"Musing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that drove those warlike multitudes to the crusades? Where is that fervour which continued building cathedrals for a couple of hundred years with angelic patience to shelter a host under a mountain of stone? Who scourges themselves to-day, or tortures their flesh, or lives in the desert musing continually on death and hell? Three centuries of intolerance and of excessive clerical severity have made our nation the most indifferent to all religious matters. The ceremonies of worship are followed by routine, ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... sat musing and intently looking into the fire, it was a sign that some one was throwing an evil spell over him, or fascinating him for evil. When this was observed, if any one without speaking were to take the tongs and turn the centre coal ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... Musing over these expeditions, over the fate of the poor soldiers, over the resistance offered by the islanders to the foreign yoke, he thought that, death for death, if that of the soldiers was glorious because they were obeying orders, ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... said the Lady to herself, musing, "who—but there were so many who came. I wonder whether memory is a curse or a blessing to them after they have fallen ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... Musing thus, he rode under the fantastic festoons he had been admiring, and saw at his right a long gentle descent, where a small stream of water glided downward over mossy stones. Trees on either side interlaced their boughs over it, and formed a vista, cool, dark, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... work now see all we saw on that long morning, and a great deal more besides, while the carriage windows are soused by the all-pervading spray, thus carrying out one of Mr. Rhodes's cherished sentiments. Finally—musing at the marvellous and confusing twists and turns of the river, changing in character and appearance so as to be wellnigh unrecognizable—we walked on a hundred yards, and came upon a deep, deep gorge, rocky, barren, and repelling, ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... questing have become the like of this sleeping youth whom I passed but now, how shall I know him? Alas, the length of my travail and travel! How shall I go about in search of a somebody I know not, one whom, if I saw him face to face I should not know?" So saying he turned back, musing anent that sleeping youth, and coming to him, he still sleeping, dismounted from his mare and sat down by his side. He fixed his eyes upon his face and considered him awhile and said in himself, "For aught I wot, this youth may ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... his hopes of reconciliation, his new transports felt an allay, and the few days that remained before Lord Elmwood came, he passed in solitary musing, and ineffectual walks and looks towards that path in which he had met Matilda—she came that way no more—indeed scarce quitted her apartment, in the practice of that confinement she was to experience on ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... usual supply of fuel was prepared, Jim returned home. Full of pity for Mag, he set about devising measures for her relief. "By golly!" said he to himself one day—for he had become so absorbed in Mag's interest that he had fallen into a habit of musing aloud—"By golly! I ...
— Our Nig • Harriet E. Wilson
... evidence; but the earl pleaded insanity of mind; and, in order to establish this plea, called many witnesses to attest his lunacy in a variety of instances, which seemed too plainly to indicate a disordered imagination: unfounded jealousy of plots and conspiracies, unconnected ravings, fits of musing, incoherent ejaculations, sudden starts of fury, denunciations of unprovoked revenge, frantic gesticulations, and a strange caprice of temper, were proved to have distinguished his conduct and deportment. It appeared that lunacy had been a family taint, and affected divers of his lordship's ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... She had been musing with downcast eyes; now she looked up, straight into her companion's face. It had undergone a sudden change; the eyes, a moment since so full of fire and subtlety, were dull and expressionless. The face was vague to apathy, ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... musing on Belleisle and his Anti-Pragmatic industries and grandiosities,—"how Chief-Bully Belleisle stept down into the ring as a gay Volunteer, and foolish Chief-Defender George had to follow dismally heroic, as a ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... to be one of Horace's late evenings, so that Mrs Cruden was alone. She was lying wearily on the uncomfortable sofa, with her eyes shaded from the light, dividing her time between knitting and musing, the latter occupation ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... as odd that not a single fox-footing had he sighted since leaving home. "Something must have been cleaning 'em up," he reasoned. "There were two broods on Whale Island and one at least on t' Isle of Hope. That's some twenty all told—and ne'er a wolf or lynx track out to t' landward t' year." Musing to himself, he knelt down by the trap to examine it more closely. Lifting it up, he blew off the loose snow and inspected the stump carefully. No, nothing to indicate that it had been moved. If it had been, it must have been replaced with consummate care; for the rain had fallen once ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... present condition that this was too far, and said that if the tavern keeper would treat him civilly and feed his horse well by his leave he would stay. This was promised him, and Very dismounted and went in. He quietly took a seat in one corner of the room, and the dancing continued. While musing upon many things and wishing in his heart he could do those people good, and having finally made up his mind to ask the privilege of preaching there the next day, he was surprised to see a beautiful and ruddy young lady, who was no other than Stella Nebeker, walk gracefully up to him, drop a handsome ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... in this fashion musing, One sunny summer's day, Half-watching mother mending And ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... most remote notion what an aigrette might be, but she thought it would sound well for a countess; and she went on musing very pleasantly on the amiable simplicity of the countess, and the speech that was to cure the aunts of playing at cards on a Sunday, wearing turbans, and all other enormities, and lead them to live in the country, giving a continual course of school feasts, ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Several times he slowly shook his head, like a dreaming owl, and when his eyes reopened their fire was gone, and a reflective film covered them. He began to speak, more deliberately than before, and in a musing tone: ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... had never been known to smile, but at this speech he lifted one eyebrow and turned his saturnine face full at his superior, inquiry written upon every line of it. Captain Swarth was musing, however, and said no more; so the mate, knowing better than to attempt probing his mind, swung his long figure down the poop-ladder, and went forward to harass the men—which, in their opinion, was ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... his red-bearded friend, was more to him than a mere hired servant, and he usually preferred to ride alone, apart from the little troop, musing on the past—seldom on the future—and generally observing all that lay on his way with a keen eye. They soon reached Lebanon; between it and and Lebanon a road led through the great Syrian valley. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... curiosity. I must have appeared quite a tame, commonplace person beside her. When Jill went out of the room to fetch something, he asked me, rather curiously, how old she was, and when I told him that she was a mere child, not quite sixteen, he said, half musing, that she seemed older than that. She knew so much about things, but he ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... soon, how soon, a different scene I trace, Where I have wandered, or oft musing stood, And those whose cheering looks enhanced the place, No more shall smile on thee, lone ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... books, and from what she could see from a railway carriage, as Miss Milverton and she were carried swiftly on their way to the sea-side for their annual change of air. She thought of it all now, as she sat musing in the old ...
— Thistle and Rose - A Story for Girls • Amy Walton
... rock the brethren built him a cell of branches, and he lived alone in prayer, apart from the others, for the foreknowledge of his death had overshadowed him. Once as he stood by the cell, scanning the shape of the mountain and musing on the clefts and chasms in the huge rocks, it was borne in upon him that the mountain had been thus torn and cloven in the Ninth Hour when our Lord cried with a loud voice, and the rocks were rent. And beside this beech-tree St. Francis was many times uplifted into the air in rapture, and many ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... Bartley to push right along, and get admitted at once. He can do it, fast enough. He's bright enough," added the old man, with a certain grimness. "M-well!" he broke out, with a quick sigh, after a moment of musing; "it hasn't happened at any very bad time. I was just thinking, this morning, that I should like to have my whole time, pretty soon, to look after my property. I sha'n't want Bartley to do that for me. I'll give him a good start in money and in business; but ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... dropped a tear over the uncoffined burial of his persecutor; but his heart was filled with gratitude, as he looked into the peerless night,—gratitude to Him who has given us a soul, that we may admire the works of his hands. As Harry sat musing, turning from the heavenly orbs to their semblance on the bosom of the placid waters, he observed, as it were, a fallen star, mirrored therein, but rousing his dreamy senses, he found it was a small, shining object, floating near them. He drew it from the water; it was a block ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... stay a little while," as if she had been musing over her journey. "Fairy godmother why don't ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas
... With interest came speculation. He wondered who she was. He wondered where she had bought that excellently fitting suit of tailor-made grey. He admired her back, and wondered whether her face, if seen, would prove a disappointment. Thus musing, he drew near to the top of the Haymarket, where it ceases to be a street and becomes a whirlpool of rushing traffic. And here the girl, having paused and looked over her shoulder, stepped off the sidewalk. ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... the next gentleman that I meet withal, should be acquaintance whether he would or no: and presently fixing mine eyes upon a gentleman-like object, I looked on him, as if I would survey something through him, and make him my perspective: and he much musing at my gazing, and I much gazing at his musing, at last he crossed the way and made toward me, and then I made down the street from him, leaving to encounter with any man, who came after me leading my horse, whom he thus accosted. My friend (quoth he) doth yonder gentleman, (meaning me) ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor
... unsatisfactory results, for he slowly removed his sombrero, drew a broom-straw from inside the band, extracted the stem of the corn-cob and ran the straw through it. The immediate vicinity became impregnated with a violent odor of nicotine. The White Chief, however, musing close by on the steps, seemed not to notice it. His eyes were fixed on three Indian canoes being paddled in from the lagoon across the bay which was now taking on the opalescent tints of ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... the place for a man to select for a rendezvous: just the secret spot where a maiden could listen without trembling at intruders; and it struck me that this must have been the trysting place of my parents. For an hour I remained there, castle-building for the future, and musing on the past, when I heard a voice, close to me on the other side of the cell, the back of which was turned towards the hall. I knew the voice to be that of the old lady, who, it appears, had, as usual, come out ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... Musing on these things, Christine turned at last and sauntered slowly homeward. Everything was still very quiet, but smoke was rising from the solid farm chimneys, and, rounding the corners of some large outbuildings, she came suddenly upon more life—feathery, fantastic life of spindlelegs ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... following Clement's talk with her she fell asleep while musing upon one mind's influence upon another. Perhaps if she could only believe she might be helped; perhaps he was sent to help her. It had been long since such a personality had stood before her—indeed, no such man had ever touched her hand or ...
— The Spirit of Sweetwater • Hamlin Garland
... passed on, and as the sentry had a glimpse of a white face and the folds of a veil he stood musing and watching till the ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... neighbor with the iron tongue. While I sit musing over my sheet of foolscap, he emphatically tells the hour, in tones loud enough for all the town to hear, though doubtless intended only as a gentle hint to myself, that I may begin his biography before the evening ...
— A Bell's Biography - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... went on. Soft home-strains came from the piano, and the two old people sank into their chairs in happy musing. The twilight was growing dimmer, the strains grew more soft and subdued, dying through gentle shades into silence. There had been a little rustling sound in the doorway. Arnold turned, when he had done, and saw a white figure ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... O sacred light eternal! who is he, So pale with musing in Pierian shades, Or with that fount so lavishly imbued, Whose spirit should not fail him in the essay To represent thee such as thou didst seem, When under cope of the still-chiming heaven Thou gavest to open ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... pursed lips stroked his chin, musing on my words. I was afraid for a little he resented my indiscretion, but resentment was apparently not in his mind, for his speech found no ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... gathered round me as I sit musing in the gloaming. The leading goat is a handsome animal, generally respected and feared by the rest of the herd. He has excellent knowledge, inherited and acquired, of the uses of mountains, and ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... understand that very well," he went on, musing, "only there is this one thing I don't understand: suppose, you know, everyone gave up eating meat, what would become of the domestic ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... day longer;—we have counted many, in peril and fear, and this, is the last;—even now how softly the fearful time wastes. One day!—Oh God, thou only knowest what its shining walls encircle. (She leans on the window, musing silently.) Two years ago I stood here, and prayed to die.-On that same tree my eye rested then. With what visions of hope I played under it once, building bowers for fairies I verily thought would come, and dreaming, with yearning heart, of glorious ...
— The Bride of Fort Edward • Delia Bacon
... hotel to meet the others, he was musing deeply over what he had overheard. So engrossed was he in his thoughts, in fact that when a rather roughly-dressed man stepped in front of him and peered into his face once or twice, as if to make certain he was the lad ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... I haven't yet decided whether to take that money or not," he said, musing again; and, seeming to wake up with a start, he gave a brief ironical smile. "Ach, what silly stuff I ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... No company now is acceptable to this man, but the Spirit of God, Christ, angels and saints, as fellow-heirs with himself. All other men and things, he deals with as strangers and pilgrims were wont to do. This man's mind soars higher than the eagle, or stork of the heavens. He is for musing about things that are above and their glory, and for thinking what shall ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... things "—little things that didn't make any show, and yet they were so kind they "sort of made you like her whether you wanted to or not." This thought came upon Nan with a start, that roused her from her musing and made her sit bolt upright with surprise. Had Miss Blake made her like her, then? After all the reproaches she had cast upon Delia was she no ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... "Musing thus upon the exploits of the heroic old explorers who led the way to this grand and peerless river of North America, I felt that it was a subject of much regret that although its mouth was discovered by the ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... musing dim and misty, Sit I by the fitful flame; And my thoughts steal down the vista Of old time, as ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... said the landlord, musing. And so I left him at the door of the Inn of the Rose and Crown, whence came, I observed, a great tumult of laughter. "Assuredly," thought I, "Rome was ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... musing state I was recalled by my companion, who said to me, in solemn accents, "Mervyn! I have but two requests to make. Assist me to bury these remains, and then accompany me across the river. I have ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... had been wed, when it happened that as Sir Guy lay by a window of his tower, looking out upon the landscape, he fell to musing on his life. He thought, "How many men I have slain, how many battles I have fought, how many lands I have taken and destroyed! All for a woman's love; and not one single deed done for my God!" Then he thought, "I will go a ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... Musing on the possibilities in this field, Tom, having left Ned at the latter's home, soared down from aloft, and a little later, having told Koku to look after the Air Scout, much to the delight of the giant and the discomfiture of Rad, the young ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... waited after dinner until she could, in decency, retire, she sat a while within the family circle, quietly musing upon the day's adventures. What a strange, delightful, interesting sort of a place the world was, to be sure, with all its fiery Janet McFaddens, and sweet Rosie O'Briens, and paradoxical Willie Joneses! My but she was ...
— A Little Question in Ladies' Rights • Parker Fillmore
... was a musing sort of boy, poor in health, and considered the failure—the "odd one"—of the family. Born during that most dangerous and anxious of the early years, when the mother fretted and the father took his chance, he was an ill-nourished baby, and grew meagerly, only lengthwise, through a feeble ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... Seems moved of cautious hands, assassin-like, That wait the hour. She alone, deep-haired As rosy dawn, and whiter than a rose, Divinely breasted as the Queen of Love, Lies robeless in the glimmer of the moon, Like Danae within the golden shower. Seated beside her aromatic rest, In rapture musing on her loveliness, Her knight and troubadour. A lute, aslope The curious baldric of his tunic, glints With pearl-reflections of the moon, that seem The silent ghosts of long-dead melodies. In purple and ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... witness to his birth—his walking with his disciples; his wondrous parables and stupendous miracles; his mental and bodily sufferings; his sacrifice, burial, ascension, intercession, and final judgment; all passed in vivid review before the eye of his mind; and then, he says, 'as I was musing with myself what these things should mean, methought I heard such a word in my heart as this, I have set thee down on purpose, for I have something more than ordinary for thee to do'; which made me the more to marvel, saying, 'What, my Lord, such a poor wretch ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Musing thus at last I dozed off, for I was so tired that I think I should have slept although execution awaited me at the dawn instead of another journey. I did not sleep well because of that snoring female on the other side of the hut whose presence outraged my sense of propriety ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... mouser, and when mice grew scarce she went hunting for game; she had a hole under the eaves near the chimney, through which she could enter the hut at any time of the night or day. While Philip was musing after tea on the "Pons Asinorum" by the light of a tallow candle, Pussy was out poaching for quail, and as soon as she caught one she brought it home, dropped it on the floor, rubbed her side against Philip's boot, and said, "I have brought a little game for breakfast." ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... As I was musing thus sadly, I was unexpectedly tapped on the shoulder by Monsieur Parole d'Honneur, who had come up quietly behind me, without my noticing his approach. He was on his way to pay a visit to his "good vicaire" at the vicarage, after giving his usual Wednesday ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Perhaps the musing-fit into which I had by this time fallen, appeared somewhat suspicious in its abstraction; he gently interrupted: "Mademoiselle," said he, "I trust you have not far to go ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... "You are musing, Henry," Moravia's voice went on. "Are you thinking over what I said? I hope so, and you will find it is true. See, I will tell you what to visualize there in the fire. You are looking at a splendid English home, all peace and warmth, and you see yourself in it happy and surrounded ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... he continued, musing, 'to be mixed up together! But we'll let them rest in peace. I'd better let you have what was entrusted to me, and then, mayhap, ye'll be better ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... said Mr. Fluxion, musing. "The Josephine is a fast vessel. Under the most favorable circumstances, she would make the run in eight days. A fair passage would be twelve days. If I remain one day in Genoa, where my sister lives, the cruise ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... grove of Academe, Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long; There flowery hill Hymettus with the sound Of bees' industrious murmur oft invites To studious musing; there Ilyssus rolls His whispering stream; within the walls then view The schools of ancient sages; who bred Great Alexander to subdue the world, Lyceum there and painted Stoa next; ... To sage philosophy next lend thine ear. From Heaven descended ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... he sat musing bitterly on his sad fate, while his dog came and laid his head sympathisingly on ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... "True, true," said Gascoyne, musing. "But God does not work by miracles. We must be up and doing at once. I promise you that I shall be faithful, and that, after the work is done, I will give myself up ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... walked on autumn nights when the south wind blew, and through the long wreck of the fair portico that had once extended from the bridge to the basilica, till he came to the broad flight of steps leading to the walled garden-court of old Saint Peter's. There he loved to sit musing among the cypresses, wondering at the vast bronze pine- cone and the great brass peacocks which Symmachus had brought thither from the ruins of Agrippa's baths, wherein the terrible Crescenzi had fortified themselves during ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... through her own natural meditativeness. If the reader turns to that divine passage in Paradise Regained, which Milton has put into the mouth of our Saviour when first entering the wilderness, and musing upon the tendency of those ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... 97) tells how one day at Streatham 'when he was musing over the fire, a young gentleman called to him suddenly, and I suppose he thought disrespectfully, in these words:—"Mr. Johnson, would you advise me to marry?" "I would advise no man to marry, Sir," returns for answer ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... I had been musing long that day and earnestly upon the mystery of the lagoons, their opaline transparencies of air and water, their fretful risings and sudden subsidence into calm, the treacherousness of their shoals, the sparkle and the splendour of their sunlight. I had asked myself how would a Greek sculptor ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... in the night," said the boy, "one horse. What mighty hoof marks!" He wondered the more seeing how the marks encircled him. "I too will one day have a chariot and horses, and a deft charioteer." He stood musing, "Is it the grey of Macha? [Footnote: The goddess Macha, already referred to, had a horse which was called the Grey of Macha—Liath-Macha. He was said to be still alive dwelling invisibly in Erin.] They say that he haunts this mountain." He hastened to the ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... a pause, and I waited in anxious suspense; hoping to have a whole volume of literary life unfolded to me. He seemed, however, to have sunk into a fit of pensive musing; and when after some time I gently roused him by a question or two as to his literary career. "No," said he smiling, "over that part of my story I wish to leave a cloud. Let the mysteries of the craft rest sacred for me. Let those who have never adventured into ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... one of the family," said the old man brokenly. "She was more faithful than most human beings." The two stood sadly musing, the boy as sad as the man. "Old Bess" was the horse that had taken him for his first ride, that winter morning years before, when the heart of the child was as cold as the day. Eliphalet Hodges had ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... a portion of his time to peep at his fellow- creatures in their relaxations, and accustoms himself to read their several little histories in their looks and gestures as he goes musing on, may have full occupation for an hour or two every day at this season amid the variegated scenes around the pretty village of Monteiro. In the evening groups sitting at the door, he may sometimes see with a sigh how wealth and the prince's favour ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... through the bushes and disappeared. I sat where I was, musing, my work interrupted, a mood of bitter disillusionment heavy upon me. So I sat, it may have been ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... whose fine and bold imagination, and the lofty grandeur of his works, were most congenial to his taste. It was a story which he loved to tell in after life, how he lay on his back day after day, and week after week, with upturned and wondering eyes, musing on the splendid ceiling of the Sistine chapel—on the unattainable grandeur of the great Florentine. During his residence abroad, he made notes and criticisms on everything he met with that was excellent, much of which he subsequently embodied in his lectures before the Royal Academy. His ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... While the slim bird its lean wires shakes, As into piercing song it breaks; Till Peter's pale-green eyes ajar Dream, wake; wake, dream, in one brief bar; And I am sitting, dull and shy, And she with gaze of vacancy, And large hands folded on the tray, Musing the afternoon away; Her satin bosom heaving slow With sighs that softly ebb and flow, And her plain face in such dismay, It seems unkind to look her way: Until all cheerful back will come Her cheerful gleaming spirit home: And one would think that poor Miss ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... Phyllis, musing thoughtfully at her own room window, saw the squire walking on the terrace. Her first impulse was to go to him, but she sat down to consider the inclination. Her class-leader, a shrewd, pious old Scotchman, had once said to her—"Nine impulses oot o' ten, Sister Phyllis, come fra the ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... of their language with which they graciously credited me, I hunted about in vain for the French equivalent of "I know my own mind." Whereupon, allowing the conversation to take another turn, I fell to musing on those untranslatable words, together with the whole episode of the Mozart manuscript and the drawings of M. Ingres, including that rainy, chilly day at Montauban; and also another day of travel, even wetter and colder, ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... went on, musing, "that anybody like you, Melissa, with such a natural love of art and of all beautiful things,—anybody who can draw such sweet dreams of delight as those heads you showed us after Filippo Lippi, anybody ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... enough there by the window for her to slip her hand into that of Neil, who had been musing silently ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... from her fit of musing by an unwonted sound—a hollow tapping, tapping, tapping, which seemed to come from a corner of the attic where the shadows gathered most dun and dark. The girl drew in her head from the window with a startled expression on her ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Atlantic. She slid over the shoulder of one big wave and into the trough of another with a steady rhythmic glide that spoke well for her seaworthy qualities. Frank, snugly out of the nipping wind in the shelter of the gasolene drums, was silent for several minutes musing over the adventurous voyage on which they were setting out. Thus he had not noticed a change coming over Harry and Billy. Suddenly a groan fell on his ear. ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... before the glow, the light of the burning shagbark, playing elfishly above the dying embers, outlined the stalwart, yet active figure and the impenetrable, musing features. But when, with an upward shower of sparks, the backlog fell asunder and the waning flame cast yet more gloomy shadows behind them, he leaned back in his heavy, hewn chair and again bent an attentive look ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... present by two sick women, where my dear old friend, Mr. Levett, to whom as he used to tell me, I owe your acquaintance[456], died a few weeks ago, suddenly in his bed; there passed not, I believe, a minute between health and death. At night, as at Mrs. Thrale's I was musing in my chamber, I thought with uncommon earnestness, that however I might alter my mode of life, or whithersoever I might remove[457], I would endeavour to retain Levett about me; in the morning my servant brought me word that Levett ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... these verdant glades Might startle STANHOPE, musing on his Ranges, But not the angriest of Royal Shades May now arrest the progress of Time's changes. True, much is yielded yet to Swelldom's "Sport," But some aver that ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, February 27, 1892 • Various
... him, as it were, bolted in with a lock of hundred keys, which can never be unlocked without the concurrence of every key—the keys in the hands of a hundred different men, and they scattered to hundred different and distant places; and they stand musing as to what invention, in all the dominions of mind and matter, can be produced to make the impossibility of his escape ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... turned to it, and long before he saw it he smelled it and wondered; for he had been sitting as in a daze, musing on a change that had seemed to come in his changeless world; and for a long time he could not tell what that was which made a difference on the salt-whipped wind or why he should be excited. For suddenly he had become excited and his ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... she ran off to make her hasty toilet, leaving me to pilot my way back to my sitting-room, where, in due time, I was served with a cup of tea. After that, I sat musing on Lady Ashby's past and present condition; and on what little information I had obtained respecting Mr. Weston, and the small chance there was of ever seeing or hearing anything more of him throughout my quiet, drab-colour life: which, henceforth, seemed to offer no alternative ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... He passed most of his time with the Prince and Princess Galitzin, as between a good brother and a good sister. Their house, he notices, had once been the residence of Barneveldt. Men like Diderot are the last persons to think of their own historic position, else we might have expected to find him musing on the saving shelter which this land of freedom and tolerance had given to more than one of his great precursors in the literature of emancipation. Descartes had found twenty years of priceless freedom (1629-1649) among the Dutch burghers. The ruling ideas of the Encyclopaedia came in direct line ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... died in it suddenly without a chance of amendment or repentance—but lo!—on confession, his life had been saved as if by a miracle, and the very result of evil had been transformed into consolation! So he sat absorbed, wondering—musing- -and while the Cardinal spoke his blessing with closed eyes, all heads were bent, and faces hidden. And in the reverent silence that followed, the gentle prelate gave a sign of kind dismissal and farewell to all, ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... out his watch. It was then after midnight. Musing a moment, he said: "You say you are an office boy; what time must ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... of the heart, bring, through several circuits, ambages, and anfractuosities, the vital spirits, to subtilize and refine them in the ætherial purity of animal spirits. Nay, in such a studiously meditating, musing person, you may espy so extravagant raptures of one, as it were out of himself, that all his natural faculties for that time will seem to lie suspended from each their proper charge and office, and his exterior senses to be at a stand. In a word, you ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... governor, musing upon the sentence, considered a little upon it; and turning to the two honest Englishmen, said, "Hold; you must reflect that it will be long ere they can raise corn and cattle of their own, and they must not starve; we must therefore allow them provisions." So he caused to be added, that they ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... or systems of faith, I have given you a false impression. But I live alone—much alone bodily, more alone mentally; I have no intimates, no society, no intellectual intercourse whatever; and I give myself up, as I never did in my life before, to mere musing, reverie, and speculation—I cannot dignify the process by the title of ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... As soon as these important duties were discharged, she strolled out on the island, taking a path which led through the pretty glade, and which conducted to the only point not covered with bushes. Here she stood gazing at the limpid water, which lay with scarcely a ruffle on it at her feet, musing on the novel situation in which she was placed, and permitting a pleasing and deep excitement to steal over her feelings, as she remembered the scenes through which she had so lately passed, and conjectured those which still lay ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... more remarks but watched Judd's every action curiously, musing: "I can't see Bob's idea in wishing this bird on me—even if he is his own brother—but I've taken him in now and I'll stick it ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman
... musing to gaze open-eyed at his mistress, who had touched his arm, and now signed to him to follow her softly back to the library ...
— A Life's Eclipse • George Manville Fenn
... earth you should go and marry, seeing that you're not the eldest son, and that you've got everything on earth that you want as a bachelor, I can't understand. I can't indeed, Fred. By heaven, I can't!' Then Sir Anthony gave a long sigh, and sat musing awhile, thinking of the club in London to which he belonged, but which he never entered of the old days in which he had been master of a bedroom near St. James's Street of his old friends whom he never saw now, and of whom he never heard, except ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... bend in the ravine, and here the unpaid toil of the little waterway had, ages long, carried and left especially deep strata of gold-shot gravel. As he stood, half musing, Will Banion heard, on the ravine side around the bend, the tinkle of a falling stone, lazily rolling from one impediment to another. It might be some deer or other animal, he thought. He hastened to get view of the cause, whatever ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... are again,' repeated Mr Wegg, musing. 'And what are you now? Are you in the Funns, or where are you? Have you lately come to settle in this neighbourhood, or do you own to another neighbourhood? Are you in independent circumstances, or is it wasting the motions of a bow on you? Come! I'll speculate! ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... him back from his musing. "Well, Charley," he sung out cheerily, "I've got together the things we can't well spare and distributed them between the canoes. I reckoned that was where you wanted 'em. What's the next ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... at all too early for him; and Mr. Prendergast had observed that after leaving Mr. Die's chambers, he himself would go on to the City. He might have said beyond the City, for his intended expedition was to Spinny lane, at St. Botolph's in the East When Herbert was gone he sat musing over his fire with Aby's letter still in his hand. A lawyer has always a sort of affection for a scoundrel,—such affection as a hunting man has for a fox. He loves to watch the skill and dodges of the animal, to study the wiles by which he lives, and to circumvent ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... it brought them, one after one, to the pen door at evening. It was so strange and sweet a tune that quail on the corn lands would each leave its mate to fly after the player; and crickets—it made them so wild with delight they would fight one another. Then he played what sets the field mouse musing, and the cattle to deeper dreaming in the ...
— Child Stories from the Masters - Being a Few Modest Interpretations of Some Phases of the - Master Works Done in a Child Way • Maud Menefee
... reverie stirred reflection of other men, for already she had suitors in plenty. Upon one of them her musing lingered. He had brought to her gifts of the friendly smile, of comradeship, of youth's debonair give-and-take. She did not try to analyze her feeling for Winthrop Beresford. It was enough to know that he had brought into her existence the sparkle ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... Musing in this manner, he walked on until he found himself in one of the principal streets of St. Petersburg, in front of a house of antiquated architecture. The street was blocked with equipages; carriages one after the other drew ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... other maidens sat in tears, Sometimes, consoled, they jested at their fears, Musing what lovers Time to them would bring; But I was ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.
... never truer of any author than it is true of Browning, that 'Le style c'est l'homme'; and Browning's style is an expression of the panther-restlessness and panther-spring of his impassioned intellect. The musing spirit of a Wordsworth or a ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... this figure of Abel Newsome's son, but that presence threatened to affect the observant mind as positively central. Gloriani indeed, remembering something and excusing himself, pursued Chad to speak to him, and Strether was left musing on many things. One of them was the question of whether, since he had been tested, he had passed. Did the artist drop him from having made out that he wouldn't do? He really felt just to-day that he might do better than usual. Hadn't he done well enough, so far as that went, ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... While thus musing, I heard with perfect distinctness, somewhere in the wood beneath, the peculiar laugh which I have described as one of the disagreeable characteristics of Professor Westervelt. It brought my thoughts back ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... art but obeying the impulse of thy nature," said the hermit, musing. "The brutes ye hunt obey their common instinct—and thou—Yet the ravening wolf and the cunning fox ye follow, and worry to ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... melody That sally forth and seek the meeting Ear, 25 Then start away, half-wanton, half-afraid Like the red-breast forced by wintry snows, In the first visits by the genial Hearth, From the fair Hand, that tempts it to— Or like a course of flame, from the deep sigh 30 Of the idly-musing Lover dreaming of his Love With thoughts and hopes and fears, {sinking, snatching, {as warily, upward Bending, recoiling, fluttering ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... keys the musing organist, Beginning doubtfully and far away, First lets his fingers wander as they list, And builds a Bridge from Dreamland for his lay: Then, as the touch of his loved instrument 5 Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... Helena blew out her violin-candle, and came to sit down on the side of the fire opposite to Byrne. The music began. Helena pressed her arms with her hands, musing. ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... Musing, he sat in his stirrups and viewed the horizon, Where the Aurora lapt stars in a North-polar manner, Wildly he started,—for there in the heavens before him Flutter'd and flam'd the original Star ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... of a wheel, in such a continual circumgiration, as a captive king, who was drawing Sesostris's chariot, said, when he was looking often behind him. The king of Egypt, Sesostris, demanded for what end did he look so often about him? Says he, "I am looking to the wheel, musing upon the vicissitudes and permutations of it, how the highest parts are instantly the lowest." And this word repressed the king's vain glory.(280) Now, in this constant wheeling of outward things, which is the soul that enjoys true quiet and peace? Even that soul that is fixed, as it were, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... the air fragrant from the woods, the silence now and then emphasised by a shot somewhere in the distance. Dolly was happy and hopeful; the weather was most lovely, the pear was excellent; she was having a pleasant half hour of musing and anticipation. Somebody came on foot along the road, swung open the small lattice gate, and advanced up the ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... wondered what he thought I'd do if I caught him in a mistake. Make a magic pass and explode him like a bomb, probably. I took in some more smoke, wondering whether the Captain thought I had psi powers—which, of course, I didn't; no need for them in my work—and musing sourly on how long it would take before the job was done and I was on my ...
— The Man Who Played to Lose • Laurence Mark Janifer
... it in the bosom of her gown, and she went on after a bit of musing, "if he swap his rhyming ware for mine it will be a ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... had always been particularly attached to the Gardens of the Luxembourg, and there I went and sat musing many hours on end. One morning as I sat watching the children and their bonnes, my ear was caught by a shrill scream and I turned and saw a very handsome young woman, beautifully dressed, dragging a cup and ball away from an angry little ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... over the cosmopolitan. After a few minutes' down-cast musing, he lifted his eyes and said: "I have long thought, my dear Charlie, that the spirit in which wine is regarded by too many in these days is one of the most painful examples of want of confidence. Look at these glasses. He who could mistrust ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... in his great chair and his face grew harsh. As he sat there musing, his virility and iron figure gave him rather the appearance of the soldier than the emperor. This impression his surroundings further emphasized, for the walls of the tent were covered, not with the gorgeous-colored ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... covered, no more with rounded zone the milky breasts are clasped; down fallen from her body everything is scattered, hither, thither, and the salt waves toy with them in front of her very feet. But neither on fillet nor floating veil, but on thee, Theseus, in their stead, was she musing: on thee she bent her heart, her thoughts, her love-lorn mind. Ah, woeful one, with sorrows unending distraught, Erycina sows thorny cares deep in thy bosom, since that time when Theseus fierce in his vigour set ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... And musing thus on the general inclination of our instincts towards injustice I met unexpectedly, at the turn of the road, as it were, a shape of duplicity. It might have been unconscious on Mrs. Fyne's part, but her leading idea appeared to me to be not ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... arrowroot in silence; then he looked at me with wistful, musing eyes. "Cumberledge," he murmured at last; "after all, I can't help admiring that woman. She is the only person who has ever checkmated me. She checkmates me every time. Steadfastness is what I love. Her steadfastness of purpose ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... comedy, held her handkerchief to her eyes; and at that mute response the sufferer fell to dark musing—so sorely stricken was he by the double stab dealt to health and his interests by the loss of his post and the near prospect of death, that he had no strength left for anger. He lay, ghastly and wan, like a consumptive patient after a wrestling bout ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... earth's loneliest deep, Sailor! who dost thy vigil keep— Off the Cape of Storms dost musing sweep Over monstrous waves that curl and comb; Of thee we think when here from brink We blow ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... bend, but her reason and her conscience were touched by what the priest had said to her, and the bitter thought for the first time came over her, that her lover, perhaps, was not so true to her, as she to him. There she sat, sorrowfully musing; and though she did not repent of what she thought her own firmness, she was bitterly tormented by the doubts with which her brother, Mary Brady, and the priest, had ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... of betraying what was perhaps her most treasured secret. I would obtain the truth from her the following day—in the mean time—But, while I was occupied by multiplying reflections, Lord Raymond returned. He asked for my sister; and I delivered her message. After musing on it for a moment, he asked me if I were about to return to London, and if I would accompany him: I consented. He was full of thought, and remained silent during a considerable part of our ride; at length ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... musing, and Hendon dropped into a chair at table, observing to himself, "'Twas a brave thought, and hath wrought me a mighty deliverance; my legs are grievously wearied. An I had not thought of that, I must have ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... when she thought of her boy. HE, at all events, had not been affected by the rumble of drums that had beaten her out of the worldly camp where once she had commanded. That night Willoughby looked in at her, while she sat musing over a book, and when she would not look up at him he went away again. A more complete sense of her loneliness came over her as the hours passed in the big, silent house. So she laid down her book, and went up-stairs to her ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine |
