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Busy   /bˈɪzi/   Listen
Busy

verb
(past & past part. busied; pres. part. busying)
1.
Keep busy with.  Synonym: occupy.



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"Busy" Quotes from Famous Books



... too vast for your limited faculties,' it says; 'yield not yourself to the babble of the running stream. Leave the ocean, which cares nothing for you or any living thing that walks the solid earth; leave the river, too busy with its own errand, too talkative about its own affairs, and find peace with me, whose smile will cheer you, whose whisper will soothe you. Come to me when the morning sun blazes across my bosom like a golden baldric; come to me in the still midnight, when I hold the inverted firmament like a cup ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... from the properties as soon as they have been fairly started and I have been only consulting engineer for the Molly. I've been busy on preliminary work. The engineer he brought from New York has been in actual charge. That was all right. I'm comparatively a kid. But I know what is going on generally in Casey Town. There have been no more strikes, for one thing; the ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn

... PUNCHINELLO:—You were so good as to prescribe a hot pitch plaster for the baby's mouth. Next day I took the prescription to your office, but failed to get it made up, as the devil, they told me, was busy. Will you please inform me when you will be at leisure? ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, Issue 10 • Various

... their hearth, had been kindled and were fed by human hands only, and were ever liable to die out. The fuel that kept them burning was the best that earth afforded, but the supply had its inherent limitations. Each new tranquil day increased the habitual sense of security. Graham was busy with plans of a large agricultural enterprise in Virginia. The more he saw of Henry Anderson the more he appreciated his sterling integrity and fine business capabilities, and from being an agent he had become a partner. ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe

... the weary and outworn sleep of the wretched while those sweet and soothing visions were still busy at her heart? And if so, breathes there one who would have roused her, whatever may have been her faults, from ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... power of youth with a soul on fire to accomplish great things, and the temperament which does not accomplish great things. When the train stopped she was met by her father, a keen, common sense, average business man who often expressed the wish that his daughter would "get busy and do something." She went home to a mother large hearted and self-sacrificing, proud of her attractive daughter and doing so much for her that little remained for her to do for herself. On Sunday she went ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery

... Colette was busy with her mistress for a long time. She was very gentle and tender, being fond of Lisa, as people of her class always were. She raised her voice as she made ...
— Frances Waldeaux • Rebecca Harding Davis

... Girl Scouts of America. The fact is, I think I was always a Girl Scout myself (although the name was unknown); yes, from the very beginning. Even my first youthful story was "scouty" in tone, if I may invent a word. Then for a few years afterward, when I was "scoutingly" busy educating little street Arabs in San Francisco, I wrote books, too, for and about younger children, but there came a time when "Polly Oliver's Problem" brought me a girl public. It was not an oppressively large one; that is, I never was mobbed in the streets ...
— The Girl Scouts: A Training School for Womanhood • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... had been really in love with her, he might have seen through her—and not cared—just as if she had not attracted him at all, he would certainly have taken her measure and enjoyed laying pitfalls for her. But as it was, his will was always trying to augment his inclination. He was too busy to analyze the real meaning of any woman, and until the Professor's words about the divorce and the Misses La Sarthe's view of the affair, it had never even struck him that there could be one single aspect of Mrs. Cricklander's case which he might have to blink at. He had told himself he had ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn

... about the later years, and the reconciliation; then, some way, she brought things around to Jerry and me. Her face flushed up then, and she didn't meet my eyes. She looked down at her sewing. She was very busy turning a ...
— Mary Marie • Eleanor H. Porter

... him, as we have said, with a glance of withering contempt, which caused the shrivelled frame to shake and quiver. Yet memory had been busy at his heart, when he heard her voice come softly through the curtain, as once through the green shade of the whispering woods, in his summer time of love and hope. There was a tremulous softness in his tone, a sad deprecating ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... city of "Nouvelle Orleans." There was the cathedral, and standing beside it, like Sancho beside Don Quixote, the squat hall of the Cabildo with the calabozo in the rear. There were the forts, the military bakery, the hospitals, the plaza, the Almonaster stores, and the busy rue Toulouse; and, for the rest of the town, a pleasant confusion of green tree-tops, red and gray roofs, and glimpses of white or yellow wall, spreading back a few hundred yards behind the cathedral, and tapering into a single rank of gardened and belvedered ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... been busy at the farm and nursery erecting a small pilot plant for grinding filbert butter which we expect to be able to put on the market between ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... into the various doors of the huge hostelry, for the evening trains were depositing the flotsam and jetsam of humanity into busy Gotham. ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage

... her father, was busy. Sessions of the Exemption Board were not quite as frequent as at first, but the captain declared them frequent enough. And volunteering went on steadily here and there among young blood which, ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln

... self. Now, what was a high-toned woman to do under such circumstances? Mourn over the departed one? Most certainly; that she would ever do. But what about "His Majesty" and the royal attentions? Should she turn a deaf ear to that too, too eloquent tongue, dash down the crown of Spain, and busy herself in unavailing regrets for the lost one? Before doing so it would ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille

... what you mean by my little set," said Pauline with a smile. "I am too busy with my college duties to belong to any set. I see my friends occasionally just as you see yours; and as to progress—well, I fear that you are right in your statement that we shall never look at things alike. To me progress presupposes in the individual or the community ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant

... to keep the Serbians busy, and prevent them from invading Austrian soil. For the sake of the moral effect on the other Balkan States the capture of Belgrade should be attempted. In view of the strength of the Danube fortifications the operations were ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various

... to think of than this billing and cooing. She went to her bedroom, and lay down for ten minutes or so; then she got up again and began pacing restlessly to and fro. Her thoughts were busy with Mosk, with his victim, with Baltic; she wondered if Jentham had been in possession of certain papers, if these had been stolen by Mosk, if they were now in the pocket of Baltic. This last idea made her blood turn cold and her heart drum a loud tattoo. She covered her ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... letters every day to Christiern, telling him that Denmark as well as Sweden was overrun with rebels, and that he now had a chance of restoration such as he had never had before. But Norby's hopes were at the very highest when the bubble burst. The emperor proved too busy with his own affairs to send his army to the North, and Christiern could not raise the armament requisite for a foreign war. Gustavus, moreover, sent his troops to drive back the invader, and the Danish nobility enlisted in behalf of Fredrik. The result was that ere the close of May the ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson

... in real estate, a notary public, and an official in several directions, the coroner was a busy man. ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele

... provision did not please them, or if they could suggest anything better, they might speak. He was very desirous of being democratic, and once, when one of the companions of his campaigns asked him to aid him in the capacity of advocate, at first he pretended to be busy and bade one of his friends serve as advocate; when, however, the petitioner grew angry and said: "but as often as you needed my assistance, I did not send somebody else to you in place of myself, but in person I encountered ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio

... always know where to find them within half a mile. The rose-breasted grosbeak has been a familiar bird in Brookline (three miles away), yet I never saw one here till last July, when I found a female busy among my raspberries and surprisingly bold. I hope she was prospecting with a view to settlement in our garden. She seemed, on the whole, to think well of my fruit, and I would gladly plant another bed if it would help to win over so delightful ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell

... river, in order that it may be used for irrigation, suggest that no improvement has been made in Egyptian farming for four thousand years. But the smoke curling away from tall chimneys, and the noise of busy machinery in the midst of extensive fields of sugarcane, remind us that Egypt has become one of the greatest sugar-producing powers of the East. From the site of ancient Memphis to Korosko, comprising about six degrees of latitude, the soil ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... Possibly Lloyd George has never looked into those old, handsome, leather-covered volumes at his official residence. His secretaries may have pondered over them in securing material for their chief, but Lloyd George has been too busy doing things to devote much time to ancient philosophical reflections or to learned economic theories. It is easy to understand how his temperament found satisfaction and relaxation at the same time in the cut-and-thrust work of Dumas and Weyman. I ought, perhaps, ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot

... I git to North Wilkesboro'," Zeke answered, to the obvious relief of the assembly, as he opened the bag. While he was busy stowing the shoes, the onlookers commented cynically on the follies ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily

... Muhortinskoe. 'I want to live by my own work,' says he, 'in the sweat of my brow, for I am not a gentleman now,' says he, 'but a settler.' 'Well,' says I, 'God help you, that's the right thing.' He was a young man then, busy and careful; he used to mow himself and catch fish and ride sixty miles on horseback. Only this is what happened: from the very first year he took to riding to Gyrino for the post; he used to stand on my ferry and sigh: 'Ech, Semyon, how long it is since they sent me any money from home!' 'You ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... and got up rather suddenly to change it, and off she went with the Jew's wig dangling behind her, much to the amusement of the spectators, and especially of Henry, who saw and enjoyed it all highly, though pretending to be very busy selling a cane to a gentleman, who ...
— The Pedler of Dust Sticks • Eliza Lee Follen

... take a look," proposed the lad, and he was soon busy peering into the interior of the machine. At first he could not find the trouble, but being a persistent youth, Tom went at it systematically and located it in two places. The clutch was not rightly adjusted and the carburetor float feed needed fixing. ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton

... back and forward; which I cannot, right here in this first page, let it do. It would tell—taking the little carriage for a text and key—ever so much about aims and ways and principles, and the drift of a household life, which was one of the busy little currents in the world that help to make up its great universal character and atmosphere, at this present age of things, as the drifts and sweeps of ocean make up the climates and atmospheres that wrap and influence ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... and Borup were busy storing food and medical supplies in the boats, to be ready for an emergency. Had the Roosevelt been crushed by the ice or sunk, we could have lowered the boats at a moment's notice, fitted and equipped for a ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary

... cavalry in a superior manner, but also to have horses for mounting his infantry destined for rapid movements. With such a force Tarleton was detached to beat up Jefferson and the assembly at Charlottesville, where they were busy in voting taxes, making paper-money, draughting the militia, and recruiting for the Virginian line. Tarleton came upon the assembly so suddenly that seven members were taken prisoners, and he captured and destroyed ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... already caused some structural alteration in the building, and has resulted in the College of Arms now appearing out of place in its original position in the City. Other changes, which follow in such rapid succession in that busy neighbourhood, render it by no means improbable that the site of their College may be required for some great "City improvement"; and so the Heralds may be constrained to establish themselves in the more congenial regions of the metropolitan "far west." This, as I am disposed ...
— The Handbook to English Heraldry • Charles Boutell

... quantity of the leaves, and tying them together, I again set out for the pinon-tree. I took the leaves with me, so that I should not have to make the return trip to the sorrel that night again. In a few minutes I had reached the end of my journey, and was busy among the cones. You laugh at my calling it a journey; but I assure you it was a most painful one to me, although it was not ten paces from one tree to the other. The slightest ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... were ever turned toward his father's home in the Lowlands across the sea, and he longed to behold again his gentle mother Sigelind. Then he grew tired of his life of idleness and ease, and he wished that he might go out again into the busy world of manly action and worthy deeds. And day by day this feeling grew stronger, and filled him ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin

... did most to create the switchboard, who has been its devotee for more than thirty years, is a certain modest and little known inventor, still alive and busy, named Charles E. Scribner. Of the nine thousand switchboard patents, Scribner holds six hundred or more. Ever since 1878, when he devised the first "jackknife switch," Scribner has been the wizard ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson

... looking fixedly at the great river that flowed—indifferent and hurried—before his eyes. He liked to look at it about the time of sunset; perhaps because at that time the sinking sun would spread a glowing gold tinge on the waters of the Pantai, and Almayer's thoughts were often busy with gold; gold he had failed to secure; gold the others had secured—dishonestly, of course—or gold he meant to secure yet, through his own honest exertions, for himself and Nina. He absorbed himself ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad

... was like fire in his chest, and he breathed with difficulty. The officer, looking downhill, saw three of the young soldiers, two pails of water between them, staggering across a sunny green field. A table had been set up under a tree, and there the slim lieutenant stood, importantly busy. Then the Captain summoned himself to an act of courage. He ...
— The Prussian Officer • D. H. Lawrence

... clean, but the houses are mean and low. The city looks as if it had just recovered from a conflagration. The houses are nothing but tinder. The grand tile roofs of some other cities are not to be seen. There is not an element of permanence in the wide, and windy streets. It is an increasing and busy place; it lies for two miles along the shore, and has climbed the hill till it can go no higher; but still houses and people look poor. It has a skeleton aspect too, which is partially due to the number of permanent "clothes-horses" on the ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... was the dank, humid cellar which somehow exerted the strongest repulsion on us, even though it was wholly above ground on the street side, with only a thin door and window-pierced brick wall to separate it from the busy sidewalk. We scarcely knew whether to haunt it in spectral fascination, or to shun it for the sake of our souls and our sanity. For one thing, the bad odor of the house was strongest there; and for another thing, we did ...
— The Shunned House • Howard Phillips Lovecraft

... hour Nature's lovers partake, The manna that melts when Life's vapours awake; Another, and thoughts will be busy, oh how Unlike the pure vision ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... While this busy scene was being enacted below stairs, equally important, if quieter dramas were being performed in the dressing-rooms up-stairs, where the maskers were putting the last ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... themselves burdened and harassed with unnatural and unmeaning exercises for years, before they can acquire the art of reading the words of the simplest school book; and, what is still worse, after they have left the school, and have entered upon the busy scenes of life, they find, that they have now to teach themselves an entirely new art,—the art of understanding by reading. Instead of all this waste of energy, and patience, and time, experience has fully proved, that by following the plain and easy dictates of Nature, ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall

... on the following day, 'we sleep to-night at Meitingen, which is our last station. I know the place; it is too busy a house for a coup de main; we must try the charcoal again; but this time we must be sure ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various

... a doubt. I was troubled, and busy. It was one of my factory hands; I think it was the ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch

... said Roy, climbing into an easy chair opposite her; "we were coming only we didn't know it was so late: we were busy talking." ...
— His Big Opportunity • Amy Le Feuvre

... and sold in the market to a steward of a lord. The lord, thinking it an uncommonly fine fish, made a present of it to the king, who ordered it to be dressed immediately. When the cook cut open the salmon he found poor Tom and ran with him directly to the king; but the king, being busy with state affairs, desired that he might ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... the browser at another document (these are specifically called {hotlink}s). 4. In a massively parallel computer with shared memory, the one location that all 10,000 processors are trying to read or write at once (perhaps because they are all doing a {busy-wait} on the same lock). 5. More generally, any place in a hardware design that turns into a performance bottleneck due to ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... of wild birds of the brightest plumage. There were birds and squirrels everywhere! I actually saw a sky-blue bird with a topknot, and another of a bright scarlet color, and gorgeous woodpeckers who were too busy hammering to look at me even. Oh, but they did not sing like the birds in Germany! All were very grave and sad. They seemed to know, as everybody else did, that I was a stranger in their land, for they gave me all sorts of useful Information and advice, ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann

... have the Materials well prepar'd. At last he begins to set up the Furnace; and here there was Occasion for more Gold, as a Bait to catch more: For as a Fish is not caught without a Bait, so Alchymists must cast Gold in, before they can fetch Gold out. In the mean Time, Balbinus was busy in his Accounts; for he reckoned thus, if one Ounce made fifteen, what would be the Product of two thousand; for that was the Sum that he determined to spend. When the Alchymist had spent this Money and two Months Time, pretending to be wonderfully busy about the Bellows and the Coals, ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus

... though untutored understanding. A portion of Jack's time was passed with the surgeon, between whom a great intimacy had sprung up. Time did not, therefore, hang heavily on the hands of the young men; for even during the night their thoughts were busy forming projects, or in embroidering the canvas of the future with those fairy designs which youth ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien

... we going?" asked the little rabbit, but Uncle Lucky was too busy trying to find his other blue polka-dot handkerchief with which to wipe ...
— Billy Bunny and Uncle Bull Frog • David Magie Cory

... to these remarks, pretending to be busy with the baggage. Quite accidentally he lifted an old valise belonging to Will Cummins, who, dressed in a long linen duster, had just boarded the stage. Cummins exchanged glances with the driver, and luckily, as Mat thought, the gamblers ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall

... my friends, you can take possession of your new quarters. Go with them, Dada. By-and-bye we will find you a pretty room in the tower. Come and see me very often, sweet one, and tell me all your prettiest tales. When I am not too busy I shall always be glad to see you, for you and I have a secret ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... him but that I should ask to see her when I left the hospital, and as he seemed really anxious on the point I promised to do so, though inwardly averse from disturbing a busy woman. ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates

... white owl?" No one spoke in the shop, The barber was busy, and he couldn't stop; The customers, waiting their turns, were all reading The "Daily," the "Herald," the "Post," little heeding The young man who blurted out such a blunt question; Not one raised a head, or even made a suggestion; And ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... branches who were then able to pass their information on to the rest of us. We were given an army gymnastic instructor who brushed up our physical training—on which we had always been very keen—and also started to put us through a thorough course of bayonet fighting. There was also a busy time among our machine gunners, who trained spare teams up to nearly three times our establishment, which was invaluable, as it enabled us to take advantage of the chance which came to us of going abroad with six machine guns per regiment ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie

... Injustice of mankind which embitters both life and death Not so easy to quit her house as to enter it Sin consisted only in the scandal Trusting too implicitly to their own innocence Voltaire was formed never to be (happy) When everyone is busy, you may continue silent Whose discourses began by a ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau • David Widger

... &c. 115. bad time, wrong time, inappropriate time, not the right occasion, unsuitable time, inopportune time, poor timing. V. be ill timed &c. adj.; mistime, intrude, come amiss, break in upon; have other fish to fry; be busy, be occupied. lose an opportunity, throw away an opportunity, waste an opportunity, neglect &c. 460 an opportunity; allow the opportunity to pass, suffer the opportunity to pass, allow the opportunity to slip, suffer the opportunity to slip, allow the opportunity ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... salt, sugar, a green fruit something between a plum and greengage, meat, onions, salads, dhie, sherbets, kubabs, wicker- work, singing birds, are offered for sale: also abundance of Lucerne and some bhoosee. Altogether it is a busy place, but not so busy as the road near the gate, which is thronged by followers, and dismounted Europeans, who are forbidden access to the city without a pass. Tea from Khiva of good quality is procurable in small quantities. No women but old ones to be seen. The dress of the inhabitants ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith

... sun; a drowsy horror Sits on their eyes, like fear, not well awake; All crowd in heaps, as, at a night alarm, The bees drive out upon each others backs, To imboss their hives in clusters; all ask news; Their busy captain runs the weary round, To whisper orders; and, commanding silence, Makes not noise cease, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... concerning the enthusiastic reception your big History has had among liberal people on this side of the Atlantic, but he did not inform you that he should send the American public next spring a similar though much smaller work, entitled "The Woman Question in Europe." The Putnams of New York are now busy on the volume. You in the new world have little idea how the leaders of the women's movement here watch everything you do in the United States. The great fact which my husband's volume will teach you in America is the important and direct influence your movement is having on ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... off his horse and scrambled over the bank into the covert in search of his hounds. He pushed his way through briars and furze-bushes, and suddenly, near the middle of the wood, he caught sight of them. They were in a small group, they were very quiet and very busy. As a matter of fact they were engaged in ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... I went into the library, a letter lay waiting for me. I saw that it was Coralie's handwriting, and my first impulse was to burn it unread. Why should she write to me again? Her letters only pained me. I threw it aside and began to work—in the busy occupation of the morning I forgot all ...
— Coralie • Charlotte M. Braeme

... magnificent clothes of silks and velvets and cloth-of-gold, with costly jewels, such as ropes of pearls; and their servants, whose duty it was to go before their masters on the street, wore suits of livery with the silver badge of their master. London in those days was a wonderfully busy place! On board the ships sailing up the river were men in strange costumes, from foreign lands. The 'prentices would often stop work to watch a company of Portuguese sailors pass, or a gorgeous procession of bishops with their ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson

... butter. Of these delicacies Hugo partook coram populo. This carried conviction with it. One onlooker would say to another: "Shows you he's real, don't it? At one time I thought it was only a dummy." And for some time afterwards the assistant in the shop would be kept busy, handing out the gratis explanatory booklet ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain

... enough fer a while, leftenant," he managed to whisper hoarsely to me. "But they is jest boys growed up, an' if eny one o' them should really take a notion ter raise hell, all the cussin' I might do wouldn't make no diffrance. Whatever yer aim at, better be done right off, while I kin sorter keep 'em busy down yere; onct they git loose on the deck the devil himself couldn't stop 'em frum startin' ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish

... only after nightfall. But the consequence was, that the usually serene forehead of Madame Letitia grew dark, because she was by no means satisfied with the performance of her laundress. Just as her busy hands took up another piece from the basket and unfolded it, the door behind her opened. She heard it, but did not turn, knowing very well that it was Cordelia who entered her room, for no one else ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach

... alcove, and the "Iliad" stood unopened on the shelf. Instead of rambling in the woods, or strolling on the banks of the Ohio, or galloping to Marietta clad in a crimson cloak, or giving banquets or balls to entertain the admiring gentry of Belpre, Madam Blennerhassett spent busy days and anxious nights working and planning for a potential greatness, a prospective high emprise. A change had come over the spirit of her dream. She had ceased to feel an interest in domestic duties and pleasures; she neglected ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... if it were as easy to do as it is to advise, this would be a busy world. She will cry, and a woman's tears hurt the right sort of man. But bless my soul, Dic, why don't you settle your own affairs? I'm tired of it all. It's getting to trouble me as much as it troubles you." Billy paused, gazing into the fire, and dropped into a half-revery. ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major

... following Monday morning succeeding the encounter with Bolles, John boarded a car and went out to the shops as usual. He found nothing changed. The clerks in the office were busy with huge ledgers, though it is true that many a hand was less firm than on ordinary days. Rumors were flying about, from clerk to clerk, but none knew what the boss intended to do. From the shops themselves came the roaring and hammering that had gone on these thirty years or more. ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath

... permit the charming and graceful closing of all letters in the French manner, those little flowers of compliment that leave such a pleasant fragrance after reading. But ever since the Eighteenth Century the English-speaking have been busy pruning away all ornament of expression; even the last remaining graces, "kindest regards," "with kindest remembrances," are fast disappearing, leaving us nothing but an abrupt "Yours truly," or ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... canalized regions of China the country villages crowd both banks of a canal, as is the case in Fig. 10. Here, too, often is a single street and it very narrow, very crowded and very busy. Stone steps lead from the houses down into the water where clothing, vegetables, rice and what not are conveniently washed. In this particular village two rows of houses stand on one side of the canal ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King

... with reference to the different stages of his work, "During the former part, I lived in the centre of business, was intimately acquainted with many of the chief actors, was eager in politics, and indefatigable in heaping up materials for my work. Now, detached from those busy scenes, with many political connexions dropped or dissolved; indifferent to events, and indolent; I shall have fewer opportunities of informing myself or others." And in this supposed indolence and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various

... well-charged blunderbusses, as levelled every man of them with the earth. A moment's pause ensued, and the door was again filled with new aspirants for "fame in the cannon's mouth," who, however, fared as badly as the preceding batch. During this time the assailing party had been busy with crowbars and other instruments, in making several breaches in the yard walls. At length they succeeded in opening entrances in three different places at the same time, and thus in a few minutes several hundred men ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... ones these spirits be. Hark! with shrewd intelligence, How they recommend to thee Action, and the joys of sense! In the busy world to dwell, Fain they would allure thee hence: For within this lonely cell, Stagnate ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... out of the way Mrs. Griffis ran close up to the combatants. The bear was being kept too busy to spare her any attention whatever. Coolly setting the muzzle of the big gun (which was loaded with buckshot) close to the beast's side, just behind the fore-shoulder, she pulled the trigger. There was a roar that filled ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts

... for my gold, you little rogue," he said, looking as if he meant to frighten her. "Never mind," he added, smiling, "you are a good child, and did what was right; and I always meant to bring it back to you, but I have been kept rather busy these few days past. There it is for you, and try not to break the tenth commandment again." Then turning to Mrs. Newton, he said, "We should not expect rewards, ma'am, for doing our duty, but if children do not meet with approbation when they do right, they may be discouraged, ...
— Fanny, the Flower-Girl • Selina Bunbury

... compounded bowls. We may here remark that, had our hint of last season been attended to, the Punch would have still been continued:—Mr. Harley would not consent to have the flies picked out of the sugar. Rumour is busy with the suggestion that for this reason, and this only, Keeley seceded from ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 12, 1841 • Various

... with Mrs. Van; for the weather is so bad, and I am so busy, that I can't dine with great folks: and besides I dare eat but little, to keep my head in order, which is better. Lord Treasurer is very ill, but I hope in no danger. We have no quiet with the Whigs, they are so violent against a peace; but I'll cool them, ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... small, one-room house. After buying a bed, a table, two chairs, and a few cooking utensils, she began housekeeping. Often she started out at six in the morning, not to return until dark. Most frequently she read the Bible to those who could not read. Sometimes she gave cheer to mothers busy over the washtub. Sometimes she would teach the children to read or to sew. Often she would write letters for those who had been separated from friends or kindred in the dark days. She wrote hundreds and hundreds of such letters; and once in a while, a very long ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley

... appearance and manner of an uncouth countryman. There was a subtle, half-conscious homage for her mother in his every look and word, and for herself a politeness almost as distant and unobtrusive as her own. Once, when a sigh escaped her as she was busy about the room, she looked apprehensively at him, and, as she feared, encountered a glance from which nothing could escape. She now felt that her assumed cheerfulness deceived him so little that, were it not for Belle, she would wholly forego the effort, and end the long, miserable ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe

... the prodigal display of crude intellectual power. His poetic alchemy is less potent, the ore of sordid fact remains sordid still. Not that his high spirituality is insecure, his heroic idealism dimmed; but they coalesce less intimately with the alert wit and busy intelligence of the mere "clever man," and seek their nutriment and material more readily in regions of legend and romance, where the transmuting work of imagination has been already done. It is no accident that his lifelong delight in the ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford

... navy, and asking permission to anchor. The captain of the American battle-ship was standing on his bridge as we steamed down the line, with a man in our chains heaving the lead, my mate on the fore-bridge and myself on the after-bridge, a quartermaster to the wheel, and the second mate spying, busy as could be, through a long glass; and not alone the captain, but the nine hundred and odd officers and men of the American battle-ship roared in review of us. The other ships in port didn't know what to make ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly

... tried to get Vi to tell in what sort of house Aunt Jo lived, and near what other houses or big buildings it was. But Vi was only six years old, and she hadn't noticed much about houses. She had been too busy playing. ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Aunt Jo's • Laura Lee Hope

... boarding and has no use for his share. So he asks you to accept it," called out Bones, as the farmer started to toss the game in the back part of the doctor's buggy. "That's kind o' him, and I'm sure much obliged. We don't get any too much game up here, close as we are to the marsh. I'm too busy, you see, and then besides, I never was a great hand to shoot. In summer I pull in quite some fish at odd times, and that's all the ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes

... Teuton, for a time content with trifling profit, underbid all rivals—and orders and contracts poured into Germany. Belgian products competed only in price; and American manufacturers seemed too busy in providing goods for home use to seriously try for business in Asia—they booked orders coming practically unsought, that was about all. The Chino-Japanese conflict of a dozen years ago, although disastrous to China's army, ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield

... what I'd better do?" he mused, as he walked along the street, where many men were busy clearing away the snow. "I don't like to report what he said to me to any of the baseball authorities, for it would look as though I was afraid of him. And I'm not!" declared Joe, sturdily. "Shalleg wasn't himself, or he wouldn't have said such things. He didn't know quite what he ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick

... scream and a rush of steam As the engine moved ahead, With a measured beat by the slum and street Of the busy town we fled, By the uplands bright and the homesteads white, With the rush of the western gale, And the pilot swayed with the pace we made As she rocked on the ringing rail. And the country children clapped their hands As the engine's echoes rang, But their elders said: 'There is work ahead When ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... organ-like quality. It was in good-keeping with the tall, spare body and large, fine, rugged face of the woman to whom it belonged. She sat in a rocking-chair, but did not rock, her fingers busy with the knitting-needles, her feet planted squarely on the ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker

... structure with two towers. This ground was the scene of the main British attack on Loos two months later, and the building was the famous Tower Bridge. The squalid little town between Houchin and Sailly, at whose busy coal-mine the enemy intermittently threw shells, was Noeux-les-Mines, where Lord French had his forward headquarters during the fighting. But even then there was an abundance of the sound of battle, for on the second ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell

... course in the basin of the Loire, and the atmosphere was singularly clear. The sky was so pure that the eye could seize the slightest details on the horizon. What language can render the delightful concert of busy sounds produced in the village by the return of the workers from the fields? Such a scene, to be rightly given, needs a great landscape artist and also a great painter of the human face. Is there not, by the bye, in the lassitude of Nature and that of man a curious ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac

... at any given time. The installation of gas for an attack on this scale would have been a matter of vast and complicated organisation if there were no other activities in the trench system, and no enemy to harass the work. But to co-ordinate such an enterprise with the busy night life of the trench system and to leave the enemy unaware of your activities was a task which tried the patience, not only of the Special Companies, who organised, guided, and controlled these operations, but much more so of the Infantry Brigades and Divisions ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden

... perfect day! What a golden desert this spreading moor! Everywhere sunshine. I wished I could live in it and on it. I saw a lizard run over the crag; I saw a bee busy among the sweet bilberries. I would fain at the moment have become bee or lizard, that I might have found fitting nutriment, permanent shelter here. But I was a human being, and had a human being's wants: I must not linger ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... Second fellow-lodger was a busy, reserved woman, originally from Kansas City, who had something to do with some branch library. She had solved the problems of woman's lack of place in this city scheme by closing tight her emotions, her sense of adventure, her hope of friendship. She never ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis

... encourage any thoughts which gave woman a place in his mind. The very visualizing of Lampton as a girl, comical as it had been, had forced before his eyes another face and another form which he had been striving to forget. Whenever he was idle, and too often when he was busy over some piece of work which ought to have engrossed his entire thoughts, her haunting charm and beauty would suddenly become more real and vivid than the bright blues and greens and reds of the pigments on the white walls ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer

... a fresh breeze sprung up, and we shaped a course accordingly. The two ships had it presently afterwards, and neared us amazingly fast. Now every body on board gave themselves up; the officers were busy in their cabins filling their pockets with what was most valuable; the men put on their best clothes, and many of them came to me with little lumps of gold, desiring I would take them, as they said they had much rather I should benefit by them, whom they were acquainted with, than ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... and repassing him—these winds. A sigh, a certain coolness, a faint whisper—that was all as they entered the shaft and sped upward like ghosts of a busy world. ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington

... to gather up the tangled threads of her scrappy narrative. Nor did the lictors this time try to interfere with the woman. The praefect apparently was in no easy temper to-day, and when ill-humour seized him rods and flails were kept busy. ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... can endure unmixed delight, whoever can tolerate music and painting and poetry all in one, whoever wishes to be rid of thought and to let the busy anvils of the brain be silent for a time, let him read ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... Ruddel's furnished him with a genuine case of homesickness, after all. How perfect would life be in such surroundings! He liked to think of breakfast: He and Nancy, alone, except, of course, for the pretty, efficient maid—at their mahogany breakfast table. Nancy, busy with the coffee things at one end and he at the other—no, at the side—tucking away his grapefruit and bacon and hot buttered muffins and jam in the last few minutes before he dashed off up the hill to his eight-thirty. Good heavens, what a life that would be! He saw Nancy with ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis

... and white, policemen and the miscellaneous human flotsam and jetsam that always manages somehow or other to find its way to a murder trial. Inside the rail O'Brien, the assistant district attorney, was busy in conversation with three cueless Chinamen in American clothes. At the bar sat Mock Hen with Mr. Tutt beside him, flanked by Wong Get, ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train

... paused an instant upon the threshold, then, scarce conscious of what she was doing pushed open the unbarred portal and stepped within the gloomy chamber. So silent was her coming that Fawkes, busy with his dagger and the mortar, did not perceive it. The girl hesitated, trembling in every limb; the blackness of the place, the intense excitement under which she labored, and the fearful thought ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley

... their commander were busy making themselves as comfortable as possible in and around the cave, the scout went quietly up to the clump of wood where Leather was in hiding, and related to that unfortunate all that had taken ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne

... a character like Mr. Carville came to me while I was busy finishing "Casuals of the Sea" during the late fall of 1912. A short story was the result. It went to many likely and unlikely publishers, for I knew very little of the field. I don't know whether the "Farm Journal" ...
— Aliens • William McFee

... and Statesville have also afforded remarkable instances of thrift and expansion in the busy latter years of our State's history. Now, besides being a favorite resort as a watering place, supplements its summer festivities with large numbers of visitors avoiding the rigors of winter months elsewhere. ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore

... be any point in following them. Evidently they were too busy organizing the city to cause trouble to the human inhabitants; at least there hadn't been any violence yet. Anyway, I wanted to think the situation over before matching wits with them again, and I wanted to be a good ...
— Robots of the World! Arise! • Mari Wolf

... suffered in vain.—In looking back, it sometimes appears to me as if I had in a manner slept out my life in a dream or shadow on the side of the hill of knowledge, where I have fed on books, on thoughts, on pictures, and only heard in half-murmurs the trampling of busy feet, or the noises of the throng below. Waked out of this dim, twilight existence, and startled with the passing scene, I have felt a wish to descend to the world of realities, and join in the chase. But I fear too late, and that I had better return to my bookish ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... "a petted child of ten years old, born and bred in the country, and as shy as a hare." The schoolmistress, a Mrs. S—-, "seldom came near us. Her post was to sit all day, nicely dressed, in a nicely-furnished drawing-room, busy with some piece of delicate needlework, receiving mammas, aunts, and godmammas, answering questions, and administering as much praise as she conscientiously could—perhaps a little more. In the school-room she ruled, like other rulers, by ministers and delegates, ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker

... bespeak your favour also for another artist, who is busy at the same time in the chambers of ...
— Philebus • Plato

... read over the specifications and instructions, Mr. Dunphy, Mr. Powers, and myself went to St. Louis to look over the plans to see the nature of the material and the construction of the various buildings. We went to Mr. Taylor's office and were informed that Mr. Taylor was busy and could not see us. Mr. Taylor's secretary, Mr. Carl Hoblitzelle, took us into an adjoining room. He did not ask our names, and we did not tell him who we were. While we were waiting in this room—I presume ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission

... bally wood-pile at the back of the barracks yard; "A damned disgrace to the force, sir", with a comrade standing guard; Making the bluff I'm busy, doing my ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service

... novel that it could not be absent from the followings thereof. For which same reason there is not a very little of it in Lesage, while, for an opposite one, there is less in Marivaux, and hardly any at all in Crebillon or Prevost. The philosophes, except Diderot—who was busy with other things and used his acquaintance with miscellaneous "documents" in another way—would have disdained it, and the Sentimentalists still more so. But it is a sign of the shortcomings of Pigault-Lebrun—especially ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... months; and in that truest of fictions, "The History of the Plague Year," Defoe shows death, with every accompaniment of pain and terror, stalking through the narrow streets of old London, and changing their busy hum into a silence broken only by the wailing of the mourners of fifty thousand dead; by the woful denunciations and mad prayers of fanatics; and by the madder yells ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley

... too many serious cares on his mind to busy himself long with any thought of Margarita or her fibs. She had said the first thing which came into her head, most likely, to shelter herself from the Senora's displeasure; which was indeed very near the truth, only there was added a spice of malice against ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson



Words linked to "Busy" :   at work, labouring, putter, laboring, up to, occupied, diligent, smatter, idle, dabble, work, active, drudging, fancy, potter, toiling, play around, tied up, intrusive, employed



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