"Pensively" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... how to play it for me," urged Theron, pensively. "I feel as if good music to-night would make me well again. I am really very ill ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... down to consider it at length. How old would Lily be now if she had lived? She tried to think how her own name would look on a stone. It was still and peaceful on that sunny hillside; it reminded her of "Sharon's lovely rose." The idea of a grave here was not unattractive. She was considering it pensively when her eyes fell on a long-stemmed, creamy rose, lying not far from her on the ground. With instant pleasure in its beauty she took it up and ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... a lovely day, but poor Fairfax cannot enjoy it," uttered Sally pensively. "How long doth it take for an ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... early friendship," said the Periwinkle, pensively, as she came and stood before Rusialka. "Even the very old on ...
— The Dumpy Books for Children; - No. 7. A Flower Book • Eden Coybee
... fire more pensively than ever, and rearranged the muffin-dish on the little wrought-iron stand in font of the grate. "And yet," she murmured, looking down, "what life can be better than the service of one's kind? You think it a great life ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... had a deep respect for his wife's intuitive wisdom, replied, though rather pensively: ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... Thompson complained. Tommy complained for the sake of saying something. She teased Margery so unmercifully that Miss Elting was obliged to rebuke her, after which Tommy went off by herself and sat pensively down by the roadside until the ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... him. Her eyes were very soft; there was a faint smile on her thin pink lips which gave the look of coldness, of reticence to her face. With her head bent and her hands folded in her lap, she sat there waiting pensively—for what? It occurred to him suddenly with a shock that she was deeper, far deeper ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... Fleming, in rustling black silk; of old Giles—fifty years, man and boy, on the place—wearing a smock frock and leaning on a pitchfork, with a wisp of hay caught in the tines, lamenting that the 'All 'asn't been the same, zur, since the young marster was killed ridin' to 'ounds; and then pensively wiping his eyes on a stray strand ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... bring wisdom, Captain Selwyn?" pouring herself a cup. "I'd better arm myself immediately." She sank back into the depths of the chair, looking gaily at him over her lifted cup. "To my rapid education in worldly wisdom!" She nodded, and sipped the tea almost pensively. ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... the willow-tree, pensively. "That's just my case. I also am caught in a trap and know that I must die soon, but I cling to life nevertheless. Well, I have now attained a blessed old age, as the wild rose said. If only I knew where all the dear creatures who grew ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... bag, surprising to behold. He sat and looked on, enjoying his idleness with the zest of a hard worker. The twinkle of amusement faded gradually from his face, and the sadness that Hadria had noticed the day before, returned to his eyes. She was leaning against the dyke, pensively enjoying her festive meal. The dark fresh blue of her gown, and the unwonted tinge of colour in her cheeks, gave a vigorous and healthful impression, in harmony with the weather-beaten stones and the windy breadth ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... staring pensively at his cigarette. One leg swung pendulum fashion beside the desk. His indebtedness troubled him not a jot. He was trying to fathom the object of this prelude. Lablache, he knew, had not come purposely to make these plain statements. ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... look at Aunt Abby Cole!" said Patty pensively. "Well, it does not seem as if a marriage that isn't good in Riverboro was really decent! How tiresome of Maine to want all those days of public notice; people must so often want to get married in a minute. If I think about anything too long ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... which the Child is shrinking from a bird held up by St. John, is very grand in the forms: the mistake in sentiment, as regards the bird, I have pointed out in the Introduction. (Royal Academy.) A third, in which the Child leans pensively on a book lying open on his mother's knee, while she looks out on the spectator, is more properly ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... are pushed back into the darkness. The marble-cold resistance of Anatole France's classical mind offers a hard polished surface against which the vague elemental energies of the world beat in vain. He walks smilingly and pensively among the olive-trees of the Academia, plucking a rose here and an oleander there; but for the rest, the solemn wizardries of Nature are regarded with ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... take table-boarders. Certainly nothing could be gayer, unless to ramble delightfully forever in one of those orange-colored ambrotype-saloons, drawn by milk-white oxen; or to quarter like Gavroche of Les Miserables among the ribs of the plaster elephant in the Bastile; or more pensively to abide in the crannied boat-cabin of the Peggotys, watching the tide sweep out ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... Yevgeny Petrovitch as absurd and naive, but the whole story made an intense impression on Seryozha. Again his eyes were clouded by mournfulness and something like fear; for a minute he looked pensively at the dark window, shuddered, and said, in ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... cap-strings will once more have a charm. As the tears subside a little, and with her head leaning backward at the angle that will not injure her bonnet, she endures that terrible moment when grief, which has made all things else a weariness, has itself become weary; she looks down pensively at her bracelets, and adjusts their clasps with that pretty studied fortuity which would be gratifying to her mind if it were once more in ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... sure to be good," said Mrs. Herriton, who was standing pensively a little out of the hubbub. But Lilia was already calling to Miss Abbott, a tall, grave, rather nice-looking young lady who was conducting her adieus in a more decorous manner on ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... in a poetic mood, the Bishop of Cartagena, as he sat in the state cabin of that great galleon, The City of the True Cross, and looked pensively out of the window towards the shore. The good man was in a state of holy calm. His stout figure rested on one easy-chair, his stout ankles on another, beside a table spread with oranges and limes, guavas and pine-apples, and ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... their weak minds in the steward's room at Bellamont, if they could see all this, John,' said Mr. Freeman, pensively. 'A man who travels has ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... speed to a steady one hundred and the car sped silently and easily along the police lane. Across the cab, Clay peered pensively at the steady stream of cars and cargo carriers racing by in the green and blue lanes—all of them moving ...
— Code Three • Rick Raphael
... happens to gossips,—gossip takes a good deal of time elsewhere,—and somehow everybody does his share of work, so that all of us do have a good deal of what you call 'leisure.' Whether," he added pensively, "in a world God put us into that we might love each other, and learn to love,—whether the time we spend in society, or the time we spend caged behind our office desks, is the time which should be called devoted to the 'business of life,' ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... in his Twice-Told Tales was toying pensively with spectral forms and "dark ideas," Edgar Allan Poe was penetrating intrepidly into trackless regions of terror. Where Hawthorne would have shrunk back, repelled and disgusted, Poe, wildly exhilarated by the anticipation of a new and excruciating thrill, forced his way onwards. He ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... somehow this explanation sounded inadequate. He drew nearer, till he was close under the wall of the gardens. Then he noticed a small gate in the wall, sheltered by a little projecting porch. The Captain edged under the porch, took out a cigar, contrived to light it, and stood there puffing pensively. He was protected from the rain, which now fell very heavily, and he was asking himself again why only half the house was lighted up. This was the kind of trivial, yet whimsical, puzzle on which he enjoyed trying ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... shading his eyes from the slanting rays of the morning sun, watched the train glide round the curve and disappear from sight; then slowly turned and looked the other way,—as if to make sure there was not another coming,—saw the portmanteau, and shambled towards it. He stood looking down upon it pensively, then moved slowly round, apparently reading the names and particulars of all the various continental hotels at which the portmanteau had recently ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... mournfully on the counter after father left me, my head reclining pensively against a pile of ten-cent calicoes; I was thinking of my grandmother's legacy gone up in smoke—of how Belle looked when she found I had conducted her into the coal-cellar—of those tidies, cradle-quilts, bib-aprons, dolls' and ladies' fixings, which had been nefariously foisted ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... carriage, and returned to the hotel with a serious demeanor. Hardly had he resumed his position when another individual, equally disinterested, impassively walked down the steps, proceeded to the back of the stage, lifted it, expectorated carefully on the axle, and returned slowly and pensively to the hotel. A third spectator wearily disengaged himself from one of the Ionic columns of the portico and walked to the box, remained for a moment in serious and expectorative contemplation of the boot, and then returned to his column. There was something so weird in this baptism ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... pensively we strolled, With straying locks and fancies, when, behold Her turn to let her thrilling gaze enfold, And ask me in her voice ...
— Poems of Paul Verlaine • Paul Verlaine
... replied the Professor pensively. "Gogol was an idealist. He made up as the abstract or platonic ideal of an anarchist. But I am a realist. I am a portrait painter. But, indeed, to say that I am a portrait painter is an inadequate expression. I am ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... he cried. Then pensively looking at his fallen foe, "Peace to his ashes," he said; "he died ...
— Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia - being the adventures of Prince Prigio's son • Andrew Lang
... pensively, her eyes upon the fire. Suddenly she raised them to his face. "Berthaud was none the less trusted. Yet, with no more than a promise of reward at some future time should she succeed in escaping from us, did she bribe him to carry ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... Rynason gazed pensively at the interpreter as these words were recorded. What could have happened during that conversation that would have caused its memory ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr
... parasols, at the sacred doors of her lecture-room, imbibe celestial knowledge. From my youth I felt in me a soul above the matter-entangled herd. She revealed to me the glorious fact, that I am a spark of Divinity itself. A fallen star, I am, sir!' continued he, pensively, stroking his lean stomach—'a fallen star!—fallen, if the dignity of philosophy will allow of the simile, among the hogs of the lower world—indeed, even into the hog-bucket itself. Well, after all, I will show you the way to the Archbishop's. There is a philosophic pleasure ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... certainly difficulties," said Sherlock Holmes, pensively. "But our expedition of to-night will solve them all. Ah, here is a four-wheeler, and Miss Morstan is inside. Are you all ready? Then we had better go down, for it is a little past ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... pensively rubbed his sagacious nose, And thus his prescription ran, - The King will be well, if he sleeps one night In the Shirt of ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... great guffawing and stamping of feet at this. Ted was slapped on the shoulder, his friends declaring that nobry could beat him. By-and-by he managed to make his escape, and walked pensively homewards, shaking his head now and ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... pensively by the door, debating with himself the advisability of going boldly over and claiming the first waltz with the schoolma'am—and taking a chance on being refused—when Cal Emmett gave him a vicious poke in the ribs by way of securing ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... whom he sate down to carouse in the same apartment with his prisoner. It was a dark, cold, windy, October night, and the two warders sate cosily by the fire, enjoying their gossip and their ale, while the unlucky delinquent placed himself pensively by the window. About midnight the two old men were startled by ...
— Jesse Cliffe • Mary Russell Mitford
... Rather pensively she followed the Winnebagos into Mateka after supper for evening assembly, which had been called by Dr. Grayson. Usually there was no evening assembly; Morning Sing was the only time the whole camp came together in Mateka with the leaders, when all the announcements for the day were made. When ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... to a close. In the delicious coolness of a summer evening, Aunt Patty sat upon her lowly stile, her head drooped pensively on her withered hand, as if absorbed in deep meditation. The sound of approaching footsteps aroused her, and directly a light form was at her side, while a soft voice whispered in her ear: "You are thinking of one from ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... Hilary sat in his usual arm-chair; Mr. Botcher severely strained the tensile strength of the bedsprings; Mr. Hamilton Tooting stood before the still waving portieres in front of the folding doors; and Mr. Manning, the division superintendent, sat pensively, with his pen in his mouth, before the marble-topped table from which everything had been removed but a Bible. Two gentlemen, whom Austen recognized as colleagues of Mr. Billings in the State Senate, stood together ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... a little street gamin in London," said the girl pensively, fingering the violets at her corsage. "Think of the adventures! ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... son to forget the name he bore, or the political principles which his uncle, the Emperor, had borne upon his banners throughout Europe. The subsequent life of this child has proved how deep was the impression produced upon his mind, as pensively, silently he listened to the conversation of the statesmen and the generals who often visited his mother's parlor. Lady Blessington about this time visited Hortense, and she gives the following account of the impression which the visit produced ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... a nice, quiet place for you, dad," explained Nell, perching herself upon a table near the window and gazing pensively out at the shimmering water, which told that the sun was winning a decisive victory over the mist, and that the day would be ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson
... full progress. A shepherdess blindfolds with her hand the shepherd whose head is resting in her lap, and his comrades stand ready to take advantage of his helpless position. Various modest sheep pretend they are not looking, another man calls to his friend in the distance, and a fifth is pensively playing a hautbois in the usual miraculous countryside with artistically disposed tufts of clouds above it. ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... nice eyes," said Marjorie, pensively, "and lived next door, and," she added, as Leonard puffed stolidly at his pipe, ...
— Four Days - The Story of a War Marriage • Hetty Hemenway
... pensively at her scorched finger-tip, and, pursing up her red lips, blew a gentle breath to ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... herself; and then pensively moved to the other end of the bench, because a slanting sunbeam fell there. Since it was absolutely necessary to blast Mr. Kennaston's dearest hopes, she thoughtfully endeavoured to distract his attention from his own miseries—as far as might be possible—by ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... leave for England by the first morning train, and roused the night-porter, which functionary, having packed off Abner Power, was discovered asleep on the sofa of the landlord's parlour. At half-past five Paula, who in the interim had been pensively sitting with her hand to her chin, quite forgetting that she had meant to go to bed, heard wheels without, and looked from the window. A fly had been brought round, and one of the hotel servants was in the act of putting up a portmanteau with De Stancy's initials upon ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... herself, looking back at the grand, gray pile from the train, "except for the fright I gave them, it was worth it all—worth it all, dear St. Michel, to see you from out there." And Jean, looking pensively out of the window, was thinking that since it was safely over, the adventure was one which any youth might be proud to tell to his companions, and which few were fortunate or ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... in the comfortable, quaint parlor of the old farmhouse,—looking at the view through the rose-wreathed windows,—listening to the fantastic legends of Norway as told by Olaf Gueldmar,—or watching Thelma's picturesque figure, as she sat pensively apart in her shadowed corner spinning. They had fraternized with Sigurd too—that is, as far as he would permit them—for the unhappy dwarf was uncertain of temper, and if at one hour he were docile and yielding as a child, the next he would be found ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... off among the hills in soft, yet darkening convolutions. And high above me, serene and holy, the moon leaned over a ledge of slate-colored clouds, whose margin was plated with her beams, and looked pensively and solemnly on the pale and sad young face uplifted to her own. The stilly dews slept at my feet. They hung tremulously on the branches over my head, and sparkled on the spring blossoms that gave forth their inmost perfume to the atmosphere of night. Every thing was so calm, so peaceful, so ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... his head almost pensively. "It's improbable," he said. "I have every reason to believe that at the present moment they ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... last—and alone. Stopping at the rail not more than an arm's length from where he sat, she gazed pensively up at the solemn mistress of the valley, one slim hand at her bosom, the other hanging limp at her side. He could have touched that slender hand by merely stretching forth his own. Breathless, enthralled, he sat as one deprived of the power or even ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... house, and then down into the street, in the direction of the funeral car with a white catafalque, already standing there with two hired carriages. Near it four garrison soldiers, with mourning capes over their old coats, and mourning hats pulled over their screwed-up eyes, were pensively scratching in the crumbling snow with the long stems of their unlighted torches. The grey shock of hair positively stood up straight above the red face of Mr. Ratsch, and his voice, that brazen voice, was cracking from the strain he was ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... 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 ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... subsided. "Whence came the inspiration of Moses?" flew up to his mind almost as soon as he opened his eyes on the sunlit world. He threw open the protrusive casement of his bedroom to the balmy air, tinged with a whiff of salt, and gazed pensively at the white town rambling down towards the shining river. Had God indeed revealed Himself on Mount Sinai? But this fresh doubt was banished by the renewed suspicion which, after having disturbed his dreams in nebulous distortions, sprang up in daylight ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... there wasn't any hope that I would change," she added pensively. "I told him that I could never love him enough to marry him, but that I ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... the banks o' the burn while I pensively wander, The mavis sings sweetly, unheeded by me; I think on my lassie, her gentle mild nature, I think on the smile ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... a while in the room, pensively contemplating the portraits of the Three Louis. Then the sound of footsteps came to his ears, footsteps advancing from many directions, footsteps all making towards the great hall. He smiled as a man smiles who is prepared to encounter cheerfully great odds, and then, as if there were observing ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... I saw him in the garden, leaning pensively on his hoe—a becalmed and striking figure in a ragged snuff-colored coat, and a hat marked by numerous small orifices, through which, here and there, strands from his silvery fringe of hair strayed and waved in ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... organ and the choristers,' said the Owl. 'If you fly down a moment you can look in; but don't wait long, because of the dynamite. It would be just like them,' he added pensively, 'to blow it up when we ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... on the other. Although both of them were provided with a certain amount of railway literature, neither of them made any pretence at reading. The older man, with his feet upon the opposite seat and his arms folded, was looking pensively through the rain-splashed window-pane into the impenetrable darkness. The young man, although he could not ignore his companion's ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a high chair, and drooping her head pensively on her hand, sat for some time in unbroken silence, gazing out through the open door at the ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... pensively; but he rose with greater spirit than he had yet shown, and preceded the consul into the little room that served him for a smithy. It seemed from some peculiarities of shape to have once been an oratory, but it was now begrimed with smoke and dust from the forge which Don Ippolito had set up in ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... finery on the church green; others, the white-haired elders of the sanctuary, once arrayed in awful sanctity around the pulpit, and ever ready to rebuke the ill-timed mirth of the wanton stripling who, now a man, sobered by years and schooled by vicissitudes, looked down pensively upon their graves. "Our fathers," thought I, "where are they!—and the prophets, can they live ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... was leaning pensively on the balcony of her pavilion, precisely at the same time when Tchin-Sing was standing by his. The day was clear as crystal, and not a cloud floated in the blue space above. There was not sufficient wind to move the lightest twigs of the willows, and the surface of the water was ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... projects.—They are the great players of the country, the fine flower of the lithe and the strong; it is for the pelota game of the afternoon that they are consulting, and they make a sign to Ramuntcho who pensively comes to them. Several old men come also and surround them, caps crushed on white hair and faces clean shaven like those of monks: champions of the olden time, still proud of their former successes, and sure that their counsel shall be respected in the ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... Jack seated himself pensively upon a block of stone and thought of his mother. He reflected with sorrow upon his disobedience in climbing the bean-stalk against her will, and concluded that he must die of hunger. However, he walked on, hoping to see a house where he might beg something to eat and drink. He did not find it; but ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... gladness too; but I feel it not," said Alice pensively, as she leaned on her brother's arm, while they turned into a narrow lane overarched by irregular groups of beech ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... confidentially after a short silence, during which his gaze rested pensively on the retreating figures of the girls, "I've just been thinking that there is no happiness for a man, still less for a woman, in a single life. What say you, Rosita mia," he went on, patting her familiarly ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... direct gaze upon his tormentor. "The Western variety of your species," he observed pensively, "pronounce that ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Mr Bloom asked. Of course, he subjoined pensively, at the inward reflection of there being more languages to start with than were absolutely necessary, it may be only the southern glamour ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... really? I must be in good form to-day. One really never can tell, you know. An opening that is a scream with some people falls as flat as ditch-water with others." She looked at him pensively for a moment or two, tapping her small white teeth with ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... than usual to the garden, he found Miss Ford there, the governess of the children. She was promenading one of the wide alleys, and pensively reading a favorite author. This occurred morning after morning, and Lewis thought he would be so glad if she would only spend a few minutes teaching him to read! He knew that she was from the free states, where they did not keep slaves, ...
— A Child's Anti-Slavery Book - Containing a Few Words About American Slave Children and Stories - of Slave-Life. • Various
... all as I say,' he pensively returned. 'Even if I were not legally bound by the conditions I ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... creature, whose name was Gerda, and who is considered as a personification of the flashing Northern lights, vanished within her father's house, and Frey pensively wended his way back to Alfheim, his heart oppressed with longing to make this fair maiden his wife. Being deeply in love, he was melancholy and absent-minded in the extreme, and began to behave so strangely that his father, Nioerd, became greatly alarmed about his health, and bade his favourite ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... her lips; for dimly did it prognosticate, that as short as bright would be her walk from the cradle to the grave. And thus for the "Holy Child" was their love elevated by awe, and saddened by pity—and as by herself she passed pensively by their dwellings, the same eyes that smiled on her presence, on her ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 479, March 5, 1831 • Various
... smaller than it used to be," said Gnulemah, pensively. "Once the house was so high, it seemed to touch heaven;—see how it has dwindled since then! And so with other things that are on earth. The stars and the sun and clouds, ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... the lord of the Pirate's Tower began to read over again one of the few books he had acquired on his trips to the city, or he smoked pensively, recalling that past from which he had endeavored to run away. What was happening in Majorca? ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... to con the exhibits. The date was then, and is to this day, the Feast of St Matthew, which falls on the twenty-first of September: and one year, on the morrow of St Matthew's Feast, the doctor, gazing pensively over his orchard gate at a noble tree of fruit, remarked to his friend and next-door neighbour, Captain Minards, ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... by the heavy bell of the adjoining church chiming the hour of five, and he looked up, there were large drops of moisture on his brow, and his beautiful eye seemed for the moment strained and blood-shot. He paced the chamber slowly and pensively till there was no outward mark of agitation, and then ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... pistol mechanically, looks long and pensively at it as with a sense of its irrelevance. Gradually his arm droops and lets the pistol fall on the table, and there his hand touches a string of his violin, which yields a little note. Thus reminded of it, he picks ...
— The Melting-Pot • Israel Zangwill
... the earth in a panic beheld The flash of his sabre afar; They enter'd, but pensively mov'd from the field, And bow'd to this idol ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... MARJORY walked pensively along the hall. In the cool shadows made by the palms on the window ledge, her face wore the expression of thoughtful melancholy expected on the faces of the devotees who pace in cloistered gloom. She ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... desire to see what was going forward. So out went Mr. Pickwick's head again. The prospect was worse than before. The middle-aged lady had finished arranging her hair; had carefully enveloped it in a muslin nightcap with a small plaited border; and was gazing pensively on ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... devote myself to the glory and honour of Him, whose favoured child I was. I walked a few miles on my return homeward. I passed a church, that in the stillness of night reared its dark form, and seemed, solemnly and pensively, like a thing of life, to stand before me. The moon rose at its full over the venerable wall, and scattered its bright cool light across the tall and moss-grown windows. Oh! every thing in life that wondrous night stirred up my soul to pious resolutions, and gave a wing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... the coaches, having been packed at length, started for home to the strains of the cornet and a chorus of cheers. Mr. Jope sprang in beside me, and leaning out of the farther window, waved his neckerchief for a while, then pensively readjusted it, and called ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... aspect. Nothing could be more reverend than his whole appearance; for he not only had on a full suit of black, but his shirt was perfectly clean and the collar turned very neatly down over a white cravat, while his hair was parted in front like a girl's. His hands were clasped pensively together over his stomach, and his two eyes were carefully rolled up into the top of ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the Ass pursues his way, Along this solitary dell, As pensively his steps advance, The mosques and spires change countenance, And look at ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... sir," said Cattell, pensively clasping his beard. "I 'ardly think it. Not popular: it wasn't popular with the man that cut the ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... some great souls in this age!" said Camille Maupin, and she stood for some minutes pensively leaning on the balustrade ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... Catherine maintained her attitude of artless simplicity, which was quite impenetrable. The corporal, who, according to Corentin, had committed a great blunder in arresting these smaller fry, did not know whether to stay where he was or to depart. He stood pensively in the middle of the salon, his hand on the hilt of his sabre, his eye on the two Parisians. The Durieus, also stupefied, and the other servants of the chateau made an admirable group of expressive uneasiness. If it had not been for Gothard's convulsive snifflings ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... object-lesson a few days ago in the subject. It was a Bank Holiday, and I walked pensively about the outskirts of a big town. The streets were crowded with people of all sorts and sizes. I confess that a profound melancholy was induced in me by the spectacle of the young of both sexes. They were enjoying themselves, it is true, with all their ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... awaken! Prince Royal is up, has on his top-coat, and is gone out of doors!" Rochow starts to his habiliments, or perhaps has them ready on; in a minute or two, Rochow also is forth into the gray of the morning;—finds the young Prince actually on the Green there; in his red roquelaure, leaning pensively on one of the travelling carriages. "Guten Morgen, Ihro Konigliche Hoheit!" [Ranke, 1. 305.] —Fancy such a salutation to the young man! Page Keith, at this moment, comes with a pair of horses, too: "Whither with the nags, Sirrah?" Rochow asked with ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... came they were overjubilant, and they sat before the cabin watching the lake as it shimmered in the moonlight. Claire was pensively silent, though her heart sang. She was dreaming out her days, painting them on the moonlit water, and she paid very little heed to the two men, though unconsciously her whole personality leaned toward Lawrence. What they were saying she did not at first know, but gradually ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... tenderness in her voice as though she had been a virtuous matron recalling her honeymoon. "That was an unlucky name, wasn't it, dear? You should have taken my advice there." And immersed in recollection of their past rogueries, the worthy pair pensively smiled. Rex was the first to awake ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... steeple never rose to its full height," he added, standing in the window, and gazing pensively into the summer sky. "Oh, Ebbo! this knighthood has come very suddenly after our many dreams; and, even though its outward tokens be lowered, it is still a holy, ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... brilliantly illuminated. I see posters on the wall advertising the performance. A gendarme, in full uniform, as if he had come out after playing Sergeant Lupy in Robert Macaire, is pensively airing himself under the facade, but there is no one else within sight,—no one; not a cocher with whom Sergeant Lupy can chat, nor even a gamin to be ordered off; and though, from one point of view, this exterior desolation may argue well for the business the theatre is doing, yet, as ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 5, 1891 • Various
... it a little towards the water, but with great tenderness, as much as to say, "Don't be afraid, darling; I won't hurt you, my pet!" but no sooner did she get it to the edge of the rock, where it stood looking pensively down at the sea, than she gave it a sudden and violent push, sending it headlong down the slope into the water, where its mother left it to scramble ashore as it best could. We observed many of them employed in doing this, and we came to the conclusion that this is the ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... indoors to her solitary room, feeling as she did in such a state of desperate heaviness. When Springrove was out of sight she turned back, and arrived at the corner just in time to see him sit down. Then she glided pensively along the pavement behind him, forgetting herself to marble like Melancholy herself as she mused in his neighbourhood unseen. She heard, without heeding, the notes of pianos and singing voices from ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... a snob, Meschines," said the general, pensively. "But, as I was about to say, when you interrupted me ten minutes ago, Grace Parsloe is coming on here to make us a visit. She fell ill, and her employers, after doing what could be done for her in the way of medical attendance, made up their ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne
... girl, looking pensively out to sea, where the sea-horses were tossing up their white manes in the moonlight. "Well, good-bye," she added, holding ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... his eldest daughter, as they approached that young lady, who was pensively reclining in ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... bustled about the room, took aimless turns to and fro, scratched the wall with my nail, leant my head carefully against the door for a while, tapped with my forefinger on the floor, and then listened attentively, all without any object, but quietly and pensively as if it were some matter of importance in which I was engaged; and all the while I murmured aloud, time upon time, so that I could hear my ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... drew the short woolen threads in and out while the young man, stretched lazily upon the ground, told her many a tale of the England he had left. Then, quite without warning, she ceased her work and sat pensively watching through the opening in the rocks the long ...
— Their Mariposa Legend • Charlotte Herr
... attended to by her companion, who for a time continued his perusal of the book. No great while, however, elapsed, when, rising also from his seat with a hasty exclamation of surprise, he threw down the volume and followed her into the room where she sat pensively meditating over thoughts and feelings as vague and inscrutable to her mind, as they were clear and familiar to her heart. With a degree of warm impetuosity, even exaggerated beyond his usual manner, which bore at all times this ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... during the last two weeks a subtle change had taken place in Kirk. He was less genial, more prone to irritability than of old. He had developed fits of absent-mindedness, and was frequently to be found staring pensively at nothing. To slap him on the back at such moments, as Wren ventured to do on one occasion, Wren belonging to the jovial school of thought which holds that nature gave us hands in order to slap backs, was to bring forth a new and unexpected ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... imitative and mechanical. Was there ever a human face which so completely reflected inward experience and individual genius as the bust which haunts us throughout Italy, broods over the monument in Santa Croce, gazes pensively from library niche, seems to awe the more radiant images of boudoir and gallery, and sternly looks melancholy reproach from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... matter aside, as she sat in her room, rocking pensively. Her own lamp had not been filled and was burning dimly, so she put it out and sat in the darkness, ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... sat in the New York flat which had been lent him by his friend Gates. The hour was half-past ten in the evening; the day, the second day after the exodus of Nutty Boyd from the farm. Before him on the table lay a letter. He was smoking pensively. ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... the shore line. She must have passed this place dozens of times while riding in the lake boats. Here was a scene she had admired many times from the open shore, and now she was looking at it from behind bars, a prisoner. It was too grotesque to be true. She turned pensively toward the bed and noticed with a start that a tray containing breakfast for two stood on the shelf beside the elevator. And yet she had not heard a sound! Gladys was still asleep on the bed. As Nyoda stood looking down at her ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... barracks after taps last night. He and some other embryo cadets got a rowboat, through connivance with a soldier in the engineer's detachment. They rowed across the river, to Garrison, and had some kind of high old racket. It must have been high," added Anstey pensively, "for I happened to turn over in bed this morning, and I saw old Dodge slipping back into the room ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock
... deliberately drank the last of his swizzle. Then he put down his empty glass and stared pensively ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... the Clavering society. Madame Fribsby looking furtively up at her picture of the dragoon, and inwards into her own wounded memory, said that men would be men, and as long as they were men would be deceivers; and she pensively quoted some lines from Marmion, requesting to know where deceiving lovers should rest? Mrs. Pybus had no words of hatred, horror, contempt, strong enough for a villain who could be capable of conduct so base. This was what came of early indulgence, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... morning, and Glory loitered about in the crisp September sunshine with an hour of time to "kill." There was but one early train to Centre Town, and that left Douglas at seven. It had not been so bad, of course, when the other girls came, too, but now!—Glory sighed pensively. So many things were bad now. The sun might just as well be snuffed out like a candle and it be raining torrents, for all the joy there ...
— Glory and the Other Girl • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... she said pensively, "why we came here. My mother as a rule hates to go far from civilization, and I am sure Lord ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... "Clouds"! (I must read you that bit of Aristophanes again, by the way.) And believe me, children, I am no warped witness, as far as regards monasteries; or if I am, it is in their favor. I have always had a strong leaning that way; and have pensively shivered with Augustines at St. Bernard; and happily made hay with Franciscans at Fesole; and sat silent with Carthusians in their little gardens, south of Florence; and mourned through many a day-dream, at Melrose and Bolton. But the wonder is ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... laughter—you must remember that they are half German—greeted these suggestions, and Margaret said pensively, "How inconceivable it would be if the Royal Family cared about Art." And the conversation drifted away and away, and Helen's cigarette turned to a spot in the darkness, and the great flats opposite were sown with lighted windows, which vanished ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... her. She rested quietly, wrapped up in personal concerns. Her companion pensively contemplated an infinity of arid and hansom-less to-morrows. About them the city throbbed in a web of misty twilight, the humid farewell of a dismal day. In the air a faint haze swam, rendering the distances opalescent. Athwart the western sky the ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... comfort Keg. We found him looking thoughtfully at nothing, with his hands deep in his pockets, from which about six dollars and seventy-five cents' worth of jingle sounded now and then. We waited patiently for him to speak. At last he turned on us and grinned pensively. ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... indignation, and the dying prisoner with his last breath solemnly summoned this unworthy pastor of Christ Jo meet him within three days before the judgment-seat of God. It is a remarkable and authentic fact, that the clergyman thus summoned, went home pensively from the place of execution, sickened immediately and died ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... drawings, resting the frame on which they lay on the mossy garden-wall, so as to get the latest advantage of the rich golden twilight which now twinkled through the sky. Agnes sat by him on the same wall,—now glancing over his shoulder at his work, and now leaning thoughtfully on her elbow, gazing pensively down into the deep shadows of the gorge, or out where the golden light of evening streamed under the arches of the old Roman bridge, to the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... earnestly after him until he turned the corner of the great Cathedral, when, wiping her eyes, she went into the house and sat down pensively for some minutes. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... subaltern offered his hand and heart to a black-eyed girl of Castile. She said kindly but firmly that the night was too cloudy. "What," said the stupefied lover, "the sky is full of stars." "I see but one," said the prudent beauty, her fine eyes resting pensively upon his cuff, where one ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... liked the Viscount," said Mrs. Carew, pensively looking at the letter she held in her hand. "He was a good friend to us at one time. I never understood him, and I like men whom one ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... Bible name!" said Mother Golden, pensively. "It gives a child a good start, so to say, and makes him think when he hears himself named, or ought so to do. All our own children has Bible names, father; don't let us cut the little stranger off from ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... for the supper were very singular, but eminently characteristic of the country. The gentlemen had a splendid entertainment spread for them in another large room of the hotel, while the poor ladies had each a plate put into their hands, as they pensively promenaded the ballroom during their absence; and shortly afterwards servants appeared, bearing trays of sweetmeats, cakes, and creams. The fair creatures then sat down on a row of chairs placed round the walls, and ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope |
