"Optimism" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... season of the year, I, incorrigible spouting Yankee, am writing an oration to deliver to the boys in one of our little country colleges nine days hence.... My whole philosophy—which is very real—teaches acquiescence and optimism. Only when I see how much work is to be done, what room for a poet—for any spiritualist—in this great, intelligent, sensual, and avaricious America, I lament my fumbling fingers and stammering ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... is round, so round that the schools of optimism and pessimism have been arguing from the beginning whether it is the right way up. The difficulty does not arise so much from the mere fact that good and evil are mingled in roughly equal proportions; it arises chiefly from the fact that men always differ about what ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... have been trying to form some sort of answer to this question. My state of mind in the last few months has varied from a considerable optimism to profound depression. I have met and talked to quite a number of young men in khaki—ex-engineers, ex-lawyers, ex-schoolmasters, ex-business men of all sorts—and the net result of these interviews has been a buoyant belief that there is in Great Britain ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... concern us. Whether the case either demanded or permitted originality in the way of construction I need not discuss. The manufacture of a constitution is always the easiest thing in the world. The question is whether the people concerned will work it, and in spite of that buoyant optimism which never in any circumstances deserted him in respect of whatever business he might have in hand, Mr. Gladstone must have doubted whether his islanders would ever pretend to accept what they did not seek, as a substitute for what they did seek but were not ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... With the optimism of youth, those present began to hope that dust might be thrown into the eyes of Dirty Dick. And, with a little discreet delay, the Demon might recover, when he could be relied upon to play his part with adroitness ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... to his hotel in no very good humour, revolving in his mind Miss Temple's advice about optimism. What could she mean? Was there really a conspiracy to make him marry his cousin, and was Miss Temple one of the conspirators? He could scarcely believe this, and yet it was the most probable, deduction from all that had been said and done. He had lived ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... meager, almost non-existent wealth. He became a printer's apprentice at twelve, but as he received no salary, the need of a purse could not have been urgent. He must have carried it pretty steadily, however, from its appearance—as a kind of symbol of hope, maybe—a token of that Sellers-optimism which dominated his early life, and was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the marked shift of population from agricultural communities to urban centers, overchurching has weakened all denominations to the point where missionary effort is necessary to restore again a wholesome religious life. Regardless of the cause of overchurching, whether from the undue optimism of the newer sections of the country or changed conditions in the older, or other conditions, the problem of overchurching must be dealt with in the true spirit of comity and cooperation for the sake ...
— Church Cooperation in Community Life • Paul L. Vogt
... an avowed materialist, but slightly destructive to the value of his own conclusions, being a two-edged sword. Indeed he almost allows as much. "For such dyspeptic patients there is an excuse. Pessimism is probably as inevitably their creed, as optimism is for the more fortunate mortals who enjoy the mens sana in corpore sano." [5] However, there are some pessimists for whom indigestion can plead no excuse, [6] but for whose intellectual perversity some other cosmic influence must be sought "behind the veil, behind the veil,"—to ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... splendid vitality of the man, as well as the indestructible optimism that bore him triumphantly through all the hardships of a colonial ministry. No sick bed was too remote for Long, no sinner sunk too low to be helped to his feet. The leprous Chinaman doomed to an unending isolation, the drunken Paddy, the degraded white woman—each came in for a share of his ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... Johns Hopkins trustees as to their freedom from oppressive supervision and control; my envy of them. Large expenditure demanded. Mr. Cornell's burdens. Installation of a "Business Manager.'' My suspicion as to our finances. Mr. Cornell's optimism. Discovery of a large debt; Mr. Cornell's noble proposal; the debt cleared in fifteen minutes by four men. Ultimate result of this subscription; worst calamities to Cornell its greatest blessings; example of this in the founding of fellowships ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... and told him that his hopes were vain. Cats only exist, I think, for the chastening of man. They never come to me except to tell me the worst, and to crush me with quiet sarcasm should my optimism survive their warning. ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... day. She moved like a man. Behind the mildness of her eyes there was much character and resolve in her carriage, in the strong neck, the firm breasts, the mouth resolute and determined. She had now the fine expectation of her youth, her health, her optimism, her ignorance of the world. When these things left her she would perhaps be a yet plainer woman. In her dress she was not clever. Her clothes were ugly with the coarse drab grey of their material and the unskilful workmanship that had created them. And yet there would be some souls who ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... formidable rival of good in the mind of the worshipper. Here, as before, we may say that Christianity is able to do justice to all the truth involved in the doctrine of evil, avoiding any superficial optimism, and recognizing the fact that all true life must partake of the ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... is, however, scarcely perceptible in his last book, Jacob, which is written in anything but a hopeful mood. It is, rather, a protest against that optimism which in fiction we call poetic justice. The harsh and unsentimental logic of reality is emphasized with a ruthless disregard of rose-colored traditions. The peasant lad Wold, who, like all Norse peasants, has been brought up on the Bible, has become ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... left two books, one a kind of autobiography, the other a work on prison reform. It was a moment of enthusiasm for reform, of optimism and of energy. Dickens was stirring the minds of Englishmen to discover the evils in their land and rush to their overthrow. Darwin was writing his Origin of Species, which in some curious way increased the hopeful energy of his countrymen: ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... men approached the agitated mother from the juvenile gathering. Their faces were solemn. Their own optimism had given way before the protracted delay. Tim Gleichen and Peter Furrers came first, Andy, the choreman, brought up ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... at the top, all the windows of the Dinkman house were smothered. Of the garage, only the roof, islanded and bewildered, was visible, apparently resting on a solid foundation of devilgrass. It sprawled kittenishly, its deceptive softness faintly suggesting fur; at once playful and destructive. My optimism of the night before was dashed; this voracious growth wasnt going to dwindle away of itself. It would have to ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... and epicureanisms of the religious character falls the scorching splendour of the Easter Vision, with its ruthless condemnation of whatever is not glorified by Love, passing over into the uplifting counter—affirmation, indispensable to Browning's optimism, that— ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... not often in such a strange frame of mind. There were times when he was a different man, almost boyish in his merriment, and full of a determined optimism. He would build castles in the air for them both to live in, and make her laugh just for the sake of ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... stay in Europe to detect a strange drooping of spirit. The rank corn and cotton optimism of the West quickly feels the deep sadness that lurks behind French balls, Prussian parades, and Italian festivals. Europe, when once you pry beneath its surface and find what its people are thinking and feeling, seems cankered and ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... reasoned out in her own way. It was only lately she had got to the end of her reasoning and settled down. At first it had not been very satisfactory, but she had gradually, with a child's optimism, evolved from the dreary little maze a certain degree ...
— The Very Small Person • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... mere mysticism; and mere mysticism always turns to mere immoralism. The wilfulness is no longer liked, but is actually obeyed. The fear becomes a philosophy. Panic hardens into pessimism; or else, what is often equally depressing, optimism. ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... little startled as he snapped on the lights and grunted out something which optimism might translate into an affectionate husbandly greeting. She came dutifully forward and raised her face, still exquisite and cool from the outer air, for her lord's home-coming kiss. That resolved itself into a ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... from prayer a better man his prayer is answered"; or this, "Expediency is man's wisdom. Doing right is God's"; or, "All great thoughts come from the heart"? Good are the words "The coward amongst us is he who sneers at the failings of humanity," and a healthy optimism rings in the phrase "There is for the mind but one grasp of happiness; from that uppermost pinnacle of wisdom whence we see that this world is well designed." In more playful mood is "Woman is the last thing which ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... case it would be another example of the gross optimism of these religions denouncing suicide, in order to ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... greater part of the night. Afterwards they said how sorry they were thus to have given way; and they begged me not to think them ungrateful. However, they soon resigned themselves to the inevitable, buoyed up by the inexhaustible optimism of youth; and they settled down to live as comfortably as possible among the blacks until some fortuitous occurrence should enable us all to leave these weird and remote regions. The girls were in constant terror of being left ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... a state of permanent punishment. One of these views is held by the Universalists; another by Orthodoxy; the third is now adopted by those who are dissatisfied with the horrors of Orthodoxy, but not yet ready to accept the Optimism of the Universalist hope. We will consider these, beginning with the Orthodox doctrine of everlasting punishment. We wish we could say that this doctrine was not fully and decidedly Orthodox. But it is quite as much so as the Trinity, the deity of Christ, or the atonement. ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... feelings of religious people. His idea of a Supreme Power was colored by the old Grecian belief in Fate. In exact opposition to Wordsworth, Swinburne's youthful poems show that he regarded Nature as the incarnation of a Power malevolent to man. He lacked the optimism of Browning and the faith of Tennyson. The mantle of Byron and Shelley fell on Swinburne as the poet of revolt against what seemed to ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... thought of Steve O'Valley's Irish grandfather, by like name, who spent his life in Virginia City trying to find a claim equal to the Comstock lode, dying penniless but with a prospector's optimism that had he been permitted to live manana surely would have seen the turning of the tide. Old O'Valley's only son and his son's wife survived him until their ability to borrow was at an end and ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... this forlorn tribe is too inconsiderable to render their history important, even though their manners and characters were more calculated than they are represented to be, to excite interest or call forth sympathy on the part of the reader. The enthusiastic eulogist of Optimism will readily reconcile their condition to the principles which claim his admiration, by the obvious discovery, that their natures are in alliance with their circumstances, and by the easy belief, that hitherto no hope or idea ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... spirit of youth in her knocked on my rather jaded heart, and I opened to it. That was beautiful and strange. I talked with her, and I felt myself younger, ingenuous rather than cynical, inclined even to a radiant, though foolish, optimism. She was very natural, very imperfect in worldly education, full of fragmentary but decisive views on life, quite unabashed in giving them forth, quite inconsiderate in summoning my ...
— The Return Of The Soul - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens
... something to-morrow, I guess," said he with an optimism he did not altogether feel. "Maybe my license will come; or the inspector may appear; or O'Connel may send tidings; or news may come from New York. Something is sure to happen. Why don't we all go over to the station and listen in on the broadcasting to-night. We ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... caught for an hour by a refluent eddy of lonesomeness,—four parts of the pentamerous clover-leaf were paired lovers,—he penned a missive which might have changed much in his future career: He sent to Christian Schwan a formal proposal for the hand of Margarete. With characteristic optimism he urged that fortune had at last turned favorably. He had good prospects. He proposed to work hard upon 'Don Carlos' and the Thalia, and meanwhile quietly to return to medicine. Wherefore he now made bold to express a hope that he had long cherished ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... improve," suggested Mary, with the easy optimism of one who was leaving it. "It couldn't be any worse than ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... "Pickwick," and would laugh so heartily himself that he would have to stop and wipe his eyes. "If you must read novels," he would say, "read Dickens. Nothing to offend the youngest among us—fine breezy stuff with an optimism that does you good and people you get to know and be fond of. By Jove, I can still cry over Little Nell and am not ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... the science of charity and forgiveness can never be a great sin. If it is one, the recording angel will probably drop a tear. This tendency to optimism is, we think, more like that magic wand which the great idealist waved over a troubled sea, or like those sudden sunsets after a storm, which not only control the wave, but gild the leaden mass with crimson ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... He mailed the package and the letter, and went to a saloon and had a highball. He was not a drinking man—at least, he never had been one, beyond a convivial glass or two with his fellows—but he felt that day the need of a little push toward optimism. In the back part of the room three men were playing freeze-out. Bud went over and stood with his hands in his pockets and watched them, because there was nothing else to do, and because he was still having ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... care, and his father and sisters would be upset, but Julia—when the friends of the family were asked to walk by for a last look, would she be one? What optimism remained to him presented a sketch of Julia, in black, borne from the room in the arms of girl friends who tried in vain to hush her; but he was unable to give this more hopeful fragment an air of great reality. Much more probably, ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... new emergencies at first, one by one, with no other programme than the most necessary restraints, encouragement of tariffs for the dynamic, improved transportation for the static, and charity for the despairful; but all with an optimism born of ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... side chose to give the Communique, these—to Sweden—very desirable guarantees became an illusion, it may very reasonably be asked if the Norwegian side was entitled to exact too much from the Swedish delegate's possible optimism respecting the prospects of coming to a definite conclusion on the rest ...
— The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis - A History with Documents • Karl Nordlund
... cleared of all unworthy suspicion. It was more than likely that his benefactor had taken this delicate way of making a free, permanent gift for that temporary service. Yet he smiled faintly at the return of that youthful optimism which had caused him ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... For all his optimism, for all his young, undrained strength, a doubt began to grow in the mind of Pierre le Rouge. At length, remembering how that weight of gold came in his pockets, he slipped his left hand into the bosom of his shirt and touched the icy metal of the cross. Almost at once ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... on the bed and took a long breath. There was a time when an unexpected incident of this sort would merely have left me in a state of comfortable optimism, but a prolonged residence in Dartmoor ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... My optimism is truly not the hiding myself from inevitable grief, for with towering waves the sea of sorrow has pounded against my beacon towers. The fires were not extinguished and beamed out above ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... said before, I can't give ye any dictionary definition of optimism; but if your Uncle Henry wa'n't an optimist, I don't ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... without doubt, must take the lead in side line planting throughout the northern states. That is to my mind the important thing. Trees exist in large numbers. They need to be located and studied not merely observed on one bright sunny afternoon when everything tends towards satisfaction and optimism, but through the eyes in a way that will make available not only to the observer but to the rest of us the facts ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various
... flow, and this is especially influenced by fear and depression. Blushing, pallor, cold hands and feet, are circulatory disturbances based largely on emotions. Better than a hot-water bottle or electric pads are courage and optimism. A patient of mine laughingly tells of an incident which she says happened a number of years ago, but which I have forgotten. She says that she asked me one night as she carried her hot-water bottle ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... of the doctrine of 'final causes' was the inevitable course for a philosopher who wishes to retain the old creeds and yet to appeal unequivocally to experience. It suits the amiable optimism for which Stewart is noticeable. To prove the existence of a perfect deity from the evidence afforded by the world, you must of course take a favourable view of the observable order. Stewart shows the same ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... discovered Port Dalrymple." "Were you ever at the Derwent?" "I was, and from my report, I believe, it was that the first settlement was made there." He was one of the few early explorers of Australia whose vision was hopeful; and experience has in every instance justified his foreseeing optimism. ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... and at the end to be still resisting it, is for the poor human soldier to have done right well. To ask to see some fruit of our endeavor is but a transcendental way of serving for reward." This is not pessimism, it is the first step toward a sound and invulnerable optimism. We must recognize once for all that this world is not the world of our dreams, and cease to be so pathetically surprised and hurt when it falls short of them. Were we to be rebellious at life for not being built after the pattern of our ideals ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... of Ruszky in the north and of Ivanov in the south in setting a term to the terrifying sweep of the German advance produced a temporary optimism in Russia comparable with that which followed the victory on the Marne; and in neither case did the Allies realize the extent of the advantage gained by the Germans or foresee the years that would pass before the loss ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... his exertion. The fact that he was feeling keenly alive, and that the thickening in his chest was disappearing, flushed him with elation. An unbounded optimism possessed him. It was late when he fell asleep, and he slept late. It was Mercer's entrance into his room that roused him. He came in softly, closed the door softly, yet Kent heard him. The moment ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... humour to be nobly careless of personal advantage," Honoria replied. "It's in a state of almost perilously full-blown optimism regarding the security of its own salvation to-day, somehow."—Her glance rested very sweetly upon Lady Calmady.—"And then all the rest of me—and not impossibly my soul has a word to say in that connection too—cries out to go and tramp ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... pictures tell of the older artist—not so vigorous, a vein of tenderness beginning to show instead of his youthful blazing optimism. Claude Monet must have had a happy life—he is still a robust man painting daily in the fields, leading the glorious life of a landscapist, one of the few romantic professions in this prosaic age. Not so vain, so irritable as ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... superiority in which the contemplation and understanding of things give sufficient contentment, without making it needful for man to stretch out his hands to take possession of them; a thought which Goethe's friend, Schiller, has magnificently developed in his grand philosophical poems. Optimism and pessimism disappear at once, as well as fatalism; the highest and most refined intellect again accepts the world, as children and ignorant toilers do: as a given necessity. He does not even think the world could be otherwise, and within its limits he not only enjoys and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... expeditionary wars with China and Persia, and dealing with characteristic decision and pluck with the great Sepoy Mutiny in India, in 1857. To Palmerston belongs the credit of selecting the right person in Sir Colin Campbell to restore the British power in the revolted provinces, and his ready optimism helped to nerve the nation in this year of trial. John Bull felt a new pride in "Old Pam" when, in his Mansion House speech, in this time of national foreboding, he served notice on any foreign nation whom it might ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... your own easy chair, and say to your soul, "O soul, eat and drink; O soul, make merry. Carouse thy fill. Ignore the maimed lives, the stricken heads and seared hearts, the reddened fangs and ravening claws of nature all round thee." Pessimism is sympathy. Optimism is selfishness. The optimist folds his smug hands on his ample knees, and murmurs contentedly, "The Lord has willed it;" "There must always be rich and poor;" "Nature has, after all, her great law of compensation." ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... but Lee found it hard to relinquish the illusion of years, and as soon as night came down he again began his weary march westward. A slight success on the next day once more raised his hopes; but his optimism was not shared by his subordinates, and a number of his principal officers, selecting General Pendleton as their spokesman, made known to him on the seventh their belief that further resistance was useless, and advised surrender. Lee told them that they had yet too many ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... optimism she tried to laugh away her alarm, but the pulling ache persisted and her arms trembled under tasks that before had seemed as nothing. She told herself that it was all her own fault that her big ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... hard not to be affected by the prevailing spirit of optimism. For myself the gold had but little attraction, but the adventure was very dear to my heart. Once more the clarion call of Romance rang in my ears, and I leapt to its summons. And indeed, I reflected, it was a wonderful kaleidoscope of a world, wherein I, ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... coming cock-fight with characteristic optimism—not shared by Harkness, and but partially approved by O'Neil. Details were solemnly discussed, questions of proper heeling, of silver and steel gaffs, of comb and wattle cutting, of the texture of feather and hackle, and of the "walks" at Flatbush and Horrock's ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... Mrs. Wilkins, turning her head and also cordially—as though, Mrs. Fisher thought, she cared a straw who she was writing to and anyhow knew who the person she called Mellersh was. "He'll want to know," said Mrs. Wilkins, optimism induced by her surroundings, "that I've ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... it. Money moved easily; wages were stiffening; tradesmen were in demand. There was material for many good stories in his investigations. He began writing features on the city's prosperity and prospects. The rival paper did the same, and there was soon started between them a competition of optimism. The great word became "boost." It stood, apparently, for any action or attitude that would increase prices. The virus was now in the veins of the community; pulsing through every street and by-way of the little city. Dave marvelled, and wondered ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... We stand in danger of exaggerating these vociferous thoughts. This question of naturalness as opposed to artificiality is not immediately pertinent to our problem, nor is the matter of optimism and pessimism, nor the biologic idea of survival. We should have looked more to the way of love in the lives of men and women and become historians of the method and conduct of the force. There would have been less confusion. So I write, "Be that as it may," and go back to more ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... wealthy, agreeable to women by divine right, with active enemies and a horde of flatterers, in daily contact with the meaner and more disingenuous corners of human nature, is not conducive to a broad optimism and a sweet and immutable Christianity. Rezanov inevitably was more or less cynical and blase', and too long versed in the ways of courts and courtiers to retain more than a whimsical tolerance of the naked truth and an appreciation of its excellence as a diplomatic manoeuvre. Nevertheless, he ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... her, perhaps the sturdy, independent blood of her Yorkshire ancestors, seemed to forbid such a course. She could not return, creep back to the shelter of the home she had abandoned; and even Toni's youthful optimism could not promise her a very hearty welcome when the truth of her flight ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... who has had an opportunity of personally sounding the undercurrents of German public opinion, this quiet optimism that has become noticeable only in the past few weeks (totally different in character from the enthusiasm that followed the declaration of war) has seemed particularly significant. Three months ago I was incessantly asked by Germans "how the situation looked to an American," and "how ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... effective attack was made upon what was alleged to be the utter immorality of this book by my excellent friend Mr. C.F.G. Masterman, in the 'Speaker.' The tendency of that criticism was to the effect that I was discouraging improvement and disguising scandals by my offensive optimism. Quoting the passage in which I said that 'diamonds were to be found in the dust-bin,' he said: 'There is no difficulty in finding good in what humanity rejects. The difficulty is to find it in what humanity accepts. The diamond is easy ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... and places, who minimize all misfortune, crime, suffering, who find "good in everything,"—the "Pollyana" tribe. My objection to them is based on this,—that mankind must see clearly in order to rid itself of unnecessary suffering. Hiding one's head (and brains) in a desert of optimism merely perpetuates evil, even though one sufferer here and there ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... of death upon his face," Mannering answered. "The men who are traitors to their country to-day are those who, healthy enough themselves, talk causeless and shallow optimism which is fed alone by their own prosperity. The doctrine of Christ is the care of others. If you do not believe, the sick-room is open also to you; go there unprejudiced, and with an open mind, and you will come away as I ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... heard him heave a sigh. "I had quite a talk with him. I can't fully account for it, but I like the man very much. It may be his optimism or wonderful faith. I know that he has a very soothing effect on me. The truth is, I have promised to go to ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... compassionately, the impossibility of a poor insurance man thinking of a summer residence like the Conwell place, and I combated as well as I could the optimistic reasons of my friend in its favor. I was not very severe with him, for I saw that his optimism was not so much from his wish to have me live in Gormanville as from the new hope that filled him. It was by a perfectly natural, if not very logical transition that we were presently talking of this greater interest again, and Glendenning was going over all the plans ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... I said to Emma and Matilda but their optimism was too ingrained to yield to my gray mood. "We can't afford to grant too much," said Emma. "We are in ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... "Wooing of Ferb", do we feel that a competent artist has so formed his story that the best possible value has been extracted from it. Yet, in spite of their defects, the old heroic sagas of Ireland have in them a stimulating force and energy, and an element of fine and healthy optimism, which is strangely at variance with the popular conception of the melancholy of Irish literature, and which, wherever they are known, make them the fountain-head of a fresh creative inspiration. This stimulating of the imagination ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... His cheerfulness and optimism raised their spirits. At least they hung on to their insecure refuge with much ardor, and not uncheerfully waited to be ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... father and mother would resent Ruth. Because Bonbright loved her so truly he was unable to see how anybody could resent her very much. He was blinded by young happiness. Optimism had been born in him in a twinkling, and set aside a knowledge of his parents and their habits of thought and life that should have warned him. He might have known that his father could have overlooked anything but this—the ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... with his usual optimism when Tom had once started on any experimental work. "Of course he will. Just as she stands there now, only half put together, I would be willing to bet a farm that she is a better locomotive than the ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... truth. Only by a careful study of maps from day to day and a microscopic reading between the lines could one grope one's way to any kind of clear fact which would reveal something more than the vague optimism, the patriotic fervour, of those early dispatches issued from the Ministry of War. Now and again a name would creep into these communiques which after a glance at the map would give one a cold thrill of anxiety and ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... usually seeks to turn its virtue into capital. But in a land where, as old King Solomon, who knew his crowd, remarked, "All men are liars," you must have some sort of weathervane by which to guide your national optimism, so I settled on that one ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... machine optimism. Under this socialism the number and efficiency of machines would increase more rapidly than they have under capitalism and feudalism, because its aim will be the production of commodities for use within the shortest time by the least exertion at ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown
... his spirits took another rise. After all, he could be much worse off. He had a good house, arms and food, and in time a ship would come. A ship must come, and, with his usual optimism, he was sure that it ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... desk and of copy readers is to reduce all reporters to a dead level, but in spite of this Jeff managed to get himself into his work. He brought to many stories a freshness, a point of view, an optimism that began to be noticed. From the police run Jeff drifted to other departments. He covered hotels, the court house, the state ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... mutterings of the basses there ring out, on the horns and trumpets, clarion calls to action. While we are in this world we must live its life; a living death is unendurable. The Finale, Allegro maestoso, is a majestic declaration of unconquerable faith and optimism—the intense expression of Beethoven's own words, "I will grapple with Fate, it shall never pull me down"—to be compared only with Browning's "God's in his heaven, all's right with the world," and the peroration to Whitman's Mystic Trumpeter, "Joy, joy, over ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... affairs. Four charges hung heavy above him: that of horse-stealing, of burglary, of highway robbery, and worse, the final one of assault with attempt to kill. Fairchild turned wearily away; he could not find the optimism to join Harry's cheerful announcement that it would be "all right." The appearances were otherwise. Besides, up in the little hospital on the hill, Fairchild had seen lights gleaming as he entered the jail, and he knew that doctors were working there over the wounded body ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... general policy of his predecessor, and brought to his tasks the energy of youth and the optimism of the West. When he assumed the leadership, the cost of living was rising rapidly and he addressed himself to the adjustment of wages. He divided the country into three sections in which conditions were similar. He began ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... lapse of years, however, even if Emile could see no better with his eyes, his other faculties had developed so largely as to surrender to him again the joy of independence of outside help, and with characteristic self-reliance and optimism he once ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... in the face of a continually thwarting fate that would have caused many a man, stronger physically than he, to become discouraged, despairing. Ill health, poverty and lack of appreciation of his life work had not the power to destroy his optimism. He bravely waged an unequal combat with the three, when many a man would have fallen on his own sword to end the bitter struggle with either one of them. From out the ...
— Edward MacDowell • Elizabeth Fry Page
... Thought," and similar movements all achieve their really marvelous results in much the same way. All proclaim doctrines of exuberant optimism, having a tendency to banish fear-thoughts and self-consciousness and self-depreciation, and to set up in their stead ideas of courage and of achievement and of individual power. If these teachings are successful—that is to say, if they inherently possess the right appeal for the particular ...
— Initiative Psychic Energy • Warren Hilton
... the "higher unities" in which all contradictions should be reconciled. In Spencer's hands the theory of evolution acquired a more decidedly optimistic character than in Darwin's; but I shall deal later with the relation of Darwin's hypothesis to the opposition of optimism ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... inflicts upon the mind the sense of a profound mystery which is absolutely beyond human solution." In the face of such a world, even when partially made intelligible in ideal art, dare we assert that fatalistic optimism which would have it that the universe is in God's eyes a perfect world? I can find no warrant for it in ideal art, though thence the ineradicable effort arises in us to win to that world in the conviction that it is not indifferent in ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... often brilliant, often quaint, always striking and serviceable, and always expressed in scrupulously clear and simple language. The teaching, put more plainly and definitely, perhaps, with less intellectual disguise than usual, is the old unconquered optimism which, in Browning, is so unmistakably a matter ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... a well-trained mind to completely rout the worst case of the "blues" in a few minutes; but the trouble with most of us is that instead of flinging open the mental blinds and letting in the sun of cheerfulness, hope, and optimism, we keep them closed and try to eject the ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... hopeful face, smiling indulgently. The young man pleased him greatly; his sturdy hopefulness, his bright way of facing troubles, his general optimism, all combined to make the older man admire him. But, with better practical experience of the East, he did not share Helmar's view of the matter; he looked upon the Pasha's visit as of evil omen, to be treated with suspicion—to be watched with a lynx eye, and combatted with all the subtle ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... has her own way to make in the world. The various experiences through which she passes, the various viewpoints which she holds until she comes finally to realize that service for others is the only thins that counts, are told with that same intimate knowledge of character, that healthy optimism and the belief in the ultimate goodness of mankind that have distinguished all of this author's writing. The book is intensely alive with human emotions. The reader is bound to sympathize with Mrs. Norris' people because they seem like real people and because ...
— Sight to the Blind • Lucy Furman
... unaccustomed to politeness that she could not instantly recognize it, answered him with an imprecation at which he, no doubt, retreated, suddenly thrown on the defensive hurling the usual taunt. One prefers to hope he didn't, with the invincible optimism one has for the behaviour of lovable people; but whether or not his kind attempt at colloquy is the first indication I can find of that active sympathy with the disabilities of his fellow-beings which stamped him later so intelligent a meliorist. Even in his boy's beginning he had ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... their one claim to be regarded as a family asset. Even the religious teaching of Jews and Christians about the value and responsibility of children has not been influential enough to compel a recognition of their worth, though their innocence and purity, their faith and optimism are qualities indispensable to the race of mankind if social relations are to ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... was himself woven of England even more than of Italy. The English elements in his character and work are more than the Italian. His intellect was English, and had the English faults as well as the English excellences. His optimism was English; his steadfast fighting quality, his unyielding energy, his directness, his desire to get to the root of things, were English. His religion was the excellent English compromise or rather balance of dogma, practice and spirituality ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... to say it is a real privilege and pleasure for me to visit with you today and to have the honor of serving as your president for the past year. I have always been impressed with the enthusiasm and optimism of this group. You know enthusiasm and optimism are highly contagious, and I look forward each year with great anticipation ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Forty-Second Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... intolerant and impatient and a little heartless about an optimist—especially the kind of optimism that is based upon a simple everyday rudimentary joy in the structure of the world. There is such a thing, I suppose, with some of us, as having a kind of devilish pride in faith, as one would say to ordinary ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... Philo's early days was replaced by a noble optimism in his maturity, in which he trusted implicitly in God's grace, and believed that God vouchsafed to the good man the knowledge of Himself without its being necessary for him to inflict chastisements upon his body or uproot his inclinations. In this mood moderation is represented as ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... insurmountable obstacles standing in the path of our progress, that we are competent to solve the things that confront us, that they will be solved, and that humankind will be benefited by the virtue of our assuming an optimism in which we are ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... and Rome, at least it is more in the scenic tradition than New York Paris; and while I paced the great arcades and looked at the fourth-rate shop windows I didn't scruple to cultivate a shameless optimism. Relatively speaking, Turin touches a chord; but there is after all no reason in a large collection of shabbily-stuccoed houses, disposed in a rigidly rectangular manner, for passing a day of deep, still gaiety. The only reason, I am afraid, is the old superstition of Italy—that property ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... The twelve men have been multiplied now to a million and a half, scattered in forty lands. Girded with new strength and with the dauntless optimism of youth, the movement has risen up to minister not only to the millions of British and American soldiers and munition workers, but also to the men in the camps, hospitals, or prisons in most of the ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... a conspicuous place. If, in these delightful writings of his, he mostly avoids the darker problems of existence—if the mystery of the tragic and apparently unmerited and unrequited suffering in the world is rarely touched upon—we can pardon the omission for the sake of the gentle optimism that would rather look on the kindly side of life. "You come hot and tired from the day's battle, and this sweet minstrel sings to you," says Mr. Thackeray. "Who could harm the kind vagrant harper? ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... doubt they do, and that is the great reason why we find that good men and women cling to the belief, and are pained by its being questioned. But, surely, it is not legitimate to assume that, in the order of the universe, whatever is desirable is true. Optimism, even when a God is already believed in, is a thorny doctrine to maintain, and had to be taken by Leibnitz in the limited sense, that the universe being made by a good being, is the best universe possible, ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... any human warfare, are yet not completely pinnacled in "the intense inane." But this is not the only merit of "Hellas;' its poetry is purer than that of the earlier work, because Shelley no longer takes sides so violently. He has lost the cruder optimism of the 'Prometheus', and is thrown back for consolation upon something that moves us more than any prospect of a heaven realised on earth by abolishing kings and priests. When the chorus of captive Greek women, who provide the lyrical setting, sing round the couch of the sleeping sultan, we are aware ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... gas pipeline project (scheduled to begin operations in 2004) and investments in gold mining. Risk premiums on Peruvian bonds on secondary markets reached historically low levels in late 2003, reflecting investor optimism and the government's fiscal restraint. Despite the strong macroeconomic performance, political intrigue and allegations of corruption continued to swirl in 2003, with the TOLEDO administration growing increasingly unpopular, and local and foreign concern ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... the national inertia poison—to keep us retarded—to keep us from dashing into the big game with every fibre quivering, and our souls afire to finish it up! Berlin's hope is that while America grows sleek with too much optimism, Germany will grow stronger to prolong her insolent and murderous campaign. Open your columns, Amos, and shout these truths broadcast—for therein will rest the salvation of our country! Germany poor in food or munitions?—fiddle-sticks! ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... undergone emotions so deeply stirring. Tintoretto had never before beheld four youngsters affording such a wealth of opportunity for puppy-wise manoeuvres; indeed, he had never before seen but one little playfellow since his advent in the world. He was fairly crazed with optimism. As for Skeezucks—starving for even so much as the sight of children, hungering beyond expression for the sound of youngster voices, for the laughter and over-bubblings of the little folk with whom by rights he belonged—nothing in the way of words will ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... music of his oratorios; had Milton been known only by the poems of his youth, we might with equal plausibility have laid that flattering unction to our heart. And yet how shallow would have been our optimism, how fallacious our attempt at consolation. There is no denying the fact that when a young Marcellus is shown by fate for one brief moment, and withdrawn before his springtime has bought forth the fruits ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... by this time that he was committed to rather a dishonest part; he was pledged not to give a shock to her optimism. This might cost him, in the coming days, a good deal of dissimulation, but he was now saved from any further expenditure of ingenuity by certain warning sounds which admonished him that he must keep his wits about him for a purpose more urgent. There were voices in the hall of the house, ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... old head against the carved back of his chair and looked at the other in his kindly, unambitious optimism. He had lost most that the world accounts of worth, but life had dealt gently by him, on the whole, since it had never infringed upon the sensitiveness of ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... His cogitations seem to have ended, almost invariably, in a gloomy mist of pessimism and despair—in other words, an attack of the "Horrors." If Mr Petulengro were encamped upon Mousehold, the antidote lay near to hand in his friend's pagan optimism; if, on the other hand, the tents of Egypt were pitched on other soil, there was no remedy, unless perhaps a prize-fight supplied the necessary stimulus to divert his ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... sources. The politics of the Revolution neither interested nor affected the Liberalism or Radicalism of the middle classes. It was not only the loftier and wholesomer poetry of Wordsworth and of Tennyson which averted enthusiasm from Byron, not only moral earnestness and religious revival but the optimism and the materialism of commercial prosperity. As time went on, a severer and more intelligent criticism was brought to bear on his handiwork as a poet. It was pointed out that his constructions were loose and ambiguous, that his grammar was faulty, that his ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... To improve the census was General Walker's work for many years, and his experience cannot fail to be of interest to the present generation.... Economics in the hands of this master was no dismal science, because of his broad sympathies, his healthy conservative optimism, his belief in the efficacy of effort; and, in a more superficial sense, because of his saving sense of humor and his happy way of putting things, ... he was the fortunate possessor of a very pleasing literary style, ... clear and interesting to the general reader, as well ...
— The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens • Georg Jellinek
... not," said Ramage, as one who rouses himself from deep preoccupations And he began to question her in a business-like way upon the steps she had taken and the inquiries she had made. He displayed none of the airy optimism of their previous talk over the downland gate. He was helpful, but gravely dubious. "You see," he said, "from my point of view you're grown up—you're as old as all the goddesses and the contemporary of any man alive. But from the—the economic ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... peace! At any rate, do not ask us to accommodate our doctrines to the lessons you have been taught. That is what those rascals of sham philosophers will do for you. Ask them for any doctrine you please, and you will get it. Your University professors are bound to preach optimism; and it is an easy and agreeable task ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism • Arthur Schopenhauer
... "emergency." It is much more comfortable to think that things are going on very smoothly and well. Even though all is not just as we might choose to have it, yet we like to think that it will turn out well. There is a sort of optimism that is very popular. Things will all come out right somehow, we like to think. But the fact is that things don't turn out right of themselves. They have to be turned by somebody who gives heart ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... wrote. It was a world of smug little tradesmen of shallow and half-educated minds, with paltry ambitions, utter ignorance of history and philosophy, shrinking instinctively from all strenuous thought and resenting every attack upon the placid optimism in which it delighted to wrap itself. It had no perception of the doubts and difficulties which beset loftier minds, or any consciousness of the great drama of history in which our generation is only playing its part for the passing hour. Whatever lay beyond its narrow horizon was ignored, ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... be so with you. Wait till you are two years older, before you decide that 'tis your vocation. Time enough at six-and-twenty to form yourself into a metaphysical philosopher. The brain does not easily get too dry for that. Happy you, in these ideas which give you a tendency to optimism. May you become a proselyte to that consoling faith. I shall never be able to follow you, but shall look ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... progress as a process of realizing values a matter of temperament, of optimism, and ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... throat, and dispensed with her usual swathing of lace. She confessed that she had not been able to sleep at all; still she kept her trust in Providence, and would scarcely admit to discomfort. "I am sure there will be showers, and cool the air," she said, with her sweet optimism. As she spoke she fanned herself with the great palm-leaf fan with a green bow on the stem, which she was never without during this weather. "It is certainly very warm so early in the season. One must feel it a little, but it is always so delightful after a shower ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... and that which groweth wild in the fields'. Worlidge soon after recommended that clover be sown on barley or oats about the end of March or in April, and harrowed in, or by itself; and says, with optimism equal to Weston's, one acre of clover will feed you as many cows as 6 acres of ordinary grass and make ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... almost blind with doubt. If we compare, let us say, the morality of the DIVINE COMEDY with the morality of Ibsen's GHOSTS, we shall see all that modern ethics have really done. No one, I imagine, will accuse the author of the INFERNO of an Early Victorian prudishness or a Podsnapian optimism. But Dante describes three moral instruments—Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell, the vision of perfection, the vision of improvement, and the vision of failure. Ibsen has only one—Hell. It is often said, and with perfect truth, that no one could read a play like GHOSTS ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... ditch from which he should draw his water; she told him of the first steps; She painted all the difficulties in the darkest colors, without once lessening the glow of his optimism. He was so overwhelmingly, boyishly happy that she had to be happy with him in making believe that he was about to be a real rancher. But he should not have the sport all on his side. He must not think that she ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... there was a block outside, and the few yards between us and the door seemed interminable. I had none of the optimism of those others. I was filled with vague fears of some impending disaster. Suddenly, with a shiver, I recognized Cullen, scarcely a couple of yards away, also watching, wedged in among the throng. His lips were drawn closely together; his opera hat was well over ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... comprehensive maxim, which sounds as if it came straight from Shakespeare's lips. This battle-cry of invincible optimism is uttered in the play by Shakespeare's favourite hero, Henry V. It is hard to quarrel with the inference that these words convey the ultimate verdict of the dramatist on ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... several prosperous cities, including Wenatchee, the metropolis of north central Washington, with a population of about 5,000, at the junction of the Wenatchee and Columbia rivers; Leavenworth near the head of the valley; and Cashmere, midway between the two. The pervading spirit is one of optimism and liberality, for the Wenatchee red apple is famous the world o'er and nets its producers ...
— The Beauties of the State of Washington - A Book for Tourists • Harry F. Giles
... extravagant. He demanded the full details of the Slough transaction and suggested that the Vote should be withdrawn until they were forthcoming. To this proposal Mr. HOPE, with more humility than I should have expected after the optimism of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 21, 1920 • Various
... closing chapters of Daniel was primarily to present a religious philosophy of history. Through the rise and fall of nations Jehovah's purpose was slowly but surely being realized. They are the expression of the eternal optimism of the prophets. They voice their deathless hope that "the best is yet to be." They were intended to encourage those in the midst of persecution with the assurance that God was still in his heaven, and that all would yet be right ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... received coldly by the Canon Superintendent, and liberally discounted on the scores of dullness, crankiness, want of vision, yes jealousy. Now at last something had happened to disturb the Canon Superintendent in his optimism, in his forecast of Julian's brilliant usefulness ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... His optimism softened the asperities which men found in the character of the Governor. He attracted to the grim old man the loyalty of the youth of the State, and at the same time won that loyalty for himself. ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... us to despair of human reason. For those, and they were many, who were blissfully slumbering upon their faith in progress, a progress from which there was to be no looking back, the awakening has been rude. Without transition, such persons have passed from the absurd excesses of slothful optimism to the vertigo of unplumbed pessimism. They are not used to looking at life except from behind a parapet. A barrier of comfortable illusions has hidden from them, hitherto, the chasm above which, clinging to the face of the precipice, winds the narrow path ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... genial and persuasive skill in conversation; his historic place as the Republican premier gave him influence with the President; he had been in full sympathy with Lincoln's late course; and his constitutional theories and his optimism appear in the reconstruction scheme which the President soon proposed. Responsibility had steadied and sobered Johnson; his vindictiveness toward the South had disappeared,—one guesses with Seward's ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... original problem of political economy, which had been lost sight of since Adam Smith; and Ricardo's follower, Marx, is in a certain sense right when, with bitter scorn, he denounces as 'vulgar economists' those who, persistently clinging to Smith's optimism, see in the productiveness of labour the measure of the increase of actual wealth. For all that was brought against Ricardo by his opponents was known by him as well as or better than by them; only he knew what had escaped their notice, or what they saw no obligation to take note ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... In his blind optimism Lafayette could not believe but that his ideas would in the end have their proper weight. He stood with the nobility, resting proudly on their good intentions, and facing a brute force newly awakened by the tocsin of liberty. To this ...
— Lafayette • Martha Foote Crow
... door gently on her way to the stores, she mused sadly on the fact that her aunt, and not Mrs. Mangenborn, had given her the money with which to make the purchases. She hoped with childish optimism that the second-sight lady would pay her back; the other guests never did. Jenny sighed as she thought how much easier it would be on rent-days ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... David Langston, is a man of the woods and fields, who draws his living from the prodigal hand of Mother Nature herself. If the book had nothing in it but the splendid figure of this man, with his sure grip on life, his superb optimism, and his almost miraculous knowledge of nature secrets, it would be notable. But when the Girl comes to his "Medicine Woods," and the Harvester's whole sound, healthy, large outdoor being realizes that this is the highest point ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... citizens of Bursley, had asked a countess for a dance (and not been refused) made a new man of Denry Machin. He was not only regarded by the whole town as a fellow wonderful and dazzling, but he so regarded himself. He could not get over it. He had always been cheerful, even to optimism. He was now in a permanent state of calm, assured jollity. He would get up in the morning with song and dance. Bursley and the general world were no longer Bursley and the general world; they had been mysteriously ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... him. He was not a rebuke, but a stimulus, and banished morbidity. Some twenty years her senior, he preserved a gift that she supposed herself to have already lost—not youth's creative power, but its self-confidence and optimism. He was so sure that it was a very pleasant world. His complexion was robust, his hair had receded but not thinned, the thick moustache and the eyes that Helen had compared to brandy-balls had an agreeable ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... Spanish gravity, due not so much to a strong graft of Spanish blood and customs during the viceregal period, as to actual affinities with the race of Spain. But this gravity has nothing in common with pessimism, antagonistic though it be to those outbursts of irresponsible optimism engendered under northern skies by ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... guessed, none the less, that her ladyship's purse might be the real figure of the object extracted from the rustling covert at her rear—this suspicion gave on the spot to the child's eyes a direction carefully distant. It added moreover to the optimism that for an hour could ruffle the surface of her deep diplomacy, ruffle it to the point of making her forget that she had never been safe unless she had also been stupid. She in short forgot her habitual caution in her impulse to adopt her ladyship's practical interests ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... meal that the accusing face of Mrs. Patterson came between him and the last of his stew which he secured with blotters of bread. Even then he ignored the woman. He had other things to think of. He had to think of where he should sleep that night. But for once he had eaten enough; his optimism was again enthroned. ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... which "Pretty Polly Perkins" may be considered the best example; the Irish song; and the Motto song, inculcating a sweet reasonableness and content amid life's many trials and tribulations. Although, no doubt, such optimism was somewhat facile, it cannot be denied that a little dose of silver-lining advice, artfully concealed in the jam of a good tune and a humorous twist of words, does no harm and may have a beneficial effect. The chorus of "A Motto ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... she hurried homeward, this mystical optimism was to her something like a rose to a sick man—beautiful to contemplate, but of little practical application in alleviating pain. Her mind turned away from it. It turned away, too, from the pillar of cloud, of which ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King |
