"Muse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of Vidocq's Memoirs (4 vol., 1828-9), says of this and the following renderings from the French that they "with all their faults and all their errors, are to be added to the list of the translator's sins, who would apologise to the Muse did he but know which of the nine presides over Slang poetry." The original of "On the Prigging ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... Musings one perhaps of the most pleasing of all Coleridge's earlier productions. But it shares with the poems shortly to be noticed what may be called the autobiographic charm. The fresh natural emotion of a young and brilliant mind is eternally interesting, and Coleridge's youthful Muse, with a frankness of self- disclosure which is not the less winning because at times it provokes a smile, confides to us even the history of her most temporary moods. It is, for instance, at once amusing and captivating ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... Mr. PENNYLINE, Is inspired by beauteous Aniline, Products chemical and gas-tarry Give the modern Muse new mastery. Mauve may chime with love, and mauver Form a decent rhyme to lover; While (and if not, why not?) mauvest Antiphonetic proves to lovest. (Verse erotic always sports Tricksily with longs and shorts. Verbal votaries of Venus Are an arbitrary genus, And as arrogant ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 103, November 26, 1892 • Various
... the country or the folks living hereabouts—only Whitmore: and Whitmore you won't meet, and your name you won't tell, nor where you come from—only that you've been swimming. 'Swimming,' good Lord! You didn't swim from France, I take it." He flicked his whip and fell into a muse. "And I'm a Justice of the Peace, and the Lord knows what I'm compounding with." He mused again. "Tell you what I'll do," he exclaimed; "I'll take you up to Lydia's as I promised. If Whitmore's there, ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of inspiration is thoroughly Greek, reminding one of Plato's 'muse-inspired madman' and of what Sophocles is related to have said to Aeschylus; 'Thou, Aeschylus, always dost the right thing—but unconsciously ([Greek: all' ouk eidos ge]).' Thus it was also with Goethe. All intellectual hobbies and shibboleths, all this endless wearisome discussion and ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... his oracles." I can imagine all this reported to Homer in the Shades and Homer answering with a smile: "Well, and who in the world is denying it? I certainly did not, while I lived and sang upon earth. Nay, I never even sang, but invited the Muse to sing to me and through me. [Greek: Menin haeide theha ... Handra moi hennepe, Moysa.]—Surely the dear fellow might remember the first line of my immortal works! And if he does remember, and is only bringing it up against ...
— Poetry • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... thinges, so vnheard of, so meruaylous, & of such Importance. Well: as you will. I haue forewarned you. I haue done the part of a frende: I haue discharged my Duety toward God: for my small Talent, at hys most mercyfull handes receiued. To this Science, doth the Science Alnirangiat, great Seruice. Muse nothyng of this name. I chaunge not the name, so vsed, and in Print published by other: beyng a name, propre to the Science. Vnder this, commeth Ars Sintrillia, by Artephius, briefly written. But the chief Science, ...
— The Mathematicall Praeface to Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara • John Dee
... months, in the unkind abuse Of grave astrology, to the bane of men, Casting the scope of men's nativities, And having found aught worthy in their fortune, Kill, or precipitate them in the sea, And boast, he can mock fate. Nay, muse not: these Are far from ends of evil, scarce degrees. He hath his slaughter-house at Capreae; Where he doth study murder, as an art; And they are dearest in his grace, that can Devise the deepest tortures. Thither, too, He hath his boys, and beauteous girls ta'en up Out of our noblest houses, the ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... honnete homme de Rheims que j'appellois par plaisanterie mon Papa: ce que j'ai de meilleur dans mon porte-feuille, ce sont des chansons pour mon mari; comme je l'aime parfaitement mon coeur m'a servi de muse: mais cette tendresse toujours si delicieuse aux interesses ne peut plaire a ceux qui ne le sont pas. Quand j'auri l'honneur de vous revoir, Madame, je vous communiquerai mon recueil, et vous jugerez. Recevez les hommages respectueux de mon mari, et daignezfaire agreer nos voeux a Mons. ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... said it, the idee struck me as bein' sort o' pitiful,—to go to whippin' a ghost. But she didn't seem to notice my remark, for she seemed to be a gazin' upward in a sort of a muse; ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... warm-hearted and generally placable—except in the case of James Anthony Froude. The feud between Freeman and Froude was, of course, a standing dish in the educated world of half a century ago. It may be argued that the Muse of History has not decided the quarrel quite according to justice; that Clio has shown herself something of a jade in the matter, as easily influenced by fair externals as a certain Helen was long ago. How many people now read the Norman Conquest— except the few scholars who devote themselves ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... five, in this still place, At this point of time, at this point in space. —My guests parade my new-penned ink, Or bang at the lamp-glass, whirl, and sink. 'God's humblest, they!' I muse. Yet why? They know Earth-secrets ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... Colonel, he ate nothing, sat sunk in a muse, and only awoke occasionally to a sense of where he was, and what he was supposed to be doing. On each of these occasions he showed a gratitude and kind courtesy that endeared him to me beyond expression. "Champdivers, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... With beef, pork, mutton of each sort More than my pen can make report; Pig, swan, goose, rabbits, partridge, teal, With legs and loins and breasts of veal: But above all the minced pies Must mention'd be in any wise, Or else my Muse were much to blame, Since they from Christmas take their name. With these, or any one of these, A man may dine well if he please; Yet this must well be understood,— Though one of these be singly good, Yet more the merrier is the best As well of dishes as of guest. But the ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... Say, heavenly muse, shall not thy sacred vein Afford a present to the infant God? Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain, To welcome Him to this His new abode— Now while the heaven, by the sun's team untrod, Hath took no print of the approaching light, And all the spangled ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... trial; we forget the murderer, and see something like a hero. It is curious to observe, that the legislature in Germany, and in England, have found it necessary to interfere as to the representation of Captain Mac Heath and the Robbers; two characters in which the tragic and the comic muse have had powerful effects in exciting imitation. George Barnwell is a hideous representation of the passions, ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... wand of Muse— Queen Posy's shaft of subtle art— Seared to the distant heights of blue, Past onyx lees that Sunsets dyed, And put to Vellum Couplets' fuse, Sped same to Fate with timid heart, Then shed dim tears in Sorrow's pew, This work's ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque
... performed, in his letters to Godwin; and that his description of Godwin's deportment, of his own feelings, and of the behaviour of the audience on the memorable night that witnessed its utter failure, has bequeathed to us a comedy over which the tragic Muse herself ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... calumniation, and likewise hast lamented the damage to my good name. Finally, thine indignation blazed forth against fortune; thou hast complained of the unfairness with which thy merits have been recompensed. Last of all thy frantic muse framed a prayer that the peace which reigns in heaven might rule earth also. But since a throng of tumultuous passions hath assailed thy soul, since thou art distraught with anger, pain, and grief, strong remedies are not proper for thee in this thy present ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... Thus I muse as I watch with a reverent eye The New Generation sweep steadily by, And judge him an ass or a born Silly Billy Who'd barter the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 13, 1917 • Various
... me, Gregory," she said. "We've had the tragic muse to supper, haven't we. What is the matter, what has been the matter with Madame von ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger." When Margaret Greylston came across that verse, she closed her Bible, and sat down beside the window to muse. "Ah," she thought, "how true is that saying of the wise man! If I had only from the first given John soft answers, instead of grievous words, we might now have been at peace. I knew his quick temper so well; I should have been more gentle with him." Then she ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... besetting cares, And set me straight to gather as I walk'd A field-flower nosegay. Plentiful the choice; And, in few moments, of all hues I held A glowing handful. In a few moments more Where are they? Dropping as I went along Unheeded on my path, and I was gone— Wandering again in muse ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... muse upon the subject which forms seven-eighths of a prisoner's thoughts—how he and Nic were to escape, and whether it would be possible to get to a boat and float down the river of which they had had a glimpse, and of which he had heard his companions speaking, when suddenly there was the deep, ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... Nor ever more with spurted feet shall tread I' the winepresses of song; nought's truly lost That moulds to sprout forth gain: now I have on me The high Phoebean priesthood, and that craves An unrash utterance; not with flaunted hem May the Muse enter in behind the veil, Nor, though we hold the sacred dances good, Shall the holy Virgins maenadize: ruled lips Befit a votaress Muse. Thence with no mutable, nor no gelid love, I keep, O Earth, thy worship, Though life slow, and the sobering Genius change To a lamp his gusty torch. ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... to cheer the humblest home! And both were so happy, so all in all to each other, as they left that barren threshold! And the priest felt all this, as, melancholy and envious, he turned from the door in that November day, to find himself thoroughly alone. He now began seriously to muse upon those fancied blessings which men wearied with celibacy see springing, heavenward, behind the altar. A few weeks afterwards a notable change was visible in the good man's exterior. He became more careful of his dress, ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the conceit and humour of the situation. With the utmost dignity, and with the quizzical, pinched brow of the labouring muse, halting ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... which Carlo filled out with his harp, she again put her hand into the urn and drew out a new theme; again the inspiration seemed to pass over her, and the holy Whitsuntide of her muse to be renewed. Constantly more and more stormily resounded the plaudits of her hearers; it was like a continued thunder of enthusiasm, a real salvo of joy. It animated Corilla to new improvisations; she again and again recurred to the ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... of letters, however, has not seemingly regretted the inability of Byron to trammel his muse with the uncongenial fetters of Pope's metre, and has certainly never quarrelled with Tom Moore for not assuming the manners and diction of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... sirs, I pray—I can't yet speak— I'm crying now—and have been all the week. "'Tis not alone this mourning suit," good masters: "I've that within"—for which there are no plasters! Pray, would you know the reason why I'm crying? The Comic Muse, long sick, is now a-dying! And if she goes, my tears will never stop; For as a player, I can't squeeze out one drop: I am undone, that's all—shall lose my bread— I'd rather, but that's nothing—lose my head. When the sweet maid is laid upon the bier, Shuter ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... work, but also to muse and dream while working. In the air was something that invited, almost demanded reverie. Upon the fields there might lie many a mortgage, but who at such a time could worry over the ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... we have come. (introducing Mimi) This is Mimi, The merry flower girl; And now she's come to join us. Our party is completed— For I shall play the poet, While she's the muse incarnate. Forth from my brain flow songs of passion, As, at her touch the pretty buds blow; As in the soul awaketh ...
— La Boheme • Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica
... affection. He was not now a very pleasant lord to look on, whatever he might once have been. He was red-faced and blear-eyed, and his nose, partly from the snuff which he took in large quantity, was much injured in shape and colour: a closer description the historical muse declines. His eyes had once been blue, but tobacco, potations, revellings day and night—everything but tears, had washed from them almost all the colour. It added much to the strange unpleasantness of his appearance, that he wore a jet-black ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... may be said to end. Yet a poet, whether he will or no, is shaped by his early surroundings. In some verses by Mr. C. W. Dalmon called "The Sussex Muse," I find the influence of Shelley's surroundings on his ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... allowed to enjoy being ill in their own way, without being persecuted by their friends and their friends' doctors, pet remedies and religions." On the whole, I may quite safely recommend these two hundred and fifty pleasantly written and delightfully printed pages to readers who like to muse quietly on the elementary principles of love and life without risking the surprise of startling or revolutionary lines of thought. There is nothing peculiarly good or bad in the many comic illustrations by ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... myself, who own it, when thou lookst Into the source and limit of all good, There, where thou markest that which thou dost speak, Thence priz'd of me the more. Glad thou hast made me. Now make intelligent, clearing the doubt Thy speech hath raised in me; for much I muse, How bitter can spring up, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... Christmas—but there is nothing like verse to clear the mind, heat the blood, and make very humble the heart. Rouse thee, Muse! ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... He had been working, in his curious way, All through the night; and, in the morning greyness Went down to chapel, leaving on his desk A lighted candle. You can imagine it,— A sadly sloven altar to his Muse, Littered with papers, cups, and greasy plates Of untouched food. I am told that he would eat His Monday's breakfast, sir, on Tuesday morning, Such was his absent way! When he returned, He found that ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... plume! Could wit borrow a feather From Cupid's own pinion, 'tis doubtfullish whether A "mot" might be made which should happily hit The "gold" of desert; and Love, aided by Wit, Though equal to eloquent passion's fine glow, Might both be struck mute by the Muse of Dumb-Show. That "actions speak louder than words" we all knew; But now we may add, "and more gracefully, too." Performances fine Punch has praised in his day, But how few take the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 16, 1891 • Various
... to listen to his words, could not help remarking with what brightened eyes he continued to speak and muse. ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... in pursuit, and dreams as to possibilities; you keep looking round to be satisfied that the gaff is ready to hand, and everything in the boat shipshape for action. As it was after luncheon to-day, you think of anything but a fish taking hold; you swish on monotonously and mechanically; you muse of friends at home and abroad, of the sport you enjoyed yesterday or the day before, of chances lost, perhaps even of your general career through either a well-ordered or misspent life as the case may happen to be; and then, hey ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... to muse on the uncertainly of all things, and to tell herself over and over again, how vain it was to set the heart on any earthly good. "Poor Janet!" well might her father say; and amid her own sorrow Graeme grieved sincerely ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... a dead man, with the blood gushing from his nose and mouth; and Catiline, striding across the prostrate body, retired sullenly and slowly to muse on the disappointment of this his most atrocious project, in the darkness and solitude of his own private chamber whither ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... muse, exclusively indigenous to England—the same observation holds good tenfold. Some of our most perfect topographical sketches have been the work of sportsmen. Old Izaak Walton, and his friend Cotton, of Dovedale, ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... little to record, but it would not be safe to conclude that this subject always furnished a secure field for literary activity. However, the successes of the writers of fiction and plays in our own times might console the Muse for any indignities which her followers have suffered ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... deal of nonsense written and uttered about poetry. In an age when verses are more noisily and fluently circulated than ever before, it might seem absurd to plead in the Muse's defence. Yet poetry and the things poets love are pitifully weak to-day. In essence, poetry is the love of life—not mere brutish tenacity of sensation, but a passion for all the honesties that make life free and ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... obstructions of temperament might cloud it, he was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. In his youth, he said, one day, "The other world is all my art: my pencils will draw no other; my jack-knife will cut nothing else; I do not use it as a means." This was the muse and genius that ruled his opinions, conversation, studies, work, and course of life. This made him a searching judge of men. At first glance he measured his companion, and, though insensible to some fine traits of culture, could very well report his weight and calibre. And ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... the trinkets, that the fair adorn, But who can count the spangles of the morn? What pencil can pourtray this splendid mart. This vast, stupendous wilderness of art? Where fancy sports, in all her rainbow hues, And beauty's radiant forms perplex the muse. The boundless theme transcends poetic lays,— Let plain historic truth record ...
— A Description of Modern Birmingham • Charles Pye
... should have in man. Drinking songs and table songs do not belong to the highest flights of poetry; but if the delights of friendly meetings and greetings belong to some of the brightest moments of human happiness, why should a poet hold them to be beneath his muse? There is something especially German in all drinking songs, and no other nation has held its wine in such honor. Can one imagine English poems on port and sherry? or has a Frenchman much to tell us of his Bordeaux, or even of his Burgundy? ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... lays Provoke our wonder, and transcend our praise? Can neither injuries of time, nor age, Damp thy poetic heat, and quench thy rage? Not so thy Ovid in his exile wrote; Grief chilled his breast, and checked his rising thought; Pensive and sad, his drooping Muse betrays The Roman genius in its last decays. Prevailing warmth has still thy mind possess'd, And second youth is kindled in thy breast; 10 Thou mak'st the beauties of the Romans known, And England boasts of riches not her own; Thy lines have heightened Virgil's majesty, And Horace ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... hard to find what he'd say next. I doubt whether the conviction, which was then strong on his mind, that Meg was listening at the keyhole to every word that passed, at all assisted him in the operation. At last, some Muse came to his aid, and he ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... I hadde in custom / to come to scole late Nat for to lerne / but for a contenaunce with my felawys / reedy to debate to Iangle and Iape / was set al my plesaunce wherof rebukyd / this was my chevisaunce to forge a lesyng / and therupon to muse whan I trespasyd / ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... been inspired. When he has not attained to this state he is powerless and unable to utter his oracles. Many are the noble words in which poets speak of the actions which they record, but they do not speak of them by any rules of art, they are inspired to utter that to which the Muse impels them, and ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... if Paris had now to decide between the goddesses, he certainly would have awarded you the golden apple," exclaimed the first muse, who never let an opportunity slip to display her knowledge ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... of Jean Goujon, whose exquisite work we see now and again in these chateaux, that some writer has said, that the muse of Ronsard whispered in the ear of the French sculptor, and thus Goujon's masterpieces were poems of Ronsard translated in marble. It is a rather pretty fancy, but Lydia and I cannot remember its author. Walter says that he can understand why the Counts of Blois built their castle here, as this ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... of that day that the good men won. And, sitting, a Muse upon her mythical mountain, her decision must needs be one from which we may not appeal: and yet I wonder if she is ever bribed. Certainly the shrewd sense of Morano erred for once; for those for whom he had predicted victory, because ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... quest, though, is simpler of Roc's egg or Sangreal, Easier to fashion a flying machine, Than for my Muse to fake up (forgive Cockney slang) real Readable rhymes in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, May 6, 1893 • Various
... friends, you shall hear to-night! I, who have heard every fine voice in Europe, confidently pledge my respectability that the Ravenswing is equal to them all. She has the graces, sir, of a Venus with the mind of a Muse. She is a siren, sir, without the dangerous qualities of one. She is hallowed, sir, by her misfortunes as by her genius; and I am proud to think that my instructions have been the means of developing the wondrous qualities ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... conquerors; and uniformly asserted his freedom and dignity in the court of Augustus. The triumph of Messalla was justified by the conquest of Aquitain. As an orator, he disputed the palm of eloquence with Cicero himself. Messalla cultivated every muse, and was the patron of every man of genius. He spent his evenings in philosophic conversation with Horace; assumed his place at table between Delia and Tibullus; and amused his leisure by encouraging the poetical ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... elevated thought. As we looked upwards, there was some object that appeared to mingle with the clouds, to form a part of their company, to linger, mute and motionless like them, in that breathless blue, as if feeling the influence of the hour. It was not a white-winged bird that had stolen away to muse in the solitudes of air: it was nothing ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers
... witnessed, was prepared to admit this, and left the disciple of the dramatic Muse to himself and the lamp-post, and secretly hoped when the performance of the Comedians came off he might get ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... ear may be offended by the "barbarous adjunct of rhyme," and by the solecisms and false quantities which sometimes occur, "et alia multa damna atque outragia," others may be amused with these emulations of the cloistered muse of the Middle Ages. The witty author of Whistlecraft has shown that he had a true relish for them, and has successfully tried his hand, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 82, May 24, 1851 • Various
... often a vein of comedy in their lives. If we could transport ourselves to Miller's Hotel, Westminster Bridge, on a certain afternoon in the early spring of 1811, we should behold a scene apparently swayed entirely by the Comic Muse. The member for Shoreham, Mr. Timothy Shelley, a handsome, consequential gentleman of middle age, who piques himself on his enlightened opinions, is expecting two guests to dinner—his eldest son, and his son's friend, T. J. Hogg, who have ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... a Muse, or, according to another account, daughters of Phorkys. They failed to care for Persephone when Pluto seized her to carry her off, and Demeter took revenge by transforming them into monsters ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... from the past, live out each stage of life to its fullest and realize in himself all its manifold tendencies. Echoes only of the vaster, richer life of the remote past of the race they must remain, but just these are the murmurings of the only muse that can save from the omnipresent dangers of precocity. Thus we not only rescue from the danger of loss, but utilize for further psychic growth the results of the higher heredity, which are the most precious and potential things on earth. So, too, in our urbanized hothouse life, that tends to ripen ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... son-in-law,(74) Mr. Ellis, has hacked and hewed these groves, wriggled a winding-gravel walk through them with an edging of shrubs, in what they call the modern taste, and in short, has designed the three lanes to walk in again—and now is forced to shut them out again by a wall, for there was not a Muse could walk there but she was spied by every country fellow that went by with a ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... however, is not applicable to art, for art and science are not coextensive; nay, to some extent, are even inimical to each other. Indeed, to call a work of art purely and simply "scientific," is tantamount to saying that it is dry and uninspired by the muse. In dwelling so long on this point my object was not so much to elucidate Liszt's meaning as Chopin's character ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... WILL approve'd his strains; And thought his Legend made as good a figure As naturalizing a dull German's brains, Which beget issues in the Heliconian stews, Upon a profligate Tenth Muse, In all the gloomy ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... But the muse was timorous as a chicken. The metaphor is entirely metaphorical. Jones had no faith in the wanton. He believed in regular hours, in silence and no interruptions. No intrusions of any kind. A letter was an intrusion, ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... when his friend T. Hayward was collecting, for his "British Muse," the most exquisite commonplaces of our old English dramatists, a compilation which must not be confounded with ordinary ones, Oldys not only assisted in the labour, but drew up a curious introduction with a knowledge and love of the subject which none but himself possessed. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... and Change! O Change and Time, you come Not knocking at my door, knowing me gone; Here have I dwelt within my heart alone, Watching and waiting, while my muse was dumb ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... dear, and gentlemen. I thought not to be here to-day: But I'm a slave, and therefore, when My muse commands, ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... indeed, even were they not, they would be still useless. We have determined on the thing, and the sooner we set about it the better. The night wanes, and I have much to see to before daylight. To-morrow I must sleep—sleep—" and for a moment Rivers seemed to muse upon the word sleep, which he thrice repeated; then suddenly proceeding, as if no pause had taken place, he abruptly placed his hand upon the shoulder of Munro, ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... the effervescence of our meeting had lost a little of its first, fine, carbonated sting, what Elysian hours we did spend over the correspondence of those other two friends, Goethe and Schiller! Passage after passage we would turn back to re-read and muse over. These we would discuss without any of the rancor or dogmatic insistence or one-eyed stubbornness that usually accompany the clash of mental steel on mental steel from a different mill. And without making any ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... duly saw the Muse and Lamp in the Museo, the Fra Angelicos, and all the Signorellis. One cannot help thinking that too much fuss is made nowadays about works of art—running after them for their own sakes, exaggerating their importance, and detaching them as objects of study, instead ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... from your soul could not but know mine that That gave up in your ghost but just now his: As soul is known from soul so is your ghost Known to the Muses by my muse that's yours. ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole
... poetry lacks passion and the most poignant emotion of human nature, love. Chesterton, on the other hand, considers that Browning was the finest love poet of the world. It is real love poetry, because it talks about real people, not ideals; it does not muse of the Prince Charming meeting the Fairy Princess, and forget the devoted wife meeting her husband on the villa doorstep with open arms and a nice dinner in the parlour. Sentiment must be based on reality if it is to have worth. This is the strong point, ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... about a room in which every chair was half turned round and every face turned smilingly to mine. I can even remember what I was saying at the moment; but after twenty years, the embers of shame are still alive; and I prefer to give your imagination the cue, by simply mentioning that my muse was the patriotic. It had been my design to adjourn for coffee in the company of some of these new friends; but I was no sooner on the sidewalk than I found myself unaccountably alone. The circumstance scarce surprised ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... with a great literary reputation as a poet and writer who was idolized by the populace for her passionate advocacy of Ireland's claim to self-government; "Speranza" was regarded by the Irish people as a sort of Irish Muse. ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... my most grateful thanks. His kindness shall be remembered by me while memory holds her seat. Let the throng of uninvited fools who swarmed about us, accept the following sally of the house of correction muse, from the pen, or rather the fork, of a fellow convict. It ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... Mr. Diry? My muse come playguey neer running away with me, so I had to wistle "down brakes," and slow her up. Now I'll begin to record my doins on your pages, so that, shuld the toes of my boots be applide to the patent bucket early in my useful carreer, the hull wurld'll kno wot a treassure socieaty has lost. ...
— The Bad Boy At Home - And His Experiences In Trying To Become An Editor - 1885 • Walter T. Gray
... rolling worlds, the great first cause explore, To fix the aeras of recorded time, And live in ev'ry age and ev'ry clime; Record the chiefs, who propt their country's cause; Who founded empires, and establish'd laws; To learn whate'er the sage, with virtue fraught, Whate'er the muse of moral wisdom taught. These were your quarry; these to you were known, And the world's ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... Jesus. As I muse, and, thinking, Grow amazed—bewildered with a strange delight, My faith is roused, my spirit seemeth drinking A foretaste ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... value), no great prize, but the poem entitled Mr. Robert Hericke: his farwell unto Poetrie (not printed in Hesperides, but extant in more than one manuscript version) shows that the poet was not unaware of the responsibilities of his profession. "But unto me," he says to his Muse: ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... I shall begin to dread a reconciliation; and must be forced to muse for a contrivance or two to prevent it, and to avoid mischief. For that (as I have told honest Joseph Leman) is a great point ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... meantime, which he emphasised by lugubriously clearing his throat. Except for the pretty courtesy with which she would answer him, she remained lost in her own thoughts—ever and anon consulting the letter which lay beside her to fall again, it seemed, into a deeper muse; but never a tear glinted ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... oration and a poem. The latter was prepared at very short notice, and had particular reference to the visit of the illustrious hero and philanthropist, Lafayette. It purported to be the vision of the Genius of Liberty. It was a felicitous effort of the poetic muse. The gradual but certain dissolution of ancient despotic systems was predicted, as by the spirit of inspiration; and the blessings and joys of well regulated freedom were described with a masterly pencil, as extending and spreading in all parts of the civilized world. It was ...
— Memoirs of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... Nothing has a finer effect than the repetition of certain words, that are echoes to the sense, as much as the celebrated lines in Homer about the rolling up and falling down of the stone: Tramp, tramp! splash, splash! is to me perfectly new; and much of the imagery is nature. I should consider this muse of yours (if you carry the intrigue far) more likely to steal your heart from the law than even a wife. I am, Dear Sir, your most obedient, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... for you?" he asked. "Inn? yes, there's the Blue Chequers, but I 'm afraid you 'll find it shut. They 're early people, I 'm glad to say"; and his eyes seemed to muse over the proper fold for these damp sheep. "Are you Oxford men, by any chance?" he asked, as if that might throw some light upon the matter. "Of Mary's? Really! I'm of Paul's myself. Ladyman—Billington Ladyman; you might remember ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... like Goldsmith, a person who spends much time in taverns and coffee-houses, where one can study every conceivable shade of character, I took my friend's letter up town with me, and sat down to muse over it and a tankard of ale. It was a cosy bar, cosier than the Cheshire Cheese, if more modern; I sank back in a deep lounge and watched the world ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... not get beyond plovers and lovers. I am still, however, harassed by the unauthentic Muse; if I cared to encourage her - but I have not the time, and anyway we are at the vernal equinox. It is funny enough, but my pottering verses are usually made (like the God-gifted organ voice's) ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... afternoon to Leipsic, where he remained scarcely an hour. He then returned to Rotha.—Beitzke, vol. ii.] The emperor took that presented to him, and pressed it with a quick and graceful movement on Blucher's head. "I represent the Muse of History," he said, "and crown 'Marshal Forward' in ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... work of driving dull care away would be impossible within the space at our command. But we cannot end without recognition of the exhilarating extravaganzas of "George A. Birmingham" (Canon Hannay), the freakish and elfin muse of James Stephens, and the coruscating wit of F.P. Dunne, the famous Irish-American humorist, whose "Mr. Dooley" is a household word on both sides of ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... 'Muse of Green Erin, break thine icy slumbers! Strike once again thy wreathed lyre! Burst forth once more and wake thy tuneful numbers! Kindle ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... Music began to be the principal employment of my youth. Thus early acquainted with the Lovely Muse, who tuned my soul to pure harmonies, she won my love, and, as I oft have felt, gave me hers in return. I have now completed my eleventh year; and my Muse, in the hours consecrated to her, oft whispers to me, 'Try for once, and write down the harmonies in thy soul!'—'Eleven years!' thought I,—'and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... garden decorations undertaken was the Grotto of Thetis, a green alcove beautified by exquisite marbles and a fountain that stirred the muse of La Fontaine to sing. This graceful conceit, dominated by Apollo seated among the nymphs of Venus, was destroyed when Mansard built the north wing of the palace; the groups were removed to adorn other sites. While the vast pleasure-house was in course of ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... geese, or making clothes for her sisters and brothers out of some finery which d'Urberville had given her, and she had put by with contempt. Apply to him she would not. But she would often clasp her hands behind her head and muse when she was supposed to ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... English graziers, to prove themselves men of fiery passions, it is not to a man like me you should come. I could tell you some tricks of my own trade, perhaps, and a queer story or two of estates that have been lost and recovered. But, to tell you the truth, I think you might do with your Muse of Fiction, as you call her, as many an honest man does with his own ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... painting to be greater than that of poetry in making greater effects and in having more force and vehemence whether to move mind and soul to joy and laughter, or to sorrow and tears, with more effective eloquence. But let the muse Calliope be the judge in this matter, for I will be content ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... thousand of my readers also are), I must here confess that generally I walk about the churchyard, thinking and feeling nothing very particular. I do not believe that ordinary people, when worried by some little care, or pressed down by some little sorrow, have only to go and muse in a churchyard in order to feel how trivial and transient such cares and sorrows are, and how very little they ought to vex us. To commonplace mortals, it is the sunshine within the breast that does most to brighten; ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... how shall these things change? Shall childish galleries That deemed you once Apollo's minister, Say, "Garn, old monkey!" Shall colossal salaries Reward the Muse and not the dulcimer? Not gleaming eyeballs, not the soul illuminate? Shall old faiths falter and Antonio's heart Sicken the while he churns, and chilly ruminate, "This is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 15, 1914 • Various
... Grande Which even now had made his fierce renown Terrible to all lonely ships of Spain. E'en now, indeed, that poet of Portugal, Lope de Vega, filled with this new fear Began to meditate his epic muse Till, like a cry of panic from his lips, He shrilled the faint Dragontea forth, wherein Drake is that Dragon of the Apocalypse, The dread Antagonist of God ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... making the customary signal for the train to approach, threw his vast frame upon the earth, and seemed to muse on the deep responsibility of his present situation. His sons were not long in arriving; for the cattle no sooner scented the food and water than they quickened their pace, and then succeeded the usual bustle and avocations ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... scapegoats leave our flock, And the rest sit silent and count the clock, Since forced to muse the appointed time On these precious facts and truths sublime, Let us fitly employ it, under our breath, In saying Ben Ezra's Song ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... it shall happen that his mind will lie fallow between novels or stories for weeks and months at a stretch; when the suggestions of the friendly editor shall fail to fruit in the essays or articles desired; when the muse shall altogether withhold herself, or shall respond only in a feeble dribble of verse which he might sell indeed, but which it would not be good business for him to put on the market. But supposing him to be a very diligent and continuous worker, and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... save the world the trouble of some of its futile, violent, and weak experiments: "Law, the rectitude of humanity," says Mr Coventry Patmore, "should be the poet's only subject, as, from time immemorial, it has been the subject of true art, though many a true artist has done the Muse's will and knew it not. As all the music of verse arises, not from infraction but from inflection of the law of the set metre; so the greatest poets have been those the modulus of whose verse has been ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... however we may represent it. It is part of the spirit within us, and we find it in everything around us. It is the veil of "Isis" which science, her worshipper, is ever trying to lift, but cannot. The muse of Inspiration pours forth her melodious voice, like the nightingale, in the darkness and the shady covert. We listen to her song with entranced ears; a few whose spirits are "finely touched," try to repeat it; but who has ever seen her; the soul that animates, the spirit that inspires! ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... women could be fair, and yet not fond, Or that their love were firm, not fickle still, I would not marvel that they make men bond By service long to purchase their good will; But when I see how frail those creatures are, I muse that men forget ...
— Tudor and Stuart Love Songs • Various
... he was not the only devout poet who, in the early times, with sacred reverence believed the wonders the inspiring muse gave him as from God. It is not clear from the Biblical record that Adam was imagined the first man. On the contrary, the statement that Cain was afraid that those who met him would kill him, also ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... intervals of sermon-writing, of epigrams, elegies, eulogistic verses, and similar grave trifles distinguished by the crabbed wit of the so-called "metaphysical poets," whose manner was in fashion when the Puritans left England; the manner of Donne and Cowley, and those darlings of the New-English muse, the Emblems of Quarles and the Divine Week of Du Bartas, as translated by Sylvester. The Magnalia contains a number of these things in Latin and English, and is itself well bolstered with complimentary introductions in meter by the author's ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... (inquiry) 461 invention &c. (imagination) 515. thoughtfulness &c. adj. V. think, reflect, cogitate, excogitate[obs3], consider, deliberate; bestow thought upon, bestow consideration upon; speculate, contemplate, meditate, ponder, muse, dream, ruminate; brood over, con over; animadvert, study; bend -, apply mind &c. (attend) 457; digest, discuss, hammer at, weigh, perpend; realize, appreciate; fancy &c. (imagine) 515; trow[obs3]. take into consideration; take counsel &c. (be advised) 695; commune with ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... in a number of streets, in the Rue de l'Etoile, the Rue Saint-Louis, the Rue du Temple, the Rue Vielle-duTemple, the Rue Notre-Dame de Nazareth, the Rue Folie-Mericourt, the Quai aux Fleurs, the Rue du Petit-Muse, the Rue du Normandie, the Rue Pont-Aux-Biches, the Rue des Marais, the Faubourg Saint-Martin, the Rue Notre Dame des-Victoires, the Faubourg Montmartre, the Rue Grange-Bateliere, in the Champs-Elysees, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... irony: "My dear Kapellmeister, I am not as those who would serve Art with a bottle of champagne under each arm. I want no fumes in my brain and no clod between my fingers when I meet the Muse ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... this book confines me to satire; and in that an author of your own quality, whose ashes I will not disturb, has given you all the commendation which his self- sufficiency could afford to any man—"The best good man, with the worst-natured muse." In that character, methinks, I am reading Jonson's verses to the memory of Shakespeare; an insolent, sparing, and invidious panegyric: where good nature—the most godlike commendation of a man—is only attributed ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... in opposition was Thomas Morton's satirical New English Canaan (1637), whose author was sent out of the colony for the scandal of Merrymount, but satire itself remained religious in Ward's Simple Cobbler of Agawam (1647). Poetry was represented in Anne Bradstreet's (1612-1672) The Tenth Muse lately sprung up in America (1650), and was continued by a succession of doggerel writers, mostly ministers or schoolmasters, Noyes, Oakes, Folger, Tompson, Byles and others. The world of books also included a good proportion of Indian war narratives and treatises relating to the aborigines. The ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... drawn on board he flapped about more helpless than anything I have ever seen, falling into everything he could fall into, biting several of the crew. You know the sonnet in which Baudelaire compares the bird on the wing to the poet with the Muse beside him, and the albatross on deck to the poet in the drawing-room. You remember the sonnet, how the sailors teased the bird with their short ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... or unworthy of our high vocation, our immortality, and nearness unto, nay communion with God? The idea is only suggested: let a man muse at midnight, and look up at the heavens hanging over all; let him see, with Rosse and Herschell, that, multiply power as you will, unexhausted still and inexhaustible appear the myriads of worlds unknown. Yea, there is space enow for infinite reward; yea, let every grain ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper |
