freight-cars behind, the cloud of coal smoke from her stunted chimney fled rearward until clear of the train, then drifted idly across the rolling uplands. Ahead and to right and left, distant, snow-capped summits barred the sky-line. On either side the gray-green slopes, bare and treeless, billowed away, higher and higher toward the range, ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... up, idly, a little book that was lying on a table near, because my silly heart had begun to beat again, like Lydia Languish or any vaporish young lady in an early romance. I looked at the title and Antony looked ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... and sighed. Did she not understand my meaning now—had not my words brought back some sweet and sorrowful memory? With her hands folded idly on her lap, and her face half averted, she sat gazing at nothing. It seemed impossible that this woman, so tender and so beautiful, should never have experienced in herself or witnessed in another, the feeling I had questioned her about. But ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... to Springfield I found him gone. The place was lonely to me. I collected my note and wandered about idly; passed the Ridgeway mansion where I had met Abigail; went through the new state house. The years between seemed so brief but so full of events. I was twenty-eight, Douglas was thirty; Reverdy had ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... battle under the mulberry trees. There is one more! "Whose is this image?" It is that of David bringing the ark from Kirjath-jearim, and playing his harp and dancing before it. What a goodly array of pictures! All—all about the glories and successes of David. David paces idly through the halls, he sees the tapestries and paintings, but he regards them not, "My sin is ever before me." He sees only one picture, which is not upon the wall, which the flattering painter has omitted, his guilt ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould
... not follow her. Alone, in the kitchen he drummed idly on the window-pane, watching the first few drops of a shower that had been darkening the sky for ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... them. She left things to their own accomplishment. A child's cap, long since begun, was lying unfinished on the table. She took it up and began to sew at the window. The room was plunged in unbroken silence. Jeanne had seated herself in her usual place, but her arms hung idly beside her. ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... waiting for the Sunday supper call, were grouped around the open door of the bunk-house, gossiping idly of things purely local, when the Old Man returned from the Stock Association at Helena; beside him on the buggy seat sat a stranger. The Old Man pulled up at the bunk-house, the stranger sprang out over the wheel with the agility which bespoke youthful muscles, ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... hour? No! a thousand times no! I should leave her with her sisters in the garden here, with her cousins, the birds and butterflies, while I worked for both. Lilies must neither 'toil nor spin.' How idly I am dreaming! She is far away from this worky-day world; I shall never see her again, but in dreams, as now! Little sister! with starry eyes, and soft curls clustering around the sweet infant face; so many nights the same bright vision—with the same wreath which ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... eyes from the pan, moving her small, sun-tanned hand through the heaps of green peas, filling her palm with them and idly letting them run ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... stole fire. A very curious version of the myth occurs in an excellent book by Mrs. Langloh Parker. {196b} There was no fire when Rootoolgar, the crane, married Gooner, the kangaroo rat. Rootoolgar, idly rubbing two sticks together, discovered the art of fire-making. 'This we will keep secret,' they said, 'from all the tribes.' A fire- stick they carried about in their comebee. The tribes of the Bush discovered the secret, and the fire-stick was stolen by Reeargar, the hawk. We shall be told, ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... 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 ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... he was idly sitting on the stone wall which separated the garden from the lane, Asenath, attired in a new gown of chocolate-colored calico, with a double-handled willow work-basket on her arm, issued from the house. As she approached ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... a chilly place with no fire, and I kicked my heels there for twenty minutes. I was living by the hour now, and did not trouble to worry about this strange behaviour. There was a volume of time-tables on a shelf, and I turned the pages idly till I struck a big railway map. Then it occurred to me to find out where we were going. I had heard Stumm take my ticket for a place called Schwandorf, and after a lot of searching I found it. It was away south in Bavaria, and so far as I could make ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... believe in my vaunted power With that confident kind of bluff, But somebody tells me The Conning Tower Is nothing but awful stuff. And I take up my impotent pen that night, And idly and sadly chew it, As I try to write something merry and bright, And I know that I shall not ...
— Something Else Again • Franklin P. Adams
... very late in the afternoon, when some of us had completed a tour of the Legations, and looked at their various picquets, I finished up at the Austrian Legation and the Customs Street. Men were everywhere sitting about, idly watching the dusty and deserted streets, half hoping that something was going to happen shortly, when suddenly there was a shout and a fierce running ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... type and foretaste in what we call love. For, if it be true that perfect Good does involve some such relation, and yet that it is one unattainable under the conditions of our present life, then we must say either that such Good is unattainable—and in that case why should we idly pursue it?—or that we believe we shall attain it under some other conditions of existence. And according as we adopt one or the other position—so it seems to me—our attitude towards life will be one of ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... young man, about twenty-five years of age, of a commanding height,—six feet full, the heels of his boots not included in the reckoning,—and dressed in scrupulous keeping with the fashion of the time, might have been seen sauntering idly along one of the principal streets of Cincinnati. To the few who could claim acquaintance with him he was known as an actor, playing at the time referred to a short engagement as light comedian in a theatre ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... forward from the couch where she was lounging idly. "What is this peculiar little notion of yours about duty, Eveley?" she asked, smiling. "My poor child, all over town they are exploiting you and your silly notions. Even my dear Lem uses your disbelief in duty to excuse himself for being ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... of this and of other characteristics of the English girl, as she sat idly holding her sketch book open in her lap, a ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook
... had made good progress, and were not many hours from our destination. I found it inexpressibly pleasant to float down that bright river, as it carried me to new scenes, which love, hope, and inexperience painted in pleasing colors. My feet were sufficiently painful for me to be glad to lie idly among the piles of cabbages and while the time in day-dreams. Aged confessors might go forth sighing, "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" but to the young and buoyant, change of occupation and foreign ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning
... when she sat idly brushing out her long curls, and looking at her Pawnee face in the mirror—alas! the poor face now seemed browner and uglier than ever!—that Agatha recollected ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... visitors. A few stock quotations, such as, "cloud-capped towers," "peak of Teneriffe," &c., are very useful here. Also a large supply of breath. Lake Mahopac may be packed, of course, but any one of a romantic turn of mind, who loves to float with fair women idly upon a summer sea, (in a boat, of course,) 'mid crocuses and lilies, while the air is filled with the melodious sounds from a bass-drum and that sort of thing, and is redolent with the perfume of a thousand flowers, will find ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various
... going to?" queried Jess, idly. For a few moments more they watched the advancing throng, and then Jimsy ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... 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 be heard, but such as gently sooth, And be, ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... he continued, and truly the bits of paper flung out floated idly round the balloon. "We must get ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... and down the room as striking an example of energy and impatience as was the mother of despondency. Her comely brow was marred by an angry frown. The younger daughter stood by the long window, her forehead resting against the pane, while her fingers drummed idly on the window sill. Her gaze was fixed on the blue Bay, where rested the huge British warship "Consternation," surrounded by a section of the United States squadron seated like white swans in the water. Sails of snow glistened here and there ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... few old rags were at length rummaged out of the little receptacle of food, clothing, and dirt in the bow of the boat, and cast into the waves For a moment all flattered themselves that the experiment had been successful—the sail fluttered, swelled a little, and then flapped idly down against the mast. The party were in despair, until, after a whispered consultation together, Julian and Edwin stepped forward as messengers of mercy. In a trice they divested themselves of jacket ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... barque was now in. She was still down by the head, and listed at an awkward angle. The decks were littered with gear and stores, muddy and dirty as a city street on a day of rain. Aloft, the ill-furled tops'ls hung bunched below the yards, with lazy gaskets streaming idly in mid-air; and the yards, 'lifted' at all angles, gave a lubberly touch to our distressed appearance. The riding-light, still burning brightly on the forestay, though the sun was now above the horizon, showed that we had ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... I, that I should fashion images to rest idly on their pedestals, nay but by every trading-ship and plying boat forth from Aigina fare, sweet song of mine, and bear abroad the news, how that Lampon's son, the strong-limbed Pytheas, hath won at Nemea the pankratiast's crown, while on his cheeks ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... unfolding flower of Mormonism would have been nipped in the bud had not Joe's father and brother been engaged in digging a well upon the premises of Clark Chase in September, 1819. Joseph, Jr., stood idly by with some of the Chase children when a stone resembling a child's foot was thrown from the well. The Chase children claimed the curiosity, as it was considered, but Joe seized and retained it. Afterward, for a series of years, he claimed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... through; but she read it idly. It made no more appeal to her just then than did half a dozen of the ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... comfort, none; All the dewy tender breath Idly falls when life is done On the starless brow ...
— The Nuts of Knowledge - Lyrical Poems New and Old • George William Russell
... 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 monks themselves ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... was a woven-wire fence around the structures, and a sign that said simply: Project Eighty-Five. In the half-light from the sky, he could see a well-kept lawn, and there were a few groups of men standing about idly. Most wore white coveralls, though two were ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... Ann fidgeted idly with the doctor's cuff-links and then with a flash of her odd childish comprehension, "You love him a lot, don't you?" ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... had brought home the sheep, and having seen them safe in the fold, was sitting on the ground outside the cottage door eating his supper. One arm rested on the neck of a large dog, that was idly reposing by his side, as if tired with the toils of the day, for it was the shepherd's dog, and its duty was to guard the flocks as they were feeding in the fields, and warn his master if any danger seemed near them. At length ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... over to the lodger's bookcase. There were about a hundred volumes, only a handful of them connected with medical study. Seeing a volume of his own Munden took it down and idly turned the pages; it surprised him to discover a great many marginal notes in pencil, and an examination of these showed him that Shergold must have gone carefully through the book with an eye to the correction of its style; adjectives were deleted and inserted, ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... profusion, 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 her to raise ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... near her, but farther from the chimney-nook, are gossiping idly, but persistently, in the soft, mellifluous brogue that distinguishes ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... and a film upon it, due, I suppose, to the smoke of the wood-fire below. But the setting of this mirror and the fireplace itself were by far the most noteworthy objects in the whole room. I set myself idly to ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... go to the cemetery so he trudged back through the same slush to the street car. A fish-market doorway proved a haven during a long wait. He lounged idly against the doorway as if he were an unemployed person casting about for new fields of endeavour instead of the rushed young Midas whose office phone ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... as I was strong enough, I begged that I might be allowed to do duty on board, so that I might not pass my time idly. To this Captain Mason willingly agreed. I was separated more than I liked from Mark, but he told me that he ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... from motives of covetousness, as appears from the words of the Apostle; while the second gloss speaks of those who without effecting any useful purpose, beg their livelihood in order to live in idleness. On the other hand, he lives not idly who in any way ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... the gate. Pamela stood open-mouthed. Where were the elaborate defences and barricades of which rumour had been full the night before? The big gate swung idly on its hinges. And in front of it stood two men placidly smoking, in company with the village policeman. Not a trace of any obstruction—no hurdles, no barbed wire, only a few ends of rope ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... orders to advance. Armies travel slowly indeed. Within fifteen miles of the enemy and idly ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... She watched idly as a covered wagon accompanied by two men on horseback stopped on the vacant lot opposite the hotel which was much used as a camping-ground by freighters and campers. It was a common enough sight and she looked on indifferently while the team ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... is that the music of these masters never admits us into the presence of such feelings as either were better not felt, or at all events, not idly witnessed. There is not ever anything in the joy or grief suggested by this music, in the love of which it is an expression, which should make us feel abashed in feeling or witnessing. The whole world may watch Orpheus ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... not idly curious, my little daughter," he said at length, and very gently; "but if you knew how long your mother and I were friends, you would understand the interest I feel in you, and why I came all this way to see the little ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... interested to know how well Inga succeeded, but she returned to the palace of Ozma at the Emerald City of Oz the next day and other events made her forget the boy Prince of Pingaree for a time. However, she was one day idly looking at Ozma's Magic Picture, which shows any scene you may wish to see, when the girl thought of Inga and commanded the Magic Picture to show what the boy was doing at ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... Dead-House, by the gate, As idly sauntering, wending my way from the clangour, I curious pause—for lo! an outcast form, a poor dead prostitute brought; Her corpse they deposit unclaimed, it lies on the damp brick pavement. The divine woman, her body—I see the body—I look on it alone, That house once full of passion and ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... another year gone!" murmured the Chemist, with a gloomy sigh. "More figures in the lengthening sum of recollection that we work and work at to our torment, till Death idly jumbles all together, and rubs all out. So, Philip!" breaking off, and raising his voice as he addressed the old man, standing apart, with his glistening burden in his arms, from which the quiet Mrs. William took small branches, which she noiselessly trimmed with her ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens
... other hands will pluck apples, pears, and plums when this body of mine will have shrunk into a pinch of dust. I cannot dream with what year these hands will date their letters. A man does not plant a tree for himself, he plants it for posterity. And, sitting idly in the sunshine, I think at times of the unborn people who will, to some small extent, be indebted to me. Remember me kindly, ye future men and women! When I am dead, the juice of my apples will foam and spurt in your cider-presses, my plums ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... was in a pretty pleasure yacht idly drifting on the gulf of Mexico. Mardi Gras had taken him to New Orleans, and there he had hired the boat, and was leisurely sailing from one gulf town to another. The skipper was his only companion, but he was fore, and Allan lay under ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... moment she caught the crunch of footsteps on the stone path that led to the arbor and crouched low behind it. Two men, talking idly, entered the spot of shade and sank down on ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... Bishop Andrews, formerly standing in the centre of it. We recommend the reader to a clever paper in the Gentleman's Megazine for the present month, in which the writer proves that Our Lady's Chapel, so far from being an excrescence, as has been idly stated, "bears the same relation to the church an the head ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various
... his adventure with the hawk, the big muskrat sat in his favorite retreat under the birch roots, just below a spot where a cold spring bubbled from the sand of the stream bed. He kept under water as much as possible, only coming up to renew his supply of air. While he idly watched the placid surface above, a gaudy fly dropped lightly upon the water and lay still. As on that other day when the butterfly had met its fate, a big trout rose at once to ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... to bear up a little while, for they were in my house, and I must bid them good-night, and talk idly, so that they should not suspect the wound I had. But I must do something, or go mad; and so I went out to the garden-wall, and struck my hand upon it until the blood ran. The pain of that balanced the terrible pain within for a few moments, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... by their elders, idly playing with the silvery sand and chatting to each other, a large steamship came in view, coming from the north and heading south-west. They all stopped working and talking as they watched her steaming along, a trail of smoke blowing behind her, smudging the blue ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... reparation?—and to whom do I owe reparation? But I love; I love passionately. My love is my life. If I, without apparent motive, suggest to a young girl accustomed to luxury, to elegance, to a life fruitful of all enjoyments of art, a young girl who loves to idly listen at the opera to Rossini's music,—if to her I should propose that she deprive herself of fifteen hundred thousand francs in favor of broken-down old men, or scrofulous paupers, she would turn her back on me and laugh, or her confidential friend would tell her that ...
— The Red Inn • Honore de Balzac
... the room and the port was circulating. Mr. Scogan filled his glass, passed on the decanter, and, leaning back in his chair, looked about him for a moment in silence. The conversation rippled idly round him, but he disregarded it; he was smiling at some private joke. ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... Poe and the Albertus-Magnus were lying at hand; Pendleton ignored the dumpy, stained little Latin volume; its strong-smelling leather binding and faded text had no attractions for him. But he took up the Poe and began idly turning its leaves. ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... the case enter into your province?" inquired Nayland Smith, idly tapping out his pipe on ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... Pirene. He was afraid lest King Iobates should imagine that he had fled from the Chimaera. It pained him, too, to think how much mischief the monster was doing, while he himself, instead of fighting with it, was compelled to sit idly poring over the bright waters of Pirene, as they gushed out of the sparkling sand. And as Pegasus had come thither so seldom, in these latter days, and scarcely alighted there more than once in a lifetime, Bellerophon ...
— My First Cruise - and Other stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... it works. I was standing on the Eden rock at Antibes last month, idly watching the bathers disport themselves in the water, and a girl I knew slightly pointed at a male diver and asked me if I didn't think his legs were about the silliest-looking pair of props ever issued to human being. I replied that I did, indeed, ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... Queen Guinevere lay idly in bed dreaming beautiful dreams. The sunny morning hours were slipping away, but she was so happy in dreamland, that she did not remember that her little maid had ...
— Stories of King Arthur's Knights - Told to the Children by Mary MacGregor • Mary MacGregor
... swung back and forth with the motion of the uneven road just ahead of the horses' heads, and Landers sat watching it idly. He even caught himself counting the vibrations, as though it were a pendulum, dividing the beats into minutes. Very slow time it was; but somehow it did not surprise him. It all conformed so perfectly with the brown, quiet prairie, ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... enough to make them enjoy this relaxation and the sensation of floating so idly forward. The sky was clear and almost free of clouds, the dry air was not uncomfortably warm, and an occasional breeze that came floating apparently from the snowy peaks of the Coast Range imparted delicious coolness. On the left stretched the high hills intervening between ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... twofold consciousness that was mingled into one by that grave, untiring gaze which need not be averted,—what else could there be in their minds for the first hour? Some low, subdued, languid exclamation of love came from Stephen from time to time, as he went on rowing idly, half automatically; otherwise they spoke no word; for what could words have been but an inlet to thought? and thought did not belong to that enchanted haze in which they were enveloped,—it belonged to the past and the future that lay outside the haze. ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... in mercy forefend such ill!" she said, fervently; "I would I could have seen her once again, for she has strangely twined herself about my heart; but thou hast judged wisely, my Gilbert, her safety is too precious to be thus idly risked; and this old man, canst thou so trust him—will he guide her ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... drenched in a vast desire to be truly magnificent himself. He dreamt of magnificence and boot-brushes kept sticking out of this dream like black mud out of snow. In his reverie he looked about for Ruth Earp, but she was invisible. Then he went downstairs again, idly; gorgeously feigning that he spent six evenings a week in ascending and descending monumental staircases, appropriately clad. He was determined to be as sublime ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... study out upon the grass which May has filled with flowers—so very easy to lie there and idly talk or dream! ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... day detains many within doors all day, and evening and night become the favourite hours for walking. As we returned through Boa Vista we passed many groups enjoying like ourselves the pleasant air, and gazing idly on the reflections of the white houses and waving trees in the water; while the fire flies flitting from bush to bush, seemed like fragments of stars come down to ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... life was an argument always present to me, and which I never could answer; and so I became a Christian." In the life of this man we see the victory over sorrow. How many with means like his, when desolated by like bereavements, have lain coldly and idly gazing on the miseries of life, and weaving around themselves icy tissues of doubt and despair,—doubting the being of a God, doubting the reality of a Providence, doubting the divine love, embittered and rebellious against the power which they could not resist, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... 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 ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... current made itself felt, those watching saw one of the arms slowly loosen its grip. Another floated upward, as a strand of rope idly drifts in the current. Tom saw this, ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... are dim with childish tears, My heart is idly stirr'd, For the same sound is in my ears Which in those days I heard. Thus fares it still in our decay, And yet the wiser mind Mourns less for what age takes away ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... was the city roaring outside for John Perkins to come dance in the train of Momus. And at McCloskey's the boys were knocking the balls idly into the pockets against the hour for the nightly game. But no primrose way nor clicking cue could woo the remorseful soul of Perkins the bereft. The thing that was his, lightly held and half scorned, had been taken away from him, and he wanted it. Backward to ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... a certain set Of mortals, ever in a sweat, Who idly bustling here and there, Have never any time to spare, While upon nothing they discuss With heat, and most outrageous fuss, Plague to themselves, and to the rest A most intolerable pest. I will correct this stupid clan Of busy-bodies, if I can, By a true story; lend an ear, ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... antipathy to foreign terms, chose to represent his ideas through this false medium; by which means the very essence of his invocation was lost. The son of Zeus, to whom he appealed, was the Egyptian Cahen abovementioned; but this sacred title was idly changed to [Greek: kuna kai chena], a dog and a goose, from a similitude in sound. That he referred to the Egyptian Deity, is manifest from Plato, who acknowledges that he swore, [83][Greek: ma ton kuna ton Aiguption theon]. By which we are to understand a Cahen of Egypt. Porphyry expressly ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... doing so, he advanced towards us with a knife in his hand, and going up to Jack, he cut the thongs that bound his wrists; then he did the same to Peterkin and me! For fully five minutes we stood in speechless amazement, with our freed hands hanging idly by our sides. The first thought that rushed into my mind was that the time had come to put us to death; and although, as I have said before, we actually wished for death in the strength of our despair, now that we thought it drew ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... if it felt that there was no chance of overwhelming the little yacht now. That night, and the greater part of the following day, a dead calm prevailed, and the schooner lay among the islands with her sails flapping idly from the yards. ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... days in his lord's vineyard"; to sit or stand idly resting upon his elbows, instead of labouring in the vineyard. "A sovereign shame so elbows him."—King ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... pretty hard. For I have no orders to give you except to bid you go and steep yourself in a particular kind of life. Your first duty is to get "atmosphere", as your friend Peter used to say. Oh, I will tell you where to go and how to behave. But I can't bid you do anything, only live idly with open eyes and ears till you have got the "feel" ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... the little body by the stream. Not that he had made any search for it, to speak of; he knew pretty closely where it must be, but he had left the matter idly as it was. Then chance willed it so that he should not forget it altogether; birds began to hover above the spot, shrieking grouse and crows, and then, later on, a pair of eagles at a giddy height above. ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... little casement beside which he was standing, and received a rude shock, in spite of all his courage, when he saw a strong rope, with a noose at the end of it, dangling from a stout branch of the dule-tree on the green, while a man-at-arms stood kicking the ground idly beside it, apparently waiting till he should be called on to ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... of the lost campaigns! Not idly shed was the costly blood You poured from generous veins. For the shame of Aspromonte, And the stain of Mentana's sod, But forged the curse of kings that sprang From ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... the afternoon. She had never had such a day, and the great thing about it was that it seemed a mere beginning, just an opening up. A new day had dawned; a day which meant, not the death of the dream days, but their reincarnation into life. Those hours when she sat idly beneath blue skies, looking dreamily out upon beautiful vistas it seemed she should have been painting—how well, after all, they had done their work! Dreams which she had not understood were making themselves ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... an offering to the service of God, and Oakwood chapel was restored and endowed. The little building lies apart, sequestered in cornfields and deep woods, the quietest treasure of sudden discovery for the stranger walking idly by country lanes. ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... happy past, the Summer of 1913, I first saw him idly seated in a deck-chair on the firm sands of——, on the East Coast. A quiet detached figure amid a crowd of joyous children. Hard by a boy and girl were building a moated fortress, but, alas! the swiftly incoming tide eroded its foundations ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 8, 1916 • Various
... shewolves, neither the birds that fly through the air, nor the fish that inhabit the deep, or any living creatures upon earth desire male intercourse, but amongst them the laws of Nature remain unbroken. But you men, who boast idly of your wisdom, but are in reality worthless brutes, what strange disease provokes you to outrage one another unnaturally? What blind folly fills your minds, that you commit the two-fold error of avoiding what you should pursue, and pursuing what you should avoid? ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... following manner: the head reclines something on one side; the eyelids are more closed than usual, and the eyes roll gently with an inclination to the object; the mouth is a little opened, and the breath drawn slowly, with now and then a low sigh; the whole body is composed, and the hands fall idly to the sides. All this is accompanied with an inward sense of melting and languor. These appearances are always proportioned to the degree of beauty in the object, and of sensibility in the observer. And this gradation from the highest pitch of beauty and sensibility, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the parlors by night—all these are active sources of a passive pleasure. And to lie at length upon the tawny sand, watching, through half-closed eyes, the heaving waves, that mount against a dark blue sky wherein great silvery masses of cloud float idly on, whiter than the sunlit sails that fade and grow and fade along the horizon, while some fair damsel sits close by, reading ancient ballads of a simple metre, or older legends of love and romance—tell me, my eater of the fashionable lotos, is not this a diversion ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... sentiment that cannot be entertained by comic intelligence. What is it but an excuse to be idly minded, or personally lofty, or comfortably narrow, not perfectly humane? If we do not feign when we say that we despise Folly, we shut the brain. There is a disdainful attitude in the presence of Folly, partaking of the foolishness to Comic ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... about the place some days before, he had passed through this gate, and observing that the key stood in the lock, he had idly turned it backwards and forwards, locking and relocking the gate without an object; he had then observed that though the key worked easily, there was something wrong about the wards which prevented him from drawing it out after the lock was turned. The gate was made of iron bars, ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... Brotherly Love, Diligence." The voice of the preacher was clear and well modulated. It penetrated to the remotest corner of the church. Baldur, sitting near the pulpit, with its elaborate traceries of marble, idly wondered why the sins were, with few exceptions, words of one syllable, while those of the virtues were all longer. Perhaps because it was easier to sin than to repent! The voice of the speaker deepened as ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... let her fingers rest idly along the rim of the bowl. "When I was a girl . . ." she began. Then it was Anna's turn ...
— Autumn • Robert Nathan
... first, that he fails to see how easy-running the association or recall mechanism is. It isn't necessary to look for big, mysterious driving forces, when we know that A makes you think of B, and B of C, with the greatest ease. The dreamer isn't laboring, he is idly playing, and his images come largely by free association, with personal desires giving ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... see. Nick, idly watching, saw the native hand him something on a salver which Will took to the lamp by which he had been working. Dead silence ensued. From far away there came the haunting cry of a jackal, but near at hand there was no sound. A great ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... So I went idly on for a fortnight, in a sort of lazy lotus-land, never thinking of the future, but as happy and as much at home as if I'd lived all my life with Jack and Elsie. I hated even to think I would soon be well; for then I'd have to go and look out ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... "Woman, you threaten idly," returned Solomon Eagle. "Your ill-gotten treasure is gone—whither, you will never know. Get hence!" he added, in a terrible tone, "or I will rid ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... your movements when we three were together in the parlor. The tone of your voices, naturally sonorous, sounded harsh and discordant; you held in your hand a branch of hibiscus that you idly pulled to pieces. Edgar opened a magazine and read it upside downwards; it was quite evident that you were a restraint upon each other, and that I was a restraint upon ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... life of him, Isaac Worthington could not utter a word. He was a man, as we know, who did not talk idly, and he knew that Cynthia would not hear what he said; and arguments and denunciations lose their effect when repeated. Again, he knew that she would not believe him. Never in his life had Isaac Worthington been so ignored, so put to shame, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... came bustling in a few minutes later. He went to his desk, paying little attention to his grandson. The latter loitered idly up and down the office and hardware shop, watching Issachar wait on customers or rush shouting into the yard to attend to the wants of others there. Plainly this was ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... they felt that nothing short of irresistible grace could bear this endless repetition. The outside world was full of progress, and in every direction men advanced, while the church, anchored to a creed, idly rotted at the shore. Other denominations, imbued some little with the spirit of investigation, were springing up on every side, while the old Presbyterian ark rested on the Ararat of the past, filled with the theological ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... discovered that those ten days he had so idly passed at Burrell Court with his sister had been ten days of amazing growth in every direction to Denasia. She had wept when Roland so suddenly left her; wept at his want of faith in her, at his want of care for her, at his indifference to her weakness and poverty. But to sit still and cry ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... don't want to see," she said; and she began idly to pick up scraps of wild thyme and toss at the dog, who vainly kept on making rushes toward the slope ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... know you'd ever been in France," said Lindsay, idly picking a dandelion clock and blowing it ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... gone by. The self-same spot sought idly. There, Obstruction foiled, the adoring air Caressed a blossom woven of sky And dew, whose misty petals blue, With bliss of being thrilled athrough, Dilated like a ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... advised them quite seriously never to come alone. They had thick soup with a strange flavor, and Art talked with the waiter in Mexican dialect that made Jean glad indeed to feel Lite's elbow touching hers, and to know that although Lite's hand rested idly on his knee, it was only one second from his weapon. She had no definite suspicion of Art Osgood, but all the same she was thankful that she was not there alone with him among all these dark, sharp-eyed Mexicans with their atmosphere ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower |
