"Pensively" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... passage of John Ruskin's, and we have a little lesson which the mean shrew might possibly take to heart—if she had any heart. What is the kind of "care" which the mean one bestows on her dependants? "That's my little woman a-giving it to 'Tilda," pensively observed Mr. Snagsby; and I suspect that a very great many little women employ a trifle too much of their time in "giving it to 'Tilda." That is the "care" which poor 'Tilda gets. Consider the kind of life which a girl leads when she comes for a time under the domination ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... These mellow notes are all the sounds he titters for several weeks, seldom chirping, crying, or scolding like other birds. His song is discontinued in the latter part of summer; but his peculiar plaintive call, consisting of a single note pensively modulated, continues all day, until the time of frost. This sound is one of the melodies of summer's decline, and reminds us, like the notes of the green nocturnal grasshopper, of the fall of the leaf, the ripened harvest, and all ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... awakened. The Com-tech appeared to accept his bonds philosophically. He was quiet and flat on his back, staring pensively at the ceiling. But the other agent had made a worm's progress half across the room and Rip had to halt in haste ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... down and took off her shoes. She walked on the hot, glistening sand till her feet were delightfully, almost intoxicatingly scorched. Then she ran into the water to cool them. Siegmund and she paddled in the light water, pensively watching the haste of the ripples, like crystal beetles, running over the white outline of their feet; looking out on the sea that rose so near to them, dwarfing them by its ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... of the night had somewhat subsided. "Whence came the inspiration of Moses?" flew up to his mind almost as soon as he opened his eyes on the sunlit world. He threw open the protrusive casement of his bedroom to the balmy air, tinged with a whiff of salt, and gazed pensively at the white town rambling down towards the shining river. Had God indeed revealed Himself on Mount Sinai? But this fresh doubt was banished by the renewed suspicion which, after having disturbed his dreams in nebulous distortions, sprang ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... rail and rested her arms on it, leaning over and looking pensively down at the water. I, also, went to stand by her, but, in turning, my eyes happened to glance through one of the cabin portlights at Tommy. He was seated comfortably in a deep chair, Doloria's box of candy stood on the table within easy reach, the newspaper was in his hands, a cigarette hung ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... years old when her mother died," finished Madge pensively. "Since then poor Tania has had such a dreadful time, living with that wretched old Sal, who has made a regular slavey of her, and she just had to go on with her pretending in order to be able to ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... and answered something, and went out listlessly to find the Captain and inquire the destination of the boat. Not that this mattered much to her. At the foot of the companionway leading to the saloon deck she saw, of all people, Mr. Eliphalet Hopper leaning on the rail, and pensively expectorating on the roof of the wheel-house. In another mood Virginia would have laughed, for at sight of her he straightened convulsively, thrust his quid into his cheek, and removed his hat with more zeal than the grudging deference he usually ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... silver watch—the gift of the wife of the missionary, the excellent mother of George, which she had caused to be sent expressly from the land of the English—and gazed long and pensively at the face of it. Though he had risen later than his custom, deceived by the darkness of the rain prolonging night, it wanted still an hour of the Emir's waking. ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... I were a little street gamin in London," said the girl pensively, fingering the violets at her corsage. "Think of ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... very heart, for when recalled from that trance by the heavy bell of the adjoining church chiming the hour of five, and he looked up, there were large drops of moisture on his brow, and his beautiful eye seemed for the moment strained and blood-shot. He paced the chamber slowly and pensively till there was no outward mark of agitation, and then he ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... and Joyce came back into the twilight room they found Miss Sally still sitting by the table, her head leaning pensively on her hand. She had been crying—the cobwebby handkerchief lay beside her, wrecked and ruined forever—but she looked ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... she murmured pensively to herself, thinking of the photograph Flirty had given her. "Oh, why did I send him away? Why didn't ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... a living creature in sight, and there was not a sound to be heard except the distant tinkle of chisel and stone, and the occasional rustle of a falling leaf, until Schwartz, the subject of this history, walked pensively round a corner eighty yards down the avenue, and paused to scratch one ear with a hind foot. He stood for a time with a thoughtful air, looked up the avenue and down the avenue, and then with slow deliberation, and an occasional ...
— Schwartz: A History - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... reddish fever in her eyes, and her slenderness sets you on fire. But I am hardly in harmony with the Italian. She is particularly engrossed in her private affairs, with which I am not concerned. Big Victorine, always ready, is worth a hundred of her; or Madame Lacaille, the pensively vicious; though I am equally satiated of her, too. Truth to tell, I plunge unreflectingly into a heap of amorous adventures which I shortly find vulgar. But I can never resist the magic of ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... resting—it was noticeably podgy and squat—on the highly polished surface of the extensive writing-table, his left hand dropped, with a rather awkward negligence, over the arm of his chair. Meanwhile he gazed, as pensively as his caste of countenance permitted, at a portrait of himself, in the self-same attitude, which adorned the opposite wall. It had been presented to him by the electors of his late constituency. It was life- ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... with the coy Chloris, and parting—disclosed a stolen kiss! Grant's hand lay like ice against the wall. For, disengaging Fletcher's arm from her waist and freeing her skirt from the foliage, it was the calm, passionless Clementina herself who stepped out, and moved pensively ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... dreary strand near Quiberon, immense in the gathering darkness of a boisterous evening. Well hidden under the stone table of a Druidical men-hir glows a small camp-fire sedulously kept alive by Rene for the service of The Lady. She, wrapped up in a coarse peasant-cloak, pensively gazes into the cheerless smoke and holds her worn and muddy boots to the smouldering wood in ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... was sitting pensively with little Mara by the kitchen hearth, where they had been boiling the tea-kettle for their solitary meal. They heard a brisk step without, and soon Captain and Mrs. ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... dashed from the room while Mary gazed pensively after him. She too, in a way, had betrayed her friend; but she had ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... pensively at the ground, "with a thought of them another did not blend which makes the gloom become deeper still. You know the tidings this ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... him for a speculating moment; then, averting her glance, said, pensively: "Perhaps so; but I don't think it's so stylish to be a goddess as it is to be very slim. And then, you know——" Here she suddenly broke off, her eyes fixed upon the crowd of ladies that blocked an opposite doorway in exeunt. "There's mommer. I guess she must be going home, and I suppose I'd ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... very deeply," said Mr. Caryll pensively, and the look in his eyes betrayed the trend of his thoughts; they were of pity—but of pity at the ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... excursion I looked down on a wild foam-flecked sea, over which the storm was raging as it did during the previous cyclones. I realized that I should have to stay here for some time, and ate my last provisions somewhat pensively. I only hoped that the launch had found an anchorage, else she must inevitably have been wrecked, and I should be left at the mercy of the natives for an indefinite time. The hut in which I camped did not keep off ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... remains were taken to England by the steamer "Palmyra." Lady Burton then walked round and round to every room, recalling all her life in that happy home and all the painful events that had so recently taken place. She gazed pensively and sadly at the beautiful views from the windows and went "into every nook and cranny of the garden." The very walls seemed ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... shall I say thank you?... I know. I must give you one of my pretty flowers for your buttonhole." She began pulling out one of the glorious roses, but suddenly checked herself and gazed off pensively into space, a finger at her lip. "Ah! I thought this gesture seemed strangely familiar, and now I remember. I gave him a flower once before, and ah, look!... the president of the college ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... I understood the movement—although it was unlike my idea of Johnnyboy. However, I raised him to my lap—with the sensation of lifting a dozen lace-edged handkerchiefs, and with very little more effort—where he sat silently for a moment, with his sandals crossed pensively before him. ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... and pensively by little woods and pastures, taking delight in all the quiet life I saw, the bush pricked with points of green, the boughs thickened with small reddening buds, the slow stream moving through the pasture; all the tints faint, airy, and delicate; the ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... pensively over the water, and with conspicuous amiability, something seemed to suggest that the present conversation had reached a natural end. ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell
... pushed his fur cap to the back of his head, which he was scratching pensively. He had a habit of scratching his forehead with one finger, ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... hawk swoops down on the barnyard, alighting Where, pensively picking their corn, the favorite pullets are gathered, So in that festive bar-room dropped Thompson, the hero of Angels, Grasping his weapon dread with his pristine lightness ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... Mr. Kelly, pensively, who has been eating steadily since the first bite. "After all, give me a good sweet, home-made cake like this! Those bought ones aren't to be named in the same day with it. There is something so light and wholesome about a cake ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... it is," Billy remarked pensively; "I'm sure to have such a fine time of it at your house that I can't seem to get up much regret ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... Jack seated himself pensively upon a block of stone, and thought of his mother; he reflected with sorrow upon his disobedience in climbing the bean-stalk against her will, and concluded that he must die of hunger. However, he walked on, hoping to see a house, where he might beg something to eat and drink. He did not find ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... enjoying his idleness with the zest of a hard worker. The twinkle of amusement faded gradually from his face, and the sadness that Hadria had noticed the day before, returned to his eyes. She was leaning against the dyke, pensively enjoying her festive meal. The dark fresh blue of her gown, and the unwonted tinge of colour in her cheeks, gave a vigorous and healthful impression, in harmony with the weather-beaten stones and the windy breadth of ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... had been telling me one evening how they used to live in his boyhood, looked pensively across the valley when he had done, and so stood for a minute or two, as if trying to recover his impressions of that lost time. At last, with appearance of an effort to speak patiently, "Ah," he said, "they tells me times are better now, but ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... Eva, and smiled so pensively, yet happily. "To-morrow I shall be quite well again!" Her eye ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... could hardly have failed to be impressed with the loveliness of such a morning in such a spot, on Master Frederick Parson, head monitor's fag of Parrett's House, as he kicked the bedclothes pensively off his person, and looked at the watch under his pillow, the beauties of nature were completely lost. Parson was in a bad frame of mind that morning. Everything seemed against him. He'd been beaten in the junior hundred yards yesterday, so had Telson. Just their luck. They'd run in every ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... left to do but to start. All the servantry of the dairy were standing in the red-brick entry to see them go out, the dairyman and his wife following to the door. Tess saw her three chamber-mates in a row against the wall, pensively inclining their heads. She had much questioned if they would appear at the parting moment; but there they were, stoical and staunch to the last. She knew why the delicate Retty looked so fragile, and Izz so tragically sorrowful, and Marian so blank; ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... going earlier than usual to the garden, he found Miss Ford there, the governess of the children. She was promenading one of the wide alleys, and pensively reading a favorite author. This occurred morning after morning, and Lewis thought he would be so glad if she would only spend a few minutes teaching him to read! He knew that she was from the free states, where ...
— A Child's Anti-Slavery Book - Containing a Few Words About American Slave Children and Stories - of Slave-Life. • Various
... the women had brought a guitar with her, and again Augusta's voice streamed up through the stillness, till, compelled by the beauty of the singing, we drew nearer; as the composer sang her songs attitudes grew more abandoned, and hands fell pensively. Among the half-seen faces I caught sight of a woman of exceeding fairness; her hair had only a faint tinge of gold in it; and Ninon remembered that she was a cousin of hers, one whom she had not seen for many years. How Clare had discovered her in the Rue ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... too pensively on these thoughts he found he had missed some of the turns of the talk, his attention awakening to hear ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... pensively and patiently. She thought it all over, and felt her husband was right, and loved her like a man. But she thought, also, that she was not very wrong to love him in her way. Wrong or not, she felt she could not sit idle and ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... standing pensively by a rosebush the next morning feeling appallingly weary of well-doing when Kurt in his riding clothes ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... Day before yesterday I ate at Biberich, with the Duke of Nassau, the first fresh herrings and the first strawberries and raspberries of the season. It is certainly a delightful piece of earth along the Rhine, and I looked pensively from the castle windows over to the red cathedral of Mayence, which, almost four years ago, we both went to see very early in the morning, in times for which we were not then sufficiently grateful to God; I remembered how, on board the steamer, the blue hills before us, we passed by the Duke's ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... Panza retorted pensively: "I suppose it is the chastisement of Heaven, too, that flies should prick the squires of vanquished knights, and lice eat them, and hunger assail them. If we squires were the sons of the knights we serve, or their very near relations, it would be no wonder if the penalty of their ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Bobaday and Corinne gazed pensively at the stump fire, wondering how grown folks always saw the difficulties in doing what you want ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... for seven years. Then the deceitful Benoit came pensively back to her, a cripple from a timber accident. She believed what he told her; and that was where her comedy ended ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... it seems to me as I look back on't," David resumed pensively, "the wust on't was that nobody ever gin me a kind word, 'cept Polly. I s'pose I got kind o' used to bein' cold an' tired; dressin' in a snowdrift where it blowed into the attic, an' goin' out to ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... turned her face away. The colour vanished from her cheeks, the youth from her figure. Pensively, she gazed across the valley to the vineyard, where the black, knotted vines were blurred against the soil in the fast-gathering ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... room, and then mounted his horse, and went to visit the steward, who, however, was not at home. He walked pensively in the garden, and seemed anxious to renew all the ideas that were ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... did any of his friends, express fretfulness or impatience at his disheartening lack of employment. He manifested, on the contrary, a quiet fortitude that was touching to witness. I recollect him once, however, when we were conversing on the subject, saying rather pensively, "If one has not connexions, and cannot make them, it is next to impossible to get any business." The professional public possess conclusive and permanent evidence of the admirable use which he made of his time, during the first year or two of his essaying to practise as a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... allowed her son to forget the name he bore, or the political principles which his uncle, the Emperor, had borne upon his banners throughout Europe. The subsequent life of this child has proved how deep was the impression produced upon his mind, as pensively, silently he listened to the conversation of the statesmen and the generals who often visited his mother's parlor. Lady Blessington about this time visited Hortense, and she gives the following account of the impression which the visit produced upon ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... meaning undreamed of by those who consider marble portraits as wholly imitative and mechanical. Was there ever a human face which so completely reflected inward experience and individual genius as the bust which haunts us throughout Italy, broods over the monument in Santa Croce, gazes pensively from library niche, seems to awe the more radiant images of boudoir and gallery, and sternly looks melancholy reproach from the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... uneasy pretexts to escape, in spite of Tommy Hayes, in spite of Rover, that marplot puppy, I had a moment's hearing, and used it manfully, and as I whispered, my heart beat thick with triumph, for she could not raise her eyes to mine, they were pensively watching the source of the rippling flood, and bright tears seemed quivering on the silken lashes, her cheeks wore a warmer scarlet, her pretty lips trembled with the fateful answer, and I was sure it wasn't ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... March went to lie down in her berth afterwards, and March went on deck without her. He began to walk to and from the barrier between the first and second cabin promenades; lingering near it, and musing pensively, for some of the people beyond it looked as intelligent and as socially acceptable, even to their clothes, as their ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... who was leaning against the wall of a smaller building, smoking and staring pensively across the moonlighted plain toward that portion of the United States where the Potreros hunched ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... are certainly difficulties," said Sherlock Holmes, pensively. "But our expedition of to-night will solve them all. Ah, here is a four-wheeler, and Miss Morstan is inside. Are you all ready? Then we had better go down, for it is a ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... off along the path by the well. He glanced over his shoulder, and saw Cossar's gigantic figure standing out as if he were regarding the holes pensively. At the sight Bensington halted for a moment and half turned. They were all ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... And then, Sunday morning in church, as she sat pensively wishing for a confidant, it came upon her somewhat startlingly that she already had one: Dr. Vivian was her confidant. Did he not know more about her than anybody else ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... to go out again, she would sit pensively for hours by Arthur's grave, or in passionate grief throw herself upon it and wish that she too might die. It was after one of these paroxysms of despair that Louisa remembered her promise to Arthur, that she would take ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... continued his perusal of the book. No great while, however, elapsed, when, rising also from his seat with a hasty exclamation of surprise, he threw down the volume and followed her into the room where she sat pensively meditating over thoughts and feelings as vague and inscrutable to her mind, as they were clear and familiar to her heart. With a degree of warm impetuosity, even exaggerated beyond his usual manner, which bore at all times this characteristic, ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... Ass pursues his way, Along this solitary dell, As pensively his steps advance, The mosques and spires change countenance, And look at Peter ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... seem as though we were going home to-morrow," remarked Rosemary pensively. "And school opens ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... I am goin' to enter political life, I must begin to practise sometime. I must begin to do as they all do. And it is a crackin' good shovel too," says he pensively. ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... a stern conservator is he of the public morals. Last Sunday a frivolous fish was playing not far from the beach, and Dr. Hawk went out and stopped him. 'Tis fun to watch him at that sort of work—stopping play—though somehow it does not seem to amuse the fish much. Up in the air he poises pensively, hanging on hushed wings as though listening for sounds—maybe a fish's. By and by he hears a herring—is he hard of herring, think you? Then down he drops and soon has a Herring Safe. (Send me something, manufacturers, ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... I heard her say to this girl, whom she was fond of: they had sat talking a whole morning—idly and pensively; of little things around them, never once referring to things outside. "Come often, though the house is dull. Does it not feel strange, with Mr. ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... after a short silence, during which his gaze rested pensively on the retreating figures of the girls, "I've just been thinking that there is no happiness for a man, still less for a woman, in a single life. What say you, Rosita mia," he went on, patting her familiarly on ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... the camp, which we knew was not far up the nullah. Presently, turning off the Gilgit road, along a track to the left, we came upon Walter—bearded like the pard—a pard which had left off shaving for about a week. He was pensively sitting on a big sun-warmed boulder, beguiling the time while awaiting us by contemplating the antics of a large family of monkeys, which he pointed out to Jane, ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... rotten business, war," he said pensively—"when you come to think of it. Hallo, there goes the first star-shell! Come ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... get the latest advantage of the rich golden twilight which now twinkled through the sky. Agnes sat by him on the same wall,—now glancing over his shoulder at his work, and now leaning thoughtfully on her elbow, gazing pensively down into the deep shadows of the gorge, or out where the golden light of evening streamed under the arches of the old Roman bridge, to the wide, bright ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... moment when she was caressing Djali. He stood pensively for several minutes before this graceful group of the goat and the gypsy; at last he said, shaking his ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... my thoughts," said Black Simon, still pensively grinding his sword, "that we may have need of your strings ere sundown. I dreamed of the red cow ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... withdrew it. Perhaps he was right. Not usual to shake hands with Waiter, though really, on occasion like this, one might disregard conventionalities. Waiter lingeringly withdrew, still keeping his eye on me, as if expecting me to call him back. Nodded a friendly farewell, and pensively peeled an orange, thinking how one touch of nature makes us kin. This good Waiter and I quite subdued by the graceful, generous thought of Lord Mayor KNILL, who has added one more link to the chain that binds in amity two nations that have fought all the way from Cressy ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 18, 1893 • Various
... the distance, where the eye could not distinguish between the sky and the plain, there was a bright gleam of light. A little way off from me sat Savka. With his legs tucked under him like a Turk and his head hanging, he looked pensively at Kutka. Our hooks with live bait on them had long been in the river, and we had nothing left to do but to abandon ourselves to repose, which Savka, who was never exhausted and always rested, loved so much. The glow had not yet quite died away, but the summer night was already enfolding ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... you! Blest the long years pass'd in your search away! From the right path if e'er I went astray, It grieves me more than, haply, I can show: But of your state, if I Deserve more knowledge, more I long to know." She paused, then, answering pensively, so bent On me her eloquent eye, That to my inmost heart her looks ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... contrives this expedient. Stuff a Prussian uniform with straw; fix it up, by aid of ropes and check-strings, to stand with musket shouldered, and even to glide about to right and left, on judicious pulling. So it is done: straw man is made; set upon his ropes, when the Tolpatches approach; and pensively saunters to and fro,—his living comrades crouching in the bushes near by. Tolpatches fire on the walking straw sentry; straw sentry falls flat; Tolpatches rush in, esurient, triumphant; are exploded in a sharp blast of musketry from the bushes ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... must remember that they are half German—greeted these suggestions, and Margaret said pensively, "How inconceivable it would be if the Royal Family cared about Art." And the conversation drifted away and away, and Helen's cigarette turned to a spot in the darkness, and the great flats opposite were sown with lighted windows, which vanished ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... had he resumed his position when another individual, equally disinterested, impassively walked down the steps, proceeded to the back of the stage, lifted it, expectorated carefully on the axle, and returned slowly and pensively to the hotel. A third spectator wearily disengaged himself from one of the Ionic columns of the portico and walked to the box, remained for a moment in serious and expectorative contemplation of the boot, and then returned to his column. There was ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... from town, which, if I had, I should certainly have run back, told him what had passed, and asked him to take me back to Mrs. Williams, instead of sending me away with strangers. But no cart came in view, and a turning in the road soon hid even the cottage from my sight. I then walked pensively forward, meditating on my own unhappy fate, and comparing it with that of other children who were blessed with parents and relations. Mr. and Mrs. Sharpley had frequently looked back, as if to see that I followed them, but—here ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... peace came into her heart as she dwelt upon Stephen's manner that night—his confusion—his stammering words—and the burning kiss upon her hand. She stood on the little bridge now, in the quiet dusk of even, leaning against the railing and looking pensively down into the shallow water below. Suddenly she raised her hand and pressed it again and again to her lips—the same ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... get my second wind," the victim of unrequited literature answered, dropping into the Easy Chair, from which the occupant had risen; and he sighed, pensively, "I felt so sure I had got him this time." He closed his eyes, and leaned his head back against the uncomfortably carven top of the Easy Chair. It was perhaps his failure to find rest in it that restored him to animation. "It is a little thing," he murmured, "on the ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... later, this lovely creature, whose name was Gerda, and who is considered as a personification of the flashing Northern lights, vanished within her father's house, and Frey pensively wended his way back to Alfheim, his heart oppressed with longing to make this fair maiden his wife. Being deeply in love, he was melancholy and absent-minded in the extreme, and began to behave so strangely that his father, Nioerd, became greatly alarmed about ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... a little, and the colour had mounted to her temples, nevertheless looked very lovely as she pensively reclined on the sofa. Rebuked by him who had always been so attentive, so submissive—her creature as it were—she was mortified, as every pretty woman is, at any loss of power—any symptoms of rebellion on the part of a liege vassal; and then she taxed herself; ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... this describe the devils of our carnival, rather than the majestic brother of Jupiter, at whose side upon asphodel and amaranth the sweet Persephone sits pensively contented, in that deep motionless quiet which mortals pity and which the gods enjoy; rather than him who, under the umbrage of Elysium, gazes at once upon all the beauties that on earth were separated—Helena and Eriphyle, Polyxena and Hermione, Deidamia ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... a white-man's country," observed Mr. Smith pensively, as the door closed again. He opened the stove and proceeded to knock the embers together preparatory ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... the age of forty-nine, had a proud official record behind him and a guaranteed future ahead. Doubtless it was of this that he was thinking, as he leaned pensively against the town hitching-rack and gingerly chewed the blade of wire-grass which dangled even below the chin whiskers that had been with him for twenty years. The faraway expression in his watery-blue eyes gave evidence that he was as great ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... Yet ferax also: for our friend now added, with a wistful look, which strove to seem merely historical: "I let it all in lodgings, to respectable gentlemen; by the quarter or the month; it's all one to me."—"To me also," whispered the ghost of Samuel, as we went pensively our ways.' Carlyle's Miscellanies, edit, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... upon Miss Andrews, the sister of the Mellot farmer. Miss Andrews had promised her some ducks' eggs. They pushed open the farm gate, passed across the yard and knocked on the house door. Near Mary was a large barn with a heavy door, now ajar. Hamlet sat gazing pensively at a flock of geese, ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... his now came back to me as I sat there pensively smoking, and wondering if, after all, I had better not return again to London and remain patient for the additional police evidence which would no doubt be forthcoming at the adjourned ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... on the house marks the spot, and but a short distance away in the open square sits his form in deathless bronze, pensively writing out an idea which we can only guess—or is it a last love-letter to the woman to whom he gave his heart and who ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... to a steady one hundred and the car sped silently and easily along the police lane. Across the cab, Clay peered pensively at the steady stream of cars and cargo carriers racing by in the green and blue lanes—all of them moving faster than ...
— Code Three • Rick Raphael
... thou remember In this that season of thy mortal being When from thine eyes shone beauty, In thy shy glances fugitive and smiling, And joyously and pensively the borders Of ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... pensively on a table. Without saying a word the Englishman laid the three letters before him. The young man cast his eyes over the addresses, took the one destined for his mother, unsealed it and read it over. As he read, ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... mind was not lazy, she was thinking deeply enough the while, leaning on the stalwart shoulder of Vivian Standish, drinking in the suggestive strains of the music to which they danced. Honor was also yielding to the influence of memory that had been awakened within her, that memory that pensively turned backwards the unforgotten pages of her past, filling her with a sad discontent, that soon betrayed itself in the wearied expression of impatience which stole into her eyes and over her whole face, and while so many girls around her, could have hated her for her ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... been put on several occasions, both in the company of the tempter and in the privacy of the domestic hearth, and both in the gayly suggestive and the pensively argumentative key. Why might they not, by means of a clever purchase in the stock market, occasionally procure some of the agreeable extra pleasures of life—provide the ready money for theatres, a larger wardrobe, trips ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... himself hastened to the spot, and threatened the young guard and Mortimer. The Marshal pointed out to him some houses covered with iron; they were closely shut up, still untouched and uninjured without, and yet a black smoke was already issuing from them. Napoleon pensively ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... I had not forgiven him! Ah, if that hour could but return, how readily I should find the horrible courage to turn him away! My poor child... it was I who ruined him!..." And, pensively, "I should have had that or any sort of courage, if he had been as I pictured him to myself and as he himself told me that he had long been: bearing the marks of vice ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... carouse in the same apartment with his prisoner. It was a dark, cold, windy, October night, and the two warders sate cosily by the fire, enjoying their gossip and their ale, while the unlucky delinquent placed himself pensively by the window. About midnight the two old men were startled by ...
— Jesse Cliffe • Mary Russell Mitford
... of thought that dropped from her lips. "Miss Hamilton appears simple" (I thought I heard her say); "but in reality she is as deep as the Currie Brig!" Now where did she get that allusion? And again, when the W.S. asked her whither she was going when she left Edinburgh, "I hardly know," she replied pensively. "I am waiting for the shade of Montrose to direct me, as the Viscount Dundee said to your Duke of Gordon." The entranced Scotsman little knew that she had perfected this style of conversation by long experience with the Q.C.'s of England. Talk about my being as deep ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... humor of the situation struck Robb, and he laughed silently in a chair. But by degrees his face sobered, and he gazed pensively out of the window, a shade of sadness reflected in his countenance. At length he rose and taking the flasks from the dresser emptied their contents in a basin. Then he took off the sleeper's shoes and undressed him by degrees. Evan groaned during the exercise but did not waken. He slept through, ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... pensively down the street, now embowered with the foliage of early summer, noted the peaceful aspect of the village, and the tranquil picture which gardens, cottages, and sauntering groups of school-children presented, and then said slowly, "I never was much of a hand at shooting, ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
... pensively. "I don't want you to bring any more trouble into the family than you've already brought, and goodness knows THAT would be doing it. But I shouldn't have said that, Kenny. There are lots of fine, lovely girls here. I wouldn't know which one to pick out for you ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... smiled a little haughtily in his turn and said slowly: "Well, from what Mrs. Blenkinsop said, the Dangerfields were barons in the Weald before they were any Hohenzollerns. And they did very well at Crecy and Agincourt, too," he added pensively. ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... the train glide round the curve and disappear from sight; then slowly turned and looked the other way,—as if to make sure there was not another coming,—saw the portmanteau, and shambled towards it. He stood looking down upon it pensively, then moved slowly round, apparently reading the names and particulars of all the various continental hotels at which the portmanteau had recently stayed ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... astonish their weak minds in the steward's room at Bellamont, if they could see all this, John,' said Mr. Freeman, pensively. 'A man who ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... all I am capable of," said Sebastian, looking pensively at her. "You see the home feeling is beyond my achievement. It needs the feminine touch to create that ideal atmosphere. That, Miss Madeline, is ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... either with the entertainment itself, or with the place and manner in which it had been served. We explained to him that the proper place to eat was in a house, and not on a wet dirty beach; he made no offer, however, of any other; but leaning his head pensively on his hands, seemed entirely ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... others, "Behold, here is a good occasion for us to capture two horses and armour, and a lady likewise; for this we shall have no difficulty in doing against yonder single knight, who hangs his head so pensively and heavily." And Enid heard this discourse, and she knew not what she should do through fear of Geraint, who had told her to be silent. "The vengeance of Heaven be upon me," she said, "if I would ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... Swiftly the sweet days were passing away, and the sombre parting from "dear Merton and loving hearts for evermore" was drawing near. In his day-dreams he saw more fame, more professional gladness, more triumph. He saw, too, as he pensively walked in his garden, the grave nearly ready to receive him and the day of his glory and brightness coming. These were his abiding premonitions, which were jerked out to his close friends, and even during his last sojourn ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... amid the still hours of midnight, when the moon silvered over the liquid surface: "Bright luminary of the lonely hour, he would say, that now sheddest thy mild and placid ray on the woe-worn head of fortune's fugitive, dost thou not also pensively shine on the sacred and silent grave ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... pensively to behold the retreat of Monthermer and his associates, and to consider what was to be done in this emergency, she heard one of the Flemings, in a low tone, ask an Englishman, who stood beside him, what was the meaning of ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... to hesitate. He turned uneasily in his chair, glanced this way and that among the trees—a habit acquired in the macquis, no doubt. He took off his hat and passed his hand pensively over his hair. Then he ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... the place—wearing a smock frock and leaning on a pitchfork, with a wisp of hay caught in the tines, lamenting that the 'All 'asn't been the same, zur, since the young marster was killed ridin' to 'ounds; and then pensively wiping his eyes on a stray ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... stopped to rest in a beautiful; valley, beside the banks of a swift stream. He watched Jane as she moved away from the stretcher which held Bansemer, following her to the edge of the stream where she had come to gaze pensively ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... damsel's coming approached, my kind host impatiently expefted her arrival; but in vain, for she did not appear. He rose, stood in the doorway of the tent, opened his mouth, and drew in the exhalations of the gale, then returned, sat down pensively for a few minutes, and at last bursting into tears, exclaimed, "Ah! my cousin, there are no tidings of the daughter of my uncle, some, mishap must have befallen her. Remain here while I go in search of intelligence." Having said ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... pleasant evening over bridge in the drawing-room, until just about ten o'clock Rayne was called to the telephone. When he rejoined us I noticed that his countenance was a trifle pale. He looked worried and ill at ease. He sat down beside Madame Duperre, and after pensively lighting one of his expensive cigars, he bent and ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux |
