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More "Inattentive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... scenery, in some unaccountable way, seemed less attractive to him, the songs of the birds, who were all awake, fell on inattentive ears; he was haunted by her face and voice, and he was, moreover, a little out of humor with himself for having been such a blunderer as to give her offense and thus leave an unfavorable impression on ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... passage relative to alchymy:—"The ancient books of alchymy, so liberally ascribed to Pythagoras, to Solomon, or to Hermes, were the pious frauds of more recent adepts. The Greeks were inattentive either to the use or the abuse of chemistry. In that immense register where Pliny has deposited the discoveries, the arts, and the errors of mankind, there is not the least mention of the transmutations of metals; and the persecution of Diocletian is the first authentic event in the history ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... fields barren. When the grass came, she ordered handfuls to be brought her and put in saucers of water. With the coming of the blossoms she began to mend. As for me, I was as much an animal as ever—robust in health—inattentive, and seeking excitement and exhilaration. I went everywhere, to Bible class, to Sunday school, and to every funeral which took place within our precincts. But I never looked upon the dead; perhaps that sight would have marred the ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... power to keep the young Queen and the Infanta in good humour, encouraging the Princesses in many little indulgences suitable to their age and sex, especially in the article of dress, in which their royal mother was more than inattentive. This line of conduct, coupled with the expected arrival of the Infant, Don Francisco de Paula and his family, who are to be received with every mark of respect, indicates that the present rulers of Spain, aware of their critical situation, wish to strengthen ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 2, 1841 • Various
... carry a message to Mrs. Thoreau and my rap on her door was answered by no other man than this odd son who, on the threshold received my message. He stood in the doorway with hair which looked as if it had been dressed with a pine-cone, inattentive grey eyes, hazy with far-away musings, an emphatic nose and disheveled attire that bore signs of tramps in woods and swamps. Thinking of the forest fire I fancied he smelled of smoke and peered curiously up the staircase behind him hoping I might get a glimpse of that queer library ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... week, and I will own that I bored myself. In fact, I am not sure but we bored each other. At any rate, when I told him, the night before I intended going, that I meant to leave him in the morning, he seemed resigned, or indifferent, or perhaps merely inattentive. From time to time we had recurred to the matter of his experience, or his delusion, but with apparently increasing impatience on his part, and certainly decreasing interest on mine; so that at last I think he was willing to have me go. But in the morning ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... among the low Irish is, 'The Feast of the Pass-over.' Some allusion to Bonaparte, in a play lately acted at Dublin, produced thunders of applause from the pit and the galleries; and a politician should not be inattentive to the public feelings expressed in theatres. Mr. Perceval thinks he has disarmed the Irish. He has no more disarmed the Irish than he has resigned a shilling of his own public emoluments. An Irish peasant fills the barrel ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... at me with solemn distraction, obviously thinking of something else. I suggested that he had better take the next city-ward tramcar. He was inattentive, and I perceived that he was profoundly perturbed. As Miss de Barral (she had moved out of sight) could not possibly approach the hotel door as long as we remained where we were I proposed that we should wait for the car on the other side of the street. He obeyed ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... institutors proposed to attain this object was the periodical publication of pamphlets, under the superintendence of a competent committee. The first treatise appeared: its subject was NONCHALANCE. It instructed its students ever to appear inattentive in the society of men, and heartless when they conversed with women. It taught them not to understand a man if he were witty; to misunderstand him if he were eloquent; to yawn or stare if he chanced to elevate his voice, ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... Heraka, who was higher in rank than he, and he pursed his lips thoughtfully, trying to decide what he would do. Then he heard a woof and a snort, and a sudden lurch of a heavy body. He sprang to his feet in alarm. While he was thinking and inattentive, Rota (the grizzly bear), not yet gone into his winter sleep, vast and hungry, ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... utility. He had declared that the gewgaws of office delighted him not; and I dare say he would fain bring his mind to believe that all ceremonial was idle, perhaps contemptible. But it is the greatest mistake to suppose that Lord Brougham is inattentive to the ceremonies with which his high place is surrounded. A careful observer will see clearly that imposing forms are perfectly agreeable to his mind; nobody could ridicule form better, so long as he held no situation ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 496 - Vol. 17, No. 496, June 27, 1831 • Various
... manned; and Lieutenant Cook and his friends, having Tupia of their party, set out from the Endeavour. They intended to land where they had seen some Indians, and began to hope, that as these Indians had paid no regard to the ship when she came into the bay, they would be as inattentive to the advances of the English towards the shore. In this, however, the gentlemen were disappointed: for as soon as they approached the rocks, two of the men came down upon them to dispute their landing, and the rest ran away. These ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... a thoughtless or inattentive child; on the contrary he observed on his way to, and from School, and when he walked out with his ...
— Fanny, the Flower-Girl • Selina Bunbury
... replacing the independent private workshop by the compulsory national workshop in this way replacing piece-work by work by the day, and the attentive, energetic workman who minds his business and expects to earn money in return by inattentive apathic workmen pressed into a poorly paid service but paid even when they botch the job or laze about.—This is what the Jacobins do by forcibly commanding the services of all sorts of laborers,[4243] "all who help handle, transport and retail produce and ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... sword. They sat together and laughed, calling each other openly by every pet name that could move the wrath of the gods. The city below them was locked up in its own torments. Sulphur fires blazed in the streets; the conches in the Hindu temples screamed and bellowed, for the gods were inattentive in those days. There was a service in the great Mahomedan shrine, and the call to prayer from the minarets was almost unceasing. They heard the wailing in the houses of the dead, and once the shriek of a mother who had lost a child and was calling for its return. ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... buried up to the bosom in earth—still exercising her devotions. Canova has doubtless displayed great pathos in the wretched aspect, and humiliated attitude, of his Magdalen; but he has, at the same time, not been inattentive to beauty of form. I only wish she appeared to be in as good condition as the torso indicates. A fastidious observer might say the figure was not quite balanced, and that she must fall backward—if she retained such an attitude for a quarter of an hour. But ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... worked to reproduce this incarnation of the ideal of umblemished youthful and manly beauty. The passion of artistic procreation fired his blood, and threw every thing else—even the history of Selene's fall into the sea, and her subsequent rescue—into the region of commonplace. Still he had not been inattentive, and what he heard must have had some effect in his mind; for long after Antinous had ended his narrative, he said in a low voice and as if speaking to the bust, which ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... brown face, a dust-coloured moustache, very prominent cheek-bones, and hollow checks. His forehead sloped back towards the crown of his head, and bulged out in bumps over the eyes, like foreheads seen in the Lion-house at the Zoo. He had sherry-coloured eyes, disconcertingly inattentive at times. Old Jolyon's coachman, after driving June and Bosinney to the theatre, had remarked to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... heedless, inconsiderate, oblivious, drowsy, inattentive, neglectful, thoughtless, dull, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... these fixed, indestructible features are to be found others extremely changeable, which the art of the breeder or horticulturist may easily modify, and at times to such an extent as to conceal the fundamental characteristics from an observer at all inattentive. ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... Patty's sake she must control her temper—and she did. With an effort that left her white and tremulous she crushed back the hot words and said quietly: "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Liddell. I did not mean to be inattentive. Let me show you some of our new lingerie waists, I think you will ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... said, "Of course. It is natural," for I feared to have him know that I was inattentive even for that short space, and waited ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... ill-spelled epistle, containing the latest information from Mayo, with all particulars of the Macan family, of which she is a worthy member. To her constant hints of the acceptable nature of certain small remittances, the poor general is never inattentive; but to the pleasing prospect of a visit in the flesh from Miss Judy Macan, the good man is dead. In fact, nothing short of being broke by general court-martial could complete his sensations of horror at such a stroke of fortune; and I am not ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... her of the performance in the ship. Finding a listener neither inattentive nor without sympathy, he went further still and told of the song's effect upon him, and that the sweetness of it still abiding made his hatred ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... to have been introduced on purpose that the author might have a fair opportunity of stating his sentiments concerning the practical nature of evangelical religion, to which numbers in his day were too inattentive; so that this admired allegory has fully established the important distinction between a dead and a living faith, on which the whole controversy depends-(Scott). "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal" ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... tale is not clearly told. He is evidently thinking of other things, and his sentences are often imperfect. His mind wanders to the things he intends doing, to the storm, the strangers on the island and to his plans for the future. Miranda is not inattentive—she is fascinated by the story—but her father attributes his own wandering thoughts ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... order to reduce it to the finest powder; he separates the impalpable from the coarser parts by washing, and repeats his mechanical bruising and trituration, being assured his whole process will fail if he is inattentive to this essential and ...
— Familiar Letters of Chemistry • Justus Liebig
... Masons have not been inattentive to this symbolism. Their already quoted expression that the "Freemasons build temples for virtue and dungeons for vice," has very clearly a reference to it, and their most distinguished writers never lose sight ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... also very inattentive to his books. The teacher did the best he could to make him learn; but his lessons were never more than half learned, and the greater part of the time they were not studied at all: and, though naturally he was a bright, ...
— Charles Duran - Or, The Career of a Bad Boy • The Author of The Waldos
... the town guard were stationed at the gates, but these might prove inattentive or insufficient, they had not the same price at stake, so the entire able-bodied population of Boulogne watched the gloomy prison that night, lest anyone ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... and paid no attention to the strange, unconnected discourses which he held. Many of his prophecies are believed to have been lost in this manner. But they were not always destined to be wasted upon dull and inattentive ears. An incident occurred which brought him into notice, and established his fame as a prophet of the first calibre. He was ploughing in a field when he suddenly stopped from his labour, and with a wild ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... in the medical profession pretty much what the "general servant" of the advertising column is in the scale of domestic service. He must perforce be kind to the poor, and tolerably expert by reason of much practice, and he is generally popular. Dr. Poulain, called in by Mme. Cibot, gave an inattentive ear to the old musician's complainings. Pons groaned out that his skin itched; he had scratched himself all night long, till he could scarcely feel. The look of his eyes, with the yellow circles ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... from the dull strain of watching the clock, sang with spirit. Hester played on, inattentive to the words. At the end, without considering what she did, she pressed down the chords of the 'Amen,' and the singers joined in, all ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... disordered; or a house too small for convenience or too large to be kept cleanly. The professional man finds it in perpetual interruptions or calls for "more copy." The Sabbath-school teacher finds it in inattentive scholars, or neighboring teachers that talk loud and make a great noise in ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... protracted vigil, they had not been inattentive to the objects immediately around them: and the carcass of the whale had come in for a share of their consideration. A consultation had been held upon it, which had resulted in a determination not to leave the leviathan until they ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... by the threshold of a door nail'd fast, Three kittens sat; each kitten look'd aghast. I, passing swift and inattentive by, At the three kittens cast a careless eye; Not much concern'd to know what they did there, Not deeming kittens worth a Poet's care. But presently a loud and furious hiss Caused me to stop, and ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... came to the restless and unhappy girl's mind she only played with her food, became distrait and inattentive, and had to be spoken to once or twice by Mrs. Clavering in order to ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... Fillmore Flagg in the office of the farm, going over the books of the company with Fern Fenwick. To most women, such a task would soon prove unbearably monotonous and tiresome. However, she neither grew restless or inattentive. At all times on the alert to note each new point of interest; her questions on every subject indicated a remarkably intelligent conception of the general plan of the work. Finally, having satisfied herself that ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... bringing about the dissolution of the republic and the incredible horrors that followed it was what was known as "the contest between capital and labor." This momentous struggle began in a rather singular way through an agitation set afoot by certain ambitious women who preached at first to inattentive and inhospitable ears, but with ever increasing acceptance, the doctrine of equality of the sexes, and demanded the "emancipation" of woman. True, woman was already an object of worship and had, as noted before, the right to kill. She was treated with profound and sincere deference, because ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... with an inattentive manner, and apparently wrapped up in such a taciturn concern for his engines that he seemed to have lost the use of speech. When addressed directly his only answer would be a grunt or a hoot, according to the distance. For all the years he had been in the Sofala he ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... into Neefit's shop during the hour of Mr. Neefit's absence, and ordered,—three pair of breeches. Herr "Bawwah," the cutter, who never left his board during the day for more than five minutes at a time, remained, as was his custom, mute and apparently inattentive; but the foreman came down from his perch and took the order. Mr. Neefit was out, unfortunately;—in the City. Ralph Newton remarked that his measure was not in the least altered, gave his ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... very inattentive to their game, the players, by the group of little girls, of white and pink waists, and they laughed themselves at not playing so well as usual. Above them, occupying only a small corner of the old, granite amphitheatre, ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... him in town. He wrote evasively, but did not appear, and the ladies, with Emilia between them, listened to every foot-fall by the box-door, and were too much preoccupied to marvel that Emilia was just as inattentive to the music as they were. When the curtain dropped they ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... think of it. He was startled by the sense of the presence of some one else in the room. He turned round. She had come in so gently, that he had never heard her; the street noises had been more distinct to his inattentive ear than her slow movements, in ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... certainly treated this court in which you are sitting as if it were an absolute solitude. At last he brought his speech to an end. I rose to reply. He could be seen to breathe again that it was I and no one else. I noticed, gentlemen, that he continued to laugh and be inattentive till I mentioned Chrysogonus. As soon as I got to him my friend roused himself and was evidently astonished. I saw what had touched him, and repeated the name a second time, and a third. From that time men have never ceased to run briskly backwards and forwards, to tell Chrysogonus, ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... exhorting evangelist was holding forth to three listless and inattentive sinners. A tired-looking woman sat at a miniature portable organ. At the close of the services California ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... [Greek: en ole te Galilaia] (B) in St. Matt. iv. 23, (adopted by Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford, Westcott and Hort and the Revisers,) is due simply to the reduplication on the part of some inattentive scribe of the last two letters of the immediately preceding word,—[Greek: periegen]. The received reading of the place is the correct one,—[Greek: kai periegen holen ten Galilaian ho Iesous], ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... cities, and men eminent in the different professions and literary pursuits. Complaints of inattention were made against some of its members, and at the election for officers after the expiration of the first year, others were substituted for the inattentive and inefficient. The change for the most part was made by unanimous consent; but when a ballot was called for, other names were substituted for those on the house list, recommended by the former committee, ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... in a wife gains her the attention of an otherwise inattentive husband it fills, from the standpoint of her deeper longing, an important place, and, in a sense, may be said to be desirable. The great point about the psychanalytic method, as discovered by Breuer ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... lend an inattentive ear to all these explanations, which she gave in those timid tones, which had lately become habitual to her, but once—when she made a slip, and talked about a share which she possessed in the Russian Company being worth L50,000, ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... it is to be feared, were now inattentive. They appeared to listen, but they were merely surveying with acute interest the now revealed lower half of Dave Cowan. The trousers were frayed, the shoes were but wraiths of shoes. The speaker, quite unconscious of this scrutiny, ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... made Sheila rather inattentive to other proposals, and she found herself obliged to go down to supper with Orion, since he had outsat and outtalked all the other young men who had hovered about her. She was nice to Orion; the girl could ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... Bill was reached one evening at eleven o'clock. SEXTON thought the hour inconvenient and the audience inadequate for the oration; insisted upon postponing it. Must be delivered to-night or never; so worked it off, speaking for an hour in almost empty and sadly inattentive House. TIM HEALY, not to lose an opportunity that might be final, joined in debate. Audience being chiefly composed of JACKSON, TIM took opportunity of genially observing, a propos of the Bill, that if he had to spend his time on a desert island ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 11, 1892 • Various
... dog, my other companion, was old and lazy and liked to sleep by the open fire rather than to romp with me. I tried hard to teach her my sign language, but she was dull and inattentive. She sometimes started and quivered with excitement, then she became perfectly rigid, as dogs do when they point a bird. I did not then know why Belle acted in this way; but I knew she was not doing as I wished. This vexed me and the lesson always ended ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... more crabbed, or I am more dull and inattentive, for I cannot fix my Minde on my Book, and am secretlie wearie, Robin wearies too. But I will not give up as yet; the more soe as in this quiete Studdy I am out of Sighte and Hearinge of sundrie young Officers Dick is continuallie ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... questions discussed and decided. Cecil took part, endeavoring in a quiet way to set before the chiefs a higher ideal of justice and mercy than their own. He was heard with grave attention, and saw that more than one chief seemed impressed by his words. Only Snoqualmie was sullen and inattentive, and Mishlah the Cougar was watchful ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... the chief subject of my study, and the social sphere that in which I principally moved; but I was not inattentive to inanimate nature, nor unmindful of the past. If the scope of virtue were to maintain the body in health, and to furnish its highest enjoyments to every sense, to increase the number, and accuracy, and order of our intellectual stores, no virtue was ever more ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... listen to the words of Beattie, who says: "The force wherewith anything strikes the mind, is generally in proportion to the degree of attention bestowed upon it. Moreover, the great art of memory is attention, and inattentive ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... had got but a very scanty allowance, and that yesterday they had got none. The melancholy cries of famine are more easily imagined than described; and from their representations, I fear that the Nabob's agents for that business are very inattentive. I therefore think it requisite to make you acquainted with the circumstance, that his Excellency the Nabob may cause his agents to be more circumspect in their conduct to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... the irritability is less than natural, though it is erroneously supposed to be greater; and the mind is busied in exciting a train of ideas inattentive to external objects; when this train of ideas is dissevered by any unexpected stimulus, surprise is excited; as explained in Sect. XVII. 3. 7. and XVIII. 17. then as the sensibility in these cases is greater, fear becomes superadded to the ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... Harlowe with an expression of angry surprise. That gentleman, who did not appear to recognize the new-comer, returned his look with a supercilious, contemptuous stare, and passed on with Edith—who had courteously saluted the inattentive Mr. Ferret—followed ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... letters, {34} not wishing to mix with other boys; but all his longing was (according to what is written of Jacob) to dwell simply in his own house. But when his parents took him into the Lord's house, he was not saucy, like a boy, nor inattentive as he grew older; but was subject to his parents, and attentive to what was read, turning it to his own account. Nor again (as a boy who was moderately well off) did he trouble his parents for various and expensive dainties, ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... glean fresh fragments of the terrible half-known tale of the past. "Yes, Rosie, when you go and keep house for papa on the top of the Oural Mountains, or wherever it may be, you are to remember that if Aunt Ermine had not been in a foolish, inattentive mood, and had taken his dangerous goods out of the way, she might have been trotting to church now like other people. But poor Ailie has always helped herself to the whole blame, and if every childish fit of temper were ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... strikes the most inattentive traveller as soon as he steps into this Lower Egypt, where from time immemorial the Nile has been accumulating its mud in thin layers, is the close intimacy of the fellah and the earth. Autochthone is the name that best fits him; he springs from the clay which he treads, ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... Harriot then were, his conduct must appear injurious, and shame and the secret reproaches of his conscience made him take all possible opportunities of avoiding her presence: if he was obliged to converse with her, it was with an air so restrained and inattentive as made her fear his regard for her was entirely vanished. The sincere affection she had for him rendered this apprehension extremely painful. She would have been contented to have seen another woman ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... resentment; while the steward, observing a strict neutrality of aspect, fixed his eyes upon an old scutcheon on the opposite side of the wall, which he seemed to examine with the utmost accuracy, more willing, perhaps, to incur the censure of being inattentive to the sermon, than that of seeming to listen with marked approbation to what appeared ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... words of the Brahmana, the sons of Kunti seemed to be, as it were, pierced with darts. Indeed, all those mighty heroes lost their peace of mind. Then the truthful Kunti, beholding all her sons listless and inattentive, addressed Yudhishthira and said, 'We have now lived many nights in the abode of this Brahmana. We have passed our time pleasantly in this town, living on the alms obtained from many honest and illustrious persons. O oppressor of foes, as we have now seen often and often all ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... rightly such neglect upbraid, Paint on such faces is by prudence laid. Large the domain, but all within combine To correspond with the dishonoured sign; And all around dilapidates; you call - But none replies—they're inattentive all: At length a ruin'd stable holds your steed, While you through large and dirty rooms proceed, Spacious and cold; a proof they once had been In honour,—now magnificently mean; Till in some small half-furnish'd room you rest, Whose dying fire denotes it had a guest. In those you pass'd, ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... conch-shell sounded to call the negroes to their daily labour, that he might relieve the sensations of his soul by bodily exertion, He performed his task in silence; and an inattentive observer might ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... it in view to reduce the expenditures as nearly as possible to what in justice and in reason they ought to be; and to do this, he must be vested with power to dismiss from employment those officers he shall find unnecessary, unequal to their stations, inattentive to their duty, or dishonest in ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... most inattentive of historical students who can afford to ignore this. No modern aesthetician from the Rhine to the Spree affects to dispute the succession of Teutonic thought, in its various forms of passion, from Beethoven to Goethe, from Schiller, Jean Paul, or Weber, or Ravner, or Kleist, or Immermann, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... was formal, unimpressive, and undevotional; the singing was languid; but we expected that the sermon would arouse the inattentive, and invigorate the dull. The moment for announcing the text arrived. Our curiosity was excited. With little less than famine in the land, our hearts were appalled at hearing the words, "When they ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... inattentive to his newspaper; observant of her small needs, and anticipating her timid half expressed wishes. Was there some mysterious power that had so soon taught the man such methods to a woman's heart, or was he not rather on guard and schooling himself for the role which was to be ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... a long and not inattentive observation of mankind, the generosity of your Lordship's offer raises in me not less wonder than gratitude. Bounty, so liberally bestowed, I should gladly receive, if my condition made it necessary; for, to such a mind, who would not be proud to own ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... passed away; let us be thankful that our lot has been cast in more wholesome days than those in which John Smith chalked out the better destinies of a savage race, and Tupper sang divine philosophy to inattentive ears. And yet let us keep green the memory of whatever there was of good—if any—in the dark pre-Smithian ages, when men cherished quaint superstitions and rode on the backs of "horses"—when they passed over the seas instead of under them—when science had ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... methods of instruction, these also must vary to suit the subject, the age of the student and the time available. Straight lecturing economizes time but makes the class restless and inattentive. An oral quiz drawing on the student's own experience is useful in getting the recitation started and revives interest when interspersed through a lecture. Each point should be illustrated by concrete examples from books themselves when possible, or from the blackboard. The lesson should ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... those of a rapidly developing fever, which becomes intense within a very short period. The animal becomes dejected and inattentive to surrounding objects; stands with its head down, and not back on the halter as in serious lung diseases. In the flanks, the muscles of the croup and of the shoulders, or of the entire body it has chills lasting from 15 to 30 minutes, and ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... justify the following attempt to interpret and to make intelligible, even to the most inattentive reader, the creed of one of the most powerful of those teachers and preachers who have taken such mysterious and uncanny possession of the soul of the German nation. Before 1914 none except a few initiated had ever heard of Treitschke. Since 1914 he has become a household name and a ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... it was very rude of me to be so inattentive to you," added Mr. Brown, bending his dark eyes ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... had been on Hemstead's face passed to Lottie's, and she heard with inattentive ear the young farmer say with hearty emphasis, "We present you, as an expression of our good-will, with ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... returned to school, and was trying to inspire the boys with contempt for riches. He was using on them a poem that had probably been written in a garret by some poor devil or other whose wealth gave him little cause for complaint. The boys were inattentive, and seemed not to grasp the peculiar pleasure in having no money to buy marbles. Stoffel attributed their hard-heartedness to Walter's crazy ideas: They had heard of his attack on the Margrave and of that ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... abilities were quite as extraordinary. She never could learn or understand anything before she was taught, and sometimes not even then, for she was often inattentive, and occasionally stupid. Her mother wished her to learn music; and Catherine was sure she should like it, for she was very fond of tinkling the keys of the old forlorn spinet; so at eight years old she began. She learnt a year, and could not bear it; and Mrs. Morland, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... dealing. To make a pleasant and friendly impression is not alone good manners, but equally good business. The crude man would undoubtedly show his eagerness to be rid of his visitor, and after offending the latter's self-pride because of his inattentive discourtesy, be late for his own appointment! The man of skill saw his visitor for fewer actual minutes, but gave the impression that circumstances over which he had no control forced him unwillingly to close the interview. He not only gained the good will of his visitor, but arrived ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... can not be lost upon a people who have never been inattentive to the effect of their policy upon the institutions they have created for themselves, but at the present moment their force is augmented by the necessity which a decreasing revenue must impose. The check lately given to importations of articles subject to duties, the derangements in the operations ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Martin van Buren • Martin van Buren
... for a child of their own to make her happy. Julia brought lots of sunshine into their home, and everything went all right and they took a great deal of comfort with her till she got to be about fourteen and then she seemed to become stubborn, grew inattentive to her studies, seemed to care less for her girl companions, but was always with the boys. All she appeared to care for was to be in their company. She took less interest in things in the house, did not care about ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... from my sympathies altogether. Those Beltane fires had burnt something in him that worked living still and unsubdued in me, that rebelled in particular at that return of Nettie. I became a little inattentive. I no longer felt with him, nor gathered a sense of complete understanding from his phrases. His Lord Eros indeed! He and these transfigured people—they were beautiful and noble people, like the people one sees in great pictures, ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... suppose a great mind inattentive to trifles: its capacity and comprehension enable it to embrace ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 543, Saturday, April 21, 1832. • Various
... tend to prevent the very object which they regard from being attained. Does not the well-meaning editor anticipate too much from the diffusion of foreign knowledge among the tribes of whom he speaks? Is he not somewhat inattentive to the mass of inseparable evil which every such accession brings along with it? Does he not seem to confound together the acquisition of knowledge, and the ability to do what is requisite for human happiness? May we not perceive by the very items of his calculation, that he has neglected to consider ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... understand,—couldn't you see what I meant?" she asked again that night, as they lost themselves on the long stretch of the moonlit beach. With his arm close about that lovely shape they would have seemed but one person to the inattentive observer, as they paced along ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... regarded the whole; we regard the parts. With them, the action predominated over the expression of it; with us, the expression predominates over the action. Not that they failed in expression, or were inattentive to it; on the contrary, they are the highest models of expression, the unapproached masters of the grand style: but their expression is so excellent because it is so admirably kept in its right degree of prominence; because it ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... preaching in three churches, by persons who seemed to possess zeal, but no just knowledge of Christianity. The auditors were very worldly and inattentive. The best of the ministers whom we have yet heard is a very old man, named Mr. John Eliot,[420] who has charge of the instruction of the Indians in the Christian religion. He has translated the Bible into their language. After we had already made inquiries of the booksellers ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... have replied I know not, but it was evidently translated as an affirmative, for in another moment I was being piloted down the side of the long room, while he gossiped in my rather inattentive ear. ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... more discontinuity in the sum total of experiences than we commonly suppose. The objective nucleus of every man's experience, his own body, is, it is true, a continuous percept; and equally continuous as a percept (though we may be inattentive to it) is the material environment of that body, changing by gradual transition when the body moves. But the distant parts of the physical world are at all times absent from us, and form conceptual objects merely, into the perceptual reality of which our life inserts itself at points discrete and ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... scene the Rev. Mr. M'Gregor had reason to complain of Jeff's negligence. He was very inattentive to instruction and his ...
— A Little Hero • Mrs. H. Musgrave
... must be made to obey, and to work, which may be done by an overseer who attends regularly to his business, with very little whipping; for much whipping indicates a bad tempered or an inattentive manager. He must never, on any occasion, unless in self-defense, kick a negro, or strike him with his fist, or butt end of his whip. No unusual punishment must be resorted to without the employer's consent. He is not expected to punish the foreman, except on some extraordinary ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... that day, I am told, were specially interesting and impressive, but I had a good deal else on my mind—was preoccupied, absent, inattentive. They might have varied from the usual profane exhibition in any respect and to any extent, and I should not have observed it. The first thing I clearly perceived was a rank of "converts" kneeling before the "altar," Tom at the left of the line. Then the ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... of supreme and world-wide significance so long ago that it is now not worth the pains involved to rephrase for inattentive hearing the combat of the knights at Perdigon—out of which came alive only Guivric and Coth and Anavalt and Gonfal,—or to speak of the once famous battle of the tinkers, or to retell how the inflexible ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... amends to his wounded feelings; such having been her usual mode of reparation in the few instances of disagreement that had occurred between them. But he was disappointed. He found her cold, silent, and abstracted, inattentive when he spoke, and indisposed to speak herself. Her eye was sedulously averted from his; and the casual meeting of their glances only proved that there were feelings in her bosom which he did not share. He was ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... come, at last, love had come, when I least expected it and under the most forbidding conditions. Of course, my philosophy had always recognized the inevitableness of the love-call sooner or later; but long years of bookish silence had made me inattentive and unprepared. ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... give no more decided token of weariness. Amid the Lowland costume of coat and cloak, I could here and there discern a Highland plaid, the wearer of which, resting on his basket-hilt, sent his eyes among the audience with the unrestrained curiosity of savage wonder; and who, in all probability, was inattentive to the sermon for a very pardonable reason—because he did not understand the language in which it was delivered. The martial and wild look, however, of these stragglers, added a kind of character which the congregation ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... his hand upon her rein. "Please don't, Lady May," he begged. "I know I've been inattentive! I'm very sorry—really I am. Let me try ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... somewhat inattentive to the little lecture on antiquities and novelties, and the cause of his restlessness was soon apparent, and indeed approaching. Lord Bulmer's sister, Juliet Bray, was coming slowly across the lawn, accompanied by one gentleman ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... to the dwellers of Mill Avenue, was listened to, by them, with absorbed interest, and the proper accompaniment of ejaculations, at the proper places. During this discourse, to which Brooks listened with evidences of liveliest interest, Doctor Heath remained seemingly inattentive, waiting for a lull in the storm; when it came at last, he ascertained as briefly as possible, who among the women would remain, and pass the night with Mrs. Burrill; gave her direction, as to the use she was to make of the medicines he had ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... whoever she was, to whom his "Pastoral Ballad" was addressed. He is represented by his friend Dodsley as a man of great tenderness and generosity, kind to all that were within his influence; but, if once offended, not easily appeased; inattentive to economy, and careless of his expenses; in his person he was larger than the middle-size, with something clumsy in his form; very negligent of his clothes, and remarkable for wearing his grey hair in a particular manner, for he held that ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... flowers and replaced the pot gently on the ground; then, retiring slowly to the solitary house, she returned after a while at the same slow pace, and, throwing some crumbs to the fish, began to saunter slowly about the garden-paths, inattentive to every thing but her own absorbing thoughts. At length she reached a spot where a gigantic catalpa-tree overarched the garden and bent its branches almost to the earth. A table and a couple of chairs stood beneath the fresh and fragrant shade, and a book, inkstand, and embroidery-frame, ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... assuredly the higher claim to be given and accepted as a token of pure and faithful love, and to be trusted as a sweet sign that the innocence of affection is indeed more frequent, and the appointed destiny of its faith more fortunate, than our inattentive hearts have ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... was born at Woolsthorpe, in Lincolnshire, on December 25, 1642, one year after the death of Galileo, and just as England was being plunged into the confusion and miseries of civil war. Strange to say, as a lad, at first he was inattentive to study; but being struck a severe blow by a school-fellow, he strangely retaliated by determining to get above him in the class, which he accomplished, and ere long became head of the school. His play hours were employed in mechanical contrivances, and a windmill in the course of erection ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... suddenly. In fact, only one of the ranging setters was now in sight; and Roderick had quickly run up to the top of a heathery knoll, to have them both in view. At the same moment they saw him hold up his arm to warn the inattentive Venus. ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... neatly-constructed One-Act piece, in which are all the possibilities of a Three-Act Criterion or Palais Royal Farcical Comedy. So rapid is the action, all over in about forty-five minutes, and so much to the point of the plot is the dialogue, that an inattentive auditor would soon lose the thread of the argument, never to pick it up again anywhere. Miss ELLALINE TERRIS is just that very Mrs. Duncan. BRANDON THOMAS is a breezy, brusque, and Admirable Admiral; and Mr. DRAYCOTT a hearty husband, very much in love with his pretty little wife. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 6, 1892 • Various
... all that passed, though with Indian gravity and finesse he had sat with averted face, seemingly inattentive to a discourse in which he had no direct concern. Thus appealed to, however, he answered his friend ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... Though inattentive and indifferent to his children, he had never been positively unkind, and the anger of his tone filled the timid child's eyes with tears, as he looked appealingly at his mother, and moved away, lingering, and beginning a trembling, ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Delaware. This would require the concurrence of too many favorable circumstances to be calculated on with any confidence. As the position of General Greene was known, it could not be supposed that Sir William Howe would be inattentive to him. It was probable that not even his embarkation would be made unnoticed, but it was presuming a degree of negligence which ought not to be assumed to suppose that he could descend the river to Philadelphia undiscovered. So soon as his movement should ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... de la Touche played against your Minister, Drake; and that it was planned between him and Talleyrand as the surest means to break off all political connections between your country and Bavaria. Mr. Drake was personally liked by the Elector, and was not inattentive either to the plans and views of Montgelas or to the intrigues of Otto. They were, therefore, both doubly interested to ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... do not know why they love them. No mother can tell us the magic of the spell which seems to be cast over her restless baby as she croons to it a Mother Goose lullaby. No primary teacher quite understands why the mere repetition or singing of a Mother Goose jingle will transform her listless, inattentive class into one all eagerness and attention. But mother and teacher agree that the best of these verses have an even more potent influence than that of innocently diverting and entertaining the child. The healthy moral, so subtly suggested in many of the rhymes, is unconsciously absorbed by the ...
— Mother Goose - The Original Volland Edition • Anonymous
... it are, in some measure, debauched by the nature of the service. They are crowded together in transports, where the minute particulars of military order cannot be observed, even though the good of the service greatly depends upon a due observance of these forms. The soldiers grow negligent, and inattentive to cleanness and the exterior ornaments of dress: they become slovenly, slothful, and altogether unfit for a return of duty: they are tumbled about occasionally in ships and boats, landed and re-embarked in a tumultuous manner, under a divided and disorderly command: they are accustomed to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... hesitated—but upon a repetition of the question, the lad replied, "Every one except your Lordship, and the company sitting on the front form." The same Bishop, at one of his Confirmations, saw a school girl inclined to be inattentive and troublesome; he therefore held up his finger as a warning. These children, being accustomed to signs from their teachers, of which they were expected to declare the meaning, did not suppose that the elevation of the Bishop's finger, was an exception to their general rule of reply ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... have wrested my rights from the grasp of the jealous gods. On earth I was the Poetess of Reform, and sang to inattentive ears. Now for an eternity of ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce
... can power divine perform More grand than it produces year by year, And all in sight of inattentive man? Familiar with the effect we slight the cause, And in the constancy of Nature's course, The regular return of genial months, And renovation of a faded world, See nought to wonder at. Should God again, As once ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... ones to the care of servants—trust her sisters to a governess, and make her brothers' home yet more dreary? She knew her father to be strong in sense and firm in judgment, but indolent, indulgent, and inattentive to details, and she could not bear to leave him to be harassed by the petty cares of a numerous family, especially when broken in spirits and weighed down with sorrow. She thought her duty was plain, and, accordingly, she wrote to Mr. Hawkesworth, to beg ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Euprepia, dissolved in tears, her bosom torn by convulsive sobs, had become as inattentive to her parent's discourse as he had been to her interjections. Photinius at last remarked her distress: he was by ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... establishments which sell everything, from pianos and furniture to books and millinery, a department store in fact, The Port Burdock Drapery Bazaar at Port Burdock, one of the three townships that are grouped around the Port Burdock naval dockyards. There he remained six years. He spent most of the time inattentive to business, in a sort of uncomfortable happiness, increasing ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... that but little time remains to them for thought. Such men are prone to general ideas because they spare them the trouble of studying particulars; they contain, if I may so speak, a great deal in a little compass, and give, in a little time, a great return. If then, upon a brief and inattentive investigation, a common relation is thought to be detected between certain obtects, inquiry is not pushed any further; and without examining in detail how far these different objects differ or agree, they are hastily arranged under one formulary, ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... been very inattentive to you this evening. Isn't there anything I can do to amuse you? Won't you come up on the table? You're welcome to walk up my leg if you find ...
— The Five Jars • Montague Rhodes James
... probable, only the elder son availed himself, as Richard, who seems to have been determined to owe all his excellence to nature alone, was found as impracticable a pupil at home as at school. But, however inattentive to his studies he may have been at Harrow, it appears, from one of the letters of his school-fellow, Mr. Halhed, that in poetry, which is usually the first exercise in which these young athletae of intellect try their strength, he ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... thee who has had it set to him. It is a hard lesson, Clarice, and one that an inattentive scholar can make yet harder if he will. It is, 'Not my will, but ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... results of the analysis are undoubtedly, in the main, just; but we can only account for Brewster's pronouncing the Essay a thorough and satisfactory explanation, by supposing him to have bestowed upon it a very cursory and inattentive perusal. In the compendium of the Essay, made use of in the Letters on Natural Magic, it is quite impossible to arrive at any distinct conclusion in regard to the adequacy or inadequacy of the analysis, on account of the gross ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... were not inattentive to the situation. They wasted no time in appointing committees to investigate the cause of the difficulty, for it was as clear to them as the noonday sun, as clear as the occasion of our "decadence" should have been to the House of Representatives that appointed ...
— Free Ships: The Restoration of the American Carrying Trade • John Codman
... was inattentive. He was speaking to the boy, Dean Drake, and held a flask in his hand. He reached the flask to his new superintendent. "Drink hearty," said he. "There, son! Don't be shy. Haf you forgot it is forbidden fruit ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... told her of the performance in the ship. Finding a listener neither inattentive nor without sympathy, he went further still and told of the song's effect upon him, and that the sweetness of it still abiding made his hatred of ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... of this nature a style ornamental and luxuriant would have been evidently inapplicable, yet the author has not been wholly inattentive to this particular, but has endeavoured to temper the dry and formal manner of the mere journalist, with something of the historian's ease. Long sequestered, however, from literary society, and from convenient ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... you would like to know?" asked Charles, inattentive and impatient, mainly occupied in trying to hide the nameless exasperation which invariably seized him when he looked at Dare, and to stifle the contemptuous voice which always whispered as he did so, "And you have given up ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... took shape, crystallised, caused him to see a rapid vision of de Batz sneaking into his lodgings and stealing his keys, the guard being slack, careless, inattentive, allowing the adventurer to pass barriers that should have been closed against ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... transmitted by James Anderson, manager, in February, 1797, to the effect that "there are 3 Negro Children Born, & one dead—at River Farm 1; born at Mansion house, Lina 1; at Union Farm 1 born & one dead—It was killed by Worms. Medical assistance was called—But the mothers are very inattentive to their Young." ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... a brigade at "Kripple Kreek," a short time since, and in it was a slim portion of the "1159th" Illinois. Quite a large number of this regiment have deserted upon every occasion offered, the men generally being very inattentive. The commanding officer of "all that is left of them" was severely censured, the other day, for dereliction of duty. The General swore by the Eternal he wished the Colonel of the "1159th" would "go home and ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... For Patty's sake she must control her temper—and she did. With an effort that left her white and tremulous she crushed back the hot words and said quietly: "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Liddell. I did not mean to be inattentive. Let me show you some of our new lingerie waists, I think you ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... He was no longer crying. Had he heard Lupin's words? One might have doubted it, judging by his inattentive air. ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... of Judge Lynch. We took no pains to conceal our horror of unnecessary bloodshed, and shared the views of civilized Christendom about duelling. Now and then, to be sure, a Southerner in one of his sportive moods would stab an inattentive waiter in some Northern hotel, or a chivalrous son of South Carolina, elegantly idling away a few years in a New-England university, would shoot some base-born tutor, or, as an episode in Congressional proceedings, the member from Arkansas would threaten to pull ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... manger," repeated the inattentive little boy to himself, "I knows who that was." So, this important question settled in his mind, he gave himself up to the full enjoyment of his chum and to the giving and receiving secret signals, the pleasure of which ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... now Mary's turn to be inattentive, for she was adding a postscript to her letter, which but for that ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... in doing this, never work after you are tired, nor to "get the thing done," for if it is badly done, it will be of no use to you. The true zeal and patience of a quarter of an hour are better than the sulky and inattentive labour of a whole day. If you have not made the touches right at the first going over with the pen, retouch them delicately, with little ink in your pen, thickening or reinforcing them as they need: you cannot give too much ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... and the like belong to civil and military offices.]), have even drawn a few delighted drops from the eyes of your thoughtless son. I know that you think I have nothing sentimental about me, else you would not so often have poured into my not inattentive ears, 'that to estimate the pleasures of earth and heaven, we must cultivate the sensibilities of the heart. Shut our eyes against them, and we are merely nicely- constructed speculums, which reflect the beauties of nature, but enjoy ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... heard this one-sided dialogue or not, it is difficult to say. She seemed passive and inattentive, and walked on with an abstracted and mechanical motion. Her brother and lover could only get near her occasionally, having found it necessary to watch her mother and sister also. They could perceive, however, not only that the crowd which followed ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... outlay.[223] In discussions on bills effecting the enlargement of Australian constitutions, Mr. Gladstone's views came out in clear contrast with the old school. 'Spoke 11/2 hours on the Australian Colonies bill,' he records (May 13,1850), 'to an indifferent, inattentive House. But it is necessary to speak these truths of colonial policy even to unwilling ears.' In the proceedings on the constitution for New Zealand, he delivered a speech justly described as a pattern of close argument and classic oratory.[224] Lord John Russell, adverting to the concession ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... point Fanny's thoughts wandered to the brave old man in the pulpit. She had heard almost nothing of the service. She looked at him now—at him, and then at his congregation, inattentive and palpably bored. As always with her, the thing stamped itself on her mind as a picture. She was forever seeing a situation in terms of its human value. How small he looked, how frail, against the background of the massive Ark with its red velvet curtain. And how bravely he glared ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... rise and to sit again, bringing and taking away of cushions and robes and tiaras and mitres, and a thousand other little matters that would have enraged any man of weak nerves, if it did not kill him. After two hours of this tedious work (the people in the mean time perfectly inattentive), the ceremony ended, and the Pope was again borne through the church and ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... it remembered, discoursed to a large and not inattentive audience, and surely the soil was not all unfruitful on which his seed was scattered when he proclaimed that God dwells not in temples of wood and stone, nor wants the ministrations of human hands;[Footnote: ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... statement, first, in being simply false. The water under the Castle of Chillon is not a thousand feet deep, nor anything like it.[38] Herein, certainly, these lines fulfil Reynolds's first requirement in poetry, "that it should be inattentive to literal truth and minute exactness in detail." In order, however, to make our comparison more closely in other points, let us assume that what is stated is indeed a fact, and that it was to be recorded, first historically, ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... sitting as if it were an absolute solitude. At last he brought his speech to an end. I rose to reply. He could be seen to breathe again that it was I and no one else. I noticed, gentlemen, that he continued to laugh and be inattentive till I mentioned Chrysogonus. As soon as I got to him my friend roused himself and was evidently astonished. I saw what had touched him, and repeated the name a second time, and a third. From that time men have never ceased to run briskly backwards and forwards, to tell Chrysogonus, I ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... now peering through the church window to rest on the tiny face of his little daughter in the rector's arms at the font. All the village had come to see, for this christening was felt to be one of more than common interest, and while the service went on there was not one inattentive ear. ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... Gregory Nazianzen's works, which had been actually issued in 1778. Very frequently, however, the comparison of professedly different impressions requires, before they can be safely pronounced to be identical, the protracted scrutiny of a practised eye. An inattentive observer could not be conscious that the works of Sir James Ware, translated and improved by Harris, and apparently the progeny of the year 1764, (the only edition, and that but a spurious one, recorded in Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica,) have been skilfully tampered with, and should be justly ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 71, March 8, 1851 • Various
... to lend an inattentive ear to all these explanations, which she gave in those timid tones, which had lately become habitual to her, but once—when she made a slip, and talked about a share which she possessed in the Russian Company being worth L50,000, he corrected her and said it was a good deal more, and gave ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... that which each most prized. Whether the conversation turned upon government or science, the dry figures of finance, or the more genial topic of diplomatic intrigue, Mr. Gallatin was its easy master, and his words never fell on inattentive ears. ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... baldness at the crown of his head. His name was Peter. He had had five children at irregular intervals, of whom Ann Veronica was the youngest, so that as a parent he came to her perhaps a little practised and jaded and inattentive; and he called her his "little Vee," and patted her unexpectedly and disconcertingly, and treated her promiscuously as of any age between eleven and eight-and-twenty. The City worried him a good deal, ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... expecting that, by a smile of more than common brightness, she would make amends to his wounded feelings; such having been her usual mode of reparation in the few instances of disagreement that had occurred between them. But he was disappointed. He found her cold, silent, and abstracted, inattentive when he spoke, and indisposed to speak herself. Her eye was sedulously averted from his; and the casual meeting of their glances only proved that there were feelings in her bosom which he did not share. ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... dissolved in tears, her bosom torn by convulsive sobs, had become as inattentive to her parent's discourse as he had been to her interjections. Photinius at last remarked her distress: he was by no means a ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... thought him irretrievably insane, and paid no attention to the strange, unconnected discourses which he held. Many of his prophecies are believed to have been lost in this manner. But they were not always destined to be wasted upon dull and inattentive ears. An incident occurred which brought him into notice, and established his fame as a prophet of the first calibre. He was ploughing in a field when he suddenly stopped from his labour, and with a wild look and strange gesture, exclaimed, "Now, Dick! now, Harry! O, ill done, Dick! ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... notes for the 'Hints'! You mistake me much by thinking me inattentive to this publication. If I had a friend willing and able to correct the press, it should be out with my good will immediately. Pray attend to annexing additional notes in their proper places, and let ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... friends as usual on Sunday evening, Sidney Kirkwood felt, before he had been many minutes in the room, that something unwonted was troubling the quiet he always found here. Michael Snowdon was unlike himself, nervously inattentive, moving frequently, indisposed to converse on any subject. Neither had Jane her accustomed brightness, and the frequent glances she east at her grandfather seemed to show that the latter's condition was ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... one sex in their vileness, and gives up the other for their weakness, in a kind of silly affectation, to shew her security in her own virtue; at the same time, that she is dancing upon the edge of a precipice, presumptuously inattentive to her ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... town, and leaving to the left the main road which led to it, struck into the fields, the strange and solemn beauty of the landscape, lighted up, by numberless lamps, to the verge of the horizon, fascinated my eyes, and rendered me for some time an inattentive listener to ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... friend leaning over at an angle of "forty-five." To leap forward and catch him in my arms was the work of an instant. On each of these occasions, after setting him upright, I used to give him a tender hug, to indicate my regret at having been so inattentive, and my sympathy with him in his ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... away from in front of it, or setting about some visible business in its presence. Standing ten minutes before a picture or sitting an hour at a concert, with fixed sight or tense hearing, you may yet be quite hopelessly inattentive if, instead of following the life of the visible or audible forms, and living yourself into their pattern and rhythm, you wander off after dramatic or sentimental associations suggested by the picture's subject; or if you let yourself be hypnotised, as pious ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... make manifest and convincing is this point, which argument alone has never been able to hammer into the mass of inattentive minds, that if the human intelligence is applied continuously to the mechanism of war it will steadily develop destructive powers, but that it will fail to develop any corresponding power of decision ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... which represents their teaching as a whole. In chapters 8 and 9 "Wisdom" is personified. Inasmuch as the Hebrew word for "wisdom" is feminine, it is spoken of as a woman. Chapter 9 describes, in a form intended to arrest the attention of the most inattentive, the feast that Wisdom offers to her guests. This is contrasted with Folly's banquet, and the consequences to those who participated in these rival banquets are ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... the Members of Parliament, Mayors of cities, and men eminent in the different professions and literary pursuits. Complaints of inattention were made against some of its members, and at the election for officers after the expiration of the first year, others were substituted for the inattentive and inefficient. The change for the most part was made by unanimous consent; but when a ballot was called for, other names were substituted for those on the house list, recommended by the former committee, and the contest resulted in the rejection ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... in her place, she was not inattentive. The dark chancel with its flowers and incense, the rich dresses and slow movements of the priests, the excitement of the processional hymns—these things caught her and held her. Her look was fixed and eager all the time. ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the society were published. Men who read them in their closers, unwarmed by those sentiments of friendship which had produced them, inattentive to those pains which an approaching separation had excited in the minds of the instituters, politicians, who see in every thing only the dangers with which it threatens civil society, in fine, the laboring people, who, shielded by equal laws, had never seen any difference ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... courtesy which distinguished him through all his long life—he died recently at a very advanced age—he at once put his work away and took her round his studio to show her everything he thought would interest her. But she was restless and inattentive, and by and by leaving the artist talking to her young daughter she began going round by herself, moving constantly from picture to picture. Presently she made an exclamation, and turning they saw her standing before a picture, a portrait of a girl, staring fixedly at it. "Oh," she cried, and ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... clapped with childlike violence and fury. Mr Peake slowly and regularly thumped one fist on the bench, puffing the while. Glasses and mugs could be seen, but not heard, dancing. Mr Arthur Smallrice, Mr Abraham Harracles, Mr Jos Rawnpike, and Mr James Yarlett, entirely inattentive to the acclamations, stepped heavily from the platform and sat down. When Edwin caught Big James's eye he clapped again, reanimating the general approval, and Big James gazed at him with bland satisfaction. Mr Enoch Peake was now, save for the rise and fall of his great chest, as immobile ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... function, on the contrary, is, and always has been, that of the Interpreter only, in the 'Pilgrim's Progress;' and I trust that Mr. Courthope will therefore forgive my arranging his long cadence of continuous line so as to come symmetrically into my own page, (thus also enforcing, for the inattentive, the rhymes which he is too easily proud to insist on,) and my division of the whole chorus into equal strophe and antistrophe of six lines each, in which, counting from the last line of the stanza, the reader can easily catch the word ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... circumstances wherein he and Harriot then were, his conduct must appear injurious, and shame and the secret reproaches of his conscience made him take all possible opportunities of avoiding her presence: if he was obliged to converse with her, it was with an air so restrained and inattentive as made her fear his regard for her was entirely vanished. The sincere affection she had for him rendered this apprehension extremely painful. She would have been contented to have seen another woman his wife, but could not bear the thought ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... you heard, my brave young friend. Never had people on a single throw More interest at stake; when he, who held For us the die, prov'd false, and play'd us foul. But for a circumstance of that nice kind, Of cause so microscopic, that the tongues Of inattentive men call it the effect Of chance, we must have ...
— Andre • William Dunlap
... set the active function would be exercised and will-power would develop on both sides. Do you see? Occultists say that all power results from the continual exercise of active mentation and all weak-mindedness is the direct outcome of this wool-gathering, castle-building, inattentive habit which is an extension of passive mentation into useless channels of thought-force. Conscious attention concentrates and even specializes mental energy as the sun-glass concentrates and intensifies the heat of the rays of the sun. Focus your ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... edge of the tall cask against which the latter was seated, sprang actively upon the top of it. Soon he again descended, and, upsetting the cask, gave it a shove with his foot that sent it rolling into the middle of the cellar. The gipsy, although motionless, and to all appearance inattentive to what passed, lost not one of the muleteer's movements. His head stirred not but his sunken beadlike eyes shifted their glances with extraordinary keenness and rapidity. At the moment when, surprised by the sudden removal of the cask, he screwed his head round to see what was going ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... began to work, looked after herself in a natural way, spoke freely, was entirely oriented and her mood generally presented nothing striking. But her mental attitude was still peculiar when she was questioned. She seemed somewhat inattentive, sulky, sneering. Thus, when asked why she was here, she said, "You will have to ask ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... beside the bier, giving a curious touch of solemnity to a scene composed of the four pleasant ruffians in the loaferish postures which they have learned as facchini waiting for jobs; of the two boys with inattentive grins, and of the priest with wandering ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... Odo Crescenti's theory of the influence of character and climate on the course of history; and this subject soon engrossing both speakers, they wandered on, inattentive to their surroundings, till they found themselves in the thickest concourse of the Toledo. Here for a moment the dense crowd hemmed them in; and as they stood observing the humours of the scene, Odo's eye fell on the thick-set figure of a man in doctor's dress, who was being ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... brisk host almost inattentive during the remainder of that afternoon. About five o'clock he dispatched a note, addressed "J. H. McPherson, Euclid House," and astonished and delighted his young waiter by an unusually early putting up of shutters, and of putting things generally to rights for the night. In fact, it was ...
— Three People • Pansy
... novelist was palpably uncertain as to whom the name belonged. He was not only Unitarian by theology, but inattentive by profession; and, moreover, he had but just returned from a copy-hunting trip in the ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... him, intently. When he had shut his own door she glanced over at the inattentive Allan, once more busy at his manuscript and apparently unconscious of ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... class began to read, each rising while reading, and then sitting down. Bart had observed that Bingham sat with his book closed, and wholly inattentive to the exercise, and quietly placed himself within a ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... She was a fragile, elegant, plaintive little person of the old "lady-like" regime; but for all her gentleness, Garth was somehow conscious that he faced a woman of an iron will. She had the impatient, inattentive manner of one possessed by a single idea. With the result of her examination she appeared but half satisfied; she held out a delicate, ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... are more crabbed, or I am more dull and inattentive, for I cannot fix my Minde on my Book, and am secretlie wearie, Robin wearies too. But I will not give up as yet; the more soe as in this quiete Studdy I am out of Sighte and Hearinge of sundrie young Officers ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... a strained tone that sounded, as she meant it to sound, as though she had been merely inattentive, she made answer: ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... distraite maiden who greeted the visiting swain that night and one so inattentive to his wooing that his silences became long, under discouragement, and his temper sullen. Earlier than was his custom he bade her good-night and ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... I had not been inattentive to the management of my farm. As I had made up my mind not to remain at Rowfant; first, because it was not a profitable farm to occupy; and, second, because the situation of the country being low, and damp in the winter, did not agree with me, and had caused me to suffer very considerable ill ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... only the most inattentive of historical students who can afford to ignore this. No modern aesthetician from the Rhine to the Spree affects to dispute the succession of Teutonic thought, in its various forms of passion, from Beethoven to Goethe, from Schiller, Jean ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... delicate, and no very grateful task, to dissert upon the literature and manners of a nation so dissimilar; and requires an attention and impartiality which would induce us—though perhaps no inattentive observers, nor ignorant of the language or customs of the people among whom we have recently abode—to distrust, or at least defer our judgment, and more narrowly examine our information. The state of literary as well as political party appears to ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... myself, when she was silent. This gave me an opportunity of mentioning many things that had happened in Paris during my long ten years' uninterrupted residence, which were evidently very interesting to her. Had she become grave, or inattentive, I should have drawn back ; but, on the contrary, she grew more and more veille, and her countenance was lighted up with ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... glanced at Mr. Harlowe with an expression of angry surprise. That gentleman, who did not appear to recognize the new-comer, returned his look with a supercilious, contemptuous stare, and passed on with Edith—who had courteously saluted the inattentive Mr. Ferret—followed ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... them think so, when I knew she did not; and yet, I cannot positively say that she always did. I have remarked, that one of the old nuns was always placed in our sleeping-room at night, to watch us. Sometimes she would be inattentive, and sometimes fall into a doze. Jane Ray often seized such times to rise from her bed, and walk about, occasionally seizing one of the nuns in bed, in order to frighten her. This she generally affected; and many times we have ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... confusion and stir of material interests, are not inattentive to the progress of those claims whose growth is as silent as that of the leaves around us, and whose values find ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... writes a most loving and ill-spelled epistle, containing the latest information from Mayo, with all particulars of the Macan family, of which she is a worthy member. To her constant hints of the acceptable nature of certain small remittances, the poor general is never inattentive; but to the pleasing prospect of a visit in the flesh from Miss Judy Macan, the good man is dead. In fact, nothing short of being broke by general court-martial could complete his sensations of horror at such a stroke of fortune; and I am not certain, if choice were allowed ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... thought that my benevolent host had here been my greatest friend; but there was another for whom, to my infinite surprise, I found that I felt far more intensely. Yet it was odd that, in her presence, I was apparently cold and inattentive, and thus, perhaps, it might have ever been, had she not unguardedly attracted my attention by what she meant for a severe rebuke. I happened to be walking with her and a gentleman whose wife had lately experienced, on some occasion, a narrow escape of her life; "and ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... remark merely to be polite and was turning away. As Susan's reply penetrated to her inattentive mind she looked sharply at her, eyes opening wonderingly. "Did you get lost? Are you a stranger in town? Why didn't you ask ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... be feared, were now inattentive. They appeared to listen, but they were merely surveying with acute interest the now revealed lower half of Dave Cowan. The trousers were frayed, the shoes were but wraiths of shoes. The speaker, quite unconscious of this scrutiny, ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... it, he seemed, just as plainly, to be able to think of nothing else. He seemed unwilling to be alone, and yet to be very bad company, for he was restless, silent, and, when Oliver, with an effort, tried to talk of cheerful things, was completely inattentive. They went into the garden at last to see how the flowers were faring. The sunshine was more unreal than ever, and sudden, fitful gusts of wind were beginning to stir the trees. They had inspected the flowers and were halfway across the lawn on their way to ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... at the door with the case, which Gaites was by this time not surprised to find inscribed with the name and address of Miss Phyllis Desmond. He remained watching it, while the men got it on the platform, so wholly inattentive to Birkwall's plot that the most besotted young author could not have failed to feel his want of interest. Birkwall then turned his vision outward upon the object which engrossed his friend, and started with an "Oh, hello!" and slapped him on ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... hadn't got any city wall. Epping Forest and Hainault Forest were there. You could think of them, or you could look at Mr. Propart's nice clean-shaved face while he read about the Crucifixion and preached about God's mercy and his justice. He did it all in a soothing, inattentive voice; and when he had finished he went quick into the vestry as if he were glad it was all over. And when you met him at the gate he didn't look as if Good Friday mattered ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... Miss Fairlie and I shoulder our sketch-books, and go out to misrepresent Nature, under your directions. Drawing is her favourite whim, mind, not mine. Women can't draw—their minds are too flighty, and their eyes are too inattentive. No matter—my sister likes it; so I waste paint and spoil paper, for her sake, as composedly as any woman in England. As for the evenings, I think we can help you through them. Miss Fairlie plays delightfully. For my own poor part, I don't know one note ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... to him—reached the first floor landing—and arrived at a door which shut off the whole staircase higher up; an iron door, as solid as if it belonged to a banker's strong-room, and guarded millions of money. I returned to the hall, inattentive to the servant's not over-civil remonstrances, and, saying that I would wait till I saw the doctor ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... these words of the Brahmana, the sons of Kunti seemed to be, as it were, pierced with darts. Indeed, all those mighty heroes lost their peace of mind. Then the truthful Kunti, beholding all her sons listless and inattentive, addressed Yudhishthira and said, 'We have now lived many nights in the abode of this Brahmana. We have passed our time pleasantly in this town, living on the alms obtained from many honest and illustrious persons. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... their eyes are bright; and if they experience unusual ardor they stammer, talk beside the mark, and are scarcely mistress of themselves. At the same time their private parts become hot and swell. All these signs should convince a husband, however inattentive he may be, that his wife craves for satisfaction" (Zacchiae Quaestionum Medico-legalium Opus, lib. vii, tit. iii, quaest. I; vol. ii, p. 624 ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... act of themselves than a bridle will direct a horse without a rider. If the checking functionaries are as corrupt or as negligent as those whom they ought to check, and if the public, the mainspring of the whole checking machinery, are too ignorant, too passive, or too careless and inattentive to do their part, little benefit will be derived from the best administrative apparatus. Yet a good apparatus is always preferable to a bad. It enables such insufficient moving or checking power as exists to act at the ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... campaign from which he had just returned. Only once was he able to approach the topic of Harry Feversham's disappearance, and at the mere mention of his son's name the old general's face set like plaster. It became void of expression and inattentive as a mask. ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... unusual was visible, that it was All Fools' Day. He was very playful and indulgent; he kept a "squash" racquet ball on his desk, and could throw it with accurate aim if he noticed a boy dreaming or inattentive. He would never when scoring the marks enter a 0, even after an abject failure, always saying, ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... for me to say that I stand here unconnected with this great community. It would be mere affectation not to acknowledge that with respect to local questions I have much to learn; but I hope that you will find in me no sluggish or inattentive learner. From an early age I have felt a strong interest in Edinburgh, although attached to Edinburgh by no other ties than those which are common to me with multitudes; that tie which attaches every man of Scottish blood to the ancient and renowned capital of our race; ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... fancy of tailed men has probably arisen from inattentive observers, seeing people clothed in the skins of beasts, with the tails hanging down. The natives of New South Wales wear tails in imitation of the Kangaroo: Yet, having been closely observed, are ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... just dawned upon her. Randolph, from whom the thought had never been absent from the moment he saw the pillar of flame shooting up over the Traveler's Rest, was startled by the suddenness of her anguish; and an expression of profound grief came over his face, noticeable even to her inattentive eyes, and which comforted her by its sympathy, even in the midst of her ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... Lord went on to pray by Himself; and we have discovered in ourselves the same weariness, the same tendency to sleep, in the presence of what we tell ourselves is the most important of all interests. We call up the scene under the olives, and find that we wander and are inattentive and idle when we most want to be attentive and alert. We place ourselves in the group that surrounds our Lord when the soldiers, led by Judas, come, and ask ourselves shall I too run away? And our memory flashes the answer: You have run away ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... TERENCE) has reproduced from the French a neatly-constructed One-Act piece, in which are all the possibilities of a Three-Act Criterion or Palais Royal Farcical Comedy. So rapid is the action, all over in about forty-five minutes, and so much to the point of the plot is the dialogue, that an inattentive auditor would soon lose the thread of the argument, never to pick it up again anywhere. Miss ELLALINE TERRIS is just that very Mrs. Duncan. BRANDON THOMAS is a breezy, brusque, and Admirable Admiral; and Mr. DRAYCOTT a hearty husband, very much in love with ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 6, 1892 • Various
... ministrations, may be gathered from the description by Clarke, the supercargo of the wrecked Sydney Cove, concerning the natives whom he encountered in the following year (March 1797): "Their hair is long and straight, but they are wholly inattentive to it, either as to cleanliness or in any other respect. It serves them in lieu of a towel to wipe their hands as often as they are daubed with blubber or shark oil, which is their principal article of food. This frequent application of ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... to inattentive ears that Tennyson read his poems. His reading was most impressive, but I think he read Browning's "Ride from Ghent to Aix" better than anything of his own, except, perhaps, "The Northern Farmer." He used to preserve the monotonous ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... Well-behaved Little Boy. The Attentive, Inattentive, Covetous Dilatory, Exact, Quarrelsome, and Good Little Boy. By S. Lovechild 1s. sewed,—Square size, with seven ...
— The World's Fair • Anonymous
... withdraw our feet from the narrow way of life. For here we are likely to be deceived from the very circumstance that our employments are religious; and our end, as being a right one, will engross us, and continually tempt us to be inattentive to the means, and to the spirit in which we pursue it. Our Lord alludes to the danger of multiplied occupations in the Parable of the Sower: "He that received seed among thorns, is he that heareth the word, and the cares of ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... Dalton had finished and Broderick was talking. It was as though each man in turn were making his report to the others. As before not a word came to the ears which she strove futilely to make inattentive. A certain quality in the speaker's voice drew fresh speculation from her. He spoke quietly, with no single interruption from the others and with a positiveness that was like a command, as though he whom she had thought possibly a deputy were coolly telling ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... opportunity to tell the judges some of their failings. The royal ordinances were not observed. Parliamentary decisions ranked above commands of the king. There were divisions and violence. In the civil war some judges had made themselves captains. Many of them were avaricious, timid, lazy and inattentive to their duties. Their behavior and their dress were "dissolute." They had become negligent in judging, and had thrown the burden of prosecuting offences upon the shoulders of the king's attorney, originally appointed merely to look after the royal domain. ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... Uncle John dragged him away from Patricia's door and forced him to play chess. The boy lost every game, being inattentive and absorbed in thought, until finally Uncle John gave up the attempt to amuse him and settled himself on the top stair for a quiet smoke. The boy turned to the table, and took a sheet of paper from the drawer. For an ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... have been my mood that prevented those words from making the impression on me they should have made. Instead of appreciating at once and at its full value this characteristic and amazingly friendly signal of caution, I showed how stupidly inattentive I was by saying: ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... describe particular virtues and vices. The works of the flesh and the fruits of the Spirit must be distinctly pointed out. To preach against sin in general without descending to particulars may lead many to complain of the evil of their hearts, while at the same time they are awfully inattentive to the evil of their conduct.' Take Evangelist's noble counsels at the gate of Vanity Fair, and then take John Bunyan's masterly description of the Fair itself, with all that is bought and sold in it, and you will have a lesson in evangelical preaching that the evangelical pulpit needed ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... cribbage that evening. Mrs. Kavanagh could not understand how her pupil had become embarrassed, inattentive, and even sad, and asked her if she was tired. Sheila said she was very tired and would go. And when she got her candle, Mrs. Lorraine and Lavender had just discovered another duet which they felt bound to try together ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... advertising column is in the scale of domestic service. He must perforce be kind to the poor, and tolerably expert by reason of much practice, and he is generally popular. Dr. Poulain, called in by Mme. Cibot, gave an inattentive ear to the old musician's complainings. Pons groaned out that his skin itched; he had scratched himself all night long, till he could scarcely feel. The look of his eyes, with the yellow circles ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... much of myself; but indeed it is all too true." In similar strain he expressed himself to his wife: "It is very true that I have ever served faithfully, and ever has it been my fate to be neglected; but that shall not make me inattentive to my duty. I have pride in doing my duty well, and a self-approbation, which if it is not so lucrative, yet perhaps affords more pleasing sensations." Thus the consciousness of duty done in the past, and the clear recognition of what ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... inconsequent chatter, which seemed quite impervious to fatigue, while he rested his eyes on the charming prospect at their feet; the ragged descent of red rocks, broken here and there by patches of burnt grass and pink mallows, the little sea-girt chapel of St. Ampelio, and the waste of violet sea. His inattentive ear was caught at last by the name of Lightmark occurring, recurring, in the light eddy of his companion's speech, and he turned to her with an air of ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... forces of war, its tumult and wreckage, there emerges a new quest for truth. Simple souls are troubled with a warlike desire for evidence of immortality. The parson's exhortations to live by faith and unreasoning acceptance of ecclesiastical doctrine fall on inattentive ears. "There is a shocking recrudescence of superstition and devil-worship," said a clergyman to me the other day; "people consult fraudulent mediums ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... Gustavus by Booth; and Christina by Mrs. Harcourt. In spite of this galaxy of talent, the reception of the play was unfavourable. The Duchess of Marlborough "and all her beauteous family" graced the theatre on the first night, but the public was cold and inattentive. Some passages of a particularly lofty moral tone provoked laughter. The Revolution in Sweden, in fact, was shown to suffer from the ineradicable faults which Congreve had gently but justly suggested. ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... speaking, Fronto sat, inattentive as it seemed to what was going on. But at these last words he was compelled to give ear, and did it as a man does who has heard unwelcome truths. As Felix ended, the Emperor turned toward him without speaking, and without any look of doubt or passion, waiting ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... their teachers with the necessary pictures, leaflets, and outline drawings of birds for colouring, over thirty-one million pages of printed information have been distributed. Pupils have taken hold of this bird study with great zest. Many a dull or inattentive boy, who had been a despair to his teacher and parents, responded to this real nature teaching which took him from his ordinarily uninteresting studies into the wide out of doors. Thousands of teachers have written letters filled with expressions of thankfulness for this opportunity which ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... listener was the assurance that such a course would not at present be pleasing in the sight of God. To others, touching upon the matter of superior forces they might have to contend with, he was loftily inattentive. ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... exercise, which brings no personal and individual responsibility upon them. To prevent this the teacher should exercise double vigilance, at such a time. He should often address questions to individuals alone, especially to those most likely to be inattentive and careless, and guard against the ingress of every abuse, which might, without close ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... Charley had galloped away upon a stick in the midst of the narrative of poor Lady Arbella, and I know not whether he would have thought it worth while to tell another story merely to gratify such an inattentive auditor as Charley. But Laurence laid down his book and seconded the request. Clara drew her chair nearer to Grandfather; and little Alice immediately closed her picture-book and looked up into his face. Grandfather had not the heart ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... with another growl, but was content to continue in his lair. These were evidences of intelligence and distrust, to which one as practised as the trapper could not turn an inattentive ear. He again spoke to the dog, encouraging him to watchfulness, by a low guarded whistle. The animal however, as if conscious of having, already, discharged his duty, obstinately refused to raise his ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... from the dawn of manhood to its decline, and considers what he pursued or dreaded, slighted or esteemed, at different periods of his age, will have no reason to imagine such changes of sentiment peculiar to any station or character. Every man, however careless and inattentive, has conviction forced upon him; the lectures of time obtrude themselves upon the most unwilling or dissipated auditor; and, by comparing our past with our present thoughts, we perceive that we have changed our minds, though perhaps we cannot discover ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
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