|
|
|
More "Meditation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... little or nothing issues as we expect. We look for pleasure and we find pain; we shun one pain and find a greater; and thus arises the ineffectual character which we so complain of in life—the disappointments, failures, mortifications which form the material of so much moral meditation on the vanity of the world. Much of all this is inevitable from the constitution of our nature. The mind is too infirm to be entirely occupied with higher knowledge. The conditions of life oblige us to act in many cases which cannot be understood ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... When wise men are entrusted with office, the sound of praise arises. If unprincipled men hold office, disasters and tumults are multiplied. In this world, few are born with knowledge: wisdom is the product of earnest meditation. In all things, whether great or small, find the right man, and they will surely be well managed: on all occasions, be they urgent or the reverse, meet with but a wise man and they will of themselves be amenable. In this way ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... in profound meditation, his splendid head gradually sinking until it rested on his breast. The arms hung by the sides. The attitude suggested a sorrow healed by the long years until it was no more a pain, but a memory so subduing that it depressed. At last ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... but, alas! he had not the money with which to pay his class fees, nor could he imagine how he could procure it. Sixty pounds were wanted to make his career, and it might have been as many thousand for any chance there seemed to be of his obtaining it. He was roused from his black meditation by the entrance of Dr. Oldacre himself, a large, clean-shaven, respectable man, with a prim manner and an austere face. He had prospered exceedingly by the support of the local Church interest, and the rule of his life was never by word or action to run a risk of offending the sentiment which had ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... consequences. From such verses the Poems in these volumes will be found distinguished at least by one mark of difference, that each of them has a worthy purpose. Not that I always began to write with a distinct purpose formally conceived; but habits of meditation have, I trust, so prompted and regulated my feelings, that my descriptions of such objects as strongly excite those feelings, will be found to carry along with them a purpose. If this opinion be erroneous, I can have ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... roused from this fit of luxurious meditation by a shout from my little travelling companions. They had been looking out of the coach-windows for the last few miles, recognising every tree and cottage as they approached home, and now there was a general burst of joy—"There's ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... Jane, after standing awkwardly for a moment in meditation, "how a girl's goin' to be much of a woman that amounts to anything one of these days if she's nothin' to do now but dirty work at ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton
... have never dared to look it in the face. I stand still in my walk and in my meditation. What, that also? But my reason is as honest as my heart, and keeps me ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... the candles there, for, lost in meditation, she had been sitting in the dark, and with reckless hospitality poked the ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... we had hardly passed more than half a mile of shore-line at the most. What we had been doing all the time I was unable to figure out. I thought we had been rowing. I could have sworn we had been rowing, but apparently we had not. I looked up from my meditation in time to catch the ironical gaze of the coxswain upon me, and I involuntarily braced myself to ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... du jour at Restaurant Sowee was written Grouse. 'How shall we have them?' said I, cook and convive, to Loolowcan, marmiton and convive. 'One of these cocks of the mountain shall be fried, since gridiron is not,' responded I to myself, after meditation; 'two shall be spitted and roasted; and, as Azrael may not want us before breakfast to-morrow, the fourth shall go ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... and it was well; for if he had not done as those thinkings taught him, he would have given a very different turn to his history. Meditation and resolve, on the top of honourable habit, brought him to this, that, when he saw what was right, he just did it—did it without hesitation, question, or struggle. Every man must, who would be a free man, who would not be the slave of the universe ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... some method of recruiting forthwith its languishing vital energies—to rescue its financial concerns from the desperate condition in which he found them. With an immediate and perspective increase of expenditure that was perfectly frightful—in the meditation and actual prosecution of vast but useless enterprises—of foreign interference and aggrandizement, to secure a little longer continuance of popular favour, they deliberately destroyed a principal source of revenue, by the reduction of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... thoughts had not been held fast by the politics under discussion, for she had gone into a deep grave meditation. ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... evening; and then for a while he paced the floor in meditation, pausing finally at the open window. Presently he struck ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... the modest rooms on the Ripetta which he had first occupied, but a much more sumptuous apartment on the Corso), Rowland found a letter on the table addressed to himself. It was from Roderick, and consisted of but three lines: "I am gone to Frascati—for meditation. If I am not at home on Friday, you had better join me." On Friday he was still absent, and Rowland went out to Frascati. Here he found his friend living at the inn and spending his days, according to his own account, lying under the trees of the ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... disappeared within the door of this little house opposite. Morrow observed that the man's step lacked its accustomed jauntiness and spring, and he plodded along wearily, as if utterly preoccupied with some depressing meditation. A light sprang up in the front room on the ground floor, but after a few moments it was suddenly extinguished, and Brunell appeared again on the porch. He closed the door softly behind him, and strode quickly down the street. There was a marked change in his bearing, a furtiveness and eager haste ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... In which passage the mind, which may be called endless on account of the infinite number of modifications it undergoes, is identified with the Vi/s/vedevas, which thereby constitute the chief object of the meditation; the fruit of the meditation being immortality. The identity of the Self with Brahman, on the other hand, is real, not only meditatively imagined, on account of the attribute of intelligence ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... disposition, which has exalted an intrinsic and lofty beau—idle to itself. I always had to reply, when they got down upon their knees to me, and squeezed my hands, that I could not force my sensations; and though I should ever esteem them as friends, I could not change my condition of maiden meditation and exculpation for the agitation of matrimonial engagements. I need not say that now my feelings have changed, and you, Mr. Verty, have become the idle of my existence. You are yet young, but with a rare and intrinsic power of intellect. In future, ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... silence for some minutes. Gilbert had taken another book, and seemed to be absorbed in it; Mrs. Grail had a face of meditation. Occasionally she looked upwards, as though on the track of some memory which she ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... few days whenever Wilfrid entered Seraphita's presence his body seemed to fall away from him into nothingness. With a single glance this strange being led him in spirit through the spheres where meditation leads the learned man, prayer the pious heart, where vision transports the artist, and sleep the souls of men,—each and all have their own path to the Height, their own guide to reach it, their own individual sufferings in the dire return. In that sphere alone all veils ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac
... meditation. -contraction in blind people of muscles of. -children's habit of rubbing with knuckles. -gorged with blood during screaming. -contraction of ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... Lee Fu folded his hands within the long sleeves of his embroidered coat and laid them across his stomach in a characteristic attitude of meditation. 'No, quite the opposite. I abhorred him. He feels no remorse; he goes his way in peace from the betrayal of a sacred trust. He ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the mighty Mother Let her swelling tides go free. And in mournful meditation Slowly ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... all a-glitter, produces his friend Fledgeby, as dying for the honour of presentation to Lady Tippins. Fledgeby presented, has the air of going to say something, has the air of going to say nothing, has an air successively of meditation, of resignation, and of desolation, backs on Brewer, makes the tour of Boots, and fades into the extreme background, feeling for his whisker, as if it might have turned up since he was there five ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... low, silly, or uninteresting. Whether this is done from affectation and conceit alone, or whether it may not arise, in some measure, from the self-illusion of a mind of extraordinary sensibility, habituated to solitary meditation, we cannot undertake to determine. It is possible enough, we allow, that the sight of a friend's garden-spade, or a sparrow's nest, or a man gathering leeches, might really have suggested to such a mind a train of powerful impressions and ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... reign as a queen of society began, but none have as yet been favored with a kinder glance than that of friendship. Scottish dukes, Roman princes and American officers have wooed, but never won: la belle Mathilde still walks the orange groves of her villa, "in virgin meditation, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... in this unwelcome theme; Nay every meditation, every dream, Th'inexplicable sentence held to view, 'They're not both mine,' was every morning new: For, till this hour, the Maid had never prov'd How far she was enthrall'd, how much she lov'd: In that fond character he first appear'd; His kindness charm'd her, ...
— Rural Tales, Ballads, and Songs • Robert Bloomfield
... her mind, Hildegarde was sauntering toward the Ladies' Garden, on the day after the new arrival. This was a favourite haunt of hers, and she was very apt to go there for a season of meditation, or when she wanted to find Hugh. It was a curious place,—an old, neglected, forgotten garden, with high, unclipped box hedges, overhung by whispering larches. Hildegarde had dreamed many a dream under those larches, sitting beside the little stream that plashed and fell in ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... no holy meditation. His head is thrown back; his ear listens for every sound; the bared sword glitters as he ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... his high-backed pew, separated from us in the choir loft by only a short intervening space, motionless, absorbed in some far-away thought. Though his eyes were sometimes closed I knew that he was not asleep; what could be the topic on which his meditation was so intent? Not long after Hiawatha appeared, and I shall always believe that in those Sunday musings in the quiet little chapel while the service droned on he was ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... the marksman equaled and perhaps surpassed the pilot. Captain Galliot, who is a specialist, has called him "the thinker-fighter," thereby emphasizing that his excellence as a gunner arose from meditation and preparation. The same officer adds that "accuracy was Guynemer's characteristic; he never shot at random as others occasionally do, but always took long and careful aim. Perfect weapons and perfect mastery of them were dogmas with him. ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... since they are symptomatic of the tendency to disintegration of the mind, and which, if unchecked, would lead to grave disturbances later on. It is because of this fact that too much automatic writing, crystal-gazing, meditation, attendance at spiritistic circles, etc., is harmful; they one and all induce a passive state of the mind which favours dissociation and disintegration. Many of the insanities start in this fashion; and all such practices, instead of being encouraged, should be discouraged; and ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... to Owen Warland's shop, and spend more meditation upon his history and character than either Peter Hovenden, or probably his daughter Annie, or Owen's old school-fellow, Robert Danforth, would have thought due to so slight a subject. From the time that his little fingers could grasp a penknife, ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... so he talked metaphysical jargon, instead of plain practical truth, and thought he was teaching Laura to strengthen her powers of mind, instead of giving way to dreams, when he was only leading her to stifle meditation, and thus securing her ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... courtesy shown me by Lord Weardale, our president, and by Baron von Plener, the chairman of the committee which framed the model treaty. The latter has framed this substitute embodying both of the ideas (investigation and meditation) which were presented yesterday. I recognize the superior wisdom and the greater experience of this learned committee which has united the two propositions, and I thank this body also for the opportunity to say just a word in defense of my part of the resolution. I cannot say that it is a ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... not like to have his brooding meditation interrupted by questions or anecdotes. These hours were dedicated to getting well. Every breath here cost money and must be utilised to the utmost. Here breathing was religion, ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... spent most of her time with her aunt and cousin, opportunities for meditation were not wanting: in the retirement of her closet she perused and re-perused the frequent letters of her friend. The modesty of Julia, or rather shame, would have prevented her from making Anna acquainted with all her feelings, but it would have been treason to her friendship ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... for some time silent, with introverted gaze, Johnnie with difficulty restraining her impatience, forbearing to break in upon his meditation. ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... the nun, unhappy over the treatment intended for her client, "preparing her meditation for the morning. She has a great love for meditation on the profound ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... be the same. And so, resolved that Miss Crawley should have the news, the young person debated in her mind as to the best means of conveying it to her; and whether she should face the storm that must come, or fly and avoid it until its first fury was blown over. In this state of meditation she ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and the gash in his scalp gave him time for meditation; and meditation counseled patience. The gringo would doubtless go to the rodeo, and he would meet him there without the spectacular flavor of a formal challenge. For Jose was a decent sort of a fellow and had no desire to cheapen his passion or cause the senorita ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... coat and sat down in the furthest corner; placing himself so, however, that neither eyes nor ears should be hindered in the exercise of their vocation, while his attitude might have suggested a fit of sleepiness, or a most indifferent meditation on things far distant, or possibly rest after severe exertion. Lois and her six scholars took their places at the other end of the room, which was too small to prevent every word they spoke from being distinctly heard by the one idle spectator. A spectator in truth Mr. Dillwyn ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... minute's amused meditation, "the men I know are all like me. They are business men, and are rather dragged into society, I suppose, by their wives, and by"—he chuckled merrily at this point—"by the debts they owe to social position, ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... previously, as an habitual thing, to give myself to prayer, after having dressed myself in the morning. Now I saw, that the most important thing I had to do was, to give myself to the reading of the word of God and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, by means of the word of God, whilst meditating on it, my heart might be brought into experimental communion with the Lord. I began therefore to meditate ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Third Part • George Mueller
... human mind itself, and their comparative dignity and importance. According to the faculty or source, from which the pleasure given by any poem or passage was derived, I estimated the merit of such poem or passage. As the result of all my reading and meditation, I abstracted two critical aphorisms, deeming them to comprise the conditions and criteria of poetic style;—first, that not the poem which we have read, but that to which we return, with the greatest pleasure, possesses the genuine power, and claims ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... all, even to my want of breath, suddenly cooled passion, perplexity and flight. It is a moot point whether that last was the act of a coward, but I can never allow it to be said that in what followed I showed a want of courage. I devoted a day and night to solitary meditation; no knight errant of old, watching his arms under the moon, prayed more earnestly than I; and when I had fully made up my mind to embrace what honour demanded of me, I sought out the girl, who was again in the dairy, and in solemn form, upon my knees, offered her my hand. Father ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... fragrance of wild flowers and the smell of the new-mown hay from the adjacent meadows. One heard the buzzing sound of busy insect life around, and the love-calls of song-birds from the hedge-rows; while the grateful shade of the lime-grove seemed to invite repose and suggest peaceful meditation: but I heeded none of these things. I felt, like the singer of "The Banks and Braes of Bonny Doon," out of harmony with nature and all its surroundings. My thoughts were jostling one another in a wild dance through my breast. Where on earth could they have disappeared so very suddenly! ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... to be true with respect to arts, still it is not to follow that the same rule holds good with respect to virtue; because virtue requires a great deal of meditation and practice, and this is not always the case with arts; and also because virtue embraces the stability, firmness, and consistency of the entire life; and we do not see that the same is the case ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... skipper was still pondering on the matter of Colonel Ward—the meditation had lasted over into the next day—there was a roar on the bridge, and the subject of his reflections passed in a swirl of dust on his return trip. He was standing up in his wagon as before, and he saluted the indignant toll-man with a flick of his whip that started the ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... it has its woes, it has likewise its delights; and when the overwhelming burst of grief is calmed into the gentle tear of recollection—when the sudden anguish and the convulsive agony over the present ruins of all that we most loved is softened away into pensive meditation on all that it was in the days of its loveliness—who would root out such a sorrow from the heart? Though it may sometimes throw a passing cloud over the bright hour of gayety, or spread a deeper sadness over the hour of ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof
... preparation and lastly I run liquid plaster-paris in it, and when it hardens, I have an exact mold of the drapery. There! But I hain't explained The Orphan. You see she's sittin' on a very light chair—that shows the very little support she has in this world. The hand to the head shows meditation; and the Bible on her knee shows devotion; you see it's open to the book, chapter, and verse which refers to the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... pilot's meditation, D—— had mechanically taken his position aft, close to the helmsman on the weather quarter. More fairly, the cutter now started a second time, and, standing well up, promised to fetch the very centre of ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... said. Dacres sat in silence for a long time, breathing hard, and puffing violently at his cigar. Hawbury said nothing to interrupt his meditation. After an hour or so Dacres tramped off in silence, and Hawbury was left to meditate ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... man; but when the proud young Charlton gets his hair cropped, and finds himself clad in 'Stillwater gray,' and engaged in the intellectual employments of piling shingles and making vinegar-barrels, he will have plenty of time for meditation on that great moral truth, that honesty is generally the ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... of meditation, the colossal pillars of the audience chamber of the Deity! The Mount of Contemplation rises far above the mists of partial opinion and the mire of conflict, the discords of jangling interests and the refractions of divided ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... vanquishing, abolishing, and, as it were, burying their carnal affections, ought to express in their lives and conversations that they may grow up to a newness of life and be one with him and the same one among another. This a holy man does, and in this is his only meditation. Whereas on the contrary, the common people think there's no more in that sacrifice than to be present at the altar and crowd next it, to have a noise of words and look upon the ceremonies. Nor in this alone, which we only proposed by way of example, but in all ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... had been made bishop of Avranches. He could see the rock as it may be seen to-day, although at that time it was crowned with no buildings visible at any distance, and the loneliness of the spot seems to have attracted him to retire thither for prayer and meditation. He eventually raised upon the rock a small chapel which he dedicated to Michel the archangel. After this time, all the earlier names disappeared and the island was always known as Mont St Michel. Replacing the hermits of Mandane with twelve canons, the establishment grew and became ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home
... to the culture of the higher sciences, or of the more elevated departments of science, than meditation; and nothing is less suited to meditation than the structure of democratic society. We do not find there, as amongst an aristocratic people, one class which clings to a state of repose because it is well off; and another which does ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... her needle through her embroidery with the obtuse concentration of a girl who, like Agnes, seems to be thinking of nothing, but who is reflecting on things in general so deeply, that her artifice is unfailing. As a result of this profound meditation, Rosalie thought she would go to confession. Next morning, after Mass, she had a brief interview with the Abbe Giroud at Saint-Pierre, and managed so ingeniously that the hour of her confession was fixed for Sunday morning at half-past seven, before the eight ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... literary point of view, but is it true? My experience says No. Yet during the absence this aphorism seems true enough. Disillusion comes with reunion. Who does not remember that first departure of the Beloved—the innumerable letters, the endless meditation, the ceaseless yearning and the everlasting planning for the glorious return? What a meeting that is going to be! How one dwells in thought on that first goodly satisfaction of the desire of the eyes; goodlier still that joyous clasping of the hands; goodliest of all that ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... Scriptural quotations meant in deepest reverence. "I will be responsible for the baths of all the babes." And from that time Yosepu has been responsible. Solemnly from dawn to dusk, with breathing spaces for meals and meditation, he stalks across from nurseries to well and from well to nurseries. He is a man of few smiles; but he is the cause of many, and we all feel grateful to Yosepu for his goodness to us. Often on melancholy days he comes ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... Vivian Grey, with a mind teeming with such feelings, should view the approach of the season for his departure to Oxford with sentiments of disgust? After hours of bitter meditation, he sought his father; he made him acquainted with his feelings, but concealed from him his actual views, and dwelt on the misery of being thrown back in life, at a period when society seemed instinct with a spirit peculiarly ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... like nature, relatives. Ram'part, that which defends from assault, a bulwark. 3. Im-preg'na-ble, that can not be moved or shaken. Hor'rent, standing out like bristles. 4. In-sur'gent, rising in opposition to authority. 13. An-ni'hi-lates, destroys. 7. Ru-mi-na'tion, the act of musing, meditation. 9. Breach, a gap ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... the sifter, and the cracking and 'fizzing' of the fat bacon as it fried, saluted their hungry ears, and the delicious smell tickled their olfactory nerves most delightfully. Sitting thus, entertained by delightful sounds, breathing the air and wrapped in meditation, or anticipation, rather, the soldiers saw the dust rise in the air and heard the ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... ended, he gave it out that he intended, the ensuing week, to examine all those who meant to attend the Lord's table. Now I thought much of my good works, and at the same time was doubtful of my being a proper object to receive the sacrament; I was full of meditation till the day of examining. However, I went to the chapel, and, though much distressed, I addressed the reverend gentleman, thinking, if I was not right, he would endeavour to convince me of it. When I conversed with him, the first thing he asked ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... as one contemplates those graven footprints,—footprints giant-seeming, yet less so than the human personality of which they remain the symbol. Twenty-four hundred years ago, out of solitary meditation upon the pain and the mystery of being, the mind of an Indian pilgrim brought forth the highest truth ever taught to men, and in an era barren of science anticipated the uttermost knowledge of our present evolutional philosophy regarding the secret ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... these long hours of meditation germinated at last in the secret wish to go to market some morning in Evelina's stead. As this purpose rose to the surface of Ann Eliza's thoughts she shrank back shyly from its contemplation. A plan so steeped in duplicity had never before taken shape in her ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... body will on returning to earth find a new astral body composed of the same elements, though then in a dormant state. He who, by the cultivation of a lofty intellect, has built up a refined mental body, will return to incarnation with a like mental body, whilst the one who, by meditation and the practice of devotion which bring into being the noblest qualities of the heart, has set vibrating the purest portions of the causal body and of the divine essence (Atma-Buddhi, as it is named ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... curious and even pitiable that Chumley Potts should be so inconsolably shaken. Well, and if the priests have the secret of strengthening the backbone for a bend of the knee in calamity, why not go to the priests, Chummy? Potts's hearing was not addressed; nor was the chief person in the meditation affected by a question that merely jumped out ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... rational relaxation to fill the void of their days, and who seek by slander and treachery to console themselves for the loss of pleasures which they can no longer enjoy. Resist that inclination which seems to impel you to gloomy meditation, solitude, and melancholy. Devotion is only suited to inert and listless souls, while yours is formed for action. You should pursue the course I recommend for the sake of your husband, whose happiness depends upon you; you owe it to the children, who will soon, undoubtedly, ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... of melancholy which came over my mind, I resolved to kindle a fire; and having heaped dry sticks upon my hearth, and added a billet or two, I struck a light, and soon produced a blaze. Sitting down, I fixed my eyes upon the blaze, and soon fell into a deep meditation. I thought of the events of the day, the scene at church, and what I had heard at church, the danger of losing one's soul, the doubts of Jasper Petulengro as to whether one had a soul. I thought over the various arguments which I had either heard, or which had come spontaneously to ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... over, while the exquisite silence of the place is broken only by the occasional note of some bird lodging in the branches of the trees without, Paul lingers in profound meditation. He is not at all the Paul whom we knew but a few months ago; through some mysterious influence he seems to have cast off his careless youth, and to have become a grave and ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... but a trifling part of any piece of literature, and the view of the writer is itself a fact more important because less disputable than the others. Now this spirit in which a subject is regarded, important in all kinds of literary work, becomes all-important in works of fiction, meditation, or rhapsody; for there it not only colours but itself chooses the facts; not only modifies but shapes the work. And hence, over the far larger proportion of the field of literature, the health or disease of ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... were to be violated for the sake of reigning. This was the chief end and purpose of his life—the scheme that he had formed from his early youth; so that, as Cato truly declared of him, he came with sobriety and meditation to the subversion of the republic. He used to say, that there were two things necessary to acquire and to support power—soldiers and money; which yet depended mutually upon each other: with money, therefore, he provided soldiers, and with soldiers extorted money, ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... Not I, I must confess. It is all very well to talk of renunciation, and of course it has to be done. But, for my part, give me a roaring toothache! I do like to be deceived and to dream, but I have very little use for either watching or meditation. I was not born for age. And, curiously enough, I seem to see a contrary drift in my work from that which is so remarkable in yours. You are going on sedately travelling through your ages, decently changing ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... teased, and entreated," repeated Chip, savagely to himself when the door closed upon her, and fell into gloomy meditation, which left him feeling that there was no good thing in this wicked world—no, not one—that was not appropriated by some one with not sense enough to understand and appreciate ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... sartin it would cost anything. Leastwise, it won't cost much. I ain't sartin,"—repeated the Captain as though in meditation,—"but I think ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... steps. On reaching a wood that lay at some distance off, Mark sought a retired spot, near where a quiet stream went stealing noiselessly along amid its alder and willow-fringed banks, and sitting down upon a grassy spot, gave himself up to meditation. Little inclined was he now for sport. The birds sung in the trees above him, fluttered from branch to branch, and even dipped their wings in the calm waters of the stream, but he heeded them not. He had other thoughts. Greatly had old Mrs. Lee, in the blindness of her suddenly aroused fears, ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... at the expense of the company. No man ever set foot in this sanctuary unless in the cowl of St. Ignatius. Servants even of the female sex were not allowed to accompany their mistresses. The devotional services consisted of meditation, prayer, catechizings, confession, and flagellation. "We were shown the stains on the walls of the chapel, made by the blood which flowed under the hands of these Magdalens ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... he began, with the incongruity of one who passes without transition from long meditation to the spoken word. "I love you, for you are of my race and yet you are not; because you speak my language and yet your blood is not my blood. You possess the grace and beauty of the Spanish woman, yet there is something more ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... out by the heels and laid by to sober, enter another to puff at the sacred cigarro, till he is dragged out likewise, and so on till the Tobacco is finished, and the seed of wisdom has sprouted in every soul into the tree of meditation, bearing the flower of eloquence, and in due time ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... the sly, demure over-doings of the hypocrite, and mark the deceitful lines of grave meditation running along that part of his countenance where in others the front of honesty lies open and expanded. I could trace him when he got beyond his depth, where the want of sincerity in religion betrayed his ignorance of its forms. I could note the scowling, sharp-visaged ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... on Clara, as also did Lady Bygrave. Both spoke enthusiastically of the holy and happy life of Sisters of Mercy, and still more so of those nuns who gave themselves up to religious meditation. Lady Bygrave, especially, warmly pressed the ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... Governor!' said he, with characteristic coolness. Then, after a brief meditation on this skilfully-planned revenge, he thought it wise to return ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... meet in the street, but give no signs of recognition. The old man is still living, seldom going beyond the portals of his son's house and passing most of his time in moody meditation on the past. Let us hope that a heartfelt repentance may in some measure atone for ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... It is the aspiration of the soul toward the Absolute and Infinite Intelligence, which is the One Supreme Deity, most feebly and misunderstandingly characterized as an "ARCHITECT." Certain faculties of man are directed toward the Unknown—thought, meditation, prayer. The unknown is an ocean, of which conscience is the compass. Thought, meditation, prayer, are the great mysterious pointings of the needle. It is a spiritual magnetism that thus connects the human soul with the Deity. These majestic irradiations ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... at assizes, or all the burning haggards that ever flared in a wintry sky. Her notion was to retire into some religious sisterhood, and away from life and its cares, to pass her remaining years in holy meditation and piety. She would have liked to have sold her estate and endowed some house or convent with the proceeds, but there were certain legal difficulties that stood in the way, and her law-agent, McKeown, must be seen and conferred ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... the Day' through the Christian Year: being a Text of Scripture, with an Original Meditation and a Short Selection in Verse ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... He always takes care to mention that, in the practices of devotion, as in every other practice, the common is the safest road: that many of the greatest saints have, through the whole of their lives, confined themselves to the usual modes of prayer and meditation; that the gift of contemplation is given to few; that, like every other practice of devotion, contemplation has its dangers; and that, without a perfect spirit of humility, it is much exposed to illusion; but he delivers, at the same time, an explicit ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... them, that when they arrive at an age when it would be proper nourishment, they will not so much as taste it. Every day they should be obliged to read a little in some good book, spend some time in prayer, which must be suited rather to stir the affections, than for meditation. Oh, were this method of education pursued, how speedily would many irregularities cease! These daughters becoming mothers, would educate their children as they themselves ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... her extravagances and seduction of the handsome Anzoleto; his irresolution between his still existing affection for Consuelo, who passes through all these things (and Zustiniani's siege of her) "in maiden meditation, fancy-free"—all discharge themselves or play their parts quite as they ought to do. But this comparatively quiet, though by no means emotionless or unincidented, part of the story "ends in a blow-up," or ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... Here, meditation may indulge her reveries in the midst of the surges, and walk in cloisters, alone vocal with the whispers of the pine. I passed this consecrated spot soon after sunset, when daylight was expiring in the west, and when the ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... extremely dejected at this disappointment, nor knew he what further stratagem to try. He immediately applied to his pipe, his constant friend and comfort in his afflictions; and, leaning over the rails, he devoted himself to meditation, assisted by the inspiring ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... cousin entered the London station late at night,—it was past midnight,—Sir Harry bade his companion meet him the next morning at Mr. Boltby's chambers at eleven. Cousin George had had ample time for meditation, and had considered that it might be best for him to "cut ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... irony was always considered a falsehood in spite of explanation; and that they could not see the propriety of uttering what was not strictly true, for any purpose whatever. The Sabbath is wholly devoted to the church service, to prayer, reading, and serious meditation; no work of any kind is done on that day, not even cooking, which is ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... have nor hope nor health, Nor peace within nor calm around, Nor that content surpassing wealth The sage in meditation found, And walked with inward glory crowned— Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure. Others I see whom these surround— Smiling they live, and call life pleasure;— To me that cup has been ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... were men of markedly contrasted types—the one all fire, restlessness, energy; the other calm, contemplative, intensely spiritual. Both were alike filled with a deep faith, a deep zeal; one the man of action, the other the man of meditation and devotion—yet deeply attached one to the other, as could be seen by the way they looked ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... In his meditation Nekhludoff did not notice how the weather had changed. The sun had hidden behind a low strip of cloud, and from the southern sky a light-gray mass, from which a slanting rain was already pouring in the distance over the fields and forests, was ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... hour to the search he was ostensibly conducting; when he again entered the house was more easy-minded. Employed in meditation that hour gave him back his coolness of the night. Rudely awakened, given no time in which firmly to plant his feet, securely to get a purchase with his hands before the storm burst, he had been whirled along helpless and bewildered before Mr. Marrapit's gusty agony. Instead of resisting ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... We have been generally and soundly suspicious of conclusions which cannot be verified by the scientific method, and so have built about ourselves restraining limitations of thought which we are wholesomely unwilling to pass. We have found our real joy in action rather than meditation. Our scientific achievements have supplied material for our restless energy and our restless energy has urged us on to ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... and it contains that which I ought to know, and the knowledge of which will lead me to true happiness; therefore I ought to read again and again this most precious book, this book of books, most earnestly, most prayerfully, and with much meditation; and in this practice I ought to continue all the days of my life. For I was aware, though I read it but little, that I knew scarcely anything of it. But instead of acting thus, and being led by my ignorance ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, First Part • George Mueller
... because he had given instructions for it whenever he paused. The communicator-operator at Luna City took pleasure in following instructions exactly. Dabney held up his hand again. Again he performed feats of meditation in plain view. ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... has been touched in the fifth button, and he backs away broken-winded. By and by, however, he is at his work—among the turnip-shoots, say—guffawing and clapping his corduroys, with pauses for uneasy meditation, and there he ripens with the swedes, so that by the back-end of the year he has discovered, and exults to know, that the reward of manhood is neither more nor less than this sensation at the ribs. Soon thereafter, or at worst, sooner ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... vertical line from the pupil of the eye, the interior group would represent a comprehensive understanding possessing sagacity and judgment, while the exterior would represent profound ingenious thought and originality, a capacity for discovering truth by reason and meditation, by analysis and synthesis, while the interior would discover it only by direct perception. In the exterior group would be included the misnamed organ of Wit or Mirthfulness, which is really a source ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, October 1887 - Volume 1, Number 9 • Various
... the steak and onions, and in the end he had gained his point. This weighty question being settled, they had gradually grown reflective on the past, present, and future joys of eating at some one else's expense, and in this bland and pleasing state of meditation they were still absorbed. The horses were impatient, and pawed the muddy ground with many a toss of their long manes and tails, the steam from their glossy coats mingling with the ever-thickening density of the fog. On the white stone steps ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... thy perpetual meditation, how many physicians who once looked so grim, and so theatrically shrunk their brows upon their patients, are dead and gone themselves. How many astrologers, after that in great ostentation they had foretold the death of some others, how many philosophers ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... Mr. Blithers and the return of the Prince, both of whom are very much in the public eye just now. I prefer the quiet of the country to the excitement of the city, so I shall seek some remote village and give myself up to—shall I say prayerful meditation? Believe me, dear Rex, to be your most devoted, ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... is going off to cut hay. He has been speaking of it as going into the wilderness for meditation. But what he's really doing is taking a team and his tent and supplies and staying with that hay until it's cut, cut and "collected," to use the word which the naive Lady Allie ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... doubt and fear, [9] Floating thro' an evening atmosphere, Grow golden all about the sky; In thee all passion becomes passionless, Touch'd by thy spirit's mellowness, Losing his fire and active might In a silent meditation, Falling into a still delight, And luxury of contemplation: As waves that up a quiet cove Rolling slide, and lying still Shadow forth the banks at will: [10] Or sometimes they swell and move, Pressing up against the land, With motions of the outer sea: And the self-same influence Controlleth ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... too correct, and on the next day, which was Sunday, he awoke, after an uneasy night, under the pressure of distressing symptoms. Finding it was too late for his family to go to church, he requested they would read the service to him, and was afterwards much employed in meditation. It was now apparent that he was impressed with the belief, that the time of his departure was at hand, for he seemed as if taking a farewell of terrestrial objects and resigning his soul to ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... letter. The reader may choose among these theories. We have thrown all the light we could acquire upon the portent, and would gladly, now that it has done its office, erase its deep print out of our own brain, where long meditation has fixed ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... which the eye of imagination could trace downward to their root on quiet hearth-stones festooned overhead with hams and flitches. It was one of those sequestered spots outside the gates of the world where may usually be found more meditation than action, and more passivity than meditation; where reasoning proceeds on narrow premises, and results in inferences wildly imaginative; yet where, from time to time, no less than in other places, dramas of a grandeur ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... must renounce the world, must divest himself of the lusts called the lusts of the body and the flesh, and must live spiritually. They take this to mean that they must cast away worldly things, which are especially riches and honors; that they must go continually in pious meditation on God, salvation, and eternal life; and must spend their life in prayers and in reading the Word and pious books. But those who renounce the world and live in the spirit in this manner acquire a melancholy life, ...
— The Gist of Swedenborg • Emanuel Swedenborg
... hope, I return from this murderous war, it will be one of my most welcome duties to steep my mind in the culture of those that now oppose us. I mean to build up on a broader basis the aim and purpose of my life, namely, historical and philosophical meditation on culture in its ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... in Jamaica, where he had gone to buy seed, stock and so on for their farm. While there he had stayed in a Franciscan convent during the season of Lent, and had given much time to prayer and meditation. For a long time he had been troubled about holding the Indians as slaves, but he had thought that if he and his partner were to give up the savages, they would only be worse off. Now, however, as he thought and prayed, a plan occurred to him: He would go to Spain and get permission to found schools, ...
— Las Casas - 'The Apostle of the Indies' • Alice J. Knight
... into my hands soon after its publication in Edinburgh, some two years ago. I was at once impressed by its extraordinary richness of language and imagery,—its deep and solemn tone of meditation in rare combination with an eminently practical tendency,— philosophy warm and glowing with love. It will, perhaps, be less the fault of the writer than of her readers, if they are not always able to eliminate from ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... sheets of wrinkled silver rock, over which the sight travels slowly as in delirium; mad, horned mountains, wreathed with dancing mists; low-browed and bent-shouldered faquirs of the wayside, sitting in meditation beneath a burden of glacier-ice that thickens every year; and mountains of fair aspect on one side, but on the other seamed with hollow sunless clefts, where last year's snow is blackened with this year's dirt and smoke of forest-fires. The drip ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... than a silk thread does which is wafted idly to and fro with every breath of air. A cat on the watch is as motionless as death stationed at its place of observation, and neither hunger nor thirst can possibly draw it away from its meditation. D'Artagnan who was burning with impatience, suddenly threw aside the feeling, like a cloak which he felt too heavy on his shoulders, and said to himself that that which they were concealing from him was the very thing it was important ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... I see any harm in your using the current for reasonable purposes," he answered slowly, after an interval of meditation. "You understand the dangers of running too many volts through your body and of crossing ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... loss is that of the great stained glass windows, which the mysterious artists of the thirteenth century so religiously composed, in meditation and dream, gathering the saints by hundreds, with their translucent draperies, their luminous halos. There also German scrap-iron rushed in great stupid bundles, crushing everything. The masterpieces, which no one will ever reproduce, have scattered their fragments on the flagstones, forever impossible ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... attentively to what the count said, "This is very wonderful, very wonderful," he observed, after being for some time lost in meditation. "I would wish to hear more about the matter; yet it strikes me as strange that God should allow His name to be profaned, and these senseless images to be worshipped instead ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston
... person is lost in meditation his eyes often appear as if fixed on a distant object (470/3. The appearance is due to divergence of the lines of vision produced by muscular relaxation. See "Expression of the Emotions," Edition II., page 239.), and the lower eyelids may be seen to ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... crises in their lives; or when he pictured them as they seemed at the moment to one, two, or three differently tempered persons—pictorial sketches and studies which we may hang up in the chambers of the mind for meditation or discussion. Their intellectual power and the emotional interest they awaken, the vivid imaginative lightning which illuminates them in flashes, arise out of that part of his nature which made ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... looked so mean, so ill put together, so shabby, so dirty, that the very "Pennies" hooted at him and flung him in our faces. The Rector was also careless of his dress, and mooned along the road, but then everybody knew that he was a mighty scholar, and that if you woke him from his meditation he would answer you in Greek; but even Speug understood that Moossy was not a scholar. The story drifted about through Muirtown, and filtered down to the boys, that he was a bankrupt tradesman who had fled from some little German town and landed in Muirtown, ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... Meditation, without distinction of subject and object, is the highest form of thought. It is a high attainment to say, "I am God;" but the consummation is when ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir
... Jose lapsed into profound meditation. Musing over his life experiences, he at last summed them all up in the vain attempt to evolve an acceptable concept of God, an idea of Him that would satisfy. He had felt that in Christianity he had hold of something beneficent, something real; but he had never been able to formulate it, nor lift ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... become Christians, and believe in one God, Christ the Son of Mary; renouncing entirely blood sacrifices and heathen idols; should keep every seventh day holy, abstain from labor that day, and even from food, devoting the day to fasting and sacred meditation. Whereupon, by way of universal answer, arose a confused universal murmur of entire dissent. "Take away from us our old belief, and also our time for labor!" murmured they in angry astonishment; "how can even the land be got tilled in that way?" "We cannot work if we don't get food," ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... is beauty itself, proceeding as on steps from the love of one form to that of two, and from that of two, to that of all forms which are beautiful; and from beautiful forms to beautiful habits and institutions, and from institutions to beautiful doctrines; until, from the meditation of many doctrines, they arrive at that which is nothing else than the doctrine of the supreme beauty itself, in the knowledge and contemplation of which at ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... underestimate the value of meditation and silence to the public speaker. These are necessary for original and profound thinking, for the cultivation of the imagination, and for the accumulation of thought. But conversation offers an immediate outlet for this stored-up knowledge, testing it as a finished ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... show how shortsighted we humans are, how incomprehensive of the workings of the human heart and soul; we think we know—and find ourselves utterly confounded, as I am now." He was silent for a few minutes, apparently deep in meditation. ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... consequence of set seasons, even for prayer, is to have a man continually posturing to himself, till his conscience is taught as many tricks as a pet monkey, and the gravest expressions are left with a perverted meaning. (11) For my part, I should try to secure some part of every day for meditation, above all in the early morning and the open air; but how that time was to be improved I should leave to circumstance and the inspiration of the hour. Nor if I spent it in whistling or numbering my footsteps, should I consider it misspent for that. I should have ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... stood there as if lost in meditation. Hugh, still watching closely, and making up his mind to have it out then and there, because he could not stand the weighty load of suspense any longer, was sure the other must be in a merry frame of mind, for he laughed several times, ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... have been its nature, was seemingly a matter of unimportance to Mrs. Pendomer, who was in meditation. She rested her ample chin on a much-bejeweled hand for a moment; and, when Mrs. Pendomer raised her face, her voice was ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... of Priests." 2 "The Praise of Pious Observances." 3 By sila is meant the observance of the rules of purity in act and thought. Dhyana (called by Japanese Buddhists Zenjo) is one of the higher forms of meditation. ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... pleasures I enjoyed in her conversation: these increased every day, in proportion as we knew each other better, and as our mutual confidence increased. They can be measured only by the treasures of her mind, and the virtues of her heart. But this is a subject for meditation, not for words. What I purposed alluding to, was the improvement that I have for ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... flood, in spite of its horror, is described with the greatest brevity because he wished to leave such things to the meditation ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... head and drew his fuzzy white brows together in puzzled meditation—suddenly he started and struck his staff ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... whose kindly heart Was moved to send This gift, when we were far apart, To cheer a friend. Sweet meditation now my mind employs; A pleasure pure, and one ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... rubbed-the-wrong-wayedness, and is as much alive as Mimosa herself. This is often on those easterly days which all well-regulated invalids shudder at, when the very marrow congeals and the nerves are sharp-whetted. Then, Prometheus-like, one "gnaws the heart with meditation"; then, too, always fall out various domestic disasters, and it is not easy to see why the curtain-string should be tied in a hard knot that must be cut at night, or why the servants can't be thorough, deft-handed, and immaculate. One has indigestion, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... men dispute they lose their temper; pride and obstinacy come in, and there is an end of honesty. My friend, never argue; for by arguing we gain no light for ourselves or for others. So far as I myself am concerned, I have only made up my mind after many years of meditation; here I rest, my conscience is at peace, my heart is satisfied. If I wanted to begin afresh the examination of my feelings, I should not bring to the task a purer love of truth; and my mind, which is already ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... introduce this jocular note into our meditation, for we are honestly aggrieved that so many of the Christmas cards hark back to an old tradition that is gone, and never attempt to express any of the romance of to-day. You may protest that Christmas is the oldest thing in the world, which is true; ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... morning and lay down at night, pleased with each other and with themselves, all but Rasselas, who, in the twenty-sixth year of his age, began to withdraw himself from the pastimes and assemblies, and to delight in solitary walks and silent meditation. He often sat before tables covered with luxury, and forgot to taste the dainties that were placed before him; he rose abruptly in the midst of the song, and hastily retired beyond the sound of music. His attendants observed ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson
... worshipful approach to religious reality, we have the profound peace and harmony, the summum bonum of existence, coupled with strong moral purpose which characterize her life. Here, then, is evidently the unification of consciousness in happy awe and the control of destiny through meditation upon infinite matters, that is, through reverent contemplation of God. Is it not one of those ironies of history wherewith fate is forever mocking and teasing the human spirit, that the grandson of this lady and of Jonathan Edwards should ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... do myself!" I confess I had thought, until that moment, that the advantage, in this particular, was altogether on my side; but it seems I was mistaken. By way of relieving his mind, however, I told him I was an American. "An American!" and he seemed more puzzled than ever. After a few minutes of meditation on what he had just heard, he civilly pointed to a bit of meadow through which the Thames meanders, and good-naturedly told me it was Runnymeade. I presume my manner denoted a proper interest, for he now took up the subject of the English Barons, and entered into a long account ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... extreme of perfect idleness any better? No; for plainly the idler is a fool who "eateth his own flesh"; that is, necessarily brings ruin upon himself. So human wisdom here closes the meditation with—what human wisdom always does take refuge in—the "golden mean," as it is called, "better a single handful with quiet rest, than both hands filled only by wearying toil and vexation of spirit." And true enough this is, as every man who has tested things at all in this world ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings
... profit in new births for works of faith; In various rites abounding; following whereon Large merit shall accrue towards wealth and power; Albeit, who wealth and power do most desire Least fixity of soul have such, least hold On heavenly meditation. Much these teach, From Veds, concerning the "three qualities;" But thou, be free of the "three qualities," Free of the "pairs of opposites,"[FN2] and free From that sad righteousness which calculates; Self-ruled, Arjuna! simple, satisfied![FN3] Look! like as when a tank pours ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold
... see why Catherine's plain speaking was not resented. She rarely begins with rebuke. The note of humility is first struck; she is always "servant and slave of the servants of Jesus Christ." Thence she frequently passes into fervent meditation on some special theme: the exceeding wonder of the Divine Love, the duty of prayer, the nature of obedience. We are lifted above the world into a region of heavenly light and sweetness, when suddenly—a blow from the shoulder!—a startling ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... of course, has called up anxious thought and prayerful meditation. I have also considered the peculiar condition of my church—the large outlay of money in the erection of the building, and the heavy debt hanging upon it, which is increased every year by the interest. I have also considered how long I have been supported in this field of labor ...
— A Narrative of The Life of Rev. Noah Davis, A Colored Man. - Written by Himself, At The Age of Fifty-Four • Noah Davis
... respect to those youths who were most beloved by her brother; and the same hour that brought these twins to the world seemed to have breathed through them a sweetness and an affection of heart and mind which nothing could divide. If, like the virgin queen of the immortal poet, she walked 'in maiden meditation fancy free,' her brother Elphin seemed alike untouched with the charms of the fairest virgins in Corrie. He ploughed his field, he reaped his grain, he leaped, he ran, and wrestled, and danced, and sang, with more skill and life and grace than all other ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... technical studies. To the latter I had indeed devoted many years of my life, but the time had arrived when the other side seemed to demand attention. This address, though the result of much preliminary meditation, was dictated in all the hurry and worry of a Cornell commencement week and given in the Yale chapel the week following. Probably nothing which I have ever done, save perhaps the tractate on "Paper Money Inflation ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... on his visitors, he remained for some moments motionless, and in deep meditation; then he unclosed the door, and stole forth. The night was already far advanced, the heavens were luminous with all the host of stars. "I think," said the student, referring, in later life, to that crisis in his destiny—"I think it was then, as I stood alone, yet surrounded ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... back as Rob followed his companion into the dark triangular-shaped space, where, after a short time devoted to meditation, he threw himself upon his bed of leaves to lie and think ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... after my walk. He told me much of the pleasures he found in retirement, and wondered what had kept him so long out of the country. After dinner company came in, and Mr. Drugget again repeated the praises of the country, recommended the pleasures of meditation, and told them that he had been all the morning at the window, counting the carriages as they passed ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... with the garden hose. These or other symbolic rites we should perform, before we planted it in a place chosen by Chance. Then leaving a saucer of new milk for it lest it should thirst in the night we would go away, and spend the rest of the week in meditation." ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... Barbarossa; I don't know who invented it.) Certainly the discovery was not new. The charms of melancholy had been recognised by Jaques in the forest of Arden and sung by various later poets; but sentimentalism at the earlier period naturally took the form of religious meditation upon death and judgment. Young and Hervey are religious sentimentalists, who have also an eye to literary elegance. Wesley was far too masculine and sensible to be a sentimentalist; his emotions impel him to vigorous action; and are much too serious to be cultivated ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... makes it difficult for me to adhere inflexibly to my first purpose and resolution. This natural infirmity I may very much regret, and I may endeavour, by all possible means, to free my self from it. I may have recourse to study and reflection within myself; to the advice of friends; to frequent meditation, and repeated resolution: And having experienced how ineffectual all these are, I may embrace with pleasure any other expedient, by which I may impose a restraint upon myself, and guard ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... into a deserted corner of a drawing-room at his club, and there Seated himself for half an hour's meditation. How should he extricate himself from this dilemma? In what language should he address a young and beautiful woman devoted to him, but whose devotion he was bound to repudiate? He was not voluble in conversation, and he was himself aware of his own slowness. It was essential ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... when she did sleep, her dreams were disturbed and painful. The next morning, when they met at breakfast (for Vaudemont did not return to London), her eyes were red and heavy, and her cheek pale. And, still buried in meditation, Vaudemont's eye, usually so kind and watchful, did not detect those signs of a grief that Fanny could not have explained. After breakfast, however, he asked her to walk out; and her face brightened as she hastened to put on ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... roses and hyacinths with the evening breeze waving the cypress-heads, a fair youth of twenty sitting by thy side and the assurance of perfect privacy. What, prithee, would be the result?" The holy man bowed the chin of doubt upon the collar of meditation; and, too honest to lie, presently whispered, "Allah defend me from such temptation of Satan!" Yet even in Persia men have not been wanting who have done their utmost to uproot the Vice: in the same Shiraz they ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... with my calling him comrade, he lighted me cordially to my chamber, and there left me to the sleepless meditation of ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... Strether, should like it too much, what on earth, with such a bond, would become of either of them? It all depended of course—which was a gleam of light—on how the "too much" was measured; though indeed our friend fairly felt, while he prolonged the meditation I describe, that for himself even already a certain measure had been reached. It will have been sufficiently seen that he was not a man to neglect any good chance for reflexion. Was it at all possible for instance to like Paris enough without liking it too much? ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... many times, and that the last time he came in the form of an Indian prince who, instead of living in careless luxury, left his home and wandered forth among the people to discover the meaning of life. When he found it, after deep meditation, he left certain precepts and rules to his followers. Some of them are very good, resembling our own Commandments: "Thou shalt not kill," "Thou shalt not lie," "Thou shalt not steal," "Thou shalt not drink intoxicating liquor." But, unlike the Mohammedans, ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... Friedrich; or what precise reception they got. Friedrich himself writes long afterwards of the event; but, as usual, without precision, except in general effect. Now, or some time after, Friedrich says he found Belleisle, one morning, with brow clouded, knit into intense meditation: "Have you had bad news, M. le Marechal?" asks Friedrich. "No, oh no! I am considering what we shall make of that Moravia?"—"Moravia; Hm!" Friedrich suppresses the glance that is rising to his eyes: "Can't you give it to Saxony, then? Buy Saxony into the Plan with it!" "Excellent," answers ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... stood on the green fields of Erin, In joyous meditation that victory was won. Surrounded by comrades, no enemy fearing. “Stand,” was the cry, “every man to his gun.” On came the Saxons then, Fighting our Fenian men, Soon they’ll reel back from our piked volunteers. Loud was the fight and shrill, Wexford and Vinegar ...
— The Old Bush Songs • A. B. Paterson
... conceived. All the surprise and suspense, and every other painful part of the morning dissipated by this conversation, she re-entered the house so happy as to be obliged to find an alloy in some momentary apprehensions of its being impossible to last. An interval of meditation, serious and grateful, was the best corrective of everything dangerous in such high-wrought felicity; and she went to her room, and grew steadfast and fearless in the thankfulness ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... hours are subdivided into so many portions, and given over to so many objects? But the unvarying testimony is that no nurses accomplish more than the German deaconesses. No matter how busy they may be, the effort is made for each to have a quiet half hour for meditation and private devotion. Every afternoon the chapel is opened for this purpose, and all the sisters who can be spared meet here. A hymn is sung, and afterward each spends the time as she will in meditation, reading the Bible or silent prayer, ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft
... critics have accused him of vulgar self-advertisement; in his relation to his followers he seems to me rather marked with a sort of mad modesty. He seems to wish to fly from agreement, to have as few followers as possible. All this reaches back, I think, to the three roots from which this meditation grew. It is partly the mere impatience and irony of the Irishman. It is partly the thought of the Calvinist that the host of God should be thinned rather than thronged; that Gideon must reject soldiers rather than recruit them. And ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... meaning, that irony was always considered a falsehood in spite of explanation; and that they could not see the propriety of uttering what was not strictly true, for any purpose whatever. The Sabbath is wholly devoted to the church service, to prayer, reading, and serious meditation; no work of any kind is done on that day, not even cooking, which is prepared on the ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... resort of distinct philosophic sects, the locality of separate schools; but Athens itself, the whole city, was the scene of the studies, the conversations, and the labors of Socrates. He wandered through the streets absorbed in thought. Sometimes he stood still for hours lost in profoundest meditation; at other times he might be seen in the market-place, surrounded by a crowd of Athenians, eagerly discussing the ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... in profound grief. She had covered her face with her hands and, standing there in meditation, rigid as a statue, given up to her grief, telling the sad rosary of her remembrances within the shadow of her concealed and closed eyes, she herself seemed like a dead person mourning another who was dead. All at once a little motion of her back, like a flutter of wind through a willow, led ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... accentuation by Lady MONCKTON) reduced to the smallest possible algebraic expression. Mr. BANCROFT was the same Count Orloff as he was years ago on the little stage of the old Prince of Wales's Theatre; his action more deliberate than when he was younger and more impetuous; his pauses for meditation longer by a thought or so than of yore; while in his tone and manner there was just a delicately-deepened colouring of the genuine original Bancroftian "Old Master." To Mr. BANCROFT, resuscitating ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, March 4, 1893 • Various
... the dog." Ward shook his head at her in mock meditation. "It wouldn't last overnight, if it was just the dog." He looked at her with the hidden smile. ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... is itself a fact more important because less disputable than the others. Now this spirit in which a subject is regarded, important in all kinds of literary work, becomes all-important in works of fiction, meditation, or rhapsody; for there it not only colours but itself chooses the facts; not only modifies but shapes the work. And hence, over the far larger proportion of the field of literature, the health or disease of the writer's mind ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was grateful for her love. God also knows how unworthy he felt. This love is such a terrible thing. A maiden goes through the ways of life, in maiden meditation fancy free, pausing beside the brook to pluck the flowers which grow on its bank, and thinking of nothing but the simple girlish things which pertain to maidenhood. Then suddenly a shadow falls across her path. It is the shadow of the Man, and the love which shall raise her to heaven ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... not her own; is not easily provoked, thinking no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Love never faileth.' Methinks," said the Bishop, in a tone of gentle meditation, as he entered the Prioress's cell, "the apostle was speaking of a most human love; yet he rated it higher than faith ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... eyes. Many thoughts coming thick upon one another presently filled her mind, and half-an-hour had passed before she again recollected what she had meant to say. She opened her eyes; Ellen was sitting at a little distance, staring into the fire, evidently as deep in meditation as her ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... Desvarennes, after a few moments of meditation, "the conduct of the business of which you spoke to us a little while ago depends solely on ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... first chapter of the Gospel of Luke, we have the record of the divine announcement of the incarnation as it was made to the virgin, who had found favor in the sight of God. As she sat in the house, perhaps engaged in holy meditation, the angel Gabriel appeared unto her with the message from the throne of God. Was there ever such a message given to Gabriel before? Great as the revelation was which he was commissioned to carry to praying Daniel, ...
— The Work Of Christ - Past, Present and Future • A. C. Gaebelein
... Christ the Son of Mary; renouncing entirely blood sacrifices and heathen idols; should keep every seventh day holy, abstain from labor that day, and even from food, devoting the day to fasting and sacred meditation. Whereupon, by way of universal answer, arose a confused universal murmur of entire dissent. "Take away from us our old belief, and also our time for labor!" murmured they in angry astonishment; "how can even the land ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... inspect a lamp-post on the opposite side of the way, and then went off at a tangent to another lamp-post on the other side. Having satisfied himself that they were of the same pattern and materials, he came to a stop apparently absorbed in meditation. 'Will you go on, sir,' said the old gentleman, gravely, 'or are we to wait here for you till it's ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... the engravings by Giovan Battista de' Cavalieri of the Crucifixion of S. Peter and the Conversion of S. Paul painted in the Pauline Chapel at Rome. This Giovan Battista has also executed copper-plate engravings, besides other designs, of the Meditation of S. John the Baptist, of the Deposition from the Cross that Daniello Ricciarelli of Volterra painted in a chapel in the Trinita at Rome, of a Madonna with many Angels, and of a vast number of other works. Moreover, many things taken from Michelagnolo have been ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... furniture that distracted him, set his bed in another corner, and hung up his beads in the same position that they used to occupy at Lewes. Each morning he served the Prior's mass in the tiny chapel attached to the house, and did his best both then and at his meditation to draw in the torn fibres of his spirit. At moments of worship the supernatural world began to appear again, like points of living rock emerging through sand, detached and half stifled by external details, but real and abiding. Little by little his serenity ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... in meditation through a quiet street, a hand was laid on my shoulder. I knew only one man who would stop me in that way. Was he here again, risen again, in Forstadt again, for work, or mirth, or mischief? He came in fitting with the visit I had paid. I turned and found his ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... who had not prepared herself to endure suspense. She spent nearly a week at Twickenham in this anxious state, and Belinda observed that she every day became more and more thoughtful and reserved. She seemed as if she had some secret subject of meditation, from which she could not bear to be distracted. When Helena was present, she exerted herself to converse in her usual sprightly strain; but as soon as she could escape, as she thought, unobserved, she would shut herself up in her own apartment, and ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... brooms and yellow soap. Call me Sempronia from this time forward, and you confer a favour on me. And now I must write a little, so take a book and a seat on the sofa, for, at the opening of this chapter my heroine is exactly in that position, 'in maiden meditation, ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... rest, activity and receptivity succeeding one another, the rhythm of life. The steady strain, the continuous uniformity of life, is what kills. Work unrelieved by play, and play unrefreshed by work, grow equally stale and dull. Activity without reflection loses its grasp; meditation {19} without action sinks into a dream. Jesus in this passage had been absorbed in the most active and outward-going ministry; and then, as the evening comes, he turns away and goes up into the mountain and is there alone ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody
... more, inwardly." Of such is the counsel of St. Luis de Granada, "Imitate the sportsman who hoods the falcon that it be made subservient to his rule;" and of another Spanish mystic, Pedro de Alcantara: "In meditation, let the person rouse himself from things temporal, and let him collect himself within himself ....Here let him hearken to the voice of God...as though there were no other in the world save God and himself." St. Teresa found happiness only in "shutting herself up within herself." Vocal prayer ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... this may seem, it was in the day in which it appeared a more purely natural voice than had been heard at all, and as the poem proceeds it gains both in force and beauty. As usual she reverts to the past for illustrations and falls into a meditation aroused by the sights and sounds about her. The path has led to the meadows not far from the ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... of affairs, in not making myself a king, and separating my country from France, as France herself is compelling her to separate at last. It is true, I might now have been reigning there, instead of dying here; and, what is more worthy of meditation, my people might now have been laying aside their arms, and beginning a long career of peace. It might possibly have been so; but at what cost! Their career of freedom (if freedom it could then have been called) ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... Tis most true That musing meditation most affects The pensive secrecy of desert cell, Far from the cheerfull haunt of men, and herds, And sits as safe as in a Senat house, For who would rob a Hermit of his Weeds, 390 His few Books, or his Beads, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... should you in future become weary of it, and regret that you have not sufficient time to devote to God, and to cherish the thought of him in your heart, recollect that wherever he places you, you are as sure of his favour and acceptance, as if you passed every hour of your life in meditation and prayer. God is served, not merely with the words of the mouth or the bending of the knee; it is the pure and upright heart which he requires, and with which alone he will be satisfied; with this upright frame of mind we may live ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... daylie cares did sleepe, My spirit, shaking off her earthly prison, Began to enter into meditation deepe Of things exceeding reach of common reason; Such as this age, in which all good is geason*, And all that humble is and meane** debaced, Hath brought forth in her last declining season, Griefe of good mindes, to see goodnesse disgraced! On which when as my thought was throghly@ ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... to go home on Thursday in Passion week, and to spend the first days of the vacation there, that the pleasure of visiting the Warrens and the delight of seeing Gemma might not unfit him for the solemn religious meditation demanded by the Church from all her children at this season. He wrote to Gemma, promising to come on Easter Monday; and went up to his bedroom on Wednesday night with a soul ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... teaching in the Deer-park; the miracle that stunned the fire-worshippers; here was the Bodhisat in royal state as a prince; the miraculous birth; the death at Kusinagara, where the weak disciple fainted; while there were almost countless repetitions of the meditation under the Bodhi tree; and the adoration of the alms-bowl was everywhere. In a few minutes the Curator saw that his guest was no mere bead-telling mendicant, but a scholar of parts. And they went at it all over again, ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... sudden, and went to her room earlier than usual. When her maid left her for the night, she still sat by the fire in the yellow velvet depths of a great chair, an old-world piece of furniture as well suited for sorrow as for happy people. Tears flowed, followed by sighs and meditation. After a while she drew a little table to her, sought writing materials, and began to write. The hours went by swiftly. Julie's confidences made to the sheet of paper seemed to cost her dear; every sentence ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... children in her heart) The harvest-thoughts of reapers on the hill, When the cool rose and honeysuckle fill The air, and fruit is laden on the cart. Thou breathest the delight Of summer evening at the deep-roofed farm, And meditation of the summer night, When the enravished earth is lying warm From recent kisses of ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... abstraction, just awaking from dreams: well-arranged was her simple attire, smooth her dark hair, orderly her tranquil room; but what—with her thoughtful look, her serious self-reliance, her bent to meditation and haply inspiration—what had she to do with love? "Nothing," was the answer of her own sad, though gentle countenance; it seemed to say, "I must cultivate fortitude and cling to poetry; one is to be my support and the other my solace through life. Human affections ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... "I don't think anyone can hear, but I will gag you both, so that no risks may be run." When this was done, he said: "I have set the clockwork at sixty minutes; seven of those are already spent. There is still time enough left for meditation and repentance. I place the candle here so that its rays will shine upon the dial. When you have made your own peace, pray for the souls of any you have sent into ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... safe from intrusion as if she had taken refuge behind gates of triple brass. Nothing in all his life had moved him so deeply as her solicitude, her sweet trust in his honor, and he sat long in profound meditation. Any man would be rich in the ownership of her love, he admitted. That he possessed her pity and her friendship he knew, and he began to wonder if he had made a deeper appeal to her ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... only from experience, and not from the Book. It means psychologically calculated childhood opportunity, in which the now stifled instincts of leadership, workmanship, hero-worship, hunting, migration, meditation, sex, could grow and take their foundation place in the psychic equipment of a biologically promising human being. To illustrate in trivialities, no father, with knowledge of the meaning of the universal bent towards workmanship, would give his son a puzzle if he knew of the ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... regard to clean and unclean beasts was familiar to the schoolmen. St. Augustine expounds the cloven hoof as symbolic of right conduct, because it does not easily slip, and the chewing of the cud as signifying the meditation of wisdom. Dante seems here to mean that the Pope has the true doctrine, but makes not the true use of it for his own guidance and the ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 2, Purgatory [Purgatorio] • Dante Alighieri
... called forth the true mystic's ecstasy of communion. Mystics of all times and all religions have found inspiration and strength of spirit on the hilltops; they have forsaken the haunts of men for the silence of the heights, preparing themselves by meditation and self-purification to receive the Beatific Vision. They have gone up alone in anguish and uncertainty, they have come down inspired bearers of transcendental tidings to men. These messengers of the spirit have known ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... I have nor hope nor health, Nor peace within nor calm around, Nor that content surpassing wealth The sage in meditation found, And walked with inward glory crowned— Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure. Others I see whom these surround— Smiling they live, and call life pleasure;— To me that cup has been dealt ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... few minutes as he sat with downcast eyes, absorbed in meditation. Then he looked up suddenly, and said, "Joe, I'll give you a definite answer to that question to-morrow morning. To-night I will think over it and make arrangements. Meanwhile, let it suffice that I have made up my mind to go to the diggings, and if you remain in the ...
— Digging for Gold - Adventures in California • R.M. Ballantyne
... re-read the letter of Mademoiselle de Chartres, trying to discover, by the expression of her desire to remain at Chelles, the secret causes which had given rise to it. Then, after an instant of meditation, as deep as if the fate of empires ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... deprived of various little attentions which for eighteen months had made life sweet to him. Now, as the nature of narrow minds induces them to study trifles, Birotteau plunged suddenly into deep meditation on these four circumstances, imperceptible in their meaning to others, but to him indicative of four catastrophes. The total loss of his happiness was evidently foreshadowed in the neglect to place his slippers, in Marianne's falsehood about the fire, in the unusual removal of his candlestick ...
— The Vicar of Tours • Honore de Balzac
... inflate the cavernous nerve whose office is to ejaculate the moisture for the propagation of human progeny. Lest you should think it is not so, be pleased but to contemplate a little the form, fashion, and carriage of a man exceeding earnestly set upon some learned meditation, and deeply plunged therein, and you shall see how all the arteries of his brains are stretched forth and bent like the string of a crossbow, the more promptly, dexterously, and copiously to suppeditate, furnish, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... warn Mark against the machinations of so fearful an enemy. Her step was heard but for a moment in the vacant chambers, and then the Indian boy, whose steadiness and authority had just been so signally exerted in favor of the children, resumed his attitude of meditation, as quietly as if he took no further interest in the frightful ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... coast, as we sailed along it, afforded me a continual subject for meditation. I anticipated the future improvement of the world, and observed how much man has still to do to obtain of the earth all it could yield. I even carried my speculations so far as to advance a million ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... for me to tell you that I have learned Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dyhana and Samadhi! Yes, I was something of an adept once. I learned calm, meditation, contemplation, introspection, super-conscious reasoning—how to cast my own mind to a distance, how to bring other minds close up to me. But,"—he smiled with all his old mockery—"mostly I failed on Pratyahara, which says the senses must be quelled, subdued and set aside! All religions ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... Clare thinking; and it was well; for if he had not done as those thinkings taught him, he would have given a very different turn to his history. Meditation and resolve, on the top of honourable habit, brought him to this, that, when he saw what was right, he just did it—did it without hesitation, question, or struggle. Every man must, who would be a free man, who would not be the slave of the universe ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... Charteris's place, just outside of Fairhaven. And I am delighted to meet you, Miss Montmorenci. So now, you see, we have been quite properly introduced, haven't we? And, by the way," I suggested, after a moment's meditation, "there is a very interesting old college here— old pictures, records, historical association and such like. I would like to inspect it, vastly. Can't I call for you in the morning. We can do it together, if you don't mind, and if you haven't already ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... grammatical connection, this succession of adoring exclamations of rapture, wonder, and praise, is very striking. It suggests the manner in which we should vivify all our thoughts of God, by turning them into material for devout reverence; awe-struck, considering meditation. There is nothing told us in the Bible about God simply in order that we may know it. It is all meant to be fuel to the fire of our divine affection; to kindle in us the sentiments of faith and love and rapturous adoration. It is easy to know the theology of the Old and the New Testaments, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... Chair falls into meditation upon "the sphere" of the sexes, and asks itself, as it loiters about the site of the Broadway Cottage, admiring the pretty shops, whether, if it be womanly for woman to keep shop and to acquire property by her faithful industry, it can be manly ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... modelled all round like a Rembrandt—while your starveling monks have made of your Christ a mere decorative figure with a gold halo. O Moshe Rabbenu, Moses our teacher indeed! No, Christ was not the first nor the last of our race to wear a crown of thorns. What was Spinoza but Christ in the key of meditation?" ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... man turned and left the room, and Bucholz seated himself apart from the rest of the company, apparently lost in profound meditation. Shortly after, he roused himself, as with an effort, and bidding his comrades good-night he went up stairs ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... the night till I had seen Harry Oaklands, and given him an account of 468 our adventures. Wilford's fate affected him strongly, and, shading his brow with his hand, he sat for some moments wrapped in meditation. At length he said, in a deep low tone, "These things force thought upon one, Frank. How nearly was this man's fate my own! How nearly was I being hurried into eternity with a weight of passions unrestrained, of sins unrepented of, clinging to my guilty soul! God has been very ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... upon,—insoluble mysteries both. Why should a man scrape himself to that extent, before he could consider himself full dressed? Why should he suppose it necessary to be purified by suffering for his holiday clothes? Then he fell into such unaccountable fits of meditation, with his fork midway between his plate and his mouth; had his eyes attracted in such strange directions; was afflicted with such remarkable coughs; sat so far from the table, and dropped so much more than he ate, and ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... Southberry Heath on the very night, and about the very time, when the man had been shot; so, with all these materials, Mr Cargrim hoped sooner or later to build up a very pretty case against the bishop. If Miss Whichello was mixed up with the matter, so much the better. At this moment Mr Cargrim's meditation was broken in upon by ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... fortune, I have betaken me to this corner of the earth, where I wear the smock-frock and dig for sixpence a day, with solitude and my spade to assist meditation. So much gain I reckon upon here—to be exempt from contemplating unmerited prosperity; no sight that so offends the eye as that. And now, Son of Cronus and Rhea, may I ask you to shake off that deep sound ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... the monks melancholy because they denied themselves the pleasures of liberty and marriage. They might as well call the trippers on a Bank Holiday melancholy because they deny themselves, as a rule, the pleasures of silence and meditation. A simpler and stronger example is, however, to hand. If ever it should happen that the system of English athletics should vanish from the public schools and the universities, if science should supply ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... fingers came the last cards, one for Longstreet and one for Chavez. Longstreet drew a queen and went into the silence of deep meditation; to Chavez came a lowly seven. Longstreet needed no prompting that it was time to bet; further he understood that this was the last round, the final opportunity. He did not wait for the customary raise of Chavez, but slipped five dollars into the ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... fulness and ease as in other departments of literature, this defect is perhaps to be accounted for by the peculiar character of the nation. The Germans are a speculative people; in other words, they wish to discover by reflection and meditation, the principle of whatever they engage in. On that very account they are not sufficiently practical; for if we wish to act with skill and determination, we must make up our minds that we have somehow or other become ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... spoliation of their nest by a boy, who removed all four of the children, or "squabs" as he called them. Mr. Knox, who used to come every day to examine them through his glass, was in despair, until after much meditation he thought of an expedient. Seeking out the boy he persuaded him to give up the one "squab" whose wings had not yet been clipped, and this the ornithologist carried to the clump and deposited in the ruined nest. The next morning the ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... devotion, accompanied with a natural freedom of thought and easy elocution, a quick invention, a solid judgment, and a tenacious memory, laid the foundation of a good preacher; to which his acquired literature, his great reading, hard studies, deep meditation, and close walk with God, rendered him an able and faithful minister of the New Testament." The records of the First Church, in noticing his death, thus speak of him: "He was highly esteemed in his life, and very deservedly lamented at his death; having been very eminent for his early improvement ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... exclaimed Dennis as the exasperating phrase in italics met his glance, "an' it's here you are again. Shure, a man would tear his shirt to tatters for a tale like that," and with appreciative meditation over the vexatious quandary presented by the cunning of the bosom-maker in thus adding another ruinous possibility to the inevitable ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... sulky meditation, sent a harsh laugh out of his hot throat, and said, "Oh, you can make your mind easy about him, if your other man fights for you like that you'll do. Thought you'd have three of them, did you? Or perhaps you only wanted me for your decoy? Why don't ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... mouse. Sellers—oh, what men daily do, not knowing what they do!—is shut up in the scullery, I suppose, torturing his poor defenceless fiddle. That 's what it is to be a musical boot-and-knife boy. And Wickersmith will be at his devotions. He tells me he never gets leisure for his morning meditation till luncheon 's cleared away. And that's what it is to be a pious butler. I 'm doubting whether there was anyone to disembarrass that flyman of yours of your luggage. So he 's probably driven off with it all to his humble, happy home. I see none of it about. Never mind. There 'll be some of your ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... else?" — she thought; and with the thought, as instantly, Elizabeth gathered herself up from off the floor, wiped her cheeks from the tears, and stepped out into the moonlight. "I can't say anything, but I suppose he will," was her meditation. "Nobody knows when I shall have ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... said Poussin, roused from his meditation by Gillette's voice, "see this sword. I will plunge it into your heart at the first cry of that young girl. I will set fire to your house, and no one shall escape from it. Do ...
— The Hidden Masterpiece • Honore de Balzac
... moments in deep meditation. He wanted to go into Annapolis, and he didn't care about going on a lonesome expedition. The more he thought the better Joyce realized how hard it was to frame a request that would ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... And so we stood, spellbound, while the night brought out the blue—and the young moon changed from red to silver—and the stars came down to take their places. Then slowly we passed on and sat by the fort, leaning our backs against it; in meditation looking across the prairie that had become so changed ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... divided between prayer and work, or, to speak more correctly, his work was a continuous prayer. The life of his Divine Master, with its miracles and sufferings, supplied him with inexhaustible material for meditation. At the close of the day's work and in the company of his mother and sister Catherine, he read the Holy Scriptures and the ...
— The Life of Blessed John B. Marie Vianney, Cur of Ars • Anonymous
... to be religious, more inclined to take life seriously, more inclined to look forward and upward to the spiritual and the supernatural, and are also more studious, more capable of deep research and profound meditation, they do not, as a rule, have the social qualities, the aggressiveness, the cheerfulness, and the adaptability of ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... quite blameless—he has been the kindest, the best of friends to me—" his voice trembled more and more, and he could not go on. There was a silence of some minutes, during which Britta appeared absorbed in meditation, and ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... that, hung on high, Roof'd the world with doubt and fear, [9] Floating thro' an evening atmosphere, Grow golden all about the sky; In thee all passion becomes passionless, Touch'd by thy spirit's mellowness, Losing his fire and active might In a silent meditation, Falling into a still delight, And luxury of contemplation: As waves that up a quiet cove Rolling slide, and lying still Shadow forth the banks at will: [10] Or sometimes they swell and move, Pressing up against the land, ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... altogether foreign to him. Each picture was a new event in the lives of these men, and had to be pondered over devoutly, and for long periods often, as in the case of Ryder. Work was for him nine-tenths reflection and meditation and poetic brooding, and he put down his sensations on canvas with great difficulty in the manner of a labourer. It seems obvious that his first drafts were always vivid with the life intended for them, but no one could possibly have ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... but many of its principles we can all appreciate. Thus, men are taught truthfulness, purity, obedience, and kindness, which forbids the giving of pain to any living creature. Charity, patience, humility, and the habit of meditation are early instilled into the minds of the boys, who, without exception, spend at least a portion of their lives as inmates of a monastery, and with the priests and novices are not ashamed to collect the daily offering ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly
... this Lamb, signed upon the threshold, wards off the destroying angel. [Ex. 12:7, 13] By Him is the Bride praised, because "the hair of her head is as the king's purple"; [Song of Sol. 7:5] that is, her meditation glows red with the remembrance of the Passion of Christ. This is that tree which Moses was commanded to cast into the waters of Marah (that is, the bitterness of suffering), and they were made sweet. [Ex. 15:23 ff.] There is nothing that this Passion cannot sweeten, not even death itself; ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... Brunelli gone to his own private cabinet, where, having shut himself up, he had devoted several hours to serious meditation upon the deep plans presenting themselves to his mind. But Signor Brunelli had, in fact, a very experienced and inventive head, and the cardinal acted wisely in confiding in his major-domo and leaving to him the ordering ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... yes," pursued Mrs. Adding, "and his ideals." She began to laugh again. "He may have gone off for a season of meditation and prayer over the misbehavior of these bicyclers. His mind is turning that way a good deal lately. It's only fair to tell you, Mr. March, that he seems to be giving up his notion of being an editor. You mustn't ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... marriage record of Alfred Kennard and Sylvia Flagg were rude penstrokes. On the page of births was the name of Lida Kennard, and he slowly ran his finger under it. When he gazed down at the floor again in meditation he met the stare of the cat that Rickety Dick ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... have no less admiration, gentlemen, for the judgment of our press than for the enterprise which is born of competition, and, although that judgment has often to be framed under conditions which demand almost breathless rapidity, it does not always bear unfavorable comparison with the protracted meditation of the ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... Riasantzeff had not come. On the contrary, she wished to be alone, so that, undisturbed by his presence, she might give herself up to delicious meditation. To her, the sentiment that filled her youthful being was strange and sweet and tender. It was the consciousness of a climax, desired, inevitable, and yet disturbing, which should close the page of her past life and commence that of her new one. So new, ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... gallantly. Not I, I must confess. It is all very well to talk of renunciation, and of course it has to be done. But, for my part, give me a roaring toothache! I do like to be deceived and to dream, but I have very little use for either watching or meditation. I was not born for age. And, curiously enough, I seem to see a contrary drift in my work from that which is so remarkable in yours. You are going on sedately travelling through your ages, decently changing with the years to the proper tune. And here am I, quite ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... have been accepted amongst us, from very early times to this moment, with a continued and general approbation, and which indeed are so worked into my mind, that I am unable to distinguish what I have learned from others from the results of my own meditation. ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... founded on the Elixir of Life, for which "Septimius Felton" was the preliminary study. Having abandoned this study, and apparently forsaken the whole scheme in 1862, Hawthorne was moved to renew his meditation upon it in the following year; and as the plan of the romance had now seemingly developed to his satisfaction, he listened to the publisher's proposal that it should begin its course as a serial story in the "Atlantic Monthly" for January, ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... rabidly hungry," said Eleanore with a sudden change. She went quickly in to see the cook and left me to grim meditation. ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... come would have controlled, the free spontaneous movements of a contemplative dreamer like myself. Consequently, this separation, which proved an eternal one, and contributed to deepen my constitutional propensity to gloomy meditation, had for me (partly on that account, but much more through the sudden birth of perfect independence which so unexpectedly it opened) the value of a revolutionary experience. A new date, a new starting point, a redemption ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... and is equally happy, in language and conception. "The Lament" is a dark, and all but tragic page, from the poet's own life. "Man was made to Mourn'" takes the part of the humble and the homeless, against the coldness and selfishness of the wealthy and the powerful, a favourite topic of meditation with Burns. He refrained, for awhile, from making "Death and Doctor Hernbook" public; a poem which deviates from the offensiveness of personal satire, into a strain of humour, at ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... quiet and central; William of Saint- Pair, had he been still alive, might have written his "Roman" there; monks might have illuminated missals there. A few steps upward brought them to the cloisters for meditation; a few more brought them to the church for prayer. A few steps downward brought them to the great hall, for business, a few steps more led them into the refectory, for dinner. To contemplate the goodness of God ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... business part of the town and turned down Main Street, considering with himself what turn to make next. His head bent in meditation, he passed along lamely, his hands in the pockets of his torn trousers, where there was nothing, not even the thickness of a dime, to cramp his finger-room. Pausing in the aimless way of one who has no unfinished business ahead of him, ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... water on one side of it and the brushwood upon the other. Along this lower path I wandered, my eyes fixed upon the ground, thinking deeply as I went, now of the joy of Lily's love, and now of the sorrow of our parting and of her father's wrath. As I went, thus wrapped in meditation, I saw something white lying upon the grass, and pushed it aside with the point of the Spaniard's sword, not heeding it. Still, its shape and fashioning remained in my mind, and when I had left it some three hundred paces behind me, and was drawing near to the house, the sight of it came ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... doth that differ from the old monks?" saith Father, as in meditation. "Be we setting ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... smoldering fire in the grate. They were about to go up stairs when the Doctor, who had been looking absent-mindedly into the embers, began meditating aloud about local politics while his wife sewed. His meditation concerned a certain trade between the city and Daniel Sands wherein the city parted with its stock in Sands's public utilities with a face value of something like a million dollars. The stocks were to go to Mr. Sands, while the city received therefor a ten-acre tract east of town on the Wahoo, ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... arrived at his own house was in a thoughtful mood, and disposed for quiet and domestic meditation. Had Miss Biggs not been there he could have found it in his heart to tell everything about Lady Mason to his wife, asking her counsel as to what he should do with reference to that marriage. Could he ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... body, which is especially the case when he is in company with others; but when he is in affection for understanding, and through that comes into perception of truth, he is then in the thought of his spirit, which is meditation. This passes, indeed, into the thought of the body, but into silent thought; for it is above bodily thought, and looks upon what belongs to thought from the memory as below itself, drawing therefrom either conclusions or confirmations. But real affection for truth is perceived only as a pressure ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... food, remained in that state for a long time without dying. And the Rishi by his ascetic power not only preserved his life but summoned other Rishi to the scene. And they came there in the night in the forms of birds, and beholding him engaged in ascetic meditation though fixed on that stake, became plunged into grief. And telling that best of Brahmanas who they were, they asked him saying, 'O Brahmana, we desire to know what hath been thy sin for which thou hast thus been made to ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... use of an Astronomical Observatory is connected with the science of geography. The first page of the history of our Continent declares this truth. Profound meditation on the sphericity of the earth was one of the main reasons which led Columbus to undertake his momentous voyage; and his thorough acquaintance with the astronomical science of that day was, in his own judgment, what enabled him to overcome the almost innumerable obstacles which attended its prosecution.[A] ...
— The Uses of Astronomy - An Oration Delivered at Albany on the 28th of July, 1856 • Edward Everett
... in the devil's name will you not begone? There are none left now but the good souls who love to laugh; not the snivelers who burst into tears in prose or verse, whatever their subject be, who make people sick with their odes, their sonnets, their meditation; none of these dreamers, but certain old-fashioned pantagruellists who don't think twice about it when they are invited to join a banquet or provoked to make a repartee, who can take pleasure in a book like Pease and the Lard with commentary of Rabelais, ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... too, as I believe, to the ever-wakeful, intense, and ardent action of the mind, as well as the collateral meditation and study with which he had read, that his memory appeared to have possessed a faculty of discriminating among the subjects offered to its retention, and rejecting the incumbrance of what was worthless, to have seized and holden with indissoluble tenacity everything that was useful, together ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... of nature and of grace, Thy heavenly gifts impart; Then shall my meditation trace ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... in the thoughts, however, of Mrs. Balche, the next-door neighbour to the south. Happening to glance from a bay-window, she negligently marked how the child walked to the front gate, opened it, paused for a moment's meditation, then hurled the gate to a vigorous closure, herself remaining within its protection. "Odd!" ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... My brown bread will soon be gone. I will go with you gladly soon, but I am just concluding a serious meditation. I think that I am near the end of it. Leave me alone, then, for a while. But that we may not be delayed, you shall be digging the bait meanwhile. Angleworms are rarely to be met with in these parts, where the soil was never fattened with manure; the race is nearly extinct. ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... why Horse-coursing I think. Consume no time in this: I have no Estate to be mended by meditation: he that busies himself about my fortunes may properly be said ...
— The Scornful Lady • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... he bowed his head as if deep in hopeless meditation. Seeing that he did not speak, his wife approached the window and pointing to the horizon, said, "Look at that? Is ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... choirs Breathe, and with fleeter motion Wheel in their orbits through the surgeless ocean. So hearken thou like these, Intent on her, mounting by slow degrees, Until thy song's elation Echoes her multitudinous meditation. ...
— By Still Waters - Lyrical Poems Old and New • George William Russell
... Enterprise, to which we have such title and vocation, it were perhaps uninteresting to say more. Let the British reader study and enjoy, in simplicity of heart, what is here presented him, and with whatever metaphysical acumen and talent for meditation he is possessed of. Let him strive to keep a free, open sense; cleared from the mists of prejudice, above all from the paralysis of cant; and directed rather to the Book itself than to the Editor of the Book. ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... is impracticable must be unuseful. Whoever shall design to regulate his conduct by these visionary characters will be in the condition of superstitious people, who choose rather to act by intimations they receive in the dreams of the night, than by the sober counsels of morning meditation. Yet I confess it has been the practice of many nations to incite men to virtue by relating the deeds of fabulous heroes: but surely it is the custom only of yours to incite them to vice by the history of fabulous scoundrels. Men of fine imagination have ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... day of deep and tranquil happiness throughout the United States. It was Good Friday, observed by a portion of the people as an occasion of fasting and religious meditation; though even among the most devout the great tidings of the preceding week exerted their joyous influence, and changed this period of traditional mourning into an occasion of general thanksgiving. But though the Misereres turned of themselves to Te Deums, the date was not to lose its ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... indifferently . . . and at once became absorbed. It was the list of the cabal which had cost the lives of four strong men. He remained seated, lost in meditation. From time to time he opened the paper and refolded it. The movement was purely ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... things in her mind, Hildegarde was sauntering toward the Ladies' Garden, on the day after the new arrival. This was a favourite haunt of hers, and she was very apt to go there for a season of meditation, or when she wanted to find Hugh. It was a curious place,—an old, neglected, forgotten garden, with high, unclipped box hedges, overhung by whispering larches. Hildegarde had dreamed many a dream under those larches, sitting beside the little stream that plashed and fell in a tiny rocky hollow, ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... and mother earth; and, letting the stream bear him away at its own sweet will to the shallows below, struck up again through the rush and the roar to his plunging place. Then, slowly and luxuriously dressing, he lit his short pipe—companion of meditation—and began to ruminate on the escape of the king fish. What could have cut his collar? The more he thought, the less he could make it out. When suddenly he was aware of the keeper on his way back to the house for ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... insulated mortal among them; and one who, discharging himself from the obligation of what is commonly called etiquette, made it impossible to maintain with him the reciprocities of intercourse. It is true, indeed, that the attention of the possessor of Eartham was considerably engrossed by meditation and study; but this increased rather than lessened his adaptation to society, and made the effect of his seclusion the more to be lamented." Hayley's ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... After long meditation on the probable effects of the descending columns of water which he had seen, he concluded that they might have added more rapidly than he first supposed to the increase of the general level. Besides, he reflected that there was no proof that the general downpour might not ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... whom he speaks: what that country is to which he aspires: how he may best please Him who dwells there: and what he is to do so that his character and disposition may suit with God's disposition and character. Mental prayer, as I am wont to call it, is the constant meditation of such things as these. And mental prayer ought to be endeavoured after by all, though they have no virtues, because it is the beginning of them, and therefore the one interest of all men is at once to begin such prayer. But it will be exercised with no little difficulty unless ...
— Santa Teresa - an Appreciation: with some of the best passages of the Saint's Writings • Alexander Whyte
... otherwise baffle the unskilful. Occupied with this task he could peep over his shoulder, through the unlighted front drawing-room, and see his adored one standing on the hearthrug, his hands clasped behind him, and his head bent, in an attitude of meditation. ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... once conquered by her love. A latent misgiving as to his action is intimated in the closing line of the poem. Remarking upon the fact that Browning removed the original title, "Madhouse Cells," which headed this poem, and "Johannes Agricola in Meditation," Mrs. Orr says: "Such a crime might be committed in a momentary aberration, or even intense excitement of feeling. It is characterized here by a matter-of-fact simplicity, which is its sign of madness. ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... into the poem, you must suppose a lover waiting in an arbour for his lady-love. First come two recited lines of expectation; then two more, in quite a different measure, of disappointment; and then a long-lined song of meditation; until expectation is again aroused, to be again disappointed—and ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald
... at the regular evening singing meeting, of giving the people a short address on some Scriptural text or some verse from a hymn. As soon as the singing meeting was over he read out to the company the chosen passage, recommended it as a suitable subject for meditation the following day, and next morning had the text passed round by the Elders to every house in Herrnhut. Next year (1728) the practice was better organized. Instead of waiting for the Count to choose, the Elders selected in advance a number of texts and verses, and put them ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... time, had much to do with his attitude in Church questions after the year 1860. If history cannot confer faith or virtue, it can clear away the misconceptions and misunderstandings that turn men against one another. With the progress of incessant study and meditation his judgment on many points underwent revision; but with regard to the Reformation the change was less than he supposed. He learnt to think more favourably of the religious influence of Protestantism, and of its efficacy in the defence of Christianity; ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... the ocean or in the vast plains of Venezuela and Tucuman. Infinity of space, as poets in every language say, is reflected within ourselves; it is associated with ideas of a superior order; it elevates the mind which delights in the calm of solitary meditation. It is true, also, that every view of unbounded space bears a peculiar character. The prospect surveyed from a solitary peak varies according as the clouds reposing on the plain extend in layers, are conglomerated in groups, or present to ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... the early Christians; but no less important was the living example to be seen in the monasteries. The part played by the great religious orders in the propagation of this dignified conception cannot be exaggerated. St. Anthony had advised his imitators to busy themselves with meditation, prayer, and the labour of their hands, and had promised that the fear of God would reside in those who laboured at corporal works; and similar exhortations were to be found in the rules of Saints Macarius, Pachomius, and Basil.[2] St. Augustine and St. Jerome recommended that ...
— An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching • George O'Brien
... palfrey, Rowena turned to depart; but pausing a moment, while Cedric, who was to attend her, was also taking his leave, she found herself unexpectedly close by the prisoner De Bracy. He stood under a tree in deep meditation, his arms crossed upon his breast, and Rowena was in hopes she might pass him unobserved. He looked up, however, and, when aware of her presence, a deep flush of shame suffused his handsome countenance. He stood a moment most irresolute; then, stepping forward, took her palfrey by the rein, ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... the result of long meditation or were the inspiration of some clever strategist. The fact is that everything leads one to believe that it was a plan which had been formed with great care, for the rapidity with which all the approaches to the fortress were lined with a double row of militiamen all wearing the ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... DAY' through the Christian Year; being a Text of Scripture, with an Original Meditation and a Short Selection in Verse for Every ...
— A Woman's Part in a Revolution • Natalie Harris Hammond
... professor of divinity, breakfasted with us. I took out my Ogden On Prayer, and read some of it to the company. Dr Johnson praised him. 'Abernethy,' said he, 'allows only of a physical effect of prayer upon the mind, which may be produced many ways, as well as by prayer; for instance, by meditation. Ogden goes farther. In truth, we have the consent of all nations for the efficacy of prayer, whether offered up by individuals, or by assemblies; and Revelation has told us, it will be effectual.' I said, 'Leechman seemed to incline to Abernethy's ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... open square lying between the great Cathedral of Ste. Marie and the College of the Jesuits. The latter, a vast edifice, occupied one side of the square. Through its wide portal a glimpse was had of the gardens and broad avenues of ancient trees, sacred to the meditation and quiet exercises of the reverend fathers, who walked about in pairs, according to the rule of their order, which rarely permitted them to ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... point moved away from the circle to get a light for his pipe at the stove. He stood behind us listening to a conversation between Colin Lothian and Jack Paterson; and as Peter Brown lapsed into silent meditation I diverted my own attention to what Colin and Jack ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... most terrible thing to them that use it not aright? But for them that do trust them unto God's guidance, and search His Word to see what He would have them do, and seek alway and above all things but to do His will,—it may be life is matter for meditation, yea, and watchfulness; but methinks none for care. God will see to the chain: 'tis He, not we, that is weaver thereof. We need but to be careful, each of his ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... From the first she had been a smouldering spectator of the trials of her uncle's married life, and if Mr. Pett had ever asked her advice and bound himself to act on it he would have solved his domestic troubles in explosive fashion. For Ann in her moments of maiden meditation had frequently devised schemes to that end which would have made his grey hair stand ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... florins, when, it would be clear, his benefactor's fate had not been certified. It was at least provisionally wise to act as if nothing had happened, and for the present he would suspend decisive thought; there was all the night for meditation, and no one would know the precise moment at which he had ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... shame the devil. Father, when first I heard ye name a husband, At that same very time my spirits quickened. Despair before had kill'd them, they were dead: Because it was my hap so long to tarry, I was persuaded I should never marry; And sitting sewing thus upon the ground, I fell in trance of meditation; But coming to myself, "O Lord," said I, "Shall it be so I must I unmarried die?" And, being angry, father, farther, said— "Now, by Saint Anne, I will not die a maid!" Good faith, before I came to this ripe growth, I did accuse the labouring time of sloth; Methought the year did run ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... themselves up together. Bouvard would sweep the table, lay down paper in front of him, dip his pen, and remain with his eyes on the ceiling; whilst Pecuchet, in the armchair, would be plunged in meditation, with his legs stretched ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... like one lost in meditation: and these amateur policemen's hearts beat louder and louder, as he drew nearer ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... of the letter. The reader may choose among these theories. We have thrown all the light we could acquire upon the portent, and would gladly, now that it has done its office, erase its deep print out of our own brain; where long meditation has fixed it in very ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... boys endure the wounds they have received in defence of their beloved country! Only now and then can be heard a subdued sob, or a dying groan; while those who are fully conscious, though suffering excruciating pain, are either engaged in silent prayer or meditation, or reading a Testament or a last letter from loved ones, and patiently awaiting their turn with ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... air of cheerful meditation changed. He sat upright, and leaned slightly forward. He seemed to listen for something. Then suddenly, softly, he rose, and with silent step crossed the room and stood a moment beside the wall. It was a very different face that he turned ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards
... subject of meditation on the various turns of fate did this night afford! But two years before I danced at Berlin with the daughters and sisters of kings: and here was I, in a Polish hut, a ragged, almost naked musician, playing for the sport of ignorant rustics, whom ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
Copyright © 2025 Diccionario ingles.com
|
|
|
