"Muse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thy slumber, pleasure calls, arise, Quit thy half-rural bower, awhile despise The thraldom that consumes thee. We who dwell Far from thy land of smoke, advise thee well. Here Nature's bounteous hand around shall fling, Scenes that thy Muse hath never dar'd to sing. When sickness weigh'd thee down, and strength declin'd; When dread eternity absorb'd thy mind, Flow'd the predicting verse, by gloom o'erspread, That 'Cambrian mountains' thou should'st ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield
... that his tent was gone. She rubbed her eyes, thinking that she had not seen aright. But, no, there was no mistake. Bramshaw had gone, and had taken all his belongings with him. This was strange, and as she walked along she began to muse as to where he had gone and the purpose of his hasty departure. Had it anything to do with the murder of ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... a femme savante, and ridicules, under the name of Damophile, a character which might have been the model for Moliere's Philaminte. This woman has five or six masters, of whom the least learned teaches astrology. She poses as a Muse, and is always surrounded with books, pencils, and mathematical instruments, while she uses large words in a grave and imperious tone, although she speaks only of little things. After many long conversations ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... Some Muse that loved not Troy hath done thee wrong, Homer! who whisper'd thee that Hector fled Thrice round the sacred walls he kept so long; Nay, when he saw his people vanquished Alone he stood for Troy; alone ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... was to think that the discordant labour of the tropical agriculturist was past! This charming morning had settled it all. Tom and Christmas and the "pony dot" would keep the whole plantation as innocent of weeds as the Garden of Eden. Thus to muse in the dim arcade of the jungle absorbing the sounds of the birds, and of the murmuring sea, while a horse did all the work, in holiday humour, was the very bliss of ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... purified from all evil, it should again become "very good." Here, on these scenes of unrivalled beauty, Southey, and Lovell, and Coleridge, and Cottle have loved to meditate; and the wondrous boy Chatterton fed his muse amid these rare exhibitions of the power and wisdom of the Godhead. A Roman encampment is still visible on the summit of the rocks. We were all sorry, to see such havoc going on among the quarries, where, to use Southey's language on this subject, ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... isle, have really turned up in some numbers. But then the Caithness painted pebbles were equally without precedent, yet are undisputed. The proverbial fence seems, in these circumstances, to be the appropriate perch for Science, in fact a statue of the Muse of Science might represent her as sitting, in contemplation, on the fence. The strong, the very strong point against authenticity is this: numbers of the disputed objects were found in sites of the early Iron Age. Now such objects, save for a few samples, are ...
— The Clyde Mystery - a Study in Forgeries and Folklore • Andrew Lang
... Forbear, my Muse, to linger over the scene of that departure! Captain Pond (I say) rode with six pounds of sausages and three puddings dangling at his saddle-bow. The Doctor rode in an ambulance-waggon crammed to the tilt with materials ranging from a stomach-pump to a backgammon-board; appliances ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... jurisprudence was not to be; it was to fulfil a wish of his father's that he consented to the drudgery. A little poem which has been reproduced in leaflet form, Felix and Galathea, is practically his earliest offering to the muse. Like most beginnings of fanatics and realists, it fairly swims and shimmers with idealism. His father dead, a roving existence and a precarious one began for the youthful Frank. He lived by his wits ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... seemed to muse. "Of course, if you were only practiced in witchcraft you could make a wax image of him and then stick pins in it until he ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... that country whence I fled? None but a lover may its beauty know, None but a poet can its rapture sing; And e'en his muse, upborne on Fancy's wing, Will grieve o'er beauties still unnoticed, O'er raptures language is too poor ...
— Across the Sea and Other Poems. • Thomas S. Chard
... Muse, "let him speak." A custom, a good, peculiar custom, shall be the subject of the mountain ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... into a muse. Her question recurred to her; but it was hardly likely, she felt, that her little companion could enlighten her. Nora was a bright, lively, spirited child, with black eyes and waves of beautiful black hair; neither at rest; ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Howard's tomb soft Pity weeps, Bewailing still her favourite's fate; And thence the Muse invokes her aid Of kindred merit ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... burst forth in their presence, and after trolling out a few Irish melodies, he succeeded in eliciting from them a sympathetic response in the shape of some lively French songs. The result proved most delightful to all concerned; and thereafter the muse of Ireland and the muse of France kept up a perpetual antiphonal song, which beguiled many ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... on the lordly crowd I muse, Which haunts the Royal festive hours, The day has come when I've put on The crown ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... time, Poetry and Music were in a very low state of perfection, and as he excelled in both of those arts, it was said that he was the son of Apollo and the Muse Calliope; and it was added, that he charmed lions and tigers, and made even the trees sensible of the melodious tones of his lyre. These were mere hyperbolical expressions, which signified the wondrous charms of his eloquence and of his music combined, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... seemed, was not disinclined for a romance with a pretty princess; perhaps he thought that nothing serious would come of it, and that it was a pleasant way enough of passing a summer; or, perhaps, being but twenty-two, he did not think at all, unless to muse on the depth of the blue in Victoria's eyes, and the comely lines of her figure as she rowed on the river. To say truth, Victoria gave him small ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... would have sex and sex-emotions put frankly into the fore-ground of everything, as far as art and letters are concerned. He would take the timid hyperborean Muse of the modern world and bathe her once more in the sun-lit waters of the Heliconian Spring. He would paganize, Latinize and Mediterraneanize the ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... The Muse is silent; with a virgin cheek, Bow'd with the blush of shame, she ventures near— She waits the judgment that thy lips may speak, And feels the def'rence, but disowns the fear. Such praise as Virtue gives, 'tis hers to seek— Bright Truth, not tinsel Folly to revere; He only ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... he being come thus well nigh to the beginning of May and the weather being very fair, that, having entered into thought of his cruel mistress, he bade all his servants leave him to himself, so he might muse more at his leisure, and wandered on, step by step, lost in melancholy thought, till he came [unwillingly] into the pine-wood. The fifth hour of the day was well nigh past and he had gone a good half mile ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... molested. Providence protected the poor bonito from the cruel sword-fish. This was just and right. Providence next befriended the shipwrecked sailors: they got the bonito. This was also just and right. But in the distribution of mercies the sword-fish himself got overlooked. He now went away; to muse over these subtleties, probably. The men in all the boats seem pretty well; the feeblest of the sick ones (not able for a long time to stand his watch on board the ship) 'is wonderfully recovered.' ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... doth the earth reveal Her gracious green and gold; I sit where youth was once, and feel That I am growing old. The lustre from the face of things Is wearing all away; Like one who halts with tired wings, I rest and muse to-day. ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... listen with patience to the praises of a man who so called them. As for the poets, they can take their choice of Emerson's poetical or prose estimate of the great Mystic, but they cannot very well accept both. In "The Test," the Muse says:— ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... because their sweet, inexhaustible converse came to an end? Had they shared the happiness of ameliorating Count Tristan's melancholy state, and seeing him daily improve? And now it was all over: she must resume her old course of life, her temporarily laid aside labors! To muse too long upon departed happiness would unfit her for those. Even the sad joy ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... Diry? My muse come playguey neer running away with me, so I had to wistle "down brakes," and slow her up. Now I'll begin to record my doins on your pages, so that, shuld the toes of my boots be applide to the patent bucket early in my useful carreer, the hull ...
— The Bad Boy At Home - And His Experiences In Trying To Become An Editor - 1885 • Walter T. Gray
... hold on a little strand o' human wisdom," said Tumm, breaking a heavy muse, "an' hangs his whole weight to it," he added, with care, "he've no cause t' agitate hisself with surprise if ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... truculent passion Of JUVENAL'S masculine muse To flagellate folly and fashion In dress and in manners and views; But we've plenty of prophets and poets; We've few who are sober and sane; We don't want another DE ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 25, 1919 • Various
... Edgar A. "Perry" appeared, an enlisted soldier in the First Artillery at Fort Independence. For two years "Perry" served his country in the sunlight, and Poe, under night's starry cover, roamed through skyey aisles in the service of the Muse and explored "Al Araaf," the abode of those volcanic souls that rush in fatal haste to an earthly heaven, for which they recklessly exchange the heaven of the spirit that might have ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... knowing persons at Nevers declared that Jan Diaz was making fun of the new school, just then bringing out its eccentric verse, full of vitality and imagery, and of brilliant effects produced by defying the Muse under pretext of adapting ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... intensely. He does not analyse, he does not amass his facts; he concentrates. He wrings out quintessences; and when he has distilled his drops of pure spirit he brews his potion. Something of the kind happens to me now, whether verse or prose be the Muse of my devotion. A stray thought, a chance vision, moves me; presently the flame is hissing hot. Everything then at any time observed and stored in the memory which has relation to the fact is fused and in a swimming flux. Anon, as the Children of Israel said to Moses, ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... your majesty has graciously permitted me to enter the lists as knight and champion of German literature, and sometimes to defend the German Muse, who stands unnoticed and unknown under the shadow of your throne; while the French lady, with her brilliant attire and painted cheeks, is always welcomed. I beg your majesty to believe that, although this romance may have done some harm, it has, on ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... BOTANIC MUSE! who in this latter age Led by your airy hand the Swedish sage, Bad his keen eye your secret haunts explore On dewy dell, high wood, and winding shore; 35 Say on each leaf how tiny Graces dwell; How laugh the Pleasures in a blossom's bell; How insect Loves arise on cobweb ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... had hitherto produced all the effects of the blindest temerity. If he found his situation full of danger (and I do not deny that it is perilous in the extreme), he must feel that it is also full of glory; and that he is placed on a stage, than which no muse of fire that had ascended the highest heaven of invention could imagine anything more awful and august. It was hoped that, in this swelling scene in which he moved with some of the first potentates of Europe for his fellow-actors, and ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... simplest way o' doin' business. Ef we makes a mistake, an' gits ther wrong galoot, nobody ever kicks up much o' a row over it, fer we're naterally lively over thar, an' we must hev somethin' ter 'muse us 'bout ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... life. Here, for an hour, he sat under the limes, drunk with summer breezes and scents, toying with a book, as though he were some "indolent irresponsible reviewer"—some college fellow in vacation—some wooer of an idle muse. Yet dusk that evening would find him once more in the Babel of London. And before him lay the most strenuous, and, as he hoped, the most fruitful passage of his political life. Broadstone, too, was an old man; the Premiership itself could not ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of Waller's earlier muse! In the year 1645, Humphrey Mosley published "Poems, &c., written by Mr. Ed. Waller, of Beaconsfield, Esquire, lately a Member of the Honourable House of Commons." The ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various
... falls from this ecstasy, look to see an harassed, embittered man. The birds sing as they pick up the corn, but wisdom is not so quickly convertible into meal, and if he cannot feed always on it, let him never seek the Muse. Our poor half-genius vibrates miserably between truth and the dinner-pot, comes back from his apocalypse, and cries for admiration, gold-lace, hair-powder, and wine. That is no apocalypse from which a man returns to whine and beg. Burns complains of Scotland and poverty, Byron of England ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... to submit a few specimens of the muse of this ancient ANACREON of France; and must necessarily begin with a few of those that are chiefly of a ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... good friend the Conte keeps his muse within tolerable limits! It would not do to quite smother her in verse on her first arrival; and, you know, our good Leandro has rather a special gift that way. Well, get up any kind of dimostrasione you like for ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... concert hall, a quorum of painters besieged the artist supply stores for the precious remaining tubes of burntumber and scarletlake, while it was presumed that in traditionally unheated garrets orthodox poets nourished their muse on pencil erasers. But all enthusiasm was individual property, the reaction of single persons with excess adrenalin. No common interests united doctor and stockbroker, steelworker and truckdriver, laborer and laundryman, except common fear of ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... attempt to support himself by his pen appears to have been deliberate; we hear nothing of those experiments in counting-houses or lawyers' offices, of which a permanent invocation to the Muse is often the inconsequent sequel. He began to write, and to try and dispose of his writings; and he remained at Salem apparently only because his family, his mother and his two sisters, lived there. His mother had a house, of which during the twelve ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... Change and Time, you come Not knocking at my door, knowing me gone; Here have I dwelt within my heart alone, Watching and waiting, while my muse was dumb ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... to spend the day in Brussels, and he followed them; he still wanted to walk about and muse and ponder, and Brussels is a very nice, gay, and civilized city for such a purpose—a little Paris, with charming streets and shops and a charming arcade, and very good places to eat and drink in, and hear ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... by the fire and sing, Pussy can climb a tree, Or play with a silly old cork and string To 'muse herself, not me. But I like Binkie, my dog, because He knows how to behave; So, Binkie's the same as the First Friend was, And I am the Man in ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... M. Souverain all the legends of the places we were passing, and as he himself "courtisait la Muse," he listened with rapt attention, so as to be able to treat the subjects in French verse. "This country is a mine for a ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... I will; I am no muse. Listen to your inspiration comfortably, Ribalta," replied, with a laugh, he whom the vendor of old books received with such original unconstraint. He was evidently accustomed to the eccentricities of the strange merchant. In Rome—for this scene took place ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the muse—she saw it upward rise, Though marked by none but quick poetic eyes; (So Home's great founder to the heavens withdrew, To Proculus alone confessed to view); A sudden star it shot through liquid air, And drew behind ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... of the Catholic Church, where the erring could obtain indulgence by fifteen days of devotion. Yet the very break in the usual life of audiences and journeys must have been grateful to the tired ambassador. He began to muse on the poetic aims of his first youth and the work which was to make Beatrice's name immortal. Some lines of the new poem were written in the Latin tongue, then held the finest language for expressing a great subject. ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... slopes of these very mountains, which looked very promising for gold but diamonds! Was it possible? Choosing a spot among the rocks where he was somewhat sheltered from the sun and could command a view of the little pool and its approaches, he sat down to muse over the story and to await the chance of a possible shot. A couple of hours passed. The stillness and intense heat combined to make him drowsy, and he woke with a start to find he had been dreaming of diamonds as big as tennis balls. "Bad sportsman," ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... seemed to muse within himself. "You will admit that if a jury of impartial men of sense could have sat, just then, on that slanting deck, they would have agreed that Ferguson's life was worth more to the world than all the rest ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... retreat from the bustle of the world, has been so often repeated, that it is now considered as a truth, from which there can be no appeal. Milton, it is true, wrote his Paradise Lost in a small house near Bunhill Fields; and Dryden courted the muse in the hurry and dissipation of a town life. But neither of them fixed his residence by choice. Pope grew immortal on the banks of the Thames. But though the country seems to be the seat of contemplation, two great writers have ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... remains of its statues and triumphal columns, conveying to the mind mournful images of the fallen fates of those who had for ages been its proud possessors; where the Mantuan bard first caught inspiration from the deathless muse; where Tully charmed the listening throng, whilst defending with mild persuasion the arts and the sciences he loved, and condemning in terrible denunciations the mad ambition that threatened the destruction of his country; to wander among ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 393, October 10, 1829 • Various
... far up the flood, Until I find the palace of the King. There will I enter in among them all, And no man there will dare to mock at me; But there the fine Gawain will wonder at me, And there the great Sir Lancelot muse at me; Gawain, who bad a thousand farewells to me, Lancelot, who coldly went, nor bad me one: And there the King will know me and my love, And there the Queen herself will pity me, And all the gentle court will welcome me, And after my long ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... on the occasion by Mr. John Sharpe, of Kirkstead, {8b} which I here give. The rural muse was somewhat unclassical in those days, and versions vary, but it was in the ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... with passion's fitful hues Or pleasure's reckless breath, For Nature's beauty to thy virgin muse Was solemnized by death. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... of Jean Goujon, whose exquisite work we see now and again in these chateaux, that some writer has said, that the muse of Ronsard whispered in the ear of the French sculptor, and thus Goujon's masterpieces were poems of Ronsard translated in marble. It is a rather pretty fancy, but Lydia and I cannot remember its author. Walter says that he can understand why the Counts of Blois built their castle here, ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... they do but feign a God, but he has his by him. His verse runs like the tap, and his invention as the barrel, ebbs and flows at the mercy of the spigot. In thin drink he aspires not above a ballad, but a cup of sack inflames him, and sets his muse and nose a-fire together. The press is his mint, and stamps him now and then a sixpence or two in reward of the baser coin his pamphlet. His works would scarce sell for three half-pence, though they are given oft for three shillings, but for the pretty title that allures the country gentleman; ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... quickly as possible—as quick as lightning—and say whether such a thing is practicable. Herr Kapellmeister B. praised you up to the skies to me, and he is right; well may he esteem himself happy who has the privilege of enjoying your muse, your genius, and all your splendid endowments and talents;—it is thus I feel. Be this as it may, those around can only call themselves your fellow-creatures [Nebenmann], whereas I alone have a right to claim the honored ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1 of 2 • Lady Wallace
... and turned her head to the wall—not to sleep, but to muse on those fiery, dark-brown eyes that had looked such mysterious meanings into hers, and that thrilling deep-toned voice that had breathed such sweet praise in her ears. And so musing, Nora fell asleep, and ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... such a little nun that you can't bear to be loved?—Is that it? But you'll have to learn again. You are more than a nun: you are a beautiful woman: young; wonderfully young. It's astonishing how like a girl you are."—Sir Hugh seemed to muse over a fact that allured. "And however like a nun you've lived—you can't ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... Until Pope took his muse to market, poetry, apart from the drama, had no direct commercial value, or one too small to be ranked as a motive for publication. None the less, the age loved distinction and appreciated wit, and to be ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... to live in the world according to the Christian law of restraint and moderation, and of those who yearn to live in God. With Augustin the choice is made. He will never more look back. These Dialogues at Cassicium are his supreme farewell to the pagan Muse. ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... in sconces round the walls of the room, in which a short time since we saw some of our friends celebrating the orgies of Bacchus, gave quite sufficient light for the votaries of the nimble-footed muse to see their partners, mind their steps, and not come in too rude collision with one another. Quadrilles succeeded waltzes, and waltzes quadrilles, with most unceasing energy; and no one dreamt of giving way to fatigue, or supposed that it was at all desirable to sit down for a single dance. From ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... hand, he would, perhaps, receive the manifest evidences they exhibit of constant reference and delighted re- perusal, as some sort of amende honorable for the unfairness of which we were guilty when we were less conversant with the higher inspirations of his muse. To Mr. Coleridge, and others of our originals, we must also do a tardy act of justice, by declaring that our burlesque of their peculiarities has never blinded us to those beauties and talents which are beyond the reach ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... influence on the "Gondibert," as it has come down to us; for, discouraged and ridiculed, our adventurer never finished his voyage of discovery. He who had so nobly vindicated the freedom of the British Muse from the meanness of imitation, and clearly defined what such a narrative as he intended should be, "a perfect glass of nature, which gives us a familiar and easy view of ourselves," did not yet perceive that there is no reason why a poetical narrative should ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... emotion of human nature, love. Chesterton, on the other hand, considers that Browning was the finest love poet of the world. It is real love poetry, because it talks about real people, not ideals; it does not muse of the Prince Charming meeting the Fairy Princess, and forget the devoted wife meeting her husband on the villa doorstep with open arms and a nice dinner in the parlour. Sentiment must be based on reality if it is to have worth. This is the ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... of Antibes, and Giroli at Venice, both these last names corruptions of the Latin Gerres—then did the two fashionable poets of France, Etienne Dolet and Clement Marot, think it not unworthy of their muse to sing the praises of the sauce which Horace had sung of old. A proud day, too, was it for Pellicier and Rondelet, when wandering somewhere in the marshes of the Camargue, a scent of garlic caught the nostrils of the gentle bishop, and in the ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... part, left much to myself, especially in the mornings, I began to muse restlessly over the future. Ungrateful that I was, the happiness of home ceased to content me. I heard afar the roar of the great world, and roved ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Muse a liberty must take— Start not! still chaster reader—she'll be nice hence- Forward, and there is no great cause to quake; This liberty is a poetic licence, Which some irregularity may make In the design, and as I have a high sense Of Aristotle and the Rules, 't ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... increased the old dreaminess that we always tried to combat, and he seems less able than before to turn his mind into any channel but the one immediately before him. He is most loving when roused, but infinitely more inclined to fall off into a muse. I am afraid you must have had a troublesome charge in him, judging by the uproar Harry makes about the difficulty of getting him safe from Paddington. It is good to see him and Harry together—the old schoolboy ways ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... see the boot hath swich travayle, Of my conning, that unnethe I it stere: This see clepe I the tempestous matere 5 Of desespeyr that Troilus was inne: But now of hope the calendes biginne. O lady myn, that called art Cleo, Thou be my speed fro this forth, and my muse, To ryme wel this book, til I have do; 10 Me nedeth here noon other art to use. For-why to every lovere I me excuse, That of no sentement I this endyte, But out of Latin in ...
— Troilus and Criseyde • Geoffrey Chaucer
... at your paper? Still sitting at editors' feet? (Clay feet!) Oh, why do you muse on their views of the news, When breezes are sweet in the street? There's a bit of cloud flying by in the sky. Tomorrow 'twill be far away. There's a slip of a girl, see her dance to my song! Tomorrow she'll be old and gray. Come along! There's music and sunshine ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... scapegoats leave our flock, And the rest sit silent and count the clock, Since forced to muse the appointed time On these precious facts and truths sublime, Let us fitly employ it, under our breath, In saying Ben Ezra's Song ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... will allow him. He makes music of so grave and stately a beauty that one begins to wonder at all the critics who have found fault with his rhythms—from Ben Jonson, who said that "for not keeping accent, Donne deserved hanging," down to Coleridge, who declared that his "muse on dromedary trots," and described him as "rhyme's sturdy cripple." Coleridge's quatrain on Donne is, without doubt, an unequalled masterpiece of epigrammatic criticism. But Donne rode no dromedary. In his ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... policy of improving on his father's rakish Muse was the frequent endorsement of the beautiful and harmless practice of kissing. The kiss is mentioned some forty-eight times in the present work, and in the nine hundred untranslated Rubaiyat, two hundred and ten more kisses occur, making a grand total of ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr. (The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym Jr.) • Wallace Irwin
... transfuse into other tongues and idioms, never fails to touch the heart, and excite enthusiastic feelings. The plan of 'The Modern Scottish Minstrel' restricts us to a period less favourable to the inspirations of the Celtic muse than remoter times. If it is asked, What could be gained by recurring to a more distant period? or what this unlettered people have really to shew for their bardic pretensions? we answer, that there is extant a large and genuine collection of Highland minstrelsy, ranging over a ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... distinguished by the crabbed wit of the so-called "metaphysical poets," whose manner was in fashion when the Puritans left England; the manner of Donne and Cowley, and those darlings of the New English muse, the Emblems of Quarles and the Divine Week of Du Bartas, as translated by Sylvester. The Magnalia contains a number of these things in Latin and English, and is itself well bolstered with complimentary introductions in meter by the ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... but too well, For I heard when Venus' dove In her ear did softly tell That kisses were the seals of love: O muse not then though it be so, Kisses make men loath ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... Olive began to muse again. Then she said timidly, "I wonder why, with all your love for Art, you yourself did ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... variety delights, Descend awhile from Windsor's heights, And in this hovel deign to tread, Quitting the castle for the shed; Such were the muse's favourite haunts, From care secluded and from wants. What nature needs this but can give, Could we as nature dictates live; For see, on this plain board at noon Are placed a platter and a spoon, Which, though they mark no gorgeous treat, Suggest 'tis reasonable to eat. What though ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 495, June 25, 1831 • Various
... country? Where is the country? That is the puzzle. In our youth, we knew many a quiet village, many a fine beach, many a sheltered bay, where one might wander, or swim, or muse, or rusticate in any way he chose. The village has grown into a town; the beach is lined with villas; the bay swarms with vessels, and its shores with population. Every eligible spot on the coast becomes the resort ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various
... and Aaron's [3] letters. I was a little disappointed that you did not send an acrostic; but I still entertain some secret hope that the muse (who, you say, has taken her flight) will shortly return, and, by a new and stricter intimacy, more than repay the pains of this momentary absence. Your happiness, Matt., is really almost the only present thing I can contemplate with any satisfaction; though I, like other fools, view futurity ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... fanatic to-night, for you read history not with your eyes, but with your prejudices. But fifty years hence, when Truth gets a hearing, the Muse of History will put Phocian for the Greek, and Brutus for the Roman, Hampden for England, Fayette for France, choose Washington as the bright consummate flower of our earlier civilization, and John Brown the ripe fruit of our noonday, then, dipping ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... fortune, and their several pursuits in war, politics, commerce, and lucrative arts, they awakened whatever was either good or bad in the natural dispositions of men. Every road to eminence was opened: eloquence, fortitude, military skill, envy, detraction, faction, and treason, even the muse herself, was courted to bestow importance among a busy, acute, ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... the midst of worldly cares and annoyances, in alternate abundance and poverty, deceived by pretended friendship, or persecuted by open enmity. The obstacles which Mozart surmounted in establishing the immortality of his muse, leave those without excuse who plead other occupations and the necessity of gaining a livelihood as an excuse for want of success in the art. Where the creative faculty has been bestowed, it will not be repressed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 395, Saturday, October 24, 1829. • Various
... now his former crazes He utterly eschews; The world on which he gazes Has lost its hectic hues; No more a bard crepuscular Who writes in script minuscular, He only woos the muscular And military Muse. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, June 7, 1916 • Various
... the occasion of the burning of the Theatre Royal in Sydney, we were favoured with the presence in our midst of artists who rarely, if ever before, had quitted the metropolitan stage. But our "jeune premier" in one sense has eclipsed every darling of the tragic or the comic muse. ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... TABLETS Different Destinies The Animating Principle Two Descriptions of Action Difference of Station Worth and the Worthy The Moral Force Participation To—— The Present Generation To the Muse The Learned Workman The Duty of All A Problem The Peculiar Ideal To Mystics The Key The Observer Wisdom and Prudence The Agreement Political Precept Majestas Populi The Difficult Union To a World-Reformer My Antipathy Astronomical Writings The Best State To Astronomers ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... liberty, to think, feel, do just as one pleases. We go a journey chiefly to be free of all impediments and of all inconveniences; to leave ourselves behind, much more to get rid of others. It is because I want a little breathing-space to muse on ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... his Muse a gravely jocund note in his "Seasons' Comfort." He, too, of the four fellow-versifiers shows the greater aptitude for experiments, though it may perhaps be felt that his touch is nowhere quite so sure, nor his artistic feeling ...
— Primavera - Poems by Four Authors • Stephen Phillips, Laurence Binyon, Manmohan Ghose and Arthur Shearly Cripps
... something sorted with his wish. Muse not that I thus suddenly proceed; For what I will, I will, and there an end. I am resolv'd that thou shalt spend some time With Valentinus in the Emperor's court: What maintenance he from his friends receives, Like exhibition thou shalt have from me. To-morrow be in readiness ...
— The Two Gentlemen of Verona • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... fancy, that the breach is stormed or the bold word spoken. I am sure a fellow shooting an ugly weir in a canoe has exactly as much thought about fame as most commanders going into battle; and yet the action, fall out how it will, is not one of those the muse delights to celebrate. Indeed it is difficult to see why the fellow does a thing so nameless and yet so formidable to look at, unless on the theory that he likes it. I suspect that is why; and I suspect it is at ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... up the village place in the dusk, thinking of this deplorable weakness in men that the Faith is too great for them, and accepting it as an inevitable burden. I continued to muse with my eyes ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... meant the larger share of it for him or them who should pry into his perishing earthliness, the defects or even the merits of the character that he wore in Stratford, when he had left mankind so much to muse upon that was imperishable and divine. Heaven keep me from incurring any part of the anathema in requital for ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... hymns was then sung—Mr. Wright's muse having been apparently prolific in the past year, no less than six hymns on the list being written by himself during those twelve months. It is much to be hoped that these poetical and aesthetical proclivities will not deaden his practical energies. ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... seem to have escaped his Lynx-like vigilance. Let the object be what it would (especially if it related to poetry) let the volume be great or small, or contain good, bad, or indifferent warblings of the muse—his insatiable craving had "stomach for them all." We may consider his collection as the fountain head of those copious streams which, after fructifying the libraries of many bibliomaniacs in the first half ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... is this. What numbers of young men, gifted with great imitative quickness, who, having, by virtue of this, arrived at fine words and figures of speech, set off on their nimble rhetorical Pegasus, keep well out of the Muse's reach ever after! How many go conspicuously through life, snapping their smart percussion-caps upon empty barrels, because, forsooth, powder and ball do not come of themselves, and it ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... the Vale of Llangollen certainly exceed every idea I had formed of their grandeur, and on my arrival at the inn in the village, the muse embodied the following ...
— The "Ladies of Llangollen" • John Hicklin
... mournfully into the past—it comes not again; wisely improve the present—it is thine; and go forward to meet the shadowy future, without fear, and with a manly heart!" This then was the spot where Paul Flemming came in loneliness and sorrow to muse over what he had lost, and these were the words whose truth and eloquence strengthened and consoled him, "as if the unknown tenant of the grave had opened his lips of dust and spoken those words of consolation his soul needed." I sat down and mused a long time, for there was ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... Aspires not beyond a small Second Edition)— One half the whole cost of the paper and printing, I've managed, to scrape up, this year past, by stinting My own little wants in gloves, ribands, and shoes, Thus defrauding the toilet to fit out the Muse! ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... the Muse, And her divine employment;— The blameless Muse who trains her sons For ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... favourites with the tragic muse we do not dare to attempt any description of Eleanor's face when she first heard the name of Mrs Slope pronounced as that which would or should or might at some time appertain to herself. The look, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... instant Jesus paused and seemed to muse; then, with that indulgence which was to illuminate the world, "Tell me, Simon," he inquired, "which was the ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... suffice to sit with Shirley in her panelled parlour, where others came and went, and where he could rarely find a quiet moment to show her the latest production of his fertile muse; he must have her out amongst the pleasant pastures, and lead her by the still waters. Tete-a-tete ramblings she shunned, so he made parties for her to his own grounds, his glorious forest; to remoter scenes—woods severed by the Wharfe, vales watered ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... not get beyond plovers and lovers. I am still, however, harassed by the unauthentic Muse; if I cared to encourage her - but I have not the time, and anyway we are at the vernal equinox. It is funny enough, but my pottering verses are usually made (like the God-gifted organ voice's) at the autumnal; and this seems to hold at the Antipodes. ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Marchioness." He composed several pieces, madrigals and sonnets, under the genial influence of this exchange of thoughts. It was a period at which his old love of versifying revived with singular activity. Other friends, like Tommaso Cavalieri, Luigi del Riccio, and afterwards Vasari, enticed his Muse to frequent utterance. Those he wrote for the Marchioness were distributed in manuscript among his private friends, and found their way into the first edition of his collected poems. But it is a mistake to suppose that she was the ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... o'er the snow-clad floor. Her tongue soft comfort to the mourner speaks, Her silver voice with soft emotion breaks; Round the drear hovel roves her moistened eye, Her graceful bosom heaves the lengthened sigh. "I know thee now—I know that angel frame— O that the muse might dare to breathe thy name: Nor thine alone, but all that sister-band Who scatter gladness o'er a weeping land; Who comfort to the infant sufferer bring, And 'teach with joy the widow's heart to sing.' "For this, no noisy honors fame shall give, In your own breasts your gentle ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... great scene of the Haunted Poet, is tremendous. You discover him in bed, too much visited by the Muse to sleep, and reading his manuscripts aloud to himself, after the manner of poets when they cannot find other listeners. He is alarmed by various ghostly noises in the house, and is often obliged to get up and examine the dark corners of the room, and to look ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... Even at that early age, I often could not help smiling at his simplicity, that all the while he was doing his best to make me one of the vainest and most egregious coxcombs, by his unfeigned wonder at some puny effort of my puny muse, and by his injudicious praises; he would lecture me parentally, by the hour, upon the excellence of humility, and the absolute necessity of modesty, as a principal ingredient ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... like a dream, is dreamt the recollection of human things already changed and ever changing. The remembrance of the interesting country through which I have been travelling shall abide by me always; for, encouraged by the desire to speak and muse, as I do now, of the hardy, freely happy, and contented sons of its mountains, I first learned that no greater blessing could be granted than a life of honourable industry, and that, pine who might beneath the infliction of ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... from the Court of the French Usurper, or from the pensioners of autocratic bounty. Your patient labours and forbearance in your country's cause, while thus assailed, have won for you, sir, our sincere respect, and another wreath at the hand of the Muse ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... in beautie, forme and hew, As if dead Art 'gainst Nature had conspir'd. Painter, sayes one, thy wife's a pretty woman, I muse such ill-shapt children thou hast got, Yet mak'st such pictures as their likes makes no man, I prethee tell the cause of this thy lot? Quoth he, I paint by day when it is light, And get my children in ...
— Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown
... apricots and pruning his essays,—the statesman, the ambassador no more; but the philosopher, the Epicurean, the fine gentleman and courtier at St. James's as at Shene; where, in place of kings and fair ladies, he pays his court to the Ciceronian majesty; or walks a minuet with the Epic Muse; or dallies by the south wall with ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sea, wears upon its luminous walls small trace of its long history of blood. As we contemplate its mosques and houses flashing their white profiles into the sky, it is impossible not to muse upon the contrast between its radiant and picturesque aspect and its veritable character as the accomplice of every crime and every baseness known to the Oriental mind. To see that sunny city basking between its green hills, you would hardly think of it as the abode of bandits; yet two powerful ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... of Evelyn which for two years had held its place above my armchair, I turned its face to the wall when I rose in the morning. But at night it beamed ever upon me, becoming as the months passed, the one thing to hold to and muse over when the world grew a little noisy in my ears and the never ceasing conflict of the ages beat a trifle too ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... Thus did she muse, gazing questioningly at the whiteness of the altar flowers and those steady tongues of flame, hearing the silence, as of reverent waiting, which dwelt in the place. But, on the other hand, to give, in this her hour of ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... examined each phrase and word with the minutest critical care before pronouncing their verdict. As might be expected, the poetry produced in those circumstances is of a more or less artificial type, and is wanting in the spontaneous vigour of the earlier essays of the Japanese muse. Conceits, acrostics, and untranslatable word-plays hold much too prominent a place, but for perfection of form the poems of this time are unrivalled. It is no doubt to this quality that the great popularity ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... plan is warm in my imagination, and, that I may give my whole time to it, I now am eager to dispatch an edition of Cato. Marcus Aper interposed: And are you, indeed, so enamoured of your dramatic muse, as to renounce your oratorical character, and the honours of your profession, in order to sacrifice your time, I think it was lately to Medea, and now to Thyestes? Your friends, in the mean time, expect your patronage; the colonies [b] invoke your aid, and the municipal cities invite you ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... Come, Muse, migrate—from Greece and Ionia, Cross out, please, those immensely overpaid accounts, That matter of Troy and Achilles' wrath, and Aeneas', Odysseus' wanderings, Placard "Removed" and "To Let" on the rocks of your snowy Parnassus, ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... faces, and, as a rule, I guessed aright. This faded, crumpled, vaporous beauty, I conceived, was a German—such a German, somehow, as I had seen imagined in literature. Was she not a friend of poets, a correspondent of philosophers, a muse, a priestess of aesthetics—something in the way of a Bettina, a Rahel? My conjectures, however, were speedily merged in wonderment as to what my diffident friend was making of her. She caught his eye at last, and raising an ungloved ...
— Eugene Pickering • Henry James
... the fruit Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste Brought death into the World, and all our woe, With loss of Eden, till one greater Man Restore us, and regain the blissful seat, Sing, Heavenly Muse, that, on the secret top Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed In the beginning how the heavens and earth Rose out of Chaos: or, if Sion hill Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flowed Fast by the ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... sweeter Harmony refines, Than Numbers flowing thro' the Muse's Lines; What Beauty ne'er could melt, thy Touches fire, And raise a Musick that can Love inspire; Soul-thrilling Accents all our Senses wound, And strike with Softness, whilst they charm with Sound! When thy Count pleads, what Fair his Suit can fly? Or when thy Nymph laments, ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... epic poetry, rests for a moment the long trumpet whose epic strains are wont to stir the courage of men. Polymnia, the muse of sacred poetry, leans upon the lyre whose vibrant strings thrill the gentler ...
— Raphael - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... who do things. They had heard the voice—they had had a "call." The talent is the call, and if a man fails to do his work in a masterly way, make sure he has mistaken a lazy wish for a divine passion. There is a difference between loving the muse and lusting ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... spirit still present to me, My best thoughts, my country, still linger with thee; My fond heart beats quick, and my dim eyes run o'er, When I muse on the last glance I gave to thy shore. The chill mists of night round thy white cliffs were curl'd, But I felt there was no spot like thee in the world— No home to which memory so fondly would turn, No thought that within ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... three feet by four, Where door is window, window door, 70 Saloop a hump-back'd cobler drink; "With him the muse shall sit and think;" He shall in sentimental strain, That negroes are oppress'd, complain. What mutters the decrepit creature? 75 ...
— No Abolition of Slavery - Or the Universal Empire of Love, A poem • James Boswell
... engaged myself to provide the Duke of Cornwall's with a play to succeed it. At the moment of signing the contract my bosom's lord had sat lightly on its throne, for I felt my head to be humming with ideas. But affluence, or the air of the Cromwell Road, seemed uncongenial to the Muse. ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to muse, for his brow lowered, and he made no answer. Legard threw himself back, overcome with his own excitement, and wept like a child. The stranger, who imagined himself above the indulgence of emotion (vain man!), woke from his revery at this burst of passion. He gazed at first (I grieve to ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... burn brighter, than in those of the knights of St. John of Jerusalem? Not a name meets thee, that has not belonged to a hero! If thou grievest to find all dissimilar but the name; yet mayest thou still muse, contemplative, over the tomb and ashes of him, whom thy mind has shadowed forth, as a noble light in ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... scarcely knowing how to grasp my own meaning, and give it a tangible shape in words; and yet it is concerning this very expression of our thoughts in words that I wish to speak. As I muse things fall more into their proper places, and, little fit for the task as my confession pronounces me to be, I will try to make clear that ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... her face, which was but of a little model, and yet proportionable to her body; her eyes black and full of loveliness and sweetness, her eyebrows small and even, as if drawn with a pencil, a very little, pretty, well-shaped mouth, which sometimes (especially when in a muse or study) she would draw up into an incredible little compass; her hair a sad chestnut; her complexion brown, but clear, with a fresh colour in her cheeks, a loveliness in her looks inexpressible; and by her whole composure was so beautiful a sweet creature at her ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... Daily News has a very prosy simile: "A dog, of any sense or self-respect, with a tin-kettle tied to his tail, acutely feels the misery and degradation of the music he is compelled to make. What the tin-kettle is to the dog, the yearly Ode is to the muse. The board, if you please, but not the annoyance and ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various |
