"Pondering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a rare occurrence, and he must be treated royally, as though he were a king condescending to quarter himself on his loyal subjects—which indeed, he was. When Lettice went to tell her father the news she found him seated by the fire, pondering gloomily on what the immediate future might have in store for him; but as soon as she showed him Sydney's telegram he sprang to his feet, with straightened body and brightly shining eyes. In one moment he had passed from despondency to the height ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... They went to the window, anxiously listening for the signal that the work of death had begun. Their consciences, no less than their impatience, made it impossible for them to sit calmly within the palace. Anjou's narrative continues: "While we were pondering over the events and the consequences of such a mighty enterprise, of which, to tell the truth, we had not thought much until then, we heard a pistol shot. The sound produced such an effect upon all three of us that it confounded our senses and deprived us of judgment. We were ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... length sat down in a doorway, and watched with interest the hurrying crowds that passed before him. Everybody seemed to be in a hurry, pressing forward as if life and death depended on his haste. There were lawyers with their sharp, keen glances; merchants with calculating faces; speculators pondering on the chances of a rise or fall in stocks; errand boys with bundles under their arms; business men hurrying to the slip to take the boat for Brooklyn or Jersey City,—all seemed intent on business of some kind, even to the ragged newsboys who had just obtained ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... was she?" mused Roger, pondering this confirmation of his theory. "I wonder what your little nurse ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... acting wisely," he cried, "and yet you are only fools. In the prisons of Kiobeh you keep the enemies of Islam, and while you are pondering over the mysteries of the Koran, the infidel dogs are murdering your wives and children. Arise, believers of Islam, and kill ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... (represented as) equally witless? Thus we are told, among the cases decided by a Turkish Kazi, that two men came before him one of whom complained that the other had almost bit his ear off. The accused denied this, and declared that the fellow had bit his own ear. After pondering the matter for some time, the judge told them to come again two hours later. Then he went into his private room, and attempted to bring his ear and his mouth together; but all he did was to fall backwards and break his head. Wrapping a cloth round his head, he returned to court, and ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... of it in another. And thus the disproportionate energies which were diverted to the intellectual side of religion were exercised at some cost to its practical part. Bishops were writing in their libraries, when otherwise they might have been travelling round their dioceses. Men were pondering over abstract questions of faith and morality, who else might have been engaged in planning or carrying out plans for the more active propagation of the faith, or a more general improvement in popular morals. The defenders of Christianity were searching ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... though he made his experiments with instruments devised by M. Arago, and mainly under his direction. The importance of the discovery may be judged of from the fact that for the last twelve years M. Arago has been pondering over it, and on the means ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... gods and chariot-driving men slept all night long, only Zeus was not holden of sweet sleep; rather was he pondering in his heart how he should do honour to Achilles and destroy many beside the Achaians' ships. And this design seemed to his mind the best, to wit, to send a baneful dream upon Agamemnon son of Atreus. So he spake, and uttered to him winged words: "Come now, thou baneful ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... closed doors the whine of the fiddle still penetrated. Perhaps Lew Wee's recent loss had moved him to play later than was his custom, pondering upon the curious whims that stir the gods when they start to make things happen. But he was still no cynic. Over and over he played the little air which means: "Life comes like a bird-song through the open windows of ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... (certainly) plainer food, for lack of richer. These were the people Lucy knew. Her father himself had been of these. She now found her tent pitched among the prosperous; and the study of them touched her wide gaze with a new, pondering look. Denis hadn't any use for cranks. None of his set were socialists, vegetarians, Quakers, geniuses, anarchists, drunkards, poets, anti-breakfasters, or anti-hatters; none of them, in fine, the sort of ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... up a tall and taciturn lad, pondering his thoughts while he dug and planted with his father in the kitchen-gardens. For this from the age of eighteen he received a small wage, which he carefully put aside. Then in 1800 his uncle Michael died, and left him ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... much. While the black women were chattering with Augustina and Father Bowles, he had stood, mostly silent, under the picture of his great-grandmother, only breaking through his reverie from time to time to ask or answer a question. Was he pondering the sale of the great-grandmother, or did he simply know that his silence and aloofness were picturesque, that they compelled other people's attention, and made him the centre of things more effectively than ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Walter Raleigh, Briton of the truest type, When that too devoted valet Quenched your first-recorded pipe, Were you pondering the opinion, As you watched the airy coil, That the virtue of Virginia Might ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... and pondering his book in a single college term. But, while this may easily be done, it will be far more profitable for the student, as soon as he feels drawn away from the volume to some author whom it presents, to lay it aside ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... things: for as she had not taken a dislike to Mr. Brian O'Neill at first sight, because he was an Irishman, she could not think it quite reasonable to suspect him of making away with her father's dog, nor yet of a design to blow up Hereford Cathedral. As she was pondering upon these matters, she came within sight of the ruins of a poor woman's house, which a few months before this time had been burnt down. She recollected that her first acquaintance with her lover began at the time of this fire; and she thought that the courage and humanity he ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... elbow. He followed every move she made because he had never seen till now so round and shapely an arm, hands so small and white, tipped with pink filbert nails. He did not learn the game so quickly as might be. He, like Maurice, was pondering over the unusual position in which he found himself; but analysis of any sort was not his forte; so he soon forgot all save the delicate curve of Madame's chin and throat, the soft ripple of her laughter, the abysmal gray of ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... sat up late in my lonely chamber—pondering on the melancholy position in which I was placed,—loving so tenderly, yet not daring to fly to him whom I loved,—and giving way to all the mournful ideas which presented themselves to my imagination. At length my ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... day when He was born, Among the cattle and the corn, The sweet Maid-Mother wondering, And sweetly, deeply, pondering The words that in her heart did ring, Unto her ...
— 'All's Well!' • John Oxenham
... sleeps Thy house," he said, "so stay I." Her eyes' deeps Flooded his soul and drowned him in despair, Despair and rage. "Behold now, ten years' wear Between us and our love! Now if I cast My spear and rove the snow-mound of thy breast, Were that a marvel?" Long she lookt and grave, Pondering his face and searching. "Not so brave My lord as that would prove him. Nay, and I know He would not do it." And the truth was so; And well he knew the reason: better she. Yet for a little in that vacancy Of silence and unshadowing light they stood, Those long-divided, speechless. His first mood ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... after, as Babadul was pondering over the strangeness of his situation, and just recovering from the effects of this apparition, a door opened in another part of the apartment, and a mysterious figure, richly dressed, came in, bearing a bundle, equally covered with ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... arm, by night and day, I, then a happy infant, lay, And taught him not to mourn, but pray. How, when, at length, he reach'd his home, His heart foretold a gentle doom; With tears of fondness in his eyes, Hoping to cause a glad surprize; Full of submission, pondering o'er What he too lightly priz'd before; The curse with tenfold vengeance fell.— Those who had lov'd him once so well, In whose indulgence perfect trust Had still been wise, though most unjust, Were in the grave!—Their hearts were cold! His penitence might still be told— Told ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... more, so Nashola went away, pondering his answer as he walked down the hill. After all, no harm had come to him from entering the medicine man's presence unbidden, as his comrades had all said. He answered their questions very shortly as they came ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... his informant, signifying that he was to be served at his expense. He was evidently deep in thought by that time, and for a moment or two he sat staring at the window and the blue sea beyond, abstracted and pondering. Suddenly he ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... head over ears in work. In a mail just arrived I had a letter from the Prodigal, and a certain paragraph in it set me pondering. Here it was: ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... I couldn't sleep, but lay there pondering, till at last I began to sniff, and then started up in bed, thinking ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... He went on, pondering the matter with some curiosity. Since the miners were in camp, he imagined the man he had seen was Driscoll, who lived alone in a log shack near the bank. But, if this were so, what was Driscoll's object for wading among the reefs, and why had he stolen away when he thought he was watched? ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... Ralph little heed at that time, since he had heard the tale and its morality before, and that more than once; and moreover his mind was set upon his own matters and these was he pondering. Albeit perchance the words abode with him. So came they to the House, and Ralph's mother, who was a noble dame, and well-liking as for her years, which were but little over fifty, stood in the hall-door to see which of her sons should come back to her, and when she saw them coming together, ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... fall far short of the measure), but that they daily exercise themselves well in these studies and constantly treat them; moreover, that they guard with all care and diligence against the poisonous infection of such security and vain imagination, but steadily keep on reading, teaching, learning, pondering, and meditating, and do not cease until they have made a test and are sure that they have taught the devil to death and have become more learned than God Himself ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... I must be a prisoner in my own castle, and only be able to breathe so long as the fountain is closed! I would your mad kindred"—Undine lovingly pressed her fair hand upon his lips. He paused, pondering in silence over much that Undine had ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... last words had found their way to him, while he was pondering over his half-finished letter to his brother. He waited to hear more—without moving, and with the ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... He sat pondering over the many-horned dilemma upon which he hung impaled. He had done all that a man could do. He had given the best that was in him, played the game faithfully, according to the rules. And the net result had been for him the most complete disaster. So far as Myra went, he recognized ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... water was two feet deep; at the other end only a few inches. After pondering over this fact for a few moments, the grizzly waded openly into the deepest part, and from the bank above Muskwa saw the shimmering trout darting into the shallower water. Thor advanced slowly, and now, when ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... pondering on this subject one day, as they were strolling out together, that the baron and his lady came upon the cottage of an old soldier named Karl Mueller, who cultivated a little vineyard not ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... Pondering this matter, and almost unconscious that she did so, Mora broke the seals. Then paused, even as she began to unfold the parchment, questioning whether to read it or to let it ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... The master sat pondering on this strange epistle till the moon lifted its bright face above the distant hills, and illuminated the trail that led to the schoolhouse, beaten quite hard with the coming and going of little feet. Then, more satisfied in ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... burden of my prayer therefore is, that God would be pleased to teach me His will. My mind has also been especially pondering, how I could know His will satisfactorily concerning this particular. Sure I am, that I shall be taught. I therefore desire patiently to wait for the Lord's time, when He shall be pleased to shine on my path concerning ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller
... saved by a Roman Catholic priest!" repeated Tozer, pondering these words in his mind as he slowly pronounced them. He could make nothing of them at first, but finally concluded that they concealed some half-suggested ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... no answer, for he neither heard nor saw anything. He had begun to think of the last station and was still pondering on the same question—one so important that he took no notice of what went on around him. Not only was he indifferent as to whether he got to Petersburg earlier or later, or whether he secured accommodation at this station, but compared ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... occupied nearly an hour. Mr. Carter sat opposite me all the time, listening intently; staring at me with one fixed unvarying stare, and fingering musical passages upon his knees, with slow cautious motions of his fingers and thumbs. But I could see that he was not listening only: he was pondering and reasoning upon what I told him. When I had finished my story, he remained silent for some minutes: but he still stared at me with the same relentless and stony gaze, and he still fingered his knees, following up his right hand with his left, as slowly and deliberately as if ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... and brightening eye words that promise independence, and flatter with the hope of distinction. Still, it was with all the reaction of chill and mournful disappointment that Leonard, a few hours after this dialogue with his uncle, found himself alone in the fields, and pondering over the prospects before him. He had set his heart upon completing his intellectual education, upon developing those powers within him which yearned for an arena of literature, and revolted from the routine ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... perfectly evident that the officer's purpose in sending for Tom, whatever that was, was considerably affected by the boy's own remarks, and he now, after pondering a few moments, handed Tom the two papers which he had ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... fever contracted during his exploring expedition in that neighborhood. He had been studying the distribution of the animal life of the Malay Archipelago. Overcome by sickness, as he lay in bed, he began to think over a book which he had read not long before, "Malthus on Population." Wallace had been pondering on the question of the origin of the animals of the Malay Archipelago. He had not the faintest knowledge of what Darwin was doing, but was influenced, of course, like Darwin, by what he read in Malthus. Interesting to relate, he had come to exactly the same ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... manhood's time, And as centurion carried well his prime. In Ethiop, Araby, climes fair and fell, He had seen service and had borne him well. Nought shook him then: he was serene as brave; Yet later knew some shocks, and would grow grave When pondering them; shocks less of corporal kind Than phantom-like, that disarranged his mind; And it was in the way of warning me (By much his junior) against levity That he recounted them; and one in chief Panthera loved to set in ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... tried Ponder's End?" I said at last. "I've often seen those words on a bus, and a lot of sad-looking people on the top, pondering, I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 14, 1920 • Various
... Harrington Surtaine went to bed pondering on the strange attitude of the newspaper mind toward so matter-of-fact a quality as honesty; and he dreamed of a roomful of advertisers listening in sodden silence to his own grandiloquent announcement, "Gentlemen: honesty is the best policy," while, in a ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... and the news had already penetrated to the outer office; for while he sat with a heavy heart, pondering on these things, and resting his head upon his arm, Perch the messenger, descending from his mahogany bracket, and jogging his elbow, begged his pardon, but wished to say in his ear, Did he think he could arrange to send home to England a jar of preserved Ginger, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... pondering, "let us lay down the subjects we may talk about first. For instance, you ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Then Apollo pondering, the sign spake straightway unto Aiakos by his side: 'Hero, where thy hands have wrought is Pergamos taken: thus saith this sign, sent of the son of Kronos, loud-thundering Zeus. And that not without thy seed; but with the first and fourth it shall ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... aches, pondering over it. I suppose he concluded that suspicion would fall upon the post-office. It would have done so, but for that seal placed on the letter afterwards. What an unfortunate thing it was, that Roland Yorke mentioned ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... as if pondering further on the terms he should exact. The hearts of the Senate, lightened for a moment by Alaric's unexpected announcement that he would moderate his demands, sank within them again as they thought on the tribute ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... the air of being a most kindly and forbearing wife. I followed her downstairs, pondering over points of view. Eccentric—because he preferred wide fires and elbow-room and outlook to Camellia's crowded and over-decorated rooms below, and his books to Mrs. Liscombe's music and Mr. Harry Hodgson's "readings." I felt that I knew Mrs. Liscombe ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... united balances, then the tooth b will give its impulse in the contrary direction. Considerable analogy exists between this form of escapement and that shown in Fig. 153 and intended for clocks. This was the busy era in the watchmaker's line. All the great heads were pondering upon the subject and everyone was on the qui vive for the newest thing ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous
... had been pondering. Mortimer had talked and somebody who was not Cartwright's friend had informed him. Cartwright was tempted to let his wife do as she wanted: Clara owned shares in the line that he had let her buy when freights were good and she had afterwards refused to sell. Now, however, ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... more mystery; and pondering upon it, the frigate's crew are strengthened in their superstitious faith. Meanwhile, the cutter is making way across the stretch of calm sea that separates the two ships, and although with reduced strength ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... outcry, spoke no word of grief; but for an hour afterwards he sat quite still in deep thought, and she heard him saying over and over to himself, as though trying to grasp the magnitude of his sorrow, "Both o' them! Not the two o' them, surely?" And then after pondering a while, "Aye, the ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... of me and my mother's portrait, other friends had said. There was nothing that I know of to interest me in hearing it repeated—and yet it set me pondering on the want of resemblance between my mother's face and mine, and wondering (not for the first time) what sort of woman my mother was. When my father speaks of her, no words of praise that he can utter seem to be good ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... whispered Barney, "and let me suggest that you devote the time until your discovery and release in pondering the value of winning your king's confidence in the future. Had you chosen your associates more carefully in the past, ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Big Boy still pondering on his fate, "I've got to find these treasures myself. And one of them was of gold. What's the chances around here ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... already established occupants of land or water, and this may be in any particular case indefinitely long. I am very glad you will read my dogs MS., for it will be important to me to see what you think of the balance of evidence. After long pondering on a subject it is often hard to judge. With hearty thanks for your most ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... sat pondering, in troubled silence. What could it mean? Caterina had taken up her residence in the fortress before her illness; it had been thought wise, although it had not been publicly declared. A few of her maids of honor ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... brother of Kenneth Mason, engineer and archaeologist, got his nickname from a supposed modelling of his bald dome upon Ezra's Tomb, by Q'urna. Keely, classical scholar and philosopher, was standing outside his tent, pondering, as I came up to rejoin the battalion. He called me up, and asked me earnestly what girl from Greek literature I should like to have known, even to have had as companion on the Thames at Richmond. 'Nausicaa,' I said. 'Every time,' agreed Keely, brightening up as if a ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... had been attracted by him as a curiosity—"a balloon man who had twice fallen from the skies and yet was still alive"—had divined the mental power veiled habitually by his blank, opaque, wooden looks, had listened to his ambitious talk and gathered up the utterances of his thoughtful, long-pondering mind, had quarrelled with him finally and lastingly over rivalry in the good graces of a woman. {21} He saw in him a fourfold student; of the art of war, of the mind of the first Napoleon, of the French people's character, of the science by which law may lend itself ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... his House more than three hours after lock-up? And he had had some reason for running away, for the conscia mens recti, though an excellent institution in theory, is not nearly so useful an ally as it should be in practice. The Head knocked at Prater's door, pondering ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... official was pondering over the problem, Muller entered as quietly as ever, bowed, put his hat and cane in their places, and shook the snow off his clothing. He was evidently pleased about something. Kurt von Mayringen did not notice his entrance. He was again at the desk with the open ...
— The Case of The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow • Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner
... one must allow. Now what is the food for the inner man? Not prayer, but the word of God; and here again not the simple reading of the word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering over it, and applying it to our hearts. When we pray, we speak to God. Now, prayer, in order to be continued for any length of time in any other than a formal manner, requires, generally speaking, a measure of strength or godly desire, and the season, therefore, ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Third Part • George Mueller
... long time the boy lay pondering some of the problems of life which from the beginning have puzzled many a wiser head than his. But Darby did not know that he was only going over a well-beaten track. He just knew that he was wishful of finding some pleasant spot where, without effort or trouble, he could be ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... that enchantment, or I shall assay the cleansing of the Forest Perilous, or I shall win the favour of La Belle Dame Sans Merci, or mayhap I shall adventure the quest of the Sangreal. One or other of these will I achieve, or bleed the best blood of my body." Thus pondering and dreaming he came by the road down a gentle hill with close woods on either hand; and so into a valley with a swift river flowing through it; and on ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... escape, but his thoughts wandered, willy nilly. They were taken up with the iron. And gradually he began to comprehend how much thinking and calculating men must have done before they discovered how to produce iron from ore, and he seemed to see sooty blacksmiths of old bending over the forge, pondering how they should properly handle it. Perhaps it was because they had thought so much about the iron that intelligence had been developed in mankind, until finally they became so advanced that they were able to build great works like these. ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... laid up the rods over night before the sanctuary. Then the miracle came to pass that the rod of Aaron, the prince of the tribe of Levi, bore the Ineffable Name which caused the rod to bloom blossoms over night and to yield ripe almonds. When the people, who all night had been pondering which tribe should on the morrow be proven by the rod of its prince to be the chosen one, betook themselves early in the morning to the sanctuary, and saw the blossoms and almonds upon the rod of Aaron, they were at last convinced that God had destined the priesthood ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... looking face the rogue covers his villany." The alcalde, who was present, began to abuse Andrew and the rest of the gipsies, calling them common thieves and highwaymen. Andrew said not a word, but stood pondering in the utmost perplexity, for he had no surmise of Carducha's treachery. At last, an insolent soldier, nephew to the alcalde, stepped up to him, saying "Look at the dirty gipsy thief! I will lay a wager he will give himself airs as if he were an honest man, and ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... nothing remained save her feathers. Time—the despot that rules us all, had outwitted the keeper and asserted the laws of Nature. The cat's claws had grown out, and so had the dog's teeth. The fox, after much pondering over his misfortunes, had discovered the reason why he could not reach the hen; and this done, he worked at the wires until they broke. Of course he revenged himself on the spot by gobbling her up; but in his wrath at the wires, he had thrust ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... agencies. We see, they say, the hand of God in our lives. He has saved us from dangers, he has comforted us in sorrow. He has blessed us with the treasures of life, of intelligence, of affection. He has set around us a beautiful world, and one still more beautiful within us. Pondering all these blessings, we are convinced that he is mighty in the world and will know how to make all things good to those who trust in him. In other words, pious men discern God in the excellence of things. If all were well, as they hope it may some day ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... meaning, but not the feeling, that pervades every syllable as the blood warms every fiber of a man, not the words that flashed upon the poet as he wrote, nor the yet more precious and inspired words that came afterward to his patient waiting and pondering, and touched the whole with fresh delight and grace. If you will take any familiar passage from one of our poets in which every motion of the music is endeared by long association and remembrance, and every tone is sweet upon the tongue, and substitute a few strange ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... No! by the full, live light which puts to shame The far, fair splendours of Thessalian flame— By yonder forest psalm which sinks and swells Like that of Phocis, grave with oracles— By deep prophetic winds that come and go Where whispering springs of pondering mountains flow— By lute-like leaves and many-languaged caves, Where sounds the strong hosanna of the waves, This great new majesty shall not remain Unhonoured by the high immortal strain! Soon, soon, ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... said Mr. Eberstein pondering, "it comes to about this, I reckon. There are just two kingdoms in the world, upon earth ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... the matter carefully, and pondering (in comparing small things with great) upon the part which Bishop Burnet took in settling the disordered elements of British intellect after the revolution of 1688, I have resolved to do as he did—place my humble services at the disposal of my Sovereign—and in whatever situation Your Excellency ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... typical instances from Lancaster must here suffice. Savonarola was solitary, pondering, meditating, felt profoundly the evils of the world and need of reform, and at twenty-two spent a whole night planning his career. Shelley during these years was unsocial, much alone, fantastic, wandered much by moonlight ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... now, thinking he has found evidence,—thinks he always thought he thought the De Camps scamps. John is perplexed at the purport of the letter; and feeling a cold thrill run through him, he turns into bed, there to reflect for ten minutes upon the downy pillow, pondering with intensely closed eyes, considering before he puts himself in the power of an enemy—for John had been a soldier once, and would have been one now, had not his poor old mother starved and mangled together enough to buy him off; he bore the stamp of military drill, took in ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... at one of his clubs, where he won pretty heavily at cards and drank rather more brandy than he was accustomed to take. Feeling consequently in good spirits, he determined to carry out a plan that he had been pondering for some time. He left the club at six o'clock, and an hour later a cab put him down at the lower end of Strand-on-the-Green. Mrs. Sedgewick admitted him to Stephen Foster's house. The master had not returned from town, she said, but Miss Foster was at home. Nevill asked to see her, and was shown ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... it; Singing birds, that utter falsehoods, Story-tellers, mischief-makers, Found no eager ear to listen, Could not breed ill-will between them, For they kept each other's counsel, Spake with naked hearts together, Pondering much and much contriving How the ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... silence, pondering over this new source of worry, then turned in to sleep. They slept heavily, having taken great care first of all to block up the entrance to the underground passage, and as they dropped off to sleep, they heard ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... was put about two hours later. In the meantime no remark had been made about the rents. Mother and daughter were now at tea in the sitting-room. Hilda had passed the greater part of those two hours upstairs in her bedroom, pondering on her mother's preposterous notion of collecting the rents herself. Alone, she would invent conversations with her mother, silencing the foolish woman with unanswerable sarcastic phrases that utterly destroyed her illogical arguments. She would repeat these phrases, repeat even entire conversations, ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... After pondering over the matter for several days, I determined on milking the cow myself, this being an accomplishment of my boyhood. To the celestial's amazement I did so and instantly tested the ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... became general, and the girl did not look up for several seconds; but the young man on her right, who had not missed a word of the previous tete-a-tete, could not give attention to the story Mrs. Blackwell was telling, for pondering what ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill
... on the battlefield of Rullion Green, pensively pondering over the battle and the heroes whose blood had watered this soil. Two centuries and more had fled since the engagement, yet the field appealed to the responsive heart with powerful eloquence. The beautiful slope, the verdant pasture, the grazing flocks, the broad ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... off here to fetch up the second course. We talked no more, for I was pondering his tale and disinclined to be diverted to other topics. Nor can I tell whether the rest of the meal was good or ill. I suppose I ate: but it was only when the landlord swept the cloth, and produced a bottle of port, ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... imagination, at rest with regard to its own safety, is for the first time perplexed by the fate of men of an alien race and faith, whose heroism it has nevertheless learnt to revere, as in after-times it was perplexed in pondering the fate of Greece and Rome, whose art and thought it vainly strove to imitate. Underlying this trouble in their hearts is the assumption to which Plato and certain of his sect have leanings, that within the Divine there is as it were a treasury of souls ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... Pharaoh Daggs in black silhouette against the gray of the sky sent a shudder through Jeremy. He recalled with startling distinctness the solitary man he had seen on the island the night of his capture. The two figures were identical. Pondering, ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... called him away, and Emily sat pondering and impressed. 'It did seem so odd,' she said, 'that Clarry should be so much the best, and yet so ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Robinson, besides his more general exhortations to brotherly kindness and charity, had spoken, in the spirit of prophecy, some promises and assurances which came now to a divine fulfillment. Pondering "sundry weighty and solid reasons" in favor of removal from Holland, the pilgrims put on record that "their pastor would often say that many of those who both wrote and preached against them would practice as they did if they were in a place where they might have liberty and live conformably." ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... Pondering there, immersed in frowning retrospection, the room, the Tracer, the city seemed to fade from his view. He saw the red sand blowing in the desert; he heard the sickly squealing of camels at the El Teb Wells; he saw the sun strike fire from the rippling ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... day, was moving towards a village with his heart tolling. And all the people of the village were come out to meet him, as it was their wont to do; for they abode not the suspense of awaiting Tharagavverug and of hearing him sniffing brazenly as he went from door to door, pondering slowly in his metal mind what habitant he should choose. And none dared to flee, for in the days when the villagers fled from Tharagavverug, he, having chosen his victim, would track him tirelessly, like a doom. Nothing ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... burned down to his fingers as he sat pondering. Abstractedly, he ground its fire ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... Peggy, pondering her friend's accusation with languid interest, dimpled into a smile which acknowledged its correctness. "Yes, you're right, Amy," she admitted. "And, if you want to know the reason, it's only that my thoughts were wandering. The fact is, ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... of weather and a treacherous pilot put ashore upon Plymouth beach, (where they luckily found a rock to step upon,) with a certain sweet pastoral called "Evangeline." We found ourselves, just after reading the proceedings of the Plymouth Monument Association, the other day, pondering over the possible fate of the Dutch colony of the Mannahattoes, supposing that the Mayflower had made (as was purposed) the Highlands of Neversink instead of Shankpainter Hill at the end of Cape Cod. It was a perilous meditation, for we found our belief in Plutarch's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... As he was pondering over it all, he heard a rattling at the window. He looked up, and saw the face of Herr Carovius pressed so tightly against the pane that his nose was as flat as a pancake, while his glasses looked like two opalescent grease spots ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... the recollection of Hilda's conception of their relations. If this were a type and instance of hopeless love he had certainly misread all the songs and sayings. He kept the idea in his mind and went on regarding her in the light of it with a pondering smile, turning it over and finding a lively pleasure in his curious acumen in such an unwonted direction. It was a very flower of emotional naivete, though a moment later he cast it from him as a weed, grown in idleness; and indeed it might have abashed him ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... Being may one day justify himself even morally. Perhaps he is all the time doing so behind the veil. But on that it is absolutely useless to speculate. Light may one day come to us, but it will come through patient investigation, not through idle pondering and guessing. In the meantime, poised between the macrocosm and the microcosm, ourselves including both extremes, and being, perhaps, the most stupendous miracle of all, we cannot deny to this amazing frame of things the tribute of an unutterable awe. If that be religion, ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... fear are the amplest of them in knowledge and the most emulous of good.'" The King received the interpreter's speech with submission and gifted him and his fellows with rich gifts; then, dismissing them he arose and withdrew to his own apartments and fell to pondering the issue of his affair. When night came, he went in to one of his women, who was most in favour with him and dearest to him of them all, and lay with her: and ere some four months had passed over her, the child stirred in her womb, whereat she rejoiced with ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... of a widespread anxiety to reconcile the claims and conclusions of science with those of the received theology. Thoughtful and religious laymen in the higher ranks of society were earnestly seeking a reason for the faith that was in them, and pondering over fundamental problems like the personality of God, the divinity of Christ, the reality of supernatural agency, and the awful mystery of the future life. Yet the tractarians passed lightly over all these problems, to exercise themselves and others with disputations on ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... leave; and as he walked to the railway that was to take him home, he could not help still pondering on the effect produced by the mention of the ghost. He little supposed, however, that the ghost was at the bottom of this visit to his ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... took a little time, the doctor slowly paced back and forth through the small cottage room, with his hands behind him, and a thoughtful face. Daisy fancied he was considering her affair; but she was very much mistaken; Dr. Sandford had utterly forgotten her for the moment, and was pondering some difficult professional business. When Juanita appeared with her tea tray, he came out of his abstraction; and, though still with a very unrelaxed face, he arranged Daisy's pillows so that she might be raised ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... around the yard and see them work for their food. When I was weary of this I would go to an old deserted cabin nearby, taking a few old books and the Bible; there unmolested I would spend hours at a time reading the Bible and pondering over the books. One of the books was an old Davies' Practical Arithmetic. Nothing gave me more pleasure than working out new sums for the first time. I kept up this practice until I had read the New ...
— Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt • William James Edwards
... all this to me?" This would I answer, if it pleaseth thee, Thou Rose and Nightingale so strangely one: That of my palaces, gold one by one, I fell a-thinking, pondering which to-day, The day of the Blessed Saint, Saint Valentine, Which of those many palaces of mine, I, with bowed head and lowly bended knee, Might bring to thee. O which of all my lordly roofs that rise To kiss the starry skies May with great beams make safe that golden head, With all ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... these days from giving too much weight to the critics of Christianity," said the rector, "from not pondering more deeply on its underlying truths. Do not think that I am accusing you of superficiality, Mrs. Goodrich; I am sure you wish to go to the bottom, or else you would be satisfied with what you have already ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... mute, looking into his eyes and pondering every light and shadow of the severe young face that to her seemed so imperially unlike all others. "He's great," she said in her heart. "And he loves with his greatness. Loves even his father that way; ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... Here pondering, one thought of awe, yet rapture, thrills through my soul. If to our poor humanity such honeyed drops of healing do earth's frailest flower-cups yield, how cool, how crystal-clear the nectar from amaranth and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... to spare for all tastes at Amalfi. The student of architecture may spend hours in the Cathedral, pondering over its high-built western front, and wondering whether there is more of Moorish or of Gothic in its delicate arcades. The painter may transfer its campanile, glittering like dragon's scales, to his canvas. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... corners of the neighbourhood, in a perpetual state of forlorn surprise; and returning to my villa: the Villa Bagnerello (it sounds romantic, but Signor Bagnerello is a butcher hard by): have sufficient occupation in pondering over my new experiences, and comparing them, very much to my own amusement, with my expectations, until ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... pondering over his last words, and dubiously eyeing the piece of furniture in question. Nor did he retire until he had subjected it to an analysis of the most searching description, and then, leaving the lamp burning, he sprang hastily in, and forgot ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... propose such an accusation; I only content myself with presenting it as a logical consequence which could be deduced following the method used by the prelate in speaking to no less than his priests in a circular designed to orient the mentality of his clergy and of his parishioners. Pondering over the accusation of the Bishop, it occurred to me that it would be beneficial to recall the public instruction that was formerly given in the Philippines by the "godly schools" and consider the results obtained. Confident in the respectable ...
— The Legacy of Ignorantism • T.H. Pardo de Tavera
... but could see no sign of his wife; and after hesitating and pondering a minute or two, he took the path for Carhaix, his native astuteness leading him to saunter at a slow pace after his ordinary fashion. When he was gone the moorland about the cottage lay still and deserted. Thrice, at intervals, the girl dragged home her load of straw, ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... now my walk was slow—My eyes were seldom raised and often filled with tears; no song; no smiles; no careless motion that might bespeak a mind intent on what surrounded it—I was gathered up into myself—a selfish solitary creature ever pondering on my ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... you see a girl you at once get busy speculating over whether or not she'll ever be beautiful enough for your Dinkie, and when one of the Crowned Heads of Europe announces the alliance of its youngest princess you fall to pondering if Dinkie wouldn't have made her a better husband. And when the flowers come out in your window-box you wonder if they're fair enough to bloom beside your Dinkie. I don't suppose I ever made a haystack that you didn't wonder whether it wasn't going to be a grand ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... a formidable looking man she found in the library a few minutes before the dinner hour. He was poring over some pictures of Panama in one of the weeklies, sufficiently deep in them to permit Katie to sit there for the moment pondering methods of attack. But instead of outlining her campaign she found herself concluding, what she had concluded many times before, that Wayne was very good-looking. "Not handsome, like Harry Prescott," she granted, "but Wayne seems the product of something—the result of things to be desired. He ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... about mother," went on Phillis, pondering her words slowly as she spoke; "she does look so ill and weak. I do not see how ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... and feverish, then he closed his tome, And went to wander by the ocean-side, Where the cool breeze at evening loved to come, Murmuring responsive to the murmuring tide; And as Augustine o'er its margent wide Strayed, deeply pondering the puzzling theme, A little child before him he espied: In earnest labor did the urchin seem, Working with heart intent close by the ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... tell you how delighted we shall be if you would come to Gad's Hill. You should see some charming woods and a rare old castle, and you should have such a snug room looking over a Kentish prospect, with every facility in it for pondering on the beauties of its master's beard! Do come, but you positively must not come and go on the ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... winked with each eye, then extended one cheek with the pressure of his tongue. Sickened with disgust, Godwin turned suddenly away,—a movement entirely lost upon his uncle, who imagined the young man to be pondering a ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... the result of abnormal pondering over bacteriology. Huchard's case was in a woman of thirty-eight who, out of curiosity, had secretly read the works of Pasteur, and who seemed to take particular pleasure in conning over the causes of death in the health-reports. Goyard mentions an instance ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... indeed! At that very moment the portly individual in question was in the centre of his bedroom, surveying the contents of a box which had been sadly depleted. He was rubbing the grizzly locks beside one ear, pondering deeply, staring through big goggles at the box, and trying ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... to—long ago," replied Pan, pondering. How far in the past that seemed! How vivid now ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... one building outside the Exposition palaces that should not be missed, even though almost hidden away against the south wall. It is worth pondering over. No one may want to build a house like it, but it proclaims how beauty can be attained with simple ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... Jewel was pondering. This was very delicate ground, and she still felt some awe of her cousin; however, there was ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... she slowly, and as if pondering; then shook her head. "That is not the reason. Do you not believe in the power of the devil? our Lord Christ forgive me! do not you believe in the power of wicked men? There is no greater difference between the human child and the changeling brat ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... can never feel the glad radiance of sunlit days without sadly remembering and gloomily pondering over the fate of the beggar so deprived of joy in life that his horrible death was a relief for all those who had ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... from her and gazed through the window, pondering. That she would be faithful to the children he well knew. That she would gladly die for him, he was equally certain. With Rosenblatt removed, the house would be rid of the cause of her fall and her shame. There was ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... authorities were in doubt and dismay. The inquisitors were for putting the ministers to death in prison, and hurling their heads upon the street. Evening approached while the officials were still pondering. The people who had been chanting the Psalms of David through the town, without having decided what should be their course of action, at last determined to rescue the victims. A vast throng, after much hesitation, accordingly directed their steps to the prison. "You should have ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... imprudence slew 545 A vulgar Pawn, but lost his nobler view. Young Hermes leap'd, with sudden joy elate; And then, to save the monarch from his fate, Led on his martial Knight, who stepp'd between, Pleased that his charge was to oppose the Queen — Then, pondering how the Indian beast to slay, 551 That stopp'd the Foot from making farther way, — From being made a Queen; with slanting aim An archer struck him; down the monster came, And dying shook the earth: while Phoebus ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... grew sick of the sight of it, and longed to see a turban, or a tall hat, or no hat at all,—anything for a change of head-dress. I left the window rather wearily, and took up one of the many novels which lay on the table, pondering on the probable fate of Paul ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... the wants of myself and family for ten thousand years; when I strolled into the Nevskoi, and jostled my way through crowds of nobles, officers, soldiers, dandies, and commoners, stopping suddenly at every picture-shop, gazing dreamily into the gorgeous millinery establishments, pondering thoughtfully over the glittering wares of the jewelers, lagging moodily by the grand cafes, and snuffing reflectively the odors that came from the grand restaurations—when all this occurred, and I went down into a beer-cellar and made acquaintance with ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne |
