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Benefaction

noun
1.
A contribution of money or assistance.
2.
An act intending or showing kindness and good will.  Synonym: benevolence.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Benefaction" Quotes from Famous Books



... the probability of this story, I have inquired when he was sent to the Chartreux; but, as he was not one of those who enjoyed the founder's benefaction, there is no account preserved of his admission. At the school of the Chartreux, to which he was removed either from that of Salisbury or Lichfield, he pursued his juvenile studies under the care of Dr. Ellis, and contracted that intimacy with Sir Richard Steele which their joint ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson

... successor in the kingdom, so that to thee I have proved the chief cause of the kingship of Persia, but to my fatherland of her present woes. For men, as a general thing, bring down upon their own heads the most of the misfortunes which are going to befall them. But if any remembrance of such benefaction comes to thy mind, do us no further injury, and grant me this requital, by which, O King, thou wilt escape the reputation of being most cruel." Such were the words of Stephanus. But Chosroes declared that he would not depart from there ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius

... recommended to foreign universities; &c., &c. The longest list of specifications of benefit would look very short. A man is a poor creature if he is to be measured so. For all these of course are exceptions, and the rule and hodiernal life of a good man is benefaction. The true charity of Goethe is to be inferred from the account he gave Dr. Eckermann of the way in which he had spent his fortune. "Each bon-mot of mine has cost a purse of gold. Half a million of my own money, the fortune I inherited, my salary and the large income ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... Dole originally signified the portion of alms that was given away at the door of a nobleman. Steevens, note to Shakspeare. Sir John Hawkins affirms that the benefaction distributed at Lambeth Palace gate, is to this day ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... through his vigorous intelligence and ingenuity, he was the first to cause men to be taught about the courses of the sun and moon, and the laws governing the revolutions of all the constellations. Consequently, in recognition of this benefaction, painters and sculptors represent him as holding up the firmament, and the Atlantides, his daughters, whom we call "Vergiliae" and the Greeks [Greek: Pleiades], are consecrated in the firmament ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius

... in which this Quality I am speaking of will be more sensibly perceived, than in granting a Request or doing an Office of Kindness. Mummius, by his Way of consenting to a Benefaction, shall make it lose its Name; while Carus doubles the Kindness and the Obligation: From the first the desired Request drops indeed at last, but from so doubtful a Brow, that the Obliged has almost as much ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... Brittany, whose subject he was born, jealous of the glory of France, which then engrossed all the most famous scholars of Europe, and being, besides, acquainted with the persecution Abelard had suffered from his enemies, had nominated him to the Abbey of St Gildas, and, by this benefaction and mark of his esteem, engaged him to pass the rest of his days in his dominions. Abelard received this favour with great joy, imagining that by leaving France he would quench his passion for Heloise and gain a new peace of mind upon entering ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence

... the girl? There is no good reason why she shall not. Health and strength were made to be life-lasting, or nearly so. So beauty is a rich gift of the Divine Artist given for life. Why should we dissipate it in an hour? It is ungrateful, impious to do it. We ought to prize and retain it as a divine benefaction. God could as well have made Girlhood ugly as beautiful. His wisdom and love chose to make it a model of grace and elegance. Has he laid a necessity upon woman's nature that this beauty shall last but an hour? Far from it. On the other hand, ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver

... been powerfully assisted and benefited by the sagacity which at once afforded relief, improved the country, and opened the way to great markets. Temporary assistance is succeeded by a solid and permanent benefaction. ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... November, 1782, the treaty of Versailles, by which Great Britain recognized our NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE. A Huguenot, ELIAS BOUDINOT, was the first president of the great national institution, the American Bible Society; and at his death, bequeathed to it a noble benefaction. The French Protestants were always ardent lovers of the BIBLE, and John Jay succeeded Mr. Boudinot in his important office of president to that noble institution. 'No one in America,' says the eminent Dr. Baird, 'need blush at having one of these respectable Huguenots among his ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... one, and though at first objected to, the church-wardens bowed to the inevitable, and they are now among the most prized relics within the church. The public garden (the Prospect) adjoining the churchyard was another benefaction of the "Man of Ross," and with some private houses and a hotel it crowns the summit of the plateau. Here the hand of the "Man of Ross" again appears in a row of noble elms around the churchyard which he is said to have planted, some of them of great size. The view from the Prospect, ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook

... containing schools supported by such niggardly tax levies as a sparse and hard-handed population will consent to pay, but of ancient institutions splendidly endowed by the State and by centuries of private benefaction. As a means of dispensing formulated ignorance our boasted public school system is not without merit; it spreads it out sufficiently thin to give everyone enough to make him a more competent fool than he would have been without it; but to compare it ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce

... away is not untimely. The longest life can accomplish only benefaction and fame, and the life that has accomplished these has reached life's ultimatum. It is a fair and decorous fate to devote length of days to humanity, but he who gathers up his life with all its beauty and happiness and hope, and lays it on the altar of ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... "Don't feel uneasy, I should have acted all the same.") "You saved to us, and to herself, our daughter, and can better understand our feelings for this great benefit than I can express them." ("All right Judge, I would not try it further, if I were you.") "Whoever confers such a benefaction, also confers the right upon the receiver, not only to express gratitude by words, but by acts, which shall avail in some substantial way." ("Rather logical, Judge!") "I shall insist that you permit me to place at your disposal means to ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle

... ways the rivers Leap down to different seas, and as they roll Grow deep and still, and their majestic presence Becomes a benefaction to the towns They visit, wandering silently among them, Like patriarchs old among their shining tents. Christus: The Golden Legend, ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various

... was suggested, several useful seminaries have been instituted, under the name of "Charter Working Schools," in Ireland, supported by the royal benefaction of a thousand pounds a year, by a tax on hawkers and pedlars, and by voluntary subscriptions. The schools are for the education of boys and girls born of Popish parents; in most of them, the children manufacture their own clothing, and the boys are employed ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift

... work of collecting and editing progressed through the nineteenth century, till it culminated in the final edition of Professor Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads. But even this is scarcely his greatest benefaction to the study of ballads. We must confess that had it not been for the insistence of this American scholar, the Percy Folio Manuscript would remain a sealed book. For six years Professor Child persecuted Dr. Furnivall, who persecuted ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick

... mediaeval pious. The rite was performed, sometimes with a knife, sometimes with a hot iron, but always, says Arsenius Asceticus, acceptably if the penitent spared himself no pain nor harmless disfigurement. Scarification, with other crude penances, has now been superseded by benefaction. The founding of a library or endowment of a university is said to yield to the penitent a sharper and more lasting pain than is conferred by the knife or iron, and is therefore a surer means of grace. There are, however, two grave objections to it as a penitential method: the good ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce

... given his life, had it been necessary, for either of the brothers, because of the succour they had lent him; nay more, had they come to him in need a lifetime afterwards, when most men would have had time to forget their benefaction many times over, John Bates would have laid himself, and all that he had, at their disposal; but he was too proud to say "thank you" for what they had done for him, or to confess that he had never been so well ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall

... the most magnanimous man in Thebes, for you have requited injustice with an immense benefaction; but even as a boy you were kind and noble. Your father's wish has always been dear and sacred to me, for during his lifetime he always behaved to us as an affectionate brother, and I would sooner have sown the seeds of sorrow for myself than for your ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... having been recently paved at considerable expense, but the floor of the Octagon, South Transept, and Choir aisles will require a large sum to complete them, and if some kind friends will follow the example of Roger Clopton it will indeed be a timely benefaction, and now very much to be desired as an important step towards the completion ...
— Ely Cathedral • Anonymous

... upon the people, right and left, and the folk, stranger and neighbour, near and far, were fulfilled with the love of him for the excess of his munificence and his bounty. Moreover he exceeded in benefaction of the poor and the indigent [538] and used himself to distribute his alms to them with his own hand. After this fashion he won himself great renown in all the realm and the most of the chiefs of the state and the Amirs used to eat at his table and swore not but ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne

... infancy and when it was practically without funds in having for its treasurer Thomas A. Goddard, a wealthy merchant; a man utterly void of personal vanity, whose eyes swept over the whole field, and who, wherever he saw that the cause could be promoted by a timely benefaction, very simply and unostentatiously bestowed it. So when the College was almost entirely without funds and had but a small part of the income needed to meet its current expenses, he quietly paid the deficiency out of his own pocket ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various

... navigation of the kingdom, and by raising of raw silk, for which upwards of L500,000 a year was paid to Piedmont, and thereby giving employment to thousands of tradesmen and working people. Then Sir Gilbert gave a handsome benefaction to the design, and his example was followed by the directors then present, and a great many others belonging to that opulent society; and James Vernon, Robert Hucks, and George Heathcote, Esquires, paid into the Bank (the treasury for this use) L200 each ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris

... longer mine to give," said I; "it is yours." "And you give it me for the gratitude you bear me?" "Yes," said I, "and for Dungarvon times of old." "Well, Shorsha," said he, "you are a broth of a boy, and I'll take your benefaction—five pounds! och, Jasus!" He then put the money in his pocket, and springing up, waved his hat three times, uttering some old Irish cry; then, sitting down, he took my hand and said, "Sure, Shorsha, I'll be going thither; and when I get there, it is turning over another leaf I will be; I ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... sovereign law and benefaction of the higher nature, through a perfect mediation of the will, descends upon the lower, so far man enters into free alliance with that which is sovereign in the universe, and is himself established in perfected freedom. The right action of free-will ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... the boys happier than I was. Going home began to seem an unattainable thing to me. Having a father, too, a regular father, instead of a dazzling angel that appeared at intervals, I considered a benefaction, in its way, some recompense to the boys, for their not possessing one like mine. My anxiety was relieved by my writing letters to my father, addressed to the care of Miss Julia Rippenger, and posting ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... roadside, she was content to give up the struggle and surrender to the soothing importunities of the coach as it bowled along. She dozed peacefully, conscious to the last that he was a most ungracious creature and more worthy of resentment than of benefaction. Baldos was not intentionally disagreeable; he was morose and unhappy because he could not help it. Was he not leaving his friends to wander alone in the wilderness while he drifted weakly into the comforts and pleasures of an enviable service? His heart was not in full sympathy with ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... they were not very efficient and turned out flour of such indifferent grade that the bakers of Quebec complained loudly on more than one occasion. In response to a request from the intendant, the King sent out some fanning-mills which were distributed to various seigneuries, but even this benefaction did not seem to make any great improvement in the quality of the product. Yet in some years the colony had flour of sufficiently good quality for export, and sent small cargoes both to France and to the ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro

... and the ability to digest their contents are necessary to the making of a library worker, an employment which the great increase in libraries, through the benefaction of Andrew Carnegie and others, is offering to thousands of American women. The salaries are low, but in considering entering upon the work, weight should be given to the opportunities for literary knowledge and culture it affords and its refined surroundings. ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller

... finance who had seen Dr. Boomer enter his office with a bundle of these monographs and a fighting glitter in his eyes had sunk back in his chair in dismay. For it meant that Dr. Boomer had tracked him out for a benefaction to the University, and that all resistance ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock

... began to express, with the diffidence of extreme gratitude, his warm thanks for the benefaction of books, which were exactly what he had wanted and longed for. His foreign birth enabled him to do this much more prettily and less clumsily than an English boy, and Gillian was pleased, though she told him that her brother's old ill-used books were far ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... to sustain an efficient system of common school education, thereby educating the whole mass of mind, and constituting it a police more effectual than peace officers and prisons." By so doing he thinks they would bestow a benefaction upon those who, from the accident of birth or parentage, are subjected to the privations and temptations of poverty, and would do much to remove the prejudice and to strengthen the bands of union between the different and extreme portions of society. He very justly regards it a wise provision ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew

... of the days, and thou hast contraried the power of Allah, nor hath this profited thee aught, because the Destinies which be writ upon mankind from infinity and eternity must needs be carried out. All this was determined by Allah, for that prosperity and adversity and benefaction and interdiction all be from the Almighty. Do thou whatso I have said and that which is inscribed upon my forehead shall be the quickening of me (Inshallah—an so please God!), since patience and longsuffering are better than restless thought." When her ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... woman of Sicily, in seeking her daughter who was stolen, comes into Attica, and there teaches the Greeks to sow corn; for which Benefaction she was Deified after death. She first taught the Art to Triptolemus the young son of Celeus King ...
— The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended • Isaac Newton

... artificial, beneficial, verify, simplify, stupefy, certify, dignify, glorify, falsify, beautify, justify, infect, perfect, effect, affection, defective, feat, defeat, feature, feasible, forfeit, surfeit, counterfeit, affair, fashion; (2) factor, factotum, malefaction, benefaction, putrefaction, facile, facsimile, faculty, certificate, edifice, efficacy, prolific, deficient, proficient, artifice, artificer, beneficiary, versification, unification, exemplification, deify, petrify, rectify, amplify, fructify, liquefy, disaffect, refection, comfit, pontiff, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... would employ, to attain its ends, even criminal means, and likewise great duplicity, whence comes his habit of scarcely ever saying that which is. There is worse behind. He is considered to be very ready to take offence, vindictive, envious, and far too slow in benefaction. He excited universal hatred by hurting all the world as long as it was in his power to. As for Mgr. de Guise, who is the eldest of the six brothers, he cannot be spoken of save as a man of war, a good officer. None in this realm has delivered more battles and confronted more dangers. Everybody ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... pay for it at the handsome figure of 4,000 pounds for a single couplet. Pope, however, who was not mercenary, declined to gratify the alderman, who by his will left the poet a legacy of 100 pounds, possibly hoping by this benefaction, if he could not be praised in his lifetime, at all events to escape posthumous abuse. If this were his wish it was gratified, and the ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell

... and I could not bear to lose a word that dropped from those lips so near me. Yes, I listened, and got such a lesson as only a noble, gentle lady could give. I shall never forget your womanly art, and the way you contrived to make the benefaction sound nothing. 'We are all of us at low water in turns, and for a time, especially me, Zoe Vizard; so here's a trifling loan.' A loan! you'll never see a shilling of it again! No matter. What ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... the knowledge of the creative laws, the historic laws, the laws of kind, as they are actual in the human nature and the human life, puts into our hands? Who shall think himself competent to oppose this benefaction? Alas for such an one! let us take up a lamentation for him. He has stayed too long. The constitution of things, the universal laws of being, and the Providence of this world are against him. The track of the advancing ages goes over him. He is at variance with that which was and shall ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... my dear brethren, it is not our business to inquire. It conveys a benefaction to a faithful and attached friend of the good Field-Marshal. The gift may be a lakh of rupees, or it may be a house and its contents—furniture, plate, and wine-cellar. My friends, I know the wine-merchant, and, ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... to be a magistrate, and may hope to be a legislator. This judicious institution was coldly entertained by the graver doctors, who complained (I have heard the complaint) that it would take the young people from their books: but Mr. Viner's benefaction is not unprofitable, since it has at least produced the excellent commentaries ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon

... in like manner from destitution. Least of all should the endeavor to aid them be based upon a method so uncertain and indirect as that contemplated by the bill, and which, moreover, proposes to continue the exercise of its benefaction through an indefinite period of years. It is, besides, reasonable to hope that positive suffering from want, if it really exists, will prove but temporary in a region where agricultural labor is so much ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

... successfully treated the mother of the future Cardinal,[205] wherefore it is legitimate to assume that the physician was persona grata to the whole family. As soon as Cardan had determined to withdraw from Pavia he applied to the Cardinal, who had just made a magnificent benefaction to Bologna in the form of the University buildings. He espoused Cardan's interests at once, and most opportunely, for the protection of a powerful personage was almost as needful at Bologna, as the sequel shows, as it would have been ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters

... seventies of the last century. Railroads in our country are owned by private corporations and are managed by private citizens, not, as in some countries, by public officials. They have been built by private enterprise, in the interest of the investors, not as a charity or as a public benefaction. Railroad-building appears thus at first glance to be a case of free competition where public interests are served in the following of private interests. But, looked at more closely, it may be seen to be in many ways ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter

... all read, say their Catechisms and Prayers tolerably well; but this pious Design being laid aside thro' the Opposition of Trade and Interest, Mr. Griffin was removed to the College to teach the Indians, instructed there by the Benefaction of the Honourable ...
— The Present State of Virginia • Hugh Jones

... time she had run the household with the most complete devotion, in the way that she had learned, and as befitted her single-minded, unsophisticated nature. She did all her work as though it were a benefaction, with whole-souled joy and boundless happiness in her ability. As often as my way led me near to where she lived, and that was almost daily at the same hour, I looked in at her window and found her always occupied with some sort of ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... the trees, and only half supply the needs of the institution, could be exchanged for a good, roomy, handsome edifice, placed on the summit of the mountain, where it would be visible for miles along the line of the Cincinnati Southern Railroad, besides being a benefaction to the cause, it would be the best, cheapest and most attractive advertisement of our mountain work, conceivable. It is to be hoped that someone will visit this beautiful spot ere long whose enthusiasm will not all ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 43, No. 7, July, 1889 • Various

... benefaction temporary if you like, to be kept until I call for it, but meanwhile to be used ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr

... Allworthy's mind, that nothing but the steel of justice could ever subdue it. To be unfortunate in any respect was sufficient, if there was no demerit to counterpoise it, to turn the scale of that good man's pity, and to engage his friendship and his benefaction. ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... land were the most needy, and where the gifts would yield the most abundant results. He took a business man's view of the subject, and has left an expression of judgment, supported by a princely benefaction, of great value to others who are prayerfully considering how they may best promote the interests of Christian civilization. Modest, consistent, dignified, courteous, a regular attendant at a Congregational ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 38, No. 06, June, 1884 • Various

... Another benefaction has been added to the many which art and science owe to Your Highness by the most gracious permission to publish the following letters of Winckelmann. They are addressed to a man who had the happiness of counting himself among your servants, and soon afterward ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... of the Legate, Robert Grossteste, the great Bishop of Lincoln, organised the payment and distribution of the fine, and founded the first of the CHESTS, the chest of St. Frideswyde. These chests were a kind of Mont de Piete, and to found them was at first the favourite form of benefaction. Money was left in this or that chest, from which students and masters would borrow, on the security of pledges, which were generally books, cups, ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang

... truths, regardless of the position in which they find themselves; except the insane, all agree that two and two make four, that the sun shines, that the whole is greater than any one of its parts, that Justice is a benefaction, that we must be benevolent to deserve the love of men, that injustice and cruelty are incompatible with goodness. Do they agree in the same way if they speak of God? All that they think or say of Him is immediately contradicted by the effects which they wish ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier

... what must he have thought when Captain Nemo pulled a bag of pearls from a pocket in his diving suit and placed it in the fisherman's hands? This magnificent benefaction from the Man of the Waters to the poor Indian from Ceylon was accepted by the latter with trembling hands. His bewildered eyes indicated that he didn't know to what superhuman creatures he owed both his life and ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... Coleman had not brought in his breakfast. He would have much preferred to have foregone breakfast altogether. He would have much preferred anything. There seemed to be a conspiracy of circumstance to put him in the wrong and make him appear as a ridiculous young peasant. He was the victim of a benefaction, and he hated Coleman harder now than at any previous time. He saw that if he stalked out and took his breakfast alone in a cafe, the others would consider him still more of an outsider. Coleman had expressed himself like a man of the world and a gentleman, and Coke was convinced ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane

... who has given'; or, still more definitely, pointing to some one specific moment and deed in which the benefaction was completed, 'Blessed be God ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... in behalf of an academy in Oneida County, New York, to be located near the old Property Line, where both the sons of the settlers and the children of the forest might be educated. His visit to Philadelphia secured a generous benefaction from Washington, and at the same time his influence and that of others, so that Congress appropriated $15,000 yearly to "instruct the Iroquois in agriculture and ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various

... the prodigious sums expended upon this pious undertaking, were beyond the ability of the inhabitants; that the debts contracted, were many years in discharging; and that one of the best of Kings, the head of the Brunswick line, bestowed a liberal benefaction upon a people not compleatly reconciled ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton

... this second benefaction was bestowed was a gesture of dismissal and the bestower set off on an easy saunter about ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie

... advances are returned to you with interest," Squiggs suggested. "A very creditable plan of benefaction; ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead

... library. It is one of the five which by an act of Parliament has a right to demand from the publisher a copy of every work published. The origin of the library is quite unique. It dates from a benefaction by the victorious English army after its defeat of the Spaniards at Kinsale in 1603, when they devoted one thousand eight hundred pounds—a sum equivalent to five times that money at present rates—to establish a library in the university, being, it may be presumed, instigated by ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various

... and he seldom, if ever, made a mistake in diagnosis. Considering this fact, and the personal attractions which gave him distinction, it was no wonder that he soon became a popular physician whose presence was a benefaction and ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green

... countenances indicated that they belonged to that rare class of beings to whom rank and wealth are but an incentive to nobler things. A gentle philanthropy played all over their faces, and their eyes sought eagerly in the passing scene of the humble street for new objects of benefaction. ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock

... of execution. 'Flowers are so universally loved, and accepted everywhere as necessities of the moral life, that whatever can be done to render their cultivation easy, and to bring them to perfection in the vicinity of, or within, the household, must be regarded as a benefaction.' This benefit our author has certainly conferred upon us. The gift is from one who must himself have loved these lily cups and floral bells of perfume, and will be warmly welcomed by all who prize their loveliness. In the pages of this book may be found accurate and detailed information ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... grow is to run the grave risk of arresting development. A benefaction must bestow a benefit. Give to most people and they will quit work and get a job with George Arliss, for the devil still finds mischief ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard

... that the guest-chamber was quite at his service, but adds: 'Pray do not fancy us in such a state that we can profess a retreat, or any one here able to conduct one.' In another letter Mr. Newman acknowledges 'a splendid benefaction' of Mr. Hope's ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby

... theatre was offered her. The profits of the night were only 130, though Dr. Newton brought a large contribution; and 20 were given by Tonson, a man who is to be praised as often as he is named.... This was the greatest benefaction that Paradise Lost ever procured the author's descendants; and to this he who has now attempted to relate his life had the honour of contributing a Prologue.' Johnson's Works, vii. 118. In the Gent. Mag. (xx. 152) we read ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... In view of a benefaction like this it becomes a man to be grateful, but for all that it is a pity that a great writer and a willing reader should be held apart by any avoidable hindrances. It is quite true that an immediate popularity is no test of high merit. But the real man of genius is, after all, he ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray

... to the cry of distress from every quarter, kept his eye fixed upon the single object of his endeavor, seems hardly human—certainly not humane. And yet there are few reasoning men to be found now ready to deny that it was for the best, and, taken all in all, a benefaction to the country; one of those sad cases, in fact, where it is necessary to be cruel ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman



Words linked to "Benefaction" :   contribution, kindness, benefact, benevolence, benignity, donation



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