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Muse   /mjuz/   Listen
Muse

verb
(past & past part. mused; pres. part. musing)
1.
Reflect deeply on a subject.  Synonyms: chew over, contemplate, excogitate, meditate, mull, mull over, ponder, reflect, ruminate, speculate, think over.  "Philosophers have speculated on the question of God for thousands of years" , "The scientist must stop to observe and start to excogitate"



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"Muse" Quotes from Famous Books



... Pompadour period. There is more than smoke in M. De Banville's ruling inspiration, his lifelong devotion to letters and to great men of letters—Shakespeare, Moliere, Homer, Victor Hugo. These are his gods; the memory of them is his muse. His enthusiasm is worthy of one who, though born too late to see and know the noble wildness of 1830, yet lives on the recollections, and is strengthened by the example, of that revival of letters. Whatever ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang

... not, he was not the only devout poet who, in the early times, with sacred reverence believed the wonders the inspiring muse gave him as from God. It is not clear from the Biblical record that Adam was imagined the first man. On the contrary, the statement that Cain was afraid that those who met him would kill him, also that he went ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... feel a little ashamed of my hero, and could wish, for the credit of my tale, it were not more necessary to invoke the historic muse of Fielding, than that of Homer or Tasso; but imperious Truth obliges me to confess, that Tallien, who is to be the subject of this letter, was first introduced to celebrity by circumstances not favourable for the comment of my ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... of him, that is left vnto vs, is like the halfe face of a Venus, the other part of the head beyng hidden, the bodie and the rest of the members vnbegon, yet so excellentlie done by Apelles, as all men may stand still to mase and muse vpon it, and no man step forth with any hope to performe the like. His seuen bookes de bello Gallico, and three de bello Ciuili, be written, so wiselie for the matter, so eloquentlie for the tong, that neither his greatest enemies could euer finde the least note of parcialitie in ...
— The Schoolmaster • Roger Ascham

... the sea, wears upon its luminous walls small trace of its long history of blood. As we contemplate its mosques and houses flashing their white profiles into the sky, it is impossible not to muse upon the contrast between its radiant and picturesque aspect and its veritable character as the accomplice of every crime and every baseness known to the Oriental mind. To see that sunny city basking between its green hills, you would hardly think of it ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various

... watching the flirtations of thrill-blooded youth, and pale mothers, housed so long with fretful children, turned loose their cares upon the grass. It was a lolling-time, a time to lose one's self in the blue above, or sweetly muse ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read

... Whoe'er laid claim to noble birth Must buy his ancestors a slice, Resolved no nobleman on earth Should overgo him in the price. From which these serious lessons flow:— Fail not your praises to bestow On gods and godlike men. Again, To sell the product of her pain Is not degrading to the Muse. Indeed, her art they do abuse, Who think her wares to use, And yet a liberal pay refuse. Whate'er the great confer upon her, They're honour'd by it while they honour. Of old, Olympus and Parnassus In friendship ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... Danish chiefs, enriched by savage spoil, To Victory's idol vast, an unhewn shrine, Reared the huge heap; or, in thy hallowed round, Repose the kings of Brutus' genuine line; Or here those kings in solemn state were crowned; Studious to trace thy wondrous origin, We muse on many ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook

... heard by him for a long while together; and coming to a place where he thought he heard a great company of fierce opponents (as it were a numerous and influential Deputation, or a prodigious Procession) coming forward to meet him, he stopped, and began to muse what he had best to do. Sometimes he had half a thought to go back; then again he thought he might be half-way through the Valley. He remembered, also, how he had already vanquished many a danger, and that the peril of going back ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various

... them. They soon die quietly of universal neglect. The poetry that ordinarily circulates among a people is poetry of a secondary and conventional sort that propagates established ideas in trite metaphors. Popular poets are the parish priests of the Muse, retailing her ancient divinations to a long since converted public. Plato's quarrel was not so much with poetic art as with ancient myth and emotional laxity: he was preaching a crusade against the established church. For naturalistic ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... mouth, my muse, my pen, and all, Be prest to serve at each good subject's call." Cynthia's ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley

... attempt to write you a letter In verse, tho' in prose I could do it much better; The Muse, this cold weather, sleeps up at Parnassus, And leaves us poor poets as stupid as asses. She'll tarry still longer, if she has a warm chamber, A store of old massie, ambrosia, and amber. Dear mother, don't laugh, you may think she is tipsy And I, if a ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell

... that his son-in-law contemplated maintaining a household on the earnings of his Muse was still matter for pleasantry between the pair; and one of the humours of their first weeks together had consisted in picturing themselves as a primeval couple setting forth across a virgin continent ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... "Rome Revisited." A day or two later he showed this piece of correct and ingenious verse to Isabel, explaining to her that it was an Italian fashion to commemorate the occasions of life by a tribute to the muse. ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James

... blows, you will feel as if convalescent from some debilitating fever; in winter, however, this gentle-breathing south-east wind will act more mildly; it will woo you to the country, induce you to sit down in a shady place, smoke, and 'muse.' That incarnate essence of enterprise, business, industry, economy, sharpness, shrewdness, and keenness—that Prometheus whose liver was torn by the vulture of cent per cent—eternally tossing, restless DOOLITTLE, was one day ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various

... Gray gave birth to a daughter—and died within a fortnight afterward. In all truth, I may say that life, for Billy Gray, ended that day. To lose this tenth muse—I can think of nothing more complete in tragedy except the loss of her father of Marjorie Fleming. And he, like Marjorie Fleming's father, spoke her name no more—until near the end. When after twenty years, his own time came, Stallard, LeBrun ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin

... however, than this dalliance with the Muse. Rochelle was the centre and citadel of Calvinism,—a town of austere and grim aspect, divided, like Cisatlantic communities of later growth, betwixt trade and religion, and, in the interest of both, ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... pockets of the desk, an elegant ruby-tipped pen, and six charming little gilt blank books, marked "My Books," which Mrs. Fitzroy might fill, he said, (he is an Oxford man, and very polite,) "with the delightful productions of her Muse." Besides these books, there was pink paper, paper with crimson edges, lace paper, all stamped with R. F. T. (Rosa Fitzroy Timmins) and the hand and battle-axe, the crest of the Timminses (and borne at Ascalon by Roaldus de Timmins, a crusader, who is now buried in the Temple Church, next to Serjeant ...
— A Little Dinner at Timmins's • William Makepeace Thackeray

... certain grotesque humor in Thor's adventures, which is missed in his mythologic counterpart of the South, Hercules. It is the old rich "world-humor" of the North, genial and broad, which still lives in the creations of the later Teutonic Muse. The dints which Thor made on the mountain-skull of Skrymir were types and forerunners of the later feats of the Teutonic race, performed on the rough, shaggy, wilderness face of this Western hemisphere, channelling it with watery highways, tunnelling ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... is the voice that will not let me rest? I hear it speak. Where is the shore will gratify my quest, Show what I seek? Not yours, weak Muse, to mimic that far voice, With halting tongue; No peace, sweet land, to bid my heart rejoice Your ...
— The Fairy Changeling and Other Poems • Dora Sigerson

... welcome in the enemy's camp. Powder for the guns of his people for certain he will want. Strong wines and waters too, for he, like those of his kind, loves to break the prophet's laws. I will leave you now to sleep and muse upon all this. Mayhap you will find some plan or scheme, as you English call it, that will be better than mine; but something of this sort it must ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn

... Paris had now to decide between the goddesses, he certainly would have awarded you the golden apple," exclaimed the first muse, who never let an opportunity slip to ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour

... pleasure at Margaret's sparkling eyes and rosy cheeks. He had hit on the right thing, evidently. Young people wanted young people; didn't he remember well enough—here he fell into a muse again, and said "Rose!" to himself two or three times. Perhaps he was ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards

... Lawrence surprised him by the inquiry, "George, how would you like to take lessons in the manual exercise of Adjutant Muse?" ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer

... Marija Berczynskas. Marija was one of those hungry souls who cling with desperation to the skirts of the retreating muse. All day long she had been in a state of wonderful exaltation; and now it was leaving—and she would not let it go. Her soul cried out in the words of Faust, "Stay, thou art fair!" Whether it was by beer, or by shouting, ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... with cares and age, And just abandoning the ungrateful stage But you, whom every Muse and Grace adorn, Whom I foresee to better fortune born, Be kind to my remains; and oh, defend Against your judgment your departed friend. Let not the insulting foe my fame pursue, But guard those laurels which ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... water, and where the deathlike stillness of the days and nights was broken by no sound but the softened ringing of church-bells, the rippling of the current, and the cry of the gondoliers turning the corners of the flowing streets, Little Dorrit, quite lost by her task being done, sat down to muse. The family began a gay life, went here and there, and turned night into day; but she was timid of joining in their gaieties, and only asked ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... the Towey, that flows at the foot of the declivity on which this romantic town stands. The sun broke forth, and all at once showed, and burnished while it showed, one of the noblest landscapes in South Wales—not the less attractive for being that which kindled the muse of Dyer—on which the saintly eye of a far greater poet had often reposed—the immortal prose-poet bishop, Jeremy Taylor, a refugee here during the storm of the Civil Wars. Golden Grove, his beautiful ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various

... wandering step have I guided; Children at school have I often taught; Many disputes through me are decided; Oft has my help, though sometimes derided, Even the Muse of ...
— Harper's Young People, January 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... can sit by the fire and sing, Pussy can climb a tree, Or play with a silly old cork and string To 'muse herself, not me. But I like Binkie, my dog, because He knows how to behave; So, Binkie's the same as the First Friend was, And I am the Man ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various

... mufflered and raincoated, still bore the icy chill of the concert hall, a quorum of painters besieged the artist supply stores for the precious remaining tubes of burntumber and scarletlake, while it was presumed that in traditionally unheated garrets orthodox poets nourished their muse on pencil erasers. But all enthusiasm was individual property, the reaction of single persons with excess adrenalin. No common interests united doctor and stockbroker, steelworker and truckdriver, laborer and laundryman, except common fear of the Grass, briefly dormant but ever in the ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... in recalling the brilliant winter of 1804-5, says, in her Memoirs: "One especially impressive beauty, particularly in the ball-room, was Madame de Canisy, I have often compared her to a muse. It would be impossible for a single face to present a fuller combination of charms than hers: she possessed regular features, a delightful expression, an attractive smile; her hair was silky and glossy. Seldom have I seen anything ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand

... "Peace to thine eagle-borne Dead nestling, and this honor after death, Following thy will! but, O my Queen, I muse Why ye not wear on arm, or neck, or zone, Those diamonds that I rescued from the tarn, And Lancelot won, methought, for thee ...
— The Last Tournament • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... hacking of their teeth, With wringing hands, and fearful cries, Expostulate their grief. 84. O set their teeth they will, and gnash, And gnaw for very pain, While as with scorpions God doth lash Them for their life so vain. 85. Again, still as they in this muse, Are feeding on the fire, To mind there comes yet other news, To screw their torments higher. 86. Which is the length of this estate, Where they at present lie; Which in a word I thus relate, 'Tis to eternity. 87. This thought now is ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... favorite voice to greet me; But yet I know that none are near, Save stranger forms, to meet me. I'll sit me down,—for I have not Sat here since first I started To run life's race,—and on this spot Will muse of the departed. Then I was young, and on my brow The rays of hope were shining; But Time hath there his imprint now, That tells of life's declining. How great the change!-though I can see Full many a thing I cherished- Yet, since beneath yon old oak tree I stood, how much ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams

... flaring o'er the way, Invites each passing stranger that can pay; Where Calvert's butt, and Parsons' black champagne, Regale the drabs and bloods of Drury-lane; There in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug, 5 The Muse found Scroggen stretch'd beneath a rug; A window, patch'd with paper, lent a ray, That dimly show'd the state in which he lay; The sanded floor that grits beneath the tread; The humid wall with paltry pictures spread: 10 The royal game of goose was there in view, And the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... sunny, soft, and still, The Muse shall lead thee to the beech-grown hill, To spend in tea the cool, refreshing hour, Where nods in air the pensile, nest-like bower; Or where the hermit hangs the straw-clad cell, Emerging gently from the leafy dell, By fancy ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White

... James Macdonald obtained the same tribute. The second of these Highland favourites could not make his manly countenance, or stalwart arm, visible in hall, barge, or battle,[19] without exciting the enthusiastic strain of the enamoured muse of one sex, or of the admiring minstrel of the other. In this department of poetry, some of the best proficients were women. Of these Mary M'Leod, the contemporary of Ian Lom, is one of the most musical and elegant. Her chief, The M'Leod, was the grand theme of her inspiration. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... that the good men won. And, sitting, a Muse upon her mythical mountain, her decision must needs be one from which we may not appeal: and yet I wonder if she is ever bribed. Certainly the shrewd sense of Morano erred for once; for those for whom he had predicted victory, because they prepared ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany

... need to push matters to extremity, between us, Captain Ludlow," resumed the stranger who had appeared to muse for a moment, "If I have baffled your pursuit once to-day, it was perhaps to make my merit in entering the ship freely, less undeniable. We are here alone, and your Honor will account it no boasting, if I say that a man, well limbed and active, who stands six feet between plank and earline, is not ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... hear of it. I confess I am anxious about his situation. The man has a family, and in these troublesome times, I wish he were at home to mind his trade and his fireside, for I think he has travelled more than his fortune can well bear. Present my respects to Madam and the virgin muse. I got many little pieces addressed to me while near the Court, but I ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various

... man. Drinking songs and table songs do not belong to the highest flights of poetry; but if the delights of friendly meetings and greetings belong to some of the brightest moments of human happiness, why should a poet hold them to be beneath his muse? There is something especially German in all drinking songs, and no other nation has held its wine in such honor. Can one imagine English poems on port and sherry? or has a Frenchman much to tell us of his Bordeaux, or even of his Burgundy? The reason that the poetry of wine ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller

... warmth I muse upon my eccentric friend, and cannot help asking myself this question: Did he really replace the gilded image of the god Mercurius with the rest of the treasures? He seemed to do so; and yet I could not testify to the fact. Probably, ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy

... muse is hard beset, For something followed such as never yet Was writ or sung, by human voice or hand, Save those that tell old tales from Fairyland. "Miracles do not happen:"—'t is plain sense, If you italicize the present tense; But in ...
— Gawayne And The Green Knight - A Fairy Tale • Charlton Miner Lewis

... peradventure to the lees, For one dear instant disimmortalised In giving immortality! So dream the gods upon their listless thrones. Yet sometimes, when the votary appears, With death-affronting forehead and glad eyes, Too young, they rather muse, too frail thou art, And shall we rob some girl of saffron veil And nuptial garland for so slight a thing? And so to their incurious ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton

... of the virtuous Sleepless night Smoky receptacle cherishing millions Terrible decree, that all must act who would prevail Vowed never more to repeat that offence to his patience Was not one of the order whose Muse is the Public Taste Wife and no wife, a prisoner in liberty Women are taken to be the second thoughts of the Creator World is ruthless, dear friends, because the world is hypocrite World prefers decorum to honesty Yawns coming alarmingly fast, ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger

... Thus did she muse, gazing questioningly at the whiteness of the altar flowers and those steady tongues of flame, hearing the silence, as of reverent waiting, which dwelt in the place. But, on the other hand, to give, in this her hour of weakness, that which she had refused in the hours ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... feet, until He calls you up higher. Be kind and gentle to your sister Esther." To her Pastor she said: "Preach the Gospel uncolored!" We look upon the sinking form of a dear wife and mother, or brother, or sister, or husband, or friend, and as we sadly muse upon the fact that we held sweet counsel together and walked to the House of God in company; and we softly whisper to the physician is there no hope of recovery? Can you not save that young and precious life, so dear to us, so gentle, so loving, so kind, so sympathetic, ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles

... frontier rendered war inevitable, and he accordingly made ready for the future by preparing his brother for the career of a soldier, so far as it could be done. He brought to Mount Vernon two old companions-in-arms of the Carthagena time, Adjutant Muse, a Virginian, and Jacob Van Braam, a Dutch soldier of fortune. The former instructed Washington in the art of war, tactics, and the manual of arms, the latter in fencing and the sword exercise. At the same ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge

... the Muse's path to tread, And curs'd with Adam's unpoetic head, Who, though that pen he wielded in his hand Ordain'd the Wealth of Nations to command; Yet when on Helicon he dar'd to draw, His draft return'd and unaccepted saw. If thus like him we lay a rune in ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae

... childern jest as white as snow, and pretty as rosebuds, took after their fathers I s'pose. But I don't believe in a mixin' of the races. And when I see 'em a kissin' the pretty babys, I begun to muse a very little on the feelin's of the indignent South, at havin' a colered girl set in the same car with 'em, or on a bench ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley

... the Stevensons, was not, like his, tuneful: though his father was imaginative, diverting himself with daydreams; and his uncle, Alan Stevenson, the builder of Skerryvore, yielded to the fascinations of the religious Muse. A volume of verse was the pledge of this dalliance. His mother, who gave him her gay indifference to discomfort and readiness for travel, also read to him, in his childhood, much good literature; for not till he was eight years of age was he an unreluctant reader—which ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... masters of imagination have seldom resorted to the vague and the unreal as sources of effect. They have not used dread and horror alone, but only in combination with other qualities, as means of subjugating the fancies of their readers. The loftiest muse has ever a household and fireside charm about her. Mr. Poe's secret lies mainly in the skill with which he has employed the strange fascination of mystery and terror. In this his success is so great and striking as to deserve the name of art, not ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... Diodati—and I muse to tell the tale— This stubborn I, that Love was wont despise And make a laughter of his snares, unwise, Am fallen—where honest feet will sometimes fail. Not golden tresses, not a cheek vermeil, Dazzle me thus; but, in a new-world guise, A foreign Fair my heart beatifies— With mien where ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald

... Somerset began to muse on the probability or otherwise of the backsliding Baptist and this young lady resulting in one and the same person; and almost without knowing it he found himself deeply hoping for such a unity. The object of his inspection was idly leaning, and this somewhat disguised her figure. It might ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... criticism and her lips were fresh and creamy red—but Mr. Lushington wished she would not do it. The muses are never represented 'biting their lips'; and in his moments of enthusiasm he liked to think that Margaret was his muse. She had thick brown hair that waved naturally, but made no little curls and baby ringlets, such as some young women have, or make. The line of her hair along her forehead and temples, though curved, was rather severe. She ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford

... modes of trial; we forget the murderer, and see something like a hero. It is curious to observe, that the legislature in Germany, and in England, have found it necessary to interfere as to the representation of Captain Mac Heath and the Robbers; two characters in which the tragic and the comic muse have had powerful effects in exciting imitation. George Barnwell is a hideous representation of ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth

... splendid silk before turning into a vigorous moth which can use its wings to some purpose. But I fear that I did not act like a person who felt interested in the subject; for, even while I tried to listen, I began to muse. ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn

... symphony. A symphony of San Francisco Bay. Why shouldn't the composers put it into music. We're sick of the song of the huntsman by the brasses, the strings and the wood instruments. With Whitman we exclaim: "Come, Muse, migrate from Aeonia," and come out here to the West, and conserve the symphony of the bay which is already composed ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey

... hatred against Napoleon Bonaparte. Again and again he invoked the Muse against the world conqueror. Thus he wrote to Landor in 1814: "For five years I have been preaching the policy, the duty, the necessity of declaring Bonaparte under the ban of human nature." Under this stress of feeling ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... won't meet, and your name you won't tell, nor where you come from—only that you've been swimming. 'Swimming,' good Lord! You didn't swim from France, I take it." He flicked his whip and fell into a muse. "And I'm a Justice of the Peace, and the Lord knows what I'm compounding with." He mused again. "Tell you what I'll do," he exclaimed; "I'll take you up to Lydia's as I promised. If Whitmore's there, you shan't meet him ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... satisfied that the gaff is ready to hand, and everything in the boat shipshape for action. As it was after luncheon to-day, you think of anything but a fish taking hold; you swish on monotonously and mechanically; you muse of friends at home and abroad, of the sport you enjoyed yesterday or the day before, of chances lost, perhaps even of your general career through either a well-ordered or misspent life as the case may happen to be; and then, hey presto! you are startled, brought up with a round ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior

... irritable man in a crowd, he resents those inconveniences to which men of equanimity submit, not as a matter of choice, indeed, but as a point of necessity. The greater correctness of this piece may be owing to the lapse of nine months (an unusual term of repose for the muse of Moliere) betwixt the appearance of "L'Amour Medecin" and that of the "Misanthrope." Yet this chef-d'oeuvre was at first coldly received by the Parisian audience, and to render it more attractive, Moliere was compelled to attach to its representation ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

... suspense that would be intolerable in prose is tolerable in the introduction to a poem. See the long interval at the beginning of Paradise Lost between "Of man's first disobedience" and "Sing, heavenly Muse." Compare also the beginning ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott

... to whom the indulgent Muse Vouchsafes a portion of celestial fire; Nor blame the partial fates, if they refuse The imperial banquet, and the rich attire. Know thine own worth, and reverence the lyre. Wilt thou debase the heart which God refined? No; let thy ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie

... fame he despatched his brother Theodorus to Olympia, with orders to repeat there in public, some verses in his name, in competition with some other poets for the poetical prize: the people, however, had too much taste to endure them, and rewarded his muse with groans and hisses. At Athens, however, he had better success; for he obtained the prize there for a composition which he sent in his name, but which was chiefly written by Antiphon, the son of Sophocles, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various

... me of the prodigious activity of your Muse obliges me to make a somewhat shameful acknowledgment of my relative slowness and idleness. The pupil is far from the master in this as in other points. Nevertheless I think I have made a better use of the last three years than of the preceding ones; for one thing I have gone through ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated

... the secret panel was the work of but a minute. Here he paused and listened lest a Wieroo might be visiting the prison in search of him or the other inmate; but no sound came from the gloomy interior. Bradley could not but muse upon the joy of the man on the opposite side when he should drop down to him with food and a new hope for escape. Then he opened the panel and looked into the room. The faint light from the grating above revealed the pile of rags in one corner; but the man lay beneath them, he made no response ...
— Out of Time's Abyss • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... small hill now called Monte Rotondo. We may take our Horace from our pocket, and feel, as with our Wordsworth at Dove Cottage, with our Scott at Ashestiel, that we are gazing on the hills, the streams, and valleys, which received the primal outpourings of their muse, and are for ever vocal ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell

... she carries, announce her nobility. How splendid and commanding her appearance; and with what accuracy is the costume of the age she lived in observed! But Mary did not only possess a most refined taste, she had also to boast of a mind of sensibility. The English muse seems to have inspired her; all her subjects are sad and melancholy; she appears to have designed to melt the hearts of her readers, either by the unfortunate situation of her hero, or by some truly ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham

... of the Vale of Llangollen certainly exceed every idea I had formed of their grandeur, and on my arrival at the inn in the village, the muse embodied ...
— The "Ladies of Llangollen" • John Hicklin

... opinion upon a favorite picture, Mr. Ruskin indulged in one of those pleasantries which now and again we observe in his informal letters, though seldom, if ever, in his serious writings. In the margin, below the canceled passage, he wrote boldly: "Sacrificed to the Muse of Prudence. J. R."[F] ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin

... stone, and stonier faces— Some from library windows wan Forth on her gardens, her green spaces, Peer and turn to their books anon. Hence, my Muse, from the green ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various

... the Cup and the Ball; Dear to little and great, to the fools and the wise; Charming game! where the cure of all tedium lies; When we toss up the ball on the point of a stick Palamedus himself might have envied the trick; O Muse of the Loves and the Laughs and the Games, Come down and assist me, for, true to your aims, I have ruled off this paper in syllable squares. Come, ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac

... series of these Tales, a roguish sample of the works of that merry Muse, born ages ago, in our fair land of Touraine, the which Muse is a good wench, and knows by heart that fine saying of her friend Verville, written in Le Moyen de Parvenir: It is only necessary to be bold to obtain favours. Alas! mad little one, get thee to bed again, sleep; thou art panting ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... lordly crowd I muse, Which haunts the Royal festive hours, The day has come when I've put on The crown of fairest ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various

... I am no muse. Listen to your inspiration comfortably, Ribalta," replied, with a laugh, he whom the vendor of old books received with such original unconstraint. He was evidently accustomed to the eccentricities of the strange merchant. In Rome—for this scene ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget

... we consider the merits of the original or of the translation, the world has but little to regret in the loss. Aristaenetus is one of those weak, florid sophists, who flourished in the decline and degradation of ancient literature, and strewed their gaudy flowers of rhetoric over the dead muse of Greece. He is evidently of a much later period than Alciphron, to whom he is also very inferior in purity of diction, variety of subject, and playfulness of irony. But neither of them ever deserved to be wakened from that sleep, in which the commentaries of Bergler, De Pauw, and a ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore

... has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson

... upon which men have gazed with longing admiration, and designated the emblem of 'all beauty and all love,' should have impressed Milton's poetical imagination with its charming appearance, and stimulated the flow of his captivating muse. He addresses ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard

... when they had got a glass of the punch, their heels showed their mettle, and grannies danced with their oyes, holding out their hands as if they had been spinning with two rocks. I told Colin Mavis, the poet, than an INFARE was a fine subject for his muse; and soon after he indited an excellent ballad under that title, which he projects to publish, with other ditties, by subscription; and I have no doubt a liberal and discerning public will give him all manner of encouragement, ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt

... Then may all men lay down their arms, and peace Through all the nations reign, and shut the gates That close the temple of the God of War. Be thou my help, to me e'en now divine! Let Delphi's steep her own Apollo guard, And Nysa keep her Bacchus, uninvoked. Rome is my subject and my muse ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... sire; your majesty has graciously permitted me to enter the lists as knight and champion of German literature, and sometimes to defend the German Muse, who stands unnoticed and unknown under the shadow of your throne; while the French lady, with her brilliant attire and painted cheeks, is always welcomed. I beg your majesty to believe that, although this romance may have done some ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... there's something lacking in them," snapped Miss Mallowcoid, looking as unlike a poetical muse as it was ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici

... was lovable, and he made it the theme of his noblest poems, his subtilest philosophies, and his highest Art. Hence the infinite joy and endless laughter on Olympus, the day-long feasting, the silver stir of strings in the hollow shell of the exquisite Phoebus, "the soft song of the Muse with voices sweetly replying." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various

... Wellesleigh. About a hundred years nearer to our own times, viz. in 1239, came Michael de Wellesleigh; of whom the important fact is recorded, that he was the father of Wellerand de Wellesley. And what did young Mr. Wellerand perform in this wicked world, that the proud muse of history should condescend to notice his rather singular name? Reader, he was—'killed:' that is all; and in company with Sir Robert de Percival; which again argues his Somersetshire descent: for the family of Lord Egmont, the ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey

... was performed, in his letters to Godwin; and that his description of Godwin's deportment, of his own feelings, and of the behaviour of the audience on the memorable night that witnessed its utter failure, has bequeathed to us a comedy over which the tragic Muse herself ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... morning this winged horse appeared at the fountain of the Muses on Mount Helicon. The laughing Thalia, the Muse of Comedy, saw him as she dropped from the sky. Dancing Terpsichore tried to take him by the mane, but the white wings flashed in her face and the wonderful steed was gone before ...
— Classic Myths • Retold by Mary Catherine Judd

... without the sanction or the supervision of the luckless author; and from the sale of the book he obtained no profit. Leonora d'Este died upon February 10, 1581. A volume of elegies appeared on this occasion; but Tasso's Muse uttered no sound.[54] He wrote to Panigarola that 'a certain tacit repugnance of his genius' forced him to be mute.[55] His rival Guarini undertook a revised edition of his lyrics in 1582. Tasso had to bear ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... would send in Mrs. Crabtree with her tawse!" said Rosamond. "But is it right by Raymond to let his wife bring this Yankee muse to talk her nonsense in ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... generalities of poetry; and I know your precaution enough to know that you will screen yourself in them against any direct charge of heterodoxy. But the great clamour of all will be raised when you descend lower, and let your Muse loose among the herd of mankind. Then will those powers of dulness whom you have ridiculed into immortality be called forth in one united phalanx against you. But why do I talk of what may happen? You ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke

... gloomy gaze, was an entirely different person from the gay enthusiastic follower of art, for whom her awakening heart had first throbbed more quickly; this was not the future master, who stood before her mind as a glorious favorite of fortune and the muse, transfigured by joyous creation and lofty success—this defiant giant did not look like an artist. No, no; yonder man no longer resembled the Ulrich, to whom, in the happiest hour of her life, she had so willingly, almost too willingly, offered her ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... British Muse, Where English thoughts could English dress refuse, Were once presented to another press, Though thence borne back, as hopeless of success. What honest critic e'er could credit eligible, Riddles to his researches ...
— A Minniature ov Inglish Orthoggraphy • James Elphinston

... of epic poetry, rests for a moment the long trumpet whose epic strains are wont to stir the courage of men. Polymnia, the muse of sacred poetry, leans upon the lyre whose vibrant strings thrill the gentler emotions of ...
— Raphael - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... audience for whom the Baroni family cared was the foreign manager, young, generous, and speculative, whom they had evidently without intention already pleased, and whose good opinion they resolved to-night entirely to secure. And in this they perfectly succeeded. Josephine was a tragic muse; all of them, even to little Carlotta, performed as if their destiny depended on the die. Baroni would not permit the children's box to be carried round to-night, as he thought it an unfair tax on the generous stranger, whom he did not the less please by this well-bred abstinence. As for the mediaeval ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli

... You muse like this very often when you ride out and meet lumbering military trains going back to Tientsin, laden with countless chests of loot. What immense quantities of things have been taken! Every place of importance, indeed, has been picked as ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale

... die Nachtgeraeusche, Muse, Die ans Ohr des Schlummerlosen fluten!— Erst das traute Wachtgebell der Hunde, Dann der abgezaehlte Schlag der Stunde, Dann ein Fischer-Zwiegespraech am Ufer, 5 Dann? Nichts weiter als der ungewisse Geisterlaut der ungebrochnen Stille, Wie das Atmen eines jungen Busens, Wie das Murmeln eines ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various

... difficult to discern the precise boundaries of fact and fiction. The chronicler might innocently encroach sometimes on the province of the poet, and the poet occasionally draw the theme of his visions from the pages of the chronicler. Such, in fact, was the case; and the romantic Muse of Italy, then coming forth in her glory, did little more than give a brighter flush of color to the chimeras of real life. The characters of living heroes, a Bayard, a Paredes, and a La Palice, readily supplied her with the elements ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott

... men to the public service through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it finally died out with Constance de Theis, Princesse de Salm, who was known under the Directory and the Empire in Paris as the 'Muse of Reason,' and the 'Boileau of Women,' and with her nephew, the last Baron de Theis, one of the most charming of men, and one of the most conscientious and accurate of archaeologists and collectors. The baron died in 1874. The 'objets d'art et de haute curiosite,' brought ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... rhymes upon the lunar lady of Notts are supposed to have been the first twitter of his muse, he has said himself, "My first dash into poetry was as early as 1800. It was the ebullition of a passion for my first cousin, Margaret Parker. I was then about twelve, she rather older, perhaps a year." And it is curious to remark, that in his description of ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt

... only in the afternoon to Leipsic, where he remained scarcely an hour. He then returned to Rotha.—Beitzke, vol. ii.] The emperor took that presented to him, and pressed it with a quick and graceful movement on Blucher's head. "I represent the Muse of History," he said, "and crown 'Marshal Forward' in ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach

... for this delightful monastery of Valdemosa. I shall live, muse, and write in the cell of some old monk who may have had more fire in his heart than I, and was obliged to hide and smother it, not being able to make use ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger." When Margaret Greylston came across that verse, she closed her Bible, and sat down beside the window to muse. "Ah," she thought, "how true is that saying of the wise man! If I had only from the first given John soft answers, instead of grievous words, we might now have been at peace. I knew his quick temper so well; I should have been ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous

... water, still manage, before they are through, to get all the participants into it. We have widows' and widowers' picnics, a kind of reunion for the encouragement of mutual consolation, where, meandering through green fields and under nodding boughs, they can talk or muse upon the virtues of the "dear departed," and the probable merits of the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various

... are young!" He said this in despair. Then he went on in an audible muse. "When people are young they are not only in their own youth; they are in the youth of the world, the race. They dine, but they don't think of the dinner or the unpleasantness of the diners, and the grotesqueness of feeding in common. They think—" he broke off in defect of other ideas, and ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells

... lie languid and dreamy before our tent and muse on the past and the future, and when most overcome with lassitude, my eyes turned always toward the distant Black Hills. There is a spirit of energy and vigor in mountains, and they impart it to all who approach their presence. At that time I did not know how many dark superstitions ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... Williams, I know—but he laughs so much! Of course there isn't any comparison. Mr. Kinosling talks so intellectually; it's a good thing for Margaret to hear that kind of thing, for a change and, of course, he's very spiritual. He seems very much interested in her." She paused to muse. "I think Margaret likes him; he's so different, too. It's the third time he's dropped ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington

... frae behint the dark billow, The slow sinking moon half illumined the scene; As I lifted my head frae my care-haunted pillow, An' wander'd to muse on the days that were gane. Sweet hope seem'd to smile o'er ideas romantic, An' gay were the dreams that my soul would beguile; But my eyes fill'd wi' tears as I view'd the Atlantic, An' thought on my Mary of ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... thing. We'll think, and talk things over, and plan. My world is a broader and saner world than yours is, Susan, and when I take you there you will be as honored and as readily accepted as any woman among them all. My wife will set me free—-" he fell into a muse, as they walked along the quiet country road, and Susan, her brain a mad whirl of thoughts, did not interrupt him. "I believe she will set me free," he said, "as soon as she knows that my happiness, and all my life, depend ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... most extensive province, had been unaccountably neglected. No definition had spoken of the landscape-gardener as of the poet; yet it seemed to my friend that the creation of the landscape-garden offered to the proper Muse the most magnificent of opportunities. Here, indeed, was the fairest field for the display of imagination in the endless combining of forms of novel beauty; the elements to enter into combination being, by a vast superiority, the most ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... write, I swear it—she, my faery, my Muse, my Egeria, she to whom I desired to look up in adoration to the last drawing of ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann

... As I muse, and, thinking, Grow amazed—bewildered with a strange delight, My faith is roused, my spirit seemeth drinking A foretaste of that ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... of Cumberland, Mrs. Yates, the actress, sat to Romney for a picture of the 'Tragic Muse.' Of course, this work was completely eclipsed by Reynolds's 'Tragic Muse,' painted some thirteen years later. Notwithstanding the demerits of the President's picture, the plagiarism of the pose and draperies from Michael Angelo's Joel in the Capella Sistina, the incongruities of ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook

... too late. I'm tired." The motions of Aurora's fingers were suspended among the strands of her hair. She fell into a muse. "Seeing Tom"—she came out of it again, and went on braiding—"has brought back, along with some things I never want to forget, such a lot of things I don't want to ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall

... Level with those of the highest Rank; and his good Nature is a sufficient Warrant against the Want of those who are so unhappy as to be in the very lowest. One may say of him, as Pindar bids his Muse say ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... The muse of history recorded no names of Jewish women from the destruction of the Temple to the eleventh century. Yet the student cannot fail to assign the remarkable preservation of the race to woman's gentle, quiet, though paramount influence by the side of the earnest tenacity of men. Among Jews leisure, ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles

... behind, A selfish, sordid, money-getting kind, Who shut their ears when holy Freedom calls. I pass not thee so lightly, humble spire, That mindest me of many a pleasure gone, Of merriest days, of love and Islington, Kindling anew the flames of past desire; And I shall muse on thee, slow journeying on, To the green plains of ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... fine conceptions, and composed one admirable tragedy; Sheridan sketched some brilliant satires; Miss Baillie delineated the passions with epic power; and genius of the highest order in our times, that of Byron and Bulwer, has endeavoured to revive the tragic muse in these islands. But the first declared that he wrote his dramatic pieces with no design whatever to their representation, but merely as a vehicle of noble sentiments in dialogue of verse; and the second is too ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... which looked very promising for gold but diamonds! Was it possible? Choosing a spot among the rocks where he was somewhat sheltered from the sun and could command a view of the little pool and its approaches, he sat down to muse over the story and to await the chance of a possible shot. A couple of hours passed. The stillness and intense heat combined to make him drowsy, and he woke with a start to find he had been dreaming of diamonds as big as tennis balls. "Bad sportsman," he yawned. "I shall ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell

... He sought her with all the ardour of the bridegroom in the ballad of "The Mistletoe Bough," and with more success. Madame Ling was reading a novel at home. Mr. Carlyle has quoted Tobias Smollett as to the undesirability of giving the historical muse that latitude which is not uncommon in France, and we prefer to leave the tale of Ling's where Mr. Carlyle left that ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang

... "Ah, Muse! You dare not claim A nobler man than he— Nor nobler man hath less of blame, Nor blameless man hath purer name, Nor purer name hath grander ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... Greeks, to be seen at Cortona, reveals the exquisite perfection to which this branch was also brought. It is a painting in encaustic, and has been used as a door for his oven by the contadino who dug it up—yet it remains a marvel of genius. The subject is a female head—a muse, or perhaps only a portrait; the delicacy and mellowness of the flesh tints equal those of Raphael or Leonardo, and a lock of hair lying across her breast is so exquisitely painted that it seems to move with her breath. The features are of the large-eyed ...
— Fra Bartolommeo • Leader Scott (Re-Edited By Horace Shipp And Flora Kendrick)

... has become a reality to the mind; but as yet the Affections do not warm towards it, and so it dies in the second stage of existence. Yet, again, we listen to the voice of the preacher, and his words abide in the soul until they quicken our Affections, and as we muse the fire burns. Then are our eyes lightened to perceive how all that we have heard may become realized in life; and warmed by the heavenly flame that has descended upon our altar, our souls kindle with charity, and we go forth to realize the ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler

... His wife, who died in 1672, was a woman of quaint learning and quainter verses, which her contemporaries admired beyond measure. One of her books was republished in London, with the title: "The Tenth Muse, lately sprung up in America." John Norton once said that if Virgil could only have heard the seraphic poems of Anne Bradstreet, he would have thrown his heathen doggerel into the fire. She was sister of Joseph Dudley, and evidently ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske

... soldier's tomb You wove th' unfinish'd wreath of saddest hues; And to that holier chaplet added bloom, Besprinkling it with Jordan's cleansing dews. But lo! your Henderson awakes the Muse— His spirit beckon'd from the mountain's height! You left the plain, and soar'd mid richer views. So Nature mourn'd, when sank the first day's light, With stars, unseen before, ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge

... rambled about the fields where I fancied Goldsmith had rambled. I explored merry Islington; ate my solitary dinner at the Black Bull, which according to tradition was a country seat of Sir Walter Raleigh, and would sit and sip my wine and muse on old times in a quaint old room, where many a council had ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... suggest that Sir John should devote all that money he proposes to make by the aid of his familiar spirit—the ghost of Narcisse—to the building of a temple in honour of the tenth muse, the muse of cookery," said Mrs. Sinclair; "and what do you think, Sir John, of a name I dreamt of last night for your sauce, 'The New Century ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters



Words linked to "Muse" :   theologise, question, Thalia, premeditate, Urania, wonder, cogitate, Euterpe, germ, seed, Greek deity, Clio, musing, theologize, calliope, Melpomene, terpsichore, bethink, Erato, study, Polyhymnia, think, cerebrate, source, introspect, consider, puzzle



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