"Meditation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... just as Mariano was preparing to spring upon and endeavour to strangle him. He looked earnestly and long in the direction of the dead man's head, as if in meditation on its owner's untimely fate, or, possibly, on the unusual length and solidity of the shadow ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... my Lady Jean," said Claverhouse, recovering himself after an instant's discomposure, "for this intrusion upon your chosen place and your meditation. My excuse is the peace of the garden after the wildness of the moors, but I did not hope to find so good company. My success in Paisley Castle has been greater ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... its boundless territory, and the total absence of feudal institutions and prejudices, so fair a field for the practical introduction of those regenerating principles to which Herbert had devoted all the thought and labour of his life, that he resolved, after long and perhaps painful meditation, to sacrifice every feeling and future interest to its fulfilment. All idea of ever returning to his native country, even were it only to mix his ashes with the generations of his ancestors; all hope of reconciliation with his ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... Further meditation was interrupted by the return of Quartus, who issued from the building with a second man, wearing only a tunic called "exomis," cut in such fashion that the right arm and right breast were exposed. Such garments, since they left perfect freedom of movement, were used especially ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... — N. thought; exercitation of the intellect[obs3], exercise of the intellect; intellection; reflection, cogitation, consideration, meditation, study, lucubration, speculation, deliberation, pondering; head work, brain work; cerebration; deep reflection; close study, application &c. (attention) 457. abstract thought, abstraction contemplation, musing; brown study &c. (inattention) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... little or nothing issues as we expect. We look for pleasure and we find pain; we shun one pain and find a greater; and thus arises the ineffectual character which we so complain of in life—the disappointments, failures, mortifications which form the material of so much moral meditation on the vanity of the world. Much of all this is inevitable from the constitution of our nature. The mind is too infirm to be entirely occupied with higher knowledge. The conditions of life oblige us to act in many cases which cannot be understood ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... When wise men are entrusted with office, the sound of praise arises. If unprincipled men hold office, disasters and tumults are multiplied. In this world, few are born with knowledge: wisdom is the product of earnest meditation. In all things, whether great or small, find the right man, and they will surely be well managed: on all occasions, be they urgent or the reverse, meet with but a wise man and they will of themselves be amenable. In this way ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... in profound meditation, his splendid head gradually sinking until it rested on his breast. The arms hung by the sides. The attitude suggested a sorrow healed by the long years until it was no more a pain, but a memory so subduing that it depressed. At last ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... but, alas! he had not the money with which to pay his class fees, nor could he imagine how he could procure it. Sixty pounds were wanted to make his career, and it might have been as many thousand for any chance there seemed to be of his obtaining it. He was roused from his black meditation by the entrance of Dr. Oldacre himself, a large, clean-shaven, respectable man, with a prim manner and an austere face. He had prospered exceedingly by the support of the local Church interest, and the rule of his life was never by word or action to run a risk of offending the sentiment which had ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... consequences. From such verses the Poems in these volumes will be found distinguished at least by one mark of difference, that each of them has a worthy purpose. Not that I always began to write with a distinct purpose formally conceived; but habits of meditation have, I trust, so prompted and regulated my feelings, that my descriptions of such objects as strongly excite those feelings, will be found to carry along with them a purpose. If this opinion be erroneous, I can have ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... roused from this fit of luxurious meditation by a shout from my little travelling companions. They had been looking out of the coach-windows for the last few miles, recognising every tree and cottage as they approached home, and now there was a general burst of joy—"There's ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... Jane, after standing awkwardly for a moment in meditation, "how a girl's goin' to be much of a woman that amounts to anything one of these days if she's nothin' to do now but dirty work at ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton
... have never dared to look it in the face. I stand still in my walk and in my meditation. What, that also? But my reason is as honest as my heart, and keeps me ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... the candles there, for, lost in meditation, she had been sitting in the dark, and with reckless hospitality poked the ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... we had hardly passed more than half a mile of shore-line at the most. What we had been doing all the time I was unable to figure out. I thought we had been rowing. I could have sworn we had been rowing, but apparently we had not. I looked up from my meditation in time to catch the ironical gaze of the coxswain upon me, and I involuntarily braced myself to ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... du jour at Restaurant Sowee was written Grouse. 'How shall we have them?' said I, cook and convive, to Loolowcan, marmiton and convive. 'One of these cocks of the mountain shall be fried, since gridiron is not,' responded I to myself, after meditation; 'two shall be spitted and roasted; and, as Azrael may not want us before breakfast to-morrow, the fourth shall go ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... and it was well; for if he had not done as those thinkings taught him, he would have given a very different turn to his history. Meditation and resolve, on the top of honourable habit, brought him to this, that, when he saw what was right, he just did it—did it without hesitation, question, or struggle. Every man must, who would be a free man, who would not be the slave of the universe ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... some method of recruiting forthwith its languishing vital energies—to rescue its financial concerns from the desperate condition in which he found them. With an immediate and perspective increase of expenditure that was perfectly frightful—in the meditation and actual prosecution of vast but useless enterprises—of foreign interference and aggrandizement, to secure a little longer continuance of popular favour, they deliberately destroyed a principal source of revenue, by the reduction of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... thoughts had not been held fast by the politics under discussion, for she had gone into a deep grave meditation. ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... evening; and then for a while he paced the floor in meditation, pausing finally at the open window. Presently he struck ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... the modest rooms on the Ripetta which he had first occupied, but a much more sumptuous apartment on the Corso), Rowland found a letter on the table addressed to himself. It was from Roderick, and consisted of but three lines: "I am gone to Frascati—for meditation. If I am not at home on Friday, you had better join me." On Friday he was still absent, and Rowland went out to Frascati. Here he found his friend living at the inn and spending his days, according to his own account, lying under the trees of the ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... disappeared within the door of this little house opposite. Morrow observed that the man's step lacked its accustomed jauntiness and spring, and he plodded along wearily, as if utterly preoccupied with some depressing meditation. A light sprang up in the front room on the ground floor, but after a few moments it was suddenly extinguished, and Brunell appeared again on the porch. He closed the door softly behind him, and strode quickly down the street. There was a marked change in his bearing, a furtiveness and eager haste ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... In which passage the mind, which may be called endless on account of the infinite number of modifications it undergoes, is identified with the Vi/s/vedevas, which thereby constitute the chief object of the meditation; the fruit of the meditation being immortality. The identity of the Self with Brahman, on the other hand, is real, not only meditatively imagined, on account of the attribute of intelligence ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... disposition, which has exalted an intrinsic and lofty beau—idle to itself. I always had to reply, when they got down upon their knees to me, and squeezed my hands, that I could not force my sensations; and though I should ever esteem them as friends, I could not change my condition of maiden meditation and exculpation for the agitation of matrimonial engagements. I need not say that now my feelings have changed, and you, Mr. Verty, have become the idle of my existence. You are yet young, but with a rare and intrinsic power of intellect. In future, ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... silence for some minutes. Gilbert had taken another book, and seemed to be absorbed in it; Mrs. Grail had a face of meditation. Occasionally she looked upwards, as though on the track of some memory which she ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... few days whenever Wilfrid entered Seraphita's presence his body seemed to fall away from him into nothingness. With a single glance this strange being led him in spirit through the spheres where meditation leads the learned man, prayer the pious heart, where vision transports the artist, and sleep the souls of men,—each and all have their own path to the Height, their own guide to reach it, their own individual sufferings in the dire return. In that sphere alone all veils ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac
... meditation. -contraction in blind people of muscles of. -children's habit of rubbing with knuckles. -gorged with blood during screaming. -contraction of ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... Lee Fu folded his hands within the long sleeves of his embroidered coat and laid them across his stomach in a characteristic attitude of meditation. 'No, quite the opposite. I abhorred him. He feels no remorse; he goes his way in peace from the betrayal of a sacred trust. He ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the mighty Mother Let her swelling tides go free. And in mournful meditation Slowly ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... all a-glitter, produces his friend Fledgeby, as dying for the honour of presentation to Lady Tippins. Fledgeby presented, has the air of going to say something, has the air of going to say nothing, has an air successively of meditation, of resignation, and of desolation, backs on Brewer, makes the tour of Boots, and fades into the extreme background, feeling for his whisker, as if it might have turned up since he was there five ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... low, silly, or uninteresting. Whether this is done from affectation and conceit alone, or whether it may not arise, in some measure, from the self-illusion of a mind of extraordinary sensibility, habituated to solitary meditation, we cannot undertake to determine. It is possible enough, we allow, that the sight of a friend's garden-spade, or a sparrow's nest, or a man gathering leeches, might really have suggested to such a mind a train of powerful impressions and ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... reign as a queen of society began, but none have as yet been favored with a kinder glance than that of friendship. Scottish dukes, Roman princes and American officers have wooed, but never won: la belle Mathilde still walks the orange groves of her villa, "in virgin meditation, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... in this unwelcome theme; Nay every meditation, every dream, Th'inexplicable sentence held to view, 'They're not both mine,' was every morning new: For, till this hour, the Maid had never prov'd How far she was enthrall'd, how much she lov'd: In that fond character he first appear'd; His kindness charm'd her, ...
— Rural Tales, Ballads, and Songs • Robert Bloomfield
... her mind, Hildegarde was sauntering toward the Ladies' Garden, on the day after the new arrival. This was a favourite haunt of hers, and she was very apt to go there for a season of meditation, or when she wanted to find Hugh. It was a curious place,—an old, neglected, forgotten garden, with high, unclipped box hedges, overhung by whispering larches. Hildegarde had dreamed many a dream under those larches, sitting beside the little stream that plashed and fell in ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... no holy meditation. His head is thrown back; his ear listens for every sound; the bared sword glitters as he ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... his high-backed pew, separated from us in the choir loft by only a short intervening space, motionless, absorbed in some far-away thought. Though his eyes were sometimes closed I knew that he was not asleep; what could be the topic on which his meditation was so intent? Not long after Hiawatha appeared, and I shall always believe that in those Sunday musings in the quiet little chapel while the service droned on he was ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... the marksman equaled and perhaps surpassed the pilot. Captain Galliot, who is a specialist, has called him "the thinker-fighter," thereby emphasizing that his excellence as a gunner arose from meditation and preparation. The same officer adds that "accuracy was Guynemer's characteristic; he never shot at random as others occasionally do, but always took long and careful aim. Perfect weapons and perfect mastery of them were dogmas with him. ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... since they are symptomatic of the tendency to disintegration of the mind, and which, if unchecked, would lead to grave disturbances later on. It is because of this fact that too much automatic writing, crystal-gazing, meditation, attendance at spiritistic circles, etc., is harmful; they one and all induce a passive state of the mind which favours dissociation and disintegration. Many of the insanities start in this fashion; and all such practices, instead of being encouraged, should be discouraged; and ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... to Owen Warland's shop, and spend more meditation upon his history and character than either Peter Hovenden, or probably his daughter Annie, or Owen's old school-fellow, Robert Danforth, would have thought due to so slight a subject. From the time that his little fingers could grasp a penknife, ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... so he talked metaphysical jargon, instead of plain practical truth, and thought he was teaching Laura to strengthen her powers of mind, instead of giving way to dreams, when he was only leading her to stifle meditation, and thus securing her ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... courtesy shown me by Lord Weardale, our president, and by Baron von Plener, the chairman of the committee which framed the model treaty. The latter has framed this substitute embodying both of the ideas (investigation and meditation) which were presented yesterday. I recognize the superior wisdom and the greater experience of this learned committee which has united the two propositions, and I thank this body also for the opportunity to say just a word in defense of my part of the resolution. I cannot say that it is a ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... not like to have his brooding meditation interrupted by questions or anecdotes. These hours were dedicated to getting well. Every breath here cost money and must be utilised to the utmost. Here breathing was religion, ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... spent most of her time with her aunt and cousin, opportunities for meditation were not wanting: in the retirement of her closet she perused and re-perused the frequent letters of her friend. The modesty of Julia, or rather shame, would have prevented her from making Anna acquainted with all her feelings, but it would have been treason to her friendship ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... for some time silent, with introverted gaze, Johnnie with difficulty restraining her impatience, forbearing to break in upon his meditation. ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... the nun, unhappy over the treatment intended for her client, "preparing her meditation for the morning. She has a great love for meditation on the profound ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... be the same. And so, resolved that Miss Crawley should have the news, the young person debated in her mind as to the best means of conveying it to her; and whether she should face the storm that must come, or fly and avoid it until its first fury was blown over. In this state of meditation she ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and the gash in his scalp gave him time for meditation; and meditation counseled patience. The gringo would doubtless go to the rodeo, and he would meet him there without the spectacular flavor of a formal challenge. For Jose was a decent sort of a fellow and had no desire to cheapen his passion or cause the senorita ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... meditation with himself: 'Saladin, art thou disquieted in thy thoughts?'" &c. "Rosalind's passion: 'Unfortunate Rosalind, whose misfortunes are more than thy years,'" &c. "Aliena's meditation: 'Ah! me; now I see, and sorrowing sigh ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... coat and sat down in the furthest corner; placing himself so, however, that neither eyes nor ears should be hindered in the exercise of their vocation, while his attitude might have suggested a fit of sleepiness, or a most indifferent meditation on things far distant, or possibly rest after severe exertion. Lois and her six scholars took their places at the other end of the room, which was too small to prevent every word they spoke from being distinctly heard by the one idle spectator. A spectator in truth Mr. Dillwyn ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... minute's amused meditation, "the men I know are all like me. They are business men, and are rather dragged into society, I suppose, by their wives, and by"—he chuckled merrily at this point—"by the debts they owe to social position, ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... previously, as an habitual thing, to give myself to prayer, after having dressed myself in the morning. Now I saw, that the most important thing I had to do was, to give myself to the reading of the word of God and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, by means of the word of God, whilst meditating on it, my heart might be brought into experimental communion with the Lord. I began therefore to meditate ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Third Part • George Mueller
... human mind itself, and their comparative dignity and importance. According to the faculty or source, from which the pleasure given by any poem or passage was derived, I estimated the merit of such poem or passage. As the result of all my reading and meditation, I abstracted two critical aphorisms, deeming them to comprise the conditions and criteria of poetic style;—first, that not the poem which we have read, but that to which we return, with the greatest pleasure, possesses the genuine power, and claims ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... all, even to my want of breath, suddenly cooled passion, perplexity and flight. It is a moot point whether that last was the act of a coward, but I can never allow it to be said that in what followed I showed a want of courage. I devoted a day and night to solitary meditation; no knight errant of old, watching his arms under the moon, prayed more earnestly than I; and when I had fully made up my mind to embrace what honour demanded of me, I sought out the girl, who was again in the dairy, and in solemn form, upon my knees, offered her my hand. Father ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... fragrance of wild flowers and the smell of the new-mown hay from the adjacent meadows. One heard the buzzing sound of busy insect life around, and the love-calls of song-birds from the hedge-rows; while the grateful shade of the lime-grove seemed to invite repose and suggest peaceful meditation: but I heeded none of these things. I felt, like the singer of "The Banks and Braes of Bonny Doon," out of harmony with nature and all its surroundings. My thoughts were jostling one another in a wild dance through my breast. Where on earth could they have disappeared so very suddenly! ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... to be true with respect to arts, still it is not to follow that the same rule holds good with respect to virtue; because virtue requires a great deal of meditation and practice, and this is not always the case with arts; and also because virtue embraces the stability, firmness, and consistency of the entire life; and we do not see that the same is the case ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... skipper was still pondering on the matter of Colonel Ward—the meditation had lasted over into the next day—there was a roar on the bridge, and the subject of his reflections passed in a swirl of dust on his return trip. He was standing up in his wagon as before, and he saluted the indignant toll-man with a flick of his whip that started the ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... it has its woes, it has likewise its delights; and when the overwhelming burst of grief is calmed into the gentle tear of recollection—when the sudden anguish and the convulsive agony over the present ruins of all that we most loved is softened away into pensive meditation on all that it was in the days of its loveliness—who would root out such a sorrow from the heart? Though it may sometimes throw a passing cloud over the bright hour of gayety, or spread a deeper sadness over the hour of ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof
... preparation and lastly I run liquid plaster-paris in it, and when it hardens, I have an exact mold of the drapery. There! But I hain't explained The Orphan. You see she's sittin' on a very light chair—that shows the very little support she has in this world. The hand to the head shows meditation; and the Bible on her knee shows devotion; you see it's open to the book, chapter, and verse which refers to the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... pilot's meditation, D—— had mechanically taken his position aft, close to the helmsman on the weather quarter. More fairly, the cutter now started a second time, and, standing well up, promised to fetch the very centre of ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... said. Dacres sat in silence for a long time, breathing hard, and puffing violently at his cigar. Hawbury said nothing to interrupt his meditation. After an hour or so Dacres tramped off in silence, and Hawbury was left to meditate ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... man; but when the proud young Charlton gets his hair cropped, and finds himself clad in 'Stillwater gray,' and engaged in the intellectual employments of piling shingles and making vinegar-barrels, he will have plenty of time for meditation on that great moral truth, that honesty is generally the ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... of meditation, the colossal pillars of the audience chamber of the Deity! The Mount of Contemplation rises far above the mists of partial opinion and the mire of conflict, the discords of jangling interests and the refractions of divided ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... vanquishing, abolishing, and, as it were, burying their carnal affections, ought to express in their lives and conversations that they may grow up to a newness of life and be one with him and the same one among another. This a holy man does, and in this is his only meditation. Whereas on the contrary, the common people think there's no more in that sacrifice than to be present at the altar and crowd next it, to have a noise of words and look upon the ceremonies. Nor in this alone, which we only proposed by way of example, but in all ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... had been made bishop of Avranches. He could see the rock as it may be seen to-day, although at that time it was crowned with no buildings visible at any distance, and the loneliness of the spot seems to have attracted him to retire thither for prayer and meditation. He eventually raised upon the rock a small chapel which he dedicated to Michel the archangel. After this time, all the earlier names disappeared and the island was always known as Mont St Michel. Replacing the hermits of Mandane with twelve canons, the establishment grew and became ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home
... to the culture of the higher sciences, or of the more elevated departments of science, than meditation; and nothing is less suited to meditation than the structure of democratic society. We do not find there, as amongst an aristocratic people, one class which clings to a state of repose because it is well off; and another which does ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... her needle through her embroidery with the obtuse concentration of a girl who, like Agnes, seems to be thinking of nothing, but who is reflecting on things in general so deeply, that her artifice is unfailing. As a result of this profound meditation, Rosalie thought she would go to confession. Next morning, after Mass, she had a brief interview with the Abbe Giroud at Saint-Pierre, and managed so ingeniously that the hour of her confession was fixed for Sunday morning at half-past seven, before the eight ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... literary point of view, but is it true? My experience says No. Yet during the absence this aphorism seems true enough. Disillusion comes with reunion. Who does not remember that first departure of the Beloved—the innumerable letters, the endless meditation, the ceaseless yearning and the everlasting planning for the glorious return? What a meeting that is going to be! How one dwells in thought on that first goodly satisfaction of the desire of the eyes; goodlier still that joyous clasping of the hands; goodliest of all that ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... Scriptural quotations meant in deepest reverence. "I will be responsible for the baths of all the babes." And from that time Yosepu has been responsible. Solemnly from dawn to dusk, with breathing spaces for meals and meditation, he stalks across from nurseries to well and from well to nurseries. He is a man of few smiles; but he is the cause of many, and we all feel grateful to Yosepu for his goodness to us. Often on melancholy days he comes ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... Vivian Grey, with a mind teeming with such feelings, should view the approach of the season for his departure to Oxford with sentiments of disgust? After hours of bitter meditation, he sought his father; he made him acquainted with his feelings, but concealed from him his actual views, and dwelt on the misery of being thrown back in life, at a period when society seemed instinct with a spirit peculiarly ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... like nature, relatives. Ram'part, that which defends from assault, a bulwark. 3. Im-preg'na-ble, that can not be moved or shaken. Hor'rent, standing out like bristles. 4. In-sur'gent, rising in opposition to authority. 13. An-ni'hi-lates, destroys. 7. Ru-mi-na'tion, the act of musing, meditation. 9. Breach, a gap ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... the sifter, and the cracking and 'fizzing' of the fat bacon as it fried, saluted their hungry ears, and the delicious smell tickled their olfactory nerves most delightfully. Sitting thus, entertained by delightful sounds, breathing the air and wrapped in meditation, or anticipation, rather, the soldiers saw the dust rise in the air and heard the ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... ended, he gave it out that he intended, the ensuing week, to examine all those who meant to attend the Lord's table. Now I thought much of my good works, and at the same time was doubtful of my being a proper object to receive the sacrament; I was full of meditation till the day of examining. However, I went to the chapel, and, though much distressed, I addressed the reverend gentleman, thinking, if I was not right, he would endeavour to convince me of it. When I conversed with him, the first thing he asked ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... as one contemplates those graven footprints,—footprints giant-seeming, yet less so than the human personality of which they remain the symbol. Twenty-four hundred years ago, out of solitary meditation upon the pain and the mystery of being, the mind of an Indian pilgrim brought forth the highest truth ever taught to men, and in an era barren of science anticipated the uttermost knowledge of our present evolutional philosophy regarding the secret ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... these long hours of meditation germinated at last in the secret wish to go to market some morning in Evelina's stead. As this purpose rose to the surface of Ann Eliza's thoughts she shrank back shyly from its contemplation. A plan so steeped in duplicity had never before taken shape in her ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... body will on returning to earth find a new astral body composed of the same elements, though then in a dormant state. He who, by the cultivation of a lofty intellect, has built up a refined mental body, will return to incarnation with a like mental body, whilst the one who, by meditation and the practice of devotion which bring into being the noblest qualities of the heart, has set vibrating the purest portions of the causal body and of the divine essence (Atma-Buddhi, as it is named ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... curious and even pitiable that Chumley Potts should be so inconsolably shaken. Well, and if the priests have the secret of strengthening the backbone for a bend of the knee in calamity, why not go to the priests, Chummy? Potts's hearing was not addressed; nor was the chief person in the meditation affected by a question that merely jumped out ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... rational relaxation to fill the void of their days, and who seek by slander and treachery to console themselves for the loss of pleasures which they can no longer enjoy. Resist that inclination which seems to impel you to gloomy meditation, solitude, and melancholy. Devotion is only suited to inert and listless souls, while yours is formed for action. You should pursue the course I recommend for the sake of your husband, whose happiness depends upon you; you owe it to the children, who will soon, undoubtedly, ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... of melancholy which came over my mind, I resolved to kindle a fire; and having heaped dry sticks upon my hearth, and added a billet or two, I struck a light, and soon produced a blaze. Sitting down, I fixed my eyes upon the blaze, and soon fell into a deep meditation. I thought of the events of the day, the scene at church, and what I had heard at church, the danger of losing one's soul, the doubts of Jasper Petulengro as to whether one had a soul. I thought over the various arguments which I had either heard, or which had come spontaneously to ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... over, while the exquisite silence of the place is broken only by the occasional note of some bird lodging in the branches of the trees without, Paul lingers in profound meditation. He is not at all the Paul whom we knew but a few months ago; through some mysterious influence he seems to have cast off his careless youth, and to have become a grave and ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... but a trifling part of any piece of literature, and the view of the writer is itself a fact more important because less disputable than the others. Now this spirit in which a subject is regarded, important in all kinds of literary work, becomes all-important in works of fiction, meditation, or rhapsody; for there it not only colours but itself chooses the facts; not only modifies but shapes the work. And hence, over the far larger proportion of the field of literature, the health or disease of ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... were to be violated for the sake of reigning. This was the chief end and purpose of his life—the scheme that he had formed from his early youth; so that, as Cato truly declared of him, he came with sobriety and meditation to the subversion of the republic. He used to say, that there were two things necessary to acquire and to support power—soldiers and money; which yet depended mutually upon each other: with money, therefore, he provided soldiers, and with soldiers extorted money, ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... Not I, I must confess. It is all very well to talk of renunciation, and of course it has to be done. But, for my part, give me a roaring toothache! I do like to be deceived and to dream, but I have very little use for either watching or meditation. I was not born for age. And, curiously enough, I seem to see a contrary drift in my work from that which is so remarkable in yours. You are going on sedately travelling through your ages, decently changing ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... teased, and entreated," repeated Chip, savagely to himself when the door closed upon her, and fell into gloomy meditation, which left him feeling that there was no good thing in this wicked world—no, not one—that was not appropriated by some one with not sense enough to understand and appreciate ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... sartin it would cost anything. Leastwise, it won't cost much. I ain't sartin,"—repeated the Captain as though in meditation,—"but I think ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... steps. On reaching a wood that lay at some distance off, Mark sought a retired spot, near where a quiet stream went stealing noiselessly along amid its alder and willow-fringed banks, and sitting down upon a grassy spot, gave himself up to meditation. Little inclined was he now for sport. The birds sung in the trees above him, fluttered from branch to branch, and even dipped their wings in the calm waters of the stream, but he heeded them not. He had other thoughts. Greatly had old Mrs. Lee, in the blindness of her suddenly aroused fears, ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... at the expense of the company. No man ever set foot in this sanctuary unless in the cowl of St. Ignatius. Servants even of the female sex were not allowed to accompany their mistresses. The devotional services consisted of meditation, prayer, catechizings, confession, and flagellation. "We were shown the stains on the walls of the chapel, made by the blood which flowed under the hands of these Magdalens ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... he began, with the incongruity of one who passes without transition from long meditation to the spoken word. "I love you, for you are of my race and yet you are not; because you speak my language and yet your blood is not my blood. You possess the grace and beauty of the Spanish woman, yet there is something more ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... out by the heels and laid by to sober, enter another to puff at the sacred cigarro, till he is dragged out likewise, and so on till the Tobacco is finished, and the seed of wisdom has sprouted in every soul into the tree of meditation, bearing the flower of eloquence, and in due time ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... the sly, demure over-doings of the hypocrite, and mark the deceitful lines of grave meditation running along that part of his countenance where in others the front of honesty lies open and expanded. I could trace him when he got beyond his depth, where the want of sincerity in religion betrayed his ignorance of its forms. I could note the scowling, sharp-visaged ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... on Clara, as also did Lady Bygrave. Both spoke enthusiastically of the holy and happy life of Sisters of Mercy, and still more so of those nuns who gave themselves up to religious meditation. Lady Bygrave, especially, warmly pressed the ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... Governor!' said he, with characteristic coolness. Then, after a brief meditation on this skilfully-planned revenge, he thought it wise to return ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... meet in the street, but give no signs of recognition. The old man is still living, seldom going beyond the portals of his son's house and passing most of his time in moody meditation on the past. Let us hope that a heartfelt repentance may in some measure atone for ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... It is the aspiration of the soul toward the Absolute and Infinite Intelligence, which is the One Supreme Deity, most feebly and misunderstandingly characterized as an "ARCHITECT." Certain faculties of man are directed toward the Unknown—thought, meditation, prayer. The unknown is an ocean, of which conscience is the compass. Thought, meditation, prayer, are the great mysterious pointings of the needle. It is a spiritual magnetism that thus connects the human soul with the Deity. These majestic irradiations ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... at assizes, or all the burning haggards that ever flared in a wintry sky. Her notion was to retire into some religious sisterhood, and away from life and its cares, to pass her remaining years in holy meditation and piety. She would have liked to have sold her estate and endowed some house or convent with the proceeds, but there were certain legal difficulties that stood in the way, and her law-agent, McKeown, must be seen and conferred ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... the Day' through the Christian Year: being a Text of Scripture, with an Original Meditation and a Short Selection in Verse ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... He always takes care to mention that, in the practices of devotion, as in every other practice, the common is the safest road: that many of the greatest saints have, through the whole of their lives, confined themselves to the usual modes of prayer and meditation; that the gift of contemplation is given to few; that, like every other practice of devotion, contemplation has its dangers; and that, without a perfect spirit of humility, it is much exposed to illusion; but he delivers, at the same time, an explicit ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... them, that when they arrive at an age when it would be proper nourishment, they will not so much as taste it. Every day they should be obliged to read a little in some good book, spend some time in prayer, which must be suited rather to stir the affections, than for meditation. Oh, were this method of education pursued, how speedily would many irregularities cease! These daughters becoming mothers, would educate their children as they themselves ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... her extravagances and seduction of the handsome Anzoleto; his irresolution between his still existing affection for Consuelo, who passes through all these things (and Zustiniani's siege of her) "in maiden meditation, fancy-free"—all discharge themselves or play their parts quite as they ought to do. But this comparatively quiet, though by no means emotionless or unincidented, part of the story "ends in a blow-up," or ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... Here, meditation may indulge her reveries in the midst of the surges, and walk in cloisters, alone vocal with the whispers of the pine. I passed this consecrated spot soon after sunset, when daylight was expiring in the west, and when the ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... extremely dejected at this disappointment, nor knew he what further stratagem to try. He immediately applied to his pipe, his constant friend and comfort in his afflictions; and, leaning over the rails, he devoted himself to meditation, assisted by the inspiring ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... cousin entered the London station late at night,—it was past midnight,—Sir Harry bade his companion meet him the next morning at Mr. Boltby's chambers at eleven. Cousin George had had ample time for meditation, and had considered that it might be best for him to "cut ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... irony was always considered a falsehood in spite of explanation; and that they could not see the propriety of uttering what was not strictly true, for any purpose whatever. The Sabbath is wholly devoted to the church service, to prayer, reading, and serious meditation; no work of any kind is done on that day, not even cooking, which is ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... have nor hope nor health, Nor peace within nor calm around, Nor that content surpassing wealth The sage in meditation found, And walked with inward glory crowned— Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure. Others I see whom these surround— Smiling they live, and call life pleasure;— To me that cup has been ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... were men of markedly contrasted types—the one all fire, restlessness, energy; the other calm, contemplative, intensely spiritual. Both were alike filled with a deep faith, a deep zeal; one the man of action, the other the man of meditation and devotion—yet deeply attached one to the other, as could be seen by the way they looked ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... In his meditation Nekhludoff did not notice how the weather had changed. The sun had hidden behind a low strip of cloud, and from the southern sky a light-gray mass, from which a slanting rain was already pouring in the distance over the fields and forests, was ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... hour to the search he was ostensibly conducting; when he again entered the house was more easy-minded. Employed in meditation that hour gave him back his coolness of the night. Rudely awakened, given no time in which firmly to plant his feet, securely to get a purchase with his hands before the storm burst, he had been whirled along helpless and bewildered before Mr. Marrapit's gusty agony. Instead of resisting ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... We have been generally and soundly suspicious of conclusions which cannot be verified by the scientific method, and so have built about ourselves restraining limitations of thought which we are wholesomely unwilling to pass. We have found our real joy in action rather than meditation. Our scientific achievements have supplied material for our restless energy and our restless energy has urged us on to ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... and it contains that which I ought to know, and the knowledge of which will lead me to true happiness; therefore I ought to read again and again this most precious book, this book of books, most earnestly, most prayerfully, and with much meditation; and in this practice I ought to continue all the days of my life. For I was aware, though I read it but little, that I knew scarcely anything of it. But instead of acting thus, and being led by my ignorance ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, First Part • George Mueller
... because he had given instructions for it whenever he paused. The communicator-operator at Luna City took pleasure in following instructions exactly. Dabney held up his hand again. Again he performed feats of meditation in plain view. ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... has been touched in the fifth button, and he backs away broken-winded. By and by, however, he is at his work—among the turnip-shoots, say—guffawing and clapping his corduroys, with pauses for uneasy meditation, and there he ripens with the swedes, so that by the back-end of the year he has discovered, and exults to know, that the reward of manhood is neither more nor less than this sensation at the ribs. Soon thereafter, or at worst, sooner ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... vertical line from the pupil of the eye, the interior group would represent a comprehensive understanding possessing sagacity and judgment, while the exterior would represent profound ingenious thought and originality, a capacity for discovering truth by reason and meditation, by analysis and synthesis, while the interior would discover it only by direct perception. In the exterior group would be included the misnamed organ of Wit or Mirthfulness, which is really a source ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, October 1887 - Volume 1, Number 9 • Various
... the steak and onions, and in the end he had gained his point. This weighty question being settled, they had gradually grown reflective on the past, present, and future joys of eating at some one else's expense, and in this bland and pleasing state of meditation they were still absorbed. The horses were impatient, and pawed the muddy ground with many a toss of their long manes and tails, the steam from their glossy coats mingling with the ever-thickening density of the fog. On the white stone steps ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... thy perpetual meditation, how many physicians who once looked so grim, and so theatrically shrunk their brows upon their patients, are dead and gone themselves. How many astrologers, after that in great ostentation they had foretold the death of some others, how many philosophers ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... Mr. Blithers and the return of the Prince, both of whom are very much in the public eye just now. I prefer the quiet of the country to the excitement of the city, so I shall seek some remote village and give myself up to—shall I say prayerful meditation? Believe me, dear Rex, to be your most devoted, ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... is going off to cut hay. He has been speaking of it as going into the wilderness for meditation. But what he's really doing is taking a team and his tent and supplies and staying with that hay until it's cut, cut and "collected," to use the word which the naive Lady Allie ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... doubt and fear, [9] Floating thro' an evening atmosphere, Grow golden all about the sky; In thee all passion becomes passionless, Touch'd by thy spirit's mellowness, Losing his fire and active might In a silent meditation, Falling into a still delight, And luxury of contemplation: As waves that up a quiet cove Rolling slide, and lying still Shadow forth the banks at will: [10] Or sometimes they swell and move, Pressing up against the land, With motions of the outer sea: And the self-same influence Controlleth ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... too correct, and on the next day, which was Sunday, he awoke, after an uneasy night, under the pressure of distressing symptoms. Finding it was too late for his family to go to church, he requested they would read the service to him, and was afterwards much employed in meditation. It was now apparent that he was impressed with the belief, that the time of his departure was at hand, for he seemed as if taking a farewell of terrestrial objects and resigning his soul to ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... letter. The reader may choose among these theories. We have thrown all the light we could acquire upon the portent, and would gladly, now that it has done its office, erase its deep print out of our own brain, where long meditation has fixed ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... which the eye of imagination could trace downward to their root on quiet hearth-stones festooned overhead with hams and flitches. It was one of those sequestered spots outside the gates of the world where may usually be found more meditation than action, and more passivity than meditation; where reasoning proceeds on narrow premises, and results in inferences wildly imaginative; yet where, from time to time, no less than in other places, dramas of a grandeur ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... must renounce the world, must divest himself of the lusts called the lusts of the body and the flesh, and must live spiritually. They take this to mean that they must cast away worldly things, which are especially riches and honors; that they must go continually in pious meditation on God, salvation, and eternal life; and must spend their life in prayers and in reading the Word and pious books. But those who renounce the world and live in the spirit in this manner acquire a melancholy life, ...
— The Gist of Swedenborg • Emanuel Swedenborg
... hope, I return from this murderous war, it will be one of my most welcome duties to steep my mind in the culture of those that now oppose us. I mean to build up on a broader basis the aim and purpose of my life, namely, historical and philosophical meditation on culture in its ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... in Jamaica, where he had gone to buy seed, stock and so on for their farm. While there he had stayed in a Franciscan convent during the season of Lent, and had given much time to prayer and meditation. For a long time he had been troubled about holding the Indians as slaves, but he had thought that if he and his partner were to give up the savages, they would only be worse off. Now, however, as he thought and prayed, a plan occurred to him: He would go to Spain and get permission to found schools, ...
— Las Casas - 'The Apostle of the Indies' • Alice J. Knight
... into my hands soon after its publication in Edinburgh, some two years ago. I was at once impressed by its extraordinary richness of language and imagery,—its deep and solemn tone of meditation in rare combination with an eminently practical tendency,— philosophy warm and glowing with love. It will, perhaps, be less the fault of the writer than of her readers, if they are not always able to eliminate from ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... sheets of wrinkled silver rock, over which the sight travels slowly as in delirium; mad, horned mountains, wreathed with dancing mists; low-browed and bent-shouldered faquirs of the wayside, sitting in meditation beneath a burden of glacier-ice that thickens every year; and mountains of fair aspect on one side, but on the other seamed with hollow sunless clefts, where last year's snow is blackened with this year's dirt and smoke of forest-fires. The drip ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... than a silk thread does which is wafted idly to and fro with every breath of air. A cat on the watch is as motionless as death stationed at its place of observation, and neither hunger nor thirst can possibly draw it away from its meditation. D'Artagnan who was burning with impatience, suddenly threw aside the feeling, like a cloak which he felt too heavy on his shoulders, and said to himself that that which they were concealing from him was the very thing it was important ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... I see any harm in your using the current for reasonable purposes," he answered slowly, after an interval of meditation. "You understand the dangers of running too many volts through your body and of crossing ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... loss is that of the great stained glass windows, which the mysterious artists of the thirteenth century so religiously composed, in meditation and dream, gathering the saints by hundreds, with their translucent draperies, their luminous halos. There also German scrap-iron rushed in great stupid bundles, crushing everything. The masterpieces, which no one will ever reproduce, have scattered their fragments on the flagstones, forever impossible ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... attentively to what the count said, "This is very wonderful, very wonderful," he observed, after being for some time lost in meditation. "I would wish to hear more about the matter; yet it strikes me as strange that God should allow His name to be profaned, and these senseless images to be worshipped instead ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston
... person is lost in meditation his eyes often appear as if fixed on a distant object (470/3. The appearance is due to divergence of the lines of vision produced by muscular relaxation. See "Expression of the Emotions," Edition II., page 239.), and the lower eyelids may be seen to ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... crises in their lives; or when he pictured them as they seemed at the moment to one, two, or three differently tempered persons—pictorial sketches and studies which we may hang up in the chambers of the mind for meditation or discussion. Their intellectual power and the emotional interest they awaken, the vivid imaginative lightning which illuminates them in flashes, arise out of that part of his nature which made ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... looked so mean, so ill put together, so shabby, so dirty, that the very "Pennies" hooted at him and flung him in our faces. The Rector was also careless of his dress, and mooned along the road, but then everybody knew that he was a mighty scholar, and that if you woke him from his meditation he would answer you in Greek; but even Speug understood that Moossy was not a scholar. The story drifted about through Muirtown, and filtered down to the boys, that he was a bankrupt tradesman who had fled from some little German town and landed in Muirtown, ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... Meditation, without distinction of subject and object, is the highest form of thought. It is a high attainment to say, "I am God;" but the consummation is when ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir
... Jose lapsed into profound meditation. Musing over his life experiences, he at last summed them all up in the vain attempt to evolve an acceptable concept of God, an idea of Him that would satisfy. He had felt that in Christianity he had hold of something beneficent, something real; but he had never been able to formulate it, nor lift ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... become Christians, and believe in one God, Christ the Son of Mary; renouncing entirely blood sacrifices and heathen idols; should keep every seventh day holy, abstain from labor that day, and even from food, devoting the day to fasting and sacred meditation. Whereupon, by way of universal answer, arose a confused universal murmur of entire dissent. "Take away from us our old belief, and also our time for labor!" murmured they in angry astonishment; "how can even the land be got tilled in that way?" "We cannot work if we don't get food," ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... is beauty itself, proceeding as on steps from the love of one form to that of two, and from that of two, to that of all forms which are beautiful; and from beautiful forms to beautiful habits and institutions, and from institutions to beautiful doctrines; until, from the meditation of many doctrines, they arrive at that which is nothing else than the doctrine of the supreme beauty itself, in the knowledge and contemplation of which at ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... underestimate the value of meditation and silence to the public speaker. These are necessary for original and profound thinking, for the cultivation of the imagination, and for the accumulation of thought. But conversation offers an immediate outlet for this stored-up knowledge, testing it as a finished ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... show how shortsighted we humans are, how incomprehensive of the workings of the human heart and soul; we think we know—and find ourselves utterly confounded, as I am now." He was silent for a few minutes, apparently deep in meditation. ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... consequence of set seasons, even for prayer, is to have a man continually posturing to himself, till his conscience is taught as many tricks as a pet monkey, and the gravest expressions are left with a perverted meaning. (11) For my part, I should try to secure some part of every day for meditation, above all in the early morning and the open air; but how that time was to be improved I should leave to circumstance and the inspiration of the hour. Nor if I spent it in whistling or numbering my footsteps, should I consider it misspent for that. I should have ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... stood there as if lost in meditation. Hugh, still watching closely, and making up his mind to have it out then and there, because he could not stand the weighty load of suspense any longer, was sure the other must be in a merry frame of mind, for he laughed several times, ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... have been its nature, was seemingly a matter of unimportance to Mrs. Pendomer, who was in meditation. She rested her ample chin on a much-bejeweled hand for a moment; and, when Mrs. Pendomer raised her face, her voice was ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... of Priests." 2 "The Praise of Pious Observances." 3 By sila is meant the observance of the rules of purity in act and thought. Dhyana (called by Japanese Buddhists Zenjo) is one of the higher forms of meditation. ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... pleasures I enjoyed in her conversation: these increased every day, in proportion as we knew each other better, and as our mutual confidence increased. They can be measured only by the treasures of her mind, and the virtues of her heart. But this is a subject for meditation, not for words. What I purposed alluding to, was the improvement that I have for ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... flood, in spite of its horror, is described with the greatest brevity because he wished to leave such things to the meditation ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... head and drew his fuzzy white brows together in puzzled meditation—suddenly he started and struck his staff ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... whose kindly heart Was moved to send This gift, when we were far apart, To cheer a friend. Sweet meditation now my mind employs; A pleasure pure, and one ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... rubbed-the-wrong-wayedness, and is as much alive as Mimosa herself. This is often on those easterly days which all well-regulated invalids shudder at, when the very marrow congeals and the nerves are sharp-whetted. Then, Prometheus-like, one "gnaws the heart with meditation"; then, too, always fall out various domestic disasters, and it is not easy to see why the curtain-string should be tied in a hard knot that must be cut at night, or why the servants can't be thorough, deft-handed, and immaculate. One has indigestion, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... men dispute they lose their temper; pride and obstinacy come in, and there is an end of honesty. My friend, never argue; for by arguing we gain no light for ourselves or for others. So far as I myself am concerned, I have only made up my mind after many years of meditation; here I rest, my conscience is at peace, my heart is satisfied. If I wanted to begin afresh the examination of my feelings, I should not bring to the task a purer love of truth; and my mind, which is already ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... introduce this jocular note into our meditation, for we are honestly aggrieved that so many of the Christmas cards hark back to an old tradition that is gone, and never attempt to express any of the romance of to-day. You may protest that Christmas is the oldest thing in the world, which is true; ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... morning and lay down at night, pleased with each other and with themselves, all but Rasselas, who, in the twenty-sixth year of his age, began to withdraw himself from the pastimes and assemblies, and to delight in solitary walks and silent meditation. He often sat before tables covered with luxury, and forgot to taste the dainties that were placed before him; he rose abruptly in the midst of the song, and hastily retired beyond the sound of music. His attendants observed ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson
... worshipful approach to religious reality, we have the profound peace and harmony, the summum bonum of existence, coupled with strong moral purpose which characterize her life. Here, then, is evidently the unification of consciousness in happy awe and the control of destiny through meditation upon infinite matters, that is, through reverent contemplation of God. Is it not one of those ironies of history wherewith fate is forever mocking and teasing the human spirit, that the grandson of this lady and of Jonathan Edwards should ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... do myself!" I confess I had thought, until that moment, that the advantage, in this particular, was altogether on my side; but it seems I was mistaken. By way of relieving his mind, however, I told him I was an American. "An American!" and he seemed more puzzled than ever. After a few minutes of meditation on what he had just heard, he civilly pointed to a bit of meadow through which the Thames meanders, and good-naturedly told me it was Runnymeade. I presume my manner denoted a proper interest, for he now took up the subject of the English Barons, and entered into a long account ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... extreme of perfect idleness any better? No; for plainly the idler is a fool who "eateth his own flesh"; that is, necessarily brings ruin upon himself. So human wisdom here closes the meditation with—what human wisdom always does take refuge in—the "golden mean," as it is called, "better a single handful with quiet rest, than both hands filled only by wearying toil and vexation of spirit." And true enough this is, as every man who has tested things at all in this world ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings
... profit in new births for works of faith; In various rites abounding; following whereon Large merit shall accrue towards wealth and power; Albeit, who wealth and power do most desire Least fixity of soul have such, least hold On heavenly meditation. Much these teach, From Veds, concerning the "three qualities;" But thou, be free of the "three qualities," Free of the "pairs of opposites,"[FN2] and free From that sad righteousness which calculates; Self-ruled, Arjuna! simple, satisfied![FN3] Look! like as when a tank pours ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold
... see why Catherine's plain speaking was not resented. She rarely begins with rebuke. The note of humility is first struck; she is always "servant and slave of the servants of Jesus Christ." Thence she frequently passes into fervent meditation on some special theme: the exceeding wonder of the Divine Love, the duty of prayer, the nature of obedience. We are lifted above the world into a region of heavenly light and sweetness, when suddenly—a blow from the shoulder!—a startling ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa |
