"Indolence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the means, could secure good servants, there would be little hope that so important a revolution, in the domestic customs of the wealthy classes, could be effected. And so great is the natural indolence of mankind, that the amount of exercise, needful for health, will never be secured by those who are led to it through no necessity, but merely from rational considerations. Yet the pressure of domestic troubles, from the want of good domestics, has ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... reference to all those matters which their dawning intellects are capable of mastering. It is of no use to tell a child, in the first place, what it should think,—this is at once inducing mental indolence, which is but too generally prevalent among adults; owing to this erroneous method having been adopted by those who had the charge of their early years. Were a child left to its own resources, to ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... Lodge on intellect, morals, indolence, drinking, 7th of March speech, Webster's favorite things in England; references, ...
— Webster's Seventh of March Speech, and the Secession Movement • Herbert Darling Foster
... themselves of the confusion to carelessly mislay things. In fact, visitors came and guests left, but everything after all went off quietly, unlike the disorderly way which prevailed hitherto, when there was no clue to the ravel; and all such abuses as indolence, and losses, and the like ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... as regards personal strength and mental activity or power, they are much superior to any of the Javanese or Malays I have seen in Java, or at Batavia and Singapore. But, to our modes of thinking, the greatest defect in their character is their indolence and dislike to any bodily exertion, which are the effects of the sun under which they live; but their native maxims and their habits, although we may disapprove of them now-a-days, when everything goes by ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... he is diverted now, as all men are diverted six weeks after marriage—by another woman. I am not a jealous woman. I am only concerned for his welfare and the welfare of the city of our fathers. For it is not himself that his luxurious indolence affects; but all the unhappy city which is suffering while he is able to help it. He must be saved. And I shall go with him out of this house into want and peril, but he ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... Suffering here with headache and slow fever, he was removed to a lazaretto near the town, and had two rooms assigned him, both in as dirty a state as that he had left. His active mind devised a plan for making these rooms more comfortable for the next occupant, and though opposed by the indolence and prejudices of the people about him, he contrived secretly to procure a quarter of a bushel of lime and a brush, and, by rising very early, and bribing his attendant to help him, contrived to have the place completely ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... bestowed. Not so easily touched with the appearance of sorrow as her husband was, but always ready to relieve the wants of those she knew to be destitute, she would herself administer to the sick with a full heart and a generous hand. But she had a natural aversion to indolence, and would not give a penny to any she esteemed so, lest it should tend to increase this unmeritorious propensity. She was herself exceedingly industrious, and took great delight in making her family comfortable, and, in fact, supplying the wants of every living thing about her, even ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... was a delightful companion, and was held in universal esteem. One of Gilmour's leading thoughts was unquestionably the unspeakable value of time, and this intensified with years. There was not a shred of indolence in his nature; it may be truthfully said that he never wilfully lost an hour. Even when the college work was uncongenial, he never scamped it, but mastered the subject. He could not brook the idea of skimming a subject merely to pass an examination, and there were few men of his time with ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... glowing arena of the Middle Ages, the Spanish people had despised labour, commerce, and industry. The soil, neglected, had returned to its primitive sterility, and almost entire provinces had become solitary deserts. Indolence and poverty are evil counsellors. The Spanish people, the nation of the Cid, had transformed her noble and fervent religion of the Middle Ages into a degrading, and too often cruel superstition. It was unhappily the popular sentiment of which ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... I were waiting together for the men to finish toying with their coffee cups and match-boxes and emerge refreshed from the delightful indolence of the after-dinner smoke, the odour of the flowers—intensified both by dampness and the ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... him, and ahead of him the river seemed to look back, nodding over its shoulder, beckoning to him, telling him the word of the forests was true. It streamed on lazily, half a mile wide, as if resting for the splashing and roaring rush it would make among the rocks of the next rapids, and in its indolence it sang the low and everlasting song of deep and slowly passing water. In that song David heard the same whisper, that he was a fool! And the lure of the wilderness shores crept in on him and gripped him as of old. He looked at the rowers in the two ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... already; I don't really see what good can come of it. Of course, I don't really think that either of the boys is going to make his fortune, recover Riversdale, and live there in peace and plenty, ease and indolence, ever after. That's a pretty poetical little romance, and serves to cheer the children, and make their sudden change of circumstance more bearable, but I know they will have to fight the battle of life each by himself, and quite unaided. ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... the Rules of their Order, than any other Students whatever. Others seldom hurt themselves any further than to gain weak Eyes and sometimes Head-Aches; but these Philosophers are seized all over with a general Inability, Indolence, and Weariness, and a certain Impatience of the Place they are in, with an Heaviness in removing ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... more steam, and giving the ship more way, and allowing every day for forty or fifty miles, of westerly currents, I, by my account, ran the Eos high and dry upon the Island of Barbadoes, three good weeks before we made the land. Thus, I had the satisfaction of looking on with placid indolence, whilst my messmates were furiously handling their Gunter's scales, and straining their eyes over the small printed figures in the distance and departure columns of John Hamilton Moore, of blessed (cursed?) ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... design was to compromise Moreau without bringing him to any decisive step. Moreau's natural indolence, and perhaps it may be said his good sense, induced him to adopt the maxim that it was necessary to let men and things take their course; for temporizing policy is often as useful in politics as in war. Besides, Moreau was a sincere Republican; and ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... passed his time wholly in his garden; there he studied, there he exercised, there he taught his philosophy; and indeed no other sort of abode seems to contribute so much to both the tranquillity of mind, and indolence of body, which he made his chief ends. The sweetness of air, the pleasantness of smells, the verdure of plants, the cleanness and lightness of food, the exercises of working or walking; but above all, the exemption from cares and ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... He walked and rode with an air of languid ease. But the man himself, behind the indolence that sat upon him so gracefully, was like a coiled spring. Sometimes she could see this force in his eyes, when for the moment some thought eclipsed the gay good humor of them. Winsome he was. He had already won her father, even as he had won her. But the ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... show of unnecessary energy. It was his nature to do so. His energy was almost painful to behold. Too much vigour and energy is almost worse than chronic indolence; sooner or later people so afflicted find ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... stronger for being within your influences and sympathies, in this way of writing as in other ways. We shall see—you will see. Yet I have been idle lately I confess; leaning half out of some turret-window of the castle of Indolence and watching the new sunrise—as why not?—Do I mean to be idle always?—no!—and am I not an industrious worker on the average of days? Indeed yes! Also I have been less idle than you think perhaps, even this last year, though the results seem so like trifling: and ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... solution that flatters indolence. If we press those who speak of a survival without consciousness, we perceive that they mean only their present consciousness, for man conceives no other; and we have just seen that it is almost impossible for that manner of consciousness to ...
— Death • Maurice Maeterlinck
... the prime of life, leaned over an Or-molu table, arranging with exquisite touches, a quantity of splendid flowers in a basket of variegated mosses which stood on it. There was a look of high-bred indolence about her, and an expression of pride on her countenance so earthly, that even the passing stranger shrunk from it. And, while with a fine eye for the harmony of colors, she blended the gorgeous flowers together, weaving the dark mosses amidst them, until ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... entire keeping with the manners of the Italian peasants; and the scenes of Arcadia which it represented might be seen almost everywhere in the beautiful valleys and chestnut-covered hills of their native land. The exquisite loveliness of the climate, and the simplicity and indolence of the people, lent themselves naturally to such ideal dreams. And Tasso in his Aminta only gave expression to the same happy thoughts which the same scenery and the same people had ages before inspired in the mind of Virgil when he ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... sent with the more Pleasure for the Reality of its Complaints, this may have Reason to hope for a favourable Acceptance; and if Time be the most irretrievable Loss, the Regrets which follow will be thought, I hope, the most justifiable. The regaining of my Liberty from a long State of Indolence and Inactivity, and the Desire of resisting the further Encroachments of Idleness, make me apply to you; and the Uneasiness with which I I recollect the past Years, and the Apprehensions with which I expect the Future, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... which her son had been gradually drawn down towards rum, by those who sought his company for the sake of his money, had been suddenly snapped by the loss of his fortune. The weak youth was left to the guidance of those to whom his welfare was really dear. Philip, obliged to rouse himself from his indolence, and exert himself to earn his living, became a far wiser and more estimable man than he would ever have been as the heir to a fortune; and he never forgot the lesson which pain, weakness, and shame had taught him,—that the way of evil is also the way of sorrow. Thorns ...
— False Friends, and The Sailor's Resolve • Unknown
... yet, had he not exerted himself above common Measures, all would have been feeble and insufficient, on Account of the Emptyness of the Treasury, the Decay of Trade, the Scarcity of Men, and the Discontent of the People. To regain the Esteem of the Kofirans, whom his Indolence, and the weak and wicked Ministration of Jeflur had alienated, he caused it to be declared, that he was resolved to head his Army in Person: Surprising Turn, fortunate Instance of the Easiness and Loyalty of his Subjects. All the King's Deviations, though of such bad Consequences, were ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon
... pages. In description they are unequalled. Their eloquence is fervent, manly and sonorous. Their thoughts are just, natural, independent and profound. The pathos of Virgil, and the sublimity of Homer, have never been surpassed. And as their knowledge was not acquired in learned indolence, they knew how to join the severest application with the brightest genius. Accordingly in their style they have united simplicity, eloquence and harmony, in a manner of which the moderns have seldom had even an idea. The correctness of a Caesar, and the sonorous ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... of the sound of the word. In training to fight for England, I am training to fight for that deliberate hypocrisy, that terrible middle-class sloth of outlook and appalling "imaginative indolence" that has marked us out from generation to generation.... And yet we have the impudence to write down Germany (who with all their bigotry are at least seekers) as "Huns," because they are doing what every brave man ought to do and making experiments in morality. Not that I approve ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... is generally admitted, but is usually attributed to individual indolence. That, doubtless, has a great deal to do with it, but should not part of the blame be laid upon the often unpleasant environments, which make us shrink as from the performance ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... maidens, with fireflies already fixed in their dark locks, were gliding, barefoot and coy-eyed, along the paths. Dandies in white linen, swinging their canes, were beginning their seductive strolls. The air was full of human essence, of artificial enticement, of coquetry, indolence, pleasure—the man-made ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... stocks in which there has been an infusion of Slavic elements. In Upper Germany, accordingly, a sharp line is to be drawn between the Bavaro-Austrian and the Alemannic group. In Austria the capacity for sensuous enjoyment and a certain indolence are combined with a tendency toward sanguine but short-lived enthusiasms. A soft, southern air blows about the heights of Styria as well as over Vienna and its environs, and in the works of the writers of these regions (Wilhelm ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... believe that the Skye Terrier, with its well-groomed coat that falls in smooth cascades down its sides, and its veil of thick hair that obscures the tender softness of its dark and thoughtful eyes, is meant only to look beautiful upon the bench or to recline in comfortable indolence on silken cushions. This is a mistake. See a team of Skyes racing up a hillside after a fugitive rabbit, tirelessly burrowing after a rat, or displaying their terrier strategy around a fox's earth or an otter's holt, and you will admit that they are meant for sport, and ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... supplied the indolence of Constantius with specious reasons for deferring the prosecution of the war till the ensuing spring. Magnentius had fixed his residence in the city of Aquileia, and showed a seeming resolution to dispute the passage of the mountains ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... possessed in a supreme degree; he was devoted with entire and unchanging ardour to the cause he had embarked in. The extent of his natural endowments might have served, with a less eager character, as an excuse for long periods of indolence, broken only by fits of casual exertion: with him it was but a new incitement to improve and develop them. The Ideal Man that lay within him, the image of himself as he should be, was formed upon a strict ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... long-wished-for day arrived, and the young foreigner made her appearance in the family of Mr. Harewood. She was a fine, handsome-looking girl, and though younger in fact, was taller and older-looking than Ellen, but was not nearly so well shaped, as indolence, and the habit of being carried about instead of walking, had occasioned her to stoop, and to move as if her limbs were too weak to ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... groan, under any exertion his rheumatic old back always punished him cruelly for the days of indolence that had let its ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... A sailor never becomes interested in religion, without immediately learning to read, if he did not know how before; and regular habits, forehandedness (if I may use the word) in worldly affairs, and hours reclaimed from indolence and vice, which follow in the wake of the converted man, make it sure that he will instruct himself in the knowledge necessary and suitable to his calling. The religious change is the great object. If this is secured, there is no fear but that knowledge of ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... the Abbe Gevresin to insist that I should communicate, he is not I—he is not in me; he does not know the wild doings in my hidden lairs, or the turmoil in my ruins. He believes it to be mere nervelessness, indolence. Alas! That is not all. There is a dryness, a coldness, which are not altogether free from a certain amount of irritation and rebelliousness against the ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... the purgatorial alternative of being imprisoned on his own estate? Hickman, you have no bowels for me, although you can have for the hard-fisted boors on my property, who wont pay up as they ought, and all through your indolence and neglect. You must send me money, get it where you will; beg, borrow, rob, drive, cant, sell out—for money I must have. Two thousand within a fortnight, and no disappointment, or I'm dished. You know not the demands upon me, ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... himself, helped me make beds, and held cotton for me to wind, watched Mr. Tappan at his young trees, and when his father came down [from writing upstairs] played with him. I sewed all the evening while my husband read the "Castle of Indolence," and finished it. ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... their way to that correct exercise of the affections which really belongs to a scene of moral discipline. Such an exercise is adapted to every situation in life, and tends to guard a man, in his various relations, against the hindrances which indolence, self-love, and pure inattention are apt to bring in the way of his peculiar duties,—and of his discharging them with due regard to ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... following up their advantage. It was not from want of courage; for it was impossible to have exhibited more than they had done that morning. But they had had their moment of fury, of wild energy and exertion, and the other side of the national character, indolence, now showed itself. After fighting like devils, at the very moment when activity was of most importance, they lay ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... "like their Spanish neighbors, are often charged with indolence; but here and elsewhere, under favorable circumstances, they show no want of industry. The husbandman of this part of Alemtejo has grown rich in spite of the greatest obstacle to thrift, which the church has raised up in devoting more than half ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... longer trembled with fear; she could yield to her natural indolence, and if she sometimes, from fear of Munnich, troubled herself about state affairs and labored with her ministers, she now felt it to be an oppressive burden, to which she could no ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... that it was a melancholy welcome added to his depression, and made him less able to exert himself. The old sorrows haunted the walls of the house, and above all the study, and tarried not in seizing on their unresisting victim. Melancholy was in his nature, his indolence gave it force, and his habits were almost ineffaceable, and they were habits of quiet selfishness, formed by a resolute, though inert will, and fostered by an adoring wife. A youth spent in India had not given him ideas of responsibilities beyond his own ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was ever a Castle of Indolence and Profligacy it was Versailles, though indeed it is regarded as the monarchy's brilliant zenith. The picture is an unforgetable one to any who have ever read its history or seen ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... Cujo there are mines of gold and copper, but they are not worked owing to the indolence of the inhabitants. It has also rich mines of lead, sulphur, vitriol, salt, gypsum, and talc or asbestos. The mountains near the city of Juan are entirely composed of white marble, in stratified slabs of five or six feet long by six or seven inches thick, all regularly cut and polished ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... the islands during his periods of inaction conducive to indolence. "If I were not so fond of looking into the rich mass of green leaves," he says, "that swathe the stately tamarind right before my door, I would idle less, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... out to visit friends in the vicinity of Paris, he never returned later than five o'clock in the evening. Occasionally he preached in the chapel of the Duke of Orleans before His Royal Highness, and at such times denounced vehemently the luxury and indolence of Princes ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... whom I had ever seen. This was perhaps, in a considerable degree, owing to the military life. In countries where the nobility are destitute of public employment, they naturally degenerate—become the victims of the diseases of indolence and profligacy, transmit their decrepitude to their descendants, and bequeath dwarfishness and deformity to their name. But in France, the young noble was destined for soldiership from his cradle. His education partook of the manly preparations for the soldier's career. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... she had hated it, that humiliating and uncertain existence, with its glib tongue and empty pockets, its poetic ideals and sordid realities, its indolence and poverty tricked out in paper roses. Even as a little girl, when vague dreams beset her, when she wanted to lie late in bed and commune with visions, or to leap and sing because the sooty little trees along the street were putting out their first ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... and captivate the heart. Young Hope, in flatt'ring smiles for ever gay, To Love's mysterious altar leads the way: The graces round, half veil'd and half in sight, Enticing motion with their voice unite; 35 While Indolence, luxurious laid along, Listless and loit'ring, hears the tender song. There, silent Myst'ry, with the veil she wears, And eyes conversing with the soul, appears, Attentive tender cares, attracting smiles, 40 Gay sport and ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire
... identified with Titus Petronius, the friend and victim of Nero. Tacitus has described him in a passage, remarkable even among Tacitean portraits for its extraordinary brilliance. 'His days he passed in sleep, his nights in the business and pleasures of life. Indolence had raised him to fame, as energy raises others, and he was reckoned not a debauchee and spendthrift, like most of those who squander their substance, but a man of refined luxury. And indeed his talk and his doings, the freer they were, and the more show of carelessness ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... believe, you will hardly attempt persuading me, or anybody else, that one man in ten, of those who changed their language, were moved by reasons any way affecting the merits of the cause, but merely through hope, fear, indolence, or good manners. Nay, I have been assured from good hands, that there was still a number sufficient to make a majority against the bill, if they had not apprehended the other side to be secure, and therefore thought it ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... full of life and energy, and in this respect offered a strong contrast to most of his schoolfellows of the same age. For although splendid riders and keen sportsmen, the planters of Virginia were in other respects inclined to indolence; the result partly of the climate, partly of their being waited upon from childhood by attendants ready to carry out every wish. He had his father's cheerful disposition and good temper, together with the decisive manner so frequently ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... whom a treaty had been concluded in the reign of Tullus, gained fresh courage; and, after they had invaded Roman territory, returned a contemptuous answer to the Romans when they demanded satisfaction, supposing that the Roman king would spend his reign in indolence among chapels and altars. The disposition of Ancus was between two extremes, preserving the qualities of both Numa and Romulus; and, besides believing that peace was more necessary in his grandfather's reign, since the people were then both newly formed and uncivilized, ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... punishment was administered for any violation of established rules and though a master was kind, he was of necessity invariably firm in the administration of his government and in the execution of his laws. Respect and obedience was steadfastly required and sternly demanded, while indolence and disrespect was neither tolerated ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... do the acting and write the music and novels and plays and paint the pictures for all the rest of the world. If they haven't done so, it must be because, along with their natural talent, they have this indolence and tendency to flop and not push ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... business," he said, looking at me with haggard eyes. I had never quite realized before what an old man he was. His trim beard and moustache had been white for years, but he had always been a hale man up to his work—a fine soldier but not a great leader. There was a vein of indolence in Brigadier-General Thurkow's nature which had the same effect on his career as that caused by barnacles round a ship's keel. This inherent indolence was a steady drag on the man's life. Only one interest thoroughly aroused him—only ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... his native delicacy, the notion, that he courts, rather than shrinks from, the almost penitential regime. Though one would naturally think, that the scorn of material comforts, suggested here, and which many others of his acts evince, would scarcely breed indolence in the Indian, yet this is with him an almost unconquerable weakness. It is, indeed, so ingrained within him, as to resist any attempt, on his own part, to excise it from his economy; and as to defy extirpating or uprooting process ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... construe book and one Greek book. That meant about two hours a day to idle in his study. But he found it quite easy to turn that two into three, and he was well aware that by Christmas his daily hours of indolence would have reached five. Prothero at the present moment was only going into school for divinity and French, and as often as not he told his French master that he was so much occupied with history that he ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... the United States, but the recent advances in technology did allow a feeling of accomplishment, and the hard drive for superiority was softened a trifle. It was no longer considered the height of indolence and unpatriotic time-wasting to sit on a bench and feed pigeons. Nor was food so scarce and costly that throwing away a few bread crumbs could ...
— The Foreign Hand Tie • Gordon Randall Garrett
... old faith. The result was a spiritual confusion such as often precedes the dawn of a new awakening. And Brorson appears to have been caught in it. His failure to complete his course was by no means caused by indolence. He had, on the contrary, broadened his studies to include a number of subjects foreign to his course, and he had worked so hard that he had seriously impaired his health. But he had lost his direction, and also, for the time ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... was known as "Aunt Helen," was discovered to have died at six-thirty; and, all horological assistance having been summoned in vain, it was suffered to stand in its corner, untouched except by dust cloths, its hands forever pointing at six-thirty, an eloquent warning of the end of indolence. ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... principal of the school wrote a letter to Mr. Preston, informing him of Oscar's indolence and bad conduct, and referring particularly to the incident that had just occurred. By way of offset to the complaint, he spoke in very high terms of Ralph, who attended the same school, but was in another ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... modesty, and self-restraint appear too often as a dull and priggish abstention from the more daring and adventurous joys of eager living. If evil were always ugly and goodness were always beautiful at first sight, there would be little of the trouble and havoc in the world that is wrought by sin and indolence. ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... once a hope to have learned some unknown particulars of Thomson, about Jedburgh, but I was disappointed. Had I succeeded, I meant to publish a short life of him, prefixed to a volume containing 'The Seasons,' 'The Castle of Indolence,' his minor pieces in rhyme, and a few extracts from his plays, and his 'Liberty;' and I feel still inclined to do something of the kind. These three writers, Thomson, Collins, and Dyer, had more poetic ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... Nyctiporus, {136d} and round the gates two fountains: the name of one is Negretos, {137a} and of the other Pannychia. {137b} The city has a high wall, of all the colours of the rainbow. It has not two gates, as Homer {137c} tells us, but four; two of which look upon the plain of Indolence, one made of iron, the other of brick; through these are said to pass all the dreams that are frightful, bloody, and melancholy; the other two, fronting the sea and harbour, one of horn, the other, which we came through, of ivory; on the right hand, as you enter the city, is the temple of Night, ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... circulating, similar to the traditions of the Indians, giving this explanation. The more probable hypothesis, however, is that the Indians themselves, many centuries in the past, were versed to some extent in the art of mining, and carried on the business in these mines; but from indolence or, to them, uselessness of the metals, the work was abandoned, and their descendants failed to obtain the knowledge which their ancestors possessed. These mines, and those which exist nearer to the large towns, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... much time had passed since Prince Andrew had left Russia, he had changed greatly during that period. In the expression of his face, in his movements, in his walk, scarcely a trace was left of his former affected languor and indolence. He now looked like a man who has time to think of the impression he makes on others, but is occupied with agreeable and interesting work. His face expressed more satisfaction with himself and those around him, his smile and glance ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... the same in the thought realm as in lifeless nature, vis inertiae—the law of indolence, according to which nature remains in its condition to all eternity, until she is forced into some new condition from a new cause. This vis inertiae is harder to conquer in the thought realm than in lifeless nature, for Mesmer ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various
... instance of their fatalism or apathetic indolence, I can remember a village on the estate I was managing taking fire. It was quite close to the factory. I had my pony saddled at once, and galloped off for the burning village. It was a long, straggling one, with a good masonry well in ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... theological school in which Calvin and Beza taught, moulded the destinies of France. The youths who came from the shores of Lake Leman were no neophytes, nor had they to unlearn the casuistry of the schools or to throw off a monastic indolence which habit had made a second nature. They embraced a vocation to which nothing but a stern sense of duty, or the more powerful attraction of Divine love, could prompt. They entered an arena where poverty, fatigue, and almost inevitable death stared them ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... a disposition which was increased by opium. Hence De Quincey was of the opinion that it injured Coleridge's poetic faculties; which probably was the case, since in genuine poetry the mind is prominently realistic, its motions are all outward, and therefore excessive indolence must of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... traduced his character, and exposed him in a thousand ludicrous attitudes for the diversion of the public; while at the same time he knew their knavery, saw their drift, detested their morals, and despised their understanding. He was so infatuated by indolence of thought, and communication with folly, that he would have rather suffered himself to be led into a ditch with company, than be at the pains of going over a bridge alone; and involved himself in a thousand difficulties, the natural consequences of an error in the first ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... field for missionary labour, eventually proved the most serious obstruction. An air of softness in their manners, great apparent ingenuousness and docility, at first misled; but these were the mere accompaniments of an indolence, bodily and mental; a constitutional voluptuousness; and an aversion to the least restraint; which, however fitted for the luxurious state of nature, in the tropics, are the greatest possible hindrances to the strict moralities ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... and lazy people, will do well to revise that notion. There is not the hustle that may be seen further north, but the results of Cuban activity, measured in dollars or in tons, fairly dispute the notion of any national indolence. When two and a half million people produce what is produced in ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... the passing day." This was sheer idleness to my fellow-townsmen, no doubt; but if the birds and flowers had tried me by their standard, I should not have been found wanting. A man must find his occasions in himself, it is true. The natural day is very calm, and will hardly reprove his indolence. ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... human nature. Still, this sketch of the industrial division of the community would probably be approximated in any purely agricultural village of this size,—with such changes in the detail as would come from individual enterprise or indolence. ...
— Village Improvements and Farm Villages • George E. Waring
... perceived by himself, or meant to be understood by others, that to his inner conscience he also was not clear of blame. Had he, then, in any degree sanctioned the injustice which sometimes he must have witnessed? Far from it; he had been roused from his habitual indolence into energetic expressions of anger; he had put an end to the wrong, when it came openly before him. I had myself heard him say on many occasions, with patriarchal fervor, "Woman, they are your children, and God made them. Show mercy to them, as you expect it for yourself." But he ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... attention, however, soon flagged; in a few minutes I was a second time asleep, nor did I again awake till the morning was far advanced. At this eventful juncture, while casting my eyes round the room with all the voluptuous indolence of a jaded traveller, they suddenly chanced to fall on a gaunt, spectral figure, undressed, unwashed, unshaved, decked out in a red worsted night-cap, its left cheek swollen, as if with cold or tooth-ache, and seated bolt upright in the very next bed, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... death at Metz, in 1744, proves to what extent he had then won the hearts of his subjects. His person was fine and well-proportioned; his manners were grace personified; he possessed considerable penetration when his native indolence would permit him to attend to public affairs; and he was not destitute, like his predecessor Charles VI., when roused by necessity, or the entreaties of a high-minded and generous mistress, of noble and heroic qualities. His conduct at Foutenoy, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... for believing. [Footnote: Let me not be understood as intimating that, the general neglect of bathing, of which I complain so loudly, is chiefly owing to this unreasonable prejudice, though this no doubt has its sway. On the contrary, I believe it is much oftener owing to ignorance, indolence, and parsimony.] ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott
... A spirited courage is required to triumph over the impediments that the indolence of nature as well as the cowardice of the heart oppose to our in struction. It was not without reason that the ancient Mythos made Minerva issue fully armed from the head of Jupiter, for it is with warfare that this instruction com mences. From its very outset it has to sustain ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... entered on his grand projects of Public Benevolence, was subject to those little, but depressive variations of health which have betrayed many a valetudinarian into habits of inaction and inutility. Happily for himself, and for mankind, this excellent person surmounted a constitutional bias to indolence and retirement. The consequence sequence was, he became a singular example of activity and vigour. His powers, and enjoyments of bodily and mental health, augmented in proportion to the ...
— The Eulogies of Howard • William Hayley
... up in an inner chamber from the eyes of his courtiers. Sometimes he loitered alone, from sunrise to sunset, in the dreary and rugged wilderness which surrounds the Escurial. The hours which he did not waste in listless indolence were divided between childish sports and childish devotions. He delighted in rare animals, and still more in dwarfs. When neither strange beasts nor little men could dispel the black thoughts which gathered in his mind, he repeated Aves and Credos; he walked in processions; sometimes he starved ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the writing up of my journals, the filling up my charts, and superintending the arranging, packing, and burying of our surplus stores, amused and occupied me, but as these were soon over, I began to repine and fret at the life of indolence and inactivity. I was doomed to suffer. Frequently required at the camp, to give directions about, or to assist in the daily routine of duty, I did not like to absent myself long away at once; there were no objects of ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... loss to conceive why so general an opinion seems to prevail that I have been out of the Fort, and in quest of adventure. Why not rather ascribe my tardiness at parade to some less flattering cause—a head-ache—fatigue from night-watching—indolence, or even a little entetement, arising from the denial of a very imprudent request I made to Captain Headley last evening, to allow me the command of a detachment for a particular purpose. Pardon me, I have made quite a speech, but ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... farther, yet no one book so disciplines and deepens the mind as that. The lazy man will find a fire kindling in his bones to please his Master and do something for Him, that will burn through and burn up his indolence. The man of hasty judgment will find himself stopping to consider what his Master would desire. And the mere pause to think is a long step toward more accurate judgment. He will become a reverent student of the word of God, and nothing corrects ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... shown her much affection without words, but he was certainly as mute as a fish, and would, doubtless, have boasted and asked for thanks like anybody else, if indolence had not fettered his ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... prevailed at times an easy indolence. There were periods when she took delight in perfect vacancy of hand and eye—moments when her thoughts, her simple existence, the fact of the world being around and heaven above her, seemed to yield her such fullness of happiness that she did not need to lift a finger to increase the joy. Often, ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... This indolence prevents many husbands from perceiving the symptoms which, in their wives, herald the first storm; and this disposition of mind has resulted in the minotaurization of more husbands than have either opportunity, carriages, sofas ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... language in the Congo. I did not like the looks of the English-speaking barbarian so I took a chance on Number Two, whose name was Gerome. He was a so-called "educated" native. I was to find from sad experience that his "education" was largely in the direction of indolence and inefficiency. I thought that by having a boy with whom I had to speak French I could improve my command of the language. Later on I realized my mistake because my French is a non-conductor ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... young men would go forth into life unfurnished; but many minds uncertain and vacillating soon wearied with the dry elements of one department, would presently attempt another and a third, and disgusted, at length, with all, would resign themselves to a stupefying indolence, or a consuming licentiousness. The examples of other times, when the learning of universities all had respect to the future political and ecclesiastical relations of the student, and these institutions became little better than ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... to the black broth of the former, and the salt beef of the latter, beyond what you ever found in the tripotanums or ham pies, that vainly stimulated your forced and languid appetites, which perpetual indolence weakened, and constant ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... and from six to seven thousand prisoners had been transported thither: dispersion became necessary to security—to repress alike the vices of the convicts, and the growing malversation of their taskmasters. The want of prisons, or places of punishment, and the indolence and intemperance of emancipist ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... therefore, never degraded himself. His indolence and his aristocratic principles were in accord with each other. Though he actually suffered for the want of something to do, he was not permitted to demean himself by doing any thing that would develop the resources of ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... board to superintend the selection and treatment of the plants. Tahiti was duly reached, and the business of the expedition was taken in hand. One thousand and fifteen fine trees were chosen and carefully stowed. But the comfortable indolence, the luxuriant abundance, the genial climate, the happy hospitality of the handsome islanders, and their easy freedom from compunction in reference to restraints imposed by law and custom in Europe, had a demoralising effect upon the crew of the ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... however, a natural indolence of our disposition, which seeks pleasure in repose, and the resting in old habits, which must not be too violently opposed by "variety," "reanimating the attention, which is apt to languish under a continual sameness;" nor ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... be said of him that he was a model husband, a kind father, and an exemplary citizen, and that is all. During his lifetime there were people who did him great injustice. His reserved life was looked upon as a morbid selfishness. The rare publication of his writings was supposed to arise from indolence. It was thought that he wrote the life of Franklin Pierce for the sake of a government office, and when he was actually appointed consul at Liverpool, the case was proved beyond a doubt. The anti-slavery people looked upon ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... that his defects were indolence, want of resolution, and too much reliance on his own knowledge. He is the only Mexican president who finished as chief magistrate, the term prescribed by the laws. It is alleged, in proof of his simplicity, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... slowly, for the proving of a theory often requires work on a huge scale carried out for several decades. The husbandry of the earth goes on from century to century with little change, and the methods followed are the winnowings of experience, tempered with indolence. And even with the bewildering progress of science in other directions, sound improvements in this field are rare discoveries. There is great scope for the application of physical and chemical knowledge to the production of the raw materials of the tropics. In one or two instances notable ...
— Cocoa and Chocolate - Their History from Plantation to Consumer • Arthur W. Knapp
... revelation are not granted from heaven; since in proportion as a man knows things to come, in the same proportion his reason and understanding, together with his wisdom and prudence, fall into an indolence of inexertion, grow torpid, and decay." Again I asked, "What other miracles shall I do?" And a cry was made, "Do such miracles as Moses did in Egypt." To this I answered, "Possibly you may harden ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... old books; and three things which nobody could persuade him to do, namely, to rise in the morning, to go to bed at night, and to settle an account.[81] His reluctance to settle his accounts, however, was not caused by avarice, but indolence, for he spent a considerable portion of his large income in the relief of distress, and in assisting in the publication of literary works; while his pupils frequently borrowed of him sums of money, well knowing there would be but little chance of a demand for repayment. Dr. Parr, who ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... otherwise be desirous to cast over such enormities among an order so sacred.... The example of the bishops was ambitiously imitated by the presbyters, who, neglecting the sacred duties of their station, abandoned themselves to the indolence and delicacy of an effeminate and luxurious life. The deacons, beholding the presbyters deserting thus their functions, boldly usurped their rights and privileges; and the effects of a corrupt ambition were spread through every rank of the sacred order" (p. 73). During this century ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... up the basket and backed into the shelter of the trees, keeping in a stooping position, while Jem followed, and now, with all the sensation of indolence gone, they hurried along the rugged and dangerous path, to spread the alarm in the village far below, where they had left the inmates dreaming away their existence in happy ignorance of the danger so close ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... characteristics, and applying the remedies accordingly, is the only one likely to subvert the empirical routine of prescribing mercury on all occasions, a practice which derives such strong support both from the indolence and ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... but the barrier between waking and sleeping seemed absolutely insurmountable; and, instead, I entered into a state of novel and indescribable indolence. ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... the greatest stumbling blocks to human improvement. This tendency has its source in the intuitional metaphysics which characterized the reaction of the nineteenth century against the eighteenth, and it is a tendency so agreeable to human indolence, as well as to conservative interests generally, that unless attacked at the very root, it is sure to be carried to even a greater length than is really justified by the more moderate forms of the intuitional philosophy. That philosophy ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... of being a scape-grace and a ne'er-do-well. He was about the age of John Haynes, but had not attended school for a couple of years, and, less from want of natural capacity than from indolence, knew scarcely more than a boy of ten. His father was a shoemaker, and had felt obliged to keep his son at home to assist him in the shop. He did not prove a very efficient assistant, however, being inclined to shirk duty whenever ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... stillness that was wonderfully attractive to Don as he sat with his eyes half-closed. In the distance he could see some of the Maoris coming and going in a listless, careless way, as if their life was a very pleasant indolence without a care. ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... steady look was judging other men by results. Men came to believe that when there was a public task to perform, Flavelle was the man to take it. He was almost forced into service, often by the public indolence of other men. Canada has always played the professional grandstand method of getting things done for the public. Before the advent of Rotary and Kiwanis Clubs our two chief cities systematically advised the humble philanthropist ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... robbery nor clever murders, nor lewdness, incest, adultery, or other crimes of which we accuse one another, can be found. They accuse themselves of ingratitude and malignity when any one denies a lawful satisfaction to another, of indolence, of sadness, of anger, of scurrility, of slander, and of lying, which curseful thing they thoroughly hate. Accused persons undergoing punishment are deprived of the common table, and other honours, until the judge thinks that they ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... through carelessness: pompous from unsuspecting simplicity of character. He is frequently pedantic and ostentatious in his style, because he had no consciousness of these vices in himself. He mounts upon stilts, not out of vanity, but indolence. He seldom writes a good line, but he makes up for it by a bad one. He takes advantage of all the most trite and mechanical common-places of imagery and diction as a kindly relief to his Muse, and as if he thought them quite as good, and likely to be quite as acceptable to the ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... stature, with small limbs, little heads, straight bodies, small eyes short noses, wide mouths, thin red lips, and sound black teeth, having black lank hair, and tawny complexions, but rather brighter than other Indians. They are ingenious and nimble, much addicted to indolence, obliging to strangers, but implacable when once disobliged. They wear turbans on their heads, formed of a cloth tied once round, the ends of which hang down, and are ornamented with lace or fringe. They also wear breeches, over which they have a kind of frocks, but have neither ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... any light on his invariable tendency to extremes. When asked who suggested to him the idea of such crimes, he answers, 'No one. The thought came to me only from myself, from my reveries, my daily pleasures, my taste for debauchery.' And he arraigns his indolence and constantly asserts that delicate repasts and strong drink have helped uncage ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... inhabitants; from what I have seen of the cultivation, the soil appears to be very capable, and well adapted to barley and wheat; rice might also be raised as a summer crop. With regard to water, if there is a scarcity of this element, it is due to the indolence of the people. I have not yet seen any vestiges of buildings, topes, etc. to indicate that Candahar has ever been a very populous place, the want of trees considering the ease with which they may be cultivated, ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... the death of Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson made some remarks about Henry's indolence, and his indisposition to write out things. A little more insight, or less prejudice, would have shown that Patrick Henry's plan was only Nature's scheme for the conservation of forces, and at the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... hard. We must not let it be our notion of a fine lady or gentleman to do nothing. The idle life is a miserable life; it is bound to be so. God has promised many a blessing to industry; He has promised none to indolence. God himself works, and He ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... metaphysical conjectures. He liked to disable me as one professionally vowed to the fabulous, and he had unfailing fun with the romantic sentimentality of Rulledge, which was in fact so little in keeping with the gross super-abundance of his person, his habitual gluttony, and his ridiculous indolence. Minver knew very well that Rulledge was a good fellow withal, and would willingly do any kind action that did not seriously interfere with his comfort, or make too heavy a draft upon his pocket. His self-indulgence, ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... by a certain natural mediocrity of mind. Whatever else may be said of Pattison, at least he was never mediocre, never vapid, trite, or common. Nor was he one of those false pretenders to the judicial mind, who 'mistake for sober sense And wise reserve, the plea of indolence.' On the contrary, his industry and spirit of laborious acquisition were his best credentials. He was invested to our young imaginations with the attraction of the literary explorer, who had 'voyaged through strange seas of thought alone,' had traversed broad continents of knowledge, had ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 5: On Pattison's Memoirs • John Morley
... an easy process that produces tramps. A few days' growth of beard, the tolerance of certain personal habits of indolence, and your tramp begins, vaguely, but none the less surely, to appear. This is accompanied by a falling off in clear-cut thought, a blurring of the moralities, and a cessation of definite and effective energy. This is itself, of course, ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... and, even in his best "lodge," he finds but little shelter from their fury. Clear weather is, therefore, grateful to him—bright sunshine associates itself, in his mind, with comfort, or (that supremest of Indian pleasures) undisturbed indolence. And the transition, though, as we have said, an approach to an abstract conception, is easy, even to the mind of a savage. His employment of such illustrations is rather an evidence of rudeness, than of eloquence—of barrenness, than ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... after my affairs instead of dreaming my time away in Italy, your father, as the junior partner, could not have fallen into this snare. When a crime is committed the criminal is not the only one to be blamed. Consciously or unconsciously those about him have been helping by their own carelessness and indolence, by cowardice, by indifference to right and wrong. By a thousand subtle influences we help our brother to disobey God; and when he is found out we stand aloof and raise an outcry against him. God has made every one of us ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... application of those whom my situation in life gives me for companions. The pernicious and childish opinion that extraordinary genius cannot brook the slavery of plodding over the rubbish of antiquity (a cant so common among the heedless votaries of indolence), dulls the edge of all industry, and is one of the most powerful ingredients in the Circean potion which transforms many of the most promising young men into the beastly forms which, in sluggish idleness, feed upon the labors of others. The degenerate sentiment, I hope, will ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... after first mocking at the thought and next thrusting it away, by degrees she grew to appreciate the reality of the mysterious foreign influence which reigned in her home. It might be told how in that spiritual atmosphere, shedding its sleepy indolence, her own spirit awoke and grew conscious and far-seeing, till impressions and hints which in the old days she would have set aside as idle, became for her pregnant with light and meaning. Then at last her eyes were opened, and understanding much and guessing more ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... appointed the two councils of peace and war, upon whom depended the ministers and all the administrative personnel of prefects and sub- prefects entrusted with the government of the departments. In case the magistrate, so highly placed in his sumptuous indolence, should seem to menace the safety of the State, the Senate was authorized to absorb him by admitting him into its ranks. The same action might be exercised with respect to any of the civil or ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... Theoule. Octopus hunting surpasses gathering four-leaf clovers and fishing as an occupation in which hope eternal plays the principle role. I gradually abandoned other pursuits, and sat smoking on rocks by the half day, excusing indolence on the ground of the thrilling story I was going to get. I learned over again painfully the boyhood way of drinking from a brook, and lay face downward on island stones. With the enthusiastic help of my children, I made a dummy stuffed with pine cones, and let ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... present high condition through a struggle for existence consequent on his rapid multiplication; and if he is to advance still higher, he must remain subject to a severe struggle. Otherwise he would sink into indolence, and the more gifted men would not be more successful in the battle of life than the less gifted. Hence our natural rate of increase, though leading to many and obvious evils, must not be greatly ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... the minions of the law. But not all pirates were of this character. Some, not inherently vicious nor absolutely depraved, had adopted this lawless calling by reason of some stigma which deprived them of their social position; others, by reason of their indolence; and others from sheer necessity, who found in their dire distress the justification for the ...
— Pirates and Piracy • Oscar Herrmann
... word, has been so homefelt a satisfaction as the news you tell me of yourself; and you are not in the least mistaken when you congratulate me upon your own good success, for I have more people out of whom to be happy, than any ill-natured man can boast of." Pope, now well aware of Gay's natural indolence, was careful in this same letter to urge him to devote himself to literary labours in his leisure hours. "I shall see you this winter with much greater pleasure than I could the last, and I hope as much of your time as your Duchess will allow you to spare to any ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... from the rail and went to her stateroom and dressed for dinner. She did not give her toilet any particular care. There was no thought of conquest, no thought of dazzling the man in khaki. It was the indolence and carelessness of the East, where clothes become only necessities and are no ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... always something of the maternal in her eyes when she looked at Jim. He did not see it—he saw only the wonderful blue, and the humour which had helped him over such difficult places these past three years. In steadying and strengthening Jim's will, in developing him from his Southern indolence into Northern industry and sense of responsibility, John Appleton's warnings had rung in Sally's ears, and Freddy Hartzman's forceful and high-minded personality had passed before her eyes with an appeal powerful and stimulating; but always she came to the same upland of serene faith ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... dormice lead, in the neglect of a father whose whole time and thought were given to business, and in the use of tobacco saturated with opium and of sweetmeats,—the torpor of her Flemish blood conjoined with Oriental indolence; and with all the rest, ill-bred, gluttonous, sensual, arrogant, a Levantine trinket ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... lounged between the mantelpiece and the window, not even consciously waiting for the table to be cleared. It was ten to one that before my landlady's daughter was done I would pick up a book and sit down with it all the morning in a spirit of enjoyable indolence. I affirm it with assurance, and I don't even know now what were the books then lying about the room. What ever they were, they were not the works of great masters, where the secret of clear thought and exact ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... "I knew Divitiacus, the AEduan, who claimed proficiency in that natural science which the Greeks call physiology, and he predicted the future, either by augury or his own conjecture." The Roman Senate, with the indecision and indolence of all declining powers, hesitated to engage, for the AEduans' sake, in a war against the invaders of a corner of Gallic territory. At the same time that they gave a cordial welcome to Divitiacus, they entered into negotiations ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... silk-handkerchief round his neck, brightly polished boots with tassels, and altogether resembled in appearance a well-to-do merchant. His hands were handsome, soft, and white; he often fumbled with the buttons of his coat as he talked. With his dignity and his composure, his good sense and his indolence, his uprightness and his obstinacy, Ovsyanikov reminded me of the Russian boyars of the times before Peter the Great.... The national holiday dress would have suited him well. He was one of the last men left ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... fatigue of his journey through the heat of the day had led him to look forward to a voluptuous hour of indolence following upon dinner, with pipe and book and glass. The hour was come, the elements were there, but since he could not abandon himself to their dominion the voluptuousness was wanting. The task before him haunted him with anticipatory remorse. It hung ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... far off in the future, and concoct, for its realization, schemes subtly woven, astutely guarded. But he could not secure their success by any long-sustained sacrifices of the caprice of one hour or the indolence of the next. If it had been a great object to him for life to win Sophy's filial affection, he would not have bored himself for five minutes each day to gain that object. Besides, he had just enough of shame to render him uneasy at the sight of the child he had deliberately sold. So after chucking ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... obliged her to throw off part of the Bed-cloathes: Those which still covered her, Ambrosio's insolent hand hastened to remove. She lay with her cheek reclining upon one ivory arm; The Other rested on the side of the Bed with graceful indolence. A few tresses of her hair had escaped from beneath the Muslin which confined the rest, and fell carelessly over her bosom, as it heaved with slow and regular suspiration. The warm air had spread her cheek with higher ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... as though we really wanted to understand him. This feeling is in many cases lamentably well founded. No one likes hearing doubt thrown upon anything which he regards as settled beyond dispute, and this, happily, is what most men feel concerning Christianity. Again, indolence or impotence of mind indisposes many to intellectual effort; others are pained by coming into contact with anything which derogates from the glory due to the great sacrifice of Christ, or to his Divine nature, and lastly not a few are withheld by moral cowardice from ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... I am much obliged on many accounts; particularly for having recalled my mind to subjects of delight, to which it was grown dulled by age and indolence. In consequence of your reclaiming it, I asked myself whence you feel so much disregard for certain authors whose fame is established: you have assigned good reasons for withholding your approbation from some, on the plea of their being imitators: it was natural, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... the servants traded with the capital entrusted to their charge and doubled it ere the master returned; one from a morbid dread of his master's severity, coupled with indolence in his personal habits, hid the money in the ground, thereby deliberately sacrificing his master's profit in order that himself might incur no risk. The two who had successfully traded were commended and rewarded; the one who allowed his talent to lie idle was condemned and punished ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... which I have observed most Learned Men have suffer'd themselves to be deceived, and consequently led their Readers into Error: and This for want of the Help of Literal Criticism: in some, thro' Indolence and Inadvertence: in others, perhaps, thro' an absolute Contempt of It. If the Subject may seem to invite this Digression, I hope, the Use and Application ...
— Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1734) • Lewis Theobald
... had done well—that she might presently please and satisfy Alice—above all, that her mother's wishes might be answered. This thought, whenever it came, was a spur to her efforts; so was each of the others; and Christian feeling added another and kept all the rest in force. Without this, indolence might have weakened, or temptation surprised her resolution; little Ellen was open to both; but if ever she found herself growing careless, from either cause, conscience was sure to smite her, and then would ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... was stout, and I think by nature disposed to indolence, especially in warm weather. It was all the more creditable to her that she had worked hard for many years to support a paralytic mother and a delicate sister. The mother was dead now. Miss Ellen Mulberry, though an invalid, gave some help in teaching the ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... head-first down his long neck; then settle down to watch for the next one. And there he stayed, alternately watching and feasting, till he had enough; when he drew his head farther down into his shoulders, shut his eyes, and went fast asleep in the cool shadows,—a perfect picture of fishing indolence and satisfaction. ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... by a word, as my captain, nipped all manifestation of bad temper at the outset, had he been so disposed. But no, Bombay was more averse to marching than the cowardliest of his fellows, not because he was cowardly, but because he loved indolence. ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley |
