"Muse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... but one way that I may live—to take every impulse that comes—to be watching, watching—to dare always and instantly, to hesitate, to put off never, to seize the skirt of my muse whenever it shimmers before me. So I make myself a habit, a routine, a discipline; and so each day I have new power. So each day I feel myself, I bare my arms, I walk erect, exulting—I laugh—I ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... he returned laughing. "But you must not make fun of my sweet mistress from Parnassus; it kept me sane and cool to woo my reluctant Muse. At times she frowned, and then I set my teeth hard and worked like a navvy; but when she smiled my pen seemed to fly in the sunlight, and I was warm ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... mourning! aptly art thou named, For thou hast been the cause of many a tear; For deeds of treacherous strife too justly famed, The Atlantic's charnel—desolate and drear; A thing none love, though wand'ring thousands fear— If for a moment rest the Muse's wing Where through the waves thy sandy wastes appear, 'Tis that she may one strain of horror sing, Wild as the dashing waves ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... 'twas I, you thought, had drew my Pen On Virtue, see I fight for her agen; Wherefore, I hope my Foes will all excuse Th' Extravagance of a Repenting Muse; Pardon whate'er she has too boldly said, She only acted then in Masquerade; But now the Vizard's off, She's chang'd her Scene, And turns a Modest, Civil Girl agen; Let some admire the Fops whose Talent lie Inventing dull, ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses From Women • Various
... of poetical conception and design. To this it was not possible to do justice, and in the attempt I have doubtless very often need of the reader's indulgent consideration. My natural respect for the old gentleman's vagaries, with a muse of equivocal character, must be my only excuse whenever the language, without luxuriating into verse, borrows flowers scarcely natural to prose. Truth compels me also to confess, that, with all my pains, I am by no means sure that I have ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... everything is expressed which the poet wishes to impart. This feature will appear singular to those who are unacquainted with the character of the popular poetry of the south, and are accustomed to the redundancy and frequently tedious repetition of a more polished muse. It will be well to inform such that the greater part of the poetry sung in the south, and especially in Spain, is extemporary. The musician composes it at the stretch of his voice, whilst his fingers are tugging at the guitar; which style of composition ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... so lightly, well-known spire, That minded me of many a pleasure gone, Of merrier days, of love and Islington; Kindling afresh the flames of past desire. And I shall muse on thee, slow journeying on To the green ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... of twenty-two, when a few sounds from the lyre of Malherbe, heard by accident, awoke in him the muse which slept. ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... a relief to Dr. May that George's vigil soon became a sound repose on the sofa in the dressing-room; and he was left to read and muse uninterruptedly. ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... man should have in man. Drinking songs and table songs do not belong to the highest flights of poetry; but if the delights of friendly meetings and greetings belong to some of the brightest moments of human happiness, why should a poet hold them to be beneath his muse? There is something especially German in all drinking songs, and no other nation has held its wine in such honor. Can one imagine English poems on port and sherry? or has a Frenchman much to tell us of ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... Princess The Government Clerks Pierrette A Study of Woman Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Honorine The Seamy Side of History The Magic Skin A Second Home A Prince of Bohemia Letters of Two Brides The Muse of the Department The Imaginary Mistress The Middle Classes Cousin Betty The Country Parson In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following: Another Study ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... some pride in mentioning the name of Peregrine Bingham, being a near relation, as well as rising in character and fame at the bar. The verses will speak for themselves, and are not unworthy his muse whose poem suggested the comparisons. The inscription is placed over ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various
... 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." ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various
... Achilles, Patroclus, Ajax, Hector, and many other heroes who may have served their country as faithfully as these, though their names do not live in the page of history. How gladly would I have trodden the plain, there to muse on the legends which in my youth had already awakened in me such deep and awe-struck interest, and had first aroused the wish to visit these lands—a desire now partially fulfilled! But we flew by with relentless rapidity. The whole ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... inspiration runs to seed. Some fine day every artist finds himself sitting face to face with his lump of clay, with his empty canvas, with his sheet of blank paper, waiting in vain for the revelation to be made, for the Muse to descend. He must learn to do without the Muse! When the fickle jade forgets the way to your studio, don't waste any time in tearing your hair and meditating on suicide. Come round and see me, and I will show you how ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... hitherto dwelt only on the cheering and the joyous features of her faith; her mind loved to muse on the legends of saints and angels and the glories of paradise, which, with a secret buoyancy, she hoped to be the lot of every one she saw. The mind of the Mother Theresa was of the same elevated cast, and the terrors on which Jocunda dwelt with such homely force of language seldom made ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... writing, of epigrams, elegies, eulogistic verses, and similar grave trifles 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
... color from the thing to inform that thick hair's insolent glory; the tint of Nelchen's lips was less sprightly, and for the splendor of her eyes Death had substituted a conscientious copy in crayons: otherwise there was no change; otherwise she seemed to lie there and muse on something remote and curious, yet quite as she would have wished ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... that the gayety of nations was eclipsed by the death of Garrick, he did not mean that a mere barren amusement had lost one of its professors. When Sir Joshua Reynolds painted Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse, and said he had achieved immortality by putting his name on the hem of her garment, he meant something more than a pretty compliment, for her name can never die. To give genuine and wholesome entertainment ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... spell a void, its charm a vacancy. Rosy Romance, thou owest many a page, Ay, many that erst grew beneath mine eye, To what was once the loved reality Of this true fairy-land; but I refuse To deck with Art's fantastic wizardry A haunt of Trade. Mine is not Mammon's Muse, She will not sing for hire of ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 3, 1887 • Various
... troublesome, their adherence having been given only in the regular course of complaisance. She was still comparatively an outsider here, her life with Lady Petherwin having been passed chiefly in alternations between English watering-places and continental towns. However, it was too late now to muse on this, and it may be added that from first to last Ethelberta never discovered from the Belmaines whether her proposal had been an infliction or a charm, so perfectly were they practised in sustaining that complete divorce between thinking ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... wisdom of the wise. So much, indeed, did the subtle mechanism of mind fascinate him that he despised language, or looked upon it as an incomplete instrument of expression. Rhyme, that exquisite echo which in the Muse's hollow hill creates and answers its own voice; rhyme, which in the hands of the real artist becomes not merely a material element of metrical beauty, but a spiritual element of thought and passion also, ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... of observation. Then he observes, and 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 ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... 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 ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... O 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
... replied, First on my roll stands Wyndham's bride, My trumpet oft I've raised to sound Her modest praise the world around; But notes were wanting-canst thou find A muse to sing her face, her mind? Believe me, I can name but one, A friend ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... there are poets and poets, poets sociable and poets very unsociable. Wordsworth made the country, but Lamb made the town; and there is quite a band of poets nowadays who share his distaste for mountains, and take London for their muse. If you'll promise not to cry again, I'll recall some lines by a friend of mine which were written for town-tastes like ours. But perhaps you ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... At whose white feet the languid Tritons poured Pearls, while on land they wither'd and adored. Fast by the springs where she to bathe was wont, And in those meads where sometime she might haunt, Were strewn rich gifts, unknown to any Muse, Though Fancy's casket were unlock'd to choose. 20 Ah, what a world of love was at her feet! So Hermes thought, and a celestial heat Burnt from his winged heels to either ear, That from a whiteness, as the lily clear, ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... "Your theory is that a man ought to be able to return to the Muse as he comes back to his wife after he's ceased to interest ...
— The Long Run - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... women have!" And Charlie leaned his chin on his hand to muse pensively for a moment over the blindness of one woman who could admire an excellent old uncle more ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... sweetly, but wherever the English language is spoken, his fame is cherished and his verse repeated. Nor is the delight inspired by his works limited to the language in which they were written. All over the continent of Europe, among the nations whose language is of Latin and Celtic origin, his muse inspires deep interest and pleasure. His extraordinary oriental poem, "Lalla Rookh," has been translated into Persian, and delights the literary sons of Iran as it erst thrilled the imagination and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... deliberately dropped the subject. Iris took it up. Sitting by the only table in the room, she was in a position which placed her exactly opposite to one of the prints—the magnificent portrait of Mrs. Siddons as The Tragic Muse. ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... dated, or supposed to be so, from the banks of the Garonne. Among other authors whom Hamilton at first proposes to Grammont, as capable of writing his life (though, on reflection, he thinks them not suited to it), is Boileau, whose genius he professes to admire; but adds that his muse has somewhat of malignity; and that such a muse might caress with one hand and satirize him with the other. This letter was sent by Hamilton to Boileau, who answered him with great politeness; but, at the same time that he highly extolled ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... "Ah, Muse! You dare not claim A nobler man than he— Nor nobler man hath less of blame, Nor blameless man hath purer name, Nor purer name hath grander ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... divisions correspond, moreover, with those of time; the contemplation of the present is Comedy—mirth for the most part being connected with the present only—and the past and the future are the dominions of the Tragic muse. ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various
... a woman's work is never done," remarked Ik Stanton, dropping into the easiest chair in the studio, "and for this reason, were there no other, your muse is evidently of the feminine persuasion. I also admit that she is a lady of great antiquity. Indeed I would place her nearer to the time when 'Adam delved and Eve span' than to ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... that the experience would repay me, in awakened pleasant memories, for a very poor hair-cut. Instead, I got a very good hair-cut, and no pleasant memories were awakened at all; not, that is, by the direct process of suggestion. I was only led to muse on barber shops of my boyhood because this one was so different. Even the barber was different. He chewed gum, he worked quickly, he used shaving powder and took his cloths from a sterilizer, and finally ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... intricate financial lures which Average Jones was able to dispose of by a mere "Don't." The third was a Spiritualist announcement behind which lurked a shrewd plot to entrap a senile millionaire into a marriage with the medium. These having been settled, the expert was free to muse upon a paragraph which had appeared in all the important New York morning papers ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... juxtaposition, a remarkably close soldering. Ursule was whimsical, and displayed at times the shyness, the melancholy, and the transports of a pariah; then she would often break out into nervous fits of laughter, and muse lazily, like a woman unsound both in head and heart. Her eyes, which at times had a scared expression like those of Adelaide, were as limpid as crystal, similar to those of kittens doomed to die ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... (Right Honorable and that worthily) may haply make your Honors muse; wellfare that dedication, that may excite your muse. I am no auctorifed Herauld to marshall your precedence. Private dutie might perhaps give one the prioritie, where publike respect should prefer another. To choose Tullie or Ausonius Consuls, is ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... 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 the ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... that high emotion, Muse more rapturous, you, than any Sappho. The Great Mother he ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... been paid to the number of feet on which the lines moved along. But, however defective their poetry may be in point of harmony of numbers, it describes, in vivid and barbaric language, scenes of barbaric grandeur, which in these days are never witnessed; and, which, though the modern muse may imagine, she generally fails in attempting to pourtray, from the violent desire to be smooth and tuneful, forgetting that smoothness and tunefulness are nearly synonymous with tameness ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow
... spontaneous inspiration come Ev'n in this mingled crowd of good and ill, To make us hail a Wonder:—but Elsewhere Without or let or hindrance we shall use Forces neglected here, but nurtured there; Till all the powers of every classic Muse, Ninefold, may dwell in each—as each may choose: Since Heaven for creatures must have creature gifts, Not only love, religion, gratitude, But also light, and every force that lifts Man's spirit to the heights ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... that a gentleman, and a gallant officer, can find no other subject for his muse, in these times of trial, than in such beastly invocations to that notorious follower of the camp, the filthy Elizabeth Flanagan. Methinks the goddess of Liberty could furnish a more noble inspiration, and the sufferings of your country a ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... quiet for some time without speaking, and George also seemed inclined to muse awhile upon the subject. "George," said the uncle, at last, "I think it will be better that we should thoroughly understand each other. You are a good fellow in your way, and I like you well enough. But you must not get into your head any ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... suppressed anger, in many passages of his writings: and many of his Studies, as well as his Scherzos, depict a concentrated exasperation and despair, which are sometimes manifested in bitter irony, sometimes in intolerant hauteur. These dark apostrophes of his muse have attracted less attention, have been less fully understood, than his poems of more tender coloring. The personal character of Chopin had something to do with this general misconception. Kind, courteous, and affable, ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... gown—the parish priest of a century ago—a friend of Whitefield." He is likely to come under the spell of this reverend Ghost who haunts the "Manse" and as it rains and darkens and the sky glooms through the dusty attic windows, he is likely "to muse deeply and wonderingly upon the humiliating fact that the works of man's intellect decay like those of his hands" ... "that thought grows moldy," and as the garret is in Massachusetts, the "thought" and the "mold" are likely to be quite native. When the same anyone ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... Inconveniencies which Writers for the Stage labour under, besides 'tis observable, that an obsequious prolifick Muse generally meets with a worse Reception than a petulant inanimate Author; and when a Poet has finished his Labours, so that he has brought his Play upon the Stage, the best Performance has oftentimes the worst Success, for which I need only instance Mr. Congreve's Way of the World, a Comedy esteem'd ...
— A Vindication of the Press • Daniel Defoe
... above-named Titian has done it. Corregio, moreover, and Giorgione and Leonardo, very nearly, trying hard. Holbein three or four times, in precious pieces, highest wrought. Raphael, it may be, in one or two crowns of Muse or Sibyl. If any one else in later times, we have to consider.' There is no endeavour to show how or why accurate drawing of the leaf leads to general accuracy in drawing; no analogy is attempted, for instance, between the human and vegetable anatomies. ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... the dread voice is past, That shrunk thy streams: return, Sicilian Muse, And call the vales, and bid them hither cast Their bells and flowerets ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... Niccolo da Correggio, called by Isabella d'Este and Sabba da Castiglione "the most accomplished gentleman of the age, the foremost man in all Italy, in the art of poetry and in courtesy," who devoted his muse to the service of gentle ladies, and composed canzoni and capitoli or set Petrarch's sonnets to music for Isabella and Beatrice's pleasure. And among Ercole's courtiers at Ferrara there was one still greater, ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... our friends, we have ready to hand a refuge from the clash of wits or the small talk of the day amid the solemn beauties of our venerable minster, whose silvern chimes daily 'knoll us to prayer,' and in the shady walks of whose tranquil graveyard we muse with softened heart, and ever and anon with moistened eye, upon the memorials of the young, the beautiful, the aged, the wise, and ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... "The muse must be partial to red hair," said Amanda. And though Kitty sniffed insultedly at this insinuation, her bright head was soon bent over a pad beside Blue Bonnet's, and after much chewing of their pencils and shrieks of laughter at impossible rhymes, ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... to be antiquytye. But howe yo{u} may seme to force and racke the worde to Chaucers meaninge, Iknowe not; but sure I ame the proper signyficat{i}one of autenticke is a thinge of auctoritye or credit allowed by menne of auctoritye, or the originall or fyrste archetypu{m} of any thinge; whiche I muse that ...
— Animaduersions uppon the annotacions and corrections of some imperfections of impressiones of Chaucer's workes - 1865 edition • Francis Thynne
... words! who is there that does not wish the honest muse should rise no more? Goldsmith came next, and shared the same fate. His country curate, the most amiable of men, we heard of till ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... 18th, 1848. The following Sunday John Quincy Adams attended public worship at the Capitol, and on Monday, the 21st, he was, as usual, in his seat when the House was called to order. During the preliminary business he was engaged in copying a poetical invocation to the muse of history for one of the officials, and he appeared to be in ordinarily good health. A resolve of thanks to the generals of the Mexican War came up, and the clerk had read, "Resolved by the House that"—when he was arrested by the cry ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... Feast," judging that its "glow" was "extinct," had risen to conclude it by crowning the parting cup. He had crowned it with judicious reserve to the "Good Genius;" and Strattis (the comic poet) had burst forth in an eulogium of the Comic Muse which claimed the title of Good Genius for her—when yielding to this new and over-mastering impulse, he (Aristophanes) checked the coming applause, and demanded that the Tragic Muse and her ministrant Euripides should receive the libation instead; justifying the demand ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... to that solemn festival 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. The poet had to abandon his ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... attempt to write you a letter In verse, tho' in prose I could do it much better; The Muse, this cold weather, sleeps up at Parnassus, And leaves us poor poets as stupid as asses. She'll tarry still longer, if she has a warm chamber, A store of old massie, ambrosia, and amber. Dear mother, don't laugh, you may think she is tipsy ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... long, the drooping Muse hath stray'd, And left her debt to Addison unpaid, Blame not her silence, Warwick, but bemoan, And judge, O judge, my bosom by your own. What mourner ever felt poetic fires! Slow comes the verse, that real woe inspires: Grief unaffected ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... and cries "How d' ye do?" Or Mungo, the negro, who quaintly and sly Takes his tea, Cayenne pepper, and cold apple-pie. Some gaze on the Cygnets that glide like a dream, And bend down to admire their fair forms in the stream; Some laugh at their fancies, or muse on a flower, And all are delighted, so happy the hour. Wouldst thou gaze with emotions far purer than mirth On one of the fairest creations of earth, Go at even, and breathe the pure breath of the breeze, From the seat by the ...
— The Peacock 'At Home' AND The Butterfly's Ball AND The Fancy Fair • Catherine Ann Dorset
... they left that barren threshold! And the priest felt all this, as, melancholy and envious, he turned from the door in that November day, to find himself thoroughly alone. He now began seriously to muse upon those fancied blessings which men wearied with celibacy see springing, heavenward, behind the altar. A few weeks afterwards a notable change was visible in the good man's exterior. He became more careful of his dress, ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... me, Sabbath! In thy light I sit and muse, this sweet, June morning, till The past, with all its varied scenes of good and ill, Fades from my thought—fades, with the bliss ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)
... clear! more natural! more agreeable to the true spirit of simplicity! Here are no tropes,—no figurative expressions,—not even so much as an invocation to the Muse. He does not detain his readers by any needless circumlocution; by unnecessarily informing them, what he is going to sing; or still more unnecessarily enumerating what he is not going to sing: but according to the ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe
... insight; and whatever faults or obstructions of temperament might cloud it, he was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. In his youth he said one day, "The other world is all my art: my pencils will draw no other; my jack-knife will cut nothing else; I do not use it as a means." This was the muse and genius that ruled his opinions, conversation, studies, work and course of life. This made him a searching judge of men. At first glance he measured his companion, and, tho insensible to some fine traits of culture, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... 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 ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... gave relief to the picture. But he had got what he wanted. He felt on the spot that this WAS the real word from Woollett. "So don't you go home!" Jim added while he alighted and while his friend, letting him profusely pay the cabman, sat on in a momentary muse. Strether wondered if that were ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... his thought; The melodies and measures fraught With sunshine and the open air, Of vineyards and the singing sea Of his beloved Sicily; And much it pleased him to peruse The songs of the Sicilian muse,— Bucolic songs by Meli sung In the familiar peasant tongue, That made men say, "Behold! once more The pitying gods to earth ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... "Unless you can muse in a crowd all day, On the absent face that fixed you; Unless you can love, as the angels may, With the breadth of heaven betwixt you; Unless you can dream that his faith is fast, Through behoving and unbehoving; Unless you can die when the dream is past— ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... words find credit in these latter days, If neatly grafted on a Gallic phrase: What Chaucer, Spenser, did, we scarce refuse To Dryden's or to Pope's maturer muse. If you can add a little, say why not, As well as William Pitt and Walter Scott, Since they, by force of rhyme, and force of lungs, Enrich'd our island's ill-united tongues? 'Tis then, and shall be, lawful to present Reforms in ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... thanks—not in our own name, for we are but atoms—but in the name of philology itself, which is indeed neither a Muse nor a Grace, but a messenger of the gods: and just as the Muses descended upon the dull and tormented Boeotian peasants, so Philology comes into a world full of gloomy colours and pictures, full of the deepest, ...
— Homer and Classical Philology • Friedrich Nietzsche
... can learn except when I am drawing," he said, and his slate was often so filled with designs, that the sums were jostled into the narrowest possible space, while his Latin grammar was similarly adorned. There sat the Muse in full beauty, enthroned upon Parnassus, close to musa musae; magister had a wig, and dominus a great rod; while the extraordinary physiognomies round facies faciei would have been worthy of any collection of caricatures. Moreover the illustrations of the verb ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... of Eden fade, Bring'st Eden to the craftsman's brain— Godlike to muse o'er his own Trade And manlike ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... down 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 which is in ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... world. He has followed more or less the wild, shifting impulses of his nature—restless and reckless, if aimless and harmless; fickle and passionate, if rebelliously natural; exhausting his youth and manhood in fruitless action, and devoting the moments of reflection to the playful current of the muse's fancy, forsooth, to the delectation of the more prosaic humanity in this his locality. A life of pleasure was ever his treasure, and he agrees, after experience of ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... the wand of Muse— Queen Posy's shaft of subtle art— Seared to the distant heights of blue, Past onyx lees that Sunsets dyed, And put to Vellum Couplets' fuse, Sped same to Fate with timid heart, Then shed dim tears in Sorrow's pew, This ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque
... hastily this sincere effort of a maiden muse. Here was a sense of rhythm, and an effort in the direction of rhyme; here was an honest transcript of an occurrence of daily life, told with a certain idealizing expression, recognizing the existence of impulses, mysterious instincts, impelling us even in the selection of our bodily ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... found the jovial Alexander Dumas in bed, even long after mid-day: here he lay, with paper, pen, and ink, and wrote his newest drama. I found him thus one day; he nodded kindly to me, and said, "Sit down a minute; I have just now a visit from my muse; she will be going directly." He wrote on; spoke aloud; shouted a viva! sprang out of bed, and said, "The ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... board the necessary stores for the long voyage, and for service after our arrival there. Lieutenant-Commander Theodorus Bailey was in command of the vessel, Lieutenant William H. Macomb executive officer, and Passed-Midshipmen Muse, Spotts, and J. W. A. Nicholson, were the watch-officers; Wilson purser, and Abernethy surgeon. The latter was caterer of the mess, and we all made an advance of cash for him to lay in the necessary mess-stores. To enable us to prepare for so long a voyage and for an indefinite ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... JOHN BRADBURY, the Muse shall fill my strain To sing thy praises; thou hadst spent thy time Not idly, nor hadst lived thy life in vain, Unfitted for the guerdon of my rhyme. For lo, the Funds went sudden crashing down, And men grew pale with monetary fear, And in the toppling mart The stoutest heart ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... could strut and caper and fling bombastic insults at the authorities in Rome, until the Government found it opportune to take them in hand. The greatest Italian poet and one of the greatest imaginative writers in Europe will now be able to devote himself—if his rather morbid Muse has suffered no injury—to his predestined task. Those—the comparatively few that read—whose acquaintance with this writer's work usually caused them to regret his methods, could not help admiring his personal activities, his genius for leadership and his vital fire during the War. ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... miraculously performed—he believed that a benefactor had arisen from the grave to save us. Oh, it was a touching superstition, monsieur, and although I did not myself believe it, I would not for the world have destroyed my father's faith. How often did he muse over it and pronounce the name of a dear friend—a friend lost to him forever; and on his death-bed, when the near approach of eternity seemed to have illumined his mind with supernatural light, this thought, which had until then been but a doubt, became a conviction, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... what then? Why, next morning I was horrified by seeing that it had struck, and split upon, the petticoat of Euterpe's graven image in the garden, and grimed her as if it were on purpose[45]. Only think of my distress,—and the epigrams that might be engendered on the Muse and ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... that they would not be put to death was the prefect allowed to proceed to their arrest. Michael and Constantine were then dragged by the feet as far as the Sigma, above S. Mary Peribleptos (Soulou Monastir), and after having their eyes burnt out were banished to different monasteries, to muse on the vanity of human greatness and ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... sense distinct and clear, As any muse's tongue could speak, When from its lid a pearly tear Ran ...
— Language of Flowers • Kate Greenaway
... their tents. Their songs had charmed me, and made the long hours flit by like birds. Where are you, brave singers, in this year '68? I know not—you are all scattered. Your guns have ceased their thunder, your voices sound no more. But I think you sometimes remember, as you muse, in these dull years, those gay moonlight nights on the banks of ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... thinking how noble and delightful it was to be a free spirit, to wander about in angelic company, quite secure, though seemingly in the midst of peril. I had now nothing to console me, save the Muse, and she being half angry, would do nothing more than bleat to me the ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... thou art, Thou rushing warmth that hover'st round my heart, Sweet inmate, hail! thou source of sterling joy, That poverty itself cannot destroy, Be thou my Muse; and faithful still to me, Retrace the paths of wild obscurity. No deeds of arms my humble lines rehearse, No Alpine wonders thunder through my verse, The roaring cataract, the snow-topt hill, Inspiring awe, till breath itself stands still: Nature's sublimer scenes ne'er charm'd mine eyes, ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... resolved into finer and lovelier truth the purity which completes it as the fragrance completes the rose. That's what they call idealism; the word's vastly abused, but the thing is good. It's my own creed, at any rate. Lovely Madonna, model at once and muse, I call you to witness that I ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... bark yielded the best writing-paper, while the outer layers were made into packing-paper (emporetica); the uppermost bark was used for making ropes. A case of this kind full of parchment rolls, with a cover to it, stands by the side of Klio in a wall-painting of Herculaneum. In her left hand the muse holds a half-opened roll on which are inscribed the words "Klio teaches history." The ink was made of a black coloring substance; it was kept in an inkstand made of metal, with a cover to it. Double inkstands, frequently seen ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... fire burns cheerfully; the room is filled with my old friend's sober voice; and I am left to muse upon the story ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... can muse in a crowd all day On the absent face that fixed you; Unless you can love as the angels may, With the breadth of heaven betwixt you; Unless you can dream that his faith is fast, Through behooving and unbehooving; ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... were actually printed in a journal to which ANDREW LANG is an occasional contributor. I myself have never dared to go so far. There is something sacred about an established reputation. And I can honestly say that I like the elegant airy trifles which your little Muse has bestowed upon us, though I confess to a weariness when the talk is too much of golf-clubs and salmon rods. And I admire your appreciation of the original work of other men. In the present case you and I disagree upon a question of taste. That is all. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 10, 1891 • Various
... separated unwillingly, each thinking only of the other's safety and comfort. The girl knew she was not wanted because the man wished to spare her some unpleasant experience. She obeyed him with a sigh, and sat down, not to sleep, but to muse, as girls will, round-eyed, wistful, with the angelic fantasy of youth ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... full of absurdities." Furthermore, nothing is said in the Brahmanas of the Bauddhas—ergo, there were none before "Sandracottus," nor have the Buddhists or Brahmans any right to a history of their own, save the one evoluted by the Western mind. As though the Muse of History had turned her back while events were gliding by, the "historian" confesses his inability to close the immense lacunae between the Indo-Aryan supposed immigration en masse across the Hindoo Kush, and the reign ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... she announced. "That is all there is left in life for me, now that my friend has been ruthlessly torn from me. In school I can look at her and muse over days departed." ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Plentiful the choice; And, in few moments, of all hues I held A glowing handful. In a few moments more Where are they? Dropping as I went along Unheeded on my path, and I was gone— Wandering again in muse of thought perplex'd. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... sheltered by various dishes with spirit-lamps burning beneath them worked gloomily at a sonnet inspired by the girl he had met the day before while his mother thought he was eating his patent food. The girl, it seemed, could not inspire much, for beyond the fourth line his muse refused to go; and he was beginning to be unable to stop himself from an angry railing at the restrictions the sonnet form forces upon poets who love to be vague, which would immediately have concentrated his mother's attention on himself and resulted in his ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... unimportance of your subject to success, provided only the treatment be cordial. In general, what is more tedious than dedications or panegyrics addressed to grandees? Yet in the "Divan" you would not skip them, since his muse seldom supports him better. ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... and the vulgar errors of mere tradition. Indeed, it may be taken once for all as the truth, that Shakespeare, in the absolute universality of his genius, always reverences whatever arises out of our moral nature; he never profanes his muse with a contemptuous reasoning away of the genuine and general, ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... Finding the Head of Orpheus. Edward Berge The mourning muse has just chanced upon the severed head of Orpheus which had been cast into the stream by the Thracian maidens; short pieces of marble are left ...
— Sculpture of the Exposition Palaces and Courts • Juliet James
... of 'The Cottage Muse,' was also my neighbour and friend at Todrigg, during the summer part of the year; and even at this hour I feel delight in recalling to memory the happy harmony of thought and feeling that blended with and enhanced the genial sunshine of those departed days. I rejoice ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... of his real relations to Kaethchen, which, indeed, would have been as distasteful to her as to their father. In another letter, addressed to her in the following August, he is not more frank. There he tells her that Annette is now his muse, and that, as Herodotus names the books of his History after the nine muses, so he has given the name of Annette to a collection of twelve poetical pieces, magnificently copied in manuscript.[27] But, he significantly adds, Annette had no more to do with his poetry than the Muses had to do ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger." When Margaret Greylston came across that verse, she closed her Bible, and sat down beside the window to muse. "Ah," she thought, "how true is that saying of the wise man! If I had only from the first given John soft answers, instead of grievous words, we might now have been at peace. I knew his quick temper so well; I should have been more gentle with him." Then she recalled all John's ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... chief merit consists in the agreeable pertness and vivacity of his dialogue—Addison, whose fame as a poet greatly exceeded his genius, which was cold and enervate; though he yielded to none in the character of an essayist, either for style or matter—Swift, whose muse seems to have been mere misanthropy; he was a cynic rather than a poet, and his natural dryness and sarcastic severity would have been unpleasing, had not he qualified them, by adopting the extravagant humour of Lueian and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... muse beside the rolling waves; We ponder on the grassy hill; We linger by the new-piled graves, And find that star is shining still. God in his great design hath spread, Unnumber'd rays to lead afar; They beam the brightest o'er the dead, And ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... Jonson's learned sock, the flowing vein of Middleton, Heywood's ease, the pathos of Webster, and Marlow's deep designs, add a double lustre to the sweetness, thought, gravity, grace, wit, artless nature, copiousness, ease, pathos, and sublime conceptions of Shakspeare's Muse. They are indeed the scale by which we can best ascend to the true knowledge and love of him. Our admiration of them does not lessen our relish for him; but, on the contrary, increases and confirms it.—For such an extraordinary combination and development of fancy and genius ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... uniformly asserted his freedom and dignity in the court of Augustus. The triumph of Messalla was justified by the conquest of Aquitain. As an orator, he disputed the palm of eloquence with Cicero himself. Messalla cultivated every muse, and was the patron of every man of genius. He spent his evenings in philosophic conversation with Horace; assumed his place at table between Delia and Tibullus; and amused his leisure by encouraging the poetical talents of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... eyes Are not reflected where that dark pool lies: It is not hope, for life makes no amends, And hope and I are long no longer friends: It is a ghost out of another Spring It needs but little for its comforting— That I should hold your hand and see your face And muse a little in this quiet place, Where, through the silence, I can hear you sigh And feel you sadden, O Virgin Mystery, And know my thought has in your thought begot Sadness, its child, and that you know ...
— The Rainbow and the Rose • E. Nesbit
... bright, and vanished, and Lister, leaning on the rails, felt they called him on. One knew them by their colors and measured flashes. They were beacons, burning on a well-ordered plan to guide the navigator, but he did not know the plan. In a sense, this was important, and he began to muse. ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss |
