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More "Contemplation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... vague and muffled from a distant world Of bygone ages and of times unborn; And in our home souls come to life and die. Blossom from blossom blossoms forth and fades! Old men have the white, rich, Levitic beard, The foreheads wide of solemn contemplation, The wrath of prophets, and the fleeting calm And chilling ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... is in contemplation to place a fire in the room appropriated to the City Library, and further to improve it by the insertion of a large bay-window, which will make it a light and cheerful place for all who need reference to these ...
— Three Centuries of a City Library • George A. Stephen
... ten years after the night on which William Gawtrey perished:—I transport you, reader, to the fairest scenes in England,—scenes consecrated by the only true pastoral poetry we have known to Contemplation and Repose. ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 4 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... would have you turn your Thoughts to the Advantage of such as want you most; and shew that Simplicity, Innocence, Industry and Temperance, are Arts which lead to Tranquility, as much as Learning, Wisdom, Knowledge, and Contemplation. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... treating them. A portion, however, of the Coventry set, from the eighth to the fifteenth, inclusive, deserve special notice, as they show the first beginnings or buddings of a higher dramatic growth, which afterwards resulted in what are called Moral-Plays. For instance, Contemplation, who serves as speaker of prologues, and moralizes the events, is evidently an allegorical personage, that is, an abstract idea personified, such as afterwards grew into general use, and gave character to stage ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... instance, Bacon tells us, "Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark"; he does not say, what I can imagine a last century writer to have said, "A feeling somewhat analogous to the dread with which children are affected upon entering a dark room, is that which most men entertain at the contemplation of death." Jeremy Taylor says, "Tell them it is as much intemperance to weep too much as to laugh too much"; he does not say, "All men will acknowledge that laughing admits of intemperance, but some men may at first sight ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... and curiosity" which Lord Bacon notes as the vice of the scholastic philosophy. But "certain it is"—to continue the same great thinker's comment on the Friars—"that if these schoolmen to their great thirst of truth and unwearied travel of wit had joined variety of reading and contemplation, they had proved excellent lights to the great advancement of all learning and knowledge." What, amidst all their errors, they undoubtedly did was to insist on the necessity of rigid demonstration and a more exact use ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... the infinite heaven. But, for one visible truth to which knowledge thus opens the eyes, it seals them to a thousand: that is to say, if the knowledge occur to the mind so as to occupy its powers of contemplation at the moment when the sight work is to be done, the mind retires inward, fixes itself upon the known fact, and forgets the passing visible ones; and a moment of such forgetfulness loses more to the painter than a day's thought can gain. This is ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... the poker and stirred the fire until its bright blaze threw a broad glare over the chamber; and out of the glowing coals he built strange towers and castles, and saw them change by turns into ashes, and grow dim like his own recent dreams of love. This being a melancholy contemplation, he lent his ear to a solitary cricket that was cheerily singing its household song, though the winds were wild without. Presently the cricket ceased its chirrup, and Mr. Hardesty growing tired of sitting, yawned, stretched himself, and walked ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... vision of him that he scarcely manifested the slightest surprise at the appearance of Minnie upon the pavement with his hat and shoes and overcoat. "Very good of you to bring my things," he said, and remained lost in contemplation of the receding figure ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... full of leaves. Well, the Englishman does what the caterpillar does. He instinctively makes himself look like a fool, and eats up all the real fools at his ease while his enemies let him alone and laugh at him for being a fool like the rest. Oh, nature is cunning, cunning! [He sits down, lost in contemplation ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... novelty of this sensational discovery was gone, my mind returned to the contemplation of myself, and my situation seemed to me so unique as to remove some of the natural feeling of fear. When one is shipwrecked in the ordinary way his anxiety is caused by the uncertainty that anyone will ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... In the contemplation of the miracles wrought by Christ, we must of necessity recognize the operation of a power transcending our present human understanding. In this field, science has not yet advanced far enough to analyze and explain. To deny the actuality of miracles on the ground ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... tribes have been the enemies and oppressors of that Israel whom they at last acknowledge for the dwelling-place of God, and enemies of that Jehovah before whom they finally bow down, he feels that he has no measuring-line to fathom the divine purposes, and bows his face to the ground in reverent contemplation with that word upon his lips: 'Verily Thou art a God that hidest Thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour.' It is a parallel to the apostolic words, 'O the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... think there is any probability of that. You know you are all protected by the law, and I can give you no further protection than the law affords. The Government have it under contemplation at present to alter the law, and this inquiry is for the purpose of ascertaining whether the law ought to be altered in any respect.-If we had not been under the belief that it would surely be altered, we would ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... for its being built in a hollow, with the ground-floor on the absolute level of the earth outside. The monks had always chosen these low-lying sheltered spots for their cloisters. Why should they have done so? he wondered—and then came to a sudden mental stop, absorbed in a somewhat surprised contemplation of a new version of himself. He was becoming literary, historical, bookish! His mind had begun to throw open again, to abstract thoughts and musings, its long-closed doors. He had read and dreamed so much as a lad, in the old book-shop! For many years that boyhood ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... days' contemplation of it, Jensen, who was the bolder spirit of the two, hazarded the conjecture that the language was ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... witness the first representation of his tragedy, at Mannheim. His incognito did not conceal him; he was put under arrest during a week, for this offence: and as the punishment did not deter him from again transgressing in a similar manner, he learned that it was in contemplation to try more rigorous measures with him. Dark hints were given to him of some exemplary as well as imminent severity: and Dalberg's aid, the sole hope of averting it by quiet means, was distant and dubious. Schiller saw himself reduced to extremities. Beleaguered with present distresses, and ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... recommendation to His Excellency of established fame, his services would be dispensed with, and then he could join his family in England. But should he remain as Secretary to General Craig, he had it in contemplation to lay before him a copy of his letter to Lord S., concerning ecclesiastical affairs, though it would not be prudent to do so until he had ascertained how far the General's sentiments accorded with his own. In a postscript to his letter to the dear Lord ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... rise and recite, with a solemn voice, words like "Ajakan maradak tecor sosthendi," would you know what he meant? If he wished you to believe that these symbols express the feeling of awe caused by the contemplation of the starry heavens, he would have to tell you so in your own language; and even then you would have only his word for it. He may have meant them to express that, but do they? The apologists of the new schools are continually telling us that we must give the ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... Nothing. It is not likely ever to be fought. Between the ci-devant combatants, mad anger and jealous rivalry may still remain. But neither shows it now; both subdued, in contemplation of the ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... hands under the clothes. I wished it were not high noon, but dark night; that Clifton would only arise or turn his eyes away; that something or anything might happen to give me an instant of solitary contemplation, without the threatening possibility of beholding my thoughts and feelings ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... I had opportunities of studying the creatures in their native wild. I resolved the next summer holidays, which were to be spent in the country, to catch as many of the creatures as I could, and form a menagerie of my own. I should say I had not told John of the plan Tony and I had in contemplation—of exploring the Amazon by ourselves. I thought, from some of his remarks, that he possibly might not ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... the pure girl calmly deliberated upon the subject, and recalled several occasions when Mr. Goddard had seemed to be deeply absorbed in the contemplation of her features, eyeing her with glances of undisguised admiration and rapture. She determined, therefore, to be a little more circumspect hereafter, and avoid giving ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... myself concerning Lexicography and Poetry, which, as it is a little different from the delineation exhibited in the former edition of your Journal, cannot, I hope, be unacceptable; particularly since I have been informed that a second edition of that work is now in contemplation, if not in execution: and I am still more strongly tempted to encourage that hope, from considering that, if every one concerned in the conversations related, were to send you what they can recollect of these colloquial entertainments, many curious and interesting ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... more or less all the Latin stages. The reason is that, partly from a want of respect for the theatre, partly from a sort of respect for art in general which moves them to accord moral privileges to artists, partly from the very objectionable tradition that the realm of art is Alsatia and the contemplation of works of art a holiday from the burden of virtue, partly because French prudery does not attach itself to the same points of behavior as British prudery, and has a different code of the mentionable and the unmentionable, and for many other reasons the French tolerate plays which ...
— Overruled • George Bernard Shaw
... letters you have sent me, is the most momentous which has ever been offered to my contemplation since that of Independence. That made us a nation, this sets our compass and points the course which we are to steer through the ocean of time opening on us. And never could we embark on it under circumstances more auspicious. Our first and fundamental maxim should be, never to entangle ...
— From Isolation to Leadership, Revised - A Review of American Foreign Policy • John Holladay Latane
... cruelty to have had his tenderness. He had a sort of worship for her whilst he wounded her. He speaks of her after she is gone; of her wit, of her kindness, of her grace, of her beauty, with a simple love and reverence that are indescribably touching; in contemplation of her goodness his hard heart melts into pathos; his cold rhyme kindles and glows into poetry, and he falls down on his knees, so to speak, before the angel whose life he had embittered, confesses his own wretchedness and unworthiness, ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... general way have highly disapproved of Bodies in rivers as ineligible topics with reference to the cheek of the young person, he had, as one may say, a share in this affair which made him a part proprietor. As its returns were immediate, too, in the way of restraining the company from speechless contemplation of the wine-coolers, it ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... of its purpose. such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows, that at first you almost thought some ambitious young artist, in the time of the New England hags, had endeavored to delineate chaos bewitched. But by dint of much and earnest contemplation, and oft repeated ponderings, and especially by throwing open the little window towards the back of the entry, you at last come to the conclusion that such an idea, however wild, might not be altogether unwarranted. But what most puzzled ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... unites the virtues of Lovelace and Lacenaire; he blasphemes upon all occasions; he murders, at the slightest provocation, and without the most trifling remorse; he overcomes ladies of rigid virtue, ladies of easy virtue, and ladies of no virtue at all; and the poet, inspired by the contemplation of such a character, has depicted his hero's adventures and conversation ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... after this time, though the exact date cannot be recalled, that the Browning family moved from Camberwell to Hatcham. Some such change had long been in contemplation, for their house was now too small; and the finding one more suitable, in the latter place, had decided the question. The new home possessed great attractions. The long, low rooms of its upper storey supplied abundant accommodation for the elder Mr. Browning's six thousand ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... turn, and the fun grew fast and furious around Hunt, who sat puffing his pipe, absorbed in contemplation. At about half-past nine, when things were getting hilarious, he beat a retreat, followed by the reproaches of the fellows. He was determined to administer the first dose of Potts's painless cure ...
— Potts's Painless Cure - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... was saved, therefore, from the contumely which vulgar minds are always ready to bestow upon saints and mystics who sit aloof from them, high enthroned amidst the truths and solemnities of God. The secluded and ascetic life of most scholars, highly favorable as it undoubtedly is to contemplation and internal development, has likewise its disadvantages, and puts them, as being undisciplined in the ways of life, at great odds, when they come to the actual and practical battle. A man should be armed at all points, and not subject himself, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... on and on, absorbed in contemplation, and did not really awake till I found myself in a ravine between two lofty mountains. Stepping forward I reached a valley surrounded by mountains on all sides, and in the distance a fine church, attached to a pile of buildings, magnificently situated. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... decorate in a uniform way, all the mayors' offices in Paris and I want to propose it to him—The Modern Marriage, an allegorical treatment!—Law Imposing Duty on Love. Something noble, full of expression, moralizing. Art that will set people thinking, for the contemplation of lofty works can alone improve the morals and the ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... universe not dominated by physics and chemistry; but utilizing the interactions of matter for its own purpose; a universe where the human spirit is more at home than it is among these temporary collocations of atoms; a universe capable of infinite development, of noble contemplation and of lofty joy, long after this planet—nay, the whole solar system—shall have fulfilled its present sphere of destiny, and retired cold and lifeless ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... transmitted to Mosby and his men. Scarcely does any important event transpire among us, that is not fully understood immediately by the Rebel families within our lines, and is very easily borne to those outside the lines between two days. Thus movements even in contemplation have been heralded before the incipient steps had been taken, and consequently thwarted. Our only safety from this source of trouble would be to drive out of our lines all Rebel families, thus preventing the means of communicating the news to the ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... it in contemplation to publish the new edition of 'Shirley' soon? Would it not be better to defer it for a time? In reference to a part of your letter, permit me to express this wish,—and I trust in doing so, I shall not ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... impossible had his professional employments been equal to his wishes. Towards the end of 1864 he informs Mr. Smith that he cannot continue to be a regular contributor to the 'Cornhill Magazine.' He observes, however, that if Mr. Smith carries out certain plans then in contemplation, he will be happy to take the opportunity of writing upon matters of a more serious kind. The reference is to the 'Pall Mall Gazette,' of which the first number appeared on February 7, 1865, upon the opening day of the parliamentary session. ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... ears or taste in the mouth or smell in the nose, or any other perceptible heat of fiery quality that warms the breast or any other part of the body, or any other thing that can be felt by a bodily sense, even if it is not so refreshing and agreeable, all this is not contemplation or observation; but in respect of the spiritual virtues, and those of celestial perception and love towards God, which accompany true contemplation, only evil secondary matters, even if they appear to be laudable and good. All such kinds of sensation ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... who, mindful of th' unhonour'd dead, Dost in these lines their artless tale relate; If chance, by lonely contemplation led, Some kindred spirit ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... himself down and lay back on the greensward, in pleasant contemplation, when he heard a gentle cough—as of one who wished to attract attention. Looking up he observed close at hand, a tall man, dressed in black, with long hair, which fell over ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
... eye Steele became the spoiled darling of the day. The comedy, which was produced at Drury Lane in 1702, was the talk of the enthusiastic town, and the playwright arose from his beer-mugs, his wine-flagons, and his contemplation of ideal Christianity, to find himself famous. He had opened a new vein of satire, and a vein moreover which upheld virtue and laughed to scorn hypocrisy and vice. That was a moral which the dramatists of his epoch seldom taught.[A] And so the people crowded to the theatre, applauded ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... those who are watched and wish to escape that gives them a gay, electric awareness and sparkle in the presence of an opportunity for release. Mrs. Hand had this. Cowperwood, a past master in this matter of femininity, studied her hands, her hair, her eyes, her smile. After some contemplation he decided, other things being equal, that Mrs. Hand would do, and that he could be interested if she were very much interested in him. Her telling eyes and smiles, the heightened color of her cheeks indicated after a ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... been a "family of respectability," or a gentleman of position, with a large number of servants, a nice wife, and a few children sprinkled about the domestic picture, I doubt not I should have enjoyed the contemplation of that glowing fire, and rejoiced in the idea of finding myself located in so desirable a residence, within an easy distance of the West End; but, as matters stood, I felt ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... idea. For a moment John was almost paralysed at contemplation of it. There seemed to be no end to his novel as he had planned it. Was it too much for ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... is entirely out of place in the contemplation of the magnificent work I have already accomplished," said the professor tartly. "I admit that Number One leaves much to be desired—much to be desired; but Number Two shows a marked advance along certain lines, ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... men and to set them an example, walked about among the ranks, but he soon became convinced that this was unnecessary and that there was nothing he could teach them. All the powers of his soul, as of every soldier there, were unconsciously bent on avoiding the contemplation of the horrors of their situation. He walked along the meadow, dragging his feet, rustling the grass, and gazing at the dust that covered his boots; now he took big strides trying to keep to the footprints left on the meadow by the mowers, then he counted ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... those already existing. By the forced labor of thousands of fellaheen (the system is in force to this day and is known as the corve) architectural piles of vast extent could be erected within the lifetime of a monarch. As in the tombs the internal walls bore pictures for the contemplation of the Ka, so in the temples the external walls, for the glory of the king and the delectation of the people, were covered with colored reliefs reciting the monarch's glorious deeds. Internally the worship and attributes of the gods ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... previously drawn Mr. Grosart's. To Mr. Dobell the resemblance between it and the manuscript poems was at once evident. Mr. Brooke had found the poem in a little book in the British Museum entitled, A Serious and Patheticall Contemplation of the Mercies of God, in several most Devout and Sublime Thanksgivings for the same (a publisher's title it is likely): and this book contained other pieces in verse. These having been copied out by Mr. Dobell's request, he examined ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... provisions. She lent a hand at arranging the beds and set the table, all with eager docility and intelligence. But Nucky, after doing the chores Frank set him, wandered off to a seat that commanded a wide view of the trail, where he remained in silent contemplation of the wonders before ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... no reason in the nature of things why an amount of mental culture sufficient to give an intelligent interest in these objects of contemplation, should not be the inheritance of every one born in a civilized country. As little is there an inherent necessity that any human being should be a selfish egotist, devoid of every feeling or care but those ...
— Utilitarianism • John Stuart Mill
... one trembles to think of. You have made me a proposal: I make you one: take a couple of hundred pounds (I'll get it from your trustees) and travel the Continent for four months; enlarge and amuse your mind with the contemplation of nature and manners and customs; and if that does not clear this phantom L. 14,000 out of your head, ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... appears that the cession of this territory to the general government had not yet been made; but it was in contemplation by the states of Virginia and Maryland to cede it. It is called the District of Columbia. Its inhabitants are subject to the laws of congress. That part of the district which was ceded by Virginia, was in 1846, retroceded by congress ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young
... as a kind of stronghold in the midst of her surroundings, and when alone with her daughter was apt to talk too much upon serious subjects. To a young and beautiful girl, who felt herself entering the vestibule of the world in the glow of a wondrous dawn, the somewhat mournful contemplation of the spiritual future could not possibly have the charm such meditation possessed for a woman in middle age, who had passed through the halls of the palace of life without seeing many of its beauties, and who already, in the dim ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... courteous to suggest that she was not making the most of her time. Or perhaps he did not want to be left in solitary contemplation of that fleeting August morning. He lay silent for a little, and presently requested ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... very polite woman—very much disposed to be civil to every one," said Mrs. Smith; "by the bye," she added, "Pelby and I have it in contemplation to give a ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... at the fearful sight, I sat inert upon the altar, and gazed upon the mighty hecatomb in utter forgetfulness of my own awful position, till the priestess, who had awakened me, and who also had stood in silent contemplation, turned and once more fixed her ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... to seclusion, and the sisters imbibed a soothing impression of security, as they gazed upon its romantic though not unappalling beauties. A general movement among their conductors, however, soon recalled them from a contemplation of the wild charms that night had assisted to lend the place to a painful sense of their ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... philosophies which limit all consciousness to mere perceptions of the senses, or against the materialistic tendencies which find an explanation for all mysteries in physical phenomena. It may result from endeavours to find larger scope for reverie and contemplation, or fuller development for the imaginative elements of religious thought. It may be a refuge for spirits disgusted at an unworthy and utilitarian system of ethics, and at a religion too much degraded ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... for Jane had been based originally on her essential qualities; certainly he had received no quickening impulse, at the beginning, from a contemplation of her mere exterior. He had looked upon her as a valuable text put at a disadvantage by an unprepossessing binding. But now there came the issue of a new edition, in a tastefully designed cover, with additions and corrections, with ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... indulge myself only with one phrase from the Dean's memoir of Dr. Chalmers:—"Chalmers's greatest delight was to contrive plans and schemes for raising degraded human nature in the scale of moral living. The favourite object of his contemplation was human nature attaining the highest perfection of which it is capable, and especially as that perfection was manifested in saintly individuals, in characters of great acquirements, adorned with the graces of Christian piety. His greatest sorrow was to contemplate ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... and, leading Wildfire, followed the orderly. When he had had a meal, he strolled out to see what was going on. Evidently some movement was in contemplation. Officers were riding up or dashing off from the general's headquarters. Two or three regiments were seen marching down from the plateau on which they were encamped into the town. Bells rang and drums beat, and presently long trains of railway wagons, ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... they were all landed. Only those who have been placed in similar circumstances can judge of the feelings of men so rescued from the awful contemplation of immediate and certain death. How happy now did they feel in occupying a position, which two days before they would have shrunk from with horror, and have shed their life's blood to avoid. But 'there is ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... his life wasteth and decreaseth, but this also, that if he live long, he cannot be certain, whether his understanding shall continue so able and sufficient, for either discreet consideration, in matter of businesses; or for contemplation: it being the thing, whereon true knowledge of things both divine and human, doth depend. For if once he shall begin to dote, his respiration, nutrition, his imaginative, and appetitive, and other natural faculties, may still continue the same: he shall find no want of them. But how to make that ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... hands were sore, but he forgot everything in the contemplation of the magnificent fish he had captured. For as it lay there now, feebly opening and closing its gills, it was wonderfully like an ordinary gold-fish of enormous size, the orange-and-gold scale armour in which it was clad being ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... present undeveloped state of the theory, the contemplation of the individuality and indestructibility of a ring-vortex in a perfect fluid cannot fail to disturb the commonly received opinion that a molecule, in order to be permanent, must be a very ...
— Five of Maxwell's Papers • James Clerk Maxwell
... and America it is the custom not to mention coffins in polite society, and the contemplation of one is always mournful. But in China a coffin is a thing to be made a show of, like a piano. In many houses there is a room set apart for the coffins of the members of the family, and the owners point them out with pride. They practice ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... and perplexity came over a contemplation of the quality of that love. Was it right that she should thrill so delightfully whenever he came near her? And was it entirely proper for her to feel that queer tingle of delight over the strangeness ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... observed a man hurrying towards him and recognised Malley. Abruptly the superintendent turned his back and, leaning his arms upon a low stone wall, seemed lost in contemplation of a little churchyard. When the divisional inspector had passed on, ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... nothing of times, nothing of days. For verily that heaven of heavens which Thou createdst in the Beginning, is some intellectual creature, which, although no ways coeternal unto Thee, the Trinity, yet partaketh of Thy eternity, and doth through the sweetness of that most happy contemplation of Thyself, strongly restrain its own changeableness; and without any fall since its first creation, cleaving close unto Thee, is placed beyond all the rolling vicissitude of times. Yea, neither is this very formlessness of the earth, ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... still so weak in the present enlightened times as to believe in the prodigies of animal magnetism, and of metallic tractors. What then is to be said of the prodigies of spontaneous vitality? To a system which removes the Author of all so far from our contemplation, we might well ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... Directors. It is to be located at Chicago, St. Louis, or Omaha, as the Board shall conclude. For the President of this University, an evening paper rather lightly says: "so much difficulty exists in selecting an individual belonging to this world, combining all the desired requisites, that it is in contemplation to wait (our moon being uninhabited) until one can be obtained from the planet Mars, or possibly Jupiter. The latter will no doubt be best,—as one who can bear the great heat of that planet will be well fitted to meet the fiery criticism to which he will ...
— 1931: A Glance at the Twentieth Century • Henry Hartshorne
... large upon the lonely road, A thousand steps and more we onward went, In contemplation, each ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante
... the little shop, where Emily had tastefully set out—as women can—articles in themselves of slight value, so as to obscure the meagreness of the stock-in-trade; till she saw a figure pausing without the window apparently absorbed in the contemplation of the sixpenny books, packets of paper, and prints hung on a string. It was Captain Shadrach Jolliffe, peering in to ascertain if Emily were there alone. Moved by an impulse of reluctance to meet him in a spot which breathed of Emily, Joanna ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... of man was part and parcel of divinity or of increased light; it would never attain happiness until it was re-united to the source of all light; but for it, we would be free from all things we call gross and material, and we would be taken into the ethereal regions by contemplation and by abstinence from the pleasures of the flesh. When these absurdities were adopted for the regulation of conduct, they necessarily resulted in a fierce morality, inimical to all the pleasures of life, such, in a ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... his setting out for Eatanswill seemed most mysterious and unaccountable. He paced the room, popped his head out of the window, and constantly referred to his watch. It was evident to Mrs. Bardell, who was dusting the apartment, that something of importance was in contemplation. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... rippling Yellowstone. His head was deep in my lap, his muzzle buried in oats; he took no thought for the morrow,—he would eat, drink, and be merry, and ask no questions as to what was to happen; and so absorbed were we in our occupation—he in his happiness, I in the contemplation thereof—that neither of us noticed the rapid approach of a third party until a whinny of astonishment sounded close beside us, and Van, trailing his lariat and picket-pin after him, came trotting up, took in the situation at a glance, and, unhesitatingly ranging alongside his comrade ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... should all be chess-players—there would be none left to do the business of the world. Our statesmen would sit with pocket boards while the country went to the devil, our army would bury itself in chequered contemplation, our bread-winners would forget their wives in seeking after impossible mates. The whole world would be disorganised. I can fancy this abominable hypnotism so wrought into the constitution of men ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... towards and into the Gangetic plain. As the conditions of life grew more complex, with increasing prosperity and probably longer intervals of peace, differentiation between classes and professions grew more marked. There was time and leisure for thinking as well as for fighting, for contemplation as well as for action. The "bright" gods that Nature had conceived for the early Aryans were fashioned and refashioned by speculations already laden with the gloom of melancholy and awesomeness that pervades India. Caste, it may be inferred from the Sanskrit word Varna, which means colour, ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... former regime than might have been supposed. Because, says De Tocqueville, youths of eighteen to twenty hardly ever possess the faculty or the inclination to note social peculiarities. They accept what they find going, and scarcely give a thought to the contemplation of what is familiar to them and of every day's experience. Royer Collard was a man of superior mind: had a great deal to relate. De Tocqueville used to pump him whenever an opportunity occurred. Knew Danton well, used to discuss political affairs with ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... studious, so critical, and so fastidious, could not be a voluminous writer. A few poems include all the original compositions of Gray- -the quintessence, as it were, of thirty years of ceaseless study and contemplation, irradiated by bright and fitful gleams of inspiration. In 1742 Gray composed his Ode to Spring, his Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, and his Ode to Adversity—productions which most readers of poetry can ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... none the less we are making the future. We are making it atrociously no doubt; we are not ignorant of that possibility, but some of us, at least, would like to do it better. We know only too well how that we are out of touch with scholarship and contemplation. We must drive our pens to live and push and bawl to be heard. We must blunder against men an ampler training on either side would have made our allies, we must smart and lose our tempers and do the foolish things that are done in the heat of the day. For ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... communication from us on these lines in May, 1916, with the greatest politeness but said that "no such legislation was at present in contemplation." However, within the next fortnight it was in contemplation and the Government made repeated attempts to deal with the situation by the creation of a special register. All the attempts were rejected by the House of Commons, which ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... principal of which have been touched upon by Burton in the Terminal Essay to his Arabian Nights and in some of his notes. Finally we are told that the Kama Sutra was composed for the benefit of the world by Vatsyayana, while leading the life of a religious student, and wholly engaged in the contemplation of the Deity. At the same time, the teaching of this holy man amounts to very much the same as that of Maupassant, which is, to use Tolstoy's words, "that life consists in pleasures of which woman with her love is the chief, and in the double, again ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... and I were deep in the contemplation of our treasure, and I was solemnly promising myself to enrich the Paris Museum with it, when an ill-timed stone, hurled by one of the islanders, whizzed over and shattered the valuable object ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... still at the looking-glass and gazed a long time at his swarthy face, his big forehead, and his black hair, which curled like a negro's, and his shirt of dull-coloured cotton with big flowers on it like a Persian rug, and the broad leather belt he wore instead of a waistcoat. The contemplation of his own image seemed to afford him almost more satisfaction than looking at photographs or playing with the pistols. He was very well satisfied with his face, and his becomingly clipped beard, and the broad shoulders, ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... out of this street of misery and entered the town. The boys had forgotten their own troubles in the contemplation of the suffering of the unhappy creatures behind them. The guards who had been slouching along at a swinging gait now straightened up and assumed a more soldierly air. At a word of command from their fat commander they halted before ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... when he got into the car, and indeed the light was not such as to allow him to do more than study the advertisements on the panes of glass that faced him as he sat. As was not unnatural, the advertisements in this particular line of cars were objects of his frequent contemplation, and, with the possible exception of the brilliant and convincing dialogue between Mr Lamplough and an eminent K.C. on the subject of Pyretic Saline, none of them afforded much scope to his imagination. I am wrong: there was one at the ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... is most purely simple, and one. He is not like those things we see and hear, that fall under our senses, therefore we call him a Spirit, or a spiritual Being. Now, in all these weak endeavours of man, to detain and fix his own spirit in the contemplation of God, if he cannot reach the understanding of what God is, yet certainly he will attain this great point of wisdom,—not to be ignorant of his own ignorance. And truly, my beloved, this is the thing I would have us to learn to know, that the admiration of ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... Hare (who was the Buddha-to-be) in due time came out, thinking to lie (in contemplation) on the Kuca grass. "It is impossible for me to offer grass to any beggars who may chance to come by, and I have no oil or rice or fish. If any beggar comes to me, I will give him (of) ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... man put his arms round her neck and hugged her hard—an unusual demonstration for Little Buck. And during her entire stay he hung close about, somewhat to Nancy's annoyance, seeming to find plentiful joy in the contemplation ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... shake the mind— Finds in his soul full comfort for his soul, He hath attained the Yog—that man is such! In sorrows not dejected, and in joys Not overjoyed; dwelling outside the stress Of passion, fear, and anger; fixed in calms Of lofty contemplation;—such an one Is Muni, is the Sage, the true Recluse! He who to none and nowhere overbound By ties of flesh, takes evil things and good Neither desponding nor exulting, such Bears wisdom's plainest mark! He who shall draw As the ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold
... more, there is no love in sons or daughters without fear. The reverential awe with which God's children draw near to God has in it nothing slavish and no terror. Their love is not only joyful but lowly. The worshipping gaze upon His Divine majesty, the reverential and adoring contemplation of His ineffable holiness, and the poignant consciousness, after all effort, of the distance between us and Him will bow the hearts that love Him most in lowliest prostration before Him. These two, hope and fear, confidence and awe, are like the poles on which the whole round world turns and are ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... rear of the marquee, which had been devoted to a fernery. Here he came to a sudden pause; for, seated a few yards before him on a gray crag, and the moonlight full on his face, he saw a solitary man, looking upwards with a still and mournful gaze, evidently absorbed in abstract contemplation. ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and encounter difficulties and dangers, in search of curiosities and knowledge, although, if our industry were equally exerted at home, we might find in the tablets of Nature and Art, within our daily reach, inexhaustible sources of inquiry and contemplation. We are on every side surrounded by interesting objects; but, in nature, as in morals, we are apt to contemn self-knowledge, to look abroad rather than at home, and to study others instead of ourselves. Like the French Encyclopaedists, we forget our own ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... in the note of the sphere and once more they lost themselves in contemplation of the scene within. The surface of the lost continent was rushing madly to meet them. With terrific velocity they seemed to be falling. An involuntary gasp was forced from Tommy's lips. Mountains, valleys, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... of a mile away was the object of his contemplation—a big, new structure, painted a staring red. It had no windows, but in front were great sliding doors. On its flat roof the forms of a dozen or more glazed skylights upreared ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... passage within, as of old, and I took it up and ascended the staircase alone. Miss Havisham was not in her own room, but was in the larger room across the landing. Looking in at the door, after knocking in vain, I saw her sitting on the hearth in a ragged chair, close before, and lost in the contemplation of, the ashy fire. ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... immense cage, which was larger than any house, and entirely open to view. They walked round all four sides of it, and were enchanted with its beautiful occupants pants. Storks and flamingoes stood about, on one leg, motionless, as if absorbed in deep contemplation. Pelicans, with their strange bills, and ducks of most brilliant plumage waddled around and seemed to be entirely interested ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells
... an office, possibly in the Cabinet, he despatched South to get himself elected to Congress, for he must have powerful friends in that body to support the great measures he had in contemplation; and that not unambitious statesman, after a hot fight with Patrick Henry, was obliged to content himself with a seat in the House. Before he went to Virginia he and Hamilton had talked for long and pleasant hours over the Federal leader's future schemes. ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... the canyon towards the Poudre River. But a week later, upon my return, he was still there. He had located his claim and staked his corner. His location notice, laboriously written with a blunt pencil, was fastened to a tree. The burro lay in philosophical contemplation in the grass beside the stream; while his master sat beside the shallow hole that perhaps marked the beginning of a mine. His pose was that of a sentinel. He watched the hole with an expectant air, as though from it something important would ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... proposes to withdraw into his inmost self, and by a complete suspension of all his active powers to become absorbed and swallowed up in the Infinite.[130] Plato and his followers sought by an immediate abstraction to apprehend "the unchangeable and permanent Being," and, by a loving contemplation, to become "assimilated to the Deity," and in this way to attain the immediate consciousness of God. The Neo-Platonic mystic sought by asceticism and self-mortification to prepare himself for divine communings. He would ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... under the downward curve of her hat-brim, very small in her simple, white frock, almost like a lost child crying in the degraded grandeur of the noble hall, while he stood by her, again perfectly motionless in the contemplation of ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... baptism,[104] or in virtue of Isaiah VII., found the germ of his unique nature in his miraculous origin.[105] But as soon as that speculation was detached from its original foundation, it necessarily withdrew the minds of believers from the consideration of the work of Christ, and from the contemplation of the revelation of God which was given in the ministry of the historical person Jesus. The mystery of the person of Jesus in itself, would then necessarily ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... she perceived at the end of the walk, in the most remote part of the garden, a kind of a bower, open on all sides, and went towards it; when she was near, she saw a man lying on the benches, who seemed sunk into a deep contemplation, and she discovered it was the Duke de Nemours. Upon this she stopped short: but her attendants made some noise, which roused the Duke out of his musing: he took no notice who the persons were that disturbed him, but got up in order ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette
... and contemplation I left her as amorous as she had been eighteen years before, but my passion found too many new objects to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... genesis speaks, and which we everywhere see manifesting itself in nature? Surely this inquiry is not one to be superciliously set aside by the materialists, after the failure of their uranological expedition, on the ground that it does not furnish food enough for scientific contemplation, without such physiological fancies as their specialists have been giving us in the shape of force-correlations and ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... things a mystic; that is, he belonged to that class of men, numerous in many ages, who, setting small store by the world of appearance open to science, and even by science itself, seek by asceticism, meditation, and contemplation to attain a vision of the world of reality, and finally of the supreme reality, God himself. Such mysticism is almost certainly derived from the far East; but so far as Europe is concerned it owes its origin mainly to Plato, and his notion of a world ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... flash the glory of thy loveliness Through all the fulness of unmeasured space. Can madness in its raving cast a thought To soar unto thy blessed perfectness, Nor stand subdued with reverence and awe In contemplation of the Infinite? O Earth! thou Mother and true Monitress! Can thy frail children close their ears for aye 'Gainst the deep-hearted warnings of thy voice? In the wild whirl of life the tones may die Amid the clangour of contending foes, But here, as in the stillness of the night, Thy solemn ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... approving, or correcting, judgment of Mr. E. DROOD, I make bold to guess that the modern true lover's mind, such as it is, is rendered jerky by contemplation of the lady who has made him the object of her virgin affectations," proceeded Mr. DIBBLE, looking intently at EDWIN, but still making farther and farther reaches toward the distant crackers, even to the increased tilting of his chair. "I ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... concurrently, because reliance on the growing fullness of the individual life to the neglect of the social evolution is likely to empty that life itself of its true content, to leave the self-centred visionary absorbed in the contemplation of some ideal perfection within himself, while the world outside him from which he ultimately derives his notions, is toiling and suffering from the want of those very elements which he ...
— Progress and History • Various
... climate in these now inclement regions, carried us back to the sun-blest climes, where the blue Pacific lashes the coral-guarded isles of sweet Otaheite, and I must plead guilty to a recreant sigh for past recollections and dear friends, all summoned up by the contemplation of a ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... the sky. The Welsh terms for a week and a fortnight, wythnos (eight nights) and pythefnos (fifteen nights) respectively confirm Caesar's statement. To us now it may seem more natural to associate religion with the contemplation of the heavens, but for the Celtic lands at any rate the main trend of the evidence is to show that the religious mind was mainly drawn to a contemplation of the earth and her varied life, and that the Celt looked for his other-world ...
— Celtic Religion - in Pre-Christian Times • Edward Anwyl
... I turned to the contemplation of the minutiae of my situation. So far, I had not succeeded in the sole object of my desires, the finding a companion for my desolation. Yet I did not despair. It is true that my inscriptions were set up for the most part, in insignificant towns and villages; yet, even without ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... liberty, with a good conscience, to attend the Court of Justiciary that day, to give the evidence which he understood that she possessed, in order to her sister's exculpation. At length, after a minute of apprehensive hesitation, he looked at her dress to discover whether it seemed to be in her contemplation to go abroad that morning. Her apparel was neat and plain, but such as conveyed no exact intimation of her intentions to go abroad. She had exchanged her usual garb for morning labour, for one something inferior to that ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... judges the individuality a separation. On the contrary, it is the sole possibility and very bond of love. Otherness is the essential ground of affection. But in spiritual things, such a unity is pre-supposed in the very contemplation of them by the spirit of man, that wherever anything does not exist that ought to be there, the space it ought to occupy, even if but a blank, assumes the appearance of a separating gulf. The negative looks a positive. Where a man does not love, the not-loving ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... Vanborough had returned to the contemplation of the alternative between freeing himself or not freeing himself from the marriage tie. One of his elbows was on the table, he bit fiercely at his finger-nails. He muttered between his teeth, "What am ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... minutes of the curious constitution of mind which enables a man to feel his vanity flattered when he gets credit to which he knows he is not entitled, as the plagiarist does, I pass away into the. vast field of thought which is afforded by the contemplation of human vanity in general. The Ettrick Shepherd was wont to say that when he tried a new pen, instead of writing his name, as most people do, he always wrote Solomon's famous sentence, All is vanity. But he did not understand the words in Solomon's sense: what he thought of was ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... quickly. But Mary had her eyes fixed seaward in contemplation of a distant light that flared and died with ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... it for him that you disturb my delightful solitude?" asked the princess, somewhat reproachfully. "Is this Count Ostermann, is this whole miserable realm of so much importance to me as the sweet contemplation of a letter from my friend? When I am reading his letter it seems to me that my beloved himself is at my side, and therefore you must clearly see that I cannot receive Count Ostermann, as Lynar ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... independence about minds of superior endowment, which, in similar characters, manifests itself differently according to the circumstances in which they happen to be placed. Devoted to the contemplation of the means of future celebrity, the man of genius frequently finds himself little disposed to set a proper value on the common interests of of life. When bred in affluence, and exempted from the necessity of ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... tremendous a worker and boisterous a gourmand of life was her late husband, on the anniversary of whose death she always sat all day without reading any novels at all, but devoted what was left of her mind to the contemplation of nothing at all. She had married him because, for some inscrutable reason, he insisted on it; and she had been resigned to his death, as to everything else that ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... he had left off wandering and had buried himself in an obscure Cornish village, where he gave himself up to his work. He was not quite so successful as he had been; on the other hand, he cared less than ever about success. It was the end of the century, a century that had been forced by the contemplation of such realities as plague and famine, and war and rumors of war, to forego and forget the melancholy art of its decadence. And from other causes Durant had fallen into a state of extreme dissatisfaction with himself. Five years ago he had found himself, as they said; found ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... Galileo, whether we view him as a member of the social circle, or as a man of science, presents many interesting and instructive points of contemplation. Unfortunate, and to a certain extent immoral, in his domestic relations, he did not derive from that hallowed source all the enjoyments which it generally yields; and it was owing to this cause, perhaps, that he was more fond of society than might have been expected from his ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... second assertion and the problem is destroyed. So far from its being difficult to suppose an eternity, it is the most difficult thing in the world to suppose any thing but an eternity. A mind, not afraid to think, will find it the most easy contemplation in the world to dwell upon. It is at least a bold assertion, that nothing can be more evident than that plants and animals could not have proceeded from each other by succession from all eternity. Surely to this may be answered, that it is more evident that two and two make ...
— Answer to Dr. Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever • Matthew Turner
... any great addition to our party, I think,' muttered Captain Bouncey to Captain Cutitfat, as they stood within the bay of the library window, in apparent contemplation of the cows, but in reality conning the Sponge matter over ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... and pageantries is attracted, not only the admiration of the populace, but the zeal of {113} the orator, the enthusiasm of the poet, the investigation of the historian, and the contemplation of the philosopher: yet how silent and invisible are they in the depths of air! Do I say in those depths and deserts? No; I say at the distance of a swallow's flight,—at the distance she rises above us, ere a sentence brief ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... This afternoon, however, the contemplation of the tawny chrysanthemums displayed in the brass vase failed to inspire the usual joy. Bridgie's eyes were bright indeed as she turned back into the room, but it was the sort of brightness which betokens tears repressed. She laid her hand on the little sister's shoulders, ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... the shed, which must have been at least a hundred feet long, stood what I thought at first was the skeleton of an enormous whale. After a moment's silent contemplation of the thing I saw that it could not be a whale, for the frames of two gigantic, batlike wings rose from each shoulder. Also I noticed that the animal possessed legs—four of them—with most unpleasant-looking webbed claws fully eight feet long. The bony framework ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... quaint prints on the walls, and its absurd ornaments on the mantelpiece. The other little rooms seemed almost as funny to him, and he was sorry when the bell on the shop door called him down from their contemplation. It was pleasant to him to think that he owned all these odd things. The ownership of the varied goods in the shop also gave him an agreeable feeling which none of his other possessions had ever afforded him. It was all so odd ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... from the contemplation of the labyrinth of crime and treachery to which he had seized the clue; the young Moslem sought and found a far pleasanter subject of reflection in the remembrance of the maiden, whose transcendent beauty and touching devotion to her captive ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... cannot bear solitude: they take no pleasure in the contemplation of nature and the world. This arises from the fact that they never lose sight of their own will, and therefore they see nothing of the objects of the world but the bearing of such objects upon their will and person. With objects which have no such bearing there sounds ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer
... had in contemplation the landing of an army of twelve thousand men on the open beach at Vera Cruz, he caused sixty-seven surf-boats to be built for that particular service, each of them capable of holding from seventy to eighty ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... off the subject of Madame Gilbert, and directed his mind towards the contemplation of his own exploits. When handled judiciously he will talk freely and frankly, giving away official secrets with both hands. But his confidences always relate to the past, to incidents completed. When he has a delicate job on hand, he can be as close as the English Admiralty, even ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... feeling (Fig. 4), the old ideas that surged through the minds of the Predynastic Egyptians, as they contemplated the desiccated remains of the dead, were strongly reinforced. The earlier people's thoughts were turned more specifically than heretofore to the contemplation of the nature of life and death by seeing the bodies of their dead preserved whole and incorruptible; and, if their actions can be regarded as an expression of their ideas, they began to wonder what was lacking in these physically complete ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... my remedy," I said. "My business does not permit much chance for rest, unless it is taken resolutely; and, like many other sinners, I have great reforms in contemplation." ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... her for myself.' No. Because some one has said that she will marry him, you feel sure that she will, and that ends the question. For the word of a man or a woman, all is to be finished. You are all contemplation, no action—all heart, no hands—all love, no anger! You deserve to die for love. I am sorry that ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... Teniers, of sots quarrelling over their dice: it is an entirely clever picture; so clever that nothing in its kind has ever been done equal to it; but it is also an entirely base and evil picture. It is an expression of delight in the prolonged contemplation of a vile thing, and delight in that is an 'unmannered,' or 'immoral' quality. It is 'bad taste' in the profoundest sense—it is the taste of the devils. On the other hand, a picture of Titian's, or a Greek statue, or a Greek coin, or a Turner landscape, expresses ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... that He was joined to God the Word, participating in the Sonship and dignity, takes away every thought of two Sons or two Lords, and offers indeed to us in conjunction with the God the Word, to have all faith in Him and all understanding and contemplation, on account of which things also He receives from every creature the worship and sacrifice of God. Therefore we say that there is one Lord, namely, the Lord Jesus Christ, by whom all things were made, ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... of the Christian soul, the condition of all fruitfulness, blessedness, knowledge and Christ- likeness. Christ's charge to John to 'tarry' did not only, as his brethren misinterpreted it, mean that his life was to be continued, but it prescribed the manner of his life. It was to be patient contemplation, a 'dwelling in the house of the Lord,' a keeping of his heart still, like some little tarn up amongst the silent hills, for heaven with all its ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... reasons for his Majesty's "entering into engagements with the Indians, for fixing a more precise and determinate boundary line," than was settled by the royal proclamation of Oct. 1763, we shall take the liberty of stating the following facts:—In the year 1764, the King's ministers had it then in contemplation, to obtain an act of parliament for the proper regulation of the Indian commerce; and providing a fund, (by laying a duty on the trade) for the support of superintendants, commissaries, interpreters, &c. at particular forts in ...
— Report of the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations on the Petition of the Honourable Thomas Walpole, Benjamin Franklin, John Sargent, and Samuel Wharton, Esquires, and their Associates • Great Britain Board of Trade
... slightest freedom with, her; they might come as far as the verandah but no farther. The people were becoming ashamed of their superstition, and were ready to inform her secretly when palavers and sacrifices were in contemplation. Chiefs came voluntarily and requested her to sit in the seat of judgment and adjudge their disputes. The tribe, as a whole, was also working better, and developing a regular trade with the Europeans. The problem was solved by another woman with a stout heart, ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... afford that, either. Nine-tenths of them are traveling the road to ruin, I'm told, and apparently they can't get over the ground too fast. Just look!" and the sages joined in the amused and mournful contemplation of the different types of motors innumerably whirring up and down the drive before them, while they choked in the fumes of ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... prejudice, I may suggest that a careful study of the most ancient forms of Pantheism seems to show that they were purely philosophical; an endeavour to reach in thought the ultimate reality which polytheism travestied, and which the senses disguised. But little or no attempt was made to substitute the contemplation of the Eternal for the worship of mediator divinities. Thus, in the same spirit in which Socrates ordered the sacrifice of a cock to Aesculapius for his recovery from the disease of mortal life, philosophical Pantheists, whether Egyptian or Greek, or even ...
— Pantheism, Its Story and Significance - Religions Ancient And Modern • J. Allanson Picton
... own; she had never ceased her efforts, yet now after many months she was fain to confess that this young girl, who had promised such great things, seemed further than at the beginning from that holiness which is not of the earth, and which delights only in the contemplation of heavenly things. She could see it now with what painful clearness! for her eyes in such matters were preternaturally sharp, like those of a sailor who has followed the sea all his life with regard ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... enhances so rapidly with time as in the United States, there is scarcely a limit to the wealth that may be acquired by corporations, religious or otherwise, if allowed to retain real estate without taxation. The contemplation of so vast a property as here alluded to, without taxation, may lead to sequestration without constitutional authority and ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ulysses S. Grant • Ulysses S. Grant
... moods of the religious life that are not represented in the Psalms: penitence, intellectual perplexity, domestic sorrow, feebleness, loneliness, the approach of death, the excitement of great events, the agony of persecution, quiet contemplation of nature, each has its word. The imprecations of some of the Psalms show a trait of the national character without which the picture would be incomplete. It may be in part extenuated by the consideration that in these Psalms it is the community that speaks, and that the enemy of ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... forth, the lion to St. Mark, because he shows {85} His royal dignity and power; the ox to St. Luke, because his is the sacrificial Gospel and dwells on the Atonement; and the eagle to St. John, because his Gospel rises to the contemplation of the sublimest mysteries of ...
— The Worship of the Church - and The Beauty of Holiness • Jacob A. Regester
... 1350 to Trinity Hall, Cambridge, by the Founder William Bateman (Bishop of Norwich 1344-56), contain rules which are more stringent than those already quoted, and were evidently written in contemplation of a more considerable collection of volumes. A list of the books which he himself presented to Trinity Hall is appended to his statutes, and a special chapter (De libris collegii) is allotted to the Library. This may be ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... abides. And in time these two build nests in the hearts of men, and quickly rear a progeny only too legitimate: and the ruin within the man is gradually consummated as the sublimities of his soul wither away and fade, and in ecstatic contemplation of our mortal parts we omit to exalt, and come to neglect in nonchalance, that within us which ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... and fro for a long time, a calm, meditative ghost in his white drill-suit, revolving in his head thoughts absolutely novel, disquieting, and seductive; accustoming his mind to the contemplation of his purpose, in order that by being faced steadily it should appear praiseworthy and wise. For the use of reason is to justify the obscure desires that move our conduct, impulses, passions, prejudices, and follies, and ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... No formal invitation, No gold-laced coat, no stiff cravat, No feast in contemplation; No silk-robed dames, no fiddling band, No flowers, no ...
— Tea Leaves • Various
... or "yah ya Vrouw," to any question that was asked them; behaving, in all things, like decent, well-educated damsels. As to the gentlemen, each of them tranquilly smoked his pipe, and seemed lost in contemplation of the blue and white tiles with which the fireplaces were decorated; wherein sundry passages of Scripture were piously portrayed—Tobit and his dog figured to great advantage, Haman swung conspicuously on his gibbet, and Jonah appeared most manfully bouncing out ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... did not answer. His whole mind was occupied at the moment with the contemplation of the fact that she had called him Bill. Then he realized that she had spoken three times and expected ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... feelings were roused again by the sight of the old man, so unconcerned in his sins, surrounded by riches, and absorbed in worldly contemplation, whilst he was drawing near the depths ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... which would have come upon his friends with an equal shock of surprise if they could but have had it brought home to them. The man who sat unaffectedly crying in the big chair in helpless contemplation of the scattered papers was a hopeless bankrupt, and had seen himself sliding towards bankruptcy for years. When men who knew him wanted business advice, they went to him by preference, and nobody came away ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... The contemplation of this possibility so raised Martin's spirits, that, in spite of the disappointment he had experienced in finding the booty so far below what he had anticipated, he became quite cheerful, especially ...
— Rufus and Rose - The Fortunes of Rough and Ready • Horatio Alger, Jr
... life. All his life! He looked forward and shuddered. What a dreary life it must needs be! Cotenoir, Beaubocage, Madelon, the law; to plead, to read papers, to study dry as dust books. He shrank appalled from the contemplation of that dreary desert of existence—a life ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... to discover a spiritual and solitary God, that was neither represented under any corporeal figure or visible symbol, nor was adored with the accustomed pomp of libations and festivals, of altars and sacrifices. The sages of Greece and Rome, who had elevated their minds to the contemplation of the existence and attributes of the First Cause, were induced by reason or by vanity to reserve for themselves and their chosen disciples the privilege of this philosophical devotion. They were far from admitting the prejudices of mankind as the standard ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... terms for a week and a fortnight, wythnos (eight nights) and pythefnos (fifteen nights) respectively confirm Caesar's statement. To us now it may seem more natural to associate religion with the contemplation of the heavens, but for the Celtic lands at any rate the main trend of the evidence is to show that the religious mind was mainly drawn to a contemplation of the earth and her varied life, and that the Celt looked for his other-world either beneath the earth, with her rivers, lakes, and seas, ...
— Celtic Religion - in Pre-Christian Times • Edward Anwyl
... longest in Silas's memory; it seemed as if it would never be done. He denied himself to his friends, and sat in a corner with his eyes fixed upon the Saratoga trunk in dismal contemplation. His own former indiscretions were now returned upon him in kind; for the observatory had been once more opened, and he was conscious of an almost continual study from Madame Zephyrine's apartment. So distressing did this become that he was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... evident that this frank and unaffected expression of some obscure disgust with his own present position had no other implication, that the Colonel did not except to it. Yet the man did not go on. He stopped and seemed lost in sombre contemplation of his hat. ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... "For your Everything Jar." With a sudden shame at having been seen sympathizing with the interests of a woman, this twin then seized his hat and fled whooping down the road to school, followed by his brother, who, holding between his vision and the sun a small bit of crimson glass, exulted in the contemplation of a deep ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... either boy to consider what kind of greeting he should give to the other. They were face to face before either of them realized it. As for Pen, he bore no resentment now, toward any one. His heart had been wrung dry from that feeling through two months of labor and of contemplation. So, when the first shock of surprise was over, he held ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... in delusions as degrading as any of the so-called Dark Ages." It was the revolt from the chilling materialism of the age which inspired the mystic creations of "Zanoni" and "A Strange Story." Of these works, which support and supplement each other, one is the contemplation of our actual life through a spiritual medium, the other is designed to show that, without some gleams of the supernatural, man is not man, nor ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the river, looked rather brown and sere, after the hot winds, although the orange-trees were still green enough, and vast clusters of purple grapes were ripening rapidly among the yellowing vine-leaves. On the whole, however, the garden was but a poor subject of contemplation for one who remembered it in all its full November beauty, and so my eye travelled away to the left, to a broad paddock of yellow grass which bounded the garden on that side, and there I watched ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... discovery a profound secret from the rest of the rats, in order to monopolize the delicious dainty, pretending all the while that his long and frequent absences at a certain hole were purely for purposes of heavenly contemplation, his mind having of late become seriously impressed, and, therefore, he could not bear interruption, I am in the habit of ensconcing myself with a selfish exclusion therein. Far from it: the door is never barred against admission, and my confugium ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... they borrow so as to fit it to what they possess." In the second place, the Tendai system became the parent of nearly all the great sects subsequently born in Japan. In the third place, the Buddhas of Contemplation, by whose aid the meditation of absolute truth is rendered possible, suggested the idea that they had frequently been incarnated for the welfare of mankind, and from that theory it was but a short step to the conviction that "the ancient gods whom the ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... water. I paint splinters, and men's souls naked, and men's bodies dead, and nightmare—nightmare—all day and all night—I paint them in my head." He suddenly ceased speaking and relapsed into contemplation of the carpet, with his bearded cheeks resting on his fists. "And their souls as white as snow, les camarades," he added suddenly and loudly, "millions of Belgians, English, French, even the Boches, with white ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... many fair spirit-stories, may be explained away as an optical illusion, but its poetic beauty and meaning would, even then, make it valuable, as an illustration of the spiritual fact.] It gave a man, but a poet-man, the power of which he thus speaks: "Often in my contemplation of nature, radiant intimations, and as it were sheaves of light, appear before me as to the facts of cosmogony, in which my mind has, perhaps, taken especial part." He wisely adds, "but it is necessary with earnestness to verify the knowledge we gain by these ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... but, if one might so describe it, of a different color. Her admiration got its life largely from Gerald's, whose tastes in art she was in the habit of adopting blindfold. Of this, however, she was not aware, and gazed doing good to her soul by the conscious and deliberate contemplation of a masterpiece. ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... nature,—to the gradual suppression of the more combative and turbulent. The influence of the happy light under which his genius so silently and calmly grew, was seen in the exquisite harmony of its colours, rather than the gorgeous diversities of their glow. His contemplation, intent upon objects of peaceful beauty, and undisturbed by rude anxieties and vehement passions, suggested only kindred reproductions to the creative faculty by which it was vivified; so that the whole man was not only a poet, but, as it were, a poem,—a living idyl, calling ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and clothes the beloved with virtues that exist only in his imagination. The beloved is consciously or unconsciously aware of this, and endeavors to fulfil the high ideal; and in the contemplation of the transcendent qualities that his mind has created, the lover is raised to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... known in the Darmstadt circle as Lila, whom Merck admired and, according to Caroline Flaschsland, "almost compared with Yorick's Maria," was so sentimental that she had her grave made in her garden, evidently for purposes of contemplation, and she led a lamb about which ate and drank with her. Upon the death of this animal, "afaithful dog" took its place. Thus was ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... Albemarle, 28, then commanded by Nelson, who had been serving on the North American station. These various movements were dictated by those of the enemy, either actually made or supposed to be in contemplation; for it was an inevitable part of the ill-effects of Rodney's most imperfect success, that the British fleet was thenceforth on the defensive purely, with all the perplexities of him who waits upon the initiative of an ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... the earth, Clayton and Lady Alice still stood by the ship's rail in silent contemplation of their future abode. From the dark shadows of the mighty forest came the wild calls of savage beasts—the deep roar of the lion, and, occasionally, the shrill scream of ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... no idea that I should escape the monster that had marked me for his breakfast, but at least I should not die alone. Human eyes would watch me end. It was cold comfort I presume, but yet I derived some slight peace of mind from the contemplation of it. ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... nor ear heard, nor mind conceived it. Yet, methinks, the glory of the terrestrial was meant to raise our souls to the contemplation ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... in the most humble objects, makes all around us resplendent and, if we refuse to see it, we are blinded by an unjust prejudice, or our minds are not open to the faculty of contemplation. ...
— Common Sense - - Subtitle: How To Exercise It • Yoritomo-Tashi
... tho' he was no very great Scholar, yet had a happy way of Expressing himself: He was a Man of the most Engaging Address, and never fail'd to draw Attention: Plenty and Good-Nature smil'd in his Face; his Muscles were never distorted with Anger or Contemplation, but an eternal Smile drew up the Corners of his Mouth; his very Eyes laugh'd; and as for his Chin it was three-double, a-down which hung a goodly Whey-colour'd Beard shining with the Drippings of his Luxury; for you must ...
— A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling (1726) • Anonymous
... envoys have not made their final report, as further negotiations between the representatives of this Government and the Governments of other countries are pending and in contemplation. They believe that doubts which have been raised in certain quarters respecting the position of maintaining the stability of the parity between the metals and kindred questions may yet be solved by ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley
... little finger intentionally, in order that I might reduce the fracture and watch the cure: it was only on a small scale, you know, dear John; still the thrilling sensation excited by the knitting of the bone, aided by the contemplation of the art of man thus acting in unison with nature, exceeded any other enjoyment that I have ever experienced. Now, had it been one of the more important members, such as the leg, or arm, how much greater ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... socket, deprived of lustre; melancholy conceptions filled his imagination more habitually, and were excited by slighter causes; at times, they altogether deprived him of the power of exertion; and while he lamented their effect, the contemplation of themselves rendered him the more their prey. At this time, a gloomy day, or the smallest disappointment, gave him inconceivable distress; but he was not altogether incapable of temporary relief, and the few moments of pleasure he seemed to enjoy, would have given reason to believe, ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... moi genomenae ek theorias taes odi, taen physin echein philotheamona uparkei. (mallem, kai moi hae genomenae ek theorias autaes odis). "What then are we to understand? That whatever is produced is an intuition, I silent; and that, which is thus generated, is by its nature a theorem, or form of contemplation; and the birth; which results to me from this contemplation, attains to have ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... where he gave himself up to his work. He was not quite so successful as he had been; on the other hand, he cared less than ever about success. It was the end of the century, a century that had been forced by the contemplation of such realities as plague and famine, and war and rumors of war, to forego and forget the melancholy art of its decadence. And from other causes Durant had fallen into a state of extreme dissatisfaction with himself. Five ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... not to him; it is mine, in return for my having myself saved him from death." Madame de Villefort made no further reply; her mind was utterly absorbed in the contemplation of the person who, from the first instant she saw him, had made so powerful an impression on her. During the evident preoccupation of Madame de Villefort, Monte Cristo scrutinized the features and appearance of the boy she kept folded in her arms, lavishing on him the ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... other spheres. In the Shi' matrimony is recorded as being parallel in every respect with earth-marriage, and the desire which urges to it seems to be as violent and inconstant as it is with us; but in the Many-Coloured Land marriage is but a contemplation of beauty, a brooding and meditation wherein all grosser desire is unknown and children ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... which were formerly in use, were very clumsy."—Key to Inst. "The place is not mentioned by the geographers who wrote at that time."—Ib. "Those questions which a person puts to himself in contemplation, ought to be terminated with points of interrogation."— Mur. et al. cor. "The work is designed for the use of those persons who may think it merits a place in their libraries."—Mur. cor. "That those who think confusedly, should express themselves ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... was simply the act of lawless ruffians, under the sanction of no public or political authority, distinguishable only from ordinary felonies by the ulterior ends in contemplation by them, and by the fact that the money to maintain the expedition, and the large armament they brought with them, had been contributed and furnished by the citizens of other States of the Union under circumstances that must continue to jeopard the safety and peace ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... quickly found, by the lady's looks, that she regarded me as a very odd kind of fellow, with an unfortunate aspect: for which reason I took my leave immediately after dinner, and withdrew to my own lodgings. Upon my return home, I fell into a profound contemplation on the evils that attend these superstitious follies of mankind; how they subject us to imaginary afflictions, and additional sorrows, that do not properly come within our lot. As if the natural calamities of life were not sufficient for it, we turn the most indifferent circumstances ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... would never attain happiness until it was re-united to the source of all light; but for it, we would be free from all things we call gross and material, and we would be taken into the ethereal regions by contemplation and by abstinence from the pleasures of the flesh. When these absurdities were adopted for the regulation of conduct, they necessarily resulted in a fierce morality, inimical to all the pleasures of life, such, in a word, as that of the Gymnosophists or, ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... yourselves know; I am now well disposed towards you; and I am living here under great apprehensions; if therefore I should find that you are concerting any safe scheme for your deliverance, I would come and join you, bringing with me all my followers. Let me know, therefore, what you have in contemplation, as one who is your friend and well-wisher, and who is willing to march along with you." 3. The generals, after consulting together, resolved on returning the following answer; and Cheirisophus delivered it: "It ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon
... which distinguished him from his contemporaries. (79-90.) A. Milton adopted the noblest qualities of every party— 1. Puritans. (80-84.) a. They excited contempt. However b. They were no vulgar fanatics; but c. They derived their peculiarities from their daily contemplation of superior beings and eternal interests. d. Thus the Puritan was made up of two men,—the one all self-abasement, the other all pride. e. Resume of character of Puritans. 2. Heathens were passionate lovers of freedom. (85.) 3. Royalists had individual independence, learning, ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... with this cosmopolitanism, illustrated in the Haggada, whose pages prove that nothing human is strange to the Jewish race, it reveals, in its literary development, as notably in the Halacha, a sharply defined subjectivity. Jellinek says: "Not losing itself in the contemplation of the phenomena of life, not devoting itself to any subject unless it be with an ulterior purpose, but seeing all things in their relation to itself, and subordinating them to its own boldly asserted ego, the Jewish race is not inclined to apply its powers to the solution of intricate ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... atheistic, optimist or pessimist, proclaiming a solution of the mystery, or declaring all solutions to be impossible, he might have given forcible expression to the corresponding emotions. He might have uttered the melancholy resignation and the confident hope incited in different minds by a contemplation of the mysterious world. He might again conceivably have written an interesting work, though it would hardly have been a poem—if he had versified the arguments by which a coherent theory might be supported. Unluckily, he was quite unqualified for either undertaking, and, at ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... of the stars of the company: but the lesser lights, if they became eccentric at all in their orbits, were extinguished without mercy. Their place was easily supplied; for the moment it became known that a play was in contemplation, there were plenty of candidates for dramatic fame, especially among the freshmen: and though we mortally offended one or two aspiring geniuses by proffering them the vacant situations of Ralph, Roger, and Co., ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... better part of man, we crouch before the imagination of it, it assumes the shape of the skeleton monarch who takes the world for his empire, the electric fluid for his chariot, and time for his sceptre. In the contemplation of death, hitherto, fancy inspired by fear has been by far too much the prominent faculty and impulse. The literature of the subject is usually ghastly, appalling, and absurd, with point of view varying from that of the credulous Hindu, personifying death ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... this situation is met, as all situations in war in which efficiency can only be attained at the expense of great personal danger are met, namely, by braving the danger. When the aviators have an attack in contemplation they fly low and snap their fingers at the puff balls of death as the shrapnel from their appearance when bursting may well be called. Naturally, efforts were made early in the war to lessen the danger ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... it implies. Those, however, who, after the manner of beasts, refer everything to pleasure, [Footnote: The Epicureans] think very differently. Nor is it wonderful that they do, for men who have degraded all their thoughts to so mean and contemptible an end can rise to the contemplation of nothing lofty, nothing magnificent and divine. We may, therefore, leave them out of this discussion. But let us have it well understood that the feeling of love and the endearments of mutual affection spring from nature, in case there is a well-established assurance of moral worth ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis
... At nineteen or so, however, one is not too imaginative. Scott merely saw a vagrant dog trying to paw his way through a deep drift that lay across the road. He had a fellow feeling for the dog, when he gave up his effort and, sitting down in the ruins of his tunnel, abandoned himself to the contemplation ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... abandoned the idea of church that day, and Fred found her before a cozy fire, but surrounded by parents, little brothers, and big sisters. The professor was talkative; Fred's mind might have been greatly improved, but with a window in range he preferred a melancholy contemplation of the snow, which had begun to fall in quantity. The professor talked until luncheon, throughout luncheon, and was well under way to fill the whole afternoon with talk, when Fred, repenting all the errors of his ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... knowing little Gyp must soon be back from her walk, and feeling unable to take part in gaiety, she went up and put on her hat. She turned from contemplation of her face with disgust. Since it was no longer the only face for him, what was the use of beauty? She slipped out by the side gate and went down toward the river. The lull was over; the south-west wind had begun sighing through the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... childlike trustfulness, manly earnestness, and tenderly longing devotion to the Redeemer; repentance for the personal sins that his suffering must atone for, and passionate entreaties for mercy; an absorbed contemplation of the example offered by the sufferings of Jesus, and solemn vows pronounced over his dead body never to forsake or forget him,—these are the themes Bach had to treat. And he has solved the difficult problem as if it were child's ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... Chipchase girls had been already asked to join the party. They had been thus invited so often before, that they would have been quite justified in themselves proposing to do so on hearing such an expedition was in contemplation; but no, neither from Blanche nor Jim came a hint of such being the case; and then Lady Mary expressed most unqualified approval of the idea. It was settled that they should start punctually at twelve; and as Mr. Cottrell had not as yet made his appearance, Lady Mary very thoughtfully ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... Rodolphe were proceeding homeward somewhat sadly. Passing up the Rue Dauphine they noticed a great crowd in the shop of a provision dealer, and halted a moment before the window. Tantalized by the sight of the toothsome gastronomic products, the two Bohemians resembled, during this contemplation, that person in a Spanish romance who caused hams to shrink ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... and to hear him talk. When she tried to talk to him herself her brain swam and she became unhappy and confused. Intellectual effort was destructive to the blessed state, which was pure passivity, untroubled contemplation in its early stages, before ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... hunted down in an astounding manner, and the populace, adopting American customs, will probably congregate to see him astride a rail. Two of his smaller studies are very interesting. One of them, called "An Astray," is simply a ray of black light; and another, intended for the contemplation of persons who desire light and airy pictures, is simply a portrait of himself, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 29, October 15, 1870 • Various
... die away; when the stars, one by one, tremble through aether, and are reflected on the dark mirror of the waters; that hour, which, of all others, inspires the mind with pensive tenderness, and often elevates it to sublime contemplation. When the moon shed her soft rays among the foliage, he still lingered, and his pastoral supper of cream and fruits was often spread beneath it. Then, on the stillness of night, came the song of the nightingale, breathing sweetness, and ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... clothe and enliven the earth, cause them to be objects of universal admiration. The relation of this wealth of colour to our mental and moral nature is indisputable. The child and the savage alike admire the gay tints of flowers, birds, and insects; while to many of us their contemplation brings a solace and enjoyment which is both intellectually and morally beneficial. It can then hardly excite surprise that this relation was long thought to afford a sufficient explanation of the phenomena of colour in nature; ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... twisted on their seats, and showed every sign of uneasiness; one stepped outside to cough, another suddenly attacked the fire and poked it savagely, Buffle impolitely turned his back to the company, while the fourth man lost himself in the contemplation of the king of spades, which card ever afterward showed in its centre a blotch which seemed the result of a drop of water. Finally Buffle ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... Between London and Dover I have been worrying, perhaps, about the crossing; between Dover and Calais my worries have come to a head; but when I step into the train at Calais, then at last I can give myself up with a whole mind to the contemplation of the happy future. So long as the train does not stop, so long as nobody goes in or out of my carriage, I care not how many hours the journey takes. I have enough happy thoughts ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... not Mr. Machen's fault but his misfortune, that one shakes with laughter rather than with dread over the contemplation ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... shame of our commissioners, be it said, is a scarce article here. Cooped up in another little room, after the fashion of wild beasts in a cage, are seven poor idiots, whose forlorn condition, sad, dull countenances, as they sit round a table, staring vacantly at one another, like mummies in contemplation, form a wild but singularly touching picture. Each countenance pales before the seeming study of its opponent, until, enraptured and amazed, they break out into a wild, hysterical laugh. And thus, poisoned, starved, and left to die, does time with ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... another change in the note of the sphere and once more they lost themselves in contemplation of the scene within. The surface of the lost continent was rushing madly to meet them. With terrific velocity they seemed to be falling. An involuntary gasp was forced from Tommy's lips. Mountains, valleys, rivers could now ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... Indians made drunk with the express purpose of befuddling and swindling them,[80] but in the very commission of this act, an enormous profit was made on the sale of the whisky. Those who may be inclined to recoil with horror at the historic contemplation of this atrocity, will do well to remember that this was simply one manifestation of the ethics of the trading class—the same class which formed and ruled government, made and interpreted laws, ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... 45" west of Greenwich, distant three thousand one hundred and nineteen miles from the mouth of the Amazon, following the river, and only about forty miles from the important interior city of Huanaco, to which place it is in contemplation to extend the trans-Andean railway. If the road were continued from Huanaco to Port Prado there would be a complete trans-continental line of communication by railway and steamboats from Lima in Peru to the mouth ...
— Life of Rear Admiral John Randolph Tucker • James Henry Rochelle
... woman should cultivate is integrity, or the sentiment of duty. A German philosopher has poetically and truthfully said, "The two most beautiful things in the universe are the starry heavens above our heads and the sentiment of duty in the human soul." Few objects are richer for the contemplation of a truly high-minded man than a young woman who lives, acts, speaks, and exerts her powers from an enlightened conviction of duty; in whose soul the voice of duty is the voice of God. In such women there is a mighty force of moral ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... Hallam Tennyson's biography of the laureate resents the opinion that his father was unsocial, but really leaves the commonly-received opinion unrefuted. Tennyson's reticence and love of contemplation and aloneness amounted to a passion. He was not a man of the people. He fled from tourists as if they brought a plague with them. He did nothing but dream. You might as easily catch the whip-poor-will, whose habitation changes at an approaching step, as ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... many years, he should return to it covered with renown; that his name would become the boast and the glory of his native place; that his ashes would be religiously guarded as its most precious treasure; and that its lessening spire, on which his eyes were fixed with tearful contemplation, would one day become the beacon, towering amidst the gentle landscape, to guide the literary pilgrim of ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... need a very large garden, and I will commend this early example to the beginner in gardening and urge a very small garden to start with. For it is well to undertake only what can be easily handled or what can be done thoroughly. There is joy in the contemplation of a perfect work, even though it be on a small scale, that never comes from a more ambitious undertaking imperfectly carried out. Better six square feet of well tilled, weedless, thrifty garden than an acre poorly cultivated and full ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... pleasest to retire within thyself? It is not possible for man to discover a retreat more tranquil, less disturbed by affairs, than that which he finds in his soul; especially if he have within him those things the contemplation of which suffices to procure immediate enjoyment of the perfect calm, which is no other, to my mind, than the ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... not arguments founded on the visionary contemplation of remote or improbable dangers. Their urgent necessity must be obvious to every mind. So long as man shall continue to navigate the ocean, and the tempests shall hold their course over its surface, in every age and on every coast, disasters by sea, shipwrecks, and peril to human ...
— An Appeal to the British Nation on the Humanity and Policy of Forming a National Institution for the Preservation of Lives and Property from Shipwreck (1825) • William Hillary
... We had it in contemplation at one time to construct a circular staircase to its summit, and erect a platform thereon for an observatory, but more necessary and pressing demands on our time made us ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... alone, and, going easily, found fully enough to occupy my attention in the business and incredible stir of the town. I thought then, and think still, that nowhere in the world is there such a place for an idle man as London; where else has he spread for him so continual a banquet of contemplation, where else are such comedies played every hour for his eyes' delight? It is well enough to look at a running river, or to gaze at such mighty mountains as I saw when I journeyed many years later into Italy; but the mountain moves not, and the stream runs always with the same ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... predecessors; how much more when we find that deep fidelity in his studied and perfect skies which opens new sources of delight to every advancement of our knowledge, and to every added moment of our contemplation. ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... these last words a little gasp came in her breath, and her heart quailed in realising the possibility of which she had spoken. Her own angry words had diverted her attention from questioning the reasonableness of the new faith to the fearful contemplation of what might ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... it. I must try and forget I ever did it, and be as good and true as I can in all else. And the will! I must destroy it. I am sure my poor old uncle meant to do away with it. Perhaps if it were clean gone I might feel more at rest. How strange it is that instead of growing accustomed to the contemplation of my own dishonesty I become more keenly alive to the shame of my act as time rolls on! Perhaps if I am brave and resolute I may conquer the scorpion stings of self-reproach. How dear those two sweet peaceful years have cost me! Would I undo it all to save ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... apparently in contemplation of the ceiling, fell into a dreamy attitude. But his eye saw nothing of the ceiling, and was not at all dreamy. He was not thinking of his speech, nor of the other man's remark. He ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and two days to the months of January, Sextilis, and December, making an addition of ten days to the old year of three hundred and fifty-five, and he provided for a uniform intercalation of one day in every fourth year. Caesar was a student of astronomy, and always found time for its contemplation. He even wrote an essay on the motion of the stars, assisted in his observation by Sosigenes, an Alexandrian astronomer. He took astronomy out of the hands of priests, and made it a matter of civil legislation. He was drawn away from legislation to draw the sword once ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... she often attributed to mere good nature. Grand acts of self-sacrifice she admired enthusiastically, but the more really difficult round of small denials and trifling services she did not in the least appreciate. Absorbed in the contemplation, as it were, of the Hamlets in life, she had no leisure to spare ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... melancholy contemplation of the young girl to the old Duchesse d'Azay standing beside him and ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... and touch, and taste, that wafers and wine were actually the flesh and blood of a man that was crucified, with nails driven through his feet and hands, many hundred years ago. Then, rising into the contemplation of the divinity of the Saviour, he trampled under the feet of his eloquence a belief so contrary to the instincts and senses with which Infinite Wisdom has gifted his creatures; and bursting into ecstasy at the thought of ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... to exclude slavery absolutely and unconditionally, the voting down of Chase's amendment is wholly inexplicable. It is a puzzle—a riddle. But I have said that with men who did look forward to such a decision, or who had it in contemplation, that such a decision of the Supreme Court would or might be made, the voting down of that amendment would be perfectly rational and intelligible. It would keep Congress from coming in collision with ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln
... all the senses were full of languor and repose. It was rapture to lie still, and after a faint glimpse of the golden-winged angel on the bell-tower of St. Mark's, to give indolent eye solely to the contemplation of the roof opposite, where the snow lay half an inch deep upon the brown tiles. The little scene—a few square yards of roof, a chimney-pot, and a dormer-window—was all that the most covetous spirit could demand; and I lazily lorded it over that domain of pleasure, while the lingering ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... four and five years old. All I can see of her face is the tip of her ear, daintier than the daintiest jewel, and the innocent curve of her cheek. She does not stir; she is holding her hoop in her left hand; her right is at her lips as though she were biting her nails in her eager contemplation. What is it she is gazing at so longingly? The shop contains other things besides the arms and the gear of fighting men. Balls and skipping ropes are suspended from the awning. On the stall are baby dolls with bodies made of grey cardboard, ...
— Marguerite - 1921 • Anatole France
... unexpectedly a dusty way—Mirabilia testimonia tua! In psalm and antiphon, inexhaustibly [10] fresh, the soul seemed to be taking refuge, at that undevout hour, from the sordid languor and the mean business of men's lives, in contemplation of the unfaltering vigour of the divine righteousness, which had still those who sought it, not only watchful in the night but alert in the drowsy afternoon. Yes! there was the sheep astray, sicut ovis quae periit—the physical world; with ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... certain that an act of amnesty was in contemplation by the King. Viglius had furnished several plans, which, however, had been so much disfigured by the numerous exceptions suggested by Alva, that the President could scarce recognize his work. Granvelle, too, had frequently urged the pardon on ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... away from the bed where she had been sitting, with the tears smarting in her eyes. Janet looked after her, an expression of contemplation pursing ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... element in the struggle must ultimately mean, were it given time to develop. And during all these weeks of June and July, British and American ships, carrying American soldiers, came in a never-ending succession across the Atlantic. An American Army of 5,000,000 men was in contemplation, and, "Why," said the President at Baltimore in April, "limit it to 5,000,000?" While every day the British Navy kept its grim hold on the internal life of Germany, and every day was bringing the refreshed and reorganised British Army, now ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... The subject of praise, the contemplation of hope. O happy and courteous sovereign, (Through them) the four quarters (of the kingdom) are ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... rather be the one red leaf, Waving 'midst Autumn's sombre groves:— On the heart to breathe that sadness Which contemplation loves. ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... immense sand-banks, and all that one could see of the continent displayed the same sterility, and the same monotony of colour and appearance. The dismayed and astonished navigator turns away his eyes, fatigued with the contemplation of these unhappy isles and hideous solitudes, surrounded, as he views them, with continual dangers; and when he reflects that these inhospitable shores border those of the archipelago of Asia, on which nature has lavished blessings and treasures, he can scarcely conceive how so vast a sterility ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... with such instances of divine love for every creature, however humble: in observing these provisions, how often are we reminded of the benefits conferred by the same omniscience upon our own species. It is thus, by the investigation of natural history, that we are led to the contemplation of the sublimest subjects; thus that man with God ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 20, No. 562, Saturday, August 18, 1832. • Various
... at the matter from an aesthetic point of view, he used to say: "Intercourse with the people is as indispensable and refreshing as the contemplation of vigorous and healthy vegetation," and although this is in flagrant contradiction to all he has elsewhere said of the "bestial flock" and the "inhabitants of the swamp," the thought has a certain amount of sense in it. It signifies that instinct is a force, and that every force must ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... him in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco in the attitude of exhortation, leaning forward with arms extended upward. I visited three of the missions, and they are all about the same. There is great food for contemplation in visiting these relics of the past. To think of the conditions ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... bits of bread to some of the poor benumbed birds; there, seated under a tree, I had watched a group of little girls as they danced; I felt my heart beat in unison with the refrain of their childish song; there, returning from school, I had followed a thousand times the same path, lost in contemplation of some verse of Virgil and kicking the pebbles at my feet. "Oh! my childhood! You are there!" I cried. "O, ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... answer me, De Launay,"—he resumed, "You think perhaps that I am talking in parables, and that my mind has been persuaded into a metaphysical and rambling condition by an hour's contemplation of the sunlight on the sea! But come now!—have you not yourself felt a longing to break loose from the trammels of conventional routine,—to be set free from the slavery of answering another's beck and call,—to be something more than ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... preen his unctuous feathers and to shiver them into the most effective and comfortable position, to settle his head between his shoulders, and, with moistened lips, to view his little world from dreamy, half-closed eyes. This, however, only happened in restful moments of complacent self-contemplation. He never allowed these moods to interfere with business. He had broached the subject of marriage to Pierre, and Pierre had of course fallen in with his views. The fact that Elise evidently loathed him disturbed no whit his placid ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... a time and oft have we wandered forth of the turbulent town, less to brace our unstrung nerves by the elastic air—less to bathe our wearied eyes in the green light of earth's bosom, than to drive away sad thoughts in the contemplation of your innocent gambols; with our stick; delight we to launch your mimic barks from the sandy shores of Serpentine; with you, glad are we to make haste, expecting the fastest sailer on the further shore; with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... without fault or sin, the more so as it is read by the Hebdomadarius, who should be advanced in perfection. It is short, whilst the lessons of Matins, the night Office, are long, because the day is specially given to toil and the night to contemplation. During the recital of this little lesson all turn to the altar through respect for Christ, figured by the Capitulum. Sometimes the words of the Capitulum are from the Itala version and ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... day I awoke very early, full of the anticipated attempt. I got up at once, found the weather most promising, and proceeded first of all to have a look at Connie's litter, and see that it was quite sound. Satisfied of this, I rejoiced in the contemplation of its lightness ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... as well as his speech expounds the blessed mystery of our life in the risen Lord. His serene attitude of sitting 'on the right side' is not only a vivid touch of description, but is significant of restfulness and fixed contemplation, as well as of the calmness of a higher life. That still watcher knows too much to be agitated; but the less he is moved, the more he adores. His quiet contrasts with and heightens the impression of the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... generally divided into three stages. The first is called the purgative life, the second the illuminative, while the third, which is really the goal rather than a part of the journey, is called the unitive life, or state of perfect contemplation.[16] We find, as we should expect, some differences in the classification, but this tripartite ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... Worship becomes, therefore, contemplation rather than adoration, and a vast deal of the liturgical material which Christianity specifically has heretofore supplied becomes useless for this cult. Christian hymnology would need much editing before it would serve ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... or other of these beds of anthracite." Baron Richthofen, in the paper which we quote from, indicates the revolution in the deposit of the world's wealth and power, to which such facts, combined with other characteristics of China, point as probable; a revolution so vast that its contemplation seems like that ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... be thought that such looking at the spiritual world, simply, intensely, without cleverness—such an opening of the Eye of Eternity—was the essence of contemplation itself: and indeed one of the best definitions has described that art as a "loving sight," a "peering into heaven with the ghostly eye." But the self who is yet at this early stage of the pathway to Reality is not asked to look at anything ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill
... nicely-brushed coat, glancing cane, and, above all, his upright and self-satisfied manner, resembled in no respect the dress, form, or bearing of a mendicant, he quietly thrust a shilling into his hand, and relapsed into the studious contemplation which the entrance of Touchwood ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... but this time with perplexity in his voice. For Luttrell was there in the cabin in front of him, but sunk in so deep a contemplation of memories and prospects that the cabin might just as well have been empty. Sir Charles Hardiman ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... hollow surge as it rolls over the pebble beach, the fresh current of saline air that braces and invigorates, and the uninterrupted view of the watery expanse, are attractions of delight and contemplation which are nowhere to be enjoyed in greater perfection than at Brighton. The serenity of the evening induced us to pass the barrier of the chain-pier, and bend our steps towards the projecting extremity of that ingenious structure. An old ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... the larboard quarter, and it was with the utmost difficulty I could restrain him from plunging into the sea with the view of swimming toward it. Peters and Augustus took little notice of what he said, being apparently wrapped up in moody contemplation. Upon looking in the direction pointed out, I could not perceive the faintest appearance of the shore—indeed, I was too well aware that we were far from any land to indulge in a hope of that nature. It was a ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
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