"Pensively" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... chief delight, I saw (alas!) the gaping earth devour The spring, the place, and all clean out of sight— Which yet aggrieves my heart unto this hour.... At last, so fair a lady did I spy, That thinking yet on her I burn and quake, On herbs and flowers she walked pensively.... A stinging serpent by the heel her caught, Wherewith she ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... never known the want of money, and had never adverted to the possibility of such an evil. I was ignorant of the world and all its ways; and when first the idea of destitution came over my mind its effect was withering. I was wandering pensively through the streets which no longer delighted my eyes, when chance led my stops into the ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... The gap between boat and shore widened in an instant, and Albert, failing to obtain a foothold on the boat, fell back, with a splash that sent a cascade over his friend and the boatman, into three feet of muddy water. By the time he had scrambled out, his enemies were moving pensively up-stream. ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... which strove to seem merely historical: "I let it all in lodgings, to respectable gentlemen; by the quarter or the month; it's all one to me."—"To me also," whispered the ghost of Samuel, as we went pensively our ways.' Carlyle's Miscellanies, edit, of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... the Ass pursues his way, Along this solitary dell, As pensively his steps advance, The mosques and spires change countenance, And look at Peter ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... auf wiedersehen, I fear, with his Highness," Miss Vance said, folding the note pensively. She had not meant to drive a marriage bargain, and yet—to have placed a pupil upon even such a bric-a-brac throne as that of Wolfburgh! She looked thoughtfully at Lucy's chubby cheeks. A princess? The ...
— Frances Waldeaux • Rebecca Harding Davis
... (almost too pensively) that he had supposed that was the line I would take. It was his little meditative pose that made me call him a thundering scallywag and accuse him of having calculated on the line ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... she was staring rather pensively at the second button from the top of Poopendyke's coat, and so prolonged and earnest was her gaze that I looked down in some concern, at the same time permitting myself to make a nervous, jerky and quite involuntary digital examination of the aforesaid button. ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... a big black cat had taken advantage of the warmth offered by the charcoal fire and was curled up, sleeping peacefully in the pan nearest the fire. The old man paid no attention to the cat, but went on rotating his ball of coffee and puffing away pensively on his cigarette. When his coffee had become blackened and burned, and blackened and burned it was, he stopped rotating the ball, opened the slide in the top, turned it over, and the hot, burned coffee rolled out, and much to his delight, on the sleeping cat, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... the foot of this gentle depression trickled a musical little stream. Here was a stone lantern five feet high, also the miniature curved bridge; and to make the picture complete in every Japanese detail, leaning pensively on the railing of the bridge, stood Onoye. She herself might have been a bright colored flower in ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... out of doors!" Rochow starts to his habiliments, or perhaps has them ready on; in a minute or two, Rochow also is forth into the gray of the morning;—finds the young Prince actually on the Green there; in his red roquelaure, leaning pensively on one of the travelling carriages. "Guten Morgen, Ihro Konigliche Hoheit!" [Ranke, 1. 305.] —Fancy such a salutation to the young man! Page Keith, at this moment, comes with a pair of horses, too: "Whither with the nags, Sirrah?" Rochow asked with some sharpness. Keith, ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... is saddening in my position," she said pensively. But she was resolved that those guests who were asked to lend their countenance to her espousals should ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... Opposite it, a square, two-storied inn stretches over the road a fine carved bracket with a bunch of grapes in iron, proclaiming that here are post horses to be had from Nich: Jayne. A tall-hatted rustic pensively wheels a barrow in the middle of the road opposite the inn; a group of villagers in stout boots, smocks and stockings stands at the street corner; and, precisely on the spot where to-day's tram-lines swing north and west, a lazy-looking ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... Charing Cross, but without the full tide of life. A perpetual stream of figures leaves no definite shapes upon the picture. But on one side of this stereoscopic doublet a little London "gent" is leaning pensively against a post; on the other side he is seen sitting at the foot of the next post;—what is the matter ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... to be out there now," Lois remarked, as she gazed pensively upon the water. "Suppose ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... rest in a beautiful; valley, beside the banks of a swift stream. He watched Jane as she moved away from the stretcher which held Bansemer, following her to the edge of the stream where she had come to gaze pensively into the future. ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... came the inspiration of Moses?" flew up to his mind almost as soon as he opened his eyes on the sunlit world. He threw open the protrusive casement of his bedroom to the balmy air, tinged with a whiff of salt, and gazed pensively at the white town rambling down towards the shining river. Had God indeed revealed Himself on Mount Sinai? But this fresh doubt was banished by the renewed suspicion which, after having disturbed his dreams in nebulous distortions, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... She capitulated pensively. "Why, Justin, I don't know why you are calling me to account in this way. I'm sure I'm perfectly willing to help ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... all that time. I am sure when she used to come to my bedside of a night, and tuck me up with a motherly kiss, I used to think her face looked almost beautiful, it was so full of kindness. Somehow I fancy when I am old," added Bessie pensively, "I shall not care so much about my looks nor my wrinkles, if people will only think I am a comfortable, ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... later, and Randall is pacing the deck of an ocean steamer, outward bound from New York. It is the evening of the first day out. Here and there passengers are leaning over the bulwarks pensively regarding the sinking sun as it sets for the first time between them and their native land, or may be taking in with awed faces the wonder of the deep, which has haunted their imaginations from childhood. Others are already ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... all so hidden!" The exclamation was not addressed to him—she was staring pensively into the fire. But presently, with a swift movement, she ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... incomprehensible shouts, all indicative of the highest state of delight, he condescended to tell his companions of his good fortune, and set about preparations without delay. Hamilton, on the contrary, gave his usual quiet smile on being informed of his destination, and returning somewhat pensively to Bachelors' Hall, proceeded leisurely to make the necessary arrangements for departure. As the time drew on, however, a perpetual flush on his countenance, and an unusual brilliancy about his eye, showed that he ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... in his silence. Chryses says not a word in answer to the insults of Agamemnon, but walks pensively along the shore. The melancholy flowing of the verse admirably expresses the condition of ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... feet away from the water's edge, surrounded and shaded by trees, whose branches arched over the path and drooped down to the surface of the water. While the children played Ruth used to sit in this arbour and sew, but often her work was neglected and forgotten as she gazed pensively at the water, which just there looked very still, and dark, and deep, for it was sheltered from the wind and over-shadowed by the trees that lined the banks at the end of ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... Stopping at the rail not more than an arm's length from where he sat, she gazed pensively up at the solemn mistress of the valley, one slim hand at her bosom, the other hanging limp at her side. He could have touched that slender hand by merely stretching forth his own. Breathless, enthralled, he sat as one deprived of the power or even the wish to ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... must have stood in silence. Lylda, too, seemed to divine my thoughts, for she did not applaud, but pensively watched the cheering throng below. All at once, with an impulsively appealing movement, she pulled me down towards her, and pressed her pretty cheek to mine. It seemed almost as if she was asking ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... is," remarked Mr. Hibbert pensively, "I believe Mr. Bull, unless he has human aid in freeing himself, will still be here when the meat inspector ...
— The High School Boys in Summer Camp • H. Irving Hancock
... certainly difficulties," said Sherlock Holmes, pensively. "But our expedition of to-night will solve them all. Ah, here is a four-wheeler, and Miss Morstan is inside. Are you all ready? Then we had better go down, for it is a ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... heard him, nor I undertake to say, did any of his friends, express fretfulness or impatience at his disheartening lack of employment. He manifested, on the contrary, a quiet fortitude that was touching to witness. I recollect him once, however, when we were conversing on the subject, saying rather pensively, "If one has not connexions, and cannot make them, it is next to impossible to get any business." The professional public possess conclusive and permanent evidence of the admirable use which he made of his time, during the first year or two of his essaying to practise as a pleader; for in July ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... so bad, are they, Bobby?" asked Lady Agnes coolly, going to Browne's side at the railing. Chase hesitated a moment and then walked over to Drusilla Browne, who was looking pensively into the courtyard below. He was sorry for her. She laughed and chatted with him for ten minutes, but there was a strained note in her voice that did not escape his notice. It may not have been true that Browne was in love with Lady Deppingham, but it was more ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... that's to say. Personally, I don't see any prospect of ever sitting down in this place. It looks to me as if they meant to use these chairs as mustard-and-cress beds. A Nursery Garden in the Home. That sort of idea. My name," he added pensively, "is Smith. ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... pouted a little, and the colour had mounted to her temples, nevertheless looked very lovely as she pensively reclined on the sofa. Rebuked by him who had always been so attentive, so submissive—her creature as it were—she was mortified, as every pretty woman is, at any loss of power—any symptoms of rebellion on the part of a liege vassal; and then she taxed herself; had she done wrong? ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... whole matter aside, as she sat in her room, rocking pensively. Her own lamp had not been filled and was burning dimly, so she put it out and sat in the darkness, listening to ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... at Somerville College—was reclining among vast blue and pink cushions in the bows, pensively twirling a Japanese parasol, one arm flung round the shoulders of her companion—a fellow-student; fair and stolid and good-humoured. Broome summed her up mentally: "Tactless but trustworthy. Anglo-Saxon to the last button on her ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... As she came, pensively, from her morning bath into the sunny front room Athalie noticed the corner of an envelope ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... thou remember In this that season of thy mortal being When from thine eyes shone beauty, In thy shy glances fugitive and smiling, And joyously and pensively the borders Of childhood ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... him new women—two more of those numerous damsels that his song demands. They will revive this ruinous songmaker to rule over Tuscany more foolishly than Eglamore governed when Eglamore was a great lord. (He speaks pensively, still looking down.) It is a very rich and lovely country, this kingdom which a half-hour since lay in the hollow of my ...
— The Jewel Merchants - A Comedy In One Act • James Branch Cabell
... a hankering for what you might call grave poetry," said he, pensively. "Yes, sir; an obituary like that is like an all-day sucker to me. Say, don't you reckon they make the people they're written about feel glad they're dead and done for good with folks that could spring something like that on a poor stiff? Wait a minute, parson—you can't afford ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... at me. But the idea was so pregnant with interest that I soon forgot my mortification. Before I had got my boots completely off I was away on a tour of this new and fascinating region. I leaned back in my chair and gazed pensively towards the faint glare of New York City. It was true, I reflected, that we had at the very first postulated a certain friction between our neighbour and his wife. But then we had not listened to the love story of our neighbour and his wife. I thought, as I sat ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... the finish of her journey. Pensively she considered the end of the road. How would it be there? What manner of folk and country? Between her past mode of life and the new that she was hurrying toward lay the vast gulf of distance, of custom, of class even. It was bound to be crude, to be full ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... a quarter of an hour yet." The slipper dropped at this point, and Hilda stooped to put it on again. She kept her foot in her hands, and regarded it pensively. ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... reached the river's edge. There was a moist, damp odour from the reeds that swayed pensively in the stream. On the other side, fields lay dim in twilight beneath the vast sky where ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... and the choristers,' said the Owl. 'If you fly down a moment you can look in; but don't wait long, because of the dynamite. It would be just like them,' he added pensively, 'to blow it up ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... too strong for him. Ben was listening to something Miss Celia said, a tart lay unguarded upon his plate, Sanch looked at Thorny, who was watching him, Thorny nodded, Sanch gave one wink, bolted the tart, and then gazed pensively up at a sparrow ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... The two beauties assented pensively; but in Aurora's bosom a great throb secretly responded that as for her, in that case, she should have no use for ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... got my lines and main ideas in my head,' she said pensively, 'then we will call in the maids. Of course you might have the things made in Rome. But as we have the models—and these two maids have nothing to do—why not give ourselves the pleasure ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... say to this girl, whom she was fond of: they had sat talking a whole morning—idly and pensively; of little things around them, never once referring to things outside. "Come often, though the house is dull. Does it not feel strange, ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... and we formed ourselves round her in a ring of fire. Oh, the maddening, mock-sentimental, mock-sympathetic face she would pull, when one of us ventured to sigh to her of his passion! The way she would lift her eyebrows, and gaze at you with a travesty of pity, shaking her head pensively, and murmuring, 'Mon pauvre ami! Only fancy!' And then how the imp, lurking in the corners of her eyes, with only the barest pretence of trying to conceal himself, would suddenly leap forth in a peal of laughter! She had lately read Mr. Howells's ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... of a hill, the pig, much exhausted, sat down on its hams, and gazed pensively at the ground. Bumpus took advantage of the fact, and also sat down on ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... of the rich golden twilight which now twinkled through the sky. Agnes sat by him on the same wall,—now glancing over his shoulder at his work, and now leaning thoughtfully on her elbow, gazing pensively down into the deep shadows of the gorge, or out where the golden light of evening streamed under the arches of the old Roman bridge, to the wide, bright ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... displayed every variety of contrivance, as well as the usual one of glass, to exclude the weather. The hall-door hung by a single hinge, and required three persons each morning and evening to open and shut it; the remainder of the day it lay pensively open; the steps which led to it were broken and falling; and the whole aspect of things without was ruinous in the extreme. Within, matters were somewhat better, for though the furniture was old, and none of it ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... her thimble she dropped her spool of thread, which rolled under the sofa on which Jane was sitting, and while she waited for Gabriella to find it, she gazed pensively into the almost deserted street where the slender shadows of poplar trees slanted over the wet cobblestones. Though Mrs. Carr worked every instant of her time, except the few hours when she lay in bed trying to sleep, and the few ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... said the girl, looking pensively out to sea, where the sea-horses were tossing up their white manes in the moonlight. "Well, good-bye," she added, holding out ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... had not spread on the morrow, June 9th. I chanced to go alone to the quarters of M. de Luxembourg, and was surprised to find not a soul there; every one had gone to the King's army. Pensively bringing my horse to a stand, I was ruminating on a fact so strange, and debating whether I should return to my tent or push on to the royal camp, when up came M. le Prince de Conti with a single page and a groom leading a horse. "What are you doing there?" cried he, laughing at my surprise. Thereupon ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... only had a ring like that, not round the equator of the world,—as Saturn's ring is around Saturn,—but vertical to the plane of the equator, as the brass ring of an artificial globe goes, only far higher in proportion,— "from that ring," said Q., pensively, "we ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... head for an instant as he sat down he could have seen that he was not alone in the room. A tall, shadowy woman in white was standing in the hall door, looking pensively in upon him. For a full minute she stood there, hesitating between modesty and curiosity, and then turned as ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... than usual to the garden, he found Miss Ford there, the governess of the children. She was promenading one of the wide alleys, and pensively reading a favorite author. This occurred morning after morning, and Lewis thought he would be so glad if she would only spend a few minutes teaching him to read! He knew that she was from the free states, where they did not keep slaves, and he thought, perhaps, if she knew his desire ...
— A Child's Anti-Slavery Book - Containing a Few Words About American Slave Children and Stories - of Slave-Life. • Various
... the immense plain. In the distance, where the eye could not distinguish between the sky and the plain, there was a bright gleam of light. A little way off from me sat Savka. With his legs tucked under him like a Turk and his head hanging, he looked pensively at Kutka. Our hooks with live bait on them had long been in the river, and we had nothing left to do but to abandon ourselves to repose, which Savka, who was never exhausted and always rested, loved so much. The glow had not yet quite died ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... poke, my dear," insisted Aunt Lydia, as she carefully swathed the flowers in the tissue paper. "And, besides, I have my old one, which is quite good enough for me, my love. It was very sweet of you to think of it, but it may as well go back." She pensively gazed at the mirror for a moment, and then went to her chamber and took out her Bible to ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... she go indoors to her solitary room, feeling as she did in such a state of desperate heaviness. When Springrove was out of sight she turned back, and arrived at the corner just in time to see him sit down. Then she glided pensively along the pavement behind him, forgetting herself to marble like Melancholy herself as she mused in his neighbourhood unseen. She heard, without heeding, the notes of pianos and singing voices from the fashionable houses at her ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... woman's dark eyes, I perceive them to be shining as pensively, innocently as the ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... reached the gates, and was passing into the country. Marie Antoinette felt a sense of relief at the change. She gazed with rapture upon the rich foliage of the trees, and then looking pensively above for a few moments, she watched the floating clouds of blue and silver, and then followed the flight of the birds that were soaring in such ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... bound them. Catherine maintained her attitude of artless simplicity, which was quite impenetrable. The corporal, who, according to Corentin, had committed a great blunder in arresting these smaller fry, did not know whether to stay where he was or to depart. He stood pensively in the middle of the salon, his hand on the hilt of his sabre, his eye on the two Parisians. The Durieus, also stupefied, and the other servants of the chateau made an admirable group of expressive uneasiness. If it had not been for Gothard's ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... later this horsey husband of hers brought her on to Brighton for the races there, and hither John Lefolle flew. But her husband shadowed her, and he could only lift his hat to her as they passed each other on the Lawns. Sometimes he saw her sitting pensively on a chair while her lord and thrasher perused a pink sporting-paper. Such tantalising proximity raised their correspondence through the Hove Post Office to fever heat. Life apart, they felt, was impossible, and, removed from the sobering influences of his cap and gown, John Lefolle dreamed ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... the other world with a mincing gait, and there finding certain customs quite strange and new; such as friendly shades passing through each other by way of a salutation;— Karkeke, nevertheless, resolved to show no sign of embarrassment. Accosted by a phantom, with wings folded pensively, plumes interlocked across its chest, he off head; and stood obsequiously before it. Staring at him for an instant, the spirit cut him dead; murmuring to itself, 'Ah, some terrestrial bumpkin, I fancy,' and passed ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... things to make me nervous: The Imperial child, the gorgeous rosy sleeves The Maid of honor wore, Duroc, the breast— In short, the tuft was shivering on my bearskin; So much so that your Highness noticed it. You gazed upon it pensively: what was it? And while you hailed it with a milky laugh You seemed uncertain which to admire the more About this moving scarlet miracle: Its motion, or the fact that it was scarlet. Suddenly, while I stooped, ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand
... ordering platters of stewed rhubarb, with that refrain recurring and recurring. Salute to Evelyn Scott! (we say to ourself as we stand in line at the bank, waiting to cash a small check). She belongs, she understands. And then, as we go away, pensively counting the money (they've got some clean Ones down at our bank, by the way; we don't know whether the larger denominations are clean or not, we haven't seen any since Christmas), we find ourself mumbling, She ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... Saturday—he carried out his bat for thirty-seven, though!—and he misses Billabong, and he sends his love and all sorts of messages to you, Dad. I guess Brownie and I will fix up a hamper for him," concluded Norah, pensively, weighing in her mind the attractions of plum or seed cake, and deciding on both. "And mice pies," she ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... were taken to England by the steamer "Palmyra." Lady Burton then walked round and round to every room, recalling all her life in that happy home and all the painful events that had so recently taken place. She gazed pensively and sadly at the beautiful views from the windows and went "into every nook and cranny of the garden." The very walls seemed to mourn ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... sipped her tea pensively, and Wentworth listened contentedly to the musical murmur of her voice. Such an entrancing effect had it on him that he paid less heed to what she said than a man ought when a lady is speaking. The tea-drinking ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... confusion of ideas was passing in my head, and I sat pensively by the fire, with my eyes brimming with tears, my neck still bare, and my cap fallen off in the struggle, so that my hair was in the disorder you may guess, the villain's lust began, I suppose, to be again in flow, at the sight of all that bloom of youth which presented itself to ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... world with you! Blest the long years pass'd in your search away! From the right path if e'er I went astray, It grieves me more than, haply, I can show: But of your state, if I Deserve more knowledge, more I long to know." She paused, then, answering pensively, so bent On me her eloquent eye, That to my inmost heart her looks ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... Lawson, looking pensively over the hay-mow, and strewing hayseed down on his wool. "How that 'are critter seems to tickle and laugh all the while 'bout nothin'. Lordy massy! he don't seem never to consider that 'this life's a ...
— Oldtown Fireside Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... became dreamy. "How shall I say thank you?... I know. I must give you one of my pretty flowers for your buttonhole." She began pulling out one of the glorious roses, but suddenly checked herself and gazed off pensively into space, a finger at her lip. "Ah! I thought this gesture seemed strangely familiar, and now I remember. I gave him a flower once before, and ah, look!... the president of the college has tossed ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... revolutionists were made to suffer—altogether these things have made us melancholy, so that often when we were alone with Catherine and the little Joseph, whom God had sent to console us for so many misfortunes, Mr. Goulden would say, pensively: ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... gaze from the Merrick group to the stranger, eyed him pensively a moment and then faced the wagon again. The man in gray got up, placed the empty glass in Todd's hand, whirled him around facing the ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... to be such a nice, quiet place for you, dad," explained Nell, perching herself upon a table near the window and gazing pensively out at the shimmering water, which told that the sun was winning a decisive victory over the mist, and that the day would ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson
... of these he went to the Grange. Mrs. Thornton was sitting in the drawing-room, looking pensively out of the window, when she saw his well-known figure advancing up the avenue. His face was sad, and pervaded by a melancholy expression, which was noticeable now as ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... earnestly after him until he turned the corner of the great Cathedral, when, wiping her eyes, she went into the house and sat down pensively for some minutes. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... balustrade of the terrace, looking out over the green campagna, over which the moon now rose large and red, while the towers and domes of the city stood, dark and solemn, in the foreground. The bells of Santa Maria Maggiore were tolling slowly and pensively, and the sound lingered with long vibrations in the still air. A mighty, shapeless longing, remotely aroused or intensified by the sound of the bells, shook his soul; and the glorious sight before ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... than it used to be," said Gnulemah, pensively. "Once the house was so high, it seemed to touch heaven;—see how it has dwindled since then! And so with other things that are on earth. The stars and the sun and clouds, they ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... Stone stood a minute rubbing his nose pensively with a small forefinger; then the resolution to act fastened upon him. He slipped his coat back on, smoothed down his thin mane of reddish gray hair with his hands, stepped out into the hall and rapped delicately with a knuckled finger upon the door ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... fun gettin' married," said the chief bridesmaid pensively to the best man. "Why don't you ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... a few days ago in the subject. It was a Bank Holiday, and I walked pensively about the outskirts of a big town. The streets were crowded with people of all sorts and sizes. I confess that a profound melancholy was induced in me by the spectacle of the young of both sexes. They were enjoying themselves, it is true, ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... cloth balloon, with the feet protruding from holes in the bottom. She sometimes absent-mindedly keeps the toothpick behind her ear while promenading the deck, and I have humbly thought that a woman promenading pensively back and forth in the national Greek costume, smoking a cigarette, and with a wooden toothpick behind her starboard ear, was deserving of ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... was not unwarrantable that Staff had never yet done anything that he had subsequently found cause to regret. Pensively punishing an ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... dropped at this point, and Hilda stooped to put it on again. She kept her foot in her hands and regarded it pensively. ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... to Jack Hamlin at draw-poker, over at Wingdam last night," returned the other, pensively, "but I don't calkilate to find it lying ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... mournfully on the counter after father left me, my head reclining pensively against a pile of ten-cent calicoes; I was thinking of my grandmother's legacy gone up in smoke—of how Belle looked when she found I had conducted her into the coal-cellar—of those tidies, cradle-quilts, bib-aprons, dolls' ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... situation now!" he said, sitting pensively on a steam radiator. "Aunt Selina is crazy. I only kissed your hand, anyhow, and I don't know why you sat in the den all evening; you might have known that Bella would notice it. Why couldn't you leave me ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... he said aloud, addressing his four-footed comrade, who thereupon got up reluctantly and began to trot pensively beside him—"We mustn't be selfish. There are a thousand and one things to do. There is dinner to be served to the children at two o'clock—there is Mrs. Keeley to call upon—there are the school accounts to be looked into,—" here he glanced ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... against the bigoted professors who formed a power in his own empire. 'Impressed,' writes Professor Blochmann, 'with a favourable idea {156} of the value of his Hindu subjects, he had resolved when pensively sitting in the evenings on the solitary stone at Fatehpur-Sikri, to rule with an even hand all men in his dominions; but as the extreme views of the learned and the lawyers continually urged him to persecute instead of ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson
... she was taking made particularly hateful. She needed no more convincing that Miss Gall "wouldn't suit;" but she was sorry at the same time for the perverseness that had so needlessly disappointed her; and went rather pensively back again down the little foot-path to ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... Sancho Panza retorted pensively: "I suppose it is the chastisement of Heaven, too, that flies should prick the squires of vanquished knights, and lice eat them, and hunger assail them. If we squires were the sons of the knights we serve, or their very near relations, it would be no wonder if the penalty of their misdeeds ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... a gap in the trees, walking slowly and pensively, as one retreating from his Moscow. Her eyes followed him till he was ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... hastened to the spot, and threatened the young guard and Mortimer. The Marshal pointed out to him some houses covered with iron; they were closely shut up, still untouched and uninjured without, and yet a black smoke was already issuing from them. Napoleon pensively ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... yellow giant-thing of a man!" Then she added pensively, "Almost it saddens me that there may not be such men ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... pensively, rolling a cigarette, "you have done a great deal to obtain a success. It is not every girl who would go to ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... embroidery,—others, clustered in a semicircle round a large osier basket filled with myrtle, were busy weaving garlands of the fragrant leaves,—and one maiden, seemingly younger than the rest, and of lighter and more delicate complexion, leaned somewhat pensively against an ebony-framed harp, as though she were considering what sad or suggestive chords she should next awaken from its responsive strings. As Sah-luma and Theos appeared, these nymphs all rose from their different occupations ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... ride a little farther, and see what they were waving their hands toward the south for. And so I did. And it was very hot," said Mary V pensively, "and I was so tired that when I found I was close to Sinkhole camp I went on and rested there. And before I left, that same Mexican came to the cabin, and Johnny didn't know him at all, because the Mexican said right away, 'I am the brother ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... under guard, of course," said Goldberger, pensively, "for I'm sure he'll prove to be a very important witness; but if you will be personally responsible for ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... herself, looking back at the grand, gray pile from the train, "except for the fright I gave them, it was worth it all—worth it all, dear St. Michel, to see you from out there." And Jean, looking pensively out of the window, was thinking that since it was safely over, the adventure was one which any youth might be proud to tell to his companions, and which few were fortunate or brave ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... ladie did I spie, That thinking yet on her I burne and quake: On hearbs and flowres she walked pensively; Milde, but yet love she proudly did forsake: White seem'd her robes, yet woven so they were As snow and golde together had been wrought: Above the wast a darke clowde shrouded her. A stinging serpent by the heele her caught; Wherewith she languisht as the gathered ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... now, I'm telling you," Paddy returned, as he pensively rested his cheek upon the bowl of the spoon ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... vision of Prothero returning from all this foreign travel meekly, pensively, a little sadly, and yet not without a kind of relief, to the grey mildness of Trinity. He saw him, capped and gowned, and restored to academic dignity again, nodding greetings, ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... the pistol mechanically, looks long and pensively at it as with a sense of its irrelevance. Gradually his arm droops and lets the pistol fall on the table, and there his hand touches a string of his violin, which yields a little note. Thus reminded of ...
— The Melting-Pot • Israel Zangwill
... years old when her mother died," finished Madge pensively. "Since then poor Tania has had such a dreadful time, living with that wretched old Sal, who has made a regular slavey of her, and she just had to go on with her pretending in order to be able to bear ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... son to forget the name he bore, or the political principles which his uncle, the Emperor, had borne upon his banners throughout Europe. The subsequent life of this child has proved how deep was the impression produced upon his mind, as pensively, silently he listened to the conversation of the statesmen and the generals who often visited his mother's parlor. Lady Blessington about this time visited Hortense, and she gives the following account of the impression which the visit ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... Vermont," said Standon pensively. "No one really knows what he is or where he springs from; yet he always seems to have plenty of money, and apparently the whole of Leroy's ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... his head was a little bag of unleavened bread—drew a square in the sand with his staff, and wrote in it a few words out of the Koran, and then the whole caravan passed over the consecrated spot. A young merchant, a child of the East, as I could tell by his eye and his figure, rode pensively forward on his white snorting steed. Was he thinking, perchance, of his fair young wife? It was only two days ago that the camel, adorned with furs and with costly shawls, had carried her, the beauteous bride, round the walls of the city, while drums and cymbals had sounded, ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... to go to America," said Lord Brompton, pensively, as he entered the familiar library now renovated by the taste of Jawkins. "My views have changed materially on many questions since we last met. I can see that things here are likely to be in a chaotic state for a long time to come, ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... was no danger of customers walking away with his goods, for he left his store-door open to all comers, not once glancing thitherward in the half-hour he sat with us on a stick of timber, in which he pensively carved ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... He used to visit Kovalenko just as he did us. He would arrive, sit down, and remain silent. He would sit quiet, and Varinka would sing to him 'The Winds do Blow,' or would look pensively at him with her dark eyes, or would suddenly go ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... to go out again, she would sit pensively for hours by Arthur's grave, or in passionate grief throw herself upon it and wish that she too might die. It was after one of these paroxysms of despair that Louisa remembered her promise to Arthur, that she would take his letter to his father ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... knowingly. "You think only of your daughter," he said. "What about Saint Harry? He has mad blood in him, too. It is only a few years that he has been a saint; before that the Devil held full sway over him. And," he added pensively, after a moment's cogitation, "there are many lessons one learns from ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... basket in the 'Clouds'! (I must read you that bit of Aristophanes again, by the way.) And believe me, children, I am no warped witness, as far as regards monasteries; or if I am, it is in their favour. I have always had a strong leaning that way; and have pensively shivered with Augustines at St. Bernard; and happily made hay with Franciscans at Fesole; and sat silent with Carthusians in their little gardens, south of Florence; and mourned through many a day-dream, at Melrose and Bolton. But the wonder is always to me, not how much, but how ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... had staggered from the words as if he had struck her, though he had no reason to suspect that. In response she merely said, pensively: "En ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... on a solemn eventide, Soon after He that was our surety died, Two bosom friends, each pensively inclined, The scene of all those sorrows left behind, Sought their own village, busied as they went In musings worthy of the great event: They spake of him they loved, of him whose life, Though blameless, had ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... still a presentiment,' said Mrs. Micawber, pensively shaking her head, 'that my family will appear on board, before ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... my foot, for there is nothing which particularly attracts me. Day before yesterday I ate at Biberich, with the Duke of Nassau, the first fresh herrings and the first strawberries and raspberries of the season. It is certainly a delightful piece of earth along the Rhine, and I looked pensively from the castle windows over to the red cathedral of Mayence, which, almost four years ago, we both went to see very early in the morning, in times for which we were not then sufficiently grateful to God; I remembered how, on board ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... Mr. Banks found his disappointment at not going into Mazatlan languidly shared by Mrs. Brimmer. That lady even made a place for him on the cushions beside her, as she pensively expressed her belief that her husband would be ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... met our gaze. They sat pensively breaking stones in a wide courtyard. A building, with barred windows, threw black shade upon the blazing white ground of this open space; and here, shielded from the sun, the convicts reclined and made a show of work. Jefferson, with rather a lack of delicate feeling, drew up ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... a sad disappointment to all his admirers; but to the astrologer himself, it was a real thunderbolt. He picked up the paper pensively, examined it on both sides, then dashed it on the ground in a fury; and suddenly arising, exclaimed, "My Vidya* is a delusion, and ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... of his heart at the time of writing, and see the varying expressions of his face as he passes from grave to gay, from lively to severe. Now he is tender, now indignant; now rattling along in good-natured raillery without broadening into burlesque; now becoming serious and pensively philosophic without a suggestion of mawkish morality. For Burns, when he is himself, is always an artist; says his say, and lets the moral take care of itself; and in his epistles he lets himself go in a very revelry of artistic abandon. He does not think ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... know; look at Aunt Abby Cole!" said Patty pensively. "Well, it does not seem as if a marriage that isn't good in Riverboro was really decent! How tiresome of Maine to want all those days of public notice; people must so often want to get married in a minute. If I think about anything too ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... finished her cooky, pensively picked up the few crumbs from her lap as though she were still hungry. "I live with Uncle Peter," she corrected. "He is very good to me and gives me pretty presents;—he gave me these on my birthday," and she touched the ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... men had awakened. The Com-tech appeared to accept his bonds philosophically. He was quiet and flat on his back, staring pensively at the ceiling. But the other agent had made a worm's progress half across the room and Rip had to halt in haste to prevent stepping ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... the yard, gazing pensively at the slothful rhododendron while James Ollerenshaw opened his door. She was seen by two electric cars-full of people, for although James's latchkey was very highly polished and the lock well oiled, he never succeeded in ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... returned by the path, which has been described, into the road, and proceeded along it on her return to the city. She did not trip along as briskly and alertly as she had done in coming thither; but walked slowly and pensively with her eyes on the ground. She was thus a good deal longer in returning than in going. And when she had reached the immediate neighbourhood of the city, she turned aside before entering the gate, into a sort of promenade under some trees near the city wall, and sat down on one of the stone benches ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... Orpheus, the melancholy Euripides, and the masculine Sappho. I passed and recognised, as they sat on the bank of a fresh rivulet, the poet Horace, Varius, Gallus, and Lycoris. A little apart, leaning against the trunk of a dark holm-oak, Virgil was gazing pensively at the grove. Of lofty stature, though spare, he still preserved that swarthy complexion, that rustic air, that negligent bearing, and unpolished appearance which during his lifetime concealed his genius. I saluted him piously and remained for a ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... through the rooms and galleries all her childhood came back before her. She recalled her mother, her fond love, and her early death. That mother's picture hung in the great hall, and she gazed at it long and pensively, recalling that noble face, which in her remembrance was always softened by the sweet expression of tenderest love. But it was here that something met her eyes which in a moment chased away every regretful thought and softer feeling, and brought back in fresh vehemence the strong glow ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... Juan confidentially after a short silence, during which his gaze rested pensively on the retreating figures of the girls, "I've just been thinking that there is no happiness for a man, still less for a woman, in a single life. What say you, Rosita mia," he went on, patting her ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... lovely creature, whose name was Gerda, and who is considered as a personification of the flashing Northern lights, vanished within her father's house, and Frey pensively wended his way back to Alfheim, his heart oppressed with longing to make this fair maiden his wife. Being deeply in love, he was melancholy and absent-minded in the extreme, and began to behave so strangely that his father, Nioerd, became greatly alarmed about his health, and ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... a last searching glance, he turned and, facing the rising sun, walked bare-footed on the elastic sand. The trailed butt of his gun made a deep furrow. The embers had ceased to smoulder. He looked down at them pensively for a while, then called over his shoulder to the girl who had remained ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... procrastinated. And then, Sunday morning in church, as she sat pensively wishing for a confidant, it came upon her somewhat startlingly that she already had one: Dr. Vivian was her confidant. Did he not know more about her than anybody ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... the room were watching his placid, shrewd old face. He studied the books for some time and then took a sheet of blank paper from a number of such attached by a string to a corner of the table. He reflected for some minutes, pushing the movable part of his gold pencil in and out pensively as he did so. Then he wrote a number of figures on the sheet of paper and handed it to Cornish. He closed the locked ledger with a snap. The audit of the malgamite books ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... Eva, and smiled so pensively, yet happily. "To-morrow I shall be quite well again!" Her eye seemed to ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... desire to see what was going forward. So out went Mr. Pickwick's head again. The prospect was worse than before. The middle-aged lady had finished arranging her hair; had carefully enveloped it in a muslin nightcap with a small plaited border; and was gazing pensively on the fire. ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... prize, and as I was leaving, the headmaster gave me a second prize. This soothed my hurt feelings, and I remember, just after the 'head' had read out the prizes, on the last day of term, E., coming up to me, putting his arm on my shoulder, looking at me rather pensively, and in a voice that thrilled me and made me wish to kiss and hug him, tell me he was so glad I had got a prize and that it was a shame that other chap had beaten me for ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... sitting near the window—in fact, his chair brushed the hangings. As I sat gazing pensively at the back of his neck, a sudden breeze swayed ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... on a bench near the shore, pensively watching the sun drooping over the misty ramparts of Kew Bridge; she held a closed book in one hand, and by her side lay a sketching-block and a box of colors. She heard the young artist's footsteps, ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... Sacred Writings themselves, considered as the first great poems, leave on record, out of all the rest, the portraiture of a characteristic Oriental Man. Far different from these (and yet, as he says, "the same old countenance pensively looking forth," and "the same red running blood"), "Leaves of Grass" and "Two Rivulets" also bring their contribution; nay, behind every page that is the main purport,—to outline a New World Man and a New World Woman, modern, complete, democratic, ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... herself beside a table and was pensively looking up at him. "Naturally," she said, "Marian and I, between us, will badger you into saving Frank. I shall not worry, therefore, and I must trust to Providence, I suppose, to arrange matters so that the poor boy ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... of cloaks and parasols, at the sacred doors of her lecture-room, imbibe celestial knowledge. From my youth I felt in me a soul above the matter-entangled herd. She revealed to me the glorious fact, that I am a spark of Divinity itself. A fallen star, I am, sir!' continued he, pensively, stroking his lean stomach—'a fallen star!—fallen, if the dignity of philosophy will allow of the simile, among the hogs of the lower world—indeed, even into the hog-bucket itself. Well, after ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... slowly and pensively by little woods and pastures, taking delight in all the quiet life I saw, the bush pricked with points of green, the boughs thickened with small reddening buds, the slow stream moving through the pasture; all the tints faint, airy, and delicate; the life of ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... young woman in the room seated pensively by the stove; but she rose and courteously made ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... commented Ponsonby pensively. "Should an Army follower be hanged or is he entitled to be shot? I put it to you," he added, turning to the Judge-Advocate. ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan |
