"Siesta" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... put a cattle car up next ter ther injine fer sech sensitive people like you. Yer might enj'y a leetle siesta ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... news of the disaster at Cumana had long since reached Hispaniola and Las Casas heard of it in the following manner, while journeying on foot across the island with several companions. One day, while he was taking his afternoon siesta under a tree, a party of travellers joined his companions, who enquired what news there was in Santo Domingo or from Spain. The newcomers answered that the only recent news was that of the murder of the clerigo Las Casas ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... which gave them birth. Some writings of Asinius Gallus were being read aloud to me in my Laurentine villa; in these works he was comparing his father with Cicero; we came upon an epigram of Cicero dedicated to his freedman Tiro. Shortly after, about noon—for it was summer—I retired to take my siesta, and finding that I could not sleep, I began to reflect how the very greatest orators have taken delight in composing this style of verse, and have hoped to win fame thereby. I set my mind to it, and, quite contrary to my ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... after the mysterious estrangement and this sudden reappearance of her old friend, Jean, too, was to be called away and the pair be left alone. Arch plotters that these women are! They had chosen the hour when the doctor almost invariably took his siesta, and both ladies had warned their friends on no account to select that opportunity to rush over and congratulate the lieutenant on his convalescence,—a thing the Gordon girls would have been sure to do. Miss Bruce had gone so far as to ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... when, with toe set to toe squarely on the scratch, we stood up to one another, with eyes glaring through the gloaming, and gave and took manfully, fighting out anew the old battles of the Bourbon vs. China, of King James vs. Virginia, of Graham vs. Greece! I could tell you of the siesta of the new Prometheus, when, perched on the Mount Caucasus of a bleak chain-cable, he gave himself postprandially, in full livery of seisin, to the vulturous sun. Wasted, yet daily renewed, enduring, yet murmuring not, he hurled defiance at Fat, scoffed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... the bath, which, with a change of garments, found necessary to remove the taint of tobacco obtained by remaining so long amidst such quantities of it. Then a siesta, and after drove to dine with our kind friends who procured permits for our admission to the "Fabrica del Tobago." After dinner to spend the evening with a Spanish family related to our mercurial friend, Don ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... God disposes. Cappy had smoked his post- prandial cigar next day and was in the midst of his mid-afternoon siesta, when the buzzer on his desk waked him with its insistent buzzing. He reached for ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... Sardanapalus, coiled up in the foreground, just to give life to the scene, don't you know, and an excuse for a title. I mean to call it 'The Rajah's Rest.' Behind, great ferns and a mossy bank; in front, Sardanapalus, after tiffin, rolled spirally round, and taking his siesta." ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... of the summer afternoon the Red House was taking its siesta. There was a lazy murmur of bees in the flower-borders, a gentle cooing of pigeons in the tops of the elms. From distant lawns came the whir of a mowing-machine, that most restful of all country sounds; making ease the sweeter in that it is ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne
... consists of a house and garden, where the monks go by turns to enjoy the country air. Comfortable padres! There is one room looking into the garden, and opening into a walk bordered by rose- bushes, which is such a place for a siesta; cool, retired, fragrant. A hammock with a mattress on it is slung across the room, and here the good padre may lie, with one eye opened to the roses, and the other closed in inward meditation. However, its whole merit consists in being cleanly and ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... any house, whether if I took the road I should find one in a mile, or in two, or in five. And, note you, I was utterly exhausted. That enormous march from Faido, though it had been wisely broken by the siesta at Bellinzona, needed more than a few cold hours under trees, and I thought of the three poor francs in my pocket, and of the ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... move his helpless family." While the ladies were presenting his case to me, the Frenchman manifested great anxiety, and made the most touching appeals in the piteous expression of his face and manner. Presently, my husband, who had been indulging in his usual siesta, awoke and came down stairs. "Now, the poor fellow can tell his own story," and "Mr. Charless" was pathetically appealed to, to listen to his tale of woe. Unfortunately for the man he was immediately recognized by ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... minutes he returned and took up his parcel. As he entered the outer gate of the convent, Lucy could see him glancing nervously from side to side. But it was the hour of siesta and of quiet. His tormentors of the morning were all ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... The siesta was over; and the profound stillness in which the capital of New Spain had been buried during the preceding two hours, was suddenly broken by the hum of innumerable voices. The noise, which commenced in the suburbs, extended itself rapidly, and increased almost ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... afternoon," said the Captain, "just after my siesta, engaged, by-the-by, in writing a letter to a relation of mine at Lucerne, when I was interrupted by Mr. Marshall—a gentleman with whom I had frequent business transactions—bursting hurriedly into the room. From the unusual agitation in his manner I imagined that something serious ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... of the temperate zone; and it is a curious physiological phenomenon to observe the alligators of North America plunged into a winter-sleep by excess of cold, at the same period when the crocodiles of the Llanos begin their siesta or summer-sleep. If it were probable that these animals of the same family had heretofore inhabited the same northern country, we might suppose that, in advancing towards the equator, they feel the want of repose after having exercised their muscles for seven or eight months, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... kingfisher or parrot. A great silence pervaded the woods, for the trees were for the most part so lofty that the sough of the wind in their topmost branches was inaudible, and it was the hour when the insect world indulged in its daily siesta. Animals there were none to be seen, but an occasional sudden quick rustle of the grass told them that snakes were to be watched for ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... at least one occasion, a great Pharaoh of bygone days had to spring from his couch and fight single-handed for his life against a crowd of conspirators who had forced an entrance into the palace while he was enjoying his siesta. So since then Pharaoh has found it better to trust in his strong walls, and in the big broadswords of his faithful Sardinian guardsmen, than in any divinity ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt • James Baikie
... not fall into these views without discussion. I spare the reader the dialogue, since he yielded at last; only he stipulated that his sister should do the dinner, and the subsequent siesta. ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... sleeping in damp places. Nedda stepped gingerly on the mat, moved round and round in a circle several times, even as the most primitive dog might do, and settled herself in a round heap for her late afternoon siesta. Then O'Sudzu, the little maid, spread a wadded silk cover over the pampered old ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... late, however, he felt sure that he might venture, if he could only get cash for the journey. He wanted to drift back to the idleness and adventure and the "easy money" of the old anarchist days in Cadiz and Madrid. He was sick for the patio and the plaza, for the bull-fight, for the siesta in the sun, for the lazy glamour of the gardens and the red wine of Valladolid, for the redolent cigarette of the roadside tavern. This cold iron land had spoiled him, and he would strive to get himself home again before it was too late. In Spain there would always be some woman whom he ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... parties remained stationary; the pursued indulging in a siesta, which days of rough riding and raiding, with nights of watchfulness, have made necessary; the pursuers, on their part, wearied as well, but unable to sleep so long as their vengeance remains unappeased, and such dread danger hangs over the heads of those ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... as he wakened Michael after his midday siesta on the day which had brought them within sight of ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... style, with a long grass hammock slung from corner to corner, intersecting the room diagonally, which, as they hang very low, about six inches only from the floor, it was not once only, that entering a house during the siesta, when the windows were darkened, I have tumbled headlong over a Don or Dofia, taking his or her forenoon nap. But if movables were scarce, there was no paucity of silver dishes; basins, spit boxes, censers, and utensils of all shapes, descriptions, and sizes, of this precious metal, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... occurred to him that the other divers might also be indulging in a siesta. He therefore left his lamp on the deck behind him. The hold was very dark, and at first he could see nothing. As he could hear nothing, he fancied that the men could not be there, but he was somewhat rudely corrected in ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... of the caravanserai Venetia Corona was sitting, listless in the heat, when her attendant entered. The grandes dames who were her companions in their tour through the seat of war were gone to their siesta. She was alone, with a scarlet burnous thrown about her, and upon her all the languor and idleness common to the noontide, which was still very warm, though, in the autumn, the nights were so icily cold on the ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... as to her position. "How did you know me?" he asked. "You are expected," she replied, "and no one but an Englishman would have called at the hour of the siesta. Shall I show your worship to your own room, or will you await the ladies in the library?" His hand was on the little fan, and he was striving to frame some question whose answer would enlighten him ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... lady. The garden of the villa into which he so much wished to penetrate was walled about with those amazing masses of brickwork which point to a date when labour was cheap indeed. Edmund had more than once dawdled under the deep shadow of these shapeless masses of wall at the hour of the general siesta. ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... the Royal personages washed their hands with water, and their mouths with cocoa-milk, and then lay down altogether to sleep; the attendants retiring. I offered to her Majesty the use of my bed, which she condescendingly accepted; and during the siesta, I returned to my plans for our astronomical observations. On awaking, the Queen expressed a wish to see my frigate; my time was not at my own disposal, but I entrusted to one of my officers the charge of doing the honours of ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... day in the far east was breaking, Young Love, who all night had been roving about, A charming siesta was quietly taking, His strength, by his rambles, completely ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... when his mother introduced me into the parlor, father, in shirt-sleeves, was already rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and preparing to light the first after-siesta cigarette. When my impressiveness had penetrated his reawakening intellect, he prepared me a document which, reduced to succinct English, amounted to the statement that the prison and all it contained was mine for ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... the first salt breath had been exhaled in the clouds about the topmost peaks of the Blue Mountains, thousands of feet in the air, the party at Escondido had again returned to the broad piazzas, where, with blinds open, and swinging in cool grass hammocks, the men took siesta, while the ladies sought ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... Maria taking their evening walk on the common, away from the village which is waking up from its after-dinner siesta, and where the people are beginning to stir and the music to play. With the music Maria knows Madame de Bernstein will waken: with the candles she must be back to the tea-table and the cards. Never mind. Here is a minute. It may ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Chinaman chef his orders for the day, and send him off to make such purchases as were possible in the now scanty market. Then reading, writing, receiving callers of their own sex would fill up the morning. There would be a brief siesta after luncheon, an hour or so on the broad veranda overlooking the sparkling bay, then dress and the inevitable drive. Of Armstrong they had seen nothing, heard next to nothing. He was busy with his men over toward East ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... dined, was taking his siesta, or afternoon's sleep, in his tent, and the queen, though curious to see this singular man, yet from a natural delicacy and reserve delayed until the king should be present. He was taken, therefore, to an adjoining tent, in which were Dona Beatrix de Bovadilla, marchioness of Moya, ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... had lunched in the dim, cool dining-room, and Lady MacGregor had proposed a siesta for all sensible people, Stephen stopped the girl on her way upstairs as ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Mrs. Shortridge, and she reined her mule back, "I am too near them already. I will not dare to take my siesta with these fellows in the neighborhood, for fear of waking up in another place than Portugal." And she followed her melting husband, who was hastening out of the sun, in the hope of regaining his solidity in the shade ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... taken a siesta, then, toward the close of the afternoon, he had gone out to breathe the fresh, soothing breeze under the ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... great forest, with the solitary exception of the metallic note of the uruponga, or bell-bird, which seems to mount guard when all the rest of the world has gone to sleep. As the afternoon approaches they all wake up, refreshed by their siesta, active and lively as fairies, and ready for another spell of work and another ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... cabins. The doors of the room of the fountain were open, but the room was full of shadow, which, from his little boat, the eyes of Isaacson could not penetrate. As they came alongside no voice greeted them. He began to regret having come in the hour of the siesta. They glided along past green shutter after green shutter till they were level with the forward deck. And there, in an attitude of smiling attention, stood the tall ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... brief siesta M. Forgues and his companion resume their journey toward Villa Rica. Under a shed on the roadside they see a dozen women, all talking at the same time, and engaged in grating manioc-roots in pails of water. The mixture thus obtained composes ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... that even if you are a poor walker you can toddle half way up a German hill and down again; and the hotel itself has been built high above the valley. But after dinner you find that nearly everyone disappears for a siesta, while the few who keep outside are asleep over their coffee and cigar. Even Skat hardly keeps awake the three Herren who proposed a walk; and your friend the Frau Geheimrath Schultze warns you solemnly against the insanity of stirring ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... no housekeeper of a curato! She is not a damsel to take a siesta with a Tunisian rover prowling about in her neighborhood. Hadst ever been beyond the Lido, thou wouldst have known the difference between chasing the ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... of Alessio Baldovinetti, but she knew that Mr. Eager was no commonplace chaplain. He was a member of the residential colony who had made Florence their home. He knew the people who never walked about with Baedekers, who had learnt to take a siesta after lunch, who took drives the pension tourists had never heard of, and saw by private influence galleries which were closed to them. Living in delicate seclusion, some in furnished flats, others in Renaissance villas on Fiesole's ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... sister had a piano and tried to play despite his violent mockery. One afternoon, when the sun drove the town to its siesta, he wandered into the room where stood the instrument. Moved by an automatic impulse, the lad placed one finger on a treble key. He shuddered as it tinkled under the pressure; then he struck the major third and held both keys ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... young women could well be imagined, than that which existed in this instance. Lady Enville—for she was the taker of the siesta—was as free from any appearance of angularity or primness as possible. Everything about her was soft, delicate, and graceful. She was fair in complexion, and very pretty. She had been engaged in fancy-work, and it lay upon her lap, held lightly ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... an intensely hot afternoon, the air close and heavy with humidity, an hour when all Texans who can do so take a siesta. Judge and counsel were snoozing peacefully on the gallery of the distant court house, and the two bailiffs guarding the "jury room," overcome by habit and the heat, were stretched at full length on the ground, ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... into her own chair as she spoke, and fanned a fly from Diavolo's face. "I never knew anyone sleep so soundly," she said, looking down at him lovingly. "He rides out here nearly every day when he is not on duty, simply for his siesta. Angelica is jealous, I believe, because he will not go to her. He says there is no repose about Angelica, and that it is only here with me that he finds the ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... the secrets of our authorities to specify the day on which Jeff Davis will dine at the White House, and Ben McCulloch take his siesta in General Siegel's gilded tent. We should dislike to produce any disappointment by naming too soon or too early a day; but it will save trouble if the gentlemen will keep themselves in readiness to dislodge at a moment's notice. If they are not smitten, however, with more than ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... humbler abode, on the eve of the South Sea collapse.) It stood at the foot of Custom House Hill and looked down the length of Fore Street—a perspective view of which the Major never wearied—no, not even on hot afternoons when the population took its siesta within doors and, in the words of Cai Tamblyn, "you might shot a cannon down the streets of Troy, and no person would be shoot." This Cai (or Caius) Tamblyn, an eccentric little man of uncertain age, with a black servant ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... for her, including a real birthday cake with her own initials worked all over it in painted sugar and a lovely silver flag waving from the top. The Infanta accordingly rose up with much dignity, and having given orders that the little dwarf was to dance again for her after the hour of siesta, and conveyed her thanks to the young Count of Tierra-Nueva for his charming reception, she went back to her apartments, the children following in the same order ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde
... the Memon or Rangari has his chief meal consisting of leavened or unleavened bread, meat curry or stew or two "kababs" or fried fish, followed perhaps by mangoes, when in season; and when this is over he indulges in a siesta whenever his business allows of it. The afternoon prayers are followed by re-application to business, which keeps him busy in his shop until 8 or 9 p.m., when he again returns home to a frugal supper of "khichdi." It is hardly a satisfying meal, and many young Memons indulge in a fresh collation ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... Saltonstall, leaning back in her hammock. "Raymond is an old friend. You had better take your siesta now, child, to be bright for dinner. I expect a visitor ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... built and shaped busily all day, and the work progressed rapidly. On the tufted heath with its stiff sedges and by the river with its reeds and rushes, there was no lack of building material. They had no time for noon siesta nor for evening rest. Glowing with eagerness and delight, they flew to and fro, and before night came they had ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... the confessor came to inform the French General that Sister Theresa and the Mother consented to receive him at the grating in the parlour before vespers. The General spent the siesta in pacing to and fro along the quay in the noonday heat. Thither the priest came to find him, and brought him to the convent by way of the gallery round the cemetery. Fountains, green trees, and ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... fiesta When you've Hiked for half a day; And a little noon siesta Helps to pass the ...
— Rhymes of the Rookies • W. E. Christian
... alone through the desert for three days and saw neither footman nor horseman; withal, his sleep fled and his wakefulness redoubled, for he pined after his people and his homestead. He ate of the herbs of the earth and drank of its flowing waters and siesta'd under its trees at hours of noontide heats, till he turned from that road to another way and, following it other three days, came on the fourth to a land of green leas, dyed with the hues of plants and trees and with sloping valley ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... restlessness might provoke their curiosity or suspicion. I sat for hours on my bed, awaiting the time for our attempt. The men brought me my midday meal: one of them made a brutal remark on my pallor; and then the door was shut, and they settled themselves to their usual siesta. ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... . sallied forth," he writes, {203b} "alone and on horseback, and bent my course to a distant village; on my arrival, which took place just after the siesta or afternoon's nap had concluded, I proceeded . . . to the market place, where I spread a horse-cloth on the ground, upon which I deposited my books. I then commenced crying with a loud voice: 'Peasants, ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... did you come to ask Miss Frayne to go to that awful place tonight?" asked Silvia when we had gone to our room for a siesta, which seemed impossible by reason of the bellowing of Diogenes, who balked at ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... than the animals, like to be caught napping; but I remember, one autumn day, coming upon a red-eyed vireo that was clearly oblivious to all that was passing around it. It was a young bird, though full grown, and it was taking its siesta on a low branch in a remote heathery field. Its head was snugly stowed away under its wing, and it would have fallen easy prey to the first hawk that came along. I approached noiselessly, and when within a few feet of it paused to note its breathings, so much ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... evening; an opal-colored light, through which an autumnal sun shed its golden rays, descended on the blue ocean. The heat of the day had gradually decreased, and a light breeze arose, seeming like the respiration of nature on awakening from the burning siesta of the south. A delicious zephyr played along the coasts of the Mediterranean, and wafted from shore to shore the sweet perfume of plants, mingled with the fresh smell ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... near the villages. Some sing as loudly as our thrushes, and the king-hunter ('Halcyon Senegalensis') makes a clear whirring sound like that of a whistle with a pea in it. During the heat of the day all remain silent, and take their siesta in the shadiest parts of the trees, but in the cool of the evening they again exert themselves in the production of pleasant melody. It is remarkable that so many songbirds abound where there is a general paucity of other ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... in naval parlance, were very much in evidence. The sailor's "corking mat" is a strip of canvas which he spreads upon the deck to protect his clothing from the tarry seams, when he feels the necessity for a siesta or nap, which is ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... willingly take it again. The sand had far too hospitable a trick of holding on to you at every step to be to my liking. Besides, the sun, which had come out with summer insistence, chose that particular spot for its midday siesta, and lay there at full length, while the air was preternaturally still. It was a stupidly drowsy heat that gave no fillip to the ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... certainly did not have what one would call a good time. She loved the Maidan and golf at the Jodhpur Club, or Tollygunge, before breakfast; she cordially loathed shopping and duty calls; grudged the hours lost out of life in the daily afternoon siesta, and took part in dances, bridge, dinners, and all the usual monotonous effort to kill time, with the air of ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... noticed all this. Rosita's mother was indulging in a siesta; and Cibolo, if he saw anything amiss, said nothing about it to any one, but wagged his tail, and looked good-humouredly at Don Juan, as if he entirely approved of the ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... tea or coffee, and commences his toilet and ablutions, which dispose of a considerable part of the morning. It is soon breakfast-time, and after breakfast the hookah is again in requisition, with but few intervals of conversation until noon. The time has now arrived for a siesta, which lasts till about three in the afternoon. At this hour the chief gets up again, washes his hands and face, and prepares for the great business of the day, the distribution of the red cup, kusumba or opium. He ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... is at office. The people in his house are all taking the noon siesta after their meal. The boita khana is locked. A mongrel terrier is sleeping on the door-mat outside, his head between his paws. A couple of servants are seizing the opportunity ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
... spring which welled out from a hillside, surrounded by a small grove of willows. Having found it, he drank, and watered Satan, then took off the saddle to ease the stallion, and lay down at a little distance for a ten-minute siesta, one of those half wakeful sleeps the habit of which he had learned ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... Molly, and, having made her comfortable with pillows and perfumes, leaves her to her siesta. ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... unnatural, because they are the hottest of the day. One would think that common sense as well as comfort would induce people to stay at home at noon and make themselves as cool as possible. In other tropical countries these are the hours of the siesta, the noonday nap, which is as common and as necessary as breakfast or dinner, and none but a lunatic would think of calling upon a friend after 11 in the morning or before 3 in the afternoon. It would be as ridiculous as to return a social visit at 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning, and the same ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... New York, its appearance is prepossessing to a visitor; the streets are well laid out, and are wide and regular, the houses being for the most part of the better class. The white or red paint (the latter predominates), and the green and white jalousie, venetian, and siesta blinds, giving a picturesqueness to the scene. Handsome mats lie outside the doors of many of the better description ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... everywhere. The officers unpacked their valises and their camp-beds. Every one arranged his bed and his goods in his chosen place, and it seemed as if we had merely begun once more to settle down for a further period of siesta in the long picnic which had been going on for the last two months. Nobody was convinced in spite of the authentic news which we had received, that the Japanese would ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... this half-hour for its siesta. There is a song, however, inside one of the cafes, with a burden in which several voices join. A girl goes through the street, sheltered under her great bundle of freshly cut grass. By and by the song ceases, and two young peasants come out of the cafe, a little affected by ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... summer the cattle and sheep, of which we had a large number, used to rest in their shade; one large tree also afforded us children a splendid play- house, and we used to carry up a number of planks to construct safe bridges from branch to branch, and at noon, when our elders were sleeping their siesta, we would have our ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... that ran about the valley, near where the latter spouted out its surplus contents into the deeps of the gorge in a thin and wavering thread of cascade. He could now see a number of men and women resting on piled heaps of grass, as if taking a siesta, in the remoter part of the meadow, and nearer the village a number of recumbent children, and then nearer at hand three men carrying pails on yokes along a little path that ran from the encircling wall towards the houses. These latter were clad in garments of llama cloth and boots and belts of ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... for Mr. Linden with his book sat in the porch not three feet from her; but it is not too much to say that neither made great progress. Who could read or work—or think—vigilantly, in that hazy sunshine?—the very bees took a siesta on the wing, and rocked to and fro in the ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... too, to spend such days as these. To go out in the cool of the morning, and take a siesta, ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... everything. The heat had sent everyone indoors. M. Polperro, perhaps because of his Southern up-bringing, always took an early afternoon siesta. It looked as if his servants followed his example. The Villa du Lac ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... dismount; and he having told me that he had been sent by the Marchioness, we went into St. Silvester. As we were entering Senhores, M. Angelo and M. Lactancio were coming out by way of the garden or court, in order to take their siesta under the ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... gone, and nothing to be seen but dogs of all ranks and sizes peacefully slumbering in the shady grounds; for the dogs of Tai-o-hae are very courtly-minded, and make the seat of Government their promenade and place of siesta. In front and beyond, a strip of green down loses itself in a low wood of many species of acacia; and deep in the wood a ruinous wall encloses the cemetery of the Europeans. English and Scottish sleep there, and Scandinavians, and French maitres de manoeuvres ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hast eaten of our humble food, and seen our dancing. Thou hast heard our song. Wilt thou also see jugglers, wrestlers, trained apes from Yemen? Or wilt thou take the kaylulah (siesta)? Or doth it please thee now to speak of the gifts that my heart offers ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... Plaza, the sergeant murmured, was having his siesta; and supposing that he, the sergeant, would be allowed access to him, the only result he expected would be to have his soul flogged out of his body for presuming to disturb his worship's repose. He made a deprecatory movement ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... looked like a marble pavement with fairies dancing upon it! Near by, on one of the lower twigs of a thorn bush, a sparrow sat with feathers fluffed up and wings hanging negligently at his side, as if he were taking a siesta after a hearty meal of weed seeds and winter berries. Two of his companions soon joined him in his noonday rest, the trio making a pretty picture sitting there within an inch or ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... went out to the housekeeper and [giving her a dirhem], said to her, "Take the key-money,[FN110] for the room pleaseth us, and here is another dirhem for thy trouble. Go, fetch us a pitcher of water, so we may [refresh ourselves] and rest till the time of the noonday siesta pass and the heat decline, when the man will go and fetch the [household] stuff." Therewith the housekeeper rejoiced and brought us a mat and two pitchers of water on a tray and ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... were Dick and Heathcote? For a whole week Ponty took his siesta in the Juniors' corner, blinking now at the cricket, now at the tennis, strolling sometimes into the gymnasium, and sometimes to the fives courts, but nowhere did Basil the son of Richard meet his eyes, and nowhere ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... the words before the housekeeper's large tabby cat, taking its noonday siesta in the looped-up fold of the curtain, leaped out and made ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... his mind he acted promptly. No time was to be lost in this case. Now was the hour of siesta; he could have no better time to get away. A note would relieve his parents of a certain amount of anxiety; and if they did not know where he was they could not be held accountable. His blood tingled at the presentiment of the adventures he should have in that perilous journey through ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... time of all the year in Southern California, filling the house with the sweetness of wistaria and orange blossoms, but also, truth compels me to add, with so many noises of such excruciating kinds that I followed Ulysses' well-known plan and then tried to find quiet for my siesta in the back spare-room. The worst of this house is that it really has no back—it has various fronts, like the war. The spinster next door but one has a parrot—a cynical, tired parrot, but still fond of the sound of his own voice. The lady across the street ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... doze, drowse, snooze, dozing; siesta; dormancy, lethargy; trance; sopor, coma, carus; somnipathy, somnolism; dogsleep. Associated Words: hypnology, hypnotic, agrypnotic, hypnosis, hypnotism, narcotic, opiate, dwale, somniloquence, somniloquism, somnial, somniferous, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... The spirit of the place seemed to be all attention; the wood listened as I went, and held its breath to number my footfalls. One could not help feeling that there ought to be some reason for this stillness: whether, as the bright old legend goes, Pan lay somewhere near in a siesta, or whether, perhaps, the heaven was meditating rain, and the first drops would soon come pattering through the leaves. It was not unpleasant, in such an humour, to catch sight, ever and anon, of large spaces of the open plain. This happened ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... nakedness, and another Mars armed from head to foot; opposite, the statue of a man, in realistic style, stretching out three fingers to neutralize the evil eye. These familiar figures remained very clear in the recollection of Augustin. In the evening, or at the hour of the siesta, he had stretched himself under their pedestals and played at dice or bones in the cool shade of the god Mars, or of the Man with outstretched fingers. The slabs of marble of the portico made a good place to play ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... meeting of my household! I went to Dr. Gilly's to-day to breakfast. Met Sir Thomas Acland, who is the youngest man of his age I ever saw. I was so much annoyed with cough, that, on returning, I took to my bed and had a siesta, to my considerable refreshment. Dr. Fergusson called, and advised caution in eating and drinking, which I will ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... and about the house, to assure myself that Pepita had spoken truly when she had said that there was no one there except the old woman and herself. I found nothing to excite the smallest suspicion, and was therefore content to return to the room and to throw myself lazily down and go off for a siesta, in the wakeful intervals of which I could hear that Pepita had given way, and that the delighted Rube was arranging with her how she should escape and join him when the army retired; for of course neither had any idea that her father would consent to ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... or so all went well, and the cheerful tao dug and delved and carried without murmur. Then his diligence subsided and there was a talk of "siesta." Somebody down at the sluice box shouted, "Keep busy up there"; so, after one or two efforts to hurry up our minions, I pointed the pistol carefully into the ground and fired. They all jumped prodigiously and looked around. But I couldn't play the part. I didn't look stern, and I simply ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... was unusually busy on this particular day, and he did not return until late in the afternoon. But Molly kept her place in the drawing-room all the time, not even going to take her customary siesta, so anxious was she to hear everything about Roger's return, which as yet appeared to her almost incredible. But it was quite natural in reality; the long monotony of her illness had made her lose all count of time. When Roger left England, his idea was to coast round Africa on the ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... a normal condition. The sudden whirr of a bird's flight attracted only a casual glance. In Ralph Addington alone, expectation maintained itself at the boiling point. He trained himself to work with one eye searching the horizon. One afternoon, when they had scattered for a siesta, his hoarse cry brought them running to the beach from ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... an extremely quiet day, everybody indulging a siesta under double and curtained awnings, until about 5 p.m., when bump! a dead stop, and a list to port. We are aground. But grounding on such a soft bed is not a serious affair, and by extra exertions on the part of "Robert," our tug, and a ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith |
