"Contemplative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he has enshrined in a magnificent passage of the Journal the feelings of the moment: "He said," writes his secretary, "that at Rome one saw nothing but the sky under which she had been built, and the outline of her site: that the knowledge we had of her was abstract, contemplative, not palpable to the actual senses: that those who said they beheld at least the ruins of Rome, went too far, for the ruins of so gigantic a structure must have commanded greater reverence-it was nothing but her sepulchre. The ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... best poetry its chief power of pleasing; and would strike us, perhaps, as more impassioned and exalted, if it were not regulated and harmonized by the most beautiful taste. It is singularly sweet, elegant, and tender—touching, perhaps, and contemplative, rather than vehement and overpowering; and not only finished throughout with an exquisite delicacy, and even severity of execution, but infused with a purity and loftiness of feeling, and a certain sober ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... truest illustration of the process is that of cutting through layers of crust or skin. The man, having learned his lesson fully, casts off the physical life; having learned his lesson fully, casts off the psychic life; having learned his lesson fully, casts off the contemplative ...
— Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold • Mabel Collins
... a drop of dew. It is suspended from a leaf. It glints, and gleams, and glows, in the clear morning light. As you look into it, if you are in a contemplative mood, the drop of dew expands into a world; and what a world of beauty! It seems a very paradise, where the redeemer of the Lord might walk; where angels ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... contemplative, he had been fitted to his life, but with his energy and practical ability he seemed born for great enterprise and for command; and I so much regret the loss of his rare powers of action, that I cannot help counting it a fault in him that he had no ambition. Wanting ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... to know what I am writing about. I will tell you. Many years ago there was a young handsome Shepherd who fed his flocks on a Mountain's Side called Latmus—he was a very contemplative sort of a Person and lived solitary among the trees and Plains little thinking that such a beautiful Creature as the Moon was growing mad in Love with him.—However so it was; and when he was asleep she used to come down from heaven and admire ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... brought to earth the truth which so high exalts us; and such grace shone upon me that I drew away the surrounding villages from the impious worship which seduced the world. Those other fires were all contemplative men, kindled by that heat which brings to birth holy flowers and fruits. Here is Macarius, here is Romuald, here are my brothers, who within the cloisters fixed their feet, and held a steadfast heart. And I to him, 'The affection which thou displayest in speaking with me, and ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... was leaning back in her great oak chair, in which she looked like the heroine of some sad and gorgeous romance of the old civil wars of England, and directing a gaze of contemplative and haughty curiosity upon the old lady, who was unconscious of ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... of anglers, and it is not in nature that sport should be what it once was. Of the famous salmo ferox I cannot speak from experience. The huge courageous fish is still at home in Loch Awe, but now he sees a hundred baits, natural and artificial, where he saw one in Mr. Colquhoun's time. The truly contemplative man may still sit in the stern of the boat, with two rods out, and possess his soul in patience, as if he were fishing for tarpon in Florida. I wish him luck, but the diversion is little to my mind. Except in playing the fish, if he comes, all the skill is in the boatmen, who know where to row, ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... alarmed. Colden, it is true, was not a faultless or steadfast character. No gross or enormous vices were ascribed to him. His habits, as far as appearances enabled one to judge, were temperate and chaste. He was contemplative and bookish, and was vaguely described as being somewhat visionary ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... said,—to exercise your ingenuity in a rational and contemplative manner.—No, I do not proscribe certain forms of philosophical speculation which involve an approach to the absurd or the ludicrous, such as you may find, for example, in the folio of the Reverend Father Thomas Sanchez, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... GOD no doubt, but they will not subject themselves to the entire guidance of His Spirit; in short, it is far easier to bring a soul from a state of sin to that of grace, than it is to lead a busy, active, zealous person to the hidden, contemplative ...
— Gold Dust - A Collection of Golden Counsels for the Sanctification of Daily Life • E. L. E. B.
... a tendency in preparing stories to begin with detail work, often a gesture or side issue which one has remembered from hearing a story told, but if this is done before the contemplative period, only scrappy, jerky and ineffective results are obtained, on which one cannot count for dramatic effects. This kind of preparation reminds one of a young peasant woman who was taken to see a performance of "Wilhelm Tell," and when questioned as to the plot ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... readers will have seen by the preceding page, we have commenced engraving the above series of pictures. "The Age of Innocence," by Sir J. Reynolds, representing a young Hippopotamus seated under a shady tree, presents to the contemplative mind a charming union of youth ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... to the marble fireplace. The mantel-piece was a handsome work by a Princhester artist in the Gill style—with contemplative ascetics ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... the First National lounged in his chair half an hour longer, and then he lit a mild cigar, and went over to Tom Merwin's house. Merwin, a ranchman in brown duck, with a contemplative eye, sat with his feet upon a table, plaiting ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... will tell you," replied the Prefect, as he gave a long, steady, and contemplative puff, and settled himself in his chair. "I will tell you in a few words; but, before I begin, let me caution you that this is an affair demanding the greatest secrecy, and that I should most probably lose the position I now hold were it known ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... prosperity from the philosophic tenor of his former life. He abated nothing of his peripatetic exercises; and repaired duly in the morning, as he had done in former years, to St. James's Park,—where he sate in contemplative ease amongst the cows, inhaling their balmy breath and pursuing his philosophic reveries. He had also purchased an organ, or more than one, with which he solaced his solitude and beguiled himself of uneasy thoughts if he ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... appeared to the cautious contemplative brother as one that was fraught with no ordinary danger, and he would have most willingly declined the prominent character allotted to him in the performance but for the importunate entreaty of his friends, who implored him, as he valued their blessing, not to slight such excellent advice. ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... that eased her aching heart; she became more intimate with misery—the misery that rises from poverty and the want of education. She was in the vicinity of a great city; the vicious poor in and about it must ever grieve a benevolent contemplative mind. ...
— Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft
... one to the other, continues to do so, and is not removed from the counter. The bartender sees two emaciated invalids dispose of enough Kentucky Belle to floor a dozen cowboys, without displaying any emotion save a sad and contemplative interest in the peregrinations of the bottle. So he is moved to manifest a solicitude as to ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... was no one here. My dear Miss Wilder, you look contemplative; but I fancy it wouldn't do to ask the subject ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... no farther than the near-by town where I was to get my supper, it went at a lazy winding pace. If a dog barked it was in sleepy fashion. He yelped merely to check his loneliness. There could be no venom on his drowsy tooth. The very cows that fed along its fences were of a slower breed and more contemplative whisk of tail than are found upon the thoroughfares. Sheep patched the fields with gray and followed their sleepy banquet across ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... how many shares of the Communal land he will take, and replies in a slow, contemplative way, "I have two sons, and there is myself, so I'll take three shares, or somewhat less, if it ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... Genio y Figura. Rafaela, the heroine of this novel, says that, after her bath: "I fall into a puerility which may be innocent or vicious, I cannot decide. I only know that it is a purely contemplative act, a disinterested admiration of beauty. It is not coarse sensuality, but aesthetic platonism. I imitate Narcissus; and I apply my lips to the cold surface of the mirror and kiss my image. It is the love of beauty, the expression of tenderness ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... frozen world, a wilderness, so many thousand miles from anything that she and her father had ever known. And in her pocket there was no penny for rescue or escape. Over her life brooded powerfully Sylvester Hudson, with his sallow face and gentle, contemplative eyes. He had brought her to his home. Surely that was an honorable and generous deed. He had given her over to the care and protection of his wife and daughters. But why didn't Mrs. Hudson like it? Why did she tighten her lips and ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... steady contemplative gaze, and there was no doubt that her comment was justified. Millicent's face was pallid, there was a certain weariness in her eyes, and on the whole, her expression was ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... to show that the visitor to Woodhall Spa, who has a taste for “the contemplative man’s recreation,” {81} may find some employment in its vicinity. Most of the ponds can be fished on asking the farmers’ permission. As to the Witham, although there are angling clubs at Boston and Lincoln, the river is practically open to every one, in the season. ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... country. His untiring and patient observation of Nature is the secret of his power as a writer. He disdained nothing, for nothing seemed too small for him. Nature, in none of its phases, could appear insignificant to his fertile and mellow soul. When he could not soar in the high regions of contemplative philosophy, he stooped as low as the little child whose rosy cheek he patted, and who then became to him a teacher and a study. An insect crawling on a leaf,—a bit of grass bringing the joy of its short life around the stones of the pavement,—a cloud floating over the meadows,—a murmur ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... only time that Wordsworth was really witty? He told the story himself at a dinner. "Gentlemen, I never was really witty but once in my life." Of course there was a general call for the bright but solitary instance. And the contemplative bard continued: "Well, gentlemen, I was standing at the door of my cottage on Rydal Mount, one fine summer morning, and a laborer said to me: 'Sir, have you seen my wife go by this way?' And I replied: 'My ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... child, and the solitude of her quiet home accorded better with her sad and contemplative mood, than the foolish clatter of her simple neighbor's gossiping member, and right glad was she that her acquaintance extended no further than to her kind benefactor, and to the noble and ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... contemplative and reflective a mind as Crompton's, and the many years of constant and, to a great extent, solitary occupation on Hargreaves' Jenny, it is not to be wondered at that Crompton's ingenious brain led him to devise some mechanism for improving ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson
... beauty of persuasions; yea, and fortified and entrenched them (as much as discourse can do) against corrupt and popular opinions. Again, for the degrees and comparative nature of good, they have also excellently handled it in their triplicity of good, in the comparisons between a contemplative and an active life, in the distinction between virtue with reluctation and virtue secured, in their encounters between honesty and profit, in their balancing of virtue with virtue, and the like; so as this part deserveth to be reported ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... Squincher, As in contemplative pose, He stood before the looking-glass And burnished up his nose, And brushed the dandruff from a span- Spick-splinter suit of clothes,— "Why, bless you, Mr. Squincher, You're as ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... as it is, can be carried no further than to the human intelligence, and cannot be transferred, with any appearance of probability, to the other qualities of the mind; if this really be the case, what can the most inquisitive, contemplative, and religious man do more than give a plain, philosophical assent to the proposition, as often as it occurs, and believe that the arguments on which it is established exceed the objections which lie against ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... learned the small gossip which varies little with a thousand people in the same circumstances. But he had a naive fresh sense, everything interested him, and he said what he thought with taste and tact, sometimes with wit, and always in that cheerful contemplative mood which influences women. Some of his sayings were so startling and heretical that they had gone the rounds, and certain crisp words out of the argot of the North were used by women who wished ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... amuse the others, and the party broke up. A little later Florent returned to Lebigre's, and indeed he became quite attached to the "cabinet," finding a seductive charm in Robine's contemplative silence, Logre's fiery outbursts, and Charvet's cool venom. When he went home, he did not at once retire to bed. He had grown very fond of his attic, that girlish bedroom, where Augustine had left scraps of ribbons, souvenirs, and other ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... dear—at this hour?" Mrs. Walker asked. The afternoon was drawing to a close—it was the hour for the throng of carriages and of contemplative pedestrians. "I don't think it's safe, my dear," ...
— Daisy Miller • Henry James
... I was joined by Mandy McGovern, who pulled out her contemplative pipe. "Did you see my boy, Andy Jackson?" she asked. "He went acrost with the first bunch—nary stitch of clothes on to him. He ain't much thicker'n a straw, but say—he was a-rastlin' them mules and a-swearin' ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... Napoleon, like Moliere—the moment that it sees it, or it waits to be sought when it has patiently revealed itself. Young Granson belonged to that class of men of talent who distrust themselves and are easily discouraged. His soul was contemplative. He lived more by thought than by action. Perhaps he might have seemed deficient or incomplete to those who cannot conceive of genius without the sparkle of French passion; but he was powerful in the world of mind, and ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... contemplation of the curious processes of the water-distilling insect afforded me deeper and more lasting enjoyment, the gush of excitement and eagerness that instantly followed the discovery of the wild buffalo bull enabled me thoroughly to understand the feeling that leads men— especially the less contemplative among them—infinitely to prefer the pleasures of the chase to the calmer joys attendant upon the ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... watched him go—English-Americano- Germano-Franco-Prussian-Russian-Chinese-New Zealander that he was. But he was not a man of genius; you could choke him off by talking. Still he had effectually jogged me and spoiled my contemplative enjoyment of the bathers' courage; upon the whole I thought I would go down on the beach now and see them a little closer. The truth is, I suppose, that it is people like myself who are in the wrong, or are ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... evidently still dissatisfied for he continued to back vigorously, drawing the protesting little lamplighter after him. When he had put perhaps twenty feet between himself and the lamp-post Bill achieved his usual upright attitude and his countenance assumed its habitual contemplative expression, the haunted look faded from his sagacious eye and his flaming nostrils resumed their normal benevolent expression. Taking note of these swift changes, it occurred to Mr. Shrimplin that rather than risk a repetition of his recent experience he would so far sacrifice ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... you cannot always be sitting at the Master's feet in that contemplative, ecstatic mood sometimes attributed to Mary. Like Martha, we have to do a good deal of serving. Whether we are encumbered by 'much serving' is a separate question; but if we are to fulfil the Divine tasks we have to do a great deal of serving as well as praying and trusting. ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard
... tongue," apparently by Randall, "for the common good."[69] It is a profoundly mystical book, characterized by interior depth and insight. Its central aim is the exposition of a stage of spiritual life which transcends both "the active life" and "the contemplative life," a stage which the writer calls "the Life Supereminent." In this highest stage "the essential will of God is practiced," without strain or effort, because God Himself has now become the inner Life and Being of the person, the spring and power ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... beautiful plumage; the graceful blue bird, the enamelled hummer, and the cardinal, with his hood of the brightest scarlet, are for ever on the wing in pursuit of the shad-fly. The pert woodpecker climbs the trees, and along the shores sits the contemplative heron, watching the rapids flowing by, which are, during certain seasons, absolutely ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... ingenuity ever devised for the relief of idleness, fishing is the worst qualified to amuse a man, who is at once indolent and impatient, such men's Rods are quickly discarded." My advice to those who are desirous of enjoying "the contemplative man's recreation," is that they undergo a probationary course, under the guidance of a competent professor. Three or four days of diligent observation employed in watching the manual operations of an instructor, would go far towards giving them a pretty good idea of ...
— The Teesdale Angler • R Lakeland
... clover, and the hyacinths nodding on the banks of the silvery stream. The smell of the hay and the song of the birds and the life of the fields were her ceaseless satisfaction and refreshment. Perhaps, as she wandered about those winding lanes and lonely bridle-paths, she became too contemplative, too introspective, too much addicted to the analysis of frames and feelings. Perhaps, dwelling so exclusively on the abstract and the ideal, her fresh young spirit became unfitted for its rude impact with the ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... is well to found another house: Carthusians of course, for they are holy, popular, and inexpensive. Henry, who was generous enough for lepers, hospitals, and active workers, did not usually care very much for contemplative orders, though his mother, the Empress Matilda, affected the Cistercians and founded the De Voto Monastery near Calais, and he inherited something from her. These considerations may have first prompted and then fortified Henry's very slow and reluctant steps in the work of founding ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... these differing modes of thought. They are not to be regarded seriously as having a distinct meaning. They are parables, prophecies, myths, symbols, revelations, aspirations after an unknown world. They derive their origin from a deep religious and contemplative feeling, and also from an observation of curious mental phenomena. They gather up the elements of the previous philosophies, which they put together in a new form. Their great diversity shows the tentative ...
— Meno • Plato
... unsympathising; till the corruption and despotism of the Empire had withdrawn the best men from political life and attached a certain taint or stigma to public employment; till new religions arose in the East, bringing with them new ideals to govern the world. Gradually we may trace the contemplative virtues rising to the foremost place until, about the fifth century, the ideal had totally changed. The heroic type was replaced by the saintly type. The supremely good man was now the ascetic. The first condition ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... Sometimes you get down into the bed of the stream with considerable difficulty, and you have to contemplate the banks a long time, occasionally, before deciding as to which precipice is least likely to give you a broken neck. Yes, it is a contemplative sport. As to quiet, that depends very much on what your idea of quietude may be. Our burn descends for two or three miles in succession of leaps and bounds. If the roaring of cataracts is quieting to you, there is no end of it down there. See, the pool that I ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... the tomb, and with bent heads remained there for some minutes, pensive, touched, contemplative. Then both turned, and at the same moment, by the same impulse, offered their hands to Jean; then continued their walk to the church. Their first prayer at Longueval had been for the father ...
— L'Abbe Constantin, Complete • Ludovic Halevy
... is produced is an intuition, I silent; and that, which is thus generated, is by its nature a theorem, or form of contemplation; and the birth; which results to me from this contemplation, attains to have a contemplative nature." So Synesius: ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... enforc't to flye Thence into Egypt, till the Murd'rous King Were dead, who sought his life, and missing fill'd With Infant blood the streets of Bethlehem; From Egypt home return'd, in Nazareth Hath been our dwelling many years, his life 80 Private, unactive, calm, contemplative, Little suspicious to any King; but now Full grown to Man, acknowledg'd, as I hear, By John the Baptist, and in publick shown, Son own'd from Heaven by his Father's voice; I look't for some great change; to Honour? no, But trouble, as old Simeon plain foretold, That to the ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... advantageous to her new passion had caused the agitation with which she saw him depart from her side; and, intoxicated with the idea, she ran through many a melodious descant, till toughing on the first strains of Thusa ha measg na reultan mor, she saw Wallace start from his contemplative position, and with a pale countenance leave the room. There was something in this abruptness which excited the alarm of the Earl of Lennox, who had also been listening to the songs; he rose instantly, and overtaking the chief ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... Adam's first wife, Lilith, it is told (The witch he loved before the gift of Eve,) That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue could deceive, And her enchanted hair was the first gold. And still she sits, young while the earth is old, And, subtly of herself contemplative, Draws men to watch the bright web she can weave, Till heart and body and life are in its hold. The rose and poppy are her flowers: for where Is he not found, O Lilith! whom shed scent And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare? Lo! as that youth's eyes burned at thine, so went Thy spell ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... too severe," returned Juliet. "We are apt to forget during the excitement of the moment the cruelty we inflict. I read old Izaak Walton when a child. He made me mistress of the whole art of angling. It is such a quiet contemplative amusement. The clear stream, the balmy air, the warbling of happy birds, the fragrant hedge-rows and flowery banks, by which you are surrounded, make you alive to the most pleasing impressions: and amidst sights and sounds of beauty, you never reflect that you are acting ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... There was a grace in the long flowing lines of her figure more striking than the beauty of her face. The long slim throat, the sloping shoulder, not to be disguised even by the clumsy folds of a thick shawl—these the traveller noted, in a lazy contemplative mood, as he lolled in his corner, meditating an easy opening for a conversation ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... manner had commended him very strongly to those, with whom he had lately come in contact. He was one of those attractive men whose countenances express exactly what they feel, who usually walk with a quick earnest step, if we may say so, and with a somewhat downcast contemplative look. Frank knew well enough that he was strong and tall, unusually so for his age, and therefore did not continually assert the fact by walking as if he was afraid to fall forward, which is a common practice among men who wish to look bigger than they ...
— Digging for Gold - Adventures in California • R.M. Ballantyne
... in such a systematic way as the moralistic by no means justifies us in supposing that he merely adopted it superficially (from the Scriptures): for its nature admits of no systematic treatment, but only of a rhetorical and contemplative one. No further explanation can be given of the contradiction, because, strictly speaking, Irenaeus has ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... was longer than he had thought, so still sat the contemplative mountaineer, so alluring were the details of the landscape. The enthusiasm of the amateur is always a more urgent motive power than the restrained and ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... grimness in it. She began putting the flowers into a vase that stood between the reproduction of a Giotto Madonna and a Japanese devil-hunt, both results of the study of art taken up during the past winter by her mother's favorite woman's club. Mrs. Emery watched the process in the contemplative relief which follows an emotional outbreak, and her eyes wandered to the objects on either side the vase. The sight stirred her to speech. "Oh, Marietta, how do you suppose the house will seem ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... but made no movement. He did not even turn his head from his contemplative regard of the white ashes of the fire. There was a sound. The sound of some one approaching through the trees. It was the sound of a shod footstep. It was not ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... it is girdled round by a well-trimmed hedge of limes, from which, at intervals, pollarded trees shoot up; while the corners are thickly woven each into a shady arbour, where seats are arranged for the accommodation of the contemplative. It is, however, after you have passed beneath the arch, that the holy quiet of the spot strikes you most forcibly. Laid out with singular good taste into parallelograms, and having the paths which divide them one from another, shaded by limes, it presents to your gaze ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... Wordsworth possessed more of the genius of a great philosophic poet than any man I ever knew, or, as I believe, has existed in England since Milton; but it seems to me that he ought never to have abandoned the contemplative position, which is peculiarly—perhaps I might say exclusively—fitted for him. His proper ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... objects calculated to stir that sense. Our position is, on the other hand, that the germs of the religious sense in early man are developed, not so much by the vision of the Infinite, as by the idea of Power. Early religions, in short, are selfish, not disinterested. The worshipper is not contemplative, so much as eager to gain something to his advantage. In fetiches, he ignorantly recognises something that possesses power of an abnormal sort, and the train of ideas which leads him to believe ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... of the symbol, it is absurd to suppose that the "ten years' thirst" which the sight of her relieves, "the eyes whence Love once took his weapons," and such-like expressions were intended primarily as references to a neglected study of theology or a previous devotion to a contemplative life. The omission, therefore, of the commentators who interested themselves mainly in the allegory to tell us about the real Beatrice cannot be used as evidence ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler
... of vicissitudes, and is in safety forever." Baur says, "The aim of Buddhism is that all may obtain unity with the original empty Space, so as to unpeople the worlds."35 This end it seeks by purification from all modes of cleaving to existing objects, and by contemplative discrimination, but never by the fanatical and austere methods of Brahmanism. Edward Upham, in his History of Buddhism, declares this earth to be the only ford to Nirwana. Others also ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... which we now see it in the Church of San Pietro in Vinculo, and should be composed of the statue of "Moses" executed entirely by the hand of Michelangelo; of two figures personifying "Active Life" and "Contemplative Life," which were already much advanced, but were to be finished by Rafaello de Monte Lupo; of two other statues by this master—a "Madonna," after a model by Michelangelo, and the figure of "Julius," by Maso ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... didactic and contemplative, as interpolations in soliloquy, or in chorus of adoration, ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886 • Various
... you," replied the Prefect, as he gave a long, steady and contemplative puff, and settled himself in his chair. "I will tell you in a few words; but, before I begin, let me caution you that this is an affair demanding the greatest secrecy, and that I should most probably lose the position I now hold, were it known ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... died on the 25th of January 1639-40 (some gossips surmising that he had "sent up his soul to heaven through a noose about his neck" to avoid the chagrin of seeing his calculations falsified). His [v.04 p.0866] portrait in Brasenose College shows the face of a scholar, shrewd, contemplative, humorous. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... anything; that was his problem. He was, in turn, a sacristan, a juggler, an apothecary's assistant, and a cicerone, and he got tired of all these callings. Begging was, to his mind, too hard work, and it was more trouble to be a thief than to be an honest man. Finally he decided in favour of contemplative philosophy. He had a passionate preference for the horizontal position, and found the greatest pleasure in the world in watching the shooting of stars. Unfortunately, in the course of his meditations this deserving man came near to ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... that island. In the fourth century it fell down before the preaching of St. Patrick. Then the Christian religion was embraced and cultivated with an uncommon zeal, which displayed itself in the number and consequence of the persons who in all parts embraced the contemplative life. This mode of life, and the situation of Ireland, removed from the horror of those devastations which shook the rest of Europe, made it a refuge for learning, almost extinguished everywhere else. Science flourished in Ireland during the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... alone it doth not lie With light to take light from a mortal eye: For here two day-stars that mine eyes would see More than the sun steal mine own light from me. Contemplative desire! desire to be In ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... seemed to Mallet that he wholly lacked the prime requisite of a graceful flaneur—the simple, sensuous, confident relish of pleasure. He had frequent fits of extreme melancholy, in which he declared that he was neither fish nor flesh nor good red herring. He was neither an irresponsibly contemplative nature nor a sturdily practical one, and he was forever looking in vain for the uses of the things that please and the charm of the things that sustain. He was an awkward mixture of strong moral impulse and restless ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... a day full of thankful and anxious feelings. I was too tired, and too much concerned with details of arrangements, new names, &c., to feel the more contemplative devotional part of the whole day's services till the evening. Then, for I could not sleep for some hours, it came on me; and I thought of the old times too, the dear Bishop's early visits, my own fourteen years' acquaintance with this place, the care taken by many friends, past and present members ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that angling is the contemplative man's recreation, and, having had in these later years much to con over in my mind, I know that he is right. But it is no occupation for a fuming man, and as I marched up and down I forgot all about my cork, till, with a short laugh that had ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... object and produced an entertaining compound of historical fact, romantic sentiment, exaggeration, and humor. He shows us the contemplative Dutchmen on their first voyage in the Half Moon, sailing into New York Bay, prohibited by Hudson "from wearing more than five jackets and six pair of breeches." We see the scrupulously "honest" Dutch traders buying furs from the Indians, ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... current now and floating by his side. "It's Mamie—so far as I've had it from you—who'll be their great card." And then as his contemplative silence wasn't a denial she significantly added: "I think ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... worked well. It came and went, to and fro, slowly along the line of Indifference, without ever transgressing as its extreme limits on either hand, Moderate Desires and Slight Troubles. I led obscurely a contemplative life, and I was generally considered a queer character. I fulfilled my duties, and took little heed of any one. Whenever I had an hour at my disposal, I sought solitude in the neighboring woods, far from the town and from mankind. ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... He has lived the life of savage men—has trod the forest's silent depths, and in the desperate name of life or death has matched his thought against the instinct of the beast. He has sat beneath the bo tree's contemplative shade, rapt in Buddha's mighty thought, and he has dreamed all dreams that light, the alchemist, hath wrought from dust and dew and stored within the slumbrous poppy's subtle blood. He has knelt with awe and dread at every prayer; has felt ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... His contemplative gaze made me shiver. I wondered what Don was planning as an outcome to this. The fellow seemed wholly at ease now. He was lounging against the drug store window with us before him. My eyes were level with the negligee collar of his blue linen shirt, and abruptly I was galvanized ...
— The White Invaders • Raymond King Cummings
... swine, pull. Odso, flog the black horse. You, devil broil your bones, lay on to him. What now? Od rot you, Antony, you'll see no money this month, you—" She became unprintable. As she took breath again, she saw Harry Boyce calmly contemplative. "You dog, who bade you stand and gape? Go, give a hand ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... chamber. After mass she taketh something to recreate nature, and soe goeth to the chapelle, hearinge the divine service and two lowe masses. From thence to dynner, during the tyme of whih she hath a lecture of holy matter (that is, reading from a religious book), either Hilton of Contemplative and Active Life, or some other spiritual and instructive work. After dynner she giveth audyence to all such as hath any matter to shrive unto her, by the space of one hower, and then sleepeth one quarter of an hower, and after she hath slept she contynueth in ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... some new philosophers,[443] that although we may have ideas of matter and thought, perhaps we shall never be capable of knowing whether a being purely material thinks or not, because it is impossible for us to discover by the contemplative powers of our own minds without revelation, if God has not given to some collections of matter, disposed as he thinks proper, the power to perceive and to think, or whether he has joined and united to the matter thus ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... dignity, and to signify the final expropriation of the deceased. The marriage and the million would follow in due time. Such was the happy dream which Madame Astier had interrupted. He was pursuing it still, at the same desk and in the same contemplative attitude, when the whole house resounded with another ring at the bell, followed however only by conversation at the front door. 'What is it?' said Paul impatiently, as he ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... insolence of Lady Caroom's stare, the contemplative incredulity which found militant expression in her beautiful eyes and shapely curving lips, and for a ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... into her ulster pocket. But, curiously enough, the sight of her face only intensified an impression that had been strong on him during the last part of their walk—the impression that she was a long way off. It wasn't the familiar contemplative brown study, either. There was an active eager excitement about it that made it more beautiful than ever he had seen it before. But it was as if she were looking at something he couldn't see—listening to ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... wonder of the world Our Court shall be a little academie Still and contemplative ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... husbandman is the most delectable," he wrote on another occasion to the same friend. "It is honorable, it is amusing, and, with judicious management, it is profitable. To see plants rise from the earth and flourish by the superior skill and bounty of the laborer fills a contemplative mind with ideas which are more easy ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... parts she has played, of her music, and the applause at the end of every evening, applause without which she could not live. To say that no thought of my stage life ever crosses my mind would be to tell a lie that no one would believe; all thoughts cross one's mind, especially in a convent of a contemplative Order where the centre of one's life is, as Mother Mary Hilda would say, the perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament exposed upon the altar; where, as she teaches, next to receiving Holy Communion, this ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... elegy he has in his preface very judiciously and discriminately explained. It is, according to his account, the effusion of a contemplative mind, sometimes plaintive, and always serious, and, therefore, superiour to the glitter of slight ornaments. His compositions suit not ill to this description. His topicks of praise are the domestick virtues, and his thoughts are pure and simple; ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... sleuth-hound,[224-1] Holmes, the relentless, keen-witted, ready-handed criminal agent, as it was possible to conceive. In his singular character the dual nature alternately presented itself, and his extreme exactness and astuteness represented, as I have often thought, the reaction against the poetic and contemplative mood which occasionally predominated in him. The swing of his nature took him from extreme languor to devouring energy; and, as I knew well, he was never so truly formidable as when, for days on end, he had been lounging in his arm-chair amid his improvisations and his black-letter editions. Then ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... good is to live on when all else seems to be dying. That is why Providence delivers it from passions too personal or too general, and has given to its organization patience and persistence, an enduring sensibility, and that contemplative sense upon ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... should be introduced as acting and speaking with fervor,—not, however, for Heaven's sake, to become mere musical pictures, but inhabitants of a positive, practical world such as we see in every chapter of the Old Testament; and the contemplative and pathetic element, which you desire, must be entirely conveyed to our apprehension by the words and the mood of the ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... said that His own being is His happiness. In another way life is taken to mean the activity on the part of the living thing by which activity the principle of life is reduced to act. Thus we speak of an active or contemplative life, or of a life of pleasure; and in this way the last end is called life everlasting, as is clear from the text: "This is life everlasting, that they know ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... contemplative mood forcibly reminds us of that sublime passage of holy writ, wherein that thrilling command is embodied, to "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, when he shall rise up at the voice of ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... contemplative eye, looked at his daughter through the haze of his tobacco smoke as if seeing her for the first time. In a way this was so. He was not one to take heed of time or happenings. When he was not obliged to work, he was enjoying himself in his own way, ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... owner for the glaringly modern garden benches with which the swards were interspersed. The sun was setting, there was lassitude in every passing boat, the girls leaned upon the arms of the young men, and the woods stood up tall and contemplative, as beautiful in the deep blue river as ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... What! Master Waller, and contemplative Presumptive proof of love! Of me he thinks! Revolves the point "to be or not to be!" "To be!" by all the triumphs of my sex! There was a sigh! My life upon't, that sigh, If construed, would translate "Dear ...
— The Love-Chase • James Sheridan Knowles
... of Mrs. Wilson was quicker than that of her sister. Her eye, directed before her, was fixed, as if in settled gaze, on that eternity which she was approaching. The lines of her contemplative face were unaltered, unless there might be traced a deeper shade of humility than was ordinarily seen on her pale, but expressive countenance: her petition was long; and on rising from her humble posture, the person was indeed to be seen, but the soul appeared absorbed in ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... subject of reproach, that in this Christendom of ours, the theory of good we preach should be so far in advance of our practice; but that which provokes the sneer of the skeptic, and almost kills faith in the sufferer, lifts up the contemplative mind with hope. Man's theory of good is God's reality; man's experience is the degree to which he has already worked out, in his human capacity, that divine reality. Therefore, whatever our practice may be, let us hold ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... regretfully at the piano and the old, neatly bound folios of music with 'M. A.' upon the covers, and she wondered how it was that no one cared to hear her 'pieces' now. She went over to the music-stand and fingered them in a contemplative way. How industriously she used to practise 'Woodland Warblings,' 'My Pretty Bird,' 'La Sympathie, Valse Sentimentale pour le Piano,' and 'Quant' e piu bella,' fingered ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... ones, lie on the part you would invite me to. But if I could bring myself to fancy, what I think you do but fancy, that I have any talents for active life, I want health for it; and besides it is a real truth. I have, if possible, less inclination, than ability. Contemplative life is not only my scene, but is my habit too. I begun my life where most people end theirs, with all that the world calls ambition. I don't know why it is called so, for, to me, it always seemed to be stooping, or climbing. I'll tell you my politic and religious sentiments in a few words. ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... loquacious instinct, or encouraged others so to employ their time and talents in his presence. Even his lively and rattling brother Humphrey, his almost constant companion when on shore, caught, from long habit, the great man's contemplative and self-communing gait and manner; and when his friends rallied him on the subject in after-years, he used to say, that he had caught the trick of silence while walking by the admiral's side in his long morning musings on Knoll Hill. A plain dinner ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various
... in Rand's own cheeks, which was so utterly unexpected to him that he turned on his heel in confusion. "I reckon she thinks I'm soft and silly, like Ruth," he soliloquized, and, determining not to look at her again, betook himself to a distant and contemplative pipe. In vain did Miss Euphemia address herself to the ostentatious getting of the dinner in full view of him; in vain did she bring the coffee-pot away from the fire, and nearer Rand, with the apparent intention of examining its contents in a better light; in vain, while ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... he had a lanthorn in his hand, and he did not see me, being as I was darkling." Saying this, he assisted Miss Melville to mount. He troubled her little during the route; on the contrary, he was remarkably silent and contemplative, a circumstance by no means disagreeable to Emily, to whom his conversation ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... benefit of such masters as Grigoletti, Lipparini, Schiavoni, and Zandomeneghi. She early showed much originality, and after making thorough preliminary studies she began to follow her own ideas. She was of a mystical and contemplative turn of mind, and a great proportion of her work has been of a religious nature. Her pictures began to attract attention about 1847, and she had many commissions for altar-pieces and similar work. The church of Valdobbiadene, at Venice, contains "San Venanziano Fortunatus, Bishop." "Saint Louis" ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... influences into which they may be thrown. This was probably the case even where that influence tended to degrade him from the plane he would have occupied, if left to himself. His spiritual life seemed to lack that vigor and buoyancy so infinitely important to contemplative men. He appeared to be ever yearning for something which should add robustness to his convictions. After a pause of some ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... my river has nothing the least Azoic about it. It belongs to a more recent, a more comfortable, more placid, more satisfying a formation. It is as idyllic a stream as any English one that Tennyson noted in a contemplative ramble to work up later into ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... irrational. She was lustrous with lovable qualities, which he genially recognized and appreciated; nay, he might love her, but the love would be a quasi-paternal one, not the love that demands absolute possession and brooks no rivalry. His attitude was contemplative and beneficent, not selfish and exclusive. His greatest pleasure would be to see her married to some one worthy of her. Meantime he might devote himself to her freely ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... the least like Berry. The pleasant and numerous company they found in the house of the friends with whom they went to stay at once revived her spirits, and she became us frolicsome as she had before been melancholy. George Sand describes her character as continually alternating between "contemplative solitude and complete giddiness in conditions of primitive innocence." It is hardly to be wondered at that one who exhibited such glaring and unaccountable contrasts of character was considered by some ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... or forgot we know not; but that day he purchased a fair blank Diary—the stationer who sold it not only wishing him "a Happy New Year," but that he might "live to fill fifty such:"—a wish that made Mr. Brown very contemplative—thinking 18,250 entries no joke;—of many bright, bright days of pleasure; two score and ten of birthdays; half a century of weddings, anniversaries, and deaths—let us hope of peaceful, happy deaths,—for clouds ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... rise in the East, where a solitary and contemplative life, devoted to the consideration of divine subjects, had always been considered more meritorious than active exertion. This calling was gradually adopted by so many, that at the end of the third century, the Egyptian Antonius, who had cast away his vast possessions, and ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield
... first-flower'd— Not yet the lion stalked. And Ceadmon sang O'er-awed, the Father of all humankind Standing in garden planted by God's hand, And girt by murmurs of the rivers four, Between the trees of Knowledge and of Life, With eastward face. In worship mute of God, Eden's Contemplative he stood that hour, Not her Ascetic, since, where sin is none, No need for spirit severe. And Ceadmon sang God's Daughter, Adam's Sister, Child, and Bride, Our Mother Eve. Lit by the matin star, That nearer drew to earth and brighter flashed To meet her gaze, that snowy Innocence Stood up with queenly ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... about the letter, but when it was finished he dismissed the stenographer with an impatient and powerful wave of the hand—as though brushing the man bodily out of the room. Remaining motionless until the door had closed, Mr. Flint turned abruptly and fixed his eyes on the contemplative figure ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... till 1822, since which period the place has been totally abandoned as a military station. The bank at this place is high and the spot where the Barracks stood very pleasant, commanding a fine view of the adjacent country, having a beautiful Island directly in front. To a contemplative mind this spot must be interesting when he reflects that the soldiers who forced their way from Fredericton through the wilderness to construct these works, have fallen by the sword and disease; that the men who projected them, as well as those who superintended ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher
... with the speculative sense, with the tendency which carries a man toward the contemplative study of life and nature as a whole, is the critical sense—the tendency which, in the realm of action and concrete performance, carries him, as Amiel expresses it, "droit au defaut," and makes ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... carried first the name of Him, Who brought the soul-subliming truth to man. And such a speeding grace shone over me, That from their impious worship I reclaim'd The dwellers round about, who with the world Were in delusion lost. These other flames, The spirits of men contemplative, were all Enliven'd by that warmth, whose kindly force Gives birth to flowers and fruits of holiness. Here is Macarius; Romoaldo here: And here my brethren, who their steps refrain'd Within the cloisters, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... all magnificences that will in a short time be forgotten Being as impatient of commanding as of being commanded Defer my revenge to another and better time Desires, that still increase as they are fulfilled Detest in others the defects which are more manifest in us Disdainful, contemplative, serious and grave as the ass Do not, nevertheless, always believe myself Events are a very poor testimony of our worth and parts. Every abridgment of a good book is a foolish abridgment Fault not to discern ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Essays of Montaigne • David Widger
... solitary reverie, or sometimes for orgies. The main part of their original literature, like that of their brothers and cousins on the Continent, consists of triumphal songs and heartrending laments. It is contemplative and warlike.[52] ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... laughter came from the windows as the villagers, slowly opening the papers they held, came upon the caricature of Peggy McNutt. The subject of the cartoon had, with his usual aggressiveness, secured the best "standing room" available, and his contemplative, protruding eyes were yet fixed upon the interior of the workroom. But now, his curiosity aroused, he looked at the paper to see what his neighbors were laughing at, and his expression of wonder slowly changed to a broad grin. He straightened up, looked ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... method and ecstasy, were interwoven and intertwined. The brilliant qualities of the Greek spirit, its sagacity and subtlety of intelligence, its lucidity and facility of expression, were animated and vivified by the Oriental spark, and gained new life and vigour. On the other hand, the contemplative spirit of the Orient, which is characterised by its aspiration towards the invisible and mysterious, would never have produced a coherent system or theory had it not been aided by Greek science. It was the latter that arranged and explained the Oriental traditions, ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... in Nature has hitherto been discerned more fully by the poet than by the theologian or the naturalist; and in this concluding Lecture I must deal chiefly with Christian poetry. The attitude towards Nature which we have now to consider is more contemplative than practical; it studies analogies in order to know the unseen powers which surround us, and has no desire to bend them or make them ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... prevails over sense: but in the healthy processes of the mind, a balance is constantly maintained between the impressions from outward objects and the inward operations of the intellect;—for if there be an overbalance in the contemplative faculty, man thereby becomes the creature of mere meditation, and loses his natural power of action. Now one of Shakespeare's modes of creating characters is, to conceive any one intellectual or moral ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... told, by Lady Jones, who had it from Sir Simon's family, that I had a more honourable view than at first was apprehended. I said, We fellows of fortune, Mr. Williams, take sometimes a little more liberty with the world than we ought to do; wantoning, very probably, as you contemplative folks would say, in the sunbeams of a dangerous affluence; and cannot think of confining ourselves to the common paths, though the safest and most eligible, after all. And you may believe I could not very well like to be supplanted in a view ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... said Mother as she glanced at Martin Luther with a contemplative eye, "when you're done eating run over and ask your Maw to send me a pair of Billy's britches and a shirt. No, maybe young Ez's 'll be better, and bring 'em and Martin Luther on back to the kitchen to me." With which she disappeared ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... on themselves," said White: "no compulsion whatever must be put on them. They are the judges. But it would be useful to have two convents—one of an active order, and one contemplative: Ursuline for instance, and ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... glimpse of the Mediterranean, appearing between the yellow houses at the end of the street, intensely blue, and sparkling in the rays of the afternoon sun. It was altogether a soothing scene; and had he been alone he would have sunk into that state of intellectual apathy which is so often miscalled contemplative. The homely duties of hospitality, however, compelled him to exert himself for the entertainment of his guest. Several of the people they had just met at Mrs. Beale's went past together, laughing and talking, and a propos of this he remarked, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... think) scorn to delight, so much they be content little to move, saving wrangling whether "virtus" be the chief or the only good; whether the contemplative or the active life do excel; which Plato and Boetius well knew; and therefore made mistress Philosophy very often borrow the masking raiment of poesy. For even those hard-hearted evil men, who think virtue a school- name, and know no other good but "indulgere genio," and therefore despise the ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... the lumberman's face lost, during a single instant, its mask of immobility. His steel-blue eyes flashed, his mouth twitched with some strong emotion. For the first time, too, he spoke without his contemplative pause of preparation. ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... imprudence; but in the nature of the case this contempt for repentance must extend to the sphere of morals, because its origin, namely the consciousness of individual force, is common to both sides of human nature. The passive and contemplative form of Christianity, with its constant reference to a higher world beyond the grave, could no longer control these men. Machiavelli ventured still further, and maintained that it could not be serviceable to the State and to ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... example of anchorites of a contemplative and lazy life, the natives spend theirs in giving their gold to the Church in the hope of miracles and other wonderful things. Their will is hypnotized: from childhood they learn to act mechanically, without ...
— The Indolence of the Filipino • Jose Rizal
... pulse pounding wild and undisciplined fancies in the ordered chamber of his brain. The worst of it was she saw and knew just what she was doing. She was aware before he was, and she made him aware, her face turned to look at him, on her lips a mocking, contemplative smile that was almost a superior sneer. It was this that shocked him into consciousness of the orgy his imagination had been playing him. From the wall above her, the stiff portraits of Isaac and Eliza Travers looked down like reproachful ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... in particular felt a depression, which her naturally lively temper was quite inadequate to resist; and as her ruminations became graver, had caught that calm and contemplative manner, which is so often united with an ardent and enthusiastical temperament. She meditated deeply upon the former accidents of her life; nor can it be wondered that her thoughts repeatedly wandered back to the two several periods on which she had witnessed, or supposed that she ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... whence Gideon's ranks were thinn'd, As he to Midian march'd adown the hills." Thus near one border coasting, still we heard The sins of gluttony, with woe erewhile Reguerdon'd. Then along the lonely path, Once more at large, full thousand paces on We travel'd, each contemplative and mute. "Why pensive journey thus ye three alone?" Thus suddenly a voice exclaim'd: whereat I shook, as doth a scar'd and paltry beast; Then rais'd my head to look from whence it came. Was ne'er, in furnace, glass, or metal seen So bright and glowing red, as was ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... indolent; but the uniform life and sedentary habits of literary men usually incur this reproach from those real idlers who bustle in a life of nothingness. While no one loved more the still-life of peace than this studious monarch, whose habits formed an agreeable combination of the contemplative and the active life, study and business—no king more zealously tried to keep down the growing abuses of his government, by personally concerning himself in the protection of ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... a place for eugenics in every type of religion. In practice, it will probably make an impression only on the dynamic religions,—those that are actually accomplishing something. Buddhism, for example, is perhaps too contemplative to do anything. But Christianity, above any other, would seem to be the natural ally of the eugenist. Christianity itself is undergoing a rapid change in ideals at present, and it seems impossible that this evolution should leave its adherents as ignorant of and indifferent to ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... declared that with words the same rule holds that applies to fashion,—"Alike fantastic if too new or old." Fashion changes, not only the fashions of millinery but of literature also. When the world is tired of the brilliant wit of Byron, it turns in relief to the contemplative verse of Wordsworth; when Longfellow and Tennyson have had their artistic day and a thousand imitators have produced romantic ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... as you go along; the banks of the canal slowly unroll their scenery to contemplative eyes; the barge floats by great forests and through great cities with their public buildings and their lamps at night; and for the bargee, in his floating home, 'travelling abed,' it is merely as if he were listening to another man's story or turning the leaves of a picture-book in which ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that they may be found in water in so many places, in greater or less numbers. The natural historian is not a fisherman, who prays for cloudy days and good luck merely, but as fishing has been styled "a contemplative man's recreation," introducing him profitably to woods and water, so the fruit of the naturalist's observations is not in new genera or species, but in new contemplations still, and science is only ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... inscription in Latin, warning mortal man that time flows as swiftly as water and exhorting him to make the most of his hours; after which piece of Jacobean moralising it set itself shamelessly to beguile all who might pass that way into an abandonment of contemplative repose. On all sides of it a stretch of smooth turf spread away, broken up here and there by groups of dwarfish chestnut and mulberry trees, whose leaves and branches cast a laced pattern of shade beneath them. On one side the lawn sloped gently down ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... was married at St. Mary Redcliffe Church, Bristol, to Sarah (or as he preferred to spell it Sara) Fricker, and withdrew for a time from the eager intellectual life of a political lecturer to the contemplative quiet appropriate to the honeymoon of a poet, spent in a sequestered cottage amid beautiful scenery, and within sound of the sea. No wonder that among such surroundings, and with such belongings, the honeymoon should have extended ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... wipe out those holy principles of thine. How many things without studying nature dost thou imagine, and how many dost thou neglect?[B] But it is thy duty so to look on and so to do everything, that at the same time the power of dealing with circumstances is perfected, and the contemplative faculty is exercised, and the confidence which comes from the knowledge of each several thing is maintained without showing it, but yet not concealed. For when wilt thou enjoy simplicity, when gravity, and when the ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
... breast, so full of song, 70 Singing above me, on the mountain-ash. And thou too, desert stream! no pool of thine, Though clear as lake in latest summer-eve, Did e'er reflect the stately virgin's robe, The face, the form divine, the downcast look 75 Contemplative! Behold! her open palm Presses her cheek and brow! her elbow rests On the bare branch of half-uprooted tree, That leans towards its mirror! Who erewhile Had from her countenance turned, or looked by stealth, (For Fear is true-love's cruel nurse), he now 81 With steadfast gaze and unoffending eye, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... oneself a practical artist," answered the counsellor, "and so devoted a one as I am, so diligent in working at my art, and so ready to try every new experiment in it, one must leave such matters to people of an idler and more contemplative turn. If you aim at doing everything, you will never do anything ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... third, and so on; always discarding the shortest, til he found one that was long enough to touch the nut. But this increased his difficulty, by rolling it to a still greater distance. Upon this he sat himself in a contemplative posture for a few minutes, as if considering what was best to be done in this emergency; when, hastily turning over the whole bundle of sticks he made choice of one of considerable length, and hooked at the end, by means of which he, with much ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux
... sharply, for there was no doubt that he was English, and she wondered, with a faint uneasiness, what his business was. In the meanwhile the big, slowly-moving beasts had stopped and stood still, blowing through their nostrils and regarding the stranger with mild, contemplative eyes. One of them turned its head towards the girl ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... that matter even at that time all acutely and yet resignedly, even quite fatalistically, aware of what to think of this? I at any rate watch the small boy dawdle and gape again. I smell the cold dusty paint and iron as the rails of the Eighteenth Street corner rub his contemplative nose, and, feeling him foredoomed, withhold from him no grain of my sympathy. He is a convenient little image or warning of all that was to be for him, and he might well have been even happier than he was. For there was the very pattern and measure of all he was to demand: ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... attitude towards life: the being settled. Those who are born tired may crave for settlement; but to fresher and stronger spirits it is a form of suicide. Now to say of any institution that it is incompatible with both the contemplative and adventurous life is to disgrace it so vitally that all the moralizings of all the Deans and Chapters cannot reconcile our souls to its slavery. The unmarried Jesus and the unmarried Beethoven, the ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... we ought never to lose from sight," says Diderot, "is that, if we ever banish a man, or the thinking and contemplative being, from above the surface of the earth, this pathetic and sublime spectacle of nature becomes no more than a scene of melancholy and silence... It is the presence of man that gives its interest ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... sun goes down behind the great oaks along the Bayou Teche near Franklin, it throws red needles of light into the dark woods, and leaves a great glow on the still bayou. Ma'am Mouton paused at her gate and cast a contemplative look at ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... be found for the motions of the stars, the knowledge of the existence of those motions must always afford a new charm to the contemplative observer of the heavens, for they impart a sense of life to the starry system that would otherwise be lacking. A stagnant universe, with every star fixed immovably in its place, would not content the imagination or satisfy our longing for ceaseless activity. The majestic grandeur of ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... amid which the Elegy was composed were well adapted to soothe and cherish that contemplative sadness which, when the wounds of grief are healing, it is a luxury to indulge, and that the poet did indulge them is ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... cohorruit et evasit. He was a mathematician! He never played cricket, I deeply regret to say, and his early love of football deserted him. He was no golfer, and a good day's trout-fishing, during which he neglected to kill each trout as it was taken, caused remorse, and made him abandon the contemplative boy's recreation. Boating, riding, and walking were his exercises. He read the good books that never lose their charm—Scott, Dumas, Shakespeare, "The Arabian Nights"; when very young he was delighted with "The Book of Snobs"; he ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is pitched on a high key; the keynote is struck in the opening lines, and the verses move to the end with stateliness and dignity. It is calm, contemplative, with that artistic restraint that comes of conscious power. Burns took himself seriously, and knew that if he were true to his genius he would become the poet and prophet ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... ark. Cellini himself would have wiped out the insult with blood. Still Cellini knew that personal violence was not in the line of Michelangelo's character; for Michelangelo, according to his friend and best biographer, Condivi, was by nature, "as is usual with men of sedentary and contemplative habits, rather timorous than otherwise, except when he is roused by righteous anger to resent unjust injuries or wrongs done to himself or others, in which case he plucks up more spirit than those who are esteemed brave; but, for the rest, he is most patient and enduring." Cellini, ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... sort," said Pierce, "but I can't see just how it applies to me. However, I'll think it over. You're a brick, Miss Kirby, and I'm sorry if you had an unpleasant moment." He took Rouletta's hand and held it while he stared at her with a frank, contemplative gaze. "You're an unusual person, and you're about the nicest girl I've met. I want ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach |
