"Inactive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to strengthen his prerogative and to promote the interest of his Church, put an end to the delusion. It was plain that, when the European crisis came, England would, if James were her master, either remain inactive or act in conjunction with France. And the European crisis was drawing near. The House of Austria had, by a succession of victories, been secured from danger on the side of Turkey, and was no longer under the necessity of submitting patiently to the encroachments and insults ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... seemed inactive. True, some members of it did come over to look on from a respectful distance at what the diggers were doing. Some of the rival helpers, under the direction of the head of the expedition, also began sinking shafts. But they ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton
... room towards us.' Other chairs rushed about 'with still greater velocity.' The heavy table then tilted up, and the moderator lamp, with some pencils, slid to the lower edge of the table, but did not fall off. Mr. Aide looked under the table: Home's legs were inactive. Home said that he thought the table would 'ascend,' and Alphonse Karr dived under it, and walked about on all fours, examining everybody's feet—the others were standing up. The table rose 'three ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... mean time, Charles of Blois was not inactive. Hennebonne was, of itself, too important a fortress to be overlooked; and, besides that, the heroic countess was there. If he could take the city and make prisoner its defender, his cause would be gained. With both the count ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... extent, than by American females. Most English women, in the wealthier classes, are able to walk six and eight miles, without oppressive fatigue; and when they visit this Country, always express their surprise at the inactive habits of American ladies. In England, regular exercise, in the open air, is very commonly required by the mother, as a part of daily duty, and is sought by young women, as an enjoyment. In consequence of a different physical training, English women, in those circles which enjoy competency, ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... is true, the fact remains that wind pressure, up to a certain stage, is an absolute necessity in aerial navigation. The atmosphere itself has very little real supporting power, especially if inactive. If a body heavier than air is to remain afloat it must move rapidly while ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... the matter of the sky, our author takes the earth in hand, and tosses it about like a Titan. "The spirit of the hills is action, that of the lowlands, repose; and between these there is to be found every variety of motion and of rest, from the inactive plain, sleeping like the firmament, with cities for stars, to the fiery peaks which, with heaving bosoms and exulting limbs, with clouds drifting like hair from their bright foreheads, lift up their ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... and given the tone to public policy, can at their will remain there, but renounce the consequences of their remaining, and refuse to fulfil what must fall to them in some contingency of public affairs? The country will demand that they who are the ablest shall not stand by inactive.' He said Sir Robert Peel had all but given up his seat. I answered that would at any rate have made his ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... fancy of dictating her history, the ending of which seemed to affect her much, for when it was done she told me sharply to put the typed sheets away and let her hear or see no more of them. Then she rose with difficulty, for the dropsy in her limbs made her inactive, and walked with the help of a stick to the stoep, where she sat down, looking across the plain at the solemn range of the Drakensberg and thinking without doubt, of that night of fear when my grandfather had rushed down its steeps upon the great schimmel ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... impatient passenger in the smoker, who found the stoppages at these wayside hamlets interminable, both in frequency and in the delay at each of them; and while the dawdling train remained inert, and the moments passed inactive, his eyes dilated and his hand clenched till the nails bit his palm; then, when the trucks groaned and the wheels crooned against the rails once more, he sank back in his seat with sighs of relief. Sometimes he would get up and pace the aisle until ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... tournament, not only of the two greatest nations, but the two deadliest rivals and bitterest enemies, led on by the two greatest military geniuses that the world has ever seen; it might not be too much to say, or ever will see. As for me, condemned to be an inactive spectator of the mighty struggle, doomed to witness all the deep-laid schemes and well-devised plans of attack which were destined for the overthrow of my country's arms, my state was one of torture and suspense. I sat upon the little rising ground of Rossomme; ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... keeping the flower of the South inactive. A rapid Northern invasion should humble the administration. The ardent Texans should be thrown at once into California, leaving New Mexico and ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... good man is he who, by the resolute exercise of his freewill, has so disciplined himself as to have acquired the habit of virtue; as the bad man is he who, by allowing his freewill to remain inactive, and giving the bridle to his desires and passions, has acquired the habit of vice, by which he becomes, at last, bound ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... severely, before the crew of his boat could come to his rescue. When they did arrive, a sailor who brought the gun lost his presence of mind at the sight before him, and stood staring at the scene inactive; others, more bold, thrust the bear aside with lances; and the mate being freed from its weight, arose, took the gun from its bearer, and shot away the unlucky lower jaw of the beast completely. She then fell ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 362, Saturday, March 21, 1829 • Various
... Book" there is another gate story amongst the notes on the Gordon Riots. "We youngsters," says the aged lawyer, "at the Temple determined that we would not remain inactive during such times; so we introduced ourselves into a troop to assist the military. We armed ourselves as well as we could, and next morning we drew up in the court ready to follow out a troop of soldiers who were on guard. When, however, the soldiers had passed through the gate it was suddenly shut ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... or, as the statistician would express it, he is the "mode" rather than the average. The "mode" in any class of objects or of individuals is the one that occurs oftenest, the one most frequently met with. And so this inactive, nondescript sort of person is often thought of as the typical teacher. He has no very high standing either financially or socially, and so has no great influence on the individuals around him or on the community in general. This conception has become so well established in the public ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy
... equal, consumes more than a watchmaker; just as a locomotive burns more fuel than the little engine that runs a sewing machine; the strong able-bodied active man, one who works his brains and muscles up to their full power, eats more than the weak, emaciated and inactive girl, who passes all her time in the recumbent position in bed; and the latter will, other things being equal, endure for a longer period entire abstinence from food. A little food with such a one goes a great way, the demands of the system are at their minimum, and hence a mouthful ...
— Fasting Girls - Their Physiology and Pathology • William Alexander Hammond
... flies may be seen hanging to and flying about the vines in fields which have been previously affected. They are dull and inactive in the cool of the morning and evening, and at these hours are seldom noticed. They are of a pitchy black color, with two rows of large, transverse, dull, whitish spots upon the abdomen. The female, with the saw-like instrument peculiar to the insects of this family, deposits her ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... cried Madame Vermut, coming into the room; "and without my re-active,—for Vermut is so inactive in all that concerns me that I can't call him an active ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... remain inactive. He lay down at the side attacked by the savage pack. He drew his knife, and every time that a wolf passed within his reach, his hand found out the way to plunge his weapon into its throat. Neither were Jolivet and Blount idle, but fought bravely with the brutes. Their companions ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... streets. The night was beautifully clear, but too cool for the enervated frame of an African voyager. We were tired with dancing, and occasionally sat down; but the door-steps were all of stone, and, though we buttoned our coats closely, it was impossible to remain long inactive. ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... valuable which is acquired through hard labour and many struggles. For the first, you may observe that such persons as possess naturally the mechanical facilities of which I have spoken will never attain to an equal degree of excellence with those whose naturally soft and inactive organization obliges them to labour over every step of their onward way. They can, I repeat, never attain to the same degree of excellence, either in feeling or expression, because they do not possess the same refined delicacy of perceptions, the same deep thoughtfulness and intuitive wisdom, ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... the second place, if the working-man of Russia cannot but defend himself against the exploitation of the Russian landed aristocrat and capitalist it seems incomprehensible that he should remain inactive when the lasso of exploitation is being drawn around his neck by the German landed aristocracy (the Junker) and the German capitalist who are, unfortunately, at the present time supported by a considerable part ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... of the Countess Livia's numerous courtiers on the border of the promenade under the lighted saloons. A colossus inactive, he had little to say among the chattering circle; for when seated, cards were wanted to animate him: and he looked entirely out of place and unfitted, like a great vessel's figure-head in a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... meant in a few minutes more, and again Bessie had to play the inactive part and wait while Lolla went on to gain the information she needed. When she came back she was ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Long Lake - Bessie King in Summer Camp • Jane L. Stewart
... to remain inactive as long as he feared. Not that his line of business revived,—that still remained depressed,—but another path was opened to ...
— Timothy Crump's Ward - A Story of American Life • Horatio Alger
... espionage was as careful as their methods were cruel and heartless. They even got reports from the ranch that not a member of the family had ventured away since its master's capture. The local authorities were inactive. The bandits would play their cards for ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... which he knew not how to win for himself; and when he thus becomes ungrateful and unjust, doubtless his loss is greater than his gain. To the prince, therefore, who, either through indolence or from want of foresight, sends forth a captain to conduct his wars while he himself remains inactive at home, I have no advice to offer which he does not already know. But I would counsel the captain whom he sends, since I am sure that he can never escape the attacks of ingratitude, to follow one or other of two courses, and either quit his command at once after a victory, and place himself ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... be capable of any high order of development without an infusion of Caucasian blood which will dissipate his simian type, improving the shape of his retreating forehead, changing the contour of his heavy jaw, giving weight and measurement to his now inferior and inactive brain. Since the surrender and the institution of public schools, and the opportunities for improvement afforded him, we seem to have all around us evidence of this utter instability of character. Never since the world began has he had, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... kisses on her lips; hearing his whispered voice in her ears—the birth of her new life! This was followed again by a period of agonizing dread—that he might even then be lying, his life ebbing away, in the woods, with her name on his lips, and she resting here inactive, until she half started from her bed to go to his succor. And this went on until a pale opal glow came into the sky, followed by a still paler pink on the summit of the white Sierras, when she rose and hurriedly began to dress. Still so sanguine was her hope of meeting him, that she lingered ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... thoughts refuse, In arms no more her Tyrian youth she views; No spreading moles the boistrous tide command; The tow'rs, the forts, begun, unfinish'd stand: The mighty structure threat'ning from on high 120 Hangs interrupted—all inactive lie Unbrac'd,—the vast machines that thro' the air, Lab'ring, the ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire
... I was dead, since I was taken away to where I could only see and not help, surely you might have helped. Just for my sake you might have helped,—you whose work in the world was at an end." And the long tale of his inactive years had stood up to accuse him. Now, however, the guilt was lifted from his shoulders, and by Harry Feversham's own act. The news was not altogether unexpected, but the lightness of spirit which he felt showed him how much he had ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... minute or two of one another." Those fateful cannon-shots continued all day long, and day after day, meanwhile, messengers were arriving from Colonel Monroe asking for assistance in most urgent terms. For six days the siege continued, with thousands of soldiers lying inactive at Fort Edward while their brothers-in-arms were in peril of their lives at Fort William Henry, only fourteen miles away. On the morning of the eighth of August the cannon firing ceased, just as the last express from Colonel Monroe ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... was bound and manacled to a gang of assassins; and because his tongue was tied, because the woman he loved better than anything in the world was actually a member of the murderous group, he must pace the deserted country lanes inactive; he must hold his hand, although he might summon the resources of New Scotland Yard by phoning ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... German, so dear to the English journalist, nor the domestic German, so dear to the English wit. If one classed him at all it would be as the countryman of Hegel and Kant, as the idealist, inclined to be dreamy, whose Imperialism was the Imperialism of the air. Not that his life had been inactive. He had fought like blazes against Denmark, Austria, France. But he had fought without visualizing the results of victory. A hint of the truth broke on him after Sedan, when he saw the dyed moustaches of Napoleon going grey; another when he entered Paris, ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... Prof. Swenson, a portion of freshly precipitated carbonate of lime was placed with the chips in each cell.[1] In the case of soured cane, this took up the acid which otherwise produced inversion. In case no harmful acids were present, this chalk was entirely inactive. Soured canes are not desirable to work under any circumstances, and should be rejected by the chemist, and not allowed to enter the factory. So, also, delays on account of imperfect machinery are disastrous to profitable manufacturing, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various
... Burgoyne being thus cut off, his body remained inactive until the 19th of last month, when he moved on to attack General Gates, who commands the northern army, and who was well posted at Behmus's Heights. The consequence of this attack, you will see related by General Gates himself, among the enclosed ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... not provide that which is necessary to the development of an embryo; but in this case the sun hatches them within the parent's body. The female of this lizard stretches herself out upon a sunny bank, and lets the bright rays fall upon her body while she lies inactive. At this period, she will not move for any thing less than a real cause of alarm. She is not sunning herself lazily, however, but fulfilling an ordinance of God. The eggs break as the young lizards—three to six—are born. This lizard is, therefore, ovo-viviparous. The little ones begin at once ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... would serve to neutralize one of the Prussian armies? They would be taken by surprise; the arrogant nation would be overrun in every direction and crushed utterly within a few brief weeks. It would be a military picnic, a holiday excursion from Strasbourg to Berlin. While they were lying inactive at Belfort, however, his former doubts and fears returned to him. To the 7th corps had been assigned the duty of guarding the entrance to the Black Forest; it had reached its position in a state of confusion that exceeded imagination, deficient in men, material, ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... had not beauty, genius, accomplishment, or manner. The air of a gentlewoman, a great deal of quiet, inactive good temper, and a trifling turn of mind, were all that could account for her being the choice of a sensible, intelligent man like Mr. Allen. In one respect she was admirably fitted to introduce a young lady into public, being ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... weeks this famous States-General remain inactive, unable to agree whether they shall deliberate in a single hall or in three separate chambers. The deputies, of course, wish to deliberate in a single chamber, since they equal in number both the clergy and nobles, and some few nobles had joined them, and more than a hundred of the clergy. But a ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... diligent employment of the two fag-ends. The intervening hours must be slept away, or read away, or somehow employed without the requisition of corporeal activity. And, considering that these are the hours during which musquitoes vex not, and lesser tormentors of the rampant kind are inactive, it is no slight boon to have such an interval, during some part of which you may sleep in peace. As for the night, you may use it for eating ices, or strolling on the Marina, or pulling out on the phosphorescent waters of the bay; but unless you be very fresh, you will hardly think of using that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... within me, whom we call self, was digging pits for comfort to flow in, of any kind, in any form; and it seized on every idea, every circumstance, to turn it to that purpose, and with such success, that when by-and-by I learnt how entirely inactive special Providence had been in my affairs, I had to collect myself before I could muster the conception of gratitude toward the noble woman who clothed me in the illusion. It was to the Princess Ottilia, acting through ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... nations in Europe found it necessary, from the circumstances which I have mentioned, to remain inactive spectators of what passed in the East, the seven United Provinces of the Low Countries, recently formed into a small state, still struggling for political existence, and yet in the infancy of its power, ventured to appear in the Indian Ocean as the ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... followed while the driver in George's brain stood gapingly inactive; and then came laughter to him like a draught of champagne. For the girl put up her firm, round chin and laughed with a clear pipe of glee—a laugh to call a laugh as surely as a lark's note will set a hedge in song; and it called the ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... an awful silence, broken only by her sobbing. Men turned away and covered their eyes—Brookfield edged himself stealthily through the little crowd and sneaked out into the open air—and the officers of the law stood inactive. Helmsley felt the room whirling about him in a sickening blackness, and sat down to steady himself, the stinging tears rising involuntarily in his throat and ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... modify and adapt a caterpillar to a new or changing condition, precisely as in the full-grown butterfly. Hence probably it is that caterpillars of different species of the Lepidoptera differ more than those embryos, at a corresponding early period of life, do which remain inactive in the womb of their parents. The parent during successive ages continuing to be adapted by selection for some one object, and the larva for quite another one, we need not wonder at the difference becoming wonderfully great between them; ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... nature cried out against any act that would cause a scandal in Mangadone, the magnitude of which he could hardly gauge but only guess at; and yet, wherever he went, the thought haunted him. His feelings gave him no rest, and he remained inactive and listless for several days after his ride with Mrs. Wilder. If she had told him that she implored him personally to drop the case he could not have felt more certain that she desired him to do so. She worked indirectly upon his feelings, a much ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... a beautiful bird, with glossy-green back and rose-coloured breast (probably Trogon melanurus). At intervals it uttered, in a complaining tone, a sound resembling the words "qua, qua." It is a dull inactive bird, and not very ready to take flight when approached. In this respect, however, the trogons are not equal to the jacamars, whose stupidity in remaining at their posts, seated on low branches in the gloomiest shades of the forest, is somewhat remarkable in a country ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... them, and many of them fell. For an instant he imagined he saw horsemen riding about like ghosts in the vapours beyond, and a man behind him cursed horribly, declaring he too had seen them, and that they were Uhlans; but the battalion stood inactive, and the mist fell again over ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... the tall man. "The poor fellow may have set fire to the place to destroy himself! Ripley, I can't wait here, inactive, another second. We must start! Can I get a ...
— The Grammar School Boys in Summer Athletics • H. Irving Hancock
... on this subject? This question is beset with the conflicting views that the step might be delayed too long or taken too soon. In some States the elements for resumption seem ready for action, but remain inactive apparently for want of a rallying point. Why shall A. adopt the plan of B., rather than B. that of A.? And if A. and B. should agree, how can they know but that the General Government here will reject ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... legislative, arrangements that belong to despotic governments; and it is, in some respects, a wholesome fear that we have of the interference of government. Still, we may recollect that England is not a small state, nor an inactive one, where the public energies are likely to be deadened, or overridden, by activity on the part of the government, which might, perhaps, with much safety undertake more than it has been wont to do. One thing is certain, that it ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... reflections in the water of the Seine, and the elusive blueness of the twin towers amid the pale grey clouds of a Parisian sky. A romantic scene! He wanted to copy it exactly, to recreate it from beginning to end, to feel the thrill of producing each wonderful effect himself. Yet he sat inactive. He sat and vaguely gazed at the slope of Trafalgar Road with its double row of yellow jewels, beautifully ascending in fire to the ridge of the horizon and there losing itself in the deep and solemn purple ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... fight, but not coming near enough to permit the use of her torpedo tubes. Miserable was the plight of the Leipzig's crew, for the two hundred men who were still alive were unable to get to her flag on account of the fire aboard her, and they had to remain inactive while the Carnarvon and Glasgow poured round after round into their ship. Only twelve remained alive at nine o'clock, when she began to list to port. Slowly more and more of the under-water part of her hull showed above the sea, and she continued to heel ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... enter the cabin without first scraping the snow from the companion door; and the cold, after I had stood a few moments inactive, was so bitter as to set me craving for shelter. So I put my hand upon the body, and discovered it, as I might have foreseen, frozen to the hardness of steel. His coat—if I may call that a coat which resembled a robe of snow—fell to within ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... all before them up to the town of Degarehi, where they plundered the famous lamasery of Teshu Lumbo, the residence of the Teshu Lama. Having achieved this success and gratified their desire for plunder, the Goorkhas remained inactive for some weeks, and wasted much precious time. The Tibetans did not attempt a resistance, which their want of military skill and their natural cowardice would have rendered futile, but they sent express messengers to Pekin entreating the Chinese emperor to send ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... upon the softened hearts of their countrymen. At the head of this assembly was a ponderous, dark-looking man, whose malign eye surveyed with gloating delight the stern looks of his followers. They had hitherto been inactive, but now, perceiving themselves to be forgotten in the universal jubilee, they advanced with threatening gestures: our friends had, as it were in wanton contention, attacked each other; they wanted but to be told that their cause was one, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... especial work with full efficiency. Each center attends only to its specific business in your life. It rests, or relaxes from activity, when it has nothing to do; or when the particular muscles it governs are not in use. And, of course, when a certain brain center rests or is inactive, its associated mind center ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... relentlessly as he went over the events of the past two weeks. How must his conduct have looked in Donald's eyes? And he the minister, the guide and example of the young men of the community. It was impossible to bear his self-accusation and lie inactive. In spite of his landlady's prayers and protests he insisted upon rising. He felt rather weak and giddy, but he got to his writing desk and there poured out his repentant soul in a letter to Donald. He thanked him humbly from the bottom of his heart for the great service he had rendered him. He ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... know what they say, and are only confessing their own ignorance in specious language. They will answer me, that whether or not they understand how it can be, yet that they are assured by plain experience that unless mind could perceive, body would be altogether inactive; they know that it depends on the mind whether the tongue speaks or is silent. But do they not equally experience that if their bodies are paralysed their minds cannot think?—that if their bodies are asleep their minds are without power?—that their minds are not at all times equally able to exert ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... these mechanisms; and this is as evidently the truth with regard to all the existences we know of as with regard to man himself. We cannot find any point in the scale of being at which soul-causation ceases or can cease. The dull oyster must have that in him which makes him choose the inactive life he leads; none else can choose it for him but the soul behind, which makes him be. How else can he be where he is, or be at all? Only by the intervention of an impossible creator called by some name ...
— Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold • Mabel Collins
... queer-shaped hat, and the horror of distant Noumea. Upon that side, there was no glimmer of hope. Here, at the island, the dragon was roused; Attwater with his men and his Winchesters watched and patrolled the house; let him who dare approach it. What else was then left but to sit there, inactive, pacing the decks—until the Trinity Hall arrived and they were cast into irons, or until the food came to an end, and the pangs of famine succeeded? For the Trinity Hall Davis was prepared; he would barricade ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... on his future movements. Now that his final resource had failed him, what should he do next? It was useless to go back to Bangbury, useless to remain at Dibbledean. Yet the fit was on him to be moving again somewhere—better even to return to Kirk Street than to remain irresolute and inactive on the ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... truly, Jethro. Look at the long line of chariots moving in as regular order as the footmen. It is well for us that they will now be forced to be inactive. As to the others, although they are countless in numbers, they cannot do much against our walls. No towers that they can erect upon the plains will place them on a level with us here, and the rock is so steep that it is only here and there that ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... rounds of pleasure, are always in pursuit of something. Their not finding the object is another part of the consideration; but they always have one in view. As to savages, and the poorer classes of people, they shew their propensity by a more simple process; that is, merely by resting inactive, when they are not compelled to ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... nearly ready for sea; but on landing at the tents I found that the time keepers had been let down, and the business of finding new rates for them was to be recommenced. This accident would require a week to be repaired; and being unwilling to remain so long inactive, I determined to leave Mr. Flinders at Upper Head, and take the ship over to the inner end of Thirsty Sound, where it appeared there was something to ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... the time when each person will be measured by what is represented in his ability to exert a potent influence in shaping the destiny of things and helping to mold public sentiment. The mind can no more be allowed to remain dormant or inactive than the turf of the field, or the muscles of the body. It must be stirred up; it must be awakened from its stupor and quickened into a ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... three months' regiments, and began to be threatened by a northward concentration of Confederate detachments from the Arkansas line and the Indian Territory. The neglect of his appeals for help placed him in the situation where he could neither safely remain inactive, nor safely retreat. He therefore took the chances of scattering the enemy before him by a sudden, daring attack with his five thousand effectives, against nearly treble numbers, in the battle of Wilson's Creek, at daylight on August 10. The casualties on the two sides were nearly equal, ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... German emperor and the holy Pope at Rome. The contest between the Hanoverians and our French ally is ended, and a cessation of hostilities determined upon. Unconditional peace is indeed indefinitely declared. The Hanoverians remain inactive on the Elbe; the Duke of Cumberland, leader of the English troops, has returned to Loudon, [Footnote: When the Duke of Cumberland returned to Loudon, after the convention at the cloister of Zeven, his father, whose favorite he had been up to this time, received him with great coldness, ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... that no bills would be paid in France, which the Minister did not authorise us to draw; that he hoped our officers would have too much prudence to risk the credit of the United States by drawing; that the negotiations are still inactive, and will remain so, till events oblige one or other of the parties to sue for peace. That the success of the expedition against Portsmouth (that being the supposed post of Cornwallis) might possibly have some effect. That the great ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... to him early on the following day to give him news of his father's state. He wished not only to cure Stephanus, but to continue his relations with the youth, who had excited his interest in the highest degree, and he had resolved to help him to escape from the inactive life which was ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the atmospheric elements. When argon was discovered it was seen at once that there was no place in the table for an element of atomic weight approximately 40. When the other inactive elements were found, however, it became apparent that they form a group just preceding Group 1. They are accordingly arranged in this way in Group 0 (see table on opposite page). A study of this table brings to ...
— An Elementary Study of Chemistry • William McPherson
... had been more than usual with his father, and he may have dropped some word that turned his father's thoughts toward Donal and his ways of thinking: however weak the earl's will, and however dull his conscience, his mind was far from being inactive. In the afternoon the butler brought a message that his lordship would be glad to see Mr. ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... huddled together in the insufficient barrack buildings. After waiting for a few hours, Jacques began to wonder what was delaying the others, and to think that something must have gone wrong. He was not the sort to remain inactive if he knew his services might be required, so he evaded the sentries and stole out of the Fort again to find his missing friends. Luck had so far favoured him, and he had wished many of the rebels good-night without arousing any suspicion ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... from the fact that they were about to engage three pirate-junks, manned by hundreds of desperate men, she could not repress her shrinking horror at the bare idea of men talking coolly about shedding human blood. To one of her imaginative nature, too, it was no small trial to have to sit alone and inactive in the cabin, while the bustle of preparation for war went on overhead; we say alone, because her father, although there, was too much exhausted to act the part of companion or comforter ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... the half-day is over" (15/2.); and he can satisfy his immense need not of repose, but of relaxation and distraction in less severe occupations; for he is never at any time nor anywhere inactive; incessantly making notes, with little stumps of pencil which he carries about in his pockets, and on the first scrap of paper that comes to hand, of all that passes through his mind. Those eternal afternoons, which usually, in the depth of the French provinces, ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... needed for perfect co-ordination of movement, but throwing more force than necessary into the muscles selected. To a gradually increasing extent, the contracting force, instead of being withdrawn when the muscle is inactive, remains; and, as we have already seen, an arm or leg that should be passive is lifted, and the muscles are found to be contracted as if for severe action. To the surprise of the owner the contraction cannot be at once removed. ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... is a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen with traces of carbonic acid gas and water vapor. Twenty-one per cent of the air, by volume, is oxygen and the remaining seventy-nine per cent is the inactive gas, nitrogen. But for the presence of the nitrogen, which deadens the action of the other gas, combustion would take place at a destructive rate and be beyond human control in almost all cases. These two gases exist simply as a mixture to form the air and are not chemically ...
— Oxy-Acetylene Welding and Cutting • Harold P. Manly
... the crew had lain inactive, taking no part in the fight. My cousin had gone ashore into the fort the night before, taking a part of the ship's company with him, and had not returned. The boatswain was left in command, with about twenty ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... vultures, &c., and among fishes, insects, &c.), yet sex-parasitism appears among both sex forms. In certain sea-creatures, for example, the female carries about in the folds of her covering three or four minute and quite inactive males, who are entirely passive and dependent upon her. Among termites, on the other hand, the female has so far degenerated that she has entirely lost the power of locomotion; she can no longer provide ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... having made a repast on chicks instead of eggs, as they had been expecting, were for the time satisfied, so far as concerned their appetites. But aware that these would ere long recommence their craving, they could not be contented to remain inactive. It would be necessary to procure some other kind of provisions, and, if possible, a permanent stock on which they could rely until ready to set out on their journey, with a surplus to carry them some way ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... distinguished themselves, and at Landrecis, where the Archduke Charles made a brilliant charge at the head of the cavalry. Landrecis was taken. But this was all. Clairfait, whose example might have animated the inactive duke of York, being left unsupported by the British, was attacked singly at Courtray by Pichegru and forced to yield to superior numbers. Coburg fought an extremely bloody but indecisive battle at Doornik (Tournay), where Pichegru ever opposed fresh masses to the Austrian artillery. ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... Babila, inactive by age, struggled to regain his feet, but ere he could do so, or before Omar could interfere, the executioner had lifted his sword with both hands. The sound of a dull blow was heard, and next second the head of the Queen's faithful servant rolled across ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... "inactive officers" and some others are detained, Mr. Jackson found one British subject absent on leave, while "several others have been permitted to make visits to their families in Germany. A request from another, who had obtained no benefit ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... and Soul. The qualities do not know the Soul, but the Soul knows them all. The Soul is the spectator of the qualities and regards them all as proceeding from itself. The soul, acting through the senses, the mind, and the understanding numbering as the seventh, all of which are inactive and have no self-consciousness, discovers the objects (amid which it exists) like a (covered) lamp showing all objects around it by shedding its rays through an aperture in the covering. The understanding or Intelligence ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... their home, the family of Sir Howard were not inactive. The spirit of charity was manifest in every action of those lovely girls. Mary Douglas and Lady Rosamond had formed a sewing circle, to which they invited some of their young acquaintances. In this charitable employment ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... head, which was done with difficulty amid the crowd and confusion, and secondly, all the bravest troops ceased to be engaged in fight, as their right hands were employed in holding the heads; and thus the battle was left to be sustained by the inactive and cowardly. But when the military tribunes reported to Gracchus that the soldiers were employed not in wounding any of the enemy who were standing, but in mangling those who were prostrate, their right hands being occupied in holding the heads of men ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... time, were displayed from the summit of the works. But this valiant forlorn hope, in the moment of triumph, was hurled into the air by the explosion of a previously-prepared mine; and Kiuprili, dismayed at this last failure, drew off his troops into their lines, where they lay inactive, till the inundation of the camp by the winter rains compelled them to withdraw to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... Guavaquil are considered (and justly) the finest along the whole Pacific coast. They are often tall, sometimes very handsome, decidedly healthy, although pale, and assuredly prolific enough. Their sons are big, stout men, but when they lead inactive lives are apt to become fat and sluggish. Those of them, however, who have farms in the savannahs and are accustomed to take long rides in all weathers, and those whose trade obliges them to take frequent journeys in the mountainous interior, or even to Europe ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Hawksley sit in an easy chair in the living room until Captain Harrison arrived. Kuroki was ordered to prepare a supper, which would be served on the tea cart, set at Hawksley's knees. Kitty—because it was impossible for her to remain inactive—set the linen and silver. She was in and out of the room, ill at ease, angry, frightened, bitter, avoiding Hawksley's imploring eyes because she was not ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... village drove his wain: And when it fell into a rugged lane, Inactive stood, nor lent a helping hand; But to that god, whom of the heavenly band He really honored most, Alcides, prayed: "Push at your wheels," the god appearing said, "And goad your team; but when you pray again, Help yourself likewise, or ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... pass, elevated about two thousand feet above the level of the water, they continued to 5 descend, by a very winding and difficult road, for an hour and a half; and during the whole of this descent they were compelled to be inactive spectators of the fiendish spectacle below. The Kalmucks, reduced by this time from about six hundred thousand souls to two hundred and 10 sixty thousand, and after enduring for two months and a half the miseries we have previously described—outrageous ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... kept him inactive was an instinctive compunction against embroiling Colina with her father. She had only known him, Ambrose, a day; she should have a chance to make sure of ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... girl, and perhaps not altogether sorry to be rid of a stepmother younger than themselves, had tried to make up for that loss, but they were much occupied with the social activities of Radstowe and they belonged to an otherwise inactive generation, so that if Rose had a grievance it was that they never played games with her, never ran, or played ball or bowled hoops as she saw the mothers of other children doing. For such sporting she had to rely upon her nurse who was of rather a solemn ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... or two cracks, which intensified the alarm, but did not clear up the mystery. If they had only known what to do they would have done it; what danger to face, they would have faced it; but to sit there inactive, with the mysterious ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... more of the men's talk than muttered grumblings plentifully bestrewn with curses; and wonder what was forward and why they remained inactive grew more and more upon him. At length he rose and applied his eyes to the crack that admitted the light; but he could distinguish nothing outside, the lamp, which was close to the window, blinding him. ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... inactive at the head of Lake George, Brigadier General Forbes had advanced from Virginia against Fort Duquesne, and, after immense labour and hardships, succeeded in arriving at the fort, which the French evacuated at his approach, having burnt the barracks and storehouses, and blown up the fortifications. ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... anathema over those who would not obey him, especially on the Karaites, excluding them from the Hebrew community, and refusing them the friendship and help of their tribe. Under such a blow the existence of the inhabitants of Szybow, already poor, sad, and inactive, was made altogether unbearable. The descendants of Hazairan rulers, heretics, constituting, as always, a great minority of the population, exposed to aversion and hatred, oppressed and poor, left the place which had given them shelter ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... the rate of explosion: the "half-life period" of each radio-active substance is a constant characteristic of it; if a gram of radium were kept for about 1800 years, half of it would have changed into radio-inactive substances. Conditions may be arranged so that an explosive remains unchanged—wet gun-cotton is not exploded by a shock which would start the explosion of dry gun-cotton—in other words, the explosion of an explosive can be regulated: the explosive changes ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... before Perpignan, a very unusual event took place. It was ten o'clock; and all were asleep. The slow and almost suspended operations of the siege had rendered the camp and the town inactive. The Spaniards troubled themselves little about the French, all communication toward Catalonia being open as in time of peace; and in the French army men's minds were agitated with that secret anxiety ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... are matters of an instant. Only an infinitesimal fraction of time elapsed between the spectacle of Mr Birdsey, indignant but inactive, and Mr Birdsey berserk, seeing red, frankly and undisguisedly running amok. The transformation took place in the space of time required for the lighting of ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... (6 are inactive; the active station is in Kabul), FM 1, shortwave 1 (broadcasts in Pashtu, Afghan Persian (Dari), ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... proportionally with the increased dimensions of the rest of the skeleton. The skull has become in a marked manner narrower, and, from the measurements of its capacity formerly given, we may conclude, that this narrowness results from the decreased size of the brain, consequent on the mentally inactive life ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... maintained between the liquid secretions of the skin and kidneys during hot and cold weather. In summer, when so much liquid exhales through the skin as sweat, comparatively little urine is passed, whereas in winter, when the skin is inactive, the urine is correspondingly increased. This vicarious action of skin and kidneys is usually kept within the limits of health, but at times the draining off of the water by the skin leaves too little to keep the solids of the urine safely in solution, and these are liable to crystallize ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... be your fortune to lead your countrymen again in the contest for liberty, be assured that the people of the United States, at least, will not be indifferent, nor, if need be, inactive spectators of a conflict that may involve, not only the independence of Hungary, but the freedom of ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... give oneself trouble. He only will succeed here who traces his onward path as patiently as the plougher traces the furrow with his plough. And what strength there is in all around; what robust health dwells in the midst of this inactive stillness! There under the window climbs the large-leaved burdock from the thick grass. Above it the lovage extends its sappy stalk, while higher still the Virgin's tears hang out their rosy tendrils. Farther away in the fields shines the rye, and ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... the victim, and "that action" must be sullied with no suggestion of a worldly motive; on the other hand, "that action" in itself was highly justified, he had cast in his lot with "the actors," and he must stay there, inactive, but publicly sharing the responsibility. "You are a gentleman—you will protect me!" cried the wounded old man, crawling towards him. "I will never lay a hand on you," said Hackston, and put his cloak about his mouth. It is an old temptation with me to pluck away that cloak ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Ile Saint-Paul are inactive volcanoes; Iles Eparses subject to periodic cyclones; Bassas da India is a maritime hazard since it is under water for a period of three hours prior to and following the high tide ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... incumbencies. To do this would have been to alter the constitution of the Church, and the moment of restitution after long suffering was not the time for such a change. Nor was there any machinery of the law by which it could have been carried out. Some of the surviving bishops were old and inactive. Others were appointed from the ranks of Royalist adherents on grounds of ardent partisanship rather than of fitness for the position; and it would have been too much to expect that in reaching a haven of prosperity ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... clutch and the car buzzed up the road, turning the corner at full speed. There was a loose board projecting from the bridge just under my feet. As a member—though an inactive one—of the Village Improvement Society I should have trodden it back into place. I didn't; I kicked ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... had not the power, to decide it. I had the power, if I could raise myself to will it; and yet again I had not the power, for the weight of twenty Atlantics was upon me, or the oppression of inexpiable guilt. 'Deeper than ever plummit sounded,' I lay inactive. Then, like a chorus, the passion deepened. Some greater interest was at stake; some mightier cause than ever yet the sword had pleaded, or trumpet had proclaimed. Then came sudden alarms; hurryings to and fro; trepidations ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the troops were drawn off, they made incursions into the country, alternately evading war by quiet, quiet by war. Thus the matter could neither be dropped altogether, nor brought to a conclusion; and other wars were impending either at the moment, as from the AEqui and Volsci, who remained inactive no longer than until the recent smart of their late disaster should pass away; or it was evident that the Sabines, ever hostile, and all Etruria would put themselves in motion: but the Veientians, a constant ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... von Tirpitz had opposed the construction of submarines. Speaking in the Reichstag when naval appropriations were debated, he said Germany should rely upon a battleship fleet and not upon submarines. But when he saw his great inactive Navy in German waters, he switched to the submarine idea of a blockade of England. In February, 1915, he announced his submarine blockade of England with the consent of the Kaiser, but without the approval ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman
... delicate apparatus—which we had obtained secretly and at great cost—as many days as our vigils might be protracted. It was our design to sit up together till very late, and then watch singly till dawn in two-hour stretches, myself first and then my companion; the inactive member ...
— The Shunned House • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... Majesty's slumbers were interrupted, his pillow was stuffed with thorns, and his peace of mind entirely broken,—because the king's turnspit was a member of Parliament. The judges were unpaid, the justice of the kingdom bent and gave way, the foreign ministers remained inactive and unprovided, the system of Europe was dissolved, the chain of our alliances was broken, all the wheels of government at home and abroad were stopped,—because the king's turnspit was a ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... designs, how many treasonable plots, which only Marat's perspicacity and vigilance could unravel and foil! Now he was dead, who was there to denounce Custine loitering in idleness in the Camp of Caesar and refusing to relieve Valenciennes, Biron tarrying inactive in the Lower Vendee letting Saumur be taken and Nantes blockaded, Dillon betraying the Fatherland ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... head—"I should like the slaves to be happy as well as you; but I don't like for any body to be ruined, especially people who are so nerveless and inactive as those who have resided in warm islands; ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... knowledge, which your predecessors left. What! not a word!—I ask you, once again, How comes it that the wond'rous essence, Which gave such vigour to these strong nerved limbs Has leaped from its enclosure, and compelled This noble workmanship of nature, thus To sink Into a cold inactive clod? Nay sneak not off thus cowardly—poor fools Ye are as destitute of information As is the lifeless ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... better food. The characteristic features produced by these causes are such as might be expected—the Catholic being, like his soil, hardy, thin, and capable of bearing all weathers; and the Protestants, larger, softer, and more inactive. ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... coat is removed. If it is necessary to remove the next coating, the same operation is repeated. After the last coat has been scraped off that is to be removed, it must be washed with sufficient water to render the ammonia inactive, and then the surface is rubbed with pulverized pumice to make it smooth. Any desired paint or varnish can be applied to a surface prepared in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various
... of the Straits—had been taken.[508] In like manner, though with somewhat better fortune, thirty or forty American ships from the Baltic were driven to take refuge in the neutral Swedish port of Gottenburg, and remained war-bound.[509] That the British cruisers were not inactive in protecting the threatened shores and waters of Nova Scotia and the St. Lawrence is proved by the seizure of twenty-four American privateers, between July 1 and August 25;[510] a result to which the inadequate equipment of these vessels probably contributed. ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... same time, however, I seemed to be, as it were, but an inactive spectator of all that happened; looking on the visionary events of my dream as if I had no share or part in them. I appeared to possess, while they occurred, a sort of dual existence, of which I was ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... organism and the environment to each other. Some acts are so instinctive or habitual that they do not require conscious mental effort; others are the result of reasoning as to this or that course of action. The impulse of the farmer may be to remain inactive, or the schoolboy may feel like going fishing; the call of nature stimulates the desire; but reason reaches out and takes control and directs outward activity into proper channels. On the other hand, reason fortifies ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... them, and beheld in their common habit and actions, they have not the least appearance of ferocity in their countenances; and seem, on the contrary, as observed already, to be of a quiet, phlegmatic, and inactive disposition, destitute, in some measure, of that degree of animation and vivacity that would render them agreeable as social beings. If they are not reserved, they are far from being loquacious; but their gravity is, perhaps, rather a consequence of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... welcome addition to a generally naked larder. Manual labour, too, is procurable, and an exile may earn a few roubles by fishing, trapping, wood-cutting, &c.; but the dark winter months must be passed in a condition of inactive despair. During the winter season there are two mails from Russia brought by the Cossacks in charge of the yearly consignment of exiles, but in spring, summer, and early autumn Sredni-Kolymsk is as completely cut off from the outer world, as a desert island in mid-ocean, by swamps and thousands ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... Inactive, I stood by the door watching my friend, and his face was a fruitful study in perplexity. He seemed upon the point of an angry outburst, then, staring intently into the questioning eyes upraised to his, he checked the words he would have ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... inactive life of the monastery began to pall upon him. He soon found, too, that many of his brethren believed as little as he did; that others were too indolent to reflect and believed as a matter of course. The thousand ceremonials, the carelessly recited prayers, the ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... Etall, and Wark, and Ford; and then That Norham Castle strong was ta'en. At that sore marvelled Marmion; And Douglas hoped his monarch's hand Would soon subdue Northumberland: But whispered news there came, That, while his host inactive lay, And melted by degrees away, King James was dallying off the day With Heron's wily dame. Such acts to chronicles I yield: Go seek them there and see; Mine is a tale of Flodden Field, And not a history. At length they heard the Scottish host On that ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... push his way through the heart of the city, instead of reaching Burnes' house by a circuitous but opener route, and after some sharp street fighting in which he lost heavily, he was driven back, unable to penetrate to the scene of plunder and butchery. Shelton remained inactive in the Balla Hissar until Campbell was reported beaten and retreating, when he took some feeble measures to cover the retreat of the fugitives, who, however, abandoned their guns outside the fortress. The day was allowed ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... wearisome train of circumlocution, and tells the incident imperfectly in many words, which might have been more plainly delivered in few. Narration in dramatick poetry is naturally tedious, as it is unanimated and inactive, and obstructs the progress of the action; it should therefore always be rapid, and enlivened by frequent interruption. Shakespeare found it an encumbrance, and instead of lightening it by brevity, endeavoured to recommend it by dignity ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... alone relieved this topic, and now and then a shot from the schooner drew our attention to ourselves; for though too far removed from the river to be in much danger, we were still within cannon-shot of our enemy. Nor was she inactive in her attempts to molest. Elevating her guns to a great degree, she contrived occasionally to strike the wall of the building within which we sat; but the force of the ball was too far spent to penetrate, and could ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... undertaken for Congo reform, and Clemens worked and wrote letters and gave his voice and his influence and exhausted his rage, at last, as one after another of the half-organized and altogether futile undertakings showed no results. His interest did not die, but it became inactive. Eventually he declared: "I have said all I can say on that terrible subject. I am heart and soul in any movement that will rescue the Congo and hang Leopold, but I cannot ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... set the read-write check flag: 1) If TC is inactive, i.e., no unit or function selected, and an MPS instruction is given. The MPS becomes a no-operation, no-halt instruction. 2) When reading information and not emptying the TC buffer, by giving an MPS before more information arrives from tape. 3) A unit becomes unavailable ...
— Preliminary Specifications: Programmed Data Processor Model Three (PDP-3) - October, 1960 • Digital Equipment Corporation
... reader, join us in taking a fond farewell of the Rosebrooks, who have so nobly played their part, to the shame of those who stubbornly refuse to profit by their example. They played no inactive part in the final escape; but discretion forbids our disclosing its minuti. They sought to give unto others that liquid of life to which they owed their own prosperity and happiness; nor did selfish motive incite them ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... the guard, still remaining motionless. For a moment the arguments of General Belliard seemed to take effect, and the order to march was given to the young guard. Count Lobau was already putting them in motion under the pretext of rectifying their lines, but Kutuzoff, till then motionless and inactive, had anticipated Napoleon in his final determination, and throwing forward his cavalry of reserve, the forces again formed in the plain, and a charge of the enemy, came pouring upon the divisions which held it. The emperor stopped the guard, forbidding an operation which, though ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... be much more inclined to think this to be the end of the life in society; yet this itself is plainly not sufficiently final: for it is conceived possible, that a man possessed of virtue might sleep or be inactive all through his life, or, as a third case, suffer the greatest evils and misfortunes: and the man who should live thus no one would call happy, ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... found in 64, 70, 85. — INERTI: the sense of 'ignorant' 'inartistic' (in, ars), has been given to this by some editors (cf. Hor. Ep. 2, 2, 126 praetulerim scriptor delirus inersque videri, and Cic. Fin. 2, 115 artes, quibus qui carebant, inertes a maioribus nominabantur), but the meaning 'inactive', 'lazy', 'slovenly' seems to suit neglectum better. — POETA: nature is here the dramatist, the drama is life, the actors are human beings. — SED TAMEN etc.: 'but for all that it was inevitable that there should be something with the nature of an end'. So 69 in ...
— Cato Maior de Senectute • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... little more than an hour's march from the Plains, he could not honourably have remained inactive while believing that only a part of the enemy's force was in possession of such vantage ground; and neither the dictates of prudence [205] nor his own chivalrous spirit and loyal regard for the national honour, would permit him to betray a consciousness of weakness by declining the ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... the breaking point. I could appreciate how Halsey must feel, forced to remain at his desk with its encircling banks of instruments; holding all the network of his farflung activities centralized; his decisions, his commands in a hundred places almost simultaneously, while his body sat there inactive. ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings
... who were paid at the rate of six shillings sterling a day; though it is certain that one of our English caulkers would do as much in one day as they could in three; but though they are slow and inactive, they perform their work very completely, or else their vessels could not run so many voyages in a shattered condition as ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... shouted. They curved about towards the south. They drove with a slight list to leeward, and with a slow alternation of movement, first a short, sharp ascent and then a long downward glide that was very swift and pleasing. During these downward glides the propeller was inactive altogether. These ascents gave Graham a glorious sense of successful effort; the descents through the rarefied air were beyond all experience. He wanted never to leave ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... America broke out. The 42nd regiment embarked, and landed at New York in June of that year. Campbell of Inverawe was a major in the regiment. The lieut.- colonel was Francis Grant. From New York the 42nd proceeded to Albany, where the regiment remained inactive till the spring of 1757. One evening when the 42nd were still quartered at this place, Inverawe asked the colonel "if he had ever heard of a place called Ticonderoga". {160} Colonel Grant replied he had never heard the name before. Inverawe ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... mental process. We all know that placebos work admirably in numerous cases. The dictionary defines the word placebo as, "an inactive substance or preparation, administered to please or gratify a patient, also used in controlled studies to determine the efficiency of medicinal substances." Many controlled experiments have shown that people achieve similar results whether they take a placebo (which they think is the ...
— A Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis • Melvin Powers
... poisonous microbes (e.g. those of typhoid fever) get into the blood. Again, by other chemical substances produced in it, the blood may, without actually killing the invading bacteria, only paralyse them, and cause them to "agglutinate" (that is, to adhere to one another as an inactive "clot" or "lump"). As the "agglutinating" poison is peculiar (or nearly so) for each kind of microbe, we can tell whether a patient has typhoid by drawing a drop of his blood into a tube, and adding some fresh living ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... your room all in disorder, taking it easy because you do not expect or wish to see anybody, you will find yourself very quickly taking on the mood of your attire and environment. Your mind will slip down; it will refuse to exert itself; it will become as slovenly, slipshod, and inactive as your body. On the other hand, if, when you have an attack of the "blues," when you feel half sick and not able to work, instead of lying around the house in your old wrapper or dressing gown, you take a good bath,—a Turkish ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... position, concealing his movement from the enemy. On the 9th he marched down the Till to near its confluence with the Tweed, and recrossed to the eastern bank. This, too, was uninterrupted by the Scots, who remained strangely inactive, though it is recorded that the chief Scottish nobles implored the king to attack the English. The aged Earl Angus begged him either to assault the English or retreat. "If you are afraid, Angus," replied the king, "you ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... Pope's collected masses, with St. Benedict, their contemplative but at first inactive general, stood the little army of Normans,—certainly not more than the third of their number—but with Robert Guiscard for captain, and under him his brother, Humphrey of Hauteville, and Richard of Aversa. Not in fear, but in devotion, they prayed the Pope 'avec instance,'—to say ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin
... a pleasure in everything they either eat or drink, even without having laboured for it, because they wait for the demand of their appetites. Their sleep is sweeter than that of the indolent and inactive; and they are neither overburdened with it when they awake, nor do they, for the sake of it, omit the necessary duties of life. My young men have the pleasure of being praised by those who are in years, and those who are in years of being honoured by those who are young. They look ...
— The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates • Xenophon
... of the atmosphere, muscular activity, and influences which affect the nerves. The emotions exert a remarkable influence upon the action of the perspiratory glands. Intense fear causes great drops of perspiration to accumulate on the skin, while the salivary glands remain inactive. ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... nights after, his part filled by an old man and a bad player. During the remainder of the season he continued with Stephen Kemble, without at all appearing on the stage. From Edinburgh he went with the company to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, there he lived as dependent, inactive, and undistinguished as before, till, owing to the want of a person to fill the part of Malcolm in Macbeth, he was cast to that humble character. In so inferior a sphere did he begin to move who is now become one of the brightest ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... vehemently, as if employing the last spark of divine fire that was left in his decrepit frame. This undaunted confession of a faith which had survived twenty years of inactive meditation, this banner waved by an expiring arm in the face of the eternity that mocks at the transience of human things, filled me with admiration. My eyes moistened, but I continued ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... forth of that rude and hostile character which we may occasionally still hear among the uneducated classes. It accorded with the age in which it prevailed—a period when men were highly emotional and passionate, while their intellectual powers were feeble and inactive. ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange |
