"Muse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lo! within the crowded door, Stood Rounding, jovial elf; Here shall the Muse frame no excuse, But ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 393, October 10, 1829 • Various
... did He set His sacred foot within a palace, save the palace of the High Priest where He was condemned to die. Much symbolic meaning did Cardinal Felix discover in this incident,—and often would he muse ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... while these biters ply the lip, A mile ahead the muse shall skip: The poet's purpose she best may serve Inside the den—if she have the nerve. Behold! laid out in dark recess, A ghastly goat in stark undress, Pallid and still on her gelid bed, And indisputably very dead. Her skin depends from a couple of pins— And here the ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... till it gets dark, and a great drought falls upon the members of the conversazione. Then, if the mermaids are anywhere near us, they may smell the fragrant fumes which tell of sacrifice to Bacchus, and may hear, shortly afterwards, the muse of song invoked by cheerful topers. Thus the dark hours roll on jovial till the soft influences of sleep descend upon the tuneful choir, and the cabin receives its lodgers for ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... devoured in large quantities, mostly raw—producing a raging thirst. The water supply was now curtailed to a few bucketsful, but even these few drops of the precious fluid were mostly wasted in the melee for their possession. The majority of the contestants retired disappointed to muse on the comforts of the Sahara Desert, and as the stories about tapping camels recurred to them, suggestive glances were cast at the more fortunate rivals. After a few days, conspicuous for the sparing enjoyment ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, 70 Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride With incense kindled at the Muse's flame. ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... brain, and ploughing up those parallel ruts where the wagon trains of common ideas were jogging along in their regular sequences of association. No wonder the ancients made the poetical impulse wholly external. [Greek text which cannot be reproduced]. Goddess,—Muse,—divine afflatus, —something outside always. I never wrote any verses worth reading. I can't. I am too stupid. If I ever copied any that were worth reading, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... all-believing, Homeric eyes. That creative vision which of old peopled Olympus still peoples the world for her, beholding gods where the skeptic, critical eye sees only a medical doctor and a sick woman. So is she stamped a true child of the Muse, descended on the one side from Memory, or superficial fact, but on the other from Zeus, the soul of fact; and being gifted to discern the divine halo on the brows of humanity, she rightly obtains the laurel upon ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... once dreamt of an epic poem, and his early ambition urged him a step or two in that direction, but his critical faculty, which, despite all his monstrosities of taste, was vital, restrained him from making a fool of himself, and he forswore the muse, puffed the prostitute away, and carried his very saleable wares to another market, where his efforts were crowned with prodigious success. Sir William Fraser introduces his great man to us as observing, in reply to a question, that revenge was the ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... toil, trimming, and tribulation, of the dulness of dukes and the mountainous fortunes of pinmakers—is exactly L1200 a-year! and this to be divided among the whole generation of the witty and the wise, of the sons and daughters of the muse,—the whole "school of the prophets," the lustres of the poetry and the science of England! L1200 a-year for the only men of their generation who will be remembered for five minutes by the generation to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... pleasantries which now and again we observe in his informal letters, though seldom, if ever, in his serious writings. In the margin, below the canceled passage, he wrote boldly: "Sacrificed to the Muse of Prudence. ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... exerted at first, but by this time a very general public opinion maintained anti-slavery propagandism, pushing it henceforth more powerfully than ever, as well as, through broader modes of utterance and action, more successfully. Whittier, Lowell, Longfellow, each enlisted his muse in the crusade. Wendell Phillips's tongue was a flaming sword. Clergymen, politicians, and other people entirely conservative in most things, felt free to join the new society of ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... us lie; Bright as the saffron tints of dawning light, Or darker than the stormy depths of night. A prince's bride; the treasure of a lad; And yet biographer it never had. For he who writes its life must ever use Volumes to celebrate each separate muse. Fierce, fond, and treacherous, full of songs and wails, The hero of a thousand fights and tales; The love of ladies and the scorn of men; The shame of England's ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... chair was half turned round and every face turned smilingly to mine. I can even remember what I was saying at the moment; but after twenty years the embers of shame are still alive, and I prefer to give your imagination the cue by simply mentioning that my muse was the patriotic. It had been my design to adjourn for coffee in the company of some of these new friends; but I was no sooner on the side-walk than I found myself unaccountably alone. The circumstance scarce surprised me at the time, much less now; but I was somewhat chagrined a little ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... suspense that would be intolerable in prose is tolerable in the introduction to a poem. See the long interval at the beginning of Paradise Lost between "Of man's first disobedience" and "Sing, heavenly Muse." Compare also the beginning of Paradise Lost, ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... what, oh Muse! was the rage of Peter Stuyvesant, when from afar he saw his army giving way! In the transports of his wrath he sent forth a roar, enough to shake the very hills. The men of the Manhattoes plucked up new courage at the sound, or, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the scant notices of the figure that have been preserved the indications are that there was originally only one Sibyl—she was the mythical embodiment of divine revelation, as the muse was the embodiment of intellectual inspiration. At a later time many sibyls came into being; Varro reckons ten and other authors give other numbers. Apparently a process of local differentiation went on; when the idea of the revealer was once established and the historical beginnings of ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... vain, in vain,—the all-composing Hour Resistless falls; the Muse obeys the Power. She comes! she comes! the sable Throne behold, Of Night primaeval and of Chaos old! Before her Fancy's gilded clouds decay, And all its varying rainbows die away. Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires, The meteor drops, ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... Browning happened to be at Dijon, and had reason to believe, though in fact erroneously, that his friend was absent in Paris, he went twice "in a passion of friendship," as his wife tells a correspondent, to stand before Maison Milsand, and muse, and bless the threshold.[49] ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... Glimpses obtained of the toil, the baffled experiments, which precede a triumph, as in the sketch-work of Hawthorne recently brought to light, afford priceless instruction and encouragement to the sincere artist. But one who voluntarily exposes his Muse to the gaze of all comers should recall the ...
— The Raven • Edgar Allan Poe
... connoisseurs would carp at this portrait of the 'Lesbian Muse'! My guardian, for one, would ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... O Change and Time, you come Not knocking at my door, knowing me gone; Here have I dwelt within my heart alone, Watching and waiting, while my muse was dumb ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... many weeks before Robert was writing home, explaining that lawyers were men who get good people into trouble, and bad folks out; and as for himself he had decided to cut the business and fling himself into the arms of the Muse. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... excitable, enthusiastic, imaginative, but at the same time reserved. I am afraid that he is a poet. When I say "I am afraid," you wonder what I mean by the expression. I may take another opportunity to explain and justify it; I will only say now that I consider the Muse the most dangerous of sirens to a young man who has his way to make in the world. Now this young man, the Tutor, has, I believe, a future before him. He was born for a philosopher,—so I read his horoscope,—but he has a great liking for poetry and can ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... closed his eyes. "The Congregation of the Sacred Index has laid the ban on—what's the name of the book?" He drew out a card-index drawer and selected a card, which he tossed to the secretary. "There it is. Get me the book at once." He seemed to muse a while, then went on slowly. "Carlos Madero, of Mexico, is in New York. Learn where he is staying, and arrange an interview for me. Wire Senator Wells, Washington, that the bill for a Children's Bureau must ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... Horne, "The poetry of the Jews is clearly traceable to the service of religion. To celebrate the praises of God, to decorate his worship, and give force to devout sentiments, was the employment of the Hebrew Muse." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... how My thoughts were dressed when I was young But tempus fugit! see them now Half clad in rags of every tongue! O philoi, fratres, chers amis! I dare not court the youthful Muse, For fear her sharp response should be, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... darkness clears our vision that by day Is sun-blind, and the soul's a ravening owl For truth and flitteth here and there about Low-lying woody tracts of time and oft Is minded for to sit upon a bough, Dry-dead and sharp, of some long-stricken tree And muse in that gaunt place, — 'twas then my heart, Deep in the ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... Through all the long, weary hours of that night she was awake. Sometimes she would watch the myriad host of stars, as they kept on their unwearied course through the clear, blue sky, and would wonder if there was room beyond them for one so unhappy as she was, and would muse on the past days of happiness now forever gone, and although a choking sensation was in her throat, not a tear moistened her cheek. "I shall never weep again," thought she, "and why should I? The world will not know what I suffer. I will be as gay and merry as ever." And a fearful laugh rang ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... third day he found his mind still further changed. He no longer felt that God was in Pall Mall or St. James's Park, whither he resorted to walk and muse. He felt now that God was somewhere about ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... supposed to be so, from the banks of the Garonne. Among other authors whom Hamilton at first proposes to Grammont, as capable of writing his life (though, on reflection, he thinks them not suited to it), is Boileau, whose genius he professes to admire; but adds that his muse has somewhat of malignity; and that such a muse might caress with one hand and satirize him with the other. This letter was sent by Hamilton to Boileau, who answered him with great politeness; but, at the same ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... generalities as a sober statement of philosophic truth, and he aroused a hatred of kingship in America which was comic in expression and disastrous in result. It was due to his influence that plain citizens hymned the glories of "Guillotina, the Tenth Muse," and fell down in worship before a Phrygian cap. It was due to his influence that in 1793 the death of Louis XVI. was celebrated throughout the American continent with grotesque symbolism and farcical solemnity. A single ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... civilization; it was the climax of great events in the olden times; and vast assemblies were swayed by the eloquence of the budding sockless statesmen. It was at the old field school "exhibition" that the goddess of liberty always received a broken nose, and the poetic muse a black eye; it was at the old field school "exhibition" that Greece and Rome rose and fell, in seas of gore, about every fifteen minutes ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... catalogue! Inspired by the Muse of Parody, we might go on to the pages of "Who's Who," and even, with an eye to the obdurate republic, to "Who's Who in America," and make the most delightful and extensive arrangements. Now where shall we put this most excellent ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... these interesting monuments have survived their reckless doom to ruin and neglect; not even a spiry fragment sufficiently large or romantic to form a pleasing subject for the pencil, invite the mind to contemplation, or aid the poet's retrospective muse. ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon
... Finding the Head of Orpheus. Edward Berge The mourning muse has just chanced upon the severed head of Orpheus which had been cast into the stream by the Thracian maidens; short pieces of marble are left ...
— Sculpture of the Exposition Palaces and Courts • Juliet James
... agents be introduced, is himself the source from which everything primarily flows. Epic Poets, in order that their mode of composition may accord with the elevation of their subject, represent themselves as singing from the inspiration of the Muse, 'Anna virumque cano;' but this is a fiction, in modern times, of slight value: the Iliad or the Paradise Lost would gain little in our estimation by being chanted. The other poets who belong to ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... often looked upon with love and joy, was dull and hard; the trees dingy, the leaden waters motionless, the distant hills rough and austere. Where was that translucent sky, once brilliant as his enamoured fancy; those bowery groves of aromatic fervor wherein he had loved to roam and muse; that river of swift and sparkling light that flowed and flashed like the current of his enchanted hours? All ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... Valley climbed to my feet, and I sat down in the shade of the outermost fringe of trees to eat my lunch, and dream and muse, and doze away the first hot hours of the afternoon. I sat looking down over the valley; below me and to right and left the green spikes of the larches were aflutter in the wind; before me rose a great bare shoulder of hill, outlined sharply against the blue. Overhead ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... Hector Maclean, Ailein Muideartach, and the lamented Sir James Macdonald obtained the same tribute. The second of these Highland favourites could not make his manly countenance, or stalwart arm, visible in hall, barge, or battle,[19] without exciting the enthusiastic strain of the enamoured muse of one sex, or of the admiring minstrel of the other. In this department of poetry, some of the best proficients were women. Of these Mary M'Leod, the contemporary of Ian Lom, is one of the most ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... beautie, forme and hew, As if dead Art 'gainst Nature had conspir'd. Painter, sayes one, thy wife's a pretty woman, I muse such ill-shapt children thou hast got, Yet mak'st such pictures as their likes makes no man, I prethee tell the cause of this thy lot? Quoth he, I paint by day when it is light, And get my children in the ...
— Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown
... have a sad little calendar in their hearts' cupboards where they keep track of the things that might have been. "October fifth," they muse. "Why, it's Ned's birthday! He'd have been twenty-one to-day if he'd lived. He'd have voted this year. December twenty-third? Alice would have been coming home from boarding-school to-day if—July fourth? Humph! How Harry loved the fireworks! But he'd be a Senator now and invited to his home town ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... hexameter verse, in good Greek, addressed to King Ptolemy, in which he calls, not only upon Apollo and the Muse, but, like a true Egyptian, upon Hermes, from whose darkly worded writings he had gained his knowledge. He says that the king's greatness might have been foretold from the places of Mars and the Sun at the time of his birth, and that his marriage with ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... downe, The Cle, the Were, the Grant, the Sture, the Rowne. Thence doth by Huntingdon and Cambridge flit, My mother Cambridge, whom as with a Crowne He doth adorne, and is adorn'd of it With many a gentle Muse, ...
— A Biography of Edmund Spenser • John W. Hales
... whatever faults or obstructions of temperament might cloud it, he was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. In his youth, he said, one day, "The other world is all my art: my pencils will draw no other; my jack-knife will cut nothing else; I do not use it as a means." This was the muse and genius that ruled his opinions, conversation, studies, work, and course of life. This made him a searching judge of men. At first glance he measured his companion, and, though insensible to some fine traits of culture, could very well report his weight and calibre. And this made ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... "My Muse, too, when her wings are dry, No frolic flight will take; But round a bowl she'll dip and fly, Like swallows round a lake. Then, if the nymph will have her share Before she'll bless her swain, Why that I think's a reason fair ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... milk when I was nearly a baby ... only really it was mere echo-verse, that of mine, and had nothing of mark or of indication, such as I do not doubt that yours had. I used to write of virtue with a large 'V,' and 'Oh Muse' with a harp, and things of that sort. At nine years old I wrote what I called 'an epic'—and at ten, various tragedies, French and English, which we used to act in the nursery. There was a French 'hexameter' tragedy on the subject of Regulus—but ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... and the fruit. Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste. Brought death into the world and all our woe. With loss of Eden till one greater Man. Restore us and regain the blissful seat. Sing heavenly Muse—" ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... STATE: 'Twere well the cares of day to toss aside And welcome evening's quiet with a smile, But we who here in solemn conclave meet Can squander moment few to court the Muse; Stern duty calls, and to each patriot ear 'Tis music sweet, to which he quick responds, Then to the council board let us repair And these the mysteries of ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... moment of signing the contract my bosom's lord had sat lightly on its throne, for I felt my head to be humming with ideas. But affluence, or the air of the Cromwell Road, seemed uncongenial to the Muse. ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Muse make the man thy theme, for shrewdness famed And genius versatile, who far and wide A Wand'rer, after Ilium overthrown, Discover'd various cities, and the mind And manners learn'd of men, in lands remote. He num'rous ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... an' one dirt one to hit, an' a great big wide po'ch 'cross de front of de house. I 'member Mis Nancy an' white folks 'ud set out thar of an evenin' an' mek us li'l cullud chullun dance an' sing an' cut capers fer to 'muse 'em. Den dey had a trough, built 'bout lak a pig trough, an' dey would mek de cook bake a gre't big slab er co'n bread an' put hit in de trough an' po' milk or lasses over hit, an' tu'n us li'l cullud chullun loose on hit. An' I'se tell'n y' as much of hit went in our ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Mississippi Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... mystic thrill felt by a devotee in the open sanctuary of the Almighty. No man ever interpreted Nature in such inspired strains as William Wordsworth. What supremely delights the lover of scenery is that this poet's muse can overwrap the exact and detailed knowledge of Nature with a superb mantle of idealistic glory. He saw and understood the harmony of Nature's forms and colours through all the seasons: at the quiet ingleside he meditated on what ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... should be at the Quenis commandiment." [SN: THE FALS SUGGESTIOUN OF THE QUENE REGENT.] Whiche ansuer understand,[790] the Erle of Ergyle and the Priour (quho boith war than Protestantis) began to muse, and said planelie, that thay war far utherwayis informed by the Quene, to witt, "That we mentt no religioun, but a plane rebellioun." To the whiche when we had answered simplie, and as the treuth was, ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... from sea, from camp, from court, And by a tempest blown into a port, I raise my thoughts to muse of higher things, And echo arms and loves ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... midst of May; Thou who upon thy shield of argent bearest The bold device, "The loftiest is the fairest!" As bending low thy stainless crest, "The vestal throned by the west" Accords the old Provencal crown Which blends her own with thy renown; Arcadian Sidney, nursling of the muse, Flower of fair chivalry, whose bloom was fed With daintiest Castaly's most silver dews, Alas! how soon thy amaranth leaves were shed; Born, what the Ausonian minstrel dream'd to be, Time's knightly epic ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... gentler and more humane type; and after giving a long succession of kindly and learned men to the public service through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it finally died out with Constance de Theis, Princesse de Salm, who was known under the Directory and the Empire in Paris as the 'Muse of Reason,' and the 'Boileau of Women,' and with her nephew, the last Baron de Theis, one of the most charming of men, and one of the most conscientious and accurate of archaeologists and collectors. The baron died in 1874. The 'objets d'art et de haute ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... part, left much to myself, especially in the mornings, I began to muse restlessly over the future. Ungrateful that I was, the happiness of home ceased to content me. I heard afar the roar of the great world, and roved impatient by ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... word compounded from Clio, the Muse who presided over history, and [Greek: sophos], intelligent. At Yale College, this word was formerly used to designate an oration on the arts and sciences, which was delivered annually at the ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... the first garden decorations undertaken was the Grotto of Thetis, a green alcove beautified by exquisite marbles and a fountain that stirred the muse of La Fontaine to sing. This graceful conceit, dominated by Apollo seated among the nymphs of Venus, was destroyed when Mansard built the north wing of the palace; the groups were removed to adorn other sites. While the vast pleasure-house was in course ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... part, This shining branch of thy expressive art, To it's own happy labour we appeal, To that rich piece whose pleasing fiction And splendid tints with full conviction Strike the spectator, while he views THALIA and the tragick muse, Each eager on her side t' engage Th' unrivall'd Roscius of ...
— A Pindarick Ode on Painting - Addressed to Joshua Reynolds, Esq. • Thomas Morrison
... my task each day to visit the various families assembled in our town, and when the weather permitted, I was glad to prolong my ride, and to muse in solitude over every changeful appearance of our destiny, endeavouring to gather lessons for the future from the experience of the past. The impatience with which, while in society, the ills that afflicted my species inspired me, were softened by loneliness, when individual suffering ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... the acute financial crisis in the Mattel family, Papa Claude had revived amazingly, and was once more wearing a rose in his buttonhole and courting the Muse. He and Harold Phipps spent several afternoons a week working on their play, which they hoped to get fully blocked out before the latter left the service and returned to his ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... vast, an unhewn shrine, Reared the huge heap; or, in thy hallowed round, Repose the kings of Brutus' genuine line; Or here those kings in solemn state were crowned; Studious to trace thy wondrous origin, We muse on ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... handewerkes doynge / ye may make your bodyes dayly wery & crucyfyed. And therby make your spyrytes the more quycke and apte to the seruyce of our lorde in confusyon of your enemye and encreace of glorye. Beware to be Inquysytyf / or to muse on hyghe maters and subtyll. And leue them to worldely people / and to clerkes / for otymes the letter may hurte you Thynke euer [that] ye had leuer dye than ones to passe the clausures or bodes of ...
— A Ryght Profytable Treatyse Compendiously Drawen Out Of Many and Dyvers Wrytynges Of Holy Men • Thomas Betson
... quickly to restore warmth I muse upon my eccentric friend, and cannot help asking myself this question: Did he really replace the gilded image of the god Mercurius with the rest of the treasures? He seemed to do so; and yet I could not testify to the fact. Probably, however, he was ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... leads into mysteries from which the physiological Muse recoils. She has been quite willing to enter the nuptial chambers while they are occupied, but she is a virgin and a prude, and there are occasions on which she retires. For, since it is at this passage in my book that the Muse is inclined to put her white hands before her eyes so as to ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... reserved for further song; Also our hero's lot, howe'er unpleasant (Because this Canto has become too long), Must be postponed discreetly for the present; I 'm sensible redundancy is wrong, But could not for the muse of me put less in 't: And now delay the progress of Don Juan, Till what is call'd in Ossian the ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... rugged trunk of her elm, gazed down the long shaded avenue, and appeared to muse. Here and there, the sun, finding a way through the green cloud of leaves, a visible fillet of light in the dim atmosphere, dappled the brown earth with rose. In her white frock, her dark hair loose about her brow, a faint colour ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... the minstrel to Guarine, "that my muse would find a tender part at last. Dost thou remember the bull-fight we saw in Spain? A thousand little darts perplexed and annoyed the noble animal, ere he received the last deadly thrust from the ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... Sometimes she would muse upon the past, rubbing together her poor rough hands—they never got softened—one over the other. She told me much I had not heard before about my father, and her own early life. It was like finding flat and faded flowers in a book still ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... the stars, too, kindling in the sky, as if but a little way beyond; and, mingling reveries of heaven with remembrances of earth, the whole procession of mortal travellers, all the dusty pilgrimage which he has witnessed, seems like a flitting show of phantoms for his thoughtful soul to muse upon. ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Wayside, in Concord. He now seemed happy in the dwelling he had put in order for the calm and comfort of his middle and later life. He had added a tower to his house, in which he could be safe from intrusion, and where he could muse and write. Never was poet or romancer more fitly shrined. Drummond at Hawthornden, Scott at Abbotsford, Dickens at Gad's Hill, Irving at Sunnyside, were not more appropriately sheltered. Shut up in his tower, he could escape from the tumult of life, and be alone with ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... "I will now read you my Five Act Tragedy entitled——" "Hang your tragedies!" will the Manager exclaim, "Give me a farce like 'Dr. Bill,' my boy!" And once more will the poet put his pride and his tragedy in one pocket, and all the money which the Comic Muse will give him in the other. I back the argumentum ad ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 5, 1890 • Various
... thing. Better than two pitched battles gained: who shall say? He was a shining figure, this Winterfeld; dangerous to the Austrians. The most shining figure in the Prussian Army, except its Chief; and had great thoughts in his head. Prussia is not skilful to celebrate her Heroes,—the Prussian Muse of History, choked with dry military pipe-clay, or with husky cobwebbery and academic pedantry, how can she?—but if Prussia can produce heroes worth celebrating, that is the one important point. Apart from soldiership, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... cause of many a tear; For deeds of treacherous strife too justly famed, The Atlantic's charnel—desolate and drear; A thing none love, though wand'ring thousands fear— If for a moment rest the Muse's wing Where through the waves thy sandy wastes appear, 'Tis that she may one strain of horror sing, Wild as the dashing waves that tempests o'er ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... must be allowed to muse gently for several hours, inaccessible to the ambient air, and on the even and persevering heat of charcoal in the furnace or stove. After having lulled itself in its own exudations, and the dissolution of its auxiliaries, it may appear at table with a powerful ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... of his own character, in his readiness, for the sake of his friend, to part with his chief renown. But the Historic Muse could not believe that fat Jack Falstaff had killed Hotspur, and therefore she would not record ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... hurry over this, but muse a little. In copying the note, I felt almost inclined to write "M. de Platon" in order to put the whole thing in a consistent key; for somehow "Plato" by itself, even in the French form, transports one into such a very different world that adjustment of clocks and compasses becomes at once ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... in Lunacy Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Bachelor's Establishment The Secrets of a Princess The Government Clerks A Study of Woman Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Honorine The Seamy Side of History The Magic Skin A Second Home A Prince of Bohemia Letters of Two Brides The Muse of the Department The Imaginary Mistress The Middle Classes Cousin Betty The Country Parson In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following: Another Study ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... military duty; our troops entering the enemy's territory and putting all around them to fire and sword; burning farms, wasted fields, shrieking women, slaughtered sons and fathers, and drunken soldiery, cursing and carousing in the midst of tears, terror, and murder. Why does the stately Muse of History, that delights in describing the valor of heroes and the grandeur of conquest, leave out these scenes, so brutal, and degrading, that yet form by far the greater part of the drama of war? You gentlemen of England, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... much to blame: the honour Mr. Mylne has done me, greatly enhanced in its value by the endearing, though melancholy circumstance, of its being the last production of his muse, deserved a better return. ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... descending lingered fondly yet about the minarets of the Foundling, and gilded the grassplots of Mecklenburgh Square—Perkins, I say, and Lucy would often sit together in the summer-house of that pleasure-ground, and muse upon the strange coincidences of their life. Lucy was motherless and fatherless; so too was Perkins. If Perkins was brotherless and sisterless, was not Lucy likewise an only child? Perkins was twenty-three: his age and Lucy's united, amounted to forty-six; and it was to be remarked, as a fact ...
— The Bedford-Row Conspiracy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... is stormed or the bold word spoken. I am sure a fellow shooting an ugly weir in a canoe has exactly as much thought about fame as most commanders going into battle; and yet the action, fall out how it will, is not one of those the muse delights to celebrate. Indeed, it is difficult to see why the fellow does a thing so nameless and yet so formidable to look at, unless on the ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... spark o' nature's fire, That's a' the learnin' I desire, Then, though I trudge through dub an' mire, At pleuch or cart, My muse, though homely in ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... nurse? Miss Pauline is better. I was talking about Plato, nurse. The last translation I have been making from his immortal work does not please me; but toil—ceaseless toil—the midnight oil, et cetera, may evoke the spirit of the true Muse, and I may be able to put the matter before the great English thinking public in a way worthy of ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... in tragedy, Who lives that never knew The honey of the Attic Bee Was gather'd from thy dew? He of the tragic muse, Whose praises bards rehearse: What power but thine could e'er diffuse Such ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 476, Saturday, February 12, 1831 • Various
... texts which you sent me are least of all fitted for song. The description of a picture belongs to the field of painting; in this the poet can count himself more fortunate than my muse for his territory is not so restricted as mine in this respect, though mine, on the other hand, extends into other regions, and my dominion ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven
... aquas. Who blurs fair paper with foul bastard rhymes, Shall live full many an age in latter times: Who makes a ballad for an alehouse door, Shall live in future times for evermore: Then ( )[41] thy muse shall live so long, As drafty ballads to thy praise are sung. But what's his device? Parnassus with the sun and the laurel?[42] I wonder this owl dares look on the sun; and I marvel this goose flies not the laurel: his device might have been better, a fool going into the ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... lay, its bloom and beauty all gone. Ragged bits of green, mingled with dull brown tracery of vine and tendril, lay back upon the background of earth, but of purple there was no trace. In the hush of the night, the Weaver came back, to muse sadly over what had been and, perhaps, to dream of what yet ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... battle sung by the muse in the Homerican style, and which none but the classical ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... been formed a comely person, In the court of Ceridwen I have done penance; Though little I was seen, placidly received, I was great on the floor of the place to where I was led; I have been a prized defence, the sweet muse the cause, And by law without speech I have been liberated By a smiling black old hag, when irritated Dreadful her claim when pursued: I have fled with vigour, I have fled as a frog, I have fled in the semblance of a crow, scarcely finding rest; I have fled vehemently, I have fled as a chain, ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 3 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... remember the time past; I muse upon all thy works: yea, I exercise myself in the ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... presence in these old places. The voice of the guide and the company beneath had a hushed and muffled sound; and when I rustled the ivy leaves, or, in trying to break off a branch, loosened some fragment of stone, the sound affected me with a startling distinctness. I could not but inly muse and wonder on the life these old monks and abbots led, shrined up here as they ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... since, in her own love for the same art, she used to assure me that she possessed, by proxy, that other half of myself which I still dedicated to the Muse. ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... all regret, the face will shine Upon me while I muse alone; And that dear voice, I once have known, Still speak to ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... illustrious shareholders of the Mutual-Admiration Society, organized by the vanity of all to the profit of the vanity of each, kindled in me a desire to show myself frank and independent. I murmured, loud enough to be heard by all my neighbors,—"Of a truth, the Country's Muse is not Melpomene!" Madame Emile de Girardin, when Mademoiselle Delphine Gay and in the most brilliant period of her poetical youth, had styled herself "the Country's Muse"; her admirers had adopted the title, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... near, Or famous, or obscure, Where wholsom is the air, Or where the most impure, All times, and every where, The muse is still ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... Chabert The Muse of the Department The Thirteen The Peasantry Scenes from a Courtesan's Life The Country Parson The Magic Skin The Gondreville Mystery The Secrets ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... heard of a frog in an opera hat, 'Tis a very old tale of a mouse and a rat, I could sing you another as pleasant, mayhap, Of a kitten that wore a high caul cap; But my muse on a far nobler subject shall drop, Of a bull who got into a china shop, With his right leg, left leg, upper leg, under leg, St. Patrick's day in ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... juxtaposition, a remarkably close soldering. Ursule was whimsical, and displayed at times the shyness, the melancholy, and the transports of a pariah; then she would often break out into nervous fits of laughter, and muse lazily, like a woman unsound both in head and heart. Her eyes, which at times had a scared expression like those of Adelaide, were as limpid as crystal, similar to those of kittens ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... insanity. Down he dropped on his bended knees before the object of his love; out he poured his touching addresses, lisped in the blandest, most persuasive tones; and what was his answer? Scoffs, laughs, kicks, rejection! Even Johnny Russell's muse availed not, though it deserved a better fate. It gained him a wife, but could not win the electors. Our readers will discover the genius of the witty author of "Don Carlos" in the address, which, though rejected, we in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various
... output. Many of them had travelled far and wide; never again should they be sent forth into the world to bring him that which his heart had most desired. He took up one here and there and ran his eye through it. Considering the years he had worked, the output—for a young man's muse—was perhaps not large. But then he had only taken up his pen when inspiration had come. Certainly during the earlier years most of his time had been spent in reading and study. Otherwise he had had a habit ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... succeeded in getting that play right, what a difference it would have made! He would have been able to do a number of things he had never done, things which he had always desired to do. He had desired above all to travel—to see France and Italy; to linger, to muse in the shadows of the world's past; and after this he had desired marriage, an English wife, an English home, beautiful children, leisure, the society of friends. A successful play would have given him all these ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... poetry lacks passion and the most poignant emotion of human nature, love. Chesterton, on the other hand, considers that Browning was the finest love poet of the world. It is real love poetry, because it talks about real people, not ideals; it does not muse of the Prince Charming meeting the Fairy Princess, and forget the devoted wife meeting her husband on the villa doorstep with open arms and a nice dinner in the parlour. Sentiment must be based on reality if it is to have worth. This is the strong point, for our ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... delay; but I request you, that are here privileged to soar aloft with the Muse, to fix your minds upon one point in this flight. Let not the heat and dust of the ensuing fray divert your attention from the magnanimity of Beer. It will be vindicated in the end but be worthy of your seat beside the Muse, who alone of us all can take one view of the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a story dealing, of course, with an abnormal character, in abnormal circumstances. It is a quite original variation on the triangle theme. It has genuine humour, and the conclusion leaves one in a muse. "The Hobbledehoy," translated into French as "Un Adolescent," is, on the whole, Dostoevski's worst novel, which is curious enough, coming at a time when he was doing some of his best work. He wrote this while his mind was busy with a great masterpiece, "The Karamazov ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... weep or did they smile When she crooned to still your cries, She, a muse in human guise, ...
— Helen of Troy and Other Poems • Sara Teasdale
... himself displays in some of his transitions, pass to very different things, for some time back a well-known English poet and essayist wrote of the present work that it was redolent of pork, onions, and cheese. To one of his sensitive temperament, with a muse strictly nourished on sugar and water, such gross edibles as pork and cheese and onions were peculiarly offensive. That humble plant the onion, employed to flavour wellnigh every savoury dish, can assuredly need no defence; in most European countries, too, ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... Tragick Muse hath aw'd the stage, And frighten'd wives and children with her rage, Too long Drawcansir roars, Parthenope weeps, While ev'ry lady cries, and critick sleeps With ghosts, rapes, murders, tender hearts they wound, Or else, like thunder, terrify with sound When ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... Dr. John Donne, a man of justly great respect and authority, who, born in the year 1573, the fifteenth of Queen Elizabeth, died Dean of St. Paul's in the year 1636. But, although even Ben Jonson addresses him as "the delight of Phoebus and each Muse," we are too far beyond the power of his social presence and the influence of his public utterances to feel that admiration of his poems which was so largely expressed during his lifetime. Of many of those that were written in his youth, Izaak Walton ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... evident that Cornelia was not the confidant of his real relations to Kaethchen, which, indeed, would have been as distasteful to her as to their father. In another letter, addressed to her in the following August, he is not more frank. There he tells her that Annette is now his muse, and that, as Herodotus names the books of his History after the nine muses, so he has given the name of Annette to a collection of twelve poetical pieces, magnificently copied in manuscript.[27] But, he significantly ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... at such times to put on their worst clothes, to sprinkle ashes on their heads; and, assembling in crowds in the public squares, to shed tears and bitterly to upbraid the muse who had deserted them. ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... understand the progress of his mind; and "Les Femmes Suliotes" will mark the transition from the first to the second period. Turning from the simple scenes of domestic sorrow, he now sought inspiration in literature. The vigorous and hearty Northern Muse especially won his favor; yet the greatest Italian poet was also his earnest study. Goethe, Schiller, Byron, Dante, all furnished subjects for his pencil. The story of Faust and Margaret took such hold of his imagination that it pursued ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... "do not want the real thing—from you. Every man to his metier. Yours is to sing of blue skies and west winds, of hay-scented meadows and Watteau-like revellers in a paradise as artificial as a Dutch garden. Take my advice, and keep your muse chained. The other worlds are ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of Oxford enjoyed in his own times a high poetical reputation; but his once celebrated comedies have perished, and two or three fugitive pieces inserted in collections are the only legacy bequeathed to posterity by his muse. Of these, "The complaint of a lover wearing black and tawny" has ceased, in the change of manners and fashions, to interest or affect the reader. "Fancy and Desire" may still lay claim to the praise of ingenuity, though the idea is perhaps not original ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... dripping ponies, and five hundred empty porter-bottles; wherefrom they returned, as do many, disgusted, and with great colds in their heads. But most they loved to scramble up the crags of Dinas Emrys, and muse over the ruins of the old tower, "where Merlin taught Vortigern the courses of the stars;" till the stars set and rose as they had done for Merlin and his pupil, behind the four great peaks of Aran, Siabod, Cnicht, and Hebog, which point to the four quarters of the heavens: or to lie ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... great Confederate in disastrous leagues, And arms with uncleansed slaughter red, A work of danger and distrust, You treat, as one on fire should tread, Scarce hid by treacherous ashen crust. Let Tragedy's stern muse be mute Awhile; and when your order'd page Has told Rome's tale, that buskin'd foot Again shall mount the Attic stage, Pollio, the pale defendant's shield, In deep debate the senate's stay, The hero of Dalmatic field By Triumph crown'd with deathless bay. ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... the grace of courts, the Muse's pride, Patron of arts, and judge of nature, died. The scourge of pride, though sanctified or great, Of fops in learning, and of knaves in state; Yet soft in nature, though severe his lay, His anger moral, and his wisdom gay. Blest satirist! who touched the means ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... this etheric change has some effect upon light. The funeral pyre of Brighton is still blazing, and there is a very distant patch of scarlet in the western sky, which may mean trouble at Arundel or Chichester, possibly even at Portsmouth. I sit and muse and make an occasional note. There is a sweet melancholy in the air. Youth and beauty and chivalry and love—is this to be the end of it all? The starlit earth looks a dreamland of gentle peace. Who would imagine it as the terrible ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... stonier faces— Some from library windows wan Forth on her gardens, her green spaces, Peer and turn to their books anon. Hence, my Muse, from the green ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... Dryden, with even more than characteristic energy and loftiness, by both with all the inspiration of hatred. The sparkling illustrations of Butler have been thrown into the shade by the brighter glory of that gorgeous satiric Muse, who comes sweeping by in sceptred pall, borrowed from her most august sisters. But the descriptions well deserve to be compared. The reader will at once perceive ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... "My muse unto a Child I may compare, Who sees the riches of some famous Fair, He feeds his eyes but understanding lacks, To comprehend the worth of all those knacks; The glittering plate and Jewels he admires, The Hats and Fans, the Plumes and Ladies' tires, And thousand ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... that hard woman, the personification of Necessity, a sort of deputy Fate, Wenceslas, a born poet and dreamer, had gone on from conception to execution, and overleaped, without sounding it, the gulf that divides these two hemispheres of Art. To muse, to dream, to conceive of fine works, is a delightful occupation. It is like smoking a magic cigar or leading the life of a courtesan who follows her own fancy. The work then floats in all the grace of infancy, ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... Muse, the battle of Aiken! Only don't sing it! State it, as is the fashion of our glorious times, in humble and perishable prose. Fling grammar of which nothing is now known to the demnition bow-wows, and state how in the beginning General Bullwigg had an advantage of many strokes, not wasted, ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... the wheel of destiny, they give occasion to some animated portraiture, and much dull, pedantic disquisition. In these delineations we now and then meet with a touch of his pencil, which, from its simplicity and vigor, may be called truly Dantesque. Indeed, the Castilian Muse never before ventured on so bold a flight; and, notwithstanding the deformity of the general plan, the obsolete barbarisms of the phraseology, its quaintness and pedantry, notwithstanding the cantering dactylic measure in which it is composed, ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... virtuous Sleepless night Smoky receptacle cherishing millions Terrible decree, that all must act who would prevail Vowed never more to repeat that offence to his patience Was not one of the order whose Muse is the Public Taste Wife and no wife, a prisoner in liberty Women are taken to be the second thoughts of the Creator World is ruthless, dear friends, because the world is hypocrite World prefers decorum to honesty Yawns coming alarmingly fast, ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... of these was the tribute paid to women by the Minnesinger Henry of Meissen. Declining to single out any one fair Muse, he sang of womankind as a whole, and never ceased to praise their purity, their gentleness, and their nobility. Through his life he was honoured by them with the title of "Frauenlob" (praise of women), and at his death they marched in the funeral procession, and each threw a flower into his ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... We muse beside the rolling waves; We ponder on the grassy hill; We linger by the new-piled graves, And find that star is shining still. God in his great design hath spread, Unnumber'd rays to lead afar; They beam the brightest o'er the dead, And ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... Garum was made from the fish called Picarel—called Garon by the fishers of Antibes, and Giroli at Venice, both these last names corruptions of the Latin Gerres—then did the two fashionable poets of France, Etienne Dolet and Clement Marot, think it not unworthy of their muse to sing the praises of the sauce which Horace had sung of old. A proud day, too, was it for Pellicier and Rondelet, when wandering somewhere in the marshes of the Camargue, a scent of garlic caught the nostrils of the gentle ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... panting command. And, lo! slipping off his bathing-dress and standing naked to the sea. Captain Vyell was towelled under the eyes of Port Nassau, and flesh-brushed until he glowed (it may be) as healthily as did the cheeks of those who spied on him. On this question the Muse declines to take sides. For certain his naked body, after these ministrations, glowed delicious within the bath-gown as he mounted again to his Olympian chamber. There he allowed Manasseh to wash out his locks in fresh water (the Collector ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... and never was happiness more deserved. Even at that early age, I often could not help smiling at his simplicity, that all the while he was doing his best to make me one of the vainest and most egregious coxcombs, by his unfeigned wonder at some puny effort of my puny muse, and by his injudicious praises; he would lecture me parentally, by the hour, upon the excellence of humility, and the absolute necessity of modesty, as a principal ingredient to make ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... Muse, of the man of much wandering who travelled right far after sacking sacred Troy, and saw the cities of many men and knew their ways. Many a sorrow he suffered on the sea, trying to win a return home for himself and his comrades; yet ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... the royal family was boundless; his power was absolute: the treasures, of America were at his command, and he made the most infamous use of them. In short, he had made the Court of Madrid one of those places to which the indignant muse of Juvenal conducts the mother of Britanicus. There is no doubt that Godoy was one of the principal causes of all the misfortunes which have overwhelmed Spain under so ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... island of Lesbos was the hearth and home of the earlier lyric poets. Among the earliest of the Lesbian singers was the poetess Sappho, whom the Greeks exalted to a place next to Homer. Plato calls her the Tenth Muse. Although her fame endures, her poetry, except some mere ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... molested. Providence protected the poor bonito from the cruel sword-fish. This was just and right. Providence next befriended the shipwrecked sailors: they got the bonito. This was also just and right. But in the distribution of mercies the sword-fish himself got overlooked. He now went away; to muse over these subtleties, probably. The men in all the boats seem pretty well; the feeblest of the sick ones (not able for a long time to stand his watch on board the ship) 'is wonderfully recovered.' This is ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... The Purse A Bachelor's Establishment The Government Clerks Modeste Mignon Scenes from a Courtesan's Life The Firm of Nucingen The Muse of the Department Cousin Betty The Member for Arcis Beatrix Gaudissart II. The ...
— A Man of Business • Honore de Balzac
... flying thoughts and dancing feelings. A poet would be certain to have often seen this happy crowd, and to desire to trick them out in song. So Browning does in his poem, In a Gondola. The two lovers, with the dark shadow of fate brooding over them, sing and muse and speak alternately, imaging in swift and rival pictures made by fancy their deep-set love; playing with its changes, creating new worlds in which to place it, but always returning to its isolated individuality; recalling how it began, the room where it reached its aim, the pictures, the ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... can sit by the fire and sing, Pussy can climb a tree, Or play with a silly old cork and string To 'muse herself, not me. But I like Binkie, my dog, because He knows how to behave; So, Binkie's the same as the First Friend was, And I am the Man ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... "Do not muse at me, my most worthy friends; I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing To those that know me." ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... day, and Mowedale was as resplendent as when Egremont amid its beauties first began to muse over the beautiful. There was the same bloom over the sky, the same shadowy lustre on the trees, the same sparkling brilliancy on the waters. A herdsman following some kine was crossing the stone bridge, and except their lowing as they stopped and sniffed ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... justice, downcast soul! Muse, and take better heart; Back with thine angel to the field, Good luck ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... that part of human nature which is independent of it. Morality, philosophy, commerce, the various institutions and habits of society, are independent of religion and may exist without it.' These were the words of his youth, but they expressed his latest convictions. I would add, that the muse of Tennyson never reached a higher strain than when it embodied the sentiment ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... essay he gives them a piece of his mind, and he does it so well and so gaily that it is a pleasure to be scolded. First, he has a few words with "une dame, que Gerome fit heritiere de ses uniformes et qui devint la muse d'un geometre-arpenteur de certaine recente peinture." ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... miles away. His dwelling-place, surrounded with palmetto trees, was little more than a rough shelter. Diotti arose at daylight, and after a simple repast, betook himself to practise. Hour after hour he would let his muse run riot with his fingers. Lovingly he wooed the strings with plaintive song, then conquering and triumphant would be his theme. But neither satisfied him. The vague dream of a melody more beautiful than ever man had heard dwelt hauntingly on the borders of his imagination, but ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... many natural objects—but it is not true for all. How fresh these lines from an address to his muse by Wither: ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... "Lo! who in priestly vesture clad, is crowned With purple hat, conferred in hallowed dome! 'Tis he, the wise, the liberal, the renowned Hippolitus, great cardinal of Rome; Whose actions shall in every region sound, Where'er the honoured muse shall find a home: To whose glad era, by indulgent heaven, As to Augustus' is a ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... and Don Juan, (though somewhat too freely written,) are established proofs of his unequalled energy of mind. His power was unlimited; not only eloquent, but the sublime, grave and gay, were all equally familiar to his muse. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... of the rhyme and metre are of course in this case very great, and it is they, doubtless, that drove the poet into this false picture of a bird of prey laden with his quarry. It is an ungracious task, however, to cross- question the gentle Muse of Longfellow in this manner. He is a true poet if there ever was one, and the slips I point out are only like an obscure feather or two in the dove carelessly preened. The burnished plumage and the bright hues hide them unless we ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... little to record, but it would not be safe to conclude that this subject always furnished a secure field for literary activity. However, the successes of the writers of fiction and plays in our own times might console the Muse for any indignities which her followers have suffered in ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... the rapt poet's step may rove, And yield the muse the day; There beauty led by timid love May shun the tell-tale ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... masters of imagination have seldom resorted to the vague and the unreal as sources of effect. They have not used dread and horror alone, but only in combination with other qualities, as means of subjugating the fancies of their readers. The loftiest muse has ever a household and fireside charm about her. Mr. Poe's secret lies mainly in the skill with which he has employed the strange fascination of mystery and terror. In this his success is so great and ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... experiment; but his ambition prompted him to make his interest and glory coincide, by attempting some performance which should do him honour with the public, and at the same time establish his importance among the copy-purchasers in town. With this view, he worshipped the muse; and, conscious of the little regard which is in this age paid to every species of poetic composition, in which neither satire nor obscenity occurs, he produced an imitation of Juvenal, and lashed some conspicuous characters, with equal truth, spirit, and severity. Though his ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... permits his Muse a gravely jocund note in his "Seasons' Comfort." He, too, of the four fellow-versifiers shows the greater aptitude for experiments, though it may perhaps be felt that his touch is nowhere quite so sure, nor his artistic feeling so direct ...
— Primavera - Poems by Four Authors • Stephen Phillips, Laurence Binyon, Manmohan Ghose and Arthur Shearly Cripps
... note in them less constancy of judgment than he verily thinketh they have. And hereupon the said Bishop shall dissuade them from giving credit to any such report, as whereby they shall offend God in the judgment of evil upon their neighbour; and cause his Majesty to muse that they would of him, being a prince of honour, conceive any other opinion than his honour and friendship towards them doth require. Setting this forth with such a stomach and courage as they may not only perceive the false traitorous dealings ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... in silence on their platform, breathing a little deeper when deepest approval stirred them, a little more quickly when her Muse took hold of Maga and thrilled her to expression of the thoughts unknown to people of ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... Llanidloes, was appointed to the management of this little line. The duties were not particularly arduous, and, in any case, "Ceiriog" was apt to take life with a light heart. Whether he sat in his office or in the cosy corner of some favourite rural inn the muse burned brightly within him, and, from his remote retreat among the hills which look down on the infant Severn, he poured out his soul in poetry, which ranks high in Celtic literature. Welsh verse always ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine
... when the scirocco blows, you will feel as if convalescent from some debilitating fever; in winter, however, this gentle-breathing south-east wind will act more mildly; it will woo you to the country, induce you to sit down in a shady place, smoke, and 'muse.' That incarnate essence of enterprise, business, industry, economy, sharpness, shrewdness, and keenness—that Prometheus whose liver was torn by the vulture of cent per cent—eternally tossing, restless DOOLITTLE, was one day seen asleep, during bank hours, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... ballad, and verse by verse, noting the true, tender, and the natural sublime from affectation and fustian. "To this," he said, "I am convinced that I owe much of my critic craft, such as it is." His mother, too, unconsciously led him in the ways of the muse: she loved to recite or sing to him a strange, but clever ballad, called "the Life and Age of Man:" this strain of piety and imagination was in his mind when he wrote "Man was ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham |
