"Muse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rusty since Adam first made it to Eve." She eyed him in silence for a second time, deriding his sighs with a smile: then "There is a rhyme in my mind," she cried, "about moons and lovers," and she began to declaim, half muse, half minx, some lines that had pleased her, to ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... 'tis impossible you should proceed. Already I am worn with cares and age, And just abandoning th' ungrateful stage: Unprofitably kept at heav'n's expense, I live a rent-charge on his providence. 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 th' insulting foe my fame pursue; But shade those ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... through the introduction 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 ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... heard of a frog in an opera hat, 'Tis a very old tale of a mouse and a rat, I could sing you another as pleasant, mayhap, Of a kitten that wore a high caul cap; But my muse on a far nobler subject shall drop, Of a bull who got into a china shop, With his right leg, left leg, upper leg, under leg, St. Patrick's day ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... the eighteenth century, with comedy in train to be altered out of recognition to please the reformers and the ladies, one of the two talented writers who attempted to keep the comic muse alive in something like her "Restoration" form was Thomas Baker.[1] Of Baker's four plays which reached the stage, none has been reprinted since the eighteenth century and three exist only as originally published. Of these three the ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... reprobates inordinate passions and tyrannical conduct in a parent ... Now, with regard to my comedy is it not just and salutary that the subtilty [sic], pride, insolence, cunning, and the thorough-paced villany [sic] of a backbiting Scotchman should be ridiculed? What a wretched state the Comic Muse and the Stage would be reduced to, were the prohibition of laughing at the corruption and other vices of the age to prevail!"[3] True the Comic Muse, long sick, as Garrick said in his prologue to She Stoops to Conquer, had almost died, though farces had done something to ...
— The Man Of The World (1792) • Charles Macklin
... Change and Time, you come Not knocking at my door, knowing me gone; Here have I dwelt within my heart alone, Watching and waiting, while my muse was dumb ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... had time to pass; My youth has days of its lifetime yet; If you only knocked at the door, alas, My heart would open the door, Musette! Still at your name must my sad heart beat; Ah Muse, ah maiden of faithlessness! Return for a moment, and deign to eat The bread that pleasure ...
— Ballads and Lyrics of Old France: with other Poems • Andrew Lang
... I had said it, the idee struck me as bein' sort o' pitiful,—to go to whippin' a ghost. But she didn't seem to notice my remark, for she seemed to be a gazin' upward in a sort of a muse; and ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... have not made it dainty, nor thought it any presumption to turn him into their languages, but a fit and honorable labor and (in respect of their country's profit and their prince's credit) almost necessary, what curious, proud, and poor shamefastness should let an English muse to traduce him?"[275] ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... icy chain of human law, thawed and vanished at the genial warmth of human nature, who could help it? It was an amiable weakness! At this time the profanation of the word "love" rose to its height; the muse of science condescended to seek admission at the saloons of fashion and frivolity, rouged like a harlot and with the harlot's wanton leer. I know not how the annals of guilt could be better forced into the service of virtue than by such a comment on the present ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... other of a 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 ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... Muse of England fell asleep; but when in the latter half of the reign of Henry VIII. she awoke again, it was as a conscious pupil of the Italian that she attempted new strains and essayed fresh metres. 'In the latter end of Henry VIII.'s reign,' says Puttenham, 'sprang up a new ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... night poor Amy Robsart passed there, and the scene between her, Leicester, and the queen, when that prince of villains, Varney, claims her as his wife. But in spite of the romantic and historical associations belonging to the place, I do not think it would have "inspired my muse." ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... the scorn of a people whom I wished to respect. Below me lay the most beautiful landscapes in the world—all the rich scenery that nature, in her best attire, can exhibit. Here were the spots that furnished those delightful themes of which the muse of Denham and Pope made choice. I seemed to view a whole world at once, rich and beautiful beyond conception. At that moment what more could ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... Romance, thou owest many a page, Ay, many that erst grew beneath mine eye, To what was once the loved reality Of this true fairy-land; but I refuse To deck with Art's fantastic wizardry A haunt of Trade. Mine is not Mammon's Muse, She will not sing for hire of Soaps, or Silks, ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 3, 1887 • Various
... Teian muse, The Hero's harp, the Lover's lute, Have found the fame your shores refuse: Their place of birth alone is mute To sounds which echo further west Than your ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... spent his gold on himself and left me poor, for it seemed to me I had need of nothing save the little I earned by my pen—I was content to live an anchorite and dine off a crust for the sake of the divine Muse I worshipped. Fate, however, willed it otherwise,—and though I scarcely cared for the wealth I inherited, it gave me at least one blessing—that of perfect independence. I was free to follow my own chosen vocation, and for a brief wondering while I deemed ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... love to breathe where Gilead sheds her balm; I love to walk on Jordan's banks of palm; I love to wet my foot in Hermon's dews; I love the promptings of Isaiah's muse; In Carmel's paly grots I'll court repose, And deck my mossy couch with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... who brought supplies of provisions from the town miles away. His dwelling-place, surrounded with palmetto trees, was little more than a rough shelter. Diotti arose at daylight, and after a simple repast, betook himself to practise. Hour after hour he would let his muse run riot with his fingers. Lovingly he wooed the strings with plaintive song, then conquering and triumphant would be his theme. But neither satisfied him. The vague dream of a melody more beautiful than ever man had heard dwelt hauntingly ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... Bradstreet, known as quite a pretentious writer, came to Boston with her husband, Simon Bradstreet, Governor of Massachusetts. Her first work was entitled "The Tenth Muse lately sprung up in America." The first edition was published in London in 1650, and the first Boston edition was published in 1678. If Mrs. Bradstreet loved praise, she was fortunate in her time and position. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Paris A Bachelor's Establishment The Secrets of a Princess Pierrette A Study of Woman Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Honorine The Seamy Side of History The Magic Skin A Second Home A Prince of Bohemia Letters of Two Brides The Muse of the Department The Imaginary Mistress The Middle Classes Cousin Betty The Country Parson In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following: Another Study ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... parlours and drawing-rooms of our friends, we have ready to hand a refuge from the clash of wits or the small talk of the day amid the solemn beauties of our venerable minster, whose silvern chimes daily 'knoll us to prayer,' and in the shady walks of whose tranquil graveyard we muse with softened heart, and ever and anon with moistened eye, upon the memorials of the young, the beautiful, the aged, the ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... problem of a comfortable life with Angela Vivian. This was what your strong, solid, sensible fellows always came to; they paid, in this particular, a larger tribute to pure fancy than the people who were supposed habitually to cultivate that muse. Blanche Evers was what the French call an article of fantasy, and Gordon had taken a pleasure in finding her deliciously useless. He cultivated utility in other ways, and it pleased and flattered him to feel that he could afford, morally speaking, ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... library of that well-appointed villa whence a reader can see the City near at hand—if among more serious poems there be any room for the wanton Muse of Comedy, you may place these seven little books I send you even ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... 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
... cock crows, you will betray me three times," said the king. "I know you, Voltaire, and I know when you are enraged, nothing is sacred. I fear that here, as elsewhere, you will find provocations. But now, before all other things, what have you brought me? What gift has your muse produced for the poor philosopher of Sans-Souci? I will not believe that you come with empty hands, and that the Homer of France has ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... me contribute my humble and dusty mite; let me speak of a Chopin, of the Chopin, of a Chopin—pardon my tedious manner of address—who has most appealed to me since my taste has been clarified by long experience. I know that it is customary to swoon over Chopin's languorous muse, to counterfeit critical raptures when his name is mentioned. For this reason I dislike exegetical comments on his music. Lives of Chopin from Liszt to Niecks, Huneker, Hadow, and the rest are either too much given over to dry-as-dust or to rhapsody. I am a teacher ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... daughter. Yonder you see my latter muse for whose dear sake I spin romances. I do not mean that she takes any lively interest in them. That is not to be expected, since she cannot read or write. Ask her about the poet we were discussing, and I very much fear ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... | and the Fruit Of that forbidden Tree | whose mortal Taste Brought Death into the World | and all our Woe, With Loss of Eden | 'till one greater Man Restore us | and regain the blissful Seat, Sing Heavenly Muse |— ...
— Letters Concerning Poetical Translations - And Virgil's and Milton's Arts of Verse, &c. • William Benson
... put my question and the honoured master spoke: "The muse, my worthy friend—ask the muse. Ask the muse who leads us poor children of the dust into the divine sanctuary; carried aloft by whose wings into the heights of ether we ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... his analysis of human nature was not profound enough to reach the conception of sin, crime being to him the nadir of downward possibility—but he had a professional, a sort of half Scotland Yard, half master of hounds interest in a criminal. "See," he would muse, "how cunningly the creature works, now back to his earth, anon stealing an unsuspected run across country, the clever rascal;" and his ethical disapproval ever, as usual, with English critics of life, in the foreground, clearly enhanced a primitive predatory ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... to succeed it. At the moment of signing the contract my bosom's lord had sat lightly on its throne, for I felt my head to be humming with ideas. But affluence, or the air of the Cromwell Road, seemed uncongenial to the Muse. ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... printed in a journal to which ANDREW LANG is an occasional contributor. I myself have never dared to go so far. There is something sacred about an established reputation. And I can honestly say that I like the elegant airy trifles which your little Muse has bestowed upon us, though I confess to a weariness when the talk is too much of golf-clubs and salmon rods. And I admire your appreciation of the original work of other men. In the present case you and I disagree upon a question of taste. That is ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 10, 1891 • Various
... meet these other young men and women—his reverend seniors on the slopes of Parnassus—gave him more pleasure than the receipt of 'royalties'. Not that his publisher afforded him much opportunity of contrasting the two pleasures. The profits of the Muse went to provide this room of old furniture and roses, this beautiful garden a-twinkle with Japanese lanterns, like gorgeous fire-flowers blossoming under the white crescent-moon of ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... of Agostino Sarelli had been rather that of the poet and artist than of the warrior. In the beautiful gardens of his ancestral home it had been his delight to muse over the pages of Dante and Ariosto, to sing to the lute and to write in the facile flowing rhyme of his native Italian the fancies of the dream-land ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... She 's sad as one long us'd to 't, and she seems Rather to welcome the end of misery Than shun it; a behaviour so noble As gives a majesty to adversity: You may discern the shape of loveliness More perfect in her tears than in her smiles: She will muse for hours together; and her silence, Methinks, expresseth more ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... it. Either like my brother Hermit in these parts, a spiritual larva in its cocoon, or like a Thoreau, who during his period of seclusion, peeped every fortnight into the village to keep up at least his practice of human speech. Else what is the use of solitude? A life of fantasy, I muse, is nearer to the heart of Nature and Truth than a ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... yes...." He appeared to muse, and no one disturbed him in the minutes of silence that followed. Finally he looked away ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore
... Muse be mute on The charms of Guist and Sall and Booton, Shimpling and Tattersett and Stody (Which, be it noted, rhymes with ruddy), And fair Winfarthing, where KING TINO Would seek in vain for a casino Or even a flask of maraschino. For here, far from the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 14, 1920 • Various
... for the truculent passion Of JUVENAL'S masculine muse To flagellate folly and fashion In dress and in manners and views; But we've plenty of prophets and poets; We've few who are sober and sane; We don't want another DE BLOWITZ; We want ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 25, 1919 • Various
... speaking, he would sit quietly and muse upon what I had been saying; or, if he thought me not too deeply absorbed in reflection, would ask a question, or say something relative to the subject in hand, which would give me the opportunity of making some remarks which it gratified me ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... Adrienne, gayly, "this affair will arrange itself quite easily. Henceforth, Mr. Poet, you shall draw your inspirations in the midst of good fortune instead of adversity. Sad muse! But first of all, bonds shall be given ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... of mourning! aptly art thou named, For thou hast been the cause of many a tear; For deeds of treacherous strife too justly famed, The Atlantic's charnel—desolate and drear; A thing none love, though wand'ring thousands fear— If for a moment rest the Muse's wing Where through the waves thy sandy wastes appear, 'Tis that she may one strain of horror sing, Wild as the dashing waves ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... how oft soe'er the task Of truant verse hath lightened graver care, From Muse or Sylvan was he wont to ask, In phrase poetic, inspiration fair; Careless he gave his numbers to the air, They came unsought for, if applauses came: Nor for himself prefers he now the prayer; Let but his verse befit a hero's fame, Immortal be the ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... shrines nor strange altars, but ever unwaveringly at the feet of my divine countrywomen. Is it needful that I recross the ocean to bow before the reigning muse? Is it not conceded that the brightest, loveliest planet in Parisian skies, brought all her splendour from ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... to walk himself to a standstill. Unfortunately the head will continue working when the legs are at rest. And when he sat opposite to her at meal-times, Frances Freeland would gaze piercingly at his forehead and muse: 'The dear boy looks much better, but he's getting a little line between his brows—it IS such a pity!' It worried her, too, that the face he was putting on their little holiday together was not quite as full as she could have wished—though the last thing in the world she could tolerate ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... had been won and worn for half a century with the modesty which became a wise and virtuous statesman of a republic; and when it was about to be taken from his brow to be garnered for the coming ages, its flowers were fresh, and, like those which the muse of Milton strewed about the walks of Eden, were without a thorn. He had run a long and glorious course. His duty was all done. He had taken his place in ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... and colour, leaving him only his taste for words and phrases and cadences, Whistler would have settled solidly down to the art of writing, and would have mastered it, and, mastering it, have lost that especial quality which the Muse grants only to them who approach her ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... by tender strokes of art, To raise the genius, and to mend the heart, To make mankind in conscious virtue bold, Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold: For this the tragic Muse first trod the stage, Commanding tears to stream through every age. Tyrants no more their savage nature kept, And foes to virtue wondered how ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... is useless to regret that the poet did not permit his muse to tarry by the way long enough to give us something more than a single eyeshot at the quickly shifting scenes which unrolled themselves before him, that so he might have given us further reminiscence of the lands over which his Pegasus bore him. Such completeness of view, however, is alien ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... muse for why and never find the reason, I pace the earth, and drink the air, and feel the sun. Be still, be still, my soul; it is but for a season: Let us endure an hour and see ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman
... 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 ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... her father, watching him with alert ears and eyes, for she saw that the old ruler was brooding over some matter of grave import, and she drew her own inference. Only when planning to wage war on an alien tribe or plotting against the Jamestown settlers did he so mope and muse and fail to respond to her overtures. Late one evening, when she saw two of his loyal warriors steal to his side, in order to hear their conversation better she climbed a near-by tree and listened to their ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... choice, Miss Mac-Ivor's society was extremely limited. Her most intimate friend had been Rose Bradwardine, to whom she was much attached; and when seen together, they would have afforded an artist two admirable subjects for the gay and the melancholy muse. Indeed Rose was so tenderly watched by her father, and her circle of wishes was so limited, that none arose but what he was willing to gratify, and scarce any which did not come within the compass of his power. With Flora it was otherwise. While almost a girl, she ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... Melpomene, is tragedy; No. 5, Terpsichore, is dance and song. Now comes Apollo with his quiver full of arrows. He is the god of the hunt and twin brother to Diana, the goddess of hunt; also he is god of music and poetry. No. 6 is Polyhymnia, muse of hymn-music; No. 7, Euterpe, is song poetry; No. 8, Thalia, is comedy, and No. 9, Urania, muse ...
— The Children's Book of Celebrated Pictures • Lorinda Munson Bryant
... they spoke harsh words to him; at times they would laugh, at times they would chide, and then set him at nought. So he went to his room to pray for them, as well as to nurse his own grief. He would go, too, into the woods to read and muse, and thus for some ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... Learning. Least of all should the relation which the illustrious founder of this order sustains to the later development be omitted in any such history,—'the prince and mirror of all chivalry,' the patron of the young English Muse, whose untimely fate keeps its date for ever green, and fills the air of this new 'Helicon' with immortal lamentations. The shining foundations of that so splendid monument of the later Elizabethan genius, which ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... knowledge, buy my ransom From those twin jailers of the daring heart— Low birth and iron fortune. For thee I grew A midnight student o'er the dreams of sages. For thee I sought to borrow from each grace, And every muse, such attributes as lend Ideal charms to love. I thought of thee, And passion taught me poesy—of thee, And on the painter's canvas grew the life Of beauty! Art became the shadow Of the dear starlight of thy haunting eyes! Men call'd me vain—some ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... communed with it face to face, and resolved into finer and lovelier truth the purity which completes it as the fragrance completes the rose. That's what they call idealism; the word's vastly abused, but the thing is good. It's my own creed, at any rate. Lovely Madonna, model at once and muse, I call you to witness that I too am ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... 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 poet, must ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... Wordsworth ever possessed a grasp of the great style, or that (despite the Ode on Immortality and the sonnet on Toussaint L'Ouverture, which he placed at the head of the poet's work) vital lyric impulse was ever fully developed in his muse. He said: ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... considered his sordid and material. The husband's business was that of a gunmaker in a thriving city northwards, and his soul was in that business always; the lady was best characterized by that superannuated phrase of elegance 'a votary of the muse.' An impressionable, palpitating creature was Ella, shrinking humanely from detailed knowledge of her husband's trade whenever she reflected that everything he manufactured had for its purpose the destruction of life. She could only ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... love For nations yet unborn, I would remove From our two lives the morn, And muse on loveliness In mine armchair, Content should Time confess How sweet ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... family was boundless; his power was absolute: the treasures, of America were at his command, and he made the most infamous use of them. In short, he had made the Court of Madrid one of those places to which the indignant muse of Juvenal conducts the mother of Britanicus. There is no doubt that Godoy was one of the principal causes of all the misfortunes which have overwhelmed Spain ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... examination of the habits and idiosyncrasies of this interesting fossil. Into such small compass are compressed the pride and wealth of nations and of centuries. O genus humanum! O tempora! O mores!" Thus will he muse. No democrat! no stump orator will be that Being of the Future, nor anything of human mould. One's imagination may well revel in the thought that Evolution, mighty to conceive and to perform, lias not yet completed her work. What are vertebrates? Even these ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... the coronal wreath. The past editions of this work, and they have been many, have elicited the strongest praise here and abroad. The classic poets of every land have valued the praise which rewarded their dedication of the first triumphs of the muse to subjects connected with the cultivation of the soil, to the arts that rendered the breast of our common mother lovely, and wedded the labors which sustain life with the arts that render it happy. The work before us has an established reputation. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... is true, that lots of black ma's had 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 in the same ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... deceptions and our only privilege is to surmise. What poor things we are, in truth, though born and reared in the common independence of the age. Everywhere (else) the poorest farmer has his one old horse to take him to and fro, where he will, and he has his acre of God's country, where he may muse in the sun or dream with the stars, while we, conquered by numbers, must walk in a straight line without loitering and we must go into our houses at seven P. M. and close the door. Do you ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... to the post-office he seemed in a disagreeable kind of muse, which Fleda did not choose to break in upon. So the mile and a half was driven in ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... in the merry month of June, when all is green and gay, because the poor muse, whose slave the author is, has been more capricious then the love of a queen, and has mysteriously wished to bring forth her fruit in the time of flowers. No one can boast himself master of this fay. At times, when ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... there are poets and poets, poets sociable and poets very unsociable. Wordsworth made the country, but Lamb made the town; and there is quite a band of poets nowadays who share his distaste for mountains, and take London for their muse. If you'll promise not to cry again, I'll recall some lines by a friend of mine which were written for town-tastes like ours. ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... who on the tragic scene Will now appear—but in the fearless bands Whom his command alone could sway, and whom His spirit fired, you may his shadow see, Until the bashful Muse shall dare to bring Himself before you in a living form; For power it was that bore his heart astray His Camp, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... all the lost privileges of love they must by tradition affect to despise. My prayer for the little lamb that was I presented no aspect of incongruity to my uncle; it left him silent and solemnly abstracted: the man being cast into a heavy muse upon its content, his head fallen over his breast, as was his habit, and his great gray brows drawn down. How still the night—how cold and clear: how unfeeling in this frosty calm and silence, save, afar, where the little stars winked their kindly cognizance of the wakeful dwellers of ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... bunter Muse And, as they quaff'd the fiery juice, Droll Nature stamp'd each lucky ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... became great friends; and through her influence I began to see beyond the portals of the mansions of the rich. Matthew Prior's Chloes and Sir John Suckling's Euphelias lost their charms. Henceforth my muse's name became Phyllis. I took her to the opera when I didn't know where I was going to breakfast on the morrow. I sent her roses and went without tobacco, a privation of ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... "I declare," he added, after a moment's muse, "I felt sorry for the feller settin' up there alone, with nobody to do for him but that old thing he's got in. She can't cook any more than—" He desisted for want of a comparison, and said: ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Lorraine, and Cleveland, or were they only the actors in a vision? "It must be so," thought Vivian; and he jumped up in his bed and stared wildly around him. "And yet it was a horrid dream! Murder, horrible murder! and so real, so palpable! I muse upon their voices as upon familiar sounds, and I recall all the events, not as the shadowy incidents of sleep, that mysterious existence in which the experience of a century seems caught in the breathing of a second, ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... the effervescence of our meeting had lost a little of its first, fine, carbonated sting, what Elysian hours we did spend over the correspondence of those other two friends, Goethe and Schiller! Passage after passage we would turn back to re-read and muse over. These we would discuss without any of the rancor or dogmatic insistence or one-eyed stubbornness that usually accompany the clash of mental steel on mental steel from a different mill. And without making any one else lose the thread or grow short-breathed or accuse us passionately of ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... 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 have ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... that, at that period of life, they were all led on? by the promise of high pay, to treat literature as a trade and to write for money. This seduced them into an unnatural abuse of their intellectual powers; and a man who puts his Pegasus into harness, and urges on his Muse with the whip, will have to pay a penalty similar to that which is exacted by the abuse of other ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... Goldsmith, a person who spends much time in taverns and coffee-houses, where one can study every conceivable shade of character, I took my friend's letter up town with me, and sat down to muse over it and a tankard of ale. It was a cosy bar, cosier than the Cheshire Cheese, if more modern; I sank back in a deep lounge and ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... while to mince the matter; Nor men nor boys like girls can chatter; All now are learning, forward moving, E'en Pins and Needles are improving; And in this glorious, busy day All have some useful part to play. Go forth, ye Pins, and bring home news! Ye Needles in your cases muse! And take me for your kind adviser, And only think of growing wiser; Then, when you meet again, no doubt, Something you'll have to talk about, And need not get into a passion, And quarrel in this vulgar fashion. Less of yourselves you'll think, and ...
— Hymns, Songs, and Fables, for Young People • Eliza Lee Follen
... irrepressible tendency to singing thus burst forth in their presence, and after trolling out a few Irish melodies, he succeeded in eliciting from them a sympathetic response in the shape of some lively French songs. The result proved most delightful to all concerned; and thereafter the muse of Ireland and the muse of France kept up a perpetual antiphonal song, which ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... unavailable to his employer. As a last resort, he enlisted in the regiment of local militia; and his qualifications becoming known to the officers, he was employed as a regimental clerk and schoolmaster. He had written spirited verses in his youth; and though his muse had become mournful, she continued to sing. His end was melancholy: the unfortunate circumstances of his life preyed upon his mind, and in a paroxysm of phrensy he committed suicide. He died in the vicinity of Portsmouth, in the beginning of April 1810, about six weeks before the similar ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... a madrigal was, so they took Noreen's word for it, and allowed her to retire in favor of Edith, who had also been trying to cultivate the muse of poetry. Her ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... happy in the plenty given, The poor contents him with the care of Heaven. See the blind beggar dance, the cripple sing, The sot a hero, lunatic a king; The starving chemist in his golden views Supremely blest, the poet in his muse. See some strange comfort every state attend, And pride bestowed on all, a common friend; See some fit passion every age supply, Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die. Behold the child, by Nature's kindly ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... decisively. "You have to attend to your school work and I to other affairs. When I have you all together quietly some evening I shall tell you about those bygone times. It will be better for you to know than to muse about all the reports you hear. You are most active of all in that, Kurt, and I do not like it; so I hope that you will let the matter rest as soon as you have understood how unfounded the talk really is. Come now, Apollonie, and I will give you the ...
— Maezli - A Story of the Swiss Valleys • Johanna Spyri
... healing the sick, cleansing the leper, raising the dead, saving sinners. As we think thereon, man's true sense is filled with peace, and power; and we say, It is well that Christian Science has taken [20] expressive silence wherein to muse His praise, to kiss the feet of Jesus, adore the white Christ, and stretch ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... samovar on a table near the window, and the master of the house himself in skull-cap and dressing-gown, with a brilliant streak of sunlight falling on his cheek! Oh, the long-haired nurslings of the Muse, wearing spasmodic and contemptuous smiles, that cluster about them! Oh, the young ladies, with faces of greenish pallor, who squeal; over their pianos! For that is the established rule with us in Russia; a man cannot be devoted to one art alone—he must have them all. And so it ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... reflection binds us to the past. Memory then opens for us a volume that no eye but God's and ours can read;—memories of neglect, of sin, of deep secrets that our hearts have hidden in their innermost folds. Such experiences sometimes there are when we muse upon the external universe; when we reflect upon the vastness of creation, the littleness of human effort, the transciency of human relations; when our souls are drawn away from all ordinary communions, and we ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... intentions towards his guest, he gave him to understand that the interview was at an end, at the same time intimating how seldom it was that he dealt so generously with a young writer. Borrow then rose from the table and passed out of the house, leaving his host to muse, as was his custom on Sunday afternoons, "on the magnificence of nature and the moral dignity ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... Muse hath aw'd the stage, And frighten'd wives and children with her rage, Too long Drawcansir roars, Parthenope weeps, While ev'ry lady cries, and critick sleeps With ghosts, rapes, murders, tender hearts they wound, Or else, like thunder, terrify with sound When the skill'd actress to her weeping ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... the young gentleman's blood had got some degrees cooler. Still, he could not help thinking how his folly and thoughtlessness had ruined the hopes of a poor innocent girl, and he longed for some opportunity for going abroad, or participating in some excitement to enable him to muse less ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... show you Falls Mountain, with the cairn erected by his tribe in 1735 to chief Waramaug, who wished to be buried there, so that, when he was cold and lonely in the other life, he could return to his body and muse on the lovely landscape that he so enjoyed. The will-o'-the-wisp flickered on the mountain's edge at night, and flecks of dew-vapor that floated from the wood by day were sometimes thought to be the spirit of the chief. ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... comedy at the hands of the Palais-Royal company, who had discovered the secret of pleasing the Grand Monarque. Moliere had but a fortnight's notice; and he was expected, moreover, to accommodate his muse to ...
— The Bores • Moliere
... Within six months from that date the poem was seven times reissued. This happened 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 this dubious compliment in silence. All Europe was devouring his poems; scribes ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... "But trust the muse—she saw it upward rise, Though marked by none but quick poetic eyes; (So Home's great founder to the heavens withdrew, To Proculus alone confessed to view); A sudden star it shot through liquid air, And drew behind a ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... Lyn Valley climbed to my feet, and I sat down in the shade of the outermost fringe of trees to eat my lunch, and dream and muse, and doze away the first hot hours of the afternoon. I sat looking down over the valley; below me and to right and left the green spikes of the larches were aflutter in the wind; before me rose a great bare shoulder ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... said Velasco with irony: "My dear Kapellmeister, I am not as those who would serve Art with a bottle of champagne under each arm. I want no fumes in my brain and no clod between my fingers when I meet the Muse face ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... thought that he wood the Muse, to speak in the style of the last century. Even his intimates were ignorant of the fact that he had a skeleton in his cupboard, his Kasdah or distichs. He confided to me his secret when we last met in Western IndiaI am purposely vague in specifying ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... endure, and no succession of generations can continue nourishing themselves on the poetry of complaint, and the idealisation of revolt. If, however, it is impossible that Byron should be all to us that he was to a former generation, and if we find no direct guidance in his muse, this is no reason why criticism should pass him over, nor why there may not be something peculiarly valuable in the noble freedom and genuine modernism of his poetic spirit, to an age that is apparently only forsaking the clerical ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 3: Byron • John Morley
... father he may make, but I must match; Segasto loves, but Amadine must like, Where likes her best; compulsion is a thrall: No, no, the hearty choice is all in all, The shepherd's virtue Amadine esteems. But, what, me thinks my shepherd is not come. I muse at that, the hour is sure at hand: Well here ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... in large quantities, mostly raw—producing a raging thirst. The water supply was now curtailed to a few bucketsful, but even these few drops of the precious fluid were mostly wasted in the melee for their possession. The majority of the contestants retired disappointed to muse on the comforts of the Sahara Desert, and as the stories about tapping camels recurred to them, suggestive glances were cast at the more fortunate rivals. After a few days, conspicuous for the sparing enjoyment of salt cod, the water supply ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... island dwelt A nymph, to whom all hoofed Satyrs knelt; At whose white feet the languid Tritons poured Pearls, while on land they wither'd and adored. Fast by the springs where she to bathe was wont, And in those meads where sometime she might haunt, Were strewn rich gifts, unknown to any Muse, Though Fancy's casket were unlock'd to choose. 20 Ah, what a world of love was at her feet! So Hermes thought, and a celestial heat Burnt from his winged heels to either ear, That from a whiteness, as the lily clear, Blush'd ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... her swain, Talks in a high romantic strain; Or whether he at last descends To act with less seraphic ends; Or to compound the business, whether They temper love and books together; Must never to mankind be told, Nor shall the conscious Muse unfold. Meantime the mournful Queen of Love Led but a weary life above. She ventures now to leave the skies, Grown by Vanessa's conduct wise: For though by one perverse event Pallas had cross'd her first intent; Though her design was not obtain'd: Yet had she much experience gain'd, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... times of threatening, of doubt, and distress, and that just so has some being of the next higher order of existences looked down, aware of a law unknown to me, and tenderly commiserating the pain I muse endure in ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... graceful playfulness of manner and sentiment, which shows how heartily the amiable authoress can enter into the sympathies and enjoyments of child, and how much she is at home when she engages in lighter dalliance with the muse. We have taken the liberty to print in italics two or three Barrettisms, which however, we believe, are not very reprehensible. On the whole, it is very pleasing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... ended:—TOM and WILL approve'd his strains; And thought his Legend made as good a figure As naturalizing a dull German's brains, Which beget issues in the Heliconian stews, Upon a profligate Tenth Muse, In all the gloomy impotence ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... which I fain would sing, If the kind Muse her Aid would bring, Is Arbor Vitae; but in brief, By vulgar Men call'd—Tree ...
— The Ladies Delight • Anonymous
... muse in a crowd all day On the absent face that fixed you; Unless you can love as the angels may, With the breadth of heaven betwixt you; Unless you can dream that his faith is fast, Through behooving and ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... the Master's 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, so hopeful? And as in ...
— 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
... enchanted Sleeping Beauty," said the impresario Doermaul to Wurzelmann and Daniel, "the province is still asleep, and you must rouse it from its slumbers by pressing the kiss of the Muse ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... o'clock in the evening, when the light feet of the happy dancers had already been active for some hour or so in the worship of their favourite muse, that Robinson was standing up with his arm round his fair one's waist, immediately opposite to the door of entrance. His right arm still embraced her slight girdle, whilst with his left hand he wiped the perspiration from his ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... friends, you shall hear to-night! I, who have heard every fine voice in Europe, confidently pledge my respectability that the Ravenswing is equal to them all. She has the graces, sir, of a Venus with the mind of a Muse. She is a siren, sir, without the dangerous qualities of one. She is hallowed, sir, by her misfortunes as by her genius; and I am proud to think that my instructions have been the means of developing the wondrous qualities that were ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and entreated him to think better of my father than to imagine him invincible to argument. I promised to go to him in the morning, and counteract, as much as I could, the effects of my evening conversation. At length he departed, with somewhat renovated spirits, and left me to muse upon the strange events ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... Parnassus' hill, And by the bright Pierian spring She shall receive an offering From every youth who pipes a strain Beside his flocks upon the plain. But I, the first, this very day, Will tune for her my humble lay, Invoking this new Muse to render My oaten reed more sweet and tender, Within its vibrant hollows wake Such dulcet voices for her sake As, curved hand at straining ear, I long have stood and sought to hear Borne with the warm midsummer ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... mystic thrill felt by a devotee in the open sanctuary of the Almighty. No man ever interpreted Nature in such inspired strains as William Wordsworth. What supremely delights the lover of scenery is that this poet's muse can overwrap the exact and detailed knowledge of Nature with a superb mantle of idealistic glory. He saw and understood the harmony of Nature's forms and colours through all the seasons: at the quiet ingleside he meditated on what he had seen and heard, enshrined ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... pangs of conscious truth to hide, To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, 70 Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride With incense kindled at the Muse's flame. ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various |
