"Meditation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said MacIan, meekly. "I forgot your prejudices." He eyed the wind-swung sword-hilt in sad meditation and resumed: "What I mean is, we might find out in this quiet place whether there really is any fate or any commandment against our enterprise. I will engage on my side, like Elijah, to accept a test from heaven. Turnbull, let us draw swords here in this moonlight ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... things could weaken a marvellous assiduity to learn and help others to learn. He it was who had most kinship with Duerer among the artists then alive; for Duerer is very eminent among them for this temper of docility. It is interesting to see how he once turned to Erasmus in a devout meditation, written in the journal he kept during his journey to the Netherlands. His voice comes to us from an atmosphere charged with the electric influence of the greatest Reformer, Martin Luther, who had just disappeared, no man knew ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... the Great Renunciation, Gautama spent six years mortifying the body and gradually reduced his food to one grain of rice a day. But this brought him neither light nor peace of mind. He thereupon abandoned further penance and devoted six years to meditation, sitting under the now famous bo-tree, near the modern town of Gaya. In the year 588 B. C. he obtained Complete Enlightenment, and devoted the rest of his life to the instruction of his disciples. He taught that all suffering is caused by indulging the desires; that the only hope of relief ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... passage, to see the men employed in taking the goods over the carrying places, or in rowing, during the Sabbath. I contemplated the delight with which thousands in England enjoyed the privileges of this sacred day, and welcomed divine ordinances. In reading, meditation, and prayer, however, my soul was not forsaken of God, and I gladly embraced an opportunity of calling those more immediately around me to join in reading the scriptures, and in prayer ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... have to demonstrate supposition of sycophants of circuses, tangents and Diogenes and parallelogramy, to say nothing about the oxhides, corostics, and abstruse triangles!" Thus saying, the old lady leaned back in her chair, her knitting work fell in her lap, and for some minutes she seemed in meditation. ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... reached, that the act now before him would have a determining effect on his whole future. The circumstances of her past had raised to clairvoyance her natural insight into human motive, had made of her a moral barometer responding to the faintest fluctuations of atmosphere, and years of anxious meditation had familiarized her with the form which her son's temptations were likely to take. The peculiar misery of her situation was that she could not, except indirectly, put this intuition, this foresight, at his service. It was a part of her discernment to be aware that life is the only real counsellor, ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... strictures. Without going so far as the old King Louis-Philippe, who used to say in his exile, "The people are never in fault"—one may admit that there must be some righteousness in the assent of a whole village. Mad! Mad! He who kept in pious meditation the ritual vigil-of-arms by the well of an inn and knelt reverently to be knighted at daybreak by the fat, sly rogue of a landlord has come very near perfection. He rides forth, his head encircled by a halo—the patron ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... were silent, Jack toying with the small pebbles at his feet, Bryda gazing out at the hills where her home lay hid, and forgetting poor Jack's presence in her own meditation. Jack was the first to break the silence. There had sprung up between him and Bryda, since Christmas, a certain reserve which seemed to raise a barrier between him and ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... George actually did pay to Macclesfield one instalment of a thousand pounds, but fate interposed and prevented any further payment. Macclesfield retired from the world, and spent his remaining years in the study of science and in religious meditation. He died in 1732. His was a strange story. He had many of the noblest qualities; he had had, on the whole, a great career. It is not easy, if we may borrow the words which Burke applied to a more picturesque and interesting sufferer, ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... closely connected by public and private ties. Two of them were politicians who had never, in the midst of official and parliamentary business, ceased to love and honour philosophy; and two were philosophers, in whom habits of abstruse meditation had not impaired the homely good sense without which even genius is mischievous in politics. Never had there been an occasion which more urgently required both practical and speculative abilities; and never had the world seen the highest practical and the highest ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... many a man do mean, wrong, dishonest deeds, in order to be thought generous, and a "royal good fellow," by his own particular friends; and Roxy would a thousand times rather have "stolen" than to have faced her mates empty-handed this morning. She walked on in sorrowful meditation. She thought once of going back, to see if there were eggs at the barn—she might take them down to the store, and get candy. But she remembered they were all brought in last night, and it was too early for the hens to have ...
— Lill's Travels in Santa Claus Land and other Stories • Ellis Towne, Sophie May and Ella Farman
... of my greatest weaknesses, because it leads me to so much sin, is my social disposition. It draws me so often into perilous conversations, and away from silence and meditation with the Spirit. Lately I have felt almost ready to say that good works are a hindrance to the gate of heaven. Pride and self-approbation are so often mixed with them. I feel that nothing has been spoken against the vain attempt to trust in good works ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... the lusts of the body and the flesh, and must live spiritually. They take this to mean that they must cast away worldly things, which are especially riches and honors; that they must go continually in pious meditation on God, salvation, and eternal life; and must spend their life in prayers and in reading the Word and pious books. But those who renounce the world and live in the spirit in this manner acquire a melancholy life, unreceptive of heavenly joy. To receive the life of heaven ...
— The Gist of Swedenborg • Emanuel Swedenborg
... different when together. What made their Enmity the more entertaining to all the rest of their Sex was, that in Detraction from each other neither could fall upon Terms which did not hit herself as much as her Adversary. Their Nights grew restless with Meditation of new Dresses to outvie each other, and inventing new Devices to recal Admirers, who observed the Charms of the one rather than those of the other on the last Meeting. Their Colours failed at each other's Appearance, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... fatigue," that he cannot fall into an easy and agreeable tone, nor succeed otherwise than "in works which demand application."[4135] As an offset to this, style, in this ardent brain, under the influence of intense, prolonged meditation, incessantly hammered and rehammered, becomes more concise and of higher temper than is elsewhere found. Since La Bruyere we have seen no more ample, virile phrases, in which anger, admiration, indignation, studied and concentrated passion, appear with more rigorous ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... food for meditation, and, if not used at once, was treasured up for future need. Marivaux came at last to surmise that here lay the secret of his inspiration, but it was not for some years yet that he expressed himself, as he did in the Spectateur francais: "Ainsi je ne suis point auteur, et j'aurais ete, ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... two of the generals ventured to consult him respecting arrangements which it seemed necessary to make for the following day. Napoleon shook his head and replied, "Ask me nothing till to-morrow," and again covering his eyes with his hand, he resumed his attitude of meditation. Night came. One by one the stars came out. The moon rose brilliantly in the cloudless sky. The soldiers moved with noiseless footsteps, and spoke in subdued tones. The rumbling of wagons and the occasional boom of a distant gun alone disturbed the ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... Catena; treading the constant round of certain common doctrinal heads, attended with their uses, motives, marks, and means, out of which, as out of an alphabet, or sol-fa, by forming and transforming, joining and disjoining variously, a little bookcraft, and two hours' meditation, might furnish him unspeakably to the performance of more than a weekly charge of sermoning: not to reckon up the infinite helps of interlinearies, breviaries, synopses, and other loitering gear. But as for the multitude of sermons ready printed and piled up, on every text that ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... while the two stand motionless and silent. When he is on top of the wall, GUIDO, who now remembers that omnipotence perches there, makes haste to serve it, and obsequiously assists the DUKE to descend. The DUKE then comes well forward, in smiling meditation, and hands first his gloves, then his scarlet cloak (which you now perceive to be lined with ermine and sable in four stripes) to GUIDO, who takes them as a servant would ...
— The Jewel Merchants - A Comedy In One Act • James Branch Cabell
... to his taste: some men prefer to play At mystery, as others at piquet. Some sit in mystic meditation; some Parade the street with tambourine and drum. One studies to decipher ancient lore Which, proving stuff, he studies all the more; Another swears that learning is but good To darken things already understood, Then writes upon Simplicity so well ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... day in the summer of the year 1259, Martin strolled down the river's banks, to indulge in meditation and prayer. But the banks were too crowded for him that day. He marked the boats as they came up from Abingdon, drawn by horses, laden with commodities; or shot down the swift stream without such adventitious aid. ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... threshold by a common difficulty. In this world, in spite of its many agreeable features, even the most sensitive must undergo some drudgery to live. It is not possible to devote your time to study and meditation without what are quaintly but happily denominated private means; these absent, a man must contrive to earn his bread by some service to the public such as the public cares to pay him for; or, as Thoreau loved to put it, Apollo must serve Admetus. This was to Thoreau even a sourer ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the Gospel of Christ, where everything is subordinated to the idea of a higher righteousness and the union of the individual with God, that the general judgment and the final condition after it are the clear, firmly grasped goal of all meditation. No doctrine has been more surely preserved in the convictions and preaching of believers in Christ than this. Fancy might roam ever so much and, under the direction of the tradition, thrust bright and precious images between the present condition ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... Hertford! fitted, or to shine in courts With unaffected grace, or walk the plains, With innocence and meditation joined, In soft assemblage; listen to the song, Which thy own season paints; while nature all Is blooming, and ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... flying form in speechless grief and amazement. Then flinging himself into a chair, he bowed his head upon his hands in sorrowful meditation. Sitting thus he did not perceive the approach of some one, who laid a hand lightly upon his bowed head, murmuring: "Blind! ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... her visitors, he went out of the house, and, lost in meditation, walked by the flower-beds. The sun was already setting. The flowers, having just been watered, gave forth a damp, irritating fragrance. Indoors they began singing again, and in the distance the ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Now you know what she was, and what you are and are like to be. I tell you again, take off that gown as you would tear off a poisoned toad from your flesh; then go down to your own room and spend the rest of the day in prayer and meditation." ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... he assisted with a highly tragical countenance, John sought his father where he sat, presumably in religious meditation, on the Sabbath mornings. The old gentleman looked up with that sour, inquisitive expression that came so near to smiling and ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of anguish and meditation had cleared his sight. Slowly he had felt his way, slowly he had come to perceive that the preservation of the Union and the abolition of slavery were so tightly wrapped together as to merge and be one and the same ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... cunningly: away, boyes, [Ex. all but Schoolemaster.] I heare the hornes: give me some meditation, And marke your Cue.—Pallas ...
— The Two Noble Kinsmen • William Shakespeare and John Fletcher [Apocrypha]
... sometimes meet in the street, but give no signs of recognition. The old man is still living, seldom going beyond the portals of his son's house and passing most of his time in moody meditation on the past. Let us hope that a heartfelt repentance may in some measure ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... Heath on the very night, and about the very time, when the man had been shot; so, with all these materials, Mr Cargrim hoped sooner or later to build up a very pretty case against the bishop. If Miss Whichello was mixed up with the matter, so much the better. At this moment Mr Cargrim's meditation was broken in upon by the voice of ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... Santideva, which in its humility, sweetness and fervent piety has been rightly compared with the De Imitatione Christi. In many respects the virtues of the Bodhisattva are those of the Arhat. His will must be strenuous and concentrated; he must cultivate the strictest morality, patience, energy, meditation and knowledge. But he is also a devotee, a bhakta: he adores all the Buddhas of the past, present and future as well as sundry superhuman Bodhisattvas, and he confesses his sins, not after the fashion of the Patimokkha, but by accusing himself before these heavenly ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... intimates, that I may see them even with my bodily eyes.' So she smiled, and waved her fair hand: and at once, a few, a very few, not all worthiest, not all best, came nearer to me with looks of love; and I knew them each one, for I had met and somewhile walked with each of them in the paths of meditation; and some appeared less beatified than others, and some even meanly clad as in garments all of earth, yet I loved them more than the remainder of that crowded world, though not equally, nor yet all for merit, but in that I had sympathy with these ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... was not the thing to be the only one who was irreverently looking around, and my good-fortune soon supplied ample motive for looking steadily in one direction. The reader may justly think that I should have composed my mind to meditation on my many sins, but I might as well have tried to gather in my hands the reins of all the wild horses of Arabia as to curb and manage my errant thoughts. My only chance was for some one or something to catch and hold them for ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... having their own affairs to attend to, left them alone. Exhausted with the loss of blood, the poor woman slumbered for many hours, during which she never let go the hand of Philip, who watched her breathing in mournful meditation. ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... be warned not to look to the newspapers for information concerning facts and concerning the spirit of the people. The Tribune's senile clamor for peace, for arbitration, for meditation, its Jewitt, Mercier, Napoleon, and Switzerland combinations, fell dead and in ridicule before the sound judgment of ninety-nine hundredths of ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... of trees, a smell of the earth at morning, hung in the air. Regularly, every day, there was a single bird, not singing, but awkwardly chirruping among the green madronas, and the sound was cheerful, natural, and stirring. It did not hold the attention, nor interrupt the thread of meditation, like a blackbird or a nightingale; it was mere woodland prattle, of which the mind was conscious like a perfume. The freshness of these morning seasons remained with me far ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... an habitual thing, to give myself to prayer, after having dressed myself in the morning. Now I saw, that the most important thing I had to do was, to give myself to the reading of the word of God and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, by means of the word of God, whilst meditating on it, my heart might be brought into experimental communion with the ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Third Part • George Mueller
... resolved to kindle a fire; and having heaped dry sticks upon my hearth, and added a billet or two, I struck a light, and soon produced a blaze. Sitting down, I fixed my eyes upon the blaze, and soon fell into a deep meditation. I thought of the events of the day, the scene at church, and what I had heard at church, the danger of losing one's soul, the doubts of Jasper Petulengro as to whether one had a soul. I thought over the various arguments which I had either heard, or which had come spontaneously ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... Hamlet compares the two pictures of Gertrude's first and second husband, who wants to see the pictures? But in the acting, a miniature must be lugged out. "The truth is," he adds, "the characters of Shakspeare are more the objects of meditation than of interest or curiosity ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... meant to introduce this jocular note into our meditation, for we are honestly aggrieved that so many of the Christmas cards hark back to an old tradition that is gone, and never attempt to express any of the romance of to-day. You may protest that Christmas is the oldest thing in the world, which is true; yet it is also new every ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... it's "coompany, coompany, coompany," an' they think a man's no better than theirsels. A'd have yo' to know a've a vast o' thoughts in myself', as I'm noane willing to lay out for t' benefit o' every man. A've niver gotten time for meditation sin' a were married; leastways, sin' a left t' sea. Aboard ship, wi' niver a woman wi'n leagues o' hail, and upo' t' masthead, in ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... credited you with sufficient manhood to dare it. It only goes to show how shortsighted we humans are, how incomprehensive of the workings of the human heart and soul; we think we know—and find ourselves utterly confounded, as I am now." He was silent for a few minutes, apparently deep in meditation. ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... ran upstairs, and Mr. Prohack sat solitary in delightful meditation. After a few minutes the lad re-appeared in hat and coat. Mr. Prohack thought that he had heard a bag dumped in ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... unconsciously stopped still in deep thought as he asked himself this question, and was leaning in meditation against a great oak tree, when he suddenly became aware of a rapid tread approaching along the narrow track. It seemed as if some youth were advancing toward him, for he heard the clear whistle as of a boyish voice, and the springy tread seemed ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... He lapsed into meditation evidently not unpleasing; then he continued: "When you've got a mother and two sisters that you haven't seen for over fifteen years, naturally you're not in such a particular durned hurry to ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... Lordship; for even those most blind and obstinate in their prejudices were obliged to confess that the archbishop was a saintly man—as was said by the auditor who went to arrest him, as has been previously stated. The holy archbishop was much given to prayer and meditation, and inclined to silence; he was modest and sedate in his actions; and he was very watchful in whatever he did that all should be ordered by the divine law—continually keeping in mind the account that he must render ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... world. A famous preacher pronounced the funeral sermon. In simple and touching words he described the peaceful passing away of the righteous, who had passed long years in calm preparation for a Christian end. "The angel of death found her," said the orator, "engaged in pious meditation and waiting for ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... He gazed at the plants, and his glance wandered from one to the other, as though he did not see them, being lost in meditation. The voice had been calm and clear as ever, but it was the first time he had ever said so much, and Unorna's heart stood still, half fire and half ice. ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... and manner, as he said these words, which puzzled me all the morning. After dinner, finding myself alone with him, I told him I was glad he was not obliged to go away. He looked at me with the mysterious smile I have mentioned, thanked me, and fell into meditation. As this bescribbled chronicle is the record of my follies as well of my hauts faits, I needn't hesitate to say that for a moment I was a good deal vexed. What business has this angel of candor to deal in signs and portents, to look unutterable things? What right has he to do so with me especially, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... money and only the remainder in good, we can see with half an eye that this man is a thief. But if the other spends a certain proportion of the hours in smoking a pipe of tobacco, and a certain other proportion in looking at the sky, or the clock, or trying to recall an air, or in meditation on his own past adventures, and only the remainder in downright work such as he is paid to do, is he, because the theft is one of time and not of money,—is he any the less a thief? The one gave a bad shilling, ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... like one distraught, and sometimes throwing herself upon the bed, wailing and moaning all the while as if her heart would break indeed. And, truly, she had some reason for the violence of her grief. Not being a thoughtful person, nor given to meditation, she had never before duly considered that her maintenance was a matter of cost and calculation to those who provided it, nor reflected that she had no rightful claim upon those who gave her shelter, food, and clothing. She had been thankful to her protectors for their kindness, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... and her voice dropped lower with each statement. "One always sees the same thing. Always hears the same thing. Always the same thing." These last almost inaudible words sank away into the silent pool of Hortense's meditation. ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... this extreme intellectual indulgence, in a life the primary purpose of which is not meditation, but action, impair the individual as to his normal usefulness, and thus diffuse by example a deteriorating influence upon the young, and misleading influence upon all, but it actually leads to false views of life, and an unsound philosophy such as transcendental idealism, pessimism, indolence, and ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... by habitual fasting and general meagreness of diet to the condition of living skeletons; yet they seem to enjoy splendid health, and live to a shrivelled old age. The Brahman shop-keeper squats contentedly among his wares, passing the hours in dreamy meditation and in consoling pipes of goodakoo. Nothing seems to disturb his calm serenity, any more than the reposeful expression on the countenance of a marble Buddha could be affected—nothing but the approach of a Sahib toward his shop. It is interesting to observe the mingled ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... space of three centuries they should have treated as simply contemptible an agency which all men must now admit to have been, for good or evil, the most powerful moral lever that has ever been applied to the affairs of men, are facts well worthy of meditation in ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... letter was finished, and Reggie gave way to meditation. Everything was so utterly different to what he had anticipated that he could hardly believe he was actually in that mystic place the trenches. To his left a crumbling wall ran along until it bent ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... in meditation which was entirely abstracted from terrestrial objects. The thousands of spectators waited in silent and gloomy suspense for the final catastrophe. The sheriff stood forth and addressed to the condemned man a few ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... and children hailed him with joy, but nothing they could say seemed worth his notice; he seemed to be wrapped in deep meditation—not a smile was seen to light up his sunburnt countenance. No one could read the secret ...
— The Forest King - Wild Hunter of the Adaca • Hervey Keyes
... have nor hope nor health, Nor peace within nor calm around, Nor that content surpassing wealth The sage in meditation found, And walked with inward glory crowned— Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure. Others I see whom these surround— Smiling they live, and call life pleasure;— To me that cup has been dealt in ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... objections with abundant controversial ability, the strength of his position is due not so much to his negative arguments as to his affirmative statements; for his statements have in them the peculiar vitality of that mood of meditation in which spiritual things are directly beheld rather than logically inferred, and, being thus the expression of spiritual perceptions, they feel their way at once to the spiritual perceptions of the reader, to be judged by the common sense of the soul ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... manifesto is that which is proclaimed in the conjugal bed, the principal theatre of war. This subject will be treated in detail in the Meditation entitled: Of Various Weapons, in the paragraph, Of Modesty in its ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... he sat in meditation, still glancing at her furtively under his shaggy brows, while she waited for ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... candles there, for, lost in meditation, she had been sitting in the dark, and with reckless hospitality poked the ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... the Unity of Life—the Oneness of All Life. The Western thinkers, and many of the Eastern philosophers arrived at this conclusion by means of their Intellectual powers, greatly heightened and stimulated by concentration and meditation, which latter process liberated the faculties of the Spiritual Mind so that it passed down knowledge to the Intellect, which then seized upon the higher knowledge which it found within itself, and amplified and theorized ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... me and almost doubting that anything out of the ordinary had passed in the last five minutes. I glanced narrowly at him, but there was nothing in his manner to betray that he had not been sitting there for the past hour in peaceful meditation. Was he thinking of the other nights when the room was bright with ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... and odd thousand, it has grown to six millions. It has increased no less than twelve-fold. This is the state of the colony trade, as compared with itself at these two periods, within this century;—and this is matter for meditation. But this is not all. Examine my second account. See how the export trade to the colonies alone in 1772 stood in the other point of view, that is, as compared to the whole trade of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... observe the ancient practice of the Jews, of dedicating the sabbath day, not to idleness, but to the learning their sacred rites and religious customs, and to the meditation on the law of Moses; the like to which we meet with elsewhere in Josephus also against Apion, B. I. ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... Practice 1. Inhibition of States of Mind 2. Meditation with and without Seed 3. The Use of Mantras 4. Attention 5. Obstacles to Yoga 6. Capacities for Yoga 7. Forthgoing and Returning 8. Purification of Bodies 9. Dwellers on the Threshold 10. Preparation for Yoga 11. ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant
... now methought, I began to look into the Bible with new eyes, and read as I never did before, and especially the epistles of the apostle St Paul were sweet and pleasant to me; and indeed I was then never out of the Bible, either by reading or meditation; still crying out to God, that I might know the truth, and way to heaven ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan
... his hands, and remained for some moments silent, apparently in deep meditation. From his manner I could not help believing that he really sympathised with me, and that he was thinking of some plan ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... am; I was plunged in profound meditation." He feared not to reply, for the members had been counted, and therefore the absence of a member would have provoked an examination. Therefore, without hesitation, he ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... these extremes, whilest some laboured for defence of the ships, and sought to saue their bodies, other some of more milder spirit sought to saue the soule by deuout prayer and meditation to the Almightie, thinking indeede by no other meanes possible then by a diuine Miracle to haue their deliuerance: so that there was none that were either idle, or not well occupied, and he that helde himselfe ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... sulky meditation, sent a harsh laugh out of his hot throat, and said, "Oh, you can make your mind easy about him, if your other man fights for you like that you'll do. Thought you'd have three of them, did you? Or perhaps you only wanted ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... last long. The Raja's daughter — for the principal maiden was a princess — soon left her companions, who were scooping up water with their palms and dashing it over one another's heads, and proceeded to perform the rites of purification, meditation, and worship. Then she began strolling with a friend under the shade ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... twelve her summons came—a knock at the door, the turning of the handle, the push to open, and Ingram's voice. "Come along, Sancie," he said, and went away without any more ceremony. She got up from her chair, put her book down, having marked her place, and followed him after a few minutes' meditation. Ingram's quarters were on the ground floor of the house, as hers were, but in the opposite wing. She had two rooms in the western arm of the E; the whole ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... parochial system with the alienation of the parish teinds to the use of the monastery. But the idea of a church in the centre of a residence, is one not without suggestiveness to the life of to-day, with its many activities, as a training home for workers; as a temporary retreat for rest, meditation, and prayer to the hard-wrought ministers in the city parishes; as a place for conference on the religious problems; as a theological hall and settlement for divinity students, like that at Loccum near Hanover, where a reformed mediaeval monastery, ...
— Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys • Dugald Butler and Herbert Story
... expansion of his sensibilities, Nature had given him notice of what she destined him for, long before he understood the call; and those materials of poetry with which his own fervid temperament abounded were but by slow degrees, and after much self-meditation, revealed to him. In his Satire, though vigorous, there is but little foretaste of the wonders that followed it. His spirit was stirred, but he had not yet looked down into its depths, nor does even his bitterness taste of the bottom of the heart, like those sarcasms which he afterwards flung ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... had been great fun, principally on account of Ellen's figure, which Ned admired greatly, and now he admired her profile, its gravity appealed to him, and her attitude full of meditation. He watched her touching the gasping trout with the point of her parasol. She had drawn one leg under her. Her eyes were small and grey and gem-like, and there was a sweet look of interrogation in them ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... recollection, her assurance of prophetic anticipation, faded from her, and of the recollection itself remained nothing but a ruin! And all the time it took to dawn into brilliance and fade out into darkness, had measured but a few weary steps by the side of her companion, lost in the meditation of a glad sermon for the next Sunday about the lost sheep carried home with jubilance, and forgetting how unfit was the poor sheep beside him for such a fatiguing tramp up hill and down, along what was nothing better than the stony ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... and colour, when, stirred by outward realities; and contrariwise, how slow and inadequate is the effort to reverse this process, and to clothe with memories, monuments and sites over which the spirit has not sent a halo of previous meditation. So he settled down quietly at Lausanne for the space of nearly a year, and commenced a most austere and systematic course of reading on the antiquities of Italy. The list of learned works which ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... no long time be ruthlessly over-run by its parasite, thought, which might just as well have fed upon a plainer exterior where there was nothing it could harm. Had Heaven preserved Yeobright from a wearing habit of meditation, people would have said, "A handsome man." Had his brain unfolded under sharper contours they would have said, "A thoughtful man." But an inner strenuousness was preying upon an outer symmetry, and they rated his ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... that he could sway crowds if only the spirit would burn in him brightly enough; he had no doubt that he could sway them again, govern them completely perhaps. That possibility was cause for prayerful and lonely consideration, for meditation among the hills, whence he might draw strength. He hired a pony forthwith and set out for a few ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... school, may we learn to say, To-day is the Sabbath day, ever blessed and beautiful; welcome to its holy and happy influence! Welcome, thrice welcome, the day of sweet repose, and sweeter meditation. Spring is sometimes compared to childhood. In spring, when the brooks fall gurgling down the mountain side, when the earth begins to be covered with its verdant robes, when the birds are joyfully singing around, the trees gently waving in the breeze, and all is ...
— Our Gift • Teachers of the School Street Universalist Sunday School, Boston
... late war. The Chevalier's Guard, he declared, had all white satin slashed breeches, and red boots—"only they left them at home, my dear," adds this wag. Not one pennyworth of sublimity would he or George allow henceforth to Mr. Home's performance. As for Harry, he sate in very deep meditation over the scene; and when Mrs. Lambert offered him a penny for his thoughts, he said, "That he thought, Young Norval, Douglas, What-d'ye-call-'em, the fellow in white satin—who looked as old as his mother—was very lucky to be able to distinguish himself so soon. I wish I could get a ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... person. No sooner had he grown to years of maturity than he began to reflect deeply on the depravity and misery of mankind, and he conceived the idea of retiring from society and devoting himself to meditation. His father in vain opposed this design. Buddha escaped the vigilance of his guards, and having found a secure retreat, lived for six years undisturbed in his devout contemplations. At the expiration of that ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... a heavy silence fell over the chamber of suffering. The night before, on his return from a party given by the empress, he had received the letter Sabine had written her lover. After an atrocious night passed in the meditation of vengeance he had gone out in the morning in order to resist a longing which prompted him to kill his wife. Outside, under a sudden, sweet influence of a fine June morning, he had lost the thread of his thoughts and had come ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... man of pronounced and positive spirituality—a man who loves the Word of God, who finds meditation in it sweet, and who finds relief, strength and joy in frequent daily prayer. The depressing influences which beset his spiritual life are many. The all-pervasive, chilling influence of heathenism, and its dead and deadening ceremonialism ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... as he walked aft, and walking forward with the same regular motion, turning when his master turned, and moreover, turning in the same direction; and, like his master, he appeared to be not a little nipped with the cold, and, as well as he, in a state of profound meditation. The name of this uncouth animal was very appropriate to his appearance, and to his temper. ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... by turns luminous and dark, which checkered the ground of this path according as the trees were more or less in leaf, the young prince perceived a gentleman walking with his arms behind him, apparently plunged in a deep meditation. Without doubt, he had often had this gentleman described to him, for, without hesitating, Charles II. walked straight up to him. At the sound of his footsteps, the Comte de la Fere raised his head, and seeing an unknown man of noble and ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the subject of Lucian's meditation as he sat amongst the cushions on the marble seat. The rich sound of the voices impressed him above all things, and he saw that words have a far higher reason than the utilitarian office of imparting a man's thought. ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... on his plow-handles. The sultry August day was drawing to a close. The sun was just ready to roll its bright red disk behind the western horizon. The Deacon seemed to be in a deep meditation. He cast a glance at his beautiful farm as it stretched itself out for a mile toward the river on the one side and nestled snugly against the foot of the limestone hill on the other side. The large white farmhouse with green trimming cozily ...
— The Deacon of Dobbinsville - A Story Based on Actual Happenings • John A. Morrison
... purposes, and set the means against the end. All, therefore, who sincerely love God, are students of His Word; they here, also accord in soul with the psalmist, and like him, can say, "O how I love thy word! in it is my meditation all the day:" they eat it as food for their souls, and find it sweeter than honey. They go to it as to an inexhaustible fountain, and drink from it streams of sacred light and joy. A neglected Bible is too unambiguous a sign of an unsanctified ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... a deserted corner of a drawing-room at his club, and there Seated himself for half an hour's meditation. How should he extricate himself from this dilemma? In what language should he address a young and beautiful woman devoted to him, but whose devotion he was bound to repudiate? He was not voluble in conversation, and he was himself aware of his own slowness. ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... the prophets, or as they were called, the Seers: Elijah, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel. Usually they came from the desert where they had fasted, prayed, and given themselves to meditation. They came in the name of Jehovah, not as warriors in judgment, but as preachers. They called the Israelites to repent, to overthrow their idols, to return to Jehovah; they foretold all the woes that would come upon them if they did not reconcile themselves to him. ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... startled to be hurt. The idea of himself as a Roland Bean was too new to be assimilated immediately. It called for meditation. ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... jest of my scruples, my lords," he continued, "and think I hold them lightly; but my treatise on the subject, which has cost me much labour and meditation, will avouch to the contrary. What would befall this realm if my marriage were called in question after my decease? The same trouble and confusion would ensue that followed on the death of my noble grandfather, King Edward the Fourth. To prevent such mischance I have resolved, most reluctantly, ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... minute letters, the young Shawanoe read for several minutes to himself. The others held their peace, impressed with the singular sight. Neither could doubt that he clearly comprehended every word of the sublime volume, and they felt that it was wrong to break in upon his meditation. ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... teacher of Music; and in another, a sedate gentleman with a very thick walking-staff, arose from his devotions to belabour his dog, who was growling at another dog: and whose yelps and howls resounded through the church, as his master quietly relapsed into his former train of meditation—keeping his eye upon the dog, ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... Here, meditation may indulge her reveries in the midst of the surges, and walk in cloisters, alone vocal with the whispers of the pine. I passed this consecrated spot soon after sunset, when daylight was expiring in the west, and when the distant ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... anecdote, the mere statement I might say, that such a thing had happened on the high seas, appeared to me a sufficient subject for meditation. Yet it was but a bit of a sea yarn after all. I felt that to bring out its deeper significance which was quite apparent to me, something other, something more was required; a leading motive that would harmonize all these violent noises, and a point of view that would put all that elemental ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... would spend four or five hours daily in Bible reading, meditation and prayer, so that whereas he had written a few months earlier: "Oh! dear mother, I wish I felt more what I write!" he was now daily becoming more earnest, patient and watchful, and was gradually putting on the whole armour ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... worthy of his exalted place in history. What shall it be? A temple such as Athens might have been proud to rear upon her Acropolis? An obelisk such as Thebes might have pointed out with pride to the strangers who found admission through her hundred gates? After long meditation and the rejection of the hybrid monstrosities with which the nation was menaced, an obelisk is at last decided upon. How can it be made grand and dignified enough to be equal to the office assigned it? We dare not attempt to carve a single stone from ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... to understand you, then, that intercourse with one's neighbours ought to take the place of meditation?" ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... easy to see why Catherine's plain speaking was not resented. She rarely begins with rebuke. The note of humility is first struck; she is always "servant and slave of the servants of Jesus Christ." Thence she frequently passes into fervent meditation on some special theme: the exceeding wonder of the Divine Love, the duty of prayer, the nature of obedience. We are lifted above the world into a region of heavenly light and sweetness, when suddenly—a blow from the shoulder!—a startling sense of return to earth. ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... is a college training? We who have had it seldom hear the question raised; we might be a little nonplussed to answer it offhand. A certain amount of meditation has brought me to this as the pithiest reply which I myself can give: The best claim that a college education can possibly make on your respect, the best thing it can aspire to accomplish for you, is this: that it should help you to ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... I can remember, either in mouth or nose. She had a great gold-headed stick by her chair; but I think it was more as a mark of state and dignity than for use; for she had as light and brisk a step when she chose as any girl of fifteen, and, in her private early walk of meditation in the mornings, would go as swiftly from garden alley to garden alley as any one ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... deserted; the generals remained all day in the audience-room, and gazed with sullen faces upon the door of the imperial cabinet. But this door did not open. In the cabinet the emperor was still on his sofa, now leaning back in meditation, and now bending over the map-table, and writing slowly. Opposite him sat the two topographers, mournfully waiting for him to speak to them. [Footnote: Odeleben, "The Campaign in Saxony in 1813."] But Napoleon wrote, gazed into the air, sank back on the sofa, groaned, ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... all but tragic page, from the poet's own life. "Man was made to Mourn'" takes the part of the humble and the homeless, against the coldness and selfishness of the wealthy and the powerful, a favourite topic of meditation with Burns. He refrained, for awhile, from making "Death and Doctor Hernbook" public; a poem which deviates from the offensiveness of personal satire, into a strain of humour, at ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... they lavished their strength, when investigating a favourite science, they have wasted the lamp of life, forgetful of the midnight hour; or, when, lost in poetic dreams, fancy has peopled the scene, and the soul has been disturbed, till it shook the constitution, by the passions that meditation had raised; whose objects, the baseless fabric of a vision, faded before the exhausted eye, they must have had iron frames. Shakespeare never grasped the airy dagger with a nerveless hand, nor did Milton tremble when ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... in the monastery at Bologna for six years, scarcely passing beyond its walls. These were years of ceaseless study, writing, meditation—work. He sought the most menial occupations—doing tasks that others cautiously evaded. His simplicity, earnestness and austerity won the love and admiration of the monks, and they sought to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... was sitting near the open door. Thomas Chadwick gazed absently at the Town Park, with its terra-cotta fountains and terraces, and beyond the Park, at the smoke rising from the distant furnaces of Red Cow. He might have been lost in deep meditation upon the meanings of life; he might have been prevented from hearing Paul Ford's question by the tremendous noise of the car. He made no sign. Then all of a sudden he turned almost fiercely on Paul Ford ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... two months in Paris, where S. G. Goodrich met him. "A slender form, with a black coat, black small-clothes, black silk stockings, moving back and forth, with its hands behind it, and evidently in a state of meditation. It was a curious, quaint, Connecticut-looking apparition, strangely in contrast to the prevailing forms and aspects in this gay metropolis. I said to myself, 'If it were possible, I should say that was Noah Webster!' I went up to him and found ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... reflection, cogitation, revery, musing, meditation, consideration, abstraction, imagination, brown study, contemplation, deliberation, introspection, retrospection, lucubration, rumination, preoccupation, excogitation; ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... He had made a good shot, and he hated to relinquish his game. While he gazed in dismayed meditation, an idea began to kindle in his brain. Why could he not let himself down to the ledge by those long, strong vines that hung over ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... great strangers to Scripture, that except in their publike Ministerie, though they read many things, yet they are little conversant in the Scripture, and in meditation thereof. A dutie incumbent to ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... throne. He had left him dissatisfied; he had even betrayed his dissatisfaction by angry phrases. Mirabeau required a conspirator; he had only found a patriot. What he despised in the Duc d'Orleans was not the meditation of a crime, but the refusal to be his accomplice. He had not anticipated such scruples; he revenged himself by terming this carelessness about the throne the cowardice of an ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... mythology—created the world. But when he wished to create a woman, he found that he had employed all his materials in the creation of man. There did not remain one solid element. Then Twashtri, perplexed, fell into a profound meditation from which he aroused himself ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... it. When Malesherbes came in tears to announce the sentence, he found him sitting in the dark, his elbows resting on a table, his face hid in his hands, and in profound meditation. At the noise of his entrance, Louis rose and said: "For two hours I have been trying to discover if, during my reign, I have deserved the slightest reproach from my subjects. Well, M. de Malesherbes, I swear to you, in the truth of my heart, as a man about ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... the insecurity of landed property in Ireland than all the long list of outrages scheduled at assizes, or all the burning haggards that ever flared in a wintry sky. Her notion was to retire into some religious sisterhood, and away from life and its cares, to pass her remaining years in holy meditation and piety. She would have liked to have sold her estate and endowed some house or convent with the proceeds, but there were certain legal difficulties that stood in the way, and her law-agent, McKeown, must be seen and conferred with ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... For thou hast gathered (as a mother will The sayings of her children in her heart) The harvest-thoughts of reapers on the hill, When the cool rose and honeysuckle fill The air, and fruit is laden on the cart. Thou breathest the delight Of summer evening at the deep-roofed farm, And meditation of the summer night, When the enravished earth is lying warm From recent kisses of ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... some time in profound meditation, the young man suddenly exclaimed, "I have found what you were ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... with much emphasis. "Of course he came—the moment he knew." And after a moment of half-smiling meditation he pursued: ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... so lost in meditation that she was unconscious of an approaching footstep in the stillness of the deserted house, till it drew near to the threshold of the sick-room. The night was close and sultry, so she had left the door open, and that slow tread had crossed the threshold ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... painters of his time, and particularly Domenico Ghirlandajo, who had made a S. Jerome on the other side; and this work won very great praise, for in the head of that Saint he depicted the profound meditation and acute subtlety that are found in men of wisdom who are ever concentrated on the investigation of the highest and most difficult matters. This picture, as was said in the Life of Ghirlandajo, has this year (1564) been removed safe and sound from ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 3 (of 10), Filarete and Simone to Mantegna • Giorgio Vasari
... Ann was preparing so many things that it seemed as if somebody must surely keep her company; but when dinner-time struck, and she was still alone, there came no lull in her anticipation. Peace abode with her, and wrought its own fair work. She ate her dinner slowly, with meditation and a thankful heart. She did not need to hear the minister's careful catalogue of mercies received. She was at home; that ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... instincts; a general realizing that wisdom can come only from experience, and not from the Book. It means psychologically calculated childhood opportunity, in which the now stifled instincts of leadership, workmanship, hero-worship, hunting, migration, meditation, sex, could grow and take their foundation place in the psychic equipment of a biologically promising human being. To illustrate in trivialities, no father, with knowledge of the meaning of the universal bent towards workmanship, would give his son a puzzle if he knew of the Mecano ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... anticipation from poverty and wretchedness! Once, "so was Franklin" and the world may one day witness in our little "'prentice" as great a philosopher as they have already seen in his noble pattern! And we passed on, buried in meditation. ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... He felt absently for his pipe, filled and lighted it and went out to sit on the doorstep in gloomy meditation while he smoked. ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... a moment, as if reflecting whether this anecdote was to be regarded as a general judgment of the arbiter that a gentleman will never smoke in the presence of a lady. But the Easy Chair broke in upon his meditation with a question, "If you had a son, should you wish to meet him smoking as he accompanied a lady upon the avenue? or, were you the father of a daughter, should you wish to see her cavalier smoking as he walked by her side? Upon ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... woman might love you," she said, critically, after a moment's meditation. "You are ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... have few visiters. Perhaps it is best that it should be so; for I have the spectres of no hard feelings nor bitter thoughts, nor painful recollections to haunt me, requiring excitement and bustle to drive them off; and old age demands time for solemn thought and serious meditation, to enable it to wean itself from the past, and look cheerfully ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... to the one whose kindly heart Was moved to send This gift, when we were far apart, To cheer a friend. Sweet meditation now my mind employs; A pleasure pure, and one which ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley |
