"Musing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said Craven, musing; "yes, Denny is a hard man, but a just one according to his lights. There are plenty ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to one old nook, where she had many and many a time sat musing, and laid their burden softly on the pavement. The light streamed on it through the coloured window—a window where the boughs of trees were ever rustling in the summer, and where the birds sang sweetly all day long. With every breath ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... was no fear of Jove. Come, pensive nun, devout and pure, Sober, steadfast, and demure, All in a robe of darkest grain Flowing with majestic train, And sable stole of cypres lawn Over thy decent shoulders drawn: Come, but keep thy wonted state, With even step, and musing gait, And looks commercing with the skies, Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes: There, held in holy passion still, Forget thyself to marble, till With a sad leaden downward cast Thou fix them on the earth as fast: And join with thee calm Peace, and Quiet, Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... and unfastened the shutter, which offered egress to the grounds, then, having rung for Mrs. Stott to remove the supper-tray, I sat down by the fire to await Munro's return, and began musing concerning the hopelessness of my position, the gulf of poverty and prejudice and struggle that ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... path along the water side, and as, with his gliding step and musing air, he roamed onward, it was impossible to imagine a form more suited to the deep tranquillity of the scene. Even the wild birds seemed to feel, by a sort of instinct, that in him there was no cause for fear; and did not stir from the turf that neighboured, ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... hermit, as if musing, but never raising his voice above the softest whisper. "My difficulty lies here; I must go forward to save the life of my friend. I must not leave you at the mouth of a mangrove river to die or be captured by pirates, and yet ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... replied Amine, musing. "But," continued she, "is not this connected with your resolution ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... began. Ygerne, staring straight out before her with wide, unseeing eyes, spoke swiftly, her voice a low monotone that fitted in well with the musing eyes. She loved him; she told him so in a strangely quiet tone and Drennen, wishing to believe, believed and thrilled under her words like the strings of an instrument under a sweeping hand. She told him that while he had been unsleeping ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... then rose and went back to the chateau. Next day, the King, wholly occupied with what he had overheard on the previous evening, sat musing on a sofa at his sister-in-law's, when all at once the voice of Mademoiselle de la Beaume-le-Blanc smote his ear and brought trouble to his heart. He saw her, noticed her melancholy look, thought her lovelier than the loveliest, and at ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... quarrelling, as often happened in that tap-room, when Tom Bull softly came again, having gone but a step beyond the threshold of the place. He stepped, as though aimlessly, to our place, like a man watched, fearing the hand of the law; and for a time he sat musing, toying with ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... after another, and musing over these memorials, the unhappy man passed many hours. His dearest vanities, ambitious hopes, had all been here. What pride he had in his boy! He was the handsomest child ever seen. Everybody said he was like a nobleman's son. A royal ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... dark enough there by the window for her to slip her hand into that of Neil, who had been musing silently on the crowd. ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... said, sighing, "I knew this was the way it would be." There was another stillness. The mere boy seemed to be musing. ...
— Maggie: A Girl of the Streets • Stephen Crane
... Ethel's pupil, Aubrey's friend, the boy of ingenuous face, could under any provocation strike helpless old age, or, having struck, could abscond without calling aid, actuated by terror, not by pity or repentance, was more than Dr. May could believe, and after brief musing, he broke ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Edna saw of Bert was his figure, in charred and blackened shirtsleeves, standing in the dusk. He was musing deeply by the mixed ironwork and ashes of his vanished motor-bicycle, a melancholy figure. His retinue of spectators had shrunk now to half a dozen figures. Flossie and Grubb were preparing to ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... over to the steps and sat down, placing the basket beside her. "How lonely it seems here to-day," she thought. "I wonder where old Jean is? I haven't seen him for an age." Then she fell to musing over the school year so nearly ended. Everything that had happened passed through her mind like a panorama. It had been a stormy year, full of quarrels and bickerings, but it was about to end gloriously. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... she removed her rich evening costume, then donning a warm flannel wrapper, she seated herself before the glowing grate, clasped her hands around her knees, and, gazing upon the bed of red-hot coals, she fell to musing. ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... You see, Hilda, when it has not weight one must sometimes repeat the blow; especially if the mail be strong. But with a heavy axe and a stout arm there is no need for that. I had begun this weapon," continued the youth, as if he were musing aloud rather than speaking to his companion, "with intent to try its metal on the head of the King; but I fear me it will be necessary to use it in cracking a viking's headpiece before it ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... such a continual circumgiration, as a captive king, who was drawing Sesostris's chariot, said, when he was looking often behind him. The king of Egypt, Sesostris, demanded for what end did he look so often about him? Says he, "I am looking to the wheel, musing upon the vicissitudes and permutations of it, how the highest parts are instantly the lowest." And this word repressed the king's vain glory.(280) Now, in this constant wheeling of outward things, which is the soul that enjoys true quiet and peace? Even that soul ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... Raffleton and was now about to enter on a new and less circumscribed existence. If so, the beginning, to an adventuresome young spirit, seemed promising. It was Malvina's voice that recalled him from this train of musing. ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... Wrapped in musing dim and misty, Sit I by the fitful flame; And my thoughts steal down the vista Of old time, as in ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... glance, I see Visions of thy future glory, Giving to the world's great story A page, with mighty meaning fraught, That asks a wider range of thought. Borne onward on the wings of Time, I trace thy future course sublime; And feel my anxious lot grow bright, While musing on the glorious sight;— My heart rejoicing bounds with glee ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... looked down into a deep mountain glen, wild and lonely, the bottom filled with fragments from the overhanging cliffs, and scarcely lighted by the reflected rays of the setting sun. For some time Rip lay musing on this scene; evening was gradually advancing; the mountains began to throw their long blue shadows over the valleys; he saw that it would be dark long before he could reach the village, and he heaved a heavy sigh when ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... silvery vapors are rising up from the blue lowlands. You can tell the hour of the morning and the time of the year: you can do anything but describe it in words. As with regard to the Poussin above mentioned, one can never pass it without bearing away a certain pleasing, dreamy feeling of awe and musing; the other landscape inspires the spectator infallibly with the most delightful briskness and cheerfulness of spirit. Herein lies the vast privilege of the landscape-painter: he does not address you with one fixed particular subject or expression, but with a thousand ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Nigel Olifaunt, musing. "Were it not for the ornaments which she wears, and still more for her attendance upon the service of the Protestant Church, I should know what to think, and should believe her either a Catholic votaress, who, for some cogent ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... "Thus musing I paced up and down outside the tent in the bright moonlight. Carfax was still sleeping, but uneasily, and muttering a lot in his sleep. There across the dunes the diamonds must be there somewhere. He ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... little enclosure. I well remembered where they lay, after this lapse of years, and without difficulty found the spot. Two small white stones had been erected, and I sat down on the grass and spent an half hour in gentle musing, and in half-sad, half-pleasing memories. Once more the manly form and beaming face of Henry Hamilton rose before me, and I seemed to hear his clear, ringing laugh. I thought of all his sanguine hopes and earnest plans for usefulness; how eagerly he had striven to excel in study; ...
— Arthur Hamilton, and His Dog • Anonymous
... dozen pair of worked slippers into the bargain. But it's all fitting, if preaching is the great office of the clergy. Next comes the Sacrament, and has the surplice and hood. And hood," he repeated, musing; "what's that for? no, it's the scarf. The hood is worn in the University pulpit; what is the scarf?—it belongs to chaplains, I believe, that is, to persons; I can't make a view out ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... of an imaginative stranger might have been to suppose it the person of one of the Celts who built the barrow, so far had all of modern date withdrawn from the scene. It seemed a sort of last man among them, musing for a moment before dropping into eternal night with the ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... replied my audacious pupil, brightly. "Teacher," he added presently, having fallen into a gently musing attitude; "how shiny those crimples in your hair look, with that streak of ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... be grateful that she was spared hours of musing that might have burnt permanently into her memory. She had not walked up and down the hall for fifteen minutes before the door at the end of the side corridor ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... powder in the effigy, which is blown to rags. The band marches off playing "When War's Alarms," the crowd disperses, the vicar stands musing and smoking at his garden door till the fire goes out and darkness curtains ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... Count Borelloni sat in his study, musing upon the strange occurrences of the few past months. His thoughts dwelt upon Mario, who ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... disappearing under the rains and heat of the climate, by the route taken by our people to the promised boats, which were set on fire as soon as they reached them. It was truly a via dolorosa, and we walked on it with saddened hearts, musing on the awful sufferings our countrymen had endured. On a little temple close to the ferry at which the boats lay, and on some houses near it, we saw marks of the bullets ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... out that this would stand, if all the writing was here, 'Inquire among the old men living there, for'—some one. Most like, you'll go to this village named here?" said the captain, musing, with his finger on ...
— A Message from the Sea • Charles Dickens
... read it hastily, ordered the servant to wait without the door, retired to her writing-table, which stood near the place at which I still lingered, rested her face on her hand, and seemed musing. Her meditation was very soon over. She turned her head, and to my surprise, beckoned ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... motionless on the edge of the bed in their little room in San Jose that night, a musing expression ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... there the olive grove of Academe, Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long; There flowery hill Hymettus with the sound Of bees' industrious murmur oft invites To studious musing; there Ilyssus rolls His whispering stream; within the walls then view The schools of ancient sages; who bred Great Alexander to subdue the world, Lyceum there and painted Stoa next; ... To sage philosophy next lend thine ear. From Heaven descended to the low roof'd house Of Socrates; see there ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... Musing on the possibilities in this field, Tom, having left Ned at the latter's home, soared down from aloft, and a little later, having told Koku to look after the Air Scout, much to the delight of the giant and the ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... made more sweet, Poured through the mellow horn her pensive soul: And, dashing soft from rocks around Bubbling runnels joined the sound; Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole, Or, o'er some haunted stream, with fond delay, Round a holy calm diffusing, Love of peace, and lonely musing, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... it me in a breath, and let me fly to 't. They that think long small expedition win, For musing much o' th' ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... me and seemed strangely stirred. "Once I loved like that," she said in musing tones. "I will tell thee a tale, child, for I like not the reproach in those blue eyes. Five years ago, when I was as young as thou art now, I lived with my parents in Valencia, where the flowers are even sweeter and the skies bluer ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... vision of his perhaps meeting Mrs. Churchley somewhere, since, if she had gone for a year, she would still be on the Continent. If he should meet her perhaps the affair would come on again: she caught herself musing over this. But he brought back no such appearance, and, seeing him after an interval, she was struck afresh with his jilted and wasted air. She didn't like it—she resented it. A little more and she would have said that that was no way to treat ...
— The Marriages • Henry James
... She alone, deep-haired As rosy dawn, and whiter than a rose, Divinely breasted as the Queen of Love, Lies robeless in the glimmer of the moon, Like Danae within the golden shower. Seated beside her aromatic rest, In rapture musing on her loveliness, Her knight and troubadour. A lute, aslope The curious baldric of his tunic, glints With pearl-reflections of the moon, that seem The silent ghosts of long-dead melodies. In purple and sable, slashed ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... if ever you marry, beware of a sullen, silent sot, one that's always musing, but never thinks. There's some diversion in a talking blockhead; and since a woman must wear chains, I would have the pleasure of hearing 'em rattle a little. Now you shall see, but take this by the way. He came ...
— The Beaux-Stratagem • George Farquhar
... pleasant place to look down at on a summer morning. At this hour there was an unfamiliar delicacy in the familiar scene, a freshness and purity of aspect—almost an unearthliness—as though you viewed it through a crystal dream. But it was not the beauty of the hour that kept Gourlay musing at his gate. He was dead to the fairness of the scene, even while the fact of its presence there before him wove most subtly with his mood. He smoked in silent enjoyment because on a morning such ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... getting foreignized rapidly and with facility. We are getting reconciled to halls and bedchambers with unhomelike stone floors and no carpets—floors that ring to the tread of one's heels with a sharpness that is death to sentimental musing. We are getting used to tidy, noiseless waiters, who glide hither and thither, and hover about your back and your elbows like butterflies, quick to comprehend orders, quick to fill them; thankful for a gratuity without regard to the amount; and always polite—never otherwise than polite. That ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... also brave, but his heart was not proof against this loss. From the hour she was buried, there was no more joy or peace for him. He went often to visit the spot where the women had buried her, and sat musing there, when, it was thought, by some of his friends, he would have done better to try to amuse himself in the chase, or by diverting his thoughts in the war-path. But war and hunting had both lost their charms for him. His heart was already dead within him. He pushed aside ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... lost. One evening when Eyre had taken the first watch, the horses, in their search for grass, had wandered about a quarter of a mile from the camp. He had followed them, and was sitting on a stone beneath the moonlight, musing on his gloomy prospects, when he was startled by a flash and a report. Hastening to the camp, he was met by Wylie, who was speechless with terror, and could only wring his hands and cry: "Oh, massa". When he entered, he saw Baxter lying on his face, whilst the baggage ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... Elise. In short, however, you are reported to be incorruptible and unapproachable. You cannot decide whether the world is calumniating you or not; but what is it you are musing about while I am ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of the white vayne of Achates[A] or Onix, and the Eagle of the other vaine of the same stone called sardius which is of black couler of some called Cordeoll, ioyning both in one selfe same stone. Whereat I stood musing and commending to my selfe the ingenious and apt inuention of the Arthist, in the vse of such a stone, which of his owne nature to contrarie proportions affoorded contrarie coulers, and in such sort as ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... Musing on these things, Christine turned at last and sauntered slowly homeward. Everything was still very quiet, but smoke was rising from the solid farm chimneys, and, rounding the corners of some large outbuildings, she came ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... that he, the Swift who chid the Lord Treasurer, rallied the Captain General, and confronted the pride of the Duke of Buckinghamshire with pride still more inflexible, could be the same being who had passed nights of sleepless anxiety, in musing over a cross look or a testy word of a patron. "Faith," he wrote to Stella, with bitter levity, "Sir William spoiled a fine gentleman." Yet, in justice to Temple, we must say that there is no reason to think that Swift was more unhappy at Moor Park than he would have ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... find it?" said he, musing over the strange experience of his friend; "I suppose you have left plenty of footprints which he is likely to see and which will guide him to ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... and the coldest of spring-water and a brimming measure of whiskey as constituents of greater quality and quantity. Filling with this mixture a small leather-covered flask, and stowing it away within the breast-pocket of his blouse, he returned to the guard-house, musing as he went, "'If this be treason,' said Patrick Henry, 'make the most of it.' If this be conduct prejudicial, etc., say I, do your d—dest. That man would be in the horrors of jim-jams in half an hour more if it were not for this." And so saying ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... get into the way, so thou shouldst also be much in studying and musing on the way. You know men that would be expert in any thing, are usually much in studying of that thing; and so likewise is it with those that quickly grow expert in any thing. This therefore ...
— The Heavenly Footman • John Bunyan
... down. It was not much—a lock of hair in a sealed packet in his pocket-book. The giver was dead and gone to dust, sleeping in an old churchyard near the Strand, forgotten by all who had ever known her—except one. Sometimes in the twilight a tall figure would stand musing beside that forgotten grave for awhile, then turn away and walk swiftly up the narrow river street, across the Strand, and through the ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... now they have him as it were bolted with a lock of a hundred keys which can never be unlocked, except by the concurrence of every key in the hands of a hundred different men and they scattered to a hundred different places. And now they stand musing as to what invention in all the domain of mind and matter can be produced to make the impossibility of his escape more complete than ...
— The Disfranchisement of the Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 6 • John L. Love
... pitch become a sodden pulp, a Morass, a sponge, a lake, a running stream, What time a sad repentant Mea culpa Was all my musing's theme. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, August 11, 1920 • Various
... as he passed up the street, all of them in the highest spirits, and gleefully discussing the splendid fight that was in store. The Boy pursued his way to the inn, and passed into the principal chamber, where St. George now sat alone, musing over the chances of the fight, and the sad stories of rapine and of wrong that had so lately been poured into his ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... hat and rope from the hands of his subordinate, examined them attentively, and after a few moments of deep musing, during which his countenance underwent several rapid though scarcely perceptible changes, turned suddenly and eagerly to the soldier who had first convicted the Canadian in his falsehood, and demanded if he had seen enough of the ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... was a grand gentleman, wha had a daughter wha was very subject to melancholy; and her father gae out that whaever should mak' her laugh would get her in marriage. So it happened that she was sitting at the window ae day, musing in her melancholy state, when Jock, according to the advice o' his mither, cam' flying up on a cow's back, wi' the tail over his shouther. And she burst out into a fit o' laughter. When they made inquiry wha made her laugh, it was found to be Jock ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... dignifie them more; I loue my selfe, my friends, and all for loue: Thou Iulia, thou hast metamorphis'd me: Made me neglect my Studies, loose my time; Warre with good counsaile; set the world at nought; Made Wit with musing, weake; ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... looked round about the table and remembered him of the Queen. He was bent upon thinking rather than on eating, and saw that his court was much wasted and worsened of her death. And what time the King was musing in such sort, behold you a knight come into the hall all armed before the King; and he leaneth on the ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... that he was surrounded by women, intent on him and what he was supposed to be doing, benumbed his intellect. He imagined the cook in the kitchen discussing his talent with a rolling-pin in her hand, Charmian's maid musing over his oddities, with a mouth full of pins, and patterns on her lap. ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... of ease, and fully possessed with the idea that man wants but little here below; so he boards himself in his workshop on crackers and herring, washed down with cold water, and spends his time working, musing, reading new publications, and taking his comfort. In his shop you shall see a joiner's bench, hammers, planes, saws, gimlets, varnish, paint, picture frames, fence posts, rare old china, one or two fine portraits ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... stood thus, musing and dreaming; I was roused by the sound of the door opening and closing; turning, I saw the queen. She was alone, and came towards me with timid steps. She looked out for a moment on the square and the people, but drew ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... lay musing on his bed, He bethought himself upon a time, Of a tribute that was due from France, Had not been paid for so long ...
— The Battaile of Agincourt • Michael Drayton
... old sailor for a moment put himself in a musing attitude, and then starting, exclaimed, "to be sure I do; the loveliest girl I ever cast eyes upon;—and what has become of her? By the bye, there was some story about her, was there not? She chose a husband for herself, ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... Fluxion, musing. "The Josephine is a fast vessel. Under the most favorable circumstances, she would make the run in eight days. A fair passage would be twelve days. If I remain one day in Genoa, where my sister lives, the cruise would ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... King was silent for a moment, musing on sweet memories, and when he spoke it was ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... nose for some of the capers of his youth. Black-Mail House is what I call that place with the door, in consequence. Though even that, you know, is far from explaining all," he added, and with the words fell into a vein of musing. ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... of my remark, but sat musing, leaving half his food untouched. As for me, I helped myself to some more beef, though I must confess the major's wild talk nearly destroyed my appetite. His manner had changed so suddenly and abruptly that I knew not what to make of it. I might perhaps have reloaded my pistol ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... which he knew not, never having seen them in his life. Amongst the rest, he descried a city ordered after the fairest fashion in the midst of a verdant and riant land, rich in trees and streams, with gazelles pacing daintily over the plains; whereat he fell a-musing and said to himself, "Would I knew the name of yon town and in what land it is!" And he took to circling about it and observing it right and left. By this time, the day began to decline and the sun drew near to its downing; ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... swift and brilliant panorama did not long delay his musing fancy. A dull smart like that of a healing wound drew his mind to a succession of scenes on the frontier. He dwelt with that strange fascination which belongs to the memory of hardships—and which we are all too apt to mistake for ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... and incessant craving for movement as the mark of a poet, whose contemporaries adored him for what they took to be the musing sweetness of his melancholy, may seem a critical perversity. There is, however, a momentous difference between that melancholy, which is as the mere shadow projected by a man's spiritual form, and that other melancholy, which itself is the reality and substance ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 3: Byron • John Morley
... Poke without knowing it. Here are berries enough to paint afresh the western sky, and play the bacchanal with, if you will. And what flutes its ensanguined stems would make, to be used in such a dance! It is truly a royal plant. I could spend the evening of the year musing amid the Poke-stems. And perchance amid these groves might arise at last a new school of philosophy or poetry. It ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... His happy musing was interrupted by a neighbor who, on his way home from Thompsonville, stopped at the garden fence with the ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... and naked do I stand here, Musing in my mind what raiment I shall wear; For now I will wear this, and now I will wear that, Now I will wear—I ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... consumptive; this, of all the rest, as counted not fit for any coarse employment, shall be picked out as a Choice Vessel for the Church! Whereas, most evidently, he is much more able to dig daily in the mines, than to set cross-legged, musing ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... Mo. 19th. I have been musing upon "my sorrow was stirred." Can it be that every heart is a treasury of sadness which has but to be stirred up to set us in mourning? Is it proportionate to the amount of evil? Does a certain ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... Eugene To idle musing was a prey; At morn an icy bath within He sat, and then the livelong day, Alone within his habitation And buried deep in meditation, He round the billiard-table stalked, The balls impelled, the ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... face of nature. If he can make the life-blood flow from the wounded breast, this is the living colouring with which he paints his verse: if he can assuage the pain or close up the wound with the balm of solitary musing, or the healing power of plants and herbs and "skyey influences," this is the sole triumph of his art. He takes the simplest elements of nature and of the human mind, the mere abstract conditions inseparable from our being, and tries to compound a new system ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... considering of the matter. Her thoughts were with Harold, who was leaning back in his chair, absorbed in one of those fits of musing, which with him were not unfrequent, and which no one ever regarded, save herself. How deeply solemn it was to her at such times to feel that she alone held the key of his soul—that it lay open, with all its secrets, to ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... his dispatches had all been written, he sat musing for a time, as little disturbed by the glare and the thunder about him as if stillness were an unknown thing. His cogitations did not seem satisfactory, for he frowned more than once. "What's the matter with the fellow?" he muttered. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... was hot within me, and while I was thus musing the fire kindled: and at the last I spake with ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... of composition. In the little picture before us the grouping of the figures is not what may be called inevitable, like that in the 'Knight's Dream.' It seems as though one day when Giorgione was musing on the beauties of the world, and the blemishes of life, even life in Venice, he thought of some far-off time beyond the dawn of history when all men lived in peace. The ancient Greeks called this perfect time the 'Golden Age' of the world. In many ways their idea of it tallies with the description ...
— The Book of Art for Young People • Agnes Conway
... Mr. Hobbes, the "Henriade" of M. de Voltaire, a book upon the Indies, one on the mathematics, far beyond where I have studied: these were what I observed with very mingled feelings. But in the open portmanteau, no papers of any description. This set me musing. It was possible the man was dead; but, since the traders had carried him away, not likely. It was possible he might still die of his wound; but it was also possible he might not. And in this latter case I was determined to have the means ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... even than a touch, the waft of the arrow's feather; but it could wound a guilty heart, and Mrs. Brinkley sat down where she was, realising with a pang that the time when she might have been everything to this unhappy girl had just passed for ever, and henceforth she could be nothing. She remained musing sadly upon the contradictions she had felt in the girl's character, the confusion of good and evil, the potentialities of misery and harm, the potentialities of bliss and good; and she felt less and less satisfied with herself. She had really presumed to interfere with Fate; perhaps she had interfered ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... strange," said the General, as if musing with himself, "it is strange, but these very young creatures seldom do give their first preferences to persons of corresponding age. Girls love to look up to men with ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... entered the small electric brougham which was waiting for him. He lit a cigarette and leaned back amongst the cushions, musing over the events of the evening with a complacent smile. The last few weeks seemed to have wrought some subtle change in the man. His face was at once stronger and weaker, more determined, and yet in a sense less trustworthy. ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... confess'd. Sleep fled mine eyes; "And fled my vision:—As by heaven not mark'd, "Complaining;—far without the hall I heard "A murmuring loud, and human seem'd the sounds,— "Though stranger to mine ears: musing if still "I slept not,—Lo! quick, Telamon approach'd, "Wide threw the doors; and cry'd,—O, sire! behold; "What hope, what faith surpasses!—Forth I come; "Such men as in my dream my fancy saw, "I see;—I know them, man by man, again: "They come, and king salute me: unto Jove "My votive thanks ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... appeared draggled and intermixed with larch and cedar. It was a lonesome spot; and Roland marvelled to himself if this could be the swamp that concealed so many mysteries, and filled all the country-side with alarm. While he was thus musing a figure sprang out of the bush and seized his bridle; at the same moment the shining barrel of a pistol gleamed ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... Maggie, musing; "sometimes it burns all night long. But in the room above that room, there's a little soft light that burns all night, too. That's ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... musing there, very depressed at heart, till at length Mrs. Parsons came and discovered him in a half-doze. She, too, was somewhat changed, for of a sudden age had begun to take a hold of her. Her hair was white now, and her plump, ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... the very first," continued Lord Chetwynde, in a musing tone, which seemed more like a soliloquy than any thing else. "There was the estate, saddled with debt handed down from my grandfather to my father. It would have required years of economy and good management ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... noon, saying, "O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any that answered. And they leaped about the altar that was made. And it came to pass at noon that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud; for he is a god: either he is musing, or he is gone aside, or he is on a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth and must be awaked. And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lances, till the blood gushed out upon them. And it was so, when midday was past, that they ...
— A Trip Abroad • Don Carlos Janes
... Historian of England, musing on Belleisle and his Anti-Pragmatic industries and grandiosities,—"how Chief-Bully Belleisle stept down into the ring as a gay Volunteer, and foolish Chief-Defender George had to follow dismally heroic, as a Conscript of Fate,"—drops these words: ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... in his chair, musing and silent. After a pause he resumed: "Yes, I was poor. I have endured all the horrors of poverty. I have hungered and thirsted, suffered misery and privation, even as a little boy. Thus lay I once, wretched and forsaken, in a ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... mountains look on Marathon— And Marathon looks on the sea; And musing there an hour alone, I dream'd that Greece might still be free; For standing on the Persians' grave, I could not deem myself ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... and smoked glumly while the committee clattered. He hardly heard what they were at such pains to emphasize. He was musing upon a ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... from her seat and looked about her. How long had she sat there musing—dreaming dreams which every instinct of womanly pride compelled her to renounce? She wondered if he had gone. Once more came that mingled hope and fear that he might seek an interview with her before leaving. The hope was stronger than ever, ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... very strange," said Deroulede, musing over this extraordinary occurrence, and still more over Anne Mie's strange excitement in the telling of it. "I never knew I had a hidden enemy. I wonder if I shall ever ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... saints, as fellow-heirs with himself. All other men and things, he deals with as strangers and pilgrims were wont to do. This man's mind soars higher than the eagle, or stork of the heavens. He is for musing about things that are above and their glory, and for thinking what shall come ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... mightier far than thou. He said, and Menoetiades the wrath Of shaft-arm'd Phoebus shunning, far retired. 865 But in the Scaean gate Hector his steeds Detain'd, uncertain whether thence to drive Amid the warring multitude again, Or, loud commandment issuing, to collect His host within the walls. Him musing long 870 Apollo, clad in semblance of a Chief Youthful and valiant, join'd. Asius he seem'd Equestrian Hector's uncle, brother born Of Hecuba the queen, and Dymas' son, Who on the Sangar's banks in Phrygia dwelt. ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... thoughts to ponder over. "Remember, there is no last remedy with a wise unfailing Providence;" "Oscar in God's good keeping." They came to her with thrilling freshness one day in the gallery at Owl's Nest, as she wandered from picture to picture, musing and dreaming. ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... and either then or upon his homeward journey visited Bologna, Venice, and Mantua. He passed through Rome and, unknown to either, may have met Gibbon in the Eternal City into whose mind, some weeks before, 'as I sat musing among the ruins of the Capitol while the bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter,' had started the idea of writing the Decline and Fall. In the city he met Andrew Lumsden, the Secretary of Prince Charles ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... Mrs. Catherine retired musing, as Mr. Billings had previously done; a sweet smile of contentment lighted up the venerable features of Doctor Wood, and he walked abroad into the streets as happy a fellow as any ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... wed, when it happened that as Sir Guy lay by a window of his tower, looking out upon the landscape, he fell to musing on his life. He thought, "How many men I have slain, how many battles I have fought, how many lands I have taken and destroyed! All for a woman's love; and not one single deed done for my God!" Then he thought, "I ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... a council standing Before the River Gate: Short time was there, ye well may guess, For musing or debate. Out spoke the Consul roundly, 'The bridge must straight go down, For, since Janiculum is lost, Nought else can ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Mrs. Woolper's evening musing in the snug little housekeeper's room at the Lawn. It was a very comfortable little room, and held sacred to Mrs. Woolper; the three young females, and the boy in buttons, who formed Mr. Sheldon's in-door establishment, preferring ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... the toy dog" took what had happened somehow seriously, with a particular gravity, as though thinking that this was her downfall and very strange and improper. Her features seemed to sink and wither, and on either side of her face her long hair hung mournfully down; she sat crestfallen and musing, exactly like a woman taken in sin in ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... Sir Jamie Graham—prig; What was thy delighted musing? Now accepting, now refusing, Till on the Admiralty pitch'd, Still would that thought his speech prolong; To gain the place for which he long had itch'd, He call'd on Bobby still through all the song; But ever as his sweetest theme he chose, A sovereign's golden chink was heard ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... is fairly well charted; still, it may take us some time to reach port——" Both men fell into a musing silence as Greer nibbled the boat forward with ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... please me!" she repeated. And fell to musing, while the carriage, quitting at last the rough forest track, rattled out on to the metalled high road, white ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... sat musing. After all, what COULD be proved with absolute certainty? Why, nothing, except such bare facts as that two and two make four. Was even mathematical proof so absolutely certain? Were they not already beginning to talk of a possible fourth dimension of space when ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... earnest patriotism, fed in the scholar by memories of past glory, in the peasant by intense local attachment, and kindled from time to time in all by the reaction of gross wrongs and moral privations. Sometimes in conversation, oftener in secret musing, now in the eloquent outburst of the composer, and now in the adjuration of the poet or the vow of the revolutionist, this latent spirit has found expression. Again and again, spasmodic and abortive emeutes, the calm protest ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... still, and its master was weary. He sat there, quietly musing, feeling the sweet and tranquil presence near him. Now the fire was screened, the lights were out, save one dim glimmer, and he had lain down on the couch with the letter in his hand, and slept the dreamless sleep ...
— The Ghost • William. D. O'Connor
... instincts? I was more sure of it than I had ever been before. The Loves of the Nymphs—the clinging ivy, the yielding reed! The Loves of the Fauns— buffeting wind and kissing rain! These shy brown girls who peered at me from between the trees; these musing shepherd lads calling them upon oaten pipes—"Panaque, Silvanumque senem, nymphasque sorores." I saw them, I saw them! I walked fast! my feet raced with my thoughts. My heart was beating, my blood was hot, my inclinations were pastoral, but enthusiastic. I was ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... remember, withall that it is not thy life, but thy soul that is now in danger; therefore I require from thee a plain answer to a very plain question: what was that business my lady enquired after, whether the other fellow knew, and thou toldest her, he did not? [Dunne made no answer, but stood musing awhile.] ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... into a fit of musing. "I wish those little angels would play with me when I was awake, 'stead of watching me when I was asleep. Say, Aunt Peggy, which would you rather have, wings ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... and disliking the vehicle of a hackney coach, I walked forward to the inn at which the stranger had been left; musing much on the prospect before me, which was once more ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... same result. He straightened himself at last, and his manner was more calm; his frenzied haste was gone, and deliberately he now raised his torch and let its light shine again over the waters. He pondered them a moment, his dark eyes musing almost regretfully. ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... as I was walking in Broadway, musing on my condition, and convinced of the truth of the saying that "there is no solitude so complete as in the midst of a great city," but firmly believing that something would soon "turn up," I saw on the sidewalk an elegant and costly breastpin, which must have belonged to a fashionable lady. ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... standing Before the River-Gate; Short time was there, ye well may guess, For musing or debate. Out spake the Consul roundly: "The bridge must straight go down; For since Janiculum is lost, Naught else can save ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... Bolko dropped as he finished the narrative. The evening twilight thickened before his eyes. He sank into a solemn musing. When he awoke from it, Hubert was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... this gaze, pursued her meditations. Her eye caught the hour-glass that stood on a small table beside her. "Sand after sand," said she, musing to herself—"Sand after sand, thought after thought. The same sand ever trickling there; the same thought ever coursing through my mind. Oh, love! love! They say it enlarges the heart; I think it contracts ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... the other day, Was sauntering up the Sacred Way, And musing, as my habit is, Some trivial random fantasies, That for the time absorbed me quite, When there comes running up a wight, Whom only by his name I knew; "Ha! my dear fellow, how d'ye do?" Grasping my hand, he shouted. "Why, As times go, pretty well," said ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... Soudan, we shall sweep Egypt like the simoom, and Cairo and Alexandria once in our hands, we shall find no difficulty in communicating with Europe. Or, perhaps, it may be done more quickly by Suakim, should the forces of the Mahdi's lieutenant, Osman Digna, recover from their check," he added, musing and thinking aloud rather than addressing ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... naturally of a dreamy and musing spirit, here fell unconsciously into a narrow footpath, an old Indian trace, and without pause or observation, followed it as if quite indifferent whither it led. He was evidently absorbed in that occupation—a very unusual one with youth on horseback—that "chewing of the cud of sweet and ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... around on her heel. Hollister watched her walk away along the river path. He scarcely knew what he thought, what he felt, except that what he felt and thought disturbed him to the point of sadness, of regret. He sat musing on the curious, contradictory forces at work in his life. It was folly to be wise, to be sensitive, to respond too quickly, to see too clearly; and ignorance, dumbness of soul, was also fatal. Either way there was no escape. A man ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... from his musing and became aggressive. He resolutely changed the subject. "Before you go I want to ask you—do you, as a chemist, deny the immortality ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... into a musing about Capes. She wondered why he was so distinctive, so unlike other men, and it never occurred to her for some time that this might be because she was falling in ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... night of late summer; all Nature seemed at peace. I looked aloft and reflected that the same stars were shining upon the civilization I had left so far behind. As we walked I lost myself in musing pensively upon this curious astronomical fact and upon the further vicissitudes to which I would surely be exposed. I compared myself whimsically to an explorer chap who has ventured among a tribe of natives and who must seem to adopt their weird manners and ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... While I was going[88] into the country, I began on the road, as it mostly happens when there is any anxiety on the mind, to reflect with myself upon one thing after another, and upon every thing in the worst light. What need of words? While I was musing thus, inadvertently I passed my country-house. I had already got some distance from it, when I perceived this; I returned again, really feeling quite uneasy; when I came to the very turning that leads to {the ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... irreproachable virtue and of all wonderful qualities. In the course of the play, however, he shows himself very nimble-witted, credulous, and impulsive, quick to anger and quicker still to forgive; with thoughts all turned to sadness and to musing; a poet—ever in extremes; now hating his own rash errors to the point of demanding the heaviest punishment for them; now swearing that he will revenge himself on women by writing against them; ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... dwelling in which he had first greeted his nephew years before, the old soldier, Rene de Laudonniere, sat one chill autumn evening, musing beside a small fire. His surroundings were poor, and his fine face was haggard and careworn. As he sat, in his loneliness, his thoughts were in the New World, and with the brave lad whom ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe |
