"Abstractedly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... snapping the thread of the thought until it grew intolerable. She was perhaps only a little less irritating than the man who became so unconscious in the habit of inattention that on one occasion his converser had scarcely finished when he began abstractedly: "Yes, very odd, very odd," and told the ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... half-holiday, and a baseball match of unusual interest was to come off on the school ground that afternoon; but, somehow, I didn't go. I hung about the house abstractedly. The Captain went up town, and Miss Abigail was busy in the kitchen making immortal gingerbread. I drifted into the sitting-room, and had our guest all to myself for I don't know how many hours. It was twilight, I recollect, when the ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... her gloves had been secured when the refolding of the letter came. Jeff deliberately, but abstractedly, returned it to its cover. His smile was scarcely a happy one when he finally ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... absent—sometimes he did not answer at all—at others, he answered incoherently to the questions of Verkhoffsky, by whom he rode, gazing abstractedly around him. The Colonel, thinking that, like an eager hunter, he was engrossed by the sport, left him, and rode forward. At last, Ammalat perceived him whom he was so impatiently expecting, his hemdjek, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... on alone. I came to my house, or what I thought resembled it, and there saw a figure lying on its face on the ground some ten or fifteen yards to the right of the doorway, and noted abstractedly that it was dressed in my clothes. The Vrouw Prinsloo, in her absurd night garments, was waddling towards the figure, and a little way off stood Hernan Pereira, apparently in the act of reloading a double-barrelled ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... coarse home-spun clothing, his eye defiant, but his countenance white with the anxieties of his situation. He was surrounded by a troop of sabres; the horses' hoofs made a great clatter upon the hard road, and Count Victor, walking abstractedly along the river-bank, came on them before he was aware of their proximity. As he stood to let them pass he was touched inexpressibly by the glance the convict gave him, so charged was it with question, hope, dread, and the appetite ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... wandering among it while his thoughts were elsewhere, and his face looked worn. Almost frightened by coming upon him so unexpectedly, I stood still for a moment and should have retired without speaking had he not, in again passing his hand abstractedly through his hair, seen me ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... truths contained in the infinite into distinct contemplation by the pure act of the sensuous imagination—that is, in the production of the forms of space and time abstracted from all corporeity, and likewise of the inherent forms of the understanding itself abstractedly from the consideration of particulars, as in the case of geometry, numeral mathematics, universal logic, and pure metaphysics. The discursive faculty then becomes what our Shakespeare, with happy ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... we all assented, gazing abstractedly towards the west at the black wall of the opposite barn, which totally obstructed all view of any kind, even if the fog had not made a sunrise an absolutely ridiculous suggestion. But we were all so weak and worn out that if ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... director recognized a personage; the proprietor recognized the man. It was of no consequence that the new arrival called himself Herr Rosen. He was assigned to a suite of rooms, and on returning to the bureau, the proprietor squinted his eyes abstractedly. He knew every woman of importance at that time residing on the Point. Certainly it could be none of these. Himmel! He struck his hands together. So that was it: the singer. He recalled the hints in certain newspaper paragraphs, the little ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... long fit of silent musing, during which she had bit her lips, and frowned, and gazed abstractedly at the wall, a gleam of hope lit up her face, soon brightening into a smile. She had hit upon a plan! She could learn the milliner's trade! She had always been handy with her needle, and liked nothing better than to arrange laces and ribbons ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... moved back and forth in front of the easel; drew away from or bent over to closely scrutinize the canvas; shifted the easel a hair breadth several times; sat down; stood erect; hummed and muttered to himself abstractedly; cleared his throat with an impressive "Ahem"; squinted through nearly closed eyes, with his head thrown back, or turned in every side angle his fat neck would permit: peered through his half-closed fist; peeped through funnels of paper; sighted over and under his open hand or a paper held to shut ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... professions. They were seen confessing themselves to each other, or receiving the confessions of their lay companions in misfortune, and encouraging them to undergo the evil hour, with as much calmness as if they had not been to share its bitterness. As protestants, we cannot abstractedly approve of the doctrines which render the established clergy of one country dependant upon the sovereign pontiff, the prince of an alien state. But these priests did not make the laws for which they suffered; they only obeyed them; and as men and ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... the saddle and glanced at the narrow-browed face of H. J. Owens, who was looking this way and that at the enfolding hills and scowling abstractedly. The Kid was only six, but he was fairly good at reading moods and glances, having lived ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... dwelling of his uncle Malek, and found there his aunt, engaged in combing the hair of her daughter Ibla, whose ringlets, black as the night, floated over her shoulders. Antar was struck with surprise, and Ibla, as soon as she knew that he had seen her, fled and left him with his eyes fixed abstractedly on her ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... shoulders on one end of the zerape, stretched himself at full length upon the ground and, as was his wont, fell asleep almost immediately. Captain Forest swallowed a last draught of liquor. Then leisurely rolling a cigarette he lit it, and with back against the cliff and gaze fixed abstractedly on the ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... the sumptuous long-skirted garments she was to wear and watched with the deepest interest the rather slow process of her attiring. He was particularly pleased with a wonderfully embroidered white cloak and lace cap, which latter article he abstractedly tied on his great fist and found much too small for it. His triumph, when she was given to his arms, he did not attempt to conceal, but carried her into the store with the manner of a large victor ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... dean waited in silence until Landers had passed hesitatingly through the door; then followed him out into the hall. A moment, and he returned, standing abstractedly by the lecture table. He picked up his scattered notes absently, shaking the ends even with a painstaking hand; then as carefully scattered them as before. He looked up at the silent, waiting class, and those who were near saw the tears sparkling in ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... Seven an' six." He stared abstractedly, pushed the silver over, and melted away into the darkness of ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... he cried laconically, and dismounted, taking several dogs from his hat as he did so, and one from his pocket; for he was devoted to animals, Bloodworthy goes on to say, and often spent days stroking their soft ears abstractedly. Then, seized by a sudden inspiration, he inquired of the landlady as to whose was the face he had seen. In a trice the story was told—the King waved his hand imperiously and took a pinch of snuff. "Send ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... question, what's to be done? He hasn't got any enemies—that sort of man never has, except himself. How can I get hold of the girl? I suppose some people would set a detective to watch Rainham, and so on; but that's not to be thought of, in this case." He stopped close to Cleopatra's Needle, and frowned abstractedly over the stone parapet, absently following the struggles of a boy who was laboriously working a great, empty lighter across the wide, smoke-coloured river at a narrow angle with the shore. An idea suggested ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... suggestions the jongleur made no response, but sat with his eye fixed abstractedly upon the ceiling, as one who calls words to his mind. Then, with a sudden sweep across the strings, he broke out into a song so gross and so foul that ere he had finished a verse the pure-minded lad sprang to his feet with the ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a messenger from downtown who handed him a letter. He opened it abstractedly and ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... dunaton einai, haneu aes tou holou phuseos]; but be this as it may, the ground work of the AEschylean 'mythus' is laid in the definition of idea and law, as correlatives that mutually interpret each the other;—an idea, with the adequate power of realizing itself being a law, and a law considered abstractedly from, or in the absence of, the power of manifesting itself in its appropriate product being an idea. Whether this be true philosophy, is not the question. The school of Aristotle would, of course, deny, the Platonic affirm it; for in this consists the ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... he stood with his hands behind him, gazing abstractedly through the open window, and now and then he heard the busy patter of hurrying feet in the room over head, while snatches of Easter anthems, and the swelling "Amen" of a "Gloria" rolled down the steps, assuring him that all doubt and suspicion had been ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... heat of Sim's presence died quickly away; the house was without a sound; General Jackson lay like an effigy in ravelled black and buff wool. Gordon assembled the scattered papers on the table into an orderly pile. He moved into the kitchen, abstractedly surveyed the familiar walls; he walked through the house to the sitting room, where he stood ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... gazing abstractedly out of a window, but the expression on his lean face indicated the keenest interest, and—and something else; apprehension, maybe. The chief stared straight into the young man's eyes for an instant, ...
— The Diamond Master • Jacques Futrelle
... Julian, watching the smoke from his pipe abstractedly, "that you will probably write tonight; and I think ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... his head from the open doorway where he was leaning, as if listening to something in the darkness, and answered abstractedly,— ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... mirth of the class burst out in sundry half-stifled noises, which roused the master from his reverie, and he again resumed the book, to continue the examination. As ill luck would have it, he once more repeated, "Avoir, avant," and then half abstractedly, "avu." "Ah, you young idiot!" cried he, in a discordant voice, "can't you manage avoir yet? Whatever is ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... a design which made Villiers start and look up at Austin; he was gazing abstractedly out of the window. Villiers turned page after page, absorbed, in spite of himself, in the frightful Walpurgis Night of evil, strange monstrous evil, that the dead artist had set forth in hard black and white. The figures of Fauns ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... he'd kept to his intention," muttered St. John abstractedly. He was thinking deeply, ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... and justice of God; because the same word of truth which says, 'Whosoever will, let him come, and take of the water of life freely,' also says, 'The soul that sinneth [or lives and dies in sin unpardoned] shall die.' Thus sin is the object of God's hatred, and not the man, abstractedly considered. May we therefore each of us have grace to look to Christ for full and complete salvation, who hath put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, whereby he has perfected for ever them that are ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Somers say at breakfast, as I went in, "We are to lose Miss Cassandra on Wednesday." I looked at Desmond, who was munching toast abstractedly. He made a motion for me to take the chair beside him, which I obeyed. Ben saw this movement, and an expression of pain passed over his face. At that instant I remembered that Desmond's being seen in the evening and in the morning was a rare occurrence. ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... do as you like, Hawke," replied Dennis abstractedly. "But, I say, Dan, I can't stick this any longer. I wonder if our chaps would hear us ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... there then straining his eyes abstractedly in the direction of the rock until it disappeared behind them in the gathering twilight. He had been inspirited for the whole voyage; and the first thing he should do when they arrived at Boston would ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... repelled. She had hoped for something very different from Neale. But she thought, in a momentary exasperation with him, she might have known she would not get it. He always took everything so abstractedly, so impersonally. ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... the world does not dare to smile. But I don't think so; I do not even think that there was in what he did a conscious and lofty confidence in himself, a particularly pronounced sense of power which leads men so often into impossible or equivocal situations. Looked at abstractedly (the way in which truth is often seen in its real shape) his life had been a life of solitude ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... arrival Clare, sitting abstractedly reading from some book, periodical, or piece of music just come by post, hardly noticed that she was present at table. She talked so little, and the other maids talked so much, that the babble did not strike him as possessing a new note, and he was ever in the habit of neglecting the particulars ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... admit, as you very truly represent them, but indifferently qualified for storming a citadel. After all, God knows whether this citadel is to be stormed by them, or by anybody else, by the means they use, or by any means. I know that as they are, abstractedly speaking, to blame, so there are those who cry out against them for it, not with a friendly complaint, as we do, but with the bitterness of enemies. But I know, too, that those who blame them for want of enterprise have shown ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... all this tentatively and as one asking a question. Grant did not reply. He sat pounding his leg with his claw, abstractedly. ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... was lost in thought and apparently did not hear the question. "I suppose you read of the arrest of Brown, the coachman?" he remarked, abstractedly, ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... soon immersed in the composition of a letter, which caused him many contractions of the brow, many lapses during which he abstractedly stared at vacancy, many fresh beginnings, and the whole of the two hours allowed him before ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... of wine in front of him and listened abstractedly to the conversation. Tidemand was still optimistic; that bit of rain in Russia had not depressed his hopes. The prices were not soaring as yet, but they surely would. Suddenly Irgens pricked up his ears: Tidemand was talking about their ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... and walked to the window where she stood abstractedly looking through the lattice which overhung a large yard, surrounded by the stables of the hostelry. Some yeomen were dressing their own or their masters' horses, whistling, singing and laughing. Suddenly she bent ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... interviewed the janitor. Under that functionary's guidance he examined the points of entrance for the different wires used for lighting and communication; looked over the private-bell installations, and ascended again to the corridor, abstractedly dusting his fingers. There he found a group of the building's tenants, among whom he ...
— The Sign at Six • Stewart Edward White
... there," she said, abstractedly; and, returning, she kissed her gentle companion, bade her good night, and ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... brows and lashes with a pencil, adjusted with somewhat nervous fingers the coils of her hair, the cross of brilliants which she wore at her throat, and the folds of her dress. Her friends became for the moment silent and abstractedly watched these last preparations. ...
— First Love (Little Blue Book #1195) - And Other Fascinating Stories of Spanish Life • Various
... have put you down as mad. When you are the lone brother of three sisters, it means that you must constantly be calling for, escorting, or dropping one of them somewhere. Most men of Jo's age were standing before their mirror of a Saturday night, whistling blithely and abstractedly while they discarded a blue polka-dot for a maroon tie, whipped off the maroon for a shot-silk, and at the last moment decided against the shot-silk in favor of a plain black-and-white, because she had once said she preferred ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... Henriette, gazing abstractedly out of the window in the manner of one suddenly seized ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... strange and peculiar situations. And there were many other knots tied along the trailing length of the string. It seemed as if some nervous and distraught prisoner in this room might have toyed abstractedly with a ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... said Toddie; and the boys proceeded to exchange duties, Budge taking the precaution to hold the banana himself, so that his brother should not abstractedly sample a second time, and Toddie doling out ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... Not Master Anthony, Jr., at all events. But some one afar off, surely. Abstractedly, Tom Slade gazed off toward that towering mountain whence this clumsy but unerring messenger had come. It looked very dark up there. Tom recalled how from those lofty crags the great eagle had swooped down and met his match before the hallowed ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... the big red hotel that stands high above the city of Quebec, and Thirlwell, sitting at one of the tables, abstractedly glanced about. The spacious room was filled with skilfully tempered light that glimmered on colored glasses and sparkled on silver; pillars and cornices were decorated with artistic taste. A murmur of careless talk rose from the ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... struggling with the far flushing east. Cass alighted, placed Miss Mortimer in the hands of the landlady, and returned to the vehicle. It was still musty, close, and frowzy, with half awakened passengers. There was a vacated seat on the top, which Cass climbed up to, and abstractedly threw himself beside a figure muffled in shawls and rugs. There was a slight movement among the multitudinous enwrappings, and then the figure turned to him and said dryly, "Good morning!" It ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... sure, Pollyanna," rejoined Mrs. Carew, abstractedly. On Mrs. Carew's face there was still no ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... coulee was left at peace, with scratching hens busy with the feeding of half-feathered chicks, and a rooster that crowed from the corral fence seven times without stopping to take breath. In the big corral a sorrel mare nosed her colt and nibbled abstractedly at the pile of hay in one corner, while the colt wabbled aimlessly up and sniffed curiously and then turned to inspect the rails that felt so queer and hard when he rubbed his nose against them. The sun was warm, and cloud-shadows drifted lazily across the coulee with the breeze that ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... sight. I have been with him some every day or night since he arrived. He suffers a great deal with the heat—says little or nothing—is flighty the last three days, at times—knows me always, however —calls me "Walter"—(sometimes calls the name over and over and over again, musingly, abstractedly, to himself.) His father lives at Breesport, Chemung county, N. Y., is a mechanic with large family—is a steady, religious man; his mother too is living. I have written to them, and shall write again to-day—Erastus has not receiv'd a ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... the ranger's last look completed Helen's understanding of the situation, and she listened abstractedly ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... side of the table sat a fine-looking old gentleman, who took the newspaper abstractedly which his ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... the hotel. They had come without luggage, and it had been an impulse of caution which had led her to wear the ring. Slowly she turned it round and round upon her finger, not recalling that it was Gaga's ring, not considering her use of it an added dishonour to Gaga, but looking at it abstractedly. The ring meant so much, and so little. Her marriage had meant so much and so little. A faint smile stole to her lips and ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... sick," she said, shortly, abstractedly, drowned in her wonder of the thing he told with his native reluctance when questioned on his own exploits. "Did you ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... closed his eyes, and threw his hands behind his head. At last Lemm returned, and brought him a scrap of paper, on which Liza had scrawled with pencil the following words: "We cannot see each other to-day; perhaps—to-morrow evening. Farewell." Lavretzky quietly and abstractedly thanked Lemm, and ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... great war requires." The prince came, and used our constitution for his purpose: he introduced into England the system of Dutch finance. The principle of that system was to mortgage industry in order to protect property: abstractedly, nothing can be conceived more unjust; its practice in England has been equally injurious. In Holland, with a small population engaged in the same pursuits, in fact a nation of bankers, the system was adapted to the circumstances ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... direction, beyond the wide seas, lay his refuge and ultimate hope came to him with so much force as to cause him to reel like one on whom a severe blow had been dealt. He stood for some time, seemingly bewildered, in the din and noise of the wharf, noting abstractedly the many bales of cotton, as truck after truck-load was rushed aboard an outward bound steamer. The bales seemed to fascinate him completely. A stevedore yelled at him to move out of the way and aroused him into action, but in that interval an idea ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... the book, while Dr. Leslie, puffing his cigar-smoke very fast, looked up through the cloud abstractedly at a new ornament which had been placed above the mantel shelf since we first knew the room. Old Captain Finch had solaced his weary and painful last years by making a beautiful little model of a ship, and had left ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... at last reached the street he did not look back, but wandered abstractedly through by-streets in the falling rain, scarcely realizing where he was, until he found himself drenched through, with his closed umbrella in his tremulous hand, standing at the half-submerged levee beside the overflowed river. Here again he realized how completely he had been absorbed and ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... common, excites no surprise; and the stream of population rushes on without stopping one instant to notice these somniferous indulgences. Or, if they are not disposed to sleep, they sit and look about them: abstractedly gazing upon the multitude around, or at the heavens above. Pure, idle, unproductive listlessness is the necessary cause of ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... lost her interest in her exhibits and their cage. She rather hurried Mark through the kitchen premises and, moving into the garden, replied rather abstractedly to his plans for ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... Bud crossing his hands on the horn of his saddle and gazing abstractedly at the leak, "what you need is solder," he ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... piazza making a little money-bag for her, with mother sitting rocking beside me, and complaining of every one in peace, when Dr. Denbigh drove up to the horse-block, flung his weight out of the buggy, and hurried up the steps. He shook hands with us hastily and abstractedly, and asked if he might speak to me inside ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... flounces, and the promotion of the skimped delaine, late in the afternoon, the twilight (falling, as Madeline sat at the side-window, gazing vacantly down upon the forlornness of the little yard, and Miss Wimple stood at the front window, gazing as abstractedly down upon the hard, pitiless coldness of the street),—the thoughts of both intent on the must of their parting on the morrow, and the how of Madeline's going,—suddenly Madeline left her safe seat, and came and leaned upon Miss Wimple's shoulder, looking over it ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... Everyone seemed absorbed in his own thoughts. Dreamy eyes gazed abstractedly in crystal goblets, as if vainly trying to trace in its crimson depths the outline of an imperial sceptre. At last ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... anxiety and silence; for Tom had never done the like before. Grace was first to expostulate, but was at once cut short by an oath from her brother, whose evident state of high excitement could not brook the semblance of reproof. Mary Acton's marketing glance was abstractedly fixed upon the actual corpus delicti; each fine plump bird, full-plumaged, young-spurred; yes, they were still warm, and would eat tender, so she mechanically began to pluck them; while, as for poor downcast Roger, he remembered, with ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... pause succeeded. The old man, with increased restlessness, changed his posture several times. Mrs Lupin and the young lady gazed in silence at the counterpane. Mr Pecksniff toyed abstractedly with his eye-glass, and kept his eyes shut, that he ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... the three wintry May evenings Lorand was standing alone at his window, and gazing abstractedly at the street through the ice-flower pattern of ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... magnificent Ts'ang Shan[AY] standing up as a beautiful background of perpendicular white, from whence range upon range of dark lines loom out in the hazy atmosphere. From the extreme summit of one snow-laden peak, whose white steeple seems truly a heavenward-directed finger, I gaze abstractedly all around upon nothing but dark masses of gently-waving hills, steep, weary ascents and descents, green and gold, and yellow and brown, and one's eyes rest upon a maze of thin white lines intertwining ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... abstractedly drew near, and looked over his wife's shoulder on the full-length portrait that stood before him; and as he did so a strange expression for a moment ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... for his indiscretion with his life. The thought gave him a pang he had never felt, not even when he followed his wife to the grave. Homeward he went, but slowly and almost without volition. He recognized no acquaintances that he met, but walked on abstractedly, fixing his eyes on vacancy with a look as mournful as his iron features could wear. In his ears still rang those thrilling cries. His hand, that had groped over that motionless heart, still felt a creeping chill; it would not warm. And constantly an accusing voice asked, "Why didn't ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... silent, gazing abstractedly at the two lovely feet of Miss Grace Plumer, with an air that implied how far his mind had wandered in their conversation from any merely personal considerations. Miss Grace Plumer had not made ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... my good fellow,' pursued Sir Joseph, looking abstractedly at Toby; 'your only business in life is with me. You needn't trouble yourself to think about anything. I will think for you; I know what is good for you; I am your perpetual parent. Such is the dispensation of an all-wise Providence! Now, the design of your ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... I have everything at stake—you, comparatively nothing. I will not accede to so absurd a proposition." There was a short pause, the widow resumed her embroidery with an air of apparent indifference. The baronet sat abstractedly gazing out of the window, evidently turning over something in his mind. As she had stated he had tried to wheedle her out of the papers, but she had hitherto, by great tact, adroitly managed to shift the conversation to some other subject, in a quiet and playful manner. ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... her and then at Keith. The young man was staring abstractedly at the window, striving to recall the vision that had appeared there, and he felt, rather than saw, his hostess start and change color when her eyes fell upon the ring he was wearing. He lifted his hand covertly, and turned the trinket around in the light, but he tried in vain to ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... sir," answered the Duke abstractedly, puzzling now with knitted brows over the coin that ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... preoccupied. Whiffs of indistinct conversation, and now and then laughter, came in from the inn parlor through the pelargoniums in the open window. Hoopdriver felt it must all be in the same strain,—at her expense and his. He answered her abstractedly. She was tired, she said, and presently went to her room. Mr. Hoopdriver, in his courtly way, opened the door for her and bowed her out. He stood listening and fearing some new offence as she went upstairs, and round the bend where the barometer hung beneath the stuffed ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... Platte, stop to gaze with admiration on the 'fantastic ruins' Nature has 'piled' among her mountain fastnesses, while from his bare and bleeding feet he draws the sharp spines of the hostile cacti. Truth from travellers is consequently for the most part relative. Abstractedly, with reference to any country, it must be derived from the combined accounts and different phases of truth afforded ...
— Handbook to the new Gold-fields • R. M. Ballantyne
... the still poorer opinion that they would have of me if ever they knew all. I did not care to pursue this train of thought. It was a subject upon which I was not prepared to examine myself; to change it, I thought of Bob's present peril, which I had almost forgotten as I lounged abstractedly in the empty hall. If anything were to happen to him, in the vulgar sense! What an irony, what poetic punishment for us survivors! And yet, even as I rehearsed the ghastly climax in my mind, I told myself that the mother would rather see him even ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... all his life, black-eyed, and with skin white as snow illumined by the dawning flush of the sun. She was laughing heartily, and her laugh enhanced her dazzling loveliness. Taken aback he gazed at her in confusion, abstractedly wiping the mud from his face, by which means it became still further smeared. Who could this beauty be? He sought to find out from the servants, who, in rich liveries, stood at the gate in a crowd surrounding a young guitar-player; but they only laughed when they saw his besmeared face and deigned ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... thinking," said Josephine, looking abstractedly at her mother, "that I would try to get John to take her to San Francisco this winter. The Careys are expected, you ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... very important part where the "fly," as an ocular witness, gives his substantial and straightforward evidence. I had a little narrow block between my fingers, and was glancing carefully among the unused pieces for its mate, repeating abstractedly all the while: ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... seemed to have something weighty on his mind. He kept pulling at his streaked, reddish-gray mustache when his fingers should have been wholly occupied with his food, and he stared abstractedly at the ground after he had finished his first cup of coffee and before he took his second. Once Bill Holmes caught him glaring with an intensity which circumstances in no wise justified—and it was Bill Holmes who first shifted his gaze in vague ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... with chagrin, his own and the Judge's futile attempts at tact. Mirabelle was tact-proof; you might as well try subtle diplomacy on a locomotive. He took another deep breath, and gazed abstractedly out over the roof-tops. He wished that Henry would write. Henry had his defects, but the house was not quite livable without him. Mr. Starkweather was swept by an emotion which took him wholly by surprise and almost overcame him; he sat up, and began to wonder where he could find some ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... kitchen stove, rocking to and fro, and gazing abstractedly before her. Her mood was a reminiscent one and I knew if I gave her time enough she would launch forth into one of the interesting narratives of which she possessed a goodly store. To have interrupted her train of thought ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... Silently and abstractedly, did that too sensitive youth follow his revered parents, and a train of smock-frocks and wheelbarrows, along the pier, until the bustle of the scene around, recalled him to himself. The sun was shining ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... it is in a strange room. Her head whirls, she gazes abstractedly about her and tries to shake off what seems to her to be a horrid dream, but she is brought suddenly to realize that it is no sleeping fancy, but a steam reality, as a low voice ...
— From the Ball-Room to Hell • T. A. Faulkner
... looked half-abstractedly at the upturned young faces, pushed his way through the little group, and taking up a parcel of papers and a surgical case which lay near, went straight to his carriage, which was heard immediately afterwards to ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... dinner is also marked by exhilarating experiences. With one coat-tail unwittingly tucked far up his back, so that it seems to be amputated, and his alpaca umbrella under his arm, he enters a grocery-store of the village, and abstractedly asks how strawberries are selling to-day? Upon being reminded that fresh fruit is very scarce in late December, he changes his purpose, and orders two bottles of Bourbon flavoring-extract sent to his address. ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various
... on abstractedly in corroboration of his former statement, "Colombia is absolutely stagnant, due to Jesuitical politics, the bane of all good Catholic countries. If she could shake off priestcraft she'd have a chance—provided she didn't ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... that it might annoy and disturb Ellen to have us return. John threw himself into a chair in front of the fire, and looked moodily into the coals, making no attempt at conversation. I took up a book. Very soon John rose, sauntered abstractedly about the room, took up Mrs. Long's work-basket, and examined every article in it, and at last sat down before her little writing-desk, which stood open. Presently I saw that he was writing. More than an hour passed. I pretended to read; but I watched ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... his professional gear, and was undistinguishable from the sombre mass of his fellow citizens. He was out on the open space near the great tent, looking abstractedly at a man blowing with distended cheeks into a lung-testing machine. Rounders stood before him with the respect due to a man who snatches meat away from ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... servants and cooks who were preparing the evening meal. In the parlor, however, was the most enchanting feature, for at a grand piano was poised the belle of the household, and beside the piano where she was playing stood her colored lover, devouring her with his eyes while he abstractedly turned the leaves of her music. Just to one side of the dwelling appeared a commodious barn and carriage house and workmen busily engaged in putting in order their reapers and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... Mr. Quest going to the right across the lawn to pick up a glove which had dropped upon the grass, while Edward Cossey slowly sauntered towards them. When he was about nine paces off he too halted and, stooping a little, looked abstractedly at a white Japanese chrysanthemum which was still in bloom. Mrs. Quest turned, as the Colonel thought, to put the gun back against the wall. He would have offered to take it from her but at the moment both his hands were occupied in extracting one of the "painters" from a snipe. ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... year he brought with him his wife, my mother. When she entered she was trembling so that I thought her to be suffering from some nervous disease. Then she asked for a seat and a glass of water. She said nothing; she looked around abstractedly at my work and only answered 'yes' and 'no,' at random, to all the questions which he asked her. When she had left I thought ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... be made happy by your company," said Florence abstractedly, examining her bouquet. "I am afraid it hasn't stem enough, Constance; never mind I'll fix it where is the end of this myrtle? I shall be very glad, of course, Fleda, my dear, but" picking her bouquet to pieces "I think it right to tell you, privately, ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... more handy way to carry a tool than you would think," he went on, gazing abstractedly into Schomberg's wide-open eyes. "Suppose some little difference comes up during a game. Well, you stoop to pick up a dropped card, and when you come up—there you are ready to strike, or with the thing up you sleeve ready to throw. Or you just dodge under the table ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... answered Coleman, abstractedly. He was thinking of what he was going to say. Peter Tounley vanished around the corner of a deck-house and Marjory and Coleman began to pace to and fro even as Marjory and Peter Tounley had done. ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... And a thousand pound bellows. (He wanders out abstractedly. DANIEL follows him to the door and shouts after him)—Goodbye, Andy. And may you have the best ...
— The Drone - A Play in Three Acts • Rutherford Mayne
... that hung in the middle of the room. The hard white light showed her somewhat haggard-looking as she reached up to it. But Albert watched her, smiling abstractedly. It seemed as if his words came off him without affecting him at all. He did not think about what he was feeling, and he did not feel what he was thinking about. And therefore she hardly heard what he said. Yet ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... this subject (or on any other) on the pure ground of principle, antiquity and precedent cease to be authority, and hoary-headed error loses its effect. The reasonableness and propriety of things must be examined abstractedly from custom and usage; and, in this point of view, the right which grows into practice to-day is as much a right, and as old in principle and theory, as if it had the customary sanction of a thousand ages. Principles have no connection with time, ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... irrelevantly during a brief pause and relapsed into silence again. She knew that was good for at least five minutes of straight monologue, with her mother in that talking mood. She finished her supper while Warren listened abstractedly to a complete biography of the Meilkes and learned all about ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... replied abstractedly, going into his cool study. He flung himself into an armchair before the writing-table, and began to read the letters. Two were tossed aside carelessly, but on opening the third he sat up with a quick exclamation. Here at last ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... it the girl's mind wandered on and on. At last, abrupt as before, abstractedly as before, came a new thought, ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... he replied abstractedly. "Remarkable thing, too. I haven't a doubt I would have broken my neck, but I landed on—you'll never guess what! I landed head first on the very pillow which was under inspection at the time of the wreck. You remember, don't you? Where ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... He was elderly, with the broad high forehead, dignity of poise, and sharpness of glance which bespeaks the successful scientist. His face, to-night, was chalky and the firm, full mouth twitched with nervousness. He greeted Shirley abstractedly. The criminologist's manner ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... He climbed abstractedly to his feet. Tydomin was talking to her dead husband. She was peering into the hideous face of ivory, and fondling his violet hair. When she perceived Maskull, she hastily kissed the withered lips, and got up from her knees. Lifting the corpse with all three arms, she staggered with it to the ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... Sydney to do but to respond in the same gracious strain; but he was certainly more reserved than usual in his speech, and behaved with an almost exaggerated amount of respect and formality. After the first two or three sentences he noticed that her eyes began to look abstractedly away from him, and that she answered one of his remarks at random. And while he was wondering, with some irritation, what this change might mean, she drew back into a bow window, and motioned to him almost imperceptibly ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... talk, examining it with apparent deep interest. Just now it happened to be the morning's paper that Victorine had left on the table. For five minutes Condy had been picking it up and laying it down, frowning abstractedly at it during the pauses in the conversation. Suddenly he became aware of what it was, and instantly read aloud the first item that caught ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... knowledge in despatching such simple business as fell to his hands in this Court. To-day Dr. Chalkfield, the Mayor for the year, being absent, the corn-merchant took the big chair, his eyes still abstractedly stretching out of the window to the ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... for special sale abroad, which are vainly offered at prime or any cost. These and other specialties escape, and not unaccountably, the view and the calculation of the speculative economist, who is so often astounded to find how a principle, or a theory, of unquestionable truth abstractedly, and apparently of general application, comes practically to be controlled by circumstances beyond his appreciation, or even to be negatived altogether. An example or two in illustration, may render the question more clearly to the economical ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... and looked abstractedly out of the window. Her features settled in thought. Their expression gradually deepened from their usual tone of mild, resigned sorrow to ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... wondered abstractedly what was to be done with the tense, excitable child at his side? A voice from the wings announced: "Mouse and Harebell, the Lilliputian ponies, with Infant Jockies, the smallest schooled racers in existence." And the ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer |
