"Musing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... woman, who had been accustomed to reign over most of the men about her, felt, in her newly-learned humility, a sense of elation from merely having been a little while in the presence of the man whom she loved. She reflected on his musing smile, had no thought that it concerned her, and hoped nothing better than that he might never find out how dear he was ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... musing, love, and smiling By the hearth-fire of the Mill, While the tangled oaks are cracking Boughs ...
— Along the Shore • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... away, and Daisy lay still musing. The morning had gone on a little further, when carriage wheels stopped at ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner
... it and tell Dick, once for all, why he was going away, make it clear so there should be no after-persuasions, no clutter of half understanding? He was tired of thinking about his life as a life. The temptation to such morose musing had come upon him in the last six months, and once yielded to, he felt the egotistical disease of it through his very blood and bones. If he were Catholic, he could confess and get rid of it. He was not Catholic, only pagan, the natural ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... Mr. Snarling is happy to see you look somewhat annoyed, and he kindly says, "Oh, never mind: this will blow over, as other things you have said and done have blown over." Thus he vaguely suggests that you have given great offence on many occasions, and made many bitter enemies. He adds, in a musing voice, "Yes, as MANY other things have blown over." Turn the individual out, and cut his acquaintance. It would be better to have a upas-tree in your neighborhood. Of all disagreeable men, a man with his tendencies is the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... him—deep down. It was not much—a lock of hair in a sealed packet in his pocket-book. The giver was dead and gone to dust, sleeping in an old churchyard near the Strand, forgotten by all who had ever known her—except one. Sometimes in the twilight a tall figure would stand musing beside that forgotten grave for awhile, then turn away and walk swiftly up the narrow river street, across the Strand, and through the archway to ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... have indicated) by keeping true to himself, attending to his soul's inner harmony, and listening, waiting, brooding with a "wise passiveness" until the moment when his and the larger harmony fall into tune together. The Psalmist describes the process accurately: "While I was thus musing the fire kindled, and at the last I spake with my tongue." "Poetry," writes Shelley, "is not, like reasoning, a power to be exerted according to the determination of the will. A man cannot say, I will compose poetry. ...
— Poetry • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... cannot as yet, but everything in season," replied she, slowly musing; "'First the blade, then the ear, and then the full corn in ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... this inspiration, he got on swimmingly for a time, but gradually the work lost its charm, and he forgot to compose, while he sat musing, pen in hand, or roamed about the gay city to get some new ideas and refresh his mind, which seemed to be in a somewhat unsettled state that winter. He did not do much, but he thought a great deal and was conscious of a change of some sort going on in spite of himself. ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... Musing a moment, Babbalanja replied, "My lord, that maxim may be good as it stands; but had you made six words of it, instead of six syllables, you had uttered a better ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... Musing upon the singular business in the deep of the night, Wetherell concluded that Pogosa, in a moment of emotional exaltation, and foreseeing her inability to guide him in person, had taken this method of telling him truly ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... duped, my favorers deceived; But sometimes, musing sorrowfully there, That flowered wreck has seemed to me so fair I ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... the musing organist, Beginning doubtfully and far away, First lets his fingers wander as they list, And builds a Bridge from Dreamland for his lay: Then, as the touch of his loved instrument 5 Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws his ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... had done with the experiences of Flight Commander Raffleton and was now about to enter on a new and less circumscribed existence. If so, the beginning, to an adventuresome young spirit, seemed promising. It was Malvina's voice that recalled him from this train of musing. ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... each other, instead of practicing and attempting new feats. The horse stands in the ring and feels lonely. Jenny leans on Orso's arm, thoughtfully contemplating and looking with wistful, wondering eyes into the dim space, swinging her feet like a child and musing—how it will be on the plains, and ...
— Sielanka: An Idyll • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... bleeding constantly, clots of sombre purple on the ends of the beard and hair. Visible for Salome alone, it does not, with its fixed gaze, attract Herodias, musing on her finally consummated revenge, nor the Tetrarch who, bent slightly forward, his hands on his knees, still pants, maddened by the nudity of the woman saturated with animal odors, steeped in balms, exuding incense ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... look on Marathon— And Marathon looks on the sea; And musing there an hour alone, I dream'd that Greece might still be free; For standing on the Persians' grave, I could not ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... undergone no perceptible change since its discovery about five years since. [This was written in 1882.] A lady tourist from Massachusetts has, it is believed, the honor of first pointing it out. Nature cannot forget her Shakspeare. So we all mused, and, musing, would have forgotten our dinners, had we not been summoned inside the hotel. The repast was not peculiarly relishable; consequently, we had all the more opportunity to feed spiritually upon the masterpiece on the cliff,—the rock-portrait of Avon's, of ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... elements of nature are before our eyes, from inorganic matter up to man. We do not see that time suffices for savages to become civilized, and still less for monkeys to become men. I was, in the spring of this year, in the Jardin des plantes at Paris, musing on the question which we are discussing, and I took a good look at the monkeys. Come now, I said to myself, canst thou recognize them as thine ancestors? The question was badly put. The monkeys are not our ancestors, inasmuch as they are living at the same time with us; ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... of it was," Miss Oliver continued in a musing voice, searching her memory—"the awkward part was, poor ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... She found Borgert musing in an easy-chair, and he did not even rise when she entered, but merely waved his hand in greeting to her. But she stepped up to him and kissed him tenderly on the forehead, and then she sat down close by him. He was puzzled by ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... supreme in chaste pride, cheek and neck soft-glowing from the sunny field, eyes revealing the heart at one with nature. Others there were, women of many worlds, only less beautiful; but by these three the young man was held bound. He could not satisfy himself with looking and musing; he could not pluck himself away. An old experience; he always lingered by the print shops of the Haymarket, and always went on with troubled blood, with mind rapt above familiar circumstance, dreaming passionately, making wild ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... real good?" I asked in musing mood. Order, said the law court; Knowledge, said the school; Truth, said the wise man; Pleasure, said the fool; Love, said the maiden; Beauty, said the page; Freedom, said the dreamer; Home, said the sage; Fame, said the soldier; Equity, the seer. ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... from it"' Will replied in a way that stopped further question. "Good luck!" he added as he walked on down The road toward The creek, musing. "And the spring-I wonder if that's there yet. I'd like a drink." The sun seemed hotter than at noon, and he walked slowly. At the bridge that spanned the meadow brook, just where it widened over a sandy ford, he paused again. He hung over the ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... an enterprise. The world now lay before him as he had wished it—an enchanted land in which he could move with as great freedom as a prince in the magical kingdoms of Arabia. The Present became sharpened to poignancy. Even as he stood there musing over the marvel of the new world into which he had leaped—the old thin world of years condensed into one thick week—he realized that this very wondering had cost him five precious minutes. A dozen such periods made an hour, two dozen hours a day—one seventh of his living ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... Nowhere is this better brought out than in their house beside the Thames. The political history of Lambeth lies spread over the whole of its site, from the gateway of Morton to the garden where we shall see Cranmer musing on the fate of Anne Boleyn. Its ecclesiastical interest on the other hand is concentrated in a single spot. We must ask our readers therefore to follow us beneath the groining of the Gate-House into the quiet little court that ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... after Honour hunts, I after Loue; He leaues his friends, to dignifie them more; I loue my selfe, my friends, and all for loue: Thou Iulia, thou hast metamorphis'd me: Made me neglect my Studies, loose my time; Warre with good counsaile; set the world at nought; Made Wit with musing, weake; hart sick ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... discovered his good feeling towards me during my misfortune: I felt the value of this favor the more warmly, as no one is apt to seek a closer connection with invalids. He spared nothing to give me pleasure, to draw me away from musing on my situation, to hold up to my view and promise me recovery and a wholesome activity in the nearest future. How often have I been delighted, in the progress of life, to hear how this excellent man has in the weightiest ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... call for a second bottle in no time. When that was gone, my companion wanted another. A little red mounted up to his yellow cheeks as he drank the wine, and he winked at it in a strange manner. "I remember," said he, musing, "when port-wine was scarcely drunk in this country—though the Queen liked it, and so did Harley; but Bolingbroke didn't—he drank Florence and Champagne. Dr. Swift put water to his wine. 'Jonathan,' I once said to him—but bah! autres temps, ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... For I was musing on an ancient saw, Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re, Is strength less strong when hand-in-hand with grace? Gratior in pulchro corpore virtus. Thomas, Why should you heat yourself ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... "Strange romance, indeed, it would be," she mused to herself, "if, after having refused the poor artist, he having gained riches should prove loyal, and lay his heart and fortune at my feet! Would I reject him? No, indeed! He has gold now." Thus musing to herself before the mirror, she gave final touches to her toilet, and stepped down into her sister's sumptuous parlor to wait for a lover, restored from ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... great end of all Classic Art, by reminding nobody of anything simple, familiar, or pleasing to them in nature. In the foreground of his composition, were the three lanky ruined columns, the dancing Bacchantes, the musing philosopher, the mahogany-colored vegetation, and the bosky and branchless trees, with which we have all been familiar, from our youth upwards, in "classical compositions." Down the middle of the scene ran that wonderful river, which is always rippling with the same regular waves; and always ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... While I was musing upon these dangers of greatness, the usher entered hastily. Important news had been received: the minister is just summoned to the council; he will not be able to take his ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... the subject abruptly. This girl so interested him. She was the girl he had imagined, the girl he had dreamt of, the girl he had thought possible, but never yet met with. "And you're in lodgings on the Holmwood here?" he said, musing. "For ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... they had been wed, when it happened that as Sir Guy lay by a window of his tower, looking out upon the landscape, he fell to musing on his life. He thought, "How many men I have slain, how many battles I have fought, how many lands I have taken and destroyed! All for a woman's love; and not one single deed done for my God!" Then he thought, "I will go a pilgrimage ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... down to his index. But he soon fell into a mood of abstraction. The races and the games did not interest him in the least. It was something else which attracted him. And, as he sat musing, the vision of the Hippodrome as he had last seen it rose clearly before him. He saw the seaweed-coloured marble; the glistening porticoes, adorned with the masterpieces of Greece, crowded with women in gemmed embroideries and men in white tunics hemmed with ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... I stood musing for a few minutes as puzzled as he was. Then the bright thought came, and I took the lighter of the two canes, cut off the most pliant part, and then tearing my silk neckerchief in thin strips, I split the end of the cane, thrust in the haft of the knife, so that it was held as by a fork, ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... Philip, as she gazed across the fresh lawn over the tree tops to the Chelton Hills, or of that world which his entrance, into her tradition-bound life had been one of the means of opening to her? Whatever she thought, she was not idly musing, as one might see by the expression of her face. After a time she took up a book; it was a medical work, and to all appearance about as interesting to a girl of eighteen as the statutes at large; but her face was soon aglow over its pages, and she was so absorbed in it that ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... little things. We passed an old man musing among laurels, I remember, and a place gay with paroquets, and came through a broad shaded colonnade to a spacious cool palace, full of pleasant fountains, full of beautiful things, full of the quality and promise of heart's desire. ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... awkward," he said, quietly musing. "But of course the specimen must be replaced. Let me see. . . . Suppose we put the head of the mayor of Bagnara into the vacant basket? Shall we? Yes, we'll have the mayor. It will make him more careful in future." And ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... Musing upon my couch, this lovely stream I liken to the truly good man's life, Amid the heat of passions, and the glare Of wordly objects, flowing pure and bright, Shunning the gaze, yet showing where it glides By ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... Thora, relieved from daily toil, I was sitting, as now, under that beech-tree, enjoying the cool evening air, heeding and listening to the sweet sights and sounds of life, and musing with softened spirit on all that had occurred to me since my dear parents' deaths, when I heard the gentle footstep of some one behind me. I turned, and, by the light of the full moon, saw a female figure approaching the spot where I was. With beating pulse I kept my eyes fixed ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... of the charmed days When the genius of God doth flow, The wind may alter twenty ways, A tempest cannot blow; It may blow north, it still is warm; Or south, it still is clear; Or east, it smells like a clover-farm; Or west, no thunder fear. The musing peasant lowly great Beside the forest water sate; The rope-like pine roots crosswise grown Compose the network of his throne; The wide lake, edged with sand and grass, Was burnished to a floor of glass, Painted ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year • Various
... And, musing upon that mystery, our frail feminine imagination seemed to us like a landscape fading into the mist: when the day is clear, we can distinguish the chain of blue mountains whose summits touch the sky, but our imagination, ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... she sat musing by a forest fountain, dressed in a robe of yellow silk, wantonly plucking the flowers which grew on the mossy parapet of the spring and binding them into a bouquet for ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... maidens sat in tears, Sometimes, consoled, they jested at their fears, Musing what lovers Time to them would bring; But I was silent, thinking ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.
... her own room, reading and writing and musing at her leisure; she drove or walked every fine afternoon, sometimes alone, sometimes attended by Mary, who hated these stately drives and walks. She dined tete-a-tete with Mary, except on those rare occasions when there were visitors—the Vicar and his wife, ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... "Thus musing I paced up and down outside the tent in the bright moonlight. Carfax was still sleeping, but uneasily, and muttering a lot in his sleep. There across the dunes the diamonds must be there somewhere. He had come ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... Jamie Graham—prig; What was thy delighted musing? Now accepting, now refusing, Till on the Admiralty pitch'd, Still would that thought his speech prolong; To gain the place for which he long had itch'd, He call'd on Bobby still through all the song; But ever as his sweetest theme he chose, A sovereign's golden chink was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 5, 1841 • Various
... Musing, we sat in our garden bower, In the balmy month of June, Enjoying the pensive gloamin' hour When our daily ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... would he be? And the Bugis Dain who is waiting for you down the river there, captain, is the very man who chased you up here when you first came." Brown observed nonchalantly that it would be just as well to avoid him, and with the same detached, musing air Cornelius declared himself acquainted with a backwater broad enough to take Brown's boat past Waris's camp. "You will have to be quiet," he said as an afterthought, "for in one place we pass close behind his camp. Very close. They are camped ashore with their boats hauled up." "Oh, we know ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... know anything about it; but the Stork looked musing, nodded his head, and said: "Yes, I think I know; I met many ships as I was flying hither from Egypt; on the ships were magnificent masts, and I venture to assert that it was they that smelt so of fir. I may congratulate you, for they lifted ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... Penelope lay there in her upper chamber, fasting and tasting neither meat nor drink, musing whether her noble son should escape death, or even fall before the proud wooers. And as a lion broods all in fear among the press of men, when they draw the crafty ring around him, so deeply was she musing ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... sublimes A nineteenth-century female fate— Sweet cause that thralls my liberal rhymes! And Chastities and colder Shames, Decorums mute and marvellous, And fair Behaviour that reclaims All fancies grown erroneous, Moved round me musing, till my choice Faltered. A female in a wig Stood by me, and a drouthy voice ...
— The Heptalogia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Ellen obeyed, but musing rather uncomfortably what else there was of hers that Miss Fortune could lay hands on. She seemed in imagination to see all her white things turning brown. She resolved she would keep her trunk well locked up; but what if her keys ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... in the barn, and he left Harry musing and very unhappy about his future prospects. The thought of becoming a member of Jacob Wire's family was not to be entertained. The boy was a pauper, and had been brought up at the expense of the town; but he seemed to feel ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic
... Carl sat musing until the sun leaped above the prairie, and in the grass about him all the small creatures of day began to tune their tiny instruments. Birds and insects without number began to chirp, to twitter, to snap and whistle, to make all manner of fresh ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... slowly over to the steps and sat down, placing the basket beside her. "How lonely it seems here to-day," she thought. "I wonder where old Jean is? I haven't seen him for an age." Then she fell to musing over the school year so nearly ended. Everything that had happened passed through her mind like a panorama. It had been a stormy year, full of quarrels and bickerings, but it was about to end gloriously. Anne and Miriam had become the best of friends, while she and Julia Crosby were daily finding ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... Englishman, and naked do I stand here, Musing in my mind what raiment I shall wear; For now I will wear this, and now I will wear that, Now I will ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... had a sympathetic voice; and there was a curious, pathetic thrill in the tones of it as he went on to describe the result of that awful musing—the new-born joy awakening in the East—the victorious West veiling her eagles and snapping her sword before this strange new ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... yet decided whether to take that money or not," he said, musing again; and, seeming to wake up with a start, he gave a brief ironical smile. "Ach, what silly stuff I ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... She sat musing, gazing at the moon, and watching its motion as it seemed to glide under the clouds. Then, preparing for bed, she thought, "Of what use could I be to him, or he to me, if it be true that he is unjustly confined?—Could he aid me to escape, who is himself ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... by the leader of the host divine! (Str. 2) Witness, thou Sun, such thought was never mine, Unblest, unfriended may I perish, If ever I such wish did cherish! But O my heart is desolate Musing on our striken State, Doubly fall'n should discord grow Twixt you ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... sweet flowers which I shall always have in my mind's nostrils (why can't one have nostrils as well as eyes in one's mind?) when I think of this place. And oh, I nearly forgot to tell you about that great feature, the museum and library, though we spent two hours browsing in it, and "musing" (appropriate word for Easthampton!) by the fountain in its garden. They've made the building look as Elizabethan as though it had been shipped from Surrey; and its books and pictures and relics are fascinating. So are the girls who are the guardians of ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... said the Duchess, musing. "Oh, it was so curious yesterday. Lord Lackington had just told them. You should have seen those ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in musing mood, A stalwart man was placed, With veteran aspect, like a tower By war, not time, defaced, Whose shatter'd walls exhibit Power Contending ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... to herself, musing, "who—but there were so many who came. I wonder whether memory is a curse or a blessing to them after they ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... all these affairs, he feels himself wobbling in his socket," Sebright began again, after musing for a while. Indeed, the last events in Rio Medio were endangering his position. He could no more present his reports upon the state of the province with incidental reflections upon the bad faith of the English Government (who encouraged the rebels ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... had been properly educated on that point. However much she may have yawned, at the tender age of ten, over a certain dissertation on the etiquette of travel, given one summer afternoon by Mademoiselle D'Ormy, Felicia aged twenty-seven, embarked upon her first journey alone, found herself musing with mighty comfort upon the charming definiteness of those never-to-be-forgotten axioms. For Mademoiselle had made the small Felicia recite them over and over until she was ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... slid over the shoulder of one big wave and into the trough of another with a steady rhythmic glide that spoke well for her seaworthy qualities. Frank, snugly out of the nipping wind in the shelter of the gasolene drums, was silent for several minutes musing over the adventurous voyage on which they were setting out. Thus he had not noticed a change coming over Harry and Billy. Suddenly a groan fell on his ear. ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... disappeared; and I then inquired if he thought they had been addressed to the woman who had died in the house, and if there were anything in her early history which could possibly confirm the dark suspicions to which the letters gave rise. Mr. J—— seemed startled, and, after musing a few moments, answered, "I am but little acquainted with the woman's earlier history, except as I before told you, that her family were known to mine. But you revive some vague reminiscences to her prejudice. I will make inquiries, and inform you of their result. ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... his course along the frontiers of Assyria, still musing on the unhappy Astarte, and reflecting on the severity of fortune which seemed determined to make him the sport of her cruelty and the ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... his native lea 25 And reaps the labour of his hands, Or in the furrow musing stands; "Does my ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... Now, musing there in the sunlight on the events of her first winter, she became aware that she had been more or less instructed in the ways of men; and, remembering, she lifted her disturbed eyes to inspect this specimen of a sex which often ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... the household retired to repose. Gina Montani was in her nightdress, though as yet she had not touched her hair, which remained in long curls, as she had worn it in the day. Suspense and agitation caused her to linger, and she sat at her dressing-table in a musing attitude, her head resting on her hand, wondering what would be the ending to all that the day had brought forth. She had dismissed her attendant some time before. With a deep sigh she rose to continue her preparations for rest, when the ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... Luce came walking into the village, spent, forlorn, and draggled. She went straight to the town office, and seated herself in front of the musing first selectman. ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... she stayed a long time silent, swaying gently while her candle flickered, her head full of a kind of formless musing. Then she rose from the bed and took her candle so that she could see her face in the small mirror upon the dressing-table. The candle flickered still more in the draught from the open window; and Jenny saw her breath hang like a cloud before her. In the mirror ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... pursed lips stroked his chin, musing on my words. I was afraid for a little he resented my indiscretion, but resentment was apparently not in his mind, for his speech found no fault ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... heavily away. His wonted cheerfulness fled; he wooed the silent and solitary haunts of "musing, moping melancholy." He loved to wander through lonely fields, or along the verge of some lingering stream, "when dewy twilight rob'd the evening mild," or "to trace the forest glen, through which the moon darted her silvery ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... had suddenly come upon Shackle driving an old grey horse before him as if going on some farming business, and he started apparently from a fit of musing as he ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... me I lay musing on this still somewhat mysterious affair. My memory, however, gradually grew clearer; and the events of the preceding night soon became linked together, and formed a complete chain. The shot that passed so near my head in Twing's tent—the ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... the sculptor supposed to be close by him, made no response to his fanciful musing, he looked up, and saw them at the head of the bier. He ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... she knew she could not see his face, as he leant back silently in his corner, and she tried to say no more. She was sure that coming home was painful to him; he had been so willing to put it off, and to prolong those pleasant seaside days, when there had been such pleasant reading, walking, musing, and a ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... undertaken for his health. A cord of wood had been cut upon the hill, and he deliberately dragged it to the lower level of his dwelling, two logs at a time, by means of a rope. Along the ridge and down the winding pine-flanked path he slowly and studiously stepped, musing, looking up, stopping to solve some point of plot or morals; and meanwhile the cord of wood changed its abiding-place as surely as water may wear away a stone. But his splendid vigor paled, his hair grew snowy white, before the end. My mother wrote ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... with the outside world. Live, work, do something! Do not sit here musing and brooding over ...
— Rosmerholm • Henrik Ibsen
... the seat on which Raoul was reclining, buried in the profoundest meditation, as we have already said. The sound of Miss Mary's steps, though they could be hardly heard upon the green sward, awakened Raoul from his musing attitude: he turned round, perceived the young girl, and walked forward to meet the companion whom his happy destiny had thrown ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... kept him aloof from the cottage fire, and up among the mists on the mountain top. The still green beauty of the pastoral hills and vales where he passed his youth, inspired him with ever-brooding visions of fairy-land, till, as he lay musing in his lonely shieling, the world of phantasy seemed, in the clear depths of his imagination, a lovelier reflection of that of nature, like the hills and heavens more softly shining in the water of his native lake." Hogg was in his element, as he revelled amid the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... ran off to make her hasty toilet, leaving me to pilot my way back to my sitting-room, where, in due time, I was served with a cup of tea. After that, I sat musing on Lady Ashby's past and present condition; and on what little information I had obtained respecting Mr. Weston, and the small chance there was of ever seeing or hearing anything more of him throughout my quiet, drab-colour ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... of arrowroot in silence; then he looked at me with wistful, musing eyes. "Cumberledge," he murmured at last; "after all, I can't help admiring that woman. She is the only person who has ever checkmated me. She checkmates me every time. Steadfastness is what I love. Her steadfastness of purpose and her ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... most eminent geniuses to display their powers. "It was at Rome," says Gibbon, "on the 15th of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the Decline and Fall of the City first started to ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... established custom of builders in gardens since the world began. She would sit in the rockery where she had sat with Mr. Brumley and recall that momentous conversation, and she would wander up the pine-wood slopes behind, and she would spend long musing intervals among Euphemia's perennials, thinking sometimes, and sometimes not so much thinking as feeling the warm tendernesses of nature and the perplexing difficulties of human life. With an amused amazement Lady Harman reflected as she walked about the pretty borders ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... the ground above the diggers, it caved the earth in, and they were all buried. "Aha," said he, "why do you wish to hinder me on my way to kill the Sun? A'-nier ti-tik'-a-nump kwaik-ai'-gar" (fighting is my eating tool I say; that's so!), and he proceeded on his way musing. "I have started out to kill; vengeance is my work; every one I meet will be an enemy. It is well; no one ...
— Sketch of the Mythology of the North American Indians • John Wesley Powell
... our neighbor with the iron tongue. While I sit musing over my sheet of foolscap, he emphatically tells the hour, in tones loud enough for all the town to hear, though doubtless intended only as a gentle hint to myself, that I may begin his biography before the evening shall be further wasted. ...
— A Bell's Biography - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... grandmother near the edge of a great prairie. It was on this prairie that he first saw animals and birds of every kind; he also there made first acquaintance with thunder and lightning. He would sit by the hour watching the clouds as they rolled by, musing on the shades of light and darkness as ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... a strange sense of loneliness. The responsibilities of his new state weighed heavily on the musing speculative side of his nature. Face to face with the sudden summons to action, with the necessity for prompt and not too-curious choice of means and method, he felt a stealing apathy of the will, an inclination toward the subtle duality of ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... a maiden in your hall, Though tired and sleepy ever so, But wakes, as you my name recall, And longs the history to know. And, as the piteous tale is said, Of lady cold and lover true, Each, musing, carries it to bed, And sighs and ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... struggled hard to regain her senses. The night wore away, and the morning dawned, but it brought no alleviation to her sorrow. At an early hour she rose from her couch, and, as if led by an instinctive impulse, she drew near the window that commanded a view of the garden. There, musing on the vision of her past night, she was surprised by the entrance of Lisarda, one of her attendants. She came bustling in with an air of importance, and apparently with a firm resolution that no opportunity should escape in the proffer ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... waves tossing in that shoreless lake of fire, I could see the black myriads of the damned rise out of them and struggle and sink and rise again; and I knew that Joan was seeing what I saw, while she paused musing; and I believed that she must yield now, and in truth I hoped she would, for these men were able to make the threat good and deliver her over to eternal suffering, and I knew that it was in their natures ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... day at the window of the only Club in London where they understand (or used to understand) what devilled kidneys really are, musing in post-prandial gloom on the vanished glories of this England of ours. "Ichabod!" I cried aloud to the unheeding stream of Piccadilly wayfarers; and echo ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 21, 1920 • Various
... laughing, and wondering why he didn't hate Miss Voscoe. He did not laugh long. He sat in his studio, musing till it was too late to go out to dine. Then he found some biscuits and sherry—remnants of preparations for the call of a picture dealer—ate and drank, and spent the evening in the way recommended by Miss Voscoe. ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... there by the window for her to slip her hand into that of Neil, who had been musing silently on ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... her out of a vaudeville gutter over beyond Weehawken just five years ago, Pop," Mr. Vandeford finally interrupted the flip of the manuscript pages to say, with a deep musing ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... our feelings as we wandered musing and admiring amid the stupendous ruins of this ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction No. 485 - Vol. 17, No. 485, Saturday, April 16, 1831 • Various
... importance in his life. His constructions were at first ephemeral, replaced every day by new ones. They became progressively more consistent.... When he had well entered into his imaginary role, he often succeeded in continuing his musing in the presence of other people. At college, whole hours would be spent in this way; often he would see and hear nothing." Married, the head of a prosperous business house, he had some respite; then he returned to his former constructions. "They commenced by being, as before, ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... mist across the sun, so that the eye could bear its light, and Ernest, while musing as above, was looking right into the middle of the sun himself, as into the face of one whom he knew and was fond of. At first his face was grave, but kindly, as of a tired man who feels that a long task is over; but in a few seconds the more humorous side of his misfortunes presented ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... say, 'Oh, my poor heart! poor heart! poor broken heart! Alas!' and it was such a strong impression that I put my hand to my own heart and held on there, while I laid my head on one side till it touched the feathers of the bird on my shoulder; and so we sat silently musing. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... does seem here!" he said in musing tones, over his inevitable mug of cider; "so different from what 'tis t' our house. There's Hepsey, she's all in a stew, an' I've just been an' got her thirty-seven cents' wuth o' nutmegs, yet she says she's sure she don't see how she's to keep Thanksgiving, ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... gentle, most unfortunate, Crowned but to die—who in her chamber sate Musing with Plato, tho' the horn was blown, And every ear and every heart was won, And all in green array were ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... rode away into Wales, and Queen Iseult being discovered by King Mark, was made to return to him, only to be made a prisoner in the great grim castle at Tintagel, where all day long she sat sad and lonely, looking out over the sea, and musing sadly on all the bitterness life had held for her and for her lover. And her husband, jealous, wrathful, never slackened his watch ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... enjoyed sweet seasons of self-examination and prayer, as I lay upon my bed. Many hours together I sweetly spent in contemplating subjects for preaching, and in musing over discourses in Bengali; and when my animal spirits were somewhat raised by the fever, I found myself able to reason and discourse in Bengali for some hours together, and words and phrases occurred much more readily than when I was in health. When my dear child ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... being in company with some merchants and planters of my acquaintance, and talking of those things very earnestly, three of them came to me the next morning, and told me they had been musing very much upon what I had discoursed with them of the last night, and they came to make a secret proposal to me: and, after enjoining me to secrecy, they told me that they had a mind to fit out a ship to go to Guinea; that they had all plantations as well as I, and were ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... romance to the passer-by? Who has not sometimes exchanged places even with things inanimate, and drawn some new moral experience from following the movement of stars or of daffodils? All this is idle musing or at best poetry; yet our ordinary knowledge of what goes on in men's minds is made of no other stuff. True, we have our own mind to go by, which presumably might be a fair sample of what men's minds are; but unfortunately our notion of ourselves is of all notions ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... refused, I am afraid I could not give you the papers," replied Del Ferice, musing as he gazed at the fire. "I love you too much to lose that chance of winning you, even for the sake of saving the Duchessa d'Astrardente from her fate. Why do you refuse? why do you bargain?" he asked, suddenly turning towards ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... on, musing sourly enough to myself, and feeling utterly dispirited. There had been moments when life had appeared to me to be of a very dusky gray, but never before had I seen it all black, with no single tinge of lighter colour. I looked back over my vagabond existence, and thought what a hopeless ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... was no one about at all. The little town, with its main street and its secondary thoroughfares bordered by low structures, might have been regarded as the habitation of lesser creatures than human beings, as it stood there musing after the departed night, in the midst of limitless wastes of sand. That group of houses might have been likened to some kind of larger birds, hugging the earth in trepidation, ready to take flight ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... some obvious needs. This accomplished, she read the letter for a third time and brought out her sewing. After five minutes of desultory work, she folded the garment and laid it away. For the next two hours she might have served as a study of contemplation. Her chin upon her hands, her eyes musing, she sat motionless, almost rigid, as the big clock ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... Musing thus, I was aroused by the hoof strokes of a horse and, glancing up, beheld a plump man on plump steed ambling towards me down the lane. Waiting until he was sufficiently near, I stepped into ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... the Bishop—and he spoke in that gently musing tone, which conveys to the mind of the hearer a sense of infinite leisure in which to weigh and consider the subject in hand—"The little foolish bird might soon wish herself back in the safety of the cage. On ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... musing on the changes which a few days had wrought in my condition, and, borne down by the pangs of seasickness, was almost ready to admit that there was prose as well as poetry in a sailor's life, I was startled by a terrific noise, the announcement, I supposed, ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... became acquainted with the amiable descendant of the most successful of colonisers, and with that classic domain which the genius of Gray, as it were, now haunts, and has for ever hallowed, and from which he beheld with fond and musing ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... was pronounced, that Henry was proclaimed "Defender of the Faith," and that Cardinal Pole rejoiced with his brethren of the purple over the approaching return of England to the bosom of the Church. And as you are musing on these things, and centuries seem to pass before you like the figures of a dream, the room gradually fills, the cardinals come in and take their places, each clad in the simple majesty of the purple, and last of all comes the Pope himself, the steel sabres ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... birds fly so high and soar with such ease on their great outstretched wings; where the clouds mount so gaily in the pure light of day, and you have only to raise your eyes to fall in love with space and freedom. So, musing on the exploration of the aerial ocean, I, too, devised airships and flying-machines ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... said Estella, in a musing way, after another moment of calm wonder, "that I almost understand how this comes about. If you had brought up your adopted daughter wholly in the dark confinement of these rooms, and had never let her know that there was such a thing as the daylight by which she ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens |
