"Inattentive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... up and down the deck in his absorbed and inattentive way, dropped his blade across my shoulder and challenged me to ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... much, not without consciousness of the greatness of the sacrifice. They have not, those two little angels, forgotten, I am sure, the gift they have brought, during that rather weary music-making before the inattentive Madonna. They keep on thinking how Christ will awake to find all those precious things, and they steel their little hearts to the sacrifice. The little bird who has come (invited for like reason) and perched on the curtain bar, ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... oil cannot be considered, spark arresters are essential. The argument that they prevent draft is not worth attention. It is greatly exaggerated by engineers and firemen prejudiced against innovation or too inattentive to keep their fires up properly and consequently unnecessarily dependent on occasional forced draft. The slight disadvantage involved by the modern improved arrester is not to be compared with the importance of the ...
— Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest • Edward Tyson Allen
... she was not inattentive. The dark chancel with its flowers and incense, the rich dresses and slow movements of the priests, the excitement of the processional hymns—these things caught her and held her. Her look was fixed and eager all the time. As to the clergy, Dora spoke to Father's ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to where or why she had gone. His grief for her loss, weighed heavily upon his mind—he brooded incessantly upon it—and though his profession was that of a music master and organist, he grew so abstracted and inattentive to the claims of the few pupils he had, that they fell away from him one by one—and, after a bit, he lost his post as organist to the village church as well. This smote him deeply, for he was passionately fond of music, ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... Well-behaved Little Boy. The Attentive, Inattentive, Covetous Dilatory, Exact, Quarrelsome, and Good Little Boy. By S. Lovechild 1s. sewed,—Square size, with ...
— The World's Fair • Anonymous
... nature, and at best they occupied only two evenings a week. As many as twenty or five-and-twenty youths, however, attended them, glad of the warmth and light, though bored by the instruction. They were mischievous and inattentive; they kept close watch on the clock, and as soon as half-past nine came they were up and off helter-skelter, as if the gloomy precincts of the shop or the public-house were, after all, less irksome than ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... delivering up the King to his merciless enemies, a glorious result was expected. With this hope they entered England by way of Carlisle; and, preceded by the English forces, led by Sir Marmaduke Langdale, they marched into Lancashire full of zeal and confidence, but negligent of that discipline, and inattentive to those military expedients by which alone (considering the enemy with whom they had to contend) the least shadow of success could be acquired. In vigilance, activity, and prompt decision, Cromwell was the very prototype of that man who ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... uneasy, told her of the performance in the ship. Finding a listener neither inattentive nor without sympathy, he went further still and told of the song's effect upon him, and that the sweetness of it still abiding made his hatred of ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... weariness comes it will not be as a discouraging novelty, but as something of course, even as a fisherman accepts his wet feet, or the mosquitoes. But how this disposition to grow weary of work or to become inattentive may be literally and very completely conjured away will be more fully explained in another chapter. For this let it suffice to say that earnest forethought, and the more of it the better, bestowed on aught which we intend to undertake, ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... heard and understood all that passed, though with Indian gravity and finesse he had sat with averted face, seemingly inattentive to a discourse in which he had no direct concern. Thus appealed to, however, he answered his friend in ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... Towards freemen his life was a model of every thing just and noble: but to his slaves he was a monster. At his meals, when the dishes were not done to his liking, or when his slaves were careless or inattentive in serving, he would seize a thong and violently beat them, in presence of his guests.—When they grew old or diseased, and were no longer serviceable, however long and faithfully they might have served him, he either turned them adrift and left them to perish, or starved them to death in his own ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... other stories, in connection with other articles, to tell in the same way. In fact, so many and so long were they, that the listeners grew weary and inattentive ere the exhibition ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... 3. The inattentive, who eat whatever is put before them, and look upon their meals as a labor they have to undergo. All that will sustain them they put on the same level, and sit at the table as the ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... office of the farm, going over the books of the company with Fern Fenwick. To most women, such a task would soon prove unbearably monotonous and tiresome. However, she neither grew restless or inattentive. At all times on the alert to note each new point of interest; her questions on every subject indicated a remarkably intelligent conception of the general plan of the work. Finally, having satisfied herself that she understood the status of the farm well enough to enable her to propound ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... Mary's turn to be inattentive, for she was adding a postscript to her letter, which but for that addition she ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... societies of this city. You can scarcely imagine, my friend, how different the young gentlemen of Naples are from my former associates in the university. You would hardly suppose them of the same species. In Palermo, almost every man was cold, uncivil and inattentive; and seemed to have no other purpose in view than his own pleasure and accommodation. At Naples they are all good nature and friendship. Your wishes, before you have time to express them, are forestalled by the politeness of your companions, and each seems to prefer ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... veil had fallen from his eyes. He saw the difference between the desire of admiration, and a simple love of truth and honor, too plainly, to cause him to hesitate a moment longer in his choice between two so opposite in their characters. And yet, to the eye of an inattentive observer nothing occurred during the progress of Mrs. Walshingham's party more than ordinarily takes place on such occasions. All seemed pleased and happy, and Melvina the happiest of the whole. ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... mind from the dawn of manhood to its decline, and considers what he pursued or dreaded, slighted or esteemed, at different periods of his age, will have no reason to imagine such changes of sentiment peculiar to any station or character. Every man, however careless and inattentive, has conviction forced upon him; the lectures of time obtrude themselves upon the most unwilling or dissipated auditor; and, by comparing our past with our present thoughts, we perceive that we have changed our minds, though perhaps we cannot discover ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... believe that even on this occasion, in spite of the strictness of his commands, they were amusing themselves after their usual fashion, and, becoming more and more careless and inattentive to their duty, had allowed Prince Ember to go ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield
... violence. He entreated for spiritual guidance with nothing less than importunity. It might be said that he stormed the citadels of God's grace, refusing to be baffled, urging his intercessions without mercy upon a Deity who sometimes struck me as inattentive to his prayers or wearied by them. My Father's acts of supplication, as I used to witness them at night, when I was supposed to be asleep, were accompanied by stretchings out of the hands, by crackings of the joints of the fingers, by ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... formation of a friendship with her, she could lead him away from Daisy. And now, for the first time, she saw how futile such a hope had been. He could, in the pleasure of this new friendship, be somewhat markedly inattentive to Daisy for a day or two, but it could not permanently detach him. She must seem to offer something ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... "an equal attention to private and to public affairs; and in men who have turned to separate professions, a competent knowledge of what relates to the community; for we alone consider those who are inattentive to the state, as perfectly insignificant." This encomium on the Athenians was probably offered under an apprehension, that the contrary was likely to be charged by their enemies, or might soon take place. It happened, accordingly, that the business of state, as well as ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... Parliament, Mayors of cities, and men eminent in the different professions and literary pursuits. Complaints of inattention were made against some of its members, and at the election for officers after the expiration of the first year, others were substituted for the inattentive and inefficient. The change for the most part was made by unanimous consent; but when a ballot was called for, other names were substituted for those on the house list, recommended by the former committee, and the contest resulted in the rejection of Richard Barrett and one or two others. ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... of my study, and the social sphere that in which I principally moved; but I was not inattentive to inanimate nature, nor unmindful of the past. If the scope of virtue were to maintain the body in health, and to furnish its highest enjoyments to every sense, to increase the number, and accuracy, and order of our intellectual stores, no virtue was ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... Samson Agonistes, and all had reference to his blindness, his captivity, and his affliction. He would beat time with his music-roll as they sang the anthem in the Chapel Royal. If the page below was talkative or inattentive, down would come the music-roll on young scapegrace's powdered head. The theatre was always his delight. His bishops and clergy used to attend it, thinking it no shame to appear where that good man was seen. He is said not to have cared for Shakespeare or tragedy much; farces ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... along the bank. I called aloud, I shouted and hailed each passing craft—of which there were only two—but their crews must have been very inattentive to the woes of landsmen, or else they did not hear me, for they paid no attention to ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... that which each most prized. Whether the conversation turned upon government or science, the dry figures of finance, or the more genial topic of diplomatic intrigue, Mr. Gallatin was its easy master, and his words never fell on inattentive ears. ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... this morning," she observed finally, looking across at him with a critically questioning smile. "A certain amount of non-responsiveness to my advances I can put up with—from a brother—but this morning you are positively inattentive. Tell me your troubles at once. Has Harris been bothering you, or did you lose a lot of ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... she paid no heed to what he was saying: only fragments of sentences, sonorous quotations, allusions to illustrious men, including the obligatory tribute to Honorius Hatchard, drifted past her inattentive ears. She was trying to discover Harney among the notable people in the front row; but he was nowhere near Miss Hatchard, who, crowned by a pearl-grey hat that matched her gloves, sat just below the desk, supported by Mrs. Miles and an important-looking unknown ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... woman from a certain Western State seeing God's great, happy, inattentive world for the first time, and rather distressed that it was not like hers. She had always understood that the English were brutal to their wives—the papers of her State said so. (If you only knew the papers of her State I) But she had not noticed ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... a satisfactory account of all the little household at Abel Cottage. Mr Brass, who seemed remarkably inattentive and impatient, mounted on his stool, and beckoning him to come nearer, took him ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... was at least one man of the congregation who was neither drowsy nor inattentive. Repeatedly my eyes left the page off which I was reading and glanced towards him. Not once did I find his eyes turned ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... from this, each used every exertion in his power to prevent it, not only by his voice, but with his hands. One menaced the law—the other threatened Maso with condign punishment for his interference with a patron's rights and duties; but their remonstrances were uttered to inattentive ears. Maso knew himself to be irresponsible by situation, for it was not an easy matter to bring him within the grasp of the authorities; and as for the others, most of them were far too insignificant to feel much apprehension for a reparation that would be most likely, if it fell at all, ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... optimism which has too many votaries in our time. He would not have men told that they are miserable earth-gnomes, the slaves of a black destiny, but he still placed them a good deal lower than the angels. For instance: 'We are too inattentive or too much occupied with ourselves, to get to the bottom of one another's characters; whoever has watched masks at a ball dancing together in a friendly manner, and joining hands without knowing who the others are, and then parting the ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 2 of 3) - Essay 1: Vauvenargues • John Morley
... is less than natural, though it is erroneously supposed to be greater; and the mind is busied in exciting a train of ideas inattentive to external objects; when this train of ideas is dissevered by any unexpected stimulus, surprise is excited; as explained in Sect. XVII. 3. 7. and XVIII. 17. then as the sensibility in these cases is greater, fear becomes superadded to the surprise; and convulsions in consequence ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... are more crabbed, or I am more dull and inattentive, for I cannot fix my Minde on my Book, and am secretlie wearie, Robin wearies too. But I will not give up as yet; the more soe as in this quiete Studdy I am out of Sighte and Hearinge of sundrie young Officers Dick is continuallie bringing over from Oxford, who spend manie Hours with ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... is in. The common toast among the low Irish is, the feast of the passover. Some allusion to Bonaparte, in a play lately acted at Dublin, produced thunders of applause from the pit and the galleries; and a politician should not be inattentive to the public feelings expressed in theatres. Mr. Perceval thinks he has disarmed the Irish: he has no more disarmed the Irish than he has resigned a shilling of his own public emoluments. An Irish peasant fills the barrel of his gun full of tow dipped in oil, butters up the ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... unknown people; they did not wholly believe in the disinterested motives of the strangers; and they allowed Lafayette and his French officers to trail from office to office, presenting their credentials to inattentive ears. ...
— Lafayette • Martha Foote Crow
... other hand, was of clay so different that he could hardly be considered to be made of clay at all. He was lame and short and meagre, with strings of peaceful beads and Papuan aprons in his hall instead of wild tiger-skins, and had a jerky, inattentive manner and a high pitched voice. Yet to Miss Mapp's mind there was something behind his unimpressiveness that had a mysterious quality—all the more so, because nothing of it appeared on the surface. Nobody could call Major Flint, with his ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... what Harry is like especially; he was a great favourite of mine when a boy. He has now become a fine gallant officer. I wish I could let him know how much I should like to see him; for although Sir Ralph and Lady Castleton have been so inattentive, we should not, therefore, feel the less regard for their son, and I am sure he would not hesitate to come, if he remembered that ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... said Mr. Gracelius, who had not been inattentive to the conversation, while he was enjoying an excellent cup of coffee. "The Scriptures do most certainly sanction ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... inattentive and careless at school, he was doubly troublesome at home, and for the next few days his mother's fears were realised. The excitement of all that had taken place seemed to have quite turned his head for the time. He jumped on Kate Brown's back—the hired girl—when she was carrying ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre
... have wrested my rights from the grasp of the jealous gods. On earth I was the Poetess of Reform, and sang to inattentive ears. Now for an ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce
... to begin at the beginning, we are already begun to be penny-wise and pound-foolish with our children when we are so particular with them about their saying their little prayers night and morning, while all the time we are so inattentive and so indolent to explain to them how they are to pray, what they are to pray for, and how they are to wait and how long they are to wait for the things they pray for. Then, again, we are penny-wise and pound-foolish with ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... few half-confidences of her own. In her turn, therefore, she confided to Fraulein Schult—moved much as Midas had been, when for his own relief he whispered to the reeds—that if she were sometimes idle, inattentive, "away off in the moon," as her instructors told her by way of reproach, it was caused by one ever-present idea, which, ever since she had been able to think or feel, had taken possession of her inmost being—the ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... the barrier of the Pyrenees; a separation and an opposition in great things, and an antipathy in small. Ignorant then must he be of history and of the reports of travellers and residents in the two countries, or strangely inattentive to the constitution of human nature, who (this being true) can admit the belief that the Spaniards, numerous and powerful as they are, will live under Frenchmen as their lords and masters. Let there be added ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... often has its origin in a home situation. In these days of apartment dwelling and the crowding together of many families, a child must be very inattentive indeed not to have gathered through conversation and observation much firsthand knowledge of the adult sexual relationship. Children should, of course, be aware of the love of their fathers and mothers for each other as well as for themselves, but love-making in its final forms is baffling ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... conscious that in the beginning of the differences between Gray and me, the fault was mine. I was young, too fond of my own diversions; nay, I do not doubt, too much intoxicated by indulgence, vanity, and the insolence of my situation, as a prime minister's Son, not to have been inattentive to the feelings of one, I blush to say, that I knew was obliged to me; of one, whom presumption and folly made me deem not very superior in parts, though I have since felt my infinite inferiority to him. I treated him insolently. He loved me, and I did not think he did. I reproached ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... Chicago—and such prices! Here, there is simply no musical feeling!" She glanced again at Sylvia, who was now answering her questions, fluttered with pleasure at having the beautiful lady speak to her. The beautiful lady had but an inattentive ear for Sylvia's statement that, yes, lately Father had begun to give her lessons on the piano. With the smoothly working imagination coming from a lifetime of devotion to the subject, Mrs. Hubert was stripping off Sylvia's trite little blue coat and uninteresting dark hat, and was arraying ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... ten minutes ago, Beverly. If you were so inattentive as to miss what I said that is your misfortune," was the austere retort. Nevertheless, the ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... topics" to a man's own hobby. It is like turning from the landscape in the parlor to the ploughed field outdoors. It is a return to the three dimensional world, after a sojourn in the painter's portrayal of his own emotional response to his own inattentive memory of what he imagines he ought to ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... of civilization, as it is carried forward for ever on the movement continually accelerated of England and France, were it less stealthy and inaudible than it is, would fix, in every stage, the attention of the inattentive and the anxieties of the careless. Like the fabulous music of the spheres, once allowed to break sonorously upon the human ear, it would render us deaf to all other sounds. Heard or not heard, however, marked or not marked, the rate of our advance ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... once more take a broad view of civilization," said the man of learning who, for the benefit of the inattentive sculptor, had opened a discussion on primitive society and autochthonous races. "The vigor of a nation in its origin was in a way physical, unitary, and crude; then as aggregations increased, government advanced by a decomposition of the primitive ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... the core of the extraordinary experience was simply that John Pellerin, twenty-five years earlier, had voluntarily disappeared, causing the rumour of his death to be reported to an inattentive world; and that now he had come back to see what that ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... resembled Olive as a girl. It was probable, then, that Olive would look like her mother when in turn she was middle-aged. Mrs. Clifford, unseasonably huddled in her perpetual shawl, more than ever suggested a haggard marble in somberly rich clothes. Aunt Caroline sat with complacent hands and loud inattentive speech. Taou ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... brother officer touched his arm, and, disregarding his gesture of impatience, drew him aside. The intervener seemed to be reminding him of something; and the Colonel, not inattentive, and indeed suspicious, caught the name "Asgill" twice repeated. But Payton was too angry to care for minor consequences, or to regard anything but how he might most quickly escape from the scene of defeat and the eyes of those ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... in the art of navigation, the steersman was not inattentive to his duty. Previously to his taking the rudder, he had been admonished about the importance of keeping the craft in the channel of the stream, and to this had he been giving ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... richer by 4L.. 16s. 6d. than when he went out, and finds that a wealthy customer, having called three times in his absence to give him a particular order, had just left the shop in a rage, swearing he would no longer encourage so inattentive ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... only the most inattentive of historical students who can afford to ignore this. No modern aesthetician from the Rhine to the Spree affects to dispute the succession of Teutonic thought, in its various forms of passion, from ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... delightfully blind and unsuspicious. He lay down on the grass and let the General swarm all over him; he made jokes with Esther; he told several stories of his young days, and never even seemed to remark that his audience seemed inattentive and constrained. ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... of her world; nor did she suffer any of those gross rebuffs which sometimes produce a wholesome reaction of contempt in their victim. Society did not turn away from her, it simply drifted by, preoccupied and inattentive, letting her feel, to the full measure of her humbled pride, how completely she had been the creature of ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... the restless and unhappy girl's mind she only played with her food, became distrait and inattentive, and had to be spoken to once or twice by Mrs. Clavering in order to recall ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... thus inattentive, she began to speak with him, and in spite of his indifference, Sir Ulric could but confess that her voice was passing sweet, and her words full of wit and sense. In a long discourse she painted to him the advantage of having a bride who from very gratitude would always be most ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... quiver. But this girl was a girl of decision. There was some nautical implement resting in a rack convenient to her hand. It was long, solid, and constructed of one of the harder forms of wood. Deftly extracting this from its place, she smote her inattentive parent on the only visible portion of him. He turned sharply, exhibiting ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... on quitting the town, and leaving to the left the main road which led to it, struck into the fields, the strange and solemn beauty of the landscape, lighted up, by numberless lamps, to the verge of the horizon, fascinated my eyes, and rendered me for some time an inattentive listener to the talk of ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... of their own to make her happy. Julia brought lots of sunshine into their home, and everything went all right and they took a great deal of comfort with her till she got to be about fourteen and then she seemed to become stubborn, grew inattentive to her studies, seemed to care less for her girl companions, but was always with the boys. All she appeared to care for was to be in their company. She took less interest in things in the house, did not care about helping her mother, and would ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... to appear as inattentive as themselves; but I was very much provoked at being thus prevented enjoying the only pleasure, which, in such a ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... glad when the conch-shell sounded to call the negroes to their daily labour, that he might relieve the sensations of his soul by bodily exertion, He performed his task in silence; and an inattentive observer might have ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... iron-gray hair, gray eyes, gold-framed glasses, and a small, circular baldness at the crown of his head. His name was Peter. He had had five children at irregular intervals, of whom Ann Veronica was the youngest, so that as a parent he came to her perhaps a little practised and jaded and inattentive; and he called her his "little Vee," and patted her unexpectedly and disconcertingly, and treated her promiscuously as of any age between eleven and eight-and-twenty. The City worried him a good deal, and what energy he had left over he ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... considerably later; he wrote a Roman cursive which might belong to the end of the 1st century A.D., or to the early part of the 2nd. The correctors seem to be generally trustworthy; though, like the scribe, they were inattentive to metre, passing over many metrical faults which could easily have been removed. They appear to have compared their MS. with another, or others; but they sometimes made a bad use of such aid, intruding a false reading where their text had the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... the young Queen and the Infanta in good humour, encouraging the Princesses in many little indulgences suitable to their age and sex, especially in the article of dress, in which their royal mother was more than inattentive. This line of conduct, coupled with the expected arrival of the Infant, Don Francisco de Paula and his family, who are to be received with every mark of respect, indicates that the present rulers of Spain, aware of their critical situation, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 2, 1841 • Various
... more eloquent than words. Her eyes fell. Mrs. Courtney's words of sympathy passed unheard; her bitter excoriation of the Teutons and Turks was but dimly registered on the inattentive mind of the victim of their ruthless greed; not until she expressed the hope that Miss Cameron would condescend to accept the hospitality of her home until plans for the future were definitely fixed was there a sign that the object of her concern had ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... however, he was not an inattentive observer of public affairs, and seems to have contemplated the design of drawing up an account of that memorable struggle of parties of which he had been a witness, and especially of the transactions in which he had been directly and personally concerned. That ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... after marriage that she was during the days of your courtship, and a good deal better. Why so forgetful of all the sacred vows and solemn pledges which you plighted then? Why so constant then and so inconstant now? Why so affable and faithful and loving and attentive then, and why so inattentive and bitter and sullen and neglectful now? Why such a profuseness then in your courtesies and smiles and flowers and gifts and kisses, and why such a lack of them now? Is it because of wrinkles? Is it because of her faded beauty? She has lost it in your service. She ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... "Bultitude was a little inattentive and, I may say, wanting in respect, Dr. Grimstone," he said, putting it as mildly as he could with any accuracy; "so I ventured to place him there as ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... with painful trepidation, the answer and requirements of Monsieur de Nucingen to the inattentive ears of du Tillet, who was looking for the bellows and scolding his valet for the clumsy manner in which ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... important questions discussed and decided. Cecil took part, endeavoring in a quiet way to set before the chiefs a higher ideal of justice and mercy than their own. He was heard with grave attention, and saw that more than one chief seemed impressed by his words. Only Snoqualmie was sullen and inattentive, and Mishlah the Cougar ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... it was very rude of me to be so inattentive to you," added Mr. Brown, bending his dark eyes upon her ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... myself, when she was silent. This gave me an opportunity of mentioning many things that had happened in Paris during my long ten years' uninterrupted residence, which were evidently very interesting to her. Had she become grave, or inattentive, I should have drawn back ; but, on the contrary, she grew more and more veille, and her countenance was lighted up with ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... explanation. The results of the analysis are undoubtedly, in the main, just; but we can only account for Brewster's pronouncing the Essay a thorough and satisfactory explanation, by supposing him to have bestowed upon it a very cursory and inattentive perusal. In the compendium of the Essay, made use of in the Letters on Natural Magic, it is quite impossible to arrive at any distinct conclusion in regard to the adequacy or inadequacy of the analysis, on account of the gross misarrangement and deficiency of the letters of reference employed. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... splendour. She moved shyly towards Mrs. Yaverland, who had gone to the window and was looking down in the night, and said shyly, "This is a very fine room," but, she knew, too softly to reach such markedly inattentive ears. She stood there awkwardly, feeling herself suspended till this woman should take notice of her. If her mother had been with her they would have had a room with two beds, and would have talked before they went to sleep of ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... my feet, for my feebleness was gone, and hasted to the closet. A lancet and other small instruments were preserved in a case which I had deposited here. Inattentive as I was to foreign considerations, my ears were still open to any sound of mysterious import that should occur. I thought I heard a step in the entry. My purpose was suspended, and I cast an eager glance at my chamber door, which was open. No one appeared, unless ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... sun set, Moussa Isa earned a sharp rebuke for inattentive slacking, as he stood sighing his soul to where it sank in the West over Aden and Somaliland.... Wait till his chance of escape arrived; he would journey straight for the sunset, day after day, until he reached a sea-shore. There he would steal a canoe ...
— 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
... not her own—ou zetei ta heautes—that is, she is not selfish. Charity neglects not altogether her own concerns, or her own interests, but does not attend to them exclusively; does not so attend to them, as to be unmindful of, or inattentive to, the interests and welfare ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens
... been for some little time past trying his best to compound a species of fiery and potential Squaw's Mixture for Mat. He had begun the attempt some minutes before Madonna left the studio; having found it useless to offer any explanations to his inattentive guest of the meaning of the girl's signs and gestures with the slate and tobacco-pouch. He had persevered in his hospitable endeavor all through the whispered dialogue which had just passed between Zack and himself; and he had now filled the glass ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... particular virtues and vices. The works of the flesh and the fruits of the Spirit must be distinctly pointed out. To preach against sin in general without descending to particulars may lead many to complain of the evil of their hearts, while at the same time they are awfully inattentive to the evil of their conduct.' Take Evangelist's noble counsels at the gate of Vanity Fair, and then take John Bunyan's masterly description of the Fair itself, with all that is bought and sold in it, and you will have a lesson ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... which some of the men near them made jokes to magnificently dressed women with diamond earrings struck them dumb with admiration. Yet, later on, they too were fated to join in the dance, when the stars affected to sleep on the clouds and the moon lay wearily inattentive to the pilgrims of the night, like an invalid in a blue boudoir. On the thick carpet by the wall attendants stood loaded with programmes. One of them, very trim and respectable, in a white cap, was ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... had come he was still perplexed and inattentive. Miss Ivors promptly took his hand in a warm grasp and said ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... intervals of their protracted vigil, they had not been inattentive to the objects immediately around them: and the carcass of the whale had come in for a share of their consideration. A consultation had been held upon it, which had resulted in a determination not to leave ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... thoughts as, standing on the verandah of his new but already decaying house—that last failure of his life—he looked on the broad river. There was no tinge of gold on it this evening, for it had been swollen by the rains, and rolled an angry and muddy flood under his inattentive eyes, carrying small drift-wood and big dead logs, and whole uprooted trees with branches and foliage, amongst which the water swirled and ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... of Conjuring," writes as follows: "By awakening interest in some unimportant detail, the conjurer concentrates that attention on some false point, or negatively, diverts it from the main object, and we all know the senses of an inattentive person are pretty dull. . . . When causing the disappearance of some object, the conjurer counts one, two, three; the object must really disappear before three, not at three, because, the attention of the public being diverted to three, they do not notice what happens at one and two. . . . ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... manned; and Lieutenant Cook and his friends, having Tupia of their party, set out from the Endeavour. They intended to land where they had seen some Indians, and began to hope, that as these Indians had paid no regard to the ship when she came into the bay, they would be as inattentive to the advances of the English towards the shore. In this, however, the gentlemen were disappointed: for as soon as they approached the rocks, two of the men came down upon them to dispute their ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... and began to work, looked after herself in a natural way, spoke freely, was entirely oriented and her mood generally presented nothing striking. But her mental attitude was still peculiar when she was questioned. She seemed somewhat inattentive, sulky, sneering. Thus, when asked why she was here, she said, "You will have to ask those ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... interest in an exercise, which brings no personal and individual responsibility upon them. To prevent this the teacher should exercise double vigilance, at such a time. He should often address questions to individuals alone, especially to those most likely to be inattentive and careless, and guard against the ingress of every abuse, which ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... listened; all my troubles seemed to take to themselves wings, and life to put on an altogether different aspect from any it had ever worn to me before. I saw clearly that I had not been so good a girl in many ways as I might have been. I would try my best not to be so inattentive at church in future, and I would never, no, not even on the coldest night in winter, neglect to say my ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... whom he saw inconsiderately demanding the signal to be given for instant battle, and likely by their rash movements to be inattentive to orders, he said, "I entreat you not to be too eager in your pursuit of the flying enemy, so as to risk losing the glory of the victory which awaits us, and also never to retreat, except under ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... book to a side-table, and Charlotte and I resumed our talk until the candles came, and close behind them uncle Joe. I fear I must have seemed a very inattentive lover during that brief interval, for I could not concentrate my thoughts upon the subject of our discourse. My mind would wander to the strange discovery that I had just made, and I could not refrain from asking myself whether by ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... by crossing the river it was within a pleasant walk, and we made frequent excursions to an excavated mountain in its vicinity. Marre is fortified, large, and populous; the governor resided at Poona, inattentive to the misery of the people, whom his duan, or deputy, oppressed in a cruel manner; indeed the system of the Mahratta government is so uniformly oppressive that it appears extraordinary to hear of a mild and equitable administration; ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... nervous, she could not settle to her work. She was more distrait and inattentive even than usual. The younger girls, who delighted in her, and quite prided themselves on having her in their class, nudged her ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... with red hair streaming over her "hills of snow," was not, however, inattentive to the wants of her mistress. "Who knows," said she to a man who sat by the hearth, drinking tea out of a blue mug, and toasting with great care two or three huge rounds of bread for his own private and especial nutriment,—"who knows," said she, "what we may come to ourselves?" And, ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... paint applied, Th' unseemly work of cruel Time to hide; Here we may rightly such neglect upbraid, Paint on such faces is by prudence laid. Large the domain, but all within combine To correspond with the dishonoured sign; And all around dilapidates; you call - But none replies—they're inattentive all: At length a ruin'd stable holds your steed, While you through large and dirty rooms proceed, Spacious and cold; a proof they once had been In honour,—now magnificently mean; Till in some small half-furnish'd room you rest, Whose dying fire denotes ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... absorbed—in new directions. It is common for change to produce like results elsewhere, as well as in school life, especially during the early years of womanhood. Again, those thus affected are quite as likely to be the dull or inattentive ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... every pet name that could move the wrath of the gods. The city below them was locked up in its own torments. Sulphur fires blazed in the streets; the conches in the Hindu temples screamed and bellowed, for the gods were inattentive in those days. There was a service in the great Mahomedan shrine, and the call to prayer from the minarets was almost unceasing. They heard the wailing in the houses of the dead, and once the shriek of a mother who had lost a child and was calling for its return. In the gray dawn they saw the ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... has only been inattentive,' said Jane firmly, knowing that she ought to go, and yet feeling constrained to wait long enough to ask what was the state of the poor mother, and if her daughter ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not inattentive to the situation. They wasted no time in appointing committees to investigate the cause of the difficulty, for it was as clear to them as the noonday sun, as clear as the occasion of our "decadence" should have been to the House of Representatives that appointed Mr. Lynch—as ...
— Free Ships: The Restoration of the American Carrying Trade • John Codman
... from the narrow way of life. For here we are likely to be deceived from the very circumstance that our employments are religious; and our end, as being a right one, will engross us, and continually tempt us to be inattentive to the means, and to the spirit in which we pursue it. Our Lord alludes to the danger of multiplied occupations in the Parable of the Sower: "He that received seed among thorns, is he that heareth the word, and the cares of this ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... judgment in men, he will be a cold, civil, inattentive husband; a tasteless, insipid, silent companion; a tranquil, frozen, unimpassion'd lover; his insensibility will secure her from rivals, his vanity will give her all the drapery of happiness; her friends will congratulate her choice; she will ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... ran after me with a shout of "Stop!" I was conveniently deaf to him—reached the first floor landing—and arrived at a door which shut off the whole staircase higher up; an iron door, as solid as if it belonged to a banker's strong-room, and guarded millions of money. I returned to the hall, inattentive to the servant's not over-civil remonstrances, and, saying that I would wait till I saw the doctor again, ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... speedwell has assuredly the higher claim to be given and accepted as a token of pure and faithful love, and to be trusted as a sweet sign that the innocence of affection is indeed more frequent, and the appointed destiny of its faith more fortunate, than our inattentive hearts have hitherto discerned. ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... notes for the 'Hints'! You mistake me much by thinking me inattentive to this publication. If I had a friend willing and able to correct the press, it should be out with my good will immediately. Pray attend to annexing additional notes in their proper places, and let them ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... Through the mysterious psychological influence which one audience has on another, his reception was even more frigid than before. Elodie made her entrance. The house grew restless, inattentive, Andrew flogged his soul until he seemed to sweat his heart's blood. Here and there loud talking and hoarse laughter rose above the buzz and rustle of an unappreciative audience. Elodie's breast heaved ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... the business of the day. I found my pupils very backward, indeed; but Tom, though averse to every species of mental exertion, was not without abilities. Mary Ann could scarcely read a word, and was so careless and inattentive that I could hardly get on with her at all. However, by dint of great labour and patience, I managed to get something done in the course of the morning, and then accompanied my young charge out into the garden and adjacent grounds, for a little recreation ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... absurdly wrong answer is given you, you know how to single out from the hank the golden thread of Truth, and to display it before the eyes of men and Angels. And let me tell you, by way of ending the subject, we should hear less about dull sermons, and inattentive congregations, and badly filled churches,—as well as about the astounding ignorance of many among the upper classes, in Divine things,—if our younger Clergy knew the Bible a great deal better than they do.—Aye, and we should ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... dialogue or not, it is difficult to say. She seemed passive and inattentive, and walked on with an abstracted and mechanical motion. Her brother and lover could only get near her occasionally, having found it necessary to watch her mother and sister also. They could perceive, however, not only that the crowd which followed Mogue appeared to be a good deal in his ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... mean that every one of us has sinned?" The boy hesitated—but upon a repetition of the question, the lad replied, "Every one except your Lordship, and the company sitting on the front form." The same Bishop, at one of his Confirmations, saw a school girl inclined to be inattentive and troublesome; he therefore held up his finger as a warning. These children, being accustomed to signs from their teachers, of which they were expected to declare the meaning, did not suppose that the elevation ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... had never denied anything in her life, except the biblical sanction for the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, shook her head gently and began to talk in the inattentive and anxious manner she had acquired at scantily furnished tables. Ever since the war, with the exception of the Reconstruction period, when she had lived practically on charity, she had managed to exist with serenity, and numerous ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... partly or wholly realized, but still in a latent state and perceived before the knowledge of them reaches us through the normal channels of the mind or brain? Does our ever-watchful instinct of self-preservation notice causes or traces which escape our ever-inattentive and slumbering reason? Are we to believe in a sort of autosuggestion that induces us to realize things which we have been foretold or of which we have had presentiments? This is not the place to examine so complex a problem, which brings us into contact with all the mysteries of subconsciousness ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... or one's immediate personal interests, against discussing religion and politics and any such keenly felt matter. No doubt it is necessary at times to protect oneself against clumsy and stupid familiarities, against noisy and inattentive egotists, against intriguers and liars, but only in the last resort do such breaches of patience seem justifiable to me; for the most part our traditions of speech and intercourse altogether overdo separations, the preservation of distances ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... reference to the three intersecting ways which fixed the site of the house. At this the Dean called for his breakfast, but the landlady, being engaged with accommodating her more constant customers, some wagoners, and staying to settle an altercation which unexpectedly arose, keeping him waiting, and inattentive to his repeated exclamations, he took from his pocket a diamond, and wrote on every pane of glass in her ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... words of Heraka, who was higher in rank than he, and he pursed his lips thoughtfully, trying to decide what he would do. Then he heard a woof and a snort, and a sudden lurch of a heavy body. He sprang to his feet in alarm. While he was thinking and inattentive, Rota (the grizzly bear), not yet gone into his winter sleep, vast ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... Neefit's shop during the hour of Mr. Neefit's absence, and ordered,—three pair of breeches. Herr "Bawwah," the cutter, who never left his board during the day for more than five minutes at a time, remained, as was his custom, mute and apparently inattentive; but the foreman came down from his perch and took the order. Mr. Neefit was out, unfortunately;—in the City. Ralph Newton remarked that his measure was not in the least altered, gave his ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... negroes must be made to obey, and to work, which may be done by an overseer who attends regularly to his business, with very little whipping; for much whipping indicates a bad tempered or an inattentive manager. He must never, on any occasion, unless in self-defense, kick a negro, or strike him with his fist, or butt end of his whip. No unusual punishment must be resorted to without the employer's consent. He is not expected ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... prodigious fund of knowledge, which he is not at all reserved in communicating; but in a manner so obstinate, ungenteel, and boorish, as renders it disagreeable and dissatisfactory. In short it is impossible for words to describe him. He seems often inattentive to what passes in company, and then looks like a person possessed by some superior spirit. I have been reflecting on him ever since I saw him. He is a man of most universal and surprising genius, but in himself particular beyond expression.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... little inclined for sleep as the most timorous soul on board. Selecting an American novel from the ship's library, he repaired to the smoking room, where, established in a corner apart, he became an involuntary and, at first, a largely inattentive, eavesdropper upon an animated debate involving some eight or ten gentlemen at a table in the middle of the saloon—its subject, the ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... said. "Miss Root told me only a half hour ago that Miss Ashe was very indifferent in her mathematics—absolutely inattentive." ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... of poetry was easy pastime to him, but he was dull or inattentive when the schoolmaster gave him some elementary lessons in mechanics. He wrote beautifully, but was no prodigy in arithmetic. He drew trees, windmills, and pigs on the desks, and admirable portraits of the schoolmaster, Rufus, and other local worthies, ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... you, Madam, be so inattentive in reading the last chapter? I told you in it, That my mother was not a papist.—Papist! You told me no such thing, Sir.—Madam, I beg leave to repeat it over again, that I told you as plain, at least, as ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... the daily lesson. But what a lesson! At first the scholars wondered what had become of their teacher's wonted severity; they soon perceived that this remarkable forbearance was not due to any merit on their part, but to complete heedlessness on his. Wonder of wonders! Mr. Plateas was inattentive! Emboldened by this discovery, they took malicious delight in heaping blunder upon blunder, and played dire havoc with that sixth book of the "Iliad," never sparing etymology, syntax, nor prosody. The good man sat through it all undisturbed until the regular closing hour had struck. His ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various
... it. And in doing this, never work after you are tired, nor to "get the thing done," for if it is badly done, it will be of no use to you. The true zeal and patience of a quarter of an hour are better than the sulky and inattentive labour of a whole day. If you have not made the touches right at the first going over with the pen, retouch them delicately, with little ink in your pen, thickening or reinforcing them as they need: you cannot ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... Heart if I was dead.—now as we seem to differ in our Ideas of Expense I have resolved she shall be her own Mistress in that Respect for the future—and if I were to die—she shall find that I have not been inattentive to her Interests while living—Here my Friend are the Draughts of two Deeds which I wish to have your opinion on— by one she will enjoy eight hundred a year independent while I live— and by the other the bulk of my Fortune ...
— The School For Scandal • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... early morning, the very early morning, is the time for this work—say, roughly, between the hours of four and six, when the soldier Chinaman beyond our lines is yawningly arousing himself from his slumbers and squats blinking and inattentive before his morning tea. Then if you are a natural hunter, are inclined to risk a good deal, and something of a quick shot, you may have splendid chances which teach you more than you could ever learn by months in front of targets. Baron von R——, the cynical ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... the remark merely to be polite and was turning away. As Susan's reply penetrated to her inattentive mind she looked sharply at her, eyes opening wonderingly. "Did you get lost? Are you a stranger in town? Why didn't you ask someone to take ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... they were being served the soup by the absorbed and inattentive Jeff, Mrs. Matilda laid down her spoon and ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... confusion and stir of material interests, are not inattentive to the progress of those claims whose growth is as silent as that of the leaves around us, and whose values find no ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... to something," Captain Waveney exclaimed, suddenly. In fact, only one of the ranging setters was now in sight; and Roderick had quickly run up to the top of a heathery knoll, to have them both in view. At the same moment they saw him hold up his arm to warn the inattentive Venus. ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... headlong by the groups of men, till at last the Captain brings him up with one rein broken. A great crowd surround him, questioning, swearing, and jeering, but the Captain sat as silent, immovable, and inattentive as a statue, pointing to the broken rein. It had been cut with a knife. The Captain and his friends claimed that the friends of the Virginian had, unnoticed by him, cut the leather to a bare thread, while the friends of the other party, with ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... part of prudence to be inattentive to the tendencies of measures. Where there is any ground to fear that these will prove pernicious, wisdom and duty forbid that we should underrate them. If we reject the treaty, will our peace be as safe as if we executed ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... I may have replied I know not, but it was evidently translated as an affirmative, for in another moment I was being piloted down the side of the long room, while he gossiped in my rather inattentive ear. ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... be blowed! " said Coleman. " What these people need is rest, sleep. You must find a place at once. These people can't remain in the street." He spoke in anger, as if he had previously told the dragoman and the latter had been inattentive. The ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... breath. In a strained tone that sounded, as she meant it to sound, as though she had been merely inattentive, she made answer: ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... taken to prevent the galleon from passing us unobserved, we had not been inattentive to the means of engaging her to advantage, when we came up with her: For, considering the thinness of our hands, and the vaunting accounts given by the Spaniards of her size, her guns, and her strength, this was a consideration not to be neglected. As we supposed that none of our ships but ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... and domestic discomforts. Warming with her discourse as she proceeded, her voice grew so shrill and vehement, that Mr. Pimble, had he not been deeply engaged in poring over the trials his loquacious housekeeper was so eloquently setting forth to her silent and rather inattentive listener, he would have discovered himself the hero of a tale which might have lost Mrs. Peggy Nonee a place she had occupied half a lifetime. But Mr. Pimble sat in bed-gown and slippers till dinner was announced at one P.M., ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... medical profession pretty much what the "general servant" of the advertising column is in the scale of domestic service. He must perforce be kind to the poor, and tolerably expert by reason of much practice, and he is generally popular. Dr. Poulain, called in by Mme. Cibot, gave an inattentive ear to the old musician's complainings. Pons groaned out that his skin itched; he had scratched himself all night long, till he could scarcely feel. The look of his eyes, with the yellow circles about them, corroborated ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... itself able to make when it existed nor one it is now able, in some oracular fashion, to formulate and to impose upon us. The report is a rational construction based and seated in present experience; it has no cogency for the inattentive and no existence for the ignorant. Although the universe, then, may not have come from chaos, human experience certainly has begun in a private and dreamful chaos of its own, out of which it still ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... another growl, but was content to continue in his lair. These were evidences of intelligence and distrust, to which one as practised as the trapper could not turn an inattentive ear. He again spoke to the dog, encouraging him to watchfulness, by a low guarded whistle. The animal however, as if conscious of having, already, discharged his duty, obstinately refused to raise his head ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... him, intently. When he had shut his own door she glanced over at the inattentive Allan, once more busy at his manuscript and ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... church regularly in his absence from home, because he knew that the weekly letter to his father would lose half its charm did the son not give an account of the sermon he had heard the Sabbath before. But much listening to sermons had bred in the young man the inattentive heart, even though the ear was doing its duty. Roderick accepted sermons and church-going good-naturedly, as a necessary, respectable formality of life. That it must have a bearing on all life or be utterly meaningless he ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... conversations were simply dialectic games in the taste of the period, games a little pedantic, and fatiguing from subtilty. The boisterous Licentius did not always enjoy himself. He was often inattentive; and his master scolded him. But all the same, the master understood how to amuse his two foster-children while he exercised their intelligence. At the end of one discussion ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... her, curiously inattentive to his newspaper; observant of her small needs, and anticipating her timid half expressed wishes. Was there some mysterious power that had so soon taught the man such methods to a woman's heart, or was he not rather on guard and schooling himself for the ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... community-sensation of an hysterical and passing type—with sensational disturbances, falling exercises, shouts, weeping, and the like. A revival is something far different. A revival is an awakening of the community heart and mind. It is a quickening of dead, backsliding, or inattentive souls. ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... before the dew was gone, and fill her basket with fruits. He would carve her initials on the bark of the tree beneath the window, as her name is written on his heart. But you! you come at nearly noon—and leave me to attend to myself. 'Twas I, you inattentive Daphnis, who gathered all these fruits and flowers. Don't you see how the room is improved? Hyacinths in the window, roses on the mantelpiece, and violets every where—ah! what a time you were ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... foretop-mast staysail-sheets towards the middle of the ship, and haul forward the fore-bowline; this operation is seldom necessary except when the helm has not sufficient government of the ship, as in variable winds or inattentive steerage. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... crystallised, caused him to see a rapid vision of de Batz sneaking into his lodgings and stealing his keys, the guard being slack, careless, inattentive, allowing the adventurer to pass barriers that should have been ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... these movements of the commander of the felucca Captain Brand was by no means an inattentive observer; and, indeed, he was so extremely critical that he stuck the tube of a powerful telescope through an aperture of the curtains around him, and not only looked at his cautious visitor, but he actually watched the expression of his uneasy eye, and almost counted every ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... are!" she said with a little pout. She was not accustomed to have men inattentive when she ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... requires a full amount of patience to stay quietly watching the proceedings of an inattentive tradesman amid such a whirlpool of excitement as is now in action. Sweeting tells me that his negro waiter has demanded and receives ten dollars a-day. He is forced to submit, for "helps" of all kinds are in great demand, and very difficult to meet with. Several hundred ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... Confessions, [P. I. liv. 4, Oeuvres, etc., 1837, i. 78].—In July [June 23-27], 1816, I made a voyage round the Lake of Geneva;[359] and, as far as my own observations have led me in a not uninterested nor inattentive survey of all the scenes most celebrated by Rousseau in his Heloise, I can safely say, that in this there is no exaggeration. It would be difficult to see Clarens (with the scenes around it, Vevay, Chillon, Boveret, St. Gingo, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... until his inattentive ears caught the name of Dick Gordon that he found interest in ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... fill in all round it with smaller facts, as a wagoner might heap dirt round a big rock in the road, and thus get his team over without upsetting. So Mr. Myers, starting from the most ordinary facts of inattentive consciousness, follows this clue through a long series which terminates in ghosts, and seeks to show that these are but extreme manifestations of a {321} common truth,—the truth that the invisible segments of our minds are susceptible, under rarely ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... civility which had in it a bit of sarcasm, we can readily see that civility lends great strength to satire, and take a hint from it in our treatment of rude people. A lady once entering a crowded shop, where the women behind the counter were singularly inattentive and rude even for America, remarked to one young woman who was lounging on the counter, and who did not show any particular desire to ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood |
