"Contemplation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not for one instant have been swerved from utmost admiration and faith in her set of white-and-gold wedding china by the contemplation of Copeland and Royal Sevres. She would have pitted her hair-cloth furniture of the ugliest period of household art against all the Chippendales and First ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... who has served in Italy, and especially those young fellows who, when war broke out, stood only on the threshold of their manhood, with their minds still wide open for new impressions, has not felt some sort of secret thrill at the astounding and incomparable beauty of this country, the very contemplation of which sometimes ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... Discouraged by the sanguinary character of the warfare in which they seemed doomed to be for ever engaged, and harassed by constant watchings,—seldom taking off their clothes for weeks together,—the men had gradually been losing their energy of spirit, in the contemplation of the almost irremediable evils by which they were beset; and looked forward with sad and disheartening conviction to a fate, that all things tended to prove to them was unavoidable, however the period of its consummation might be protracted. Among the officers, this ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... immense cage, which was larger than any house, and entirely open to view. They walked round all four sides of it, and were enchanted with its beautiful occupants pants. Storks and flamingoes stood about, on one leg, motionless, as if absorbed in deep contemplation. Pelicans, with their strange bills, and ducks of most brilliant plumage waddled around and seemed to be entirely interested in their ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells
... refreshing for a time it became intolerable shortly. She challenged him, as a woman can, with the flash of her eyes, the quick music of her laugh, but he was marvelling at the width of the horizon, rapt in contemplation of the distant mountains, observing how a flower poised and nodded on its stalk, following the long, swooping flight of a bird or watching how the moon tramped down on the stars. So far as she could see he was unaware that her charms were of ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... little faith." The parallel passage in St. Luke is almost verbally the same. It is, however, more striking, as it is introduced by a practical warning derived from the conduct of the "rich man",[4] who cries out, on the contemplation of his security from want,—"Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years", and to whom God replies...—"Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee; then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided" (Luke 12. 13-14). It also concludes with an exhortation ...
— Christian Devotedness • Anthony Norris Groves
... mind of a man afflicted with a moral malady as he leaned upon that parapet. Attracted perhaps by the harmony between his thoughts and those to which these diverse scenes gave birth, he rested his hands upon the coping and gave way to a double contemplation,—of Paris, and of himself! The shadows deepened, the lights shone out afar, but still he did not move, carried along as he was on the current of a meditation, such as comes to many of us, big with the future and ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... make known to them that I am minded to treat them and keep them better than any in my kingdom; and that, in respect of our god-daughter, I have an intention of completing the marriage that I have already had in contemplation between my lord the dauphin and her. Sir Count, I consider it understood that you will not enter the said country, or make mention of that which is written above, unless the Duke of Burgundy be dead. And, in any case, I pray you to serve ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... promised I could not reply." "By all the gods I pity thee! go on - Fear not my anger, look not on my shame; For when a lover only hears of love He finds his folly out, and is ashamed. Away with watchful nights and lonely days, Contempt of earth and aspect up to heaven, Within contemplation, with humility, A tattered cloak that pride wears when deformed, Away with all that hides me from myself, Parts me from others, whispers I am wise— From our own wisdom less is to be reaped Than from the barest folly of our friend. Tamar! thy pastures, ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... of the warning that could be given by an outer guard at the mouth of the river. Such were the considerations that shaped the choice of Jamestown as the site of the first permanent English settlement in North America. To stand in the middle of the Jamestown peninsula for contemplation of its many disadvantages for the purposes of agricultural settlement, and even for the health of its people, is to lose sight of the main point. One should walk over against the river, and consider there the field of fire that was ...
— The Virginia Company Of London, 1606-1624 • Wesley Frank Craven
... Spirit affecting all true Christians, drawing them together for the realization of a grand Scriptural ideal, it is evident that no particular band of people enjoy its exclusive monopoly. May the same Holy Spirit illuminate our hearts and minds in the contemplation of the truths of ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith
... proceeded again. The iron man was now completely silent, but one could observe from the unconsciously radiant expression of his face that his mind was occupied by some very pleasing thought, and in the delightful contemplation thereof he had no longer any idea that he was holding ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... enjoyed the serene nights, or inhabited the broad plains of the East—were (though probably admitted among the Pelasgic deities) honoured with that intense and reverent worship which attended them in Asia and in Egypt. To the Pelasgi, not yet arrived at the intellectual stage of philosophical contemplation, the most sensible objects of influence would be the most earnestly adored. What the stars were to the East, their own beautiful Aurora, awaking them to the delight of their genial and temperate climate, was to ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... whimpered the messenger, stimulated by a mental contemplation of his supposed injuries, "but I was made the tool of that traitor—that spy." His eyes, red from excessive potations, glared with hatred ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... wilderness she perceived at the end of the walk, in the most remote part of the garden, a kind of a bower, open on all sides, and went towards it; when she was near, she saw a man lying on the benches, who seemed sunk into a deep contemplation, and she discovered it was the Duke de Nemours. Upon this she stopped short: but her attendants made some noise, which roused the Duke out of his musing: he took no notice who the persons were that disturbed him, but got up in order to avoid the company that was ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette
... are as dear to many as some holy image carried hither and thither by some broken clan, and can but say that I have felt in my body the affections I disturb, and believed that if I could raise them into contemplation I would make possible a literature, that finding its subject-matter all ready in men's minds would be, not as ours is, an interest for scholars, but the possession of a people. I have founded societies with this aim, and was indeed founding ...
— Synge And The Ireland Of His Time • William Butler Yeats
... of women, I took to examining the floor of this church, which contains tesselated marble pavements depicting centaurs, unicorns, lions, stags, and other beasts. But my contemplation of these choice relics was disturbed by irrelevant remarks on the part of the worldly females, who discovered in the head of the stag some subtle peculiarity that stirred their ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... rejoins, fixing his eyes upon the children with an almost death-like stare, as Daddy leads them out of the room. The door closes after them, he paces the room for a time, seats himself in his chair again, and is soon absorbed in contemplation. "I must do something for them-I must snatch them from the jaws of danger. They are full of interest-they are mine; there is not a drop of negro blood in their veins, and yet the world asks who are their mothers, what is their history? Ah! yes; in that history lies the canker that has eaten out ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... deadly sins, she was a good Catholic, a zealous daughter of the Church; and she let him know her desire to retire from both lovers into a convent, and so, freed from the world and its temptations, yield up her soul entire to celestial peace and divine contemplation. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... the drawings upon the table and fixed his thoughtful gaze upon the artist. His contemplation of her countenance was prolonged a good many seconds, yet Madge did not feel in the least self-conscious; it never once occurred to her that this severe old gentleman was thinking of anything but her Student. She found herself taking a very low view of her work, ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... to read the riddle rightly. On scientific contemplation it at once becomes apparent that the symptoms as defined by Kuhnemann—and indeed all other observers—are confined to the regions traversed by the Vagus (wandering) or Pneumogastric nerve—a nerve of comprehensive scope and bi-functional activity, physical ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... long and patient contemplation of the golden key, and many such backward glances, Gabriel stepped into the road, and stole a look at the upper windows. One of them chanced to be thrown open at the moment, and a roguish face met his; a face lighted up by the loveliest pair of sparkling eyes that ever ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... attention touches holds it, keeps playing with it—thanks to some inscrutable flattery of the atmosphere. Your brown-skinned, white-shirted gondolier, twisting himself in the light, seems to you, as you lie at contemplation beneath your awning, a perpetual symbol of Venetian "effect." The light here is in fact a mighty magician and, with all respect to Titian, Veronese and Tintoret, the greatest artist of them all. You ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... uneventful. Carthoris and I were wrapped in the gloomiest of thoughts. Kantos Kan was sombre in contemplation of the further calamity that might fall upon Helium should Zat Arrras attempt to follow the age-old precedent that allotted a terrible death to fugitives from the Valley Dor. Tars Tarkas grieved for the loss of his daughter. ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... in contemplation to send out an exploring party, numbers of them were sighted again amongst the more distant bushes, and it did not go out. Dinner time arrived, and the meal was served out. Before the men had quite finished two sentries fired shots, ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... works exhibit no attempt at giving the indistinctness of distant objects. To Rubens, Germany and Holland were indebted for this essential part of the art, so necessary to a true representation of Nature. This great genius, in his contemplation of the works of Titian and others, both at Venice and in Madrid, soon emancipated the art of his country from the Gothic hardness of Lucas Cranach, Van Eyck, and Albert Durer; but notwithstanding his taste and knowledge of what constituted the higher qualities ...
— Rembrandt and His Works • John Burnet
... the contemplation of Meta Beggs; she was enormously satisfactory to consider. August watched her now with the greatest interest; he even sat in his wife's room while her companion moved silently and gracefully about. Miss Beggs couldn't have noticed this, for scarcely ever ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... Montughi were divergent and acrimonious. At length a resolution was agreed to, as offering a suitable and secure locality for the perpetration of the deed in contemplation, namely, to invite Lorenzo to Rome in the name of Sixtus. Such a step would be regarded as a proof that the Pope no longer opposed Lorenzo's government, but that a modus vivendi had been reached, agreeable to all parties. Giuliano was to be included in the invitation as well. Of course the hope ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... impresses most of us is certainly that in which Nature is seen in her wild and primitive condition, telling us of growth and decay, and of the land's submission to eternal laws unchecked by the hand of man. Yet we also feel a certain pleasure in the contemplation of those scenes which combine natural beauty with human artifice, and attest to the ability with which architectural science has developed Nature's virtues ...
— Bournemouth, Poole & Christchurch • Sidney Heath
... been led to do this for several reasons. The Mystical life is the life of union with God, and it is based essentially on Prayer and Contemplation. But prayer and contemplation, though simple in themselves, are yet fraught with difficulties and dangers unless we be wisely guided. And as Father Faber shrewdly says: when we ask for instruction in these things, let us by all means make appeal to those whose names begin with S—let ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas
... in splendour the milky way, and tracts of space remarkable for their extreme blackness, give a peculiar physiognomy to the southern sky. This sight fills with admiration even those who, uninstructed in the several branches of physical science, feel the same emotion of delight in the contemplation of the heavenly vault, as in the view of a beautiful landscape, or a majestic site. A traveller needs not to be a botanist, to recognize the torrid zone by the mere aspect of its vegetation. Without having acquired any notions of astronomy, without ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... meet the train," said the Baron von Steinlach. "The Embassy has arranged to have it shunted to a siding outside the station. You will, of course, tell them nothing of what is in contemplation. Just inform whoever is in charge that I will come later. And, Von Wetten, I think we will send the car with a note to bring Herr Bettermann here ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... wing upon the waves' decline, When war her cloudy aspect just withdrew, When the bright sun of peace began to shine, And for a while in heavenly contemplation sat, On the high top of peaceful Ararat; And pluck'd a laurel branch, (for laurel was the first that grew, The first of plants after the thunder, storm and rain,) And thence, with joyful, nimble wing, Flew dutifully ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... He could see that Yasmini was absorbed in contemplation of her prisoners. Her little lithe form was pressed tightly against the wall, less than two yards away. He could guess, and he had heard a dozen times, that dancing had made her stronger than a panther and more swift. ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... her admiringly, and, lost in the contemplation of her beauty, had almost betrayed himself by his want of interest in what she was saying. But just then Miss Stanhope joined them, and shortly after he took ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... Rapt CONTEMPLATION, bring thy waking dreams To this umbrageous vale at noon-tide hour, While full of thee seems every bending flower, Whose petals tremble o'er the shadow'd streams! Give thou HONORA's image, when her beams, Youth, beauty, kindness, shone;—what time she wore That smile, of gentle, yet resistless ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... that, and the other interesting person from the muddle of the world, and to set them for a week in a pattern which must catch the eyes of Cabinet Ministers, and the eyes once caught, the old arguments were to be delivered with unexampled originality. Such was the scheme as a whole; and in contemplation of it she would become quite flushed and excited, and have to remind herself of all the details that intervened between ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... the extreme desirability of the red house had been mentioned, and so Peter had been persuaded. But now, as the day drew near, and as Linda's words sounded in his ears, he hardly knew what to think of it. On the evening of the third day of his contemplation, he went again to his friend ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... solitudes and awful cells, Where heav'nly pensive contemplation dwells, And ever-musing ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... fourteenth century saw, in the spirit, the heavens open and display all the splendour of the saints, so did those who were suffering under the bite of the tarantula feel themselves attracted to the boundless expanse of the blue ocean, and lost themselves in its contemplation. Some songs, which are still preserved, marked this peculiar longing, which was moreover expressed by significant music, and was excited even by the bare mention of the sea. Some, in whom this susceptibility was carried to the greatest pitch, cast themselves ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... apple fall, he found In that slight startle from his contemplation— 'T is said (for I 'll not answer above ground For any sage's creed or calculation)— A mode of proving that the earth turn'd round In a most natural whirl, called 'gravitation;' And this is the sole mortal who could grapple, Since Adam, with a ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... heart of the Elector, and of all others who are weary and heavy laden. The first division, or panel, of this figurative altar-piece contains the images or paintings of seven evils (maia); the second, those of seven blessings (bona). The contemplation of the evils will comfort the weary and heavy laden by showing them how small their evil is in comparison with the evil that they have within themselves, namely, their sin; with the evils they have suffered in the past, and will ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... the beauty of solitude and the sweet poison of contemplation. Oftentimes, during summer evenings, when everything was coloured by the fiery tints of sunset, kindling the imagination, an uneasy longing for something incomprehensible penetrated his breast. Sitting somewhere ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... had of foreseeing things before they came to pass—although she did not like to disturb her friends by telling them her foreknowledge—even Miss Pole herself was breathless with astonishment when she came to tell us of the astounding piece of news. But I must recover myself; the contemplation of it, even at this distance of time, has taken away my breath and my grammar, and unless I subdue my emotion, my spelling ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... began by her suggesting a variety of plans for extricating me from my difficulties, each one more hopeless and more unfeasible than the other. It ended by her proposing an arrangement, which she had long previously had in contemplation, and which the events of that evening had ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... back to the window and her unseeing contemplation of the outdoors. Presently some one ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... strange questions, and her abrupt departure, all suggested to Mr. Mool's mind some rash project in contemplation—perhaps even the plan of an elopement. To most other men, the obvious course to take would have been to communicate with Mrs. Gallilee. But the lawyer preserved a vivid remembrance of the interview which had taken place ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... invites him to pour out his complaints; she sings to him songs first of pity and reproof, then of fortitude and hope; she reasons with him as to the instability of the gifts of Fortune, and strives to lead him to the contemplation of the Summum Bonum, which is God Himself, the knowledge of whom is the highest happiness. Then, in order a little to lighten his difficulties as to the permission of evil by the All-wise and Almighty One, ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... the reserve which we had placed upon them was quite out of all proportion to their merit. It must surely be a mistake! We followed Isobel across the room. A little elderly gentleman was sitting before a desk, engaged in the leisurely contemplation of a small open ledger. Isobel had halted in front of him. There was a delicate flush of pink on her cheeks, and her eyes ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... had sold the divine, he had received the human: it was the old pottage speculation over again. This privilege of liberty from his dungeon had looked so fair!—but now it seemed so worthless! This prospect of life so priceless in contemplation of its loss,—oh, the beggar who crept past him was an enviable man, compared with young Victor Le Roy, the heir of love and riches, the heir ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... that contemplation, he yet remained still, looking now at the sunshine on the steps.... There seemed to reach him, within and from within, rays of color and fragrance, the soul of spice pinks, marigolds, and pansies.... Then, within and from within, ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... he could not agree with much of the Solicitor's speech, that it was the right of the subject to petition, but that the particular petition before the Court was improperly worded, and was, in the contemplation of law, a libel. Allybone was of the same mind, but, in giving his opinion, showed such gross ignorance of law and history as brought on him the contempt of all who heard him. Holloway evaded the question of the dispensing ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... welfare, and I beseech you for Christ's sake not to regard as vain the Doctor's [Luther's] letters to you. I cannot sufficiently admire that man's unique constancy, joy, confidence, and hope in these days of most sore distress. And daily he nourishes them by diligent contemplation of the Word of God. Not a day passes in which he does not spend in prayer at least three hours, such as are most precious for study. On one occasion I chanced to hear him pray. Good Lord, what a spirit, ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... look at Rowcliffe and to hear him talk. When she tried to talk to him herself her brain swam and she became unhappy and confused. Intellectual effort was destructive to the blessed state, which was pure passivity, untroubled contemplation in its early stages, before ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... her father had experienced this serious contemplation on the first of every month for the last two years, and cheerfully ignored it the next day, she only said, "I'm sure the vacant rooms and ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... privily to each heart, and His ways are many. For some the life of devout contemplation, but not for you, sister. Your blood is too fiery and your heart too passionate.... You have a lover? Tell me ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... satisfaction, indeed, was so interesting to them in this objective light, that they had little desire to turn from its contemplation to the people around them; and when at last they did so, it was still with lingering glances of self-recognition and enjoyment. They divined rightly that one of the main conditions of their present felicity was the fact that they had seen so much of time and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... not expect that you will reproach me with the prolixity of these details. The subject is attractive to me, and I feel that you will accompany me with pleasure in my pilgrimage, from chapel to shrine, dwelling with me in contemplation on the relics of ancient skill and the memorials of the piety of the departed. Nor must it be forgotten, that the hand of the spoliator is falling heavily on all objects of antiquity. And the French seem to ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... with great interest and impatience. Preparations were in contemplation, particularly in New-York and Boston, several weeks before he arrived, to receive him with such public marks of veneration and joy, as were justly due to one so distinguished by an ardent love of liberty, and by meritorious exertions for the ...
— Memoirs of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... stairway that led to her empty window-seat divan in what she called her Juliet Tower, and thrilled at sight of an orderly disarray of filmy, pretty, lacy woman's things that he knew she had spread out for her own sensuous delight of contemplation. He fetched up for a moment at a drawing easel, his reiterant cry checked on his lips, and threw a laugh of recognition and appreciation at the sketch, just outlined, of an awkward, big-boned, knobby, weanling colt caught in the ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... of my strange divinity went on thus I scarcely know. I lost all note of time. All day from early dawn, and far into the night, I was to be found peering through that wonderful lens. I saw no one, went nowhere, and scarce allowed myself sufficient time for my meals. My whole life was absorbed in contemplation as rapt as that of any of the Romish saints. Every hour that I gazed upon the divine form strengthened my passion,—a passion that was always overshadowed by the maddening conviction, that, although I could gaze on her at will, she ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... commended and vice portrayed in its true light, but on the whole a book which no unsophisticated or inexperienced person can read without the consciousness of receiving a moral taint; a book in no respect leading to repose or lofty contemplation, or to submission to the evils of life, which it catalogues with amazing detail; a book not even conducive to innocent entertainment. It is the revelation of the inner life of a sensualist, an egotist, and a hypocrite, with a maudlin although genuine admiration for Nature and virtue and friendship ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... girl of the rapt and steadfast gaze remained with him. It was, he explained to himself, the look one finds in the eyes of sailors accustomed to the limitless reach of the monotonous seas; it came from the constant contemplation of desert wastes ending only in skylines, of sunlit domes dust-besprinkled, of night skies scattered thick with ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... mind what food is to his body; and as the latter, deprived of its usual nourishment, sinks to decay—so the former, from like deprivation of its strengthening power, becomes weak and imbecile. Again: as coarse, plain food and hardy exercise add health and vigor to the physical—so does the contemplation of nature in her wildness and grandeur give to the mental a powerful and lofty tone. Of all writers for poetical and vigorous intellects, give me those who have been reared among cloud-capped hills, and craggy steeps, and rushing streams, and roaring cataracts; for their conceptions ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... two other "insides." One of these never spoke at all during the journey. The other only spoke once, and he seems to have been impelled thereto by a three hours' contemplation of the contrast between my slim, wasted little figure, and Nurse Bundle's portly person, as we sat opposite to him. He was a Scotchman, and ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... hour of each night or morning, I invariably enjoyed with my feet on the fender, in dreamy contemplation of the past, wreathed in the fumes of a cigar, and soothed by the lowly and desultory murmurs of the geese in the straw-yard ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... philosophers had proved beyond all controversy, from the beauty and usefulness of the several parts of the creation, that it was the workmanship of God. But that—setting aside all help of astronomy and natural philosophy, all contemplation of the contrivance, order, and adjustment of things—an infinite Mind should be necessarily inferred from the bare EXISTENCE OF THE SENSIBLE WORLD, is an advantage to them only who have made this easy reflexion: that ...
— Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists • George Berkeley
... in every human life, is yet that for which all antecedent states seem a preparation, and of which all subsequent ones are in some sort an effect. Greece typifies adolescence, the love age, and so throughout the centuries humanity has turned to the contemplation of her, just as a man all his life long secretly cherishes the memory of ...
— The Beautiful Necessity • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... sage, save as a temporary measure of amusement in itself unworthy the philosopher. The faces of all my ladies are known to me. All are fair and all alike. But one night, as I lay in the Dragon Couch, lost in speculation, absorbed in contemplation of the Yin and the Yang, the night passed for the solitary dreamer as a dream. In the darkness of the dawn I rose still dreaming, and departed to the Pearl Pavilion in the garden, and there remained an hour viewing the sunrise and experiencing ineffable opinions on the destiny ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... to themselves Encouragement and energy and will; Expressing liveliest thoughts in lively words As native passion dictates. Others, too, There are, among the walks of homely life, Still higher, men for contemplation framed; Shy, and unpractised in the strife of phrase; Meek men, whose very souls perhaps would sink Beneath them, summoned to such intercourse. Theirs is the language of the heavens, the power, The thought, the image, and the silent joy: Words are but under-agents in their souls; When they are ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... came to him from Doss, who, too deeply lost in contemplation of his crevice, was surprised by the sudden descent of the stone Lyndall's foot had loosened, which, rolling against his little front paw, carried away a piece of white-skin. Doss stood on three legs, ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... be done unless Peter ruled his City, and therefore he had sacrificed every church and ecclesiastical building in the country for that one end. Then he had set about ruling his city: he had said that on the whole the latter-day discoveries of man tended to distract immortal souls from a contemplation of eternal verities—not that these discoveries could be anything but good in themselves, since after all they gave insight into the wonderful laws of God—but that at present they were too exciting to the imagination. So he had removed the trams, the ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... supposed to have been initiated—the former in old age, the latter in youth—more than five thousand years before the story opens. Thus Mejnour remains for ever a vigorous old man; while Zanoni, his pupil, enjoys perpetual youth. Mejnour is purely intellectual, and spends his life in contemplation; while Zanoni, though he must avoid love and friendship which are unknown to the passionless Intelligences, feels ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... of battle, or are wounded. In Prussia, between 1816-1876, not less than 321,791 women fell a prey to child-birth fever—a yearly average of 5,363. This is by far a larger figure than that of the Prussians, who, during the same period, were killed in war or died of their wounds. Nor must, at the contemplation of this enormous number of women who died of child-birth fever, the still larger number of those be lost sight of, who, as a consequence of child-birth, are permanently crippled in health, and die prematurely.[157] These are additional ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... more complex the longer we studied it. With the machine moving forward, the air flying backward, the propellers turning sidewise, and nothing standing still, it seemed impossible to find a starting-point from which to trace the various simultaneous reactions. Contemplation of it was confusing. After long arguments we often found ourselves in the ludicrous position of each having been converted to the other's side, with no more agreement than when the ...
— The Early History of the Airplane • Orville Wright
... have failed to discover any special reason why a love of histrionic efforts should be generated by his professional occupation—but the majority of the orchestra clearly manifest an almost indecent alacrity in avoiding all contemplation of the displays on the other side of the foot-lights. They are but playgoers on compulsion. They even seem sometimes, when they retain their seats, to prefer gazing at the audience, rather than at the actors, and thus to ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... in deep contemplation of any kind, or in reverie, as in reading a very interesting play or romance, we measure time very inaccurately; and hence, if a play greatly affects our passions, the absurdities of passing over many days or years, and or perpetual changes of place, are not perceived by the ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... our existence, and it is more especially at that season, that the thrilling remembrances of long departed pleasures are apt to steal into the thoughts; the re-awakening of nature calling us, by a fearful contrast, to the contemplation of joys that never can return, while all the time the heart is rendered more susceptible by the beauteous renovation in the aspect of ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... was place in his scheme for those whose work was chiefly manual, those who reclaimed uncultivated lands and turned the wilderness into a garden of the Lord, and for those who spent long hours in contemplation and prayer. The public solemn singing of offices was no more characteristic of his rule than was the following of the hermits in ...
— The Church and the Barbarians - Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 461 to A.D. 1003 • William Holden Hutton
... thought, we lose sight of counter influences. The fact is that almost all our decisions—if they involve thought at all—are of this sort: At the moment of decision the course of action then under contemplation usurps the attention, and conflicting ideas are dropped ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... Sabbath rest in a somewhat higher light than did their comrades; though none of them were fully alive to the blessings and privileges attaching to the faithful keeping of the Lord's day. Independently altogether of the delight connected with the contemplation of the wonderful works of God in the wilderness—especially of that beautiful portion of the wilderness—the trappers experienced a sensation of intense pleasure in the simple act of physical repose after their long, restless, and somewhat exciting journey. They wandered about from spot ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... furthest removed from the traditions of the Platonic school in the next generation. Both his political and his metaphysical philosophy are for the most part misinterpreted by Aristotle. The best of him—his love of truth, and his 'contemplation of all time and all existence,' was soonest lost; and some of his greatest thoughts have slept in the ear of mankind almost ever ...
— Laws • Plato
... now let me lead you all far from the crowd, though there is not much of it here, certainly, to a secluded seat, where I sit in hours of contemplation enjoying nature. We will get a magnificent view of the governor's house, two striped sentry boxes, three gendarmes, and not a single dog! Don't be too much surprised at the volubility of my remarks with which I am trying so hard to amuse you. According ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... in another form among the Semites in the worship of the stars among the Babylonians and ancient Arabians. This astrolatry, originally a kind of fetichism, became nature-worship, and gradually rose to the worship of the intelligence manifested to our contemplation in the movement of the heavenly luminaries. Astrology arose, and religion no longer expressed itself in passive acquiescence, but was united with the effort to guide the life by the knowledge to be drawn, as men imagined, from the motion of ...
— A Comparative View of Religions • Johannes Henricus Scholten
... quotation in impassioned style, when Dodd, who never allowed his enthusiasm for the beauties of nature to interfere with a proper regard for the welfare of his stomach, emerged from the tent, and, with a mock solemn apology for interrupting my soliloquy, said that if I could bring my mind down to the contemplation of material things he would inform me that breakfast was ready, and begged to suggest that the little music in my soul be allowed to "linger," since it could do so with less detriment than the said breakfast. The force of this suggestion, seconded as it was by a savoury odour ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... gifts with which nature had endowed her. She carried her head high, and bestowed swift and evidently fatal glances to right and left during her progress through the room. Mr. Bixby's voice roused the storekeeper from this contemplation of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... in advance of reality, and in a state of bestarred hallucination, it required nothing less than the name of his perpetual antagonist pronounced in a loud voice to call the youngest of Napoleon's generals away from the mental contemplation of his betrothed. He looked round. The strangers wore civilian clothes. Lean and weather-beaten, lolling back in their chairs, they scowled at people with moody and defiant abstraction from under their hats pulled low over their eyes. It was ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... Altar now has won The credit from the table of the Sun For earth and sea; this cost On you is altogether lost Because you feed Not on the flesh of beasts, but on the seed Of contemplation: your, Your eyes are they, wherewith you draw the pure Elixir to the mind Which sees the ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... if he cannot look and see In a grate fire's friendly flaming all the joys which used to be. If in quiet contemplation of a cheerful ruddy blaze He sees nothing there recalling all his happy yesterdays, Then his mind is dead to fancy and his life is bleak and bare, And he's doomed to walk the highways that are ...
— All That Matters • Edgar A. Guest
... the writer to be a man. Certain novel-writing ladies indeed are given to depicting most royal heroes, types of the ideal man, glorified beings endowed with every charm of physique and of spirit. Such find an irresistible fascination in allowing their fancy to run wild riot and poetic revel in contemplation of a wonderful male creature, so graceful, so beautiful, so strong, so brave, so masterly, so bad or so good as the case may be—a spirit of chivalry incarnate in the perfection of the flesh. They cannot build a shrine too lofty, nor burn too generous store ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... over less worth in the world; or stupid misunderstanding and crushing defeat grind you into the dust, then you may arise, forgetting time and space and self, and take refuge in mansions not made with hands; and find a certain sad, sweet satisfaction in the contemplation of treasures stored up where moth and rust do not corrupt, and where thieves do not ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... while Guest looked wildly down the church, where, to his horror, there stood a figure in company with a tall, sedate, grey-haired lady dressed in grey; and as these figures approached he for a few moments forgot his agony in a long, rapt contemplation ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... heart of Chopin. "He [Footnote: Lucrezia Fioriani] was no longer upon this earth, he was in an empyrean of golden clouds and perfumes, his imagination, so full of exquisite beauty, seemed engaged in a monologue with God himself; and if upon the radiant prism in whose contemplation he forgot all else, the magic-lantern of the outer world would even cast its disturbing shadow, he felt deeply pained, as if in the midst of a sublime concert, a shrieking old woman should blend her shrill yet broken tones, her vulgar musical motivo, with the divine thoughts of the great ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... would skim over the polished boards to the newcomer, and, tendering the menu, would wait, pencil in hand, until the guest, after careful contemplation, selected his five plats from its ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... taken on an harmonious fullness: her body was bathed in a proud languor. The very genius of tranquillity hovered in her presence. She had that greed of sunny silence, and still contemplation, the delightful joy in the peace of living which the people of the North will never really know. What especially she had preserved out of the past was her great kindness which inspired all her other feelings. But in her luminous smile many new things ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... Russian lady, whom he guessed was her official chaperon, and a sour-visaged Russian priest who ceremoniously blessed the food and was apparently the Grand Duke's household chaplain. He did not speak throughout the meal, and seemed to be in a condition of rapt contemplation. ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... the truth as to this duel. She knew now, as she had told her mother before, that Harwin was not a man to love to his death; it was Elizabeth's suitor who had done that. And Katie, at the moment lightly touched by the crime and the horror, sat lost in contemplation of something that did move ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... engrossed to note the remark further than to nod his head. He was lost in contemplation of these strange people, all garbed exactly alike and all surpassingly lovely to ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... should provide the beverage for which it exists and room for enjoying the same. A sketch of a coffee-shop may often be seen on the street, in a scrap of shade or sunshine according to the season, where a stool or two invite the passer-by to a moment of contemplation. Larger establishments, though they are rarely very large, are most often installed in a room longer than it is wide, having as many windows as possible at the street end and what we would call the bar at the other. It is a bar that always makes me regret I do ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... on these occasions are devoted to the poor. There was at that time no plate at the church-door on ordinary Sabbaths; and no contributions were made by the people for the support of the gospel. I presume this error is rectified now, however; for it was then in contemplation to adopt the plan in use in Scotland, and elsewhere, of a penny-a-week subscription. The stipends of the Waldensian pastors are paid from funds contributed by England and Holland. Each receives fifteen hundred francs yearly,—about sixty-two pounds ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... one of the wisest and best of men. Emperor of the civilised world, he lived a life of great simplicity, bearing all the burdens of his high office, and drawing philosophy from the depths of his own contemplation. His Meditations were only written for his own eyes; they were a kind of philosophical diary; and they have the charm of perfect sincerity. He was born a.d. 121, he became Emperor a.d. 161, and died a.d. 180, after ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... that must pass before dinner after you had made out your menu. It intimated an exclusive possession in the three or four who happened first to find themselves together in it, and it invited the philosophic mind to contemplation more than any other spot in ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... far higher than mere ostentation. The works of sculpture and architecture produced under his reign are monuments of a pure and severe taste; the capital of Prussia has seen none more beautiful. He complacently indulged in the contemplation of the greatness founded by his father, the possession of a territory four times as large as that of any other elector, and the power of bringing into the field an army which placed him on a level with kings. Now, however, he desired that ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... died. I went miserably home, spent half the remainder of the night in morose contemplation, smoked nearly two packs of cigarettes, and didn't get to the office ...
— The Ideal • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... good instance. The hermit endures solitude, hunger, cold, and manifold perils, to content his autocrat, who prefers these things, and prayer and contemplation, to money or to any show or luxury that money can ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Contemplation of this contrast, sense of his desertion, overcame his habitual resistance to self-pity, a feeling against which he was usually on the stronger guard for his knowledge that it was a concomitant of his inherent sensibility. He quite yielded to it for a time; and though 'twas sharpened ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... station in life, and endeavoring to live up to it, was soon strengthened by Willy Croup. During the time of the trunk opening, and for some days afterwards, when all her leisure hours were occupied with the contemplation and consideration of her own presents, Willy had been perfectly contented to let things go on in the old way, or any way, but now the incongruity of Mrs. Cliff's present mode of living, and the probable amount of her fortune, began ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... back in his chair, a prey to gloomy and indescribably bitter reflections, as he accustomed himself to the contemplation of the fact that the beautiful woman in whom his own fickle wayward heart had become earnestly interested, would sell herself to the grey-bearded man beside him, Cuthbert gnawed his silky moustache; while his father watched ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... good girl, and what ignorant people called a prodigy of learning. In your circumstances a commonplace child might have been both. I subsequently came to contemplate your existence with a pleasure which I never derived from the contemplation of my own. I have not succeeded, and shall not succeed in expressing the affection I feel for you, or the triumph with which I find that what I undertook as a distasteful and thankless duty has rescued my life and labor from waste. My literary ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... twice, to which he did not reply, and looking at him I was startled by the expression in his eyes. They were fixed on a distant corner of the room, and following his gaze I saw what he was staring at with such hypnotising concentration. So absorbed was he in contemplation of the packet there so plainly exposed, now my attention was turned to it, that he seemed to be entirely oblivious of what was going on around him. I roused him from his trance by jocularly calling Gibbes's ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... her face to his, and again the feeling that this man was only a mere acquaintance passed into her being, as she looked into his eyes. She turned her lips away. But Florian, as the feeling of strangeness impressed her, lost it himself in the contemplation, brief but irresistible, of the upturned lips with their momentary invitation so soon withdrawn. The primal man in him awoke. His arm tightened about the lissome waist; the divine form in the creamy silk, on which he had only now almost feared ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... harmful to man, and this with the intention of keeping for our successors in the inheritance all that can in any way afford a foundation for further experiments in domestication, materials for learned inquiries, or pleasure in contemplation. To attain this object we cannot trust to the share of this life which can be brought into zoological and botanical gardens, however extensive and well managed. The only way is to make certain reservations in various parts of the world, each containing ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist." In the verse which is to serve us for our guidance on this subject there are two branches which will afford us fruit of contemplation. It is written, "Herod being reproved ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... stop, now, dear mother," said he, as she pressed him to remain but one moment for refreshments. "I fear I am already too late," and he turned quickly away from the contemplation of the glories of nature, and passed again through the silent avenue, and on to the village, to wrestle with the sorrows of this weary life, where there was poverty, and suffering, ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... buggy with the top turned back, standing in the yard, and in the buggy a large elderly, dark-complexioned man, a stranger to all of us, who sat regarding the premises with a smile of shrewd and pleasant contemplation. ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... parental hopes to consider among the motives which had directed him into the Church. He was a born worldling, but with unmistakable talents for and keen appreciation of the art of politics. His love of money was subordinate only to his love of power. To both, his talents made access easy. In the contemplation of a career in his early years he had hesitated long between the Church and the Army; but had finally thrown his lot with the former, as offering not only equal possibilities of worldly preferment and riches, but far greater stability in those periodic revolutions to which his country ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... devoted study of the whole works of art belonging to Greece, shown that in many respects a livelier and more familiar knowledge of the ancient inhabitants of that classic land is to be derived from the contemplation of their remaining statues, sculptures, gems, medals, coins, etc., than by any amount of mere school-grinding at Greek words and Greek quantities. It has recovered at the same time some interesting objects connected with ancient Grecian history; ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... the contemplation of the unfinished work—or rather in dreaming of the bright original—when a light tap was heard at his door. He opened it eagerly, and his poor studio was suddenly illuminated, as it were, by the radiant apparition ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... Sir Austin, as you do not take wine before dinner, some day to favour me with your company at my little country cottage I have a wine there—the fellow to that—I think you would, I do think you would"—Mr. Thompson meant to say, he thought his client would arrive at something of a similar jocund contemplation of his fellows in their degeneracy that inspirited lawyers after potation, but condensed the sensual ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... listening in our summer-house, upon St. Swithun's feast, while my dear brother-in-law disputed with Mr. Grylls upon action and contemplation—which of them was the properer end of man. I thought then that each of them, though they talked up and down and at large, was in truth defending his own temperament: and, because I loved them both, that neither needed defending. For my own part, the small daily cares of Constantine ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... contains Nothing but sound and honest gospel strains. Wouldst thou divert thyself from melancholy? Wouldst thou be pleasant, yet be far from folly? Wouldst thou read riddles, and their explanation? Or else be drowned in thy contemplation? Dost thou love picking meat? Or wouldst thou see A man in the clouds, and hear him speak to thee? Wouldst thou be in a dream, and yet not sleep? Or wouldst thou in a moment laugh and weep? Wouldest thou lose thyself and catch no harm, And find thyself again without a charm? Wouldst read thyself, ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... inhabited by the family. It was entirely filled with a variety of scientific instruments, which seemed to be in constant requisition; the quaint, old latticed window was thrown wide open, and a telescope fixed at it, in the proper position for a contemplation of the heavenly bodies by night. At the other end of the room was fixed an apparatus for chemical experiments, and here Sir Michael was seated, poring over some liquid which he was subjecting to the influence of a spirit-lamp. He wore a black velvet cap, which ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... Lost" and "Paradise Regained," of the "Night-Thoughts," of "Smart's David," all poetry, let it be observed, not defending religion merely, or confining itself to the praise of God's lower works, but entering into the depths of divine contemplation, into the very adyta of the heavenly temple. And it is no less interesting to recollect that in spite of Dr. Johnson's sage diction, sacred poetry of a very high order has, since his day, abounded. Cowper has extracted it from "the intercourse between God and the human ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... the shore, lifting up my hands, and my whole being, as I may say, wrapt up in the contemplation of my deliverance; making a thousand gestures and motions which I can not describe; reflecting upon my comrades that were drowned, and that there should not be one soul saved but myself; for as for them, I never saw them afterward, or any sign of them, except three of the hats, one cap, and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... was called; otherwise, the hand of the corpse. Ammiani had known also Count Paul von Lenkenstein. To his mind, death did not mean much, however pleasant life might be: his father and his friend had gone to it gaily; and he himself stood ready for the summons: but the contemplation of a domestic judicial execution, which the Guidascarpi seemed to have done upon Count Paul, affrighted him, and put an end to his temporary capacity for labour. He felt as if a spent shot were striking on his ribs; it was the unknown sensation of fear. Changeing, it became pity. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... than Mirza Ahmak himself in all the exteriors of religion, and scrupulous to a fault about things forbidden as unclean. I was in want of a pair of yakhdans, or trunks, and a pair belonging to the doctor, which were lying idle in an unfrequented room, were frequently the objects of my contemplation. How shall I manage to become master of these? thought I: had I but half the invention of Dervish Sefer, I should already have been packing up my things in them. A thought struck me: one of the many curs, which range wild throughout Tehran, had just pupped under ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... subject, given to a blue-mould fancier, who by looking too long at a Stilton cheese, was at last completely overcome, by his eye exciting his appetite, till it became quite ungovernable; and unconscious of every thing but the mity object of his contemplation, he began to pick out, in no small portions, the primest parts his eye could select from ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... that is constitutionally sound, there is nothing to prevent the government of the Province of Quebec from saying that in the English schools of the Province of Quebec there shall be no word of English spoken. I should think the contemplation of such a thing would make you shudder. It is really inconceivable with ...
— Bilingualism - Address delivered before the Quebec Canadian Club, at - Quebec, Tuesday, March 28th, 1916 • N. A. Belcourt
... distinct form; and he even speaks without hesitation of his own historical significance. The hearers are bidden to look back upon a period in the living movement of which they themselves are standing, as if it were a dead past. As they are thus lifted up to the height of an objective contemplation of themselves and their fathers, in the end the result which was to be expected takes place: they become conscious of their grievous sin. Confronted with the Deity they have always an uneasy feeling that they deserve to ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... devout Russian have greeted a lost icon, and worshipped, silently, a re-found saint. Larry, equally absorbed, as any painter will understand, in the contemplation of his work, took no heed of its effect ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... hears the Muses in a ring Aye round about Jove's altar sing; And add to these retired Leisure, That in trim gardens takes his pleasure; But, first and chiefest, with thee bring Him that yon soars on golden wing, Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne, The Cherub Contemplation; And the mute Silence hist along, 'Less Philomel will deign a song, In her sweetest saddest plight, Smoothing the rugged brow of Night, While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke Gently o'er the accustomed ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... had been writing on evolution for fully twenty years with the eyes of scientific Europe upon him. Whatever concession to the opinion of Buffon Bonnet may have been inclined to make in 1769, in 1764, when he published his "Contemplation de la Nature," and in 1762 when his "Considerations sur les Corps Organes" appeared, he cannot be considered to have been a supporter of evolution. I went through these works in 1878 when I was writing ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... a very polite woman—very much disposed to be civil to every one," said Mrs. Smith; "by the bye," she added, "Pelby and I have it in contemplation to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... magistrate the depositions of the postillions who were witnesses of the duel at Kingsdown, he had earnestly entreated of his son to join him in a prosecution against Mathews, whose conduct on the occasion he and others considered as by no means that of a fair and honorable antagonist. It was in contemplation of a measure of this nature, that the account of the meeting already given was drawn up by Mr. Barnett, and deposited in the hands of Captain Wade. Though Sheridan refused to join in legal proceedings—from an unwillingness, perhaps, to keep Miss Linley's name any longer afloat ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... sturdy frame, as well as his nicely-brushed coat, glancing cane, and, above all, his upright and self-satisfied manner, resembled in no respect the dress, form, or bearing of a mendicant, he quietly thrust a shilling into his hand, and relapsed into the studious contemplation which the entrance ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... on Villon's brain, absorbed as he was in the contemplation of his queen, but at least they served to convince him of what he had already begun to assure himself, that for some purpose or other King Louis wished him well ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Bulstrode was at Lilacsbush, but had no apprehension of his ever marrying Anneke. I took the way to the heights, and soon reached the field where I had once met the ladies, on horseback. There, seated under a tree, I saw Bulstrode alone, and apparently in deep contemplation. It was no part of my plan to be seen, or to have my presence known, and I was retiring, when I heard my name, discovered that I was recognised, and ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... little town, knowing nothing of the only memorable incident which ever happened within its boundaries since the old Britons built it, this sad and lovely story, which consecrates the spot (for I found it holy to my contemplation, again, as soon as it lay behind me) in the heart of a stranger from three thousand miles over the sea! It but confirms what I have been saying, that sublime and beautiful facts are best understood ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... undertake the publication on their own account. We had no objection to raise a laugh at the expense of others; but to do it at our own cost, uncertain as we were to what extent we might be involved, had never entered into our contemplation. In this dilemma, our Addresses, now in every sense rejected, might probably have never seen the light, had not some good angel whispered us to betake ourselves to Mr. John Miller, a dramatic publisher, then residing in Bow Street, Covent Garden. ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... murmuring of the hollow surge as it rolls over the pebble beach, the fresh current of saline air that braces and invigorates, and the uninterrupted view of the watery expanse, are attractions of delight and contemplation which are nowhere to be enjoyed in greater perfection than at Brighton. The serenity of the evening induced us to pass the barrier of the chain-pier, and bend our steps towards the projecting extremity of that ingenious structure. An old Welsh ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... with all this movement towards peace and contemplation, and in final keeping, too, with the deeper doctrine of Montaigne, is the musing philosophy which lights, as with a wondrous sunset, the play which one would fain believe the last of all. At the end, as at the beginning, we find the poet working on a pre-existing ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... D'Entrecasteaux's Expedition. It was our common Exocarpus cupressiformis, which he described, and which has been mentioned so often in popular works as a cherry-tree, bearing its stone outside of the pulp. That this crude notion of the structure of the fruit is erroneous, must be apparent on thoughtful contemplation, for it is evident at the first glance, that the red edible part of our ordinary exocarpus constitutes merely an enlarged and succulent fruit-stalklet (pedicel), and that the hard dry and greenish portion, strangely compared to a cherry-stone, ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... not deceive him. Having gazed at the object for some minutes, during which it maintained the same attitude, he continued his survey of the pile, and became so excited by the sublime emotions inspired by the contemplation, as to be ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth |
