"Nobleness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... over her regular features. She had the traits of a Hebe, and the form of a Juno. When she smiled and displayed her dazzlingly white teeth, she was irresistibly charming. When, in a serious mood, she raised her large dark eyes, full of nobleness and spirit, then might people fall at her feet with adoration. Countess Lapuschkin had often been compared and equalled to the Princess Elizabeth, and yet nothing could be more dissimilar or incomparable than these two beauties. Elizabeth's was wholly earthly, voluptuous, glowing with youth ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... as the rule of his conduct, a celebrated Italian proverb, inculcating the policy of reserve and dissimulation. From a practised diplomatist, this advice was characteristic; but it did not suit the frankness of Milton's manners, nor the nobleness of his mind. He has himself stated to us his own rule of conduct, which was to move no questions of controversy, yet not to evade them when pressed upon him by others. Upon this principle he acted, not without some offence to his associates, nor wholly without danger ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... have no doubt but he is convinced that I was actuated in my opposition to him solely by public views; and if I was then deceived and mistaken as to his public conduct, he has shown that he has the nobleness of soul that knows how to forgive my hostility to him, because he believes that I was his opponent, not to serve any selfish end, but from a sense of ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... the confessions with attention, made many exhortations, enjoined penance proportioned to each offence, and for some time every thing went on as usual: till at last one of the Nuns, conspicuous from the nobleness of her air and elegance of her figure, carelessly permitted a letter to fall from her bosom. She was retiring, unconscious of her loss. Ambrosio supposed it to have been written by some one of her Relations, and picked it up intending ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... nobleness that lies In other men, sleeping but never dead, Will rise in majesty to meet thine own; Then wilt thou see it gleam in many eyes Then will pure light around thy path be shed And thou wilt nevermore be ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... "There is much nobleness in him, spite of his vagaries. He will sow his wild oats and make a grand man in time. By the by, if we are going to the fortress, we must be off. Give Sigismund the word; he is dining at the other table with ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... virtuousest, discreetest, best. All higher Knowledge in her presence falls Degraded; Wisdom in discourse with her Loses, discountenanced, and like Folly shows; Authority and Reason on her wait, As one intended first, not after made Occasionally; and, to consummate all, Greatness of mind and nobleness their seat Build in her loveliest, and create an awe About her, ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... outshot or projecting window, she could perceive that Christie of the Clinthill was attended on the present occasion by a very gay and gallant cavalier, who, from the nobleness of his countenance and manner, his rich and handsome dress, and the showy appearance of his horse and furniture, must, she agreed with her new friend, be a person ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... wisdom, of happy impulse, of inspiration gracefully chronic. It was almost as unnecessary to cultivate doubt of one's self as to cultivate doubt of one's best friend: one should try to be one's own best friend and to give one's self, in this manner, distinguished company. The girl had a certain nobleness of imagination which rendered her a good many services and played her a great many tricks. She spent half her time in thinking of beauty and bravery and magnanimity; she had a fixed determination to regard the world as a place of brightness, of free expansion, of irresistible ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... culture and with no ideas. Well, then, look at Heine. Heine had all the culture of Germany; in his head fermented all the ideas of modern Europe. And what have we got from Heine? A half-result, for want of moral balance, and of nobleness of soul and character. That is what I say; there is so much power, so many seem able to run well, so many give promise of running well;—so few reach the goal, so few are chosen. Many ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... Froda, and the fair daughter of Sigurd, who was a sort of spirit, appearing to her lover in hours of danger and trial, as well as triumph and joy, till she became his guide and guard, inspiring him with courage, nobleness, and truth, leading him to great deeds in the field, sacrifices for those he loved, and victories over himself by the gleaming of her golden hair, which shone on him in battle, dreams, and perils by day and night, till after death he finds the lovely ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... Was ever woman's nobleness of character so exemplified as in your life? Be comforted, Zoe, that in all my black sorrow I cling desperately to my pride in your strength. I long to shout abroad what you did and why you would never marry me, to tell all the gaping world that ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... opened to me a view of his character. I saw, too, by his love increasing with his esteem, the solidity of his understanding, and the nobleness of his nature. He went deeper and deeper into my mind, till he came to a spring of gratitude, which rose and overflowed, vivifying and fertilising the seemingly barren waste. I believe it to be true that, after the first great misfortune, persons never return ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... two gentle ladies sent to ask me to send them some of these rhymed words of mine; wherefore I, thinking on their nobleness, resolved to send to them and to make a new thing which I would send to them with these, in order that I might fulfill their prayers with the more honor. And I devised then a sonnet which relates my condition, and ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... a poor hasty girl, very weak yet innocent, ought to have remained in the slough, losing day by day your purity, your worth, your nobleness, till you grew like your companions. You had vowed ignorantly, with a profound ignorance it might be, to obey and honor this man till death parted you. You had no right to break ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... between the two friends; and then Mrs. Barclay sat down and surveyed her visitor, whom she had not seen for so long. He was not a beauty of Tom Caruthers' sort, but he was what I think better; manly and intelligent, and with an air and bearing of frank nobleness which became him exceedingly. That he was a man with a serious purpose in life, or any object of earnest pursuit, you would not have supposed; and that character had never belonged to him. Mrs. Barclay, looking at him, could not ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... words to work their effect upon your Lordship, in their own language; because no other can so well express the nobleness of the thought: and wish you may be soon called to bear a part in the affaires of the Nation, where I know the World expects you, and wonders why you have been so long forgotten; there being no person amongst our young nobility, on whom the eyes of all men ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... them in low men. Arrogance is a weed that ever grows on a dunghill. It is from the rankness of that soil that she hath her height and spreadings. To be modest and unaffected with our superiors is duty; with our equals, courtesy; with our inferiors, nobleness. There is no arrogance so great as the proclaiming of other men's errors and faults, by those who understand nothing but the dregs of actions, and who make it their business to besmear deserving fames. Public reproof is like striking a ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... Every man in seeking his material interests becomes the rival and antagonist of every other man. To gain his bread he must sacrifice friendship, generosity and even honor. He must keep his convictions of nobleness and justice for a beautiful and holiday idea; he must consign them to the keeping of religion; and she, like the gentle wife at home, has careful instructions not to show her beautiful face in the market place. It is hard; since in the market place mankind are doomed to spend the ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... knew The nature, and the nobleness of the Gentleman, Though he shew slight here, and at what gusts of danger His manhood has arrived, But that Mens fates are foolish, And often headlong ...
— The Little French Lawyer - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont
... His countenance was peculiarly beautiful, full and rounded as if young; fresh-coloured; and beaming with health, spirit, and vivacity. Its almost womanly sweetness was chastened and redeemed by the massiveness of the head, the deep penetrating eye, and an aspect of uncommon elevation and nobleness. Till the last, he was the very personification of the old Dux—the Duke of Chivalry—the foremost leader and commander of the people. But instead of chained mail and helmet, he was to be seen every ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... said,—'I have obtained, O king, a bow and weapons and arrows and energy and allies and dominions and fame and strength. Those are always difficult of acquisition, however much they may be desired. Learned men of repute always praise in good society nobleness of descent. But nothing is equal to might. Indeed, O monarch, there is nothing I like more than prowess. Born in a race noted for its valour, one that is without valour is scarcely worthy of regard. One, however, possessed of valour, that ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... seat of refined hospitality, of good nature and of good conversation. In doing the honors of it, Lord Moira had certainly one advantage above most men, for he had every assistance that true magnificence, the nobleness of manners peculiar to exalted birth, and talents for society the most cultivated, could give him in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... misanthrope, willing to live in seclusion, fond of being in Coventry, and in love with the enmity of his fellow-creatures. There are such men, but they are regarded as lepers by those around them. All this adds to the nobleness of the noble sport, and makes it worthy of ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... peace and comfort; there grim poverty was unknown; there the widow and orphan were free from carking care; and there men and women of humble rank had learned the truth that when men toil for the common good there is a perennial nobleness in work.78 ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... Divinity and in an immortal life, and thus exonerating him from all accountability and all future retribution. But it failed to perceive that, in the most effectual manner, it annihilated all real liberty, all true nobleness, and made of ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... wisdom. illiberality; meanness &c. adj. time-pleaser, time-server; tuft-hunter, fortune-hunter; jobber, worldling; egotist, egoist, monopolist, nepotist; dog in the manger, charity that begins at home; canis in praesepi[Lat], "foes to nobleness," temporizer, trimmer. V. be selfish &c. adj.; please oneself, indulge oneself, coddle oneself; consult one's own wishes, consult one's own pleasure; look after one's own interest; feather one's nest; take care of number one, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... glance full of despair and reproach falls on Maurits. She cannot understand; he insists upon going with an uncovered light into the powder magazine. Then she turns to Uncle Theodore; but not with the shy, childish manner she had before, but with a certain nobleness, with something of the martyr, of ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... Tecle and her daughter found in his courteous reply a gleam of nobleness which inspired them with a shadow of confidence. Above all, they were proud, and more averse to noisy scenes than women usually are. They received him coldly, then, but calmly. On his part, he displayed toward them in his looks and language a subdued seriousness and sadness, which ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... object. The average farmer boy is not a sentimentalist, and he is not likely to be moved by the sort of talk so often lavished upon him. To use a vulgarism, he has an extremely "level head." He fails to realize the attraction and the dignity which are implied by what he is told of the nobleness of his father's calling, of the purifying and elevating influences of a daily intercourse with nature. He is not to be caught with this sort of chaff. His cultivation has not been of that aesthetic character that he has an especial ...
— Village Improvements and Farm Villages • George E. Waring
... fairly at present, while we hear from men who owe to their wives not only all that is comfortable or graceful, but all that is wise, in the arrangement of their lives, the frequent remark, "You cannot reason with a woman,"—when from those of delicacy, nobleness, and poetic culture, falls the contemptuous phrase "women and children," and that in no light sally of the hour, but in works intended to give a permanent statement of the best experiences,—when not one man, in the million, shall I say? no, not in the hundred million, can rise above the belief ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... mayors, officers, professors, magistrates, administrators; seated or standing around a table, feasting and conversing; of life size, most faithful likenesses; grave, open faces, expressing that secure serenity of conscience by which may be divined rather than seen the nobleness of a life consecrated to one's country, the character of that strong, laborious epoch, the masculine virtues of that excellent generation; all this set off by the fine costume of the time, so admirably combining grace and ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... for heroes proved In liberating strife Who more than self their country loved, And mercy more than life! America! America! May God thy gold refine, Till all success be nobleness, And every ...
— ANTHOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS POETS • WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE
... nobleness that lives In other men, sleeping, but never dead, Will rise in majesty ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... body propped against Church's knee and with his head fallen on the surgeon's shoulder. Capron was always a handsome, soldierly looking man—some said that he was the most soldierly looking of any of the young officers in the army—and as I saw him then death had given him a great dignity and nobleness. He was only twenty-eight years old, the age when life has just begun, but he rested his head on the surgeon's shoulder like a man who knew he was already through with it and that, though they might peck and mend at the body, he had received his final orders. His breast and shoulders were bare, ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... from sandstone, which is in Santa Croce, is one of his earliest works, and is full of grace and nobleness (Fig. 84). He made some beautiful groups of dancing children, which are now in the Uffizi Gallery; but he considered his David, which is in the same gallery, as his masterpiece. He was so proud of it that he swore by it, saying, "By ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement
... famed patient with a nobleness worthy of the heroic ages. Dodged him in his own house, in softest beds and appliances; spoke comfort to him, hope to him,—the gallant Meckel;—rallied, in fact, the due medical staff one morning; came up to Zimmermann, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... to say, as the oak surpasses all the other trees of the forest, so do you surpass all the kings of the world in goodness, in nobleness, and in liberality. ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... them as the flowing of a gentle stream, even as brother and sister lived they, chastely, and with temperate feasting. Surely the youth loved her with a great love, and the heart of Bhanavar turned not from him, and was won utterly by his gentleness and nobleness and devotion; and they relied on each other's presence for any joy, and were desolate in absence, as ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... amuse his fellow-men. As Mr. Whibley says, he is not a cynic. He is not sufficiently indifferent for that. He is a satirist, a sort of perverted and suffering idealist: an idealist with the cynic's vision. It is the essential nobleness of Swift's nature which makes the voyage to the Houyhnhnms a noble and not a disgusting piece of literature. There are people who pretend that this section of Gulliver's Travels is almost too terrible for sensitive persons to read. This is sheer affectation. It ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... little master should be enjoined by his mama, in case of an affront, to resort to his master for redress and protection. To the custom, indeed, as it now prevails, the English youth are, in a great measure indebted for their nobleness and manliness of character. Two boys quarrel, they agree to box it out—they begin and they end by shaking hands; the enmity terminates with the contest—And what is this but a lesson of courage, magnanimity, and forgiveness? ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... its seeming extinction. Without such a hope, how could they have endured the existence they had? True, there are in our day men who profess unbelief in that future, and yet lead an enjoyable life, nor even say to themselves, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die;" but say instead, with nobleness, "Let us do what good we may, for there are men to come after us." Of all things let him who would be a Christian be fair to every man and every class of men. Before, however, I could be satisfied that I understood the mental condition of such, I should require a deeper insight than I ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... so effectual that he withdrew in the end, at the command of Tiberius, with advantage on his side, and, returning to Rome, enjoyed a triumph (A.D. 17). His name is preserved in history, alike for his military talents and services, for his attainments in literary pursuits, and his nobleness of mind. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... Germany, and one of the earliest converts to the principles of the Friends in Scotland. As a Quaker, he became an object of hatred and abuse at the hands of the magistracy and populace; but he endured all these insults and injuries with the greatest patience and nobleness of soul. ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... many generations, and through a variety of eventful scenes, it has maintained an equality of fortune and respectability, and whenever brought to the test has acquitted itself with honor and loyalty. Hereditary rank may be an illusion; but hereditary virtue gives a patent of innate nobleness beyond all the ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... the thin end of the wedge as that a horse and an ass might be related. It is plain, therefore, that he is not speaking "au reel" here, and we accordingly find him talking clap-trap about the nobleness of the lion in having no species immediately allied to it. A few lines lower on he reminds us in a casual way that the ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... I?—never! All my life through I have maintained that kings are above all other men, not only from their rank and power, but from their nobleness of heart and their true dignity of mind. I never can bring myself to believe that my sovereign, he who passed his word to me, did so ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... thought at all, sinks into our memory and helps to shape our characters; and thus children brought up among beautiful sights and sweet sounds will most likely show the fruits of their nursing by thoughtfulness and affection and nobleness of mind, even by the ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... capital merchants, and who bring you the keys of the castle and town. We yield ourselves to your absolute will and pleasure, in order to save the remainder of the inhabitants of Calais, who have suffered much distress and misery. Condescend, therefore, out of your nobleness of mind, to ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... were burgesses of Calais, and great merchants. We bring you the keys of the town and the castle, and submit ourselves fully to your will, to save the remainder of our people, who have already suffered great pain. We beseech you to have mercy and pity on us through your high nobleness." ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... only weapon he had against his old servant. Filial love brought words of pardon to his lips and tears into his eyes. Rejoicing to grant what he desired most of all things in the world, he extended his hands to the Duke with all the nobleness and kindliness of a Bourbon. The Cardinal bowed and respectfully kissed it; and his heart, which should have burst with remorse, only swelled in the joy ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... To loose thy little ones from dark duress; The vital gladness to their hearts restore In healthful lessons and in happy play; And set them free to climb the upward way That leads to self-reliant nobleness. Speak out, my country, speak at last, As thou hast spoken in the past, And clearly, bravely say: "I will defend The coming race on whom my hopes depend: Beneath my flag and on my sacred soil No child shall bear the ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... particularly to dwell. There have been no people who honoured their heroes so much as the Celts. With them valour and value were synonymous terms. Theirs was not a nobility of money, or literature, or aesthetics, or even of territory. Nobleness should be the qualification of a nobleman, and strange as it may seem, it was among the uncivilised Celts of Ireland and Scotland that such a character was properly appreciated. But they held nobleness and heroism to be identical. They seem to have thoroughly ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... all the rooms. There were a great many of them, and, decorated for the occasion and filled with a stately crowd, their somewhat tarnished nobleness recovered its lustre. Mrs. Tristram, looking about her, dropped a series of softly-incisive comments upon her fellow-guests. But Newman made vague answers; he hardly heard her, his thoughts were elsewhere. They were lost in a cheerful ...
— The American • Henry James
... gratification might be found in the severest form, of self-sacrifice. He did not pity a martyr; he envied him. But before the martyr's joy must come the martyr's faith. Without that enthusiastic belief in the necessity and nobleness and value of the sacrifice, what could there be but physical pain and the despair ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... seen in the "Christian humility and gentleness and endurance of her character, and in her indisposition to assume the place or do the work of man," forgetting, apparently, that subordination, humility, and endurance are precisely the qualities which tend to destroy nobleness of character. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... own orders have not marked a distinction. I shall therefore go on with the more cheerful confidence, not only for the reasons that I have stated, but for another and material reason. I know and am satisfied, that, in the nobleness of your judgment, you will always make a distinction between the person that gives the order and the organ that is to execute it. The House of Commons know no such thing as indiscretion, imprudence, or impropriety: it is otherwise with their instruments. Your Lordships very well know, that, if ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... poetry culminates in the Iliad and Odyssey (900-700 B.C.). Their verse is the hexameter. These poems move on in a swift current, yet without abruptness or monotony. They are marked by a simplicity and a nobleness, a refinement and a pathos, which have charmed all subsequent ages. Homer, far more than any other author, was the educator of the Greeks. There was a class called Homeridae, in Chios; but whether ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... and chiffon, with illusive shimmerings of silver in its folds that came and went with every one of her graceful movements. She was a tall and slender girl, with a beautiful long white throat, smooth and round, that took on entrancing curves of pride and gentleness, of humility and nobleness. She had splendid rippling hair of a deep bronze, that had been red a few years earlier; and dark blue dreamy eyes under broad dark eyebrows; a long sweep of cool fair cheek, and a rather wide mouth with a little tender, pathetic droop ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... by birth, son of a Heathen Bohemian man of rank: his name (Adalbert, A'lbert, BRIGHT-in-Nobleness) he got "at Magdeburg, whither he had gone to study" and seek baptism; where, as generally elsewhere, his fervent devout ways were admirable to his fellow-creatures. A "man of genius," we may well say: one of Heaven's bright souls, born into ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... the fourth for the Franks, and the other officers; and the other nine churches were for the nine Masters of the Household, and chiefly for Gwalchmai; for he, from the eminence of his warlike fame, and from the nobleness of his birth, was the most exalted of the nine. And there was no other arrangement respecting the churches than that which ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 2 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... a dismal panic, and Uncle Silas—polished, mild—seemed unaccountably horrible to me. Then it was no longer an accidental fascination of electro-biology. It was something more. His nature was incomprehensible by me. He was without the nobleness, without the freshness, without the softness, without the frivolities of such human nature as I had experienced, either within myself or in other persons. I instinctively felt that appeals to sympathies or feelings ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... continuing here after her resignation; and she thanked him for his advice, and said, that in case those here should not deal justly with her, she hoped she should find the Protector a friend to her, and that she did put herself upon his nobleness and friendship. Whitelocke told her, that the Protector was a great lover and maintainer of justice and honour, and had a particular affection to her Majesty, which he believed she would find him ready to manifest upon this or ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... themselves with shooting at the cattle, and then retreated; and Mr. Joseph Chevront, who lived hardby, hearing the report of the guns and the loud cries of Carder, sent his own family to a place of safety, and with nobleness of purpose, ran to the relief of his neighbor. He enabled Carder to remove his family to a place of greater security, although the enemy were yet near, and engaged in skinning one of the cattle that they ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... wonted scene, the place and the lights, and the flowers and the dresses, yes, and the voices, gave her the new sense of being at home. Nevertheless, Daisy mused a little over some things that were not altogether pleasant. The faces that she scanned had none of them the placid nobleness of the face of her black nurse; no voice within her hearing had such sweet modulation; and Daisy felt a consciousness that Juanita's little cottage lay within the bounds of a kingdom which Mrs. Randolph's drawing-room had no knowledge of. Gradually Daisy's head ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... are not my own, but the words of a greatly honoured friend and teacher, who, though we behold him now no more, still teaches, and will teach, by the wisdom of his writings, and the nobleness of his life (they are words of Archdeacon Hare), I have put in the forefront of my lectures; seeing that they anticipate in the way of masterly sketch all which I shall attempt to accomplish, and indeed draw out the lines of much ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... will not belong to this last class; and since it is proved that we are not entitled to rank with the first, let us join the second. We will march to the camp of Fabius, and join our camp with his, as before. We owe to him, and also to all his portion of the army, our eternal gratitude for the nobleness of spirit which he manifested in coming to our deliverance, when he might so justly have left ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... to brown, but was coloured with sanguine and lively carnation. His eyes were black; in look and sharpness of light, they were vivid, piercing, and terrible. The outlines of his nose and all his countenance expressed a certain manly nobleness, combined with goodness and prudence.' Such is the portrait drawn of Colleoni by his biographer; and it well accords with the famous bronze statue of the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... with Mr. Gladstone at Carlton House Terrace something led to his speaking of his father. I seem to see him now, rising from his chair, standing in front of the chimneypiece, and in strains of fervid eloquence dwelling on the grandeur, the breadth and depth of his character, his generosity, his nobleness, last and greatest of all—his loving nature. His eyes filled with tears as he exclaimed: "None but his children can know what torrents of tenderness flowed ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... all things as parts of a natural or historic order, and while insisting on the recognition of the actual conditions of this order as indispensable, and condemning attempted evasions of such recognition as futile and childish, yet opens an ample bosom for all forms of beauty in art, and for all nobleness in moral aspiration. That Mr. Carlyle has reached this high ground we do not say. Temperament has kept him down from it. But it is after this that he has striven. The tumid nothingness of pure transcendentalism ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
... excellent in verse and in prose. His prose had all the clearness imaginable, together with all the nobleness of expression; all the graces and ornaments proper and peculiar to it, without deviating into the language or diction of poetry. I make this observation, only to distinguish his style from that of many poetical writers, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... the expectation which brought me to this land has not been fulfilled. I can gather no gold, except by such means as my honor, my conscience and yourself must condemn. Though your nobleness may pity one on whom fortune has disdained to smile, I feel that your relations are justified in claiming for you an alliance with exalted rank and affluence; and I love you far too well to regard my own happiness more than your welfare. If, therefore, in your extreme youth you have ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... Virgin had passed; if he had known how to make the mountains very steep, escarped, majestic; if he had covered them with moss and wild shrubs; if he had given to the Virgin simplicity, beauty, grandeur, nobleness; if the road that she follows had led into the paths of some forest, lonely and remote; if he had taken his moment at the rise of day, or at ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... In these two forms of verse Arnold was at his best. Stockton pronounced Sohrab and Rustum the noblest poem in the English language. Another critic has said that "it is the nearest analogue in English to the rapidity of action, plainness of thought, plainness of diction, and nobleness of Homer." Combining, as it does, classic purity of style with romantic ardor of feeling, it stands a direct exemplification of Arnold's poetic theories, as set forth in the preface of his volume of 1853. Especially is it successful in emphasizing his idea of unity of impression; ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... joint. If indeed some of the temples we worshipped in have fallen, we have built new ones on the sacred sites loftier and holier than those which have crumbled. If we have lost some of the heroic physical qualities of our ancestors, we have replaced them with a spiritual nobleness that turns aside wrath and binds up the wounds of the vanquished. All the past attainments of man are ours; and more, his day-dreams have become our clear realities. Therein lies our hope ...
— Optimism - An Essay • Helen Keller
... has ever written; and this collection of his miscellaneous writings, covering a period of thirty years, has a special interest as showing the successive steps by which he has risen to this high attitude of nobleness. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... watched his flocks feeding on the mountains, and being of a meditative disposition, he thought much and deeply of the beautiful works of the Great Creator that he beheld around him. Though wholly unlettered, though he could neither read nor write, he possessed a native nobleness of mind that raised him far above the class to which he seemingly belonged; yet his manners were plain and simple, nor did the knowledge of his high birth ever lead him to assume an air of superiority over the peasants with whom he was associated. In his solitary musings he ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... and the most desirable possessions—the sources of the highest and most lasting joy. But I feel sure that most of us, with all our faults, have in our better moments the desire and the admiration—aye, and the effort, too, after nobleness of life, and therefore we can understand this highest joy of Heaven. We have had experience sometimes, however rarely, of lovely deeds, and the sweet, pure joy that follows in their train. Well, whenever you have conquered some craving temptation or borne trouble ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth
... once, and as he continued his rambles it was with a mind that, casting off the burdens of the past, looked serenely and steadily on the obstacles and hardships of the future. We have seen that a scruple of conscience or of pride, not without its nobleness, had made him refuse the importunities of Gawtrey for less sordid raiment; the same feeling made it his custom to avoid sharing the luxurious and dainty food with which Gawtrey was wont to regale himself. For that strange man, whose wonderful ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the hand of the King, my father, and left him, wondering at his nobleness who could show such a road to his only child, though its treading would mean woe to him and mayhap the ruin of his hopes. Still that road is an old one among the women of my people, and why should I not walk it, as thousands ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... make a covenant with myself, that affection may not press upon judgment: for I suppose there is no man, that hath any apprehension of gentry or nobleness, but his affection stands to a continuance of a noble name and house, and would take hold of a twig or twine-thread to uphold it: and yet time hath his revolution, there must be a period and an end of all temporal things, finis rerum, an end of names and dignities and ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... thought of His Manhood—as, for example, in the words of the Epistle to the Hebrews, 'looking unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of faith.' That is to say—a mighty stimulus to all brave perseverance in our efforts after higher Christian nobleness lies in the vivid and constant realisation of the true manhood of our Lord, as the type of all goodness, as having Himself lived by faith, and that in a perfect degree and manner. We are to turn away our eyes from contemplating ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... personal answer to that question depends all the success or the failure; all the nobleness or the unworthiness of the individual life. No one can estimate too ardently, or too earnestly, the spiritual salvation of keeping faith with ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... not think, that, during the month, we were in bed for one whole night. Two-thirds of these patients were unable to pay a cent. During these years, I learned all of life that it was possible for a human being to learn. I saw nobleness in dens, and meanness in palaces; virtue among prostitutes, and vice among so-called respectable women. I learned to judge human nature correctly; to see goodness where the world found nothing but faults, and also to see faults where the world ...
— A Practical Illustration of Woman's Right to Labor - A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Late of Berlin, Prussia • Marie E. Zakrzewska
... charged—McClellan's crimson May, And Chickamauga's wave of death, And of the Wilderness the cypress wreath— All these have passed away. The life in the veins of Treason lags, Her daring color-bearers drop their flags, And yield. Now shall we fire? Can poor spite be? Shall nobleness in victory less aspire Than in reverse? Spare Spleen her ire, And ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... you have done your duty; and though you reported a little larger number than you would, if you had been disposed to conceal, yet you go away from school with a quiet conscience. On the other hand, how miserable must any boy feel, if he has any nobleness of mind whatever, to go away from school, to-day, thinking that he has not been honest; that he has been trying to conceal his faults, and thus to obtain a credit which he did not justly deserve. Always be honest, let the consequence be what ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... good-will and courtesy, nor have your folks taken a farthing's worth of our goods without paying for them. I am aware that my husband, myself, my children, and all my household are your prisoners, to be dealt with according to your good pleasure, in person and goods; but, knowing the nobleness of your heart, I am come to entreat you humbly to have pity on us, and extend to us your wonted generosity. Here is a little present we make you; and we pray that you may be pleased to take it in ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... Washington, he yielded his private sentiments and impulses to the consideration of the public good. His own plan, which he had urged with all his eloquence and energy, differed radically from the one adopted; yet, with a nobleness of spirit which challenges our highest admiration, he sacrificed the pride of opinion, and when the constitution had passed the ordeal of severest criticism and amendment by the convention, he avowed himself ready to sign it, and urged others, who hesitated, to do the same "No man's ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... wor the bravest gentleman, an' the best that ever stood, And your eyelid never thrembled for danger nor for dread, An' nobleness was flowin' in each stream of your blood— My bleasing on you night au' day, an' Glory ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... from the things that remain; he tries to see the life of the sixteenth century in its form and dress—its turbulence, its passions, its loves and hates, its treacheries, falsities, sincerities, faith, its latitude of personal development, its presentation of the whole nature, its nobleness of costume, charm of speech, splendour of taste, unequalled picturesqueness. The picture is full of movement, of contrasted light and darkness, full altogether of abominations. Mixed up with them ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... passeth by Where this corps entombed lie, Understand what I shall say, As at this time, speake I may. Such as thou art, sometime was I. Such as I am, shalt thou be. I little thought on th' oure of death, So long as I enjoyed breath. Great riches here did I possess, Whereof I made great nobleness; I had gold, silver, wardrobes, and Great treasure, horses, houses, land. But now a caitife poore am I, Deepe in the ground, lo! here I lie; My beautie great is all quite gone, My flesh is wasted to the bone. My house is narrow now ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... death, and he had been strongly drawn to her from the first time of meeting. Living so much among rough, rebellious men, he had acquired many of their ways. But in the presence of this sweet, gentle girl these had vanished like ice before the bright sun, and the real nobleness of his nature re-asserted itself. He was tired of the life he had been living for years. He longed for companions after his own heart, and a home such as he had known in the past. And what a home the girl before him would make! And reconciled ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... your pardon! Like all noble races, the Cornish owe their nobleness to the impurity of their blood—to its perpetual loans from foreign veins. See how the serpentine curve of his nose, his long nostril, and protruding, sharp-cut lips, mark his share of Phoenician or Jewish blood! ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... gives him simplicity; the rest of his talk is, perhaps, less than is generally imagined. Beauty and simplicity have so great a share in the composition of a great style, that he who has acquired them has little else to learn. It must not, indeed, be forgot that there is a nobleness of conception, which goes beyond anything in the mere exhibition, even of perfect form; there is an art of animating and dignifying the figures with intellectual grandeur, of impressing the appearance of philosophic wisdom or heroic virtue. This can ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... there is no practice more crossing the genuine nature of genteelness, or misbecoming persons well born and well bred; who should excel the rude vulgar in goodness, in courtesy, in nobleness of heart, in unwillingness to offend, and readiness to oblige those with whom they converse, in steady composedness of mind and manners, in disdaining to say or do any unworthy, ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... power for their salvation, O, away with that coldness that can suggest the necessity of conforming to the expensive customs of the world. May we, in heaven, find one of these souls saved through our instrumentality, and we can afford to forego all we shall lose by a want of conformity. There is a nobleness in taking an independent stand on the side of economy, and saving something to benefit dying souls. There is a heavenly dignity in such a course, infinitely superior to the slavish conformity so much ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble
... I am old and weary. I think I have hardly got a heart to offer. Before I have almost begun the race in life, I am a tired man. My career has been a failure; I have been protected by those whom I by right should have protected. I own that your nobleness and generosity, dear Laura, shame me, whilst they render me grateful. When I heard from our mother what you had done for me; that it was you who armed me and bade me go out for one struggle more; I longed to ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... now directed on the girl's despairing countenance. Years of good thoughts, an existence of tender cares, an eternity of youthful devotion spoke in that rapt, momentary, eloquent gaze, and imprinted on his expression a character ineffably beautiful and calm—a nobleness above the human, and approaching the angelic ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... is evident that the being common to brutes, or peculiar to man, can alone be no rational test of inferiority, or dignity in pleasures. We must not assume that man is the nobler animal, and then deduce the nobleness of his delights; but we must prove the nobleness of the delights, and thence the nobleness of the animal. The dignity of affection is no way lessened because a large measure of it may be found in lower animals, neither is the vileness of gluttony and lust abated because they are ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... to face you with a question of which the answer was preordained, to ask you how a countenance could fail to be noble of which the measurements were so correct. You could contest neither the measurements nor the nobleness, and had to feel that Mrs. Farrinder imposed herself. There was a lithographic smoothness about her, and a mixture of the American matron and the public character. There was something public in her eye, ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... are qualities which, even in our altered times, may still retain their place in the economy of the world. Westminster Abbey, so we hear it said, sometimes with a cynical sneer, sometimes with a timorous scruple, has admitted within its walls many who have been great without being good, noble with a nobleness of the earth earthy, worldly with the wisdom of this world. But it is a counterbalancing reflection, that the central tomb, round which all those famous names have clustered, contains the ashes of one who, ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin
... and, we venture to say, will never forfeit his trust. About Maria there is an air of self-command-a calmness and intelligence of manner, and a truthfulness in her devotion to Tom, that we can only designate with the word "nobleness." And, too, there is a sweetness and earnestness in her face that seems to bespeak the true woman, while leaving nothing that can add to the happiness of him she now looks up ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... outwardly arrested by some hostile agent, seems capable of endless progress without ever exhausting either its own capacity or the perfections of infinitude.18 There are before it unlimited truth, beauty, power, nobleness, to be contemplated, mastered, acquired. With indefatigable alacrity, insatiable faculty and desire, it responds to the infinite call. The obvious inference is that its destiny is unending advancement. Annihilation would be a sequel absurdly ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... the dearest old ladies of my acquaintance," replied Mr. Ingram. "Beatrice owes a great deal of her nobleness of heart and singleness of purpose to her mother. Mrs. Bertram, I have never heard that woman say an unkind word. I have heard calumny of her, but never from her. Then, of course, ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... hero, had the blood of chiefs in his veins, and was endowed by nature with beauty of person, nobleness of character, and intrepidity of soul. His people honored him highly in the festival with which they celebrated their victory, and Caupolican appointed him his special lieutenant, raising him to a rank in the army nearly equal to ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... time life was to him a poet's dream. He lived in a continual glamour of spiritual romance, bathing everything, from the old deities of the Valhalla down to the champions of German liberation, in an ideal glow of purity and nobleness, earnestly Christian throughout, even in his dealings with Northern mythology, for he saw Christ unconsciously shown in Baldur, ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... the strength of amiable sentiment is proved by our incapacity on proper occasions to express, and on improper ones to control it. The pride of a gentleman of the old school used to be in his power of saying what he meant, and being silent when he ought (not to speak of the higher nobleness which bestowed love where it was honorable, and reverence where it was due); but the automatic amours and involuntary proposals of recent romance acknowledge little further law of morality than the instinct of an insect, or the effervescence of a ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... sin in words, Perchance, we both can pardon: but, my Queen, I hear of rumours flying thro' your court. Our bond, as not the bond of man and wife, Should have in it an absoluter trust To make up that defect: let rumours be: When did not rumours fly? these, as I trust That you trust me in your own nobleness, I may not well believe that ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang |
