"Brown study" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... all very interesting to Edna, and she sat looking at the outstretched feet upon which she had just drawn her stockings till her mother reminded her that time was flying. "Wake up, dearie," she said. "Why, what a brown study you are in. Reliance will be ready long before you are. Hurry on with your shoes, and then come let me tie ...
— A Dear Little Girl's Thanksgiving Holidays • Amy E. Blanchard
... that the ranger fell into a brown study. Lew and Charley went on rapidly with their preparations ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... thoughtfully for some minutes after Uncle Mat left him, and finally, roused from his brown study by the striking of a clock, went hurriedly to the desk and began his letter. Before he had finished, Sylvia's patience had quite given out, and she came and stood behind him, with her arm over his shoulder ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... browned that toast, and scorched her own little cheeks, if Hilda would remember the old days, and the toast which she used to make her; but Mrs. Quentyns seemed to be in a sort of brown study that morning, and thanked the child absently when the crisp hot toast was ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... command, "Follow thou me." In the meantime at the church he had seen people doing just that, following Him; doing as He did; and the whole thing impressed him as nothing had ever done before. So, when he went to the office next morning and found Udell strangely silent and apparently in a brown study, he was not at all surprised, and asked, "What's the matter, George? Didn't you sleep well last night either? Or did the thoughts of having been so generous with your ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... mind immovibly sot, as I could see. And the very day of the shovel episode, along towards night he rousted out of a brown study,—a sort of a dark-brown ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... leetle patience, your honour, and all will be out as quick as directly—in the twinkling of a bed-post.—For three successive nights I sat up in a brown study, with a four-in-the-pound candle burning before me till almost cock-crow, composing a love-letter, a most elaborate affair, the pure overflowing of la belle passion, all about Venus, Cupids, bows and arrows, hearts, darts, and them things, which, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various
... a little. The House was thinning rapidly, and half the occupants of the Ladies' Galleries had adjourned to the tearooms on the farther side of the corridor. Marcia could now see her mother's face more distinctly as Lady Coryston sat in a brown study, not listening, evidently, to the very halting gentleman who was in possession of the House, though her eyes ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Edward, looking at his little niece with interest as she sat in her big chair, her elbows supported by her knees, and her chin resting in her hands, "are you going into a brown study?" ...
— Probable Sons • Amy Le Feuvre
... time, mostly at Manisty's expense. Eleanor Burgoyne first laughed at his sallies, then gently turned her head in a pause of the general advance and searched the crowd pressing at their heels. Lucy's eyes followed hers, and there far behind, carried forward passively in a brown study, losing ground slightly whenever it was possible, was Manisty. The fine significant face was turned a little upward; the eyes were full of thoughts; he was at once the slave of ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... room, Quirk, closing his door, stood for some time leaning against the side of the window, with his hands in his pockets, and his eyes instinctively resting on his banker's book, which lay on the table. He was in a very brown study, the subject on which his thoughts were busied, being the prudence or imprudence of leaving Titmouse thus in the hands of Gammon. It might be all very well for Quirk to assert his self-confidence when in Gammon's ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... brass cowhorn, and made a practice of sounding it as he mounted the road leading to Culvercoombe. Its note, sounding through the clear morning air, aroused Tilda from her brown study, and she ran lightly up the slope to catch ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... sometimes, and sometimes we fight duels with them." I expounded in brief the distinction between these processes and their formalities, whereat he remained for a long while in a brown study. ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... answered, thoughtfully, while it seemed to Bessie that a shadow passed over his face, and he sat for a few moments in a brown study as if revolving something in his mind. Then rousing up he said he must leave them, as he was due at a party at the West End, and it was time he was making his toilet. "I shall be very glad to see you at Trevellian Castle," he said ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... the ironical language of his tongue. "No—Sir Wycherly, a man-of-war's man, in particular, has not the slightest idea of 'passive obedience and non-resistance,'—that is a doctrine which is intelligible only to papists and tories. Bluewater is in a brown study; thinking no doubt of the manner in which he intends to lead down on Monsieur de Gravelin, should we ever have the luck to meet that gentleman again; so we will, if it's agreeable to all parties, change ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... possible that his arm might be there; looking at his own arms and those of everybody else, as if to assure himself that two and not one was the usual allowance; sitting by the hour together in a brown study, as if he were endeavouring to recall Joe's image in his younger days, and to remember whether he really had in those times one arm or a pair; and employing himself in many other speculations of the ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... you came for the sake of a brown study? I wish I had known you were not busy, for I have been round all the ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... His brown study lasted only a moment. With a quick movement he walked to the blackboard, caught up a section of sheepskin, and began erasing the symbols ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... ingratiating way of depositing other riders on the road. From what one knows of him later this is a characteristic story. One day he dismounted to look over a gate at a view which impressed him (not very boyish this), and when he recovered from a brown study there was no Beppo to be seen. He walked the seven miles home, but what was characteristic was that he called at police-stations on the way to give practical details of his loss and a description of the pony. Few children would have thought of this, ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... drop into a brown study over his meat and potatoes was a caution to my mind. A minister that don't eat is—an anomaly," she burst out. "I have boarded them before, and I know they like the good things of life as well as anybody. ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... wasn't religious! So I said to mamma that, now we knew all about it, there could be no reason why we shouldn't see as much of each other as ever we liked, seeing Richard was our brother. But she paid no heed to me; she sat thinking and thinking; and I read in her face that she was not in a brown study, but trying to get at something. It was many minutes before she spoke, but she did at last, and what she told us is my secret, Barbara! But I'm not bound to keep it from you, for I know you would not hurt Richard, and you have a right to know ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... to the pier in a brown study. Mrs. Loraine had positively refused to let me see Kate, at the present time or in the future. She was again confined to her room, not to leave it, I judged, for weeks, unless I put my plan of intervention into execution. Her oppressor was away, and ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... a task for an offhand answer, and the suggestion was made that the aged one consult his minister. Again the negro fell into a brown study, and then he raised his head and his eyes twinkled merrily, and he said in a ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... was that, on the misty afternoon when young Mr. Walter a Cleeve passed him unawares, Jim had been standing for twenty minutes flat against a tree on the upper outskirts of the plantation, sunk in a brown study. The apparition startled him, for the thick air deadened the sound of footsteps; and the sound, when it fell on his ears, held something unfamiliar. (Jim was unacquainted with sabots.) He stood perfectly still, let it go by, and at once prepared to follow—not that his suspicions connected this ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... selected coins in his hand, rather as if he were falling into a brown study of their value, and couldn't bear to part with them. The woman looks at him distrustfully, and with her anger brewing for the event of his thinking better of the gift; but he bestows it on her as if he were abstracting his mind from the sacrifice, and with many servile thanks ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... that it could all 'a' been fixed aforehand!" said Simon, and laughed louder than before. The obtusity of the Reverend Mr. Suggs, however, prevented his making any discoveries. He fell into a brown study, and no further allusion ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... foolish woman! I can't believe it.' Sir ANDREW gave him a gentle pat upon the shoulder, and offered to lay him a bottle of wine that he was thinking of the widow. My old friend started, and recovering out of his brown study, told Sir ANDREW, that once in his life he had been in the right. In short, after some little hesitation, Sir ROGER told us in the fulness of his heart that he had just received a letter from his steward, which acquainted him that his ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... of your brown study, Grace," called Hippy. "I want you to settle an argument that has arisen between Miss O'Malley and myself. Never before have we had an argument. Timid, gentle creature that she is, she has always deferred to my superior ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... for having startled you so," he said, gently, then adding with a twinkle of amusement in his eyes. "You were surely in a very brown study." ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... Percival Pellew walked slowly in the opposite direction in a brown study, leaving his thumbs in his armholes, and playing la ci darem with his fingers on his waistcoat. He played it twice or thrice before he stopped to knock a phenomenal ash off his cigar. Then he spoke, and ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... answer. I repeated the question; no reply. I was perplexed. Could he have fallen into a brown study? His eyes were open, and he appeared to be looking off through the forest. At length I touched his shoulder, but he did not move. I took his hand; he was dead! Shot through the heart. The roaring of the brook, and the steep bank, had prevented my hearing the report; but, ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... to me when you don't fall into a brown study. Talk now, and talk your brightest and best,' said ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... into a heap, with a handful of dry leaves as basis. The twilight deepened around them as she built. Next she struck flint on steel, caught the spark on tinder, and blew. Johnny watched the glow on her cheeks wakening and fading, and, watching, fell into a brown study. ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... knows anything about anything, cannot fail to admit that my sister ought either to be at the head of Tammany Hall or the army. She gave one look at Jimmie's suspiciously bland countenance, then gathered up her gloves, her veil and stick, and went slowly up-stairs, apparently in a brown study. ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... to the Belgian throne was peacefully walking to and fro in a brown study, unconscious that the eyes of some hundreds of his future subjects were fixed upon his lightly-draped form. His deafness prevented him from hearing the noise outside the window, and rendered all warnings by means of sounds ineffectual. So the prince's ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... now?" I presently asked, quite subdued; for he had fallen into a brown study, and was still ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... Kennedy and Chapelle, by a sort of tacit consent, dismissed their cabs, and we strolled on over toward Broadway, watching one another, furtively. We parted finally, and Craig and I went up to our apartment, where he sat for hours in a brown study. There was plenty to think about even so far in the affair. He may have sat up all night. At any rate, he roused me ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... that I was sure he had not in the least followed my remarks. Every now and then he roused himself and put on some show of interest, asking me to repeat or to explain more fully, but it was always to sink once more into the same brown study. At last he rose and threw the end of his cigar ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... by loud and increasing chirpings. I look about me: my window is surrounded with sparrows picking up the crumbs of bread which in my brown study I had just scattered on the roof. At this sight a flash of light broke upon my saddened heart. I deceived myself just now, when I complained that I had nothing to give: thanks to me, the sparrows of this part of the town ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... and was well received. He got his orders to sail that night for Minorca, and as soon as dinner was over he returned on board, where he found Captain Hogg very busy selling his porter— Gascoigne walking the deck in a brown study—and Mr Hicks solus abaft, sulking in ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... a woman with one or two other masculine traits besides her roving heart. For instance, she could sit and think hard and practically for hours together: and on these occasions her thoughts were never dreamy and vague; it was no brown study, but good hard thinking. She would knit her coal-black brows, like Lord Thurlow himself, and realize the situation, and weigh the pros and cons with a steady judicial power rarely found in her sex; and, nota bene, when once her mind had gone through this ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... except Sara Ray. She ate hers but she knew she should not have done so. Her mother did not approve of snacks between meals, or of jam turnovers at any time. Once, when Sara was in a brown study, I asked her what ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... two days, and the old town had begun to take on its remembered aspect as he wandered through the streets and along the river banks. On this second day he was going up Main street deep in a brown study when he heard his name called by a young man who was approaching him, and saw an ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... to himself and, with a shake of the shoulders coming out of his brown study, swung round to the ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... long time after reaching the office the boys worked in silence. At last Barney straightened his tired shoulders and glanced at Bruce. He was in a brown study. ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... how long you could keep it up—brown study as usual!" cried Charteris. "Why, I believe the beggar takes me for a ghost! Hal, old boy!" bending from the saddle he bestowed on Gerrard a most unghostly clap on the shoulder. "I'm come back to plague ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... the particular moment in which Sam Carr leaned back in his chair and fell into that brown study of a matter that was to have a far-reaching effect, Mr. Thompson was seated on his haunches on his cabin floor, his hands stained with blood and a considerable trail of red marking his progress from woodpile ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... a mind just now to scorn delight and live laborious days. He confined himself for many hours of each day to his bedroom, and on the weekly railway journey with his chief he sat for the most part in a brown study, And made frequent entries in a ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... there. The huge boulder against which she leant sheltered her from the wind and the spot was bathed in brilliant sunshine. She finished her cigarette and lapsed into a brown study provoked by Tony's sudden question: "What will happen if one day you—or Robin—should get married?" She had never asked herself that question. It was so much an understood thing between brother and sister that, as soon as Robin found a sufficiently ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... of the street Vandeloup stepped into a cab, and telling the man to drive to the St Kilda Station, in Elizabeth Street, went off into a brown study. Pierre annoyed him seriously, as he never seemed to get rid of him, and the dumb man kept turning up every now and then like the mummy at the Egyptian feast to remind him of ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... in a brown study, looking into the fireplace. A little blaze was going on the hearth, and the young student, gazing at the embers saw many ...
— Andy at Yale - The Great Quadrangle Mystery • Roy Eliot Stokes
... the French King, on purpose to observe their humours, and being brought to the room where the table was laid, the first fell to eating of bread as hard as he could drive, at last, breaking out of a brown study, he cried out 'Conclusum est contra Manichaeos;' the other fell a gazing upon the Queen, and the King asking him how he liked her, he answered, 'Oh, sir, if an earthly Queen be so beautiful, what shall we think of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 539 - 24 Mar 1832 • Various
... himself up on the window-seat as soon as he was left alone, and fell into a brown study. Somehow he could not make it out at all. He was sharp-witted by nature, and years of suffering and forced inaction had made him more thoughtful than most boys of his age. He had long ago grasped the idea that his idolised hero was not happy, and during their stay in Scotland some dim surmise ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... of his brown study, Krafft looked vaguely at the speakers, and checked, but not discomposed, drew out a notebook ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... Witherington had issue: first, a daughter, christened Moggy, whom we shall soon have to introduce to our readers as a spinster of forty-seven; and second, Antony Alexander Witherington, Esquire, whom we just now have left in a very comfortable position, and in a very brown study. ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... his cashier for an answer. But Knapp was sitting, head down, in a painful brown study, and ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... in a brown study. "The boys are going off some place to-night. I heard Ernest ask your mother if she had cleaned that spot off his Sunday suit, where somebody spilled ice cream on ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... luckless Tartarin was in his study, in a brown study himself, when he saw the commandant stride in, stern, wearing black gloves, ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... terrace—the same, in fact, in which she had taken measurements for John's new tunic. She was embroidering it now with the Bearnais badge, and had spread Barboux's tunic on the gun-breach to give her the pattern. John, passing along the terrace in a brown study, while his eyes followed the evolutions of Sergeant Bedard's men at morning parade in the square below, did not catch sight of her until she called to him to come and ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... she didn't care any thing for me!" and he fell into a silent brown study which Hetty did not attempt to break. This was one among her many charms to Dr. Eben, that she was capable of sitting quietly by a person's side for long intervals of silence. The average woman, when she is in the company ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... capacity plays a not unimportant part in distinguishing correct from illusory seeing. In order to see correctly we must look straight and fully at the object. Looking askance gives only an approximate image, and permits the imagination free play. Anybody lost in a brown study who pictures some point in the room across the way with his eyes can easily mistake a fly, which he sees confusedly askance, for a great big bird. Again, the type of a book seems definitely smaller if the eyes are fixed on the point ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... when her toilet had been perfected, Janice descended to the parlour. As she entered, Tabitha, already there, jumped up from a chair, in which, a moment previous she had been carrying on a brown study that apparently was not enjoyable, and tripped nonchalantly across the room to the spinet. Seating herself, she struck the keys, and broke out into a song entitled, "Taste Life's Glad Moments as ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... professional honour, his hopes of eternity—of—everything—on the absolute purity of this girl; nothing would ever tempt Lady Ethel to swerve ever so little from the path of rectitude and decorum. The cold, proud patrician face spoke for itself, and yet—he was in a brown study when the voice of his prospective mother-in-law brought him ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... Hubert Tracy for more than half an hour, when the latter departed less satisfied than when he entered. Then the former set to work upon some important business, and being a rapid penman, soon finished the job. Finding time for a short brown study, or more properly ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... to be listening. He had relapsed into his own thoughts and was frowning. Suddenly he came out of his brown study, and hit the table such a resounding bang with his fist that every one jumped, the ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... standing silent and thoughtful. He came out again in a few minutes with his rifle on his shoulder, and without saying another word to David or even looking toward him, climbed over the fence and went into the woods. When he was out of sight, David sat down on one of his traps and went off into a brown study. He was in a bad scrape, that was plain; and the longer he thought about it, the darker the prospect seemed to grow. He had his choice between two courses of action: he must either take Dan into partnership, divide the money with him when it was earned, and permit himself to ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon
... altered; but the pirate ship was very gently touched upon. Nor did I hear the Colonel to an end even of that which he was willing to disclose; for Mr. Henry, having for some while been plunged in a brown study, rose at last from his seat and (reminding the Colonel there were matters that he must attend to) bade me follow ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Dick hasn't found war very much different from school, so far. He seems to recite a good deal to the mistress, and occupies the dunce's block quite regularly," Vincent retorted, with a provoking significance that set mamma in a brown study and suspended the comments on Kate's ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... thoughts, and no longer amused by my surroundings, I must have forgotten myself for a moment in a brown study; for when I came to, I was surprised to find that we four had drifted some distance apart, and that K—— was now whispering rapidly to the Russian officer alone, and that the sergeant was standing far away, with ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... them. The sun increased in power, flashing on the leaves of the trees and beginning to burn the face with its slanting heat. Now and then she ventured a side-glance at Arizona, and always she found him in a brown study. Vaguely she knew that he was fighting the old battle of good and evil in the silence of the morning. Finally he stopped his horse and turned to ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... boots just now in what the novelists call "a brown study." There was no urgent reason for putting on my boots. I was not going out, and my slippers were much more comfortable. But something had to be done. I wanted a subject for an article. Now if you are accustomed to writing articles for a living, you will know that sometimes the difficulty is not ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... attention to my attempt to be facetious, if indeed she heard the remark at all. She seemed to be deep in a brown study, and several times I caught her watching me narrowly from the corner of her eye. I was already beginning to have some misgivings as to the temperamental fitness of my strange "learner" and new-found friend as a steady, day-in-and-day-out ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... the room was empty and Muller, as the last of the group, walked slowly down the stairs. He was in such a brown study that he scarcely heard the commissioner's friendly "goodnight," nor did he notice that he was walking down the quiet street under a star-gilded sky. "Almost convicted—almost. Almost?" Muller's lips murmured ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... pale, and with an expression of pain and terror still reflected in his face, lay in a broken and restless sleep. Walter was sitting as still as death at the head of the bed. A book lay on his knees, but he had not been reading. He was in a "brown study," and the dreamy far-off look with which his eyes were fixed upon vacancy showed how his thoughts had wandered. It was the same look which attracted Power's attention when he first saw Walter in chapel, and which had shown him that he was no common boy. It often made ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... as they were for close-range work, were unable to make contact with the invisible planetoid for which they were seeking. In the captain's sanctum of the Chicago, the operative studied his plate for only a minute or two, then shut off his power and fell into a brown study, from which he ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... too much for Mrs. Buck. She stopped peeling potatoes and fell into a brown study. The side porch was a pleasant place to sit and dream. Judith had sorted out her wares and stored them in the back of her blue car. She had caught two chickens and dressed them and set a sponge for the hot rolls. She had promised herself the pleasure of serving the motorman and conductor a ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... slipper-stitching. This man often beheld Halil prowling about on the house-top in the moonlit nights where Guel-Bejaze was sleeping, and after sitting down within a couple of paces of her, remain there in a brown study for hours at a time, often till midnight, nay, sometimes till daybreak. With his chin resting in the palm of his hand there he would stay, gazing intently at her charming figure and her pale but beautiful face. Frequently he would creep closer ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... manager of —— theatre dropped in. After the usual salutations were exchanged, and Mr. Peaess had remarked that it was a fine morning, and Mr. Stubbs had added that it was a windy one, Mr. Stubbs fell into a brown study. His mind laboured with a gigantic purpose. It was a moment on which hung indescribable consequences.—Shall I? Will he? Yes!—yes!—And he did! He imparted to his friend, the manager, his resolution to make his FIRST APPEARANCE. He fixed upon Hamlet, chiefly ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 365 • Various
... of pulling together in this world, Mr Simple, when we wish to hold on, and that's a piece of philosophy worth all the twenty-six thousand and odd years of my friend the carpenter, which leads to nothing but a brown study, when he ought to be ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... men, however, when the cloth Was removed, filled their glasses, and continued the discussion with unabated vigour. Brian alone did not take part in the conversation. He sat moodily staring at his untasted wine, wrapped in a brown study. ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... Orde fell into a brown study, eating mechanically. The men began an eager and somewhat truculent discussion full of lawless and bloodthirsty suggestion. Some suggested the kidnapping and sequestration of Reed until the affair ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... eye, being too much occupied with his thoughts to take notice of anything; and it was only when two magpies near him broke into a joyous duet, in which each strove to emulate the other's mellow notes, that he awoke from his brown study, and began to walk back again ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... the loss, I turned from the bench and walked away, I knew not whither. It was now getting dark, but I quite forgot that it was necessary to look out for a lodging; the fact is, that I had been completely upset by the observations of the magistrate, and the theft of my bundle; and, in a sort of brown study, from which I was occasionally recalled for a moment by stumbling over various obstructions, I continued my walk on the pathway until I was two or three miles away from Brentford. I was within a mile of Hounslow, when I was roused by the groans of some ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... she exclaimed, flashing round on him; "it is more a white dream than a brown study. Fancy this room all lit with Chinese lanterns and the moon outside, and us sitting up until twelve o'clock, and music, Boris, and everybody dancing. The story books will have come true—oh, ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade
... no indeed. We can meet him at any time. It was his Highness, the duke, walking quite alone, under the orange trees, with a slender little cane in his hand, that he was beating the branches with, all in a brown study, showering down the blossoms among his gold buttons—so romantic—and in his glossy hair. Lucy gave a little scream when she saw him, and clasped her hands so. The duke gave a start and came toward us, then checked himself and begged pardon in such ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... absorbed for conversation, I had tossed aside the barren paper, and leaning back in my chair, I fell into a brown study. Suddenly my companion's voice broke in ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... the Circean similitude was not a little enhanced by the antique masonry,{2} and the expanse of sea which was visible from the eminence. He leaned over the gate, repeated aloud the lines of the Odyssey, and fell into a brown study, from which he was aroused by the approach of a young gentleman from within ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... the different love of Nature, you shall know your Lord when he comes. He is searching, too. Perhaps you shall know him by the Quest in his eyes. He, too, is looking for the white presences.... You must know the world—so that you may not be bewildered. You must not be caught in the brown study of Pan. ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... but people in all classes display the same appetite as they gorge themselves daily with the miscellaneous gossip of the newspaper. Newspaper-reading, as far as I can make out, is often rather a sort of brown study than an act of culture. I have myself palmed off yesterday's issue on a friend, and seen him re-peruse it for a continuance of minutes with an air at once refreshed and solemn. Workmen, perhaps, pay more attention; but though they may be eager listeners, they have rarely ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... soon after dinner, he being one of the officers' committee on preparations for the ball, so that I spent a little time alone at his quarters, Orme and Major Williams having gone over to the Officers' Club at the conclusion of their call. I was aroused from the brown study into which I had fallen by the sound of a loud voice at the rear of Number 16, and presently heard also Kitty's summons for me to come. I found her undertaking to remove from the hands of Annie, her ponderous black cook, ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... army post, James," and she continued her brown study, seeming to notice nothing of the landscape until they entered the massive iron ...
— The Daughter of a Republican • Bernie Babcock
... Miss Ellston was in a brown study all the way out to the baseball park. She arrived rather earlier than usual to find the grand-stand empty. The Denver team had just come upon the field, and the Kansas City players were practising ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... that a man so serious, so self-contained, and not yet three days emancipated from a routine of drudgery, should stand rubbing his chin in the street, in a brown study about ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... courtesy Morton hastened to assist in securing the boat, and was rewarded by a hearty "Thank you, my boy!" from the younger man, and a brilliant smile from the lady, which covered him with blushes and confusion. The older man seemed in a brown study, and only glared at him absent-mindedly ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... the day in a brown study. It was clear to me that some destiny had prearranged this meeting. Here was this man travelling prosperously as a first-class passenger with all the appurtenances of respectability. I alone had seen him invoking strange gods in the moonlight, ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... Jessie went to her room and sat awhile, on a cricket with her head leaning on a chair. She was thinking. I cannot tell you exactly what passed in her mind, while she was in that brown study, because she never told me. You can guess, however, when I tell you that after thinking some five minutes, she rose up, and going to her table, took a pencil and wrote these words in big letters, on a sheet ...
— Jessie Carlton - The Story of a Girl who Fought with Little Impulse, the - Wizard, and Conquered Him • Francis Forrester
... tell the truth that's just what I was wishing you would do, old chap, but I hated to break in on your brown study. Here's a supposed-to-be reliable chart of this region, which I paid a man a good sum to get up for me; but already I've found it more or less crooked, and have begun to lose confidence in its accuracy. ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... discovered that she and Bruce were alone in the room. He was sitting at Mother Jess's desk, in as deep a brown study as she had been. ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... a brown study, and only roused himself after some time, to ask Margaret what were ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards
... to address even a schoolmaster, but for something in his manner which seemed to denote that he was uneasy or distressed. As they stood hesitating at a little distance, they saw that he sat for a few minutes at a time like one in a brown study, then laid aside his pipe and took a few turns in his garden, then approached the gate and looked towards the green, then took up his pipe again with a sigh, and sat ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... and inquired my business, and upon my statement that I desired to see Mr BREAKWATER, Esq., on urgent business, courteously directed me up a marble staircase, at the top of which was a second attendant, also engaged in brown study—for the attendants appear to be laudably addicted to ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... dropped the whip out of the window and fell into a brown study. I occasionally stole a glance at my strange companion, who, with the dress of extreme poverty, and the gray hair of old age, had such a manner of authority and such an ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... of the busy London life around him, Paul Harley walked slowly along the Strand. Outwardly he was still the keen-eyed investigator who could pry more deeply into a mystery than any other in England; but to-day his mood was introspective. He was in a brown study. ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... heard her stepping briskly about the kitchen, shooing out intruding cats, and humming a darky air to herself. He went reluctantly back to the shore and rowed across the river in a brown study. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... in a brown study; sometimes sitting on the quarter-deck with arms folded, and head hanging upon his chest. Then he would rise, and gaze out to windward, as if he had suddenly discovered a friend. But looking disappointed, would retire ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... reflection, cogitation, revery, musing, meditation, consideration, abstraction, imagination, brown study, contemplation, deliberation, introspection, retrospection, lucubration, rumination, preoccupation, excogitation; idea, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... outer shore of the island, opposite to the wreck, I came unexpectedly on Marble. The poor fellow was seated on a raised projection of coral rock, with his arms folded, and, was in so thorough a brown study, that he did not even hear my footsteps in approaching, though I purposely trod heavily, in order to catch his ear. Unwilling to disturb him, I stood gazing at the wreck myself, for some little time, the place affording a much ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... Our hero dined with the admiral, and was well received. He got his orders to sail that night for Minorca, and as soon as dinner was over he returned on board, where he found Captain Hogg very busy selling his porter—Gascoigne walking the deck in a brown study—and Mr Hicks solus abaft, sulking ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... good-night at the head of the saloon staircase; he raised his smoking-cap, and then returning sauntered up and down the poop for over an hour, with his hands behind him, and his eyes fixed on the deck, apparently in a brown study. ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... inhabit their town houses, I spend the whole day going from one to the other. I consider a house the only safe part of the metropolis. Were I to frequent the street during the season, I am so apt to fall into a brown study, that I'm certain to be jostled until I am black and blue—I have found myself calculating an arithmetical problem at a crossing, and have not been aware of my danger until a pair of greys sixteen hands high in full trot have snorted in my face—I ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various
... tip from Miss Sally Ruth, father," he said, coming out of a brown study. "What do you suppose that piker's trying to crawl out of his cocoon for? He never wanted to caper around Appleboro women before, did he? No. And here he's been muldooning to get some hog-fat off and some wind and waistline back. Now, why? To please himself? He don't have ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... home in a brown study. Like all the rest, he has been charmed with the liveliness and grace of Adele; over and over he has said to his boy, "How fares it, Phil? Why, at your age, my boy, I should have had her in the toils ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... a moment it seemed as if he were about to speak. But instead, he stared hard at Maida, falling gradually into a brown study. From time to time he came out of it long enough to look sharply at her. The sparkle had all gone out of her face. She ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... a bill, large and generous. Miss Farwell handed the letter to Dr. Harry with the briefest explanation possible. For a long time the doctor sat in brown study. Then making no comment further than asking her to use the money as the minister had directed, he questioned her as to the patient's condition. When she had finished her report he drew ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... do anything wrong was an idea inconceivable to him. Nor was there much chance of his discovering it if she did. When not at work, he was constantly reading. Most people close a book without having gained from it a single germ of thought; Mr. Craig seldom opened one without falling directly into a brown study over something suggested by it. But I believe that, even when thus absorbed, Phemy was never far from his thought. At the same time, like many Scots, while she was his one joy, he seldom showed her sign ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald |
