"Inactivity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... peace which followed the close of the War of 1812 was, perhaps, the longest which any nation has ever enjoyed. For the navy of the United States, it was a time of absolute peace, inactivity, even stagnation. The young nation was living literally up to Washington's rule of avoiding entanglements abroad, and its people looked with suspicion on the naval branch of the service which had rendered such a good account of itself in the war with Great ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... eye might fall; one, perhaps, representing a whole army with supports, another a solitary horseman dragging some ammunition, another nothing but a dummy that might paralyse the efforts of a corps, and overawe it into a ruinous inactivity. To uncover these cards and unmask the forces for which they stood was the duty of the cavalry vedettes, whose movements were governed by an elaborate and most vexatious set of rules. It was necessary ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... posterity. They have every inducement to noble deeds, and are, generally speaking, above the necessities which induce men to go wrong. If the Americans would assert that luxury produces vice, I can only say that luxury infers idleness and inactivity, and on this point the women of the aristocracy in this country have the advantage over the American women, who cannot, from the peculiarity of the climate, take time exercise so universally resorted to by ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... a long letter I have written, even though I don't feel sure that the letter will reach you. Imagine my cholera-boredom, my cholera-loneliness, and compulsory literary inactivity, and write to me more, and oftener. Your contemptuous feeling for France I share. The Germans are far above them, though for some reason they are called stupid. And the Franco-Russian Entente Cordiale I am as fond of as Tolstoy is. ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... the other tragic, and yet most picturesque emblem in the representation here: 'They sit in darkness.' Yes! what can they do, poor creatures? They know not where to go. The light has left them, inactivity is a necessity. And so, with folded hands, they wish for the day, or try to forget the night by lighting some little torch of their own that only serves to make darkness visible, and dies all too soon, leaving them to ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... strength in luxurious idleness. It is our mission to benefit mankind both here and hereafter, by despatching useless persons to Paradise and thus cheering the lives of the friends they leave on earth. Assured of this, as we are, all inactivity is unbearable to us. At the present moment we are, so to say, unemployed philanthropists; we are but a potential and passive blessing to our fellow-creatures, though we burn to be doing good to all! I appeal to my friend, Count Gambardella, here. Is ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... you ought to know that a man such as I am cannot condemn himself to inactivity, unless he wants to die. I do not want any more money; what I want is an outlet for my energy ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... until his army on the Turkish borders arrived in Swabia. Some were found who believed this odd farrago; but those who watched the calculating balance of Hapsburg policy saw in it one more excuse for a masterly inactivity. ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... days under a sweltering tropical sun—taking advantage of whatever little breeze we could get that aided our progress to the equator, until we emerged from the retarding influence of this zone of inactivity, some three degrees to the northward of the Line, when we fortunately succeeded in sailing into the south-east ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... during the rest of the month of May; their hunting was interrupted, not so much by the severity of the weather as by the absence of game; fortunately, the supply of fresh meat was not yet quite exhausted. They found themselves accordingly condemned to new inactivity; for a fortnight, from the 11th to the 25th of May, only one incident broke the monotony of their lives; a serious illness, diphtheria, suddenly seized the carpenter; from the swollen tonsils and the false membrane in the throat, the doctor could not be ignorant of the nature of the disease; ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... one of man's most powerful tendencies, as has already been pointed out, is his desire to be with his fellows, this desire is not unqualified. Just as men can be satiated with too much eating, and irritated by too much inactivity, so men become "fed up" with companionship. The demand for solitude and privacy is thus fundamentally a physiological demand, like the demand for rest. "The world is too much with us," especially the human world. Companionship, even of the ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... at a glance, and told him "what to do." Much as she would have liked to have her son near her, she knew that he was too old to acquire new tastes, and too young to be content with a life of comparative inactivity. She told him so, heartily and cheerfully, not marring the effect of her words by any murmurs or repinings of her own. ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson
... educated seem to tolerate the inactivity of imprisonment better than their inferiors. We find that our ordinary malefactors cannot endure solitary imprisonment for more than a year—seldom indeed so long. The Italian prisoners whom I have known, Zucchi, Borsieri, Poerio, Gonfalonieri, and Pellico, endured imprisonment ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... waiting is always a trial. The silence, the bodily inactivity while the mind is strained to be keenly alert, have a sort of hypnotic influence. An untrained man will certainly fancy he hears and sees things, and even a trained man has to light hard against the desire to ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... in England, he went to Switzerland on the 9th April 1880. During this period of inactivity he was offered by the Government of the Cape of Good Hope the command of their colonial forces on L1500 per annum, but his reply was, "Thanks for telegram just received; I do not feel inclined to accept an appointment." In the beginning of May, however, he accepted the post of ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... or endocrines pass directly into the blood stream, and exercise a dominating power over health and personality. Deficiency in the thyroid secretion, especially during the years of infancy and early childhood, creates disorders of nutrition and inactivity of the nervous system. The particular form of idiocy known as cretinism is the result of this deficiency, which produces an arrest of the development of the brain cells. The other glands and their secretions likewise exercise the ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... had, it may be, blamed the inactivity of the Duc d'Orleans and the Comte de Soissons in the affair of Amiens a hundred times; yet, no sooner was the scheme sufficiently matured for execution, the idea of which I had raised in the memory ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... Don Hernan had not set his foot on board the "Saint Cecilia." Both officers and crew had, however, begun to complain at being left so long in so uninteresting a spot in perfect inactivity; Don Hernan accordingly ordered the ship back to Brassay Sound ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... Art thou not, O Michelotto, a striking example of it thyself? Have I been able to acquit myself towards thee in the manner which my obligations to thee demand? But shall we always languish in this shameful inactivity; and shall we wait till fortune or chance do something for those who will do nothing for themselves? Dost thou think that the monotonous life I lead in the conclave and in the church was intended for a spirit like mine? Am I born ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... only to strengthen the hands of Luther and his supporters, who pointed to them as a justification for the whole movement, and to provide the princes with a plausible explanation of their inactivity in giving effect to the decree of Worms. The princes refused to carry out the decree of Worms, alleging as an excuse the danger of popular commotion. They brought forward once more the grievances of the German nation against Rome (/Centum Gravamina/), ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... did, and occasionally volunteering her assistance where she seemed to think she might possibly be able to make herself useful, but otherwise saying little. Now, however, that we had once more settled down into a condition of comparative inactivity she began to question me as to our whereabouts, what were my intentions, and so on; all of which questions I replied to as accurately as I could. Then, after meditating ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... the party hurrying on board, the silence and inactivity of the Shawanoes were incomprehensible. That they had been partially dazed was fair to believe, but it could not continue long. The presence of the boat, with its sail still spread, against the bank, must tell the story to the fierce ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... they say no, let us ask them whether these are not going on all over the country at every general election. If they answer yes, as they must unless they be guilty of wilful falsehood, will they then be so good as to tell us how they reconcile their inactivity with sentiments of virtue? Some men, in all former ages, have been held in esteem for their wisdom, their genius, their skill, their valour, their devotion to country, etc., but never until this age, was quietness deemed a quality to be extolled. It would be no difficult ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... but instead of my disgrace, I will make her my footstool to honour and wealth. And, then, to the devil with the footstool! Yes! two years I have borne what was enough to turn my whole blood into gall,—inactivity, hopelessness, a wasted heart and life in myself; contumely from the world; coldness, bickering, ingratitude from the one for whom (oh, ass that I was!) I gave up the most cherished part of my nature,—rather, my nature itself! Two years I have borne ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... him for a while; but as day after day passed and no appearance of action presented itself, he could not choose but increase in courage. His soul, like a sword-blade too long in the scabbard, was beginning to get fuliginous by inactivity. He looked upon the point of his own needle and the bright edge of his scissors with a bitter pang when he thought of the spirit rusting within him; he meditated fresh insults, studied new plans, and hunted out cunning devices for provoking his acquaintances ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... enemy to use to great advantage his interior lines of communication for transporting troops from East to West, reinforcing the army most vigorously pressed, and to furlough large numbers, during seasons of inactivity on our part, to go to their homes and do the work of producing, for the support of their armies. It was a question whether our numerical strength and resources were not more than balanced by these disadvantages ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... again or not. I go to London toward the end of April: can't you manage to wait in England? I suppose you will only be a day or two in London before you put foot in rail, coach, or on steamer for the Continent; and I excuse my own dastardly inactivity in not going up to meet you and shake hands with you before you start, by my old excuse; that had you but let me know of your coming to England, I should have seen you. This is no excuse; but don't ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... several weeks of the working season had passed, that my master's great repugnance to doing nothing overcame his almost equally great repugnance again to seek work as a journeyman. At length, however, a life of inactivity became wholly intolerable to him; and, applying to his former employer, he was engaged on the previous terms—full wages for himself, and a very small allowance for his apprentice, who was now, however, recognised as the readier and more skilful stone-cutter of the two. In cutting ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... the situation demanded that the main American fleet be released. Cervera must be destroyed or held in some other way than at the expense of inactivity on the part of the American warships. Santiago could not be forced by the navy. Two methods remained. The first and simpler expedient was to make the harbor mouth impassable and in this way to bottle ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... apparently quite unconscious of its ever having existed.—Mrs. Lesbia Faircloth, at the Inn, the Vicar's wife left out of the count.—If Sir Charles Verity and Damaris had hurried away, gossip would have run after them with liveliest yelpings. But this practise of masterly inactivity routed criticism. How far was it studied, cynical on the part of the father, or innocent upon that of the daughter, she could not tell one bit; but that practically it carried success along with it, she saw to be indubitable. "Face the music and the band stops playing"—so she put it ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... effect of beneficial modification is felt immediately, and the modified organs or organisms are stimulated and strengthened cumulatively, while the unmodified are enfeebled and paralyzed cumulatively through inactivity and quickly pass toward atrophy and extinction. Conversely in demotic development, which is characterized by the persistence of the organisms and by the elimination of the bad and the preservation of the good among qualities only, there ...
— The Siouan Indians • W. J. McGee
... been imprisoned I had, as I have stated, been kept in a half-dazed condition, and although my strength had been slowly coming back to me, I was weak compared with the time when I had been taken a prisoner at Pendennis Castle. My food had been drugged, and my enforced inactivity had made my sinews soft like a woman's. Besides, I felt I had met with a skilled fighter, and I knew by the blow he gave me that he was a strong man. Moreover, I doubted Eli's ability to engage with the other serving-man, and this made me doubtful ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... these words of Arjuna, Uttara cast off all inactivity. And he speedily alighted from the tree, bringing with him Arjuna's weapons. Then Arjuna addressed him, saying, 'Yes, I will fight with the Kurus and recover thy kine. Protected by me, the top of this car ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... continuance of the war and its consequent distresses will probably increase, if not bring to maturity. The distresses of our army last winter, the depreciation of our paper money, the exaggerated accounts of our divisions, and our apparent inactivity, have had a bad effect in Europe, which I hope the firmness and unanimity of Congress, added to the exertions of our ally, and those of this Court, will ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... as many dynasties much older in years. One of the missionaries explained to me yesterday that it was only when the King got very mad that he would order heads cut off without reason—but then the Koreans are very lazy and his inactivity at other periods may have been due ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... braves," the colonel said, as the Franc-tireurs stamped with impatience as they saw the columns crossing the river, while they remained in enforced inactivity. "At first the troops will carry all before them as Vinoy's men have done. The fighting will only commence in earnest when the Prussians bring up their supports. We shall be in time for that, never fear. We ought to have begun at daybreak," he growled, in ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... shall shut thee up for revolving years in darkness tangible; he shall plunge thee deep beneath the surface of the mantled pool, the viscous spume shall draw over thy miserable head its dank and dismal shroud; or perhaps, more ingenious in mischief, he shall chain thee up in inactivity, a conscious statue, the silent and passive witness of the usurped joys that once thou fondly ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... There are many such instances; for though by Hindoo institutions a woman cannot reign, she is the legal regent of a kingdom during the minority of the heir—and minorities are frequent, the lives of the male rulers being so often prematurely terminated through their inactivity and excesses. When we consider that these princesses have never been seen in public, have never conversed with any man not of their own family, except from behind a curtain; that they do not read, and if they did, there is no book in their languages which can give ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... and the clammy air gives a sense of deadly depression; here the atmosphere is pure, the land is open, and there is enjoyment in the mere sense of life. The effete matter in the blood and the fatty degeneration of the muscles, the results of inactivity, imperfect respiration, and F. Po, were soon consumed by the pure oxygen of the highland air. I can attribute this superiority of the Congo region only to the labours of an old civilization now obsolete; none but a thick and energetic population could have cleared off the forest, which at one ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... rapidly and with it the dust that obscured the landscape. That the storm was over he was convinced, but he chafed at the inactivity the low visibility put upon him, nor did conditions better materially before night fell, so that he was forced to await the new day at the very spot at which the tempest had deposited him. Without his sleeping ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... no response of any kind to George Cannon's request for an immediate interview, allowing day after day to pass in inactivity, and wondering the while how she might excuse or explain her singular conduct when circumstances should bring the situation to a head. She knew that she ought either to go over to Turnhill, or write him with an appointment to see her at Lane End House; but she did nothing; nor ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... who formed a neutral-tinted background to his impressive outline. His pictures of course fetched high prices; but he worked slowly—"painfully," as his devotees preferred to phrase it—with frequent intervals of ill health and inactivity, and the circle of Keniston connoisseurs was still as small as it was distinguished. The girl's fancy instantly hailed in him that favorite figure of imaginative youth, the artist who would rather starve than paint a pot-boiler. It is known to comparatively few ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... Park had that peculiar bleakness that foreruns the first promise of spring. The children, that six weeks before were playing in the snow and six weeks later would be searching the turf for dandelions, were in the listless between seasons state of comparative inactivity. There was a deceptive balminess in the air that seemed merely to ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... certainly the fine art which receives most attention in our schools. "So far as the body is concerned," said Horace Mann of these institutions, "they provide for all the natural tendencies to physical ease and inactivity as carefully as though paleness and languor, muscular enervation and debility, were held to be constituent elements in national beauty." With this denial of the body on one side, with this tremendous ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... was as unlucky a phrase as ever was coined. It has led small statesmanship into innumerable blunders, and made second-rate politicians fancy that whenever they folded their arms they were dignified. To obtain the credit for a masterly inactivity, it is first of all essential you should show that you could do something very great if you would. There would be no credit in a man born deaf and dumb having observed a discreet silence. To give England, therefore, ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... to decay here in inactivity, he might as well decay genially, taking his pleasure by the way. He was doing it. Like a gentleman and an officer he tippled the evenings out. Rarely was he drunk beyond a genteel limitation—and after an advanced hour he was ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... intercourse with the rebels of Corsica. Paoli said, he did not expect this from Great Britain. This great man was deservedly proud of his country. "I defy Rome, Sparta, or Thebes," he would say, "to show me thirty years of such patriotism as Corsica can boast!" Availing himself of the respite which the inactivity of the French and the weakness of the Genoese allowed, he prosecuted his plans of civilising the people. He used to say, that though he had an unspeakable pride in the prospect of the fame to which he aspired; yet if he could but render his countrymen happy, he could be content to be forgotten. ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... wait for orders to march to Jerusalem sent some leaders out to take cities over which they might rule, and others to visit the Christian leaders who had already won thrones. But most remained in a demoralizing inactivity until a prodigy of electrical balls of light, or possibly a meteoric shower, started, by various interpretations, the mass into securing their rear by the capture and subjugation of several Syrian cities. In one of these sieges the Saracens threw something like Greek fire down on the besiegers, and ...
— Peter the Hermit - A Tale of Enthusiasm • Daniel A. Goodsell
... France, and had persuaded him that the only safe plan for England was to have nothing to do with the pestilent thing. Disraeli, on the other hand, with a wider grasp of the situation, understood that, in this, at any rate, inactivity was not masterly, and that by boldness the enemy would be hoist with their ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... part of Rome too nothing took place calculated seriously to alter the course of Spanish affairs. The first and chief cause of the inactivity of the Romans was undoubtedly their very want of acquaintance with the circumstances of the remote peninsula—which was certainly also Hamilcar's main reason for selecting Spain and not, as might otherwise have been possible, Africa itself for the execution of his plan. The explanations with ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... 'A life of inactivity gave no balm to my wounded spirit, and I burned for action. Mr. Elliott saw it; "Side with us," said he, "there has been a Tea Party in Boston harbor that will bring thunder ere long, and I will procure you a command;" he did so. I joined the ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... mountains of Malaga, and the successful inroad of Muley Abul Hassan into the lands of Medina Sidonia, had produced a favorable effect on the fortunes of the old monarch. The inconstant populace began to shout forth his name in the streets, and to sneer at the inactivity of his son Boabdil el Chico. The latter, though in the flower of his age and distinguished for vigor and dexterity in jousts and tournaments, had never yet fleshed his weapon in the field of battle; and it was murmured that he ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... time, they no longer find viands to suit them. The primary larva of the Sitaris continues from the autumn to the following spring. Even so the initial form of the Anthrax might well continue, not in inactivity, but in stubborn attempts to overcome ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... amongst our essay-writers, his able encomiums of Old England being a delightful feature of the year. It would be gratifying to speak of Maurice W. Moe's splendid style and terse English at this point, for he is one of our very foremost essayists; but his enforced inactivity in amateur journalism this year has deprived us of any current specimens save the brief editorial in ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... his captivity in the Isle of France, his thoughts were constantly busied with projects for the further exploration of the great southern continent he had lately left. In addition to the chafing weariness of prolonged detention and enforced inactivity, he was constantly haunted by the dread that the French would, after examination of his papers, step in and forestall him in the matter. In a letter to Sir Joseph Banks, dated March 20th, 1806, [See fac-simile of ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... went by without bringing him any despatches, he wearied of inactivity and decided to assume the aggressive. Accordingly he sent a force to a Mexican military post known as Sonoma, which ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... young people knew them not. They were far indeed from Esther's mind as she talked with Dot of the future one afternoon. Instead, her words were full of impatience with the slow march of events, and the enforced inactivity of a girl's ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... by the minister, led her, as was natural, to overestimate their worth and to undervalue her own. With the same spirit, therefore, with which she admired Herbert and Bob for their acts, she condemned her own inactivity, and there in that little room beside the remains of the humble newsboy she resolved that she would be something more than a society girl as her life had hitherto been tending. She had learned a valuable lesson and given place to a purpose as ...
— The Boy Broker - Among the Kings of Wall Street • Frank A. Munsey
... once. If you went back it's just possible that into the fellow's dull mind might steal a ghost of suspicion. I'm ready to take my turn now, though I hate the damned inactivity. I am a presumed illiterate. I struggle over the printed page—and with me loafing in his office he would chat away over his ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... civil war, so difficult has it become, at present, to attain the same end. Painful duties, perhaps, will be imposed on Mr. Lincoln. I wonder, in truth, at the politicians who advise him to a "masterly inactivity," that is, who urge him to continue Mr. Buchanan! Doubtless he does right to leave to the insurgents all the odium of acting on the offensive, but his moderation should detract nothing from his firmness, and it is even of importance that the means ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... excellent recipe for a mob, so they have been quiet accordingly, as we are informed. Two or three other wet nights would do much to weary them out with inactivity. Milman, whom I remember a fine gentlemanlike young man, dined here yesterday. He says the fires have never ceased in his country, but that the oppressions and sufferings occasioned by the poor's rates are very great, and there is no persuading ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... or the pinchings of cold, and the exertions that he makes to avoid these evils, by procuring food, and building himself a covering, are the exercises which form and keep in motion his faculties, which otherwise would sink into listless inactivity. From all that experience has taught us concerning the structure of the human mind, if those stimulants to exertion which arise from the wants of the body were removed from the mass of mankind, ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... Ellerey's mind was busy with the events of the afternoon. For two years he had been in Sturatzberg, ready to seize the opportunity of distinguishing himself whenever it arose. It had not come yet. His life had been passed on a dead level of inactivity, and the stirring times he had hoped for seemed as far away as ever. Many a time had his thoughts gone back to that breezy morning on the downs, and he devoutly wished that Princess Maritza would come to Sturatzberg, ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... remarked your late estrangement from Ellen; and while I guessed, I felt that, however painful to me, I ought to remove, the cause: she loves you—though perhaps you know it not—much and truly; and since my earlier life has been passed in a selfish inactivity, I would fain let it close with the reflection of having served two beings whom I prize so dearly, and the hope that their happiness will commence with ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... varying circumstances, the same blow will evoke responses of different amplitudes. Early in the morning, after the prolonged inactivity of a cold night, we find the plant inclined to be lethargic, and its first answers correspondingly small. But as blow after blow is delivered, this lethargy passes off, and the replies become stronger and stronger. A good way to remove this ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... Unused to physical inactivity, Waring had grown somber of mind these latter days. Despite the promise of more comfortable years, he had never felt more lonely. With the coming of Lorry the old order would change. Young blood, new life would have ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... hills easily defended. It is matter for wonder that Howe, with an army well equipped, did not make some attempt to destroy the army of Washington which passed the winter so near and in acute distress. The Pennsylvania Loyalists, with dark days soon to come, were bitter at Howe's inactivity, full of tragic meaning for themselves. He said that he could achieve nothing permanent by attack. It may be so; but it is a sound principle in warfare to destroy the enemy when this is possible. There was a time when in Washington's whole force not more ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... pivots firm, the weights exactly balanced. Every part, even to the bells, was examined with the minute attention of a physician studying the breast of a patient. Nothing indicated that these clocks were on the point of being affected by inactivity. ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... as President. Professor Charles H. Cooley, '87, has characterized the especial qualities which made for his success as "his faith and his adaptability." Dr. Angell always believed in the tendency of the right to prevail, and was willing to wait with a "masterly inactivity," avoiding too much injudicious assistance. He was always able to maintain a broad and comprehensive view, the attitude of the administrator, and was faithful in his belief in the Higher Power which guides the destiny of men—and universities. His diplomatic genius, the combination ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... at Janus's inactivity, but it would do no good to say so. Janus had done the best he could and had wasted more than a dozen bullets among the rocks of Mt. Washington. They had the stranger's gun, therefore she was reasonably ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... determination, the President and authorities struggled in vain. McClellan treated their arguments and appeals with a want of ceremony amounting at times nearly to contempt; he adhered to his own plan resolutely, and in the end the President gave way. In rueful protest against the continued inactivity of General McClellan, President Lincoln had exclaimed, "If General McClellan does not want to use the army, I would like to borrow it;" and "if something is not soon done, the bottom will be ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... proceeded with the King and Queen of France to Paris, where various transactions took place relative to the internal policy of the country. The court soon removed thence to Senlis, where Henry continued to make his principal abode, till news from the banks of the Loire roused him from inactivity. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... question how the impatient man bore the inactivity imposed upon him, her visitor answered, "Rebelliously enough, but he has already grown quieter, and my sister is fond of him and takes ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Dryden had hitherto been engaged, were of a private complexion, arising out of literary disputes and rivalry. But the country was now deeply agitated by political faction; and so powerful an auxiliary was not permitted by his party to remain in a state of inactivity. The religion of the Duke of York rendered him obnoxious to a large proportion of the people, still agitated by the terrors of the Popish Plot. The Duke of Monmouth, handsome, young, brave, and courteous, ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... even more for a man of my years than his love of approbation. You will be able, at least many of you, to live according to the sentiments which your presence here today reveals, and to do so to the middle of the next century, while I have long been condemned to inactivity and belong to the days that are past. I find consolation in this observation, for the German is not so constituted that he could entirely dismiss in his old age what in his youth inspired him. Forty ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... ground, and they had all hustled off at a great pace, and were gone. I had only bagged one elephant. Where was the valiant Bacheet—the would-be Nimrod, who for the last three months had been fretting in inactivity, and longing for the moment of action, when he had promised to be my trusty gun-bearer? He was the last man to appear, and he only ventured from his hiding-place in the high dhurra when assured of the elephants' retreat. I was obliged to admonish the whole party ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... expected for years. There are two great factors which make for war. One is the character of the Emperor himself, and the other the inevitable rot, which must creep like a disease into a great army kept always upon a war footing, through a decade or more of inactivity. The Emperor is shrewd enough to see this. Nothing can possibly exist at its best which is not used for the purpose to which it owes its existence. That is why we have this flood of literature just now telling us of the gross abuses ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... first place I am going down to the Yard," Field explained. "I am then going to get rid of my correspondence and have my dinner. After that till it gets dark I propose to pursue what Lord Beaconsfield called a policy of masterly inactivity for a time. Once it is really dark, I intend to go as far as Wandsworth Common, and learn something of the gentleman who is lame and has a private hansom painted black. You see, sir, the scene of the story is changed. The next act must be ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... war—I want no enlargement of territory sooner than it would come if we were contented with a masterly inactivity. I abhor war, as I detest slavery. I would not give one human life for all the continent that remains ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... times the strangest, the most unexpected of all the things that had happened since his awakening. It had something of the quality of that inactivity that comes in dreams. A tumult, the stupendous realisation of a world struggle between Ostrog and himself, and then this confined quiet little room with its mouthpieces ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... coming into existence. He first suggested the idea of two opposite directions of the moving power, an attractive and a repelling one: and he believed that originally these two coexisted in a state of repose and inactivity. He also assumed a periodical change of the formation of the world; or perhaps, like the philosophers of the pure Ionic school, a perpetual continuance of pure fundamental substances; to which the parts of the world that are tired of change return, and prepare ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... requisitioned, and all six of us proceeded to Fallow Hill. Not until eleven o'clock would the fun of the fair be suspended, and it was better to be on the spot, even if for the second time we had to come empty away, than to spend the evening in the torment of inactivity. ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... Thus, nitrogen means the producer of niter, nitrogen being a constituent of niter or saltpeter. Hydrogen means water former, signifying its presence in water. Argon means lazy or inert, the element being so named because of its inactivity. (4) Other elements are named from countries or localities, ...
— An Elementary Study of Chemistry • William McPherson
... rode through the slush of the farmyard to the gate and out into the open country, his good little horse, after his long inactivity, stepping out gallantly, snorting over the pools, and asking, as it were, for guidance. If Levin had felt happy before in the cattle pens and farmyard, he felt happier yet in the open country. Swaying rhythmically with the ambling ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... their hands, upsetting all military plans, disgusting every chief, met and talked and carried on their busy intrigues, and played their Sibyl—Sibylle de carrefour, says one of the historians indignantly—against the Maid, who, all discouraged and downcast, fretted by caresses, sick of inactivity, dragged out the uneasy days in an uncongenial world; but Jeanne has left no record of the sensations with which she saw these days pass, eating her heart out, gazing over that rapid river, on the other side of which all the devils were unchained and ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... took care that all was done properly. Putting one of his big boots a little in advance, and drawing himself up to his full shortness, he watched the operation attentively, as if the smallness of his stature had nothing to do with his inactivity. When all was ready, he climbed up to his seat, and at a signal from the station-keeper, who watched with paternal pride all the movements of the little prodigy, we dashed off at a pace rarely attained by post-horses. He had the faculty of emitting a peculiar sound—something between ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... he walked between his oxen in the field, and the skillful tailor handled his gun with as much indifference as he would his smoothing-iron. It was only the reserve guard who were restless; not from fear, but from dissatisfaction with their own inactivity. At times a bold fellow would steal into the house, behind Anton's back, in order to have a chance of firing off his gun in front, and Anton was obliged to place the superintendent at the court-door to prevent this ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... Tired of inactivity, Borrow was in London in December, 1829, at 17, Great Russell Street, W.C., eagerly seeking work, scheming for a work on the Songs of Scandinavia, jointly with Bowring, ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... restless, and rising, began to wander aimlessly about the room; but her uneasiness only increased, and finally, in desperation, she resolved to venture out into the corridor and look about her, no matter at what risk. Anything would be better than this enforced inactivity and suspense. She tried the door with a trembling hand, dreading to find herself locked in, but it was not fastened, and seeing that all was dark outside, she took up a small lamp, that had been left burning on a side table, and boldly setting ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... seemed sheer waste. Thousands of lives wasted—thousands of armless and legless cripples sent back—for nothing. The troops soon realised that it was now hopeless. You can't "kid" a great body of men for long. It became utterly sickening—the inactivity—the waiting—for nothing. And every day we lost men. Men were killed by snipers as they went up to the trenches. The Turkish snipers killed them when they went down to ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... officers, and then disgraced itself by cowardice in the field. Another displayed an almost equal want of courage; and La Fayette, disheartened and perplexed, though the number of his troops still more than doubled those opposed to him, retreated into France, and remained there in a state of complete inactivity. ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... reverses, and our heavy losses fully prove. I admit that a blind confidence in persons around the late envoy—a total want of forethought and foresight on his part—unaccountable indecision at first, followed by cessions which, day by day, rendered our force more helpless—inactivity, perhaps, on some occasions—have led to these reverses; but we must not overlook the effects of climate, the difficulty of communication, the distance from our frontier, and the fanatical zeal of our ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... or physical, of great natural strength, are never reduced to weakness by a period of inactivity. It is those minds and bodies which have been artificially developed by a long course of training to a degree of power they were never intended to possess, which lose that force almost immediately in idleness. The really very strong ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... fragments. I secured one, and it turned out to be part of a huge forty-pounder siege-gun shell. Such a gun would far out-range ours, and I believe the scouts have not located it yet, which explains our inactivity. ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... were engaged was sure to be extreme. But all the old symptoms were misleading at this time, for the twins settled down at once, with lively intelligent interest, to the innocent occupation of studying the ways of the household, their own conduct being distinguished for the most part by a masterly inactivity. For the truth was they were thinking. They had lately taken to reading the books and papers and magazines of the day, which they found in the library at Hamilton House; and at Morne they followed the same ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... at all, and keep myself from helpless dependence upon any one.... The occupation, the mere business of the business, will, I am persuaded, be good rather than bad for me; for though one may be strong against sorrow, sorrow and inactivity combined are too much for any strength. Such a burden might not kill one, but destroy one's vitality to a degree just short of, and therefore worse than, death—crush, instead of ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... occupations suddenly suspended, and moreover, like many men who have followed a wholly peaceful profession, plunged in a dark bewilderment as to the onset of the forces governing the social life of Europe. In the sad inactivity which followed, I set to work to look through my old papers, for the sake of distraction and employment, and found much material almost ready for use, careful notes of conversations, personal reminiscences, jottings of characteristic touches, which seemed as if they could ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... of either game were enabled to play as good ball as they did, not only in Paris but in other cities that we visited after the inactivity of steamer life, the late hours, and the continual round of high living that they indulged in, is a mystery, and one that is past my fathoming, and yet the ball that they put up on many of these occasions that I have spoken of was ball of the championship kind and the sort ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... descending colon, which is also contrary to the assertions of the authors. This is due partly to the fact that the contents of the colon have to rise in opposition to gravity, and partly to the semi-paralyzed condition of the muscular coat of the colon through inactivity. When the accumulations are large, the increased weight of the colon tends to displace it; and if in the transverse colon, that portion may be ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... for a considerable period, until, indeed, his men began to murmur at their protracted inactivity. The cause of this inaction will hardly be divined from the character thus far developed of this stupendous freebooter; but it was the tender passion! He had among his prisoners a beautiful Spanish ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Story-seat itself, I had a longer scrutiny of him. He was dandiacally dressed, seemed to tell something under twenty years and had a handsome wistful face atop of a heavy, lumbering, almost corpulent figure, which however did not betoken inactivity; for David's purple hat (a conceit of his mother's of which we were both heartily ashamed) blowing off as we neared him he leapt the railings without touching them and was back with it in three seconds; only instead of delivering ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... We could stand this inactivity no longer. We trudged forward through the snow, taking the broad bands left by the tracks of the busses as our guide, the officers leading the way and the orderlies behind ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh
... May I was seized with fever for the first time. We reached the town of Linyanti on the 23d; and as my habits were suddenly changed from great exertion to comparative inactivity, at the commencement of the cold season I suffered from a severe attack of stoppage of the secretions, closely resembling a common cold. Warm baths and drinks relieved me, and I had no idea but that I ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... in the paths of glory, and to pour out my soul before you with thanksgiving, would be as impossible as it is for me at present to enjoy that blessing!—The king's affairs, it is true, would suffer nothing by my absence; but, sir, what would the world say of me, if, after a whole year of inactivity and idleness, I flew, on the first appearance of danger, and forsook a prince, by whom I have been so highly favoured?—Instead of the character I have always been ambitious of attaining, should I not be branded with everlasting infamy!—Put not therefore, I beseech you, ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... were among the highest officials and nobles, seconded by the restless and formidable machinations of the Jesuits. When his proofs were complete, he crushed the conspirators at a single grasp. His singular inactivity had disarmed them; and nothing but the most consummate composure could have prevented their flying from justice. On the 12th of January 1759, they were found guilty; and on the 13th they were put to death, to the number of nine, with the Marchioness of Tavora, in the square of Belem. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... stationary at Salzburg till the autumn of 1780, highly dissatisfied at being forced to waste his youthful days in inactivity, and in such an obscure place, but still as busy as ever. A succession of grand instrumental compositions were the fruits of this period: two masses, some vespers, the splendid music for "Konig Thamos," and the operetta "Zaide" ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... those many pleasant iniquities which every great city offers liberally to such handsome, fine gentlemen as himself. He actually proposed, just so soon as Katherine could conveniently spare him, to decline from the splendid inactivity of the Guards, upon the hard work of some line regiment under orders for foreign service. Ormiston was quite affected by contemplation of his own good resolutions. He appeared to himself in a really pathetic light. He would like to have told Mary Cathcart all about it and have ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... had rushed into the outer darkness in the wake of the highwayman returned presently. Mere impulse and swift natural reaction from their former enforced inactivity rather than any hope of success had sent them hot-foot on the pursuit. The noisy, windy night, the absolute dark, obviated all possibility of coming up with him. Grumbling and theorising, they returned to the room and ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... of the dying man! One other week and his mortal coil would be shuffled off; in one short week would God resume his soul, and set it apart for its irrevocable doom; seven more tedious days and nights of senseless inactivity, and all would be over for poor Bell in this world; and yet, with his last audible words, he was demanding his moneyed rights, and asserting himself to be the proper heir of John Hiram's bounty! Not on him, poor sinner as he was, be the load ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... and their new friend weary with suspense and their long inactivity. All longed for a stroll in the open air, a chance to stretch their legs, and an unlimited supply of water to drink. It almost seemed that their meager allowance of a pint and a half each for the twenty-four hours did little more than increase their thirst. They could not safely ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... cruiser, though larger and of far less aerial mould and fashion, presented the same picture of repose. The distance between the two was about a league; and Bonnie was sufficiently familiar with the formation of the land and of the position of the vessels, to be quite aware that this inactivity on the part of those whose duty it was to protect the rights of the Queen, proceeded from their utter ignorance of the proximity of their neighbor. The thicket which bounded the Cove and the growth of oaks ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... afternoon, after their destroyers had carefully swept the anchorage in search of mines; and it was my hope that—we having left them alone for the preceding two days—they would by this time be getting suspicious of such unwonted inactivity on our part, and consequently would send out one, or perhaps even two ships, to guard against a possible coup ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... suppressed by the police. After several futile attempts at self-expression, he returns to his street corner subdued and so far discouraged that when he has the next impulse to vigorous action he concludes that it is of no use, and sullenly settles back into inactivity. He thus learns to persuade himself that it is better to do nothing, or, as the psychologist would say, "to inhibit his ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams
... see that she was puzzled, perhaps a little annoyed. Last night in a malicious moment she had been quite ready to sneer at her husband's inactivity, but now, with the situation a matter of practice rather than theory, Starratt felt that she was having her misgivings. A suggestion of a frown hovered above her ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... of the concerts). Hans was confined to bed at the Bairischer Hof; his nervous rheumatic complaint has now settled in his left arm, which he will probably be unable to move for several weeks to come. In addition to the physical pain he suffers most grievously from this enforced state of inactivity. To endure things patiently is to some natures an absolute impossibility. He travelled back to Berlin, ill as he was, last Saturday, accompanied by his wife, and I have promised to go and spend a couple of days with him after my visit to Prince Hohenzollern ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... and no village where a bookstore exists, that has not copies of, or information concerning, the book within a short time of its coming from the press. After this is done, patience is necessary and a period of comparative inactivity ensues. The book is before the people, and it is necessary to wait for their verdict. There are many ways of "puffing" a book. Clever advertising will do much. Window displays and all the other arts resorted to by bookseller and publisher sell copies; but unless the people take to it, unless it ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... work of destruction going on in the city of Quebec, by the fire from Point Levi, and the ceaseless cannonade kept up by the ships and Wolfe's batteries; added to the inactivity to which they were condemned, began to dispirit the Canadian militia, and many desertions took place, the men being anxious to return to their villages and look after the crops; and many more would have deserted, had it not been for the persuasion ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... and earnestly. He was a fine fellow, that captain. He had been a sub-lieutenant in the Zouaves, was tall and thin and as hard as steel, and during the whole campaign had given a great deal of trouble to the Germans. He fretted in inactivity and could not accustom himself to the idea of being a prisoner and of ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... is to be feared; this inactivity, to my mind, proves it. He is waiting; the moment is not ripe. There are many sentimental fools in this world. One has only to step into the street and shout 'Down with!' or 'Long live!' to bring these fools ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... however, that I am offering you quite enough to enable you to buy either the silence or the inactivity of your fellow criminals. Two hundred thousand roubles is a good deal of money, and your gang cannot be so large that you will not be able to afford a sufficient sum to ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... a morbid state of mind, no conditions could have been more favourable than the enforced inactivity to which, with many another, he was condemned for the long dark months during which the ice put a stop to navigation. To his restless, energetic nature, such prolonged inaction was little suited under any circumstances, ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... cannot assume command." French and Howard agreed with Hancock, but Couch remained imperturbable, saying, "When I am properly informed that General Hooker is disabled and not in command, I shall assume the duty which will devolve upon me." And so hour after hour passed of inactivity at this most critical juncture. They said it was plain Lee was making simply a show of force in our front whilst he had detached a large part of his army and was driving Sedgwick before him down at Fredericksburg. Now, why this period ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... the deficiencies of it; the diseases of this country, except those which are the consequences of drunkenness, or of immoderate exercise, more frequently begin with torpor than with orgasm; that is, with inactivity of some parts, or of the whole of the system, and consequent coldness, than with increased activity, ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... Perikles thought that it would be a very serious matter to fight for the very existence of Athens against sixty thousand Peloponnesian and Boeotian[A] heavy-armed troops, and so he pacified those who were dissatisfied at his inactivity by pointing out that trees when cut down quickly grow again, but that when the men of a State are lost, it is hard to raise up others to take their place. He would not call an assembly of the people, because he feared that they would force him to act against his better judgment, ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... assistance; was, however, deeply concerned that it was now, unfortunately, not in Edward's power exactly to comply with the plan which had been chalked out by his best friend and benefactor. He himself had thought with pain on the boy's inactivity, at an age when all his ancestors had borne arms; even Royalty itself had deigned to inquire whether young Waverley was not now in Flanders, at an age when his grandfather was already bleeding for his king in the Great Civil War. This was accompanied by an offer of ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... strange and dismal fancy, that though the Almighty was a God of goodness and justice, it was quite impossible that He should love any beings so sinful and ungrateful as the human race. This vain distinction of a morbid imagination was the result of that solitude, inactivity, and the constantly dwelling upon himself and his own troubles, to which he had unfortunately given himself up, and which had brought his mind into such an unhealthy state, that he could neither reason nor ...
— The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales • Mrs. Alfred Gatty
... her book upon her knee and gave him a smile by way of welcome. He looked unusually tall as he stood in the broad, low entrance; his ten days of sickness and inactivity had made ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... At the door of the largest a pair of children sported in the solitude, as fearlessly as the birds on Selkirk's island; looking into the hotel, he saw a few porters and call-boys seated in statuesque repose against the wall, while the clerk pined in dreamless inactivity behind the register; some deserted ladies flitted through the door of the parlor at the side. He recalled the evening of his former visit, when he and Isabel had met the Ellisons in that parlor, and it seemed, in the retrospect, a scene of the wildest ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... should avoid all vocations which confine him within small areas, pin him down to inactivity or ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... the England of King James. And the tone of many of these productions discloses an affectionate familiarity that speaks for the amiable personality and sound worth of the laureate. In 1619, growing unwieldy through inactivity, Jonson hit upon the heroic remedy of a journey afoot to Scotland. On his way thither and back he was hospitably received at the houses of many friends and by those to whom his friends had recommended ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... stranded in lonely splendour in a sumptuous West Side hotel, with a father compelled to seek a semblance of social life at the hotel bar, and a mother deprived of even this contact with her kind, and reduced to illness by boredom and inactivity. Poor Mrs. Spragg had done her own washing in her youth, but since her rising fortunes had made this occupation unsuitable she had sunk into the relative inertia which the ladies of Apex City regarded as one of the prerogatives of affluence. ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... scanty preparation for war is a proof of how little the Central Powers reckoned on such a contingency it may on the other hand explain away much apparent inactivity on the part of their representatives. Karl Fuerstenberg, my predecessor at Bucharest, whose estimate of the situation was a just one, demanded to have more funds at his disposal, which was refused at Vienna on the plea ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... Theaetetus; and there are plenty of other proofs which will show that motion is the source of what is called being and becoming, and inactivity of not-being and destruction; for fire and warmth, which are supposed to be the parent and guardian of all other things, are born of movement and of friction, which is a kind of motion;—is not this the ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... undoubtedly brave its intangible rigor, but ordinary offenders will dread it as a condemnation which destroys their position in the world, casts a blight upon their honor, and condemns them to a shameful inactivity worse than death. The influence exercised in the United States upon the progress of society by the jurisdiction of political bodies may not appear to be formidable, but it is only the more immense. It does not act directly upon the governed, but it renders the majority more ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... the same reason the domestic politics of these years require only the briefest notice. Palmerston's Ministry produced very little social legislation, and the fact that Lord John was at the Foreign Office, while the Prime Minister led the Commons, increased the legislative inactivity of a Government which, with Palmerston at its head, would in any case have changed little in the country. Gladstone's budgets and Cobden's Free-Trade Treaty with France were the important events. Between 1860 and 1864 the taxation of the country was reduced ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... imperative than that of a remote and fancied liberty. These cases attended to, the militia came forth, struck a few blows, and once more returned to their destitute dependents. The victory over the Tories of Black Mingo, was, from this cause, followed by a more than usually prolonged inactivity of our partisan. His men demanded a respite to go and see their families. He consented, with some reluctance, for the business of the campaign was only beginning to open itself before him. They promised him, as usual, to return ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... were in it yourself. Now, what are you going to do about it?" And, unrebuked and unrestrained, he turned and walked out of the room, leaving the august body, startled, grimly smiling and reduced to a helpless pulp of inactivity. ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... peevishly arrogant, except upon provocation. The conduct of the tender Italian dames was vexatious. It was exasperating to these knights of the slumbering sword to hear their native waltzes sounding of exquisite Vienna, while their legs stretched in melancholy inactivity on the Piazza pavement, and their arms encircled no ductile waists. They tried to despise it more than they disliked it, called their female foes Amazons, and their male by a less complimentary title, and so waited for the patriotic epidemic ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the girls did not venture far from the bungalow on the river, but soon they tired of comparative inactivity and planned a little cruise, down stream this time, past Lake Chad, and up another ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... in the luxury of "sleep-walking." He had not been questioned in regard to the blood upon the seats of the Greyhound, for, being asleep when the stains were made, of course he would know nothing about them. Mr. Presby explained his inactivity and want of energy upon philosophical principles, and every ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... the party joyously made preparations for return. It had been an eventless search for the brave knight, Tristram, and these men hated inactivity. ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... Buzz—extensively as to distances, if not as to people. By the voyageurs, and other French of that region, he was almost universally styled le Bourdon^ or the "Drone"; not, however, from his idleness or inactivity, but from the circumstances that he was notorious for laying his hands on the products of labor that proceeded from others. In a word, Ben Boden was a "bee-hunter," and as he was one of the first to exercise his craft ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... method of the general never to operate except with superior masses, his cumbrous and tedious movements, and the discord of the coalition may perhaps explain in some measure, though not excuse, the inactivity of the land-force; but that the fleet, which commanded the Mediterranean without a rival, should have thus done nothing to influence the course of affairs—nothing for Spain, next to nothing for the faithful Massiliots, nothing to defend Sardinia, Sicily, Africa, or, if not ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... offer gladly, and his young officers, in all eagerness, seconded him. They were tiring of inactivity, and of the cramped and painful life in the trenches. To be on horseback again, riding over hills and across valleys, seemed almost Heaven to them, and, as Colonel Hertford walked away, earnest injunctions to use his influence to ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the acquirement of sight by the normal newly-born child and the infant with that of those born blind, we should, above all, bear in mind that the latter in general could make use of only one eye, and also that on account of the long inactivity of the retina and the absence of the crystalline lens, as well as in consequence of the numerous experiences of touch, essential differences exist. Notwithstanding this, there appears an agreement in the manner in which in both cases vision is learned, the eye is practiced, and the association ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... participation in the two Balkan wars, restricting their activities to the exertion of their various influences for as just a settlement as was possible under the circumstances when the time for settlement had arrived in 1913. In spite of the inactivity of the powers there can be no doubt that their respective attitudes at that time toward the various Balkan States and their ambitions had an important influence on the latter's attitude toward the various powers after the war of 1914 had ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... formal rules of morality has been given in the extracts above, nor does the epic in this regard differ much from the law-books. Every man's first duty is to act; inactivity is sinful. The man that fails to win a good reputation by his acts, a warrior, for example, that is devoid of fame, a 'man of no account,' is a bh[u]mivardhana, [Greek: achthos aroures] a cumberer of earth (iii. 35. 7). A proverb says that man should ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... part of the "legale testimonium;" Mr. Francis Butzkay, the lawyer, came to his aid with his stumpy, short-limbed figure: he had gazed for a time in passive inactivity at the fruitless struggle of his principal ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... her memory charged with one of those griefs or deceptions, which enable the weaklings, or those who demand too little of life, to imagine that passive fidelity to something that has of itself collapsed is an act of virtue; that inactivity is justified by the tears wherein it is bathed; and that the duty of life is accomplished when suffering has been made to yield up all its resignation ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... had concluded it might do, I very seldom put off the consequent action. I found I was wrong sometimes, and that the particular action did no good; but thus movement was kept up in my operative nature, preventing it from sinking towards the inactivity to which I was but too much inclined. Besides, to find out what will not do, is a step towards finding out what will do. Moreover, an attempt in itself unsuccessful may set something or other in ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... I fancied that his light was more sorrowful than the light of the setting sun should be, and I began to feel very heavy at the heart. No sooner had the last brilliant spark of his light vanished, than I felt the stone under me begin to move. With the inactivity of a dreamer, however, I did not care to rise, but wondered only what would come next. My seat, after several strange tumbling motions, seemed to rise into the air a little way, and then I found that I was astride of a gaunt, ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... Philip. "There's nothing to cheer me up about. The question is simply this: Can I stand a period of several years' enforced inactivity as a mere pensioner?" ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... of some exceptional literary or political appointment. The others may console themselves with the thought that in spite of a still deeper degree of poverty, towards which they are sinking by their own inactivity, the hell of mechanical work, by no means abolished, will probably be a little reduced, so far as regards the time they spend in it. The notion that mechanical work will be made acceptable and reconciled with intellectual, if only it is short enough and properly paid, has never ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau |
