"Frame of mind" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... all their ways; trying to serve God and Mammon at once. Trying to do good—as long as doing good does not hurt them in the world's eyes; but longing oftener and oftener to do wrong, if only God would not be angry. Then comes on Balaam's frame of mind, 'If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the ...
— The Gospel of the Pentateuch • Charles Kingsley
... another out—the more one writes, the more one recalls. These random jottings, however, will call up many more to the reader's memory. Such is my hope—that, having started you in a reminiscent frame of mind you will now carry on "spinning ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie
... frame of mind, and he drew one of her hands through his arm, pressing the fingers against his side as they walked toward the familiar bench. There gently, very gently, he acquainted her with the version of the situation he had rehearsed: a ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... ineffable pity over the crumpled newspaper—on the poor souls in that sort of worldly limbo. In which frame of mind he took from his coat pocket a copy of Captain Lake's marriage settlement, and read over again a covenant on the captain's part that, with respect to this particular estate of Five Oaks, he would do no act, and execute no agreement, deed, or other instrument whatsoever, in any ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... have always kept carefully on the side of what is called Progress. They have always been up to date, and this comes quite easy to an aristocracy. For the aristocracy are the supreme instances of that frame of mind of which we spoke just now. Novelty is to them a luxury verging on a necessity. They, above all, are so bored with the past and with the present, that they gape, with a horrible hunger, ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... believe but that she was making fun of the "Blessed Theresa," and so she was put upon further probation, with the injunction to say the seven penitential Psalms seven times a day, until she was in a holier frame of mind; which she did, though under protest that she didn't think the words composed by David to express his remorse for his own enormous sin exactly suited her case. Sister Theresa, if the least steady and devout, was certainly the most active ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... earlier hatred of Le Gaire had left me, and his blow no longer stung. No desire for revenge lingered, only a wish to have the whole matter concluded quickly, and a hope that we both might leave the field without serious injury. It was in this frame of mind that I turned the corner of the stable, and saw the chosen duelling ground. It was a smooth strip of turf running north and south, with the stable to the left, and a grove of trees opposite. The building cast a shadow over ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... morning he drank—an occupation suggested by the heat of the day, which blazed cloudless. The liquor did not cheer him, but inspired a sullen courage, a reckless resolve. And in this frame of mind he presented himself before ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... replied Bertha assiduously. "My frame of mind is generally dependent on the weather. During that thunderstorm a few days ago I was utterly depressed, and then, ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... equivalent, because of its limitations, to a dangerous inexperience, and of late years an increasing number of Americans have been drawing this inference. They have been coming to see themselves more as others see them; and as an introduction to a consideration of this more critical frame of mind, I am going to quote another foreigner's view of American life,—the foreigner in this case being an Englishman and ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... In his present frame of mind, with his new responsibility and the carrying out of a plan which he had vaguely conceived might remove the terrible idea that had taken possession of him, Madison Wayne was even relieved when his brother also announced his intention of going to Angel's ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the horses away, leaving his former friend and schoolfellow in a curious position, and a not very comfortable frame of mind. When a man is engaged in action—especially if it be exciting and slightly dangerous—he has not time to think much about his surroundings, at least about their details, but now, while standing there in the intense darkness, in the very ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... remain unastonished. For see, if the compass lied and the sun did not keep its engagements, why should not objects lose their mutual attraction and why should not a few bushel baskets of force be annihilated? Even perpetual motion became possible, and I was in a frame of mind prone to purchase Keeley- Motor stock from the first enterprising agent that landed on the Snark's deck. And when I discovered that the earth really rotated on its axis 366 times a year, while there were only 365 sunrises and sunsets, ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... day was truly a most triumphant festival for Akaky Akakiyevich. He returned home in the most happy frame of mind, took off his cloak, and hung it carefully on the wall, admiring afresh the cloth and the lining. Then he brought out his old, worn-out cloak, for comparison. He looked at it, and laughed, so vast was the difference. And long after dinner he laughed again when the condition ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... kind. Many of the changes then suggested did not seem to me to be wise. For this reason I could not enter as heartily as I might otherwise have done into the demand for Parliamentary reform. To go slowly, I thought, would be to go safely. From this Laodicean frame of mind I was rescued by Mr. Toulmin. It was not only that he could speak of the dark days at the beginning of the century, and of the inequality and injustice which then prevailed under Tory rule in England; ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... could scarcely have produced, sailed from Plymouth on a drizzling morning, in the passenger-ship Western Glory. When the land had faded behind him he mechanically endeavoured to school himself into a stoical frame of mind. His attempt, backed up by the strong moral staying power that had enabled him to resist the passionate temptation to which Emmeline, in her reckless trustfulness, had exposed him, was rewarded by a certain kind ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... Firefly's possible future, it had seemed an unimportant detail. She remembered now, however, that her father had considered it extravagant, and declared he could not afford it. The thought was sufficient to check her joy suddenly, and to send her home in a sober frame of mind that was ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... nature of invocations. When a man invokes aid on the eve of a battle, or in his hour of danger and need; when a woman croons over her baby an incantation to keep him honest and true, and that he shall be spared in danger, surely these croonings are of the nature of prayers born of the same elementary frame of mind as our more elaborate litany. I fancy inherent devotional impulses are common to all races irrespective ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... theirs; and when to this fact is added the spice of novelty, the strong liking that American girls manifest for foreigners, and which has been the cause of putting so many American youths in anything but a benedictory frame of mind, is easily accounted for, and the marriages which so frequently take place between our girls and European men may be explained, even on other grounds than the common exchange of money on one side and title ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... thought like this that he entered the big office structure in which was located the headquarters of the Purity League. Bob took the elevator in any but a happy frame of mind. He was determined to find out for himself just how correct was ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... young friend to submit Colonel Baden-Powell's suggestion to the Kriegsraad on the following morning, and to apprise me of the result, I wished him good-night, and went to bed once more on the wretched sofa, in anything but a hopeful frame of mind. However, as is so often the case, my spirits revived in the morning, and, on considering the situation, I could not see what object the Transvaal authorities could have in detaining me a prisoner. I was certainly very much in the way of the hospital arrangements, and I fully made up my mind ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... in the same anxious and worried frame of mind as his cousin. He paid no attention to what Andy was saying, but went on questioning the one who had been in camp, and talked with the gentleman ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... to one when the latter ran up the steps of her home in an almost cheerful frame of mind. The hall door yielded to her touch and she rushed into the hall, her clear call of "Mary!" re-echoing through the ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... in somewhat the same frame of mind in which the Marquise had quitted the finance minister that M. de Soissons, as the King rose and thus indicated the termination of the interview, passed from the royal closet; nor did he retire until he had indulged in such ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... occasion. Your meekness will return; and you will have nothing for it but tears [tears despised by them all] and ineffectual appeals and lamentations: and these tears when the ceremony is profaned, you must suddenly dry up; and endeavour to dispose of yourself to such a humble frame of mind, as may induce your new-made lord to forgive all your past ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... you"—his brain tore the phrase to tatters. "Something" was properly vague, as praise should be, and allowed the imagination free scope. Under the stimulus, everything came easy; he mastered a passage of bound sixths that had baffled him for days. And in this elated frame of mind, there was something almost pleasurable in the pang with which he would become conscious of a shadow in the background, a spot on his ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... away ourselves soon after this, the sick man thanking us for our visit, and hoping that he should see us again. "Poor Elnathan," said Rebecca, as we walked home, "he will never go abroad again; but he is in such a good and loving frame of mind, that he needs not our pity, as one ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... no complimentary frame of mind, however, when he devised the obstructions, nor was he now in such a frame of mind. He was pessimistic in regard to his future, and also embarrassed in anticipation of some explanations it would be necessary ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... Bolt in quite a different frame of mind from their own; he was breathing vengeance. However, he showed some feeling for Grace, and told the doctor plainly he feared the worst. Little had been downhearted for some time, and at last he (Bolt) had lost patience with him, and had proposed to ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... of their journey had been covered. They were too unhappy to feel hungry. They would never care for food again, or for any one or anything but Framley and their mother and Lydia; and while they were in this frame of mind two or three hours and many ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... that if he could not pardon her and take her to his heart now, he would do so some time or another. He listened to her pleadings impassively, stolidly; his attitude was stiffly dignified, and it seemed to her that, whatever his real frame of mind might be, he had determined to hide it by maintaining an impenetrably solemn tone ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... this critical frame of mind an influential courtier appeared before her. He seemed to be ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... dull, steady downpour that slanted in upon a warm, south wind. Old Jerry was glad of the storm. The leaden grayness of the low-hanging clouds matched perfectly his own frame of mind, and the cold touch of the rain soothed his hot head, too, as it swept in under the buggy hood, and helped him to think a little better. There ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... with a smile. "I fear he will have to have his little lesson before he gets in that frame of mind. Walt," he continued earnestly, "I do not want the responsibility but I am not going to shirk it now that it is thrust upon me. Frankly, though, I can't help wishing that this trip was over and we were safe back ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... while the destruction of anything useful in the world, wherever the loss may seem to fall, impoverishes the whole. Having settled this point to his own satisfaction, he sought his pillow in a comfortable frame of mind. Comfortable, but not wholly at rest, for no sooner did he close his eyes than the "fever of futile protest" asserted itself in turbulent visions of paper, paint and plastering. Dados danced around in carnival dress; wall decorations went waltzing up and ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... sympathy, but a push. No one doubts that temperament and nerves and illness and even praiseworthy modesty may, singly or combined, cause the speaker's cheek to blanch before an audience, but neither can any one doubt that coddling will magnify this weakness. The victory lies in a fearless frame of mind. Prof. Walter Dill Scott says: "Success or failure in business is caused more by mental attitude even than by mental capacity." Banish the fear-attitude; acquire the confident attitude. And remember that the only way to acquire ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... them, "we are checkmated; we have already through fear of death or of banishment despaired of 'freedom'; every one sighs, no one ventures to speak." More the confederates could not desire. But though the majority of the aristocracy was in this desirable frame of mind, there was, of course, no lack of Hotspurs among this party. Hardly had Caesar laid down the consulship, when some of the most violent aristocrats, Lucius Domitius and Gaius Memmius, proposed in a full senate the annulling of the Julian ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... taken the helm altogether. As San Miniato spoke he nodded to his brother who was forward, intimating that he meant to go about. He was certainly not in his normal frame of mind, for he had an evil thought at that moment. Fortunately for every one concerned the breeze was very light and was indeed dying away as the sun sank lower. They were already nearing the southernmost ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... leaders are compelled, in shaping their policy and in thinking about public affairs, to consider first and foremost the probable effect of what they will do and of what they will say upon the active members of the caucus of their own party in the constituencies. The frame of mind of the members of the caucus is that of men who regard the opposite caucus as the adversary. But the adversary of a nation can only ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... them with him, and they would all come upon Gardiner red-handed with the loot. Then he would explain to Harris how he had discovered Gardiner's plot and frustrated it...The idea grew upon Riles, and he rode along in a frame of mind ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... familiarly as Umballa, at this hour came forth into the sunshine, brooding. He was not in a happy frame of mind. Many things lay heavy upon his soul; but among these things there was not one named remorse. To have brought about all these failures this thought irked him most. Here was a crown almost within reach of his greedy fingers, the water to Tantalus. To have underestimated this yellow haired young ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... another brief poem—one very different in character from any that I have before quoted. It is by Motherwell, and is called "The Song of the Cavalier." With our modern and altogether rational ideas of the absurdity and impiety of warfare, we are not precisely in that frame of mind best adapted to sympathize with the sentiments, and thus to appreciate the real excellence, of the poem. To do this fully, we must identify ourselves, in fancy, with the soul ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... shall have a nice dance together to make up for the one we missed to-night,—and a talk. Maybe that night I shall be in better frame of mind for meeting your arguments on the relations ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... are written,—when the necessary church business is settled,—our minds are often so worn out that we are glad to be quiet. 9. But suppose we have bodily strength remaining, after the above things have been attended to, yet the frame of mind is not always so as that one could visit. After having been particularly tried by church matters, which in so large a body does not rarely occur, or being cast down in one's own soul, one may be fit for the closet, but not for visiting the saints. 10. Lastly, in my own case, no small ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... humility will concur in producing a frame of mind, not more distinct from an ardent thirst of glory, than from that frigid disregard, or insolent contempt, or ostentatious renunciation of human favour and distinction, which we have sometimes seen opposed to it. ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... to my mind as they once did. I have not decided just what course to pursue, but it would certainly not be honorable for me to occupy the pulpit in my present frame of mind. You've been a very faithful daughter, Marg'et Ann," he ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... wrecking my life had not taken in account one thing: a man crushed and utterly wretched cares less for himself than a happy one. In presence of that indifference fate becomes more or less powerless. I was and am still in that frame of mind that, if angry Fortuna came to me in person, and said: "Go to perdition," I should reply calmly: "Be it so,"—not out of sorrow for the loss of Aniela, but from mere indifference to everything ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... he heard, whether the preacher were a follower of Confucius, of Mahomet, or of Christ.' The famous lawyer does not specify the churches which he visited. He may have been unfortunate in his choice, or he may have been in a frame of mind which was not conducive to an unbiassed judgment;[681] but we have the best of all means of testing how far his sweeping censure may be fairly taken as applicable to the general character of the sermons of the day. The most ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... filled with tears. Doris was touched, but at the same time set on edge. This loyalty that people born and bred in the country feel to our English country system—what an absurd and unreal frame of mind! And when our country system ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... experiments which might prove to be in advance of the age. He had no ambition to be in advance of his age. He was not dispirited or disheartened; he was not a man to be dispirited or disheartened, but he was made cautious. He had got into a frame of mind with regard to financial reform something like that into which the younger Pitt grew in his later years with regard to Catholic emancipation: he knew what ought to be done, but felt that he was not able to ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... nor there. Suffice to say that shortly after his return to New York, Mr. Yollop paid a more or less clandestine visit to the Tombs, where he saw Cassius. This was the week before the trial was to open. He found the crook in a disconsolate frame of mind. ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... displays the opposite mood. The one lover patiently gathers June roses in case they may catch his lady's eye. The other grows tired of such patience even when devoted to himself; he tires of June roses, which are always red and sweet. His lady-love is bantering him on this frame of mind. It is true, she says, that such monotony is trying to a man's temper: there is no comfort in anything that can't be quarrelled with; and the person she addresses is free to "go." She reminds him, however, that June may repair her bower which his hand has rifled, and the next time "consider" which ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... approaching the Kuru king, said, "Why, O Bharata, are the troops flying away as if in fear? Although flying away, thus, O monarch, why dost thou not yet rally them in battle? Thyself, too, O king, dost not seem to be in thy usual frame of mind. Upon the slaughter of that lion among car-warriors, O monarch, hath thy force fallen into this plight. O Kaurava, O king, all these that are headed (even) by Karna, wait not on the field. In no battle ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... trying to prepare Grace for unpleasant news. Now that she had put her in a lighter frame of mind, she said: "I might as well tell you about Miss ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... the cottage to his duty in a complacent frame of mind, which was not unusual, for Constable Wiseman was nothing if not satisfied with his fate. His complacency continued until a little ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... notices the contretemps. By this time she is confused and ruffled and after hearing something murmured about the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, she sinks into the chair and begins in a very uncomfortable frame of mind the ordeal of ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... hundreds of burghers who took part in almost every battle in Natal, and these were the individuals who understood the frame of mind of some of their countrymen, and determined that they must take upon themselves the responsibilities of fighting and winning battles. Among those who were most forward in fighting were the Johannesburg police, the much-despised "Zarps" of peaceful times; the Pretoria commando, and the younger men ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... there can scarcely be a more fitting occasion for reverent prayer than a properly conducted seance. A few moments of hymn-singing may also be found advantageous in the direction of producing the devotional state of mind on the part of the sitters. The sitters should preserve a solemn frame of mind and reverent general demeanor during the seance—perhaps the best model is that of an old time Quaker Meeting in which the silent devout spiritual feeling was so plainly manifest that it could almost be felt physically. Patience is necessary in conducting a seance, and perseverance is essential. ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... dangers as he would actually have to face, and dwelling very strongly upon the splendid opening which the offer afforded him, the lad gradually brought his mother and sister into a more reasonable frame of mind, until at length, by the time that the bedroom candles made their appearance, the two women, knowing how completely Harry had set his heart upon going, and recognising also the strength of his contention ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... tackle Darius Holt's? Course you understand I'm game for 'most anything if you say so, and 'most anything's what we're liable to get at that Holt shebang. I don't want you to think I've got any personal grudge. When it comes to that I'm—ho! ho!—well, I'm a good deal in the frame of mind Kenelm Parker was at the revival meetin' some year ago. Kenelm just happened in and took one of the back seats. The minister—he was a stranger in town—was walkin' up and down the aisles tryin' to influence the mourners to come forward. He ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... meditation and prayer. God is served, not merely with the words of the mouth or the bending of the knee; it is the pure and upright heart which he requires, and with which alone he will be satisfied; with this upright frame of mind we may live in the world, without either singularity or affectation, and cheerfully conform to its customs and amusements, yet preserve the most strict subjection and duty ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... fear respecting our dear friends, our own future prospects, and the Missionary cause in Burmah. It was sweet to commit all into the hands of God. If not deceived, we felt the importance of constantly pleading for a suitable frame of mind, to receive whatever intelligence was for us; and for a disposition to engage in the service of God, at any time, and in any place he might direct. We considered it our duty to supplicate for grace to support us in the hour of trial, and for direction ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... declared myself, they said. Was I for Home Rule? I said we must first review Mr. GLADSTONE's numerous writings about HOMER, and then come to Home Rule. "HOMER stops the way!" Were Mr. GLADSTONES Homeric theories compatible with a rational frame of mind? Here I felt very strong, and animated with a keen desire to impart information. The deputation said all this was ancient history. As to Home Rule itself, they said it really did not matter. What they wanted was, free poaching, free private whiskey-stills, free land, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 30, 1892 • Various
... outraged frame of mind, and properly so. Politically speaking, George was what might be called, for lack of a better term, a passive reformer. That is, he read religiously the New York Nation, was totally opposed to the spoils ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... that you think and feel you can do. I do not in the least regard your change of course in going to Havre as any evidence of instability. But I rather hope it is likely that through such restlessness you will come to a far quieter frame of mind. The disturbed mind and affections, like the tossed sea, seldom calm without an intervening time of confusion ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... have created as a poet,' Ibsen said in a letter, 'has had its origin in a frame of mind and a situation in life; I never wrote because I had, as they say, found a good subject.' Yet his chief aim as a dramatist has been to set character in independent action, and to stand aside, reserving his judgment. 'The method, the technique of the construction,' he ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... Japan, is by no means out of the question, and it may be that the introduction of Base Ball into all three countries will result in a better understanding between the peoples and perhaps bring all three races to a better frame of mind as relates to their ...
— Spalding's Official Baseball Guide - 1913 • John B. Foster
... Champlain; and finally, to the extreme wariness of the commanders, each of whom was deeply impressed with the importance of preserving his own fleet, in order not to sacrifice control of the lake. Chauncey has depicted for us his frame of mind in instructions issued at this very moment—July 14—to his subordinate, Perry. "The first object will be to destroy or cripple the enemy's fleet; but in all attempts upon the fleet you ought to use great caution, for the loss of a single vessel may decide the fate of the campaign."[69] ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... Pike's absence, and had been glad of it, but he merely supposed Pike kept away because of the row of the previous evening. If there are such things as premonitions of coming trouble, certainly they did not distress Badger that night. Winnie was also in a happy frame of mind as she tripped lightly up the steps and entered ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... philanthropy, and Louison's swimming eyes, put the whole company into a quiet, tranquil, benevolent frame of mind, eminently in keeping with the weariness induced by the exertions of the feast. And this comfortable feeling rose yet a few degrees higher after the guests were settled in soft easy-chairs ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland
... will be readily conceived that the doctor was not in the best possible frame of mind for the delivery of his exhortation. His spirit had been ruffled by a variety of petty annoyances, amongst the greatest of which was the condition to which the good cheer had reduced his clerk, Zachariah Trundletext, ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... of the evolution of man is often approached in a frame of mind not far removed from that of the educated, but inexpert, European who stands before the lowly figure of the chimpanzee, and wonders by what miracle the gulf between it and himself was bridged. That is to lay a superfluous strain on the imagination. ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... it had opened, utterly concealing the beautiful vision; but the impression it had made, being a first and a very deep one, could never more be removed. The travellers lived now in the faith of what they had seen. Scepticism was no longer possible, and in this improved frame of mind they dashed into the village of Chamouni—one of the haunts of those whose war-cry is "Excelsior!"—and drove to ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... knowledge enough of Roman law to appreciate the Roman penal system, the Roman theory of the obligations established by contract or delict, the Roman view of debts, etc., the Roman notion of the continuance of individual existence by universal succession, may be trusted to say whence arose the frame of mind to which the problems of Western theology proved so congenial, whence came the phraseology in which these problems were stated, and whence the description of reasoning employed in their solution." "As soon as they (the Western Church) ceased to sit at the feet of the Greeks and began ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... edge of the couch and for many minutes watched, through narrow eyes, the movements of the servant. A plan was growing in her brain, and she was contemplating the situation in a new and determined frame of mind. ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... that journey in sections. All my trouble in New York was to get across the continent. I let the Pacific take care of itself, being sure I could conquer that difficulty when the time came. I recommend this frame of mind to all travellers. I acquired the habit myself in the United States when I jumped trains instead of paying my fare. It is most useful to think of no more than the matter in hand, for then we can use one's whole faculties at one time. Too much forethought is fatal to progress, and if I had really ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... There was very little resemblance between them. Oddly enough, she felt a sort of pang for him, that he could ever have been the other man whom she had first seen. She was getting into a very complicated frame of mind. ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... deceived by the writings of certain popular novelists. I went so far, I may say, as actually to visit Concord for the purpose of finding a pleasant locality and a suitable atmosphere. Upon reflection I abandoned my plans, as involving too much personal labor to suit one of my easy frame of mind. ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell
... the command had been literally beside themselves, such words would have brought them to a proper frame of mind; but as it was, the temperate reply seemed to inflame their anger, and on the moment there was a very babel of outcries, amid which it was only possible to distinguish the demand that the force be led toward Fort Schuyler without delay, regardless of any message which the sergeant ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... the Ecclesiasticks were in those times possessed. William the Conqueror's Race generally found their Judgments in the New Forest, where their Father had pulled down Churches and Monasteries. In short, read one of the Chronicles written by an Author of this frame of Mind, and you would think you were reading an History of the Kings of Israel or Judah, where the Historians were actually inspired, and where, by a particular Scheme of Providence, the Kings were distinguished by Judgments ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... and happy frame of mind was not permitted to be of long continuance. In one of the brief intervals of Macduff's absence from the castle, about eighteen months after her father's death, the young earl prevailed on the aged retainer in whose charge he had been left, to consent ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... quite young, and the stories of such lives as theirs had never been told before her. She was indignant at the surveillance which Lord Kew exerted over her, and the authority which he began to assume. At another moment and in a better frame of mind she would have been thankful for his care, and very soon and ever after she did justice to his many admirable qualities—his frankness, honesty, and sweet temper. Only her high spirit was in perpetual revolt at this ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... no effort to talk with Patsy. Her frame of mind was too exalted for speech with a skeptical worm. She smiled kindly on me, much as a goddess designs to sweeten the life of a mortal with a glance. She smiled in gentle rebuke as she noted my torn and stained garments and the moccasins so sadly in ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... In this frame of mind she returned and sat in the hall waiting for the children to come back. Six o'clock came, and there was no sign of them. The long twilight faded slowly without a sound of hoofs on the drive; seven o'clock struck; and she rang ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue
... events linked together in a career of crime, from the first commission of evil till its last expiation in the felon ship, or on the gallows, he especially delights. He does not delay the progress of the plot to impress upon his reader the exact frame of mind in which his hero felt at certain trying conjunctures. This suggests itself unconsciously, in occasional snatches of vague and emotional distraction, in half uttered replies, in the joke that mechanically escapes the lips, ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... streaked by the mud, and their gloves—soft chamois-skins—could now be thrown away. Even their faces had been smeared with mud when they slipped and had to clutch at any possible rescue. Naturally, they were not in too amiable a frame of mind for what awaited them at the end ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... a living animal, a gigantic monster, a mastodon a thousand times the size of those enormous elephants of the polar seas whose remains are still found in the ice? In our frame of mind we might have believed that it was such a creature, and believed also that the mastodon was about to hurl itself on our little craft and crush ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... cheerful, sunny, genial, in little things? Why not look on the bright side? Why not present an unruffled front to petty annoyances? Why not labor,—ay, labor,—to have those around you happy and contented, by reflecting from yourself such a frame of mind upon them? ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... a handful of straw over the awful countenance, and went home in an unutterable frame of mind, as to me death has a most unnerving effect. I laid down on my bed, after taking off my wet oil skins; but sleep would not give me the oblivion I so craved till dawn. Sometimes I dozed off, but only ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... tendency and reason it away into emptiness, and he went downstairs to make the acquaintance of his brother's future wife with the fullest determination to like her for Greif's sake, and never again to submit to a frame of mind which was contemptible if it was not utterly base. Could anything be more inconsistent than to let his joy at the prospect of his brother's recovery be clouded, because the result was not wholly due to himself? Could anything be more absurdly foolish than to conceive ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... the house of Squire Walsingham in a sober frame of mind. He saw clearly that his mother would not long remain in office, and without her official income they would find it hard to get along. To be sure, she received a pension of eight dollars a month, in consideration of her husband's services in the war, but eight dollars would not ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... nature without understanding them. Mechanical progress has come from an humble attitude toward the powers of wind and water. Home efficiency will arrive just as soon as the home-keeper will put herself in a receptive frame of mind and be prepared to learn her limitations and the extent of her control of material things. When she will stop saying "I do not believe" and set herself to learn patiently the facts in the case, then ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... of the good wet earth" came to him it came "with a kind of Highland tone." A tropic shower found him in a "frame of mind and body that belonged to Scotland." And when he turned to write the chronicle of his grandfather's life and work, the beautiful words in which he described the old gentleman's farewell to "Sumbraugh and the wild crags of Skye" meant likewise his own farewell ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... the age are concentrated where passion is fiercest and thought intensest, amid the myriad sights and sounds of its glare and gloom. But those scenes, and the actors in them, are apt also to induce the frame of mind in which a prose satirist describes himself as reclining under an arcade of the Pantheon: "Not the Pantheon by the Piazza Navona, where the immortal gods were worshipped—the immortal gods now dead; but the ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... bravely under Napoleon, placed themselves at the czar's service, hoping and trusting that their country would revive under a Russian king. Alexander's promises at Vienna had been vague, but recent events had made a deep impression upon him. In this frame of mind, he directed that Poland be restored. This was announced on the 21st of June, at Warsaw amid the roar of cannon. Constantine, Alexander's brother, was made King, and a legislative body, composed of a senate and house of representatives, ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen
... in this frame of mind that, on the following morning, he drove to the Butcher's shop, outside of which a ...
— Adventures in Toyland - What the Marionette Told Molly • Edith King Hall
... in a very unhappy frame of mind. Tom, on the other hand, felt, as he returned to his unfashionable lodgings, that he had never before ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... mythological demi-god, found General D'Hubert still quite unable to sit a horse. Neither could he walk very well. These disabilities, which his sister thought most lucky, helped her immensely to keep her brother out of all possible mischief. His frame of mind at that time, she noted with dismay, became very far from reasonable. That general officer, still menaced by the loss of a limb, was discovered one night in the stables of the chateau by a groom who, seeing a light, ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... approached the west, the more serious became his frame of mind; it was as if the desolate scenery and cold sea-mist entered his soul. The pictures of the gay country-seat at Funen were supplanted by recollections of his home with his grandfather. He became more and more low-spirited. It was only when a single mile separated him from ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... pleasant occupation). Bottom tickled by the fairies could not have been in greater ecstasies. He thought the music was divine; and had further reason for exulting in it, which was, that his wife was always in a good humour after singing, and never would sing but in that happy frame of mind. Dennis had hinted so much in our little colloquy during the ten minutes of his lady's absence in the "boudoir;" so, at the conclusion of each piece, we shouted "Bravo!" and ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sheriff and say pretty please to Sudden, the chance of Johnny's ever being nice and sensible was extremely remote. His loving Mary V had said too much—a common mistake. What she should have done was confine her letter to a ten-word message, and tear the message up. A fellow in Johnny's frame of mind were better left alone ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... for rest in a much happier frame of mind than on the preceding day, but I did not forget the possibility of a renewed storm, and therefore made every one put ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... have neither magnified the crimes, nor sported with the weaknesses; all our aim has been to search out points or pivots upon which the reflective reader may turn; the result will depend on his own frame of mind. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 369, Saturday, May 9, 1829. • Various
... face livid with passion, in a frame of mind far from funny. He clinched his fists and looked at Hector as if he wished to annihilate him. "You'll pay for this," he screamed. "You'll repent it, bitterly, you poor, nameless dependent, low-born, ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... at the stream and looked over the situation, asking innumerable questions. But the men were not in a pleasant frame of mind and gave him only disagreeable answers, which nettled the scout to the point ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... very clever organist," Westray answered. It was evident that Lord Blandamer was in a subscribing frame of mind, and if his generosity did not extend to undertaking the cost of the transept, he might at least give something towards the organ. The architect tried to do his friend Mr Sharnall a service. "He is a very clever organist," he repeated; "his ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... teeming with gold. If you are content to leave the gold alone, as the wise leave flowers without plucking them, enjoying with perfect naivete its color and glitter and preciousness, no human being will ever be the worse for your knowledge of it; and whilst you remain in that frame of mind the ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... fair description of the blockade situation. Lyons, unaffected by irritations resulting from the Trent, showed the frame of mind of a "determined neutral," as he was fond of describing himself. His answer was the first given to Russell indicating a possibility that the blockade might, after all, become strictly effective and thus exceedingly harmful to British trade. There is no ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... forth it was in a calmer frame of mind. It was all clear now. When Father Monies returned he would confess, and take his penance, and resolutely resume his life. He understood life better now. Perhaps this blow was needed ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... told this story of President Lincoln, whom he found one day in a particularly gloomy frame of mind. ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... remained fixed, and in this frame of mind he received his truant sons on their return to Echanbroignes on the Sunday morning. They entered the village together with Chapeau, about nine in the morning, having been met about a mile from the town, by four or five friends, who escorted them back. Annot was not there, ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... responsibility for his acts has, in fact, nothing to do with the causation of these acts, but depends on the frame of mind which accompanies them. Common language tells us this, when it uses "well-disposed" as the equivalent of "good," and "evil-minded" as that of "wicked." If A does something which puts B in a violent passion, it is ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... a different frame of mind from that of the evening before. Uncle Clement had been very ill all night, and the house was to be kept as quiet as possible. When Anna came in from early Celebration, Aunt Cherry came out looking like a ghost, and very anxious, and gave a sigh of relief on Adrian being ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... unexpected. He had thought that he should find the party gone from New York on his return from Greenwood, and this bit of good luck seemed to have fallen to him out of a clear sky. Margaret was glad to see him too; she was just now in that intermediate frame of mind during which a woman only reasons about a man in his absence. The moment he appears, the electric circuit is closed and the quiescent state ceases. She was at the point when his coming made a difference that she could feel; when she heard his step her blood beat faster, and she ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... cheerful frame of mind, and with my and all the family's Thanksgiving greetings and best wishes, S. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... exposing his courage to suspicion, had not altogether lost its influence over him, even yet. He lingered irresolutely by the table, waiting till he could prevail on himself to open the door, and call, from the landing, to the man who had shut up the Inn. In his present hesitating frame of mind, it was a kind of relief to gain a few moments only by engaging in the trifling occupation of snuffing the candle. His hand trembled a little, and the snuffers were heavy and awkward to use. When he closed them on the wick, he closed them a ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... might be adopted by any believer in the doctrine of 'the immortality of the soul,' in the ordinary sense of that phrase. It would not however be safe to infer that Shelley, at the precise time when he wrote Adonais, was really in a more definite frame of mind on this theme than at other periods of his life, or of a radically different conviction. As a fact, his feelings on the great problems of immortality were acute, his opinions regarding them vague and unsettled. He certainly was not an adherent ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... sent that last Roundabout Paper to the printer (which, I submit, was written in a pacable and not unchristian frame of mind), when Saturday came, and with it, of course, my Saturday Review. I remember at New York coming down to breakfast at the hotel one morning, after a criticism had appeared in the New York Herald, in which an Irish writer had given me a dressing for a certain ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... garage?" I asked, glancing at my watch. It was not yet eight o'clock. The banter died out of me; clearly it had been my duty to be on hand to pilot her over the estate, or at least to receive her at the garage. "Just what was the lady's frame of mind—as to things generally. Peeved, was she, over ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... after the lapse of four days, was enough to send Sissy into hysterics—that young lady was seated in the parlor, ready for her guest. She was ready for him in all the senses a Madigan knew how to infuse into that frame of mind. She intended to make him as miserable as she herself had been ever since that disgraceful episode in which she had so innocently played the victim's part. She would show the betrayer of trust no mercy—none. She would accept ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... any other centre of mutiny, could expect but little mercy. Tempers, however, brightened at sunrise, and by the time the hundred men under the command of Captain Cartwright and Lieutenants Fraser and Maycock arrived at the Tipperary station every one was in a good-humoured, contemptuous frame of mind. Everybody knew that there was no chance of a row, and that the very presence of all the Queen's horses and all the Queen's men would make it certain that a blank would be drawn. The whole military plan ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... in his present frame of mind was indifferent to the trouble of walking home. There was something so joyous in the feeling of the possession of all this money that it made the night air pleasant to him. Then, of a sudden, he remembered the low wail with which his mother had spoken of her ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... "attack," when he affects to consider it as the quite needless excitation of excessive sensitiveness. If a gentleman in a crowd discovers his nearest neighbor engaged in filching his pocket-book, and at once hands the culprit over to the police, it would hardly be graphic to describe his frame of mind as needless "personal offence" or "unnecessary pain"; and the expressions are no more graphic as to my own frame of mind, when I discover Dr. Royce endeavoring to filch from me my reputation in the name of Harvard University. It is ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot
... he was rewarded for it. It gave the key-note to their intercourse, and set her at ease with him; and the idea that her present rustication was but a comedy instead of a reality was consoling in her present frame of mind. Mistress Susan, surrounded with importunate inquirers as to household matters, and unable to escape from them, could only see that Humfrey had taken charge of the maiden, and trusted to his honour and his tact. This was, however, only the beginning of a weary and perplexing time. Nothing could ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his eyes he let them wander round his old room, mellow in the glow of the firelight that played or rested on familiar and friendly things which had long been unconsciously a part of him, and now smilingly received him back, without rancour. He was now in just the frame of mind that the tactful Rat had quietly worked to bring about in him. He saw clearly how plain and simple—how narrow, even—it all was; but clearly, too, how much it all meant to him, and the special value of some such anchorage in one's existence. He did not at all want to abandon ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... these expedients for producing that frame of mind, that prepossession, on the part of hearer or reader which is essential to the purpose of the poet, who has lost much of his advantage by the invention of printing, which obliges him to appeal to the eye rather than the ear. The rhythm is ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... Mr. Luker's explanation gave me no assistance towards solving the problem. My own unaided ingenuity, consulted next, proved quite unequal to grapple with the difficulty. I had a dinner engagement that evening; and I went upstairs, in no very genial frame of mind, little suspecting that the way to my dressing-room and the way to discovery, meant, on this particular occasion, one ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... advice - All kinds of vulgar prejudice I pray you set aside: With stern judicial frame of mind - From bias free of every kind, ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... child joyful to bed. Do not, if you can possibly help it, let him go to bed crying. Let the last impressions he has at night be of his happy home, and of his loving father and mother and let his last thoughts be those of joy and gladness. He will sleep all the sounder if he be sent to bed in such a frame of mind, and he will be more refreshed and nourished in ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... received the sacrament. "They went out from thence as men who had received a new birth." The Knights, we are then told, tenderly embraced one another in all solemnity; vowing to shed the last drop of their blood in defence of their religion and its holy altars. It was in this lofty frame of mind that the Knights of Malta awaited the coming of their hereditary foe. Into the hearts and minds of these gallant gentlemen of the best blood in the world the Grand Master had instilled some leaven of the greatness ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey |
