"Languor" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... irritation against the causes of their disgust, and ascribed the evils with which they thought themselves oppressed to those who governed them, while he professed no other object than their good. He declaimed particularly against the languor with which the Indian war had been prosecuted; and, striking the note to which their feelings were most responsive, declared that, by proper exertions, it might ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... as the flowers, the Duchess, like them, passed swiftly away. Her pregnancy, by reason of toilsome rides, hunting parties, and other agitations, became complicated. From the eighth month she fell into a fever, into exhaustion and languor. The terror that took possession of her imagination caused her to desire a sojourn in a convent as a refuge of health, where God would see her nearer and, perhaps, come to ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... become very composed. She appeared annoyed at herself for her languor during the walk. Finding herself near the hotel, she recovered her energy as though ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... however, Esther's appearance was not much of a success. Although, apparently lost in languor and uninterested in anything, from her couch Betty observed her, wondering what could be done. For Esther to look so awkward and plain to-night, when as the first of their Camp Fire girls to be raised to the rank of Fire Maker she would be the center of ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook
... unusually warm for the season; there was little activity in the Indian town. Hans noticed that many of the Shawnees were still lingering along the Miami, although what object other than that of mere languor could induce them to remain, he could not possibly conceive. Reaching his own wigwam, he was confounded with joy to learn that the captive, Miss Prescott, was to be domiciled in it. He could scarce believe it until Keewaygooshturkumkankangewock told him that she was to be strictly guarded, ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... brown earth seems to thrill and quicken everywhere with new impulses which transform it into springing grass and overflowing flowers. The rivers are at their best: strong and clear and musical, the turbulence of early floods departed, the languor of later droughts not yet appearing. The shrunken woods expand; the stringent, sparkling wintry stars grow mild and liquid, shining with a tremulous and tender light; the whole world seems larger, happier, more full of untold, untried possibilities. The air vibrates with ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... tired, my heart and I! Though now none takes me on his arm To fold me close and kiss me warm Till each quick breath end in a sigh Of happy languor. Now, alone, We lean upon this graveyard stone, Uncheered, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... rafters, festooned with cobwebs and dust, could be touched by stretching out my hand, and where the sunlight only found an entrance through an aperture in the roof, which admitted the rain as well, I came back to life again, the pain in my head all gone, and nothing left save a delicious feeling of languor, which prompted me to lie quietly for several minutes, examining my surroundings, and speculating upon the chance which brought me there. That I was a prisoner I did not doubt, until the man at my side said to me, ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... elements mix most closely together, with a kind of languid visionariness, deep-seated in the very constitution of the "narcotist," who had quite a gift for "plucking the poisons of self-harm," and which the actual habit of taking opium, accidentally acquired, did but reinforce. This morbid languor of nature, connected both with his fitfulness of purpose and his rich delicate dreaminess, qualifies Coleridge's poetic composition even more than his prose; his verse, with the exception of his avowedly political poems, being, unlike that of the "Lake ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... this spring of 1877 the rheumatic attack of which he speaks was the beginning of a state of languor which in July became low bilious fever. He was not very ill; kept his bed only one day, and by the autumn recovered sufficiently to walk out; but from that time he was an invalid, and he never ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... feeling? Books of amusement tend to polish the mind, to improve the style, to give variety to conversation, and to lend a grace to more important accomplishments. He who can effect this has surely done something. Is no useful end served by that writer whose works have soothed weeks of languor and sickness, have relieved the mind exhausted from the pressure of employment by an amusement which delights without enervating, which relaxes the tension of the powers without rendering them unfit for future exercise? I should not be surprised to see these observations refuted; and ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... Sybil to whom he was speaking, but at this point Rachel plunged into the conversation with the sister, Vera, which required an effort, since the elder Miss Venables was a young lady who had cultivated languor as a sign of breeding and sophistication. Rachel, however, made the effort with such a will that the talk became general in ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... against her own experience and observation. The thoughts of this orphan boy clung to her heartstrings with a fondness for which she herself was unable to account. He seemed to have been sent to her by Heaven, to fill up those intervals of languor and vacuity which deprived her of much enjoyment. Perhaps he was not less dear to her, because she well saw that he was a favourite with no one else, and because she felt, that to give him up was to afford the judgment of her husband and others a triumph over ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... resembling dactyls, anapaests, and choriambs thrown hurriedly together, broken by irregular pauses, we begin to build a whole romance on the steps of the stranger; we infer from them moments of grave deliberation; the languor consequent upon overwrought thought; renewed effort; resolve; alternations of passion; hope struggling with despair; until all at last seems merged in impatient longing for the hour of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... marvellous and lazy clime, It were not possible for one to take Twenty young beauties and a hundred slaves— Retire to some secluded isle of palms— And live without a thought, a wish, a hope, Drugged with the warmth, the languor and the light. ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... Mr. Barradine made the same gesture that Dale had seen a few hours ago: a wave of the right hand. But to Dale it seemed that it was different now, that it indicated languor and haughtiness; indeed, it seemed that the whole man was different. Could this be the advocate who had spoken up so freely for a friend in trouble? All the majesty and the force, as well as the generous friendliness, had disappeared. ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... and the quick smile had enlightened it, the whole face of nature smiled upon him in her smile of welcome. Archie's slow pace was quickened; his legs hasted to her though his heart was hanging back. The girl, upon her side, drew herself together slowly and stood up, expectant; she was all languor, her face was gone white; her arms ached for him, her soul was on tip- toes. But he deceived her, pausing a few steps away, not less white than herself, and holding up his hand with ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the case, a look of languor suited her; and he thought she had grown decidedly better-looking in the last year. At Redsands Miss Brabazon had been a little too buxom, a little too self-possessed, also, for his taste. And yet—and yet how wonderfully good she had been to poor Mrs. Varick! With ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... languor when you came. Not bad, that feint—but dangerous, because of the possibility of misjudging the attack. Learn the paroles he affects to-morrow by quick, simple thrusts, and then you will know what feints to attack him with. Time in octave—you quitted the blade in a dangerous position. Cluck; ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... Lamented that they heard no more; While Brehan, from her broken lay, Portended what she yet might say. As the untarrying minutes flew, More anxious and alarm'd he grew. At length he spake:—"We wait too long The remnant of this wilder'd song! And too tenaciously we press Upon the languor of distress! 'Twere better, sure that hence convey'd, And in some noiseless chamber laid, Attentive care, and soothing rest, Appeas'd the ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... of this state England hated the Netherlands Friendly advice still more intolerable Haereticis non servanda fides He who confessed well was absolved well Insensible to contumely, and incapable of accepting a rebuff Languor of fatigue, rather than any sincere desire for peace Much as the blind or the deaf towards colour or music Subtle and dangerous enemy who wore the mask of a friend Word peace in Spanish mouths simply meant ...
— Quotations From John Lothrop Motley • David Widger
... really has lost a quantity of blood, which loss has decreased the heart's action sufficiently to produce the languor under ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... myself in weaving variations on these words, and the evening was far advanced before my mirth ceased. Then a drowsy quiet overcame me; a pleasant languor which I did not attempt to resist. The darkness had intensified, and a slight breeze furrowed the pearl-blue sea. The ships, the masts of which I could see outlined against the sky, looked with their black hulls like voiceless ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... a deep content. Birds fluted softly, and the high elms which stirred in the wandering breezes were all thick with their red buds. There was so much to look at and to point out that we talked but fitfully; and there was, too, a gentle languor abroad which made ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Chancellor in brisk speech that led to one or two interludes of angry interruption across the Table. When he made an end of speaking, debate relapsed into former condition of languor. Talk dully kept ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, July 1, 1914 • Various
... auspicious Dawn! Yet, as Time, publick Spirit, Patriotism (in its highest Conception) and unwearied Diligence, were all collectively essential to the giving Life, Vigour, and Activity, to national Industry and Improvement, so very long in a melancholy State of Languor and Oppression: Not before the present truly glorious Reign, did Hibernia tune her old Harp, now newly strung to universal Harmony and Elegance, and rear her awful Head from the stupid dismal Dozes of Ages; where comes the literal Application of ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... life always strung to the highest pitch of emotional excitement, to be never content unless when passing from fervour to fervour. No life can long endure this strain. This is specially seen in such poets as Byron and Shelley, who speedily fell from the heights of passion to the depths of languor and despondency. The same quick using up of the power of enjoyment produces the too common product of the blase man and the cynic. Wordsworth early perceived that all, even the richest, natures have but a very limited ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... mysteriously arrived in the city, encouraging them in the name of the Archduke and the Prince of Orange, and assuring them of relief within fourteen days. A brief animation was thus produced, attended by a corresponding languor upon the part of the besiegers, for Alexander had been lying ill with a fever since the day when the demilune had been carried. From his sick bed he rebuked his officers severely that a temporary breastwork, huddled together by boors and burghers in the midst of a siege, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... breed, with glorious yellow eyes and a Solomon-in-all-his-glory tail. His pedigree could be traced directly back to Padisha Zim Yuki Yowsi Zind—a dignity, in itself, sufficient to cause an aristocratic languor; but, to the layman, ...
— A Night Out • Edward Peple
... June his situation became one of serious alarm to his family. His majesty continued to transact business, but it was under such oppressive weakness, that it was clear to his medical attendants that his end was approaching. There was no active disease, indeed, but a general languor and weakness, which foretokened dissolution. His last days were spent in preparing for eternity; nothing seemed to give him greater pleasure than the presence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who attended him, and from whose hands he received the sacrament. His deportment at this solemn ceremony, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... in the next few days. It was hard to go on with the same work when waiting for a thing which was to make over one's whole life. The stress of dreams changing to hopes caused a great languor to come over her. And her chair was not right for her typewriter, and the smoke came in all the time. Strangely enough Out There seemed farther away. Sometimes she could not go there at all; she supposed it was because she was ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... when we are assembled is to shake hands all round, and greet each other with cheerful and pleasant looks. Remembering that we assemble not only for the promotion of our happiness, but with the view of adding something to the common stock, an air of languor or indifference in any member of our body would be regarded by the others as a kind of treason. We have never had an offender in this respect; but if we had, there is no doubt that he would be taken to task ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... almost seemed to breathe in the soft artificial light. The floor was covered with a gorgeous medallion carpet and around the walls were placed easy chairs and sofas of the most costly description. A peculiar intoxicating perfume was shed through the room, which had the effect of inducing a soft languor. There were eight panels formed by the octagon shape of the room. The upper portion of each panel was filled by a beautifully executed oil painting, the lower portion by a mirror or plate glass descending to ...
— The Life and Amours of the Beautiful, Gay and Dashing Kate Percival - The Belle of the Delaware • Kate Percival
... remained all that could be wished for a number of days after steaming out of the Golden Gate. It was in the month of September, when a mild, dreamy languor seemed to rest upon everything, and the passage across the Pacific was like one long-continued dream of the Orient—excepting, perhaps, when the cyclone or hurricane, roused from its sleep, swept over the deep with a fury such as strews the shores with wrecks and ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... Rationalis (1674), was one of the first to attempt to do justice to both sides of the coffee question. At best, he thought it a somewhat risky beverage, and its votaries must, in some cases, be prepared to suffer languor and even paralysis; it may attack the heart and cause tremblings in the limbs. On the other hand it may, if judiciously used, prove a marvelous benefit; "being daily drunk it wonderfully clears and enlightens each part of the Soul and disperses ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... with alacrity and throwing away all languor, hymn the praises of that Lord of the universe, that god of gods (viz., Vasudeva), who is Infinite and the foremost of all Beings, by uttering His thousand names. By always worshipping with reverence and devotion that immutable Being, by meditating ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... nature has placed nearer to the poles; and, therefore, as it becomes a wise man to struggle with the inconveniences of his country, whenever celerity and acuteness are requisite, we must actuate our languor by taking a few turns round the center in ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... a moment or two. She told herself that this was the most transcendental of follies. Yet it seemed as though there were something electrical in the atmosphere, as though something had come into the room unaccountable, stimulating, terrifying. All the languor of the last ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... healthy skin it was impossible for any impurity to stick to it, and maintained that it was an absurdity to wash a face which was of necessity always clean. I don't know how much fancy there was in this; but there is no fancy in saying that the lassitude of tired-out operatives, and the languor of imaginative natures in their periods of collapse, and the vacuity of minds untrained to labor and discipline, fit the soul and body for the germination ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... a momentary flash. He settled back into the easy-chair with invalid languor, and began to tell me good-naturedly about his old velocipede, describing its construction, and the feats he had been able to perform on it, clumsy though it was. He could keep up with a fast horse in riding into Boston, but at the cost of a good pair ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... everybody's way. When the boat put off without Ninian, she felt a kind of terror and wished that he had gone. He had sat down near her, and she pretended not to see. At last Lulu understood that Ninian was deliberately choosing to remain with her. The languor of his bulk after the evening meal made no explanation for Lulu. She asked for no explanation. He ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale
... conspicuous for aiming at a loftier ideal than that of his everyday associates, and characterized by the devout and ardent temperament essential to the religious reformer. It was in the year 1206 that he became a changed man. He fell ill—he lay at Death's door. From the languor and delirium he recovered but slowly—when he did recover old things had passed away; behold! all things had become new. From this time Giovanni Bernardone passes out of sight, and from the ashes of a dead ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... people of this land. All these bloom on through the winter, for this is a winter but in name. With no frost, ice, or snow, it is more like an Eastern spring, but for the absence of that feeling of languor and debility which is so often felt in that season. True it rains a good deal, but by no means constantly, more often in the night; and it is this season of smiles and tears, this winter of flowers and budding trees, in which the glory of the California climate lies. Certainly nothing ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... not ungraceful foppery. His gown waved in loose folds; his long dark curls were dressed with exquisite art, and shone and steamed with odours; his step and gesture exhibited an elegant and commanding figure in every posture of polite languor. But his countenance formed a singular contrast to the general appearance of his person. The high and imperial brow, the keen aquiline features, the compressed mouth; the penetrating eye, indicated the highest degree of ability and decision. He seemed absorbed in intense meditation. With eyes fixed ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... commences the true glory of the Rhine; and once more Gertrude's eyes conquered the languor that crept gradually over them as she ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... languor and a lack of power to lift a hand toward the light, too much a trusting of the shadow. "I have flung roses, roses riotously with the throng, to put those pale lost lilies out of mind." Always verging on a poetic feeling not just like ourselves in these days, ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... Court, and Henley had all been proposed; but Anna had been indifferent to each. She had been to the Royal Academy more than once, and all the best concerts were over; the weather was too hot for sight-seeing, and in her present state of languor she dreaded fatigue and crowds. "What did the place matter after all," she said to herself, "as long as Malcolm was with her? Her rest and enjoyment were in his society—to sit beside him and listen to his dear voice, and tell him all ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... action of light upon the vapour of this liquid is, at first, more languid than upon iodide of allyl; indeed many beautiful reactions may be overlooked, in consequence of this languor at the commencement. After some minutes' exposure, however, clouds begin to form, which grow in density and in beauty as the light continues to act. In every experiments hitherto made with this substance the column ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... realised that she was too young, was hoping too much from life, to spend one's days with. Yet she had just sufficiently that touch of languor which puts one at one's ease, though indeed it was rather the languor of waiting for what was going to happen than the weariness of experience gone by. She was weary, not because of the past, but because the fairy theatre of life still kept its curtain down, and forced her to play over ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... is what interests the women who sit of summer nights on balconies. For in those long-moon countries life is open and accessible, and romances seem to be furnished real and gratis, in order to save, in a languor-breeding climate, the ennui of reading and writing books. Each woman has a different way of picking up and relating her stories, as each one selects different pieces, and has a personal way of playing ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... too, and drawing the blanket closer around her shoulders (for she had taken advantage of her fatigue and languor to lie very late in bed) she wished her aunt had stayed in Boston, for a little time ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... interest of the play is almost entirely political, and patriotism is the chief passion involved. The main personal attraction of the tragedy is in the love of Galeazzo and his wife, and in the character of the latter the dreamy languor of a hopeless ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... hate it all—all—all!" said Bianca, as she swallowed the last drop of her coffee, and threw herself on the sofa in an attitude of languor ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... sweet wave Of incense. All the gloom was heavy with it, As if her Papist Household had returned To pray for her poor soul; and, my fear went. But either that strange incense weighed me down, Or else from being sorely over-tasked, A languor came upon me, and sitting there To breathe a moment, in a velvet stall, I closed mine eyes. A moment, and no more, For then I heard a rustling in the nave, And opened them; and, very far away, As if across the world, in Rome herself, I saw twelve ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... with your account of 'warm days.' It is warmer with us to-day, but we have had snow on all the mountains, and poor Isa has been half-frozen at her villa. As for me, I have suffered wonderfully little—no more than discomfort and languor. We have piled up the wood in this room and the next, and had a perpetual blaze. Not for ten years has there been in Florence such a November! 'Is this Italy?' says poor Fanny Haworth's wondering face. Still, she likes Florence better ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... thee flutter from his gentle clasp: Then fearful he had let thee win Too far beyond him to be gathered in, Snatched thee, o'er eager, with ungentle grasp. Ah! I remember me How once conspiracy was rife Against my life— The languor of it and the dreaming fond; Surging, the grasses dizzied me of thought, The breeze three odors brought, And a gem-flower waved in a wand! Then when I was distraught And could not speak, Sidelong, full on ...
— A Boy's Will • Robert Frost
... tasted brandy till that afternoon. Cardigan Street drank beer, and the glasses Ada had drunk at odd times had only made her sleepy without excitement. But this seductive liquid leapt through her veins, bringing a delicious languor and a sense of comfort. Her mind, dull and heavy by habit, ran on wheels. She wanted to interrupt Mrs Herring to make some observations of her own which seemed too good to lose. She felt a silly impulse to ask her whether she was born with a moustache, who ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... family physician, how certainly a cold may be broken up by a timely dose of quinine. When first symptoms make their appearance, when a little languor, slight hoarseness and ominous tightening of the nasal membranes follow exposure to draughts or sudden chill by wet, five grains of this useful alkaloid are sufficient in many cases to end the trouble. But it must ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... 138 B.C. He was a patrician of the purest blood, had inherited a moderate fortune, and had spent it like other young men of rank, lounging in theatres and amusing himself with dinner-parties. He was a poet, an artist, and a wit, but each and everything with the languor of an amateur. His favorite associates were actresses, and he had neither obtained nor aspired to any higher reputation than that of a cultivated man of fashion. His distinguished birth was not apparent in ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... women call handsome or divine, but he was rather what men call a smart-looking chap: fair, with bright blue eyes, and the most mischievous smile in London. He was unusually rapid in thought, speech and movement, without being restless, and his presence was an excellent cure for slackness, languor, strenuousness or a ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... seemed to change, so had the aspects of the canyon undergone some illusive transformation. The beauty of green foliage and amber stream and brown tree trunks and gray rocks and red walls was there; and the summer drowsiness and languor lay as deep; and the loneliness and solitude brooded with its same eternal significance. But some nameless enchantment, perhaps of hope, seemed no longer to encompass her. A blow had fallen upon her, the nature of which only time ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... languorous, faded South, do you bellow, O strident, bustling West, that because she neither sighed them nor trumpeted them, she had no passions? Allez, allez!) but I can close my eyes at any moment and smell the challenge of her Atlantic winds here on the Mediterranean or feel the heady languor of her miraculous "Indian Summer" there in a London drizzle. It is strange that I, who have said many unhandsome things of her country as a whole, should thus rush into apologia for my mother's birthplace. And yet to think of never ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... his pleasure at the visit. Aminta's presence always produced a strange effect on Scorpione, which his inability to speak enhanced. His eyes, of pale green, became suddenly lighted up with a peculiar and gentle languor, which was so tender that they seemed almost attractive. This singular magnetism had a novel effect on the invalid. But his brow soon became contracted; a violent storm seemed to agitate his heart; and the hissing ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... faces stared down upon him, scowling malignantly, while others, with still more hideous smile, invited him to enter and become one of their dreadful company. Insane laughter re-echoed in his ears, and the music of lutes, irresistible in its languor-compelling potency. Already had Constans stopped twice to listen, and upon each occasion he had been obliged to exercise all his failing strength of body and mind to resume his forward march. If he halted again it would be forever; ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... sallied out with jocund cries, and went plunging into the refreshing bath, whose frothy margin was the threshold of their dwellings. Others still, like birds, built their nests among the sylvan nooks of the elevated interior; whence all below, and hazy green, lay steeped in languor the ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... languor rests upon that ivory brow, No vague sigh of restless yearning e'er escapes her bosom now; Yet more fair and happy looks she, in that simple garb I ween, Than when, robed in lace and jewels, she was ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... to Batouch with intense vivacity in Arabic, at the same time shooting glances half-obsequious, half-impudent, wholly and even preternaturally keen and intelligent at Domini. Batouch replied with the dignified languor that seemed peculiar to him. The colloquy continued for two or three minutes. Domini thought it sounded like a quarrel, but she was not accustomed to Arabs' talk. Meanwhile, the stranger in front had ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... was not only the sight of that slow-rising smoke, there was the odour which floated to their nostrils, and set them off running in a way which seemed to suggest that their swim had washed away all the stiffness and languor of the day before. ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... favorable to story-telling. There was an autumnal languor in the air, and a dreamy haze softened the dark green of the distant pines and the deep blue of the Southern sky. The generous meal he had made had put the old man in a very good humor. He was not always so, for his curiously undeveloped nature was subject ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... reproof the youth said no more. An exquisite drowsiness had spread through him. The warm comfort of the blanket enveloped him and made a gentle languor. His head fell forward on his crooked arm and his weighted lids went softly down over his eyes. Hearing a splatter of musketry from the distance, he wondered indifferently if those men sometimes slept. He gave a long sigh, snuggled down into his blanket, ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... that we would come to the fox by and by. Weel, then, wha kens that the fox isna away snorin' happy afore the houn's? I hae nae doubt he is, for a fox is no sae complete a coward as to think huntin' cruel; and his haill nature is then on the alert, which in itsel' is happiness. Huntin' him fa'in into languor and ennui, and growin' ower fat on how-towdies (barn-door fowls). He's no killed every ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... Princess Pauline. Both these ladies had very considerable talents for political intrigue, and then natural faculties in this way had not lain dormant or been injured by want of practice. In Pauline this finesse was partially concealed by a languor and indecision of manner and an occasional assumption of 'niaiserie'; or almost infantine simplicity; but this only threw people the more off their guard, and made her finesse the more sure in its ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... the four years he had spent out there the lure of the South Seas—about which so much has been written that it must be a verity and not a popular myth—had never laid hold upon him. Its gorgeous physical beauty, its languor, its voluptuous colour and abandon, its prodigally glorious dawns and its velvety nights—held for him no value to be reckoned as an offset against climatic discomforts; it left him untouched. In it he never saw the wonderland that Stevenson made so vivid to stay-at-homes, ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... engaged with most of them there is not a trace to be found, on one side or the other, of anything approaching to either patronage or servility. Burke advises them, exhorts them, expostulates with them, condemns their aristocratic languor, fans their feeble flames, drafts their motions, dictates their protests, visits their houses, and generally supplies them with facts, figures, poetry, and romance. To all this they submit with much humility. The Duke of Richmond once ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... But the rector's daughter pined for neither society nor scandal: she had plenty of interest in her life, and in pleasing other people, whenever she could do it with pleasure to herself, and that was nearly always. Her present ailment was not languor, weariness, or dullness, but rather the want of such things; which we long for when they happen to be scarce, and declare them to be our first need, under ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... tranquillity above a week, before my fears were roused afresh, hearing the same sound of voices twice the same night, but not many minutes at a time. What gave me most pain was that they were at such a distance, as I judged by the languor of the sound, that if I had opened my door I could not have seen the utterers through the trees, and I was resolved not to venture out; but then I determined, if they should come again anything near my grotto, to open ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... fascinations of a woman in repose: languor, idleness, abandon, leaning back, reclining at full length, nonchalance, the cadences of pose, the pretty air of profiles bending over the scales of love (gammes d'amour), the receding curves of the bosom, the serpentine lines and undulations, the suppleness of the female ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... place and a camp-stool or two, you know. We had brought his belated correspondence, and a lot of torn envelopes and open letters littered his bed. His hand roamed feebly amongst these papers. I was struck by the fire of his eyes and the composed languor of his expression. It was not so much the exhaustion of disease. He did not seem in pain. This shadow looked satiated and calm, as though for the moment it had had its fill of ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... end of a week languor still weighed on the child. There were circles under her eyes and her cheeks were wan, and she did not clap her hands with the old-time glee when he brought her new toys; the playthings lay beside her ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... the misty terrace by the river. Far away, in an orchard, a nightingale was singing. A faint perfume of jasmine came through the open window. He brushed his brown curls back from his forehead, and taking up a lute, let his fingers stray across the cords. His heavy eyelids drooped, and a strange languor came over him. Never before had he felt so keenly, or with such exquisite joy, the magic and the ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde
... sensible as to unpack, Dorothea sank into a chair, and in an attitude of great languor and despair confided her love affairs to the sympathetic and interested servant, who swore fealty and offered all possible assistance. Her kind intentions were put at once to the test, for immediately another violent knocking ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... and he came from his state of languor. The exciting question was solved at last. The man would not sit all night absolutely immovable. There could be no doubt of the fact that he had raised an arm, and that his figure had straightened. Then he stood up, full height, ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... transparent ice. It was easy to realise that I too would shortly be nothing but a solid block of ice, like my companions. My legs, my arms were already congealed. Horror-stricken as I was at the approach of such a hopeless, ghastly death, my sensations were accompanied by a languor and lassitude indescribable but far from unpleasant. To some extent thought or wonderment was still alive. Should I dwindle painlessly away, preferring rest and peace to effort, or should I make a last struggle to save myself? ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... he lay motionless, with not even the movement of an eye-lash to indicate consciousness, wrapped in a delicious languor. Gradually this passed and the feeble flutter of his heart grew into a steady, rhythmic beat. The keen brain was awakening; he was beginning to remember. What had happened? He knew only that in some manner a drug had been administered to him, a bitter dose ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle
... have been very inconvenient not to come home; but, no doubt, she wanted to prevent any more partings. Then they went abroad, travelling slowly, and seeing all the sights that came in their way, to distract Ellen's thoughts. She was not allowed to hear what ailed her; but believed her languor and want of interest in everything to be the effect of the blow she had received, struggling to exert herself, and to enter gratefully into the enjoyments provided for her. She was not prevented from writing to Emily; indeed, no one liked to hinder anything she wished, but they were ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... The languor of the crimson shawl's abasement,— Lying without a stir Upon the floor,—the absence at the casement, The solitude and hush ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... recruited himself, he seemed to acquire an energy that startlingly contrasted with his languor the day before; the effort of breathing was scarcely perceptible; the color came back to his cheeks; his bended frame rose elastic ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... therefore, when, his dinner still unfinished, he felt a strange languor creeping over him and a mysterious obscurity dimming his eyes. Conceive, further, his horror at sight of the floor about him covered with frogs and toads and snakes and creeping things. And picture, finally, his amazement when, the darkness that enveloped him suddenly clearing, ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... pensively. The languor of reaction seemed stealing over her, but it only made her more charming as she leaned still farther back on the soft cushions, watching the point of her tiny foot tracing the pattern ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... the conversation," his Grace conceded, "that which you have stated is quite true." He spoke with admirable languor, but his ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... to the table. The man lit another cigarette, and its smoke mingled with the darkness above. In the hands of the waiter the cooler disappeared, and was returned; a second cork popped as had the first. The woman's eyes sparkled as brilliantly as the gems upon her fingers. The languor of the man had passed. With the old action repeated, the brimming glasses touched across the board, were exchanged after the foreign fashion, and again were dry. The figure of the man leaned far over the table. He spoke earnestly, rapidly. Unconscious motions of his hands added ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... said Constantia, lifting her head from Mrs. Mellicent's bosom, where she had sunk, from the extreme languor that succeeded the violent hysterics into which the terrors of this alarming night had thrown her. A more lovely or interesting object could scarcely be conceived than this charming girl, just ripening into woman, her mind mature beyond her years, and her heart agitated by the finest feelings ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... all events, entitled to claim that distinction in the court of beauty; and the eldest was the most lovely creature I ever beheld. She possessed one of those fine intellectual faces, which, once seen, can never be obliterated from the gazer's remembrance; and there was a languor and a softness in her countenance, and in the expression of her large, dark, sleepy eyes, inexpressibly fascinating, though more allied to Oriental than ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... to its recommendations, if not disobedience to its authority, not only in individuals but in States, soon appeared with their melancholy consequences— universal languor, jealousies, rivalries of States, decline of navigation and commerce, discouragement of necessary manufactures, universal fall in the value of lands and their produce, contempt of public and private faith, ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... having been robed in shawls and turbans as before. You are laid gently on the reposing bed; somebody brings a narghile, which tastes as tobacco must taste in Mahomet's Paradise; a cool sweet dreamy languor takes possession of the purified frame; and half-an- hour of such delicious laziness is spent over the pipe as is unknown in Europe, where vulgar prejudice has most shamefully maligned indolence—calls it foul names, ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... means presented the distorted look of the furnace-bricks. The furnace-bricks were haggard, with the immediate blistering of the fire—the midmost ones were ruddy with a genial and tempered glow—the summit ones were pale with the languor of too exclusive an exemption from the burden ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... leaves of the trees on the boulevard, the sounds of the band and the white trousers of a battalion marching to parade, the rattling of wheels on the cobblestones, and the brilliant, hot sunshine were all full of that summer languor, that content and discontent with the present, which is most strongly felt on a bright, hot day in town. All the Moscow notabilities, all the Rostovs' acquaintances, were at the Razumovskis' chapel, for, as if expecting something to happen, many wealthy families who usually left town for their ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... She had the Asiatic eye, Such as our Turkish neighborhood Hath mingled with our Polish blood, Dark as above us is the sky; But through it stole a tender light, Like the first moonrise of midnight; Large, dark, and swimming in the stream, Which seem'd to melt to its own beam; All love, half languor, and half fire, Like saints that at the stake expire, And lift their raptured looks on high, As though it were a joy to die. A brow like a midsummer lake, Transparent with the sun therein When waves no murmur dare to make, And heaven beholds her face within. A cheek and lip—but ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... onward: the earthly Paradise was unfolded to their view; the air was balmy, and laden with rich fragrance from the numberless flowers around; but instead of filling the spirit with soft languor, and indisposing the body to exertion, the gentle breezes imparted new vigor to the frame, and the buoyant, hilarious feelings of early youth shot through the veins, making the thoughtful eye sparkle, and giving to the grave foot of saddened maturity the elasticity of childhood. A new, ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... loss of appetite, a gnawing sensation in the stomach, when empty, a sense of constriction in the throat, dryness in the mouth and fauces, thickening or huskiness of the voice, costiveness, paleness of the countenance, languor, emaciation, aversion to exercise, lowness of spirits, palpitations, disturbed sleep; in short, all the symptoms which characterize dyspepsia of the worst stamp. He was well nigh unfitted for any kind of business, and his very existence began to ...
— An Essay on the Influence of Tobacco upon Life and Health • R. D. Mussey
... music, as they are called, do plague and embitter my apprehension.—Words are something; but to be exposed to an endless battery of mere sounds; to be long a dying, to lie stretched upon a rack of roses; to keep up languor by unintermitted effort; to pile honey upon sugar, and sugar upon honey, to an interminable tedious sweetness; to fill up sound with feeling, and strain ideas to keep pace with it; to gaze on empty frames, and be forced to ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... do that which I shall have just occasion to look back upon with satisfaction. It is the anticipation of this result, that stimulates our efforts, and carries us forward. Perseverance is an active principle, and cannot continue to operate but under the influence of desire. It is incompatible with languor and neutrality. It implies the love of glory, perhaps of that glory which shall be attributed to us by others, or perhaps only of that glory which shall be reaped by us in the silent chambers of the mind. The diligent scholar is he that loves himself, and desires to have reason ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... down, asking herself what should make her tremble so. Why had her aunt Caxton sent her that evening, alone, to hear Mr. Rhys preach? And why not? what was there about it? She was very glad, she knew, to hear him; but there would be no more apathy or languor in her mind now on the subject of that question her aunt had desired her to settle. No more. The very sound of that speaker's voice woke her conscience to a sharp sense of what she had been about all these months since she had heard it last. She ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... pale young gentleman, and had a certain conquered languor about him in the midst of his spirits and briskness, that did not seem indicative of natural strength. He had not a handsome face, but it was better than handsome: being extremely amiable and cheerful. His figure was a little ungainly, as in the days ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... elegantly moulded, and possessed of a maturity of charms which made her seem three or four years older than she really was—with rich auburn hair, eyes of deep blue, large and rolling, and at times expressing an involuntary tenderness, which gave a voluptuous languor to her beautiful countenance. Her forehead was high and open; she had teeth of pearly whiteness, and possessed all the accomplishments which a French lady of ion need desire. It is not surprising, therefore, that Miss Blanchette should have captivated many admirers. Among those who paid homage ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... that I was in my death agony, and somewhat afraid, I must admit, at having succeeded in playing such a nasty trick on Perrin. But my surprise was great when the curtain fell at the close of the piece and I got up quickly to answer to the call and bow to the audience without languor, without fainting, feeling strong enough to go through my part again if it had ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... trifle like that was inconvenient," said he, with all the languor of a millionaire. "Forget what it was about. Some take in, I'll swear. Never mind, a debt's a debt, and here goes. How ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... my eyes, it was night. A lamp, suspended from the ceiling, cast a clear, although soft light through the chamber. A delicious languor infolded me. I seemed floating, far from land, upon the bosom of a twilight sea. Existence was in itself pleasure. I had no ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... tresses all curling bright, Sporting and frisking like lambkin or kid, Foot it so sprightly, and dance it all down aright— Never for languor shall Annette be chid. Right hand and left again, Round about set amain, Jokingly, ...
— Harper's Young People, May 18, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... she had spoken but little, and the Colonel had thought her fatigued, for he had caught one glimpse of the dreamy languor in her ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... statue in the recess of the window, his face unmoved, but no smile on his lips, Soames waited. Presently, within a yard of the dark balcony, his wife and Bosinney passed. He caught the perfume of the gardenias that she wore, saw the rise and fall of her bosom, the languor in her eyes, her parted lips, and a look on her face that he did not know. To the slow, swinging measure they danced by, and it seemed to him that they clung to each other; he saw her raise her eyes, soft and dark, to Bosinney's, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the man who was involved in them apart from his fellows. The foreign element in him woke up, called, perhaps, from repose by the unusually languid air, and London seemed meaningless to him, a city where a man of his type could neither dream, nor act, with all the languor, or all the energy, that was within him. And he imagined, as sometimes clever children do, a distant country where all romances unwind their shining coils, where he would find the incentive which he needed to call all his secret powers—the powers whose exercise ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... who was not uncommonly in a condition of faint languor was content, during these terrible six weeks of her life, to play the part of spectator. Silently, but with a good proportion of the available interest, she contemplated the younger members of the party, and whether she happened to be on her chaise-longue overlooking ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... Where our reflection lies Steeped in the sea, And, in an endless fit Of languor, smile on it And its sweet mimicry. Where shall ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... languor of spring was in his veins, and he bent forward again, sniffing the mild air. The witchery of spring had also drawn his neighbor to her window, where she leaned on the sill, cheeks in her hands, listlessly watching the flight of ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... Calvary which Vauvenargues so meekly mounted, unless we realize that to all his other failures was added a complete disregard of his ideas by the literary public of his own day. He died unknown, save by two or three friends, having never experienced anything but languor, disappointment and obscurity. Under the pseudonym of Clazomene, just before his death, he drew a picture of his own fortune and character which proves that he had no illusion about himself, and which yet contains ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... it was, several days later, evening of a sultry, stifling day, which had escaped the bounds of longitude and invaded even the North Shore. The open ocean, itself, seemed to have forgotten its habitual unrest and yielded to the general languor. From the Thayers' summer home—a glorified bungalow, broad of veranda and shingled silvery-olive, atop a long, terraced bank—it had the appearance of a limitless mirror, reflecting the unblemished blue infinity of the sky. Only the never-ceasing series of vague white lines which ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... ruthless felon-jaws Close on his form;—the sea is stain'd with blood— One sharp wild shriek is heard—and all is still! The lion, tiger, alligator, shark— The wily fox, the bright enamelled snake— All seek their prey by force or stratagem; But when—their hunger sated—languor creeps Around their frames, they quickly sink to rest. Not so with man—HE never hath enough; He feeds on all alike; and, wild or tame, He's but a cannibal. He burns, destroys, And scatters death to sate his morbid lust For empty fame. But when the love of gain Hath struck its roots in his vile, ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... realm—the kingdom of the lilies, the kingdom of Charlemagne and his paladins; from the very fierceness and angry vigilance of whose constant hostility to ourselves has arisen one chief re-agent in sustaining our own concurrent advancement. Under the torpor of a German patriotism, under the languor of a sensus communis which is hardly at all developed, our own unrivalled energy would partially have gone to sleep. We are, therefore, deeply indebted to the rancorous animosity of France. And in this one article of a sound political creed we must be sensible ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... an hour in a half-conscious state; but later in the day she began to recover, and moved to the couch near the fire, while Fan sat beside her on the carpet, watching the face that looked so strange in its whiteness and languor, and keeping the firelight from the ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... expressive of haste, lest the winter might come on them unawares; and I noticed that the year's growth had been shot out at once, so that the young sprays might have time to harden and to protect the next year's buds. There was no lush, rollicking out-burst of foliage, no mellow, epicurean languor of the woods, no easy unfolding of leaf on leaf, as in the long security of our summers; but everywhere a feverish hurry on the part of nature to do something, even if it should only be half done. And above the valley, behind its mural ramparts, glowered the cold white snows, which had withdrawn ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... of it at pleasure. This arises from their great flexibility, which, to compete with mocks the labours of art, and enables them to migrate thousands of miles in a season, without the slightest indications of languor or fatigue. ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... mortified the flesh, or turned his back more decidedly upon the "good things" of this life. A solemn and funeral atmosphere surrounded him. He walked in the shadows of the cypress, and literally "dwelt among the tombs." Tortured by incessant pain, he wrestled against its attendant languor and debility, as a sinful wasting of inestimable time; goaded himself to constant toil and devotional exercise, and, to use his own words, "stirred up his sluggish soul to speak to sinners with compassion, as a dying man to ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... definition that the danger ahead of all purely descriptive poetry is that it will lack intensity, that it will be frigid, if not dead. Description for description's sake, especially in studied verse, is rarely a vitalized form of literature. It is threatened, from its very conception, with languor and coldness; it must exercise an extreme art or be condemned to immediate sterility. Boileau, with his customary intelligence, was the first to see this, and he thought that the danger might be avoided ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various |
