"Contemplate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... catchtrap, and rescue the five-dollar piece. Prisoners were not well fed, she had been told; and the thought of placing clams and dry bread before Billy, after thirty days of prison fare, was too appalling for her to contemplate. She knew how he liked to spread his butter on thick, how he liked thick, rare steak fried on a dry hot pan, and how he liked coffee that was coffee ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... himself and the landscape as he went. The river ran between the stepping-stones with a pretty wimple; a bird sang loudly in the wood; the hill-tops looked immeasurably high, and, as he glanced at them from time to time, seemed to contemplate his movements with a beneficent but awful curiosity. His way took him to the eminence which overlooked the plain; and there he sat down upon a stone, and fell into deep and pleasant thought. The plain lay abroad with its cities and silver river; everything was asleep, except a great eddy of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the most he asks. For he is but reaching out through and beyond mankind, trying to see what he can of the infinite and its immensities—throwing back to us whatever he can—but ever conscious that he but occasionally catches a glimpse; conscious that if he would contemplate the greater, he must wrestle with the lesser, even though it dims an outline; that he must struggle if he would hurl back anything—even a broken fragment for men to examine and perchance in it find a germ of some part of truth; conscious at times, of the futility of his effort and ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... Sadly did we contemplate the poor remnant of the flock, and guilty did I feel for having left the sheep unattended. At first my mother blamed me sorely for what I had done; but when we talked the matter over it seemed not so much my own fault in leaving the sheep (for that ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... oft at twilight gloom thy grave I pass, 35 And sit me down upon its recent grass, With introverted eye I contemplate Similitude of soul, perhaps of—Fate! To me hath Heaven with bounteous hand assign'd Energic Reason and a shaping mind, 40 The daring ken of Truth, the Patriot's part, And Pity's sigh, that breathes the gentle ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... a sinful world, is an astounding fact indeed, a sublime moral miracle in history. But this freedom from the common sin and guilt of the race is, after all, only the negative side of his character, which rises in magnitude as we contemplate the positive side, namely, absolute moral and religious perfection. It is universally admitted, even by deists and rationalists, that Christ taught the purest and sublimest system of ethics, which throws all the moral precepts ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... what Master Richard did, following the Victorines but not altogether. He strove to serve God alike in all, and I count his life, therefore, the highest that I have ever known. He said that to dig, to talk over the gate with a neighbour, and to contemplate the Divine Essence, were all alike to serve God. He counted none wasted, for God Almighty had made the trinity of natures in His own image, and intended, therefore, a proper occupation for each. To refuse to dig or to talk ...
— The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary • Robert Hugh Benson
... pleasant idea to contemplate. Each of the suits had a radio for communication with each other and with the ship, but they would only carry a few hundred miles. A ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... made it his business to address; and that when, in what he deemed a good cause, he appealed to the understandings of his adult country-folk, he besought them in every instance to test and examine ere they judged and decided. He did not contemplate a phase of the controversy in which unthinking children should come from their schools to contend with other children, in the spirit of those little ones of Bethel who 'came forth out of their city' to mock and to jeer; or ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... feel as though I'd discovered a gold mine, and I want to blaze its location before departing. Just when, with your philosophy, do you contemplate taking this important leap among ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... Synod declared: "We reiterate our firm belief that our confessional basis [of 1864] is adequate and satisfactory." (58.) Again: "The confessional resolutions referred to [of 1895 and 1901] are not alterations of the constitution, and contemplate no alterations; they are simply explanations of the meaning of the General Synod's confessional basis. Therefore, it is not necessary to submit them to the District Synods of the General Synod" (for adoption). (58.) The Report of Dr. L.S. Keyser, delegate to ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... consistency in this regard ceases to be a jewel; art proves irresistible. As for adventure stories, there is a fringe of them that comes under the riddle-story head; but for the most part the riddle story begins after the adventures have finished. We are to contemplate a condition, not to watch the events that ultimate in it. Our detective, or anyone else, may of course meet with haps and mishaps on his way to the solution of his puzzle; but an astute writer will not color such ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... fictive and transitory when inquiry of the station attendants educed the information that the two earliest trains to be obtained were the 5:09 for Dunkerque and the 5:37 for Ostend. A minimum delay of four hours was to be endured in the face of many contingent features singularly unpleasant to contemplate. The station waiting-room was on the point of closing for the night, and Kirkwood, already alarmed by the rapid ebb of the money he had had of Calendar, dared not subject his finances to the strain ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... emphatically have forbidden them. Nevertheless, he was glad to leave his intentions vague, feeling that in thus wilfully shutting his eyes he might avoid personal responsibility for what might happen. He had every confidence that Oldham—a man of more than average cultivation—while he might contemplate lawlessness, was of too high an order to consider physical violence. Baker was inclined to believe that on mature reflection Bob would yield to the accumulation of influence against him. If not, Oldham intimated with no uncertain confidence, ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... a sofa, her beautiful tresses unbound, her dress the perfection of elegant negligence. I half suspected that it was studied negligence: yet I could not help pausing, as I entered, to contemplate a figure. She never looked more beautiful—more fascinating. Holding out her hand to me, she said, with her languid smile, and tender expression of voice and manner, "You are come then to bid me ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... description of the Falls of Niagara, is in the simple ejaculation of Mrs Butler; for it is almost useless to attempt to describe when you feel that language fails; but if the falls cannot be described, the ideas which are conjured up in the mind, when we contemplate this wonderful combination of grandeur and beauty, are often worth recording. The lines of Mrs Sigourney, the American poetess, please ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... determinateness is got by refusing to contemplate anything outside a certain scheme: it is an internal truth within the assigned boundaries, and is quite consistent with psychical interference and indeterminateness, as soon as those boundaries are ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge
... contemplate him, Coppee belongs to the group commonly called "Parnassiens"—not the Romantic School, the sentimental lyric effusion of Lamartine, Hugo, or De Musset! When the poetical lute was laid aside by the triad of 1830, it was ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... pervade his every action. He made no attempt to be alone with Dot, and she, with a shyness almost overwhelming, thankfully accepted his forbearance. The day they had fixed upon for their marriage was rapidly approaching, but she had almost ceased to contemplate it, for somehow it seemed to her that it could never dawn. Something must happen first! Surely something was about to happen! And from day to day she lived for the sight of Bill Warden's great figure and the sound of his steady voice. Anything, ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... you," Mr. Hunter said; "such a journey would be frightful to contemplate, and I don't think, in our case, that my wife could possibly perform such a journey; still, some might do so. At any rate, I think the chances are better than they would be were we to ride out in a body. I should ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... getting up and shouting when her sons are interfered with. But they can easily make Russia impossible for you. They can do you more harm than you think. They can do these poor devils of peasants of yours more harm than we can comfortably contemplate. As for me," he paused and shrugged his great shoulders, "it means Siberia. Already I am a suspect—a persona ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... moment's hesitation and without having to stop and think for the right word or the right phrase but have it right there on the tip of the tongue—you little reck that they too passed through the same initiation which you now contemplate. Yet such ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... rector, in a grave voice, "a few strong and privileged beings are able to contemplate their coming death face to face, to fight, as it were, a duel with it, and to display a courage and an ability which challenge admiration. You show us this terrible spectacle; but perhaps you have too little pity for ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... gate—and received immediate admission within some ancient and low cloisters: of which the pavement consisted entirely of monumental slabs. The valet sought the librarian, to make known my wishes of examining the library; and I was left alone to contemplate the novel and strange scene which presented itself on all sides. There were two quadrangles, each of sufficiently limited dimensions. In the first, there were several young Monks playing at skittles in the centre of the lawn. Both the bowl and pins were of unusually large dimensions, ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... on as if I enjoyed the demonstration. I stopped once and spoke to the crowd, and, as I knew no Chinese, I told them in gentle English of the very low opinion their conduct led me to form of the moral relations of their mothers, and the resignation with which it induced me to contemplate the hyperpyretic surroundings of their posthumous existence; and, borrowing the Chinese imprecation, I ventured to express the hope that when their souls return again to earth they may dwell in the bodies of hogs, since they appeared to me the ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... Sir Patrick. "Assuming that Blanche is like most other human beings, and has some prospect of happiness to contemplate, if she could only be made to see it—are we not bound to make her see it, by our moral obligation to act on the medical advice?" He cast a courteously-persuasive look at her ladyship, and paused in the most innocent ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... he personally commended and pressed on her some apples; this only intensified her suspicions, and she gave them to the attendants untasted. Tiberius made no open comment, but observed to his mother that it would hardly be surprising should he contemplate harsh measures towards one who obviously took him for ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... and dark, enveloped, as it were, in a sort of black atmosphere tinged with red. While at times a confusion of the two sights took place, and Jones saw the two faces mingled in a composite countenance that was very horrible indeed to contemplate. But, beyond this occasional change in the outward appearance of the Manager, there was nothing that the secretary noticed as the result of his vision, and business went on more or less as before, and perhaps even with a ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... things: what must he have endured at the sight of them? For if we, so long after the event, can not bear to hear of this tragedy, tho it was another man's calamity, what an adamant was he to look on these things, and contemplate them, not as another's, but his own afflictions! He did not give way to dejection, nor ask, "What does this mean? Is this the recompense for my kindness? Was it for this that I opened my house, that I might see it made ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... no intelligence, is a heavy blow and great discouragement to dogs, horses, elephants, and monkeys. Stripped of their all, and left to shift for themselves as they can in this hard world, their pursuit and seeming attainment of knowledge under such peculiar difficulties is interesting to contemplate. However, we are not so sure as is the critic that instinct regularly increases downward and decreases upward in the scale of being. Now that the case of the bee is reduced to moderate proportions,[12] we know of nothing in instinct ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... would be the loss of happiness, of consolation, of intellectual life. Listen and have pity upon me! I could not say it to your face, but I will say it now, though you may think it an unpardonable crime. You have become so necessary to me that I cannot contemplate existence without you. Have you not seen it already—or, if you have not, can you doubt when you look back on the past six months—that respect has grown into affection, and affection into love? Yes, I love you, Lettice!—in my own heart I call you Lettice every ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... mixed type. That historian of Batson's who was quoted in the previous chapter, related that after leaving its dismal vicinity he was glad to "breathe the pure air in St. Paul's coffee-house," but he was obliged to add that as he entertained the highest veneration for the clergy he could not "contemplate the magnificence of the cathedral without reflecting on the abject condition of those 'tatter'd crapes,' who are said to ply here for an occasional burial or sermon, with the same regularity as the happier drudges who salute us with the ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... sanguinary evidence of a raid during the night. To his amazement, there were no visible signs of an attack upon the house. It seemed incredible that his defection had not been attended by results too horrible to contemplate. By all the laws of fate, she should now be either dead or at the very least, frightfully mutilated. Something like that invariably happens when a sentinel sleeps at his post, or an engineer drowses in his cab. But nothing ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... start to meet a spirit there, Secure that naught of evil could delight To walk in such a scene, in such a night! It was a moment only for the good: So Lara deemed: nor longer there he stood; But turn'd in silence to his castle-gate: Such scene his soul no more could contemplate: Such scene reminded him of other days, Of skies more cloudless, moons of purer blaze; Of nights more soft and frequent, hearts that now— No, no! the storm may beat upon his brow Unfelt, unsparing; but a night like this, A night of beauty, mock'd such ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... features of the picture are in unison with this expression, except in the tender anxiety of the Virgin's eye; and all is at rest in the surrounding objects, save where her hand gently removes the veil to contemplate the unrivalled beauty of ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... Marchese and Stecchi approved the plan; so all three forthwith left the inn and repaired to a lonely place, where Martellino distorted his hands, his fingers, his arms, his legs, and also his mouth and eyes and his entire face in a manner horrible to contemplate; so that no stranger that saw him could have doubted that he was impotent and paralysed in every part of his body. In this guise Marchese and Stecchi laid hold of him, and led him towards the church, assuming a most piteous air, and humbly beseeching everybody for God's sake to make way for them. ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... would provide ourselves with his Itinerarium; compare what has been, with what is; contemplate in their decay the castles and abbeys, which he saw in their strength and splendour; and, while you were sketching their remains, I would dispassionately inquire what has ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... a subject which the vanity of these gentlemen would have extended ad infinitum, or, at least, longer than I wished, I left them to their own lucubrations, and went on deck to contemplate the grandeur of the scenery which surrounded us, and which was reflected in the transparent waters of the Rhine. The river here resembles a succession of lakes, and is surrounded in many places by such lofty mountains, that I was often at a loss to ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard
... newly baked, and manufactured of the finest flour. The aspect of these "refreshments" was of the most tempting character! To our excited imaginations, they equalled the nectar and ambrosia which furnished the feasts on Mount Olympus. We did not tarry long to gaze upon their beauties, or contemplate their excellence. Each one broke a roll into his basin of milk, seized a spoon, and without speaking a word, commenced operations with exemplary energy, with cheeks glowing with excitement, and eyes glistening with pleasure; while our good-natured ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... the fortifications would expose the island, and therefore the coasts of Italy, to the rovers; yet he suggested a partial demolition, which seems to prove that the British officers in command at Malta did not contemplate the retention of the island and ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... that this places female preference or choice on a much lower psychological plane than Darwin in some passages seems to contemplate where, for example, he says that the female appreciates the display of the male and places to her credit a taste for the beautiful. But Darwin himself distinctly states[177] that "it is not probable that she consciously deliberates; but she is ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... in and out before him or sat at the Senator's table, solidified into palpable flesh and blood; famous statesmen crossed his path daily; that once rare and awe-inspiring being, a Congressman, was become a common spectacle—a spectacle so common, indeed, that he could contemplate it without excitement, even without embarrassment; foreign ministers were visible to the naked eye at happy intervals; he had looked upon the President himself, and lived. And more; this world of enchantment teemed with ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 3. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... that the free man thinks of nothing less than of death; but this free man is a dead man, free from the impulse of life, for want of love, the slave of his liberty. This thought that I must die and the enigma of what will come after death is the very palpitation of my consciousness. When I contemplate the green serenity of the fields or look into the depths of clear eyes through which shines a fellow-soul, my consciousness dilates, I feel the diastole of the soul and am bathed in the flood of the life that flows about me, and I believe in my future; but instantly the voice of mystery whispers ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... for a moment, to contemplate his lovely wife in this more lovely act of charity. Her beautiful hands held a cup to the lips of the stranger; while her long hair, escaped from its band, fell in jetty ringlets, and mingled ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... Sylvia's slim knees. Sylvia thrilled. She touched the soft puff of blond hair timidly with her bony fingers. "But I have always had a maid," Rose persisted, in a somewhat puzzled way. Rose could hardly conceive of continued existence without a maid. She had managed very well for a few days, but to contemplate life without one altogether seemed like contemplating the possibility of living without a comb and hair-brush. Sylvia's face took on a ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... perspiration began again; he had to put on more wraps. His terror took possession of him: he was forced to contemplate the most awful possibilities—to picture to himself what death his mother ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... extended, as I suggest that it should be, to cover the whole field of dramatic interest. I suggest that the theorists have hitherto dwelt far too much on curiosity[8]—which may be defined as the interest of ignorance—and far too little on the feeling of superiority, of clairvoyance, with which we contemplate a foreknown action, whether of a comic or of a tragic cast. Of course the action must be, essentially if not in every detail, true to nature. We can derive no sense of superiority from our foreknowledge of an arbitrary or ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... the eyes of the great poet, Richard Alardyce, and suffered a little shock which would have led him, had he been wearing a hat, to remove it. The eyes looked at him out of the mellow pinks and yellows of the paint with divine friendliness, which embraced him, and passed on to contemplate the entire world. The paint had so faded that very little but the beautiful large eyes were left, dark in the ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... unscrupulous lawyer found himself outwitted. His tool had proved too sharp for him. Without a doubt he was in his power to an extent by no means agreeable to contemplate. Grind now saw that conciliation was far ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
... be; the responsibility for that old man's death lies between—between that secretary fellow and me; any fool can see that. It's downright devilish to be one of two such alternatives; but if I tell you what brought me here last night—Swift, I just simply can't contemplate doing it!" ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... passions which may incite them to a terrible revenge. America boasts of freedom, and of such a progress as the world has never seen before; but while the tide of the Anglo-Saxon race rolls across her continent, and while we contemplate with pleasure a vast nation governed by free institutions, and professing a pure faith, a hand, faintly seen at present, but destined ere long to force itself upon the attention of all, points to the empires of a by-gone civilisation, and shows that they had their periods in which to rise, flourish, ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... the whole, Spain was in a military as well as financial point of view a burden rather than a gain to the Roman commonwealth; and the question naturally occurs, Why did the Roman government, whose policy at that time evidently did not contemplate the acquisition of countries beyond the sea, not rid itself of these troublesome possessions? The not inconsiderable commercial connections of Spain, her important iron- mines, and her still more important silver-mines famous from ancient times even ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... difficulty of Boswell's performance. When his work appeared Boswell himself said: 'The stretch of mind and prompt assiduity by which so many conversations are preserved, I myself, at some distance of time, contemplate with wonder.' ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... "are of vast importance, and require time and experience, as well as deep and solemn thought, to find them out. And if we would bring the world to salvation it requires that our minds should rise to the highest, and also search into and contemplate the lowest abyss"—he paused for a moment, and then added in sad undertone—"that ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... a point where they were detailing with what pleasure a certain mysterious person whom they seemed to regard with much fear and respect would contemplate her. I was wondering how long my desire to observe—for to the anthropologist they were most fascinating—could hold my hand back from my rifle ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... body of men whose mission it is to succor suffering innocence wherever they may find it. They dwell in a magnificent castle on the summit of the mountain, within whose walls they assemble every day to contemplate and adore a miraculous vessel from which they obtain both physical and spiritual sustenance. In order to enjoy the benefits which flow from this talisman, they are required to preserve their bodies in ascetic purity. Their king has fallen from this estate and been grievously wounded in an encounter ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... brings a piece of bleeding flesh to his lair; and often, by the glimmer of a dark lantern, kneeling in adoration before this shameful idol, his eyes sparkling with ferocious joy, with a smile which suggested a hyena's delight over its prey, he would contemplate his money, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... General Scott? ask a few knaves, whom a great many simpletons know no better than to echo. No, Sirs! we know very little of the art of war, and General Scott a great deal. The real question—which the above is asked only to shuffle out of sight—is this: Does General Scott contemplate the same ends, and is he animated by like impulses and purposes, with the great body of the loyal, liberty-loving people of this country? Does he want the Rebels routed, or would he prefer to have them ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... employed by Philip in any work which the monarch could find for him to do. Yet this was the man whom Philip chose, through the executioner's sword, to convert into a popular idol, and whom Poetry has loved to contemplate as a romantic ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... be fixed upon the mind. The mind should then be fixed on Consciousness, O king, Consciousness should next be fixed on intelligence or Buddhi, and Buddhi, should then be fixed on Prakriti. Thus merging these one after another, Yogins contemplate the Supreme Soul which is One, which is freed from Rajas, which is stainless, which is Immutable and Infinite and Pure and without defect, who is Eternal Purusha, who is unchangeable, who is Indivisible, who is ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... remainder of which came to light in 1875 in two forms, a Greek MS. and a Syriac translation. Moreover, the Apostolical Constitutions, which are still later—going well into the second century—expressly contemplate preaching by a layman. Dr. Hatch does not hesitate to say that the earliest positive prohibitions of lay preaching were issued solely in the interests of ecclesiastical order, not because there was any inherent right in the priest ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... pleasant thing to contemplate that tower of polished leather, brass and steel, with a man inside of it some forty pounds heavier than I, and think that in a minute or so we two should be engaged in a close grapple, whose termination involved considerable ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... question, which has shocked and perplexed many good Christians, we shall find that St. Paul is not drawing a contrast between the earthly and the heavenly Christ, bidding us worship the Second Person of the Trinity, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, and to cease to contemplate the Cross on Calvary. He is distinguishing rather between the sensuous presentation of the facts of Christ's life, and a deeper realisation of their import. It should be our aim to "know no man after the flesh"; that is to say, we should ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... here. The dykes are far away, and the Spaniards cannot protect them. Grievous as it is to the prince to contemplate the destruction of the rich country your fathers have won from the sea, he bids me tell you that he will not hesitate; but that, as a last resource, he pledges himself that he will lay the country under water and drown out the Spaniards to save you. They have sworn, as you ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... di-psychic quality was evidenced by the rapidity with which the expression of his eye would frequently change from cold calculation to a certain rapt observation, as if he looked up from a complicated problem to contemplate a glimpse of blue distance. Thus it was that he appreciated to the full the panorama spread out before him, though his mind was intent upon another subject; or rather, it might be said that the sight gave warmth and colouring to his thought. He had passed the place of that ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... sacrifices rather than be false to their affections. While her frame shuddered, therefore, with the violence and abruptness of the emotions she had endured, dawnings of the right gleamed upon her pure mind, and it was not long before she was able to contemplate the truth with the steadiness of principle, though it might, at the same time, have been with much of the lingering weakness of humanity. When she lowered her hands, she looked towards the mute and watchful Sigismund, with a smile that caused the deadly paleness of her features ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... lived in the country, the advent of boys would not be a thing to contemplate with secret dread. It is rather a terrible thing, a houseful of boys in a town, or in a pretty thickly populated district. Boys, it is true, are always a source of pleasure to the humorist and the scientific observer of mankind. They are ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... since North and South crossed swords upon this memorable field; and it would seem that all Americans can now contemplate with unruffled heart the errors under which "the Army of the Potomac was here beaten without ever being fought," as well as boast with equal pride, not only of the abundant courage displayed by either side, but of the calm skill with which Gen. Lee wrested victory from a situation ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... am I convinced in my fixed imagination of our success, and have put it to my capital account. I already foresee our militia system, established on a permanent basis, and combined with that of the territory, carrying our city to the skies. I contemplate a fortification of Florence, not temporary, as it now is, but with walls and bastions to be built hereafter. The principal and most difficult step has been already taken; the whole space round the ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... Speaking for the majority, Justice Stone declared any "distinction * * * between a tax laid on sales made, without previous contract, after the merchandise had crossed the State boundary, and sales, the contracts for which when made contemplate or require the transportation of merchandise interstate to the taxing State," to be "without the support of reason or authority";[602] and the Robbins case was held to be "narrowly limited to fixed-sum license taxes imposed on the business of soliciting ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... somewhere—or else, how could have arisen in my mind the conception, however faint, of an ideal holiness? But where? oh, where? Not in the world around strewn with unholiness. Not in myself, unholy too, without and within. Is there a Holy One, whom I may contemplate with utter delight? and if so, where is He? Oh, that I might behold, if but for a moment, His perfect beauty, even though, as in the fable of Semele of old, 'the lightning of His glance were death.'" ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... Mrs. Orton Beg a cup of tea which Mrs. Beale was pouring out for her. "But I have seen Mrs. Colquhoun," he added. "I was at the wedding—she looked remarkably well." He fixed his eyes on vacancy here, and turned his attention inward in order to contemplate a vision of Evadne in her wedding dress. His first question about a strange woman was always; "Is she good-looking?" and his first thought when one whom he knew happened to be mentioned was always as to whether ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... suffered, as, bending beneath the weight of their ignorance and uncertainty, they have traversed the desert across which, with so much pain, they have conducted thee! And if the pride of thy young learning shall make thee contemplate the petty strifes in which our life has been consumed, pause and tremble, as you think of that which is still unknown to yourself, and of the judgment that your descendants will pass on you. Think of this, and ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... period, as is usual among degraded peoples, the history of the Romans degenerates into mere anecdotes of their rulers. Happily, however, it is not our duty to enter on the chronique scandaleuse of plots and counterplots, as little tolerable to contemplate as the factions of the court of France in the worst periods of its history. We can only ask what possible part a philosopher could play at such a court? We can only say that his position there is not to the credit of his philosophical professions; and that we can contemplate his presence ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... "vie with old England," was a notion which good Americans could contemplate with much equanimity; and even if the Swedish traveler, according to a habit of travelers, had stretched the facts a point or two, it was still abundantly clear that the continental colonies were thought to be, even by Englishmen themselves, of far greater importance to the mother country ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... slowly in the negroes, but it worked mightily, and the very sign of its working was, as a matter of course, unreasonableness, insubordination, untrustworthiness. This result might have been foreseen, and probably was foreseen. It was not a pleasant thing to contemplate, nor is it pleasant to read of, but it proved nothing as to the powers and possibilities of the negro people. It is not probable that any of the "missionaries," however discouraged, came to think that the black man was ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... with locomotives, her streets with cabs, her skies with balloons of a power and magnitude hitherto unknown in the history of aeronautics in this or any other nation—I say, whether I look merely at home, or, stretching my eyes farther, contemplate the boundless prospect of conquest and possession—achieved by British perseverance and British valour—which is outspread before me, I clasp my hands, and turning my eyes to the broad expanse above my head, exclaim, "Thank ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... Earl Roth of Meliot, Sir Epinogris, and Sir Hector de Maris: then Earl Damas of Listenise smote like a whirlwind, and Jurgen slid contentedly down the tail of his fine horse. His part in the tournament was ended, and he was heartily glad of it. He preferred to contemplate rather than share in such festivities: and he now followed his bent with a most exquisite misery, because he considered that never had any other poet occupied ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... any diminution of our dominion as not only treasonable, but ruinous; on the other hand, it procured them the alliance of France and Spain. But it cannot be said that either of these incidents produced any practical effect on the result of the war. Lord Chatham's refusal to contemplate their independence could not retard its establishment; and the alliance of France and Spain, which brought nothing but disaster to those countries, could not accelerate it by a single moment. For nearly six years the war continued with alternations of success, the victories gained by the ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... naturalness and sincerity upon art was great. One very pretty sad story is told of him, to the effect that when his son, whom he had dearly loved, was killed at Cortona, he caused the body to be stripped, and painted it with the utmost exactitude, that through his own handiwork he might be able to contemplate that treasure of which fate had robbed him. Perhaps the most beautiful or at any rate the most idiosyncratic thing in the picture before us is its lovely profusion of wayside flowers. These come out but poorly in the photograph, but in ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... legacy-hunting. He has given a specimen of his nice observation of the mere external appearances of life, in the following passage in No. 179, against affectation, that frequent and most disgusting quality: 'He that stands to contemplate the crouds that fill the streets of a populous city, will see many passengers whose air and motion it will be difficult to behold without contempt and laughter; but if he examine what are the appearances ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... the Continent, and the civility of Mr. Frey, a man of sense, who was not ignorant of books or the world. But after he had resigned me into Pavilliard's hands, and I was fixed in my new habitation, I had leisure to contemplate the strange and melancholy prospect before me. My first complaint arose from my ignorance of the language. In my childhood I had once studied the French grammar, and I could imperfectly understand the easy prose ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... Prospect of those coming Gallantries that will Equal those of his Glorious Father; already, My Lord, all you say and do is admir'd, and every touch of your Pen reverenc'd; the Excellency and Quickness of your Wit, is the Subject that fits the World most agreeably. For my own part, I never presume to contemplate your Lordship, but my Soul bows with a perfect Veneration to your Mighty Mind; and while I have ador'd the delicate Effects of your uncommon Wit, I have wish'd for nothing more than an Opportunity of expressing my infinite Sense of ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... by, to see them jump. He was a born humorist. But he got to going too far with it; and the first time he was found stripping one of these parties, the authorities removed one end of him, and put it up on a nice high place on Temple Bar, where it could contemplate the people and have a good time. He never liked any situation so much or stuck to it ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... decently dressed, approach you, and whisper to you: "Monsieur, bestow your charity on the Marquis, or Marquise—on the Baron or Baroness, such a one, ruined by the Revolution;" and you sometimes hear names on which history has shed so brilliant a lustre that, while you contemplate the deplorable reverses of human greatness, you are not a little surprised to find that it is in your power to relieve with a trifle the wants of the grandson of an illustrious warrior, before whom nations trembled, or of ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... realization affect his love and loyalty to Nella-Rose; but that he should have been swept from his moorings by passion, reduced him to a state of contempt for the folly he had perpetrated. And, he thought, if he now, after a few days, could so contemplate his acts how could he suppose that others would view them with tolerance ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... features and their physiognomy in some manner, aliquo modo imaginibus is Pliny's expression, showed that even their persons should not entirely be annihilated; they indeed, adds Pliny, form a spectacle which the gods themselves might contemplate; for if the gods sent those heroes to the earth, it is Varro who secured their immortality, and has so multiplied and distributed them in all places, that we may carry them about us, place them wherever we choose, and fix our eyes on them with perpetual admiration. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... might not fail them in the hour of trial was very materially clouded by the dread that in their embarrassment they might assign a perfectly correct English version to the wrong Hebrew text. The result of such mischance they would not allow themselves to contemplate. On the other hand, however, there was the welcome possibility that they might be so able to dispose themselves among the orientalists in their class that a word dropped at a critical moment might save them from this mischance. And there was the further, and not altogether unreal, ground of ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... outpoured on some high-lying walled city of arid central Spain! Mist is but a weak thing as against rock and fire; and what his mother must have suffered in moral and spiritual conflict, let alone all question of active dread, was to her son almost too cruel to contemplate, although it explained and ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... machine-shop and with the additional disadvantage that through the long time that certainly must pass before I could get her finished she would lie open to the daily heavy rains. And then I had the much more reasonable notion—though the amount of extra labor that it involved was not encouraging to contemplate—that I would do my work on her where she lay; and when I had finished her that I would cut loose a sufficient number of plates from the side of the steamer to make a hole big enough to ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... dexterous and firm sagacity of English enterprise, ever carried this most perilous mode of hardy industry to the extent to which it has been pushed by this recent people,—a people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood. When I contemplate these things,—when I know that the colonies in general owe little or nothing to any care of ours, and that they are not squeezed into this happy form by the constraints of watchful and suspicious government, but that, through a wise and salutary ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... mystery, in such manner, that if, for example, on Monday, the birth of our Saviour was the subject of your meditation, that of his circumcision shall be for Tuesday, and so in course, till in a month's time, having run through all the actions of Jesus Christ, you come to contemplate him ascending into heaven in triumph. You are every month to begin these meditations again in ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... attaining the highest perfection of which it is capable, and especially as that perfection was manifested in saintly individuals, in characters of great acquirements, adorned with the graces of Christian piety. His greatest sorrow was to contemplate masses of mankind hopelessly bound to vice and misery by chains of passion, ignorance, and prejudice. As no one more firmly believed in the power of Christianity to regenerate a fallen race, as faith and experience both conspired to assure him that the ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... to everything. Custom destroys sensations. Death and its mysteries, the horrible, and all its threatening shapes soon present nothing to our eyes but worn-out pictures. He accustomed himself to contemplate without emotion this lugubrious ruin. As before, the frenzy seized him and shook him before the skull. It did more. It clothed it again with flesh. It planted long hairs upon that shining, yellow forehead. It placed in the hollow orbits large eyes full of love; it hid the wasted ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... circumstance to which it owes its origin. It was erected by his grateful subjects in memory of the late king Christian VII., to commemorate the abolition of feudal service. Surely no feeling person can contemplate without joyful emotion a ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... stained and yellow frontage looked down towards the busy harbour, as it seemed with a sense of serene decay, haunted but without disquietude, like the face of an old lady who has memories and lives in them, though she deigns to contemplate a life from which her hopes, with her old friends and lovers, have dropped out. Perhaps Mr. Fogo had some sympathy with this mood; for Caleb, after waiting some time for his reply, took to his paddles again with a will, ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... for timely discovery and judicious action, would have resulted most disastrously, not only to the particular cities and towns specified and doomed to destruction, but to the whole country. None can contemplate the danger through which we have passed without a shudder and without a recognition of the hand of a merciful Providence who has guided our beloved country in its darkest hours and who has crowned our struggles for liberty and union with ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... at this. He was far from being a coward, but appearances had their value in his eyes; and even, in its least serious aspect, young North's predicament was not pleasant to contemplate. ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... train halted at Bellair, Jarvis seated himself in the smoking-car, feeling quite self-satisfied. When the train moved on, he lighted a very black cigar, and began to contemplate the situation. ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... sufficiently explained herself upon the nature of his designs, to make a Girl so ignorant of the world as her Daughter aware how dangerous was his acquaintance. At this moment, when penetrated with horror at the scene which had just past, and dreading to contemplate the Ghost's prediction, her mind had need of all the succours of friendship and religion, Antonia regarded the Abbot with an eye doubly partial. That strong prepossession in his favour still existed which She had felt for him at first sight: She fancied, yet knew not wherefore, that his presence ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... delightful travel-books of recent times.... Mrs. Boyd's volume must commend itself to people who contemplate visiting the other side of the globe and to ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... as I have. Don't let us have any sham humility about it. Whatever happens you'll always associate with folk of good-breeding and education. You couldn't go back to Barn Street. It would be idiotic for me to contemplate such a thing for my part. But between Barn Street and Mayfair there's a refined and intellectual land where you and I can meet on equal ground and make our social position. What ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... spiders down her back. Mary Ann has such a horror of spiders as never was! Then, worst of all, there's poor Miss Frost, such a patient lady, and she has swallowed insects instead of pills. It's too awful to contemplate." ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... left the cabin, and told the crowd about Michel Ardan's proposition. His words were received with great demonstrations of joy. That cut short all difficulties. The next day every one could contemplate the European hero at their ease. Still some of the most obstinate spectators would not leave the deck of the Atlanta; they passed the night on board. Amongst others, J.T. Maston had screwed his steel hook into the combing of the ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... have done it for any one, I knew; but to come deliberately after me, who had ruined his chances last term, and whom he despised as a pilferer and a sneak—this was an act of heroism which it baffled me to contemplate, and in the contemplation of which consequently I succumbed once more to sleep ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... was disposed to express my interest by sympathising with their pleasures. The pains of poverty I had lately seen too much of, more than I wished to remember; but the pleasures of the poor, their consolations of spirit, and their reposes from bodily toil, can never become oppressive to contemplate. Now Saturday night is the season for the chief, regular, and periodic return of rest of the poor; in this point the most hostile sects unite, and acknowledge a common link of brotherhood; almost all Christendom rests from its ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... sister used to stand by the dressing-table with her small fingers straightened to sustain a column of rings threaded on them, and her arm weighed down with bracelets, and grandmamma's happiest moments were when she was raised up to contemplate the costly robes, jewelled neck, and garlanded head ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... velvet cushion, and cries out, that the whole struggle is an accursed one, and the works of the world are evil. Many a conscience-striken mystic flies from it altogether, and shuts himself out from it within convent walls (real or spiritual), whence he can only look up to the sky, and contemplate the heaven out of which there is no rest, and no good. But the earth, where our feet are, is the work of the same Power as the immeasurable blue yonder, in which the future lies into which we would peer. Who ordered toil as the condition of life, ordered weariness, ordered sickness, ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... couple of days skirmishing at Banklands, and fared well, but as there was no hotel in the suburb Nicholas did not contemplate making a lengthy stay. Something he saw on the second afternoon induced him to change his mind, and threw him into a state of profound reflection lasting for nearly an hour; then he sauntered over to the man working on the pile of stones before the gates of the cemented mansion, and ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... inspired by the presence of the two sovereigns seemed to restrain a tumultuous outburst of general sympathy. Every one looked with proud and joyful glances now at the aged general, whose noble face was full of courage and determination, and again at the Emperor Alexander, who seemed to contemplate the intrepid soldier with a sort of amazement. A brief pause ensued, when the king approached Madame von Blucher, standing by the side of Scharnhorst. "Good- evening, madame," said the king, ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... on this account that Dumiger preferred it, but because it had a view of the Dom; he could there contemplate the space which was left for the clock, of which he fondly believed he was making the model. He pictured to himself that tower, the wonder and admiration of the town; that on the spot where he was then sitting numbers would crowd to view the ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... army did not work a practical emancipation of the slave, as some have thought. Negroes were rated as chattel property by both armies and both governments during the entire war. This is the cold fact of history, and it is not pleasing to contemplate. The Negro occupied the anomalous position of an American slave and an American soldier. He was a soldier in the hour of danger, but a ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... of these Studies dates from many years back. As a youth I was faced, as others are, by the problem of sex. Living partly in an Australian city where the ways of life were plainly seen, partly in the solitude of the bush, I was free both to contemplate and to meditate many things. A resolve slowly grew up within me: one main part of my life-work should be to make ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... fulfil the promise which beauty holds out; but if, accepting the hint of these visions and suggestions which beauty makes to his mind, the soul passes through the body and falls to admire strokes of character, and the lovers contemplate one another in their discourses and their actions, then they pass to the true palace of beauty, more and more inflame their love of it, and by this love extinguishing the base affection, as the sun puts out the fire by shining on the hearth, ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... performed) the process of fusion, which, in any case, was executed by no unskilful hand. Be this as it may, Galland was naturally excessively annoyed at the publisher's unceremonious proceeding, so much so indeed as for a time to contemplate renouncing the publication of the rest of the work, to spare himself (as he says in his Diary, under date of Dec. 12, 1709) similar annoyances (mortifications) to that which the printing of the eighth ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne |
