"Meditation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... weakness for Laurent in the mocking and libertine sense that one gives to this word in love. It was by an act of her will, after nights of sorrowful meditation, that she said to him—"I wish what thou wishest, because we have come to that point where the fault to be committed is the inevitable reparation of a series of committed faults. I have been guilty towards thee in not ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... said Jane, after standing awkwardly for a moment in meditation, "how a girl's goin' to be much of a woman that amounts to anything one of these days if she's nothin' to do now but dirty work at ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton
... without support and without employment—its isolation and dryness occasion great pain, and the thoughts assail it most grievously. Persons in this condition must have greater purity of conscience than those who can make use of their understanding; for he who can use his intellect in the way of meditation on what the world is, on what he owes to God, on the great sufferings of God for him, his own scanty service in return, and on the reward God reserves for those who love Him, learns how to defend himself against his own thoughts, and against the occasions and perils of sin. On the other hand, ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... old man's bower, deep in meditation; thoughtfully we strolled along the beach, inspiring the musky, midnight air; the tropical stars glistening in heaven, like drops ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... character, with an inner eye intent on penetrating to the lowest depth of motive and cause, to the furthest complexity of impulse, calculation, and subtle incentive. The spirit of analysis is not in him, and the divine spirit of meditation is not in him. His whole mind runs in action and movement; it busies itself with eager interest in all objective particulars. He is seized by the external and the superficial, and revels in every detail that appeals to the ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley
... landscape was spread before her without conveying impressions, as we gaze into the void of the firmament with our looks on vacuum. Sigismund had disappeared among the walls of the vineyards, when she arose, and drew such a sigh as is apt to escape us after long and painful meditation. But the eyes of the high-minded girl were bright and her cheek flushed, while the whole of her features wore an expression of loftier beauty than ordinarily distinguished even her loveliness. Her own resolution was formed. She had decided with the rare and generous self-devotion ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... the stranger's face, I judged him to be about fifty years of age. The features were delicate and refined in type, the eyes dark and deep-sunken, but full of intelligence and thought, and the whole aspect of the man denoted good birth, a nature given to study and meditation, and a life of much sorrowful experience. Two other travelers occupied our carriage until Amiens was reached. They then left us, and the interesting stranger and I remained alone together. "A bitter ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... the ancient practice of the Jews, of dedicating the sabbath day, not to idleness, but to the learning their sacred rites and religious customs, and to the meditation on the law of Moses; the like to which we meet with elsewhere in Josephus also against Apion, ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... pleasures in the world is to walk alone, and at night, (while they are yet crowded) through the long lamp-lit streets of this huge metropolis. There, even more than in the silence of woods and fields, seems to me the source of endless, various meditation. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various
... "The agitation, the frenzy, the sorrow of the times, reacted upon the human intellect, and FORCED men into meditation. Their own nature was held up before them in a sterner form. They were compelled to contemplate an ideal of man, far more colossal than is brought forward in the tranquil aspects of society; and they were often engaged, whether they ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... deal of noise. Chancing to pass through the hall, I found Paulina sitting alone on the lowest step of the staircase, her eyes fixed on the glossy panels of the dining-room door, where the reflection of the hall-lamp was shining; her little brow knit in anxious, meditation. ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... painted a moonlight sketch of it, and Seton, who came by one day, helped me dedicate its firehole. In the light of its embers, he and I renewed our youth while smoking the beautiful Pipe of Meditation, which a young Cheyenne chief had given me in ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... of the year 1798 found the Commander sitting, at the hour of evening prayers, alone in the guardroom. He no longer attended the services of the Holy Church, but crept away at such times to some solitary spot, where he spent the interval in silent meditation. The firelight played upon the low beams and rafters, but left the bowed figure of Salvatierra in darkness. Sitting thus, he felt a small hand touch his arm, and looking down, saw the figure of Paquita, his little Indian pupil, at his knee. "Ah, littlest of all," ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... unfrequently happens that single individuals are to be found, who, though very disadvantageously situated with regard to the ordinary means of grace, have received truly saving impressions, and, through a blessing on secret meditation, reading, and prayer, are led to the closest communion with God, and become eminently devoted Christians. It is the no small error of too many professors of the present day, to overlook or undervalue the instances of ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... sat moodily in his lodge on a small island at the head of the river, whither he was accustomed to retreat for quiet and meditation. Only his favorite daughter was with him, and she was striving in vain to find words of comfort that should banish the dark cloud from his face. To this place, according to his order, were brought the prisoners who had defeated his plan of attack on ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... Josiah to come, for he is an old man and lives a full mile above the village, half way up the ridge-side. He is very fat, too, from much meditation, and to aid his thin legs in moving his bulky body he carries a very long stick, which he uses like a paddle to propel him; so when you see him in the distance he seems to be standing in a canoe, sweeping it along. Really he is only navigating the road. He had a clothes-prop ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... so. These sisters were Mrs. Painter, Green and Marvin. I also prayed for myself. In about ten days from that time I was in my sitting room. It was raining. A minister and his daughter were at our house (Mr. Laurance, a Baptist). We were all quietly reading in the room. I was in meditation, praying and saying: "Just now, blessed Father, give me the witness." Then a wonderful thing took place, which it is not "lawful" or possible for me to utter. Something was poured on top of my bead, running all over and through me, which I call divine electricity. ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... himself had opportunity for meditation, and this had softened his mood to some degree. He admitted to himself that her interest in the wives of his workmen had been the prime factor in their determination to endure a temporary cut in the wage-scale without striking. To be sure, his own attitude of confidential intercourse with the leaders ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... oneself." The supreme feature of religious life for Sylvia had for its emblem the tinkle of the bell at the service she always called Mass. The coming of the Presence—that was the C Major of life for Sylvia. For the rest, meditation, preferably in the setting provided by St. Jude's, with its permanent aroma of incense and its dim lights—the world shut out by stained glass—this, with prayer, genuflections, and the ecstasy of long thought upon the circumstances of the supreme act of Christ's life upon earth, seemed ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... of nature and of grace, Thy heavenly gifts impart; Then shall my meditation trace Spring blooming in ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... Art, its noblest daughter well deserves that place of honor,—Miss Florence Nightingale begins her late volume with a paraphrase of his statement. But from a very early time to this there has always been a strong party against "Nature." Themison called the practice of Hippocrates "a meditation upon death." Dr. Rush says: "It is impossible to calculate the mischief which Hippocrates, has done, by first marking Nature with his name and afterwards letting her loose upon sick people. Millions have perished by her hands ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... instant before the arrival of the blessed fact, he had been absorbed in a rather abstruse metaphysico-mathematical question; now not the metaphysics of the universe would have appeared to him worth a moment's meditation. He went pacing up and down the room, and seemed lost to everything. Gibbie shook him at length, and told him, by two signs, that he must put on his Sunday clothes. Then first shyness, like the shroud of northern myth that lies in wait in a man's path, leaped up, and wrapped itself ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... feet. Above him a huge wreath of thin smoke hung in the air. Had I been a painter, I should have wished to lay that picture upon canvas, because seldom could one see expressed so completely the evening of an honest day and of an honorable life, the tranquillity of home, the comfort of meditation, the affection for faithful dog, old ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... science, let this evidence be set before all our youth so distinctly, and the facts for which it appears inculcated upon them so steadily, that although it may be possible for the evil conduct of after life to efface, or for its earnest and protracted meditation to modify, the impressions of early years, it may not be possible for our young men, the instant they emerge from their academies, to scatter themselves like a flock of wild fowl risen out of a marsh, and drift away on every irregular wind of ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... to each explanatory of their quality and locality. The geological specimens have been collected by Messrs. Cuvier and Bronguiart; weeks might be passed in this museum by those partial to studying mineralogy, geology, and conchology, and subjects for examination and meditation would still not be exhausted. We will now turn into the gardens of the Luxembourg Palace; they are in the true French stiff style, but look at them in a slanting direction and all the formality is lost; the statues ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... had often thought, though with a feeling of renunciation, that the perfection of a wedding-dress would be a white cotton, with the tiniest pink sprig at wide intervals; so that when Mrs. Godfrey Cass begged to provide one, and asked Eppie to choose what it should be, previous meditation had enabled her to give a decided ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... forgetfulness? And when the overwhelming burst of grief is calmed into the gentle tear of recollection, when the sudden anguish and the convulsive agony over the present ruins of all that we most loved, is softened away into pensive meditation on all that it was in the days of its loveliness, who would root out such a sorrow from the heart? Though it may sometimes throw a passing cloud even over the bright hour of gayety, yet who would exchange it even for the song of pleasure ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... his last hour was nigh, and bid us go to see him. Thus it came to pass that in two following days we had to stand by a death-bed. On each lay an old man departing to the other world, and meseemed their end had fallen so close together to yield warning and meditation to our young souls. Now, as I toiled up the steep turret-stair, after flying, yesterday, up the matted steps of the wealthy house of the Im Hoffs, meseemed that the two men's lives had been like to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... saw in this second day's accessible nest-swarm would warrant a season's meditation and study, but one thing impressed me above all others. Sometimes, when I carefully pried open one section and looked deep within, I could see large chambers with the larvae in piles, besides being held in the mandibles of the components of the walls ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... a grave and thoughtful child, as you will remember. Last night she had the usual dream. This morning she stood apart (after telling it,) for some time, looking vacantly at the floor, and absorbed in meditation. At last she looked up, and with the pathos of one who feels he has not been dealt by with even-handed fairness, said "But Mamma, the trouble is, that I am never the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... stream, one life, one blood, One sustenance, which, still as thought grew large, Still larger moulding all the house of thought, Perchance assimilated all our tastes And future fancies. 'Tis a beautiful And pleasant meditation, what whate'er Our general mother meant for me alone, Our mutual mother dealt to both of us: So what was earliest mine in earliest life, I shared with her in whom myself remains. As was our childhood, so our infancy, They tell me, was a very ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... prominent personage of the story; and her shallow malice and pretty deviltries are most effectively represented. She is not only a flirt in outward actions, but a flirt in soul, and her perfection in impertinence almost rises to genius. All these characters betray patient meditation, and the author's hold on them is rarely relaxed. A novel evincing so much intellectual labor, written in a style of such careful elaboration, and exhibiting so much skill in the development of the story, can scarcely fail of a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... the banner and at the moving people and was lost in meditation. Walking from behind the cashier's desk he stood in the street by the door and stared about. A fire began to burn in his eyes and the fists that were thrust into his coat pockets were clenched. Again as when he was a boy in Coal Creek he hated the people. The fine love of mankind that had its ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... should be advised to practise it. But those are not to be censured who make use of vocal prayer during Mass, provided they do so with attention and piety in the very spirit of the mystery;—since there is nothing in prayer but what is good, and because, moreover, every one has not the talent of meditation. ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... explains this by saying these men went up to heaven; but Maimonides much more rationally teaches that the Paradise or garden here is merely the retreat of profound philosophic meditation. These five intuitions were;—(1.) To know that there is a God; (2.) to ignore every other beside Him; (3.) to feel His unity; (4.) to love His person; and (5.) to stand in awe of His Majesty (see Vad Hachaz, chap. 4, sec. 19). Deep thought in these matters was spoken of by the Rabbis ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... the past, but there is the sweetness of meditation in the present, and in the future there is God. Like a fountain flowing amid a summer of leaves and song, the sweet hours came with quiet and melodious murmur. In the great arm-chair of his ancestors he sits ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... Zen (dhyand, meditation), Buddhist sect of contemplation; and Hojo Tokimune; the soldier's creed; and intercourse with China; priests and literature and art; tea ceremonial; favoured by the Ashikaga; great priests; ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... upon the hills that night, and smoked a great many cigars in gloomy meditation. He was thinking of two girls, as young men who smoke a great many cigars without counting them often are; he was also thinking of Arizona. He had fully made up his mind to resign, and depart for that problematic region as soon ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... a whale's tooth to the temple and presented it to the priest. The man of god might have had word of his coming and time to throw himself into an appropriate attitude. He might, for example, be seen lying on the floor near the sacred corner, plunged in a profound meditation. On the entrance of the enquirer the priest would rouse himself so far as to get up and then seat himself with his back to the white cloth, down which the deity was expected to slide into the medium's body. Having received the whale's tooth he would abstract his mind from all worldly matters and ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... on account of the spontaneity and direct appeal of its themes, is undoubtedly the most popular. It contains a first movement of a quasi-Mendelssohnian suavity and lyric charm; a slow movement which is a meditation of the profundity of Bach himself; a third movement, allegretto, based on a delightful waltz of the Viennese Laendler type and a Finale of a Mozartian freshness and vigor—the second theme being specially notable for its broad sweep. The whole work is a convincing example of Brahms's ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... the retired perfumer wiped his eyes, which were full of tears. The sincerity of his grief touched Madame Hulot, and roused her from the meditation into ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... had Brunelli gone to his own private cabinet, where, having shut himself up, he had devoted several hours to serious meditation upon the deep plans presenting themselves to his mind. But Signor Brunelli had, in fact, a very experienced and inventive head, and the cardinal acted wisely in confiding in his major-domo and leaving to him the ordering ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... milk pails on their heads. Others show members of the family enjoying themselves in the garden or setting out for a ride, while the clergyman of the parish, or the chaplain, is pacing one of the walks in solitary meditation, with ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... not prepared herself to endure suspense. She spent nearly a week at Twickenham in this anxious state, and Belinda observed that she every day became more and more thoughtful and reserved. She seemed as if she had some secret subject of meditation, from which she could not bear to be distracted. When Helena was present, she exerted herself to converse in her usual sprightly strain; but as soon as she could escape, as she thought, unobserved, she would shut herself up in her own apartment, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... in love with her, if he knew what love meant. Ever since he had first seen her he had been interested and attracted, more and more interested and attracted, until he was scarcely able to think of anything except Rachel. But just as he was sliding into one of the long feasts of meditation about them both, he checked himself by asking whether he wanted to marry her? That was the real problem, for these miseries and agonies could not be endured, and it was necessary that he should make up his ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... From spray to spray, where'er he rests he shakes From many a twig the pendent drops of ice, That tinkle in the withered leaves below. Stillness, accompanied with sounds so soft, Charms more than silence. Meditation here May think down hours to moments. Here the heart May give a useful lesson to the head, And learning wiser grow without his books. Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one, Have ofttimes no connection. Knowledge dwells In heads replete with thoughts of other ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... to be unsatisfying: they thought it natural to renounce the world and mortify the flesh: divergent systems of ritual, theology and self-denial promised happiness but all agreed in thinking it normal as well as laudable that a man should devote his life to meditation and study. Compared with this frame of mind the teaching of the Buddha is not unsocial, unpractical and mysterious but human, business-like and clear. We are inclined to see in the monastic life which he recommended little but a useless ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... did it prettily, delighting him as his fellows have ever been delighted by their womankind. When a man is made to believe that a woman, looking upon him thoughtfully, has lost herself in meditation over him, that man needs be an extremely cold-blooded individual in order to trim his sheets, set a lookout, ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... ascertain the species of these plants, their form, colour, and aspect having been changed by the absence of light. These traces of organization amidst darkness forcibly excited the curiosity of the natives, who examined them with silent meditation inspired by a place they seemed to dread. They evidently regarded these subterranean plants, pale and deformed, as phantoms banished from the face of the earth. To me the scene recalled one of the happiest periods of my early youth, a long abode in the mines ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... services in the monastery church. The first service came usually about two o'clock in the morning; the last, just as evening set in, before the monks retired to rest. In addition to their attendance at church, the monks spent several hours in reading from the Bible, private prayer, and meditation. For most of the day, however, they worked hard with their hands, doing the necessary washing and cooking for the monastery, raising the necessary supplies of vegetables and grain, and performing all the other tasks required to maintain a large establishment. ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... The southbound flyer had gone through. The Briskows were sitting in the pleasant parlor of their handsome suite, but they were like three mourners. Ma and Pa were soberly discussing the news about Buddy, Allegheny was staring in somber meditation at nothing. The girl was bitter, rebellious, for never had she felt so utterly alone as at this moment. To that question which monotonously repeated itself, she could form no answer. Did he care, or was it ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... to-day, and she was distinctly grateful to John Cardigan for his nice consideration in sparing her an interview. She seated herself in the lumberjack's easy-chair so lately vacated, and chin in hand gave herself up to meditation on this extraordinary old man and his ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... may stop behind; we are at peace; there is no demand for arms.—Whom have we here? whose is this knitted Drow, this flowing beard? 'Tis some reverend sage, if outside goes for anything; he mutters; he is wrapped in meditation. ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... hand and eyes avoiding the pain of mourning in Tiedus' fixed gaze, Carson lost himself in gloomy meditation. As he thought back over the events of the past few days he could scarcely believe they had actually occurred or that he was sitting here in a mystery car, speeding through the rank atmosphere of an ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... presence are yet admitted within the secret chamber of God. Let no man think that flesh and blood can suddenly attain to that comfort; and therefore most expedient it is, that we be frequently exercised in meditation of the same. Easy it is, I grant, in time of prosperity, to say, and to think, that God is our God, and that we are his people; but when he has given us over into the hands of our enemies, and turned, as it were, his back unto us, then, I say, still to ...
— The Pulpit Of The Reformation, Nos. 1, 2 and 3. • John Welch, Bishop Latimer and John Knox
... whiles that my daylie cares did sleepe, My spirit, shaking off her earthly prison, Began to enter into meditation deepe Of things exceeding reach of common reason; Such as this age, in which all good is geason*, And all that humble is and meane** debaced, Hath brought forth in her last declining season, Griefe of good mindes, to see goodnesse disgraced! On which when as my thought was throghly@ ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... kinds of childish liberties with the Doctor, and with his pipe, and with everything appertaining to him except his spiders and his cobwebs."—All of which goes to show that Hawthorne first conceived his characters in the mood of the "Twice-Told Tales," and then by meditation solidified them to the inimitable flesh-and-blood of "The House of the Seven ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... be described as a painting whereof the frame constitutes the most impressive part. It is a fit dwelling place for the hermit who from inward meditation amid hazy meadows, dreamy cows, and peaceful little towns can easily turn to the contemplation of the greatest revelations of the gods - the vast heavens, the clouds and the sea. But toward the people he must learn to ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... of this extraordinary intrigue would be imperfect, if it were not added that there is still extant a religious meditation, written by the Treasurer, with his own hand, on the very same day on which the intelligence of his attempt to govern his master by means of a concubine was despatched by Bonrepaux to Versailles. No composition of Ken or Leighton breathes a spirit of more fervent and exalted piety ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... hope in his aspect. He lay back upon his couch with a dreamy abstraction in his gaze. The gambols of his canine favourites passed unnoticed by him. He had been reading news that stirred him deeply, and he had fallen into a meditation. ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... to introduce this jocular note into our meditation, for we are honestly aggrieved that so many of the Christmas cards hark back to an old tradition that is gone, and never attempt to express any of the romance of to-day. You may protest that Christmas is the oldest thing in the world, ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... truthful garb. Plug hats and coats of a latest Tammany style And "pleasure saturnine" did figure cut When first thy mouth did voice the burning thoughts That trickled from a brain much overwrought By meditation on conditions here Which bore so heavy on this ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... admirable work On Ireland, give several other anecdotes, told by their guide, Wynder, which illustrate the saint's goodness of heart in rather an improbable way. "One day, when he had retired to keep the forty days of Lent, in fasting, meditation, and prayer, as he was holding his hand out of the window, a blackbird came and laid her four eggs in it; and the saint, pitying the bird, and unwilling to disturb her, never drew in his hand, but kept it stretched out until she had brought ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... whole figure, and perhaps, especially, in the uncommonly well-formed nose; yet it was by peering into her eyes that one first obtained the idea of a womanhood somewhat superior to the generality of her sex. Their expression was not to be caught at once: they told of both meditation and resolve, and hinted at irony or badinage, which works so queerly when it comes from deep ground. The other lady was "burgherly-genteel," a handsome, cultivated girl, had certainly also some soul, but ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... serious. In a cave on Mount Hira, near Mecca, he spent several weeks every year in prayer and religious meditation. He declared that, while praying in his cave, he often had visions of God and heaven. He said that many times the angel Gabriel appeared to him and revealed to him the religion which he afterwards taught his followers. As he himself ...
— Famous Men of the Middle Ages • John H. Haaren
... viharas or monasteries were also cut in the rock (Figs. 41, 42), and were divided into cells or chambers; they were several storeys in height, and it is probable that the cells were used by devout Buddhists as habitations for the purposes of meditation. ...
— Architecture - Classic and Early Christian • Thomas Roger Smith
... | [20] The first is from a poem in free-verse, Meditation, by | | Richard Aldington; the second is blank verse, from the Small | | Sweet Idyl in Tennyson's Princess; the third is from | | Henley's Margaritae Sorori (also in free-verse); the fourth | | is from DeQuincey's English Mail-Coach, Dream Fugue IV | | (prose); ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... dark one gusty evening in the autumn of 18-, I was enjoying the twofold luxury of meditation and a meerschaum, in company with my friend C. Auguste Dupin, in his little back library, or book-closet, au troisieme, No. 33, Rue Dunot, Faubourg St. Germain. For one hour at least we had maintained a profound silence; while each, to any casual observer, might have ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... time for peaceful meditation," said the captain; "you git aft and keep a sharp eye abeam, and if you see any boat creepin' through the fog, even if it's an innercent looking fishin' boat, you ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... seen Florence and her baby for a moment, to his unbounded content, and having had a long talk with Walter, turned out for a walk; feeling it necessary to have some solitary meditation on the changes of human affairs, and to shake his glazed hat profoundly over the fall of Mr Dombey, for whom the generosity and simplicity of his nature were awakened in a lively manner. The Captain would have been very low, indeed, on the unhappy gentleman's account, but for ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... that which is beauty itself, proceeding as on steps from the love of one form to that of two, and from that of two, to that of all forms which are beautiful; and from beautiful forms to beautiful habits and institutions, and from institutions to beautiful doctrines; until, from the meditation of many doctrines, they arrive at that which is nothing else than the doctrine of the supreme beauty itself, in the knowledge and contemplation of which ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... growth, being without pre-meditation or original intention. A visit to Scotland was the embryo; out of this seed sprang a stereopticon lecture on "The Martyrs of Scotland;" the lecture developed into an illustrated serial which was published in the CHRISTIAN NATION; and the serial, at the request of many readers, developed ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... be lost in meditation. He sat in a rude arm-chair under his favorite fig tree, and his eyes were fixed intently upon the road that wound away from the manor house, through the broad gate, and across the brown sward until ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... for life, but which will recur for all that, and which, whenever they do recur, will stir us more deeply than we like to confess to others, or even to ourselves. It is true that with us one day only out of seven is set apart for rest and meditation, and for the consideration of what the Greeks called [Greek: ta megista]—"the greatest things." It is true that that seventh day also is passed by many of us either in mere church-going routine or in thoughtless rest. But whether ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... person is lost in meditation his eyes often appear as if fixed on a distant object (470/3. The appearance is due to divergence of the lines of vision produced by muscular relaxation. See "Expression of the Emotions," Edition II., page 239.), and the lower eyelids may be seen to ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... apparatus from above, causing it to descend suddenly. When sailing near the ground, these vicissitudes can be counteracted by movements of the body from three to four inches; but this has to be done instantly, for neither wings nor gravity will wait on meditation. At a height of three hundred or four hundred feet the regulating mechanism would probably take care of these wind-gusts, as it does, in fact, for their minor variations. The speed of the machine is generally about seventeen miles an hour over ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... accustomed to perpetual corn-bread and sausages, he knows how to appreciate unlimited turkey and plum pudding; and when he is used to gloomy evenings, in which Uncle Kittredge holds the one feeble kerosene lamp between himself and a newspaper, Aunt Kittredge knits in silent meditation on blue yarn stockings, he knows how good it is to have the house filled with lights and people, jolly games going on in the parlour, and candy-pulling in the kitchen. All these delights were directly before Jason Kittredge as he dangled his legs from the stone wall and whittled away at the ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... I know not how long in my meditation, till I was roused by a gentle touch upon my shoulder; I looked ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... he was fond of saying, and those words of the Psalmist might stand for a motto at the head of his works. Traditionary art represents him with his heart in his hand, and the sentiment is true, for "great-hearted" is the epithet which best suits him, and those who use these pages for meditation or spiritual reading will find that whereas S. Thomas teaches how we ought to pray, S. Augustine makes us pray; not in vain had he studied and taught rhetoric ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas
... sight! Gallows birds are ye all—now in the devil's name will you not begone? There are none left now but the good souls who love to laugh; not the snivelers who burst into tears in prose or verse, whatever their subject be, who make people sick with their odes, their sonnets, their meditation; none of these dreamers, but certain old-fashioned pantagruellists who don't think twice about it when they are invited to join a banquet or provoked to make a repartee, who can take pleasure in ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... were so closely watching the movements of Bristow and his companions belonged to Bob Owens. The latter had strolled off alone, and thrown himself behind an angle of the ruined wall to indulge in a few moments' quiet meditation, and thus unwillingly placed himself in a position to overhear the details of the plot which we have just disclosed. If Bristow had not so promptly entered upon the discussion of the subject of desertion, Bob would ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon
... unwelcome theme; Nay every meditation, every dream, Th'inexplicable sentence held to view, 'They're not both mine,' was every morning new: For, till this hour, the Maid had never prov'd How far she was enthrall'd, how much she lov'd: In that fond character he first appear'd; His ...
— Rural Tales, Ballads, and Songs • Robert Bloomfield
... at this part of his life began also to withdraw himself, and to go apart to lonely spots for meditation. What he meditated we see from his sayings and doings afterwards. The contrast between the pure religion of Allah, as held by the Hanyfs, and the popular religion of Mecca with which his birth connected him, with its trade associations, ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... every afternoon, after he had worked seven or eight hours on St. Ambrose or St. Chrysostom, to walk for a while in meditation among the roses. And this was usually one of the most productive moments of his day. But even a sincere appetite for thought, and the excitement of grave problems awaiting solution, are not always sufficient to preserve the mind of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... saying himself, "Where there are two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I also even in the very midst of them." Why should not then reason, I say, thus furthered with faith and grace, be much more able first to engender in us such an affection, and afterward, by long and deep meditation thereof, so to continue that affection that it shall turn into a habitual purpose, fast-rooted and deep, of patiently suffering the painful death of this body here in earth for the gaining of everlasting wealthy ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... inexhaustible store. Crouching, always singing, on the twig of a suitable shrub or bush, she perforates the firm, glossy rind, distended by the sap which the sun has matured. Plunging her proboscis into the bung-hole, she drinks deliciously, motionless, and wrapt in meditation, abandoned to the charms ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... writer is itself a fact more important because less disputable than the others. Now this spirit in which a subject is regarded, important in all kinds of literary work, becomes all-important in works of fiction, meditation, or rhapsody; for there it not only colours but itself chooses the facts; not only modifies but shapes the work. And hence, over the far larger proportion of the field of literature, the health or disease ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... shaded eyes, the summer moon In tender meditation downward glances At the dark earth, far-set in dim expanses, And, welcomer than blazoned gold of noon, Down through the air her steady lights are strewn. The breezy forests sigh in moonlit trances, And the full-hearted poet, ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... characters of Shakspeare are so much the objects of meditation rather than of interest or curiosity as to their actions, that while we are reading any of his great criminal characters,—Macbeth, Richard, even Iago,—we think not so much of the crimes which they commit, ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... His authority and example had induced some of his brethren, who had at first wavered, to resign their benefices. The day of suspension came; the day of deprivation came; and still he was firm. He seemed to have found, in the consciousness of rectitude, and in meditation on the invisible world, ample compensation for all his losses. While excluded from the pulpit where his eloquence had once delighted the learned and polite inmates of the Temple, he wrote that celebrated Treatise ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... is most profound and most touching must ever be the simplest. Whenever AEschylus, Dante, Shakspere, Milton, are at white heat they require no exposition, but meditation only—the meditation akin to the sentiment of little children who listen, intent upon every syllable, and passionately eager of soul, to hearth-side tragedies. The play of genius is like the movement of the sea. It has its solemn rhythm: its joy, irradiate of the sun; its melancholy, ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... they treated with a negligence, as if they did not know whether they dealt with them or not. This is a very heavy accusation, both of me and such as the man aggrieved accuses me of tolerating. For this reason, I resolved to take this matter into consideration; and, upon very little meditation, could call to my memory many instances which made this complaint far from being groundless. The root of this evil does not always proceed from injustice in the men of figure, but often from a false grandeur which they take upon them in being unacquainted ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... In silent meditation she looks back over all the years in which she has tried to rear a creditable member of the race and society. If, after honest review, down in her heart she can truthfully say, "I have raised my child to the best of my knowledge," then she may ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley
... from the very deed to which the prophetic greetings stimulate him. So, again, in Hamlet, the intimations of the Ghost touching "the secrets of its prison-house" kindle the hero full of "thoughts beyond the reaches of his soul," which entrance him in meditation, unstring his resolution, and render him morally incapable of the office to which that same Ghost ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... ladies with up-turned eyes, called in the annual catalogues "Meditation," that we will not interrupt the calm of Mr Cope's. C.G. Lewis has but one plate, "A Woodland Dell." A quiet spot of shade and flickering sunshine—a streamlet, and a rural bridge. It is sweetly etched, true to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... development of our deepest affections that some sad and sombre moments should be interchanged with hours of merriment and elasticity. It is this variety in the woof of daily life which endears our home to us; and perhaps none have fully loved the Alps who have not spent some days of meditation, or it may be of sorrow, among their solitudes. Splendid scenery, like music, has the power to make 'of grief itself a fiery chariot for mounting above the sources of grief,' to ennoble and refine our passions, and to teach us that our lives are merely moments in the years of ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... us diligently put in practice the directions formerly given for cherishing and cultivating the principle of the Love of Christ. With this view let us labour assiduously to increase in knowledge, that ours may be a deeply rooted and rational affection. By frequent meditation on the incidents of our Saviour's life, and still more on the astonishing circumstances of his death; by often calling to mind the state from which he proposes to rescue us, and the glories of his heavenly kingdom; by continual ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... the body, which is especially the case when he is in company with others; but when he is in affection for understanding, and through that comes into perception of truth, he is then in the thought of his spirit, which is meditation. This passes, indeed, into the thought of the body, but into silent thought; for it is above bodily thought, and looks upon what belongs to thought from the memory as below itself, drawing therefrom either conclusions or confirmations. But real affection ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... clauses without grammatical connection, this succession of adoring exclamations of rapture, wonder, and praise, is very striking. It suggests the manner in which we should vivify all our thoughts of God, by turning them into material for devout reverence; awe-struck, considering meditation. There is nothing told us in the Bible about God simply in order that we may know it. It is all meant to be fuel to the fire of our divine affection; to kindle in us the sentiments of faith and love and rapturous adoration. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... us! O cruel S——, thy barbarous heart cannot be that of a Frenchman!" On uttering these words, he rushed out, and seated himself under a gallery which was at the door of the house in which we lived. He there remained a long while buried in profound meditation, during which time we could not get him to utter one word. At last, about six o'clock in the morning the physician came, and was surprised on hearing of the death of Laura; then went to my father, who seemed to be insensible ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... struck them as making but an indifferently successful use of fine natural parts. He had not forgotten that in any event Catherine had her own ten thousand a year; he had devoted an abundance of meditation to this circumstance. But with his fine parts he rated himself high, and he had a perfectly definite appreciation of his value, which seemed to him inadequately represented by the sum I have mentioned. At the same time he reminded himself that this sum was considerable, that everything is relative, ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... supposes in its members no high vocation to perfection; or that the voluntary principle allows them a personal choice in regard to the devotional exercises, permitting them to attend or not attend this or that meditation or devotion laid down in the rule, as "the spirit moves them." This is as plain an error as another one which had much currency for years and which is not yet everywhere corrected: that the Paulist community was open to converts alone and received ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... German professor I met at Caux last summer, who was interested in the odd little second-sight experiences I've had occasionally which I told him about. He made me do exercises in deep-breathing and meditation—you shut yourself up, darken your room and concentrate upon a subject—Beauty, Wisdom, Friendship, were some of the subjects he gave me—and you can't think how thrillingly absorbing it was. I worked frightfully hard at it for a bit, ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... to omit many interesting circumstances, there is one which we must not pass over in silence. When about twenty-four years of age, she received a favour from our Lord, which has been granted to many persons devoted in an especial manner to meditation on his painful Passion; namely, to experience the actual and visible sufferings of his sacred Head, when crowned with thorns. The following is the account she herself has given of the circumstances under which so mysterious a favour was bestowed ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... course not; we are not at home yet,' Mr. Swancourt said very hastily, endeavouring to dodge back to his original position with the air of a man who had not moved at all. 'The fact is I was so lost in deep meditation that I forgot whereabouts we were.' And in a minute the vicar was ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... biggest Hand of any one at the Exercises. After denouncing the predaceous Interests he relapsed into an attitude of Meditation, with the Chin on the starched Front, very much like a ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... participate in the wild demonstrations of the Cuban inhabitants. The latter exhibited a frantic hilarity at times; then a dazed feeling seemed to come over them, in which condition they stood and stared, as in meditation. The natural longing to be free had possessed these people, but when they were confronted with the fact of personal freedom it was too much for them to fully realize, or to estimate what the absence of absolute tyranny meant for ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... regained his dungeon, he threw himself on his bed, where the turnkey found him in the evening visit, sitting with fixed gaze and contracted features, dumb and motionless as a statue. During these hours of profound meditation, which to him had seemed only minutes, he had formed a fearful resolution, and bound himself to its ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the country. My father could never inspire me with his love and knowledge of farming. I never handled a gun, I seldom mounted an horse; and my philosophic walks were soon terminated by a shady bench, where I was long detained by the sedentary amusement of reading or meditation. At home I occupied a pleasant and spacious apartment; the library on the same floor was soon considered as my peculiar domain; and I might say with truth, that I was never less alone than when by myself. My sole complaint, which I piously suppressed, arose from the kind restraint ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... but none have as yet been favored with a kinder glance than that of friendship. Scottish dukes, Roman princes and American officers have wooed, but never won: la belle Mathilde still walks the orange groves of her villa, "in virgin meditation, fancy free." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... are a few gleanings from the Promise Treasury,—a few crumbs from "the Master's Table," which may serve to help the thoughts in the hour of closet meditation, or the season ...
— The Faithful Promiser • John Ross Macduff
... to be heard in the dreary palace of Duben. The anterooms were deserted; the generals remained all day in the audience-room, and gazed with sullen faces upon the door of the imperial cabinet. But this door did not open. In the cabinet the emperor was still on his sofa, now leaning back in meditation, and now bending over the map-table, and writing slowly. Opposite him sat the two topographers, mournfully waiting for him to speak to them. [Footnote: Odeleben, "The Campaign in Saxony in 1813."] But Napoleon wrote, gazed into the air, sank ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... transformed into a rite; for we all agreed to go, whenever it was possible to do so, once a year to that lonely spot near Rolandseck, where on that summer's day, while sitting together, lost in meditation, we were suddenly inspired by the same thought. Frankly speaking, the rules which were drawn up on the formation of the club were never very strictly observed; but owing to the very fact that we had ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... is wrong to grieve so much, Sister Magdalene Adelaide, but oh, I am so weak! Will you read a meditation for me?' ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... "Oh, wouldn't it!" And, after prolonged meditation, "I wonder if he'll stay that funny ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... regard to the Eye, and shook his fist vindictively at the latter. "If ever I get hold of the chap that invented you...!" An ingenious imagination failing to suggest any form of torture commensurate with the crime, he relapsed into gloomy meditation. ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... external world. The Hindu sages despised action as destructive of thought; and undoubtedly the cool secluded vale of life is good for the cultivation of letter-writing, in one who has the artistic hand, and to whom this method of gathering up the fruits of reading and meditation, the harvest of a quiet eye, comes easily. In many respects the letters of FitzGerald, like his life, are in strong contrast to Carlyle's; and FitzGerald was somewhat startled by the publication of Carlyle's 'Reminiscences.' He thinks that, on ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall |
