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More "Pondering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of such feelings that he went out on the afternoon just alluded to. Still, no settled plan of reformation had been formed in his mind, for the discouraging question would constantly arise while pondering gloomily over his condition and the condition of ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... moves the plumed hearse, the mourning train,— I mark the sad procession with a sigh, Silently passing to that village fane, Where, HAROLD, thy forefathers mouldering lie;— There sleeps THAT MOTHER, who with tearful eye, Pondering the fortunes of thy early road, Hung o'er the slumbers of thine infancy; Her son, released from mortal labour's load, Now comes to rest, with her, in ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... found: How, on his arm, by night and day, I, then a happy infant, lay, And taught him not to mourn, but pray. How, when, at length, he reach'd his home, His heart foretold a gentle doom; With tears of fondness in his eyes, Hoping to cause a glad surprize; Full of submission, pondering o'er What he too lightly priz'd before; The curse with tenfold vengeance fell.— Those who had lov'd him once so well, In whose indulgence perfect trust Had still been wise, though most unjust, Were in the grave!—Their hearts were cold! ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... knew the constitution. They were parties to it. They had sifted it, clause by clause, in their State conventions. They had weighed its words in the balance—they had tested them as by fire; and finally, after long pondering, they adopted the constitution. And afterward, self-moved, they ceded the ten miles square, and declared the cession made "in pursuance of" that oft-cited clause, "Congress shall have power to exercise exclusive legalisation in all cases whatsoever ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... And each pondering his own thoughts, sombre or glad, they continued to walk shoulder to shoulder, absorbed and so absent in mind that the Place Vendome, silent and bathed in a blue and chilly light, rang under their steps before a word had ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... and ate (certainly) plainer food, for lack of richer. These were the people Lucy knew. Her father himself had been of these. She now found her tent pitched among the prosperous; and the study of them touched her wide gaze with a new, pondering look. Denis hadn't any use for cranks. None of his set were socialists, vegetarians, Quakers, geniuses, anarchists, drunkards, poets, anti-breakfasters, or anti-hatters; none of them, in fine, the sort of person Lucy was used to. They never ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... pondering deeply as to how this might be prevented. But I am not of a mechanical turn naturally, so I could conceive no remedy save that of putting a plate of iron on the keel; but as we had no iron, I knew not what ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... Walter Raleigh, Briton of the truest type, When that too devoted valet Quenched your first-recorded pipe, Were you pondering the opinion, As you watched the airy coil, That the virtue of Virginia Might ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... to a quite unusual degree. Decidedly Mr. Turner was being "cut," and he wondered why. Presently he strode down to the road and looked up over the hill in the direction he knew Hollis Creek Inn to be. He was still pondering the probable distance when Mr. Westlake and Billy and young Princeman came up ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... country were pondering his deserts, and his ability for still greater responsibilities. The result of this deliberation was the passage of the act, approved March 1, 1864, reestablishing the grade of lieutenant-general in the regular army. The next day President Lincoln nominated General ...
— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen
... And Jim Burdon, pondering what he had seen, withdrew himself from hiding and went off to report to Macklin that Charley Hannaford had an accomplice, that the pair were laying snares on the White Rock, and that a little caution would lay ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... kings of the world, and conceited, successful people generally, to measure themselves against the great powers of the universe, to humble their pride by contemplation of the fixed stars; but a too humble attitude toward the Infinite, a too constant pondering upon eternity, is not good for us, unless, so to say, we can live with them as friends, with the inspiring feeling that, little as we may seem, there is that in us which is no less infinite, no less cosmic, and that our passions and dreams have, as Mr. William Watson puts it, 'a relish ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... long way back," said Lucetta, the difficulty of explaining herself satisfactorily to the pondering one beside her growing more apparent at each syllable. "You remember that trying case of conscience I told you of some time ago—about the first lover and the second lover?" She let out in jerky phrases a leading word or two of the story ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... of a mulatto,—replied quietly that he could make no promises or arrangements whilst confined on board, but if allowed to go ashore, he would fulfil his obligation in two or three days. An hour was spent by the Frenchman in pondering on the proposal; when it was finally agreed that the Mongo should be set at liberty, provided he left, as hostages, four of his children and two of the black chiefs who visited him in my boat. The compact was sealed by the hoisting of a flag ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... mus'd; For I therein, methought, in its own hue Beheld our image painted: steadfastly I therefore por'd upon the view. As one Who vers'd in geometric lore, would fain Measure the circle; and, though pondering long And deeply, that beginning, which he needs, Finds not; e'en such was I, intent to scan The novel wonder, and trace out the form, How to the circle fitted, and therein How plac'd: but the flight was not for my wing; Had not a flash darted athwart my mind, And in the spleen unfolded ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... as she sat pondering what had passed between them, altogether unaware of her own weakness, she was suddenly seized with the ambition—in its inward relations the same as his—of converting him to her belief. The purpose justified an interest in him beyond what gratitude obligated, and was in part the ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... his bucket pondering over the awfulness of it and sucking his pipe long after it had been smoked out. The Dean's car drove into the yard and the chauffeur, stripping off his coat, prepared to clean ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... cutting room, while Morris sat down in the nearest chair, dazed to the point of temporary aphasia. For five minutes he sat still, endeavouring to trace the intricacies of a discussion that had put him so decisively in the wrong, and he was still pondering the matter when the elevator door opened and ...
— Abe and Mawruss - Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter • Montague Glass
... brow but brightening eyes, "you are told truly. It was only the other day that I was pondering over that truth." ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was of no use to the wild flowers; and they stood all day pondering as to what they should do. When the sun went down, they closed their petals to go to sleep, but they dreamt all night of their seed and next morning ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... of apprehension, blurring his vision. The bag must have fallen here in Elbow Barren. Subconsciously he stopped the stage. On the right the dwelling of the Hatburns showed vaguely through the mist. No one else could have been on the road. A troubled expression settled on his glowing countenance, a pondering doubt; then his mouth drew into ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... I murmured; but while I affected still to be pondering this subject doubtfully, Wesley came up from the ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... do that to yourself if you go on like that," returned Corrie. "But, I say, Alice, cheer up," (here he rolled round on his other side,) "I've been pondering a plan all this time to set us free, and now I'm going to try it. The only bother about it is that these rascally savages have dropt me beside a pool of half soft mud that I can't help sticking my head into if I try ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... to ask you after all to pass a tranquil hour with me in pondering a quiet chapter in the history of books. There is a loud cry in these days for clues that shall guide the plain man through the vast bewildering labyrinth of printed volumes. Everybody calls for hints what to read, and what to look out for in reading. Like all the rest of us, I have often ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... dependency and her poverty, she had known some light-hearted hours. Now, where was she to go? and what was she to do with her life? She stood with the autumn wind blowing about her—the fallen chestnut leaves drifting to her feet—pondering ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... scanty fare, excessive toil, and broken sleep were telling ominously on the strength of the garrison when, on the ninth of May, Murray, as he sat pondering over the fire at his quarters in St. Louis Street, was interrupted by an officer who came to tell him that there was a ship-of-war in the Basin beating up towards the town. Murray started from his revery, and directed that British colors should be raised ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... a drawer of the old pine bureau lay some of Nat's discarded clothing—incredible garments to Luke. The lame boy, going to them sometimes, fingered them, pondering, reconstructing for himself the fabric of Nat's adventures, his life. The ice-cream pants of a bygone day; the pointed, shriveled yellow Oxfords! the silk-front shirt; the odd cuff link or stud—they were like a genie-in-a-bottle, these ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... forward and imperiously commanded him to sit facing the western glow. He then proceeded to squint closely into the patient fellow's eyes, he felt of his head, his pulse, and looked at his tongue. At last he stood back, pondering with an ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... wanderers perishing without thy aid! To whose pure eyes all wonders are reveal'd, That live in mortals, from themselves conceal'd! Who view'st with favor, when they most aspire, Their narrow faculties, and vast desire! O prosper, and sustain my anxious thought, Pondering thy attributes, as mortals ought! That while I strive to make thy nature known, My zeal may tend to purify my own. Pardon the daring aim of grateful love, If, in research, man's intellect above, I vainly seek such heavenly things to know, As Thou to mortals ...
— Poems on Serious and Sacred Subjects - Printed only as Private Tokens of Regard, for the Particular - Friends of the Author • William Hayley
... we all know they are perpetually making concerning the whence, do necessarily include correspondent habits of interrogation concerning the whither. Origin and tendency are notions inseparably co-relative. Never did a child stand by the side of a running stream, pondering within himself what power was the feeder of the perpetual current, from what never-wearied sources the body of water was supplied, but he must have been inevitably propelled to follow this question by another: 'Towards what abyss is it in progress? what receptacle can contain the mighty influx?' ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... Jane's, down in Arizona, was too vivid in his imagination to allow room for pondering. Big Jim had said they were to leave in the morning. So, while supper was cooking, Little Jim slipped into his bedroom and busied himself packing his own scant belongings. Presently his father called him. Little Jim plodded out bearing his few spare ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... a century. There should be lives of such men, for they were akin to their fellows: histories, too, should be theirs, for they were allied to Nature, and fate, and law. They jested; and Biography, smiling, seized her tablets. They embodied a people; and Clio, pondering, opened ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... course is nigh finished, and I am upon my entrance into a state of eternal rest. The Lord hath his own way of giving the watchful Christian previous warning concerning the end of the warfare, 2 Pet i. 14.; and I, being so privileged, have been seriously pondering where it may be most convenient to breathe out my last, and quietly lay down this tabernacle, and seeing, after deliberation, I can find no place nor company so fit as with you, I have adventured to come and die with you." At ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... While thinking and pondering for weeks and months over this new dilemma and complication of difficulties, till his brain reeled, an accidental ray of light broke upon him in a way not now intelligible, or barely intelligible. ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... bowed head; he was pondering as to what he should do in the future. His life had never seemed more useless than it now appeared with the glaring doubt in his mind. Suddenly he was aware of some one approaching, and he raised his eyes hopefully. ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... Pondering these questions, Larcher found himself at the entrance to the chosen dining-place. It was a low, old-fashioned doorway, on a level with the sidewalk, a little distance off Broadway. They were just about to enter, when they heard Davenport's name ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... a matter in which I am foolish," he said at last, "for my ways have always gone far from the ways of women. Girls there are plenty, I suppose, but—" he mused with pondering patience for awhile. Then a broad smile broke like sunshine over his embrowned countenance, as he continued, "Now, gentlemen, I do remember well; it is said that at Bosekop yonder, are to be found some of the homeliest ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... did not relate all this without pausing many times for breath, and when she concluded she closed her eyes, exhausted by the effort she had made. In a short time she again slept, and Helen sat pondering in mute amazement over the disclosure made by one whom she had imagined so very indigent. The gold weighed heavy on her mind. It did not seem real, so strangely acquired, so mysteriously concealed. It reminded her of the tales ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... about it—in fact, Kenyon called at my office a day or two ago, and at that time, not having given the subject much thought, I could not give him any encouragement; but I have been pondering over it since, and have almost decided to help them. What do you think ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... delineated that it has turned many from the true con- [10] templation of his character. He advances most in divine Science who meditates most on infinite spiritual sub- stance and intelligence. Experience proves this true. Pondering on the finite personality of Jesus, the son of man, is not the channel through which we reach the [15] Christ, or Son of God, the true ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... the sacred legend—if unblamed In my slight verse such holy things are named— Of Mary's secret hours of hidden joy, Silent, but pondering on her wondrous boy! Ave, Maria! Pardon, if I wrong Those heavenly words that shame my ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... Him uttering these last words; he is pondering too deeply what he has just heard, and calls the Master back to that announcement, as though He had passed it with too light a tread: "Going away! Lord, whither goest Thou?" To that question our Lord might have given ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... while, till evening, and talked little. I was silent, like all inexperienced lovers, and she, probably, had nothing to say to me. But she seemed to be pondering over something, and shook her head in a peculiar way, as she pensively nibbled a leaf she had picked. Sometimes she started walking ahead, so resolutely...then all at once stopped, waited for me, and looked ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... as sweet and tender and delicate as she can be, and she has high ideals—that's one result of her living away from the world. If she were a little warmer in temperament, it might be different, but—" Kate paused here as though pondering whether to reveal or to conceal the ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... long by the open window, pondering over her hapless lot, her chin upon her hand, her dark eyes far away in thought,—sad thought, judging from their expression,—the wind playing in her light, wavy hair, her full red lips parted slightly, showing the interest which her theme awakened, and the fresh bloom upon her ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... While Alboin was pondering how he might conciliate her without owning himself in the wrong, Rosamund summoned Helmigis, the king's shield-bearer, and finding that he would not execute her orders and murder his master in his sleep, she secured the services of the giant Perideus. ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... stood pondering on the strangeness of this adventure, there arrived certain messengers from the king, who were empowered by him to confer upon Macbeth the dignity of thane of Cawdor: an event so miraculously corresponding with the prediction of ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... his trance of devotion made him oblivious of all around; then, from a safe retreat, she watched and enjoyed his perplexity in seeking for and finding it! A second day this was repeated; but his manifest disturbance of mind, and his long pondering with the bonnet in hand, as if almost alarmed, seemed to touch another chord in her heart—that chord of pity which is so often the prelude of love, that finer pity that grieves to wound anything nobler or tenderer than ourselves. Next day, when he came ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... however, I trudged on alone, plish-plash-plosh, through the clayey sludge, cold, dripping and miserable, stopping occasionally to turn my back to the wind or to tie up a wayward shoestring, and pondering dolefully in my mind that I had full two hours to go, not only before reaching home, but perhaps before finding a shelter of any kind. I think I must have been walking thus three-quarters of an hour when I suddenly heard the music of two pairs ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... he tells us, when he "wove word-craft, made his poem, framing it wondrously, pondering and sifting ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey
... off "ninety-nines" until her husband's ears ached with them. The doctor finished at last, and, fastening his bag, stood with his beard in his hand, pondering. He looked from the little, whitefaced woman on the bed to the bulky figure of ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... of a fireman who had lost his life by the falling walls of a burning building and who had left three small children uncared for, Dr. Conwell was impressed with the need of a home for the orphans of men who risked their lives for the city's good. Pondering the subject, he was called that same day to the bedside of a shut-in, who, while he was there, asked him if there was any way by which she could be of service to helpless children left without paternal care or support. She said the ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... their backs; at Jargeau, sheltered by the good walls of a fortified town, they had suffered themselves to be taken; at Patay they had fled as fast as their legs would carry them, fled before a girl. This was hard to be borne, and these taciturn English were forever pondering over the disgrace. They had been afraid of a girl, and it was not very certain but that, chained as she was, they felt fear of her still, though, seemingly, not of her, but of the devil, whose agent she ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... and the conversation fell into other channels. But, during the whole time of his visit, John was forced to realise, with much acute surprise and distress, that constant brooding on grief,—and excessive spiritual emotion of an exalted and sensuous kind, with much perplexed pondering on human evils for which there seemed no remedy, had produced a painful impression of life's despair and futility on Brent's mind,—an impression which it would be difficult to eradicate, and which would only be softened and possibly diminished by tenderly dealing with it as though ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... dry harvest, had a good piece of barley which he offered by sample in Lincoln market. He could not make his price, the buyers complaining that it was too hard and flinty. He went home in disgust, but, after much pondering, thought he could see his way to meet the difficulty. He had the sacks of barley "shut" on his barn floor, in a heap, and several buckets of water poured over it. The heap was turned daily for a time, until the ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... her distinguished mother. I attributed the emotion to the trying nature of the ceremony we had just passed through. Reflecting that people do not get married every day, and appalled at the terrible conclusions with which the mind would distract itself by pondering so alarming a topic, I shudderingly abandoned it, and assisted Malinda Jane and her ma, in a fainting condition, ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... Immediately thereafter began the preparations for Christmas. Effi, who might otherwise have found it hard to live through these days, considered it a blessing to have a household with demands that had to be satisfied. It was a time for pondering, deciding, and buying, and this left no leisure for gloomy thoughts. The day before Christmas gifts arrived from her parents, and in the parcels were packed a variety of trifles from the precentor's family: beautiful queenings from a tree grafted by Effi and Jahnke several years ago, beside ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... lecturer and was describing circles in the air with his forefinger, priding himself on his imagination, which from the most insignificant facts could deduce so many applications and inferences. But noticing that Simoun was preoccupied and thinking that he was pondering over what he, Ben-Zayb, had just said, he inquired what the ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... when He was born, Among the cattle and the corn, The sweet Maid-Mother wondering, And sweetly, deeply, pondering The words that in her heart did ring, Unto her ...
— 'All's Well!' • John Oxenham
... day they talked little. Both were occupied with their own thoughts. Lawrence was dreaming of his work, his future with Claire, and the home that was to be. Claire was pondering Lawrence's words, "Human beings think many things they don't and can't do." To her these words had been both a great comfort and a startling awakening. Almost instantly had returned an idea which she had thought forever gone, and all day ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... bailiff to Karim's house, where they seized all his movable property and carried it off to the Court, leaving him in bewilderment and tears. He was unable to tear himself away from his gutted home but sat for hours under a tree hard by, pondering on his ill-fortune. Not until the sun had set and village cattle began to file in from pasture, did he cast one lingering look on the scene of his childhood and walk away with a sigh, whither no one ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... the people of the village were come out to meet him, as it was their wont to do; for they abode not the suspense of awaiting Tharagavverug and of hearing him sniffing brazenly as he went from door to door, pondering slowly in his metal mind what habitant he should choose. And none dared to flee, for in the days when the villagers fled from Tharagavverug, he, having chosen his victim, would track him tirelessly, like a doom. Nothing availed them against Tharagavverug. Once they climbed the trees when ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... London, sat in front of his fire pondering over the fact that, at a great sacrifice to the interests of his native city, the coal dues had been abolished, and yet his bill for fuel was no lighter. He watched the embers as they died away, when all of a sudden a small creature appeared before him. He could not account for her presence, and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 5, 1892 • Various
... I possess, I guard it as a holy thing, And though I read it with distress, I'm o'er it ever pondering. Inspired by whom this tenderness, This gentle daring who could guess? Who this soft nonsense could impart, Imprudent prattle of the heart, Attractive in its banefulness? I cannot understand. But lo! A feeble version read below, A print ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... a farmer's son, And a pondering he sat One night when the fagots crackling burned, And purred the ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... avenue that night for a long time, pondering how he should find and explain his conduct to the young music-teacher, for a music-teacher he had decided she must be. The next evening, too, he strolled for an hour on the avenue, scanning from a distance every fair passer-by, but he saw ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... on, reading aright the admiration which Arthur Carrollton evinced for Margaret, who in turn was far from being uninterested in him. Anna Jeffrey, too, watched them jealously, pondering in her own mind some means by which she could, if possible, annoy Margaret. Had she known how far matters had gone with Henry Warner, she would unhesitatingly have told it to Arthur Carrollton; but so quietly had the affair been managed that she knew comparatively little. This little, however, ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... brother-patriots in Southern bastiles; of his various attempts to escape, and pursuit by blood-hounds and their barbarous masters. The story of his war experiences entranced hundreds of eager listeners around his home, and the idea that now occurred to him, while anxiously pondering the ways and means of paying his college fees, was, that his story might possibly, by the aid of his diary, be arranged in the form of a book, and if he were fortunate enough to find a sale for it, the profits would probably furnish ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... the gaze with equal steadfastness, as if he were pondering in his troubled mind the best course to pursue. Then, because he might think more clearly so, he lifted his serious gaze to the distance; and, at once, there burst from his quivering lips a ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... look inward dimly, and at first she said she didn't know. But after pondering the matter a little she said, "Because he watches me more closely than papa, and that is because—You won't ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... after, as Babadul was pondering over the strangeness of his situation, and just recovering from the effects of this apparition, a door opened in another part of the apartment, and a mysterious figure, richly dressed, came in, bearing a bundle, equally covered with a shawl, about the size of ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... length he became the very target of the curiosity of the people of the town, who crowded round him in a throng, disputing as to the meaning of his singular behaviour, and all maintaining opposite opinions. And one said: This ascetic is undoubtedly pondering on the Panchatantra.[38] And another: Beyond a doubt, the holy man is meditating on Death. And yet another: Is not this an ascetic? And of what should he meditate but the five fires? But a pundit passing by, said: His meditation can be of nothing but the syllogism and its members. Thereupon ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... lord and father feast so many as I would bring?" he asked thoughtfully, as he sat, chin on palm, pondering the invitation, "for I have a thousand spearmen, all young ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... see at all. And in doing so, she ran the risk of letting go what she might have done better to hold. She felt painfully different from these people among whom she found herself. Her very trick of pondering over things sent her spinning to hopeless distances. They seemed to ponder so wholesomely little. Their intelligence was devoted to matters of the moment; they were keen and well-finished and accomplished. Hadria used to look at them in astonishment. How did ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... in the library pondering over the question, at times breathing contempt for his son, and again seized with unwonted suspicion of his own wisdom: troubled, much to be pitied, even if he deserved that blow from his son which had plunged him into wretchedness. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... your own. You must be conscious from what feeling they have flowed, and how far they may or may not be allowed to claim, on that account, permanent respect; and, above all, I would remind you, with a view to tranquillise and steady your mind, that no man takes the trouble of surveying and pondering another's writings with a hundredth part of the care which an author of sense and genius will have bestowed upon his own. Add to this reflection another, which I press upon you, as it has supported me through life, viz. that Posterity will settle ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... there on that sunny July afternoon; I rested my elbow on my knee, forehead pressed against my palm, pondering. And ever within my breast was I conscious of a faint, dull aching—a steady and perceptible apprehension which kept me restless, giving my mind no peace, my brooding thoughts ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... sit for minutes in silent contemplation of the little puzzle, trying, no doubt, to fit her into his theories, or, as my mother said, to find her a three-legged stool and a corner somewhere in the kingdom of heaven; and we were certain something or other would come out of that pondering, though whether the same night or a twelvemonth after, no one could tell. I believe the main result of his thinking was, that he did ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... pastor, in adding to their esoteric communion, and, still worse, by the numbers which repaired to their court of the Gentiles—their exoteric congregation. Nor, it must be confessed, was even Thomas Crann, in many things so wise and good, and in all things so aspiring, an exception. Pondering over the signs of disfavour and decay, he arrived at the conclusion that there must be an Achan in the camp. And indeed if there were an Achan, he had known well enough, for a long time, who would turn out to represent that typical ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... justice, and that, waiving the killing letter of the law, he was "minded to dismiss his wife privily;" and in this he emulated the mercy of his divine foster-Son, who did not cruelly condemn the woman whom he knew to be guilty, but dismissed her "to repent and sin no more." But while Joseph was pondering thus in his heart, the angel of the Lord, the prince of angels, even Gabriel, appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife!" and he awoke and obeyed that ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... no heed of his gestures, of which, indeed, he was unconscious. They were fine dramatically, and of great power, as he alternately rose to his full height, beating his breast in despair, and again sank upon his knees, with a pondering brow and a searching eye, and a hovering, trembling hand, striving to find the clew he had lost. They might have impressed a more appreciative audience, but not one more entertained than the cluster of men who looked and paused and leered ...
— The Riddle Of The Rocks - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... some moments listening to his footsteps as they shuffled down the stairs. Then with a sigh he turned to his writing-case, pulled a straw-bottomed chair before the rickety table, and sat for a while, pen in hand, pondering. ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Thus pondering, and questioning, and striving to supplement that which is felt and seen, but which is incomplete, by something unfelt and unseen which is necessary to its completeness, men of genius have in part discerned, not only the nature of light and heat, but also, through them, ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... grotesque, as describe by the son? He must have misread it. If so, it must have been one of those ingenious secret codes which mean one thing while they seem to mean another. I must see this letter. If there were a hidden meaning in it, I was confident that I could pluck it forth. For an hour I sat pondering over it in the gloom, until at last a weeping maid brought in a lamp, and close at her heels came my friend Trevor, pale but composed, with these very papers which lie upon my knee held in his grasp. He sat down opposite ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... the land of dreams, where I found myself walking in a pleasant way, pondering the theme which had taken such entire possession of my thoughts. As I moved along, I met the gifted one who had called my work dull and commonplace; that work was a simple picture of human life; drawn for the purpose ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... while she stood wrathfully pondering, a gust of anger rose—childish anger, such as she had shown the night before, when she had tried to get out of the carriage. She turned, ran down the corridor to the door which she understood was the door of his ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... offence. Offence? Of what? To whom? Who judged the cause? The prisoner freed himself by Nature's laws; Born free, he sought his right; the man he freed Was perjured, but his love excused the deed: Thus pondering, he looked under with his eyes, And saw the women's tears, and heard their cries, Which moved compassion more; he shook his head, And softly sighing to ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... a peculiar tone and character. Tolling at slow and regular intervals, (as was customary for a considerable time previous to the hour of burial,) the bell, as it were, proclaimed the blessedness of the dead who die in the Lord, and also the necessity of the living pondering these things, and laying them to heart. It seemed to say, "Hear my warning voice, thou son of man. There is but a step between thee and death. Arise, prepare thine house; for thou shalt die, and ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... proposed sally of De la Marck, unless heedfully guarded against, might prove the destruction of the besieging army, so difficult was it, in the tumultuous warfare of those days, to recover from a nocturnal surprise. After pondering on the matter, he formed the additional resolution, that he would not communicate the intelligence save personally, and to both the Princes while together, perhaps because he felt that to mention so well contrived and hopeful a scheme ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... of abnormal pondering over bacteriology. Huchard's case was in a woman of thirty-eight who, out of curiosity, had secretly read the works of Pasteur, and who seemed to take particular pleasure in conning over the causes of death in the health-reports. Goyard mentions an ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... to understand them, or did they fall dead on her ear like birds on a dead sea? In her darkness and her silence was she putting them together, comparing them, interpreting them, pondering them, imitating them, gathering food for her mind from them, and solace for her spirit? Israel did not know; and, watch her face as he would, he could never learn. Hope! Faith! Trust! What else was left to him? He clung to all three, he grappled them to him; they were his sheet-anchor and ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... that he has only got a fag-end left. I don't at all want to die; I've got my hands as full as they can hold of pretty and delightful things; and I don't at all want to be cut down like the copse, and to have to build up my branches again. Yes," he added, pondering, "I used to think I should not live long, and I didn't much want to, I believe! But now—it's almost disgraceful to think how much I prize life, and how interesting I find it. Depend upon it, on we go! The only thing that is mysterious to me is why I love a place like this so much. ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... been forced to the subject, she would have perhaps admitted the necessity of these rules for men and women ages ago. Some one of them might have meant much to a girl in those dim days: to Rebecca pondering who knows what temptation at the well; to Ruth tempted who knows how in the corn and thinking of Boaz and the barn; to Judith plotting in the camp; to Jephtha's daughter out on the ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... because of the love he bore her than because he supposed that it made any difference in the sight of God whether she heard him or not. He was past the prime of life, and had fallen into pompous and ministerial habits of manner, but in his heart he was always pondering to find what the realities of life might be; he seldom drew false conclusions, although to many a question he was content to find no answer. He wore a serious look—people seldom knew what was passing in his ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... organism in question an advantage over other already established occupants of land or water, and this may be in any particular case indefinitely long. I am very glad you will read my dogs MS., for it will be important to me to see what you think of the balance of evidence. After long pondering on a subject it is often hard to judge. With hearty thanks for ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... believe," said Monsieur, with his best bow, as Miss Lucinda departed and went home, pondering all the way what special delicacy she should ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... agreed Dan warmly, and fell silent, pondering how best to prove or disprove this extraordinary story. It was decidedly of the sort the Record liked; if he could only verify it, his return to the office would be in the nature of a triumph! But to prove it! Well, ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... won't be best," I said in an every-day, pondering tone. "There are lots of sharp chaps on 'the Street' who will insist on asking questions, questions Flower cannot possibly answer, and in a jiff they might start in to offer the subscriptions down, and before one could whistle a bar from 'Wait Till the Clouds Roll ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... there, thinking. The old negro came shuffling in, bringing hot hoe-cake and bacon for his dinner. He ate obediently; later he submitted to the razor and clothes brush, absently pondering the problem that obsessed him: "Why had Hallam spared Letty; how could he convey the ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... zo[u]ri (sandal) on one foot and a wooden clog (geta) on the other rapidly he ran away. Left alone O'Iwa rose in haste. To the conflagration burning in her bosom, was added the fuel of a woman's temperament. If it were true! How learn? Pondering over the ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... for some time been pondering over a classification of knowledge. My scheme is to divide all knowledge in the first place into ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... was not Donald Mullen, who was he? That question kept me pondering and for the rest of the meal I was silent, speculating on this strange situation, nor did I have an opportunity to note, as Big Pete did, the tearful, kindly glances that the Wild Hunter shot at ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... had, according to his own expression, taken his courage in both hands to prepare himself for this grand interview; and I found him on my return, standing in the center of the antechamber (for he did not dare to sit upon the sofas, which though very simple seemed to him magnificent), and pondering what he should say to the First Consul in token of his gratitude. I preceded him, and he followed me, placing each foot cautiously on the carpet; and when I opened the door of the cabinet, he insisted with much civility on my going first. When the First Consul had ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... gulls in council sitting On some broad ice-floe pondering long and late, While overhead the home-bound ducks are flitting, And leave the tardy conclave ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... virtue and her money. So it happened that the cause of the lovelorn Duc de Vitry was in great peril just at the moment when de Jars and Jeannin resolved to approach the fair one anew. She was sitting lost in thought, pondering in all good faith on the small profit it was to a woman to be virtuous, when she heard voices in the antechamber. Then her door opened, and the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... thought and women waste fair moments gathering lint and pricking coloured stuffs to mar their breasts, while she, adored, wastes not her fingers, worn of fire and sword, wastes not her touch on linen and fine thread, wastes not her head in thought and pondering, Love, why have you sought the horde of spearsmen, why the tent Achilles pitched beside ...
— Hymen • Hilda Doolittle
... After pondering upon the subject all day, she telegraphed him not to send the money, and decided to question ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... bent their course to the Alpujarras, as melancholy and slowly as suited the condition and convenience of the animals that bore them. Indeed, from time to time, the reverend mule actually stood still, as if pondering what he should do, and it required all Don Rodrigo's caresses (for he dared employ no other means) to induce her ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... akin to their fellows: histories, too, should be theirs, for they were allied to Nature, and fate, and law. They jested; and Biography, smiling, seized her tablets. They embodied a people; and Clio, pondering, opened the long ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... not seem to please the Shawanoe. He was sitting directly in front of his young friends, who looked earnestly in his face. He made no answer to Terry's question, but continued looking among the coals, as if he was pondering some other matter that had thus been brought to mind. Fred shook his head at Terry as a warning that he should not repeat his query, and the latter was wise enough not to do so; but the friends concluded from that moment that the wandering young Shawanoe made his home at no great distance from where ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... presence, pondering this reassurance, which contained no comfort for him, since he had given his lord to understand that he had received his education at the Mission as an independent paying pupil, and had quite concealed the fact that his mother ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... sometimes intolerant of those that can. They are formed to plod meritoriously on in the lower levels of thought; unpossessed of the pinions necessary to reach the heights, they cannot realize the mental act—the act of inspiration it might well be called—by which a man of genius, after long pondering and proving, reaches a theoretic conception which unravels and illuminates the tangle of centuries of observation and experiment. There are minds, it may be said in passing, who, at the present moment, stand in this ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... a few lines to this name, the desire is simply to arrest the attention of any reader, who may be too closely engaged in temporal things; giving their strength to that which cannot profit, and not sufficiently pondering the passing ...
— The Annual Monitor for 1851 • Anonymous
... Jennie was pondering in her troubled brain a question which the reading of the book had brought. What could it be? Evidently it was not to be answered easily, for her face only grew more clouded, until at last she resolved to ask the help of ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various
... slowly tossed his rifle from the port to the shoulder; shook his puzzled head; stared a moment at the dim figure of Captain Wren again in the starlit morning, nervously tramping up and down his narrow limit; then mechanically sauntered down the roadway, pondering much over what he had seen and heard during the brief period of his early morning watch. Reaching the south, the lower, end of his post, he turned again. He had but ten minutes left of his two-hour tramp. The second relief was due to start at 3.30, and should reach him at 3.35. He ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... from grace in Philadelphia he had come to think that never again, perhaps, could he hope to become socially acceptable in the sense in which the so-called best society of a city interprets the phrase; and pondering over this at odd moments, he realized that his future allies in all probability would not be among the rich and socially important—the clannish, snobbish elements of society—but among the beginners and financially strong men who had come or were ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... These belonged now to her life and she was appalled to find she was unable to connect these names with any human appearance. They stood out alone, as if written on the night; they took on a symbolic shape; they imposed themselves upon her senses. She whispered as if pondering: "Belarab, Daman, Ningrat," and these barbarous sounds seemed to possess an exceptional energy, a fatal ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... Pondering much on all you say in it Of mystic consciousness—divine conversion— The sense of oneness with the infinite,— Faith in the world, its beauty, and its purpose . . . Well, you believe one must have faith, in some sort, If one's to talk through this dark world contented. But is ...
— The House of Dust - A Symphony • Conrad Aiken
... countries. An action doubtless not to be intermeddled with base purposes, as many have made the same but a colour to shadow actions otherwise scarce justifiable; which doth excite God's heavy judgments in the end, to the terrifying of weak minds from the cause, without pondering His just proceedings; and doth also incense foreign princes against our attempts, how just soever, who cannot but deem the sequel very dangerous unto their state (if in those parts we should grow to strength), seeing the very beginnings ...
— Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Voyage to Newfoundland • Edward Hayes
... of reading and pondering his book in a single college term. But, while this may easily be done, it will be far more profitable for the student, as soon as he feels drawn away from the volume to some author whom it presents, to lay it aside and make an excursion of his own into literature. Then let him take up the ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... was pondering these things in my heart, the pen he had grasped so tightly was flung to some distance, and he raised his ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... Hert smoked his pipe with a very thoughtful air that evening, pondering deeply. Meryl had neither encouraged him nor repulsed him, and she seemed just the same and yet different; and once more that half-formed dread came back to his memory that through Rhodesia he ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... his face, however, Dorn saw nothing but the horses and the brown line ahead, and half the time they were wholly obscured in yellow dust. He began thinking about Lenore Anderson, just pondering that strange, steady look of a girl's eyes; and then he did not mind the dust or heat or distance. Never could he be cheated of his thoughts. And those of her, even the painful ones, gave birth to a comfort that he knew must abide with him henceforth on lonely ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... shell pitched over them, and the officer in command lowered his field-glass in despair as he saw his own shells bursting far short upon the hillside. Jameson's defeat does not seem to have been due to any defect in his artillery. French, peering and pondering, soon came to the conclusion that there were too many Boers for him, and that if those fifteen-pounders desired target practice they should find some other mark than the Natal Field Artillery. A few curt orders, and his whole force was making its way to the rear. There, out of range of those ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... relations. If this were a type and instance of hopeless love he had certainly misread all the songs and sayings. He kept the idea in his mind and went on regarding her in the light of it with a pondering smile, turning it over and finding a lively pleasure in his curious acumen in such an unwonted direction. It was a very flower of emotional naivete, though a moment later he cast it from him as a weed, grown in idleness; and indeed it might have abashed him to ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... enlightened by any philanthropic transcendental foreign professor of humanity. Profoundly humiliated, and not having yet taken the first step towards knowledge, the knowing that I was ignorant, I was pondering upon my sad fate, when Lady Olivia, putting her hand upon my shoulder, summoned me into the court of love, there in my own proper person to answer such questions as it should please her ladyship to ask. For instance:—"Were you ever in love?—How ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... of night to thicken, and for him to make his appearance. He returned to his desk, but it was now too dark to write. He could barely see to sign his name and superscribe the envelope. This done, he buttoned his straight-fitting brown coat, put on his modest hat, and stood pondering in his mind what ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... there pondering, held but a bare half-inch above drowning, the desperateness of the situation presented itself to him in appalling clearness. How sunny and warm and safe, to his woods-familiar eyes, looked the green forest world about him. No sound broke the mild tranquillity ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... hours Guy Oscard had made the decision that life without Millicent Chyne would not be worth having, and in the hush of the great house he was pondering over this new feature in his existence. Like all deliberate men, he was placidly sanguine. Something in the life of savage sport that he had led had no doubt taught him to rely upon his own nerve and capacity more than do most men. It is the indoor atmosphere that ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... what little doubt I might have entertained of my poor friend's insanity was put finally at rest. I had no alternative but to conclude him stricken with lunacy, and I became seriously anxious about getting him home. While I was pondering upon what was best to be done, ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... waters wherein was the Son of God immersed.' We learn also that Keshub and his disciples attempted to hold communication with saints and prophets of the olden time, upon whose works and teaching they had been pondering in retirement and solitude. On this subject the following notice ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... however, failed entirely to conceal the receding chin, and compressed, cruel mouth,—the eyes were keen and crafty and very clear,—the forehead was high and intelligent, and deeply furrowed with lines that seemed to be the result of much pondering over close and cunning calculation, rather than the marks of profound, unselfish, and ennobling thought. The page having left the room, Sah-luma ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... for on whom we send, The weight of all and our last hope relies. This said, he sat; and expectation held His look suspence, awaiting who appeer'd To second, or oppose, or undertake The perilous attempt: but all sat mute, 420 Pondering the danger with deep thoughts; and each In others count'nance red his own dismay Astonisht: none among the choice and prime Of those Heav'n-warring Champions could be found So hardie as to proffer or accept Alone the dreadful voyage; till at last Satan, whom now transcendent glory rais'd Above ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... on until she came to the ocean, and then, as she could go no farther, she sat down to rest. As she sat there pondering what she should do, a carabao [25] came along, and thinking that she would ride a while she climbed up on its back. No sooner had she done so than the animal plunged into the water and swam with her until they reached the other side of the ...
— Philippine Folk Tales • Mabel Cook Cole
... Elizabeth, and she having to change costume and get rid of make-up, he knew his wait was likely to be rather lengthy. He did not mind that so much, but he did not desire to talk or be talked to, so he walked to the dark end of the platform—the same end, by the way, where George Kent had stood when pondering his problem before asking advice—and stood there, staring ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... squalid tenement revolted him. Still, he was young and optimistic; his luck might change when he went South and chance give him an opportunity of breaking through the barriers that shut him in. He sat in the corner, pondering, until it got late and the tired Italian politely ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... on the two hind legs of one of the Windsor chairs, and betook himself to pondering what it was exactly which ought to be added to Hardy to make him an unexceptional object of hero-worship; when the man himself came suddenly into the room, slamming his oak behind him, and casting his cap and gown fiercely on to the sofa ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... Shelley's life remember how later on, as a girl of nineteen—and a two years' wife—she was present, 'a devout but nearly silent listener', at the long symposia held by her husband and Byron in Switzerland (June 1816), and how the pondering over 'German horrors', and a common resolve to perpetrate ghost stories of their own, led her to imagine that most unwomanly of all feminine romances, Frankenstein. The paradoxical effort was ...
— Proserpine and Midas • Mary Shelley
... said the good man, who at the very moment was pondering over the art of self-deception, as practised by ourselves upon ourselves. "No, thank you; but do, my dear madam, imbue those children with a contented spirit; there is nothing that keeps us so truly at peace with the world as contentment—or with ourselves, ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... doors the whine of the fiddle still penetrated. Perhaps Lew Wee's recent loss had moved him to play later than was his custom, pondering upon the curious whims that stir the gods when they start to make things happen. But he was still no cynic. Over and over he played the little air which means: "Life comes like a bird-song through the open windows of ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... of her memories to take up the letter that had so perplexed her. It bore the postmark, Flagstaff, Arizona. She reread it with slow pondering thoughtfulness. ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... in for it, boldly told who and what he was, omitting any allusion to the feud, however. As he continued, the captain, who had been pondering as he ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... agencies. We see, they say, the hand of God in our lives. He has saved us from dangers, he has comforted us in sorrow. He has blessed us with the treasures of life, of intelligence, of affection. He has set around us a beautiful world, and one still more beautiful within us. Pondering all these blessings, we are convinced that he is mighty in the world and will know how to make all things good to those who trust in him. In other words, pious men discern God in the excellence of things. If all were well, as they hope it may some day be, God would henceforth be present ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... had so recently been subjected, he gave a sudden defiant toss of his head, and muttered wrathfully: "Go broke, or starve your men!" He got out of his chair, and paced to and fro swiftly for a little interval, pondering wildly. But, of a sudden, he reseated himself, drew a pad of paper to him, and began scrawling figures at the full speed of his pencil. And, as he wrote, he was murmuring to himself: "There is a way out—there ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... stood for a moment irresolute, and then she slowly wended her way along the sidewalk, pondering the thing she had seen. Two dollars! That was a large sum of money in these hard times. Could she possibly spare it? She did not know yet what her tax bill would be, but for some unexplained reason it turned out to be larger every year. She supposed ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... was left alone, could not help pondering much on the singular interview she had had with this singular man. Not a word that she had spoken to him had been intended by her to be received as true, and yet he had answered her in the very spirit of truth. He had done so, and she had been aware that he had done so. She ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... most of the time, and though I could not but feel I was steadily gaining my way to the goal, I cannot say that I did not spend many an anxious hour pondering over ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... true as true, my golden rye," she said pondering. "And I wish not to hurt you and the rani, who was kind to me. I go away," she rose to her feet briskly, "and I think. What will ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... I was pondering on the remarkable formation of this sentence which lent itself neither to analysis nor parsing, when her next ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... quickly on her heel and was lost in the crowd. He sat long pondering on her words, but their meaning remained hidden to him. The branch that does not bend must break. Was he the branch, and must he bend or break? By-and-by he put his hands on his knees, rose with a slow, uncertain ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... a gentle knocking came at the door. 'Let no one come, I have told the serving knave as much.' She sank into a pondering over the wording of her letter to Bishop Gardiner. It was not to be thought of that her cousin should murder a Prince of the Church; therefore the bishop must warn the Catholics in Paris that Cromwell had this in mind. And Bishop Gardiner must stay her cousin on his journey: by ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... While he was pondering his great purpose, he was surprised to receive a visit from Master Archy. The imperious young gentleman displayed a languid smile upon his face as he entered the chamber. It was intended as a token of conciliation. If his pride had permitted ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... shiver through Lincoln's stalwart form. This was the man of men with whom for weeks he had confidentially conferred, and upon whose judgment and information he had absolutely relied and acted, "I cannot afford to let Seward take the first trick," he said to his secretary,[719] after pondering the matter during Sunday, and on Monday morning, while the inauguration procession was forming, he penned a reply. "Your note," he said, "is the subject of the most painful solicitude with me; and I feel constrained to beg that you will countermand the withdrawal. ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... mind admit only of a gradual communication of knowledge. It was necessary, therefore, that men should be first stored with elementary principles, then advanced to axioms and syllables, and afterwards introduced into the fellowship of the mystery of Divine truth. Hence any reflective mind, pondering upon the dealings of God with men, will discover a progressive development of revelation, adjusted with careful adaptation to the preparedness of different ages of mankind. In the first ages God spake to men in sensible manifestations, in visions of the night, ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... then he closed his tome, And went to wander by the ocean-side, Where the cool breeze at evening loved to come, Murmuring responsive to the murmuring tide; And as Augustine o'er its margent wide Strayed, deeply pondering the puzzling theme, A little child before him he espied: In earnest labor did the urchin seem, Working with heart intent close by ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... long, feverish, restless night he lay pondering over this miserable interruption of his journey, while the sick-nurse and the surgeon's assistant alternately slopped cooling lotions about his wretched ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... canvas bed to rest till the dawn. Many a silent hour in the watches of the tedious night did the doctor lie awake, while the cool sweet breath of the child fanned his cheek as he lay nestling beside him, pondering and wondering on the fate of his charge. He knew absolutely nothing about his history save that he had been pitched overboard from the brig the pirates were robbing; but what was the name or nation of the vessel, where from, or whither bound, he was ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... birds, that utter falsehoods, Story-tellers, mischief-makers, Found no eager ear to listen, Could not breed ill-will between them, For they kept each other's counsel, Spake with naked hearts together, Pondering much and much contriving How the tribes of men might prosper. Most beloved by Hiawatha Was the gentle Chibiabos, He the best of all musicians, He the sweetest of all singers. Beautiful and childlike was he, Brave as man is, soft as woman, Pliant as a wand ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... he did nothing further. But in the night, betwixt Monday and Tuesday, he had cramps, and dreamt the devils were pulling him by the feet. This he took for a warning of God and our Blessed Lady, tarried within doors pondering the matter all the day, and then toward evening went to lay his offering at the feet of ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France
... quickly, and she leaned a little farther forward, pondering the words. Suddenly Dresser took her hand, and then locked her in his arms. Even in the roughness of his passion, he could not fail to see her white face. She struggled in his grasp without speaking, as if knowing that words would be useless. And Dresser, too embarrassed by his act to speak, ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... the flavor of foreign travel to Lynde, who began pondering on which hotel he should bestow his patronage—a question that sometimes perplexes the tourist on arriving at a strange city. In Lynde's case the matter was considerably simplified by the circumstance that there was but a single aristocratic hotel in the place. He extracted ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... undertaken the task of reconciling his friend with Port-Royal. Nicole had made no opposition, "not knowing what war was." M. Arnauld was intractable. Boileau one day made up his mind to take him a copy of Phedre, pondering on the way as to what he should say to him. "Shall this man," said he, "be always right, and shall I never be able to prove him wrong? I am quite sure that I shall be right to-day; if he is not of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... birth there was a wondrous vision of angels, and the shepherds who beheld it hastened into the town; and as they looked upon the baby in the manger, they told the wondering mother what they had seen and heard. We are told that Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart. While she could not understand what all this meant, she knew at least that hers was no common child; that in some wonderful sense he was ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... she tried to save, Then bore the second to the grave; Both on one day the parent led To silent mansions of the dead. There, while she wept her children's fate. She learned to feel her mortal state; Stood pondering all her errors past, As if that day ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... his lips still moved. A look of unbelief and vast surprise dawned on his face. Followed a sharp, convulsive shudder. And in that moment, without warning, he saw Death. He looked clear-eyed and steady, as if pondering, then turned to Polly. His hand moved impotently, as if to reach hers, and when he found it, his fingers could not close. He gazed at her with a great smile that slowly faded. The eyes drooped as the life went out, and remained a face ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... nest. And at that I cried the more; and he put his arm about me, and said he had no thought to grieve me, and did not think that Jacob would wish me vexed in the matter. And I begged for a year's grace; and, after thinking and pondering awhile, he answered that he had no wish to hurry things on—that I was full young to leave my girlhood behind and be saddled with the cares of a household. And then it came out that the haste was all Uncle Dyson's doing. Rachel is to be wed at Easter, and he wants his ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... had happened to him, and when a committee from the loungers above visited him, and asked what struck him, he could only point suggestively to his throat, and wag his head. He could not even whisper; and so they left him, pondering upon the profanely expressed opinion of old Kelly that it was a ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... undecided, I would like to spend my life. Often I feel how good it would be to give it in service to one of my six dear friends: just to offer it to them as so much capital, for whatever it may be worth. In pondering the fancy, I need hardly say that I do not assess myself at any extravagant value. I but venture to think that the devotion of one human creature, however humble, throughout a lifetime, is not a ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... satisfy all tastes;—sometimes we have attached associations to received readings which make impartial perception impossible; sometimes we have imparted our own meaning to a passage by too steady pondering over it, just as in twilight an inanimate thing will seem to move, if we look at it long, though the wavering be truly in our own overstrained vision; sometimes our personal temperament will insensibly warp our judgment;—but Mr. White has generally shown so just a discrimination, that there are ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... degree. Decidedly Mr. Turner was being "cut," and he wondered why. Presently he strode down to the road and looked up over the hill in the direction he knew Hollis Creek Inn to be. He was still pondering the probable distance when Mr. Westlake and Billy and young Princeman came up the ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... have seen that even when his religion was at its lowest point, in the difficult Art School days, he never lost it entirely—"I hung on to religion by one thin thread of thanks." In the years of the Notebook, he advanced very far in his pondering on and acceptance of the great religious truths. But this did not as yet mean attachment to a Church. Then he met Frances. "She actually practised a religion. This was something utterly unaccountable both to me and ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... growing unhappiness with Willie that the Madden's Hill boys were always beaten by the other teams of the town. He really came to lose his sadness over his own misfortune in pondering on the wretched play of the Madden's Hill baseball club. He had all a boy's pride in the locality where he lived. And when the Bogg's Farm team administered a crushing defeat to Madden's Hill, ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... a sign to Claigue to refill it; at the same time he pointed silently to his informant, signifying that he was to be served at his expense. He was evidently deep in thought by that time, and for a moment or two he sat staring at the window and the blue sea beyond, abstracted and pondering. Suddenly he ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... loneliness fell upon Skipper Ed. Reluctantly he returned to the igloo and prepared his breakfast, which he ate sparingly. Then until day broke he sat pondering the situation. There was nothing he could do, and he decided at length to return at once to Abel Zachariah's, ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... up a tall and taciturn lad, pondering his thoughts while he dug and planted with his father in the kitchen-gardens. For this from the age of eighteen he received a small wage, which he carefully put aside. Then in 1800 his uncle Michael died, and left him a legacy of 50 ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... "Pondering the solemn Miracle of Life; As one who, wandering in a starless night, Feels momently the jar of unseen waves, And hears the thunder of an unknown sea Breaking along an ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... press, Was that thou should'st change thy dress; Les if chancing to observe thee Masquerading like a page, By appearances so strong Led astray, the Duke might wrong By a thought thy sex and age. Meanwhile various projects held me In suspense, oft pondering o'er How thy honour to restore; Though (thy honour so compelled me) I Astolfo's life should take — Wild design that soon took wing — Yet, as he was not my king, It no terror could awake. I his death was seeking, when Sigismund with vengeful aim Sought for mine; Astolfo came, And ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... a good reason for going to see Dora. It would be no more than polite to take an interest in the animal which had been offered him, and even if he did not immediately bring it to Cobhurst, he could go and look at it. Miriam now returned to the house, leaving her brother pondering over the question whether or not the next morning would be too soon to go and look ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... Crane stood pondering over the complication. He saw that until further investigation disproved it there could be but one solution of this intricate riddle. Billy Cass, the maker of the bet, was a race track frequenter; David Cass was not. They ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... correspondents in the Chateau of Tilques, from which they made their expeditions to the line, were snowed up like the army round them. Not even the motor-cars could move through that snow which drifted across the roads. We sat indoors talking—high treason sometimes—pondering over the problem of a war from which there seemed no way out, becoming irritable with one another's company, becoming passionate in argument about the ethics of war, the purpose of man, the gospel of Christ, the guilt of Germany, and the dishonesty of British politicians. ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... lips together and stood staring at the old finery around her, thinking hard. A sudden vision had come to her of this modern Cinderella, and of herself as the fairy godmother. Her eyes shone and her cheeks grew pink as she stood pondering. If she could only make an occasion, it would be easy enough to provide the coach and the costume, even the glass slippers. There lay a pair of white satin ones, beaded in tiny crystal beads that shone like dewdrops. Suppose she should play godmother ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... since been forgotten. Yes, we have to go very far back indeed would we study the poetry of the Rhine adequately; we have to penetrate deeply into the Middle Ages, dim and mysterious. And looking back thus, and pondering on these legendary and anonymous writings, a poem which soon drifts into recollection is one whose scene is laid near the little town of Lorch, or Lordch. Hard by this town is a mountain, known to geographers as Kedrich, but hailed popularly as 'the Devil's ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... in the apartment without answering, tugging at his mustachios and pondering the situation what time the Seneschal furtively watched him in the candle-light. At last he came abruptly to a standstill by the Seneschal's writing-table, immediately opposite Tressan. His hand fell to his side, his eyes took ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... should help the Spaniards to win all the kingdoms in the neighborhood, of which there are more than twelve; for I have always heard this from him, and further that he wishes to be a Christian and that his whole kingdom should be Christian. Accordingly, pondering over what means we could use to advise your Lordship of all this—as you are a person so jealous of the honor of God and the service of his Majesty, and are in a position to remedy it all; and, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume IX, 1593-1597 • E. H. Blair
... drink and set it close before him, where he leaned pondering a pile of gold he had poured upon the table from one of the canvas bags. The steam mounting from the glass bedimmed his spectacles. He took them off to wipe them, and perceived that she was smiling. She bit her lip at ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... kink had caught in another crevice, and saved him! Was it that prayer, or the love of his praying mother, which wrought this miracle? He did not know, but, long after the boat had passed the lock, he stood there, in his dripping clothes, pondering the question. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... I have been pondering on the miseries of separation, that—oh how seldom we see those we love! yet we live ages in moments, when met. The only thing that consoles me during absence is the reflection that no mental or personal estrangement, from ennui or disagreement, can take place; and when people meet hereafter, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... taking the direction of my door again, pondering on this singular state of society, in which a peculiarity that had been deliberately and publicly adopted, should give rise to a sensitiveness of a character so unusual. I very well knew that men are commonly more ashamed of natural imperfections than those which, in a great measure, depend ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... light. His thin lips were never quite without a smile; but it was not a smile in which any pleasure was. He walked slowly, not hurrying, like most of the passengers. He had a reflective look, as if pondering many things. He came up to me suddenly, without introduction or preliminary, and took me by the arm. 'What object had you in talking of these antiquated institutions?' he said. And I saw in his mind the gleam of the thought, which seemed to be the first ...
— The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... described on paper, or too highly lauded. The figures are very carelessly drawn; but, if the reader can understand us, all the attitudes and limbs are perfectly CONCEIVED, and wonderfully natural and various. After pondering over these drawings for some hours, as we have been while compiling this notice of them, we have grown to believe that the personages are real, and the scenes remain imprinted on the brain as if we had absolutely been present at their acting. Perhaps the clever way in which the ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... seldom raised and often filled with tears; no song; no smiles; no careless motion that might bespeak a mind intent on what surrounded it—I was gathered up into myself—a selfish solitary creature ever pondering on ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... had been news to him—or had it? He tried to remember whether Warfield had mentioned it first and could not. Too many disturbing emotions had held him lately; Lone was beginning to feel the need of a long, quiet pondering over his problems. He did not feel sure of anything except the fact that the Quirt was like a drowning man struggling vainly against the whirlpool that is sucking ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... that, at a moment like this, most of those who had a stake in the country were pondering over the great and real drama that was then taking place. Napoleon had fled to Rochfort; the wreck of his army had retreated beyond the Loire; no list of killed and wounded had appeared; and, strange to say, the official journal of Paris had made out that the great ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... away. Thus at his will the eternal Creator Famished the fields of the earth's ample fold— Until her dwellers abandoned their feast-boards. Void stood the work of the giants of old. One who was viewing full wisely this wall-place, Pondering deeply his dark, dreary life. Spake then as follows, his past thus reviewing, Years full of slaughter and struggle and strife:— "Wither, alas, have my horses been carried? Whither, alas, are my kinspeople gone? Where is my ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... library pondering over the question, at times breathing contempt for his son, and again seized with unwonted suspicion of his own wisdom: troubled, much to be pitied, even if he deserved that blow from his son which had plunged him into wretchedness. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... say," remarked the police sergeant, whose slow, bucolic common sense was still pondering the open window. "It's all very well your saying that a man escaped by wading this moat, but what I ask you is, how did he ever get into the house at all ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... plain he knew the word. Ere long he began to devise short ways of making the letters, and soon wrote with remarkable facility in a character modified from the printed letters. When at length Janet saw him take the book by himself, and sit pondering over it, she had not a doubt he was understanding it, and her heart leapt for joy. He had to ask her a good many words at first, and often the meaning of one and another; but he seldom asked a question twice; and as his understanding was far ahead of his reading, he was ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... Henry pondering deeply; and, as he pondered, Bayne stuck to the port, and so effectually, that, at last, after an interval of silence, he came out in a new character. He disturbed his companion's reverie by informing him, in a loud, aggressive tone, that it had long been his secret wish ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... along the line deeply pondering the startling report of the good Colonel. We had been hearing various rumors that the enemy was frantically suing for peace; all these we had set down as but propaganda. If the end were in sight, why ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... HILLCRIST. [Pondering] I don't want to buy, unless there's nothing else for it. I should have to raise the money on the estate; it won't stand much more. I can't believe the fellow would be such a barbarian. Chimneys within three hundred yards, right in front of this ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
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