"Train of thought" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... our Sub-Consciousness there is more or less easy communication. It is not perfect. You cannot draw up what you will from the ocean: you cannot always directly remember a name or a date that you know—you can only set an indirect train of thought at work. Per contra, it is not easy to transfer certain conscious states to the storehouse of Sub-Consciousness—to learn a page of prose, or deposit the memory of a piece of music, which you are forced to play slowly and thoughtfully ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... and who would probably have viewed the strife, if it had still been raging, with scarcely any other feeling than one of alarmed concern, this was at all events not the case with John Wesley. There are tolerably clear signs that it had materially modified the character of his opinions. The train of thought which produced the younger Dodwell's 'Christianity not Founded upon Argument'—a book of which people scarcely knew, when it appeared, whether it was a serious blow to the Deist cause, or a formidable assistance to it—considerably influenced Wesley's mind, as it also did that of William Law and ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... sped by more quickly than Jerry knew. The keen, biting air roused him from a train of thought. He concluded to push on. He rose to his feet and stood debating ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon
... throughout the speech—the high spots of interest, as we called them before. These must not be quoted promiscuously and disconnectedly. The original speech had a logical order and set forth a logical train of thought. These should be followed as far as possible in the report. Bring in the quotations in their true order and fill the gaps between them with indirect discourse to knit them together and to give the report the coherence of the original speech. But do not carry this ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... Irving had formed a habit of jotting down in black and white her own ideas regarding any book, painting, concert, conversation or sermon, which interested her, and epitomising the train of thought to which ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... to finish his train of thought. He stared open-mouthed up the hill. Almost at the very summit, within a rod or two of the point where the crest would intervene between him and his foes, Bruce whirled ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... are they which have not seen, and yet have believed." Blessed they who see in and by believing, and who have, because they doubt not. Let us, then, at this time of year[1], as is fitting, follow the train of thought thus opened upon us, and, looking back into the Sacred Volume, trace the intimations and promises there given of that sacred and blessed Feast of Christ's Body and Blood which it is our privilege now to enjoy till ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... Dick and Tom," he muttered, following up this train of thought, as usual whenever he was left undisturbed for a few minutes. "Can it be that they have been killed by the Apaches? It might be, and yet I don't know how it ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... thus, in a musical metaphor, the great man is the sole modulator and determiner of the key in which the conversation proceeds. It is true, that sometimes, by travelling a little beyond the question in your answer, you may enlarge the basis, so as to bring up some new train of thought which you wish to introduce, and may suggest fresh matter as effectually as if you had the liberty of more openly guiding the conversation, whether by way of question or by direct origination of a ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... I do not know what Roger is thinking of, but I am following out my own train of thought; the fruit of which is this observation, made with ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... Andrea's mind, but, at the same time, a certain uneasiness. She began recalling the details of their visit to Santa Sabina one afternoon in January under a prematurely mild sun. She dwelt insistently upon the most trivial incidents, breaking off from time to time as if following a separate train of thought, distinct from the words she uttered. Andrea fancied he caught a note of regret in her voice. Yet, what had she to regret? Surely their love had many a sweeter day before it still—the Spring had come again to Rome. Doubting and perplexed, ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... the act and process of becoming; undergoing marked changes, passing through divers stages, animated by mixed and various motives and impulses, passion alternating with passion, purpose with purpose, train of thought with train of thought; so that they often end greatly modified from what they were at the beginning; the same, and yet another. Thus they have to our minds a past and a future as well as a present; and even in what we see of them at any given moment there is involved ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... an' shovel with me an' root up that old blackfellow," mused the shepherd, evidently following up a recent train of thought; "I reckon it'll do now. I'll put ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... an enemy; and he has his enemies already. On which statement naturally occurs the question—why? An important question too; because several of his later biographers seem to have running in their minds some such train of thought as this—Raleigh must have been a bad fellow, or he would not have had so many enemies; and because he was a bad fellow, there is an a priori reason that charges against him are true. Whether this be arguing in a circle or not, it is worth searching out the beginning of this enmity, and the reputed ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... this holy swine-herd threw Durtal into a long train of thought. He tried in vain to penetrate into the sanctuary of that soul, hidden like an invisible chapel behind the dunghill rampart of a body; he did not even succeed in representing to himself the docile and clinging soul of this man, who had attained the highest state to which the human creature ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... into this train of thought, because there seems to have been a concerted and deliberate attempt, this past year, on the part of certain of those opposed to the thorough elevation of women, to assert that our influence is distinctly losing ground. Irresponsible assertion is the last refuge of the force ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... used for smoking. Young men, he thought impatiently, could no longer even curse respectably. They lisped like females at an embroidery frame. When he was young, younger, he corrected himself, he could have outdrunk, outridden.... His train of thought was abruptly terminated by a group unexpectedly occupying the smoking room. He saw Stephen Jannan, his wife Liza, the newly married young Jannans, and a strange woman in glace muslin and a black Spanish lace shawl about her shoulders. Stephen greeted him cordially. ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... dramatic artist, that lies dormant or only half awake in most human beings, had in her sprung to his feet in a divine fury, and chance had served her well. She looked upon him with a subdued twilight look that became the hour of the day and the train of thought; earnestness shone through her like stars in the purple west; and from the great but controlled upheaval of her whole nature there passed into her voice, and rang in her lightest words, a ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... thought yourself back to England. No matter what train of thought you went upon, it always worked its way by one thread or another to ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... That train of thought set him to listening more acutely than before. Yet, as no more calls reached his ears the attention of the young engineer soon ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... thus endeavoured to put in its true light a species of reasoning, which, while it assumes the air and form of that inductive train of thought employed by men of science for the investigation of nature, is only fit to mislead the unwary, and, when closely examined, will appear to be inconsequential or unfounded. How mortifying then to find, that one may be employed ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... asked him what he contemplated bridging. Both were at that moment busy with the same train of thought. They knew it was ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... the train of thought into which I fell might unsteady my nerves, I fully determined to keep my mind in a fit state to cope with whatever of marvelous the advancing night might bring forth. I roused myself—laid the letters on the table—stirred up the fire, which was still bright and cheering—and opened ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... unpleasant train of thought with a snort of disgust, but it had led me to another. In the joy and uncertainty of living I had practically lost sight of the reason for my coming. With me it had always been more the adventure than the story; my writing was a by-product, a utilisation of what life offered me. I had set ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... again. She did not turn back to exactly the same train of thought. A new idea had been given her, which was to become the germ of a long train of others. She hardly put it into words, even to herself; but it was this—that God meant something. He was not sitting on the throne of the universe ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... statement, in the spirit of judicial fairness, see Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences, p. 275, and pp. 379, 380. In the latter, Whewell cites the exact words of De Cusa in the De Docta Ignorantia, and sums up in these words: "This train of thought might be a preparation for the reception of the Copernican system; but it is very different from the doctrine that the sun is the centre of the planetary system." Whewell says: "De Cusa propounded the doctrine ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... the colouring of which particular ideas are naturally susceptible, and to discriminate properly betwixt sentiments, whose native sublimity requires but little assistance from the pencil of art, and a train of thought which (that it may correspond to the former) demands the heightening of poetic painting. The astonishing inequalities which we meet with, even in the productions of unquestioned Genius, are originally to be deduced from the carelessness of the Poet who ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... I said to myself, after my friend had left, making an effort to throw off the uncomfortable feeling. But it was of no avail. Even if the new train of thought, awakened by conversation with my friend, had lifted me above the state of mind in which I was when she came, the sight of Jane's sober face, as she passed me on the stairs, would ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur
... A particular train of thought persisted in, be it good or bad, cannot fail to produce its results on the character and circumstances. A man cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can choose his thoughts, and so indirectly, yet surely, shape ...
— As a Man Thinketh • James Allen
... the axle tree repaired, we proceeded on our journey to Compiegne. I suffered much from the cold during this adventure, and did not sleep well, having fallen into a train of thought which prevented me from so doing; and I could not help bringing to my recollection the adventure of Raymond in the forest near Strassburg, in the romance of The Monk. Nothing worthy of note occurred during ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... slipper with a buckle which was a replica of the butterfly on her breast, only smaller in size. The whole idea of her costume struck him as fanciful, original and charming; and then—and then—it was only a coincidence, of course; but it started a train of thought which gradually ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... experiments! He would run no danger of seeing them rudely interrupted. His preparations were not cast out-of-doors; his precious culture-tubes were not broken; his vases, his balloons, were not at the second-hand dealer's. He continued this train of thought to the results that he desired for him, glory; for humanity, the cure of one, and perhaps two, of the most terrible maladies with ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... not notice or value, until one day the eyes of his soul were opened and he began to inquire the reason of the difference. He learned by experience that one train of thought left him sad, the other joyful. This was his first reasoning on spiritual matters. Afterward, when he began the Spiritual Exercises, he was enlightened, and understood what he afterward taught his children about the discernment of spirits. When gradually he recognized ...
— The Autobiography of St. Ignatius • Saint Ignatius Loyola
... train of thought, or rather of feeling, that can in a measure explain the aim of the attempt, made in the tale which follows, to present an unrestful episode in the obscure lives of a few individuals out of all the disregarded multitude of the bewildered, the ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... Belit of Nippur. To account for this curious statement on the part of the Assyrian scribes, it is only necessary to bear in mind that the name Belit signifies 'lady,' and Ishtar is constantly spoken of as the Belit or lady of battle. Much the same train of thought that led to regarding Bel in the sense of 'lord,' merely as a title of Marduk, gave rise to the use of 'Belit,' as the title of the great 'lady' of the Assyrian pantheon.[252] From this it is but a small—but ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... poured out a story of terror. "Mano, nera, mano nera—the Black Hand," she repeated over and over again, and Edward, who had heard her history, realized that something she had seen had set her mind in the old train of thought. While Miss Merriam attended to the children he calmed the woman and then turned her over to Mrs. Schuler with instructions to put her to bed in a darkened room and to see that some one stayed with her or ...
— Ethel Morton at Rose House • Mabell S. C. Smith
... palm-branches. For four mortal hours, we remained kneeling or sitting on the floor, and thankful we were when it was all over, and we could make our way once more into the fresh air. From this day, during the whole week, all business is suspended, and but one train of thought occupies all classes, from the highest to the lowest. The peasants flock from every quarter, shops are shut, churches are opened; and the Divine Tragedy enacted in Syria eighteen hundred years ago, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... astonishment and dismay as a dish of fruit and of white bread were brought forward by two of the ducal guards, on a costly salver wrought with the arms of Venice. It was like the simple refreshment they had often carried to Fra Paolo's cell when he had been absorbed by some train of thought, which, according to his wont, he would not suspend for any hour of sleep or meals until the problem had been conquered. Fra Giulio trembled; he would have said those were the very grapes he had chosen to tempt Fra Paolo's slender appetite,—white, with the veins of purple,—all as he had left them ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... experience a sentiment of astonishment at finding that we may examine, weigh, and analyze bodies that appertain p 137 to the outer world. This awakens, by the power of the imagination, a meditative, spiritual train of thought, where the untutored mind perceives only scintillations of light in the firmament, and sees in the blackened stone that falls from the exploded cloud nothing beyond the rough product of ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... breaking in upon a somewhat unpleasant train of thought conjured up by this intelligence, "will you come an' be 'Little-John under the ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... went steadily forward, well content; till, on rounding a sharp corner, Shaitan stopped dead, his forefeet firmly planted on the roadway, his sensitive ears thrust forward; and Lenox, who had fallen into an absorbing train of thought, found himself confronted by ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... abruptly into another train of thought, which was not at first without causing some uneasiness ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... book on the table and taking his knee between his hands, while he dazzled her by speaking from the abstraction of one who has carried on a train of thought quite different from that on which he seemed to be intent,—"Chicago is the place for me. I don't think I can stand Equity much longer. You know that chum of mine I told you about; he's written to me to come out there and go into the law ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... of conversion. He was fascinated by its approach, by its overpowering logic. For a train of thought is never false. The falsehood lies deep in the necessities of existence, in secret fears and half-formed ambitions, in the secret confidence combined with a secret mistrust of ourselves, in the love of hope and the dread ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... morbid and querulous. Philip felt vaguely that he was himself in the same case, but with him it was the conduct of his life as a whole that perplexed him. That was his means of self-expression, and what he must do with it was not clear. But he had no time to continue with this train of thought, for Lawson poured out a frank recital of his affair with Ruth Chalice. She had left him for a young student who had just come from England, and was behaving in a scandalous fashion. Lawson really ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... but Confucius taught him better [6]. And in fine, it is only the sage who can fully exemplify the Mean [7]. All these citations do not throw any light on the ideas presented in the first chapter. On the contrary, they interrupt the train of thought. Instead of showing us how virtue, or the path of duty is in accordance with our Heaven-given nature, they lead us to think of it as a mean between two extremes. Each extreme may be a violation of the law of our nature, but that is ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) • James Legge
... given rise to this long and complicated train of thought was the portrait of a young woman in Quaker dress, her hair rolled back above a low and subtle brow, her lace kerchief demurely folded over a white neck. Her head was bent a little to one side, and rested upon her hand. At her breast sparkled a ruby,—a ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... This train of thought is philosophically exemplified in the character of Abraham, who opposed in Chaldaea the first introduction of idolatry, (Koran, c. 6, p. 106. D'Herbelot, Bibliot. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... work he undertook was profitable as well as interesting. Only, declared the man who was not Rose's husband, it was senseless—suffocating! Rodney tried, with an athletic sweep of his will, to crowd that train of thought out of his mind as, with his hand, he had swept the papers that ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... in back, I sadly regarded the other one occupying most of the front seat. If she had at least given me her name I would have searched and searched until I found her. This train of thought reminded me of Le ffacase's command to find Miss Francis and so I concentrated my attention on getting away from the ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... proceeding in the same train of thought, I say that the greatest ignorance was the ruin of the Dorian power, and that now, as then, ignorance is ruin. And if this be true, the legislator must endeavour to implant wisdom in states, and banish ignorance to the utmost of ...
— Laws • Plato
... dependent on their good will he woos their favour by prayer and sacrifice. This personification of the various aspects of external nature is one of the most fruitful sources of polytheism. The spirits and gods created by this train of thought may be called spirits and gods of nature to distinguish them from the human gods, by which I mean the living men and women who are believed by their worshippers to be inspired or possessed ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... entrance of Rorie, and the beginning of our meal, did not detach him from his train of thought beyond a moment. He condescended, indeed, to ask me some questions as to my success at college, but I thought it was with half his mind; and even in his extempore grace, which was, as usual, long and wandering, ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Trix's mind should have leapt to this entirely erroneous conclusion. For the last fortnight it had been full of her discovery. The smallest thing that seemed to bear on it, instantly appeared actually to do so. And everything in her present train of thought fitted in with astonishing accuracy. Each little incident in Pia's late behaviour fell into ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... on would have got on," said the philosopher, following up his train of thought. "If you would just go out and get them things I spoke to you about, Mrs. Church, we shall be ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... has plunged me into an endless train of thought. I see now that the convent can never take the place of mother to a girl. I beg of you, my grand angel with the black eyes, so pure and proud, so serious and so pretty, do not turn away from these cries, which the first ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... even the most imperfect form of speech could have come into use; but we may confidently believe that the continued use and advancement of this power would have reacted on the mind itself, by enabling and encouraging it to carry on long trains of thought. A complex train of thought can no more be carried on without the aid of words, whether spoken or silent, than a long calculation without the use of figures or algebra. It appears, also, that even an ordinary train of thought almost requires, ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... like him a lot, the queer little man, I mean," said Amy, evidently following out her own train of thought. "He seems kind of fussy and peculiar but he has ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge - or, The Hermit of Moonlight Falls • Laura Lee Hope
... stormy argument than a wordless acceptance of the situation. Chaffering in these sorts of bargains means that a man can look after his interests. "A man who is ready to pay you anything you ask will pay nothing," old Sechard was saying to himself. While he tried to follow his son's train of thought, he went through the list of odds and ends of plant needed by a country business, drawing David now to a hot-press, now to a cutting-press, bragging of ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... of the spark that shall blaze a glorious star, or burn a lurid conflagration for ever." He stopped; he raised his eyes to the face of Faith, whose own were fastened on him, and gazed fondly on her; his features assumed a softened expression; and, as if a new train of thought had driven out the old, he added, "blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... Elmsl. on Soph. Oed. C. 273. The student must carefully observe the hidden train of thought pervading Agamemnon's replies. ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... why you think so," said the secretary resentfully to the boy. "Barnabas Brumble isn't the only farmer in the world. Sometimes," he added, pursuing a train of thought beyond the boy's knowledge, "it seems as if no one but farmers ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... shall be glad of dinner!" she rose and opened her cane trunk. Though she knew exactly where they were, she was some time finding the pincers, because there were so many interesting things above them, each raising a different train of thought. A pair of field-glasses, the very latest—the man had said—for darling Derek; they would be so useful to keep his mind from thinking about things that it was no good thinking about. And for dear Flora (how wonderful that she could write poetry—poetry!) a really splendid, and perfectly new, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... a familiar train of thought, leading on to all kinds of well-known reflections, from the old wonder, why Theresa had ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... o'clock in the morning. I thought of our recent conversation; above all I thought of the girl who had delivered the message to Eltham, the girl whom he had described as a French maid—whose personal charm had so completely enlisted his sympathies. Now, to this train of thought came a new one, and, adding it, my suspicion became almost ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... the patient again: "But I have my notes on the case—on his condition." "But his name?" she came out with, "so that you can send your bill; you put that down?" "His name?" repeated the Doctor slowly, a slight frown of annoyance coming over his face as his train of thought was by then definitely derailed. "His name? No. Didn't ...
— Some Personal Recollections of Dr. Janeway • James Bayard Clark
... entirely, the force evolved in the processes of chemical composition and decomposition which constitute the body of nutrition: the force so liberated becomes a fund upon which every muscular and every nervous action, as of a train of thought, is a draft. It is in this sense only that, according to the best lights of science, volition is an originating cause. Volition, therefore, does not answer to the idea of a First Cause; since Force must, in every instance, be assumed as prior to it; and there is not the slightest ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... him to sleep off the disagreeable train of thought, and as I bade him good night, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... I sighed, reverting to the original train of thought, which was ever a bothersome puzzle, "how he can keep from kissin' you when he puts the spoon in your mouth. Sure," said I, "he've such a wonderful good chance ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... seem that these twin minds followed each other into the same train of thought. Fitz frowned ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... from table and walked into the next room, he tried to feel very glad that Jane was to leave them that day; he sat down, and took up a paper; but, instead of reading it, silently followed a train of thought by no ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... sure you know what you are talking about, Tode?" inquired Mr. Hastings, with a curious mixture of amusement and dignity. "Because I certainly do not seem able to follow your train of thought." ...
— Three People • Pansy
... aroused this train of thought had reached the big stone steps by this time, and suddenly turning to look over her shoulder, just as he passed the gate, met his gaze squarely. Gad! what eyes those were!—full of mystery and ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... the two girls were occupied during their leisure time in devising new schemes for the furtherance of the good work they had originated, and were so kept free from the morbid and unhealthy train of thought into which girls of their age with nothing better to interest them are so apt to fall. And thus their work went on, and the month of probation for which Minnie had asked was ...
— Hollowmell - or, A Schoolgirl's Mission • E.R. Burden
... Flint's train of thought; he repeated Hilary's words over to himself. "I'm that kind of a lawyer," and another individuality arose before the president of the Northeastern. Instincts are curious things. On the day, some years before, when Austen ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Rufus Blight touched a train of thought which had been often in my mind. Here was a man who had won in the great fight and he seemed to be camping now on the field which he had taken. About him were the spoils—the Reynolds, the fireplace, the ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... certain authors of whom Hamilton is not thinking, or in reference to certain matters which Hamilton is not discussing; but he hardly ever attempts to trace the history of Hamilton's own view, or the train of thought by which it suggested itself to his mind. And the result of this is, that Mr. Mill's interpretations are generally in the potential mood. He wastes a good deal of conjecture in discovering what Hamilton might have meant, when a little attention in the ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel
... express it, so sudden had been her entrance, and her letters to Daddy Neil, now on his way to Guantanamo for the fall drills, were full of an enthusiasm which almost bewildered him and started a new train of thought. ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... Accustomed to follow a train of thought quickly, and to act; on its conclusion with energy, I had Maignan called and furnished with his instructions before the man had gone twenty paces; and within the minute I had the satisfaction of seeing the two return together. As they passed under the window I heard my ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... Epistles, many of the Psalms, and portions of the greater Prophets. The essence of the method is to read over a short passage quietly after prayer for spiritual guidance, to browse over it for a few minutes and follow out any train of thought which may be suggested by it, to apply its message in whatever way may seem most real and practical to the spiritual problems of immediate daily life, and to conclude with prayer and resolution for the future. It is not practicable for the majority of men to make such a "meditation" ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson
... nothing about these closets, nor the experiences learned there, and could only reason from outside life. This being the case, what a pity that her verdict of those lives should have called forth only that contemptuous smile! Wandering off in this train of thought, she lost the speaker's next point, but was called back by his ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... iv. 14, for a parallel to the train of thought on the part of Aristodemus "the little," and of Euthydemus; and for Socrates' {daimonion}, see above; ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... Immediately the train of thought that our conversation had suggested must have resumed its sway. His arms began to wave in their former fashion. The faint echo of "zuzzoo" came back ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... back upon such banalities as the errability of mankind, being conscious all the time that some special and most curious infatuation must underlie this particular error. Anitchkoff's card interrupted some such train of thought. He came in quietly as sunshine after fog. His face between the curtains reminded me strangely of the awful moment in the Prestonville Museum—paradoxically, for he was as genuine and reassuring as the Del Puente Giorgione had been baffling ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... as his social hope went, though without a Christian's faith, wrote to John Morley, as age approached, "The great thing one has to wish for as time goes on is vigor as long as one lives, and death as soon as vigor flags." But the allusion to death set his mind on a painful train of thought, and he continued: "It is a curious thing that I find my dislike to the thought of extinction increasing as I get older and nearer the goal. It flashes across me at all sorts of times with a horror that ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin
... thought—" Mrs. Spragg began reproachfully; but Mrs. Heeny, heedless of their bickerings, was pursuing her own train of thought. ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... intermittent: we can think of things in isolation as well as in association; we do not mean that they must all hang from one another. We can begin again after an interval of rest or vacancy, as a new train of thought suddenly arises, as, for example, when we wake of a morning or after violent exercise. Time, place, the same colour or sound or smell or taste, will often call up some thought or recollection either accidentally or naturally associated with them. But it is equally noticeable that the new thought ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... of the willow bush, at which point the secret path across the mire began. The man with the gold chevrons upon his arm ignored the remark of his companion, but answered with words which occurred in his own train of thought. ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... in his reasonings, his inductions, and his philosophy, which had consumed a good hour and a half altogether, when he was drawn from his train of thought by the arrival of a litter proceeding from the direction of the inn ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... and his crowd had an ugly experience with those men?" suggested Jack, following up his train of thought. ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... his breath, left the door and returned to his comrades. Ellen had received her first intimation of his cowardice; and his mention of her father's gold started a train of thought that persisted in spite of her efforts to put all her mind to attending her uncle. He grew conscious enough to recognize her working over him, and thanked her with a look that touched Ellen deeply. It changed the direction of her mind. His suffering and imminent death, which she was able to alleviate ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... but unquestionably it is a mistake. The annals of theology, both dogmatic and homiletic, from the time of the earliest Fathers till now, abound in detailed accounts of the future punishment of the wicked, whereof the context, the train of thought, and all the intrinsic characteristics of style and coherence, do not leave a shadow of doubt that they were written as faithful, though inadequate, accounts of facts. The Church, the immense bulk of Christendom, has in theory always regarded hell and its dire concomitants ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... the following production is briefly this:—A lady, fond of blank verse, demanded a poem of that kind from the author, and gave him the SOFA for a subject. He obeyed, and having much leisure, connected another subject with it; and, pursuing the train of thought to which his situation and turn of mind led him, brought forth, at length, instead of the trifle which he at first ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... And here his train of thought stopped dead, while the same guilty shiver he had before felt ran up and down his spine.... Good Lord above! what was he thinking of? What could be the matter with him? Why, even if things were as they had been he ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... while as though he were pursuing another train of thought altogether, then in a gentle, almost playful tone: "If I were a woman," he said, turning to Mrs. Travers, "I would always trust my intuition."—"If you were a woman, Mr. d'Alcacer, I would not be speaking to you in this way because then I would ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... parenthesis. By this time, no doubt, Mr. Robert has entered the restaurant We shall follow him rather than this aimless train of thought. ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... young face to the other. Never before had youth sat lunching at that table with her and her brother in quite such a radiant guise. The Dean usually took his noontide meal in absolute silence when they were alone together, as he held that desultory conversation disturbed his train of thought. But since Kit's coming, it had been impossible to check her flow of talk, until now the Dean actually missed it if ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... closed Durtal put some more coke in the grate and resumed a comfortless train of thought aggravated by this too pertinent discussion with his friend. For some months Durtal had been trying to reassemble the fragments of a shattered literary theory which had once seemed inexpugnable, and Des Hermies's opinions troubled him, in spite ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... How quickly a train of thought can flash through the brain! Saintou asked himself if he loved the girl or the hair, and his heart answered very sincerely that the hair, divine as it was, had been but the outward sign which led him to love the ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... his elbows on the edge of the table again, and sank into thought. His white face wore a fixed expression, as though he were listening or following a train of thought of his own; distress and something like fear came into his big staring eyes. He was most likely thinking now of death, which had so lately carried off his mother and Uncle Ignat. Death carries mothers and uncles off to the other world, while their children and ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... expression was on his face, that distant look which no man could erase from his face by any interruption until Jeter had finished his train of thought. ...
— Lords of the Stratosphere • Arthur J. Burks
... awake now. The sight of a familiar countenance brought back a natural train of thought. But her recollection passed over everything that had happened ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... from them only by addition. Man, the highest type, must thus include all the attributes of the cell as physically expressed, and without them he would not be man. The differences between no two terms in a series can be total. If the successive steps in a train of thought must be related, so that no two notions will be wholly distinct from each other, these notions will constitute a series, each term of which will, in a measure, determine the next, so soon as the law of the series is discovered; and if this train of thought be objectively ...
— The Philosophy of Evolution - and The Metaphysical Basis of Science • Stephen H. Carpenter
... nipped my feelings in the bud when she told me she was his wife; but then he is a brigand, who threatened both my ears and my tongue, to say nothing of my life. To what extent is the domestic happiness of such a ruffian to be respected?" And I went on splitting the moral straws suggested by this train of thought until I had recovered my sketch-book and overtaken my escort, with whom I rode triumphantly back into Ascoli, where my absence had been the cause of much anxiety and my fate was even then being eagerly discussed. My friends ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... The same train of thought and imagery applied to the same subject, though the image itself be somewhat different, may be found in the poems of the platonic John Norris; a writer who has great originality of thought, and a highly poetical spirit. His ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... a train of thought in the prince. He did not respond immediately. He leaned his elbows on his knees, and clasping his hands before him, thought a while. In the silence the talk ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... and elaborate manuscript volume, of which this letter formed the final page (odd transition! by which a train of thought so abstract drew its conclusion in the sphere of action) afforded at length to the few who were interested in him a much-coveted insight into the curiosity of his existence; and I pause just here to indicate in outline the kind of reasoning through which, ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... blazed with a desire to turn the ship inside out, and if necessary search every man clear down to his bedclothes. But the thought of that flying knife came back to him, and the combination of mystery gave him pause; there must surely be some connection between the two occurrences, and the train of thought led directly to the notion that somewhere in the dark recesses of the brigantine lurked ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... to one of the most distinguished families of the land. She cautiously suggested this to her husband when he came to take his seat at her bedside; but to her utter astonishment she found that he had been indulging a similar train of thought, and had already destined the infant prodigy for the army. She, however, could not give up her predilection for literature, and the Colonel, who could not bear to be contradicted in his own house, as he used to say, was getting every minute louder and more ...
— A Good-For-Nothing - 1876 • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... of Calcutta makes me think of India, your words are the stimulus and my thought the response. Well, then, if I think of Calcutta in the course of a train of thought, and next think of India, what else can we say than that the thought of Calcutta acts as a stimulus to arouse the thought of India as the response? In a long train of thought, where A reminds you of B and B of C and C of D, each of these items is, first, ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth |
