"Reflective" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thinking powers; as frequent occasions occur, in which the incidents of the narrative, and the conversations arising from them, are intended to awaken and engage the reasoning and reflective faculties of the ...
— Rollo at Play - Safe Amusements • Jacob Abbott
... Tartuffe, upon being bluntly called what he really is, "when I take my chamber-candlestick to-night, remind me to be more than usually particular in praying for Mr. Anthony Chuzzlewit, who has done me an injustice." No amount of self-indulgence weakens or lowers his pious and reflective tone. "Those are her daughters," he remarks, making maudlin overtures to Mrs. Todgers in memory of his deceased wife. "Mercy and Charity, Charity and Mercy, not unholy names I hope. She was beautiful. She had a small property." When his ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... what the North American Indian is upon the western continent. As the Indian's, his chief virtues are courage in war, cunning, wild justice, hospitality, and fortitude. He is, however, of a better race,—more reflective, more religious, and with a thirst for knowledge. The pure air and the simple food of the Arabian plains keep him in perfect health; and the necessity of constant watchfulness against his foes, from whom he has no defence of rock, forest, or ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... his vest and small- clothes of crimson. I remember being struck with his animated countenance, of a brick-red hue, his bright eye and foxy hair, as well as by his tall, gaunt, ungainly form and square shoulders. A perfect contrast was presented by the pale reflective face and delicate figure of James Madison, and above all, by the short, burly, bustling form of General Knox, with ruddy cheek, prominent eye, and still more prominent proportions of another kind. In the semicircle which was formed behind the chair, and on either hand of the President, ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... a hundred. So far I agree with him, but as to what constituted a "correct regimen" we differed. He held that the life most conducive to length of years was that of the scholar—his own, in fact—regular, uneventful, reflective, and sedentary. I, on the other hand, thought that the man who passed much of his time in the open air, moving about and using his limbs, would live the longer—other things being equal, and assuming that both observed the accepted ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... these outside jobs, and the other to do my intimate and real duties. For Richard Greenough once told me, that, in studying for the statue of Franklin, he found that the left side of the great man's face was philosophic and reflective, and the right side funny and smiling. If you will go and look at the bronze statue, you will find he has repeated this observation there for posterity. The eastern profile is the portrait of the statesman ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... of self-government, an intelligent cognizance of public affairs and a reflective insight into the fundamental principles of liberty, has been totally neglected in our land. And if the events of these years shall really teach our people to think—I care not how erroneously at first, for the very exercise of the God-given ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... forty-five and evenings at six, she was very much like all the others,—a not wholly unattractive young woman with quick eyes. Perhaps she was a trifle quieter, less emotional than her companions at the laundry—more reflective in disposition—but not noticeably more intelligent than the many ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... longer a child, but seemed to have matured suddenly into a woman of calm and reflective character, as well as ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... fact is not to be lost upon reflective minds. In an age when positive science has made a progress which borders almost on the miraculous; when discoveries of the innermost secrets of nature, coupled with astounding combinations of her elements and forces, which supply us with the chemical contrivances and implements for further ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... then turns The primal Mover with a smile of joy On such great work of nature, and imbreathes New spirit replete with virtue, that what here Active it finds, to its own substance draws, And forms an individual soul, that lives, And feels, and bends reflective on itself. And that thou less mayst marvel at the word, Mark the sun's heat, how that to wine doth change, Mix'd with the moisture filter'd through the vine. "When Lachesis hath spun the thread, the ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... the epigraph is never lyrical. It belongs to the order of reflective poetry, and consists of a single thought, expressed with as much brevity and grace as possible. A common form of it is the epitaph; another is the inscription; while at other times the poets have ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... the result that any giving way to an impulse contains a slight element of the mischievous or ridiculous; whence, for this reason too, the pleasant is also the comical. In fact, most of the pleasures of highly complex and reflective persons ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... such confidence be cultivated? Mainly by cultivating the habit of turning first to self when reflective thought is required. It is presupposed that we must consult the library and the world about us for raw facts of various kinds, for historical events, scientific data, views of men, descriptions, etc.; but when our own thought is wanted on a topic with which we ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... Still, her arms could not have been cut otherwise; arms are not vital parts, and the maddest of assassins would know that. So, of course, they were either slashed unavoidably in a desperate death struggle or, else——" His brows knotted, his voice slipped off into reflective silence. He took his chin between his thumb and forefinger and squeezed it hard. After a moment, however: "Mr. Narkom," he inquired, "were the Siva stones found to have been stolen at the same time that the body was discovered, or was ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... observed Ned, rubbing his shoulder in a reflective sort of way. "I always thought it was something like that. But, at the time I put it down to an explosion, and let ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton
... be very much pleased," she said. "And so am I, of course." Then, after a moment of reflective abstraction, she asked with sudden eagerness, "How long will ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... Caverns of Peace, of which account must be given when the books are opened and earth and heaven have fled away. Yet in my love there is a paradox, for as I watch the restless, ineffective waves I think of the measureless, reflective depths of the still and silent Sea of Glass, of the dead, small and great, rich or poor, with the works which follow them, and of the Voice as the voice of many waters, when the multitude of one mind rends heaven with alleluia: and ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... sergeant for his interference, and with the lad walked to our store—but after we were clear of the crowd the boy appeared to be in a reflective mood, and scarcely exchanged a dozen words with us; and even when we told him that he should live with us for the present, and share our hard beds, his gratitude did not appear to be overpowering, and he hung his head as though he was not ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... between the blood of Franconia and the blood of Clotilda; the same outline of person was there,—her delicate countenance, finely moulded bust, smoothly converging shoulders. There was the same Grecian cast of face, the same soft, reflective eyes,—filling a smile with sweetness, and again with deep-felt sorrow. The same sensitive nature, ready to yield forth love and tenderness, or to press onward the more impassioned affections, was visible ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... of his own tattered condition, and passed a reflective hand over the stubble on his chin. In a few days his face would resemble a scrubbing-brush. In that mournful moment he would have exchanged even his pipe and tobacco-box—worth untold gold—for shaving tackle. Who can say why his thoughts ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... there are over seventy species that find their way into the United States. Many are named from the distribution of colour upon their plumage—the blue-winged yellow, the black-throated blue, chestnut-sided, bay-breasted, and black poll. Perhaps the two most beautiful—most reflective of bright tropical skies and flowers—are the magnolia and the blackburnian. The first fairly dazzles us with its bluish crown, white and black face, black and olive-green back, white marked wings and tail, yellow throat and rump, and strongly streaked breast. The blackburnian is an ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... his meal in silence, that reflective silence which always overtook him when he found himself one corner of this strange triangle. He could talk to Myra alone. He was never at a loss for words with his wife. Together, they struck ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... mirror. This fancy was strengthened in the course of conversation, by his expatiating on the greatness of Racine. I think he had a volume of the French poet in his hand. His skull was sharply cut and fine; with plenty, according to the phrenologists, both of the reflective and amative organs: and his poetry will bear them out. For a lettered solitude, and a bridal properly got up, both according to law and luxury, commend us to the lovely Gertrude of Wyoming. His face and person were rather on a small ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... Their nostrils suggested the flames that are emitted from the huge naphtha jets that are used to light modern circuses in country towns, and as for their mouths, any one who can imagine a bull with a pair of gas-logs illuminating his reflective smile, instead of teeth, may gain a comprehensive idea of the picture ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... Arnold the solace that they find in Wordsworth and the tonic faith that is omnipresent in Browning. Arnold himself was not wholly satisfied with his creed; but his cool reason refused him the solace of an unquestioning faith. Arnold has been called "the poet of the Universities," because of the reflective scholarly thought in his verse. It breathes the atmosphere of books and of the study. Such poetry cannot appeal to the masses. It ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... even if you must come down, it is better to roll down an inclined plane than to drop over a precipice; and I thought, since I saw that descent was inevitable, I would at least engineer the party gently through aesthetics to puns. So I said, "How pretty cows look in a landscape, so calm and reflective, and sheep harmoniously ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... appeared reflective, but there was a bond of confidence between the two, and the reserve that characterizes the Briton is much ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... pursued his investigations in the new world, accompanied by the intrepid Bonpland. Nothing escaped his attention. He was the best intellectual organ of these new revelations of science. He was calm, reflective and eloquent; filled with a sense of the beautiful, and the love of truth. His collections were immense, and valuable beyond calculation to every science. He endured innumerable hardships, braved countless dangers in unknown and savage lands, and exhausted ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... nature and society will for ever revolve in the same orbit and exhibit virtually the same phenomena. This is still the view of the ostentatiously practical votaries of common sense in Great Britain; whereas the more reflective minds of the present age, analysing historical records more minutely, have adopted the opinion that the human race is in a state of necessary progression. The reciprocal action between circumstances and human nature, from which social ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... a glorious and a refreshing season. I have felt, in the depths of my soul, that the eyes, of all Vermont were on me in a reflective way. As the moon is sometimes permitted to shine before the sun goes down, I have added the light of my little feminine luminary to the flood of public homage that surrounds the greatest and best man that our State ever gave to ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... exercise government; military or executive, who are to fulfil their behests; and the commonalty, bent on gain and selfish gratification. In other words, the ruler, the warrior, and the craftsman, are, according to him, the analogues of our reflective, volitional, and emotional powers. Now even were there truth in the implied assumption of a parallelism between the structure of a society and that of a man, this classification would be indefensible. It might more truly be contended ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... existence of at least three distinct species of the genus man, differing in their instincts, form, habits and color. The white species having qualities denied to the black—one with a free and the other with a servile mind—one a thinking and reflective being, the other a creature of feeling and imitation, almost void of reflective faculties, and consequently unable to provide for and take care of himself. The relation of master and slave would naturally spring up between two such different ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... undersigned persons ask themselves) is a puddle? A puddle repeats infinity, and is full of light; nevertheless, if analyzed objectively, a puddle is a piece of dirty water spread very thin on mud. The two great historic universities of England have all this large and level and reflective brilliance. Nevertheless, or, rather, on the other hand, they are puddles—puddles, puddles, puddles, puddles. The undersigned persons ask you to excuse an emphasis inseparable from ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... with a reflective air. This was almost miraculous. "Well, I should think," he said at last, after close reflection, "where such sympathy as that exists between two brothers, if Cyril had really been hurt in this accident, you must surely in some way have ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... that love and faith for which the antecedent fear has been the preparation. Well and blessed would it be for this irreverent and unfearing age, in which the advance in mechanical arts and vice is greater than that in letters and virtue, if the popular mind could be made reflective and solemn by ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... Dohong was of a reflective turn of mind, and never was entirely willing to learn the things that his keepers sought to teach him. To him, dining at a table was tiresomely dull, and the donning of fashionable clothing was a frivolous pastime, On the other hand, the interior of ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... went along, was telling me more of her strange country, pointing out birds or flowers and naming them to me. "Now that," she said, pointing to a small grey owl who sat reflective on a floating log we were approaching—"that is a bird of omen; cover your face and look away, for it is not well ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... will of a Titan, and a mind like a crown-glass mirror, and you have Nathaniel Hawthorne. While he was in a state of observation, the expression of his face reflected everything that was going on about him; in his reflective moods, it was like looking in at the window of a dark room, or perhaps a picture-gallery; and if any accident disturbed him his look was something like a ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... upright, righteous. Justice, {dikaiosune} social uprightness righteousness, N.T. To quote a friend: "The Greek {dikaios} combines the active dealing out of justice with the self-reflective idea of preserving justice in our conduct, which is ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... James conceded a reflective assent with a manner of impartiality. "Of course your friends wouldn't think any the less ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... 72, l. 25. The machine.—A Cartesian expression. Descartes considered animals as mere automata. According to Pascal, whatever does not proceed in us from reflective thought is a product of a necessary mechanism, which has its root in the body, and which is continued into the mind in imagination and the passions. It is therefore necessary for man so to alter, and adjust ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... mythical; this form he understood and not that of abstract reflection. We may well exclaim: Happy Homeric man, to whom the world was ever present, not himself. Yet both sides belong to the full-grown soul, the mythical and the reflective; from Homer the one-sided modern mind can recover a part of its spiritual inheritance, which is in danger ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... was alone with the thoughts his encounter with Idepski had inspired. Judging by the expression of his reflective eyes they were scarcely those of a man confident of victory. Had Bat been there to witness, the task he was at that moment engaged upon would surely have been ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... had not seen his ward since the old Squire's death, and Ralph had not seen Sir Thomas since the election at Percycross and the accident of the broken arm. Sir Thomas was by far too reticent, too timid, and too reflective a man to begin at once whatever observations he might have to make ultimately in regard to Miss Polly Neefit. He was somewhat slow of speech, unless specially aroused, and had hardly received the congratulations of his young friend respecting ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... own thought coming back upon her with a reflective force, and a thrill at her heart at Frank Scherman's words. Had these two only planned tableaux and danced ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... had a warmth of expression and a confidence of manner which captivated those who heard him. His valor, his keen perception in the field, the profundity of his political views, his knowledge of the affairs of Europe, his reflective and decided character, all rendered him one of the most capable and imposing men of his time-the only one, indeed, whom the Cardinal-Duc really feared. The Queen always listened to him with confidence, and allowed him to acquire ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... who has to be patched," replied Fredjim in a reflective tone, "for although it didn't hurt us as much as we expected, it's a terrible mix-up to be in until we become used to our strange combination. You and we are about alike, now, Jimfred, although ...
— Sky Island - Being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n - Bill after their visit to the sea fairies • L. Frank Baum
... rich; a face almost classic in outline; features highly intellectual; a piercing, black eye, capable of expressing the fiercest and the tenderest passion and emotion, and a commanding figure and impressive stage address. In his transition from the quiet and reflective passages of a part to fierce and violent outbreaks of passion, his sudden and impetuous manner had in it something of that electrical force and power which made the elder Booth so celebrated, and called up afresh to the memory of men of ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... pellicle through which the blood was seen, were like rosebuds. He was passionately fond of the child. When she tried to speak, or when she fixed her beautiful blue eyes upon some object with that serious, reflective look which seems the dawn of thought, and which she ended with a laugh, he would stay by her side for hours, seeking, with Jordy's help, to understand the reasons (which most people call caprices) underlying the phenomena of this delicious phase of life, ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... started slowly turning the fourth dial. In the center of the room a dim, shining mist a foot in diameter began to appear. It condensed, solidified without shrinking, a solid ball of matter a foot in diameter. It seemed black, but was a perfectly reflective surface—and luminous! ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell
... ever, but innumerable Rush-lights, and Sulphur-matches, kindled thereat, are also glancing in every direction, so that not the smallest cranny or doghole in Nature or Art can remain unilluminated,—it might strike the reflective mind with some surprise that hitherto little or nothing of a fundamental character, whether in the way of Philosophy or History, has been written on ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... found himself about the stage in his childhood, and, by an unwonted kindness of fortune, went through with perhaps the exact training his genius required. If the atmosphere of the theatre had not almost enwrapt his cradle, and thus become a necessity of his after years, his reflective, brooding temperament and aesthetic sensitiveness might have impelled him to one of the silent professions, or kept him an irresolute dreamer through an unsuccessful life. But while his youth was passed in the green-room, a stern discipline ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... stand here under the flag for which our fathers fought in common with the white man, and plead for civil rights. Yea, in the name of God and the blood of our dead we ask a shelter beneath thy wing. Shall the stars of the American flag, our only hope as guides to higher manhood, the reflective rays of American civilization and liberty, hide their shameful faces behind the clouds of American prejudice and bring to us night at noon? Shall your red stripes, O flag! a worthy token of our fathers' blood, which has mingled with the white in all American conflicts, now be used as a signal ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... desk again. The wall-screen went blank, and the light in the little room brightened slowly. Pilch's face was reflective. ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... are the soliciting agent, the larynx is the vibrative agent, the mouth is the reflective agent. These must act in unison, or there is no result. The larynx might be called the mouth of the instrument, the inside of the mouth the pavilion, the lungs the artist. In a violin, the larynx would be the string, the lungs the bow, the mouth ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... of his poetry renders it attractive to many persons. He gives expression to the sad, reflective moods that are apt, especially in time of suffering or disappointment, to come to most of us. The moral sense of the American people is strong; and sometimes a comforting though commonplace truth from ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... that discipleship consists in conduct that conforms to His spirit. To make the test creedal is not only contrary to the intensely pragmatic character of childhood but inimical to the resistless spirit of inquiry and speculation which breaks out in reflective youth. Childhood needs a religion of deeds. If a religion of dogma and detached sentiment is substituted the youth may some day awake to the fact that he can throw the whole thing overboard and experience a relief rather than a loss. If from his earliest experience in the home he has ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben
... proved so—inopportune," returned Rooke. As he spoke his eyes rested for a reflective moment upon Peter Mallory, then returned challengingly to Nan's face. The betraying colour flew up under her skin. She understood what he intended to convey as well as though he had clothed ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... be sufficiently rendered, by observing careful curves of projection with a dark ground, and breaking a little white over it, as we see done with judgment and truth by Ruysdael. But to paint the actual play of hue on the reflective surface, or to give the forms and fury of water when it begins to show itself—to give the flashing and rocket-like velocity of a noble cataract, or the precision and grace of the sea wave, so exquisitely modeled, tho so mockingly transient—so mountainous in its form, yet so cold-like ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... continued Joe, who was almost as much absorbed in his story as were his listeners, and spoke in a reflective, musing way, "and he succeeded in finding one who was stopping for a few days at the hotel. Poor Bob was very kind to us in our trouble, and I never heard him mention a word about his own losses, which must have been severe. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... antiquity and the solemnity of its peace. It did not, indeed, strike the spirit with that religious awe which is apt to fall upon us as we gaze along the vaulted aisles of great cathedrals, but it appealed perhaps with equal strength to the softer and more reflective side of our nature. For generation after generation that house had been the home of men like ourselves; they had passed and were forgotten, but it remained, the sole witness of the stories of their lives. Hands of which the very bones had long since crumbled ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... observed," she said in a reflective voice, "that the most authentic and best attested bogies don't come to very much. They appear in a desultory manner, without any context, so to speak, and, like other difficulties, require a context ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... minister speers hoo mony commandments there are?" "Say! why, I shall say ten to be sure." To which the other rejoined, with great triumph, "Ten! Try ye him wi' ten! I tried him wi' a hunner, and he wasna satisfeed." Another answer from a little girl was shrewd and reflective. The question was, "Why did the Israelites make a golden calf?" "They hadna as muckle siller as ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... not ashamed to make you laugh, occasionally. I think I could read you something I have in my desk which would probably make you smile. Perhaps I will read it one of these days, if you are patient with me when I am sentimental and reflective; not just now. The ludicrous has its place in the universe; it is not a human invention, but one of the Divine ideas, illustrated in the practical jokes of kittens and monkeys long before Aristophanes or Shakspeare. How curious it is ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Revolutions in a German style. People say the book is very deep: but it appears to me that the meaning seems deep from lying under mystical language. There is no repose, nor equable movement in it: all cut up into short sentences half reflective, half narrative; so that one labours through it as vessels do through what is called a short sea—small, contrary going waves caused by shallows, and straits, and meeting tides, etc. I like to sail before the wind over the surface of an even-rolling ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... notwithstanding what the promoters of the Woman's Rights movements may say; but she is the better. All must feel, indeed, that, if the whole sins of the present world could be, and were, parceled into two huge heaps, those committed by the men would far exceed those of the women. We doubt whether any reflective man will deny this. On the other hand, the active virtues of man, his benevolence and good deeds, might equal those of woman; but his passive virtues, his patience and his endurance, would be much smaller. On the whole, therefore, woman is the much better ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... her company agreeable to, and sought for, by all serious minds. Her conversation and manners still possess all the blitheness, freshness and vivacity of youth. Her steady lightsome gaze, tempered by a benignant and reflective mind, lends her an air of amiability and majesty. Her language is instructive, her counsels encouraging, while her reproaches arouse the heart to a sense of duty. She has friends wherever she is known, friends who revere and respect, without idolizing her. In her youth ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi
... men treated this very Bible? I, who indeed prize and reverence this sacred library, as of all outward means and conservatives of Christian faith and practice the surest and the most reflective of the inward Word; I, who hold that the Bible contains the religion of Christians, but who dare not say that whatever is contained in the Bible is the Christian religion, and who shrink from all question respecting the comparative worth ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... an ijee thet way myself," returned the short guide, scratching his head in a reflective manner; "but Cale, he thinks the other way; an' Cale, he sure knows more about foxes in a day than I wud in a year. Wall, we done heard as haow he hed made a contrack with this company fur a number o' years, tew act as manager o' ther farm. It's in another ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... almost alone in her apartment, than to submit to a yoke she was not disposed to bear. This species of exile increased my attachment to her, by that natural inclination which excites me to approach the wretched, I found her mind metaphysical and reflective, although at times a little sophistical; her conversation, which was by no means that of a young woman coming from a convent, had for me the greatest attractions; yet she was not twenty years of age. Her complexion was seducingly fair; her figure would have been majestic had she held herself ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... of the first months at Jamestown, too much, perhaps, has been made of faction and quarrel. All this was there. Men set down in a wilderness, amid Virginian heat, men, mostly young, of the active rather than the reflective type, men uncompanioned by women and children, men beset with dangers and sufferings that were soon to tag heavily their courage and patience—such men naturally quarreled and made up, quarreled again and again made up, darkly suspected each the other, as they darkly suspected ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... closed his eyes, and puckered his hemispherical brow, while, with drawn-up knees, he seemed perilously balanced on the high stool. 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 ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... this description possess a high order of intellectual endowments, the unhealthy element seems to impart force and piquancy to their mental manifestations, and thus increase the embarrassment touching the true character of their mental constitution. When the defect appears in the reflective powers, it is often regarded as insanity, though not more correctly than if it were confined to the emotions and feelings. The man who goes through life creditably performing his part, but feeling, all the while, that everybody with whom he has any relations is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... were soon to take definite shape in the publication of the famous Lyrical Ballads (September, 1798), to which Coleridge contributed The Ancient Mariner, and Wordsworth some characteristic lyrical, reflective, and narrative poems. The excessive simplicity and alleged triviality of some of these poems long continued to give offence to the conservative lovers of poetry. Even to-day we feel that Wordsworth was sometimes the victim of his ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... my son. Like all children, he was imitative, so had commenced very early to make a collection of insects, and this was sufficient to give him a precocious taste for natural history; but in his character he was earnest and reflective, and very eager for knowledge. Sumichrast took pleasure in the boy's intelligence, and often amused himself by arguing with him. From the flashes of childish humor which he would display on such occasions, my friend sometimes gave him ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... people talked, too. At the beginning of the walk, Sanin, as the elder, and so more reflective, turned the conversation on fate and predestination, and the nature and meaning of man's destiny; but the conversation quickly took a less serious turn. Emil began to question his friend and patron about Russia, how duels were fought there, and whether the women ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... November, to the clubhouse. In the end, with numb fingers, he picked up his ball, and walked slowly back over the empty course. The wind, now, was behind him, and increasingly comfortable he grew reflective: ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... in the slightest degree speculate on any one of them, but merely shifted and surveyed them, the falcon that he was in spirit as well as in his handsome face leisurely allowed his instinct to direct him where to strike. A reflective disposition has this danger in action, that it commonly precipitates conjecture for the purpose of working upon probabilities with the methods and in the tracks to which it is accustomed: and to conjecture rashly is to play into ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... on a solid foundation of facts. It was here that, in spite of some sympathy based on common literary tastes, he altogether parted company from a brother poet, Mr. Wilfrid Blunt, who has invariably left his facts to take care of themselves. Though eminently meditative and reflective, Lyall's mind, his biographer says, "seemed always hungry for facts." "Though he had an unusual degree of imagination, he never allowed himself to be tempted too far from the region of the known or the ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... together with just enough farming as kept his household in vegetables, milk, butter, and eggs. Living thus amongst insects, birds, cows, and the peace of trees, he had become queer. His was not a very reflective mind, it distilled but slowly certain large conclusions, and followed intently the minute happenings of his little world. To him a bee, a bird, a flower, a tree was well-nigh as interesting as a man; yet men, women, and especially ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Political Economy, Literature, and Natural History, more and more exhibit the facts of humanity and of time under such new combinations, by so many parallel truths and principles, that it is difficult to conceive that History, as now understood by the educated and the reflective, is the same thing once crudely embodied in a ballad or mystically conserved by an inscription. To multiply relations is the destiny of our age, and to converge all that is discovered through the laws of Science upon the records and relics of the past ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... better appraised and understood when we bear in mind Dr. Johnson's own estimate of his musical knowledge together with his having derived pleasure from listening to the sounds of the bagpipes. If a performance on those droning instruments was in the Doctor's mind when he said that the reflective powers need not be exercised in performing on a musical instrument, there might be some truth in the observation. The labour of thinking, however, cannot be dispensed with in connection with playing most musical instruments, and least of all ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... had ceased, and she looked reflective as Tom left her. His good nature had taken off the keenest edge of ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... prosperous to metaphysics, because it attracts the mental attention to the organism through which thought is carried on. Numerous are the instances of men who would never have been heard of as thinkers or as reflective poets, if they had had sufficient muscular ballast to pull against their teeming brains. The consequence of the disproportion has been that the superfluous brain has exhaled, as a mere necessity.[A] If Tacitus had fared in any sort like his brother,—if there had been anything like ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... theory concrete idealism. Hartmann considers himself in opposition to the formalism of Herbart, inasmuch as he insists upon the idea as an indispensable and determining element of beauty. Beauty, he says, is truth, but it is not historical truth, nor scientific nor reflective truth: it is metaphysical and ideal. "Beauty is the prophet of idealistic truth in an age without faith, hating Metaphysic, and acknowledging only realistic truth." Aesthetic truth is without method and without control: it leaps at once from the subjective appearance ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... cause or result, given a brain and nervous system and the material that civilization furnishes for reflection, these and other important subjects will be interesting topics of study and furnish material for the reflective ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow
... watch-chain across his protuberant waistcoat, and his chin sank in reflective folds above his neck-tie. Above that again his nose drooped over his moustache, and his eyelids over his eyes, which sought the floor. Altogether he looked sunk, like an overfed bird, in deferential contemplation of what Mr Milburn ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... was in a reflective mood, and as he pointed these things out to me, made some sage and pertinent remarks about the peculiar features of some industries which required large expenditures to operate, all of which were useless in a comparatively short time. Mainly uphill the road continues through ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... followed. At the end of about ten minutes' walking, during which the six adversaries had maintained the most profound silence, either from fear of being heard, or from that natural feeling which makes a man in the moment of danger reflective for a time, they found themselves in the midst of a glade, surrounded on all sides by a ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... lyrics. In subjects they display the usual lyric variety. There are songs of delight in Nature; a multitude of love poems of all moods; many pastorals, in which, generally, the pastoral conventions sit lightly on the genuine poetical feeling; occasional patriotic outbursts; and some reflective and religious poems. In stanza structure the number of forms is unusually great, but in most cases stanzas are internally varied and have a large admixture of short, ringing or musing, lines. The lyrics were published sometimes in collections by single authors, sometimes in the series ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... chaff. If you should meet with specimens of humour See that our soldiers get the final laugh; Fling the facetious corpses in the fountains So as the red blood overflows the brink; Keep on until the blue Alsatian mountains Turn a reflective pink. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various
... illusion is complete, and in less time than it takes to describe all this one can evoke all the pictures of nature and of our dreams, all the wild conceptions of a diseased mind, or the realities of a reflective brain. ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... acted promptly upon his nervous system, enabled him to forget vexations, and attuned him to kindred sprightliness. He entered merrily into the talk of a time of life which is independent of morality—talk distinct from that of the blackguard, but equally so from that of the reflective man. His first glass had several successors. The trio rambled arm in arm from one place of refreshment to another, and presently sat down in hearty fellowship to a supper of such viands as recommend themselves at bibulous midnight. Peak was drawing recklessly upon the few coins that remained ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... judgment thwarted, our humanity outraged. But "The Spagnoletto" is, nevertheless, a remarkable production, and pitched in another key from anything the writer has yet given us. Heretofore we have only had quiet, reflective, passive emotion: now we have a storm and sweep of passion for which we were quite unprepared. Ribera's character is charged like a thunder-cloud with dramatic elements. Maria Rosa is the child of her father, fired at a flash, "deaf, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... corner, a rare old time piece with a history, or at least a past, of interest to McElwin, for it had been bought at the forced sale of fixtures belonging to a defunct bank. It struck with solemn self-importance, as if proclaiming the hour to foreclose a mortgage; and though not given to this sort of reflective speculation, McElwin must have been vaguely influenced by its knell-like stroke, for he nearly always glanced up as if a tribute were due to its promptness. A few minutes later Zeb Sawyer was shown into the room. The banker had been sitting in ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... competent authorities to the truth of Kate's narrative as may save all readers from my fair Westmoreland friend's disaster,—it remains to give such an answer, as without further research can be given, to a question pretty sure of arising in all reflective readers' thoughts— namely, does there anywhere survive a portrait of Kate? I answer—and it would be both mortifying and perplexing if I could not— Yes. One such portrait there is confessedly; and seven years ago this was to be found at Aix-la-Chapelle, in the collection of Herr ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... smile, reflective, yet anticipatory; amused, absent-minded, barely disturbing the lines of her beautifully modeled red lips. Had any of Mrs. Ennis's enemies, and they were not few in number, seen it, they would have surmised mischief afoot; had any of her friends, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... did he mean? The unsteady phantom of terror behind his glassy eyes seemed to stand still and look into mine wistfully. "They turned me out of my bunk in the middle watch to look at her sinking," he pursued in a reflective tone. His voice sounded alarmingly strong all at once. I was sorry for my folly. There was no snowy-winged coif of a nursing sister to be seen flitting in the perspective of the ward; but away in the middle ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... marked difference between those up to and those above Op. 41. In the later ones we look in vain for the beautes sauvages which charm us in the earlier ones—they strike us rather by their propriety of manner and scholarly elaboration; in short, they have more of reflective composition and less of spontaneous effusion about them. This, however, must not be taken too literally. There are exceptions, partial and total. The "native wood-notes wild" make themselves often heard, only they are almost as often ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... less logical objection to the soliloquy, however; and I am inclined to think that the present avoidance of it is overstrained. Stage soliloquies are of two kinds, which we may call for convenience the constructive and the reflective. By a constructive soliloquy we mean one introduced arbitrarily to explain the progress of the plot, like that at the beginning of the last act of Lady Windermere's Fan, in which the heroine frankly tells the ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... to have been a better poet, for his blindness; and it is highly probable that Huber was a better Apiarian, for the same cause. His active and yet reflective mind demanded constant employment; and he found in the study of the habits of the honey bee, full scope for all his powers. All the facts observed, and experiments tried by his faithful assistants, were daily reported to him, and many inquiries ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... communicated, indeed, was so valuable and important that she could not trust the air with it, but whispered the most important portions in a confidential tone. Among the crowd, Cerinthy Ann's theological admirer was observed in deeply reflective attitude; and that high-spirited young lady added further to his convictions of the total depravity of the species by vexing and discomposing him in those thousand ways in which a lively, ill-conditioned young woman will ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... and was so mortified at being refused, that he made an attempt to cut the balloon with his sword. The story has but a flimsy support, and indeed does not accord well with the character of the hero, which was deep and reflective, as well as bold and determined, and not likely to suffer its energies to escape ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Supplementary Number, Issue 263, 1827 • Various
... which saw great phenomena of ascetic philosophy and practice. Each school or tendency developed its own mores to treat the problems of life in its own way. An ascetic policy never is a primary product of the "ways" in which unreflecting men meet the facts of life. It is reflective and derived. It is a secondary stage of faith built on experience and reflection. It is, therefore, dogmatic. It must be sustained by faith in the fundamental pessimistic conviction. It never can be verified by experience. It purposely runs counter to all the sanctions which ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... their size—that is to say, the surface on which the sun's rays strike is of greater reflecting power in some than in others. One of the brightest things in Nature that we can imagine is a bank of snow in sunlight; it is so dazzling that we have to look away or wink hard at the sight; and the reflective power of the surface of Venus is as dazzling as if she were made of snow. This is probably because the light strikes on the upper surface of the clouds which surround her. In great contrast to this is the surface of Mercury, which reflects as dully as a mass of lead. Our own moon ...
— The Children's Book of Stars • G.E. Mitton
... character, and it works on the stage with truly melo-dramatic force, Perhaps, there is not a more interesting picture than a solitary tree, tufted on a time-worn ruin; there are a thousand associations in such a scene, which, to the reflective mind, are dear as life's-blood, and as an artist would say, they make a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 356, Saturday, February 14, 1829 • Various
... antiquity of the race,—Africa, its inhabitants, and the development of the Negro governments of Sierra Leone and Liberia, led me to furnish something to meet a felt need. If the Negro slave desired his native land before the Rebellion, will not the free, intelligent, and reflective American Negro turn to Africa with its problems of geography and missions, now that he can contribute something towards the improvement of the condition of humanity? Editors and writers everywhere throughout ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... they show that in the difficult problem of tragic technique the author was learning still. At the age of forty, approximately, and a year or two after Hamlet, Shakespeare produced Othello, the most perfect, although not necessarily the greatest, of all his great tragedies. It is less profoundly reflective than Hamlet and less passionately imaginative than King Lear or Macbeth; but no other of his masterpieces shows such perfect balance of taste and judgment, or is so free from any jarring note. Hence, through the histories and tragedies taken ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... admiring and unalterable faithfulness and affection. There is a certain spirit in expression that must stand inevitably associated with the collected mind. When it was wondered why Johnson cared for some unhappy mortal who had no charm or talent, Goldsmith said, in his quiet and reflective way: "The man is poor and honest, which is recommendation enough for Johnson." Concerning one who was undeserving, according to the manner of the world, who had no honour, and had forfeited all claim to character, yet still retained ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... from which they came, as well as that in which they live; the concurrent historic causes which have conspired to form and influence the literature. We shall find, as we advance in this study, that the life and literature of a people are reciprocally reflective. ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... side of the Emperor, upon the platform, sat his two young nephews. He presented them separately to the departments and the army as in the direct line of inheritance. This scene must have produced a profound impression upon the younger child, Louis Napoleon, who was so thoughtful, reflective, ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... proves of little use to him in after life, and which, for the want of practice, becomes to him a dead letter, as well as a dead language. Let the boy be taught to think, to know the meaning thoroughly of what he learns, and, by the right use of his reflective faculties, be enabled to communicate the knowledge thus acquired to others. A comprehensive knowledge of the arts and sciences, of history, geography, chemistry, and mathematics, together with a deep and unbigoted belief in the great truths of Christianity, would render ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... spread over a long table, on which a handsome coffee-service was set out with considerable elegance. The disturbed countenance with which the Judge had approached the breakfast-table, cleared itself instantly as a person, whom young ladies would unquestionably have called "horribly ugly," but whom no reflective physiognomist could have observed without interest, entered the room. This person was tall, extremely thin, and somewhat inclining to the left side; the complexion was dark, and the somewhat noble features wore a melancholy expression, which but seldom ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... opened her mouth as if to speak to him, and each time she dropped again her head in reflective silence. She did not talk to this young man as she might to any number of her more intimate acquaintances. Even the very silence was magnetic. Further utterance would dispel the charm. That she would enlist in his service she knew as well as she knew her own existence, but ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... reconciliation of Sweden and Denmark, had been accomplished; and what remained farther was, as Cromwell hints, the association of the other Continental Protestant powers with these two Scandinavian kingdoms in a league against Austria and Spain. How exactly this idea accorded with reflective Protestant sentiment everywhere appears from a few sentences in one of Baillie's letters, commenting on the very occurrences that occasioned Cromwell's present despatch. "I am glad," writes Baillie, "that by ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... three times she begged me to accompany her when she went with the grand duchess to visit the young orphans; often, also, she spoke to me of my future plans with a maturity of reason, a serious and reflective interest, that astonished me, coming from a girl of her age; she was very fond, too, of inquiring of my infancy, and of my mother, alas! ever regretted. Every time that I wrote to my father, she begged me to recall ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... gossip, plump nurses, as you scold your soldiers. Embroider peaceably, young mothers, making from time to time a little game of your neighbors among yourselves; and you, reflective idlers, look at that charming ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... an eager, observant, reflective, aspiring, and always original young woman whose formative years have been divided between the stifling restrictions of the 'Pale' and the glorious freedom of America. The infectious optimism and high courage of the ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... remain a mystery; it was impossible to see how this charming, blooming, simple creature, all youth and grace and innocence, got her extraordinary powers of reflexion. When her gift was not in exercise she appeared anything but reflective, and as she sat there now, for instance, you would never have dreamed that she had had a vivid revelation. Olive had to content herself, provisionally, with saying that her precious faculty had come to her just as her beauty and distinction (to Olive she was full of that quality) had ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... opposite to him, and of the Oriental china which was the detective's special pride, and on which his eyes seemed to be fixed, some vision of the past which was far more real than the unsubstantial present. Presently he went on talking in a reflective undertone: ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... his gardens almost as much as I did. When relieved from the cares of state and his ambitious plans, and while walking in the winding paths among sparkling fountains and the fragrant flowerbeds, he seemed like a very ordinary man, quiet and reflective, with very good ideas concerning nature and architecture. The latter I learned from his frequent remarks to me. I suppose it was because I appeared to be so much older and more experienced than most of those who composed his little army of gardeners that he ...
— The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander • Frank R. Stockton
... Fritz in a reflective way. "I'll talk to Captain Brown, and see what he says of it." The elder brother had a good deal of German caution in his composition; so that, although prompt of action, he was never accustomed to undertake ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... a sigh, but did not say anything to the tramp that he may have had in his mind, and which possibly Wandering Lu might have resented. The man had continued his meal and was in something of a reflective frame of mind apparently. Hugh supposed he was wondering what he was going to do after coming so far in hopes of finding a snug nest for the remainder of his idle days, and meeting with a ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... play itself. What must the conflict be then for those who, with slight purses and few allies, find themselves pitted against the powerful of the earth? Discouragement, in weak natures, soon turns to envy, and the spectacle of human unkindness has driven many a reflective, delicate soul to say that the companionship of his fellow-men is unlovely, not to be admired, and difficult, at times, not to hate. In disgust of the world—where one has been wounded, or where ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... The Cotter's Saturday Night—do not fit exactly into any of the divisions. One would class them with the epics rather than with the lyrics or the dramas, but they are not properly narratives, because they tell no story; they are really descriptive and reflective poems. One often comes upon a difficulty of this kind when attempting to classify a poem, and the truth is that several smaller divisions are necessary if every production is to be placed where it belongs. But while it is desirable to know whether ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... that the game of chess, in its effects upon mental character, is greatly misunderstood. I am not now writing a treatise, but simply prefacing a somewhat peculiar narrative by observations very much at random; I will, therefore, take occasion to assert that the higher powers of the reflective intellect are more decidedly and more usefully tasked by the unostentatious game of draughts than by a the elaborate frivolity of chess. In this latter, where the pieces have different and bizarre motions, with various and variable values, what is only complex is mistaken ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... a reflective person. He had his own idea of what a great prima donna should be like, and he took it for granted that Mme. Garnet corresponded to his conception. The curious thing was that he managed to impress his idea upon Cressida herself. She began ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... chair near the clear space between the windows sat the bridegroom's mother, with a large pearl brooch gleaming out of the black satin folds on her bosom. Her face, between long lace lappets, looked as clearly pallid and passively reflective as the pearls. Not a muscle stirred about her calm mouth and the smooth triangle of forehead between her curtain slants of gray hair. If she speculated deeply within herself, and was agitated over the delay, not a restless glance of her steadily ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the very low and poor. The eminent person just mention'd sneeringly asks whether we expect to elevate and improve a nation's politics by absorbing such morbid collections and qualities therein. The point is a formidable one, and there will doubtless always be numbers of solid and reflective citizens who will never get over it. Our answer is general, and is involved in the scope and letter of this essay. We believe the ulterior object of political and all other government, (having, of course, provided for the police, the safety of life, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... is the first great American poet. His poetry is chiefly reflective and descriptive, and it is remarkable for its elevation, simplicity, and moral earnestness. He lacks dramatic power and skill in narration. Calmness and restraint, the lack of emotional intensity, are also evident in his greatest work. His depths of space are vast, but windless. ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... more silent that morning than he had been of late. He appeared to be somewhat reflective, even somber. Jed, on the lookout for just such symptoms, was trying ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... musical science, a great and idealistic effort, achieved results so unsatisfactory. One wonders whether Mahler the composer was not, after all, the greatest failure in music. If there is any music that is eminently Kapellmeistermusik, eminently a routine, reflective, dusty sort of musical art, it is certainly Mahler's five latter symphonies. The musical Desert of Sahara is surely to be found in these unhappy compositions. They are monsters of ennui, and by their very pretentiousness, their gargantuan dimensions, throw into cruelest relief Mahler's ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... influence of the sea, in causing a 'heavier rainfall, a more abundant vegetation, and a more plentiful supply of food,' with an easier and more reflective life than that of 'the arid wilderness of the interior,' cannot be, as is alleged, the cause of the germs of religion. [IBID. p. 463.] If this were the case, the coastal tribes of the Gulf of Carpentaria and of the north generally would have developed the All Father ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... and the character of the owner, perhaps more fanciful than real, at once attracted attention. Everything was simple, graceful, and rich, without being tropically luxuriant; the paintings appeared to be often of airy, winged, or white-robed figures, that suggested a reflective and not unimaginative mind in the one who had chosen them. This was the leader whom Mr. Calhoun's fervent political metaphysics and his own ambition for place and power had misled. His conversation was remarkable in manner for perfect unostentatiousness, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... stands, AEgis-armed, looked forth calm, reflective, Across the wide stretches of old Hindostan. The plains now subdued to her power protective, Saw politic AKBAR ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 18, 1890 • Various
... in the least, that it was not a surprising thing when I looked up one summer morning to see a small bird hopping about the grass a yard or so away from me. The surprise was not that he was there but that he STAYED there—or rather he continued to hop—with short reflective-looking hops and that while hopping he looked at me— not in a furtive flighty way but rather as a person might tentatively regard a very new acquaintance. The absolute truth of the matter I had reason to believe later was that he did not know I was a person. I may have been the first of my species ...
— My Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... now expressed himself desirous of sending some Pangerans to Borneo, and I wished him likewise to do so on account of the reflective power of the steamer, which, in that case, would have shone upon him. With his usual delay, however, he failed to be ready, and these Pangerans did not quit the river for two days afterward, when they proceeded in a native prahu. I accompanied the steamer to the mouth of the river, and wishing ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... mean nothing to me, but I venture to say the author cherishes them all, and cries over them as he did when he was writing their history. I put the book back among its dusty companions, and, sitting down in my reflective rocking-chair, think how others must forget, and how I shall remember, the company that ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... open admiration. "You are a genius and a duck," she exclaimed; then, after a reflective pause, she murmured, "Very likely he met with an accident just before ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... you. Now consider. I have been defiled, and if not defiled I may be under the spell. Look at his anklets! Who ever heard of a corpse appearing during the night amongst the logs with gold anklets on its legs? There is witchcraft there. However," added Mahmat, after a reflective pause, "I will have the anklet if there is permission, for I have a charm against the ghosts and am not afraid. ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... first taboos, grow into a world very largely in the hands of older people; strong men and experienced women are there before them, and we are justified in any effectual contrivance to save them from being "gobbled up"—against their real instincts. That works—the reflective man will discover—towards whittling the previous polygamy to still smaller proportions. Here, indeed, our present arrangements fail most lamentably; each year sees a hideous sacrifice of girls, mentally scarcely more ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... so, some of the related equipment survived. For example, the centrifuge used in the butterfat test, discovered in 1890 by Stephen M. Babcock, survived in several forms. Manure spreaders and tree sprayers, reflective of advances in biochemistry, also survived. But these only suggest the more important biological control activities for which these machines and tools served merely ...
— Agricultural Implements and Machines in the Collection of the National Museum of History and Technology • John T. Schlebecker
... discerned with precision the central idea on which a question turned, and knew how to disengage it and present it by itself in a few homely, strong old English words that would be intelligible to all. He excelled in logical statement more than in executive ability. He reasoned clearly, his reflective judgment was good, and his purposes were fixed; but, like the Hamlet of his only poet, his will was tardy in action, and, for this reason, and not from humility or tenderness of feeling, he sometimes deplored ...
— Memorial Address on the Life and Character of Abraham Lincoln - Delivered at the request of both Houses of Congress of America • George Bancroft
... companionable thing a campfire is! How generous and outright it is! It plays for you when you wish so be lively, and it glows for you when you wish to be reflective. ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... the intrinsic selfishness of certain grades of social life; the corruption of business methods; the 'false, fairy gold,' of fashionable charities, and 'advanced' thought. Margaret Wentworth is a typical New England girl, reflective, absorbed, full of passionate and repressed intensity under a quiet and apparently cold exterior. The events that group themselves about her life are the natural result of such a character brought into contact with real life. The book cannot be too ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... soup; it was the best of its kind, and its French name made it no better than the other triumphs in the same field which the Marchesa had achieved. But when Sir John tasted the first mouthful of the fish he paused, and after a reflective and regretful look at his plate, he cast his eye round the table. All the others, however, were too busily intent in consuming the Turbot la Vatel to heed his interrogative glance, so he followed suit, and after he had finished ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters
... and thither she came in the morning to paint her sisters, the white Bengal roses, the red cactus and the graceful clematides, which surrounded her charming retreat. There in the evening, pensive and reflective, the young girl suffered her glance to stray over the vast horizon of the sea gilded by the sun's expiring rays. On the day we speak of, Maulear found her reading, or rather seeming to read, for her book rested on her knee, her ivory brow supported by her hand. Her ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... besides Louis M. Gottschalk and Dr. Henry John Gauntlett, have tried their skill in fitting music to this hymn, but only Gottschalk and Kozeluck approach the mood into which its quiet words charm a pious and reflective mind. Possibly its frequent association with "Holley," composed by George Hews, may influence a hearer's judgement of other melodies but there is something in that tune that makes it cling to the hymn as ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... altering my answer, if there was cause. So took a hackney and home, and after supper made my wife to read them all over, wherein she is mighty useful to me; and I find them all evasions, and in many things false, and in few, to the full purpose. Little said reflective on me, though W. Pen and J. Minnes do mean me in one or two places, and J. Minnes a little more plainly would lead the Duke of York to question the exactness of my keeping my records; but all to no purpose. My mind is mightily ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... will no doubt dismiss this list as just so many cliches. The reflective man will accept it as a negative guide to positive conduct, for it engages practically every principle which is vital to the growth of a strong spiritual life in ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... genius only reflective, and creative, and playful; his was a trumpet voice also. When the blast of war sounded, his voice rang like a clarion in "Carolina" and "Cry to Arms". Beyond their local meaning, which kindles and thrills, now as then, the men of ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... relaxed, became ironical, reflective. But he held the hands close, his grasp of them hidden by the folds of ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... affectedly meek outstretching of her nose, she consented to recognize some oats in the feed-box—without looking at them—and was formally installed. All this while she had resolutely ignored my presence. As I stood watching her, she suddenly stopped eating; the same reflective look came over her. "Surely I am not mistaken, but that same obnoxious creature is somewhere about here!" she seemed to say, and shivered ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... reflective habits, he never made up his mind on a subject. His adherents accounted for this by the astonishing magnitude of his ideas. He conceived every subject on so grand a scale that he had not room in his head to turn it over and examine both sides of it. Certain it is that, ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... above said, I do not discern the purpose of the writer of this paper; but it would be impossible to illustrate more clearly this chronic insanity of infidel thought which makes all nature spectral; while, with exactly correspondent and reflective power, whatever is dreadful or disordered in external things reproduces itself in disease of the ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... written in English, and after English prototypes, by a native convert. In fact, the Latin language was almost as important to the new departure as the Latin models. While the old English literary form, restricted entirely to poetry, was unfitted for any serious narrative or any reflective work, the old English tongue, suited only to the practical needs of a rude warrior race, was unfitted for the expression of any but the simplest and most material ideas. It is true, the vocabulary was copious, especially in terms for natural objects, and it was far richer than ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... stated, that hallowing of Sunday as a day of sacred and joyful observance which is coeval with the earliest traditions, and antedates all records, is an attestation as significant as any monumental marble. No hallucination theory, no gradual rise and growth of hope in the minds of a reflective few, can account for that solid primeval monument. But what occurred, the reality in distinctness from any legendary accretions, we shall be better able to conclude, when the truth shall have been threshed out concerning the reality, ...
— Miracles and Supernatural Religion • James Morris Whiton
... fit medium of sound in which to express itself. And, what is not less remarkable, connected with all these forms of substances there are mathematical laws of length and breadth, or definite proportions of each, and reflective angles, that are every way as exact as those which regulate the colors of the prism, the images of the mirror, or the telescopic light of astronomic worlds—mathematics for the heart as truly ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... of the velocity of the transmission of luminous rays, that the light of remote heavenly bodies presents us with the most ancient perceptible evidence of the existence of matter. It is thus that the reflective mind of man is led from simple premises to rise to those exalted heights of nature, where in the light-illumined realms of space, "myriads of worlds are bursting into life like the grass of ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... more daily spent in the saddle in this rarefied, intoxicating air, disposes one to sleep rather than to write in the evening, and is far from conducive to mental brilliancy. The observing faculties are developed, and the reflective ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... spots Grimaldi and Riccioli on the extreme eastern edge to be somewhat darker. If you take my glass, Ardan, which is of somewhat greater power than yours, you will distinctly see the bottom of the crater. The reflective power of its plateau probably proceeds from the exceedingly great number of small craters that you can ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... inner truth of human life beyond the power of moral science to bestow. We do well to seek philosophy in the poets, for though they teach only by hints and parables, they nevertheless reflect the concrete truth of life, as it is half revealed and half concealed in facts. On the other hand, the reflective process of philosophy may help poetry; for, as we shall show, there is a near kinship between them. Even the critical analyst, while severing element from element, may help art and serve the poet's ends, provided he does not in his analysis of parts forget ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... escapes. And what is lost is gradually regrown. The crab gets its leg broken past all mending; it casts off the leg across a weak breakage plane near the base, and within a preformed bandage which prevents bleeding a new leg is formed in miniature. Such is the adaptive device—more reflex than reflective—which is called self-mutilation ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson |
