"Abstractedly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... little in his thoughts. He had been down to the vicarage once or twice, he had met her once in the lanes, and he had longed for a glimpse of her daily; as yet he had done nothing else. He opened his letters on this particular morning slowly and abstractedly, tossing them into the fire, one after the other, as he read them, and not paying very much ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... opinion that they would have of me if ever they knew all. I did not care to pursue this train of thought. It was a subject upon which I was not prepared to examine myself; to change it, I thought of Bob's present peril, which I had almost forgotten as I lounged abstractedly in the empty hall. If anything were to happen to him, in the vulgar sense! What an irony, what poetic punishment for us survivors! And yet, even as I rehearsed the ghastly climax in my mind, I told myself that ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... when the traveller either rises above or sinks to the level of, or rather below, his party. I had been sitting abstractedly, like the great quietist, Buddha, when the looks of the assembly suggested an "address." This was at once delivered in Portuguese, with a loud and angry voice. Gidi Mavunga, who had been paid for Nsundi, not for the Yellala, had spoken ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... Though a stranger in the house he finally isolated himself in the midst of the company, huddling into a capacious Morris chair and reading steadily from a thin volume he had drawn from his pocket. As he read, he abstractedly ran his fingers, with a caressing movement, through his hair. Martin noticed him no more that evening, except once when he observed him chaffing with great apparent success with several of ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... there, hesitating; he looked abstractedly at the apathetic little figure of Gargoyle sitting in ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... with the oleograph," dropped out Mrs. Chetwinde, looking abstractedly at an old red woman in a turret of ostrich plumes, who was spread out on the other side of the room ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... we grant (what is not the case) that in the metaphysical disquisitions of the experienced casuist such a distinction might be maintained, how can we expect it to be recognized, and felt, and acted upon by the large body of Christians? Abstractedly considered, such an interpretation in a religious act of daily recurrence by the mass of unlearned believers would, I conceive, appear to reflecting minds most improbable, if not utterly impossible. And as to its actual bona-fide result in practice, a very brief sojourn in countries where the ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... matter now, scowling abstractedly at the button of the electric bell, turning the whole business over in his mind, he remembered that to-day was butter-making day and that Mrs. Tree would be occupied in the dairy. That meant that Hilma would take her place. He turned to the mirror of the sideboard, scrutinising ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... the things from her hands; he looked abstractedly at his wife, then stooped hurriedly and ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... than that which they actually adopted, a junction with the noble commoner in the blue ribbon. At least, from what has been said, I trust, thus much is evident beyond control, that they had just reason to consider themselves abstractedly, as too weak for the support ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... reached that very important part where the "fly," as an ocular witness, gives his substantial and straightforward evidence. I had a little narrow block between my fingers, and was glancing carefully among the unused pieces for its mate, repeating abstractedly ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... it's all there," she said, abstractedly; and, returning, she kissed her gentle companion, bade her good night, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... one so tiresome," mused the meditative No. 5, trying to view the matter quite abstractedly, as if he himself was in no ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... the sumptuous long-skirted garments she was to wear and watched with the deepest interest the rather slow process of her attiring. He was particularly pleased with a wonderfully embroidered white cloak and lace cap, which latter article he abstractedly tied on his great fist and found much too small for it. His triumph, when she was given to his arms, he did not attempt to conceal, but carried her into the store with the manner of a ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... from the lid of her workbox, and handed it to him. Knight took the missive abstractedly, but struck by its appearance murmured a few ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... fellow, lording it in the Upper Fifth, and the hero of the cricket field of which he himself had once been a cadet. In face he was not greatly altered. Still the old curly head and bright eyes. He was noticed occasionally to stroke his chin abstractedly; and some envious detractors went so far as to rumour that, in the lowest recesses of his trunk he had a razor, wherewith on divers occasions, in dread secret, he operated with slashing effect. Be this as it might, Charlie was growing up. He ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... she said, rising from her chair, rather drearily and abstractedly, 'and there is good old Lady Sarah. I must go and ask her how she does.' She paused for a moment, holding her bouquet drooping towards the floor, and looking with her clouded eyes down—down—through it; and ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... anxiously at her and then at Keith. The young man was staring abstractedly at the window, striving to recall the vision that had appeared there, and he felt, rather than saw, his hostess start and change color when her eyes fell upon the ring he was wearing. He lifted his hand covertly, and turned the trinket around in the light, but he tried in vain to decipher ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... leaned laboriously over the arm of his chair with the intention, perhaps, of crowding the crumpled map into his waste-basket. Instead, he gave it several neat and careful folds and thrust it abstractedly into one of his pigeon-holes. It found place alongside of a bill for doctor's services handed in that morning. A porter who had fallen down three floors of the elevator shaft had been attended by one of his own ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... their chairs eagerly up to the doctor's, but for a minute he did not seem to see them, but sat gazing abstractedly into the fire, then he took a long draw upon his ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... truth say much more; I do not even wish an increase of fortune, considering it abstractedly from its being incompatible with my marriage with the loveliest of women; I am indifferent to all but independence; wealth would not make me happier; on the contrary, it might break in on my present little plan of enjoyment, by forcing me to give to common acquaintance, ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... upon a horse—a tall, middle-aged man in coarse home-spun clothing, his eye defiant, but his countenance white with the anxieties of his situation. He was surrounded by a troop of sabres; the horses' hoofs made a great clatter upon the hard road, and Count Victor, walking abstractedly along the river-bank, came on them before he was aware of their proximity. As he stood to let them pass he was touched inexpressibly by the glance the convict gave him, so charged was it with question, hope, dread, and the appetite for ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... punishment by the law and justice of God; because the same word of truth which says, 'Whosoever will, let him come, and take of the water of life freely,' also says, 'The soul that sinneth [or lives and dies in sin unpardoned] shall die.' Thus sin is the object of God's hatred, and not the man, abstractedly considered. May we therefore each of us have grace to look to Christ for full and complete salvation, who hath put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, whereby he has perfected for ever them ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... hearth, discussing the tableaux for the evening, while, with her cheek upon her hand, Cornelia listlessly fingered a diamond necklace which her father had just given her. The blazing jewels slipped through her pale fingers all unnoticed, and she looked up abstractedly when Mr. Graham touched her, and repeated his question for ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... the three wintry May evenings Lorand was standing alone at his window, and gazing abstractedly at the street through the ice-flower pattern of ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... Peacock, who were staying at the hotel for a week or two, were motoring. The original plan had included Susan, but at the last moment Emily had been discovered upstairs, staring undecidedly out of the window, humming abstractedly. ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... seemed to have something weighty on his mind. He kept pulling at his streaked, reddish-gray mustache when his fingers should have been wholly occupied with his food, and he stared abstractedly at the ground after he had finished his first cup of coffee and before he took his second. Once Bill Holmes caught him glaring with an intensity which circumstances in no wise justified—and it was Bill Holmes who first shifted his gaze in vague uneasiness when he tried to stare Applehead down. ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... the telegrams in his pocket. A cat, on its way back from lunch, paused beside him in order to use his leg as a serviette. George tickled it under the ear abstractedly. He was always courteous to cats, but today he went through the movements perfunctorily ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... and gave orders about the dog-cart and the burying of Rox. Then slowly, her eyes fixed and wide, she went up to her own room and, without removing either her hat or her gloves, sat down upon the edge of the bed, letting her hands fall limply into her lap, gazing abstractedly at the white curtain just stirring ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... approached and passed him; she did not look at him; he did not look at her; he appeared to be quite absorbed in absently cutting and fashioning a rough stick with the aid of a large clasp-knife. He gazed before him abstractedly, brushed the splinters of wood from his knee, and laid the knife down upon the seat beside him, the edge of the blade uppermost. The girl shuddered; the ivory pallor of her cheeks grew gray beneath her veil. She passed on round the clump of bushes and returned. The man had ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford
... fault, just why and to what extent the radii of mountain moonlight differed from the radii of any other kind of moonlight, and Eve herself, in absolute spiritual remoteness, stood patiently shifting her weight from one foot to the other, staring abstractedly all the time at the ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... the window where she stood abstractedly looking through the lattice which overhung a large yard, surrounded by the stables of the hostelry. Some yeomen were dressing their own or their masters' horses, whistling, singing and laughing. Suddenly she ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... my good fellow,' pursued Sir Joseph, looking abstractedly at Toby; 'your only business in life is with me. You needn't trouble yourself to think about anything. I will think for you; I know what is good for you; I am your perpetual parent. Such is the ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... narrowest visual range. In no literature whatsoever are so few tolerable notices to be found of any great truths in Psychology. Nor could this have been otherwise amongst a people who tried every thing by the standard of social value; never seeking for a canon of excellence, in man considered abstractedly in and for himself, and as having an independent value—but always and exclusively in man as a gregarious being, and designed for social uses and functions. Not man in his own peculiar nature, but man in his relations to other men, was the station from which ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... former times she never failed to visit to see if there were any new-blown cyclamen, without giving it even a thought. A crimson spray of gladiolus leaned from the rock and seemed softly to kiss her cheek, yet she regarded it not; and once stopping and gazing abstractedly upward on the flower-tapestried walls of the gorge, as they rose in wreath and garland and festoon above her, she felt as if the brilliant yellow of the broom and the crimson of the gillyflowers, and all the fluttering, nodding armies of brightness that were dancing in the sunlight, were ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... well into the Park, Lyveden made for a solitary chair and sat himself down in the sun. For a while he remained wrapped in meditation, abstractedly watching the terrier stray to and fro, nosing the adjacent turf with the ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... one man on the premises, a big, benevolent-looking fellow, whose placid face wore an unaccustomed expression of nervous tension. He came stumbling out of the house, and walked abstractedly around the horses. He was making strange motions with his head, strongly indicative of a tendency to strangulation, and ever and anon he clutched his white collar and looked toward the house with an air of desperation. He made three aimless pilgrimages around the equipage ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... why should you have held your tongue about his death? But if he was dead, and you had a reason for killing him, you might have held your tongue for fear of being accused." Then after a silence he added, abstractedly: "Cyprus is a beautiful place, I believe. Romantic scenery and romantic people. Very intoxicating for a ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... kitchen stove, rocking to and fro, and gazing abstractedly before her. Her mood was a reminiscent one and I knew if I gave her time enough she would launch forth into one of the interesting narratives of which she possessed a goodly store. To have interrupted her train of thought by even a whisper would have been fatal; ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... for her air was strange and full of presage,—as, indeed, she had meant it to be. But he remained as silent as she, only reached out his emaciated hand and, laying it on her head, smiled again but this time far from abstractedly. Then, as he saw her cheeks pale in terror of the task before her, he ventured to ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... beyond the wide seas, lay his refuge and ultimate hope came to him with so much force as to cause him to reel like one on whom a severe blow had been dealt. He stood for some time, seemingly bewildered, in the din and noise of the wharf, noting abstractedly the many bales of cotton, as truck after truck-load was rushed aboard an outward bound steamer. The bales seemed to fascinate him completely. A stevedore yelled at him to move out of the way and aroused him into action, but in that interval an idea which seemed to offer a possible ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... rode also the young man of whom they spoke. And at about the time that the two came to the old mill and saw Theodosia Alston sitting there—her face still cast down, her eyes gazing abstractedly into her untasted cup on the little table—Meriwether Lewis was pulling up at the iron gate which then closed the opening in the stone wall encircling the modest official residence of his ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... Abstractedly he watched her glide away in her cousin's arms. Stephen had a way of being preoccupied at such times. When he grew older he would walk the length of Olive Street, look into face after face of acquaintances, not a quiver of recognition ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... be quite a party,' said Ernest, seating himself, and looking abstractedly round the room. 'Why, Berkeley,' as his eye fell upon the Venetian vase, 'you've positively got some more gew-gaws here. This ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... like steel from the water, the heavy boat seeming to leap in successive bounds until they were fairly beyond the curving inshore current and clearing the placid, misty surface of the bay. Clarence did not speak, but bent abstractedly over his oar; the ferryman and his crew rowed in equal panting silence; a few startled ducks whirred before them, but dropped again to rest. In half an hour they were at the Embarcadero. The time was fairly up. Clarence's eyes were eagerly bent for the first appearance of the stage-coach ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... cried: 'Let him be accursed!' But out of the sky came a voice and it cried 'Mercy—mercy to him!' and then I woke trembling with the vividness of my dream. I have dreamed thus twice. It troubles me." And he paused abstractedly, listening to the storm without, which seemed ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... circumstances. An inn may not appear the best possible place for meditation, especially if the moralizer's bedchamber be next the yard where carriages roll, and hostlers swear perpetually; yet so situated, I, this morning as I lay awake in my bed, thought so abstractedly and attentively, that I heard neither wheels nor hostlers. I reviewed the whole of my past life; I regretted bitterly my extravagance, my dissipation, my waste of time; I considered how small a share of enjoyment my wealth had procured, either for myself or ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... me, but Silva had sunk back into his chair, and was staring abstractedly through the open door out into the darkness, as though our proceedings interested him not at all. Then, as I looked into the drawer, I gave a little gasp of astonishment, for it was almost filled with packets of bills. There were five of them, neatly sealed in wrappers of the National ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... straggled homeward, leaving a few wives and sweethearts waiting by the steps, with patient eyes fixed on the spidery figures in the rigging of "The Last Hope." Dormer Colville and the Marquis de Gemosac were left alone, while the rector stood a few yards away, glaring abstractedly at them through his gold-rimmed spectacles as if they had been some strange flotsam cast up ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... to the white fur of the rug and abstractedly he picked up his sister's riding-crop and one glove. She had dropped them when Jefferson Edwardes placed the ring on her finger. Hamilton turned the things over in his hand and a groan escaped him. ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... knowing wink and touched his hat. Berrington lay back inside the hansom abstractedly, smoking a cigarette that he had lighted. His bronzed face was unusually pale and thoughtful; it was evident that he felt himself on no ordinary errand, though the situation appeared to be perfectly prosaic. One does not usually attach a romantic ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... people will think that the passage in question deserves a very slight fraction of the praise bestowed upon it; but the criticism, like most of Johnson's, has a meaning which might be worth examining abstractedly from the special application which shocks the idolaters of Shakspeare. Presently the party discussed Mrs. Montagu, whose Essay upon Shakspeare had made some noise. Johnson had a respect for her, caused in great measure by a sense of her liberality to his friend Miss ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... isn't it?" Annie would say, abstractedly, when some enthusiastic girl pored over the colonial letters or the old portraits. "See here, Margaret," she might add, casually, "do you see the inside of this little slipper, my dear? Read what's written there: 'In these slippers Deborah ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... large wrapping robe flung carelessly over her night attire, but instead of reading, which at that hour, and in that guise, she generally did, that the word of God might be the last book on which she looked ere she sought her rest, she was leaning abstractedly over the fire, seated on a low stool, her hands pressed on her temples, while the flickering flame cast a red and unnatural glare on those pale cheeks. Ellen advanced, but her cousin moved not at her entrance, nor even when she knelt by her side, ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... his port, selected a cigar, lighted it and gazed abstractedly towards the ivory frame. The lips ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... elbows on the table, she slid her ruby ring up and down her finger abstractedly. She frowned at the rows of leather-bound books opposite her. Ralph looked keenly at her. Very pale, but sternly concentrated upon her meaning, beautiful but so little aware of herself as to seem remote from him also, there was something distant and abstract about her which exalted him and chilled ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... she abstractedly. "It is true, my father sold me to Lord Neville, and as the priest had joined our hands, men called him my husband. But he very well knew that I did not love him, nor did he require my love. He needed a nurse, not a wife. He had given me his name as a father gives his to a daughter; ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... got any enemies—that sort of man never has, except himself. How can I get hold of the girl? I suppose some people would set a detective to watch Rainham, and so on; but that's not to be thought of, in this case." He stopped close to Cleopatra's Needle, and frowned abstractedly over the stone parapet, absently following the struggles of a boy who was laboriously working a great, empty lighter across the wide, smoke-coloured river at a narrow angle with the shore. An idea suggested itself in flattering colours for a ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... Fielding, the Reverend William Young. Like Adams, he was a scholar and devoted to AEschylus; he resembled him, too, in his trick of snapping his fingers, and his habitual absence of mind. Of this latter peculiarity it is related that on one occasion, when a chaplain in Marlborough's wars, he strolled abstractedly into the enemy's lines with his beloved AEschylus in his hand. His peaceable intentions were so unmistakable that he was instantly released, and politely directed to his regiment. Once, too, it is said, on being charged by a gentleman with sitting for the portrait of ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... forth to break the law of God, to take his life or to lose his own. But why do I say that? I now know that nothing but the love of God, and of God's law implanted in his heart, would have induced him thus to act. Abstractedly he knew that he was about to do a wrong thing, but had he been really making God's law the rule of his life, he would not have hesitated one moment, but the moment Major O'Grady had opened the subject, he would have told ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... abstractedly, as though she had not heard him. Ever since her illness, George had shewn her a tender devotion; and, when Sonia Dainton and her other friends had succumbed to the war-epidemic of marriage, she had fancied that it would be very restful ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... circumstances occur to make them retire from particular scenes of action, had he the least reason to think that his present researches could possibly compromise any old friend who might possess means of retaliation. The having been concerned in these practices abstractedly was a circumstance which, according to his opinion, ought in no respect to interfere with his now using his experience in behalf of the public, or rather to further his own private views. To acquire the good opinion and countenance of Colonel ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... a half-holiday, and a baseball match of unusual interest was to come off on the school ground that afternoon; but, somehow, I didn't go. I hung about the house abstractedly. The Captain went up town, and Miss Abigail was busy in the kitchen making immortal gingerbread. I drifted into the sitting-room, and had our guest all to myself for I don't know how many hours. It was twilight, ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... fit of silent musing, during which she had bit her lips, and frowned, and gazed abstractedly at the wall, a gleam of hope lit up her face, soon brightening into a smile. She had hit upon a plan! She could learn the milliner's trade! She had always been handy with her needle, and liked nothing better than to arrange laces and ribbons and flowers. She could easily ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... over and gazed abstractedly at the three words written there: "Lest we forget!" Beneath this pertinent quotation ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... company with a gaudy, discordant, and silly chatterer, was asked to help her to the usual concomitant of boiled fowl. As he did so, he abstractedly murmured, "Parsley,—fatal ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... exactly eligible myself, as I don't know any German. It's such a beautifully sharp pencil, though, that I hate not to write with it." Patty poised the pencil a moment, and abstractedly traced the name ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... I expect," answered Miss Carr rather abstractedly. "The lake and the fells would be there, and probably most of the farms, though the buildings would be different in those days. The lay brethren would attend to the land just as we do. I dare say they dug in this very orchard, and grew herbs ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... remonstrance, knowing that it might annoy and disturb Ellen to have us return. John threw himself into a chair in front of the fire, and looked moodily into the coals, making no attempt at conversation. I took up a book. Very soon John rose, sauntered abstractedly about the room, took up Mrs. Long's work-basket, and examined every article in it, and at last sat down before her little writing-desk, which stood open. Presently I saw that he was writing. More ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... drifted into his favorite reverie, and wandered abstractedly out upon the balcony looking longingly toward the rose-colored palace where his every ambition centred; but he felt the glittering, jeweled eyes of the patron saint of Venice glare upon him mockingly ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... sick man was wheeled into the next room as before, he failed to notice his favourite picture, and in place of asking to be placed with his back to the light as he had hitherto done, sat with his hands clasped, gazing abstractedly out of the window. That night the Prince of Wales was summoned from Cambridge, it was said by his sister, Princess Alice, who took upon her the responsibility of bringing ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... of corpuscles, or minute bodies, so to be divided, when, by former divisions, they are reduced to a smallness much exceeding the perception of any of our senses; and so all that we have clear and distinct ideas of is of what division in general or abstractedly is, and the relation of TOTUM and PARS: but of the bulk of the body, to be thus infinitely divided after certain progressions, I think, we have no clear nor distinct idea at all. For I ask any one, whether, taking the smallest atom of dust he ever saw, he has any distinct idea (bating ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... half the morning apparently absorbed in a book; but Lucy noticed that, while thus seemingly occupied, she would gaze abstractedly at a page for long intervals without seeming to turn a leaf or get a line farther on. Lucy longed to be able to direct the mourner to the "balm in Gilead," whose efficacy she knew by experience,—to the kind Physician who can bind up so tenderly ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... right; it still follows that we must first consider what is absolutely right; since the one conception presupposes the other. That is to say, though we must ever aim to do what is best for the present times, yet we must ever bear in mind what is abstractedly best; so that the changes we make may be towards it, ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... Stanton said abstractedly. Yoritomo left, and Stanton got up on the rubdown table and lay prone. The therapist, seeing that his patient was in no mood for conversation, proceeded with the massage ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... She spoke abstractedly and wearily. The General felt that it was not for this that she had thus visited him, but that something more lay behind. Still he answered her remark as if he took it in good faith. He hastened to reassure her. It was no intrusion. ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... darned thing?" he asked fretfully, turning to Luck, who was scowling abstractedly ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... glad enthusiasm, chilled him. She even ceased to look at him, turning her profile toward him and gazing again abstractedly across the lawn. A sudden fear took hold of him, the fear that his hesitations, his evident difficulty in getting the thing out, had enabled her to follow the processes by which he whipped himself up to an act that should have been spontaneous. He had a suspicion, ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... by this unprecedented carefulness for her health on the part of the usually careless Leslie, went down abstractedly to her professor, and wished he would go home. He was well into the midst of a most heartfelt and touching proposal of marriage before she realized what ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... said, abstractedly judicious. "Take me for instance. I tried out four or five before I was inspired with the one I'm wearing now. And a couple of them woulda knocked you dead, take it from me. But the Vere de Vere ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... looked up from his book, where he had been beholding a large breadth of light on the spiritual sky, and answered, somewhat abstractedly, but with the gentle politeness he ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... full quarter of an hour in abstractedly gazing at this scene, I was called to reality by the opening of the room door, and a strange voice repeating my name. The person presenting herself appeared to be an upper servant—a tall, thin woman, with dark hair sprinkled with gray, ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... when he's gone a mile and a quarter with The Dutchman. Gad! that was neat; here they come;" for the two boys had whirled with sudden skill at the quarter post, and broke away, with Diablo slightly in the lead. "My God! he can move," muttered Langdon, abstractedly, and quite to himself. The man at his side had floated into oblivion. He saw only a great striding black horse coming wide-mouthed up the stretch. At the Black's heels, with ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... can wander about," Renard replied, abstractedly. He had already reseated himself and had begun to ply his brushes; he now saw only Henri and the hilt of the sword he was ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... as if unintentionally, when I went to my box, and laid it down with my curling-tongs on the table close by Minnie. Minnie took it up abstractedly and looked at it ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... the novel was finished and thrown aside, and Mrs. Elwyn sat with her feet on the low fender gazing abstractedly into the fire. Now was the time Agnes thought, and approaching her gently, ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... on the edge of his coffee-cup and scowling abstractedly. It was the first little discord in the filial harmony—this evidence that the powers were at work; almost a breach of confidence. There was no avoiding the distasteful conclusion. Without consulting his wishes, ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... noticed her departure. She gathered up her letters and went abstractedly to her room, unheeding a gay call for "Golden Carol" from a group of girls in the corridor. Maud Russell was not in and Carol was glad. She wanted to be alone and fight ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... gazing abstractedly into the grate fire, her hands clasped in her lap, working restlessly, as was their habit, when she was thinking deeply. Suddenly a sharp exclamation broke from her lips, and Olive turned towards her a look of surprised inquiry. But Madeline was clasping and unclasping her hands nervously, ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... way to carry a tool than you would think," he went on, gazing abstractedly into Schomberg's wide-open eyes. "Suppose some little difference comes up during a game. Well, you stoop to pick up a dropped card, and when you come up—there you are ready to strike, or with the thing up you sleeve ready to ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... to time, care to exchange the merry-making within for the languorous rest without. It was yet too early, however, for the sprightly devotees to abandon the lively pleasures of the dance, so that when the duke's fool abstractedly entered the balmy, crimson nook, at ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... famous surgeon, Professor MacDonald. He was elderly, with the broad high forehead, dignity of poise, and sharpness of glance which bespeaks the successful scientist. His face, to-night, was chalky and the firm, full mouth twitched with nervousness. He greeted Shirley abstractedly. The criminologist's manner was that ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... gazing abstractedly into the dense growth of pines which fringed the house. He pulled himself together, but his eyes had in them a ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... to be a brief respite, however; for the Old Woman turned to the steaming pot and began testing its contents with great seriousness, lifting the ladle to her lips again and again, and looking abstractedly ...
— Everychild - A Story Which The Old May Interpret to the Young and Which the Young May Interpret to the Old • Louis Dodge
... the chair next to him at the table, so that Cadogan had only to fall into it. Cadogan abstractedly nodded his thanks. Catching sight of Lavis, he ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... adamant, and Joro, abstractedly toying with his laboratory apparatus in the basement of his palace, tried to find the key to her ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl
... she could not; she sat silent without looking up. The old contrast of character recurred to her, in spite of the fact that her own had changed so much. She hung over the book, while her companion half abstractedly repeated, ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... men can resist, from the marked interest which she took in everything that affected him. She was too young and too inexperienced to estimate the full force of the constant attention which she paid to him. Her father was too abstractedly immersed in learned and military discussions to observe her partiality, and Flora Mac-Ivor did not alarm her by remonstrance, because she saw in this line of conduct the most probable chance of her friend securing at length a return ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... substantially rehabilitated. Together with the reputation of Fuller as an historian, his reputation in other respects for a long while underwent eclipse; for, as it is reviving again, we may not say that it passed away. His matter quite apart—and it is always interesting—and abstractedly from his pervasive pleasantry, which is always original, it is a wonder that he is not more esteemed than he is in an age which professes to set store by style. Mr. John Nichols, an editor of his Worthies, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... live with those people?" he said in one place, abstractedly. Carrie heard it, but it ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... different person to him, a woman who seemed to have only just revealed herself, asserting a power of attraction he had never suspected in her. He found himself trying to catch glimpses of her face at different angles, as she sat listening abstractedly ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... go on indefinitely, but Oliver thanks her abstractedly—it is decent of the old girl after all—grunts "Guess I better start in looking busy now, Mrs. Wimple!" and sits ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... him to the opposite end of the board, where stood the cup of wine madame had poured for Marius. His own, Garnache, had left untouched. As if abstractedly, he now took up the beaker, pledged madame with his glance, and drank. She watched him, and suddenly a suspicion darted through her mind—a suspicion that ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... this letter, for the gout comes now to me oftener than it did, and I do not know when I may again write to thee with my own hand; so I resolved I would e'en empty my whole budget at once. Thy mother is well and blooming; she is, at the present, abstractedly employed in a prodigious piece of tapestry which old Nicholls informs me is the wonder of ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... interesting!' Swithin paused abstractedly for a moment, then stepped back again to the stile, while he stood watching the ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... that we have a masterly portrait, not a complete individual: and the relief of poetry and sympathy being wanting, the detestation she inspires is so unmixed as to be almost intolerable: consequently the character, considered in relation to the other personages of the story, is perfect; but abstractedly, it is imperfect; a basso relievo—not ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... co-operating parts; while it is obvious that the greater the number of variations which are needed in order to effect an improvement, the less will be the probability of their all occurring at once. It is no reply to this to say, what is no doubt abstractedly true, that whatever is possible becomes probable, if only time enough be allowed. There are improbabilities so great that the common sense of mankind treats them as impossibilities. It is not, for instance, in the strictest ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... abstractedly to his feet. Tydomin was talking to her dead husband. She was peering into the hideous face of ivory, and fondling his violet hair. When she perceived Maskull, she hastily kissed the withered lips, and got up from her knees. ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... quite at ease. He looked back upon a number of fortunate events that had not occurred, and forward to various unpleasant things that might occur, and then he took a letter from his pocket and read it abstractedly. ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... said Jaquith, abstractedly. "Didn't I tell you? They went South, and she took yellow fever. It was only a ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... The boy looked abstractedly at the closing door, and then said to himself—"The dame is always talking riddles: I wonder if she know more of me than she tells, or if she is any way akin to me. I hope not, for I don't love her much; nor, for that ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton |
