"Pondering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... pondering, as children of his age will do. The seniors would be surprised pretty often if they could guess how deep and far the young thoughts go, but, then, the seniors have forgotten their own young days, or were never of a ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... 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
... pondering. He presently rose, and walked up and down the deck. He could hear Lydia and Hicks trying that song: now the voice, and now the flute; then both together; and presently a burst of laughter. He began to be angry with her ignorance and inexperience. ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... pondering whether he ought not to follow Miss Mowbray towards Shaws-Castle, in order to be satisfied that no accident had befallen her on the road, he heard the tread of a horse's feet advancing hastily in the same direction, leading ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... 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
... pondering in my mind some words that had casually issued from the mouth of my youngest Grandson, a most promising young Hexagon of unusual brilliancy and perfect angularity. His uncles and I had been giving him his usual practical lesson in Sight Recognition, ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... 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
... Pondering the difficulties of her trying position, yet in no murmuring spirit, Mary Stansfield, on this quiet summer's evening, was just passing the boundary wall which separated Riverton Park from the adjoining property, when, to her ...
— Working in the Shade - Lowly Sowing brings Glorious Reaping • Theodore P Wilson
... 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
... 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
... 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 |
