"Muse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were thrown together 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 ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... must look for the classic novel dealing with painters and their painting, Manette Salomon, by Goncourt. Henry James has written several delightful tales, such as The Liar, The Real Thing, The Tragic Muse, in which artists appear. But it is the particular psychological problem involved rather than theories of art or personalities that steer Mr. James's cunning pen. We all remember the woman who destroyed a portrait of her husband which seemed to reveal his moral ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... not amass his facts; he concentrates. He wrings out quintessences; and when he has distilled his drops of pure spirit he brews his potion. Something of the kind happens to me now, whether verse or prose be the Muse of my devotion. A stray thought, a chance vision, moves me; presently the flame is hissing hot. Everything then at any time observed and stored in the memory which has relation to the fact is fused and in a swimming flux. Anon, as the Children ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... this etheric change has some effect upon light. The funeral pyre of Brighton is still blazing, and there is a very distant patch of scarlet in the western sky, which may mean trouble at Arundel or Chichester, possibly even at Portsmouth. I sit and muse and make an occasional note. There is a sweet melancholy in the air. Youth and beauty and chivalry and love—is this to be the end of it all? The starlit earth looks a dreamland of gentle peace. Who would imagine it as the terrible Golgotha strewn with the bodies of the human race? Suddenly, ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, To slowly trace the forest's shady scene, Where things that own not man's dominion dwell, And mortal foot hath ne'er, or rarely, been; To climb the trackless mountain all unseen, With the wild flock that never needs a fold; ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... I had said it, the idee struck me as bein' sort o' pitiful,—to go to whippin' a ghost. But she didn't seem to notice my remark, for she seemed to be a gazin' upward in a sort of a muse; ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... meet for the lonely muse, fit habitations for the poet's rich imaginings! not as they are most glorious in their natural scenery—whether the youthful May is covering their rugged brows with the bright tender verdure of the tasseled larch, and the yet brighter green of maple, mountain ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... Christmas—but there is nothing like verse to clear the mind, heat the blood, and make very humble the heart. Rouse thee, Muse! ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... but, had the verses of Lucretius perished, we should never have known that it could give utterance to the grandest conceptions with all that sustained majesty and harmonious swell in which the Grecian Muse rolls forth her ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... likes and inclinations somewhat silly; she considered his sordid and material. The husband's business was that of a gunmaker in a thriving city northwards, and his soul was in that business always; the lady was best characterized by that superannuated phrase of elegance 'a votary of the muse.' An impressionable, palpitating creature was Ella, shrinking humanely from detailed knowledge of her husband's trade whenever she reflected that everything he manufactured had for its purpose the destruction of life. She could only recover her equanimity by assuring herself that some, ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... course which will most certainly and most peacefully conduct you to the position which you desire. Turn not aside to bandy epithets with your enemies; stuff your ears, like the princess in the Arabian Nights, against words of insult and wrong; pause not to muse over your condition, or to question your prospects; but ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... the great Virginian held slaves. This man risked his empire rather than permit the slave trade in the humblest village of his dominions. You think me a fanatic, for you read history, not with your eyes, but with your prejudices. But fifty years hence, when Truth gets a hearing, the Muse of history will put Phocion for the Greek, Brutus for the Roman, Hampden for the English, La Fayette for France, choose Washington as the bright consummate flower of our earlier civilization, then, dipping her pen in the sunlight, will write in the clear blue, above them all, the name of the soldier, ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... too late to await the advent of a Queen of Song from the warm South. The South has had its turn; it has fulfilled its mission; the other end of the balance now comes up. The Northern Muse must sing her lesson to the world. Her fresher, chaster, more intellectual, and (as they only SEEM to some) her colder strains come in due season to recover our souls from the delicious languor of a Music which has been so wholly of the Feelings, that, for the want of some intellectual tonic and ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... may be seen in many figures of women playing upon instruments of music, ranged around the walls. One girl at the organ is graceful; another with a tambourine has a sort of Bassarid beauty. But the group of Apollo, Pegasus, and a Muse upon Parnassus, is a failure in its meaningless frigidity, while few of these subordinate compositions show power of conception ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... colour wanted, as the solemn night Steals forward thou shalt sweetly fall asleep For ever and for ever; I shall weep A day and night large tears upon thy face, Laying thee then beneath a rose-red place Where I may muse and dedicate and dream Volumes of poesy of thee; and deem It happiness to know that thou art far From any base desires as that fair star Set in the evening magnitude of heaven. Death takes but little, yea, thy death has given Me that deep peace and immaculate ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... after making the customary signal for the train to approach, threw his vast frame upon the earth, and seemed to muse on the deep responsibility of his present situation. His sons were not long in arriving; for the cattle no sooner scented the food and water than they quickened their pace, and then succeeded the usual bustle ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... would have raised his head; But all his thread was spun. So down the stream Went Daphnis: closed the waters o'er a head Dear to the Nine, of nymphs not unbeloved. Now give me goat and cup; that I may milk The one, and pour the other to the Muse. Fare ye well, Muses, o'er and o'er farewell! I'll sing strains lovelier yet ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... Petition, by Miss Aikin, is a chef-d'oeuvre. Miss Benger has published some historical works of great interest, which place her in the same line with Miss Aikin. Lastly, there is Helen Maria Williams, whose muse, half English, half French, has published poems, sonnets, and other pieces of verse, besides several political and historical works. This superior woman, at the same time that she gave birth, under the influence of sensibility and fancy, to works of inspiration, portrayed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 376, Saturday, June 20, 1829. • Various
... not get beyond plovers and lovers. I am still, however, harassed by the unauthentic Muse; if I cared to encourage her - but I have not the time, and anyway we are at the vernal equinox. It is funny enough, but my pottering verses are usually made (like the God-gifted organ voice's) at the autumnal; ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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 first time ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... Strickland. From the specimen with which she has furnished Dr. Bartlett of her poetic ardour, we are happy to find that neither the Canadian atmosphere nor the circumstances attendant upon the alteration of her name, have dimmed the light of that Muse which, in past years, engaged many of our juvenile hours with pleasure and profit.'—Montreal Gazette, 1833.] Mr. Charles Lindsey has given us, among other works, a life of Wm. Lyon Mackenzie,—with ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot
... that entitles it to its own separate share in the general commemoration. A shadow fell upon this particular morning as from a cloud of danger, that lingered for a moment over our heads, might seem even to muse and hesitate, and then sullenly passed away into distant quarters. It is noticeable that a danger which approaches, but wheels away,—which threatens, but finally forbears to strike,—is more interesting ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... caravan of such things as will be welcome in the enemy's camp. Powder for the guns of his people for certain he will want. Strong wines and waters too, for he, like those of his kind, loves to break the prophet's laws. I will leave you now to sleep and muse upon all this. Mayhap you will find some plan or scheme, as you English call it, that will be better than mine; but something of this sort it must be, and ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... fire. "Figs pall; but oh! the Beautiful never does. Figs rot; but oh! the Truthful is eternal. I was born, lady, to grapple with the Lofty and the Ideal. My soul yearns for the Visionary. I stand behind the counter, it is true; but I ponder here upon the deeds of heroes, and muse over the thoughts of sages. What is grocery for one who has ambition? What sweetness hath Muscovada to him who hath tasted of Poesy? The Ideal, lady, I often think, is the true Real, and the Actual, but a visionary hallucination. But pardon ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and charming daughter of Madame Sophie Gay, was called "the tenth muse" by her friends, who admired the sonorous original verses which she recited as a young girl in her mother's salon. She became, in June, 1831, the wife of Emile de Girardin, the founder of the Presse. Possessing in her youth, a bellezza ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... let him muse. The exhorter, he reflected, having picked up the trail and opened the cry—trail which the headlong twins had so witlessly overrun—these older dogs were on it hot; trail of the Gilmores and "Harriet." Somewhere on that trail the captain's son would ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... Swedenborg's mind is its theologic determination. Nothing with him has the liberality of universal wisdom, but we are always in a church. That Hebrew muse, which taught the lore of right and wrong to man, had the same excess of influence for him, it has had for the nations. The mode, as well as the essence, was sacred. Palestine is ever the more valuable as a chapter in universal history, and ever the less an available element ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... with irony: "My dear Kapellmeister, I am not as those who would serve Art with a bottle of champagne under each arm. I want no fumes in my brain and no clod between my fingers when I meet the Muse ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... comfort to the mourner speaks, Her silver voice with soft emotion breaks; Round the drear hovel roves her moistened eye, Her graceful bosom heaves the lengthened sigh. "I know thee now—I know that angel frame— O that the muse might dare to breathe thy name: Nor thine alone, but all that sister-band Who scatter gladness o'er a weeping land; Who comfort to the infant sufferer bring, And 'teach with joy the widow's heart to sing.' "For this, no noisy honors fame ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... Muse, we see, disdained not the name, nor refused it the hospitality of the boards; and parents took no shame to give it to their daughters. Tragedy goes further and speaks of the fly in high terms of praise, as ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... prepared Lord Garrow's tea and cut the leaves of the Revue des Deux Mondes, which he invariably read until he dressed for dinner, she stole away to the further room, where she could play the piano, write letters, muse over novels, or indulge in reverie without fear of interruption. But as she entered it that afternoon its air of peace seemed the bleakness of desolation. A terrible and afflicting grief swept, like an icy breeze, through her heart, and, whether from actual physical ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... the second time, not on the French side now, but across the Spluegen, through Switzerland, his genius touched him again, as had happened in those high regions three years before on the road to Italy. But this time it was not in the guise of the Latin Muse, who then drew from him such artful and pathetic poetical meditations about his past life and pious vows for the future;—it was something much more subtle and ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... make sufficient allowance for their prejudices and imperfections. I probably expected too much from men. And some of the reforms which I proposed might at the time be impracticable. I was accustomed to muse very much on the teachings of Christ and His Apostles, and to image to myself a state of things in the Church which, though very desirable, was probably unattainable, except through many slow preliminary changes. I wished for ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... Lewis! Monk or Bard, Who fain would make Parnassus a churchyard! Lo! wreaths of yew, not laurel, bind thy brow, Thy muse a sprite, Apollo's sexton thou; Whether on ancient tombs thou tak'st thy stand, By gibbering spectres hailed, thy kindred band; Or tracest chaste descriptions on thy page To please the females of our modest age; All hail, M.P., from whose infernal brain Thin-sheeted phantoms ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... AEolian island of Lesbos was the hearth and home of the earlier lyric poets. Among the earliest of the Lesbian singers was the poetess Sappho, whom the Greeks exalted to a place next to Homer. Plato calls her the Tenth Muse. Although her fame endures, her poetry, except ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... actions of the successive heads, and sings his own lyricks as an opiate to the chief, when indisposed for sleep; but poets are not equally esteemed and honored in all countries. I happened to be a witness of the dishonour done to the muse, at the house of one of the chiefs, where two of these bards were set at a good distance, at the lower end of a long table, with a parcel of Highlanders of no extraordinary appearance, over a cup ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... redress the faults that arise from the soil and air." Berkeley entertained the same feeling. Writing to Pope from Leghorn, and alluding to some half-formed design he had heard him mention of visiting Italy, he continues: "What might we not expect from a muse that sings so well in the bleak climate of England, if she felt the same warm sun, and breathed the same air with Virgil ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... things in poetry. But the critic had no adequate knowledge of the way in which genius works. His one desire in these studies of Scandinavian mythology was "to recommend it to the votaries of the Muse, as a machinery admirably constructed for their purpose" (p. 158). He hopes for "a more extensive adoption of the Scandinavian mythology, especially in our epic and lyric compositions" (p. 311). We ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby
... meet we five, in this still place, At this point of time, at this point in space. —My guests parade my new-penned ink, Or bang at the lamp-glass, whirl, and sink. 'God's humblest, they!' I muse. Yet why? They know Earth-secrets ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... sultry street, and it is delightful to pass in a few moments from the noisy, shadeless thoroughfare, where you see only mean gateways and the gable-ends of edifices, to a cool, grateful, calm place of rest and refreshment, where you can muse and meditate in ease and luxury, and feel at every moment the rich breeze from the river. In two or three instances, a light wooden bridge leads to the platform, close to which, and almost out of it, one or two large and noble trees ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... had witnessed, was prepared to admit this, and left the disciple of the dramatic Muse to himself and the lamp-post, and secretly hoped when the performance of the Comedians came off he might get an "order" for ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... the muse and peace adores, Forgetting glory, love, and gold, Again thy ever flowery shores Soon, Salgir! joyful shall behold; The bard shall wind thy rocky ways Filled with fond sympathies, shall view Tauride's bright skies ...
— The Bakchesarian Fountain and Other Poems • Alexander Pushkin and other authors
... humblest home! And both were so happy, so all in all to 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 a crop-eared ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... muse unto a Child I may compare, Who sees the riches of some famous Fair, He feeds his eyes but understanding lacks, To comprehend the worth of all those knacks; The glittering plate and Jewels he admires, The ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... boys roused both the lookers-on from their muse; but they stood still again at the first notes of a hymn—as Mr. Linden's deep voice began, and the young choir with ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... day, as day is reckoned on the earth, I've wandered in these dim and awful aisles, Shut from the blue and breezy dome of heaven, ... And now I'll sit me down upon yon broken rock, To muse upon the strange and solemn things Of this mysterious realm. All day my steps Have been amid the beautiful, the wild, The gloomy, the terrific; crystal founts Almost invisible in their serene And pure transparency, high pillared domes With stars and flowers, all fretted ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... eye; for despite his travels he was not very familiar with London. Exeter Hall naturally took his mind back to his Uncle Boldero, that great and ardent Nonconformist, and his own godly youth. It was laughable to muse upon what his uncle would say and think, did the old man know that his nephew had run away with a girl, meaning to seduce her in Paris. It was ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... on the plains of Troy. Awake, my Muse, awake! be thine the joy To sing of deeds as dauntless and as brave As e'er lent luster to a warrior's grave. Sing of that noble soldier, nobler man, Dear to the heart of each American. Sound forth his praise from sea to listening sea— Greece her Achilles claimed, ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... 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 ...
— Homer and Classical Philology • Friedrich Nietzsche
... God, afraid of me; Safe from the bar, the pulpit, and the throne, Yet touched and shamed by ridicule alone. O sacred weapon! left for Truth's defence, Sole dread of folly, vice, and insolence! To all but heaven-directed hands denied, The Muse may give thee, but the gods must guide: Reverent I touch thee, but with honest zeal, To rouse the watchmen of the public weal, To Virtue's work provoke the tardy Hall And goad the prelate slumb'ring in his stall. Ye tinsel ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... slow drudge, in swift Pindaric strains, Flatman, who Cowley imitates with pains, And drives a jaded Muse, whipt with ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... thoroughly Greek, reminding one of Plato's 'muse-inspired madman' and of what Sophocles is related to have said to Aeschylus; 'Thou, Aeschylus, always dost the right thing—but unconsciously ([Greek: all' ouk eidos ge]).' Thus it was also with Goethe. All intellectual hobbies and shibboleths, ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... distant, in spirit still present to me, My best thoughts, my country, still linger with thee; My fond heart beats quick, and my dim eyes run o'er, When I muse on the last glance I gave to thy shore. The chill mists of night round thy white cliffs were curl'd, But I felt there was no spot like thee in the world— No home to which memory so fondly would turn, No thought that within me so madly ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... you can muse in a crowd all day On the absent face that fixed you; Unless you can love as the angels may, With the breadth of heaven betwixt you; Unless you can dream that his faith is fast, Through behooving and unbehooving; Unless you can DIE when the ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... crowd, At work I muse to you aloud; Thought on my anvil softens, glows, And I forget our art has foes; For life, the mother of beauty, seems A joyous sleep with waking dreams. Then the toy armoury of the brain Opining, judging, looks as vain As trowels silver gilt for use Of mayors and kings, ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... frequent preparations for a Newgate execution—but enough of such details; it is the muse of Mr. Crabbe that alone could do them justice. We would say to the great city, in the benedictory spirit of the patriot of Venice,—esto perpetua! Notwithstanding thy manifold "honest knaveries," peace be within thy walls, and plenty pervade thy palaces, that thou mayest ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 536, Saturday, March 3, 1832. • Various
... some difficulty to contend with the hebetude of his intellect, and the meanness of his subject. With him "lowliness is young ambition's ladder:" but he finds it a toil to climb in this way the steep of Fame. His homely Muse can hardly raise her wing from the ground, nor spread her hidden glories to the sun. He has "no figures nor no fantasies, which busy passion draws in the brains of men:" neither the gorgeous machinery of mythologic lore, nor the splendid colours of poetic ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... his 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 ...
— Primavera - Poems by Four Authors • Stephen Phillips, Laurence Binyon, Manmohan Ghose and Arthur Shearly Cripps
... territory and putting all around them to fire and sword; burning farms, wasted fields, shrieking women, slaughtered sons and fathers, and drunken soldiery, cursing and carousing in the midst of tears, terror, and murder. Why does the stately Muse of History, that delights in describing the valor of heroes and the grandeur of conquest, leave out these scenes, so brutal, and degrading, that yet form by far the greater part of the drama of war? You gentlemen of England, who live at home at ease and compliment yourselves ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... The Commission in Lunacy Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Bachelor's Establishment The Secrets of a Princess The Government Clerks Pierrette A Study of Woman 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 Woman ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... stanzas have no bearing upon one another; they consist of four or seven lines, but in either case each contains its definite sentiment; so that one verse may be a complete song, or the singer may continue as long as the muse prompts and his subject's charms occasion. The Spanish song is like a barbaric necklace in which all manner of different stones are strung upon a single cord, without thought for their ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... this sincere effort of a maiden muse. Here was a sense of rhythm, and an effort in the direction of rhyme; here was an honest transcript of an occurrence of daily life, told with a certain idealizing expression, recognizing the existence of impulses, mysterious instincts, impelling ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... as yet a better right to sing of cider than of wine; but it behooves them to sing better than English Phillips did, else they will do no credit to their Muse. ...
— Wild Apples • Henry David Thoreau
... thing be more clear! more natural! more agreeable to the true spirit of simplicity! Here are no tropes,—no figurative expressions,—not even so much as an invocation to the Muse. He does not detain his readers by any needless circumlocution; by unnecessarily informing them, what he is going to sing; or still more unnecessarily enumerating what he is not going to sing: but according to the ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe
... soul by tender strokes of art, To raise the genius, and to mend the heart, To make mankind in conscious virtue bold, Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold: For this the tragic Muse first trod the stage, Commanding tears to stream through every age. Tyrants no more their savage nature kept, And foes to virtue wondered ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... to compose an ode especially for the occasion. It would evidently have been effective to welcome the hero, to glorify his deed, and to point the moral in a few original verses; but, unhappily, the muse was froward, which was singular, since the elite of Little Primpton had unimpeachable morals, ideals of the most approved character, and principles enough to build a church with; nor was an acquaintance with literature wanting. They all read the daily ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... more deserved. Even at that early age, I often could not help smiling at his simplicity, that all the while he was doing his best to make me one of the vainest and most egregious coxcombs, by his unfeigned wonder at some puny effort of my puny muse, and by his injudicious praises; he would lecture me parentally, by the hour, upon the excellence of humility, and the absolute necessity of modesty, as a principal ingredient ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, June 10, 1914 • Various
... at Arnold's short note. "My dear Irene"—"In haste, but ever yours." These lines did not tempt her to muse. Yet Arnold was ceaselessly in her mind. She wished to see him, and at the same time feared his coming. As for the house, it occupied her thoughts with only a flitting vagueness. Why so much solicitude about the house? In any decent quarter of ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... many weeks before Robert was writing home, explaining that lawyers were men who get good people into trouble, and bad folks out; and as for himself he had decided to cut the business and fling himself into the arms of the Muse. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... Land. For lawless and ungovern'd, had the Age The Nine wild Sisters seen run mad with Rage, Debaucht to Savages, till his keen Pen Brought their long banisht Reason back again, Driven by his Satyres into Natures Fence, And lasht the idle Rovers into Sense. Nay, his sly Muse, in Style Prophetick, wrot The whole Intrigue of Israels Ethnick Plot; Form'd strange Battalions, in stupendious-wise, Whole Camps in Masquerade, and Armies in disguise. Amiel, whose generous Gallantry, whilst Fame Shall have a Tongue, shall never ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... upon the sweet-voiced Muse's shining wings, yet again with wreaths from Pytho and choice wreaths from Alpheos from the Olympian games entwine his hand, and bring honour ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... live in the world according to the Christian law of restraint and moderation, and of those who yearn to live in God. With Augustin the choice is made. He will never more look back. These Dialogues at Cassicium are his supreme farewell to the pagan Muse. ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... apparently more her mother's joy, and each day bound to that mother by, if possible, more ardent love. She had never again experienced those uneasy thoughts which at times had haunted her from her infancy; separated from her mother, indeed, scarcely for an hour together, she had no time to muse. Her studies each day becoming more various and interesting, and pursued with so gifted and charming a companion, entirely engrossed her; even the exercise that was her relaxation was participated by Lady Annabel; and the mother ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... said Adrienne, gayly, "this affair will arrange itself quite easily. Henceforth, Mr. Poet, you shall draw your inspirations in the midst of good fortune instead of adversity. Sad muse! But first of all, bonds shall be ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... thoughts and dancing feelings. A poet would be certain to have often seen this happy crowd, and to desire to trick them out in song. So Browning does in his poem, In a Gondola. The two lovers, with the dark shadow of fate brooding over them, sing and muse and speak alternately, imaging in swift and rival pictures made by fancy their deep-set love; playing with its changes, creating new worlds in which to place it, but always returning to its isolated ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... book consists of brief biographical commentaries about Beethoven, each followed by sections of quotations attributed to the muse. In these quotes, Beethoven demonstrates his intense preoccupation (or obsession) with thinking artistically and intelligently, and with helping to alleviate man's suffering by providing man with musical artworks that could enlighten him, so ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven
... it is dated, or supposed to be so, from the banks of the Garonne. Among 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 the same time that he ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... but I request you, that are here privileged to soar aloft with the Muse, to fix your minds upon one point in this flight. Let not the heat and dust of the ensuing fray divert your attention from the magnanimity of Beer. It will be vindicated in the end but be worthy of your seat beside the Muse, who alone of us all ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Muse,* assisted Hector's force With fate itself so long to hold the course? Phoebus* it was; who, in his latest hour, Endued his knees with strength, his nerves with power. And great Achilles, lest some Greek's advance Should snatch the glory from his lifted lance, Sign'd to the troops ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... and he began to muse. 'I have heard of that name before. Is it possible,' thought he, 'that my visit to Bethany should have led ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... peculiarly familiar. The judgment of Orderic and of William of Malmesbury confirms the impression of Hildebrand. But the Normans have been their own witnesses, the cathedrals which they raised from the Seine to the Tyne are epics in stone, inspired by no earthly muse, fit emblems of the rock-like endurance and ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... Williams, I know—but he laughs so much! Of course there isn't any comparison. Mr. Kinosling talks so intellectually; it's a good thing for Margaret to hear that kind of thing, for a change and, of course, he's very spiritual. He seems very much interested in her." She paused to muse. "I think Margaret likes him; he's so different, too. It's the third time he's dropped in this week, ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... more helpless than anything I have ever seen, falling into everything he could fall into, biting several of the crew. You know the sonnet in which Baudelaire compares the bird on the wing to the poet with the Muse beside him, and the albatross on deck to the poet in the drawing-room. You remember the sonnet, how the sailors teased the bird ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... against the rugged trunk of her elm, gazed down the long shaded avenue, and appeared to muse. Here and there, the sun, finding a way through the green cloud of leaves, a visible fillet of light in the dim atmosphere, dappled the brown earth with rose. In her white frock, her dark hair loose about her brow, a faint colour in her cheeks, her dark eyes musing, musing ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... dwelt only on the cheering and the joyous features of her faith; her mind loved to muse on the legends of saints and angels and the glories of paradise, which, with a secret buoyancy, she hoped to be the lot of every one she saw. The mind of the Mother Theresa was of the same elevated cast, and the terrors on which Jocunda dwelt with such homely ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... the 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 Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... 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 ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... Lawrence surprised him by the inquiry, "George, how would you like to take lessons in the manual exercise of Adjutant Muse?" ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... 'Dante has raised love far above mere earthly passion to a religion, which can worship the pure and the spiritual rather than the mere beauty of the bodily presence. This breathes in much of Philip's later verse. You know how he says he obeyed the muse, who bid him "look in his heart, and write, rather than go outside for models of construction." That great work—great work of yours and Sir Philip, the Arcadia—teams with beauties, and Pamela is the embodiment ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... with doubt the bosom heaves. The heart for Grecian sorrows grieves, And pines to see them fail. Such critics sometimes court the muse, And I perchance the rhymes peruse, Then heaves the breast ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various
... needlework. But she found it difficult to fix her attention on it. Every now and then, she would leave her needle stuck across its seam, let the work drop to her lap, and, with eyes turned vaguely up the valley, fall, apparently, into a muse. ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... of the innumerable pockets of the desk, an elegant ruby-tipped pen, and six charming little gilt blank books, marked "My Books," which Mrs. Fitzroy might fill, he said, (he is an Oxford man, and very polite,) "with the delightful productions of her Muse." Besides these books, there was pink paper, paper with crimson edges, lace paper, all stamped with R. F. T. (Rosa Fitzroy Timmins) and the hand and battle-axe, the crest of the Timminses (and borne at Ascalon by Roaldus de Timmins, a crusader, who is now buried in the Temple ...
— A Little Dinner at Timmins's • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Abrantes, in recalling the brilliant winter of 1804-5, says, in her Memoirs: "One especially impressive beauty, particularly in the ball-room, was Madame de Canisy, I have often compared her to a muse. It would be impossible for a single face to present a fuller combination of charms than hers: she possessed regular features, a delightful expression, an attractive smile; her hair was silky and glossy. Seldom have I seen anything more charming than Madames de Canisy, ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... gentleman's library is complete without it; but I never read. My days, my nights, are filled, Bella, with thoughts of you. Yes,' continued he, seating himself upon the sofa by her side, and passing his arm about her throbbing waist, 'yes, you are my muse—my only volume. You are the inspiration of the poetical trifles that I send to the weekly newspapers, and which I may say, without vanity, are considered equal to Mrs. Sigourney's. Without you, life were indeed ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... nor creeping Gain, Dare the Muse's walk to stain, 10 While bright-eyed Science watches round: Hence, away! 'tis ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... intolerable sense of defeat to find reasons for still looking hopefully to the future, the learned Mrs. Gallilee lowered herself to the intellectual level of the most ignorant servant in the house. The modern Muse of Science unconsciously opened her mind to the vulgar belief in luck. She said to herself, as her kitchen-maid might have said, We will see what comes ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... his long hair and blew it about his face till he became an equestrian personification of the frenzied muse. I had become acquainted with his trick of setting words to the music of quaint rhymes; but ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... silence of them all are beautiful and eloquent with dead men's legacies to the living, where the Hours and the Seasons frolic beside the Maries at the Sepulchre, and Adonis bares his lovely limbs, in nowise ashamed because S. Jerome and S. Mark are there; to study and muse, and wonder and be still, and be full of the peace which passes all understanding, because the earth is lovely as Adonis is, and life is yet unspent; to come out of the sacred light, half golden, and half ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... took them in the fact. Of riding armed; O traitorous overt act! With each of them an ancient Pistol sided, Against the statute in that case provided. But, why was such a host of swearers pressed? Their succour was ill husbandry at best. Bayes's crowned muse, by sovereign right of satire, Without desert, can dub a man a traitor; And tories, without troubling law or reason, By loyal instinct can ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... carry us around Cape Horn to California. She was receiving on board the necessary stores for the long voyage, and for service after our arrival there. Lieutenant-Commander Theodorus Bailey was in command of the vessel, Lieutenant William H. Macomb executive officer, and Passed-Midshipmen Muse, Spotts, and J. W. A. Nicholson, were the watch-officers; Wilson purser, and Abernethy surgeon. The latter was caterer of the mess, and we all made an advance of cash for him to lay in the necessary mess-stores. To enable us to prepare for so long a voyage and for an indefinite sojourn ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... rely entirely upon their own Muse, but borrow from Ovid, Propertius, or Virgil, when they recall sentiments in those writers which express their feelings. Sometimes it is a tag, or a line, or a couplet which is taken, but the borrowings are woven into the context with some skill. The poet above who is under compulsion ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... of the acute financial crisis in the Mattel family, Papa Claude had revived amazingly, and was once more wearing a rose in his buttonhole and courting the Muse. He and Harold Phipps spent several afternoons a week working on their play, which they hoped to get fully blocked out before the latter left the service and returned to his ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... and constantly keep at the Master's feet, until He calls you up higher. Be kind and gentle to your sister Esther." To her Pastor she said: "Preach the Gospel uncolored!" We look upon the sinking form of a dear wife and mother, or brother, or sister, or husband, or friend, and as we sadly muse upon the fact that we held sweet counsel together and walked to the House of God in company; and we softly whisper to the physician is there no hope of recovery? Can you not save that young and precious ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... Zola himself displays in some of his transitions, pass to very different things, for some time back a well-known English poet and essayist wrote of the present work that it was redolent of pork, onions, and cheese. To one of his sensitive temperament, with a muse strictly nourished on sugar and water, such gross edibles as pork and cheese and onions were peculiarly offensive. That humble plant the onion, employed to flavour wellnigh every savoury dish, can assuredly need no defence; in most European countries, too, cheese has long been ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... Siddons as the Tragic Muse. Painted in 1783 and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1784. The original work was bought by M. de Calonne for 800 guineas, and finally came into the possession of the Marquis of Westminster, in whose family it has since remained. ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... exposed me to the scorn of a people whom I wished to respect. Below me lay the most beautiful landscapes in the world—all the rich scenery that nature, in her best attire, can exhibit. Here were the spots that furnished those delightful themes of which the muse of Denham and Pope made choice. I seemed to view a whole world at once, rich and beautiful beyond conception. At that moment what more could ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... a prayer to the Muse; but I can't remember what it is. No matter. Multiplication Table comes next. Mother says it's just the same thing in India that it ...
— Dotty Dimple At Home • Sophie May
... Mumble murmuri. Mummy mumo. Munch macxi. Mundane monda. Municipal urba. Munificence malavareco. Munificent malavara. Murder mortigi. Murder mortigo. Murderer mortiganto. Murky malhela, malluma. Murmur murmuri. Muscat wine muskatvino. Muscle muskolo. Muscular muskola. Muse muzo. Muse revi. Museum muzeo. Mushroom fungo. Music muziko. Musical muzika. Musician muzikisto. Music (to play) muziki. Muskrat miogalo. Musket pafilo. Muslin muslino. Mussel mitulo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... came, I believe that I began to muse about Monsieur de Chavannes; but it was only to think that I did not care in the least about him, nor he about me; and that, so far as he was concerned, I had seen no cause to change my decided resolution that I would never marry. All this was, perhaps, in reality, the best of proofs ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... being come thus well nigh to the beginning of May and the weather being very fair, that, having entered into thought of his cruel mistress, he bade all his servants leave him to himself, so he might muse more at his leisure, and wandered on, step by step, lost in melancholy thought, till he came [unwillingly] into the pine-wood. The fifth hour of the day was well nigh past and he had gone a good ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Handley-Page. They get down millions of words a minute. But when they have got the job apparently done, they simmer away to nothing. They perform mysterious rites with ink-eraser. They scratch feebly with knives. They hold up to the light, they tittivate, they muse and they adorn. It is not the slightest use intimating that you do not care twopence whether there are typographic errors or not—the expert typist treats you with the scorn that the expert always does treat ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... with varied style Thy Muse may, like those feathery tribes which spring From their rude rocks, extend her skirting wing Round the moist marge of each cold Hebrid isle To that hoar pile which still its ruin shows: In whose small vaults a pigmy-folk is found, Whose bones the delver with his spade upthrows, And culls them, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... was immortal while the past was dead. As Dorothy thought these things and sweetly blushed to think them, you would have been reminded of a rose, if her blue eyes had not made you remember violets, or by their clear, true, tranquil depths led you away to muse ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... TABLETS Different Destinies The Animating Principle Two Descriptions of Action Difference of Station Worth and the Worthy The Moral Force Participation To—— The Present Generation To the Muse The Learned Workman The Duty of All A Problem The Peculiar Ideal To Mystics The Key The Observer Wisdom and Prudence The Agreement Political Precept Majestas Populi The Difficult Union To a World-Reformer My Antipathy ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... the tumult and noise of London. I sighed for solitude, that I might muse over your remembrance undisturbed. I came here yesterday. It is the home of my childhood. I am surrounded on all sides by the scenes and images consecrated by the fresh recollections of my unsullied years. They are not changed. The seasons which ...
— Falkland, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Fame, and that too after death, was all which hitherto the poets had promised themselves from this art. It seems to have been left to Wither to discover that poetry was a present possession, as well as a rich reversion, and that the Muse has a promise of both lives,—of this, and of that which was ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... at Bologna, on the 16th of August, after a courtship of 16 years, to Mademoiselle Olympe Bearrien of Paris. It may change the turn of his muse. ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various
... of the religious Muse in the English tongue has greater diversity of criticism been displayed or more extraordinary or varied judgment been rendered than upon Sternhold and Hopkins' Psalms. A world of testimony could be adduced to fortify any view which one chose ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... capital," said the marquis, "and as to money matters, you can arrange them to suit yourself. I should not think of bargaining with the votaries of Thalia—a muse so highly favoured by Apollo, and as eagerly sought after, and enthusiastically applauded, at the court of his most gracious majesty as in town and ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... velvet embroidered with gold. By his side, and seated on a globe, was a tall female form dressed in white, with an open book in one hand, and in the other a wand, pointing towards the portrait. This figure was to represent the Muse of History:—may she one day cast a glance of friendly retrospection on the prototype of her pictured companion! A body of cavalry followed the car, and the carriages of the most distinguished inhabitants of the place closed the procession. Several Chinese triumphal arches crossed the streets, ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... Resolved no nobleman on earth Should overgo him in the price. From which these serious lessons flow:— Fail not your praises to bestow On gods and godlike men. Again, To sell the product of her pain Is not degrading to the Muse. Indeed, her art they do abuse, Who think her wares to use, And yet a liberal pay refuse. Whate'er the great confer upon her, They're honour'd by it while they honour. Of old, Olympus and Parnassus In friendship heaved ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... and dismissed me. I slowly ascended a third- class carriage, which was filled with abominable tobacco-smoke that seemed like the fogs of Acheron at the entrance to Hades. I now had the leisure to muse about the riddle of human existence, and about its ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... accept, with feelings of great obligation, the flattering proposal of Lord Byron to prefix my name to the very grand and tremendous drama of 'Cain.'[*] I may be partial to it, and you will allow I have cause; but I do not know that his Muse has ever taken so lofty a flight amid her former soarings. He has certainly matched Milton on his own ground. Some part of the language is bold, and may shock one class of readers, whose line will be adopted by others out of affectation ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... the poet in person is the relater. But he hides his own personality in that of the Muse he invokes; and offers himself to his auditors as the Voice only by which she speaks. She, the Muse, is thought to be throughout a faithful recorder; for she is supposed to have access to know all; and however marvellous may be the narrations, they are ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... of the guide and the company beneath had a hushed and muffled sound; and when I rustled the ivy leaves, or, in trying to break off a branch, loosened some fragment of stone, the sound affected me with a startling distinctness. I could not but inly muse and wonder on the life these old monks and abbots led, shrined up here as they were in ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... nature, too arbitrary in their influence, to acknowledge any restraints upon that expression, which glows or weeps with emotions that gush freely and freshly from the heart. With this persuasion, we can also forgive the muse who, in her fervor, is sometimes forgetful of ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... would sit quietly and muse upon what I had been saying; or, if he thought me not too deeply absorbed in reflection, would ask a question, or say something relative to the subject in hand, which would give me the opportunity of making some remarks which it gratified me ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... was classical, like a Muse, with her dark silky hair just streaked with grey, looped away behind her ears; while Miss Henrietta, the younger, had ringlets and large eyes and ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... supported upon a tripod, the fragments being held together by a band of gold filigree. This remarkable object of antiquity, which is of extraordinary beauty of material and workmanship, furnishes a theme over which the antiquaries love to muse and wrangle. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... the hillside where the torn web lay, its bloom and beauty all gone. Ragged bits of green, mingled with dull brown tracery of vine and tendril, lay back upon the background of earth, but of purple there was no trace. In the hush of the night, the Weaver came back, to muse sadly over what had been and, perhaps, to dream ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... stationmaster at Llanidloes, was appointed to the management of this little line. The duties were not particularly arduous, and, in any case, "Ceiriog" was apt to take life with a light heart. Whether he sat in his office or in the cosy corner of some favourite rural inn the muse burned brightly within him, and, from his remote retreat among the hills which look down on the infant Severn, he poured out his soul in poetry, which ranks high in Celtic literature. Welsh verse always suffers in translation into the more cumbrous English, ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine
... devoted to pursuits for which he did not care a rap. He once dreamt of an epic poem, and his early 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 ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... high, Mr. Diry? My muse come playguey neer running away with me, so I had to wistle "down brakes," and slow her up. Now I'll begin to record my doins on your pages, so that, shuld the toes of my boots be applide to the patent bucket early in my useful ...
— The Bad Boy At Home - And His Experiences In Trying To Become An Editor - 1885 • Walter T. Gray
... When she was able to shake off the almost Oriental torpor, in which for hours together she would muse, she became another creature: she loved walking; she was tall, with a fine length of leg, and a strong, supple figure, and she looked like a Diana of Primatice.—Most often they would go to one of the villas, left ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... vanity of all to the profit of the vanity of each, kindled in me a desire to show myself frank and independent. I murmured, loud enough to be heard by all my neighbors,—"Of a truth, the Country's Muse is not Melpomene!" Madame Emile de Girardin, when Mademoiselle Delphine Gay and in the most brilliant period of her poetical youth, had styled herself "the Country's Muse"; her admirers had adopted the ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... of my life. Whether in the star which, as I now write, shines in upon me, and which a romance, still unsubdued, has often dreamed to be the bright prophet of my fate, something of future adventure, suffering, or excitement is yet predestined to me; or whether life will muse itself away in the solitudes which surround the home of my past childhood and the scene of my present retreat,—creates within me but slight food for anticipation or conjecture. I have exhausted the sources of those feelings which flow, whether through the channels of anxiety or ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... many-headed throng. But shou'd I paint The language, humours, custom of the place, Together with all curts'ys, lowly bows, And compliments extern, 'twould swell my page Beyond its limits due. Suffice it then For my prophetic muse to say, 'So long As fashion rides upon the wings of time, While tea and cream, and butter'd rolls can please, While rival beaux and jealous belles exist, So long, White Conduit House, shall ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley |
