"Abstractedly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... abstractedly out of a window, but the expression on his lean face indicated the keenest interest, and—and something else; apprehension, maybe. The chief stared straight into the young man's eyes for ...
— The Diamond Master • Jacques Futrelle
... shelves. Though a stranger in the house he finally isolated himself in the midst of the company, huddling into a capacious Morris chair and reading steadily from a thin volume he had drawn from his pocket. As he read, he abstractedly ran his fingers, with a caressing movement, through his hair. Martin noticed him no more that evening, except once when he observed him chaffing with great apparent success with several of ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... ceased speaking, Vetranio sat up on the couch, called for a basin of water, dipped his fingers in the refreshing liquid, dried them abstractedly on the long silky curls of the singing-boy who stood beside him, gazed about him once more, repeated interrogatively the word 'daybreak', and sunk gently back upon his couch. We are grieved to confess it—but the author of the Nightingale Sauce was ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... a splash. I will also admit that love does not necessarily imply happiness—more often 't is a pain, a wild yearning, and a vague unrest; a haunting sense of heart-hunger that drives a man into exile repeating abstractedly the name "Beatrice! Beatrice!" And so all the moral I will make now is simply this: the individual who has not known an all-absorbing love has not the spiritual vision that is a passport to Paradise. He forever yammers ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... Marguerite sat silent with troubled brows; Dr. Ludwig Zimmern gazed abstractedly toward the cold electric imitation of a fire, above which on a mantle stood two casts, diminutive reproductions of the figures beside the door of the Emperor's palace, the one the likeness of William the Great, the other the Statue of the German God. But I was thinking ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... this year he brought with him his wife, my mother. When she entered she was trembling so that I thought her to be suffering from some nervous disease. Then she asked for a seat and a glass of water. She said nothing; she looked around abstractedly at my work and only answered 'yes' and 'no,' at random, to all the questions which he asked her. When she had left I thought her a ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... moroseness—an endless, almost invariable round. The sharp pull-ups, when they occurred, resulted usually in a spurt of work for Anthony, while Gloria, nervous and bored, remained in bed or else chewed abstractedly at her fingers. After a day or so of this, they would make an engagement, and then—Oh, what did it matter? This night, this glow, the cessation of anxiety and the sense that if living was not purposeful it was, at any rate, essentially romantic! Wine gave a sort of gallantry ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... "subjective" or "objective"—two words he had heard used at the Debating Society at Mendocino on the question, "Is poetry morally beneficial?" For a few moments he was silent. But presently she took the initiative in conversation, at first slowly and abstractedly, and then, as if appreciating his sympathetic reticence, or mayhap finding some relief in monotonous expression, talked mechanically, deliberately, but unostentatiously about herself. So colorless was her intonation that at times it did not seem as if she was talking to him, but repeating ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... bargain. They (our friends) are, I admit, as you very truly represent them, but indifferently qualified for storming a citadel. After all, God knows whether this citadel is to be stormed by them, or by anybody else, by the means they use, or by any means. I know that as they are, abstractedly speaking, to blame, so there are those who cry out against them for it, not with a friendly complaint, as we do, but with the bitterness of enemies. But I know, too, that those who blame them for want of enterprise ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... to smoke in silence, gazing abstractedly at the letter. Since his mother had died, a year before the date of which we write, he had not received a line from any one, insomuch that he had given up calling at the post-office on his occasional visits to the nearest settlement. This letter, therefore, ...
— Fort Desolation - Red Indians and Fur Traders of Rupert's Land • R.M. Ballantyne
... shortly, abstractedly, drowned in her wonder of the thing he told with his native reluctance when questioned on his own exploits. "Did you ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... he said, somewhat abstractedly, "I'll undertake to collect what the officers and sailors owe you. Give ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... which, curiously enough, are always either a little more or less than half finished. I think she very seldom spoke. She was positively crushed by that most superior person, her mother. Flo was gazing abstractedly into the sea, hearing her mother but not listening, while Thornton was seated a foot or two below her, gazing up into her deep-blue eyes, shaded by her large hat and dark hair, as happy and deluded as a lunatic who thinks ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... that he stood stark still and stared as the boy hurried along about his duties. Upon the Montauk's nearest neighbor the naval signalman was semaphoring, and he watched abstractedly. It was something about camouflage maneuvering in the zone. Tom took a certain pride in being able to read it. Far off, beyond the other great ships, a sprightly little destroyer cut a zigzag course, as if practicing. The sky was clear and blue. As Tom watched, a young fellow in a sailor's ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... some forewarning of disaster in the mind of Robert Hale. He walked abstractedly, untouched by the ...
— Futurist Stories • Margery Verner Reed
... of her emotion concentrated upon Hugh, she did not criticize shops, streets, acquaintances . . . this year or two. She hurried to Uncle Whittier's store for a package of corn-flakes, she abstractedly listened to Uncle Whittier's denunciation of Martin Mahoney for asserting that the wind last Tuesday had been south and not southwest, she came back along streets that held no surprises nor the startling faces of strangers. Thinking ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... start. A child! Jenny's child! Silver Cloud's grandchild! This was a complication he had not thought of. No! It was too late to tell his secret now. He only nodded his head abstractedly and said coldly, "I ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... of something novel," replied the dwarf, abstractedly, for he was quite bewildered by ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... it in the Upper Fifth, and the hero of the cricket field of which he himself had once been a cadet. In face he was not greatly altered. Still the old curly head and bright eyes. He was noticed occasionally to stroke his chin abstractedly; and some envious detractors went so far as to rumour that, in the lowest recesses of his trunk he had a razor, wherewith on divers occasions, in dread secret, he operated with slashing effect. Be this as it might, Charlie was growing up. He had a fag of his ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... Jack had said that he loved life and would hate to leave it; and yet he sat there calmly, scraping idly with his boot-toe a little furrow in the loose sand, his elbows resting on his knees, his face unlined by frown or bitterness, his eyes bent abstractedly upon the shallow trench he was desultorily digging. He did not look as the boy believed a man should look who has just been condemned to die the ignominious death of hanging. The boy shuddered and went out into the sunlight, dazed with this glimpse he had ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... which are vainly offered at prime or any cost. These and other specialties escape, and not unaccountably, the view and the calculation of the speculative economist, who is so often astounded to find how a principle, or a theory, of unquestionable truth abstractedly, and apparently of general application, comes practically to be controlled by circumstances beyond his appreciation, or even to be negatived altogether. An example or two in illustration, may render the question more clearly to the economical reader; although taken from the cotton ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... the girl's manner of saying it which seemed to give the young man complete satisfaction. Then the speaker seated herself on a fragment of rock, and set her chin upon her hand. It was a round and rather prominent chin, and the young man, who stood abstractedly twirling his hat, making a pivot of the two fingers which protruded through the hole, thought that he had never seen a chin quite like it. Or perhaps, on second thoughts, was it that dimple at the side of the mouth, in which ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... Barker, gazing abstractedly before him. "Not exactly; but I have a theory, based upon the bitterest kind of experience, that I ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... for his tin cups and plates and cooking utensils. He put a box in front of the fire and folded a flour-bag on top of it for a seat for me, and hung the billy over the fire. He sat on his heels and poked the burning sticks, abstractedly I thought, or to keep his ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... AEschylus; he resembled him, too, in his trick of snapping his fingers, and his habitual absence of mind. Of this latter peculiarity it is related that on one occasion, when a chaplain in Marlborough's wars, he strolled abstractedly into the enemy's lines with his beloved AEschylus in his hand. His peaceable intentions were so unmistakable that he was instantly released, and politely directed to his regiment. Once, too, it is said, on being charged by a gentleman with sitting for the portrait ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... been deceived." He did not speak, however, but struggled bravely to throw off the feelings of surprise and doubt; and so, reassuring his faith again and again by really noble efforts, took from his pocket the lunch his mother had prepared, and ate it hungrily although abstractedly. As he did so, he felt the animal joy in food and rest, and his courage ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... through to the private office and, seating himself at the big, orderly table, reached over to a cupboard beside him and took out a tin of smoking mixture. He began very slowly to load his pipe, gazing abstractedly across the room at the ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... little money-bag for her, with mother sitting rocking beside me, and complaining of every one in peace, when Dr. Denbigh drove up to the horse-block, flung his weight out of the buggy, and hurried up the steps. He shook hands with us hastily and abstractedly, and asked if he might speak to me inside ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... admire the dramatic neatness of His methods. She longed to tell them that they were all mistaken, and her eyes sought old Daddo's, who alone took no part in this talk. But old Daddo pulled his stroke without seeming to listen, his brow puckered a little, his eyes bent on the boat's wake abstractedly as though he communed with an ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... from his book, where he had been beholding a large breadth of light on the spiritual sky, and answered, somewhat abstractedly, but with the gentle politeness ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... chagrin, his own and the Judge's futile attempts at tact. Mirabelle was tact-proof; you might as well try subtle diplomacy on a locomotive. He took another deep breath, and gazed abstractedly out over the roof-tops. He wished that Henry would write. Henry had his defects, but the house was not quite livable without him. Mr. Starkweather was swept by an emotion which took him wholly ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... all means," she answered, with a lift of her head which suggested to Desmond a jerk on the curb-chain. In moving off together they passed close to Garth. But Quita, who was abstractedly opening and closing her fan, did not seem aware of his presence; and he stood looking after them—nonplussed and inwardly blaspheming. He did not hold the key to this ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... despatched the consideration of particular evils, he comes, at last, to a general reason, for which evil may be said to be our good. He is of opinion, that there is some inconceivable benefit in pain, abstractedly considered; that pain, however inflicted, or wherever felt, communicates some good to the general system of being, and, that every animal is, some way or other, the better for the pain of every other animal. This opinion he carries ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... laconically, and dismounted, taking several dogs from his hat as he did so, and one from his pocket; for he was devoted to animals, Bloodworthy goes on to say, and often spent days stroking their soft ears abstractedly. Then, seized by a sudden inspiration, he inquired of the landlady as to whose was the face he had seen. In a trice the story was told—the King waved his hand imperiously and took a pinch of snuff. "Send her to ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... accompanied by corresponding variations in the co-operating parts; while it is obvious that the greater the number of variations which are needed in order to effect an improvement, the less will be the probability of their all occurring at once. It is no reply to this to say, what is no doubt abstractedly true, that whatever is possible becomes probable, if only time enough be allowed. There are improbabilities so great that the common sense of mankind treats them as impossibilities. It is not, for instance, in the strictest ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... the Lieutenant, in brief language, rendered an account to his superior of the events that had happened since his last despatch to him—to all of which Don Rafael listened far from attentively. Absorbed in his thoughts, he sat abstractedly in his saddle until after ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... to be but one man on the premises, a big, benevolent-looking fellow, whose placid face wore an unaccustomed expression of nervous tension. He came stumbling out of the house, and walked abstractedly around the horses. He was making strange motions with his head, strongly indicative of a tendency to strangulation, and ever and anon he clutched his white collar and looked toward the house with an air of desperation. He made three aimless pilgrimages around the equipage and ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... the Doctor, abstractedly; and that afternoon they shifted to the cluster of rocks near the blasted tree, close under the shelter of the tall wall-like mountain-side. Rocks were cleared from a centre and piled round; the waggon was well secured; ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... hair of her daughter Ibla, whose ringlets, black as the night, floated over her shoulders. Antar was struck with surprise, and Ibla, as soon as she knew that he had seen her, fled and left him with his eyes fixed abstractedly on ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... into the Park, Lyveden made for a solitary chair and sat himself down in the sun. For a while he remained wrapped in meditation, abstractedly watching the terrier stray to and fro, nosing the adjacent turf with the assiduity of ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... a band of conspirators, a neighbouring prince, a beautiful daughter unfortunately in love with a shepherd, and a treacherous minister. Beaumont listened wearily, and, seeing that no mention she could make of her singing would avail her, she commenced to fidget abstractedly with one of her big diamond earrings. In the meanwhile Montgomery's difficulties were increasing. To follow successfully the somewhat intricate story of king, conspirators, and amorous shepherd a ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... picture over and gazed abstractedly at the three words written there: "Lest we forget!" Beneath this pertinent quotation appeared ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... if he'd kept to his intention," muttered St. John abstractedly. He was thinking deeply, his fine ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... left the debts and this precious child (the "child" gazed abstractedly at the ceiling while he blew rings of smoke from his mouth) we made a grand discovery. Our foreman, working in the mine, strikes rich quartz, covers it up again, and tells no one but me. All the shareholders have gone—what you call 'busted,' I believe? We get hold of many shares cheap, ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... Bradwardine possessed an attraction which few men can resist, from the marked interest which she took in everything that affected him. She was too young and too inexperienced to estimate the full force of the constant attention which she paid to him. Her father was too abstractedly immersed in learned and military discussions to observe her partiality, and Flora Mac-Ivor did not alarm her by remonstrance, because she saw in this line of conduct the most probable chance of her friend securing at length a return ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... moment of first sight, she is sitting erect, her head turned slightly to the left shoulder, and both hands resting on the dog's head garnishing the right arm of the chair. She is gazing abstractedly out at the landing, as if waiting for some one overdue. The face is uncovered; and it is to be said here that, abhorring the custom which bound her Byzantine sisterhood to veils, except when in the retiracy ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... won't hurt me to walk. Nothing hurts me—Leah Mordecai the despised." Then, averting her face, the young girl gazed abstractedly into the street, and began humming in a ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... time smoking in silence, monarch of all he surveyed, and then, gazing abstractedly at the silent craft around him, fell into a pleasant dream, in which he saw himself in his rightful position as master of the Foam, and Nibletts, cashiered for drunkenness, coming to him for employment before the mast. ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... was listening in an ecstasy of admiration, he was startled by a sudden clangour among the bass-notes—the music seemed to be jumbled into confusion, and the ear was stunned by a painful and intolerable dissonance. On looking more intently, he perceived that the composer had let one hand fall abstractedly upon the key-board, while the other executed, by itself, a passage of extraordinary difficulty and involution. Then, for the first time, the thought struck him that the musician was deaf.[17] Alas! the supposition was too true: Beethoven was cursed with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... the "Pioneer," while Rosamond, having noticed that he was perturbed, avoided looking at him, and inwardly thanked heaven that she herself had not a moody disposition. Will Ladislaw was stretched on the rug contemplating the curtain-pole abstractedly, and humming very low the notes of "When first I saw thy face;" while the house spaniel, also stretched out with small choice of room, looked from between his paws at the usurper of the rug with silent ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... Whiffs of indistinct conversation, and now and then laughter, came in from the inn parlor through the pelargoniums in the open window. Hoopdriver felt it must all be in the same strain,—at her expense and his. He answered her abstractedly. She was tired, she said, and presently went to her room. Mr. Hoopdriver, in his courtly way, opened the door for her and bowed her out. He stood listening and fearing some new offence as she went upstairs, and round the bend where the barometer hung beneath ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... he spoke, and yet something remarkably like a sigh followed the laugh, and for a moment after he had ceased speaking his eye looked abstractedly ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... me!" he murmured, abstractedly, scarcely thinking of what he was saying, and only conscious of the thrill and ecstasy of love which seemed to him the one thing necessary for ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... at the rascal's audacity, but took care to keep my eyes fixed abstractedly upon the ceiling, and drank my wine in as unconscious a manner as possible. I felt that Flannigan was looking towards me with his wolfish eyes to see if I had noticed the allusion. He whispered something to his companion which I failed to catch. It ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... other had taken himself off, Hornung sat for some moments gazing abstractedly toward his office windows, thinking over the whole matter. He had just agreed to release to Truslow, at the rate of one dollar and ten cents per bushel, one hundred thousand out of the two million and odd bushels ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... demeanor, as evidence of guilt or innocence, can be known, unless it be also fully known to what that demeanor applied,—unless, when a person did or said anything, it be known, not generally and abstractedly, that a paper was read to him, but particularly and specifically what were the contents of that paper: whether they were matters lightly or weightily alleged,—within the power of the party accused to have confuted on the spot, if false,—or such as, though he ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the book, while Dr. Leslie, puffing his cigar-smoke very fast, looked up through the cloud abstractedly at a new ornament which had been placed above the mantel shelf since we first knew the room. Old Captain Finch had solaced his weary and painful last years by making a beautiful little model of a ship, and had left it in his will to the doctor. There never ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... five feet, dressed with great care and walking with a quick nervous step. His head was very large and partly bald, rearing above his small frame like a great, bare dome; he carried a silk hat in his hand, and peered abstractedly through spectacles of ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... mirth of the class burst out in sundry half-stifled noises, which roused the master from his reverie, and he again resumed the book, to continue the examination. As ill luck would have it, he once more repeated, "Avoir, avant," and then half abstractedly, "avu." "Ah, you young idiot!" cried he, in a discordant voice, "can't you manage avoir yet? Whatever is to become ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... plan of a provincial revolution as the only way of placing the enormous material interests involved in the prosperity and peace of Sulaco in a position of permanent safety. . . ." That was clear. He saw these words as if written in letters of fire upon the wall at which he was gazing abstractedly. ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... at me abstractedly, his brow contracting. "Yes, yes; I know," he interrupted. "The girl in Fourteen. I have discounted her case long ago. She has ceased to interest me.... Dead, of course! Nothing ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... narrow pass between the lake and the near end of the cliff, where they advanced with greater caution, and peeping over the low bushes, beheld Bruin, a large brown fellow, sitting on his haunches, and rocking himself slowly to and fro, as he gazed abstractedly at the water. He was scarcely within good shot, but the cover was sufficiently thick to admit of ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... sat in moody silence, engrossed in deep thought, listening only abstractedly to the street sounds without. Presently her glance, wandering aimlessly around the room, fell on the letter she had just received from Goldfield. She picked it up, as if about to read it; then, as if in anger, she threw it impatiently from her. Leaning forward ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... strongly and rapidly, the tough ashen blades springing like steel from the water, the heavy boat seeming to leap in successive bounds until they were fairly beyond the curving inshore current and clearing the placid, misty surface of the bay. Clarence did not speak, but bent abstractedly over his oar; the ferryman and his crew rowed in equal panting silence; a few startled ducks whirred before them, but dropped again to rest. In half an hour they were at the Embarcadero. The time was fairly up. ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... from an expression of pleasant badinage to one of sentimental interest, while he gazed abstractedly in the young lady's face, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... eligible myself, as I don't know any German. It's such a beautifully sharp pencil, though, that I hate not to write with it." Patty poised the pencil a moment, and abstractedly ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... He sat silent, gazing abstractedly at the two lovely feet of Miss Grace Plumer, with an air that implied how far his mind had wandered in their conversation from any merely personal considerations. Miss Grace Plumer had not made as much progress as Mr. Newt since their last ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... clothing, his eye defiant, but his countenance white with the anxieties of his situation. He was surrounded by a troop of sabres; the horses' hoofs made a great clatter upon the hard road, and Count Victor, walking abstractedly along the river-bank, came on them before he was aware of their proximity. As he stood to let them pass he was touched inexpressibly by the glance the convict gave him, so charged was it with question, hope, dread, and the appetite for some human sympathy. He had seen that ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... he abstractedly. "What snares are round her!" he added, musingly: and now, certainly for the first time, he examined my face, anxious, doubtless, to see if any kindly expression there, would warrant him in recommending to ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... half-abstractedly at the upturned young faces, pushed his way through the little group, and taking up a parcel of papers and a surgical case which lay near, went straight to his carriage, which was heard immediately afterwards to bowl quickly down ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... over at the big red hotel that stands high above the city of Quebec, and Thirlwell, sitting at one of the tables, abstractedly glanced about. The spacious room was filled with skilfully tempered light that glimmered on colored glasses and sparkled on silver; pillars and cornices were decorated with artistic taste. A murmur of careless talk rose from the groups of ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... My cousin nodded abstractedly. With unseeing eyes he was staring out of a window. It was patent that Adele's recital had ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... Captain Flanagan, his peg-leg crossed and one hand abstractedly polishing the brass ferrule; "Yessir, the question ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... there," she said, abstractedly; and, returning, she kissed her gentle companion, bade her good ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... She spoke abstractedly and wearily. The General felt that it was not for this that she had thus visited him, but that something more lay behind. Still he answered her remark as if he took it in good faith. He hastened to reassure her. It was no intrusion. Was she not the housekeeper, ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... check? At such times, the good name, the valor, the bravery of the troops and of the officers who command them is reviewed. He weighs character. He knows who are reliable and who inefficient. He studies, examines papers, consults reports, makes calculations, sits abstractedly, walks nervously, and lies down to dream it ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... few tolerable notices to be found of any great truths in Psychology. Nor could this have been otherwise amongst a people who tried every thing by the standard of social value; never seeking for a canon of excellence, in man considered abstractedly in and for himself, and as having an independent value—but always and exclusively in man as a gregarious being, and designed for social uses and functions. Not man in his own peculiar nature, but man in his relations to other men, was the station from which ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... he said, abstractedly, as if that question, too, had puzzled him; then remembering himself, and why he had sent for her, he answered, "I want to talk with you, Dora— to tell you something. Do you remember my ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... interested in the vague shape of a steamer almost lost in the mists that lay along the horizon. Those sweetly curved lips had been torturing him with their allurement. From them he wanted kisses—not dispassionate counsel—but he replied abstractedly: ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... under the influence of some narcotic. Even the officers aft, whose duty required them never to be seated while keeping a deck watch, vainly endeavoured to keep on their pins; and were obliged invariably to compromise the matter by leaning up against the bulwarks, and gazing abstractedly over the side. Reading was out of the question; take a book in your hand, and you ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... Mr. Smith was abstractedly opening and shutting the book in his hand. His gaze was out the window near him. He had not touched the books on the shelves for ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... said Jaquith, abstractedly. "Didn't I tell you? They went South, and she took yellow fever. It was ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... him rise recklessly from the table, and, instead of reading as usual, to go downstairs and into the street. He stood at a bar and tossed off two or three glasses, then unconsciously sauntered along till he came to a spot called The Fourways in the middle of the city, gazing abstractedly at the groups of people like one in a trance, till, coming to himself, he began talking to the policeman ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... the platform, abstractedly striking his right hand into his left. When he reached the ticket window he put one hand against the frame as if to steady himself, and stood ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... old was, and thence they will have given a lasting wound to liberty: for what king will ever call 'Etats again, if he can possibly help it! The new legislators were pedants, not politicians, when they announced the equality of all men. We are all born so, no doubt, abstractedly; and physically capable of being kept so, were it possible to establish a perfect government, and give the same education to all men. But are they so in the present constitution of society, under a bad government, where most have had no education at all, but have been debased, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... along abstractedly, climbing over the obstructions or cutting a way through, almost oblivious to his surroundings. His heart was jealous and sore. His instinct told him that the man who had prowled around the shack the night before was an evil-doer; yet Clare ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... circumstances which occur to make them retire from particular scenes of action, had he the least reason to think that his present researches could possibly compromise any old friend who might possess means of retaliation. The having been concerned in these practices abstractedly, was a circumstance which, according to his opinion, ought in no respect to interfere with his now using his experience in behalf of the public, or rather to further his own private views. To acquire the good opinion and ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... Craig's face deepened in thought as he folded the message and remarked abstractedly, "She works all right when you are aboard." Then he recalled himself. "Let us try her again without ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... I resolved we must try harder to prevent interruptions, that he might keep all his writing up to that standard. But while engaged in letter-writing, some point arose, and, forgetting my laudable resolution, I put a question to him. Answering me abstractedly, he went on with his writing. Then I realized how inexcusable it was to intrude my trivialities at such a time. Castigating myself and resolving anew, I wrote on in contrite silence. After a little Mr. Burroughs paused and lifted his head; his expression was puzzled, as though wrestling ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... the road, he discerned Colonel Harrington sitting up rubbing his head and staring about abstractedly. ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... the patriots and royalists of King's were debating, ofttimes concluding in sequestered nooks, Hamilton remained "The young West Indian," an alien who cared for naught but book-learning, walking abstractedly under the great green shade of Batteau Street while Liberty Boys were shouting, and British soldiers swaggered with a sharp eye for aggression. This period of philosophic repose in the midst of electric ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... direction, beyond the wide seas, lay his refuge and ultimate hope came to him with so much force as to cause him to reel like one on whom a severe blow had been dealt. He stood for some time, seemingly bewildered, in the din and noise of the wharf, noting abstractedly the many bales of cotton, as truck after truck-load was rushed aboard an outward bound steamer. The bales seemed to fascinate him completely. A stevedore yelled at him to move out of the way and aroused him into action, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... side of the table sat a fine-looking old gentleman, who took the newspaper abstractedly which his ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... teach her that particular lesson. She sipped her lemonade, slowly and abstractedly, busy yet with the study which Mr. Herder had broken off; while he talked benignly and kindly, to ears that did not hear. But the last of Elizabeth's glass was swallowed hastily and the glass ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... the stars, then around in the so-nearly complete obscurity. Tommy answered her comments abstractedly, after a little. He was not quite sure that certain irregular sounds, yet far distant, were not actually quite regular ones. The Ragged Men Smithers had shot into had run away. But they would come back and they might ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... have attended a refusal to negotiate and to enter into such a treaty. The question of expediency, therefore, assumes before us a different and more complex shape than when before the negotiator, the Senate, or the President. The treaty, in itself and abstractedly considered, may be injurious; it may be such an instrument as in the opinion of the House ought not to have been adopted by the Executive; and yet such as it is we may think it expedient under the ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... the white fur of the rug and abstractedly he picked up his sister's riding-crop and one glove. She had dropped them when Jefferson Edwardes placed the ring on her finger. Hamilton turned the things over in his hand and a groan escaped him. Then suddenly that mood vanished. ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... drew their chairs eagerly up to the doctor's, but for a minute he did not seem to see them, but sat gazing abstractedly into the fire, then he took a long draw upon ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... by a messenger from downtown who handed him a letter. He opened it abstractedly and read ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... in silence until Landers had passed hesitatingly through the door; then followed him out into the hall. A moment, and he returned, standing abstractedly by the lecture table. He picked up his scattered notes absently, shaking the ends even with a painstaking hand; then as carefully scattered them as before. He looked up at the silent, waiting class, and those who were near saw ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... telegrams in his pocket. A cat, on its way back from lunch, paused beside him in order to use his leg as a serviette. George tickled it under the ear abstractedly. He was always courteous to cats, but today he went through the movements perfunctorily and ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... pastel with the oleograph," dropped out Mrs. Chetwinde, looking abstractedly at an old red woman in a turret of ostrich plumes, who was spread out on the other side of the room before ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... was a design which made Villiers start and look up at Austin; he was gazing abstractedly out of the window. Villiers turned page after page, absorbed, in spite of himself, in the frightful Walpurgis Night of evil, strange monstrous evil, that the dead artist had set forth in hard black and white. The figures of Fauns and Satyrs and AEgipans danced before ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... wine in front of him and listened abstractedly to the conversation. Tidemand was still optimistic; that bit of rain in Russia had not depressed his hopes. The prices were not soaring as yet, but they surely would. Suddenly Irgens pricked up his ears: Tidemand was talking ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... breakfast. I had taken my sights for the brig's longitude, worked them out, laid down the result upon the chart, and was abstractedly gazing at the latter as it lay spread out before me upon the cabin table, anxiously seeking inspiration from a study of the coasts, islands, and harbours delineated in miniature upon the white paper, when the young lady stepped out of her cabin and—first assuring herself that the ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... "Although the word cause may be used in a secondary and subordinate sense, as meaning antecedent forces, yet in an abstract sense it is totally inapplicable; we can not predicate of any physical agent that it is abstractedly the cause of another" (p. 15). "Causation is the will," "creation is the act, of God" Grove on "Correlation of Physical Forces," (p. 199). "Between gravity and motion it is impossible to establish the ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... across the hall and into the garden, where the faithful Nebbie was waiting for him, amid a company of pigeons who were busy picking up what they fancied from the gravelled path, and who were utterly unembarrassed by the constant waggings of the terrier's rough tail. And he walked somewhat abstractedly through the old paved court, past the unsympathetic sun-dial, and out through the great gates, which were guarded on either side by stone griffins, gripping in their paws worn shields decorated with defaced tracings of the old Vaignecourt emblems. Clematis clasped these fabulous beasts ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... of parliament, abstractedly considered, is a dead matter: it cannot operate of itself: like a plaister, it must be applied to the evil, or that evil will remain. We vainly expect a law to perform the intended work; if it does not, we procure another to make ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... the book, brought it again to the table, opened it at the page where she had placed her perforated cardboard book-marker, sat down beside it, and with her hands in her lap and her eyes on the page began abstractedly to tear a small piece of paper into tiny fragments. When she had reduced it to the smallest shreds, she scraped the pieces out of her silk lap and again collected them in the pink hollow of her little hand, kneeling down on the scrupulously ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... at this burlesque of himself. Telling the fellow the service he required, and receiving a groaning assurance that the letter should, without loss of time, be delivered in proper style, the egoist, as Jack heartily thought him, fell behind his; knitted brows, and, after musing abstractedly, went forth ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... ye many a long yarn about the South Seas," said Buzzby, gazing abstractedly down into the deep. "One time, when I was about fifty mile to the sou'west ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... traveller either rises above or sinks to the level of, or rather below, his party. I had been sitting abstractedly, like the great quietist, Buddha, when the looks of the assembly suggested an "address." This was at once delivered in Portuguese, with a loud and angry voice. Gidi Mavunga, who had been paid for Nsundi, not for the Yellala, had spoken like a "small boy" (i.e., a chattel). ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... His policy was rather that of masterly inactivity. Indeed, as the discussion waxed hot—his sisters' voices rising slightly in tone, while Lord Fallowfeild's replies disclosed a vein of dogged obstinacy—he withdrew from the field of battle and moved slowly round the room staring abstractedly at the pictures. There was a seductive, female head by Greuze, a couple of reposeful landscapes by Morland, a little Constable—waterways, trees, and distant woodland, swept by wind and weather. But upon these the young man bestowed scant attention. That which fascinated his gaze was a series ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... herself comfortably back in her chair, and, picking up a bit of Angela's toast from the tray, nibbled abstractedly at the crust. ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... remark, abstractedly, in the direction of her neighbour, who only looked at her in a bored and ill-tempered fashion, as befitted one who had gout without arched feet to display ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... Perceiving that it would be difficult to turn in the narrow roadway without running into the ditch at the left, Tryon gave the mare rein and dashed down the street, scarcely missing, as the buggy crossed the bridge, a man standing abstractedly by the old canal, who sprang aside barely in time to ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... boudoir, a remote and very cushiony place. She was sitting at her table writing letters. She lifted her face abstractedly when he entered, watched him go to the sofa, and sit down. Then she looked down at ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... reached the street he did not look back, but wandered abstractedly through by-streets in the falling rain, scarcely realizing where he was, until he found himself drenched through, with his closed umbrella in his tremulous hand, standing at the half-submerged levee ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... my good fellow,' pursued Sir Joseph, looking abstractedly at Toby; 'your only business in life is with me. You needn't trouble yourself to think about anything. I will think for you; I know what is good for you; I am your perpetual parent. Such is the dispensation of an all-wise Providence! ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... you today?" said her mistress, when Eliza had upset the wash-pitcher, knocked down the workstand, and finally was abstractedly offering her mistress a long nightgown in place of the silk dress she had ordered her to bring from ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... worry, but it shall be done tonight. Don't try to find me. I have been fooling long enough, and now I am getting down to business." He tore the paper into bits, and then strode slowly up and down the room. Presently he took down his hat, rubbed it abstractedly with the sleeve of his coat, and went out, remarking that he might not be back that day. He felt like a criminal as he stepped upon the sidewalk. But he was stiff, and merely nodded to the tradesmen who bowed to him cringingly. He was looking ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... and her little heart beat under her bee's-wing bodice as if it would break. The prince had a melancholy air, and he sat apart from the banquet, gazing abstractedly on the Rhine. ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in the tone of this ungracious speech had the effect of putting the party at its ease. Lady Cressage seated herself beside her friend on the sofa, and gently, abstractedly, patted one of her hands. Thorpe remained on his feet, looking down at the pair with satisfied cheerfulness. He tool, a slip of paper from his pocket, to support a statement ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... seized that moment to depict her glowing form—the enthusiasm was but momentary—her angel face soon lost its lovely tint, and her beautiful eyes sunk again into languor. The castle was thronged with noble guests—sick at heart the wretched Isabel wandered abstractedly amid the gay assembly—her large floating eyes seemed straying vacantly around, until they met the bridegroom's look of joy. Then came the madness of recollection; with a convulsive shuddering she averted her head, and stole unnoticed from ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 401, November 28, 1829 • Various
... Pollyanna," rejoined Mrs. Carew, abstractedly. On Mrs. Carew's face there was still no ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... been an impulse of caution which had led her to wear the ring. Slowly she turned it round and round upon her finger, not recalling that it was Gaga's ring, not considering her use of it an added dishonour to Gaga, but looking at it abstractedly. The ring meant so much, and so little. Her marriage had meant so much and so little. A faint smile stole to her lips ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... turned away, and was abstractedly contemplating the strangers. Suddenly he turned again, and his steely eyes fixed themselves ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... but what would my condition be then. No! I have everything at stake—you, comparatively nothing. I will not accede to so absurd a proposition." There was a short pause, the widow resumed her embroidery with an air of apparent indifference. The baronet sat abstractedly gazing out of the window, evidently turning over something in his mind. As she had stated he had tried to wheedle her out of the papers, but she had hitherto, by great tact, adroitly managed to shift the conversation to some other subject, in a quiet and playful manner. He was therefore not prepared ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... dinner is also marked by exhilarating experiences. With one coat-tail unwittingly tucked far up his back, so that it seems to be amputated, and his alpaca umbrella under his arm, he enters a grocery-store of the village, and abstractedly asks how strawberries are selling to-day? Upon being reminded that fresh fruit is very scarce in late December, he changes his purpose, and orders two bottles of Bourbon flavoring-extract sent to his ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various
... its injustice, abstractedly considered, are so generally admitted by the citizens of all the states, that we deem it unnecessary to adduce arguments for their proof. A favourable occasion for circumscribing these evils, and discountenancing this injustice, is, we conceive, now offered to Congress, in the power and opportunity ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... guilty and vindicate the honor of society. That is my line of business. Families waited on at their private residences. I say, Cupples, I have made a good beginning already. Wait a bit, and I'll tell you." There was a silence, during which the newcomer ate swiftly and abstractedly, while ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley |
