"Dignify" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... saw was something so extraordinary that no really sane man could dignify it with the credit of having actually happened. I was standing, the last evening I was with you, half- hidden in the hedgegrowth by the orchard gate, watching the dying glow of the sunset. Suddenly I became aware of a naked boy, a bather from some neighbouring ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... preyed upon human flesh, the reader, who has once gratified his appetite with calumny, makes, ever after, the most agreeable feast upon murdered reputation. Such readers generally admire some half-witted thing, who wants to be thought a bold man, having lost the character of a wise one. Him they dignify with the name of poet; his tawdry lampoons are called satires, his turbulence is said to be force, and his ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... everybody; take it wherever you can find it; have no scruples about the means of taking it; use dynamite, the dagger, or the torch to take it; kill innocent people to take it; but, at all events, take it.' This is the doctrine which they call anarchy, and this policy they dignify with the name of ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... when the fitful gleams of a spring day used to show me my own shadow as that of a small boy on a small pony, riding by the side of a larger cob-mounted shadow over the breezy uplands which we used to dignify with the name of hills, or along by-roads with broad grassy borders and hedgerows reckless of utility, on our way to outlying hamlets, whose groups of inhabitants were as distinctive to my imagination as if they had belonged to different regions ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... this fact, among other conclusions, the importance of an acquisition of such habits of manliness of thought, as will enable us to decide on the merits and demerits of what is done among ourselves, and of shaking off that dependence on others which it is too much the custom of some among us to dignify with the pretending title of deference to knowledge and taste, but which, in truth, possesses some such share of true modesty and diffidence, as the footman is apt to exhibit when exulting in the ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... 1644[416], "Duncan the Swedish Agent at this Court gives the Ambassador much uneasiness." Grotius's patience being therefore worn out, he wrote to Sweden, desiring the Queen to recall him: his request was granted with great readiness. As she did not dignify to him where he must go[417], he wrote to Baron Oxenstiern, the Swedish Plenipotentiary to the peace of Munster and Osnabrug, and son of the High Chancellor, desiring him to inform him of the Queen's intentions, if he knew them; or to advise him whither he ought to go, to Osnabrug or elsewhere; ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... a day! So fought, so followed and so fairly won Came not till now to dignify the times. ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... society exist, should you arrive at manhood the probability is that you will marry. If then you should ever think of marriage, think of it as a duty; and not merely as the means of self gratification, or the indulgence of some childish and irrational passion, which irrational people dignify with the name of love. Let the affection you conceive for woman be founded on the qualities ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... supporters of the same theory: the fact being meanwhile that in all which is peculiar to Mr. Wordsworth's theory, Mr. Southey dissents perhaps as widely and as determinately as Mr. Coleridge; dissents, that is to say, not as the numerous blockheads among the male blue-stockings who dignify their ignorance with the name of dissent—but as one man of illustrious powers dissents from what he deems after long examination the errors of another; as Leibnitz on some occasions dissented from Plato, or as the great modern philosopher of Germany occasionally ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... repeated to Chrysippus, he exclaimed impatiently, "Curse on the folly which philosophers dignify with ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... life. The illustrious surname of Caesar he had assumed, as the adopted son of the dictator: but he had too much good sense, either to hope to be confounded, or to wish to be compared with that extraordinary man. It was proposed in the senate to dignify their minister with a new appellation; and after a serious discussion, that of Augustus was chosen, among several others, as being the most expressive of the character of peace and sanctity, which he uniformly affected. [25] Augustus was ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... "Why you should dignify an ugly jealousy by fine words I don't know. For some women—women like our old friend—gratitude is hard. That is the moral of ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... experiments, and far more adventurous in his conclusions. With organic infusions he obtained the results of his celebrated predecessor, but he did much more—the atoms and molecules of inorganic liquids passing under his manipulation into those more 'complex chemical compounds,' which we dignify by calling them 'living organisms.' [Footnote: 'It is further held that bacteria or allied organisms are prone to be engendered as correlative products, coming into existence in the several fermentations, just as independently as other ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... her summons brought him at once within the ban of that judgment to which she had called him. It would be well if one could believe the story; there would seem a dramatic justice—a tragic retribution—about it. Its very terror would dignify the story of a life that, on the whole, was commonplace and vulgar. But, for ourselves, we confess that we cannot believe in the mysterious letter, the fatal summons, the sudden fulfilment. There are too many stories of the kind floating about history to allow us to attach any ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... fifty, her cap having a prodigious number of artificial flowers in it, sat reading a profitable volume, entitled "Groans from the Bottomless Pit to Awaken Sleeping Sinners," by (as he was pleased to dignify himself) the Rev. DISMAL HORROR—a very rousing young dissenting preacher lately come into that neighborhood, and who had almost frightened into fits half the women and children, and one or two old men, of his congregation; giving out, among several similarly ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... "your father came one day to talk about your portrait, and I showed him the place which I dignify with the name of terrace. It is but a small square of zinc, on which a few sickly plants are withering. It was not worthy to be shown to ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... the work of skilled fingers serve to dignify the art of which it is capable, and to sing a varied song in the ears of the modern embroiderer, who follows her own will in spite of time-hallowed examples. The women of today, 1920, have been called to work that is widely different from that ...
— The Development of Embroidery in America • Candace Wheeler
... commissioners, the king being arrived in parliament, they began to dignify several of the Scots nobility with offices of state, and because a lord-treasurer was a-wanting it was moved that none did deserve that office so well as the earl of Loudon, who had done so much for his country. But the king, judging more wisely in ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... to this play while yet it is mine, will be sufficiently made up to it when it is once become your lordship's; and it is my security, that I cannot have overrated it more by my dedication than your lordship will dignify it ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... change my clothes. Then we 'll be ready to start. I 'm not even going to dignify this letter by replying to it. And for one principal reason—" he added—"that I think the Rodaines have something ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... the other a development of the psychological conscience, are unfavourable to any relation between the sexes, save those which originate in pure animalism, or in reasoning less or more generous. Never having experienced any feeling which he could dignify with the name of love, Godwin had no criterion in himself whereby to test the emotions now besetting him. In a man of his age this was an unusual state of things, for when the ardour which will bear analysis has at length ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... feet of earth is all he has, who formerly owned all this land, and who was indeed its ornament. [314] It is a pity he lived so short a while. A woman cannot bear a shield, nor does she know how to fight with lance. It would exalt and dignify her again if she should marry some worthy lord. Never was there greater need than now; do all of you recommend that she take a spouse, before the custom shall lapse which has been observed in this town for more than the past sixty years." At this, ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... might patiently acquiesce in the justice of an ineffectual or salutary law. If the ecclesiastics were checked in the pursuit of personal emolument, they would exert a more laudable industry to increase the wealth of the church; and dignify their covetousness with the specious names of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... tells me, pretends to be more in love with me than before; and to be rather delighted than discouraged with the conversation that passed between us. He ran on, she says, in raptures, about the grace wherewith I should dignify his board; and the like sort of stuff, either of his saying, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... down a short corridor and turned into a small but elegantly furnished room single glance round which was sufficient to assure me that I was in the favoured abode of beauty. A table littered with a variety of those flimsy trifles which ladies are wont to dignify with the name of "work" occupied the centre of the room, a harp stood in one corner and a guitar in another, an easel supporting an unfinished sketch in water-colours stood by one of the two windows which lighted ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... Certain railways might object; there were influences infinitely larger, however, that would applaud. Besides, the resolution had a big look and sounded like statesmanship. It could not do otherwise than dignify Senator Hanway in public estimation. Senator Hanway gave Richard for the Daily Tory an interview of depth and power in which he urged the international value of such a waterway America and Canada should dig and own it together; it would be a ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... "Yoritomo, convinced by observation and experience that the beautiful and the splendid appeal most to human nature, made it his aim to inculcate frugality, to promote military exercises, to encourage loyalty, and to dignify simplicity. Moral education he set before physical. The precepts of bushido he engraved on the heart of the nation and gave to them the honour of a precious heirloom. The Hojo, by exalting bushido, followed the invaluable teaching of ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... the untainted and unwearying joy of heaven; the Beethoven I do not think I understood, but there was a grave minor movement, with pizzicato passages for the violoncello, which seemed to consecrate and dignify the ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... absolute equality of man and woman that has ever been made, and it throws a new halo of consecration and sanctity around the institution of marriage. It has not yet been written in our ecclesiastical and civil codes that every woman shall retain and dignify her own name through life, but civilization is preparing now to issue this edict. The coming woman will not resign her name at the marriage altar, and it will be told in future years of these two great souls who ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... his favourite pursuits; and this consciousness produced one of the most diverting of his ten thousand affectations. His busy idleness, his indifference to matters which the world generally regards as important, his passion for trifles, he thought fit to dignify with the name of philosophy. He spoke of himself as of a man whose equanimity was proof to ambitious hopes and fears, who had learned to rate power, wealth, and fame at their true value, and whom the conflict of parties, the rise and fall of statesmen, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... such a passage as this:—'Your example sir, has recommended poetry with the greatest grace to the example of those who are engag'd in the most active scenes of life; and this, though confessedly the least considerable of those qualities that dignify your character, must be particularly pleasing to one whose only hope of being introduced to your regard is thro' the recommendation of an art in which you are a ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... like a cottage. The roadside was no longer open, but had the low stone walls so familiar to Scottish eyes. As they drew near Elsie could see that the tiny tenement was only some crofter's cottage, and that the walls enclosed his bit of land, not large enough to dignify with the name of farm. Then it suddenly dawned upon her that their friend of the cart was most likely one of these crofters, whose poverty and hardships she had often heard her mother and ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... wantonness— How great the slaughters in their train! and lo, Debaucheries and every breed of sloth! Therefore that man who subjugated these, And from the mind expelled, by words indeed, Not arms, O shall it not be seemly him To dignify by ranking with the gods?— And all the more since he was wont to give, Concerning the immortal gods themselves, Many pronouncements with a tongue divine, And to unfold by his pronouncements all The ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... notions and ungrounded prejudices; for I will endeavor to convince you, before I close these lectures, that this is not only a pleasing study, but one of real and substantial utility; a study that directly tends to adorn and dignify human nature, and meliorate the condition of man. Grammar is a leading branch of that learning which alone is capable of unfolding and maturing the mental powers, and of elevating man to his proper rank in the scale of intellectual existence;—of ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... prescribed; and since they know little about the ground or meaning of what they do, they feel content and safe if at least they have done it properly. Sacrifices are often performed in this spirit; and when a beautiful order and religious calm have come to dignify the performance, the mind, having meantime very little to occupy it, may embroider on the given theme. It is then that fable, and new religious sentiments suggested by fable, appear ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... Reuben. From Sarah, comforting herself behind her widow's weeds with the doctrine of original sin, to Archie, eager to give his sweetheart a drive, one and all had been moved by a genuine impulse to dignify as far as lay in their power the ceremonial of decay. Even Abner, the silent, had remarked that he'd "never heard a word said against Reuben Merryweather in his life." And now at the end of that life the neighbours had gathered amid the ridges of green graves in the churchyard to bear witness ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... breast that sentiment is the same; and that a love for our native country is not the result of her being the seat of arts and arms; the residence of worth, beauty, truth, justice; of all the virtues that adorn and dignify human nature; and of all the pleasures and enjoyments that render life valuable; but that it can be excited even in a land where wretchedness, want, and ignorance have laid their iron hands on the inhabitants, and marked with misery all their days ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... "resolution and independence" which dignify the lowly, and strengthen the unhappy, when no visible eye befriends them, been among the rich endowments of Chatterton's wonderful mind—had he possessed and cherished the courage that bears up against obloquy and neglect—had ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... those who have gone before, and devising new errors and absurdities, to be detected by those who are to come after us. Theories are the mighty soap-bubbles with which the grown-up children of science amuse themselves while the honest vulgar stand gazing in stupid admiration, and dignify these learned vagaries with the name of wisdom! Surely Socrates was right in his opinion, that philosophers are but a soberer sort of madmen, busying themselves in things totally incomprehensible, or which, ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... sermon that would send him to sleep had never been written, at all events by his favourite theologian, whose sermons he read every Sunday afternoon, and annotated with that same loving appreciation and careful pencil with which a scholar annotates some classic; so true is it that it is we who dignify our occupations, ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... little indulgence to others, and a great deal of distrust of ourselves; which are not qualities of a mean spirit, as some may possibly think them, but virtues of a great and noble kind, and such as dignify our nature as much as they contribute to our repose and fortune; for nothing can be so unworthy of a well-composed soul as to pass away life in bickerings and litigations—in snarling and scuffling with every one about us. We must be at peace with our species, ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... during the succeeding two days he pieced out the situation. It was not a plot exactly, unless you could dignify Mrs. Philo Allen's confident plans by such a name. But, starting with what basis Heaven only knew, she had reached the conclusion that when the author of The Insurgent had described Sunday Weeks he could have had in mind but one person, ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... little, I can manage here On brocoli and mutton round the year, 'Tis true no turbots dignify my boards, But gudgeons, flounders, ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... all know that jealousy and envy and hatred are wrong, even if we endeavor to dignify them with finer names, and all of us who have any moral purpose do make our stand ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... and glare, and seek some quiet haunt where we may indulge our reveries and build our air castles undisturbed. In such a mood I was loitering about the old gray cloisters of Westminster Abbey, enjoying that luxury of wandering thought which one is apt to dignify with the name of reflection, when suddenly an irruption of madcap boys from Westminster school, playing at football, broke in upon the monastic stillness of the place, making the vaulted passages and mouldering tombs echo with their merriment. I sought to take refuge from their noise by penetrating ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... a body of ignorant, superstitious, self-seeking and thoroughly dishonest men. One may, without prejudice, reasonably defend the Catholic clergy. They are men who, at worst, pursue an intelligible ideal and dignify it with a real sacrifice. But in the presence of the Methodist clergy it is difficult to avoid giving way to the weakness of indignation. What one observes is a horde of uneducated and inflammatory dunderheads, eager for power, intolerant of opposition and full of ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... true sense is supposed to ennoble and dignify a man; and love has shed refinements on innumerable Cymons. But Mr Pecksniff—perhaps because to one of his exalted nature these were mere grossnesses—certainly did not appear to any unusual advantage, now that he was left alone. On the contrary, he seemed to be shrunk and ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... if our neighbour has, we must have too, or we shall be mortified, envious. Nay, so strong is this temper of rivalry, of allowing no superiors, grown in us, that we have made now-a-days a god of what used to be considered the basest of all vices—the vice of envy— and dignify it with the names of equality and independence. Men in this temper of mind cannot be at peace. They are not ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... a little remarkable, that one, whose business is that of a handicraft, should dignify his trade with such a sounding name as profession, We of the learned science of the law, and who enjoy the particular smiles of the learned universities, can say ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... Ghent, no doubt a common priest, that the lieutenant undertook to dignify, slipped directly ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... little shrub! We might just as well dignify mustard and cress with the title of trees. To whom does this ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... should dignify by the name of ancestor-worship the older Roman festival of the Lemuria, which was held on the 9th, 11th and 13th of May. For the lemures were, like our unlaid ghosts, unburied, mischievous or inimical spirits, and these three days were nefasti or unlucky, because their malign influence ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... nearest Jesuit priest to mediate, and he luckily, or unluckily, proved to be that Father Thadeus Ennis, who played so prominent a part in the futile rising which the enemies of the Jesuits have chosen to dignify with the high-sounding title of ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... itself will seldom be feelingly alive to the pains and pleasures, the wants and wishes, of its fellow beings. It will seldom be overflowing with that warmth of brotherly love, those kind and amiable affections, which dignify the human character even more than the possession of the highest talents. Talents, indeed, though undoubtedly a very prominent and fine feature of mind, can by no means be considered as constituting ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... of mountains. Yet, as far as respects the formation of such receptacles, the general observation holds good: neither Derwent nor Lowes-water derive any supplies from the streams of those mountains that dignify ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... one night on the way, we abandoned our steamer that evening, and set off at an early hour the next morning. We made camp at the end of the day's march within ten miles of Buford, and arrived at the post without having had any incident of moment, unless we may dignify as one a battle with three grizzly bears, discovered by our friendly Indians the morning of our second day's journey. While eating our breakfast —a rather slim one, by the way—spread on a piece of canvas, the Indians, whose bivouac was some distance off, began shouting excitedly, "Bear! bear!" ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... number of particulars as to the burial customs of various nations, we find mention made of an odd way in which the natives of Thibet dignify their great people. They do not desecrate such by giving them to the earth, but retain a number of sacred dogs to devour them. Not less strange was the fancy of that Englishwoman, a century or two back, who had her husband ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... conclusion of his great work The Golden Bough, (1) bids farewell to his readers with the following words: "The laws of Nature are merely hypotheses devised to explain that ever-shifting phantasmagoria of thought which we dignify with the high-sounding names of the World and the Universe. In the last analysis magic, religion and science are nothing but theories (of thought); and as Science has supplanted its predecessors so it may hereafter itself be superseded by some more perfect hypothesis, perhaps ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... details, suffice it to say that among the things purchased by Harold, and packed up in portable form, were a number of bales of common unbleached cotton, which is esteemed above everything by the natives of Africa as an article of dress—if we may dignify by the name of dress the little piece, about the size of a moderate petticoat, which is the only clothing of some, or the small scrap round the loins which is the sole covering of other, natives of the interior! There were also several coils of thick brass wire, ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... should be mixed not only with physics but with ethics, that is mixed mathematics. The fact which interests us most is the life of the naturalist. The purest science is still biographical. Nothing will dignify and elevate science while it is sundered so wholly from the moral life of its devotee, and he professes another religion than it teaches, and worships at a foreign shrine. Anciently the faith of a philosopher was identical with ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... sign however is often added to names of things which we frequently hear personified, or which we wish to dignify, and to names of periods of time, and to words denoting value; as, the earth's surface, fortune's smile, eternity's stillness, a year's interest, a day's work, a dollar's worth, two ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... hardships of winter are pressing upon the poor: "Come up to Nannau, show me that you are willing to work, and I will give you your wages." It is for benevolence like this, well and usefully exercised, that Sir Robert Vaughan is especially remarkable, as well also for all those qualities which adorn and dignify the British country gentleman. Always careful of the welfare, habits, and comforts of the poor around him; patronizing the industry, ingenuity, and good conduct of his more humble countrymen, and ministering to the wants of the sick and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 271, Saturday, September 1, 1827. • Various
... and below, the result being that the entire structure formed a good, substantially- built raft, having in its centre portion a platform or deck measuring twelve feet fore and aft, and eighteen feet athwartships. The craft—if one may dignify the structure with such a name—was rigged with one mast, situated exactly in the centre, and well supported by shrouds on each side, and she was provided with a lateen or three-cornered sail bent to a very long yard composed of a ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... eclectic character of the Brahmo Somaj which has robbed it of much of its power. It may seem, at first, a very fine thing to collect, classify, and codify the best from many religions and dignify them as a religion. But that can never become a unified message of life to any people. It may be ethically immaculate, but it has no vital power. The distinctive, life-giving, and inspiring element of every faith has been eliminated, and only ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... her, Those little glitterers of the London night; But none of these possessed a sting to wound her— She was a pitch beyond a coxcomb's flight. Perhaps she wished an aspirant profounder; But whatsoe'er she wished, she acted right; And whether Coldness, Pride, or Virtue dignify A Woman—so she's good—what ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... gentleman, the philanthropist addressed the English Commons. Yes, and the nobility of nature also spoke, one who could rise above the reputed prejudices of his order, and do justice to a kindred race of simple republicans, though they may know neither diadems nor coronets. Such examples exalt and dignify the character of man. They teach us republicans a useful lesson—that those who differ from us as to some of the forms of government, may most sincerely support that system which in their judgment will best promote the welfare and happiness of the people. That indeed is the only ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... torsion of wires or threads is made use of in measuring forces, I have arranged what I can hardly dignify by the name of an experiment. It is simply a straw hung horizontally by a piece of wire. Resting on the straw is a fragment of sheet iron weighing ten grains. A magnet so weak that it cannot lift the iron yet is ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... kindred, on high, For six thousand years whom cou'd ye descry; Whom, like him, have seen of meer mortal birth; Tho Alfred and Edward once dignify'd earth? Blush, blush, scepter'd pirates, who trail your faint fire: Ye meteors, that transiently dazzling expire! Whose lust of vain pow'r stains the page of your story: What glow worms ye look, and how lost in his glory? Blush, butchers, ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... us is to bring our daily task into the temple of contemplation and ply it there, to act as in the presence of God, to interfuse one's little part with religion. So only can we inform the detail of life, all that is passing, temporary, and insignificant, with beauty and nobility. So may we dignify and consecrate the meanest of occupations. So may we feel that we are paying our tribute to the universal work and the eternal will. So are we reconciled with life and delivered from the fear of death. So are we ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... accomplish or distinguish themselves, are very apt to detract from others; as ignorant men are very subject to decry those beauties in a celebrated work which they have not eyes to discover. Many of our sons of Momus, who dignify themselves by the name of critics, are the genuine descendants of these two illustrious ancestors. They are often led into these numerous absurdities in which they daily instruct the people, by not considering that, first, there is sometimes a greater judgment shown in ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... "response," are really little dramas when presented in their proper settings. "Caught By The Witch" would not be ineffective if, on a dark night, it were acted in the vicinity of a graveyard! And one ballad—if I may be permitted to dignify it by that name—called "Promises of Freedom" is characterized by an unadorned narrative style and a dramatic ending which are associated with the best English folk-ballads. The singer tells simply and, ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... the Roman commons may be able to raise their heads. Wherefore stand by me, prevent judicial proceedings from going on regarding money. I profess myself the patron of the commons—a title with which my solicitude and zeal invests me. If you will dignify your leader by any more distinguishing title of honour or command, ye will render him still more powerful to obtain what ye desire." From this his first attempt is said to have arisen with respect to the obtaining of regal power; but no ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... But none of these possess'd a sting to wound her— She was a pitch beyond a coxcomb's flight. Perhaps she wish'd an aspirant profounder; But whatsoe'er she wish'd, she acted right; And whether coldness, pride, or virtue dignify A woman, so she 's good, what ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... it before the world. He was at once troubled to see Hammer mixed up in the case, for he detested Hammer as a plebeian smelling of grease, who had shouldered his unwelcome person into a company of his betters, which he could neither dignify nor grace. ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... marvellous jungle growth is used for almost every conceivable purpose by natives of the far interior. The fat new rice is sweet to eat. It differs as much from the parched and arid stuff you know in Europe, as does the creamy butter in a cool Devonshire dairy from the liquid yellow train oil which we dignify by that name in the sweltering tropics, and the cooked grain is eaten ravenously, and in incredible quantities by the hungry, squalid creatures in a Sakai camp. These poor wretches know that, in a day or two, the ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... and the martial mien, Might dignify Minerva's awful charms; But more resistless far the Idalian queen— Smiles, graces, gentleness, ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... is not, I should think, one of the community; he has, apparently, the manners of the well bred and accomplished gentleman." "And for that very reason, Sir, is the better qualified to 29 carry on his profession with impunity; he whom you dignify with the appellation of a well bred and accomplished gentleman, is all that you have expressed of him, with the exception of one word, that is, substitute for gentleman, swindler, and the character is justly delineated. ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... "I send you the grand cross of St. Stephen; but as a mark of distinction you must wear it in brilliants. You have done so much to dignify it, that I seize with eagerness the opportunity which presents itself to offer you a tribute of that gratitude which I feel for your services, and shall continue to feel until the day of my death. MARIA THERESA." [Footnote: Wraxall, vol. ii., ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... he has a voice, I have got the ghost of it! When I pitch it low, you may say how weak it is, When I pitch it high, heavens! what a squeak it is! But I never mind; for what does it signify? See my graceful hands, they're the things that dignify; All the rest is froth, and egotism's dizziness— Have I not played with Phelps? (To Wenman) I'll teach you ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... learn, from the healthy tone that breathes throughout your epistle, that you are as happy as every one who knows you wishes you to be, and as prosperous as you deserve. Knowing, also, as I do, your feeling for art and all that tends to raise and dignify man, I most sincerely congratulate you on the prospect of your being able to retire, in the full vigour of manhood, to follow out that sublime pursuit, in comparison with which the painter's art is but a faint glimmering. 'The Landscape of other worlds' you alone have sketched for ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... Instead of destroying his magazine of provisions, according to the usual practice of war, he ordered the whole to be either sold at a low price, or distributed among the poor of the city, who had been long exposed to the horrors of famine: an act of godlike humanity, which ought to dignify the character of that worthy nobleman above all the titles that military fame can deserve, or arbitrary monarchs bestow. The regency of Hanover were so deeply impressed with a sense of his heroic behaviour on this occasion, that they gratefully ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... Suppose she should go, after all? Suppose she should go, and all should be as it had been, only a little older, a little more quiet and peaceful? The very fancy filled her heart with sudden calm. A love so deep and sure, so broad and sweet—could it not dignify any woman's life? And she had been thought worthy and had ...
— A Reversion To Type • Josephine Daskam
... or the tiger springs upon its prey. Destruction is one of its chief ends. Deception is one of its chief means, and one of the great arts of skilful generalship is to deceive in order to destroy. Whatever other elements may mingle with and dignify war, this at least is never absent; and however reluctantly men may enter into war, however conscientiously they may endeavour to avoid it, they must know that when the scene of carnage has once opened these things must be not only accepted and condoned, but stimulated, encouraged and ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... those higher attributes of Poesy which belong to her in all circumstances and throughout all time. Here every thing is art, nakedly, or but awkwardly concealed. No prepossession for the mere antique (and in this case we can imagine no other prepossession) should induce us to dignify with the sacred name of poetry, a series, such as this, of elaborate and threadbare compliments, stitched, apparently, together, without fancy, without plausibility, and without ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... one may dignify this small group of human dwellings by that name, stands on a little plain evidently won by degrees from the sea for the successive beaches can be traced. The mission premises, the old house, the new house, and the church with its little belfry, are one continuous building facing the ...
— With the Harmony to Labrador - Notes Of A Visit To The Moravian Mission Stations On The North-East - Coast Of Labrador • Benjamin La Trobe
... of that nature, when I inscribe this book to Pascal Paoli. Your virtues, Sir, are universally acknowledged; they dignify the pages which I venture to present to you; and it is my singular felicity that my book is the voucher of ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... to look at the trees. Instead of fostering a number of little souls on the pabulum of varying theories of future life, they should have been concerned to improve their present shapes, and thus to dignify man's single soul" ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... from his presumption and misconduct. I esteemed him—nay, I even liked him—before. I liked his taste for the arts, his amiable manners, his love of music and poetry, and all those graces of the superior mind and education, which dignify humanity, and indicate its probable destinies. But when he showed me how false he was to a friendship so free and confiding as was yours—when he abused my eyes and ears with expressions unbecoming in him, and insulting and ungenerous to ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... the new Abbot served of itself to dignify a ceremonial which was deprived of all other attributes of grandeur. Conscious of the peril in which they stood, and recalling, doubtless, the better days they had seen, there hung over his brethren an appearance of mingled terror, and grief, and shame, which induced them to hurry over the office ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... in most of the mechanic arts is, however, far simpler than the science of cutting metals. In almost all cases, in fact, the laws or rules which are developed are so simple that the average man would hardly dignify them with the name of a science. In most trades, the science is developed through a comparatively simple analysis and time study of the movements required by the workmen to do some small part of his work, and this study is usually made ...
— The Principles of Scientific Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... two companions, a girl simply dressed with coat and skirt which did not match, and cotton gloves whose burst finger ends were not darned, a Miss Petrovitch, and an officer. The coachwork—if one may dignify it by such a phrase—which was made from packing cases, had a thousand creaks and one abominable squeak, which made conversation impossible. The scenery was all grey rock and little scrubby trees; ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... like a scene in a great tragedy, and then I fully understood the worship she had won as belonging only to those consummate artists who have arisen to dignify and ennoble the lyric stage. As we left the house Procter said, "You are in great luck to-night. I never heard ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... story seems to me informed with a saner philosophy of life. There is gloom in her story; and many of the circumstances are sordid enough; but throughout I see the recognition that man and woman can at least improve and dignify their lot in this world. Many people believe Tess to be the finest of its author's achievements. A devoted admirer of Mr. Hardy's genius, I decline altogether to consent. To my mind, among recent developments of the English ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... though hardly described by the term 'feminine'. In it breathed a genuine capacity for love in the most noble sense, for he was ready to identify himself with the interests of another, to etherealize and dignify what he thought he saw in them, and thus absolutely to transform them by the alchemy of his touch. And, the more I think of it, the more I recognize that his soul was incapable of aging. . . . This absolute freshness of heart and spirit seems to me to ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... leap from slavery to freedom we may overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the productions of our hands, and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labour and put brains and skill into the common occupations of life; shall prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between the superficial and the substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life and the useful. No race ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington
... say that a malignant Fate has decreed that I shall not dignify your hovel before the ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... in particular your great historian Livy has poured forth all the ornaments of his admirable rhetoric to embellish and dignify that part of your story. I had a great historian too—Cornelius Tacitus; but either from the brevity which he affected in writing, or from the severity of his nature, which never having felt the passion ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... man, or woman, has great natural facility, and when the fact is once recognized that beauty—like education—can dignify any circumstances, from the narrowest to the most opulent, it becomes one of the objects of life to secure it. How this is done depends upon the talent and cultivation of the family, and this is often ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... the moment they saluted her; if she and the tirewoman were absent, the first woman took the place and did that duty. The ladies of the bedchamber, chosen solely as companions for the Queen, had no domestic duties to fulfil, however opinion might dignify such offices. The King's letter in appointing them, among other instructions of etiquette, ran thus: "having chosen you to bear the Queen company." There were hardly any emoluments ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... "My work is nearly finished, if indeed I may dignify it by the name of work. Then ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... you have many, princess, judging from your standpoint; but you cannot right them by committing greater ones. Nothing can dignify or ennoble deliberate assassination, or wanton, cruel, secret murder. The nihilists ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... in former times, once shone, A fair, whose charms would dignify a throne; And, if to publick rumour credit 's due, Celestial bliss her husband with her knew. Naught else was talked of but her beauteous face, And chastity that adds the highest grace; From ev'ry quarter numbers flocked to see This belle, regarded as from errors free. The honour ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... the Blue-eyed Dove of Virtuous and Serpent-like Attitudes, has been scattering glory upon the Si-chow Hall of Celestial Harmony for many days past. It is an enlightened display which the high-souled Ling should certainly endeavour to dignify with his presence, especially at the portion where the amiable Li-Lu becomes revealed in the appearance of a Peking sedan-chair bearer and describes the manner and likenesses of certain persons—chiefly high-priests of Buddha, excessively round-bodied merchants who feign to be detained ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... the rational mind when it aspires to those substantial pleasures for which yours is formed. And as to the graces of person and manners, they are but a wretched substitute for those virtues which adorn and dignify human life. Can you, who have always been used to serenity and order in a family, to rational, refined, and improving conversation, relinquish them, and launch into the whirlpool of frivolity, where the ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster
... Martinianic nation, we have resolved to advance him to the rank of nobility, so that he, and all his descendants shall be regarded as true noblemen, and enjoy all the prerogatives and rights, of which the nobility of Martinia are in possession. Furthermore, we have determined to dignify him with a new name; he shall therefore from this day, be no longer called Kakidoran, but Kikidorian. Moreover, since his new dignity requires a richer style of living, we grant him a yearly pension of two hundred patarer. Given in the council-chamber of Martinia, ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... events, prayer is the highest privilege of man, since it allows him to speak to God. If God were deaf to our prayers, we should still pray; for if in his majesty he would not hear us, still prayer would dignify man." ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... nearly all of them were great preachers: Cyprian, Athanasius, Augustine, Ambrose, and even Leo, if they yielded to Origen and Jerome in learning, were yet very polished, cultivated men, accustomed to all the refinements which grace and dignify society. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... be quite frank with you," Tallente went on. "What I am going to suggest to you is pure guesswork. A political opponent, if I can dignify the fellow with such a term, has in his possession an article of mine which I wrote some years ago, during the war. I have been given to understand that he means to obtain publication of it for the purpose of undermining my position with the Labour Party. Has he brought ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the voice of my groaning reach the ears of any human being. Perhaps it would have been better for us both, if I could have said it all to my dearest Maud. But a sort of courtesy forbade my redoubling my monotonous lamentations; her burden was heavy enough without that. I can hardly dignify it with the name of manliness or chivalry, because my frame of mind during those first months, when I lost the power of writing, was purely despicable; and then, too, I did not want sympathy; I wanted help; and help no one but God could give me; ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... fallacious reasoning, of all intents and purposes that might war with a sober and honourable discharge of exalted public duties. They are exalted, sir, and they may be so highly discharged, so ably and so loftily, as to infinitely dignify the office that has already great traditions. A Governor of Virginia may be the theme, sir, of ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... tribunal—we will not dignify it with the name of a court of justice—Marie Antoinette, the widow Capet, as she was called in the indictment, was now brought. Clad in deep mourning for her murdered husband, and aged beyond her years by her long series of sorrows, she still preserved the fearless dignity which became her race ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... it did not elevate woman to her true position at home or in public; it ridiculed those passive virtues that are declared and commended in the Sermon on the Mount; it did not pronounce against the wickedness of war, or the vanity of military glory; it did not dignify home, or the virtues of the family circle; it did not declare the folly of riches, or show that the love of money is a root of all evil. It made sensual pleasure and outward prosperity the great aims of successful ambition, and hid with an impenetrable screen from the eyes of men the fatal results ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... turf fuel, were to him never-ceasing topics of reproach and lamentation. Mr. Day's deep-seated prejudice in favour of savage life was somewhat shaken by this view of want and misery, which philosophers of a certain class in London and Paris chose at that time to dignify by the name of simplicity. The modes of living in the houses of the gentry were much the same in Ireland as in England. This surprised my friend. He observed, that if there was any difference, it was that people of similar fortune did not restrain themselves equally ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... is our commander, his staff and escort. He is facing the distant crest, holding his field-glass against his eyes with both hands, his elbows needlessly elevated. It is a fashion; it seems to dignify the act; we are all addicted to it. Suddenly he lowers the glass and says a few words to those about him. Two or three aides detach themselves from the group and canter away into the woods, along the lines in each direction. We did not hear his ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... said Jo to herself, when she at length discovered that genuine good will toward one's fellow men could beautify and dignify even a stout German teacher, who shoveled in his dinner, darned his own socks, and was burdened with the name ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... a curious fact, makes a very curious mistake. "To dignify his capital," he says, "having discovered that the ancient name of Porto-Ferrajo was Comopoli (the city of Como), he commanded it to be called Cosmopoli, or the city of all nations." Now the old name of Porto-Ferrajo was in reality not Comopoli, but Cosmopoli, and it obtained that name ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... possible, in any place where Providence has put you, for the future at least. And the firm purpose of serving God in it, will dignify for the ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... addressed, And anxious thus, his soul's desire expressed: "A prisoner thou, if freedom's voice can charm, And dungeon darkness fill thee with alarm, That freedom merit, shun severest woe, And truly answer what I ask to know! If rigid truth thy ready speech attend, Honours and wealth shall dignify my friend." ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... commands the vale of Orcia; Monte Amiata soaring in aerial majesty beyond. Its old name was Cosignano. But it had the honour of giving birth to AEneas Sylvius Piccolomini, who, when he was elected to the Papacy and had assumed the title of Pius II., determined to transform and dignify his native village, and to call it after his own name. From that time forward Cosignano has ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... Court said, "are constitutionally entitled to no more than payment in full. * * * To hold that mortgagees are entitled under the contract clause to retain the advantages of a forced sale would be to dignify into a constitutionally protected property right their chance to get more than the amount of their contracts. * * * The contract clause does not protect such ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... us—boundary questions, banks, tariffs, internal improvements, currency; all very necessary but secondary topics. They touch nothing deeper than the pocket. In this respect, there would be a marked contrast between the subjects which occupy us, and the grander life-themes that dignify European thought, were it not for one subject—Slavery. THAT is the ONLY question, in our day and in our community, full of vital struggles turning ...
— Conflict of Northern and Southern Theories of Man and Society - Great Speech, Delivered in New York City • Henry Ward Beecher
... yet with a certain gratification as though Harold Jupp had asked him to dignify the occasion ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... the theme, becomes the poet's task: Yet must he try by modulation meet Of varied cadence and selected phrase Exact yet free, without inflation bold, To dignify that theme." ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... simpler and simpler. Small shops are set into the street wall at either side of the entrance door, and on entering one finds himself in a very limited and utterly dingy court with a few dirty compartments opening thence, which it would be absurd to dignify by the name of "rooms." Again one ceases to wonder that the male Athenians are not "home folk" and are glad to leave their houses to the ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... reaching out after the unattainable is worse for a girl than passive indifference to what she might acquire. A large part of the success a person achieves is dependent upon her thinking her calling the very best in the world. It is not the work which dignifies you: it is you who dignify the work. ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... canzoni, exquisite as they are in versification and style, do not breathe that enthusiasm which opened to Pindar's grasp all the wealth of imagination, all the treasures of historic lore and moral truth, to illustrate and dignify his strain. Yet the vigour, the arrangement, and the perspicuity of the ideas in these canzoni of Petrarch, the tone of conviction and melancholy in which the patriot upbraids and mourns over his country, strike the heart with such force, as to atone for the absence of grand ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... letters are absolute jest-and-story books, unless you will be so good as to dignify them with the title of Walpoliana. Under that hope, I will tell you a very odd new story. A citizen had advertised a reward for the discovery of a person who had stolen sixty guineas out of his scrutoire. He received a message ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... induce them to search at the roots of the dead languages; but erudition does not naturally furnish them with its resources. The most ignorant, it sometimes happens, will use them most. The eminently democratic desire to get above their own sphere will often lead them to seek to dignify a vulgar profession by a Greek or Latin name. The lower the calling is, and the more remote from learning, the more pompous and erudite is its appellation. Thus the French rope-dancers have transformed ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... that his consideration of fertilizers was superfluous in a country that was hardly past the sod-corn stage, but he longed to dignify this work to John Hunter, since John would give his formative years here and be unable to do other things if he ever made money enough to get away, as he hoped. Hugh had had enough work in the agricultural department of an eastern university before ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... dowager herself danced with us! I never was more disappointed than at Chatsworth, which, ever since I was born, I have condemned. It is a glorious situation; the vale rich in corn and verdure, vast woods hang down the hills, which are green to the top, and the immense rocks only serve to dignify the prospect. The river runs before the door, and serpentizes more than you can conceive in the vale. The duke is widening it, and will make it the middle of his park; but I don't approve an idea ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... We have just come upon one of the unities most coveted in our literature, and most valued by us when attained, — the portrait, the individuality, the character. The construction of a plot we call invention, but that of a character we dignify with the name of creation. It may therefore not be amiss, in finishing our discussion of form, to devote a few pages to the psychology of character-drawing. How does the unity we call a character arise, how is it described, and what is ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... against the criminal militarism which is impoverishing Europe and driving the starving poor mad. That has many crimes to answer for, but not this one, I think. One may not attribute to this man a generous indignation against the wrongs done the poor; one may not dignify him with a generous impulse of any kind. When he saw his photograph and said, "I shall be celebrated," he laid bare the impulse that prompted him. It was a mere hunger for notoriety. There is another confessed case of the kind which is as old as history—the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... hunts, I after love; He leaves his friends to dignify them more: I leave myself, my friends, and all for love. Thou, Julia, thou hast metamorphos'd me;— Made me neglect my studies, lose my time, War with good counsel, set the world at nought; Made wit with musing weak, heart sick ...
— The Two Gentlemen of Verona • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... central requirements—confidence, generosity, and unselfishness—are met, there can be no serious break in the procession of placid, happy days. I abhor the gushing talk sometimes heard about "married lovers;" the people who dignify life and honour the community are those who are lovers and something more. Of course we can all feel sympathy with Fanny Kemble when she says that the poetry of "Romeo and Juliet" went into her blood as she spoke on the ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... something strangely sweet in sharing with her for the first time a mood of solemnity, seeing that their intercourse had always before been in the vein of pleasantry and badinage common to the first stages of courtships. This new experience appeared to dignify their relation, and weave them together with a new strand. ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... conceptions and reasonings regarding the forces of nature, we perpetually make use of symbols which, when they possess a high representative value, we dignify with the name of theories. Thus, prompted by certain analogies, we ascribe electrical phenomena to the action of a peculiar fluid, sometimes flowing, sometimes at rest. Such conceptions have their advantages and their disadvantages; they afford ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall
... chocolate, and so put it down again; and they were all very good, and looked another way. My master said, when Abraham was out, I have a quite plain ring here, Mr. Peters: And I hope the ceremony will dignify the ring; and that I shall give my girl reason to think it, for that cause, the most valuable one that can be presented her. Mr. Peters said, He was sure I should value it more than the richest diamond ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... Christianity permeated the old Pagan civilization and destroyed its idols, that the noble Paulas and Marcellas and Fabiolas arose to dignify human friendships, and give fascination to reunions of cultivated women and gifted men; that the seeds of society were sown. It was not until the natural veneration which the Gothic nations seem to have had for women, even in their native forests, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... soon boarded by a messenger from Mr. Wetter, the outgoing American Consul at Madagascar, and I was piloted ashore. The view of Tamatave from the ship was not prepossessing, and my walk through the city to the hotel was not inspiring. The attempt to dignify the six or eight feet wide alleys (which were the main arteries for travel) as avenues or streets, seemed ludicrous, and the filthy condition, the absence of all sanitary regulations in a province pretending a civilized administration, was to me a revelation. The natural sequence of such neglect ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... friend. Let Truth severe be wayward Fancy's guide, Let stern-eyed Conscience o'er each thought preside; The passions, that on noblest natures prey, Oh! cast them, like corroding bonds, away! Disdain to act mean falsehood's coward part, 360 And let religion dignify thine art. If, by thy bed, thou seest at midnight stand Pale Conscience, pointing, with terrific hand, To deeds of darkness done, whilst, like a corse, To shake thy soul, uprises dire Remorse; Fly to God's mercy, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... married life; but as society becomes more intelligent it will recognize the fitness of some persons, and the unfitness of others, making it impossible for these to accept such responsibilities and obligations, and so dignify and elevate home life instead ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... spectacles of cruelty and horror. Though civilization may in some degree abate this native ferocity, it can never quite extirpate it; the most polished are not ashamed to be pleased with scenes of little less barbarity, and, to the disgrace of human nature, to dignify them with the name of sports. They arm cocks with artificial weapons, which nature had kindly denied to their malevolence, and with shouts of applause and triumph see them plunge them into each other's hearts; they view with delight ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... race of corsairs whom we dignify with the title of bankers, the gentry who take out a license for which they pay a thousand crowns, as the privateer takes out his letters of marque, hold these rare products of the incubations of virtue in such esteem that they confine them in cages ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... respect, and only in that, I will continue to act according to your wishes. I am not called upon to proclaim to the world and my acquaintance that I am the daughter of my own servant, and that you were kind enough to marry your estimable mistress after my birth in order to confer upon me what you dignify by the name of legitimacy. No. That is not necessary. If it could hurt you to proclaim it I would do so in the most public way I could find. But it is folly to suppose that you could be made to suffer by ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford |
