"Pensively" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Breton stopped, clasped her hands, and said an "Ave" to Saint Anne of Auray, imploring her to bless their expedition; during which time her mistress waited pensively, looking first at the artless attitude of her maid who was praying fervently, and then at the effects of the vaporous moonlight as it glided among the traceries of the church building, giving to the granite all the delicacy of filagree. The pair soon reached the hut of Galope-Chopine. Light ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... have time to clear up much," was his next remark, looking pensively at a table from which they had swept everything but one biscuit and a lonely little baked potato which had what Marjorie termed "flaws," and they had had to avoid. "But then, I suppose you might say there wasn't much to clear. We'll ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... fast," Standing said sharply. He drew a quick breath. Then his manner changed and his words came pensively. "Say, it's a queer life—a hell of a life. The sea folk, I mean. It's about the worst on earth. Think of it, cooped within those timbers that are never easy till they lie at anchor in the shelter of a harbour. I'd just ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... been put on several occasions, both in the company of the tempter and in the privacy of the domestic hearth, and both in the gayly suggestive and the pensively argumentative key. Why might they not, by means of a clever purchase in the stock market, occasionally procure some of the agreeable extra pleasures of life—provide the ready money for theatres, a ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... "You may lay to that. We had to club half a dozen of them as soon as they were lifted aboard. When I say 'we' I ought to add that I was in my hammock and never heard a word of it, being a heavy sleeper. That," said Mr. Strangways pensively, "is my ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... was something left to say. Joseph paused and scratched the back of his neck pensively ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... a Stockdove sing or say His homely tale, this very day. His voice was buried among trees, Yet to be come at by the breeze: He did not cease; but coo'd—and coo'd; And somewhat pensively he woo'd: He sang of love with quiet blending, Slow to begin, and never ending; Of serious faith, and inward glee; That was the Song, the Song ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... rest in a beautiful; valley, beside the banks of a swift stream. He watched Jane as she moved away from the stretcher which held Bansemer, following her to the edge of the stream where she had come to gaze pensively into ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... into Broadway. He walked pensively, for he had much to occupy his mind. How strange that the Petts should have come over to England to try to induce him to return to New York, and how galling that, now that he was in New York, this avenue to a prosperous ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... little fire-lit chamber, Sit I alone: And, as I gaze in the coals, I remember Days long agone. Saddening it is when the night has descended, Thus to sit here, Pensively musing on episodes ended ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... will once more have a charm. As the tears subside a little, and with her head leaning backward at the angle that will not injure her bonnet, she endures that terrible moment when grief, which has made all things else a weariness, has itself become weary; she looks down pensively at her bracelets, and adjusts their clasps with that pretty studied fortuity which would be gratifying to her mind if it were once more in ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... frequently eloquent in his silence. Chryses says not a word in answer to the insults of Agamemnon, but walks pensively along the shore. The melancholy flowing of the verse admirably expresses the condition of the mournful ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... looked at him almost pensively. "I thought it my duty. I have encountered ridicule and obloquy; but I do not mind them. I count them but dross. Wherever I have found the print of my Lord's shoe in the earth, there I have coveted to set my ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... seated herself; and then pensively moved to the other end of the bench, because a slanting sunbeam fell there. Since it was absolutely necessary to blast Mr. Kennaston's dearest hopes, she thoughtfully endeavoured to distract his attention from his own miseries—as far as might be possible—by showing ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... things to make me nervous: The Imperial child, the gorgeous rosy sleeves The Maid of honor wore, Duroc, the breast— In short, the tuft was shivering on my bearskin; So much so that your Highness noticed it. You gazed upon it pensively: what was it? And while you hailed it with a milky laugh You seemed uncertain which to admire the more About this moving scarlet miracle: Its motion, or the fact that it was scarlet. Suddenly, while I stooped, your little hands Began lo pull the ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand
... pensively at the interpreter as these words were recorded. What could have happened during that conversation that would have caused its memory to be so ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr
... have been "stoppin"' at Deacon Somebody's,—and other such expressions. One of my friends had a little marble statuette of Cupid in the parlor of his country-house,—bow, arrows, wings, and all complete. A visitor, indigenous to the region, looking pensively at the figure, asked the lady of the house "if that was a statoo of her deceased infant?" What a delicious, though somewhat voluminous biography, social, educational, and aesthetic in that ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... in": Tempus edax rerum! Yet ferax also: for our friend now added, with a wistful look, which strove to seem merely historical: "I let it all in lodgings, to respectable gentlemen; by the quarter or the month; it's all one to me."—"To me also," whispered the ghost of Samuel, as we went pensively our ways.' Carlyle's Miscellanies, edit, of 1872, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... city, it was totally sunk. Wonderful to tell! nothing but a dismal and putrid lake was seen where it stood. We looked about to find some one that could tell us of its sad catastrophe, but could see none: all was become a melancholy solitude—a scene of hideous desolations. Thus proceeding pensively along, in quest of some human being that could give us some little information, we at length saw a boy sitting by the shore, and appearing stupified with terror. Of him, therefore, we enquired concerning the fate of the city; but he ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux
... the other, "Behold, here is a good occasion for us to capture two horses and armour, and a lady likewise; for this we shall have no difficulty in doing against yonder single knight, who hangs his head so pensively and heavily." And Enid heard this discourse, and she knew not what she should do through fear of Geraint, who had told her to be silent. "The vengeance of Heaven be upon me," she said, "if I would not rather receive my death from his hand than from the ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 2 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... forward. So out went Mr. Pickwick's head again. The prospect was worse than before. The middle-aged lady had finished arranging her hair; had carefully enveloped it, in a muslin nightcap with a small plaited border, and was gazing pensively on the fire. ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... New York flat which had been lent him by his friend Gates. The hour was half-past ten in the evening; the day, the second day after the exodus of Nutty Boyd from the farm. Before him on the table lay a letter. He was smoking pensively. ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... came back into the twilight room they found Miss Sally still sitting by the table, her head leaning pensively on her hand. She had been crying—the cobwebby handkerchief lay beside her, wrecked and ruined forever—but ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... comfort Keg. We found him looking thoughtfully at nothing, with his hands deep in his pockets, from which about six dollars and seventy-five cents' worth of jingle sounded now and then. We waited patiently for him to speak. At last he turned on us and grinned pensively. ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... somewhat pensively with one of those favourite Tauchnitz volumes from which she had obtained her knowledge of English life in her hand. It was contraband, which made it all the dearer to her. She was not reading, but leaning her chin against it lost in thought. ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... Heaven that I had not forgiven him! Ah, if that hour could but return, how readily I should find the horrible courage to turn him away! My poor child... it was I who ruined him!..." And, pensively, "I should have had that or any sort of courage, if he had been as I pictured him to myself and as he himself told me that he had long been: bearing the marks of vice ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... house marks the spot, and but a short distance away in the open square sits his form in deathless bronze, pensively writing out an idea which we can only guess—or is it a last love-letter to the woman to whom he gave his heart and who pushed ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... anywhere Virginia way, I reckon we have," remarks Mr. Harry. "And to think that we should both of us have met the enemy, and both of us been whipped by him, brother!" he adds pensively. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... which was that seems to you astonishing, not that which is to be," Lady Engleton commented, pensively. "For my part I confess I am frightened, almost terrified at times, at ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... sister-in-law. Some dark thought seemed to possess the young girl, since the night of that strange adventure; and, though the subject was never mentioned between her and Elizabeth, Elsie's demeanor towards her brother's wife was one of cold, almost hateful distrust, while Elizabeth grew more pensively sad each day, and seemed to shrink from any ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... in his basket in the 'Clouds'! (I must read you that bit of Aristophanes again, by the way.) And believe me, children, I am no warped witness, as far as regards monasteries; or if I am, it is in their favour. I have always had a strong leaning that way; and have pensively shivered with Augustines at St. Bernard; and happily made hay with Franciscans at Fesole; and sat silent with Carthusians in their little gardens, south of Florence; and mourned through many a day-dream, at Melrose and Bolton. But the wonder is always to me, not how much, but how little, the ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... pane of glass in a window, and a portion of the money thus collected went to the support of the Church. Year after year my intrepid grandmother refused to pay these assessments, and year after year she sat pensively upon her door-step, watching articles of her furniture being sold for money to pay her tithes. It must have been an impressive picture, and it was one with which the community became thoroughly familiar, as the determined old lady never won her fight and never abandoned it. She had ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... and placed himself in an attitude; his hand in his waistcoat, and his face pensively inclined towards the tea-table. "Now fancy me at St. Helena; this table is the ocean. Now, then, who is that cast ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... vision of Prothero returning from all this foreign travel meekly, pensively, a little sadly, and yet not without a kind of relief, to the grey mildness of Trinity. He saw him, capped and gowned, and restored to academic dignity again, nodding greetings, ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... yet some great souls in this age!" said Camille Maupin, and she stood for some minutes pensively leaning on the balustrade ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... English in its rural loveliness "Cobbler" Horn found himself, the next morning, face to face, in the little front-room of a humble cottage, with a pale, sorrowful maiden, on whose pensively-beautiful face hope and fear mingled their lights and shadows while he delivered ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... they made me sing every song I knew and some I didn't. I sang some things so hoary with age that they were decrepit! The purser so far forgot himself as to ask me to sing "My Bonnie lies over the Ocean"! I did so with great expression while he looked pensively into the fire. Since then I have called him, "My Bonnie," and ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... kind of Fleet Street doll's-house affair, that gave a sense of gay adventure to the pursuit of politics. When the paper had been suppressed, a boy who had never contributed to it said to me, "What a shame!" and he added very pensively, "It was all so ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... seated in her favourite easy-chair, looking pensively at the wood-fire, when George Fairfax came back. She heard his returning footsteps, and the sharp click of a key turning in the outer door. This sound set her wondering. What door was that being locked, ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... hawk screams or a woodpecker Startles the stillness from its fixed mood With his loud careless tap. Sometimes I hear The dreamy white-throat from some far off tree Pipe slowly on the listening solitude His five pure notes succeeding pensively. ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... the Periwinkle, pensively, as she came and stood before Rusialka. "Even the very old on ...
— The Dumpy Books for Children; - No. 7. A Flower Book • Eden Coybee
... one else could hardly have failed to be impressed with the loveliness of such a morning in such a spot, on Master Frederick Parson, head monitor's fag of Parrett's House, as he kicked the bedclothes pensively off his person, and looked at the watch under his pillow, the beauties of nature were completely lost. Parson was in a bad frame of mind that morning. Everything seemed against him. He'd been beaten in the junior hundred yards yesterday, ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... injured mood, and, shrouded in a great blue veil, pensively reclined in her corner as if indifferent to everything about her. But soon the cloud passed, and she emerged in a radiant state of good humor, which lasted unbroken until ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... with the kettle. She poured a portion of its contents over the fender in her anxiety to plant it firmly on the fire. "Oh dear!" she exclaimed, "how stupid of me! Oh, Mr. Thorne"—this half archly, half pensively, fingering the curl and surveying the steaming pool—"I'm afraid you'll wish Emma hadn't gone out: such a mess as I've made of it! What will ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... said pensively, "why we came here. My mother as a rule hates to go far from civilization, and I am ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... intently at these two soldiers. He puckered his face, screwed up his eyes, and pensively swayed his head. At another spot he noticed a Russian soldier laughingly patting a Frenchman on the shoulder, saying something to him in a friendly manner, and Kutuzov with the same expression on his face again ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... smiled so pensively, yet happily. "To-morrow I shall be quite well again!" Her eye seemed to ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... you think this unique social structure is?" Donnaught asked, pensively checking the charge in a ...
— Warrior Race • Robert Sheckley
... the girls of my day as one could imagine, and I do wish she wouldn't drive about the country bareheaded, looking like a colt or a young Indian," said Miss Rebecca pensively one morning, just after Mabel's departure for the tennis-court. "But I must confess that she's the life of the place, and we couldn't get on without her now. I don't think, though, that she has done three hours of solid ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... a stone absent-mindedly, he threw it to the bottom of the canyon. Then he stared pensively into the abyss, watching the arch of ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... place until calmly and deliberately I begged permission to devote myself to the glory and honour of Him, whose favoured child I was. I walked a few miles on my return homeward. I passed a church, that in the stillness of night reared its dark form, and seemed, solemnly and pensively, like a thing of life, to stand before me. The moon rose at its full over the venerable wall, and scattered its bright cool light across the tall and moss-grown windows. Oh! every thing in life that wondrous night stirred up my soul to pious resolutions, and gave ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... near the finish of her journey. Pensively she considered the end of the road. How would it be there? What manner of folk and country? Between her past mode of life and the new that she was hurrying toward lay the vast gulf of distance, of custom, of class even. It was bound to be crude, ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... repeated Beatrice handling the link pensively "why they are his initials, can it be his I wonder? why yes" she continued, "here is the name Lawrence Cathcart; His Links! yes they are his, I will keep them and I may some day have occasion to return them to ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... of the young fellow's long, knotted hand had been resting on the woman's left breast, with the arm bare to the elbow; while in his right hand, as he had sat gazing pensively at the woman's robust figure, there had been grasped a tin mug from which some of the red liquor had scattered stains over the front of ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... up to the house, and then down into the street, in the direction of the funeral car with a white catafalque, already standing there with two hired carriages. Near it four garrison soldiers, with mourning capes over their old coats, and mourning hats pulled over their screwed-up eyes, were pensively scratching in the crumbling snow with the long stems of their unlighted torches. The grey shock of hair positively stood up straight above the red face of Mr. Ratsch, and his voice, that brazen voice, was cracking from the strain he was putting on ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... he traverse the deck amid the still hours of midnight, when the moon silvered over the liquid surface: "Bright luminary of the lonely hour, he would say, that now sheddest thy mild and placid ray on the woe-worn head of fortune's fugitive, dost thou not also pensively shine on the sacred and silent ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... a gap in the trees, walking slowly and pensively, as one retreating from his Moscow. Her eyes followed him till ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... the king and ascended the steps into the palace. The king sniffed pensively at the rose which Katherine had given to him. The perfume seemed to sooth him and he mused, sunning himself and feeding his fancy with the entertainment which playing with the lives of others always afforded ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Lord Elmwood there in his travelling dress, standing pensively by the fire-place—and, as he did not dream of seeing her, he started when she entered, and, with an appearance of alarm, said, "Dear Miss Woodley, what's the matter?" She replied, "Nothing, my Lord; but I could not be satisfied without seeing your Lordship once again, ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... the window—in fact, his chair brushed the hangings. As I sat gazing pensively at the back of his neck, a sudden breeze swayed the ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... 20th, Burton's remains were taken to England by the steamer "Palmyra." Lady Burton then walked round and round to every room, recalling all her life in that happy home and all the painful events that had so recently taken place. She gazed pensively and sadly at the beautiful views from the windows and went "into every nook and cranny of the garden." The very walls seemed to ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... my task with a steady perseverance for nearly an hour, but other things distracted me and I could not succeed with it. I laid one cheek pensively in the palm of my idle hand and with the other, which held my busy pencil, I played a random tattoo on my desk. Before me on my paper was a confused multitude of a's and y's and z's which I had failed to master with any satisfaction, although I had repeated many a patient effort with placid, ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... MARJORY walked pensively along the hall. In the cool shadows made by the palms on the window ledge, her face wore the expression of thoughtful melancholy expected on the faces of the devotees who pace in cloistered gloom. She halted before a door at the end of the hall and laid her hand on the knob. She stood ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... they came into the land which lies this side of the sun. Then their ordeal began; but, indeed, they saw no sirens or dragons or gorgons, but only people like themselves going and coming along the highways. Some of these people sauntered, some ran, some walked alone and pensively, others congregated in groups together and talked or laughed or shouted noisy songs. Under the pleasant trees on the greensward were pavilions, beautifully adorned; the sound of music issued from many of them, fair women danced there under the new-blossoming trees, tossing flowers ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... thoughts of his heart at the time of writing, and see the varying expressions of his face as he passes from grave to gay, from lively to severe. Now he is tender, now indignant; now rattling along in good-natured raillery without broadening into burlesque; now becoming serious and pensively philosophic without a suggestion of mawkish morality. For Burns, when he is himself, is always an artist; says his say, and lets the moral take care of itself; and in his epistles he lets himself go in a very revelry of artistic abandon. He does not think of style—that ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... Pensively and profoundly was I meditating, seated one evening upon a stone bench in Guildhall, when, as the gathering gloom invested the solemn faces of Gog and Magog, rendering them mysteriously dim and indistinct, methought I ...
— The Mirror, 1828.07.05, Issue No. 321 - The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction • Various
... towards which she turned her steps, that has been mentioned. So she returned by the path, which has been described, into the road, and proceeded along it on her return to the city. She did not trip along as briskly and alertly as she had done in coming thither; but walked slowly and pensively with her eyes on the ground. She was thus a good deal longer in returning than in going. And when she had reached the immediate neighbourhood of the city, she turned aside before entering the gate, into a sort of promenade under some trees near the city wall, ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... She nodded pensively once or twice. Then she turned to him with a bright smile. "I understand entirely," she said. "May I too speak quite freely? Yes? Well, I am so glad you have spoken out. Of course, we are quite accustomed ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... a lone valley, with cedars o'er-spread, From war's dread confusion, I pensively strayed,— The gloom from the face of fair heaven retired; The wind ceased to murmur, the thunders expired; Perfumes, as of Eden, flowed sweetly along, And a voice, as of angels, enchantingly sung: "Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise, The queen of the ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... he departed before the watchful eye of Captain Scraggs observed Mr. Gibney and McGuffey in the offing, a block away. When they came aboard they found Captain Scraggs on top of the house, seated on an upturned fire bucket, smoking pensively and gazing across the bay with an assumption of lamblike innocence ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... back-green of the inextinguishable battle. Some dropping, and some leaping down, from all altitudes—lo! a general melee! For Tabitha, having through a skylight forced her way down stairs, and out of the kitchen-window into the back-area, is sitting pensively on the steps, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 484 - Vol. 17, No. 484, Saturday, April 9, 1831 • Various
... Pensively by the river's bank I stray'd— Now gazing on the corn-fields ripe and rich; Now listening to the carol of the birds From bush and brake, that with mellifluous notes Fill'd the wide air; and now in mournful thought— That yet was full of pleasure—running ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... She looked pensively into the fire, and he thought he heard a little sigh, which perhaps encouraged him to go on, though it was with something like embarrassment ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... a serious demeanor. Hardly had he resumed his position when another individual, equally disinterested, impassively walked down the steps, proceeded to the back of the stage, lifted it, expectorated carefully on the axle, and returned slowly and pensively to the hotel. A third spectator wearily disengaged himself from one of the Ionic columns of the portico and walked to the box, remained for a moment in serious and expectorative contemplation of the boot, and then returned to his column. There was something so weird in ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... burned steadily upon him. Ripley Givens met the test successfully. He stood rumpling the yellow-brown curls on his head pensively. In his eye was regret, not unmingled with a gentle reproach. His smooth features were set to a pattern ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... as new, with pencils piled, Bring me the immortal cupboard Where the Hymn of Hate was filed; Who can say how oft, when brisker Beat the heart behind his ribs, TIRPITZ wiped upon a whisker Pensively ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 12, 1920 • Various
... the whole matter aside, as she sat in her room, rocking pensively. Her own lamp had not been filled and was burning dimly, so she put it out and sat in the darkness, listening to ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... repeated pensively. "It's very good of you, of course. But I couldn't possibly take your money. I happen to be the holder of the bills, and I only give them back to Brabazon for the amount owing—or to Ann on the terms I suggested. Otherwise"—a sudden flame leapt up ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... Pensively my lord Yvain proceeded through a deep wood, until he heard among the trees a very loud and dismal cry, and he turned in the direction whence it seemed to come. And when he had arrived upon the spot he saw in a cleared space a lion, ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... turned her face away. The colour vanished from her cheeks, the youth from her figure. Pensively, she gazed across the valley to the vineyard, where the black, knotted vines were blurred against the soil in the fast-gathering ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... girl, looking pensively out to sea, where the sea-horses were tossing up their white manes in the moonlight. "Well, good-bye," she added, holding out ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... Athenian, pointing to the blind girl, who sat at a little distance from them, leaning pensively over her lyre; 'she must have thy thanks, not we. It seems that she came to my house, and, finding me from home, sought thy brother in his temple; he accompanied her to Arbaces; on their way they encountered me, with a company of friends, whom thy kind letter had given me a spirit ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... pensively: 'A very pretty treason might be made up of his speech before his armoury to Baumbach. Mark again how it went. Says he: "Here are such weaponings as no king, nor prince, nor emperor hath in Christendom. And in this country of ours are twenty gentlemen, my friends, have armouries as great ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... "I am going to wear laurels until some one tells a better—and I'd like to know why the Journalist looks so pensively thoughtful?" ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... reckon He will if He's a good God, because He'd know that lies like that are heaps better than blabbing the truth right out. Only," she added severely, "you mustn't keep saying it's wicked to lie 'cause it ain't. Sometimes I lies," she reflected pensively, "and sometimes ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... of Tommy Hayes, in spite of Rover, that marplot puppy, I had a moment's hearing, and used it manfully, and as I whispered, my heart beat thick with triumph, for she could not raise her eyes to mine, they were pensively watching the source of the rippling flood, and bright tears seemed quivering on the silken lashes, her cheeks wore a warmer scarlet, her pretty lips trembled with the fateful answer, and I was sure it wasn't no, and saw them pout, gracious heavens! to suit one of those shrill female screams ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... she answered pensively, with that distant look in her eyes. "Alice Oke was very proud, I am sure. She may have loved the poet very much, and yet been indignant with him, hated having to love him. She may have felt that she had a right to rid herself of him, and to call upon her ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... little haughtily in his turn and said slowly: "Well, from what Mrs. Blenkinsop said, the Dangerfields were barons in the Weald before they were any Hohenzollerns. And they did very well at Crecy and Agincourt, too," he added pensively. ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... having a gin fizz at the club," said Hard, pensively, "to be followed possibly by a game of bridge and a dinner—a real, human dinner, not just food—at ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... love a Bible name!" said Mother Golden, pensively. "It gives a child a good start, so to say, and makes him think when he hears himself named, or ought so to do. All our own children has Bible names, father; don't let us cut the little stranger off from ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... the assumption was not unwarrantable that Staff had never yet done anything that he had subsequently found cause to regret. Pensively punishing an inoffensive ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... this describe the devils of our carnival, rather than the majestic brother of Jupiter, at whose side upon asphodel and amaranth the sweet Persephone sits pensively contented, in that deep motionless quiet which mortals pity and which the gods enjoy; rather than him who, under the umbrage of Elysium, gazes at once upon all the beauties that on earth were separated—Helena and Eriphyle, Polyxena and Hermione, Deidamia and Deianira, Leda and Omphale, Atalanta ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... from a golden goblet, and moistened the earth, invoking the manes of wretched Patroclus. And as a father mourns, consuming the bones of his son, a bridegroom who, dying, has afflicted his unhappy parents, so mourned Achilles, burning the bones of his companion, pacing pensively beside the pile, groaning continually. But when Lucifer arrived, proclaiming light over the earth, after whom saffron-vested Morn is diffused over the sea, then the pyre grew languid, and the flame decayed; ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... revolutionists were made to suffer—altogether these things have made us melancholy, so that often when we were alone with Catherine and the little Joseph, whom God had sent to console us for so many misfortunes, Mr. Goulden would say, pensively: ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... And Charlie leaned his chin on his hand to muse pensively for a moment over the blindness of one woman who could admire an excellent old uncle more than ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... with these and go, where and among whom she cannot tell, is indeed a hard trial. I passed through her room a little while ago, and saw her sitting by the bed, leaning her arm upon it, with her head upon her hand, and looking pensively out upon the beautiful landscape that stretches far away in varied woodland, meadow, glittering stream, and distant mountain. There was a tear upon her cheek. This little messenger from within, telling of a ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... older house once, on your place," she added pensively. "Did you know that? It stood in the hollow where your lake is now. Two—three hundred years old, folks say it was. One night it burned down in a big thunderstorm. The Michells then living had your house built over by the orchard, then, an' had a dam built across so as to ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... (which also served as a greeting), he stepped onto the sidewalk and was borne off. Ludovick looked after him pensively for a moment, then shrugged. Why should the Belphins surrender their secrets to gratify the ...
— The Blue Tower • Evelyn E. Smith
... offing a last searching glance, he turned and, facing the rising sun, walked bare-footed on the elastic sand. The trailed butt of his gun made a deep furrow. The embers had ceased to smoulder. He looked down at them pensively for a while, then called over his shoulder to the girl who had remained behind, still ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... And then, Sunday morning in church, as she sat pensively wishing for a confidant, it came upon her somewhat startlingly that she already had one: Dr. Vivian was her confidant. Did he not know more about her than anybody ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... land sloped slightly and at the foot of this gentle depression trickled a musical little stream. Here was a stone lantern five feet high, also the miniature curved bridge; and to make the picture complete in every Japanese detail, leaning pensively on the railing of the bridge, stood Onoye. She herself might have been a bright colored flower in her ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... Duke pensively, and Mr. Selwyn caught him up with 'The finest type in the world. The sort of men who have made our empire what it is;' and he added somewhat confusedly, for his wife's eyes were fixed upon him, and he felt ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... a while in the room, pensively contemplating the portraits of the Three Louis. Then the sound of footsteps came to his ears, footsteps advancing from many directions, footsteps all making towards the great hall. He smiled as a man smiles who is prepared to ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... hand resting—it was noticeably podgy and squat—on the highly polished surface of the extensive writing-table, his left hand dropped, with a rather awkward negligence, over the arm of his chair. Meanwhile he gazed, as pensively as his caste of countenance permitted, at a portrait of himself, in the self-same attitude, which adorned the opposite wall. It had been presented to him by the electors of his late constituency. It was life- size and full-length. It had been painted by ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... in the grove, The blackbird and linnet and thrush, And goldfinch and sweet cooing dove, Sat pensively mute in the bush: The leaves that once wove a green shade Lay withered in heaps on the ground: Chill Winter through grove, wood, and glade Spread ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte
... to a close. In the delicious coolness of a summer evening, Aunt Patty sat upon her lowly stile, her head drooped pensively on her withered hand, as if absorbed in deep meditation. The sound of approaching footsteps aroused her, and directly a light form was at her side, while a soft voice whispered in her ear: "You are thinking of one ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... she replied. "And then I went on, that wasn't it funny by the same post we had been given two stalls for The Purple Lie to-night in a very good place in the middle of the third row? She will get the letter by lunch-time," she added pensively, "and it will be so nice for her to know that we shall be sitting almost next ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various
... Solomon—the indorsement of my own class. I feel that I shall have it here," resumed the judge pensively. ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... Rather pensively she followed the Winnebagos into Mateka after supper for evening assembly, which had been called by Dr. Grayson. Usually there was no evening assembly; Morning Sing was the only time the whole camp came together in Mateka ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... coats, and the smell of cooking in their clothes. Cordelia Street—Ah, that belonged to another time and country! Had he not always been thus, had he not sat here night after night, from as far back as he could remember, looking pensively over just such shimmering textures, and slowly twirling the stem of a glass like this one between his thumb and middle finger? He rather thought ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... and pensively by little woods and pastures, taking delight in all the quiet life I saw, the bush pricked with points of green, the boughs thickened with small reddening buds, the slow stream moving through the pasture; all the tints faint, airy, and delicate; the life of the world seemed to hang suspended, waiting ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... away, and Lewis, feeling unaccountably tired, sat down on a divan. Nelton remained on guard beside the bags, repulsing the attacks of too anxious bell-boys. To him came a large, heavy-faced person, pensively plying ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... surprising to behold. He sat and looked on, enjoying his idleness with the zest of a hard worker. The twinkle of amusement faded gradually from his face, and the sadness that Hadria had noticed the day before, returned to his eyes. She was leaning against the dyke, pensively enjoying her festive meal. The dark fresh blue of her gown, and the unwonted tinge of colour in her cheeks, gave a vigorous and healthful impression, in harmony with the weather-beaten stones and the windy ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... not take much space in a calendar, nor much time to live; yet in the four that came just after Andy's discovery, he accomplished much, even in his own modest reckoning. He had taught the girl to watch for his coming and to stand pensively in the door with many good-bye messages when he said he must hit the trail. He had formed definite plans for the future and had promised her quite seriously that he would cut out gambling, and never touch liquor in any form—unless the snake was ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... "if I am goin' to enter political life, I must begin to practise sometime. I must begin to do as they all do. And it is a crackin' good shovel too," says he pensively. ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... at Clementine with all the fire of his soul in his eyes, though, even so, its flame was tempered by the angelic gratitude of the man whose life was based upon that virtue. The countess folded her arms in her shawl, lay back pensively on her cushions, ruffling the feathers of her pretty bonnet, and looked at the people who passed her. That flash of a great and hitherto resigned soul reached her sensibilities. What was Adam's merit in her eyes? It was natural enough to have courage ...
— Paz - (La Fausse Maitresse) • Honore de Balzac
... alert attention. W. Keyse, pensively boring the sandy earth with the pneumatic auger of imagination, in search of the loved one believed to inhabit the Convent bomb-proof, was recalled to the surface by the curtly-uttered command, and knew the thrill of hero-worship as Beauvayse threw out his lightly-clenched hand, and the troopers, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... pensively, "did you not this morning tell me that he absolutely refused to write against the Republicans? The news that circulated had terrified him, and he was as pale ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... is in full progress. A shepherdess blindfolds with her hand the shepherd whose head is resting in her lap, and his comrades stand ready to take advantage of his helpless position. Various modest sheep pretend they are not looking, another man calls to his friend in the distance, and a fifth is pensively playing a hautbois in the usual miraculous countryside with artistically disposed tufts of clouds above it. ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... in the course of which Mme. Chose (that brilliant woman) leaned suddenly across the table to me, and, with great animation, amidst a general hush, launched at me a particularly swift flight of winged words. With pensively narrowed eyes, I uttered my formula when she ceased. This formula she repeated, in a tone even more pensive than mine. 'Mais je ne le connais pas,' she then loudly exclaimed. 'Je ne connais pas meme le nom. Dites-moi de ce ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... not a word. The breeze was dead. The leaf lay without whispering on the tree, As I lay at her feet. Droop'd was her head: One hand in mine: and one still pensively Went wandering through my hair. We were together. How? Where? What matter? Somewhere in a dream, Drifting, slow drifting down a wizard stream: Whither? Together: ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... other, to form the great curve of the shore line. She must have passed this place dozens of times while riding in the lake boats. Here was a scene she had admired many times from the open shore, and now she was looking at it from behind bars, a prisoner. It was too grotesque to be true. She turned pensively toward the bed and noticed with a start that a tray containing breakfast for two stood on the shelf beside the elevator. And yet she had not heard a sound! Gladys was still asleep on the bed. As ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... a fairy-tale, Virginia, and it is an extremely good one for a little girl like you to make up out of her own head. But you know in real life it is different." Margaret Elizabeth gazed pensively into the fire. ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... gone, occasionally making a little run forward to save himself from tumbling on his nose, and then pulling suddenly up, and throwing up his arms in order to avoid falling on his back. Sometimes he halted altogether,—and swayed to and fro, gazing, meanwhile, pensively at the ground, as if he were wondering why it had taken to rolling and earthquaking in that preposterous manner; or were thinking on the bald-headed mother he had left behind him in the African wilderness. When the loud laugh of the men saluted his ears, Jacko looked ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... carol I stood pensively, As one that from a casement leans his head, When midnight bells cease ringing suddenly, And the ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... intervened, the enthusiasm of the night had somewhat subsided. "Whence came the inspiration of Moses?" flew up to his mind almost as soon as he opened his eyes on the sunlit world. He threw open the protrusive casement of his bedroom to the balmy air, tinged with a whiff of salt, and gazed pensively at the white town rambling down towards the shining river. Had God indeed revealed Himself on Mount Sinai? But this fresh doubt was banished by the renewed suspicion which, after having disturbed his dreams in nebulous ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the summit of a hill, the pig, much exhausted, sat down on its hams, and gazed pensively at the ground. Bumpus took advantage of the fact, and also sat down on ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... of the situation struck Robb, and he laughed silently in a chair. But by degrees his face sobered, and he gazed pensively out of the window, a shade of sadness reflected in his countenance. At length he rose and taking the flasks from the dresser emptied their contents in a basin. Then he took off the sleeper's shoes and ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... But he pensively rubbed his sagacious nose, And thus his prescription ran, - The King will be well, if he sleeps one night In the Shirt ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... Pensively Lavinia walked towards the cottage. She had told herself over and over again that she cared no more for Lancelot—that she had blotted him out of her life—that she wanted neither to see him nor to hear of him. Yet now that he had gone through so terrible an ordeal she had a yearning to offer him ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... leaving, the headmaster gave me a second prize. This soothed my hurt feelings, and I remember, just after the 'head' had read out the prizes, on the last day of term, E., coming up to me, putting his arm on my shoulder, looking at me rather pensively, and in a voice that thrilled me and made me wish to kiss and hug him, tell me he was so glad I had got a prize and that it was a shame that other chap had beaten ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Susy, Lucy and Lizzie were having a select tea party in their own recess, the entrance to which was barricaded with chairs to keep out the "babies," as they called the little ones, who were much offended at being excluded and sat up in the cushioned window-seat pensively watching the rain. ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... service. But, although the arming of these men indicated hostile preparation, there was none of that buoyancy of movement and animation of feature to be observed, which so usually characterise the indomitable daring of the British sailor. Some stood leaning their heads pensively on their hands against the rigging and hammocks that were stowed away along the bulwarks, after the fashion of war ships in boarding; others, with arms tightly folded across their chests, spirted the tobacco juice thoughtfully ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... a slip of paper for lighting tapers—a spill, as it is called—into fragments. She threw morsel by morsel into the fire, and stood pensively watching them consume. She ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... pensively (almost too pensively) that he had supposed that was the line I would take. It was his little meditative pose that made me call him a thundering scallywag and accuse him of having calculated on the line that would ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... last—and alone. Stopping at the rail not more than an arm's length from where he sat, she gazed pensively up at the solemn mistress of the valley, one slim hand at her bosom, the other hanging limp at her side. He could have touched that slender hand by merely stretching forth his own. Breathless, enthralled, he sat as one deprived ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... political principles which his uncle, the Emperor, had borne upon his banners throughout Europe. The subsequent life of this child has proved how deep was the impression produced upon his mind, as pensively, silently he listened to the conversation of the statesmen and the generals who often visited his mother's parlor. Lady Blessington about this time visited Hortense, and she gives the following account of the impression which the ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... if I had, I should certainly have run back, told him what had passed, and asked him to take me back to Mrs. Williams, instead of sending me away with strangers. But no cart came in view, and a turning in the road soon hid even the cottage from my sight. I then walked pensively forward, meditating on my own unhappy fate, and comparing it with that of other children who were blessed with parents and relations. Mr. and Mrs. Sharpley had frequently looked back, as if to see that I followed ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... scene. This is the position in which the dramatis personae were disposed: Princess Ligovski and the Moscow dandy were sitting on a bench in the covered gallery—apparently engaged in serious conversation. Princess Mary, who had doubtless by this time finished her last tumbler, was walking pensively to and fro by the well. Grushnitski was standing by the well itself; there was ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... was sitting, smoking his pipe after breakfast, at the door of his log cabin, looking pensively out upon the tree-stump-encumbered field which constituted his farm. He had facetiously named his residence the Mountain House, in consequence of there being neither mountain nor hill larger than an inverted wash-hand basin, within ten miles of him! He was wont to defend the misnomer on the ground ...
— Fort Desolation - Red Indians and Fur Traders of Rupert's Land • R.M. Ballantyne
... Dale pensively, "you've made a good many 'good' bargains. I wonder when you'll make your last! There's more than one looking for 'interest' on those bargains in a ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... a ladie did I spie, That thinking yet on her I burne and quake: On hearbs and flowres she walked pensively; Milde, but yet love she proudly did forsake: White seem'd her robes, yet woven so they were As snow and golde together had been wrought: Above the wast a darke clowde shrouded her. A stinging serpent by the heele her caught; Wherewith she languisht as the gathered floure, And, well assur'd, she ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... looked earnestly after him until he turned the corner of the great Cathedral, when, wiping her eyes, she went into the house and sat down pensively for some minutes. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... know what happens to gossips,—gossip takes a good deal of time elsewhere,—and somehow everybody does his share of work, so that all of us do have a good deal of what you call 'leisure.' Whether," he added pensively, "in a world God put us into that we might love each other, and learn to love,—whether the time we spend in society, or the time we spend caged behind our office desks, is the time which should be called devoted to the 'business of life,' ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... friend was rolling a smoke before he cranked up. "They tell me up in Lund that no man livin' ever got the chance to look back and see Casey Ryan swallowing dust. I've heard of some that's tried. But I reckon," he added pensively, while he rubbed the damp edge of the paper down carefully with a yellowed thumb, "Fords is out of your line, now. Maybe you don't toy with nothin' ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... easier, as well as more accurate," said the Commandant, pensively regarding the Sergeant's legs, "to call them trews. Not," he went on inconsequently, "that I have anything to say against the Highland Regiments. I was brigaded once for three months with the Forth-Second, and capital fellows ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch |
