"Brown study" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... evening papers were lying on the table where she left them. He lit the gas and sat down. Then he got up and stripped to examine his shoulder. It was a mere scratch. He washed his hands and face, still in a brown study, apparently, and combed his hair. Then he looked for something to eat, and finally, his hunger gone, sat down in his comfortable rocking-chair. ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... discovered that she and Bruce were alone in the room. He was sitting at Mother Jess's desk, in as deep a brown study as she had been. The girl's voice ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... he murmured, following some train of thought and musing aloud as was his habit. Then, still in a brown study, he opened the roll-topped desk and pressed ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... knew she didn't care any thing for me!" and he fell into a silent brown study which Hetty did not attempt to break. This was one among her many charms to Dr. Eben, that she was capable of sitting quietly by a person's side for long intervals of silence. The average woman, when she is in the company of even a single person, ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... Dr. Alec paced up and down the lower hall in the twilight for an hour, thinking so intently that sometimes he frowned, sometimes he smiled, and more than once he stood still in a brown study. All of a sudden he said, half aloud, as if he had made ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... his thoughts may have been, they made his face at first sad, then hard; I fancied that it was of himself as a boy he thought, and of his father and mother, whom he will not see when he goes home; so to bring him out of his brown study I began to tell him a story Mrs. Muir had told me about the border. It was the tale of the last Picts, and the secret of the heather ale. All, all the mysterious little dark people had been swept away in a great massacre by the Scots after centuries ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... thought of the poor editor, leaning over his chair in a brown study, biting the pen-handle, and wondering how he can please "A Constant Subscriber," who objects to the rather light nature of the articles he is now giving to the public; or, "Sacerdos," who does not like poetry; or, "Senex," who asks sarcastically: Is he putting himself in ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... Kate," said the king, rousing himself with an effort from his brown study; "come, we will go down into God's free air. Perhaps He is nearer to us there, and may illuminate us with good thoughts and ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... crossed on his back, he walked up and down the pavements, lost in a brown study; he seemed to be looking for some one, or expecting some one. If his eyes met the glance of other eyes, he did not respond to the question in them; if anybody tried to make his acquaintance, he would never talk of ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... driving trousers steamed in the car's warmth. His shoulders dried in a little cloud of vapor. He noticed none of these things, but stared ahead, his gaze vacant, the bronze of his face set in the lines of a brown study, his strong capable hands hanging purposeless between his knees. The ride to Mackinaw City was six hours long, and the train in addition lost some ninety minutes; but in all this distance Thorpe never altered his pose nor his fixed attitude of ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... the window-seat as soon as he was left alone, and fell into a brown study. Somehow he could not make it out at all. He was sharp-witted by nature, and years of suffering and forced inaction had made him more thoughtful than most boys of his age. He had long ago grasped the idea that his idolised hero was not happy, and during their stay in Scotland some dim surmise of ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... young man, but the image of his sister haunted her. How stylish she was, yet how simple and quiet! "I wonder," thought Flossy to herself, "if I could ever become like her." The reflection threw her into a brown study in which she remained for weeks, and during which she refused the hand of a staid and respectable townsman, who, in her father's words, was ready to take her with all her follies. David Price was disappointed. He loved this independent daughter, and he had hopes that ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... brown study, Grace," called Hippy. "I want you to settle an argument that has arisen between Miss O'Malley and myself. Never before have we had an argument. Timid, gentle creature that she is, she has always deferred to my superior intellect, ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... Jean fell into a brown study. He had caught a glimpse of a world he knew to be for ever closed against him, but towards which all the forces of his young heart drew him irresistibly. He did not dream Madame Ewans could ever be different ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... rivulet, trickled from the wood, and a rustic bridge—more for ornament than use, for a man with long legs could stride the stream well—was thrown over it. Val had reached thus far, when he saw someone standing on the bridge, his arms on the parapet, apparently in a brown study. ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... pleasant sitting there. The huge boulder against which she leant sheltered her from the wind and the spot was bathed in brilliant sunshine. She finished her cigarette and lapsed into a brown study provoked by Tony's sudden question: "What will happen if one day you—or Robin—should get married?" She had never asked herself that question. It was so much an understood thing between brother ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... For a moment it seemed as if he were about to speak. But instead, he stared hard at Maida, falling gradually into a brown study. From time to time he came out of it long enough to look sharply at her. The sparkle had all gone out of her face. She was pale ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... with this scanty information. Alfred could hardly have gone to London; for there was a train up from Barkington itself at 8.30. But he might have gone to almost any other part of the island, or out of it for that matter. Sampson fell into a brown study. ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... to me when you don't fall into a brown study. Talk now, and talk your brightest and best,' said ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... in a brown study. What impulse, he mused, had prompted Lily to give herself to Barclay Dodge? ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... ought to have an understanding with her,—I will have!" replied Maurice, still in a brown study. ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... no remark. He walked out on to the cobbled pavement in front of the inn, and when I had paid Claigue for my modest lunch, and had asked how far it was to Ravensdene Court, I followed him. He was still in a brown study, and stood staring about him with ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... Rabbit came along. He found Jimmy Skunk sitting in a brown study. He had quite forgotten to look for fat beetles, and when he forgets to do that you may make up your mind that Jimmy ...
— The Adventures of Old Mr. Toad • Thornton W. Burgess
... all about it, there could be no reason why we shouldn't see as much of each other as ever we liked, seeing Richard was our brother. But she paid no heed to me; she sat thinking and thinking; and I read in her face that she was not in a brown study, but trying to get at something. It was many minutes before she spoke, but she did at last, and what she told us is my secret, Barbara! But I'm not bound to keep it from you, for I know you would not hurt Richard, and you have ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... tennis. Indeed, now that he remembered it, her tennis measured the gradual change. She would never be good at tennis; she had no inner strength and no "game sense." But at first she had played in a kind of stupor; again and again she would stand at the backline in a brown study until the passage of the ball woke her with an apologetic start. Now, she frolicked through the game with all vigor, zest and attention, going after every shot, smiling and sparkling over her good plays, prettily put out at her ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... repeated the question; no reply. I was perplexed. Could he have fallen into a brown study? His eyes were open, and he appeared to be looking off through the forest. At length I touched his shoulder, but he did not move. I took his hand; he was dead! Shot through the heart. The roaring of ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... (He goes in. Raina watches him until he is out of her right. Then, with a perceptible relaxation of manner, she begins to pace up and down about the garden in a brown study.) ...
— Arms and the Man • George Bernard Shaw
... come to mention it." The Commandant, shaken out of his brown study, slowly concentrated his gaze on ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... two other masculine traits besides her roving heart. For instance, she could sit and think hard and practically for hours together: and on these occasions her thoughts were never dreamy and vague; it was no brown study, but good hard thinking. She would knit her coal-black brows, like Lord Thurlow himself, and realize the situation, and weigh the pros and cons with a steady judicial power rarely found in her sex; and, nota bene, when once ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... His brown study lasted only a moment. With a quick movement he walked to the blackboard, caught up a section of sheepskin, and began erasing the ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... and walked to the fence to see how the work of dismantling it was proceeding. Rodier whistled, and thrusting his hands into his pockets, sat down on a bag of straw and appeared to be deep in a brown study. Sounds of hammering came from the fence; a light breeze was scattering the mist, and he could now see clearly the three men under the farmer's direction carefully removing the fencing beneath the aeroplane. Rodier watched them for a few minutes, but an onlooker would ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... competition. Putting down the figures—150,000—upon a scrap of paper, she began to divide and to sub-divide them, as if she were trying to find out exactly what they meant. When she had finished her calculations, she continued to sit in a brown study, quite oblivious of the heap of mending which still lay unfinished ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... a "brown study." He was suddenly recalled to the present, by the arrival of the mail. The most important packet bore the handwriting of Sir Archibald ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... an atmosphere so peculiar that it penetrated even the perplexed aura of her own private life. Her mother was inaccessibly entrenched in a brown study; her father contemplating fate in the vinery. Neither of them had a word to throw to a dog. 'Is it because of me?' thought Fleur. 'Or because of Profond?' To her ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... twitched once, very slightly. He put out a hand to pick up his pen and resume writing; but in the act fell back into the brown study, the trance, the rapt gaze at a knot in the woodwork of the table. His hand rested for a moment by the ink-pot around which his fingers felt, like a blind man's softly making sure of its outline and shape. He withdrew it to ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... startled you so," he said, gently, then adding with a twinkle of amusement in his eyes. "You were surely in a very brown study." ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... out a remark it was so entirely perfunctory and pointless, that I was sure he had not in the least followed my remarks. Every now and then he roused himself and put on some show of interest, asking me to repeat or to explain more fully, but it was always to sink once more into the same brown study. At last he rose and threw the end of his cigar ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... me, and I did not know how all the planing in the world could make eider down of a pine plank. So gathering up the shavings with another grin, and throwing them into the great stove in the middle of the room, he went about his business, and left me in a brown study. ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... time in my juvenile reading I came upon the phrase, "seated in a brown study," I pictured my hero in a brown chair, beside a brown table, in a room hung with brown paper. Later, being enlightened, I was ambitious to display the figure myself, but the uses of ordinary correspondence allowed the occasion for it to remain unoffered. Let me not only seize upon the present ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... in spite of the explanation. Jessie sat looking at Henry in a brown study as she traced ...
— The Old Folks' Party - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... the King'! These verses were always the anonymous work of some very young, very poor man, who supposed they had fallen still-born from the press until, one day, a week or so after publication, as he walked 'moodily' and 'in a brown study' along the Strand, having given up all hope now that he would ever be in a position to ask Hilda to be his wife, a friend accosted him—'Seen "The Thunderer" this morning? By George, there's a column review of a new book of poems,' ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... brown study, looking into the fireplace. A little blaze was going on the hearth, and the young student, gazing at the ...
— Andy at Yale - The Great Quadrangle Mystery • Roy Eliot Stokes
... friends should Commiserate him because of the endless handshaking. That was a small matter compared with the interest he took in the ever various stream of human types. Sometimes, indeed, he would lapse into a brown study in the midst of a reception. Then he "would shake hands with thousands of people, seemingly unconscious of what he was doing, murmuring monotonous salutations as they went by, his eye dim, his thoughts far withdrawn. . . . Suddenly, ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... of a brown study. "What? Who? Why, I suppose I ought to be—indeed, I am grateful," he asserted. "Certainly you saved my ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... with blood. A certain noble lord, of our country, when he was yet a commoner, on his travels, involved himself in a dilemma of this sort, at the court of Lorrain. He had been riding out, and strolling along a public walk, in a brown study, with his horse-whip in his hand, perceived a caterpillar crawling on the back of a marquis, who chanced to be before him. He never thought of the petit maitre; but lifting up his whip, in order ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... Here I go and get a half-holiday off from the bank, and just at the busiest time, too, to come and see you, and I find you in a brown study, looking as blue as indigo, and maybe you're all yellow inside from a bilious attack, ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton
... being one of the officers' committee on preparations for the ball, so that I spent a little time alone at his quarters, Orme and Major Williams having gone over to the Officers' Club at the conclusion of their call. I was aroused from the brown study into which I had fallen by the sound of a loud voice at the rear of Number 16, and presently heard also Kitty's summons for me to come. I found her undertaking to remove from the hands of Annie, her ponderous black cook, a musket which the latter was attempting to rest over the ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... he thought how hard she worked to give her little boy a musical education, and how many comforts the thalers would buy. Oh, he would work hard for it. The dear mother would be so surprised. And he fell into a brown study, from which he was awakened by feeling a pair of strong arms around him, and being frantically whirled around the room, while a voice shouted in ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... He is searching, too. Perhaps you shall know him by the Quest in his eyes. He, too, is looking for the white presences.... You must know the world—so that you may not be bewildered. You must not be caught in the brown study ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... dry leaves as basis. The twilight deepened around them as she built. Next she struck flint on steel, caught the spark on tinder, and blew. Johnny watched the glow on her cheeks wakening and fading, and, watching, fell into a brown study. ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... that a partial outcropping of the Unconscious takes place whenever we relax our mental and physical control, and let the mind wander; in popular language, when we fall into a "brown study" or a "day-dream." This outcropping should be sought before ...
— The Practice of Autosuggestion • C. Harry Brooks
... make nothing of Max this evening: he seemed restless and ill at ease; now and then he fell into a brown study and roused himself with difficulty. I was almost glad when he took his leave at last, for I had a feeling somehow—and a curious feeling it was—that we were talking at cross-purposes, and that our speeches seemed to be lost hopelessly ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... great a task for an offhand answer, and the suggestion was made that the aged one consult his minister. Again the negro fell into a brown study, and then he raised his head and his eyes twinkled merrily, and he said in ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... that, on the misty afternoon when young Mr. Walter a Cleeve passed him unawares, Jim had been standing for twenty minutes flat against a tree on the upper outskirts of the plantation, sunk in a brown study. The apparition startled him, for the thick air deadened the sound of footsteps; and the sound, when it fell on his ears, held something unfamiliar. (Jim was unacquainted with sabots.) He stood perfectly ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... time he sat in a brown study. At last he spoke again, this time quite as much to ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell
... not seem to be listening. He had relapsed into his own thoughts and was frowning. Suddenly he came out of his brown study, and hit the table such a resounding bang with his fist that every one jumped, ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... glass of sherry which the lawyer had poured out but made no movement towards drinking it. He seemed during the last few minutes to have been wrapped in a brown study. ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... alone and forgotten in that little room. Monsieur de Granville arrived and found him gloomy, standing up, and lost in a brown study, as a man may well be who makes an ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... that sweet serenity that men found irresistible as she reached for the basket, but the man sat with eyes brimming melancholy and fixed on the violet haze of the skyline until she noticed his abstraction and inquired: "What ails ye, Bas? Ye're in a brown study erbout somethin'." ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... whom we shall soon have to introduce to our readers as a spinster of forty-seven; and second, Antony Alexander Witherington, Esquire, whom we just now have left in a very comfortable position, and in a very brown study. ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... took no notice. He was puffing away at his pipe, long-drawn-out, solemn puffs, and gazing at the fire in a brown study. ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... from autumn trees. They were having a rest on their way up to the front, and their heads were upon each other's shoulders in a comradely way, while some lay face upwards to the sky with their hands folded behind their heads, in a brown study and ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... had not been in a brown study as he went into the Chequers to "sup his four-hours"—in modern phrase, to have his tea—and to give his horse a rest and feed before returning home, he would certainly have recognised two people who were seated in a dark corner of the inn kitchen, ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... bad quarter of an hour to Madame Avelallement, the hostess: a woman of supreme tact, but whom three great artists bade fair to overwhelm. As they seated themselves at table Brahms, who had been in a brown study, suddenly proffered the company an extemporaneous criticism of Ivan's music, which he tore into miscroscopic bits, and flung upon the winds of sarcasm; after which he perorated elaborately upon his own power and the perfect ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... Cram relapsed into a brown study. Reynolds was poring over the note written to Braxton and comparing it with one he held in his hand,—an old one, and one that told an old, old story. "I know you'll say I have no right to ask this," it read, "but you're a gentleman, and I'm a friendless woman deserted by a worthless ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... no longer amused by my surroundings, I must have forgotten myself for a moment in a brown study; for when I came to, I was surprised to find that we four had drifted some distance apart, and that K—— was now whispering rapidly to the Russian officer alone, and that the sergeant was standing far away, with his back turned to them, ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... whether he had gone too far; and, as the door closed behind him, put his hands in Captain Gething's pockets and went off in a brown study. Slowly and distinctly as he went along the various things grouped themselves together in his mind, and he began ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... I commanded. And he had to kiss them both on their red and puckered little faces. Then he handed them over with all too apparent relief, and fell into a brown study. ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... of great bewilderment he endeavored still to entertain Miss Carleton, though it is to be feared she found him rather absent-minded. He was passing out of the dining-room in a brown study when some one touched his arm. ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... down to the pier in a brown study. Mrs. Loraine had positively refused to let me see Kate, at the present time or in the future. She was again confined to her room, not to leave it, I judged, for weeks, unless I put my plan of intervention into execution. ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... got only as far as Oh, Susannah! I remember once, in coming out from one of our meetings, finding myself next a solemn and earnest youth originally from my own rural village. He walked by my side for several squares lost in a brown study. Then suddenly he ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... in a brown study; sometimes sitting on the quarter-deck with arms folded, and head hanging upon his chest. Then he would rise, and gaze out to windward, as if he had suddenly discovered a friend. But looking disappointed, would retire slowly into his state-room, where you could see him through the little window, ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... the Secret Service men, intended as they were for close-range work, were unable to make contact with the invisible planetoid for which they were seeking. In the captain's sanctum of the Chicago, the operative studied his plate for only a minute or two, then shut off his power and fell into a brown study, from ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... at his cashier for an answer. But Knapp was sitting, head down, in a painful brown study, and the president himself ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... contrast," thought I, "to my miserable, stuffy little dog-hole of a cabin aboard the old Hebe!" And I sat there so long, meditating upon the times that were gone, and the scenes of the past, that I lost all consciousness of my surroundings, and was only awakened from my brown study—or was it a quiet little nap?—by the loud clanging of the first dinner bell. Thus admonished, I went to work with a will to get into my dress clothes—for those were the days when such garments were de rigueur aboard all liners of any pretensions—and was quite ready to make my way to the saloon ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... modestly answered that he did not remember when he had failed to take care of himself under such circumstances, and the father resumed his pipe and brown study. ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... too absorbed for conversation, I had tossed aside the barren paper, and leaning back in my chair, I fell into a brown study. Suddenly my companion's voice broke in upon ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... appalled him; so that when the door closed upon her, he remained gazing at it. Had he misread the look? Or—what was its meaning? Could it be that she hated him to that degree! At once the elation which the interview and her thoughtfulness for Bale had roused in him sank; and he was in a brown study when Uncle Ulick, the only person, Bale excepted, to whom he could look for support or sympathy, came in and confirmed the story of ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... depths of his brown study, Krafft looked vaguely at the speakers, and checked, but not discomposed, drew out a notebook ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... my boots just now in what the novelists call "a brown study." There was no urgent reason for putting on my boots. I was not going out, and my slippers were much more comfortable. But something had to be done. I wanted a subject for an article. Now if you are ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... to this criticism. Perhaps he scarcely heard it, for he appeared lost in a brown study. Finally he said: "Will you permit my daughter to call upon ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... truth that's just what I was wishing you would do, old chap, but I hated to break in on your brown study. Here's a supposed-to-be reliable chart of this region, which I paid a man a good sum to get up for me; but already I've found it more or less crooked, and have begun to lose confidence in its accuracy. ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... in a brown study. Like all the rest, he has been charmed with the liveliness and grace of Adele; over and over he has said to his boy, "How fares it, Phil? Why, at your age, my boy, I should have had her in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... was some river," retorted Bobby. "Anyway, Miss, you didn't seem to be listening to a word I said. What were you thinking about in such a brown study?" ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... straight tip from Miss Sally Ruth, father," he said, coming out of a brown study. "What do you suppose that piker's trying to crawl out of his cocoon for? He never wanted to caper around Appleboro women before, did he? No. And here he's been muldooning to get some hog-fat off and some ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... Tarzan sat in a brown study for a long time after he finished reading the letter. It was filled with so many new and wonderful things that his brain was in a whirl as he attempted to ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... they cannot, in my views, be any of them the sort of people to enjoy happiness and longevity!" When his reflections reached this point, he felt the more dejected, and plainly betrayed a sad appearance, and all he did was to droop his head and to plunge in a brown study. ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... gone Mr. Marshall sat in a brown study for a few moments. Then he summoned his superintendent ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... the day in a brown study. It was clear to me that some destiny had prearranged this meeting. Here was this man travelling prosperously as a first-class passenger with all the appurtenances of respectability. I alone had seen him invoking strange gods in the moonlight, I alone knew of the devilry in his heart, and I could ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... men there; and though so handsome, he didn't appear the least conceited. I began to wonder whether all could be true that I had heard of him, and to think that a man who liked such early walks could not possibly be the roue and "good-for-nothing" they made him out. I was roused out of a brown study by Cousin John's voice in my ear, "Now then, Kate, for our waltz. The room's a little clearer, so we can go the 'pace' if you like." And away we went to "the Odalisque" faster than any other couple ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... taking up the bottle, refilled their glasses. Then, catching the dull, brooding eye of Mr. Stobell as that plain-spoken man sat in a brown study trying to separate the serious from the jocular, he drank success to their search. He was about to give vent to further pleasantries when he was stopped by the mysterious behaviour of Mr. Chalk, who, first laying a finger on his lip to ensure silence, frowned severely and ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... to announce that supper was ready, found John, seated in his chamber of dead ladies, his arms folded, his legs crossed, his eyes fixed, a frown upon his prone brow; his spirit apparently rapt in a brown study. ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... ulster pocket. But, curiously enough, the sight of her face only intensified an impression that had been strong on him during the last part of their walk—the impression that she was a long way off. It wasn't the familiar contemplative brown study, either. There was an active eager excitement about it that made it more beautiful than ever he had seen it before. But it was as if she were looking at something he couldn't see—listening to ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... walked slowly in the opposite direction in a brown study, leaving his thumbs in his armholes, and playing la ci darem with his fingers on his waistcoat. He played it twice or thrice before he stopped to knock a phenomenal ash off his cigar. Then he spoke, and ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... days, if I remember," began Sefton, "after my military friend left, when one night I found myself alone in the drawing-room, just waked from a brown study. No one had said good-night to me. I looked at my watch; it was half past eleven. I rose and went. My ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... brown study when Sir William called the health of the ladies, with some jocose words of compliment to them, congratulation to ourselves. I rose mechanically after the other gentlemen, glass in hand, to hear Mr. Stewart make pleasant ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... back from his walk, white and worn and haggard, and the woman was touched at his distress. As the evening wore on she muttered some expression of sorrow, something approaching to contrition. Boulte came out of a brown study and said, 'Oh, that! I wasn't thinking about that. By the way, what does Kurrell say to ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... parted. On entering his own room, Quirk, closing his door, stood for some time leaning against the side of the window, with his hands in his pockets, and his eyes instinctively resting on his banker's book, which lay on the table. He was in a very brown study, the subject on which his thoughts were busied, being the prudence or imprudence of leaving Titmouse thus in the hands of Gammon. It might be all very well for Quirk to assert his self-confidence when in Gammon's presence; but he did not really feel it. He never left Gammon ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... on the word of a Christian, that as I sat down to begin this chapter, being somewhat in a brown study, the pen insensibly slipped from my hand, and leaning back in my chair, I fell to gazing in the fire. It is the end of June, and a remarkably cold evening, even for that time of year. And while I was so gazing I felt something crawling just by the nape of the neck, ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the luckless Tartarin was in his study, in a brown study himself, when he saw the commandant stride in, stern, wearing black gloves, buttoned up to ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... brown study several times over these circumstances and her father's manner before she went to ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... head, and then seemed to fall into a brown study, but suddenly, seeing that they were all waiting for the song, he cleared up his throat, and after several false starts sang ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris
... person is lost in thought with his mind absent, or, as it is sometimes said, "when he is in a brown study," he does not frown, but his eyes appear vacant. The lower eyelids are generally raised and wrinkled, in the same manner as when a short-sighted person tries to distinguish a distant object; and the upper orbicular muscles are at ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... the terrace—the same, in fact, in which she had taken measurements for John's new tunic. She was embroidering it now with the Bearnais badge, and had spread Barboux's tunic on the gun-breach to give her the pattern. John, passing along the terrace in a brown study, while his eyes followed the evolutions of Sergeant Bedard's men at morning parade in the square below, did not catch sight of her until she called to him to come ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... a brown study. He reflected on the admirable manner Hiram had performed his duties; he could not shut his eyes to the fact that several excellent customers had been secured through his influence; he considered the respectability of the Meeker family, and called to mind how indifferent ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... Had her father only avoided the clutches of the demon drink, by taking the pledge or those powders the drink habit cured in Pearson's Weekly, she might now be rolling in her carriage, second to none. Over and over had she told herself that as she mused by the dying embers in a brown study without the lamp because she hated two lights or oftentimes gazing out of the window dreamily by the hour at the rain falling on the rusty bucket, thinking. But that vile decoction which has ruined so many hearths and homes had cist its ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... for the door; But in such a dilemma, I warn you, beware How you enter in haste such a dark thoroughfare; For all who have pass'd through the passage they say, Have terribly painted their coats by the way. Poor Bruin declared it was unbearable quite, And was in a brown study till day turn'd to night; The Axis turn'd round in his rage, and just then The Sloth look'd as black as the ink in my pen. The soft, silky, self-colour'd Puma felt pain, Pale as ashes with anger he could not restrain; ...
— The Peacock 'At Home' AND The Butterfly's Ball AND The Fancy Fair • Catherine Ann Dorset
... rude crutches, while the whole rigid body, like a ship's long barometer on gimbals, swung to and fro, mechanically faithful to the motion of the boat. Looking downward while he swung, the cripple seemed in a brown study. ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... as I will now call him—sat in his brooding brown study, clutching the imperial letter tightly in his young hand, his attention was arrested by the sound of voices on the other side of the ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... much;" and the tyrannical old Aristides returned him some coin out of the trencher with a most reproachful countenance. And now the man whom Gerard had confuted an hour and a half ago awoke from a brown study, in which he had been ever since, and came to him and said, "Yes, but the honey is none the worse for passing ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... letters. The boys were greatly struck with her; when our visitors had gone and I came back to our fire, Clay in his Southern way paid me the nicest compliments for her, and Pickle swore that she was a peach. Then when I thought the subject was exhausted Knudsen came out of a brown study with the remark, "She's almost as handsome as her sister, and ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... which I shall use for a breakfast room, looking out into the prim, Prunella scrap of garden, and that I will make giddy-gay with chintz and Minton. There'll be a remote workroom for me, far upstairs, and a friendly brown study where Michael Daragh's lame dogs may come to ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... brass cowhorn, and made a practice of sounding it as he mounted the road leading to Culvercoombe. Its note, sounding through the clear morning air, aroused Tilda from her brown study, and she ran lightly up the slope to catch him ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... in a brown study to hear. Presently she spoke. "I believe that love is best founded upon a degree of respect and veneration which it is decent in youth to render unto ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... "Follow thou me." In the meantime at the church he had seen people doing just that, following Him; doing as He did; and the whole thing impressed him as nothing had ever done before. So, when he went to the office next morning and found Udell strangely silent and apparently in a brown study, he was not at all surprised, and asked, "What's the matter, George? Didn't you sleep well last night either? Or did the thoughts of having been so generous with your property ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... paper into the envelope, poured them into the gaping sack-mouth, and lazily pulled at the buckskin draw-string, everybody sat wondering how much, if any, of the precious metal had escaped through the tear, and how soon Dillon would come out of his brown study, remember, and recover the loss. But a spell seemed to have fallen on the company. No one spoke, till Dillon, with that lazy motion, hoisting one square shoulder and half turning his body round, was in the act of returning the sack ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond) |
