"Indolently" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lights of old antiquity Through mullioned windows, in cathedrals wide Spilled moltenly o'er figures deified In chastest marble, nude of drapery. And so I love it—. Either unconfined; Or plaited in close braidings manifold; Or smoothly drawn; or indolently twined In careless knots whose coilings come unrolled At any lightest kiss; or by the wind Whipped out in flossy ravellings ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... the suite, Rostov noticed Bolkonski, sitting his horse indolently and carelessly. Rostov recalled their quarrel of yesterday and the question presented itself whether he ought or ought not to challenge Bolkonski. "Of course not!" he now thought. "Is it worth thinking or speaking of it at such ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... Conservatorium; and at the sight of him, after the uncertainty she had gone through during the past week, she could hardly keep back her tears. He did not come to meet her; he stood and watched her approach, and only when she reached him, indolently held out his hand. As she refused to notice it, and went to the extreme edge of the pavement to avoid it, he made a barrier of his arms, and forced her to stand still. Holding her thus, with his hand on her elbow, he looked keenly at her; and, in spite of the obdurate ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... with large solitaires in her ears, her red parasol held airily over her head and her insipid face wreathed in smiles, as she talked to her companion, the handsome Neil, whose dark face was such a contrast to her own, and who reclined indolently at her side, answering her questions mechanically, but thinking always of Bessie, and wondering if she were there in the hired chair, and if she would see him, or, what was more to the purpose, if he should see her among the multitude which thronged ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... at times anyhow, get out of as much work as we can. We even use the word work and its synonyms loosely and indolently. Perhaps this is a literary aspect of the labor problem. If, however, we can shake off our sluggishness and exert ourselves in discriminating our terms, we shall use work as a general word for effort, physical or mental, to some purposive ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... my care at present," says Sir Hastings, coming indolently forward. "Shall I take you to Lady Baring?" asks he, addressing Perpetua with ...
— A Little Rebel - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... well knows she how wide and fair extend Her groves bright-flowered, her tangled everglades, Majestic streams that indolently wend Through lush savanna or dense forest shades, Where the brown buzzard flies To broad bayou ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... were really nursing. One of them, cuddled under the goat's belly, went at it so heartily that you could hear the glou-glou of the warm milk as it went down, down into his little legs, which quivered with satisfaction. The other, more calm, lay indolently in his Auvergnat nurse's lap, and required some ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... a startled voice, "Oh, some day, of course; but you know how terribly busy I am, and ..." He stopped, visualizing himself at that moment as he lolled indolently in the doorway of that mountain cabin, and wondering if the same thought were in her mind as was in his. At the same time came a welcome interruption in the appearance of a small child, brown as the proverbial ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... was taking no course whatever at present, but indolently and complacently letting matters drift. She sometimes smilingly thought, "I scarcely know whether Mr. Clancy is friend or lover. I suppose I could lead him to be more pronounced in either character if I chose, but since he is so agreeable as he is, I would be a fool not to keep ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... the Free Church at the present time seem to lie very much in extremes. A considerable number, animated by the Disruption spirit, contribute greatly more to ministerial support, in proportion to their incomes, than the old Dissenters of the kingdom; but a still larger number, reposing indolently on the exertions of these, and in whom the habit has not been cultivated or formed, give considerably less. It was stated by Mr. Melvin, in the meeting of the United Presbyterian Synod held on Wednesday last, that, 'on an average, ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... reigned for nearly three years longer after his return to his kingdom; and for the first two of them he passed his time in indolently dreaming of his plans for a fresh invasion of Italy, and in frivolous abandonment to his pleasures and the entertainments at his court, which he moved about from Lyons to Moulins, to Paris, to Tours, and to Amboise. The news which came ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... behind their masters or trafficked on their behalf. The snake-charmer, the story-teller, the beggar, the water-carrier, the incense seller, whose task in life is to fumigate True Believers, all who go to make the typical Moorish crowd, were to be seen indolently plying their trade. But inquiries for mules, horses, and servants for the inland journey met with no ready response. Dar el Baida, I was assured, had nothing to offer; Djedida, lower down along the coast, might serve, or Saffi, if Allah ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... resentment and indignation at this, excited his imperious temper to harass the army by the rigour of his command; nor could it (the army) however be subdued by any means; such a spirit of opposition had they imbibed. They executed every measure slowly, indolently, negligently, and with stubbornness: neither shame nor fear restrained them. If he wished the army to move on with expedition, they designedly went more slowly: if he came up to them to encourage ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... without ceasing? Afterwards, in the same Epistle, he tells us first that nothing avails but faith working by love; but soon after, he calls this same availing principle a new creature: so that the new birth and a living faith are inseparable. Never, indeed, must it be supposed, as we are indolently apt to suppose, that the gift of grace which we receive at baptism is a mere outward privilege, a mere outward pardon, in which the heart is not concerned; or as if it were some mere mark put on the soul, distinguishing it indeed from souls unregenerate, as if by a colour or seal, but ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... girls should make any great noise." "Oh, we'll be quiet enough," returned Penelope. "Well, I'm glad the Colonel isn't sojering. At first I thought he might be sojering." She broke into a laugh, and, struggling indolently with it, looked at her sister. "You don't think it'll be necessary for anybody to come down from the office and take orders from him while he's laid up, do you, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... said Young Gerard indolently. "You know there's a wedding down yonder. Who's the Rough ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... Nogales sat a lean, lank man gazing out of a window facing the south. His chair was tilted back, and his large feet were crossed on the desk in front of him. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and he puffed indolently at a cigar and blew smoke-rings toward the ceiling. Incidentally his name was known throughout the country and beyond its southern borders. But if this distinction affected him in any way it was not evident. He seemed submerged in a ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... mountain a mighty engine loomed out from the gathering darkness—a fiery-headed monster—and with its long train of coaches crawled serpent-like around the rocky height, then vanished as it came. The clouds which had been roving indolently across the western horizon suddenly formed in line and moved steadily—a solid battalion—upward towards the zenith, while from the east another phalanx, black and threatening, advanced with low, ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... conducted in an obtrusive or ostentatious manner; very far from it. The occupants of that "coign of vantage", to whom Milsom was now added, were, so far as the ordinary observer was concerned, lounging indolently in their several basket chairs, reading, smoking, and chatting together, and apparently giving not a thought to anything that was happening outside the bulwarks of their own ship, save when, now and then, one of them would lift a pair of binoculars and bring them to bear upon ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... at this stirred his imperious temper to harass the army by the severity of his command; it could not, however, be subdued by any exercise of authority, with such a spirit of opposition were the soldiers filled. They carried out all orders slowly, indolently, carelessly, and stubbornly: neither shame nor fear restrained them. If he wished the march to be accelerated, they designedly went more slowly: if he came up to them to encourage them in their work, they all relaxed ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... the white, winding road. Desmond had not the faintest idea of their whereabouts or ultimate destination. He was fairly embarked on the great adventure now, and he was philosophically content to let Fate have its way with him. He found himself wondering rather indolently what the future had ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... backward toward a ploughed fire-guard, and the delightful acrid smell brought back the memory of past prairie fires, pleasant enough to think of, as life's battles are, if they end victoriously. Not a breath stirred in the trees, and the prairie fire that smouldered so indolently was surely ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... fellows are!" he observed indolently. "Once you get smacked on the head, you're all in. You think you are killed, and, instead of kicking around to find out the truth of the matter, you promptly proceed to turn up ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... guardians of the tent, only one was there. De Wardes was in the interior of the Hotel de Ville, engaged in attending to the execution of some orders given by De Guiche. At the noise made by Buckingham Manicamp, who was indolently reclining upon the cushions at the doorway of one of the tents, rose with his usual indifference, and, perceiving that the disturbance continued, made his appearance from underneath the curtains. "What is the matter?" he said, in a gentle tone ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... come indolently, feeding as he came, he might have entered the tribe without arousing notice or suspicion, but when one comes thus precipitately, evidently bursting with some emotion out of the ordinary, let all apes beware. There was a certain amount of preliminary circling, growling, and sniffing, stiff-legged ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Park, nor the White House, nor the National Museum, nor the Lincoln Museum, nor the Smithsonian Institution, nor the Treasury, nor any other of the great spectacles of Washington. We just resumed the sea-going hack and drove indolently to and fro in avenues and parks, tasting the general savor of the city's large pleasantness. And we had not gone far before we got into the clutches of ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... another. It does not appear to me that essence of hams was ever known to the ancients. We have a hundred ragouts, the composition of which surpasses all description. Had yours been as good, you could not have lain indolently lolling upon couches while you were eating. They would have made you sit up and mind your business. Then you had a strange custom of hearing things read to you while you were at supper. This demonstrates that you were not so well entertained as we are with ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... leading two sad-faced mongrel dogs. As they pass along the village street other men join them, some carrying spears and some heavy muskets, and also leading more sad-faced dogs. Black-haired, oval-faced women and girls come to the doors of the houses and look indolently at the hunters, but they neither speak nor smile, for it is not the nature of the Strong's Islanders to speak when there is no necessity for words. Once, fifty years ago, when they were numbered by thousands, and their villages but a ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... sweeping the stairs. He worked harder when first conscious of being watched, but seeing that they intended to stay there, on the top step, he made this the excuse to disappear indolently, leaving little heaps of dust on several of ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... manifested no disposition to leave our neighborhood, or in any other way showed displeasure at the trick we had played him. On the contrary, he drew nearer the vessel, and moved indolently and defiantly about, with his dorsal fin and a portion of his tail above the water. He was undoubtedly hungry as well as proud, and it is well known that sharks are not particular with regard to the quality of their food. Every thing that is edible, and much which is indigestible, is greedily ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... ill deserved her reputation, had she indolently permitted the emperor of the West to approach within a hundred miles of her capital. The fate of the East was decided in two great battles; so similar in almost every circumstance, that we can scarcely distinguish them from each other, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... said indolently, but with the soft, well-anointed utterance of the blarneying islander, which does not die away till the third generation of the poorest exile from Erin, "now, ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... this careless flinging of the expensive shining coat across the gilded chair somehow gave Nina a more intimate appreciation of her father's grandeur and of the great and glorious life he led. She longed to recline indolently in a priceless tea-gown on the couch by the fireplace and issue orders.... She approached the writing-table, littered with papers, documents, in scores and hundreds. To the left was the brown bag. It was locked, and very heavy, she thought. To the ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... thrust its twisted arms. The sun had set, and one after another bright figures appeared on the roofs. The children came first, hung with silver amulets and amber beads, and pursued by negresses in striped turbans, who bustled up with rugs and matting, then the mothers followed more indolently, released from their ashy mufflings and showing, under their light veils, long earrings from the Mellah[A] and caftans of pale ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... consent, resolved to revolt against the belly. They knew no reason, they said, why they should toil from morning till night in its service, while the belly lay at its ease in the midst of all, and indolently grew fat upon their labors. Accordingly they agreed to support it no more. The feet vowed they would carry it no longer; the hands that they would do no more work; the teeth that they would not chew a morsel of meat, even were it placed between ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... forgetfulness, Venier remembered every word that Beroviero had told him, and indolently as he talked, his whole nature was roused to defend Zorzi. In his heart he despised Contarini, and hoped that his marriage might never take place, for he was sincerely sorry for Marietta; but it was Jacopo's behaviour towards Zorzi ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... of the Adour rises the citadel, a fortified angular structure standing detached. A large and brilliant tricolor flag is waving indolently from a staff on the summit. The Bay of Biscay, into which the Adour flows, is seen on the left horizon ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... shakes not the fair bough that lowliest Droops, neither lifts he hand, nor turns to see; But lies, and gathers to him indolently The fruits that drop into ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... across the grounds and stopped, and at their leisure impudently looked me over, as if they had an idea of buying me as bric-a-brac. Then they seemed to conclude that they could do better for less money elsewhere, and they sauntered indolently away and disappeared among the trees. It sized up this solitude. It is so complete, so perfect, that even the wild animals are satisfied with it. Those dainty creatures were not in the least degree ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... and the other was sensuous, and the sensuous temperament in its full strength is essentially solitary. The play of social intercourse, its quick transitions, and incessant demands, are fatal to free and uninterrupted abandonment to the flow of soft internal emotions. Rousseau, dreaming, moody, indolently, meditative, profoundly enwrapped in the brooding egoism of his own sensations, had to mix with men and women whose egoism took the contrary form of an eager desire to produce flashing effects on other ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... Latin and Italian." Yet, in spite of correction, every Macbeth on the stage still maintains in stentorian tones that ambition o'erleaps itself, thereby demonstrating how useless it is to look for Shakespearian scholarship in so-called Shakespearian actors, who blindly and indolently ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... the least resemblance. Have you not observed that, when I have timidly hazarded my ideas on the delicacy necessary to keep love alive in marriage, and the difficulty of preserving the heart of the object beloved in so intimate an union, he has indolently assented, with a coldness not to be described, to sentiments which it is plain from his manner he did not understand; whilst another, not interested in the conversation, has, by his countenance, by the fire of his eyes, by looks more eloquent than all language, shewed his soul ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... shadow straight as a spear across the emerald turf; and farther on a small squat tree, from China, unfurled smooth, glossy, polished leaves of lightest green, and thick-lipped succulent scarlet flowers, indolently to the kiss of the British sun. We caught a passing glimpse of it, and Lucia drew in her breath ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... absence of every one but the proprietor, idly slipped into the store, and placing her rounded elbows, from which her sleeves were uprolled, upon the counter, leaned lazily upon them, with both hands supporting her dimpled chin, and gazed indolently at him; so indolently that, with her pretty face once fixed in this comfortable attitude, she was constrained to follow his movements with her eyes alone, and often at an uncomfortable angle. It was evident that she offered the ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... occupation is thus wholesome, not only for the body, but for the mind. While the slothful man drags himself indolently through life, and the better part of his nature sleeps a deep sleep, if not morally and spiritually dead, the energetic man is a source of activity and enjoyment to all who come within reach of his influence. ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... islands covered with woods of the densest foliage. These large marshes, covered with reeds as with a thick mantle, sleep silently and calmly beneath the sun's soft and genial rays. A few fishermen with their families indolently pass their lives away there, with their great living-rafts of poplar and alder, the flooring formed of reeds, and the roof woven out of thick rushes. These barks, these floating-houses, are wafted to and fro by the changing winds. Whenever they touch a bank, it ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... seen it closer, and we chose a bright, cool September afternoon for our drive out of the town and over the breezy, high levels which surround it. The first British capital could hardly have been more nobly placed, and one could not help grieving that the Ouse should have indolently lost York that early dignity by letting its channel fill up with silt and spoil its navigation. The Thames managed better for York's upstart rival London, and yet the Ouse is not destitute of sea or river craft. These were of both steam and sail, and I myself have ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... native long-house, and the girl could not help but wonder at the quiet and peace which reigned over these little settlements. It was as though they were passing along a beaten highway in the center of a civilized community; and yet she knew that the men who lolled upon the verandahs, puffing indolently upon their cigarettes or chewing betel nut, were all head hunters, and that along the verandah rafters above them hung the ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... undecided whether the judge is entitled to more respect from the lawyers and laity or whether the laity is entitled to more respect from the judge. The judge sits indolently crumpled up in his easy chair; before him a leader of the bar is arguing. In an eloquent manner he is pleading for a young attorney who is about to be punished for ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... himself indolently—he felt no desire to create a new religion. "No, I want to go away and see the world now," he said. "There must be places in that world where they've already begun to go for the rich folks—that's where I want ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... Wilmington rejoined, indolently. "It would be very poetical, wouldn't it, if he were to seize the opportunity to go back ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... my death,—though friendly you profess yourself,— If to me in a strain like this so often you address yourself: "Come, Holly, why this laziness? Why indolently shock you us? Why with Lethean cups fall ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field
... notion we had entertained, that, when once abundantly supplied with food, they took no pains to obtain more till want began again to stare them in the face. It was now more pleasing to be assured that, even in the midst of plenty, they did not indolently give themselves up to repose, but were willing to take advantage of every favourable opportunity to increase their store. It is certain, indeed, that, were these people more provident (or, in other words, less gluttonous, for they do not waste much), they ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... crossed a tiny ante-room and knocked again. Hillyard entered a room which surprised him, so greatly did its size and the wide outlook from its windows contrast with the dinginess of its approach. A thin man with the face of a French abbe sat indolently twiddling his thumbs by the ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... lord: Your will is mine: and is (I will maintain) Pleasing to God, and should be so to man; At least your courage all the world must praise, 170 Who dare to wed in your declining days. Indulge the vigour of your mounting blood, And let gray fools be indolently good, Who, past all pleasure, damn the joys of sense, With ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... attempted a more perilous task—the interpretation of passages where the difficulty arises from the peculiar texture of Chapman's thought and style. Such a critical venture seems a necessary preliminary if we are ever to sift truth from falsehood in Dryden's indictment—indolently accepted by many critics ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... is mere Bolognese eclecticism in other terms, and those terms incorrect. We are amazed to find a writer usually thoughtful, if not accurate, thus indolently adopting the worn-out falsities of our weakest writers on Taste. Does he—can he for an instant suppose that the ruffian Caravaggio, distinguished only by his preference of candlelight and black shadows for the illustration and re-enforcement of villainy, painted nature—mere ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... twig of the nest is laid," remarked Marufa, indolently eyeing the tusk, "it is difficult to entice the ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... stood out sharply against a pink, throbbing sky in which the stars still shone faintly but brilliantly. It was five o'clock of a dim morning, and no one was astir in the In-Place as the little steamer indolently turned from the Big Bay into the Channel and headed for ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... listed. He was silent, then he laughed, and listened for the thousand thousand sounds of his soul: it swarmed with life. He could make out nothing: his head was swimming: he felt only a bewildering happiness. He was glad to feel in himself such unknown forces: and indolently postponing putting his powers to the test he sank back into the intoxication of pride in the inward flowering, which, held back for months, now burst forth like a ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... never girls enough to go round at those dances, but every one wanted a turn with Tony and Lena. Lena moved without exertion, rather indolently, and her hand often accented the rhythm softly on her partner's shoulder. She smiled if one spoke to her, but seldom answered. The music seemed to put her into a soft, waking dream, and her violet-colored eyes looked sleepily and confidingly ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... Hal leaned indolently against the door. "Speaking of dollars and doughnuts," he said, "I'd like to tell you gentlemen a little story. You all know who Babson is, the biggest stock-market advertiser in the country. Well, Babson's ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... writing to do for a commercial while Loo Loo instructed little girls in dancing and embroidery. Her character had strengthened under the severe ordeals through which she had passed. She began to question the rightfulness of living so indolently as she had done. Those painful scenes in the slave-prison made her reflect that sympathy with the actual miseries of life was better than weeping over romances. She was rising above the deleterious influences of her early education, and beginning to feel the dignity of usefulness. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... so early?" asked Dr. Hirsch, indolently, as he saw Charlotte, gayly dressed, prayer-book in hand, come slowly down the stairs, followed by Jack, who was once more clad in the pet costume of ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... dead-line," the other acknowledged, indolently. "It won't take ten words to tell y'u what I want and mean to have. I'm giving y'u two minutes to hand me over the body of Ned Bannister. If y'u don't see it that way I'll come and make a lead mine ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... between your legs, as it were, swim the hugest monsters of the sea, even as ships once sailed between the boots of the famous Colossus at old Rhodes. There you stand, lost in the infinite series of the sea, with nothing ruffled but the waves. The tranced ship indolently rolls; the drowsy trade winds blow; everything resolves you into languor. For the most part, in this tropic whaling life, a sublime uneventfulness invests you; you hear no news; read no gazettes; extras with startling ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... Tarrano motioned us to feather hassocks and stretched himself indolently upon our pillowed divan. With an elbow and hand supporting his head he regarded us with his sombre black eyes, his face impassive, an inscrutable smile playing about his ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... this way, "that no one is justified by works, but by faith alone;" so, too, "the law is given to make sin more gross;" so, too, "where sin abounded, there grace much more abounds," and more passages of the same sort. For when men hear such, then they say, if that is true, we will go on indolently, and do no good work, and so be righteous, as men even now say, that we forbid good works; for if one so perverts St. Paul's own words, what wonder is it that they should, in ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... row of repair pits men ran in and out, hovering about their cars with solicitous final attentions and eager encouragement to the smiling drivers. The first machine was already at the starting-line, ready as an arrow on the cord, its pilot smoking a cigarette and chatting indolently with ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... the dyke always hurls well.' The looker on," says Mr. Trench in explanation, "at a game of hurling, seated indolently on the wall, always imagines that he could improve on the strokes of the actual players, and if you will listen to him, would have played the game much better than they, a proverb of sufficiently ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 235, April 29, 1854 • Various
... women's lips in various keys. A voice far off shouted something—another, nearer, repeated it; there was a short hubbub which died out with extreme suddenness. The first crier turned to Lakamba, saying indolently— ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... and tired like Jezebel, looking out of one window carved and old, and the grey burnished doves flying about it. They leaned indolently, like all the old, old wickedness of the East that yet is ever young—"Flowers of Delight," with smooth black hair braided with gold and blossoms, and covered with pale rose veils, and gold embossed disks swinging like lamps beside the olive cheeks, the great eyes artificially ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... against a brick wall. He turned his head indolently, and looked into the mills. There hung about the place a thick, unclean odor. The slightest motion of his hand marked that he perceived it, and his insufferable disgust. That was all. May said nothing, only ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis
... all the luxuries of a tropical country. They might plant orchards of the choicest fruit trees around their houses, grow Indian corn, and rear cattle and hogs, as intelligent settlers from Europe would certainly do, instead of indolently relying solely on the produce of their small plantations, and living on a meagre diet of fish and farinha. In preparing the cacao they have not devised any means of separating the seeds well from the pulp, or drying it in a systematic way; the consequence is that, although naturally of good quality, ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... interrupted with a question indolently drawn out: "Was she as beautiful in those days ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... recovered strength and activity to achieve some tall climbing after rare plants among the rocks and crags, which would have gained him great credit in an escalade. Occasionally too, while Mrs. Shortridge prudently, or indolently, kept the more level ground he would contrive to lead Lady Mabel to some elevated and perilous spot—and she boldly putting herself into difficulties, and not always seeing the way out of them, had to rely on his aid, and the supporting arm he delighted to afford her. And they gave to love for botany ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... situated in the midst of trees which hang over them and appear truly romantic. The grass and fields of rice are perfectly green, and herds of cattle are everywhere feeding on the banks of the river, and the natives are scattered about, ... some fishing, some driving the team, and some sitting indolently on the bank of the river. The pagodas we have passed are much handsomer and larger than the houses. There are many English seats near the shore.... Oh, what reason we have to be thankful for so pleasant and prosperous ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... have rooted themselves in the rents, but they are not suffered to grow in their own wild and gentle way, for the place is in a sort inhabited; rotten partitions are nailed across its corridors, and miserable rooms contrived in its western wing; and here and there the weeds are indolently torn down, leaving their haggard fibres to struggle again into unwholesome growth when the spring next stirs them: and thus, in contest between death and life, the unsightly heap is festering ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... ornateness. But his rifle was of the latest American pattern, and in place of the conventional Colt's he carried an automatic pistol. As his horse patiently clambered with him up towards the top of the escarpment the man gazed indolently about between half-closed eyelids and inhaled the smoke from an ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... Bible as well as Captain Kydd knew his, "when he sailed, when he sailed," and perhaps as sympathetically. The Great Idea had struck a million Bible-readers before her as being possible of resurrection and application—it must have struck as many as that, and been cogitated, indolently, doubtingly, then dropped and forgotten—and it could have struck her, in due course. But how it could interest her, how it could appeal to her—with her make this a thing ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... paddle brought the light craft within gunshot distance of the tamarinds; and now for the first time did Costal obtain a good view of the theological student couched within the hammock—where he appeared to be indolently reposing, like some Oriental satrap, under a dais ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... suddenly, turned and darted at the waves. The tall man indolently twisted his head and watched the bird plunge its claws into the water. It heavily arose ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... driver commenced a hurried and zigzag course across the crowded floor. The eyes of Colonel Von Ritz indolently followed. ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... parts? Yo'r for all the world like one o' Mrs. Johnson's fancy bantams that ain't quit of the shell afore they square off at their own mother. My goodness! Sho! Sho-o-o!" And suiting the action to the word the young lady, still indolently, even in her simulation, swirled around, caught her skirts at the side with each hand, and lazily shaking them before her in the accepted feminine method of frightening chickens as she retreated backwards, dropped them suddenly in a profound ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... his anger sought for something new to break itself on. Up he came, and I rose before him, and bowed myself. But Meriamun fell indolently back in her chair of ivory, and with a sweep of her slim hand she disordered the pieces, and bade her waiting woman, the lady Hataska, gather up the board, and carry all away. But Hataska's eyes were ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... he cheerily called, waving his free hand in greeting to a small, dark lass standing on the step of a veranda and indolently swinging a broom. "Comment allez-vous ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... same time," said Ravenel, indolently, "they can ask if the rumor is true that Mr. Leggett and about ten others are going to be absent from this part of the country until after the election, and ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... wearied, she continued awhile, more indolently, her prayers and supplications, and she realized that she no longer felt the horror with which the tombs had formerly inspired her; that she had no fear of the dead man. She sought the reason for this, and discovered that he did not frighten her because ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... youth had helped perchance to develop his physical powers, so had it assisted to strengthen his character and foster his genius. I go back here to the point from which I started. No doubt a weaker man would have been crushed by such a youth. He would have been indolently content to remain a warehouse drudge, would have listlessly fallen into his father's ways about money, would have had no ambition beyond his desk and salary as a lawyer's clerk, would have never cared to piece together and supplement the scattered scraps ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... words the countess threw herself indolently into an arm- chair, and motioned Eugene to a seat. But he only advanced a step or two, and gazed wistfully upon her ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... words he closed his eyes, like a man on the point of death. Madame, on her side, reclined indolently in the other corner of the carriage, and closed her eyes also, not however to sleep, but to think more at her ease. In the meantime, the king, seated in the front seat of the carriage, the back of which he had yielded up to the two queens, was a prey to that restless feverish contrariety experienced ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... him across the Golden Horn. Suddenly the caique fouled with another, and there came a volley of Turkish oaths and objurgations. The Greek looked up, and saw Miss Leland in the other boat. Her eyes were fixed upon him and the pipe. He passed his hand lazily over the bowl and took the pipe indolently from his lips, and addressed himself to the caiquejee. The boats got clear of each other. Lilian, coming aboard the boat, could not get speech with Barndale until the steamer was well under way. By then, she had time to think the matter over, and had come to the conclusion ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... attention was focused indolently upon the hills. He seemed to have forgotten that the cattleman was ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... engages them to appropriate to themselves the fruits of other peoples invention; and they appear to themselves well provided at a small expence, when they have made free with the productions of others. Some again, instead of cultivating their talent, chuse indolently to follow the great torrent of the fashion, and stick to the old tracks, without daring to strike out any thing new, so that their prejudices are, in fact, the principles by which they are governed, and which sometimes serves them for their ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... a spacious country mansion, surrounded by a silent plantation, somewhat fallen from its state, whom such a mistress would superbly restore. He looks a man too refined to wed for money, perhaps too indolently luxurious ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... him this piece of information, she left her ambush, and proceeded to meet the all-unconscious blue girl; but, even as they went, Vizard returned to his normal condition, and doled out, rather indolently, that they were out on pleasure, and might possibly miss the object of the excursion if they were to encourage a habit of ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... trees so thickly that it was sufficient to shoot in their direction to cause a few to fall to the ground. In addition they were not timid and permitted a close approach, and they rose so heavily and indolently that Saba, rushing ahead of the caravan, seized and choked some of them ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... good orator, or writer, a poet, a good artist generally, to know, and consciously to keep himself in contact with, the truth of his subject as he knows or feels it; or only with what other people, perhaps quite indolently, think, or suppose others to think, about it. And here the charge of Socrates against those professional teachers of the art of rhetoric comes to be, that, with much superficial aptitude in the conduct of the matter, ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... and easy way of learning, at any rate. Lesbia reclined in her bamboo chair, and fanned herself indolently, and watched the shadowy shores of the island, cliff and hill, down and wooded crest, flitting past her like dream-pictures, and her lips slowly shaped the words of that soft lisping language—so simple, so musical—a language made for lovers ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... was carried out in the clear brown arch of the eyebrows, and the marble smoothness of the sloping forehead. Impossible to say that this face was not eminently handsome; yet, for the majority both of men and women, it was destitute of charm. Women disliked eyes that seemed to be indolently accepting admiration instead of rendering it; and men, especially if they had a tendency to clumsiness in the nose and ankles, were inclined to think this Antinous in a pig-tail a 'confounded puppy'. I fancy that was frequently the inward interjection of the Rev. Maynard Gilfil, who was seated ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... multiplicity of directions, for Rake to catch as he could, in the softest and sleepiest of tones, Bertie Cecil drank a glass of Curacoa, put his tall, lithe limbs indolently off his sofa, and surrendered himself to the martyrdom of cuirass and gorget, standing six feet one without his spurred jacks, but light-built and full of grace as a deer, or his weight would not have been what it was in gentleman-rider races from the Hunt steeple-chase ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... at first indolently careless and indifferent about his play, suffering advantages to escape him, of which, in a more attentive state of mind, he could not have failed to avail himself. Mowbray upbraided him with his inattention, and proposed a deeper stake, in order to interest him in the game. The young ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... towards us. She is neither more beautiful nor uglier than the others; she is young. No one looks at her. She strolls indolently along the shore, scratching her back and with her finger at her nose as she walks. You cannot help seeing, father, that she has narrow shoulders, clumsy breasts, a stout figure, and short legs. Her reddish knees pucker at every step she takes, and there is, at each of her joints, ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... consult and work together with the purpose of instructing pastors and people by the exhibition of what is good. This is what we might expect of our religious musical foundations, which are justifying the standing condemnation of utilitarian economists so long as the stipendiaries are content indolently to follow the fortuitous traditions of the books that lie in the choir, supplemented by the penny-a-sheet music of the common shops. In the Universities, too, it should be impossible for an undergraduate not to gain ...
— A Practical Discourse on Some Principles of Hymn-Singing • Robert Bridges
... indolently arose and ascended to the quarter-deck, followed by Spike, who continued to press the flour on him, as if anxious to make money. But the lieutenant hesitated about paying a price as high as ten dollars, or to take a quantity as ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... house had to stay in their studies and make some pretence of work, he would wander indolently down the passage and pay calls. When he paused outside a study he heard the invariable sound of a novel flying into the waste-paper basket, of a paper being shoved under the table, or a cake being relegated to the ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... indolently and sottishly, doing nothing but eat his victuals and doze in his bed; thinking it at the same time a very great indignity that he should be obliged to take up with those thieves and robbers who were in the same state of condemnation ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... time—as the occasion was most urgent (for it was now 9.44)—he held out half a sovereign. The porter took it respectfully enough, but to Mr. Quail's horror the menial had no sooner grasped the coin than he made off in the opposite direction, pushing his trolley indolently before him and crying "By your leave" in a tone that mingled ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... up the breakfast tray, and did not re-enter the room for some time. When at last she came up, Mrs. Colwyn had had the fire lighted and was sitting beside it in a rocking-chair, with a novel on her lap. She looked up indolently as Janetta entered. ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... the power of those iniquitous designers. In consequence of the prevalence of this practice many of the convicts were immured continually, and thus the public was deprived of their services; since they preferred remaining indolently in confinement to making those complaints to the governor, which would have led to their release, and reinstation in their former situations of labour. Governor Hunter no sooner made himself acquainted ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... of Heroes fill'd the stage, That rant by note, and thro' the gamut rage; In songs, and airs, express their martial fire, Combat in trills, and in a feuge expire; While lull'd by sound, and undisturb'd by wit, Calm and serene, you indolently fit; And from the dull fatigue of thinking free, Hear the facetious fiddle's rapartee; Our home-spun authors must forsake the field, And Shakespear to the soft Scarlatti yield. To your new taste, the poet of this day, Was by a friend advis'd to form his play; Had ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... melting away the sinister look in his face; one, a girl hovering between the tempest of bitterness and a storm of self-reproach; and one a half-breed gambler, who again sat on the bar- counter smoking a cigarette and singing to himself, as indolently as if he were not in the presence of a painful drama of life, perhaps a tragedy. But was the song so pointless to the occasion, after all, and was the man so abstracted and indifferent as he seemed? For ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... he said slowly, "I thought I would not speak an unkind word to-day, no matter what was said to me; but you have offended too often." His glance took in the indolently shapeless figure from head to toe, and back again until he met her eye to eye. "You are the personification of cowardice, of selfishness and snobbery, that makes one despise his kind. For mere personal vanity you would sacrifice your own daughter—your own flesh and blood. Probably we shall ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... cares and unrest of the former Billy. With the dotted blue and white linen dress, with the big collar and the coarse shirt that scratched her skin, it seemed as if she had imbibed something of the carefree, almost shameless peacefulness with which Lina had lazily and indolently moved her body, distorted by motherhood, along the vegetable beds of ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... weeks after the defeat of Sir Geoffrey Gates, and Edward was at Shene, with his gay court. Reclined at length within a pavilion placed before a cool fountain, in the royal gardens, and surrounded by his favourites, the king listened indolently to the music of his minstrels, and sleeked the plumage of his favourite falcon, perched upon his wrist. And scarcely would it have been possible to recognize in that lazy voluptuary the dauntless soldier, before whose lance, ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... had known that anything was to happen," she replied indolently, "I should have taken more note of what was said. But as it was, I think we talked of our chance of finding white heather. We were looking for it, and that is why we ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... oddities of costume swimming in his eyes; one of them supports his head on his knee, and bends over him a round, good-natured, spectacled face. Above, a beautiful flag, striped and starred with white, blue, and red, flaps indolently ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... no sign of what was in his mind. A moment or two later he paused and, leaning indolently against a tree, let his gaze sweep idly over the cattle in ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... long tables, only one of which was in commission, the starboard. The saloon was unattractive, for staterooms marshaled along each side of it; and one caught glimpses of tumbled luggage and tousled berths. A punka stretched from one end of the table to the other, and swung indolently to and fro, whining mysteriously as if in protest, sometimes subsiding altogether (as the wearied coolie above the lights fell asleep) and then flapping hysterically (after a shout of warning from the captain) and setting the women's ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... case with a ship running before wind and sea she did not seem to an onlooker to move very fast; but to be progressing indolently in long leisurely bounds and pauses in the midst of the overtaking waves. It was only when actually passing the stern within easy hail of the Ferndale, that her headlong speed became apparent to the eye. With the red light shut off and soaring like an immense shadow on the crest of a wave she ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... world, except hunting. First there is the beautiful, neat, clean town, with groups of booted professors, ready for the rapidest march of intellect; then there are the strings of clothed horses—the finest in the world—passing indolently at intervals to their exercise,—the flower of the English aristocracy residing in the place. You leave the town and stroll to the wide open heath, where all is brightness and space; the white rails stand forth against the dear blue sky—the brushing gallop ever and anon startles the ear ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... it is his own affairs. Some ruin-hunter is no doubt going to the East, and he wants to send for an old coin or a bit of stone with an inscription, or the missing link," and the young man laughs indolently. ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... men of different stamp do when first thrown together. The young artist found his host extremely new and disconcerting; in his presence he felt both shy and awkward. Herr Paul, on the other hand, very much at ease, was thinking indolently: ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... school five or six times a week and doing everything they could to receive some punishment which would allow them to squall to their hearts' content. But she never beat them, nor even lost her temper; she lived on very well, placidly, indolently, in a state of mental abstraction amidst all the uproar. At last, indeed, this uproar became indispensable to her, to fill the void in her brain. She smiled complacently when she heard anyone say, "Her children will beat her some day, and it will serve ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... carried aboard. He breathed the air, walked briskly, turned with the German military precision at the end of his score of strides, and re-entered his cabin at the lapse of the half hour. After he had gone, remained Percy Darrow leaning indolently against the taffrail, his graceful figure swaying with the ship's motion, smoking always the corn-husk Mexican cigarettes which he rolled with one hand. He seemed from that farthest point aft to hold in review the appliances, the fabric, the ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams |
