"Pondering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was more than illicit pleasure in his mood. It was as though he were going through a sort of cleansing bath. No room here for all the sordidness, meanness, and viciousness that filled the dirty pool of city existence. Without pondering in detail upon the matter at all, his sensations were of purification and uplift. Had he been asked to state how he felt, he would merely have said that he was having a good time; for he was unaware in his self-consciousness of the potent charm of nature that was percolating through his city-rotted ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... me to be present when he spoke to Mrs. Milligan? I asked myself this question again and again. I was still pondering ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... on his fruitless hope intent Twice sixteen thousand years he spent, And in the grove of hermits stayed Till bliss in heaven his rites repaid. Dilipa then, the good and great, Soon as he learnt his kinsmen's fate, Bowed down by woe, with troubled mind. Pondering long no cure could find. 'How can I bring,' the mourner sighed, 'To cleanse their dust, the heavenly tide? How can I give them rest, and save Their spirits with the offered wave?' Long with this thought his bosom ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... histories, understanding little, if aught, of her deeper mysteries, but thankful for the frankness and unaffectedness of their presentation—shall not I find abundance of sumptuous colour and grace of form for my enjoyment, and for my pondering texts ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... reconcile the claims and conclusions of science with those of the received theology. Thoughtful and religious laymen in the higher ranks of society were earnestly seeking a reason for the faith that was in them, and pondering over fundamental problems like the personality of God, the divinity of Christ, the reality of supernatural agency, and the awful mystery of the future life. Yet the tractarians passed lightly over all these problems, to exercise themselves and others with disputations ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... the gaze with equal steadfastness, as if he were pondering in his troubled mind the best course to pursue. Then, because he might think more clearly so, he lifted his serious gaze to the distance; and, at once, there burst from his quivering lips a ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... to their destination before Constable Nute ventured upon what his twisted brow and working lips testified he had been pondering long. ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... receiver, and stood pondering. She wished the telephone had not chosen to behave so abominably; only the day before Wally had rung her up and had spent quite half an hour in talking cheerful nonsense, without any hindrance at all. Norah wished she knew a little more about her new "case"; if he were very weak—if ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... of the nest. And at that I cried the more; and he put his arm about me, and said he had no thought to grieve me, and did not think that Jacob would wish me vexed in the matter. And I begged for a year's grace; and, after thinking and pondering awhile, he answered that he had no wish to hurry things on—that I was full young to leave my girlhood behind and be saddled with the cares of a household. And then it came out that the haste was all Uncle Dyson's doing. Rachel is to be wed ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... sank down at last upon the bed in the bare guest-room. Her weariness was such that she thought that she must sleep, yet for hours she lay wide awake, listening to the rain streaming down and pondering—pondering the future. Her romance was ended. She saw that very clearly. Whatever came of her meeting with Guy, it would not be—it could not be—the consummation to which she had looked forward so confidently during the past five years. Guy had failed her. ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... himself on his couch, thinking of Ada, and pondering how he might beat obtain an interview with her, when the door slowly opened, and a dark figure entered, holding a light in his hand. He attentively scrutinised the countenances of the sleepers, and then stopping before Fleetwood, he threw the light full on ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... birds, that utter falsehoods, Story-tellers, mischief-makers, Found no eager ear to listen, Could not breed ill-will between them, For they kept each other's counsel, Spake with naked hearts together, Pondering much and much contriving How the tribes of men might prosper. Most beloved by Hiawatha Was the gentle Chibiabos, He the best of all musicians, He the sweetest of all singers. Beautiful and childlike was ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... part again, and doing nobly. "Ha!" said he. "So, fellow, pondering on a fair one, didst not hear the approach of our good ship, the ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... stood pondering on the strangeness of this adventure there arrived certain messengers from the king, who were empowered by him to confer upon Macbeth the dignity of Thane of Cawdor. An event so miraculously corresponding with the prediction of the witches astonished Macbeth, and he stood wrapped in ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... of the day, was moving towards a village with his heart tolling. And all the people of the village were come out to meet him, as it was their wont to do; for they abode not the suspense of awaiting Tharagavverug and of hearing him sniffing brazenly as he went from door to door, pondering slowly in his metal mind what habitant he should choose. And none dared to flee, for in the days when the villagers fled from Tharagavverug, he, having chosen his victim, would track him tirelessly, like a doom. Nothing availed them against Tharagavverug. ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... see a girl you at once get busy speculating over whether or not she'll ever be beautiful enough for your Dinkie, and when one of the Crowned Heads of Europe announces the alliance of its youngest princess you fall to pondering if Dinkie wouldn't have made her a better husband. And when the flowers come out in your window-box you wonder if they're fair enough to bloom beside your Dinkie. I don't suppose I ever made a haystack that you didn't wonder whether it wasn't going to be a grand ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... him and came as often as he pleased, which, before long, meant every day. When he came in the morning he generally stayed until the evening, and when he came in the afternoon he always stayed as long as Sybil would let him, and rode home late through the misty June moonlight pondering on the happiness the world had suddenly brought forth for him who had supposed, but a few months ago, that all happiness was at ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... I breathed the incense of flowery perfumes and stared blindly upon the moon's splendour, pondering this hateful word in its application to myself. And gradually, having regard to the manifest injustice and bad taste of the term, conscious of the affront it implied, I grew warm with a righteous indignation that magnified ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... had a hard fight to fight to-day. As I sat alone, pondering over this terrible affair in which it is my sad lot to have to give judgment, the door opened and the rector's daughter—I may no longer call her my betrothed—rushed in and threw herself at my feet. I raised her up, clasped her in my arms and we wept ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... with sunshine; soon the ears Weary of utterance, seeing all is said; Soon, racked by hopes and fears, The all-pondering, all-contriving head, Weary with all things, wearies of the years; And our sad spirits turn toward the dead; And the tired child, the body, longs ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... another, despairing and endeavouring to conciliate his beautiful Florence: now again catching hope from some new movement of the Emperor's; and then, not very handsomely threatening and re-abusing her; but always pondering and grieving, or trying to appease his thoughts with some composition, chiefly of his great work. It is conjectured, that whenever anything particularly affected him, whether with joy or sorrow, he put it, hot with the impression, into ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... transfer took place and I was pondering anew, for a face I had seen flickering through the warm wet mist haunted me; it entered into the realm of the interpreter, and I was made aware by the pale cheeks, and by the close-shut lips of pain, and by some inward knowledge, that there the Tree ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... his skins, lay down, and was soon fast asleep. The bee-hunter was fain to do the same, the night being now far advanced; but he lay awake a long time, thinking of the hint he had received, and pondering on the nature of the danger which menaced the security of the family. At length, sleep asserted its power over even him, and the place lay in the ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... that to yourself if you go on like that," returned Corrie. "But, I say, Alice, cheer up," (here he rolled round on his other side,) "I've been pondering a plan all this time to set us free, and now I'm going to try it. The only bother about it is that these rascally savages have dropt me beside a pool of half soft mud that I can't help sticking my head into if ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... some ordinary song, or some unimpressive snatches from an opera. Nor will we be the less tormented if the song in itself be good, or the opera air meritorious. In this manner, at last, I would perpetually catch myself pondering upon my security, and repeating, in a low undertone, the phrase, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... robbed the church I had no use for him." He had stolen, it seems, the communion service in a Staten Island church. The thoughtless laughed. But in her ignorant way she was only trying to apply the ethical standards she knew. Our servant, pondering if the fortune she was told is "real good" at fifteen cents, when it should have cost her twenty-five by right, only she told the fortune-teller she had only fifteen, and lied in telling, is doing the same after her fashion. Stunted, bemuddled, as their standards were, I think I should ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... to see the Little Woman, after all. He had sent her a wire from Goffs the day before, saying that he was prospecting with a fellow and he hoped she was well. This, after long pondering, had seemed to him the easiest way out of an argument with the Little Woman. The wire had given no address whereby she might reach him, but the omission was not the oversight Casey hoped she would consider it. He wanted to be reassuring without ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... thought, to fill the day with sunshine; and yet somehow the sight of that disordered room still poisoned his enjoyment. The door of the bedchamber stood gaping open; and though he turned aside his eyes as from a sacrilege, he could not but observe the bed had not been slept in. He was still pondering what this should mean, still trying to convince himself that all was well, when the moving needle of his watch summoned him to set forth without delay. He was before all things a man of his word; ran round to Southampton Row to fetch a cab; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... expressed perfect indifference, nay, even annoyance, which contracted his lips, and yellowed the rosiness of his round cheeks somewhat. In his blue eyes, fixed glassily on the distance, was depicted something like dissatisfaction, or a feeling of disappointment, a dreaming, or a pondering in vain over deceitful visions which pass over space, but which no one can seize upon. He did not see his father, for his glassy eyes were looking far away at some point. Even the baron did not see Darvid; he was searching for something in his pocketbook carefully, ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... did not undress all night; wrote two or three letters, burnt two or three papers, took out a gold locket containing the portrait of a black-browed, black-eyed woman with a bold, voluptuous face, scrutinised her features slowly, and walked up and down the room pondering. ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... long while, till evening, and talked little. I was silent, like all inexperienced lovers, and she, probably, had nothing to say to me. But she seemed to be pondering over something, and shook her head in a peculiar way, as she pensively nibbled a leaf she had picked. Sometimes she started walking ahead, so resolutely...then all at once stopped, waited for me, and looked round with lifted eyebrows and a vague smile. On the ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... "You've been pondering on what old Quito was telling us, in his broken English, about this little revolution that has been slumbering around the region of the Magdalena River of late. You have a hunch that we may just be unlucky enough to run across some of those ragged chaps, who want to upset the ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... Having been pondering while slowly walking along, he now stopped as these thoughts caught hold of him, and right away another thought sprang forth from these, a new thought, which was: "That I know nothing about myself, that Siddhartha has remained thus alien and unknown to me, stems from one cause, a single cause: ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... happy infant, lay, And taught him not to mourn, but pray. How, when, at length, he reach'd his home, His heart foretold a gentle doom; With tears of fondness in his eyes, Hoping to cause a glad surprize; Full of submission, pondering o'er What he too lightly priz'd before; The curse with tenfold vengeance fell.— Those who had lov'd him once so well, In whose indulgence perfect trust Had still been wise, though most unjust, Were in the grave!—Their hearts were cold! His penitence might ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... alarm as well as he was able, he escorted her home, and then set off for the hut in the forest, pondering, as he went, upon the event of the evening, and wondering what could be the cause of the fierce and ireful expression which disfigured the usually placid face of his uncle, as he gazed so fixedly on Edith. It reminded ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... will," said I, pondering deeply as to how this might be prevented. But I am not of a mechanical turn naturally, so I could conceive no remedy save that of putting a plate of iron on the keel; but as we had no iron, I knew not what was to be done. ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... sat there. He had cantered off into the woods long since; and all through the long afternoon she sat there scheming, pondering, a veiled sparkle playing under her half-closed lids. She saw him returning in the last lingering sun rays, leading his saddled horse down to the brook, and stand there, one arm flung across the crupper, while the horse drank and shook his thoroughbred head and lipped the tender foliage that ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... the man who put him there had forgotten all about it. Though he was praised at the time, he was hardly a shining example to hold up to troops. Diligence and dullness are mutually exclusive traits. The model who is well worth pondering by all services is Chief Boatswain L. M. Jahnsen who on the morning of Pearl Harbor was in command of the yard garbage scow YG-17. She was collecting refuse from the fleet when the first Japanese planes came over. As the West Virginia began to burn, ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... may thus front our desperate fortunes undismayed and with faith unshaken, how much more should I, a man inured to suffering and hardened by privation? Thus, checking my gloomy foreboding, I too breathed a prayer to God for His infinite mercies, and thereafter fell to pondering how I might supply our more pressing needs with such small means as I possessed; and so in a ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... was really a singular piece of good luck that gave to me any share whatever in the discovery. During the first half of the nineteenth century (and even earlier) many great biological thinkers and workers had been pondering over the problem and had even suggested ingenious but inadequate solutions. Some of these men were among the greatest intellects of our time, yet, till Darwin, all had failed; and it was only Darwin's extreme desire to perfect his work that allowed me to come in, ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... occurred in the middle of December. Immediately thereafter began the preparations for Christmas. Effi, who might otherwise have found it hard to live through these days, considered it a blessing to have a household with demands that had to be satisfied. It was a time for pondering, deciding, and buying, and this left no leisure for gloomy thoughts. The day before Christmas gifts arrived from her parents, and in the parcels were packed a variety of trifles from the precentor's family: ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... trying to gather strength for thought and endurance, longing, yet dreading, to share with her daughter the miserable burden which was pressing out her very life. Lucia, half hidden by the curtain, sat pondering uselessly over the letter she had read; feeling a vague fear and a livelier curiosity. But a heart so ignorant of sadness in itself, and so filled at the moment with all that is least in accord with the prosaic troubles of middle life, could not remain long fixed upon a doubtful ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... sweetness and kindliness. Life has so many sharp crosses, so many inexplicable sorrows for us all, that I hold it good to snatch at every moment of gladness, and to keep my eyes on beautiful things whenever they can be seen. During the days when I was pondering the subject of tragic marriages, I read the letters of the great Lord Chatham. The mighty statesman was not distinguished as a letter-writer; like Themistocles, he might have boasted that, though he was inapt where ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... are plentiful enough in Mexico now-a-days, still made a very serious impression on my mind, for the words I had overheard, and above all, the tone in which they were uttered, seemed to imply something mysterious, and to be the key-note of some dramatic fragment. For hours I tossed about, pondering over those words, and day was dawning ere ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... sporting with him. He had been too much spoiled by life, to regard more plainly the first drop of poison from the cup which was just started, and he passed all the time of the journey without sleep, pondering over the old man's words and fondling his grudge. This grudge, however, did not awaken in him despondency and sorrow, but rather a feeling ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... not comprehend the question, then he smiled, remembering how readily Henty usually thought things out. A. P. must have been pondering very deeply to take so long a time in evolving that simple question. It was to the point, however; they might as well work from west to east, seeing that they were so near the Pacific and so far from the Atlantic. That consideration had caused ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... followed—and dinner was over—except for the laird, who had a little toddy after. But as yet Cosmo had never even tasted strong drink—and of course he never desired it. Leaving the table, he wandered out, pondering some of the things his father had been ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... It was while pondering on this subject one day, as they were strolling out together, that the baron and his lady came upon the cottage of an old soldier named Karl Mueller, who cultivated a little vineyard ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... vase, cracked before it had served its use, and he felt thoroughly ashamed of the weakness and infirmity of his inner self. Thus pondering, he traversed much ground, hardly knowing where he was going. The fog, which now filled the air and which almost hid the trenches with its thin bluish veil, made it impossible to discover his bearings. At last he reached the border of some pastureland, which he ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... last forty-eight hours Guy Oscard had made the decision that life without Millicent Chyne would not be worth having, and in the hush of the great house he was pondering over this new feature in his existence. Like all deliberate men, he was placidly sanguine. Something in the life of savage sport that he had led had no doubt taught him to rely upon his own nerve and capacity more than do most men. ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... lay awake at night pondering on those first days and first ambitions. If he began to think of them when he went to bed it was fatal. He became so pleasantly excited, and the past built itself up so realistically all about him, that he could not go to sleep for hours. What a sensational "bed book" is ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... his fire that evening, pondering Miss Bengough's prognostication that difficulties awaited him in his work, he came to the conclusion that it would have been far better had she kept her beliefs to herself. No man does a thing better for having his confidence damped ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... remarked the police sergeant, whose slow, bucolic common sense was still pondering the open window. "It's all very well your saying that a man escaped by wading this moat, but what I ask you is, how did he ever get into the house at all ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... little communication in words between the two boys, for the one had not much to say, and the pondering fits of the other grew rather than relaxed in frequency and intensity. Yet amongst chance acquaintances in the town Robert had the character of a wag, of which he was totally unaware himself. Indeed, although he had more than the ordinary share of humour, ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... at her own limitations in life, and she crept back to her kitchen planning how she could manage to get one of the girls to present her with some of the bridal finery. Thus pondering the problem, she sat down opposite Jeb and entertained him, as he ate his Sunday supper of ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... the conclusion, and he went back to find it, and having found it, he was surprised. Up to that moment, he had not thought of his mother a Christian. How came the words in his mouth now? Who prompted them? And while he was hastily pondering the effect upon her of the discovery that he himself was an Islamite, the image in the box reoccurred to him, this time with the child in its arms; and thereupon the mystery seemed to clear itself at once. "Mother and mother!" he said. ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... right," the giant agreed; and after pondering in silence he asked: "Do you reckon ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... in Sanders's easy-chair, Davies was pondering over all that he had been told at the table, and the little that he had wrung from her reluctant lips, putting them together with the frequent questions asked him by the few women who had joined their husbands ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... fallen here in Elbow Barren. Subconsciously he stopped the stage. On the right the dwelling of the Hatburns showed vaguely through the mist. No one else could have been on the road. A troubled expression settled on his glowing countenance, a pondering doubt; then his mouth drew into ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... listened to them with kindness, and was not uninfluenced by them. Enfeebled by illness, he had nearly brought himself to a compliance with a request urged with affectionate importunity, but from which his reason and sense of duty held him aloof. After long and deep and painful pondering, when the hour arrived, he rose from his bed of sickness, walked into the House of Commons, and not only voted, but spoke in favour of his convictions. His speech remains, one of the best ever delivered on the subject, not only full of weighty ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... "Pondering on the world and fate, Yawning I had dropped asleep, And I dreamed that I was lying Stretched beneath a ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... at the boy, and the boy smiled at him. "I am trying to think of your name," said Everychild, pondering. Surely he had seen this ...
— Everychild - A Story Which The Old May Interpret to the Young and Which the Young May Interpret to the Old • Louis Dodge
... been pondering over a classification of knowledge. My scheme is to divide all knowledge in the first place into ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... blanket and peered beneath it and there, as Pierre Bonnet Rouge had told him, was a black fox skin, and its ermine collar. The boy examined the collar. It was an exact counterpart of the three he had in his pocket. He replaced the blanket and walked slowly back to camp, pondering deeply the mystery of the collars, but the more he thought, the more mysterious ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... visitor had departed, Lawson stood lost in thought. He was not angry, yet he should have been, he realised. Assuredly he should have been angry, assuredly he should have kicked his visitor downstairs. But as it was, he remained in deep thought, pondering over a suggestion that had been made to him. The suggestion, stripped of certain Oriental qualities of flowery phraseology and translated from pidgin-English into business English, was the merest, most vague hint of an exchange of favours. So slight was the hint, ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... Phats, who had evidently been pondering over Hycy's promised gift to the Hogans;—"throth," he observed with a grin, "dere may be something under dat too. Ay! an' she wishes Bryan M'Mahon well," he exclaimed, ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... summoned the house-servant and the landlady, and was still confusedly pondering the broken sentences uttered by the dying man, when Mr. Sowerby hurriedly arrived. The attorney's first care was to assume the direction of affairs, and to place seals upon every article containing or likely to contain anything of value belonging to ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... dolls, or some such silly employment. Their thoughts are not turned to good works, nor to providing suitable food for cats. What will become of them hereafter?" Elsewhere, a lizard on the wall with upraised face is watching a fly. No doubt he is pondering the evil disposition of flies. A butterfly is flying about. In the spot where Satish Babu sits eating sweets, the flies collect in swarms; the ants also do their share towards removing the sweet food. In a few moments the lizard, not being able to catch the fly, moves elsewhere. ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
... see the old man lower his eyes and sit pondering. In a little while he says: 'Ingmar, you ought to marry some nice girl who will make you a good wife.' 'But that's exactly what I can't do, father,' I reply. 'There is not a farmer in the parish, even among the ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... go rather a long way back," said Lucetta, the difficulty of explaining herself satisfactorily to the pondering one beside her growing more apparent at each syllable. "You remember that trying case of conscience I told you of some time ago—about the first lover and the second lover?" She let out in jerky phrases a leading word or two of ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... sees in it the end of his fears, the cleansing of his heart, the pardoning of his sins, his acceptance with God, is a very different thing from the aspect that it ought to wear to him, after, say forty years of pondering, of growing up to it, after years of experience have taught him. Life is the best commentary upon the truths of the gospel, and the experience teaches their depths and their power, their far-reaching applications and harmonies. So our growth ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... not exactly that,—and yet, perhaps, it is." He seemed to be pondering on the reason ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... in reading, or rather, in pondering over, two letters, with which a courier from Calais had just arrived, the one from the archbishop, the other from Warwick. In these epistles were two passages, strangely contradictory in their counsel. A sentence in Warwick's ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... together—Carmina, ill at ease, to attend on her aunt; Miss Minerva, pondering on what had happened, to find the ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... and their ultimate realisation in the New Jerusalem, which shall yet descend to be the bride, the Lamb's wife. The principles involved in the prophecy belong to the region of purely spiritual religion, and are worth pondering, apart from any question of the place and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... say: Why are you walking about here as imposingly, as if you were a good woman? Yesterday evening you were in the arms of one of us. Quite distinctly she heard within her that expression "one of us," and, for the first time in her life, she could not help pondering over the fact that all the men who passed by were indeed men, and that all the women were indeed women; that they desired one another, and, if they so wished, found one another. And she had the feeling as though only on the previous day at that time ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... justified the act. She brought me out of the coma of the chloral after three hours of mental work, and the next day I felt decidedly calmer and less afraid of the coming of night, should I live to meet it, which seemed doubtful. At noon she left me to go to her home to lunch. I was pondering seriously on her reiterated 'God is love and fills the universe and there is nothing beside Him,' when I suddenly had a sensation of being lifted up or rising slowly and becoming lighter in body. A rush of power that I have no way of describing to you filled me. I seemed to ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... head over ears in work. In a mail just arrived I had a letter from the Prodigal, and a certain paragraph in it set me pondering. Here it was: ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... matter to your serious pondering, for it is certain that the prevalent fear of poverty among the educated classes is the worst moral disease from which ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... in my mind, I press my readers to understand that I leave the ethics of wagering alone for the present, and confine my attention strictly to the question of expediency. What is the use of wearing out nerve and brain on pondering an infinite maze of uncertainties? The rogues who command jockeys and even trainers on occasion can act with certainty, for they have their eye on the very tap-root of the Turf upas-tree. The noodles who read sporting ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... in listless apathy, his attention was attracted by the letter V, carved on the smooth bark, and environed with a chaplet of violets, underneath which the motto, "Forget me not," was cut in graceful letters. While pondering on this rural emblem of constant love, he was startled by a low and plaintive female voice chanting the following simple strain, with the gentle pathos ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... to the trying nature of the ceremony we had just passed through. Reflecting that people do not get married every day, and appalled at the terrible conclusions with which the mind would distract itself by pondering so alarming a topic, I shudderingly abandoned it, and assisted Malinda Jane and her ma, in a ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... pondering, a red squirrel chippered and scolded from a near tree; closer and closer the impudent creature came to ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Pondering over the "narrer minds" of those with whom he had been conversing, Josiah Boyden tramped along the dusty road, becoming more incensed with every step, as he thought of the individual who had presumed ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks
... prophetic words the Assistant left his coadjutor, and returning to the apartment of the lady, requested her to prepare herself and the Indian child to accompany him. She made no reply, and, on his departure, sat some little time pondering what it became her to do; after which, she rose and prepared ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... slowly with bowed head; he was pondering as to what he should do in the future. His life had never seemed more useless than it now appeared with the glaring doubt in his mind. Suddenly he was aware of some one approaching, and he raised his eyes hopefully. It was Janet, and the breeze, ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... under one of the light-clusters, he encountered a slender and solitary figure, and as he approached, he recognized the girl to whom he had so recently been introduced. The pianist had just been thinking of her, pondering why her face had stood out in the mist, when other faces had been swallowed, and why, although her eyes had confessed the delight of anticipation, she had later vouchsafed no word of commendation. Surely he had not played badly tonight and he was accustomed to ready praise. When ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... thought she understood the reason for Michael's call now, and she was pleased to think how easily she could grant his request. The idea of introducing the two was stimulating. She was pondering what a handsome pair of men they were, and so ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... moment Mrs. Hawthorne had nothing to say, busy with pondering what she had heard. "I don't see how, if she really loves this Italian, she could give him up so gracefully," she ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... entertained of my poor friend's insanity, was put finally at rest. I had no alternative but to conclude him stricken with lunacy, and I became seriously anxious about getting him home. While I was pondering upon what was best to be done, Jupiter's voice ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Marius. The feeling with which he thought of his dead father was almost exclusively that of awe; though crossed at times by a not unpleasant sense of liberty, as he could but confess to himself, pondering, in the actual absence of so weighty and continual a restraint, upon the arbitrary power which Roman religion and Roman law gave to the parent over the son. [17] On the part of his mother, on the other hand, entertaining the ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... food for thought, Mr. Poe," said he. "I've been pondering on that creed of yours for finding and keeping the secret of true happiness. It is about the most wholesome and sane doctrine I've met with for some time. I've determined to adopt it, and to, at least endeavor, to ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... a visit from some German lady who has founded one of these houses!" But it was evident that the cardinal doubted, and he was pondering how this box, which he had seen a hundred times in the hands of the queen, came into the possession of this woman. Had the queen really been to see her? If she had been, was she indeed unknown to Jeanne? Or, if not, why did she try to hide the knowledge from him. If the queen had ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... description of the man. To a certain extent it still fitted him, but he imagined that those twelve years had had a hardening effect upon him, making rigid that which had always been stubborn, driving the iron deeper and ever deeper into his soul, till only iron remained. Many were the nights he spent pondering over the romance of the woman he loved. What subtle attraction in this hardened sinner had lured her heart away? Was it possible that the fellow had ever cared for her? Had he ever possessed even the rudiments ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... triumphantly, after an instant's pondering. "You can never under any circumstances be that, and I shall develop your imagination and artistic temperament at the same time. Miss King is selfish to wish to keep you from cultivating yourself for the purpose of furnishing her entertainment. ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... at the ground in a pondering manner, "my father got a letter from Sidney yesterday afternoon, saying that the ship with the mummy and himself on board had arrived about four o'clock. The letter was sent on by special ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... was an extraordinarily mild one, and even during the coldest month he strolled every evening after he had supped on the terrace walk which was before the portico. He was strolling one night on the terrace pondering on the fate of mankind, and more especially on the life—if there was such a thing—beyond the grave. He was not a superstitious man, but, saturated with tradition, he was a scrupulous observer of religious feast, custom, and ritual. He had lately been disturbed by what he considered to ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... only move her to tears," she murmured, "only break that frozen calm once. How can I touch, move, melt her? It must be done." And pondering this difficult ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... waited longer," suggested Charles, after a moment's silence, in which he appeared to be deeply pondering her sentence. "I have taken you by surprise; you have ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... pondering as to whether she could hope ever to understand these people, she sought the Principal and told him the whole story. "And now why," she asked, "did he make such a fuss about the washing only to yield without a struggle ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... I know,' began Morton, 'you may at this moment be drifting on the Euphrates, or pondering on the site of Alexandreia Eschate. It is you who owe me an account of yourself; nevertheless, I am prompted to write, if only to tell you that I have just got the complete set of the Byzantine Historians. A catalogue tempted ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... heavy outer door and crossed over to his house, while the boy went whistling down the street in the dusk. Slowly the artist mounted the stairs, pondering, as he went, on the many emotions of the day, and at last repeating his conclusion, that he was glad that he had not ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... emotion, she pressed them somewhat hard, and, as from a concertina emerges a jerked and drawn-out chord, so from the cook came a long, quaking sound; her apron fell, her body heaved, and her drowsy, flat, soft voice, greasy from pondering ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... little part and disappear from the scene, cannot be described on paper, or too highly lauded. The figures are very carelessly drawn; but, if the reader can understand us, all the attitudes and limbs are perfectly CONCEIVED, and wonderfully natural and various. After pondering over these drawings for some hours, as we have been while compiling this notice of them, we have grown to believe that the personages are real, and the scenes remain imprinted on the brain as if we had absolutely been ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Southern town, she alluded to its dulness, saying that if I came there virtue must be its own reward. "Stupid of her to speak to me of virtue," I muttered, "for she must know well enough that it was her partial virtue that had separated us and caused this long estrangement." And I sat pondering, trying to discover if she applied the phrase to herself or to the place where she was staying. How could it apply to the place? All places would be a ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... came as a thunderbolt to the Council, when those who were friendly to Garnett were pondering how they should act in view of Denis Quirk's charges; and those who stood opposed to Garnett were rejoicing in his discomfort. To the former his counter charges came as a relief; to the latter they brought doubt and consternation. Only one man seemed perfectly ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... and so ends our Lord's teaching before His passion. He gathers up in one mighty word the total intention of these sweet and deep sayings which we have so long been pondering together. He sketches in broad outline the continual characteristics of the disciples' life, and closes all with the strangest shout of victory, even at the moment when He seems ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... stood pondering these matters, and staring before him as one mazed, the Lady laughed out in his face, and touched him on the arm and said: "Ah, our Squire, is it so that now thou hast seen my Maid thou wouldst with a good will abide behind to talk with her? But call to mind thy word pledged ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... out," replied the captain, scratching his head and pondering over the matter, "for we'll only just shave past Cape Finisterre now keeping our course; and if we hadn't made so much westing when we got out of the Channel I don't know ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... light; and, similarly, a few words of discussion, when the book is completed, will have the effect of consolidating the floating ideas to which the perusal has given rise. The habit of casting aside a book as soon as the last page is read, without pondering over its contents and recalling the argument and refreshing the memory where it has failed, or allowing the 'frenzied current of the eye to be stopped for many moments of calm reflection or thought,' is apt to render ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... both Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in the manger. And when they saw it, they made known concerning the saying which was spoken to them about this child. And all that heard it wondered at the things which were spoken unto them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these sayings, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, even as it was ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... was pondering over the words of Astumastao, and thinking of the risks she and her companions were about to run, and the dangers they would have to encounter in their great undertaking, and contrasting it with the listless, aimless life he had lately been leading, suddenly there came to ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... of the proposed engagement; when Miss Carr sighed, and screwed up her face until it looked nothing but a network of wrinkles, she knew that the old lady was blaming herself for negligence in the past, and pondering what could still be done to avert the marriage, and a most unpleasant knowledge it was. Lettice had lived all her life in the sunshine of approval. As a little child everyone had petted and praised her because of her ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... pondering a little, "I should advise you to try civil engineering; for they are getting up a Board of Works there, and want that branch of industry very much, for they won't take natives; nothing but foreigners or ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... She was pondering what to do. She could not decline to know the Prince without making some explanation to Millicent. She also could not flatter him so much. She must just be icily cold, and if he should be further impertinent she could remain in ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... to myself," he observed gloomily, pondering, "perhaps after all I am a man and not a louse and I've been in too great a hurry to condemn myself. I'll make ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... when he told them she was gone out with Mr. Thorpe, the lady had asked whether any message had been left for her; and on his saying no, had felt for a card, but said she had none about her, and went away. Pondering over these heart-rending tidings, Catherine walked slowly upstairs. At the head of them she was met by Mr. Allen, who, on hearing the reason of their speedy return, said, "I am glad your brother had so much sense; I am glad you are come back. It was ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... did not feel my dwelling's dreary void; But now, returning home, my rage appeas'd, Their kingdom wasted, and my son aveng'd, I find there nothing left to comfort me. The glad obedience I was wont to see Kindling in every eye, is smother'd now In discontent and gloom; each, pondering, weighs The changes which a future day may bring, And serves the childless king, because he must. To-day I come within this sacred fane, Which I have often enter'd to implore And thank the gods for conquest. In my breast I bear an old and fondly-cherish'd wish, To which methinks thou canst not be ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... me in his far-seeing way, as if he were pondering what was next to be said about him. It would not displease him, I know, if I were to begin my discursive talk to-day by telling a little incident connected with a ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... for talking together, and yet the words pronounced in the reporter's ear by the engineer were well worth being discussed, together with the mysterious influence which appeared to reign over Lincoln Island. Gideon Spilett did not cease from pondering over this new and inexplicable incident, the appearance of a fire on the coast of the island. The fire had actually been seen! His companions, Herbert and Pencroft, had seen it with him! The fire had served to signalize ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne |
