"Train of thought" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... neighbors generally, attended. How differently the gospel message affects different persons! Some are softened, others are hardened, by it. Some are stirred up to certain duties, while, under the same sermon, others are incited to an entirely different train of thought and course of action. The effect on Tom of the sermons of the preacher was to incite his feelings to revolt against his lot in life, and arouse him to the necessity of a purpose in living. He did ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... time rightly apprehended, ceased altogether to be discouraging; and, besides the relief to my spirits, I no longer suffered under the burden—so heavy to one who aims at being a reformer in opinions—of thinking one doctrine true and the contrary doctrine morally beneficial. The train of thought which had extricated me from this dilemma seemed to me, in after years, fitted to render a similar service to others; and it now forms the chapter on Liberty and Necessity in the concluding Book of my System ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... bottles, and the finest china. These he piled up in a large open basket at his feet, and leaned his back upon the wall of his shop in the hope that many people would come in to buy. As he sat in this posture, with his eyes upon the basket, he fell into an amusing train of thought, and talked thus to himself: "This basket," says he, "cost me a hundred pounds, which is all I had in the world. Ishall quickly make two hundred of it by selling in retail. These two hundred shall ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... under his breath, left the door and returned to his comrades. Ellen had received her first intimation of his cowardice; and his mention of her father's gold started a train of thought that persisted in spite of her efforts to put all her mind to attending her uncle. He grew conscious enough to recognize her working over him, and thanked her with a look that touched Ellen deeply. It changed ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... been thrown in the way of my literary labors. Anxiety, apprehension, and the restlessness of feeling resulting from a continual change of abode, had broken the train of thought, and rendered my work very uncertain. Indeed, it would often have been wholly inadequate to my support, but for the watchful kindness of friends whom the Lord raised up to me, foremost among whom always stood the estimable Mr. Sandford, who never ceased to regard me with paternal ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... liveliness of the interruption, and its futility, often please; dulce est desipere in loco; and yet those who must endure the society of inveterate jokers know how intolerable this sort of scintillation can become. There is something inherently vulgar about it; perhaps because our train of thought cannot be very entertaining in itself when we are so glad to break in upon it with irrelevant nullities. The same undertone of disgust mingles with other amusing surprises, as when a dignified personage slips and falls, or some disguise is thrown off, or those things are mentioned ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... an awful row," continued Lieut. D'Hubert, pursuing his train of thought. "And the general is very angry. It's one of the best families in the town. Feraud ought to have ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... palm, and the smiting of the breast. But let no gesture be made that is not in harmony with the thought or sentiment uttered; for it is this harmony which constitutes propriety. As far as possible, let there be a correspondence between the style of action and the train of thought. Where the thought flows on calmly, let there be grace and ease in gesture and action. Where the style is sharp and abrupt, there is propriety in quick, short, and abrupt gesticulation. Especially avoid that ungraceful sawing of the air with the arms, into which all ill-regulated fervor betrays ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... heap ... Kent's ... the preposterous. [Talking on with steady monotony.] But I saw it would not do to interrupt that logical train of thought which reached definition about half past six. I had then been gleaning until ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... thoughts wandered from the newspaper, and I found myself wondering what Lady Norah Kendrew might be like—if she were young or old, plain or pretty, married or unmarried. And I suppose naturally that train of thought brought Lola once more into my imagination. I had, remember, to all intents, hardly seen her, and she had spoken to me only twice. Yet her personality literally obsessed me. That I was foolish to let it I fully realized. But how many of ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... And this train of thought is eminently applicable to the admission of the name into the system of Masonry. With us, the name of God, however expressed, is a symbol of DIVINE TRUTH, which it should be the incessant labor of ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... had done before, and from the recollection of the unclassical comforts of the excellent inn in the Piazza di Spagna. An English letter, or newspaper, is an excellent preparative for this purpose; and when once absorbed in the train of thought which it creates, the sudden transition to the mighty scenes before you, produces by contrast the effect which it ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... within his reach if he but knew it. The tailor had been hitherto miserable because he pursued a wrong object. The schoolmaster, however, suggested a train of thought upon which Neal now fastened with all the ardour of a chivalrous temperament. Nay, be wondered that the family spirit should have so completely seized upon the fighting side of his heart as to preclude all thoughts of matrimony; for he could not but remember ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... a little doubtful of the word. At any rate Mamma said it was something like that, and it meant they liked it anyway. So Mr. Winslow was left to ponder whether "antique" or "unique" was intended and to follow his train of thought wherever it chanced to lead him, while the child prattled on. They came in sight of the Smalley front gate and Jed came out of his walking trance ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... rather give with a free hand and a willing heart to those who have felt misfortune's scourging rod,—who are crushed, oppressed and trampled upon, by not a few of their more wealthy neighbors?" In such a train of thought he indulged himself till ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... above, I. iv. 14, for a parallel to the train of thought on the part of Aristodemus "the little," and of Euthydemus; and for Socrates' {daimonion}, see ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... dismay. Her heart was the heart of a true woman. It accepted the conviction which raised Norah higher in her love: it rejected the doubt which threatened to place Magdalen lower. She rose and paced the room impatiently; she recoiled with an angry suddenness from the whole train of thought in which her mind had been engaged but the moment before. What if there were dangerous elements in the strength of Magdalen's character—was it not her duty to help the girl against herself? How had she performed that duty? She had let herself be governed ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... themselves in their listless, impotent way; for the new curate had been bidden to dinner that night, and was at the moment unclerically proclaiming to all the world that he feared no foe. His discordant vociferations doubtless started a train of thought in Edward's mind, for the youth presently remarked, a propos of nothing that had been said before, "I believe the new curate's rather ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... The pause was prolonged. Madame Bernier broke it by a question which showed that she had been following the same train of thought. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... "The naif train of thought that justified the importance attached to this poor 'plain' opinion at all would seem to be the same that pervades the writing throughout; until it becomes difficult to discover where the easy effrontery and self-sufficiency of the 'plain one,' nothing doubting, cease, and the wit ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... little baby in one of his bouts; mother never looked up again, nor father either, for that matter, only his was in a different way. Mother will have gotten to little Jemmie now, and they'll be so happy together,—and perhaps Franky too. Oh!" said she, recovering herself from her train of thought, "never say aught lightly of the wife's lot whose husband is ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... attracted no particular attention. I remember once, while traveling in Brazil, near the Falls of Tejuca, some very pleasant scenes of early life came suddenly to mind, without any thing that I could perceive at the moment to give rise to such a train of thought. The aspect of the country was different from any I had ever seen before; and it was not till I discovered a bunch of violets close by my feet that I became aware that it was a familiar perfume which had so mysteriously carried me back to by-gone days. On another occasion, when ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... fabric of the mind. Or take a simple and familiar example. You forget a name, in conversation,—go on talking, without making any effort to recall it,—and presently the mind evolves it by its own involuntary and unconscious action, while you were pursuing another train of thought, and the name rises of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... and our Sub-Consciousness there is more or less easy communication. It is not perfect. You cannot draw up what you will from the ocean: you cannot always directly remember a name or a date that you know—you can only set an indirect train of thought at work. Per contra, it is not easy to transfer certain conscious states to the storehouse of Sub-Consciousness—to learn a page of prose, or deposit the memory of a piece of music, which you are forced to play slowly and thoughtfully before the digital dexterity is added to the treasures of ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... disciplinarians, however determined their character may be, principally, I think, because the true student must usually be occupied with a train of thought which cannot be interrupted from moment to moment to detect the petty tricks of insubordinate pupils. So if you mean to be a teacher, think first whether you have quick observation; then, are you firm, and are you willing to give your whole heart to your work? If you can answer ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... something like a smile showed itself faintly on his lips—and represented the only effect which my severity had produced. He still followed his own train of thought, as resolutely and as ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins
... Mean could be taken by storm, but Confucius taught him better [6]. And in fine, it is only the sage who can fully exemplify the Mean [7]. All these citations do not throw any light on the ideas presented in the first chapter. On the contrary, they interrupt the train of thought. Instead of showing us how virtue, or the path of duty is in accordance with our Heaven-given nature, they lead us to think of it as a mean between two extremes. Each extreme may be a violation of the law of our nature, but that is not made to appear. Confucius's sayings would be in place ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge
... follow Arizona's train of thought irritated the others. He literally held them in the palm of his hand ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... and hurried outside without any positive plan for my movements. My brain was in such a whirl I could form no connected train of thought. These men, whose conversation was a jargon fitting only for lunatics, had proved that they could read my mind with the ease of a telegraph operator taking a message off a wire. That they, further, possessed marvellous, if not miraculous ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... my train of thought. And I was mindful also of my first view of her—toying or perhaps communing in earnest with the possibilities of a precipice. But I did not ask Mr Powell anxiously what had happened to Mrs Anthony in the end. I let him go on in his ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... inspiration. It is conscious in the highest and the least degree. It consists with the most perfect command of the faculties. It dwells in a repose as of the desert, and objects are as distinct in it as oases or palms in the horizon of sand. The train of thought moves with subdued and measured step, like a caravan. But the pen is only an instrument in its hand, and not instinct with life, like a longer arm. It leaves a thin varnish or glaze over all its work. The works of Goethe furnish ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... I never guess. It is a shocking habit,—destructive to the logical faculty. What seems strange to you is only so because you do not follow my train of thought or observe the small facts upon which large inferences may depend. For example, I began by stating that your brother was careless. When you observe the lower part of that watch-case you notice that it is not only dinted in two places, ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... somewhat the train of thought that led Forsythe at last to write to Rosa that he was coming, throwing Rosa into a panic of joy and alarm. For Rosa's father had been most explicit about her ever going out with Forsythe again. It had been the most relentless command he had ever laid upon her, spoken in ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... little family walked out together, Adolphus and his wife fell into a pleasant train of thought,—and when they were together, thought and speech were generally simultaneous. As they passed the prison,—for Adolphus had led the way to this path,—Laval was standing in the door. They stopped to speak with him; whereat he ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... experiments! He would run no danger of seeing them rudely interrupted. His preparations were not cast out-of-doors; his precious culture-tubes were not broken; his vases, his balloons, were not at the second-hand dealer's. He continued this train of thought to the results that he desired for him, glory; for humanity, the cure of one, and perhaps two, of the most terrible maladies with which it ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... the edge of the table again, and sank into thought. His white face wore a fixed expression, as though he were listening or following a train of thought of his own; distress and something like fear came into his big staring eyes. He was most likely thinking now of death, which had so lately carried off his mother and Uncle Ignat. Death carries mothers and uncles off to the other world, while their children and violins remain upon the earth. ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... now do—must recall the Electoral Prince; must yield to him the precedence at court, both in rank and position; must—" All at once he started up and shrank, as if a sudden flash of lightning had interrupted his train of thought. "If it must be," he said quite softly to himself, "if nothing else is left for me, and I see myself in danger, then I will do it. I shall resort to this ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... at the other end of the straggling little town. In walking leisurely home, he followed his train of thought. The systematic brutality shown the common soldier—even the noncom. (though not in so pronounced a manner)—by his fellow-officers had from the start been very much against his taste. "They don't see the defender of the fatherland in him," thought ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... he said, following up his companion's train of thought. "I'm going to rubber through ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... personality, but it was impossible to suppose that Conward had been captivated by these interesting qualities. To Conward the affair could be nothing more than an adventure, but it would give him a position of a sort of semi-paternal authority over both Irene and Elden. Fortunately for his train of thought, which was floundering into more and more difficult travel, the prospect of having to appeal to Conward for the honour of Irene's hand in marriage touched Dave's sense of humour, and he suddenly burst into inappropriate laughter in the ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... sat in deep silence as if he were following out the train of thought which had been suggested by the last words. Presently his ideas again ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... tested by imaginary utterance before an imaginary charmed circle while dressing; for nothing so diminishes confidence in an epigram as successive failures to get it into circulation. In calling, one must jump on the train of thought as it speeds by a way station; and there is no happy mean between jumping on a passing train and standing still on the platform—except, as I have suggested, a pleasant wave of the ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... shaped themselves in words as he prowled one night in March, chill and melancholy, across a rushy meadow under an overcast sky. The death squeal of some little beast caught suddenly in a distant copse had set loose this train of thought. "Life struggling under a birth curse?" he thought. "How nearly I come back at times to the Christian theology!... And then, Redemption by ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... his train of thought. Evidently the sergeant major had been doing some calculations of his own. "How long will we be on this rock, sir? You've never told us just how ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... called 'inner voices.' That is to say, we do not suppose that any one from without is speaking to us, but we hear, as it were, a voice within us making some remark, usually disjointed enough, and not suggested by any traceable train of thought of which we are conscious at the time. This experience partly enables us to understand the cases of sane persons who, when to all appearance wide awake, occasionally hear voices which appear to be objective and caused by ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... ridicule such a thing," said Mrs. Ellis, continuing her own train of thought, and yet vaguely disturbed ...
— Different Girls • Various
... like the subject, intricate and endless. It was that of a man pushing his way through a labyrinth of difficulties, and determined not to flinch. The impression on the reader was proportionate; for, whatever were the merits of the style or matter, both were new and striking; and the train of thought that was unfolded at such length and with such strenuousness, was bold, ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... The first part of her companion's discourse had started an interesting train of thought, which was rudely interrupted by the mention of Mr. Rosedale's name. She uttered ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... ranging the wide field of possibilities. He tells us what a phrase means in certain authors of whom Hamilton is not thinking, or in reference to certain matters which Hamilton is not discussing; but he hardly ever attempts to trace the history of Hamilton's own view, or the train of thought by which it suggested itself to his mind. And the result of this is, that Mr. Mill's interpretations are generally in the potential mood. He wastes a good deal of conjecture in discovering what Hamilton might have meant, when a little attention in the ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel
... invited to retire. We must remember that, if children make more noise, they do not mind each other's noise as adults do. The dropping of a book or overturning of a chair, the walking about do not disturb the young student's train of thought; and while I do not wish to be quoted as advocating a noisy room, but on the contrary would work for a quiet one, day in and day out, I do feel that allowances must be made for noises that are not intended to be annoying, and that we should not sacrifice to the ideal of deathly stillness ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... his pay with the remains of a meagre inheritance, desperately poor, and as desperately honourable. Possibly there was a connexion with some great and powerful family, into his full hands everything would go, if the truth were known. Possibly—Rex stopped short in his train of thought, astonished that he should not have sooner hit upon the fact—possibly Frau von Sigmundskron and her daughter were the only living relations. It seemed almost certain that this must be the case, when he thought about it. And if so—if he held his peace, and if Greif persisted in not marrying Hilda—why ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... her "best" black silk, and the little cap on her smooth hair, had done a great deal for Miss Bassett; and she had only just been reproaching herself for her vanity in recognizing this fact. But Mary Anne's words awakened a new train of thought. ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... a train of thought which promised to lead to morbid depths, and directed my attention ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... after having the axle tree repaired, we proceeded on our journey to Compiegne. I suffered much from the cold during this adventure, and did not sleep well, having fallen into a train of thought which prevented me from so doing; and I could not help bringing to my recollection the adventure of Raymond in the forest near Strassburg, in the romance of The Monk. Nothing worthy of note occurred ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... stove, rocking to and fro, and gazing abstractedly before her. Her mood was a reminiscent one and I knew if I gave her time enough she would launch forth into one of the interesting narratives of which she possessed a goodly store. To have interrupted her train of thought by even a whisper would have been fatal; silence and patience must be my watch-words. Presently she turned to me ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... however to a less gloomy train of thought, than the tomb of a celebrated man; where virtue, wit, or valour triumph over death, and wait the consummation of all sublunary things, before the remembrance of such superiority shall be lost. Italy must be shaken from her deepest foundation, ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... doctrine, whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself" (John vii. 17); and there is a well-known saying of Pascal: "Begin by taking holy water and you will end by becoming a believer." And pursuing a similar train of thought, Johann Jakob Moser, the pietist, was of the opinion that no atheist or naturalist had the right to regard the Christian religion as void of truth so long as he had not put it to the proof by keeping its precepts and commandments ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... were these spent in his brougham. It was almost his only time for reading; he had found, moreover, that this served to keep his mind fresh from case to case, detaching it from one train of thought and bringing it with new concentration to the next. These brief intervals belonged wholly to himself. His home was never safe from invasion, and little time and less strength remained ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... back to the correct train of thought, and being a lad of high moral courage, as well as physically brave, he was not afraid to acknowledge when he ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... for me to remain silent. He was almost unaware of my presence. I felt he would go on if I did not divert his train of thought. ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... enforced vacation, it afforded me an opportunity to read several of the world's great books. One of these was "Les Miserables." It made a deep impression on me, and I am inclined to believe it started a train of thought which gradually grew into a purpose so all-absorbing that I might have been overwhelmed by it, had not my over-active imagination been brought to bay by another's common sense. Hugo's plea for suffering Humanity—for the world's miserable—struck a responsive chord within me. Not only did it revive ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... see what it was in our conversation, however," observed Hamlet, somewhat impatient over the delay caused by the narration of this tale, "that suggested this train of thought to you." ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... returned to his business in London; leaving me perfectly well, although not completely strong. I was to follow him in a fortnight; when, as he said, 'we would look over letters, and talk about several things.' I knew what this little speech alluded to, and shrank from the train of thought it suggested, which was so intimately connected with my first feelings of illness. However, I had a fortnight more to roam on those ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... wrote neither verse nor prose with ease, but he would not permit himself to write either without inspiration. His work is without abundance, but it is without waste. It is made out of his whole intellect and all his nerves. Every poem is a train of thought and every essay is the record of sensation. This 'romantic' had something classic in his moderation, a moderation which becomes at times as terrifying as Poe's logic. To 'cultivate one's hysteria' so calmly, and to affront the reader (Hypocrite lecteur, mon semblable, mon frere) as ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... astonishing that Trix's mind should have leapt to this entirely erroneous conclusion. For the last fortnight it had been full of her discovery. The smallest thing that seemed to bear on it, instantly appeared actually to do so. And everything in her present train of thought fitted in with astonishing accuracy. Each little incident in Pia's late behaviour fell ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... avoid the censure of competing with inequality, to consider the colouring of which particular ideas are naturally susceptible, and to discriminate properly betwixt sentiments, whose native sublimity requires but little assistance from the pencil of art, and a train of thought which (that it may correspond to the former) demands the heightening of poetic painting. The astonishing inequalities which we meet with, even in the productions of unquestioned Genius, are originally to be deduced ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... preoccupied expression was on his face, that distant look which no man could erase from his face by any interruption until Jeter had finished his train of thought. ...
— Lords of the Stratosphere • Arthur J. Burks
... notion of Branch Churches or Free (sect) Churches, and unless my whole train of thought alters, I will resist the temptation as coming from the devil. Where I am I am doing God's work, and when the Church is ripe for more, the Head of the Church will put the means our way. You seem to fancy that we may have a Deus quidam ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... [46] Many a train of thought, many a turn of expression, only too familiar, some may think, to the reader of Plato, are summarised in that troublesome yet perhaps attractive passage. The influence then of Parmenides on Plato had made him, incurably ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... the most minute organisms, we find clear evidence in their voluntary powers of motion that these creatures possess a will, and that such Will must be conveyed by a nervous system of an infinitesimally minute description. When we follow out such a train of thought, and contrast the myriads of suns and planets at one extreme, with the myriads of minute organised atoms at the other, we cannot but feel inexpressible wonder at the transcendent range of ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... she'll be coming up here later to stay with Miss Hatchard?" Mr. Miles went on, following on his train of thought; then, spinning about and tilting his head back: "Yes, yes, I see—I understand: that will give a draught without materially altering the look of things. I ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... the marquis, while confined in the Tower of London, was preparing some food in his apartment, and the cover of the vessel, having been closely fitted, was, by the expansion of the steam, suddenly forced off and driven up the chimney. 'This circumstance, attracting his attention, led him to a train of thought, which terminated in the completion of his ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... his leg interrupts his train of thought, and he becomes aware that the child is standing at his side, his first impulse is to push her away roughly, but the little thing is looking up at him so gravely. 'Mummy says,' she begins, 'that she doesn't ...
— Lippa • Beatrice Egerton
... Already the heat in the kitchen was intense. Ma looked hot, but then she was stooping and polishing, and the flies were provoking. Rosebud, in linen overall, still looked cool. Her face was serious enough, which seemed to be the result of some long train of thought. Ma suddenly stopped working to look up, and waved a protesting hand at the swarming flies. She found the girl's violet eyes looking steadily into hers. There was an earnestness in their depths as unusual as the seriousness of her face. The old ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... great Sir Isaac Newton was set a-thinking on this subject by seeing an apple fall from a tree to the earth. He then carried the train of thought further; and, by studying the movements of the moon, he reached the conclusion that a body even so far off as our satellite would be drawn towards the earth in the same manner. This being the case, one will naturally ask why the moon herself does not fall in upon the earth. The answer is indeed ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... some corn," said Liddy suddenly, still anxious to say anything or do anything to break what seemed to her his unhappy train of thought; "the ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn
... fallen into this train of thought, because there seems to have been a concerted and deliberate attempt, this past year, on the part of certain of those opposed to the thorough elevation of women, to assert that our influence is distinctly losing ground. Irresponsible assertion ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... "accidental factors of education and external influence." He records the case of a little boy who innocently gazed in curiosity at the penis of his father who was urinating, and had his ears boxed, whence arose a train of thought and feeling which resulted in complete sexual inversion. In two of the cases I have reported we have parallel incidents, and here we see clearly that the homosexual tendency already existed. I do not question the occurrence of such incidents, but I refuse to accept them as supplying the causation ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... with them by candlelight, so as to save daylight for other work, he said: 'I was always so tired by dinner-time that I could not speak.' Perhaps he was only referring to his later experience; but still it was enough to break down any constitution, to wear oneself out for ever by the same train of thought, and the same routine of business. I think there was more in all this than met the eye, for work alone could not have done it. We shall have no confirmation of this rumour in letters for a fortnight or more.... Poor Canning! He leaves behind him ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... one's attention is fixed upon a subject under consideration, the deeper is the impression which the subject leaves upon the mind. And the easier will it be for him to afterwards pursue the same train of thought ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... "Do I really love Mr. Harding? Haven't I got over it now?" But the least thinking of him sufficed to set her heart to thumping again; and so she shrunk from that train of thought. She wanted ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... they would," amended Rob bitterly, "they'd dare anything to get even on us for their fancied wrongs. But whose could have been the broken ragged shoes?" he asked, suddenly taking up another train of thought. ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... here in Canterbury, and we were sitting on the vine-shaded veranda of aunt Celia's lodging. Kitty's head was on my shoulder. There is something very queer about that; when Kitty's head is on my shoulder, I am not capable of any consecutive train of thought. When she puts it there I see stars, then myriads of stars, then, oh! I can't begin to enumerate the steps by which ecstasy mounts to delirium; but at all events, any operation which demands exclusive use of the intellect is beyond me at these times. Still I gathered my ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the first time that anything like this had happened, and, for the very reason that it was unprecedented, it seemed to stir her memory now, and awaken a dormant train of thought. The White Moll! She remembered the first time she had ever been called by that name. It took her back almost three years, and since that time, here in this sordid realm of crime and misery, the name of Rhoda Gray, ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... train of thought into which I fell might unsteady my nerves, I fully determined to keep my mind in a fit state to cope with whatever of marvelous the advancing night might bring forth. I roused myself—laid the letters on the table—stirred up the fire, which ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... wrong approach. The subject, because of his inability to comply with this suggestion, is fighting a losing battle. It is also almost impossible for the subject to concentrate only on what the hypnotist is saying. Any word the hypnotist says can start a conscious as well as unconscious train of thought. Therefore, in reality, this, too, is impossible. However, it really isn't necessary that the subject keep his thoughts concentrated solely on what is being said so long as they are kept in the general area. At times, the more you try to concentrate, the more your thoughts ...
— A Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis • Melvin Powers
... go to sleep in church in the course of the sermon, yet, when questioned about the latter afterwards, he was generally able to sketch out most of the points dwelt upon by the preacher—the explanation being, of course, that, given the text, he was able to follow the probable train of thought inspired by its wording. Summing up Scott's attainments, a biographer gives expression to the opinion that he was 'self-educated in every branch of knowledge he ever turned to account in the works of ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... to dance with Miss Maxwell, Paula continued her train of thought to herself. Dick was not suffering so much after all. And she might have expected it. He was the cool-head, the philosopher. He would take her loss with the same equanimity as he would take the loss of Mountain Lad, as he had taken ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... so impatient with it," went on the old lady, pursuing aloud her train of thought. "It seems as if the whole body of French fiction writers was in a conspiracy against one's illusions. They are clever enough to see the value of them, you would suppose, yet almost every book you take up teaches that ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... of old chance lying around," he observed, as though following out his own long train of thought. "But I don't guess many of 'em's worth while. There's fellers 'ud hand over any sense they ever collected fer the dame that's had savvee to buy a fi' cent perfume. 'Tain't my way. There's jest one chance for me. It's the big boodle. I'm all in for that. Right ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... remained kneeling or sitting on the floor, and thankful we were when it was all over, and we could make our way once more into the fresh air. From this day, during the whole week, all business is suspended, and but one train of thought occupies all classes, from the highest to the lowest. The peasants flock from every quarter, shops are shut, churches are opened; and the Divine Tragedy enacted in Syria eighteen hundred years ago, is now celebrated in land then undiscovered, and by the descendants of nations ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... Dunstan's mind was as dull as the mind of a possible felon usually is. There were only three hiding-places where he had ever heard of cottagers' hoards being found: the thatch, the bed, and a hole in the floor. Marner's cottage had no thatch; and Dunstan's first act, after a train of thought made rapid by the stimulus of cupidity, was to go up to the bed; but while he did so, his eyes travelled eagerly over the floor, where the bricks, distinct in the fire-light, were discernible under the sprinkling of ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... probable fate of Dyson, relying on literature unbefriended by a thoughtful relative; and could not help concluding that so much subtlety united to a too vivid imagination would in all likelihood have been rewarded with a pair of Sandwich-boards or a super's banner. Absorbed in this train of thought, and admiring the perverse dexterity which could transmute the face of a sickly woman and a case of brain disease into the crude elements of romance, Salisbury strayed on through the dimly lighted streets, not noticing the gusty wind which drove sharply round corners and ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... sudden noise which the slumberer hears, without being actually awakened by it—any casual touch of his person occurring in the same manner—becomes instantly adopted in his dream, and accommodated to the tenor of the current train of thought, whatever that may happen to be; and nothing is more remarkable than the rapidity with which imagination supplies a complete explanation of the interruption, according to the previous train of ideas expressed in the ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... said carelessly—she had been staring at him profoundly and well might have glimpsed something of his train of thought—"as are statues and pictures symbols in the Roman church. My bright colored bird is older now than you will be, or I, when we die. Age, bright feathers and chatter! My puma means much to me that you would not understand, being of another race. Further, did you or another lift a hand against ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... A particular train of thought persisted in, be it good or bad, cannot fail to produce its results on the character and circumstances. A man cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can choose his thoughts, and so indirectly, ...
— As a Man Thinketh • James Allen
... same token, any influence which reaches and alters that inner habit and bias of mind, and changes it from doubt to faith, from fear to courage, from despair to sunburst hope, has wrought the most benign ministry which a mortal may enjoy. Every man has a train of thought on which he rides when he is alone; and the worth of his life to himself and others, as well as its happiness, depend upon the direction in which that train is going, the baggage it carries, and the country through which it travels. ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... closed Durtal put some more coke in the grate and resumed a comfortless train of thought aggravated by this too pertinent discussion with his friend. For some months Durtal had been trying to reassemble the fragments of a shattered literary theory which had once seemed inexpugnable, and Des Hermies's opinions troubled him, in spite of ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... train of thought, its harder and more energetic practical details especially, at first surmised but vaguely in the intervals of his visits to the tomb of Flavian, attained the coherence of formal principle amid the stirring incidents of the journey, which took ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... The German train of thought is clear enough: "If we are unable to hold Belgium, any pro-German demonstrations in the Northern provinces may suggest the idea that it is the wish of the Flemings to be bound to the Empire and give a pretext for the annexation of Antwerp and Flanders. If even that is ...
— Through the Iron Bars • Emile Cammaerts
... and far more irritating ones to interfere with the peaceful passage of the night. There were sounds that were unaccountable; there was the memory of the wayside tombstone and the train of thought that it engendered. Added to the hell-hot, baking stuffiness that radiated from the walls, there came the squeaking of a punka rope pulled out of time—the piece of piping in the mud-brick wall through which the rope passed had become clogged and rusted, and the ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... not answer. She was gazing at the signature of the letter with perplexed eyes. She was wondering why the name Denton seemed so familiar. Remembrance came suddenly—Ruth, of course. With that recollection came a sudden startling train of thought. Ruth's father had gone west, had been heard from in Nevada, then disappeared. Jean's friend had lost his wife and child on a westbound train. Here, however, Grace's supposition proved weak. Both wife and child had been burned to death in the railroad ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... negro equality, oh no! But it will be so delightful for the white soldier to be commanded to pace the greensward before the tent of Lieutenant Flipper, the negro graduate of West Point, and the white soldier will probably indulge in a strange train of thought while doing it. And when promotion comes, and the negro becomes Majah Flippah, or Colonel Flippah, the prospects of the white captains and lieutenants will be so cheerful, particularly if they have families and are stationed at some post in the far West, where any neglect in the social ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... first glimpse of the opposite shore to the left hand, and sees the romantic island of Java appearing simultaneously from the waves and from the clouds. As he looks at the vast panorama of jagged peaks—some of them, perhaps, emitting a thin, scarcely-visible thread of vapour, his train of thought may wander to the thrilling fireside tale of how the despairing Dutch criminals used to rush, inclosed in leathern hoods, across the "Poison Valley," to gather the deadly drippings from ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Patty?" Her father turned to her with sudden tenderness, though the frown produced by some engrossing train of thought still gathered his ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... over her as she dwelt longest upon the "Baptism of our Savior." Then there was the family record—her own birth, and that of her brothers and sisters, were chronicled underneath that of generations now sleeping in the shadow of the village church. But this train of thought was broken, as they reverentially knelt when the volume was closed, and listened to their father's humble and fervent petition, that God would watch and guard them all, especially commending to the protection of Heaven, "the lamb now going out from ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... these images upon the imagination, that he can operate upon our souls. Hence, we may account for the strange manner in which our minds are led off from the contemplation of divine things, by a singular train of thought, introduced to the mind by the impression of some sensible object upon the imagination. This object brings some other one like it to our recollection, and that again brings another, until we wander entirely from the subject before us, and find ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... lime, potash, oil, resin, extractive matter, gluten, et cetera, et cetera," put in Mr. Arcubus, still following out his train of thought. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... was become morbid and querulous. Philip felt vaguely that he was himself in the same case, but with him it was the conduct of his life as a whole that perplexed him. That was his means of self-expression, and what he must do with it was not clear. But he had no time to continue with this train of thought, for Lawson poured out a frank recital of his affair with Ruth Chalice. She had left him for a young student who had just come from England, and was behaving in a scandalous fashion. Lawson really thought someone ought to step in and save the young man. ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... those which take place in the other. In the dog, there can be no doubt that the nervous matter which lies between the retina and the muscles undergoes a series of changes, precisely analogous to those which, in the man, give rise to sensation, a train of thought, and volition. ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... doctrines upon the subject of conscience and repentance will startle those who do not follow his train of thought:— ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... her ears to sounds she did not wish to take into her consciousness, and the French Revolution did not exist for her. She was thinking all the time of her Cousin George, and of the singular abruptness with which his love life had been cut short; and it was this train of thought which led her—when the murmur of voices ceased ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... had remarked that he expected to get his family established at the seashore by the Fourth of July, and, following a train of thought, he paused and chuckled. "Fourth of July reminds me," he said. "Have you heard what that Georgie Minafer ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... could hear the message. If Esther could, it was in a half-unconscious way, that somehow awakened by degrees almost as much pain as pleasure. Or else, it was simply that the glow and stir of her walk was fading away, and allowing the old wonted train of thought to come in again. The bright expression passed from her face; the features settled into a melancholy dulness, most unfit for a child and painful to see; there was a droop of the corners of the mouth, and a lax fall of the eyelids, and a settled ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... not necessary to speak particularly of the contents of the next two Sermons; except to say that the train of thought thus started conducted the author inevitably over ground which was already occupied in the public mind by a volume which had already obtained some notoriety, and which has since become altogether infamous. Enough of the contents ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... pleasant train of thought, and he was pleased when it was interrupted by the entrance of Mrs. Hatton. "Why, John, my dear," she said, "I was wondering if you had come home ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... worst suspicions being confirmed, for just at that moment there came into his mind the curious coincidence of the man who got into the hansom cab being dressed similarly to himself. What if—"Nonsense," he said, aloud, rousing himself out of the train of thought the resemblance ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... are to understand that,' was the answer, 'will best be made plain to you if I take up my train of thought where I left off. If, in order to labour productively, we required the undertaker, no power in heaven or earth could save us from giving up to him what was due to him as master of the process of production, while we contented ourselves with ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... south-going street which leads past the Surgeons' Hall and St. Patrick's Square—my mind being busy with an extra article which I must write to give our readers the necessary number of sheets—for the first and certainly for the last time in my life I continued my train of thought without remembering either that I was a married man, or that my little Irma must be tired ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... Peter V. Hagner, of the Ordnance, calling in no measured tone or language, upon these stampeded men to stop. Whilst promptly aiding Hagner to bring the fugitives to a halt, I forgot the dead Mexican, and the whole train of thought connected with the corpse. ...
— Company 'A', corps of engineers, U.S.A., 1846-'48, in the Mexican war • Gustavus Woodson Smith
... recovered with loss of intellect, one fell a victim to apoplexy four months after awakening, one recovered with insomnia as a sequel, and four died in sleep. One recovered suddenly after six months' sleep and began to talk, resuming the train of thought where it had been interrupted by slumber. Mitchell reports a case in an unmarried woman of forty-five. She was a seamstress of dark complexion and never had any previous symptoms. On July 20, 1865, she became seasick in a gale of wind on the Hudson, and this was followed by an occasional ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... sight of a familiar countenance brought back a natural train of thought. But her recollection passed over everything that had ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... quickly to heartsick misery before they were concluded; and she said to herself: "That's the way she is going to break me down, she thinks! But she can't do it. I can bear anything for four days; and the minute Alessandro comes, I will go away with him." This train of thought in Ramona's mind was reflected in her face. The Senora saw it, and hardened herself still more. It was to be war, then. No hope of surrender. Very well. The girl ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... passed. It was not a pleasant train of thought that now occupied her. Her lips were drawn together, her brows were slightly wrinkled; the self-control which at other times was agreeably expressed upon her features had become rather too cold and decided. At one moment it seemed to ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... leave the key in the door, I wonder," he heard him mutter between his teeth, "just as Gudule used to do; I must tell him when he comes back, keys shouldn't be left indoors, never, under any circumstances." The entrance of Viola interrupted the old gambler's audible train of thought. ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various
... what the Earl last said had excited some painful but interesting train of thought; and, as she still remained ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... blazed with a desire to turn the ship inside out, and if necessary search every man clear down to his bedclothes. But the thought of that flying knife came back to him, and the combination of mystery gave him pause; there must surely be some connection between the two occurrences, and the train of thought led directly to the notion that somewhere in the dark recesses of the brigantine lurked ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... me at home, for we have been of little help. He may be gone till long after dark, and when he returns it will be too late for him to devote any attention to me, even if he has the inclination to do so. As for Jo," continued Ned, following out his train of thought, "it may be a long time ere he suspects what has befallen me; I didn't set any fixed time when I would return, and may stay away as long as Lena-Wingo himself before he will dream ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... His train of thought was suddenly interrupted by a hammering at the outer door of his chambers, followed by the sound of loud and hilarious voices as ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... the beginning of an uneasy train of thought. She suddenly found herself thinking of her visitor, Calhoun Weaver, and not pleasantly. He would hear of their ruin to-morrow, perhaps of her own flight. He would remember his visit, and what would he think of her deceitful frivolity? Would he believe ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... then withdrew for a few minutes, and reappeared in an exquisite tea-gown, which made her friend's frock, though new and handsome, look something less than suitable to the occasion. Alma, glancing about the room, spoke as if in pursuance of a train of thought. ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... late, Death enters with him at the cottage-gate; Or time allow'd—he goes, assured to find The self-commending, all-confiding mind; And sighs to hear, what we may justly call Death's common-place, the train of thought in all. "True I'm a sinner," feebly he begins, "But trust in Mercy to forgive my sins:" (Such cool confession no past crimes excite! Such claim on Mercy seems the sinner's right!) "I know mankind are frail, that God is just, And pardons ...
— The Parish Register • George Crabbe
... following his train of thought. It fitted into the evening's inflammable proceedings. So, with such trinkets as this, capital would silence the cry of labor for its just share in the products of its skill and strength! It would bribe, and cheaply. ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... to whom these observations were addressed, who appeared of a taciturn and thoughtful cast, merely echoed the inquiry; Mr. Roker, shaking off the poetical and gloomy train of thought into which he had been betrayed, descended to the common business of life, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... judicial fairness, see Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences, p. 275, and pp. 379, 380. In the latter, Whewell cites the exact words of De Cusa in the De Docta Ignorantia, and sums up in these words: "This train of thought might be a preparation for the reception of the Copernican system; but it is very different from the doctrine that the sun is the centre of the planetary system." Whewell says: "De Cusa propounded the doctrine of the motion of the earth more as a paradox than as a reality. We can not consider ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... many thanks and benedictions. The street, as I looked out, was now quite deserted save for one or two prowling policemen, who, apparently bored with their hiding-places, had come forth to patrol in the open. I did not stay to watch them, for Mrs. Kosminsky's remarks had started a train of thought which required to be carried out quickly. Accordingly I went in and fell to pacing ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... In this train of thought Hypatia had taken a step in advance of her father, for he seems to have had a dogmatic belief in a few things incapable of demonstration; but these things he taught to the plastic mind, just the same as the ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... reached so far in his reasonings, his inductions, and his philosophy, which had consumed a good hour and a half altogether, when he was drawn from his train of thought by the arrival of a litter proceeding from the direction of the ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... said the host, Eric Peterson, bowing his colossal proportions over the coffee-pot. He was in the habit of showing these abrupt rifts of his train of thought, like gigantic fragments of a frieze. But he said then quite simply, with no change in his bleak blue eyes, "perfection is impossible, thank God. The ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... and commenced to fondle the trooper's horse, fearing to follow the train of thought that had possessed him lest he should betray himself. Shortly after Sergeant ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... was an outbreak suggested by some train of thought which Number Seven had been following while I was discoursing. I do not think one of the company looked as if he or she were shocked by it as an irreligious or even profane speech. It is a better way always, in dealing with one of those squinting brains, to let it follow out its ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... automatically with the reporter's train of thought; hence he answered it rather more fully and freely than he might have at another time and under other conditions. From establishing Griswold's identity for his fellow passenger, he slipped by easy stages into the story of the proletary's ups and downs, climaxing ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... Presently a train of thought carried him off. His attitude relaxed a little, the Schema became for a time a mere symbol, a point of departure, and he stared out of the window at the darkling night. For a long time he sat pursuing ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... for her visitor, Lady Conroy walked round the room. Nearly everything on which she cast her eye reminded her of a different train of thought, so that by the time Edith was announced by the footman she had forgotten what ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... The train of thought we have been following gives us a key to all these positions, without stepping aside to justify them on their own ground. It is because we have been disgusted fifty times with physical squalls and fifty times torn ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that suggestions arising from this ballad led us into a train of thought wherein there became manifest an opinion of Usher's which I mention not so much on account of its novelty (for other men[12] have thought thus) as on account of the pertinacity with which he maintained it. This opinion, ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... a jam at Chambers Street. The clamor of shouting, swearing drivers roused him. The breeze from the open sea, blowing straight up Broadway into his face, braced him like the tonic that it is. He straightened himself, recovered his train of thought, stared at one of the newspapers and tried to grasp the meaning of its head-lines. But they made only a vague impression ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... your tongue, my dear Watson, but certainly with your eyebrows. So when I saw you throw down your paper and enter upon a train of thought, I was very happy to have the opportunity of reading it off, and eventually of breaking into it, as a proof that I had been in rapport ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... rouse some train of thought. After gazing earnestly at Jack's smiling face, Estelle knitted her brows, as if puzzled, saying, with some hesitation, 'A sailor? Yes, I know a sailor—now, where did I see him? He had something about him. Oh, what was it? You must ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... experiment where nobody's experience counts but your own." He had been torn from the punch-bowl and thus returned to his previous train of thought. ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... wakened a curious, inviting train of thought. The torrent continued largely unabated for at least one hundred miles more, she knew, and the hours that it would be passable in a canoe were numbered. The river had fallen steadily all day; driftwood was left on the shore; rocks dried swiftly in the sun, ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... pit one of the bears squatted himself in the pool and sat there, grinning complacently at the crowd. We explained that the bear was taking a bath. This presented a familiar train of thought to the Urchin and he watched the grizzly climb out of his tank and scatter the water over the stone floor. As we walked away the Urchin observed thoughtfully, "He's dying." This somewhat shocked the curators, who did not know that their offspring had even heard of death. "What does he ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... St. Peter's did not seem to pay much attention to the Beau's remarks, but continued his own train of thought ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... hand, he may create a story from the title. Having hit upon an expression that suggests a story by starting a train of thought, he may find that it is directly responsible for the way in which he builds his plot; its very words suggest the nature of the story, and supply at least a suggestion of how it can be developed—they hint ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... spectacle starting a train of thought—asked Jimmy Silver, as they went into their tent just before lights-out, if there was much ragging ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse |
