"Pondering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with sunshine; soon the ears Weary of utterance, seeing all is said; Soon, racked by hopes and fears, The all-pondering, all-contriving head, Weary with all things, wearies of the years; And our sad spirits turn toward the dead; And the tired child, the body, ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... naturally to Cherry, who listened to his tale of repeated failure with furrowed brows, pondering the matter as seriously as if the responsibility had ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... they got out, and left me pondering on deafness and dumbness. To be dumb, of course, is, comparatively speaking, nothing; for most of the perplexities of life come from talk. But to be deaf—to live ever in silence, to see laughing lips moving, to see hands wandering over the keys, ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... was employed in reading, or rather, in pondering over, two letters, with which a courier from Calais had just arrived, the one from the archbishop, the other from Warwick. In these epistles were two passages, strangely contradictory in their counsel. A sentence ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... pondering whether the dulness of Worthbourne and the disappointment of her first love had been the appointed cross of Georgina Gardner, cast aside in impatience of its weight. And then she tried to reconcile the conflicting accounts of Jane's influence in the matter, till she thought ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of her, with parted lips, fingering her handkerchief and evidently pondering the entirely new suggestion. I thought it best to let her ponder. As a general rule, people will do anything in the world rather than think; so, when one sees a human being wrapped in thought, one ought to regard wilful disturbance of the process as sacrilege. I lit a cigarette ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... would not have heaven's airs for witnesses, So Wyndham, shrinking from the very stars And tell-tale places where the moonlight fell, Crept through the huddled shadows back to hall, And in a lonely room where no light was, Save what the moon made at the casement there, Sat pondering his hurt, and in the dark Gave audience to a host of grievances. For never comes reflection, gay or grave, But it brings with it comrades of its hue. So did he fall to thinking how his day Declined, ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... gabled houses, we continued on another fifteen miles to a small place called Riesa, and when about three miles farther on I summoned courage to carry out a scheme over which, during the run, I had been deeply pondering. ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... me that the man is happy because he has bread and meat. Is it not here, if ever there was such a case, where the taste of bread is a taste of misery, and where to feed and prolong life is to feed and lengthen our sorrow? And in pondering these things, do not those strong words of Sacred Scripture bring down their load of truth in heavy trouble to our thoughts, that, 'Their bread is loathsome to their eye, and their meat ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... they considered themselves the sole occupants of the world as they advanced, perched on their high seat; and this, Harboro realized, was the true fashionable air. It was an instinct rather than a pose, he believed, and he was pondering that problem in psychology which has to do with the fact that when people ride or drive they appear to have a different mental organism from those ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... shafts, he slowly applied the bigger end of it to the bow-string, and stood for a long time pondering it, drawing it a little way and easing it back without releasing it. Then he called to mind that his spears always threw better when they were hurled heavy end first. So he turned the little shaft and applied the small end to the bow-string. ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... silent contemplation of the little puzzle, trying, no doubt, to fit her into his theories, or, as my mother said, to find her a three-legged stool and a corner somewhere in the kingdom of heaven; and we were certain something or other would come out of that pondering, though whether the same night or a twelvemonth after, no one could tell. I believe the main result of his thinking was, that he did less and less ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... It was by pondering on information thus won from the moon that Newton made his immortal discovery. The gravitation of the earth is a force which extends far and wide through space. The more distant the body, the weaker the gravitation ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... Robinson, besides his more general exhortations to brotherly kindness and charity, had spoken, in the spirit of prophecy, some promises and assurances which came now to a divine fulfillment. Pondering "sundry weighty and solid reasons" in favor of removal from Holland, the pilgrims put on record that "their pastor would often say that many of those who both wrote and preached against them would practice ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... Telphusian," for that he shamed the streams of sacred Telphusa. Then Phoebus Apollo considered in his heart what men he should bring in to be his ministers, and to serve him in rocky Pytho. While he was pondering on this, he beheld a swift ship on the wine-dark sea, and aboard her many men and good, Cretans from Minoan Cnossus, such as do sacrifice to the God, and speak the doom of Phoebus Apollo of the Golden Sword, what word soever he utters ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... Nevskoi, and jostled my way through crowds of nobles, officers, soldiers, dandies, and commoners, stopping suddenly at every picture-shop, gazing dreamily into the gorgeous millinery establishments, pondering thoughtfully over the glittering wares of the jewelers, lagging moodily by the grand cafes, and snuffing reflectively the odors that came from the grand restaurations—when all this occurred, and I went down into a beer-cellar and made acquaintance ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... home, Miss Innes," he said. "How often the sins of the fathers are visited on the children!" Which left me pondering. ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... more game and set the stakes high," said Sculloge to himself one evening, as he sat pondering over these things; and so, without consulting Sabina, he stole away to the glen, and played a game for ten thousand guineas. But the evil Druid was now ready to pounce on his prey, and he did not play ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... mystical cosmetic which produces every one of her hues, the great principle of light, for ever remains white or colourless in itself, and if operating without medium upon matter, would touch all objects, even tulips and roses, with its own blank tinge—pondering all this, the palsied universe lies before us a leper; and like wilful travellers in Lapland, who refuse to wear coloured and colouring glasses upon their eyes, so the wretched infidel gazes himself ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... Pondering on these things, Durtal wandered round the ambulatory and paused in front of a small stone Virgin ensconced at the foot of the stairs leading up to the chapel of Saint Piat, constructed in the fourteenth ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... did so; I would do so In face of earth and Heaven; for I have never Repented for my sake; sometimes for yours, In pondering o'er your late disquietudes. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... long it would take Abe to drive back from the eleven-thirty train, Miss Selina started to think of something she had been pondering the last few days. What should she do with her vast estate if she died? She had never made a will, for she abhorred the idea of dying and having any strangers in her home. But she couldn't take it with her, and she was nearing seventy years of age ...
— The Blue Birds' Winter Nest • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... throne, so he sat, with the light of the fire on him full: Colored bright as the ring of red gold on his hand, fit to buffet a bull, Was the mane that grew down on his neck, was the beard he would pondering pull. ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone
... his genius in this direction. After pondering over the subject, he proceeded to London in 1728, and exhibited his drawings to Dr. Halley, then Astronomer-Royal. The Doctor referred him to Mr. George Graham, the distinguished horologer, inventor of the dead-beat escapement and the mercurial pendulum. ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... only move her to tears," she murmured, "only break that frozen calm once. How can I touch, move, melt her? It must be done." And pondering this difficult task, ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... to regard his rule as exceptional and extraordinary, and to revert to the old Commonwealth. It involved, therefore, a very exact answer to the question which the Wallingford-House magnates were now pondering. A Parliament was wanted: what other Parliament could it be than the Rump restored? Let that very Assembly which Cromwell had dissolved on the 20th of April, 1653, resume their places now, treat the six years of interval as a dream, and carry on the ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... city. I won't need any flowers. Why don't you put them in some of those vases and things that are standing about in there? Quite the fashion nowadays, isn't it? (He takes the bunch of flowers from the gardener and inhales their fragrance while he seems to be pondering something) Wasn't that a ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... de Corasse entered into his room, pondering deeply, for he remembered the words of Orthon and said to himself: "I fear me that I have seen my messenger. I repent me that I have set my dogs upon him, and the more that perhaps he will never visit me again, for he has told me, not once but many times, that if I angered him ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... After pondering over the matter for several days, I determined on milking the cow myself, this being an accomplishment of my boyhood. To the celestial's amazement I did so and instantly ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... proceedings set the Athenians deeply pondering what they ought to do concerning the Lacedaemonians, and they held an assembly in accordance with a resolution of the senate. It chanced that the ambassadors of the Lacedaemonians and the allies still faithful to Lacedaemon were present. ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... Pondering these things, Sidney left Paris, and at Frankfort met Hubert Languet. Languet was not only a Protestant, but, at heart, a Republican. He was the friend of Melanethon and of William of Orange, in whose service he died. One of the ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... past-fashioned self, not merely in order to see truly, but in order to see at all. And in doing so, she ran the risk of letting go what she might have done better to hold. She felt painfully different from these people among whom she found herself. Her very trick of pondering over things sent her spinning to hopeless distances. They seemed to ponder so wholesomely little. Their intelligence was devoted to matters of the moment; they were keen and well-finished and accomplished. Hadria ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... the matter carefully, and pondering (in comparing small things with great) upon the part which Bishop Burnet took in settling the disordered elements of British intellect after the revolution of 1688, I have resolved to do as he did—place my humble services at the disposal of my Sovereign—and in whatever situation Your ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... this was passing, George Stephenson was pondering over a daring project. Fulton had completed his invention in 1807, and in 1819 the first steamship had crossed the Atlantic. If engines could be made to plough through the water, why might they not also be made to walk the earth? ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... you mean all right," the giant agreed; and after pondering in silence he asked: "Do you ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... see," replied Arthur, cheerfully, and pondering as if to determine who was exactly the man. It was really beautiful to see his exclusive enthusiasm for his art. "Let me see. How would it do to paint an ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... fight to fight to-day. As I sat alone, pondering over this terrible affair in which it is my sad lot to have to give judgment, the door opened and the rector's daughter—I may no longer call her my betrothed—rushed in and threw herself at my feet. I raised her up, clasped her in my arms and we wept together in silence. ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... room, she sat down to think matters over for herself, forgetful of the fact that she was wet. She sat a long time pondering in her slow untrained way over the arrangements which had been come to, her mind trying to get accustomed to the thought that she was going to be Peter's wife and to ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... man, who was evidently very deeply interested in the matter of the conversation, had devoured every word of his father, as if he had been listening to the oracles of a God; and, when he ceased, after a pause of some seconds, during which he was pondering very deeply on that which he had heard, he raised his intelligent face and said in ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... staring at her, and ruffling up his few feathers in a funny way that made her laugh. Then she had to discover some way of accommodating her two larger patients so that neither should hurt nor alarm the other. A bright thought came to her after much pondering. Carefully lifting the handkerchief, she pinned the two ends to the roof of the cart, and there swung little Forked-tongue, while ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... kept themselves warm during the winter. The windows are composed of double glasses, and between the sashes the space is filled with sand to keep out the air, so that to be hermetically sealed up is one of necessities of existence in this rigorous climate. While I was pondering over the marvelous fact that people can live by breathing so many thousand gallons of air over and over so many thousand times, a whole legion of fleas, chinches, and other animals of a still more forbidding aspect commenced their horrid work, and would probably soon have made an ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... and coming. He returned presently, having made most excellent time. Amy told him how many minutes he had been gone, and bade him take his seat. The boy was a little in doubt as to just why he was called on to perform this feat; but, between pondering over the affair and being tired from his race, he was a good boy all the rest of the morning! The girl had simply given the child a chance to work off his superfluous animal spirits, and, with this quantity reduced to a safety limit, he was ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... deal and his white teeth flashed behind his pipe. His mother's strategies had always diverted him, even when he was a boy—they were so flimsy and patent, so illy proportioned to her vigor and force. "They've been waiting to see which way I'd jump," he reflected. He felt that Mrs. Ericson was pondering his case deeply as she sat clicking ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... Julian sat pondering over his veiled remarks. They surprised him, but at first he was inclined to consider them as meaningless and unfounded as so much of the gossip of the clubs. Men like Valentine must always be a target for the arrows ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... there virtue must be its own reward. "Stupid of her to speak to me of virtue," I muttered, "for she must know well enough that it was her partial virtue that had separated us and caused this long estrangement." And I sat pondering, trying to discover if she applied the phrase to herself or to the place where she was staying. How could it apply to the place? All places would be a ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... the World, upon Mercator's Projection, and devoutly longed for the day to arrive when it might be my fortune to make a Voyage of Circumnavigation. Such a Map, I remember, hung in the Schoolroom at Gnawbit's; and I have often been cruelly beaten for gazing at it and pondering over it, instead of endeavouring to commit to memory a quantity of Words, the meaning of which I could not for the life ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... Uncomfortably pondering this reply, Doctor Hoff set about the matter of the expense money. Mean time a telegram came which settled the matter of immediate destination. It apprised Average Jones that, a fortnight previous, this paragraph had appeared in the paid ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... something of the past out of the ruins before them. They did not confess their curiosity as they chased one another through the midst of fallen floorings and overturned partitions; but they were indeed, all the time, secretly pondering over the legend of those ruins, and of that lady, lovelier than day, whose silken skirt had rustled down those steps, where now ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... proposed sally of De la Marck, unless heedfully guarded against, might prove the destruction of the besieging army, so difficult was it, in the tumultuous warfare of those days, to recover from a nocturnal surprise. After pondering on the matter, he formed the additional resolution, that he would not communicate the intelligence save personally, and to both the Princes while together, perhaps because he felt that to mention so well contrived and hopeful a scheme to Louis ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... through Lincoln's stalwart form. This was the man of men with whom for weeks he had confidentially conferred, and upon whose judgment and information he had absolutely relied and acted, "I cannot afford to let Seward take the first trick," he said to his secretary,[719] after pondering the matter during Sunday, and on Monday morning, while the inauguration procession was forming, he penned a reply. "Your note," he said, "is the subject of the most painful solicitude with me; and I feel constrained to beg that you will countermand the withdrawal. ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... you the meaning, but not the feeling, that pervades every syllable as the blood warms every fiber of a man, not the words that flashed upon the poet as he wrote, nor the yet more precious and inspired words that came afterward to his patient waiting and pondering, and touched the whole with fresh delight and grace. If you will take any familiar passage from one of our poets in which every motion of the music is endeared by long association and remembrance, and every tone is sweet upon the tongue, and substitute a few strange words ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... Sir Marmaduke remained pondering—in the darkness and the mist—for a while. His own doublet and breeches, shoes and stockings were in the pavilion: would he ever be able to get at them without a light? No, certainly not! nor could he venture to go home to the Court in his present ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... still pondering over these things when he went back to the Grange, later in the evening—but he was resolved not to say anything about them to Nesta. And he saw Nesta only for a few minutes. Her mother, she said, was very ill indeed—the doctor was with her then, and she must go ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... was as though that extra-worldly endowment of her childhood having ceased to manifest in external ways, had turned its light inwards. The power of hearing what others could not hear, had faded, but a subtlety of mind, a clarity, a sort of pondering, intellectual self-consciousness (that had no kinship with that other form of self-consciousness that is only inverted self-conceit) had taken the place of those voices that she had once refused to deny to the ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... that she thought no more of going up into the wood; but though she had fain abided there long to see whatever might be seen, she deemed it would go ill with her did the witch happen on her there; wherefore she turned about, and went back the way she had come, going very slowly and pondering the tidings. And ever she called to mind what Habundia had said to her, that it was by water she must flee, and wondered if she had sent her this thing that she might escape therein; so different as her going would be thereby to swimming the lake with her wet body. Then again she thought, that ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... street. For the last half-hour, too, I had been disturbed by the crying of the children inside the family room, so that I could not, in any case, have written any more just then. So I took a long time up over Drammensveien, and stayed away till the evening, pondering incessantly, as I walked along, as to how I would continue my drama. Before I came home in the evening of this day, ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... pondering, like a god the Greek drew nigh; His dreadful plumage nodded from on high; The Pelian javelin, in his better hand, Shot trembling rays that glitter'd o'er the land; And on his breast the beamy splendour shone, Like Jove's own ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... replied the captain, laughing a little shamefacedly. "And he told me its meaning, partly in Latin, for we spoke together in that tongue, but I am such a dullard that I forgot the words as soon as he spoke them, and so asked him to write them down. Then he fell a pondering again, and said like the pastor, that the two inscriptions differed in every way, and he must muse awhile and look in his books before he could read them fairly, and he asked me to leave the sword with him. So seeing him so venerable ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... me. I am still pondering over our new education. Meantime I think I shall enter my little boy's name on the books of Tuskegee College where the education is ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... long I sat there; but it may have been half an hour. I sat like a dazed man; for I had had no sleep, and what I had seen drove away all desire for it. I sat there, staring, and pondering round and round in circles, like a wheel turning. Now it was of Dorothy; now of the Jesuits; now of His Majesty and Mr. Chiffinch; now again, of the road to Dover, and of what I ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... what. Don't be so scared, man! If I'd anticipated any chance of its coming to extremes of the kind you're pondering upon, I wouldn't be here prepared for only half measures. Perhaps we sha'n't even wake the ladies up; and if we do, there's not the slightest danger of our being known. So make your mind easy, and let's get through with it. ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... in the cloister, pondering on the means whereby with Minerva's help he might be able to kill the suitors. Presently he said to Telemachus, "Telemachus, we must get the armour together and take it down inside. Make some excuse when the suitors ask you why you have removed it. Say that you ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... in his chair, was still far from recognising his fundamental error. He was simply pondering Quita's last words to him, and endorsing their truth with characteristic honesty. He had put himself in the wrong by his manner of broaching the subject; but the belief in his right to speak of it remained. ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... The classic should be allowed to make his own impression, however faint, on the virginal mind of the reader. But afterwards let explanatory criticism be read as much as you please. Explanatory criticism is very useful; nearly as useful as pondering for oneself on what one has read! Explanatory criticism may throw one single gleam that lights up the ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... to myself," he observed gloomily, pondering, "perhaps after all I am a man and not a louse and I've been in too great a hurry to condemn myself. I'll make another ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... your serious pondering, for it is certain that the prevalent fear of poverty among the educated classes is the worst moral disease from which our ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... hand to him: he kissed it; and went away pondering deeply this strange interview, and wondering whether he had ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... moment, while she was pondering over the affair, the vehicle came to a sudden stop, and, looking out, she saw it was standing before the wide entrance-gate ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... Dr. Buckland on one of his favourite theories as to the formation of coal. But the result was, that Dr. Buckland, a much greater master of tongue-fence than Mr. Stephenson, completely silenced him. Next morning, before breakfast, when he was walking in the grounds, deeply pondering, Sir William Follett came up and asked what he was thinking about? "Why, Sir William, I am thinking over that argument I had with Buckland last night; I know I am right, and that if I had only the ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... shepherds who beheld it hastened into the town; and as they looked upon the baby in the manger, they told the wondering mother what they had seen and heard. We are told that Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart. While she could not understand what all this meant, she knew at least that hers was no common child; that in some wonderful sense he was the Son ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... widespread anxiety to reconcile the claims and conclusions of science with those of the received theology. Thoughtful and religious laymen in the higher ranks of society were earnestly seeking a reason for the faith that was in them, and pondering over fundamental problems like the personality of God, the divinity of Christ, the reality of supernatural agency, and the awful mystery of the future life. Yet the tractarians passed lightly over all these problems, ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... of high excitement, strode uphill toward the Bella Union, pondering the significance of Parker's ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... turned away, she partly turned her head, and with unmoved face watched his retreating figure. But when she noted his absent manner, which she recalled so well; saw the pondering look on his face when he picked up the book, which she knew he was not conscious of holding; caught the tired droop of his shoulders, and the glint of early grey hair at his temples, a pathetic expression stole about her mouth, and she made a motion as though she would cease playing and go over ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... of what he had been doing at the fatal hour when so many people saw him at the auction-rooms was brief. He had left the rooms, as he said, at three o'clock, pondering how he might raise money for the book on which his heart was set. His feet had taken him, ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... Paris pondering deeply her awful destiny. She saw that she was fated to meet continually the king and queen in their festivities; that with a broken heart she must feign gayety and smiles; that by lingering torture she must sink into the ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... Hawthorne had nothing to say, busy with pondering what she had heard. "I don't see how, if she really loves this Italian, she could give him up so ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... as good as going on a fishing trip; with it in his hand he could feel himself between green meadows, the line swirling down the rushing brook. But later Clytie had gone back to the subject with pondering consideration. ...
— The Blossoming Rod • Mary Stewart Cutting
... and the next he did nothing further. But in the night, betwixt Monday and Tuesday, he had cramps, and dreamt the devils were pulling him by the feet. This he took for a warning of God and our Blessed Lady, tarried within doors pondering the matter all the day, and then toward evening went to lay his offering at the ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France
... three hours of mental work, and the next day I felt decidedly calmer and less afraid of the coming of night, should I live to meet it, which seemed doubtful. At noon she left me to go to her home to lunch. I was pondering seriously on her reiterated 'God is love and fills the universe and there is nothing beside Him,' when I suddenly had a sensation of being lifted up or rising slowly and becoming lighter in body. A rush of power that I have no way of describing to you filled me. I seemed to be a tremendous dynamo ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... or two. My new acquaintance, Hawkins, and Martin both seemed to be pondering upon the degeneracy of Upper Crossleys, and I could mot help thinking that Hawkins took a secret delight ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... be slain they might live. Christ comes, condemns the tyrant, and casts him out. So, he being condemned, we are acquitted; and he being slain there is no death for us. Let us try to elucidate a little further this great metaphor by just pondering the two points prominent in it—Sin tyrannising over human nature and resisting all attempts to overcome it, and Christ's condemnation and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... did not take him long to discover the fact that Fenwick's suite was self contained, like a flat. That is to say, a strong outer door once locked made communication with the suite of rooms impossible. Venner was still pondering over his problem when the master door opened, and Vera came out so hurriedly as almost to fall into Venner's arms. She turned pale as she saw him; and as she closed the big door hurriedly behind her, Venner ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... fell on my Love's lips; Her great brown eyes were veiled and sad With pondering some maze of dream, Though all ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... still pondering over the scene of last evening, and he found considerable comfort in ascribing Yae's behaviour to excitement ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... have brought Lady Montfort there? Could the intimacy his fraud had broken off so many years ago be renewed? If so, why the extreme sadness on the face of which he had caught but a hurried, rapid glance? Be that as it might, it was no longer of the interest to him it had once been; and after pondering on the circumstance a minute or two, he advanced to the gate. But while his hand was on the latch, he again paused; how should he obtain admission to Darrell?—how announce himself? If in his own name, would not exclusion be certain?—if as a ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to post and the Almighty bringeth happiness nearhand.' From this time until dawn of day many a matter may proceed from the Lord wherein haply shall be salvation for me or destruction." Then he fell to pondering his affair and thinking over his frowardness to the wife of his father, after which he said, "The slave meditateth and the Lord determineth, nor doth the meditation of the slave accord with the determination of the Lord." And while thus drowned in care he heard the sound of the Darabukkah-drum[FN14] ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... secretly blessed the delinquent servant, and began pondering on this new development of the rose question. The nine roses in the vase and the two in the basket made but eleven, and the florist had told me that he had sent a ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... "Don't attribute more pondering to her than belongs. Of the two I fancy you do the most of that. Nor think I've forgotten her interests. Her history is already being unravelled, thread by thread, and stitch by stitch. When the thread's wound clear up I trust it may make ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... In pondering over the sad mystery of these Icebergs, we float down again to Tropical Seas and Islands; and as we linger under the shade of palm and banana tree, the rude chant of the negro strikes the ear in the grotesque ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... with his friend Darwin. Darwin was another monkey of the same species, caught about a week later. Darwin's face was sober and pondering, and his methods direct and effective. No side excursions into the brilliant though evanescent fields of fancy diverted him from his ends. These were, generally, to get the most and best food and the warmest corner for sleep. When he had acquired a nut, a ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... Pondering over the problem after evensong in the privacy of my study, I repaired on the day following to Doctor Tubley with a plan for a course of Nature Study for boys, to be prosecuted indoors. I made a point of the advantages to be derived by carrying on our investigations beside the student ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... the most submiss, when made hereditary? We can only hope the Duke was a Hohenzollern, and not quite unequal to his task in this respect. A man with high bald brow; magnificent spade-beard; air much-pondering, almost gaunt,—gaunt kind of eyes especially, and a slight cast in them, which adds to his severity of aspect. He kept his possession well, every inch of it; and left all safe at his decease in 1568. His age was then near eighty. ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... service of hatred in that delicate woman, in appearance oblivious of worldliness, that masculine energy in decision which is to be found in all families of truly military origin. The blood of Colonel Chapron stirred within her and gave her the desire to act. By dint of pondering upon those reasonings, Lydia ended by elaborating one of those plans of a simplicity really infernal, in which she revealed what must be called the genius of evil, for there was so much clearness in the conception and of villainy in the execution. ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... that five years was plenty long enough for a fair trial! You'd make a better ambassador than an active captain of industry, anyhow," she said with conviction. Whereupon he bestowed on her a long, thoughtful stare, as though he were profoundly pondering ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... and the news had already penetrated to the outer office; for while he sat with a heavy heart, pondering on these things, and resting his head upon his arm, Perch the messenger, descending from his mahogany bracket, and jogging his elbow, begged his pardon, but wished to say in his ear, Did he think he could arrange to send home to ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... the devil does Cassidy know about Herman Lauffer," he mused, "and why the devil hasn't his Bureau informed us?" After long pondering he found no answer. Besides, he kept thinking at moments about Miss Erith, which confused him and diverted his mind from ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... barked together in impotent fury. Another shell pitched over them, and the officer in command lowered his field-glass in despair as he saw his own shells bursting far short upon the hillside. Jameson's defeat does not seem to have been due to any defect in his artillery. French, peering and pondering, soon came to the conclusion that there were too many Boers for him, and that if those fifteen-pounders desired target practice they should find some other mark than the Natal Field Artillery. A few ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... sleeplessness in the night my beloved Saviour began to make Himself manifest to me. Pondering over the meditations of St. Francois de Sales on the Song of Songs, I seemed to feel all my faculties suspended, and crossing my arms upon my chest, I awaited in a sort of dread what might be revealed ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... and stature, and with a face of marked beauty and intelligence. Indeed, he might have been considered by many as too intelligent for his years; and often the living with old and thoughtful people gave him, beyond most children, the appearance of pondering over the mysteries which meet the young on the threshold of life, but which fade away as advancing years bring us more into contact with the practical and tangible—fade away and vanish, until it seems to require the agitation of some great storm ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... of the dead Arabs and an interesting kind of tobacco. It was evening now and they talked over the fight, made jokes about their luckier shots, smoked their new tobacco and sang; altogether it was the jolliest evening they'd had. But Shard alone on the quarter-deck paced to and fro pondering, brooding and wondering. He had chopped off Bad Jack's wounded hand and given him a hook out of store, for captain does doctor upon these occasions and Shard, who was ready for most things, kept half ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... the school-room, in the back-kitchen, or rather breakfast-parlour, immediately below, in a very brown study, there sate a very fair lady, pondering deeply over the virtues of brimstone and treacle, and the most efficacious antidote to chilblains. She was the second in command over the domestic economy of the school. Unmarried, of course. And ever and anon, as ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... bound up his bleeding hand on the night when Halsey—silly ass!—had seen the ghost. He did not dare to smoke lest spark or smell might betray him. Sitting on a heap of sacks in a sheltered corner, his hands hanging over his knees, he spent some long time brooding and pondering—conscious all the while of the hidden and silent life of the house and farm at his back. By now he fancied he understood the evening ways of the place. The two girls went up to bed first, about nine; ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... made because he had never seen till now so round and shapely an arm, hands so small and white, tipped with pink filbert nails. He did not learn the game so quickly as might be. He, like Maurice, was pondering over the unusual position in which he found himself; but analysis of any sort was not his forte; so he soon forgot all save the delicate curve of Madame's chin and throat, the soft ripple of her laughter, the abysmal gray ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... her way, carrying the two pairs of beaded moccasins in her hands. Her face was more inscrutable than ever. She was pondering deeply the problem of Bill Holmes' business with Ramon, and she was half tempted to tell Wagalexa Conka of that secret intimacy which must carry on its converse under cover of night. She did not trust Bill ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... no means clear. Somehow he felt that the end was far off, somewhere in the dim future. Somehow he felt that he was only at the beginning of things. A secret lay concealed under his friend's great wealth, and the thought of it haunted him. It warned him, too, and left him pondering deeply. However, he did not talk, not even to ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... for the extraordinary episode that followed. It showed me that I had been flattering myself that I knew all about it when, as a matter of fact, I had only got hold of one—and the wrong—end of the stick. I fished the Dulas for a fortnight, hypnotised, pondering on the whole curious business, not only when the bright water rippled by me, but when old Hoylake told me stories of mahseer and tiger fish and barracuda that he had missed, when I was walking through ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... all that has really existed, and all that has had foundation only in the wildest, and strangest minds, combining, condensing, developing and multiplying the rich products of his research with marvellous facility and skill; now pondering fondly over some piece of exquisite loveliness, brought from an unknown recess, now tracing out the hidden germ of the eldest, and most barbaric theories, and now calling fantastic spirits from the vasty deep, ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... the immortality of the soul. Life multiplied by feeling into a limitless dream of past and future was mirrored in their clear depths; the questful gaze seemed reading the significance of the one through the symbols of the other, and pondering the lesson with sweetness of assent and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... day, at the fifteenth hour, when began the Sleep-Time, I had been pondering this love of mine that lived with me still; and marvelling that my memory-dreams held the voice of a love that had been in so remote an age. And pondering and dreaming thus, as a young man may, I could fancy this aeon-lost One were ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... him no further questions, but stood silent, pondering deeply whether or no she should grant the Wizard's request. She herself had seen him overcome by the fairy sword, had seen the prince depart in safety, but that her brother trusted to any magic of her own to restore him, she greatly doubted. ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield
... friends in the country will say, 'Is that all? Surely it required no very great resolution, no very protracted pondering, to determine on giving a ball! Where is the difficulty? The lady has but to light up her house, hire the fiddlers, line her staircase with American plants, perhaps enclose her balcony, order Mr. Gunter to provide plenty ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... a-pondering over all the comfort and help that I might have been and that I might have had, if I had been but a little of a trembling cur to creep and crawl before abbot and bishop and baron and bailiff, came the thought over me of the evil of the world wherewith I, John Ball, ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... Bishop" on the occasion. On the contrary, Mr. Hale seems to have acquiesced in the opinion, that the derangement of the woman was aggravated, if not caused, by her being overmuch given to searching and pondering upon the dark passages and mysterious imagery of prophecy. The truth, in all probability, is, that Mr. Hale's suspicion was an after-thought. The effect produced upon his mental condition by the statements and actings of the "afflicted children" ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... a logical consequence which could be deduced following the method used by the prelate in speaking to no less than his priests in a circular designed to orient the mentality of his clergy and of his parishioners. Pondering over the accusation of the Bishop, it occurred to me that it would be beneficial to recall the public instruction that was formerly given in the Philippines by the "godly schools" and consider the results obtained. Confident in the respectable character, and, to many, the sacred character ...
— The Legacy of Ignorantism • T.H. Pardo de Tavera
... self-absorption, suppressed feeling—truly Slavic, this shyness!—and a concentration that is remarkable even for Chopin. The narrative tone is missing after the first page, a rather moody and melancholic pondering usurping its place. It is the mood of a man who examines with morbid, curious insistence the malady that is devouring his soul. This Ballade is the companion of the Fantaisie-Polonaise, but as a Ballade "fully ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... Pondering this matter, and almost unconscious that she did so, Mora broke the seals. Then paused, even as she began to unfold the parchment, questioning whether to read it or to let it await ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... steam!" cried the Major, running to close the hole with the loose drift, while Paganel pondering on the singular phenomenon ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... compass an understanding. Sitka Charley, from boyhood, had been thrown continually with white men, and as a man he had elected to cast his fortunes with them, expatriating himself, once and for all, from his own people. Even then, respecting, almost venerating their power, and pondering over it, he had yet to divine its secret essence—the honor and the law. And it was only by the cumulative evidence of years that he had finally come to understand. Being an alien, when he did know, he knew it better than the white man himself; being ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... tried Ponder's End?" I said at last. "I've often seen those words on a bus, and a lot of sad-looking people on the top, pondering, I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 14, 1920 • Various
... a purblind prank, O think you, Friend with the musing eye Who watch us stepping by, With doubt and dolorous sigh? Can much pondering so hoodwink you? Is it a purblind prank, O think you, Friend ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... know,' began Morton, 'you may at this moment be drifting on the Euphrates, or pondering on the site of Alexandreia Eschate. It is you who owe me an account of yourself; nevertheless, I am prompted to write, if only to tell you that I have just got the complete set of the Byzantine Historians. A catalogue tempted ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... Lewis sat pondering for hours. It was not grief he was feeling so much as an immeasurable loss. One grieves at death when it seems futile, when it robs youth or racks old age, when it devastates hopes or wrecks a vision. But death had not come so to his father. It had come as a fulfilment. Lewis knew instinctively ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... little doubt that, if similar statistics were drawn up for all the Western States of the Union during a corresponding period, they would give very similar results; and it is only by reflecting and pondering over such astonishing facts as these, that the mind can come to grasp the idea of the magnitude of the work assigned by Providence to the Irish race. This, we have no hesitation in saying, will form one of the most remarkable features of the future ecclesiastical ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... perhaps the first thing to do, Chicken Little," he continued after some pondering, "is to try to find out something about Sherman's real parentage. It hardly seems possible that a comfortably dressed woman could have disappeared with her child without making some stir. I am in hopes, by getting somebody to search through the files of two or ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... and the earnest endeavour to tone down disagreeable parts. Mrs. Blake was charmed, and wondered how Winnie could prefer a fresh, countrified-looking girl to the sweet, amiable creature Miss Irvine appeared to be. As she sat pondering over these things in her heart, Ada's low voice ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... time, she beat the women and stopped my letters. I found her one day pondering over one. She used to try to find out by their shape whether they were feminine or no; and she used to lament her ignorance, and actually studied her alphabet, on purpose (as she declared) to open all letters addressed to me ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... Gerda fell silent, pondering on the strange tastes of those who desired for some reason the temporary company of these unfortunate females, so unpleasing to the eye, to the ear, to the mind, to the smell; desired it so much that they would pay money for it. Why? Against that ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... enthroned, her eyes partly closed, the head lifted a trifle and fallen back, and her lovely hands resting on her heart—and sometimes she strove to imagine something of the divine moment which she was embodying; pondering, dreaming, wondering; and sometimes, in the stillness, through her trance crept a thrill, subtle, exquisite, as though in faint perception of the heavenly moment. And once, into her half-dreaming senses came the soft ...
— Between Friends • Robert W. Chambers
... know," confessed Tom, pondering. "But I'll tell you what you can do, Joe. Leave Hank to watch the motors. You go to the wireless apparatus and send out the longest spark you can get. Direct your call to any vessel bound for Rio Janerio, or Brazil in general. If you get an answer from such a craft, ask ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... her as well as inundate the world, and make a face at Saint Cecilia as she passed holily by. But Cecilia was a Madigan always, as well as a saint temporarily, and her eyes were turned prudently away just then, as though she were already studiously pondering to-morrow's lesson. ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... for he had been evidently pondering on the mysterious words of Anne, to which his brother's anxiety to conceal them gave additional mystery. The coffin, too, recurred to him; and he feared that the death shadowed out by it would in some manner or other occur in the family. He was, in fact, one ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... returned to Whitesboro, leaving Anthony in Philadelphia, still pondering the course he would pursue. Three weeks later I received a letter from him, in which he announced that he had taken the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... stood pondering whether he ought not to follow Miss Mowbray towards Shaws-Castle, in order to be satisfied that no accident had befallen her on the road, he heard the tread of a horse's feet advancing hastily in the same direction, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... great perplexity to think that he could not well avoid inviting the hill-man to the christening, which might, not improbably, bring him into ill repute with the priest and the other people of the village. He was going about pondering deeply, but in vain, how he might get out of this dilemma, when it came into his head to ask the advice of the boy that kept his pigs, who had a great head-piece, and had often helped him before. The pig-boy instantly undertook to arrange the ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... here there are no warrior-preachers, no bishops praying in surplices on the one side, no dark-robed divines preaching on horseback on the other, no king in glittering armor, no Tutor Harvey in peaceful meditation beneath a hedge, pondering on the circulation of the blood, with hotter blood flowing so near him; all these were to be seen at Edgehill, but not here. This smaller skirmish rather turns our thoughts to Cisatlantic associations; its date suggests Bunker's Hill,—and its circumstances, Lexington. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... and I were standing on a knoll pondering upon the utter helplessness and misery around us, singing and whistling were borne to us upon the wind. We listened to catch fragments of a comic song between the gusts. There was no mistaking those voices. We picked our way slowly to beneath the trees whence the voices ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... doors again, pondering somewhat bitterly the exigencies of human life. The bright spring morning with its promise of youth and joy seemed jarringly out of tune. The beauty was but surface deep, I told myself pessimistically; underneath it was a cruel world. Before me in ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... branch near by, while his trance of devotion made him oblivious of all around; then, from a safe retreat, she watched and enjoyed his perplexity in seeking for and finding it! A second day this was repeated; but his manifest disturbance of mind, and his long pondering with the bonnet in hand, as if almost alarmed, seemed to touch another chord in her heart—that chord of pity which is so often the prelude of love, that finer pity that grieves to wound anything nobler or tenderer than ourselves. ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... proceeded soberly downstairs, still keeping close together like a flock of sheep. Raymonde, however, lagged behind. For a moment or two she stood pondering, then she ran swiftly up the winding staircase again into ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... it to her young a third time, but with the same result as before, except that this time the bird dropped it; but she was at the ground as soon as the cicada was, and taking it in her beak flew some distance to a high board fence where she sat motionless for some moments. While pondering the problem how that fly should be broken, the male bluebird approached her, and said very plainly, and I thought rather curtly, "Give me that bug," but she quickly resented his interference and flew farther away, where she ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... think to go. Sleepless he passed the weary nights, his food untasted lay, Ne'er raised his eyes from off the ground, nor ventured forth to stray, Refused all converse with his friends, impelled by mortal fear, Lest fame of outrage unatoned should aggravate his care. While pondering thus his honor's claims in search of just redress, He thought of an expedient his failing house to test; So summoning to his side his sons, excused all explanation, Silent began to clutch their hands in proper alternation, (Not by their tender palms to trace the chiromantic ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... first of all, it dawns upon him, and he sees in it the end of his fears, the cleansing of his heart, the pardoning of his sins, his acceptance with God, is a very different thing from the aspect that it ought to wear to him, after, say forty years of pondering, of growing up to it, after years of experience have taught him. Life is the best commentary upon the truths of the gospel, and the experience teaches their depths and their power, their far-reaching applications and harmonies. So our growth in the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... his fall from grace in Philadelphia he had come to think that never again, perhaps, could he hope to become socially acceptable in the sense in which the so-called best society of a city interprets the phrase; and pondering over this at odd moments, he realized that his future allies in all probability would not be among the rich and socially important—the clannish, snobbish elements of society—but among the beginners and financially strong ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... he could, Manuel left the place, pondering in his own mind what he was going to do with the boy. Should he reveal the secret and have his fellow-conspirators kill him? Should he turn him over to the machetes of the negroes? Or should he kill the boy, himself? One thing he ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... "No." Reformers want to educate them, and, perhaps, they are right. But if education is to mean the substitution of the gramophone and music-hall songs for this traditional art, these native hymns? I went to bed pondering, and was awakened at six by another chorus telling us it was time to get up. We did so, and visited the school, set up by my friend as an experiment; a mud floor, mud-lined walls, all scrupulously clean; ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... them was Bauldy Todd of Todston, the father of my James. It was a great thing, as I have often been told, to hear James and his father at it. James was a quiet and loutish loon so long as he was let alone, and he went about his duties pondering and revolving mighty things in his mind. But when you chanced to start him on the fundamentals, then the Lord give you skill of your weapon, for it was no slight or unskilled dialectician who did you the honour to cross ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... had ceased their toil, Began again to heap the sacred fire. And Hoder turn'd, and left his mother's house, Fensaler, whose lit windows look to sea; And came again down to the roaring waves, And back along the beach to Asgard went, Pondering on that which Frea said should be. But night came down, and darken'd Asgard streets Then from their loathed feasts the Gods arose, And lighted torches, and took up the corpse Of Balder from the floor of Odin's hall, And laid it on a bier, and bare him home Through the ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... Earnestly pondering these matters, Strindberg at length decided to write a book about woman, a subject, he declares, which up to this time he had not wanted to think about, as he himself "lived in a happy erotic state, ennobled and beautified by the rejuvenating and expiatory arrival of children." ...
— Plays: Comrades; Facing Death; Pariah; Easter • August Strindberg
... in St. Petersburg less than an hour and was still pondering over the uncertainty of what first to do in order to begin the difficult task that I had set for myself, when I was startled by a sharp summons ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... has read; the mind is like a tablet that has been written over and over. Hence it is impossible to reflect; and it is only by reflection that one can assimilate what one has read if one reads straight ahead without pondering over it later, what has been read does not take root, but is for the most part lost. Indeed, it is the same with mental as with bodily food: scarcely the fifth part of what a man takes is assimilated; the remainder ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... the brink of a peculiar basin-like depression, which, from its obvious dampness and profusion of bush and cover, I at once recognised as the ideal abode of innumerable snakes. I marked the spot in my mind, and returned home, pondering the details of the dramatic victory I hoped to win. Day by day I returned to this depression and caught numerous black and carpet snakes. From each of these dangerous and poisonous reptiles I removed the poison fangs only; ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... exercise she could devise, interminable "analyses logiques." These "analyses" were by no means a source of particular pleasure to Caroline; she thought she could have learned French just as well without them, and grudged excessively the time spent in pondering over "propositions, principales, et incidents;" in deciding the "incidente determinative," and the "incidente applicative;" in examining whether the proposition was "pleine," "elliptique," or "implicite." ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... is sick,' said the housekeeper, pondering,—'and sometimes I think so myself. I know she goes out too much. And stays up too late. Why, the last time she came from Governor Powder's I was ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... was a farmer's son, And a pondering he sat One night when the fagots crackling burned, ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... related his story to his now happy companions. He said that in his eagerness to get the elk he lost his bearings, and wandered about until midnight. He hoped that he might catch a glimpse of their camp-fire, but failing in that, being tired and hungry, he laid himself down and tried to sleep; but pondering upon his danger he lay awake until daylight, and had just dropped into a deep slumber when they found him, and he slept so soundly that he failed to hear them call. He said that he saw the Indians on horseback seen by the other men; they passed by him within a hundred yards, ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... stretched on a Navajo blanket, seemed sleeping soundly on the side piazza, just without the door. The general and Willett had sat and smoked, with an occasional toddy, until after the midnight call of the sentries, the former still expectant of the return of Sanchez; the latter pondering in mind certain theories of Wickham as to the Apache situation, to which at first he had paid little heed. If Wickham were right, then Sanchez might never have reached Prescott. If so, the general need never have to amend ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King |
