"Pensively" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... remember that they are half German—greeted these suggestions, and Margaret said pensively, "How inconceivable it would be if the Royal Family cared about Art." And the conversation drifted away and away, and Helen's cigarette turned to a spot in the darkness, and the great flats opposite were sown with lighted windows, ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... out of his friend's room pensively, acting the melancholy youth who had lost all hope of succeeding in his desire; but directly the door was shut his manner changed. Disregarding the lift, he ran lightly down the stairs, made his way swiftly by the revolving door into the street, ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... palace. Throughout the whole way, the ladies were unwearied in chanting the praises of the stranger knight, nay, many of them would willingly have incurred the danger of the dragon to have enjoyed the happy deliverance of the duchess. As to the latter, she rode pensively along, but said nothing. ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... 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, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... weak minds in the steward's room at Bellamont, if they could see all this, John,' said Mr. Freeman, pensively. 'A man who travels ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... is the case," said Jim, pensively brushing his hair, "I am very glad that Cecil's care for his fine clothes prevented his coming into the yard; for he is one of the bravest, coolest hands among cattle, I know; ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... Chateaubriand, echoing Rousseau; and that wayward woman of genius, George Sand, disciple she to both,—were so far from being always light-heartedly gay, that not seldom they spread over their page a sombre atmosphere almost of gloom,—gloom flushed pensively, as with a clouded "setting sun's pathetic light." In short, when you speak of particular authors, and naturally still more when you speak of particular works, there are many discriminations to be made. Such exceptions, however, being duly allowed, the literary product of the French ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... hardly suppress his astonishment, and, pressing the hand of Father Joachim, pensively took the ...
— The Pearl of Lima - A Story of True Love • Jules Verne
... with a wild Russian beard, but with the eyes of a Tartar, like those of Tsiganok, gazed pensively above Tsiganok's head, then smiled ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev
... 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 had discovered her in the Rue la Moine she could ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... Viscount," said Mrs. Carew, pensively looking at the letter she held in her hand. "He was a good friend to us at one time. I never understood him, and I like men whom one ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... he was one 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
... instant was communicated to me by Mr. C——, and I should have returned an immediate answer, but the hand of Providence, then laying heavy upon an amiable pledge of conjugal endearment, hath since taken from me a promising girl, which the disconsolate mother too pensively laments the loss of; though we have yet eight living, all healthful, hopeful children, whose names and ages are as follows:—Zaccheus, aged almost eighteen years; Elizabeth, sixteen years and ten ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... threatening the children with the most violent chastisement if they failed to behave themselves with strict propriety whilst they remained in that house. Before leaving them he kissed his wife; and she, reviving, asked him to look at the baby. He did so, and pensively apostrophized it with a shocking epithet in anticipation of the time when its appetite must be satisfied from the provision shop instead of from its mother's breast. She laughed and cried shame on him; and so they parted cheerfully. When he returned to the hall with ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... and then pensively moved to the other end of the bench, because a slanting sunbeam fell there. Since it was absolutely necessary to blast Mr. Kennaston's dearest hopes, she thoughtfully endeavoured to distract his attention from his own miseries—as far as might ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... as though she had been a virtuous matron recalling her honeymoon. "That was an unlucky name, wasn't it, dear? You should have taken my advice there." And immersed in recollection of their past rogueries, the worthy pair pensively smiled. Rex was the first to awake from ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... the major; 'an' it goes again' the colonel's grain to have a party at all just now, with the respect he has for the family up there,' and he nodded his head, pensively, toward the Elms. 'But he asked Lowe ten days ago, and Mr. Dangerfield, and two or three more; and you know he could not put them off on that ground—there being no relationship, you see—and, 'pon my oath, Sir, I'd rather not go myself, ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... young bird and pushed it a little towards the water, but with great tenderness, as much as to say, "Don't be afraid, darling; I won't hurt you, my pet!" but no sooner did she get it to the edge of the rock, where it stood looking pensively down at the sea, than she gave it a sudden and violent push, sending it headlong down the slope into the water, where its mother left it to scramble ashore as it best could. We observed many of them ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... alone, without light. He had much to meditate upon, and with naught to check the current of his thoughts, he pensively revolved his present situation and future prospects. The future was gloomy enough—the present fraught with danger. And now that the fever of excitement was passed, he severely ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... which they lay on the mossy garden-wall, so as to get the latest advantage of the rich golden twilight which now twinkled through the sky. Agnes sat by him on the same wall,—now glancing over his shoulder at his work, and now leaning thoughtfully on her elbow, gazing pensively down into the deep shadows of the gorge, or out where the golden light of evening streamed under the arches of the old Roman bridge, to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... while in the room, pensively contemplating the portraits of the Three Louis. Then the sound of footsteps came to his ears, footsteps advancing from many directions, footsteps all making towards the great hall. He smiled as a man smiles ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... have done one of two things; he'd have taken a shot at me, or he'd have told me to go to the same old place where we consign unpleasant people. But I didn't tempt him, though I did tempt fate. I went over to the little butte, climbed it pensively, and sat on the flat rock and gazed forlornly at the mouth of ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... Sam Lawson, looking pensively over the hay-mow, and strewing hayseed down on his wool. "How that 'are critter seems to tickle and laugh all the while 'bout nothin'. Lordy massy! he don't seem never to consider that 'this life's a dream, ...
— Oldtown Fireside Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... train glide round the curve and disappear from sight; then slowly turned and looked the other way,—as if to make sure there was not another coming,—saw the portmanteau, and shambled towards it. He stood looking down upon it pensively, then moved slowly round, apparently reading the names and particulars of all the various continental hotels at which the portmanteau had recently stayed with ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... But he pensively rubbed his sagacious nose, And thus his prescription ran— The King will be well, if he sleeps one night In the Shirt of a ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... and Aunt Charlotte nursed her all that time. I am sure 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 ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... cap to the back of his head, which he was scratching pensively. He had a habit of scratching his forehead with one ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... I heard her say to this girl, whom she was fond of: they had sat talking a whole morning—idly and pensively; of little things around them, never once referring to things outside. "Come often, though the house is dull. Does it not feel ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... said Cattell, pensively clasping his beard. "I 'ardly think it. Not popular: it wasn't popular with the man that cut the block, was ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... you water, and sometimes it don't," remarked the Sapper pensively. "Last time it was a sock. Bye-bye. I ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... the heart 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 ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 479, March 5, 1831 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... "Naughty! Naughty!" reflected Kerns, pensively assaulting the breakfast food. "Lovey must not worry; Dovey shall be found, and all will be joy and gingerbread. . . . If you throw that orange I'll run screaming to the governors. Aren't you ashamed—just because ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... fast," Standing said sharply. He drew a quick breath. Then his manner changed and his words came pensively. "Say, it's a queer life—a hell of a life. The sea folk, I mean. It's about the worst on earth. Think of it, cooped within those timbers that are never easy till they lie at anchor in the shelter of a harbour. I'd just hate it. Their life? What is it? ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... have got my lines and main ideas in my head,' she said pensively, 'then we will call in the maids. Of course you might have the things made in Rome. But as we have the models—and these two maids have nothing to do—why not give ourselves the ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... 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
... Day before yesterday I ate at Biberich, with the Duke of Nassau, the first fresh herrings and the first strawberries and raspberries of the season. It is certainly a delightful piece of earth along the Rhine, and I looked pensively from the castle windows over to the red cathedral of Mayence, which, almost four years ago, we both went to see very early in the morning, in times for which we were not then sufficiently grateful to God; I remembered how, on board the steamer, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... troopers sprang to alert attention. W. Keyse, pensively boring the sandy earth with the pneumatic auger of imagination, in search of the loved one believed to inhabit the Convent bomb-proof, was recalled to the surface by the curtly-uttered command, and knew the thrill ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... herself beside a table and was pensively looking up at him. "Naturally," she said, "Marian and I, between us, will badger you into saving Frank. I shall not worry, therefore, and I must trust to Providence, I suppose, to arrange matters so that the poor boy will not catch his death of cold ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... Panza retorted pensively: "I suppose it is the chastisement of Heaven, too, that flies should prick the squires of vanquished knights, and lice eat them, and hunger assail them. If we squires were the sons of the knights we serve, or their very near relations, it would be no wonder if the penalty of their misdeeds descended ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... pouted a little, and the colour had mounted to her temples, nevertheless looked very lovely as she pensively reclined on the sofa. Rebuked by him who had always been so attentive, so submissive—her creature as it were—she was mortified, as every pretty woman is, at any loss of power—any symptoms of rebellion on the part of a liege vassal; and then she taxed herself; ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... dramatis personae were disposed: Princess Ligovski and the Moscow dandy were sitting on a bench in the covered gallery—apparently engaged in serious conversation. Princess Mary, who had doubtless by this time finished her last tumbler, was walking pensively to and fro by the well. Grushnitski was standing by the well itself; there was nobody ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... her head, she answered, pensively, "It is very, very beautiful and I love it—in a way. But I am afraid of it, too. Yes, I like the lordly mountains better, Don. To me there is always something sinister about the sea, even when it is in as peaceful a mood ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... am goin' to enter political life, I must begin to practise sometime. I must begin to do as they all do. And it is a crackin' good shovel too," says he pensively. ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... for herself, and led a full life. She was not the marrying kind. If she liked men it was only because they played the games she liked to play better than women play them. "Imagine Evelyn," she said, "unable to eat, unable to sleep! Imagine her sitting at the window in her nightgown and looking pensively at ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... finished the letter. Weil reclined pensively in his chair, and slowly read over and over what he had written. He made no alterations, but folded Frau Kahle's note up with his own, and then enclosed both in a large yellow envelope, sealing it ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... goblet, and moistened the earth, invoking the manes of wretched Patroclus. And as a father mourns, consuming the bones of his son, a bridegroom who, dying, has afflicted his unhappy parents, so mourned Achilles, burning the bones of his companion, pacing pensively beside the pile, groaning continually. But when Lucifer arrived, proclaiming light over the earth, after whom saffron-vested Morn is diffused over the sea, then the pyre grew languid, and the flame decayed; and the Winds departed again, ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... 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 ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... she unpinned her straw hat, smoothed her dark hair, resting her eyes pensively for a few moments on her reflected face. Then she sauntered listlessly about the little room in performance of those trivial, aimless offices, entirely feminine, such as opening all the drawers in her clothes-press, smoothing ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... enthusiasm of the night had somewhat subsided. "Whence came the inspiration of Moses?" flew up to his mind almost as soon as he opened his eyes on the sunlit world. He threw open the protrusive casement of his bedroom to the balmy air, tinged with a whiff of salt, and gazed pensively at the white town rambling down towards the shining river. Had God indeed revealed Himself on Mount Sinai? But this fresh doubt was banished by the renewed suspicion which, after having disturbed his dreams in nebulous distortions, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... a sharp look out, their father and I," she added, putting her small black head pensively on one side as she thought of the troubles of married life, "for Birds have many enemies here. Sometimes we hang our nests from the boughs of trees on the bank of a stream or river, but then there are Water Rats as well as Snakes, and ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... was 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
... pensively upon a block of stone, and thought of his mother; he reflected with sorrow upon his disobedience in climbing the bean-stalk against her will, and concluded that he must die of hunger. However, he walked on, ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... great thing for her to have a friend like you," said Wyvis, looking at her wistfully. In very truth, she was a wonderment to him; she seemed so ethereal, so saint-like, so innocent! And Margaret smiled pensively in return: unlimited admiration ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... the bois de vache, which burns exactly like peat, producing no unpleasant effects. The wagons one morning had left the camp; Shaw and I were already on horseback, but Henry Chatillon still sat cross-legged by the dead embers of the fire, playing pensively with the lock of his rifle, while his sturdy Wyandotte pony stood quietly behind him, looking over his head. At last he got up, patted the neck of the pony (whom, from an exaggerated appreciation of his merits, he had christened "Five ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... ride a little farther, and see what they were waving their hands toward the south for. And so I did. And it was very hot," said Mary V pensively, "and I was so tired that when I found I was close to Sinkhole camp I went on and rested there. And before I left, that same Mexican came to the cabin, and Johnny didn't know him at all, because the Mexican said right away, 'I am the brother of Tomaso,' ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... hesitate. He turned uneasily in his chair, glanced this way and that among the trees—a habit acquired in the macquis, no doubt. He took off his hat and passed his hand pensively over his hair. Then ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... father's report,' she said. 'And yet,' sadly and pensively, 'my future is dark and void enough. Why should I vex ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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
... 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 going ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... if you can get the ladies to excuse me, I will follow in a few minutes. I wish to pay him my respects. It's my opinion," he added pensively, as the prisoner left the cabin—"it's my opinion that the man's story ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... room, with Madame Fribsby, and, in a word, with the whole of the Clavering society. Madam Fribsby looking furtively up at her picture of the dragoon, and inwards into her own wounded memory, said that men would be men, and as long as they were men would be deceivers; and she pensively quoted some lines from Marmion, requesting to know where deceiving lovers should rest? Mrs. Pybus had no words of hatred, horror, contempt, strong enough for a villain who could be capable of conduct ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... work, and replied, folding her hands upon one another, and looking pensively at me out of those beautiful soft eyes ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... afternoon inspection of the two connecting streets; an occupation which Billy varied by saluting each new-corner with a slap of his cane on his checker-board trousers and a stentorian "Bah Jove!" Waggles meanwhile squatting pensively between ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... noticed that the note had gone from the flap. How he had tracked her down was a mystery. He refrained from mentioning the adventure, but she saw that it had had a great effect upon him. He ate no supper, but sat smoking through the mosquito-netting, gazing pensively at the starry heavens. When they retired he uttered his customary ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... 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 ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Dunster on the other. Although both of them were provided with a certain amount of railway literature, neither of them made any pretence at reading. The older man, with his feet upon the opposite seat and his arms folded, was looking pensively through the rain-splashed window-pane into the impenetrable darkness. The young man, although he could not ignore his companion's unsociable instincts, ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... even for the girl herself, and I had a feeling as though we all four had lost something important and essential to life which we should never find again. My grandfather, too, grew melancholy; he talked no more about manure or about oats, but sat silent, looking pensively at Masha. ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... not much account-keeping or litigation; you know what happens to gossips,—gossip takes a good deal of time elsewhere,—and somehow everybody does his share of work, so that all of us do have a good deal of what you call 'leisure.' Whether," he added pensively, "in a world God put us into that we might love each other, and learn to love,—whether the time we spend in society, or the time we spend caged behind our office desks, is the time which should be called devoted to the 'business of life,' ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... of the Casino at Monte Carlo Miles Chandon smoked a cigar pensively, leaning against the low wall that overlooks the pigeon-shooters' enclosure, the railway station and the foreshore. He was alone, as always. That a man who, since the great folly of his life, had obstinately cultivated solitude should make holiday in Monte Carlo, of all places, is ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... fairy-lights under the starry sky. Rose de Vigne, exquisitely fair in ruby velvet and ermine furs paused on the verandah, looking pensively forth. ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... sat down beside his father and told him in detail all the impressions of that day. Ignat listened, fixedly watching the animated face of his son, and the eyebrows of the big man contracted pensively. ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... fine September afternoon and Sylvia reclined pensively in a canvas hammock on Herbert Lansing's lawn with one or two opened letters in her hand. Bright sunshine lay upon the grass, but it was pleasantly cool in the shadow of the big copper beech. A neighboring border glowed with autumn flowers: ribands of asters, spikes of crimson gladiolus, ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... bumped him with a hub and explained to him that kind words were invented to be used on other occasions. A motorman clanged his bell wildly and, for once in his life, corroborated a cab-driver. A large lady in a changeable silk waist dug an elbow into his back, and a newsy pensively pelted him with banana rinds, murmuring, "I hates to do it—but if anybody seen ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... read out, and the Head knocked him spinning into a waste-paper basket. Then he gave us eight cuts apiece—welters—for—for—takin' unheard-of liberties with a new master. I saw his shoulders shaking when we went out. Do you know," said Beetle, pensively, "that Mason can't look at us now in second lesson without blushing? We three stare at him sometimes till he regularly trickles. ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... to rest in a beautiful; valley, beside the banks of a swift stream. He watched Jane as she moved away from the stretcher which held Bansemer, following her to the edge of the stream where she had come to gaze pensively into the future. ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... his wrongs and 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 only have spoken, what thrilling ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... room, examined some of the glass cases, gazed at some of the pictures and, as he walked, said, pensively: ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... dark," said Bertha pensively, "darker than mine. Her voice is sweet and musical, I know. I have often loved to hear it. ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... it 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 over ...
— The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle - Or, The Girl Miner of Gold Run • Laura Lee Hope
... pensively than ever, and rearranged the muffin-dish on the little wrought-iron stand in font of the grate. "And yet," she murmured, looking down, "what life can be better than the service of one's kind? You think it a great life ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... on a high chair, and drooping her head pensively on her hand, sat for some time in unbroken silence, gazing out through the open door at the ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... work at Melbury's, stood at dusk in the little bower at the corner of his enclosure to smoke a pipe, he frequently observed the surgeon pass along the outside track before-mentioned. Fitzpiers always walked loiteringly, pensively, looking with a sharp eye into the gardens one after another as he proceeded; for Fitzpiers did not wish to leave the now absorbing spot too quickly, after travelling so far to reach it; hoping always for a glimpse of her whom ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... was felt that the topic was ceasing to be exhaustive and becoming exhausting. Lady Durwent glanced, interrogatively about the table; Madame Carlotti took a hitch in her gown; Norton Pyford emptied his glass and sat pensively staring at it as if it had hardly done what he expected, but on the whole he felt inclined to forgive it; Johnston Smyth made a belated attempt to be sentimental with the Honourable Miss Durwent, whose lips, always at war with each other, merely parted in a smile that utterly failed to bring ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... why. The church, the 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 if fascinated ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... where the many-faced hills Watch'd, well-pleased, their fair slaves, the light, foam-footed rills, Dance and sing down the steep marble stairs of their courts, And gracefully fashion a thousand sweet sports, Lord Alfred (by this on his journeying far) Was pensively puffing his Lopez cigar, And brokenly humming an old opera strain, And thinking, perchance, of those castles in Spain Which that long rocky barrier hid from his sight; When suddenly, out of the neighboring night, A horseman emerged from a ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... that artless description of the feminine woman his mother had been, and stood beside his guest, looking pensively up at the portrait. ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... night, as he seated himself pensively upon the prostrate monument, trying by the uncertain moonlight to spell out the epitaph which five years before he had composed with a chuckle that memory had not recorded, tears of remorse came into his eyes as he remembered that he had been mainly instrumental in compassing ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... blue sky above seemed shut into a vault by the enclosing buildings, and one solitary planet shone out in the lustrous neighbourhood of the moon. So still, so solemn, so cool! Honora felt it as repose, and pensively began to admire—Owen chimed in with her. Feverish thoughts and perturbations were always gladly soothed away in her company. Phoebe alone stood barely confessing the beauty, and suppressing impatience at their making so much ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a sad disappointment to all his admirers; but to the astrologer himself, it was a real thunderbolt. He picked up the paper pensively, examined it on both sides, then dashed it on the ground in a fury; and suddenly arising, exclaimed, "My Vidya* is a delusion, ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... of the world, you will find that the poor are not by any means as ill used as they are taught, in these days, to believe. The rich have their sorrows too—no one knows it better than I"—(and he played pensively with his gold pencil-case)—"and good and evil are pretty equally distributed among all ranks, by a just and merciful God. I advise you most earnestly, as you value your future success in life, to give up reading those unprincipled ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... heard a Stock-dove sing or say His homely tale, this very day; His voice was buried among trees, Yet to be come at by the breeze: He did not cease; but cooed—and cooed, And somewhat pensively he wooed. He sang of love with quiet blending, Slow to begin, and never ending; Of serious faith and inward glee; That was ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... whose eyes were pensively resting upon the gay tables in the distance, broke the spell by saying that, from the spectacle before them, one would little divine what other quarters of the boat might reveal. He cited the case, accidentally encountered but an hour or two previous, of a shrunken old miser, clad in ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... said 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 ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... Spaniard pensively. He swung his legs from the couch, and sat now upon the edge of it, his elbows on his knees. He had taken the measure of his man, and met him with a mock-urbanity and a suave detachment that matched his own. "I confess," he admitted, "that ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... rapidly 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 make her comfort ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... while I, 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 ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... he had defeated her hopelessly with the mysterious sarcasm: 'To meet the Bright Lights?' And his reward was to have the deck and the heavens almost to himself, and presently to find the stars outgleamed by a girl's hair. Yes, there she was, gazing pensively forth from the cabin window. He guessed the mistress was out for once—presumably at the concert. His heart beat faster as he came to a standstill, yet the reminder that she was a lady's maid brought an involuntary note of condescension ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... narrow green braid, and a little gray straw bonnet, with rows of quilled satin ribbon, green and pink." The girls exchanged glances of horror and amazement at the thought of this headgear, but made no sound. "I shall never forget that bonnet," continued Miss Wealthy, pensively, "nor that dress. In getting out of the carriage her skirt caught on the step, and part of a row of braid was ripped; this made a loop, in which she caught her foot, and tumbled headlong to the ground. I mended it in the evening, after she was in bed, as it was the frock she was to wear every ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... pensively and patiently. She thought it all over, and felt her husband was right, and loved her like a man. But she thought, also, that she was not very wrong to love him in her way. Wrong or not, she felt she could not sit idle and ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... the long reaches of sun and shade in the aisles of the forest. Glad of the spring, and of love, and of morning, the wild birds were singing: Jays to each other called harshly, then mellowly fluted together; Sang the oriole songs as golden and gay as his plumage; Pensively piped the querulous quails their greetings unfrequent, While, on the meadow elm, the meadow lark gushed forth in music, Rapt, exultant, and shaken with the great joy of his singing; Over the river, loud-chattering, aloft in the air, the kingfisher Hung, ere he ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... touched with peace. On the walls hung a few reproductions of fine pictures: an old woman of Rembrandt, in whose wrinkled face and glittering dark eyes the past pleasures and past sorrows of life seemed tenderly, pensively united, mellowed by the years into a soft bloom, a quiet beauty; an allegory of Watts, fierce with inspiration like fire mounting up to an opening heaven; a landscape of Frederick Walker's, the romance of harvest in an autumn land; Burne-Jones's ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... the girl, looking pensively out to sea, where the sea-horses were tossing up their white manes in the moonlight. "Well, good-bye," she added, holding ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... met our gaze. They sat pensively breaking stones in a wide courtyard. A building, with barred windows, threw black shade upon the blazing white ground of this open space; and here, shielded from the sun, the convicts reclined and made a show of work. Jefferson, with rather a lack of delicate ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... meet the danger if there be danger, and to divide the glory if there be glory," said Myles placidly, and Bradford softly and pensively replied, ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... stood a minute rubbing his nose pensively with a small forefinger; then the resolution to act fastened upon him. He slipped his coat back on, smoothed down his thin mane of reddish gray hair with his hands, stepped out into the hall and rapped delicately with a knuckled finger upon the door of the next ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... in proceedings. Plainly there was no precedent to follow in considering the application of so non-existent a being for permission to leave Mexico. The official smoked a cigarette pensively and idly turned over the ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... Heaven that I had not forgiven him! Ah, if that hour could but return, how readily I should find the horrible courage to turn him away! My poor child... it was I who ruined him!..." And, pensively, "I should have had that or any sort of courage, if he had been as I pictured him to myself and as he himself told me that he had long been: bearing the marks of ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... she wished; and she sprang up and ran at me, and struck me—yes; again and again across the face with her open hand, rings and all—and I ran out in tears. Yes," went on Miss Corbet in a moment, dropping her voice, and pensively looking up at nothing, "yes; you would have said she was really angry, so quick and natural were her movements and so loud ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... young girl is fixed on the day of her marriage. Thus, little by little, he expressed what was in his heart, and I watched Brigitte listening to him. Then, when he arose to leave us, I accompanied him to the door and stood there; pensively listening to the sound of his footsteps ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... over the hall. In an instant the orchestra breaks forth into some wonderful German melody, or some deep-voiced, strong-lunged singer sends his rich notes rolling through the hall. The auditors have suddenly lost their merriment, and are now listening pensively to the music, which is good. They sip their beer absently, and are thinking no doubt of the far-off Fatherland, for you see their features grow softer and their eyes glisten. Then, when it is all over, they burst into an enthusiastic encore, or ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... be said, Le Breton, in favour of October term,' he observed, in his soft, musical voice, as he gazed pensively across the central grass-plot to the crimson drapery of the Founder's Tower. 'Just look at that magnificent Virginia creeper over there, now; just look at the way the red on it melts imperceptibly into Tyrian purple and cloth of gold! ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... 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 ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... ropes and check-strings, to stand with musket shouldered, and even to glide about to right and left, on judicious pulling. So it is done: straw man is made; set upon his ropes, when the Tolpatches approach; and pensively saunters to and fro,—his living comrades crouching in the bushes near by. Tolpatches fire on the walking straw sentry; straw sentry falls flat; Tolpatches rush in, esurient, triumphant; are exploded in a sharp blast of musketry from ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... her tea pensively, and Wentworth listened contentedly to the musical murmur of her voice. Such an entrancing effect had it on him that he paid less heed to what she said than a man ought when a lady is speaking. The tea-drinking had added a touch of domesticity to the tete-a-tete which rather went to ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... not refuse to be a little consoled by the image of her young love which the words conjured up, however little she liked its relation to her son's interest in Irene Lapham. She smiled pensively. "Then you think it hasn't come to an ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... a ladie did I spie, That thinking yet on her I burne and quake: On hearbs and flowres she walked pensively; Milde, but yet love she proudly did forsake: White seem'd her robes, yet woven so they were As snow and golde together had been wrought: Above the wast a darke clowde shrouded her. A stinging serpent by the heele her caught; Wherewith she languisht as the gathered floure, ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... but poor Fairfax cannot enjoy it," uttered Sally pensively. "How long doth it take for ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... returned to the hotel with a serious demeanor. 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 ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... Breton stopped, clasped her hands, and said an "Ave" to Saint Anne of Auray, imploring her to bless their expedition; during which time her mistress waited pensively, looking first at the artless attitude of her maid who was praying fervently, and then at the effects of the vaporous moonlight as it glided among the traceries of the church building, giving to the granite all ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... 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, when all the announcements for the day were made. When ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... tea party in their own recess, the entrance to which was barricaded with chairs to keep out the "babies," as they called the little ones, who were much offended at being excluded and sat up in the cushioned window-seat pensively watching ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott |
