"Muse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Ink, and don't attempt to use That Subtle Touch which Editors refuse; Better be jocund at two cents a word Than, starving, court an ill-requited Muse! ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Cayenne • Gelett Burgess
... Catholic Church, where the erring could obtain indulgence by fifteen days of devotion. Yet the very break in the usual life of audiences and journeys must have been grateful to the tired ambassador. He began to muse on the poetic aims of his first youth and the work which was to make Beatrice's name immortal. Some lines of the new poem were written in the Latin tongue, then held the finest language for expressing a great subject. The ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... in Mrs. Crabtree with her tawse!" said Rosamond. "But is it right by Raymond to let his wife bring this Yankee muse to talk her nonsense in his ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... there that does not wish the honest muse should rise no more? Goldsmith came next, and shared the same fate. His country curate, the most amiable of men, we heard of till ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... reward of opposition to the tenets of the day. There are few more comfortless sights, than such a cemetery: it looks as if those by whom it is occupied regarded death as eternal sleep, and thought that the memory of man should terminate with the close of his life. However unlettered the muse, however hackneyed the rhyme, however misapplied the text, it is consolatory to see them employed. Man dwells with a melancholy satisfaction upon the tomb-stones of his relations and friends, and not of them alone, but of all whom he has known or ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... The muse dictated nothing more. He was not in the mood for writing. He felt rather more in the mood for supper. His scruples scattered like clouds driven before a brisk North East wind; he put on the frogged surtout, and carried his reply himself. It was the ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... muse, the remembrance of a great city comes back to me,—a city walled up to the sky and roaring like the sea. The memory of that roar returns first; then the vision defines: a chasm, which is a street, ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... and afterwards reproduced him with such richness of sympathy, such magic of enlarging invention that he has become, so to speak, the symbol of laughter throughout the world, for men of all races the true Comic Muse. ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... scenes like these my Muse would fain withdraw: To Taff's still Valley be my footsteps led, Where happy Unions 'neath the shield of Law Heave bricks bisected at the Blackleg's head: In those calm shades my desultory oat Of Taxed ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... since Adam first made it to Eve." She eyed him in silence for a second time, deriding his sighs with a smile: then "There is a rhyme in my mind," she cried, "about moons and lovers," and she began to declaim, half muse, half minx, some lines that had pleased her, to tease ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... prudent man, Plessis," replied the lady: "bid the girl take a light to my chamber; I will go there and muse—not that I fear their seeing me; but the Lady Helen, ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... dropt sense distinct and clear, As any muse's tongue could speak, When from its lid a pearly tear Ran ...
— Language of Flowers • Kate Greenaway
... Bard, the simple Bard, Who wrote the little song, And to his Muse, who laboured hard To help the work along. Health to the Candid Friend also Who had his word to say, And to the kindly G.P.O. That sped it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, June 10, 1914 • Various
... banned at the Front, Are so manfully doing their "stunt" In searching for news That the Limerick Muse Thus honours their skill in ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 9, 1914 • Various
... choose a subject of which I knew something. Wonderful discovery, which has been of use to me ever since; a bit as well as reins—this is the reason why I have not been a prolific writer. Between one book and the next I am totally forgotten. I found also thus early that one needs a muse. I had made a blunder in not taking Launa into my counsels, say rather into my mind, for I had never once thought of her while writing, nor that she would be my audience. No, I thought only of myself, and the distinction I should win all for myself. Thus ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... simple poems of mine have been favorites with general readers. The unintelligible ones are always preferred, I observe, by extracters, compilers, and ladies and gentlemen who write to tell me that I'm a muse. The very Corn Law Leaguers in the North used to leave your 'Seagulls' to fly where they could, and clap hands over mysteries of iniquity. Dearest Miss Mitford—for the rest, don't mistake what I write to you sometimes—don't fancy that I undervalue ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... formed a comely person, In the court of Ceridwen I have done penance; Though little I was seen, placidly received, I was great on the floor of the place to where I was led; I have been a prized defence, the sweet muse the cause, And by law without speech I have been liberated By a smiling black old hag, when irritated Dreadful her claim when pursued: I have fled with vigour, I have fled as a frog, I have fled in the semblance ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 3 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... a play-room for the children of his school. He used to take them to this room during school time for a little a-muse-ment. He man-aged each child as he found best. Some he could persuade to be good. Some he shamed into being good. But this was very dif-fer-ent from the cruel beatings that other teachers of ...
— Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans • Edward Eggleston
... believed that a benefactor had arisen from the grave to save us. Oh, it was a touching superstition, monsieur, and although I did not myself believe it, I would not for the world have destroyed my father's faith. How often did he muse over it and pronounce the name of a dear friend—a friend lost to him forever; and on his death-bed, when the near approach of eternity seemed to have illumined his mind with supernatural light, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Occidentals, who seldom muse, to whom contemplation is waste of time, do not enjoy the oneness with nature shared by these Polynesians with the sacred Commoner whose beatitudes were to bring anarchy upon the Roman world, and destroy the effects of the philosophies of the ablest minds of Greece. The ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... tragic muse we do not dare to attempt any description of Eleanor's face when she first heard the name of Mrs Slope pronounced as that which would or should or might at some time appertain to herself. The look, such as it was, Dr Grantly did not soon forget. For a moment or two ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... me a'e spark o' nature's fire, That's a' the learnin' I desire, Then, though I trudge through dub an' mire, At pleuch or cart, My muse, though homely in attire, May ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... things change? Shall childish galleries That deemed you once Apollo's minister, Say, "Garn, old monkey!" Shall colossal salaries Reward the Muse and not the dulcimer? Not gleaming eyeballs, not the soul illuminate? Shall old faiths falter and Antonio's heart Sicken the while he churns, and chilly ruminate, "This ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 15, 1914 • Various
... be a tenth Muse, then, Maggie?" said Philip looking up in her face as we look at a first parting in the clouds that promises us a bright ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... each other, as they left that barren threshold! And the priest felt all this, as, melancholy and envious, he turned from the door in that November day, to find himself thoroughly alone. He now began seriously to muse upon those fancied blessings which men wearied with celibacy see springing, heavenward, behind the altar. A few weeks afterwards a notable change was visible in the good man's exterior. He became more careful of his dress, he shaved every morning, he purchased ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to her memory the imperishable tribute of his heart in a long poem made up of ten parts. The ninth part is inscribed, "Elegy on my Muse, the truly honored Lady Venetia Digby, who, living, gave me leave to call her so." These ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... daily in the drab little house by the river. Now a boy and a girl thrown together commonly make the speaking donkeys of comedy. Yet one never may be sure that they may not be the dumb struggling creatures of the tragic muse. Heaven knows Margaret Mueller was funny enough in her capers. For she related her antics—her grand pouts, her elaborate condescensions, her crass coquetry and her hidings and seekings—into what she called a "case." In the only wisdom she knew, to open a flirtation was to have a "case." So Margaret ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... can tell,' I remarked. 'Would you rather explain it as magic? Or as the work of fairies? Or do you believe in ghosts? Your muse has fascinated you, you mystic!' And I laughed and trilled a line from 'The Mascot,' which we had seen the evening ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... terrestrial, and the source Whence human pleasures flow, sing, Heavenly Muse, Of sparkling juices, of th' enlivening grape, Whose quick'ning taste adds vigour to the soul. Whose sov'reign power revives decaying Nature, And thaws the frozen blood of hoary age, A kindly warmth ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... such a little nun that you can't bear to be loved?—Is that it? But you'll have to learn again. You are more than a nun: you are a beautiful woman: young; wonderfully young. It's astonishing how like a girl you are."—Sir Hugh seemed to muse over a fact that allured. "And however like a nun you've lived—you can't deny that ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... "Well may you muse and writhe under the tortures of your guilty acts," continued Ella, in the same bitter tone; "for you have much to answer ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... hunger and weather. Picture them—CALLOT'S free brush might have managed it—gathered in pow-wow around the camp-fire, Sun-tanned and wind-browned, in picturesque raiment, with wisp of the wild hop or trail of the briar Hat-wreathed or button-holed. BURNS should have sung of them; trim-skirted Muse, with punctilious tastes, Were not at home with these waifs from the rookery, pastured at large in free Nature's wild wastes, Bounding, and breathing fresh air, romping, wrestling, and disciplined only to cleanness and order. Otherwise free as the tent-dwelling Arabs, or outlaws ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 5, 1890 • Various
... softer whispers among the osiers, that bowed upon the banks below, was a kind of music more in unison with her feelings. It did not vibrate on the chords of unhappy memory, but was soothing to the heart as the voice of Pity. She continued to muse, unconscious of the gloom of evening, and that the sun's last light trembled on the heights above, and would probably have remained so much longer, if a sudden footstep, without the building, had not alarmed ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... thinking of how he had worked to learn to dance. Whatever the reason—whether it was the memory of Ingmar's weird dancing, or the anticipation of attending a regular dance—her thoughts became light and airy. She managed to keep just a little behind the others, that she might muse undisturbed. She had made up quite little story about how the trees had come by ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... Lamb also discussed the play, before it was performed, in his letters to Godwin; and that his description of Godwin's deportment, of his own feelings, and of the behaviour of the audience on the memorable night that witnessed its utter failure, has bequeathed to us a comedy over which the tragic Muse herself ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... last act, and the foregoing ones and the following, with a grandeur and a splendor—unspeakable, we may say, in short. [Helden-Geschichte, ii. 1045-1051.] Fantastic Bielfeld taxes his poor rouged Muse to the utmost, on this occasion; and becomes positively wearisome, chanting the upholsteries of life;—foolish fellow, spoiling his bits of facts withal, by misrecollections, and even by express fictions thrown in as garnish. So that, beyond the general ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... we have these trivial parliamentary forms?" demanded the Tragic Muse, as McCall called her. "Away with all worn-out garments of a degraded Past! Shall the rebellious serf of man still wear ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... they would muse; if their grief were the grief of oppression they would wish themselves kings; if their grief were poverty, wish themselves millionaires; if sin, they would wish they were saints or angels; if despised love, that ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... farmer who after he had found a Roman villa on his farm gave up the bucolic and inglorious occupation of growing turnips and potatoes, and could talk of nothing meaner than hypocausts and thermae. So we, like the farmer, slight the really beautiful Early Gothic "Liebfrauenkirche" and roam and muse for hours about the ruins of the Amphitheatre, the Roman Baths, the Roman Palace ...
— A War-time Journal, Germany 1914 and German Travel Notes • Harriet Julia Jephson
... this fashion in her box, when Jenny Fagette came to join her there; Jenny Fagette, slender and fragile, the incarnation of Alfred de Musset's Muse, who at night wore out her eyes of periwinkle-blue by scribbling society notes and fashion articles. A mediocre actress, but a clever and wonderfully energetic woman, she was Nanteuil's most intimate friend. They recognized in each other remarkable qualities, qualities which ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... rubbed that part of himself which had come into collision with the sharp edge of a concertina. "Clear away that coil of hose and take a seat on the packing-case yonder. That's right; and now let's talk." He puffed for a moment and appeared to muse. "Seems to me, Glasson, you're in the devil of a hurry to ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Aubanel writes not, like Roumanille, for his own people alone. His Muse is more ambitious, and seeks to interest by appealing to the sentiments in a language polished with all the art of its sister, the French. There are innumerable exquisite passages scattered through the work, which make us ready to believe in the figurative comparison of the prefacer, when ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... the beardless carle shall listen While I lash him with abuse, Loon at whom our stomachs sicken. Soon shall hear these words of scorn; Far too nice for such base fellows Is the name my bounty gives, Een my muse her help refuses, Making mirth of ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... former writings. Heaven forbid that we should say that it completes the circle of his powers. On the contrary, it gives us hope of broader effort in new fields of thought and forms of art. But it brings the development of his Muse and of his Creed to a positive and definite point. It enables us to claim one who has been hitherto regarded as belonging to a merely speculative and peirastic school as the willing and deliberate champion of vital Christianity, and of ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... STATE: 'Twere well the cares of day to toss aside And welcome evening's quiet with a smile, But we who here in solemn conclave meet Can squander moment few to court the Muse; Stern duty calls, and to each patriot ear 'Tis music sweet, to which he quick responds, Then to the council board let us repair And these the ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... slightly—an eager, gifted fellow, of late years a strong High Churchman, and well known in a certain group as the friend of Mrs. Armagh, that muse—fragile, austere, and beautiful—of several great men, and great Christians, among the older generation. Mrs. Alcot had her own intimates, generally men; but she tired of them and changed them often. Mr. Alcot spent part of every ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... very year, in a poem composed in honor of his own Consulship. The lines are not in themselves grand, but the spirit of them is magnificent: "Stick to the good cause which in your early youth you chose for yourself, and be true to the party you have made your own." "Should I doubt when the muse herself has so written," he says, alluding to the name of Calliope, given to this third book of his. Then he adds a line of Homer, very excellent for the occasion:[239] "No augury for the future can be better for you than that which bids you serve your ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... lifted, met my view, Gay worlds of starry thoughts appeared In their blue depths serenely sphered. Just then the voice of one unseen, All redolent of Hippocrene, Stole forth so sweetly on the air, I felt the Muse indeed was there, And feel how much her words divine Must ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... bottom, and stick there? The perpetual tragedy of literary history, in especial, is this. What numbers of young men, gifted with great imitative quickness, who, having, by virtue of this, arrived at fine words and figures of speech, set off on their nimble rhetorical Pegasus, keep well out of the Muse's reach ever after! How many go conspicuously through life, snapping their smart percussion-caps upon empty barrels, because, forsooth, powder and ball do not come of themselves, and it ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... intrusion, With some outlandish institution, With Ursine's catechism to muse on, With system's method for confusion, With grounds strong laid of mere illusion: See a new ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... muse on Tenier's boors, Embrowned and beery losels all; A wakeful brain Elaborates pain: Within low doors the slugs of boors Laze ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... spaces between their suggestions by the intermixture of conventional expressions; a necessity only imposed by the limitedness of the poetical faculty itself: for Milton conceived the Paradise Lost as a whole before he executed it in portions. We have his own authority also for the muse having "dictated" to him the "unpremeditated song". And let this be an answer to those who would allege the fifty-six various readings of the first line of the Orlando Furioso. Compositions so produced ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... could compose only when he was surrounded by smoking fowls and Bologna sausages; their fumes seemed to inflame his imagination, to feed his muse; his brain was stimulated first through his nose and then through his stomach. When Gluck wrote music he betook himself to the open fields, accompanied by at least two bottles of champagne. Salieri told Michael Kelly that a comic ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... was free of him. She had given him to himself. She wept sometimes with tiredness and helplessness. But he was a husband. And she seemed, in the child that was coming, to forget. It seemed to make her warm and drowsy. She lapsed into a long muse, indistinct, warm, vague, unwilling to be taken out of her vagueness. And she rested ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... all Marija Berczynskas. Marija was one of those hungry souls who cling with desperation to the skirts of the retreating muse. All day long she had been in a state of wonderful exaltation; and now it was leaving—and she would not let it go. Her soul cried out in the words of Faust, "Stay, thou art fair!" Whether it was by beer, or by shouting, or by music, or by motion, she meant that it should not go. And she would go ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... Learning, too, shall rear unnumbered domes, Here Shakspeares—Tassos—find more happy homes, Here Homer's fire, and Virgil's polished grace, A sacred charm shall give to many a place. Each shady hill shall be a Muse's haunt— By each pure spring aerial nymphs shall chant— Chant the sweet song to heavenly Liberty— While thundering cataracts peal it to the sea!" She spake no more;—or I too much opprest By wondrous visions, needed welcome rest. And when I waked, the day had now unfurled His rosy banners ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley
... formed the fable of a tragedy on that subject: the plan is warm in my imagination, and, that I may give my whole time to it, I now am eager to dispatch an edition of Cato. Marcus Aper interposed: And are you, indeed, so enamoured of your dramatic muse, as to renounce your oratorical character, and the honours of your profession, in order to sacrifice your time, I think it was lately to Medea, and now to Thyestes? Your friends, in the mean time, expect your patronage; the colonies ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... my mouth, my muse, my pen, and all, Be prest to serve at each good subject's call." Cynthia's "Revels," ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... difference lies; it is in the substance polished. In politeness, in delicacy, they have as a people no peers. Art has been their mistress, though science has never been their master. Perhaps for this very reason that art, not science, has been the Muse they courted, the result has been all the more widespread. For culture there is not the attainment of the few, but the common property of the people. If the peaks of intellect rise less eminent, the plateau of general elevation stands higher. But little ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... close, Even to the gates and inlets of his life! But it is true, no less, that strenuous, firm, And with a natural gladness, he maintained The citadel unconquered, and in joy Was strong to follow the delightful muse." ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... since no Muse hath been so bold, Or of the later, or the old, Those elvish secrets to unfold, Which lie from others' reading, My active Muse to light shall bring The Court of that proud Fairy King, And tell there of the ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... like a dead man, with the blood gushing from his nose and mouth; and Catiline, striding across the prostrate body, retired sullenly and slowly to muse on the disappointment of this his most atrocious project, in the darkness and solitude of his own private chamber whither none ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... steeks, And lusty lasses at the dighting tire: What bangs fu' leal the e'enings coming cauld, And gars snaw-tappit winter freeze in vain, Gars dowie mortals look baith blythe and bauld, Nor fley'd wi' a' the poortith o' the plain; Begin, my Muse, and chant ...
— English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day • Walter W. Skeat
... conversation with his mistress; so he merely scratched his head, and thought hard to find what he'd say next. I doubt whether the conviction, which was then strong on his mind, that Meg was listening at the keyhole to every word that passed, at all assisted him in the operation. At last, some Muse came to his aid, and ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... on the theatre of life. These writers undertook the difficult task of reforming their countrymen, and of laying down a theological and philosophical system[16]. —We are informed by Diogenes Laertius, that Linus, the Father of Grecian Poetry, was the son of Mercury and the Muse Urania, and that he sung of the Generation of the world, of the course of the sun and moon, of the origin of animals, and of the principles of vegetation[17]. He taught, says the same Author, that all things were formed at one time, and that they were ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... He continued to muse on the sight of Pembroke Somerset, which had conjured up ten thousand fond and distressing recollections; and with impatient anxiety, determining to watch till the performance was over, he thought of inquiring his friend's address of the servants; but ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... where are they all, Your grand three-deckers, deep-chested and tall, That should crush the waves under canvas piles, And anchor at last by the Fortunate Isles? There's gray in your beard, the years turn foes, While you muse in your arm-chair and toast ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... a beatific presence made itself sensible, and the Easy Chair recognized the poet's Muse, who had come for him. The poet put the question to her. "Young?" she said. "Why, you and I are always young, silly boy! Get your hat, and come over to Long Island City with me, and see the pussy-willows ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... to say though my triumphant Muse Seemeth to vant as in got victorie, And with puissant stroke the head to bruize Of her stiff so, and daze his phantasie, Captive his reason, dead each facultie: Yet in her self so strong a force withstands That of her self afraid, ...
— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More
... not tempt? My father he may make, but I must match; Segasto loves, but Amadine must like, Where likes her best; compulsion is a thrall: No, no, the hearty choice is all in all, The shepherd's virtue Amadine esteems. But, what, me thinks my shepherd is not come. I muse at that, the hour is sure at hand: Well here ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... you know it all. For who but you were with me in the spirit through all the struggle, helping, supporting, encouraging, until you seemed to me my muse, my soul, my inner and purer and higher self. Dear, I wronged you when I connected your love with this world's pride. I wronged you bitterly, and I have suffered for ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... Manor by the Thames; I've seen it oft through beechen stems In leafy Summer weather; We've moored the punt its lawns beside Where peacocks strut in flaunting pride, The Muse and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 4, 1914 • Various
... feet—resting on a famous battlement, that had withstood the ravages of love and war—he evolved his magic verse. Truly no scene could be more inspiring, no motive more sublime, for even we humble humdrum matter-of-fact Englishwomen felt almost inspired to tempt the poet's muse. But happily no—our friends are spared—the passion was ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... panel was the work of but a minute. Here he paused and listened lest a Wieroo might be visiting the prison in search of him or the other inmate; but no sound came from the gloomy interior. Bradley could not but muse upon the joy of the man on the opposite side when he should drop down to him with food and a new hope for escape. Then he opened the panel and looked into the room. The faint light from the grating above revealed the pile of rags in one corner; but the man lay ...
— Out of Time's Abyss • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... have perished. If not in a narrative form, the case would have come forward in the drama. Puritanical sanctity, in collision with the ordinary interests of life, and with its militant propensities, offered too striking a field for the Satiric Muse, in any case, to have passed in total neglect. The impulse was too strong for repression—it was a volcanic agency, that, by some opening or, other, must have worked a way for itself to the upper air. Yet ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... desiring to entertain the King, Queen, and court at his mansion of Vaux-le-Vicomte, asked for a comedy at the hands of the Palais-Royal company, who had discovered the secret of pleasing the Grand Monarque. Moliere had but a fortnight's notice; and he was expected, moreover, to accommodate his muse to various prescribed styles ...
— The Bores • Moliere
... school of the French language; and is refined and subdivided, as an art, both in degree and kind, in France more than in any other country. The prolific authors in this department, and the variety and richness of invention they display, as well as the permanent attraction of the Comic Muse, are striking peculiarities of the French theatre. No capital affords the material and the audience requisite for such triumphs like Paris; and there is always a play of this kind in vogue there, wherein novelty of combination, significance ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the free people of color about all the school knowledge that was allowed them in those days, and hence the consternation which came upon them when they found themselves excluded from the schools of the white churches. Lindsay Muse, who has been the messenger for eighteen Secretaries of the Navy, successively, during fifty-four years, from 1828 to the present time, John Brown, Benjamin M. McCoy, Mr. Smallwood, Mrs. Charlotte Norris, afterward wife of Rev. Eli Nugent, and ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... retired and pleasant, where Calvin commenced his most serious work, Institutes of the Christian Religion. The time he could spare from this literary occupation he devoted to preaching in the neighboring cities, and especially at Angouleme. A vine, beneath which he loved to recline and muse, may still be seen; it was for a long time called "Calvin's vine." He was still living on the last bounties of a church which he had renounced, and which he called "a stepmother and a prostitute"; and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... in their presence, and after trolling out a few Irish melodies, he succeeded in eliciting from them a sympathetic response in the shape of some lively French songs. The result proved most delightful to all concerned; and thereafter the muse of Ireland and the muse of France kept up a perpetual antiphonal song, which ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... other authors whom Hamilton at first proposes to Grammont, as capable of writing his life (though, on reflection, he thinks them not suited to it), is Boileau, whose genius he professes to admire; but adds that his muse has somewhat of malignity; and that such a muse might caress with one hand and satirize him with the other. This letter was sent by Hamilton to Boileau, who answered him with great politeness; but, at ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... soul, And he ran forward and embraced his knees, And clasp'd his hand within his own, and said:— "Oh, by thy father's head! by thine own soul! Art thou not Rustum? speak! art thou not he?" But Rustum eyed askance the kneeling youth, And turn'd away, and spake to his own soul:— "Ah me, I muse what this young fox may mean! False, wily, boastful, are these Tartar boys. For if I now confess this thing he asks, And hide it not, but say: 'Rustum is here!' He will not yield indeed, nor quit our ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... in a transport of rage; "the time will come, when, if you do not sue for life, you will for death, and at my hands; and till then will I forego my revenge for your insolence now. And let me tell you one thing further, that you may muse upon it in my absence. I will raise an army, ere many months are over, and march upon the frontiers of Kentucky; and by all the powers of good and evil, I swear again to get possession of the girl you love, but whom I now hate—hate as the arch-fiend hates Heaven—and she shall thenceforth ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... such jewels as the exploring mind Brings from the caves of knowledge, buy my ransom From those twin jailers of the daring heart— Low birth and iron fortune. For thee I grew A midnight student o'er the dreams of sages. For thee I sought to borrow from each grace, And every muse, such attributes as lend Ideal charms to love. I thought of thee, And passion taught me poesy—of thee, And on the painter's canvas grew the life Of beauty! Art became the shadow Of the dear starlight ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... simplest way o' doin' business. Ef we makes a mistake, an' gits ther wrong galoot, nobody ever kicks up much o' a row over it, fer we're naterally lively over thar, an' we must hev somethin' ter 'muse ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... once or twice he said to himself with a passing smile that it was a good thing he had not got himself into a worse scrape at Mellor. Good heavens! in what plight would a man stand—a man with his career to make—who had given Marcella Boyce claims upon him! As well entangle oneself with the Tragic Muse at once as with that stormy, ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the garden these warm latter days, and muse. To muse is to sit in the sun, and not think of anything. I am not sure but goodness comes out of people who bask in the sun, as it does out of a sweet apple roasted before the fire. The late September and October sun of this latitude is something like the sun of extreme Lower Italy: you can ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... but whatever in such nationalities tends toward enlightenment and freedom is American. Let us not, therefore, confirm ourselves in a false and ignoble conception of our meaning and mission in the world. Let us not carry into the temple of the Muse the jealousies, the prejudice, the ignorance, the selfishness of our "Senate" and "Representatives," strangely so called! Let us not refuse to breathe the air of Heaven, lest there be something European or Asian in it. If we cannot have a national literature in the narrow, geographical ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... if the frosts of prudence, the icy chain of human law, thawed and vanished at the genial warmth of human nature, who could help it? It was an amiable weakness! At this time the profanation of the word "love" rose to its height; the muse of science condescended to seek admission at the saloons of fashion and frivolity, rouged like a harlot and with the harlot's wanton leer. I know not how the annals of guilt could be better forced into the service of virtue than by such a comment on the present paragraph ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... that a man ought to be able to return to the Muse as he comes back to his wife after he's ceased to ...
— The Long Run - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... scarcely knowing how to grasp my own meaning, and give it a tangible shape in words; and yet it is concerning this very expression of our thoughts in words that I wish to speak. As I muse things fall more into their proper places, and, little fit for the task as my confession pronounces me to be, I will try to make clear that ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... far off the barbarous dissonance Of Bacchus and his revelers, the race Of that wild rout that tore the Thracian bard In Rhodope, where woods and rocks had ears To rapture, till the savage clamor drowned Both harp and voice, nor could the Muse defend Her son. So fail not thou, who thee implores; For thou art heavenly, she an empty ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... looking round to be satisfied that the gaff is ready to hand, and everything in the boat shipshape for action. As it was after luncheon to-day, you think of anything but a fish taking hold; you swish on monotonously and mechanically; you muse of friends at home and abroad, of the sport you enjoyed yesterday or the day before, of chances lost, perhaps even of your general career through either a well-ordered or misspent life as the case may happen to be; ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... the dearest friends are separated by impassable gulfs. The cooeperation is involuntary, and is put upon us by the Genius of Life, who reserves this as a part of his prerogative. 'Tis fine for us to talk: we sit and muse, and are serene, and complete; but the moment we meet with anybody, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... Picarel—called Garon by the fishers of Antibes, and Giroli at Venice, both these last names corruptions of the Latin Gerres—then did the two fashionable poets of France, Etienne Dolet and Clement Marot, think it not unworthy of their muse to sing the praises of the sauce which Horace had sung of old. A proud day, too, was it for Pellicier and Rondelet, when wandering somewhere in the marshes of the Camargue, a scent of garlic caught the nostrils of the gentle bishop, and in the lovely pink flowers of the water-germander ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... closed his adventurous and erratic career and became a domestic and useful member of that little commonwealth, under the watchful influence of the dark-eyed maid of the Loire or of the Seine. Infinite are the chords of the lyre which delights the romantic muse; and these incidents, small and humble as they are, appear to me to be imbued with an indescribable charm, which appeals to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Bachelor's Establishment Cousin Pons The Muse ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... Five Act Tragedy entitled——" "Hang your tragedies!" will the Manager exclaim, "Give me a farce like 'Dr. Bill,' my boy!" And once more will the poet put his pride and his tragedy in one pocket, and all the money which the Comic Muse will give him in the other. I back the argumentum ad pocketum against the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 5, 1890 • Various
... it was such a small collection, his book- lover's instinct compelled him to look at it. His eyes fell upon a Religio Medici, and he opened it hastily. On the fly-leaf was written "Mary Leighton, from R. L." He had just time, before its owner entered, to replace it and to muse for an instant. ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... public performance on the pianoforte had created at Vienna, Mozart forgot all the fears he had expressed previously to his journey to Paris; thought no more that teaching would interfere with the higher vocation of his muse; and was content to become the fashionable performer, teacher, and pianoforte composer of the day. This mode of life for a time had its temptations and its success; and he hoped that he might still better assist his father at Vienna than at Salzburg, as he was at intervals able to remit to him sums ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... masters of imagination have seldom resorted to the vague and the unreal as sources of effect. They have not used dread and horror alone, but only in combination with other qualities, as means of subjugating the fancies of their readers. The loftiest muse has ever a household and fireside charm about her. Mr. Poe's secret lies mainly in the skill with which he has employed the strange fascination of mystery and terror. In this his success is so great and striking as to deserve the name of art, not artifice. We cannot call his ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Melpomene, is tragedy; No. 5, Terpsichore, is dance and song. Now comes Apollo with his quiver full of arrows. He is the god of the hunt and twin brother to Diana, the goddess of hunt; also he is god of music and poetry. No. 6 is Polyhymnia, muse of hymn-music; No. 7, Euterpe, is song poetry; No. 8, Thalia, is comedy, and No. 9, ...
— The Children's Book of Celebrated Pictures • Lorinda Munson Bryant
... ceased eating. Again he appeared to muse as intently as was possible, for one of his circumscribed intellects. But shaking his head in the negative, he silently resumed the grateful office ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... is introduced for some reason which made Mr. Darwin think it worth while to go out of his way to introduce it. It has no fitness in its connection with Hermann Muller's book, for what little Hermann Muller says about teleology at all is to condemn it; why then should Mr. Darwin muse here of all places in the world about the interest attaching to design in organism? Neither has the passage any connection with the rest of the preface. There is not another word about design, and even here Mr. Darwin seems mainly anxious to face both ways, and pat design as it were ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... But the muse was timorous as a chicken. The metaphor is entirely metaphorical. Jones had no faith in the wanton. He believed in regular hours, in silence and no interruptions. No intrusions of any kind. A letter was an intrusion, so also was the news of the day. These things he considered, ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... Muse a gravely jocund note in his "Seasons' Comfort." He, too, of the four fellow-versifiers shows the greater aptitude for experiments, though it may perhaps be felt that his touch is nowhere quite so sure, nor his artistic feeling so ...
— Primavera - Poems by Four Authors • Stephen Phillips, Laurence Binyon, Manmohan Ghose and Arthur Shearly Cripps
... be expected that these many republics, monarchies, aristocracies, or whatever form they may take, will long remain at peace with each other? Ask the muse who presides over the pages of history how often has her pen been called upon to record the circumstance of separate nations, of the same blood and antecedents, lying quietly and peaceably beside each other. Family ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... for ever and ever for this boon," he answered; and Bertram went back to his room, to lie awake and muse over what had befallen till the dawn broke and his brothers awoke to the ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... performance of airs or metres composed already, which latter is called education, then the difficulty begins, and the good artist is needed. Then the old tale has to be repeated of fair and heavenly love—the love of Urania the fair and heavenly muse, and of the duty of accepting the temperate, and those who are as yet intemperate only that they may become temperate, and of preserving their love; and again, of the vulgar Polyhymnia, who must be used with circumspection that the pleasure be enjoyed, ...
— Symposium • Plato
... greedily devoured in large quantities, mostly raw—producing a raging thirst. The water supply was now curtailed to a few bucketsful, but even these few drops of the precious fluid were mostly wasted in the melee for their possession. The majority of the contestants retired disappointed to muse on the comforts of the Sahara Desert, and as the stories about tapping camels recurred to them, suggestive glances were cast at the more fortunate rivals. After a few days, conspicuous for the sparing enjoyment of salt cod, the water supply was ordered unlimited. An immediate 'corner' ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... Carlo filled out with his harp, she again put her hand into the urn and drew out a new theme; again the inspiration seemed to pass over her, and the holy Whitsuntide of her muse to be renewed. Constantly more and more stormily resounded the plaudits of her hearers; it was like a continued thunder of enthusiasm, a real salvo of joy. It animated Corilla to new improvisations; she again and again recurred to the urn, drawing ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... grievous disappointment I experienced at being compelled to return. It was something, even by this short distance, to precede my companions in the exciting work of discovery—to tread alone the solitary glades upon which, till now, no native of the civilized West had set his foot—and to muse in solemn and unbroken silence upon the ultimate results of the work to which the last few days had been devoted—to mark the gradual but certain progression of civilization and christianity—and to breathe forth, unwitnessed ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... to you, my dear friend. I have had some ideas seething in my brain since the morning that only wait to soar up to God on the wings of song, but I wished to see you. Good-bye; I must ask forgiveness of the Muse. We shall meet at dinner to-night—but no wine; at any rate, none for me. I ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... endearing recollections. The faults, moreover, of his Italian predecessors were of a kind to which his mind had a deadly antipathy. He could stoop to a plain style, sometimes even to a bald style; but false brilliancy was his utter aversion. His muse had no objection to a russet attire; but she turned with disgust from the finery of Guarini, as tawdry and as paltry as the rags of a chimney-sweeper on May-day. Whatever ornaments she wears are of massive gold, not only dazzling to the sight, but ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... never to enter it again on his own initiative; for, as will be seen, his share in "Henry VIII." was small. Comedy was for the moment in his heart. Perhaps it was a relief to him, after the strenuous time he had passed through, to pass to his lighter muse and express himself in the brightest vein that could not bear misinterpretation. He turned to an Italian author, probably Ariosto, for a part of "Much Ado about Nothing," but he drew the least vital part ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan
... wit borrow a feather From Cupid's own pinion, 'tis doubtfullish whether A "mot" might be made which should happily hit The "gold" of desert; and Love, aided by Wit, Though equal to eloquent passion's fine glow, Might both be struck mute by the Muse of Dumb-Show. That "actions speak louder than words" we all knew; But now we may add, "and more gracefully, too." Performances fine Punch has praised in his day, But how few take the pas of the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 16, 1891 • Various
... and Aaron's [3] letters. I was a little disappointed that you did not send an acrostic; but I still entertain some secret hope that the muse (who, you say, has taken her flight) will shortly return, and, by a new and stricter intimacy, more than repay the pains of this momentary absence. Your happiness, Matt., is really almost the only present thing I can contemplate with any ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... Establishment The Secrets of a Princess The Government Clerks Pierrette A Study of Woman Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Honorine The Seamy Side of History The Magic Skin A Second Home A Prince of Bohemia Letters of Two Brides The Muse of the Department The Imaginary Mistress The Middle Classes Cousin Betty The Country Parson In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following: Another Study of ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... "The poetry of the Jews is clearly traceable to the service of religion. To celebrate the praises of God, to decorate his worship, and give force to devout sentiments, was the employment of the Hebrew Muse." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... of Cumberland, Mrs. Yates, the actress, sat to Romney for a picture of the 'Tragic Muse.' Of course, this work was completely eclipsed by Reynolds's 'Tragic Muse,' painted some thirteen years later. Notwithstanding the demerits of the President's picture, the plagiarism of the pose and draperies from Michael Angelo's ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... Unwept, and welter to the parching wind, Without the meed of som melodious tear. Begin, then, Sisters of the sacred well, That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring, Begin, and somwhat loudly sweep the string. Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse, So may som gentle Muse With lucky words favour my destin'd Urn, And as he passes turn, And bid fair peace be to my sable shrowd. For we were nurst upon the self-same hill, Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill. Together both, ere the high Lawns appear'd Under the opening eye-lids of the morn, We ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... in our own name, for we are but atoms—but in the name of philology itself, which is indeed neither a Muse nor a Grace, but a messenger of the gods: and just as the Muses descended upon the dull and tormented Boeotian peasants, so Philology comes into a world full of gloomy colours and pictures, full of the deepest, most incurable woes; and speaks to men comfortingly ...
— Homer and Classical Philology • Friedrich Nietzsche
... not to dare beyond his tried strength, more especially in designing a subject of several figures. His true genius as alone conspicuous in those where much of the portrait was admissible; and such was his "Tragic Muse," a strictly historical picture: was it equally discernible in his "Nativity" for the window in New College Chapel? We think not. There is nothing in his "Nativity" that has not been better done by others; yet, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... very rare edition. The bust of Moliere occupies the centre, and portraits of the great actor, as Sganarelle and Mascarille (of the "Precieuses Ridicules"), stand on either side. In the second volume are Moliere, and his wife Armande, crowned by the muse Thalia. A catalogue which contains such exact reproductions of rare and authentic portraits, is itself a work of art, and serviceable to the student. When the shop of a bookseller, with a promising catalogue which arrives over night, is not too far distant, bibliophiles have been ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... wistfulness of Pan and Victoria, the kindly humour of Svoermere and Benoni, the autumn-tinted resignation of the Wanderer with the Mute—they follow as the seasons do, each with a charm of its own, yet all deriving from one source. His muse at first is Iselin, the embodiment of adolescent longing, the dream of those "whom delight flies because they give her chase." The hopelessness of his own pursuit fills him with pity for mortals under the same spell, and he steps aside to be a ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... time, Poetry and Music were in a very low state of perfection, and as he excelled in both of those arts, it was said that he was the son of Apollo and the Muse Calliope; and it was added, that he charmed lions and tigers, and made even the trees sensible of the melodious tones of his lyre. These were mere hyperbolical expressions, which signified the wondrous charms of his eloquence and of his music combined, which he employed in cultivating ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... he who all thy perils shared, Thine aged sire, of thee bereft, To muse on all thy ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... that to enjoy the tranquil scenery of Laleham, and the sports of the stream that waters its park, we would willingly forego all the cares of state, and leave its plots and counterplots to more ambitious minds. We could sit by the waters of Laleham, and sing with the muse ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XIII, No. 370, Saturday, May 16, 1829. • Various
... good-brother of her own in Aberlady, whose last sickness and demise she was describing at extraordinary length. Sometimes it was merely dull, sometimes both dull and awful, for she talked with unction. The upshot was that I fell in a deep muse, looking forth of the window on the road, and scarce marking what I saw. Presently, had any been looking, they might have seen me ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... elicit from other quarters similar contributions; indeed, any memorial of the friend of Charles Lamb must be precious to the Muse. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 235, April 29, 1854 • Various
... least alarmed. Nay—the thought actually irritated me. Strangely enough, the decision of the question as to whether this were a ghost or Rogojin did not, for some reason or other, interest me nearly so much as it ought to have done;—I think I began to muse about something altogether different. For instance, I began to wonder why Rogojin, who had been in dressing—gown and slippers when I saw him at home, had now put on a dress-coat and white waistcoat and tie? I also thought ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... beasts for the entertainment of the multitude, as in former days; and had John Keats, or even poor Henry Kirke White, written and published fifty years later, they would never have perished by the critic's pen. Yet the same malignant assault which crushed their tender muse was the only thing which could amuse the latent powers of a far greater genius; and had not Byron been as cruelly attacked by the Edinburgh, he would never have given 'Childe Harold' to the world. The ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the room? He sat perfectly still, statuesque in homely fashion, after having delivered himself of his effective assent: 'Yes. The convict,' and I, far from indulging in a reminiscent excursion into the past, remained sufficiently in the present to muse in a vague, absent-minded way on the respectable proportions and on the (upon the whole) comely shape of his great pedestrian's calves, for he had thrown one leg over his knee, carelessly, to conceal the trouble of his mind by an air of ease. But all the same the knowledge was in ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... that Pan loved Pindar and his verses; and for the Muse's sake, Hesiod and Archilochus were honoured after their deaths; while Sophokles during his life is said, by a legend which remains current at the present day, to have become the friend of Aesculapius, and on his death ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... or did they smile When she crooned to still your cries, She, a muse in human guise, Who forsook her ...
— Helen of Troy and Other Poems • Sara Teasdale
... midnight wave; The cheerless moon sinks in the western sky; Reigns breezeless silence!—in her ocean cave The mermaid rests, while her fond lover nigh, Marks the pale star-beams as they fall from high. Gilding with tremulous light her couch of sleep. Why smile incred'lous? the rapt Muse's eye Through earth's dark caves, o'er heaven's fair plains, can sweep, Can range its hidden cell, where toils the ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... until he has been inspired. When he has not attained to this state he is powerless and unable to utter his oracles. Many are the noble words in which poets speak of the actions which they record, but they do not speak of them by any rules of art, they are inspired to utter that to which the Muse ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... holding his pained head. Thus was the roofe adorn'd: but for the bed, The which those sacred limmes encanaped, I could say much: yet poised with her selfe, That gorgeous worke did seeme but drossy pelfe. All-conquering Loue inspire my weaker Muse, And with thy iocund smiles daigne to infuse Heauen-prompted praises to my vntaught story, That I may write her worth, and tell thy glory. Vpon her backe she lay (o heauenly blisse!); Smiling like Ioue, being couzend of a kisse; The enuious pillow, which did beare her head, Was with it selfe ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... loosed." For there, making up pills, in a pair of brown holland sleeves of his own manufacture (for Tom was a good seamster, as all travellers should be), whistled Lilliburlero, as of old, the Tom of other days, which Elsley's muse would fain have buried ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... grace of which Praxiteles was master, and with which he seems to have inspired his pupils The execution, however, is not quite faultless, as witness the distortion in the right lower leg of the seated Muse in Fig. l55—otherwise an ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... marvellous adventures of John Smith,—so happily and suggestively described as the "fugitive slave" who was "the founder of Virginia." The notes on the credibility and authenticity of the narrations connected with his name are admirable. In reading these two chapters, one must muse upon the wilderness trampings and the ocean perils of the keen-set and all-enduring men who furnished the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... want to be alone to muse of things in your dreamy way, but my love, it is better not to do so, it only makes things harder to bear. Try to banish disagreeable subjects as much as possible, that is my maxim. But I cannot refuse you anything just now, so after luncheon I will go home, and will ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... bleak hill, and by-and-by came to a great slab called the Standing Stone, on which children often sit and muse until they see gay ladies riding by on palfreys—a kind of horse—and knights in glittering armour, and goblins, and fiery dragons, and other wonders now extinct, of which bare-legged laddies dream, as well as boys in socks. The Standing Stone is in the dyke that separates the ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... ambition urged him a step or two in that direction, but his critical faculty, which, despite all his monstrosities of taste, was vital, restrained him from making a fool of himself, and he forswore the muse, puffed the prostitute away, and carried his very saleable wares to another market, where his efforts were crowned with prodigious success. Sir William Fraser introduces his great man to us as observing, in reply to a question, that revenge was the passion which gives pleasure the ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... poet to express his meaning, when his meaning is not well known to himself, with a certain degree of obscurity, as it is one source of the sublime. But when, in plain prose, we gravely talk of courting the muse in shady bowers, waiting the call and inspiration of genius, finding out where he inhabits, and where he is to be invoked with the greatest success; of attending to times and seasons when the imagination shoots with the greatest vigour, ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... time, nor imagine that you precede your generation because you stand alone. He dreamed of far-away glory, and his flatterers told him his dreams were prophetic. He saw across the seas the mirage of a great Latin empire in the West, and beheld the Muse of history inscribing his name beside that of his great kinsman as the restorer of the political and commercial equilibrium of the world, as well as the benefactor who had thrown El Dorado open to civilization. With the faith of ignorance, he proposed to share with an Austrian ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... which are the hills of Moab. If you have been lucky enough to come up here without a guide or dragoman with a bosom full of ivory-handled revolvers and long knives, you will sit for hours spellbound. The guide tries too hard to give you your money's worth. He will not allow you to muse over these things, which are reasonably real and true, but will tell you the most marvellous stories, which you cannot believe. He will show you the grave of Moses, and I am told that the Scriptures say, "No ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... organizing itself; it maps out its own structure in what may be called a General Introduction. Herein lies a significant difference between it and the Iliad, which has simply an Invocation to the Muse, and then leaps into the thick of the action. The Iliad, accordingly, does not formulate its own organization, which fact has been one cause of the frequent assaults upon its unity. Still the architectonic principle is powerful in the Iliad, though ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... his chaste Muse employ'd her heaven-taught lyre None but the noblest passions to inspire, Not one immoral, one corrupted thought, One line which, dying, he ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... comers till he met the man now closeted with him. He envied the King his poetic talent, and would fain have outdone him in the art of poesy. But even with Clement Marot's help he had been utterly unable to woo the fickle muse. He had so stored his mind, however, that his sovereign, the brilliant Marguerite de Nevarre, and the master intellect of that age, Rabelais, all delighted in his society; and on account of his ability ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... sit in a corner to muse and write in rhymes that you are all my world. It is heroic to hug one's sorrow and determine not to be consoled. But a fresh face peeps across my door and raises its eyes to my eyes. I cannot but wipe away my tears and change the tune of my ...
— The Gardener • Rabindranath Tagore
... vain, an empty one, And shall I rue it ere the day is done? Will hope revive betimes? Or must I stand For evermore outside the fairyland Of thy good will? Alas! my place is here, To muse and moan and sigh and shed my tear, My paltry tear for one who loves me not, And would not mourn for ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... ordinary Pains in her Education," he declares, with the same hasty petulance that characterised that previous outburst in the preface to David Simple, that indeed he "will trouble the World no more with any children of mine by the same Muse." Two months later the Gentleman's Magazine prints a spirited appeal against this resolution. "His fair heroine's nose has in my opinion been too severely handled by some modern critics," [4] writes Criticulus, after a passage of warm ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... old fisherman and his son, who brought supplies of provisions from the town miles away. His dwelling-place, surrounded with palmetto trees, was little more than a rough shelter. Diotti arose at daylight, and after a simple repast, betook himself to practise. Hour after hour he would let his muse run riot with his fingers. Lovingly he wooed the strings with plaintive song, then conquering and triumphant would be his theme. But neither satisfied him. The vague dream of a melody more beautiful than ever man had heard dwelt hauntingly on the borders of his imagination, ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... would the muse immortal strains inspire, That high beyond all Greek and Roman fame, Might soar to times unborn, ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... in grave council sits the sage; There burns the youth's resistless rage To hurl the quiv'ring lance; The Muse with glory crowns their arms, And Melody exerts her charms, And ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various |
