"Pensively" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... put the whole matter aside, as she sat in her room, rocking pensively. Her own lamp had not been filled and was burning dimly, so she put it out and sat in the darkness, listening to ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... answered pensively, "that I shall wed the King of Cups. Therefore, if you honestly desire to ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... it is," she said pensively, "but I'm afraid it's what has kept me back in my profession. Managers don't like it: they think girls should be seen and ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... seems to me as I look back on't," David resumed pensively, "the wust on't was that nobody ever gin me a kind word, 'cept Polly. I s'pose I got kind o' used to bein' cold an' tired; dressin' in a snowdrift where it blowed into the attic, an' goin' out to fodder cattle 'fore sun-up; pickin' ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... him pensively, and suddenly see one of the great everyday distances between your countryfolk and his. You think of a French novel that has amused you lately, because the parents of the heroine objected to her marriage with the hero on grounds you were ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... when she used to come to my bedside of a night, and tuck me up with a motherly kiss, I used to think her face looked almost beautiful, it was so full of kindness. Somehow I fancy when I am old," added Bessie pensively, "I shall not care so much about my looks nor my wrinkles, if people will only think I am a comfortable, kind-hearted sort ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Bill pensively; "that's what they're doin'. She carries her catheads amidships. The ship's all right, once you get ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... demanded of his eldest daughter, as they approached that young lady, who was pensively ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... days were passing away, and the sombre parting from "dear Merton and loving hearts for evermore" was drawing near. In his day-dreams he saw more fame, more professional gladness, more triumph. He saw, too, as he pensively walked in his garden, the grave nearly ready to receive him and the day of his glory and brightness coming. These were his abiding premonitions, which were jerked out to his close friends, and even during his last sojourn ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... lay to that. We had to club half a dozen of them as soon as they were lifted aboard. When I say 'we' I ought to add that I was in my hammock and never heard a word of it, being a heavy sleeper. That," said Mr. Strangways pensively, "is my ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... express fretfulness or impatience at his disheartening lack of employment. He manifested, on the contrary, a quiet fortitude that was touching to witness. I recollect him once, however, when we were conversing on the subject, saying rather pensively, "If one has not connexions, and cannot make them, it is next to impossible to get any business." The professional public possess conclusive and permanent evidence of the admirable use which he made of his time, during the first year or two of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... what you might call grave poetry," said he, pensively. "Yes, sir; an obituary like that is like an all-day sucker to me. Say, don't you reckon they make the people they're written about feel glad they're dead and done for good with folks that could spring something like that on a poor stiff? Wait ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... same apartment with his prisoner. It was a dark, cold, windy, October night, and the two warders sate cosily by the fire, enjoying their gossip and their ale, while the unlucky delinquent placed himself pensively by the window. About midnight the two old men were startled by his flinging open ...
— Jesse Cliffe • Mary Russell Mitford
... pensively on the rocks, her hand resting on the head of Kennedy's brindle bulldog, and in the moment he stood there gazing at the girl, he ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... were overjubilant, and they sat before the cabin watching the lake as it shimmered in the moonlight. Claire was pensively silent, though her heart sang. She was dreaming out her days, painting them on the moonlit water, and she paid very little heed to the two men, though unconsciously her whole personality leaned toward Lawrence. What they were saying she did not at first ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... the willow-tree, pensively. "That's just my case. I also am caught in a trap and know that I must die soon, but I cling to life nevertheless. Well, I have now attained a blessed old age, as the wild rose said. If only I knew where all the dear creatures who grew in my top ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... wanderings were known. For several days he held regular levees, that curious boys and sympathizing girls might see and pity the changed and curtailed dog. Sancho behaved with dignified affability, and sat upon his mat in the coach-house pensively eying his guests, and patiently submitting to their caresses; while Ben and Thorny took turns to tell the few tragical facts which were not shrouded in the deepest mystery. If the interesting sufferer could ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... like to go to America," said Lord Brompton, pensively, as he entered the familiar library now renovated by the taste of Jawkins. "My views have changed materially on many questions since we last met. I can see that things here are likely to be in a chaotic state for a long time to come, whereas your ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... off like a shot. He found Sissy on her horse at the door, looking pensively along the street, as if she were studying the effect of dusky red on palest blue—chimney-pots ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... stepped on shore and distributed the fish, receiving the short but expressive Devonshire "Thank 'ee, Miss Nell, thank 'ee," Vernon looked at the beautiful girlish face pensively, and thought—well, who can tell what a man thinks at such moments? Perhaps he was thinking of the hundred and one useless women of his class who, throughout the whole of their butterfly lives, had never won a single breath of gratitude from ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... almost impossible to wrong a woman now," he answered pensively. "Women are so busy in wronging men, that they have no time for anything else. Sarah Grand has inaugurated the ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... said Leonard, pensively. "I played and fished under you when a boy, and in the friendly dusk of its cover I kissed Maggie one summer afternoon ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... it. One of the women had brought a guitar with her, and again Augusta's voice streamed up through the stillness, till, compelled by the beauty of the singing, we drew nearer; as the composer sang her songs attitudes grew more abandoned, and hands fell pensively. Among the half-seen faces I caught sight of a woman of exceeding fairness; her hair had only a faint tinge of gold in it; and Ninon remembered that she was a cousin of hers, one whom she had not seen for many years. How Clare ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... know; look at Aunt Abby Cole!" said Patty pensively. "Well, it does not seem as if a marriage that isn't good in Riverboro was really decent! How tiresome of Maine to want all those days of public notice; people must so often want to get married in a minute. If I think about anything too long I always get ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... about to rise and try my luck at hunting again, when my eyes suddenly fell on a motionless human figure. I gassed at it fixedly; it was a young peasant girl. She was sitting some twenty feet away from me, her head bowed pensively and her hands dropped on her knees; in one hand, which was half open, lay a heavy bunch of field flowers, and every time she breathed the flowers were softly gliding over her checkered skirt. A clear white shirt, buttoned at ...
— The Rendezvous - 1907 • Ivan Turgenev
... pensively. "I don't want you to bring any more trouble into the family than you've already brought, and goodness knows THAT would be doing it. But I shouldn't have said that, Kenny. There are lots of fine, lovely girls here. I wouldn't know which one ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... past seven o'clock, he thrust his head out again, and gazed earnestly in the direction of that city—after which he took it in again, with his nose very much frosted. He propped the end of that organ upon the end of his finger, and looked pensively upon it—which had the effect of making him cross-eyed—and remarked, "O, damn it!" with great bitterness. I asked him what was up this time, and he said, "The cold, damp fog—it is worse than the weather." This was his last. He never spoke again ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... a young woman in the room seated pensively by the stove; but she rose and courteously made way for ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... this cover for Peel,' said the Duke pensively, as he loaded his gun on the morning of the 14th. 'Do you know, I was always against his ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... interest in the discovery of the Smithsons' heavy luggage, which had been sent on from Rawal Pindi ages ago. Here it lay in the peaceful backwater of a native caravansary, piled high on a bullock-cart, whose placid team lay near pensively chewing the "cud of sweet and bitter fancy," and apparently quite innocent of any intention of moving for a ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... to Britannia the Ruler, who expected him in some mildish way to lash terga cauda in retiring, Sir Willoughby Patterne passed from a land of alien manners; and ever after he spoke of America respectfully and pensively, with a tail tucked in, as it were. His travels were profitable to himself. The fact is, that there are cousins who come to greatness and must be pacified, or they will prove annoying. Heaven forefend a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... abashed, and answered her, 'By my faith, madame, my heart and my body and all my land is at your command, and there is nothing which to please you I would not readily do; and against you or yours, please God, I will never go.' Thereupon he went his way full pensively, and often there came back to his remembrance the queen's soft glance and lovely countenance. Then his heart was touched by a soft and amorous thought. But when he remembered how high a dame she was, so good and pure that he could never enjoy her, his ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... had been put on several occasions, both in the company of the tempter and in the privacy of the domestic hearth, and both in the gayly suggestive and the pensively argumentative key. Why might they not, by means of a clever purchase in the stock market, occasionally procure some of the agreeable extra pleasures of life—provide the ready money for theatres, a larger wardrobe, trips from home, or a modest equipage? ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... said Marjorie, pensively, "and lived next door, and," she added, as Leonard puffed stolidly at his pipe, ...
— Four Days - The Story of a War Marriage • Hetty Hemenway
... is," said Betty soberly, "that with all this luck coming our way we can't pass on a single little bit of it to that poor girl and her dad. If only they weren't so proud——" The sentence trailed off into a sigh, and she gazed pensively out ...
— The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle - Or, The Girl Miner of Gold Run • Laura Lee Hope
... going earlier than usual to the garden, he found Miss Ford there, the governess of the children. She was promenading one of the wide alleys, and pensively reading a favorite author. This occurred morning after morning, and Lewis thought he would be so glad if she would only spend a few minutes teaching him to read! He knew that she was from the free states, where they did not ...
— A Child's Anti-Slavery Book - Containing a Few Words About American Slave Children and Stories - of Slave-Life. • Various
... dear," insisted Aunt Lydia, as she carefully swathed the flowers in the tissue paper. "And, besides, I have my old one, which is quite good enough for me, my love. It was very sweet of you to think of it, but it may as well go back." She pensively gazed at the mirror for a moment, and then went to her chamber and took out her Bible to read Saint ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... rejoice prematurely, Auntie! It seems to me that this house fosters misfortune! All that you need to do is to look at those faces! They all have a suggestion of melancholy and gloom. (He looks up at the portraits pensively.) Just as if the sun had never shone into their hearts, you know. No air of hopefulness, no suggestion of light and freedom! So chained to the earth! So savagely taciturn? Can that be due to the air and soil? It will probably assert itself in me too, after I have been ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... had a ring like that, not round the equator of the world,—as Saturn's ring is around Saturn,—but vertical to the plane of the equator, as the brass ring of an artificial globe goes, only far higher in proportion,— "from that ring," said Q., pensively, "we could ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... only rivals. For the rest, he trusted to the future, the ineffable future big whether with bliss or torment. Indeed, the literature of romance had inspired him with no small esteem of courtesans, if only their attitude was as it should be—leaning pensively on the balcony-rail ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... Tempus edax rerum! Yet ferax also: for our friend now added, with a wistful look, which strove to seem merely historical: "I let it all in lodgings, to respectable gentlemen; by the quarter or the month; it's all one to me."—"To me also," whispered the ghost of Samuel, as we went pensively our ways.' Carlyle's Miscellanies, edit, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... turned a direct gaze upon his tormentor. "The Western variety of your species," he observed pensively, "pronounce that 'hee-haw' rather ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... devoted to her image, can scarcely write a line now and then, or pensively read aloud to the people of Birmingham. (To him.) And they applaud her, no doubt they applaud her, sir. And she—I see her! Curtsies and smiles! And they—curses on them! they laugh and—ha, ha, ha!—and clap their hands—and say it's very good. Do they not say it's very good, sir? Tell me. ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... and then mounted his horse, and went to visit the steward, who, however, was not at home. He walked pensively in the garden, and seemed anxious to renew all the ideas that ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... Hardly had he resumed his position when another individual, equally disinterested, impassively walked down the steps, proceeded to the back of the stage, lifted it, expectorated carefully on the axle, and returned slowly and pensively to the hotel. A third spectator wearily disengaged himself from one of the Ionic columns of the portico and walked to the box, remained for a moment in serious and expectorative contemplation of the boot, and then returned to his column. There was something so weird in this ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... the finish of her journey. Pensively she considered the end of the road. How would it be there? What manner of folk and country? Between her past mode of life and the new that she was hurrying toward lay the vast gulf of distance, of custom, of class even. It was bound ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... rogue whom Ascyltos had hewn down, lay in the street, and we were in fear of being discovered, while therefore we were pensively considering which way to avoid the impending storm, a servant of Agamemnon's interrupted our fears: "And do not ye know," said he, "with whom we eat to-day? Trimalchio, a trim finical humorist has a clock in his dining-room, and one ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... but to take table-boarders. Certainly nothing could be gayer, unless to ramble delightfully forever in one of those orange-colored ambrotype-saloons, drawn by milk-white oxen; or to quarter like Gavroche of Les Miserables among the ribs of the plaster elephant in the Bastile; or more pensively to abide in the crannied boat-cabin of the Peggotys, watching the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... train over the red cushion. At last, a moment came when temptation proved too strong for him. Ben was listening to something Miss Celia said; a tart lay unguarded upon his plate; Sanch looked at Thorny who was watching him; Thorny nodded, Sanch gave one wink, bolted the tart, and then gazed pensively up at a sparrow swinging ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... book Before our eyes, we could not choose but read Lessons of genuine brotherhood, the plain 545 And universal reason of mankind, The truths of young and old. Nor, side by side Pacing, two social pilgrims, or alone Each with his humour, could we fail to abound In dreams and fictions, pensively composed: 550 Dejection taken up for pleasure's sake, And gilded sympathies, the willow wreath, And sober posies of funereal flowers, Gathered among those solitudes sublime From formal gardens of the lady Sorrow, 555 Did sweeten many ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... behind that people have when sitting on the rear platform of a train of cars makes them feel, by force of contrast, nearer to each other and more identified. How pretty she looked sitting there in the doorway, her eyes bent so pensively on the track behind as the car-wheels so swiftly reeled it off! He had tucked her in comfortably. No cold could get to the sweet little girl, and none ever should so long as he lived to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... man shook his head pensively. "That's true enough!" he exclaimed, scratching himself first in one place and then in another. The name of each cow was written in chalk above its stall, but neither Lasse nor Pelle could read. The bailiff had, indeed, gone through the names with them once, ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... ruin, the antiquated graves, had equal claims at least upon a stranger's thoughts, but from the moment when her eyes first rested on these two dwellings, she could turn to nothing else. Even when she had made the circuit of the enclosure, and, returning to the porch, sat pensively waiting for their friend, she took her station where she could still look upon them, and felt as ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... o' makes you feel old Dante was a libelous guy who'd oughter be sent to penitentiary," Abe remarked pensively. "Guess we'll likely find old whiskers waiting around with his boat when we get on down to the river. Still, it's consoling to figger up the cost o' coaling hell ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... said Dr. Johnson. Here is Charing Cross, but without the full tide of life. A perpetual stream of figures leaves no definite shapes upon the picture. But on one side of this stereoscopic doublet a little London "gent" is leaning pensively against a post; on the other side he is seen sitting at the foot of the next post;—what is the matter with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... enough for her to love and know she was beloved, she wanted now, at once, to embrace the man she loved, to speak and hear from him words of love such as filled her heart. While she sat in the carriage beside her father, pensively watching the lights of the street lamps flickering on the frozen window, she felt still sadder and more in love, and forgot where she was going and with whom. Having fallen into the line of carriages, the Rostovs' carriage drove up to the theater, its wheels ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... man, who had been telling me one evening how they used to live in his boyhood, looked pensively across the valley when he had done, and so stood for a minute or two, as if trying to recover his impressions of that lost time. At last, with appearance of an effort to speak patiently, "Ah," he said, "they tells me times ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... experienced yet. Does tea bring wisdom, Captain Selwyn?" pouring herself a cup. "I'd better arm myself immediately." She sank back into the depths of the chair, looking gaily at him over her lifted cup. "To my rapid education in worldly wisdom!" She nodded, and sipped the tea almost pensively. ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... when her mother died," finished Madge pensively. "Since then poor Tania has had such a dreadful time, living with that wretched old Sal, who has made a regular slavey of her, and she just had to go on with her pretending in order to be able to bear her life ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... Sunday morning in church, as she sat pensively wishing for a confidant, it came upon her somewhat startlingly that she already had one: Dr. Vivian was her confidant. Did he not know more about her than anybody else in ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... the roses," she said pensively. "The white ones please me better. But they are so few. The Archduke likes the red ones best. What is ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... think only of your daughter," he said. "What about Saint Harry? He has mad blood in him, too. It is only a few years that he has been a saint; before that the Devil held full sway over him. And," he added pensively, after a moment's cogitation, "there are many lessons ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... young people went out under the low doorway she looked after them pensively, and remained long looking up at the evening sky, which the open door revealed. At last she tied up her herbs and began washing her bowls, and while engaged at her work she sang. Her voice had the pathetic tremble of old age, but was still true and musical, for she had ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... which was quite impenetrable. The corporal, who, according to Corentin, had committed a great blunder in arresting these smaller fry, did not know whether to stay where he was or to depart. He stood pensively in the middle of the salon, his hand on the hilt of his sabre, his eye on the two Parisians. The Durieus, also stupefied, and the other servants of the chateau made an admirable group of expressive uneasiness. If it had not ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... up a second time to greet them on their departure, as he had done on their entrance; then he sat down again pensively in his chair, by which Mr. G, the governor of the prison, was standing. After a moment of silence, a tear appeared at each of the condemned man's eyelids, and ran down his cheeks; then, turning suddenly to Mr. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - KARL-LUDWIG SAND—1819 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... of place now, I'm telling you," Paddy returned, as he pensively rested his cheek upon the bowl of ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... you it is all as I say,' he pensively returned. 'Even if I were not legally bound by the conditions I should ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... individuals he met struck him. Now he passed a young man whistling cheerily, who saluted him, and said, "I have lost my sweetheart by the plague, but I shall soon get another." The next was a grave man, who muttered, "I have lost all," and walked pensively on. Then came others in different moods; but all concurred in thinking that the plague was at an end; and the grocer derived additional confirmation of the fact from meeting numerous carts and other vehicles bringing families back to their houses ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... hardly say, and we moved pensively toward Major Harper's tent. Evidently the main poison was still in Gholson's stomach, and when I glanced at him he asked, "What d'you reckon brought Ned Ferry here just ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... Broquette could be heard scrubbing another's hands in the kitchen, by way of teaching her how to cleanse herself of her native dirt, Constance felt nausea arise within her, and made haste to follow her companion away. Once in the street, instead of entering the cab which was waiting, she paused pensively, haunted by La Couteau's ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... wretches living alone are especially subject. Jacques, who felt stifling in his narrow room, opened the window to breathe a little. The evening was a fine one, and the setting sun displayed its melancholy splendors above the hills of Montmartre. Jacques remained pensively at his window listening to the winged chorus of spring harmony which added to his sadness. Seeing a raven fly by uttering a croak, he thought of the days when ravens brought food to Elijah, the pious recluse, ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... he pensively, "his royal highness is a large man certainly." And while his interlocutor was recovering enough to formulate another question, Mr. Barker moved gently away to ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... the place they used to dream in. She could see them watching with ardent eyes the paling of the distant sky as they listened to the humming of insects, breathing the honied odour of the flowers; she saw her leaning on his arm caressingly, whilst pensively she tore with the other hand the leaves as they passed up the ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... there wasn't any hope that I would change," she added pensively. "I told him that I could never love him enough to marry him, but that I would ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... the name he bore, or the political principles which his uncle, the Emperor, had borne upon his banners throughout Europe. The subsequent life of this child has proved how deep was the impression produced upon his mind, as pensively, silently he listened to the conversation of the statesmen and the generals who often visited his mother's parlor. Lady Blessington about this time visited Hortense, and she gives the following account of the impression which the visit produced upon ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... in the seat, he pensively studied the face of the sleeping girl whose dark-brown head was pillowed against the corner cushions of the coach. Her hat had been removed for the sake of comfort. The dark lashes fell like a soft curtain over her eyes, obscuring ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... her invisible duenna, and with a profusion of compliments and thanks, they got away, being gallantly escorted to the gate by the young count, who filled their hands with flowers, and gazed pensively after them, as if he found the society of two bright American girls very agreeable after that of his lofty parents, or the peasantry of ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... couple uv small imps undertook to push me into the stream, and in the struggle, I awoke. My dreem wuz o'er, but the impreshun remained. "Kin it be," mused I, pensively, "that we are doin the devil's work, and are we to be finally rewarded in the manner I saw in my vision? Ef so, hedn't I better quit ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... He will if He's a good God, because He'd know that lies like that are heaps better than blabbing the truth right out. Only," she added severely, "you mustn't keep saying it's wicked to lie 'cause it ain't. Sometimes I lies," she reflected pensively, "and sometimes I ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... face away. The colour vanished from her cheeks, the youth from her figure. Pensively, she gazed across the valley to the vineyard, where the black, knotted vines were blurred against the soil in the fast-gathering twilight. His ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... himself with the utmost care. He shuddered slightly as his eye fell on the finger-marks; and without a word he went into his bathroom again. He emerged after an interval of ten minutes in sky-blue pyjamas, slippers, and an Old Etonian blazer. He lit a cigarette; and, sitting down, stared pensively into the fire. ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... coot's yead oppen from t' chin to t' hair, an' he was abed for t' matter o' a month," concluded Learoyd, pensively. ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... anything, my sister. And if my true friends, such as your brother Charles, are willing to second me—" The princess remained pensively silent. ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... kalen, exeis koinen, ei d' aischran, poinen] (Whether of the two horns impaled the sage of Priene?) Some, of course, are fully alive to the outward defects of their partners; but few are so candid as the old Berkshire squire, who, looking after his spouse as she left the room, said, pensively, "Excellent creature, that! I've liked her better every day for twenty years, but I've always thought she's the plainest-headed woman in England!" Fewer still would wish to emulate the sturdy plain-speaking of the "gudeman" in the Scottish ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... sounds he titters for several weeks, seldom chirping, crying, or scolding like other birds. His song is discontinued in the latter part of summer; but his peculiar plaintive call, consisting of a single note pensively modulated, continues all day, until the time of frost. This sound is one of the melodies of summer's decline, and reminds us, like the notes of the green nocturnal grasshopper, of the fall of the leaf, the ripened harvest, and all ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... through the rooms and galleries all her childhood came back before her. She recalled her mother, her fond love, and her early death. That mother's picture hung in the great hall, and she gazed at it long and pensively, recalling that noble face, which in her remembrance was always softened by the sweet expression of tenderest love. But it was here that something met her eyes which in a moment chased away every regretful thought and softer feeling, and brought back ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... of the chronic calamities. Oftener, now, are the well-combed whiskers and moustaches of Skye Dog to be recognized, dropping over the drawing-room window-sill, or framed, like a portrait by Landseer, in the panelled sash of the barouche, out of which he gazes pensively with the impressive speculation of the true flneur;—yea, for as men of fashion are, so are their dogs; and so also of the fighting butcher, who ever has his counterpart in the fighting bull-dog that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... Rather pensively she followed the Winnebagos into Mateka after supper for evening assembly, which had been called by Dr. Grayson. Usually there was no evening assembly; Morning Sing was the only time the whole camp came together in Mateka with the leaders, ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... quick bark Recalled my wandering soul. I have beguiled Often the melancholy hours at school, Soured by some little tyrant, with the thought Of distant home, and I remembered then Thy faithful fondness: for not mean the joy, Returning at the pleasant holidays, I felt from thy dumb welcome. Pensively Sometimes have I remarked the slow decay, Feeling myself changed, too, and musing much, On many a sad vicissitude of life! Ah, poor companion! when thou followedst last Thy master's parting footsteps to the gate Which closed forever on him, thou didst lose Thy truest friend, ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... Apparently there was no danger of customers walking away with his goods, for he left his store-door open to all comers, not once glancing thitherward in the half-hour he sat with us on a stick of timber, in which he pensively carved ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... companion and I heard from the adjacent woods its mysterious note. It was a soft and clear tone, somewhat prolonged, and ending in a modulation which imparted to it an indescribable effect, as if of supernal melancholy. It seemed almost as if some mild angel were lingering pensively upon the mountain tops, before pursuing his downward flight among the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... Nibbling pensively at her cinnamon toast, Palla pondered this. But the girl's mind worked too directly for concealment ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... of her lecture-room, imbibe celestial knowledge. From my youth I felt in me a soul above the matter-entangled herd. She revealed to me the glorious fact, that I am a spark of Divinity itself. A fallen star, I am, sir!' continued he, pensively, stroking his lean stomach—'a fallen star!—fallen, if the dignity of philosophy will allow of the simile, among the hogs of the lower world—indeed, even into the hog-bucket itself. Well, after all, I will show you the way to the Archbishop's. ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... said Bertha pensively, "darker than mine. Her voice is sweet and musical, I know. I have often loved to ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... wist not why, to hear such wisdom falling from her lips; for dimly did it prognosticate, that as short as bright would be her walk from the cradle to the grave. And thus for the "Holy Child" was their love elevated by awe, and saddened by pity—and as by herself she passed pensively by their dwellings, the same eyes that smiled on her presence, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 479, March 5, 1831 • Various
... in her favourite easy-chair, looking pensively at the wood-fire, when George Fairfax came back. She heard his returning footsteps, and the sharp click of a key turning in the outer door. This sound set her wondering. What door was that being locked, and ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... dost thou remember In this that season of thy mortal being When from thine eyes shone beauty, In thy shy glances fugitive and smiling, And joyously and pensively the borders Of ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... as dispassionate as the one he bestowed on the Sully portrait of which she reminded him. Her eyes were very soft; there was a faint smile on her thin pink lips which gave the look of coldness, of reticence to her face. With her head bent and her hands folded in her lap, she sat there waiting pensively—for what? It occurred to him suddenly with a shock that she was deeper, far deeper ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... the head of a slender cane pressed against his teeth, and each with a foot propped up on the barrel. Another young gentleman came up, looked longingly at the barrel, but saw no rest for his foot there, and turned pensively away to seek another barrel. He wandered here and there, but without result. Nobody sat upon a barrel, as is the custom of the idle in other lands, yet all the isolated barrels were humanly occupied. Whosoever had a foot to spare put it on a barrel, if all the places on it were not already taken. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... answered, very pensively: "Do you think I ever shall, Tulee? I don't see how I can, for ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... before the watchful eye of Captain Scraggs observed Mr. Gibney and McGuffey in the offing, a block away. When they came aboard they found Captain Scraggs on top of the house, seated on an upturned fire bucket, smoking pensively and gazing across the bay with an assumption of lamblike innocence on ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... sat in the New York flat which had been lent him by his friend Gates. The hour was half-past ten in the evening; the day, the second day after the exodus of Nutty Boyd from the farm. Before him on the table lay a letter. He was smoking pensively. ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... must read you that bit of Aristophanes again, by the way.) And believe me, children, I am no warped witness, as far as regards monasteries; or if I am, it is in their favour. I have always had a strong leaning that way; and have pensively shivered with Augustines at St. Bernard; and happily made hay with Franciscans at Fesole; and sat silent with Carthusians in their little gardens, south of Florence; and mourned through many a day-dream, at Melrose and Bolton. But the wonder is always to me, not how much, but how little, the monks ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... the left stretched the immense plain. In the distance, where the eye could not distinguish between the sky and the plain, there was a bright gleam of light. A little way off from me sat Savka. With his legs tucked under him like a Turk and his head hanging, he looked pensively at Kutka. Our hooks with live bait on them had long been in the river, and we had nothing left to do but to abandon ourselves to repose, which Savka, who was never exhausted and always rested, loved so much. The glow had not yet quite died away, but the summer night was already enfolding ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... is white; all blood has left her cheeks and lips, but her eyes are red; they have wept so much, unfortunate queen! She weeps not now. Not one tear dims her eye, which pensively and calmly soars above the crowd, then is lifted up to the very roofs of the houses, then again is slowly lowered, and seems to stare over the human heads away into ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... the earth in a panic beheld The flash of his sabre afar; They enter'd, but pensively mov'd from the field, And bow'd to ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... she go indoors to her solitary room, feeling as she did in such a state of desperate heaviness. When Springrove was out of sight she turned back, and arrived at the corner just in time to see him sit down. Then she glided pensively along the pavement behind him, forgetting herself to marble like Melancholy herself as she mused in his neighbourhood unseen. She heard, without heeding, the notes of pianos and singing voices from the fashionable houses at ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... forward. So out went Mr. Pickwick's head again. The prospect was worse than before. The middle-aged lady had finished arranging her hair; had carefully enveloped it in a muslin nightcap with a small plaited border; and was gazing pensively on the fire. ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... from thee, And mountains rise between, And I am wandering pensively Through many a ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley
... always of the nature of a jeu d'esprit, a glorious game, a kind of Fleet Street doll's-house affair, that gave a sense of gay adventure to the pursuit of politics. When the paper had been suppressed, a boy who had never contributed to it said to me, "What a shame!" and he added very pensively, "It was all so ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell |
