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More "Pondering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... (represented as) equally witless? Thus we are told, among the cases decided by a Turkish Kazi, that two men came before him one of whom complained that the other had almost bit his ear off. The accused denied this, and declared that the fellow had bit his own ear. After pondering the matter for some time, the judge told them to come again two hours later. Then he went into his private room, and attempted to bring his ear and his mouth together; but all he did was to fall backwards and break his head. Wrapping a cloth round his head, he returned to court, and ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... of it in another. And thus the disproportionate energies which were diverted to the intellectual side of religion were exercised at some cost to its practical part. Bishops were writing in their libraries, when otherwise they might have been travelling round their dioceses. Men were pondering over abstract questions of faith and morality, who else might have been engaged in planning or carrying out plans for the more active propagation of the faith, or a more general improvement in popular morals. The defenders of Christianity were searching ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... though he made his experiments with instruments devised by M. Arago, and mainly under his direction. The importance of the discovery may be judged of from the fact that for the last twelve years M. Arago has been pondering over it, and on the means ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... gods and chariot-driving men slept all night long, only Zeus was not holden of sweet sleep; rather was he pondering in his heart how he should do honour to Achilles and destroy many beside the Achaians' ships. And this design seemed to his mind the best, to wit, to send a baneful dream upon Agamemnon son of Atreus. So he spake, and uttered to him winged words: "Come now, thou baneful ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... closed doors the whine of the fiddle still penetrated. Perhaps Lew Wee's recent loss had moved him to play later than was his custom, pondering upon the curious whims that stir the gods when they start to make things happen. But he was still no cynic. Over and over he played the little air which means: "Life comes like a bird-song through the open windows of ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... (certainly) plainer food, for lack of richer. These were the people Lucy knew. Her father himself had been of these. She now found her tent pitched among the prosperous; and the study of them touched her wide gaze with a new, pondering look. Denis hadn't any use for cranks. None of his set were socialists, vegetarians, Quakers, geniuses, anarchists, drunkards, poets, anti-breakfasters, or anti-hatters; none of them, in fine, the sort of ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... up a tall and taciturn lad, pondering his thoughts while he dug and planted with his father in the kitchen-gardens. For this from the age of eighteen he received a small wage, which he carefully put aside. Then in 1800 his uncle Michael died, and left him ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... much. While the black women were chattering with Augustina and Father Bowles, he had stood, mostly silent, under the picture of his great-grandmother, only breaking through his reverie from time to time to ask or answer a question. Was he pondering the sale of the great-grandmother, or did he simply know that his silence and aloofness were picturesque, that they compelled other people's attention, and made him the centre of things more effectively than ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Walter Raleigh, Briton of the truest type, When that too devoted valet Quenched your first-recorded pipe, Were you pondering the opinion, As you watched the airy coil, That the virtue of Virginia Might ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... and pondering his book in a single college term. But, while this may easily be done, it will be far more profitable for the student, as soon as he feels drawn away from the volume to some author whom it presents, to lay it aside ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... things: for as she had not taken a dislike to Mr. Brian O'Neill at first sight, because he was an Irishman, she could not think it quite reasonable to suspect him of making away with her father's dog, nor yet of a design to blow up Hereford Cathedral. As she was pondering upon these matters, she came within sight of the ruins of a poor woman's house, which a few months before this time had been burnt down. She recollected that her first acquaintance with her lover began at the time of this fire; and she thought that the courage and humanity he ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... elbow. He followed every move she made because he had never seen till now so round and shapely an arm, hands so small and white, tipped with pink filbert nails. He did not learn the game so quickly as might be. He, like Maurice, was pondering over the unusual position in which he found himself; but analysis of any sort was not his forte; so he soon forgot all save the delicate curve of Madame's chin and throat, the soft ripple of her laughter, the abysmal gray of ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... sat up late in my lonely chamber—pondering on the melancholy position in which I was placed,—loving so tenderly, yet not daring to fly to him whom I loved,—and giving way to all the mournful ideas which presented themselves to my imagination. At length my ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... day when He was born, Among the cattle and the corn, The sweet Maid-Mother wondering, And sweetly, deeply, pondering The words that in her heart did ring, Unto her ...
— 'All's Well!' • John Oxenham
... sleeps Thy house," he said, "so stay I." Her eyes' deeps Flooded his soul and drowned him in despair, Despair and rage. "Behold now, ten years' wear Between us and our love! Now if I cast My spear and rove the snow-mound of thy breast, Were that a marvel?" Long she lookt and grave, Pondering his face and searching. "Not so brave My lord as that would prove him. Nay, and I know He would not do it." And the truth was so; And well he knew the reason: better she. Yet for a little in that vacancy Of silence and unshadowing light they stood, Those long-divided, speechless. His first mood ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... after, as Babadul was pondering over the strangeness of his situation, and just recovering from the effects of this apparition, a door opened in another part of the apartment, and a mysterious figure, richly dressed, came in, bearing a bundle, equally covered with ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... arm, by night and day, I, then a happy infant, lay, And taught him not to mourn, but pray. How, when, at length, he reach'd his home, His heart foretold a gentle doom; With tears of fondness in his eyes, Hoping to cause a glad surprize; Full of submission, pondering o'er What he too lightly priz'd before; The curse with tenfold vengeance fell.— Those who had lov'd him once so well, In whose indulgence perfect trust Had still been wise, though most unjust, Were in the grave!—Their hearts were cold! His penitence might still be told— Told ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... more, so Nashola went away, pondering his answer as he walked down the hill. After all, no harm had come to him from entering the medicine man's presence unbidden, as his comrades had all said. He answered their questions very shortly as they came ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... his informant, signifying that he was to be served at his expense. He was evidently deep in thought by that time, and for a moment or two he sat staring at the window and the blue sea beyond, abstracted and pondering. Suddenly he ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... head over ears in work. In a mail just arrived I had a letter from the Prodigal, and a certain paragraph in it set me pondering. Here it was: ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... I couldn't sleep, but lay there pondering, till at last I began to sniff, and then started up in bed, thinking ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... He went on, pondering the matter with some curiosity. Since the miners were in camp, he imagined the man he had seen was Driscoll, who lived alone in a log shack near the bank. But, if this were so, what was Driscoll's object for wading among the reefs, and why had he stolen away when he thought he was watched? ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... Ralph little heed at that time, since he had heard the tale and its morality before, and that more than once; and moreover his mind was set upon his own matters and these was he pondering. Albeit perchance the words abode with him. So came they to the House, and Ralph's mother, who was a noble dame, and well-liking as for her years, which were but little over fifty, stood in the hall-door to see which of her sons should come back to her, and when she saw them coming together, ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... fall far short of the measure), but that they daily exercise themselves well in these studies and constantly treat them; moreover, that they guard with all care and diligence against the poisonous infection of such security and vain imagination, but steadily keep on reading, teaching, learning, pondering, and meditating, and do not cease until they have made a test and are sure that they have taught the devil to death and have become more learned than God Himself ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... I must be a prisoner in my own castle, and only be able to breathe so long as the fountain is closed! I would your mad kindred"—Undine lovingly pressed her fair hand upon his lips. He paused, pondering in silence over much that Undine had ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... last words had found their way to him, while he was pondering over his half-finished letter to his brother. He waited to hear more—without moving, and with the ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... He sat pondering over the many-horned dilemma upon which he hung impaled. He had done all that a man could do. He had given the best that was in him, played the game faithfully, according to the rules. And the net result had been for him the most complete disaster. So far as Myra went, he recognized ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... water was two feet deep; at the other end only a few inches. After pondering over this fact for a few moments, the grizzly waded openly into the deepest part, and from the bank above Muskwa saw the shimmering trout darting into the shallower water. Thor advanced slowly, and now, when ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... pondering on this subject one day, as they were strolling out together, that the baron and his lady came upon the cottage of an old soldier named Karl Mueller, who cultivated a little vineyard not ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... Pondering this matter, and almost unconscious that she did so, Mora broke the seals. Then paused, even as she began to unfold the parchment, questioning whether to read it or to let it ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... The master sat pondering on this strange epistle till the moon lifted its bright face above the distant hills, and illuminated the trail that led to the schoolhouse, beaten quite hard with the coming and going of little feet. Then, more satisfied in ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... burden of my prayer therefore is, that God would be pleased to teach me His will. My mind has also been especially pondering, how I could know His will satisfactorily concerning this particular. Sure I am, that I shall be taught. I therefore desire patiently to wait for the Lord's time, when He shall be pleased to shine on my path concerning ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller
... saved by a Roman Catholic priest!" repeated Tozer, pondering these words in his mind as he slowly pronounced them. He could make nothing of them at first, but finally concluded that they concealed some half-suggested ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... no answer, for he neither heard nor saw anything. He had begun to think of the last station and was still pondering on the same question—one so important that he took no notice of what went on around him. Not only was he indifferent as to whether he got to Petersburg earlier or later, or whether he secured accommodation at this station, but compared ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... occupied nearly an hour. Mr. Carter sat opposite me all the time, listening intently; staring at me with one fixed unvarying stare, and fingering musical passages upon his knees, with slow cautious motions of his fingers and thumbs. But I could see that he was not listening only: he was pondering and reasoning upon what I told him. When I had finished my story, he remained silent for some minutes: but he still stared at me with the same relentless and stony gaze, and he still fingered his knees, following up his right hand with his left, as slowly and deliberately as if ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... and brightening eye words that promise independence, and flatter with the hope of distinction. Still, it was with all the reaction of chill and mournful disappointment that Leonard, a few hours after this dialogue with his uncle, found himself alone in the fields, and pondering over the prospects before him. He had set his heart upon completing his intellectual education, upon developing those powers within him which yearned for an arena of literature, and revolted from the routine ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... perfectly evident that the officer's purpose in sending for Tom, whatever that was, was considerably affected by the boy's own remarks, and he now, after pondering a few moments, handed Tom the two papers which he had ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... fever contracted during his exploring expedition in that neighborhood. He had been studying the distribution of the animal life of the Malay Archipelago. Overcome by sickness, as he lay in bed, he began to think over a book which he had read not long before, "Malthus on Population." Wallace had been pondering on the question of the origin of the animals of the Malay Archipelago. He had not the faintest knowledge of what Darwin was doing, but was influenced, of course, like Darwin, by what he read in Malthus. Interesting to relate, he had come to exactly the same ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... manhood's time, And as centurion carried well his prime. In Ethiop, Araby, climes fair and fell, He had seen service and had borne him well. Nought shook him then: he was serene as brave; Yet later knew some shocks, and would grow grave When pondering them; shocks less of corporal kind Than phantom-like, that disarranged his mind; And it was in the way of warning me (By much his junior) against levity That he recounted them; and one in chief Panthera loved to set in ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... tried Ponder's End?" I said at last. "I've often seen those words on a bus, and a lot of sad-looking people on the top, pondering, I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 14, 1920 • Various
... Harrington Surtaine went to bed pondering on the strange attitude of the newspaper mind toward so matter-of-fact a quality as honesty; and he dreamed of a roomful of advertisers listening in sodden silence to his own grandiloquent announcement, "Gentlemen: honesty is the best policy," while, in a ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... and the news had already penetrated to the outer office; for while he sat with a heavy heart, pondering on these things, and resting his head upon his arm, Perch the messenger, descending from his mahogany bracket, and jogging his elbow, begged his pardon, but wished to say in his ear, Did he think he could arrange to send home to England a jar of preserved Ginger, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... Then Apollo pondering, the sign spake straightway unto Aiakos by his side: 'Hero, where thy hands have wrought is Pergamos taken: thus saith this sign, sent of the son of Kronos, loud-thundering Zeus. And that not without thy seed; but with the first and fourth it shall ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... aches, pondering over it. I suppose he concluded that suspicion would fall upon the post-office. It would have done so, but for that seal placed on the letter afterwards. What an unfortunate thing it was, that Roland Yorke mentioned ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... as if pondering further on the terms he should exact. The hearts of the Senate, lightened for a moment by Alaric's unexpected announcement that he would moderate his demands, sank within them again as they thought on the tribute ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... the air of being a most kindly and forbearing wife. I followed her downstairs, pondering over points of view. Eccentric—because he preferred wide fires and elbow-room and outlook to Camellia's crowded and over-decorated rooms below, and his books to Mrs. Liscombe's music and Mr. Harry Hodgson's "readings." I felt that I knew Mrs. Liscombe ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... united balances, then the tooth b will give its impulse in the contrary direction. Considerable analogy exists between this form of escapement and that shown in Fig. 153 and intended for clocks. This was the busy era in the watchmaker's line. All the great heads were pondering upon the subject and everyone was on the qui vive for the newest thing ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous
... had been pondering. Mortimer had talked and somebody who was not Cartwright's friend had informed him. Cartwright was tempted to let his wife do as she wanted: Clara owned shares in the line that he had let her buy when freights were good and she had afterwards refused to sell. Now, however, ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... more mystery; and pondering upon it, the frigate's crew are strengthened in their superstitious faith. Meanwhile, the cutter is making way across the stretch of calm sea that separates the two ships, and although with reduced strength ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... outcry, spoke no word of grief; but for an hour afterwards he sat quite still in deep thought, and she heard him saying over and over to himself, as though trying to grasp the magnitude of his sorrow, "Both o' them! Not the two o' them, surely?" And then after pondering a while, "Aye, the ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... of me and my mother's portrait, other friends had said. There was nothing that I know of to interest me in hearing it repeated—and yet it set me pondering on the want of resemblance between my mother's face and mine, and wondering (not for the first time) what sort of woman my mother was. When my father speaks of her, no words of praise that he can utter seem to be good ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... whispered Barney, "and let me suggest that you devote the time until your discovery and release in pondering the value of winning your king's confidence in the future. Had you chosen your associates more carefully in the past, ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Big Boy still pondering on his fate, "I've got to find these treasures myself. And one of them was of gold. What's the chances around here ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... already established occupants of land or water, and this may be in any particular case indefinitely long. I am very glad you will read my dogs MS., for it will be important to me to see what you think of the balance of evidence. After long pondering on a subject it is often hard to judge. With hearty thanks for your most ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... sat pondering, in troubled silence. What could it mean? Caterina had taken up her residence in the fortress before her illness; it had been thought wise, although it had not been publicly declared. A few of her maids of honor ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... brother of Kenneth Mason, engineer and archaeologist, got his nickname from a supposed modelling of his bald dome upon Ezra's Tomb, by Q'urna. Keely, classical scholar and philosopher, was standing outside his tent, pondering, as I came up to rejoin the battalion. He called me up, and asked me earnestly what girl from Greek literature I should like to have known, even to have had as companion on the Thames at Richmond. 'Nausicaa,' I said. 'Every time,' agreed Keely, brightening up as if a ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... had been attracted by him as a curiosity—"a balloon man who had twice fallen from the skies and yet was still alive"—had divined the mental power veiled habitually by his blank, opaque, wooden looks, had listened to his ambitious talk and gathered up the utterances of his thoughtful, long-pondering mind, had quarrelled with him finally and lastingly over rivalry in the good graces of a woman. {21} He saw in him a fourfold student; of the art of war, of the mind of the first Napoleon, of the French people's character, of the science by which law may lend itself ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... his House more than three hours after lock-up? And he had had some reason for running away, for the conscia mens recti, though an excellent institution in theory, is not nearly so useful an ally as it should be in practice. The Head knocked at Prater's door, pondering ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... official was pondering over the problem, Muller entered as quietly as ever, bowed, put his hat and cane in their places, and shook the snow off his clothing. He was evidently pleased about something. Kurt von Mayringen did not notice his entrance. He was again at the desk with the open ...
— The Case of The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow • Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner
... one must allow. Now what is the food for the inner man? Not prayer, but the word of God; and here again not the simple reading of the word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering over it, and applying it to our hearts. When we pray, we speak to God. Now, prayer, in order to be continued for any length of time in any other than a formal manner, requires, generally speaking, a measure of strength or godly desire, and the season, therefore, ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Third Part • George Mueller
... long time the boy lay pondering some of the problems of life which from the beginning have puzzled many a wiser head than his. But Darby did not know that he was only going over a well-beaten track. He just knew that he was wishful of finding some pleasant spot where, without effort or trouble, he could be ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... that enchantment, or I shall assay the cleansing of the Forest Perilous, or I shall win the favour of La Belle Dame Sans Merci, or mayhap I shall adventure the quest of the Sangreal. One or other of these will I achieve, or bleed the best blood of my body." Thus pondering and dreaming he came by the road down a gentle hill with close woods on either hand; and so into a valley with a swift river flowing through it; and on ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... escape, but his thoughts wandered, willy nilly. They were taken up with the iron. And gradually he began to comprehend how much thinking and calculating men must have done before they discovered how to produce iron from ore, and he seemed to see sooty blacksmiths of old bending over the forge, pondering how they should properly handle it. Perhaps it was because they had thought so much about the iron that intelligence had been developed in mankind, until finally they became so advanced that they were able to build great works like these. ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... laid up the rods over night before the sanctuary. Then the miracle came to pass that the rod of Aaron, the prince of the tribe of Levi, bore the Ineffable Name which caused the rod to bloom blossoms over night and to yield ripe almonds. When the people, who all night had been pondering which tribe should on the morrow be proven by the rod of its prince to be the chosen one, betook themselves early in the morning to the sanctuary, and saw the blossoms and almonds upon the rod of Aaron, they were at last convinced that God had destined the priesthood ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... looking face the rogue covers his villany." The alcalde, who was present, began to abuse Andrew and the rest of the gipsies, calling them common thieves and highwaymen. Andrew said not a word, but stood pondering in the utmost perplexity, for he had no surmise of Carducha's treachery. At last, an insolent soldier, nephew to the alcalde, stepped up to him, saying "Look at the dirty gipsy thief! I will lay a wager he will give himself airs as if he were an honest man, and ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... nothing remained save her feathers. Time—the despot that rules us all, had outwitted the keeper and asserted the laws of Nature. The cat's claws had grown out, and so had the dog's teeth. The fox, after much pondering over his misfortunes, had discovered the reason why he could not reach the hen; and this done, he worked at the wires until they broke. Of course he revenged himself on the spot by gobbling her up; but in his wrath at the wires, he had thrust ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... agencies. We see, they say, the hand of God in our lives. He has saved us from dangers, he has comforted us in sorrow. He has blessed us with the treasures of life, of intelligence, of affection. He has set around us a beautiful world, and one still more beautiful within us. Pondering all these blessings, we are convinced that he is mighty in the world and will know how to make all things good to those who trust in him. In other words, pious men discern God in the excellence of things. If all were well, as they hope it may some day ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... meaning, but not the feeling, that pervades every syllable as the blood warms every fiber of a man, not the words that flashed upon the poet as he wrote, nor the yet more precious and inspired words that came afterward to his patient waiting and pondering, and touched the whole with fresh delight and grace. If you will take any familiar passage from one of our poets in which every motion of the music is endeared by long association and remembrance, and every tone is sweet upon the tongue, and substitute a few strange ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... No! by the full, live light which puts to shame The far, fair splendours of Thessalian flame— By yonder forest psalm which sinks and swells Like that of Phocis, grave with oracles— By deep prophetic winds that come and go Where whispering springs of pondering mountains flow— By lute-like leaves and many-languaged caves, Where sounds the strong hosanna of the waves, This great new majesty shall not remain Unhonoured by the high immortal strain! Soon, soon, ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... said Mr. Eberstein pondering, "it comes to about this, I reckon. There are just two kingdoms in the world, upon earth ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... the matter carefully, and pondering (in comparing small things with great) upon the part which Bishop Burnet took in settling the disordered elements of British intellect after the revolution of 1688, I have resolved to do as he did—place my humble services at the disposal of my Sovereign—and in whatever situation Your Excellency ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... typical instances from Lancaster must here suffice. Savonarola was solitary, pondering, meditating, felt profoundly the evils of the world and need of reform, and at twenty-two spent a whole night planning his career. Shelley during these years was unsocial, much alone, fantastic, wandered much by moonlight ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... now, thinking he has found evidence,—thinks he always thought he thought the De Camps scamps. John is perplexed at the purport of the letter; and feeling a cold thrill run through him, he turns into bed, there to reflect for ten minutes upon the downy pillow, pondering with intensely closed eyes, considering before he puts himself in the power of an enemy—for John had been a soldier once, and would have been one now, had not his poor old mother starved and mangled together enough to buy him off; he bore the stamp of military drill, took in ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... at one of his clubs, where he won pretty heavily at cards and drank rather more brandy than he was accustomed to take. Feeling consequently in good spirits, he determined to carry out a plan that he had been pondering for some time. He left the club at six o'clock, and an hour later a cab put him down at the lower end of Strand-on-the-Green. Mrs. Sedgewick admitted him to Stephen Foster's house. The master had not returned from town, she said, but Miss Foster was at home. Nevill asked to see her, and was shown ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... it; Singing birds, that utter falsehoods, Story-tellers, mischief-makers, Found no eager ear to listen, Could not breed ill-will between them, For they kept each other's counsel, Spake with naked hearts together, Pondering much and much contriving How the ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... silence, pondering over this new source of worry, then turned in to sleep. They slept heavily, having taken great care first of all to block up the entrance to the underground passage, and as they dropped off to sleep, they heard ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... was put about two hours later. In the meantime no remark had been made about the rents. Mother and daughter were now at tea in the sitting-room. Hilda had passed the greater part of those two hours upstairs in her bedroom, pondering on her mother's preposterous notion of collecting the rents herself. Alone, she would invent conversations with her mother, silencing the foolish woman with unanswerable sarcastic phrases that utterly destroyed her illogical arguments. She would repeat these phrases, repeat even entire conversations, ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... After pondering over the matter for several days, I determined on milking the cow myself, this being an accomplishment of my boyhood. To the celestial's amazement I did so and instantly tested the ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... became general, and the girl did not look up for several seconds; but the young man on her right, who had not missed a word of the previous tete-a-tete, could not give attention to the story Mrs. Blackwell was telling, for pondering what ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill
... on the battlefield of Rullion Green, pensively pondering over the battle and the heroes whose blood had watered this soil. Two centuries and more had fled since the engagement, yet the field appealed to the responsive heart with powerful eloquence. The beautiful slope, the verdant pasture, the grazing flocks, the broad ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... off here to fetch up the second course. We talked no more, for I was pondering his tale and disinclined to be diverted to other topics. Nor can I tell whether the rest of the meal was good or ill. I suppose I ate: but it was only when the landlord swept the cloth, and produced a bottle of port, ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... imagination, at rest with regard to its own safety, is for the first time perplexed by the fate of men of an alien race and faith, whose heroism it has nevertheless learnt to revere, as in after-times it was perplexed in pondering the fate of Greece and Rome, whose art and thought it vainly strove to imitate. Underlying this trouble in their hearts is the assumption to which Plato and certain of his sect have leanings, that within the Divine there is as it were a treasury of souls ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... Pharaoh Daggs in black silhouette against the gray of the sky sent a shudder through Jeremy. He recalled with startling distinctness the solitary man he had seen on the island the night of his capture. The two figures were identical. Pondering, ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... called him away, and Emily sat pondering and impressed. 'It did seem so odd,' she said, 'that Clarry should be so much the best, and yet so ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Robinson, besides his more general exhortations to brotherly kindness and charity, had spoken, in the spirit of prophecy, some promises and assurances which came now to a divine fulfillment. Pondering "sundry weighty and solid reasons" in favor of removal from Holland, the pilgrims put on record that "their pastor would often say that many of those who both wrote and preached against them would practice as they did if they were in a place where they might have liberty and live conformably." ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... day, was moving towards a village with his heart tolling. And all the people of the village were come out to meet him, as it was their wont to do; for they abode not the suspense of awaiting Tharagavverug and of hearing him sniffing brazenly as he went from door to door, pondering slowly in his metal mind what habitant he should choose. And none dared to flee, for in the days when the villagers fled from Tharagavverug, he, having chosen his victim, would track him tirelessly, like a doom. Nothing ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... burned down to his fingers as he sat pondering. Abstractedly, he ground its fire ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... Peggy, pondering her friend's accusation with languid interest, dimpled into a smile which acknowledged its correctness. "Yes, you're right, Amy," she admitted. "And, if you want to know the reason, it's only that my thoughts were wandering. The fact is, ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... of weather and a treacherous pilot put ashore upon Plymouth beach, (where they luckily found a rock to step upon,) with a certain sweet pastoral called "Evangeline." We found ourselves, just after reading the proceedings of the Plymouth Monument Association, the other day, pondering over the possible fate of the Dutch colony of the Mannahattoes, supposing that the Mayflower had made (as was purposed) the Highlands of Neversink instead of Shankpainter Hill at the end of Cape Cod. It was a perilous meditation, for we found our belief in Plutarch's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... As he was pondering over it all, he heard a rattling at the window. He looked up, and saw the face of Herr Carovius pressed so tightly against the pane that his nose was as flat as a pancake, while his glasses looked like two opalescent grease spots ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... the recollection of Hilda's conception of their relations. If this were a type and instance of hopeless love he had certainly misread all the songs and sayings. He kept the idea in his mind and went on regarding her in the light of it with a pondering smile, turning it over and finding a lively pleasure in his curious acumen in such an unwonted direction. It was a very flower of emotional naivete, though a moment later he cast it from him as a weed, grown in idleness; and indeed it might have abashed him ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... Being may one day justify himself even morally. Perhaps he is all the time doing so behind the veil. But on that it is absolutely useless to speculate. Light may one day come to us, but it will come through patient investigation, not through idle pondering and guessing. In the meantime, poised between the macrocosm and the microcosm, ourselves including both extremes, and being, perhaps, the most stupendous miracle of all, we cannot deny to this amazing frame of things the tribute of an unutterable awe. If that be religion, ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... fear are the amplest of them in knowledge and the most emulous of good.'" The King received the interpreter's speech with submission and gifted him and his fellows with rich gifts; then, dismissing them he arose and withdrew to his own apartments and fell to pondering the issue of his affair. When night came, he went in to one of his women, who was most in favour with him and dearest to him of them all, and lay with her: and ere some four months had passed over her, the child stirred in her womb, whereat she rejoiced with ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... of a widespread anxiety to reconcile the claims and conclusions of science with those of the received theology. Thoughtful and religious laymen in the higher ranks of society were earnestly seeking a reason for the faith that was in them, and pondering over fundamental problems like the personality of God, the divinity of Christ, the reality of supernatural agency, and the awful mystery of the future life. Yet the tractarians passed lightly over all these problems, to exercise themselves and others with disputations on ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... leave; and as he walked to the railway that was to take him home, he could not help still pondering on the effect produced by the mention of the ghost. He little supposed, however, that the ghost was at the bottom of this visit to his ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... took a little time, the doctor slowly paced back and forth through the small cottage room, with his hands behind him, and a thoughtful face. Daisy fancied he was considering her affair; but she was very much mistaken; Dr. Sandford had utterly forgotten her for the moment, and was pondering some difficult professional business. When Juanita appeared with her tea tray, he came out of his abstraction; and, though still with a very unrelaxed face, he arranged Daisy's pillows so that she might be raised ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... around the yard and see them work for their food. When I was weary of this I would go to an old deserted cabin nearby, taking a few old books and the Bible; there unmolested I would spend hours at a time reading the Bible and pondering over the books. One of the books was an old Davies' Practical Arithmetic. Nothing gave me more pleasure than working out new sums for the first time. I kept up this practice until I had read the New ...
— Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt • William James Edwards
... all this to me?" This would I answer, if it pleaseth thee, Thou Rose and Nightingale so strangely one: That of my palaces, gold one by one, I fell a-thinking, pondering which to-day, The day of the Blessed Saint, Saint Valentine, Which of those many palaces of mine, I, with bowed head and lowly bended knee, Might bring to thee. O which of all my lordly roofs that rise To kiss the starry skies May with great beams make safe that golden head, With all ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... these days from giving too much weight to the critics of Christianity," said the rector, "from not pondering more deeply on its underlying truths. Do not think that I am accusing you of superficiality, Mrs. Goodrich; I am sure you wish to go to the bottom, or else you would be satisfied with what you have already ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... mute, looking into his eyes and pondering every light and shadow of the severe young face that to her seemed so imperially unlike all others. "He's great," she said in her heart. "And he loves with his greatness. Loves even his father that way; ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... Here pondering, one thought of awe, yet rapture, thrills through my soul. If to our poor humanity such honeyed drops of healing do earth's frailest flower-cups yield, how cool, how crystal-clear the nectar from amaranth and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... to spare for all tastes at Amalfi. The student of architecture may spend hours in the Cathedral, pondering over its high-built western front, and wondering whether there is more of Moorish or of Gothic in its delicate arcades. The painter may transfer its campanile, glittering like dragon's scales, to his canvas. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... corners of the neighbourhood, in a perpetual state of forlorn surprise; and returning to my villa: the Villa Bagnerello (it sounds romantic, but Signor Bagnerello is a butcher hard by): have sufficient occupation in pondering over my new experiences, and comparing them, very much to my own amusement, with my expectations, until ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... propose such an accusation; I only content myself with presenting it as a logical consequence which could be deduced following the method used by the prelate in speaking to no less than his priests in a circular designed to orient the mentality of his clergy and of his parishioners. Pondering over the accusation of the Bishop, it occurred to me that it would be beneficial to recall the public instruction that was formerly given in the Philippines by the "godly schools" and consider the results obtained. Confident in the respectable ...
— The Legacy of Ignorantism • T.H. Pardo de Tavera
... but could see no sign of his wife; and after hesitating and pondering a minute or two, he took the path for Carhaix, his native astuteness leading him to saunter at a slow pace after his ordinary fashion. When he was gone the moorland about the cottage lay still and deserted. Thrice, at intervals, the girl dragged home her load of straw, ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... now my walk was slow—My eyes were seldom raised and often filled with tears; no song; no smiles; no careless motion that might bespeak a mind intent on what surrounded it—I was gathered up into myself—a selfish solitary creature ever pondering on my ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... you see a girl you at once get busy speculating over whether or not she'll ever be beautiful enough for your Dinkie, and when one of the Crowned Heads of Europe announces the alliance of its youngest princess you fall to pondering if Dinkie wouldn't have made her a better husband. And when the flowers come out in your window-box you wonder if they're fair enough to bloom beside your Dinkie. I don't suppose I ever made a haystack that you didn't wonder whether it wasn't going to be a grand ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... a formidable looking man she found in the library a few minutes before the dinner hour. He was poring over some pictures of Panama in one of the weeklies, sufficiently deep in them to permit Katie to sit there for the moment pondering methods of attack. But instead of outlining her campaign she found herself concluding, what she had concluded many times before, that Wayne was very good-looking. "Not handsome, like Harry Prescott," she granted, "but Wayne seems the product of something—the result of things to be desired. He ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... about mother," went on Phillis, pondering her words slowly as she spoke; "she does look so ill and weak. I do not see how ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... and feverish, then he closed his tome, And went to wander by the ocean-side, Where the cool breeze at evening loved to come, Murmuring responsive to the murmuring tide; And as Augustine o'er its margent wide Strayed, deeply pondering the puzzling theme, A little child before him he espied: In earnest labor did the urchin seem, Working with heart intent close by the ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... tell you how delighted we shall be if you would come to Gad's Hill. You should see some charming woods and a rare old castle, and you should have such a snug room looking over a Kentish prospect, with every facility in it for pondering on the beauties of its master's beard! Do come, but you positively must not come and go on the ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... winked with each eye, then extended one cheek with the pressure of his tongue. Sickened with disgust, Godwin turned suddenly away,—a movement entirely lost upon his uncle, who imagined the young man to be pondering a ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... the result of abnormal pondering over bacteriology. Huchard's case was in a woman of thirty-eight who, out of curiosity, had secretly read the works of Pasteur, and who seemed to take particular pleasure in conning over the causes of death in the health-reports. Goyard mentions an instance ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... indeed! At that very moment the portly individual in question was in the centre of his bedroom, surveying the contents of a box which had been sadly depleted. He was rubbing the grizzly locks beside one ear, pondering deeply, staring through big goggles at the box, and trying ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... to—long ago," replied Pan, pondering. How far in the past that seemed! How vivid now ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... one building outside the Exposition palaces that should not be missed, even though almost hidden away against the south wall. It is worth pondering over. No one may want to build a house like it, but it proclaims how beauty can be attained with simple ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... Jewel was pondering. This was very delicate ground, and she still felt some awe of her cousin; however, there was ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... she slowly, and as if pondering; then shook her head. "That is not the reason. Do you not believe in the power of the devil? our Lord Christ forgive me! do not you believe in the power of wicked men? There is no greater difference between the human child and the changeling brat ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... can never feel the glad radiance of sunlit days without sadly remembering and gloomily pondering over the fate of the beggar so deprived of joy in life that his horrible death was a relief for all those who had ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... from her and gazed through the window, pondering. That she would be faithful to the children he well knew. That she would gladly die for him, he was equally certain. With Rosenblatt removed, the house would be rid of the cause of her fall and her shame. There was ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... authorities were in doubt and dismay. The inquisitors were for putting the ministers to death in prison, and hurling their heads upon the street. Evening approached while the officials were still pondering. The people who had been chanting the Psalms of David through the town, without having decided what should be their course of action, at last determined to rescue the victims. A vast throng, after much hesitation, accordingly directed their steps to the prison. "You should have ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... imprudence slew 545 A vulgar Pawn, but lost his nobler view. Young Hermes leap'd, with sudden joy elate; And then, to save the monarch from his fate, Led on his martial Knight, who stepp'd between, Pleased that his charge was to oppose the Queen — Then, pondering how the Indian beast to slay, 551 That stopp'd the Foot from making farther way, — From being made a Queen; with slanting aim An archer struck him; down the monster came, And dying shook the earth: while Phoebus ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... grew sick of the sight of it, and longed to see a turban, or a tall hat, or no hat at all,—anything for a change of head-dress. I left the window rather wearily, and took up one of the many novels which lay on the table, pondering on the probable fate of Paul ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... the wants of myself and family for ten thousand years; when I strolled into the Nevskoi, and jostled my way through crowds of nobles, officers, soldiers, dandies, and commoners, stopping suddenly at every picture-shop, gazing dreamily into the gorgeous millinery establishments, pondering thoughtfully over the glittering wares of the jewelers, lagging moodily by the grand cafes, and snuffing reflectively the odors that came from the grand restaurations—when all this occurred, and I went down into a beer-cellar and made acquaintance with ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... Holland, and his attempt to be admitted into her confidence as a matter of right, were for the moment forgotten in the spell of his presence—but always during her lonely rides in the hills, the half-formed doubt returned. Pondering the doubt, she realized that the principal reason for its continued existence was not so much in the incidents that had awakened it, as in the simple question asked by Vil Holland: "You say your dad ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... off, lamenting, but Roseen sat still at her open casement, pondering mournfully on the misfortunes which had overwhelmed those she loved, and bewailing her impotence to help them. Soon all was absolutely still; the house was wrapt in slumber, and at last, rising, chilled ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... run more swiftly than she, and, in his envy, is apprehensive of it. 'But why,' says he, 'is my chance in this contest left untried? The Divinity himself assists the daring.' While Hippomenes is pondering such things within himself, the virgin flies with winged pace. Although she appears to the Aonian youth to go no less swiftly than the Scythian arrow, he admires her still more in her beauty, and the very speed makes ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... night; the same stillness and mild weather. My soul is pondering. I walk mechanically over to a tree, pull my cap deep down over my eyes, and lean against that tree, with hands clasped behind my neck. I gazed and think; the flame from my fire dazzles my eyes, and I do not ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... and went out of the room, leaving the lawyer pondering over his story of a midnight intruder. Mr. Brimsdown came to the conclusion that it was probably imagination, and so ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... could, Manuel left the place, pondering in his own mind what he was going to do with the boy. Should he reveal the secret and have his fellow-conspirators kill him? Should he turn him over to the machetes of the negroes? Or should he kill the boy, himself? ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... wanderers perishing without thy aid! To whose pure eyes all wonders are reveal'd, That live in mortals, from themselves conceal'd! Who view'st with favor, when they most aspire, Their narrow faculties, and vast desire! O prosper, and sustain my anxious thought, Pondering thy attributes, as mortals ought! That while I strive to make thy nature known, My zeal may tend to purify my own. Pardon the daring aim of grateful love, If, in research, man's intellect above, I vainly seek such heavenly things to know, As Thou to mortals ...
— Poems on Serious and Sacred Subjects - Printed only as Private Tokens of Regard, for the Particular - Friends of the Author • William Hayley
... slowly accumulating the store which is to support him in old age, the ancient institutions of Church and University with their seemly provisions for sound learning and true religion, the parson in his pulpit, the poet pondering his rhymes, the farmer eyeing his crops, the painter covering his canvases, the player educating the feelings. Burke saw all this with the fancy of a poet, and dwelt on it with the eye of a lover. But love is the parent ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... enchantment, or I shall assay the cleansing of the Forest Perilous, or I shall win the favour of La Belle Dame Sans Merci, or mayhap I shall adventure the quest of the Sangreal. One or other of these will I achieve, or bleed the best blood of my body." Thus pondering and dreaming he came by the road down a gentle hill with close woods on either hand; and so into a valley with a swift river flowing through it; and on the ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... and as an adjective, dirty. He thought the river well named. He also mentioned that on the eastern side of the stream there was an excellent camping-place, but that much pains had been taken to ford it to a very poor one. After pondering this apparently unreasonable movement he asked: "Why did we not camp on that grassy ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... was upset, was she?" mused Roger, pondering this confirmation of his theory. "I wonder what your little nurse thinks ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... flickered in her eyes, while she appeared to ponder. (But I am not sure whether she was pondering the ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... street-door and bearing down upon him, put him to flight. He, too, sought his bedroom, a cool apartment with a balcony outside the French window. On this balcony, which stretched along the whole range of first-floor bedrooms, he stood for a while, pondering deeply. Then, in an absent way, he overstepped the limit of his own room-frontage. A queer sound startled him. He paused, glanced through the open window, and there he saw a sight which for ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... and individual. He has said of himself that he could remember no period of his life when he had not the consciousness of having been sent into the world for some especial purpose. What it was he knew not, but expectation and desire for the withheld knowledge kept him pondering and self-withdrawn. Once in his childhood he was given over for death with a bad attack of confluent small-pox, and his mother came to his bedside to tell him so. "No, mother," he answered her, "I shall not die now. God has a work for me to do in the ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... the posters that were yet legible, intimately, and pondering on their ubiquitous nature, I was led into the reflections with which I began this paper, by considering what an awful thing it would be, ever to have wronged - say M. JULLIEN for example - and to have his avenging name in characters of fire incessantly before ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... it may be after all a mere phantom (34)? There is no definite mark, say the sceptics, by which a thing may be known. Their "probability" then is mere random guess work (35). Even if they only profess to decide after careful pondering of the circumstances, we reply that a decision which is still possibly ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... gave a gesture of despair and applied herself to her pie. The hirsute face of Mr. Simson had lost the foolish aggressiveness that had irritated Joan. He seemed to be pondering matters. ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... had quite the flavor of foreign travel to Lynde, who began pondering on which hotel he should bestow his patronage—a question that sometimes perplexes the tourist on arriving at a strange city. In Lynde's case the matter was considerably simplified by the circumstance that there was but a single aristocratic hotel in the place. He extracted this information from ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... were others," continued Whittemore, pondering for a moment in mock seriousness. "There was one at Rio whom you swore would make your fortune if you could get her to sit for you, and whose husband was on the point of putting six inches of steel into you for telling her so, when I explained that you were ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... RANKIN (pondering). 'Tis strange that they should come to Mogador, of all places; and to my house! I once met ...
— Captain Brassbound's Conversion • George Bernard Shaw
... and his wife pursued the subject no further. But the former lay awake for hours after retiring to bed, pondering the events of the ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... the stone and felt its edge very carefully with his thumb before answering. He seemed to be pondering something, and a peculiar smile lurked about the corners ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... heavy outer door and crossed over to his house, while the boy went whistling down the street in the dusk. Slowly the artist mounted the stairs, pondering, as he went, on the many emotions of the day, and at last repeating his conclusion, that he was glad that ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... closed the window, being very angry and ill-pleased, not with Brother Conrad, but with the other monk; and they after this adventure, returned to their convent, pondering over ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... were different," reflected Hicks, pondering seriously. "Both had been to Prep. School, and they understood college life and campus spirit. It was Roddy's tremendous ambition that had to be curbed, and Deke was the victim of circumstances. But Thorwald—it is just a problem of how to awaken in him ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... a passage for his king's army and provisions at a reasonable price; and secondly, he despatched a courier to Charles VIII, pressing him to hurry on his march with the artillery and rearguard. The confederates had given an evasive answer, for they were pondering whether they ought to jeopardise the whole Italian force in a single combat, and, putting all to the hazard, attempt to annihilate the King of France and his army together, so overwhelming the conqueror in the ruins ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... their silver lamp above us, long they look and deeply. Long they pause. The wind drives straightly; the flame stoops slightly. Wild beams of moonlight cross both floor and wall, and, meeting, stain the faces bent; the faces pondering; the faces that search the sleepers and seek their ...
— Monday or Tuesday • Virginia Woolf
... letter or no? Shall we take the subway or a bus? Shall we have dinner at seven or half past? Shall we buy U. S. Rubber or a Liberty Bond? Decisions are easily distinguishable from the free flow of the reverie. Sometimes they demand a good deal of careful pondering and the recollection of pertinent facts; often, however, they are made impulsively. They are a more difficult and laborious thing than the reverie, and we resent having to "make up our mind" when we are tired, or absorbed in a congenial reverie. Weighing a decision, it should be noted, ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... material and spiritual changes which sometimes overtake us are not very clear at the time. A sense of shock, a sense of danger, and then apparently we subside to old ways, but the change has come. Never again, here or elsewhere, will we be the same. Jennie pondering after the subtle emotional turn which her evening's sympathetic expedition had taken, was lost in a vague confusion of emotions. She had no definite realization of what social and physical changes this new ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... Without meaning to, out of sheer emotion, she pressed them somewhat hard, and, as from a concertina emerges a jerked and drawn-out chord, so from the cook came a long, quaking sound; her apron fell, her body heaved, and her drowsy, flat, soft voice, greasy from pondering over dishes, murmured: ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... lodger looked up from the table where, as usual, he was studying with painful, almost agonising intentness, the Book. "Quite right, Mrs. Bunting—quite right! I have been pondering over the command, 'Work ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... which contracted his lips, and yellowed the rosiness of his round cheeks somewhat. In his blue eyes, fixed glassily on the distance, was depicted something like dissatisfaction, or a feeling of disappointment, a dreaming, or a pondering in vain over deceitful visions which pass over space, but which no one can seize upon. He did not see his father, for his glassy eyes were looking far away at some point. Even the baron did not see Darvid; he was searching for something in his pocketbook carefully, ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... himself up to it, and thoroughly enjoyed it. He did not sit apart, a moody and abstracted "lion;" nor desire to be regarded as "the great engineer," pondering new Menai Bridges; But he appeared in his natural character of a simple, intelligent, cheerful companion; as ready to laugh at his own jokes as at other people's; and he was as communicative to a child as to any philosopher ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... Champlain, fully empowered to act as he should judge expedient, set out for Paris. On the way, Fortune, at one stroke, wellnigh crushed him and New France together; for his horse fell on him, and he narrowly escaped with life. When he was partially recovered, he resumed his journey, pondering on means of rescue for the fading colony. A powerful protector must be had,—a great name to shield the enterprise from assaults and intrigues of jealous rival interests. On reaching Paris he addressed himself to a prince of the blood, Charles de Bourbon, ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... furthermore, I'm pondering how to proceed to procure them a home with nice large grounds in which they can work and take pleasure, but I haven't any means. All I now own is my bicycle. I left it for sale in Woodland. Perhaps God will soon find a ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... in the school-room, in the back-kitchen, or rather breakfast-parlour, immediately below, in a very brown study, there sate a very fair lady, pondering deeply over the virtues of brimstone and treacle, and the most efficacious antidote to chilblains. She was the second in command over the domestic economy of the school. Unmarried, of course. And ever and anon, as she plied the industrious needle over the heel of ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... writing, or at least of printing, poetry, and devote himself more to out-door occupation. The great difficulty in carrying eat this plan was to find regular employment of a nature suited to his bodily strength, and his somewhat erratic habits. After much pondering on the subject, Clare resolved to try a little farming on his own account, with the help of his friends, and on a very limited scale. A visit to Milton Park settled the matter. The two head servants of Earl Fitzwilliam, the antiquarian ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... did not seem to please the Shawanoe. He was sitting directly in front of his young friends, who looked earnestly in his face. He made no answer to Terry's question, but continued looking among the coals, as if he was pondering some other matter that had thus been brought to mind. Fred shook his head at Terry as a warning that he should not repeat his query, and the latter was wise enough not to do so; but the friends concluded from that moment ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... went on, the two girls became anxious to be doing something for the Lord. While they were pondering over the matter, a company of ministers came to the place to hold another series of meetings. From them the girls learned that The Gospel Trumpet was published by consecrated labor, that the workers received no stated salary, ...
— The value of a praying mother • Isabel C. Byrum
... persons ever find to do—a certain tradition of life, which came to mean much for the young Marius. The feeling with which he thought of his dead father was almost exclusively that of awe; though crossed at times by a not unpleasant sense of liberty, as he could but confess to himself, pondering, in the actual absence of so weighty and continual a restraint, upon the arbitrary power which Roman religion and Roman law gave to the parent over the son. [17] On the part of his mother, on the other hand, entertaining the ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... For, in pondering over the explosions, Tom had come to the conclusion that the blow-outs on the retaining wall, however accomplished, were controlled from a point to the westward of the ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... not relate all this without pausing many times for breath, and when she concluded she closed her eyes, exhausted by the effort she had made. In a short time she again slept, and Helen sat pondering in mute amazement over the disclosure made by one whom she had imagined so very indigent. The gold weighed heavy on her mind. It did not seem real, so strangely acquired, so mysteriously concealed. It reminded her of the tales of the genii, more ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... of hearing her own silly compliment repeated twice over before the good old lady could comprehend it. She was pondering, in the meanwhile, upon the possibility, without seeming very rude, of making her escape from Jane Fairfax's letter, and had almost resolved on hurrying away directly under some slight excuse, when Miss Bates turned to her again ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... I was pondering upon the dangerous effect upon the brigadier of so serious a stage wait, when Pierre crawled over to me from his ambush ten metres from my own, to leave me my ration of bread and wine. He was so excited by this time that his voice ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... him to town, and which was itself but a means to an end, were lessened. It might not be possible to pursue that enterprise any farther. This was a mortifying thought, and accounted for the melancholy face with which he sought the inn, and supped; now wishing that he had not done this or that, now pondering how he might turn the flank of a misfortune which threatened ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... attempts on former journeys to enter that jealous country, and who augured from the political changes which had taken place that permission might probably now be obtained, brought the subject again under his notice. The admonition was timely and effectual. After carefully pondering the matter—with, we doubt not, as on former occasions, a childlike dependence on his Omniscient Guide for direction,—he came to the conclusion that it was his duty once more to address himself to this undertaking: and when it was ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... went on Phillis, pondering her words slowly as she spoke; "she does look so ill and weak. I do not see how we are to ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... passers-by, who glanced at her curiously. But at length as she grew calmer the needs of a youthful and vigorous body became imperative, and realizing suddenly that she was tired and hungry, sought and found the little restaurant in the village below. She journeyed back to Hampton pondering what this man had said to her; speculating, rather breathlessly, whether he had been impelled to conversation by a natural kindness and courtesy, or whether he really had discovered something in her worthy of addressing, as he implied. Resentment burned in ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of that disordered room still poisoned his enjoyment. The door of the bed-chamber stood gaping open; and though he turned aside his eyes as from a sacrilege, he could not but observe the bed had not been slept in. He was still pondering what this should mean, still trying to convince himself that all was well, when the moving needle of his watch summoned him to set forth without delay. He was before all things a man of his word; ran round to Southampton Row to fetch ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... warmly, and fell silent, pondering how best to prove or disprove this extraordinary story. It was decidedly of the sort the Record liked; if he could only verify it, his return to the office would be in the nature of a triumph! But to prove it! ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... Not prayer, but the word of God; and here again not the simple reading of the word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering over it, and applying it to our hearts. When we pray, we speak to God. Now, prayer, in order to be continued for any length of time in any other than a formal manner, requires, generally speaking, ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Third Part • George Mueller
... the plumed hearse, the mourning train,— I mark the sad procession with a sigh, Silently passing to that village fane, Where, HAROLD, thy forefathers mouldering lie;— There sleeps THAT MOTHER, who with tearful eye, Pondering the fortunes of thy early road, Hung o'er the slumbers of thine infancy; Her son, released from mortal labour's load, Now comes to rest, with her, in ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... spread him a prayer-carpet and he prayed. Now he knew not how to pray and gave not over bowing and prostrating himself, [till he had prayed the prayers] of twenty inclinations,[FN21] pondering in himself the while and saying, "By Allah, I am none other than the Commander of the Faithful in very sooth! This is assuredly no dream, for all these things happen not in a dream." And he was convinced and determined ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... this study now I thought of none of all these wonders; my uncle alone filled my thoughts. He had thrown himself into a velvet easy-chair, and was grasping between his hands a book over which he bent, pondering ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... this room I turn in pondering pace And find thine eyes upon me where I stand, Led on, as by Enemo's silken strand, I come and gaze ...
— Songs, Merry and Sad • John Charles McNeill
... others; nor for him henceforth Could life be lowly. The honours of his youth Too early thrust upon him, and the deeds Which brought him triumph in the Sullan days, His conquering navy and the Pontic war, Made heavier now the burden of defeat, And crushed his pondering soul. So length of days Drags down the haughty spirit, and life prolonged When power has perished. Fortune's latest hour, Be the last hour of life! Nor let the wretch Live on disgraced by memories of fame! But for the boon of death, who'd dare the ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... equilibrium which she had established between her virtue and her money. So it happened that the cause of the lovelorn Duc de Vitry was in great peril just at the moment when de Jars and Jeannin resolved to approach the fair one anew. She was sitting lost in thought, pondering in all good faith on the small profit it was to a woman to be virtuous, when she heard voices in the antechamber. Then her door opened, and the king's treasurer ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... which the souls of our children delighted, and in which he was an expert. But he—uncle Rutherford—said nothing more at present; and we were all left in ignorance as to what benevolent plan tending Jim-wise he might be pondering. ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... the raindrops pattered against the window pane, while the lamp upon the table burned lower and lower, and still Mr. Hastings sat there, pondering another plan, to which he could see no possible objection, provided Mrs. Deane's consent could be obtained: "and she shall consent," he said, "or an exposure of her daughter ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... behind the kitchen door, had now been dead ten years, and he had only the books and the clarionet to bear him company. But these companions kept him from being dull and lonely, and gave him besides a position of some importance in the village. For by dint of reading his books many times over, and pondering on them as he sat and cobbled, he had gained a store of wisdom, or what passed for such, and a great many long words with which he was fond of impressing the neighbours. He was also considered a fine reader, and quite a musical genius; for although he now only played ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... She sat quite still, pondering the matter. The bishop and the music and even Mac were for the time completely forgotten. Was the world full of things like that, puzzling and confused from the outside, and simple and easy from within? Within what? Her mind groped uncertainly along ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... was not much like chickens and pound cake, I thought; and I remembered our servants at Melbourne were very, very differently dressed from the women I saw about me here, even in the house. I stood bewildered and pondering. Preston tried to get ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... up, and lo! there was Haridasa, standing in the open door. And he said: What is this, O Shatrunjaya? Whom art thou about to poison, or who is going to poison thee? And hast thou solved thy problem, since I saw thee from the camel's back, pondering on thy own beauty? Or hast thou arrived already at the poison in the bottom of love's cup? How is good advice thrown away upon a fool! Did I not warn thee? Wilt thou never understand that the nectar of a woman is like the red of dusk, lasting for but an instant, and ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... into the body and the earth it came of, into the condition of the flowers, the grass, proper creatures of the earth to which he is returning. The saintly vicar visits him considerately; is repelled with politeness; goes on his way pondering inwardly what kind of place there might be, in any possible scheme of another world, for so absolutely unspiritual a subject. In fact, as the breath of the infinite world came about him, he clung all [242] the faster to ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... So she sat pondering how to accomplish the object she had in view. She could not herself beat Jasper, though, had he been younger and smaller, she would certainly have attempted it. She must do ...
— Frank and Fearless - or The Fortunes of Jasper Kent • Horatio Alger Jr.
... of this stream was in reality a declaration of war against the Republic, and later writers relate that upon arriving at the Rubicon Caesar long hesitated whether he should take this irrevocable step, and that, after pondering many hours, he at length exclaimed, "The die is cast," and plunged into the river. But there is not a word of this in Caesar's ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... Dennison brought up the card of Miss Margaret Clay. Rachael turned it slowly in her hands, pondering, with a quickened heartbeat and a fluctuating color. Magsie had been often a guest in Rachael's house a year ago, but she had not been to see Rachael for a long time now. They were to meet, they were to talk alone together—what about? There was nothing about which Rachael Gregory ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... doors the whine of the fiddle still penetrated. Perhaps Lew Wee's recent loss had moved him to play later than was his custom, pondering upon the curious whims that stir the gods when they start to make things happen. But he was still no cynic. Over and over he played the little air which means: "Life comes like a bird-song through the open ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... a born mechanic; he understands machinery at a glance; he is all the while pondering and studying and experimenting. But his wheels and his axles and his pulleys are all swept away, as so much irrelevant lumber; he is doomed to go into the Latin School, and spend three or four years in trying to learn what he never can learn well,—disheartened by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... the Abbot still tarrying, Primasso, having eaten the second cake, began upon the third, and this again was reported to the Abbot, who fell a-pondering in himself and saying, "Alack, what new maggot is this that is come into my head to-day? What avarice! What despite! And for whom? This many a year have I given my substance to eat to whosoever had a mind thereto, without regarding if he ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... such sweet kisses as hers once a week did amply compensate him for his fast, etc. Then her tears being brushed away, she would quit him with noiseless step and all precautions, and maybe five minutes afterwards, whilst Jack was sitting pensive at his window pondering her sweetness and love, he would hear her laughing lightly below, as if he were ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... feverish, then he closed his tome, And went to wander by the ocean-side, Where the cool breeze at evening loved to come, Murmuring responsive to the murmuring tide; And as Augustine o'er its margent wide Strayed, deeply pondering the puzzling theme, A little child before him he espied: In earnest labor did the urchin seem, Working with heart intent ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... of my prayer therefore is, that God would be pleased to teach me His will. My mind has also been especially pondering, how I could know His will satisfactorily concerning this particular. Sure I am, that I shall be taught. I therefore desire patiently to wait for the Lord's time, when He shall be pleased to shine on my path concerning ...
— Answers to Prayer - From George Mueller's Narratives • George Mueller
... disappointedly, and was silent for some time, pondering the matter. "Well," with a sigh of resignation, "I'll give her one of my pots of mignonette when it grows—that will be something—just to ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... must have been one of those ingenious secret codes which mean one thing while they seem to mean another. I must see this letter. If there were a hidden meaning in it, I was confident that I could pluck it forth. For an hour I sat pondering over it in the gloom, until at last a weeping maid brought in a lamp, and close at her heels came my friend Trevor, pale but composed, with these very papers which lie upon my knee held in his grasp. He sat down opposite to me, drew the lamp to the edge of ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... doubt I might have entertained of my poor friend's insanity was put finally at rest. I had no alternative but to conclude him stricken with lunacy, and I became seriously anxious about getting him home. While I was pondering upon what was best to be done, Jupiter's voice was ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... I strode along pondering over my adventures, and resolved to buy a pistol when I got to Woodbridge. I remember thinking that I could write quite a book now myself. Already I began to feel quite a hardened pioneer. It doesn't take an adaptable person long to accustom one's self to a ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... solemn interest for an instant, as though he were pondering the question. As a matter of fact, he was thinking that she was remarkably pretty. Then he put his finger on his lips, and in a hoarse whisper, said, "Sh! Be careful. If the editorial ear should catch your proposition the editorial ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... cheered by those ascetics of truthful speech, Dyumatsena pondering over those points, attained a little ease. A little while after, Savitri with her husband Satyavan reached the hermitage during the night and entered it with a glad heart. The Brahmanas then said, "Beholding this meeting with thy son, and thy restoration to eye-sight, we all wish thee well, O lord ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... been, for an hour after his mishap, walking more rapidly than was his habit up and down the entire length of the hall that divided the house into two distinct sides, and his head had hung low upon his bosom. He had been pondering. Or perhaps he had been praying. His dilemma was by no means a thing to be ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... I trudged on alone, plish-plash-plosh, through the clayey sludge, cold, dripping and miserable, stopping occasionally to turn my back to the wind or to tie up a wayward shoestring, and pondering dolefully in my mind that I had full two hours to go, not only before reaching home, but perhaps before finding a shelter of any kind. I think I must have been walking thus three-quarters of an hour when I suddenly heard the music of two pairs of hobnailed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... was gone, contemplating, not the lamp, though her eyes were fixed upon it, but the force of the filial principle in this lonely girl—a force which had constrained her to open the aching wound in her own heart to a mere child. She sat, till called by the hour to prayer, pondering the question how it is that relations designed for duty and peace become the occasions of the bitterest sin and suffering. The mystery was in no degree cleared up when she was called to prayer—which, however, has the blessed power of solving all ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... of no use to the wild flowers; and they stood all day pondering as to what they should do. When the sun went down, they closed their petals to go to sleep, but they dreamt all night of their seed and next morning they ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... intently, and when the story was finished he sat silent for a time, as if considering and pondering over what he had heard. Then, without warning, he ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... moment before continuing; but she felt that it would be altogether better for Isobel to be prepared for the revelations which the successful end of the ship's voyage would assuredly bring forth. So, pondering unspoken thoughts the while, she told the others exactly what Tollemache, Christobal and Courtenay had said, and even revealed to them that which Courtenay himself did ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... to do that to yourself if you go on like that," returned Corrie. "But, I say, Alice, cheer up" (here he rolled round on his other side); "I've been pondering a plan all this time to set us free, and now I'm going to try it. The only bother about it is that these rascally savages have dropped me beside a pool of half soft mud that I can't help sticking my head into ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... and you'll see," retorted Cynthia, flicking her horse, which started at all gaits down the road. Jethro stood in his tracks, staring, but this time he did not see her face above the hood of the gig. Presently he trudged on, head downward, pondering upon another problem than Napoleon's. Cynthia, at length, arrived in Brampton Street, in a humor that puzzled the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Bristles went on, not noticing the way Fred was pondering over the intelligence he had just communicated; "we just can't get busy collecting some grub for this poor family any too soon. Why, they're cleaned out, that's what! Never knew anybody could live from hand to mouth like this. Why couldn't they ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... of death had put his signature in person to this order, it would not have borne a more mortal aspect. It was a pang! yet the pang did not continue long. Inevitable things are not the hardest to be borne. At all events, there was no time for pondering on the subject. The carriage which had brought the order and the government huissier, was at the gate. Varnhorst gave me one grasp of his honest hand as I left him; the commandant wished me "good fortune." ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... know," confessed Tom, pondering. "But I'll tell you what you can do, Joe. Leave Hank to watch the motors. You go to the wireless apparatus and send out the longest spark you can get. Direct your call to any vessel bound for Rio Janerio, or Brazil in general. If you get an answer from such a craft, ask her latitude and longitude, ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... fortnight on the African Company: we, the British Senate, that temple of liberty, and bulwark of Protestant Christianity, have this fortnight been pondering methods to make more effectual that horrid traffic of selling negroes. It has appeared to us that six-and-forty thousand of these wretches are sold every year to our plantations alone!— It chills one's blood. I would not have to say that I voted in it for the continent of America!(113) ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... Kennedy had been pondering the situation for some time, scarcely uttering a word. Both detectives were now growing restless, waiting for him to say something. As for me, I knew that if anything were said or done it would be ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... The old lady often draws a crumpled paper from her pocket, and carefully adjusting her spectacles upon her nose, goes over the manuscript with the forefinger of her right hand, stopping at "For my sake," and pondering the words very seriously. She doesn't know how it would do to change her situation at her time of life, although she does not feel a bit older than when she was married to Mr. Kinalden! She wonders if he, poor dear man! would rise ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... insight which compassion gives; the European imagination, at rest with regard to its own safety, is for the first time perplexed by the fate of men of an alien race and faith, whose heroism it has nevertheless learnt to revere, as in after-times it was perplexed in pondering the fate of Greece and Rome, whose art and thought it vainly strove to imitate. Underlying this trouble in their hearts is the assumption to which Plato and certain of his sect have leanings, that within the Divine there ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... at that you are on your way to lecture, and a little late. You were conning over something as you walked, your lips working and muttering, your hand flung out this way and that as you got a speech into order in your mind; you were doubtless inventing one of your crooked questions, or pondering some tricky problem; never a vacant mind, even in the streets; always on the stretch and in earnest, bent ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... murmured words seemed audible and intelligible sixty feet away, and twice big Ben Tillson, the engineer of 705, had pricked up his ears as he circled about his giant steed, oiling the grimy joints, elbows, and bearings, and pondering in his heavy, methodical way over certain parting instructions that had come to him from the lips of the division superintendent. "A young feller learning firing" would board him at Chimney Switch, ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... this many times, but he had never yet succeeded in permanently getting the best of Tom. Pondering on some scheme of revenge the rich lad—for Mr. Foger, his ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton
... Miss Summerson," said Mr. Bucket, pondering on it, "that her ladyship sent her up to London with some word for you, and it's possible that her husband got the watch to let her go. It don't come out altogether so plain as to please me, but it's on the cards. Now, I don't take kindly to laying out the money of Sir ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... ponder whether it would be correct on that most sacred of vigils to steal away for half an hour, just to ask Lucy if she thought it necessary that he should see the sick woman at No. 10 Prickett's Lane before the morning. It was while he was pondering this matter in his mind that Mr Wentworth's heart jumped to his throat upon receipt, quite suddenly, without ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... far out," replied the captain, scratching his head and pondering over the matter, "for we'll only just shave past Cape Finisterre now keeping our course; and if we hadn't made so much westing when we got out of the Channel I don't know where ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... house-servant and the landlady, and was still confusedly pondering the broken sentences uttered by the dying man, when Mr. Sowerby hurriedly arrived. The attorney's first care was to assume the direction of affairs, and to place seals upon every article containing or likely to contain anything of ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... entrap her into a secret correspondence. She seemed to hear the tones of Arthur Fletcher's voice, as those of her husband still rang in her ear when he bade her remember that she was now removed from her father's control. Every now and then the tears would come to her eyes, and she would sit pondering, listless, and low in heart. Then she would suddenly rouse herself with a shake, and take up her book with a resolve that she would read steadily, would assure herself as she did so that her husband should still be her hero. The intelligence at any rate was ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... thought it was better for me to inform you before you went to the Admiral's pen." "Oh, very well; you may go; shut the door, and let the barge come for me at seven o'clock." On board I repaired, and delivered the message. I kept pondering whether my hardy, half-shaven captain's manner was favourable to the information I had given him or not. My messmates were anxious to know how I was received. "Not very graciously," was my reply. Next morning, to ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... eyes' deeps Flooded his soul and drowned him in despair, Despair and rage. "Behold now, ten years' wear Between us and our love! Now if I cast My spear and rove the snow-mound of thy breast, Were that a marvel?" Long she lookt and grave, Pondering his face and searching. "Not so brave My lord as that would prove him. Nay, and I know He would not do it." And the truth was so; And well he knew the reason: better she. Yet for a little in that vacancy Of silence and unshadowing light they stood, Those long-divided, speechless. ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... she lifted a great silver beaker, the largest on the board, and having filled it full of wine, once more came forward and held it before them as though pondering. Thereon the brethren, as though by a single movement, bent forward and each of them touched the beaker with his lips. Again a great laugh went up, and ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... once more he tried to make use of his fingernails. It turned out that the nails of the other hand were longer. Doctor Rolfe managed to gain half an inch before they slipped. They slipped again—and again and again. It was hopeless. Doctor Rolfe lay still, pondering. ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... the Secretary of War, informing him that General Lee had requested an interview or conference, to make an arrangement for terms of peace. The letter of General Lee was published in a letter to Davis and to the rebel Congress. General Grant's telegram was submitted to Mr. Lincoln, who, after pondering a few minutes, took up his pen and wrote with his own hand the following reply, which he submitted to the Secretary of State and Secretary of War. It was then dated, addressed, and signed, by the Secretary of War, and ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Ponder's End?" I said at last. "I've often seen those words on a bus, and a lot of sad-looking people on the top, pondering, I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 14, 1920 • Various
... Indian children who had shrunk from her overtures of affection. She went to her room and bathed her eyes, which were hot and painful, and then she went back to Anne in the sitting-room, who had opened the window to reduce the temperature, and was resting in an easy chair, and pondering what she could do to make the children love her, and to be a mother to them in the absence ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... and she leaned a little farther forward, pondering the words. Suddenly Dresser took her hand, and then locked her in his arms. Even in the roughness of his passion, he could not fail to see her white face. She struggled in his grasp without speaking, as if knowing that words would be useless. And Dresser, too embarrassed ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... the matter's true I must have suffered for my previous sin, Some former life of follies, what think you? Some other mischief I've been joining in; But what's the use of idle pondering On things so troublesome and as abstruse, It were prepost'rous even to begin, What was there that could possibly induce Pythagoras to turn his pen to such ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... it; at the same time he pointed silently to his informant, signifying that he was to be served at his expense. He was evidently deep in thought by that time, and for a moment or two he sat staring at the window and the blue sea beyond, abstracted and pondering. Suddenly he turned ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... Evans finds himself pondering the meaning of those long lines of dust, away to his left; and then, like a flash, it bursts upon him, that all this Military hubbub in his front, and far away to his right, is but a feint; that the real danger is somehow connected with that mysterious far-away rumble, ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... of involuntary soldiers, that is, of soldiers who are anxious to quit the ranks and return to peaceful occupations, but cannot do so, much of the drill to which they are subjected is adopted merely with a view to keep them from pondering too much upon the miseries of their present condition, and from indulging in those licentious habits to which a strong sense of these miseries, and the recollection of the enjoyments of peaceful life which they have sacrificed, are too apt to drive them. No portion of this is ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... "The ultimate, and very strong impression on the mind of a stranger, pondering on the morals of society in America, is that human nature is much the same every where." Surely Miss Martineau need not have crossed the Atlantic to make this discovery; however I quote it, as it will serve as a text to ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... drink and set it close before him, where he leaned pondering a pile of gold he had poured upon the table from one of the canvas bags. The steam mounting from the glass bedimmed his spectacles. He took them off to wipe them, and perceived that she was smiling. She bit her lip at ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... a beginning may be made by fixing the attention upon some external object, such as a sacred image or picture, or a part of a book of devotion. In the second stage, one passes from the outer object to an inner pondering upon its lessons. The third stage is the inspiration, the heightening of the spiritual will, which results from this pondering. The fourth stage is the realization of one's spiritual being, ...
— The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali • Charles Johnston
... tolerable notion of Baron Munchausen and of his particular merits; but Chateaubriant was a writer of whom he knew nothing. After pondering a moment, and feeling persuaded that a confession of ignorance might undo him; for the old man had got to be influenced by the atmosphere of the place; he ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... truly, but in order to see at all. And in doing so, she ran the risk of letting go what she might have done better to hold. She felt painfully different from these people among whom she found herself. Her very trick of pondering over things sent her spinning to hopeless distances. They seemed to ponder so wholesomely little. Their intelligence was devoted to matters of the moment; they were keen and well-finished and accomplished. Hadria used to look at them in astonishment. ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... Jim Otis, he slewed his sleigh about recklessly, and shook the whip over the little mare, and drove up the road. When he reached the turn which he knew led to the Hautville house he drew rein, and sat pondering in his sleigh for a few minutes. He was in doubt whether he should inform Eugene Hautville of his sister's whereabouts or not. Finally he spoke to the mare, and continued on his way ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Still pondering ruefully, I turned round at the bottom of the garden path, and behold, sitting on the party-wall between Mr. Trumpington's garden and mine, was the debateable cat. An impulse of murderous rage possessed me. I took an old golf-ball from my pocket and hurled it as hard as I could at the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 147, August 12, 1914 • Various
... gazed through the window, pondering. That she would be faithful to the children he well knew. That she would gladly die for him, he was equally certain. With Rosenblatt removed, the house would be rid of the cause of her fall and her shame. There was no one else in this strange land to whom he could trust his children. ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... for on the enchanted weeks that followed it would weary all but lovers to dwell, and lovers for the most part find their own matters sufficient food for pondering. Tom was busy with the rehearsals at the Coliseum, and I, being left alone, had little taste for the Materia Medica. On Sundays only did I see Claire; for this Mrs. Luttrell had stipulated, and my love, too, most mysteriously ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... a penitent note to Kitty, imploring her to overlook my strange conduct of the previous afternoon. My Divinity was still very wroth, and a personal apology was necessary. I explained, with a fluency born of night-long pondering over a falsehood, that I had been attacked with a sudden palpitation of the heart—the result of indigestion. This eminently practical solution had its effect; and Kitty and I rode out that afternoon with the shadow of ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... retain a taste for joy and sweetness and kindliness. Life has so many sharp crosses, so many inexplicable sorrows for us all, that I hold it good to snatch at every moment of gladness, and to keep my eyes on beautiful things whenever they can be seen. During the days when I was pondering the subject of tragic marriages, I read the letters of the great Lord Chatham. The mighty statesman was not distinguished as a letter-writer; like Themistocles, he might have boasted that, though he was inapt where small accomplishments were concerned, he converted a small state into ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... at once accompany her home, and there offer his perplexing explanations? Or should he acknowledge his interview of yesterday with Gerard, and then leave the rest to the natural consequences of that acknowledgment when Sybil met her father! Thus pondering, Egremont and Sybil, quitting the court of the Abbey, entered ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... longer," suggested Charles, after a moment's silence, in which he appeared to be deeply pondering her sentence. "I have taken you by surprise; you have not ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... the same, and underneath that elaborate legislation, which makes such wearisome and profitless reading for the most of us, in the Pentateuch, there lie, if we can only grasp them, great thoughts and lessons that we shall all be the better for pondering. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... reached his camp, met Baker Johnson, an old tried whig, who begged him for God's sake to give him something to eat, and he set before him some cold rice in a pot. While Johnson was eating, Witherspoon sat pondering over what he had heard for some time; but at last inquired, "What news, Johnson?" "Fine news," said he, "I saw a great number of continental troops, horse and foot, crossing at Long bluff." "Come and tell the general," said Witherspoon. "No," replied the ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... further on, in some scrubby sandstone gullies, as he was riding along looking for tracks, a spear whistled past, within six inches of his face. Pulling up, he saw seven natives, all standing quietly looking on at the effect of the missile: the fellow who threw it never threw another. Pursuing his way, pondering on the fatality that had brought about collisions on two Sundays running, he met the cattle, and found the party in some excitement; they too had had a shindy. The natives had attacked them in force, but no one was hurt, whilst some ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... cot, his elbows on his knees, his head dropped into his hands, pondering the mystery of this life before him—of all life, of death, of the Beyond; marvelling at the strange warp and woof of circumstance, his heart wrung for the anguish of that mother far away in the quarries of The Gore, his soul filled with thankfulness that she was ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... circumstances. But, as yet, I stroll about here, in all the holes and corners of the neighbourhood, in a perpetual state of forlorn surprise; and returning to my villa: the Villa Bagnerello (it sounds romantic, but Signor Bagnerello is a butcher hard by): have sufficient occupation in pondering over my new experiences, and comparing them, very much to my own amusement, with my expectations, until I ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... know of anyone who has ever died in childbirth? If you do, don't tell me, as I am beginning to be frightened. Not afraid of the agony, for I rather enjoy pondering over the sacrifice, but so fearful of leaving all of this barely tasted sweet behind me. It seems as though my impatience would consume me—I want so to know whether I may be spared for more and more ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... into the land of dreams, where I found myself walking in a pleasant way, pondering the theme which had taken such entire possession of my thoughts. As I moved along, I met the gifted one who had called my work dull and commonplace; that work was a simple picture of human life; drawn for the ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... that the missionary would walk about his blackened domain, pondering the uncertainty of all sublunary things, about which he had so often preached, his wife scrutinizing his disconsolate face the while, and he repeating, with an emphasis that showed he was saying it for his own benefit as much ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... applied his genius in this direction. After pondering over the subject, he proceeded to London in 1728, and exhibited his drawings to Dr. Halley, then Astronomer-Royal. The Doctor referred him to Mr. George Graham, the distinguished horologer, inventor of the dead-beat escapement and the mercurial pendulum. After examining the drawings and holding ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... the edge of the copse; green, and red, and gold flies: gnats, like smoke, around the tree-tops; midges so thick over the brook, as if you could haul a netful; tiny leaping creatures in the grass; bronze beetles across the path; blue dragonflies pondering on cool leaves of water-plantain. Blue jays flitting, a magpie drooping across from elm to elm; young rooks that have escaped the hostile shot blundering up into the branches; missel thrushes leading their fledglings, already strong on the wing, from field to field. ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... slain they might live. Christ comes, condemns the tyrant, and casts him out. So, he being condemned, we are acquitted; and he being slain there is no death for us. Let us try to elucidate a little further this great metaphor by just pondering the two points prominent in it—Sin tyrannising over human nature and resisting all attempts to overcome it, and Christ's condemnation and casting out of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... parted over a large nose, and the latter curved downwards towards a moustache which divided introspective, partially closed eyes from a mouth that was set half-open. Indeed, it was as though the man were pondering something of annoyance, so that presently he would make shift to deliver himself of a final and urgent injunction. The blue smoke of a meagre candle quivered meanwhile, over his head, though the wick diffused ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... one of the doctor's regular rounds. He had to call at Brook, where a servant was ill, and they went by the high-road to the manor. Harry Musgrave was not at home. He had gone out for a day's ranging, and was pensively pondering his way through the bosky recesses of the Forest, under the unbroken silence of the tall pines, to the seashore and the old haunts of the almost extinct race of smugglers. The first person they met after leaving the manor was little Christie with a pale radiant face, having just come on ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... the courteous official, X. departed, pondering on all he had heard, and bearing with him a memo, on which was written the various places of interest which he had been recommended to visit in the neighbourhood. On his return to the hotel the traveller passed what appeared ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... don't know," she said, slowly, as if pondering the matter for the first time,—"I don't know as I did more 'n I'd ought to, nor more'n I'd ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... doubtless, would have dissolved the impious charm. Ralph had so neglected these ordinances that his tongue refused to repeat the usual nostrums for protection against evil spirits. His creed was nigh forgotten, and his "salve" was not heard. Whilst he was pondering on this occurrence, there started through a crevice a single light, like a glow-worm's lantern. Then a tiny thing came forth, clad in white, like a miniature of the human form, and, peeping about cautiously, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... differently! I see no way out." It was then that a deeper voice still seemed to speak in me, the voice of something strong and quiet and even indolent, which seemed half-amused, half-vexed, by my perturbation. It said, "When you have done reasoning and pondering, I will decide." Then I thought that a sort of vague, half-spoken, ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... not suit the ape-man, since Numa now suffered an occasional missile with no more than a snarl, while he settled himself to partake of his delayed feast. Tarzan scratched his head, pondering some more effective method of offense, for he had determined to prevent Numa from profiting in any way through his attack upon the tribe. The man-mind reasoned against the future, while the shaggy apes thought only of their present hatred of this ancestral enemy. Tarzan guessed that should Numa ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... I sent a penitent note to Kitty, imploring her to overlook my strange conduct of the previous afternoon. My Divinity was still very wroth, and a personal apology was necessary. I explained, with a fluency born of nightlong pondering over a falsehood, that I had been attacked with a sudden palpitation of the heart—the result of indigestion. This eminently practical solution had its effect; and Kitty and I rode out that afternoon with the shadow of ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... Lord Broghill) and Cromwell, in which the former suggested to the latter that Charles II. should marry Frances Cromwell. Cromwell gave great attention to the reasons urged, "but walking two or three turns, and pondering with himself, he told Lord Broghill the king would never forgive him the death of his father. His lordship desired him to employ somebody to sound the king in this matter, to see how he would take it, and offered himself to mediate in it for him. But Cromwell would not consent, but again ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... that full long have fled, Heaving her white breast to the balmy air, Like guilty beauty, chasten'd, and more fair: Nyctanthes too, as sacred as the light She fears to perfume, perfuming the night: **And Clytia pondering between many a sun, While pettish tears adown her petals run: ***And that aspiring flower that sprang on Earth— And died, ere scarce exalted into birth, Bursting its odorous heart in spirit to wing Its way to Heaven, from garden ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
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