"Benign" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... borders has been rapidly increasing during the last year. The Assembly take notice of this circumstance with the more satisfaction, as it not only affords a pleasing presage of the spread of the gospel, but also furnishes agreeable evidence of the genuineness and the benign tendency of that spirit which God has been pleased to ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... Affections are regular and exalted to vertuous and sublime Objects, the Spirits cool, and the Mind sedate, the Man is in a general Rectitude of Mind, he may be truly said to be his own Man; Heaven shines upon his Soul with its benign Influences, and he is out of the Reach of the evil Spirit; for the divine Spirit is an Influence of Peace, all calm and bright, happy and sweet like it self, and tending to every Thing that is good both present ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... watching for little breaks in the ranks and dodging swiftly through them. His crutch was under his arm, he was not using it. His hat-brim had been lowered over his face, his coat collar pulled high about his ears and securely buttoned. There was none of that benign appearance about him now which had so won Dorothy's sympathetic heart and if he were lame ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... fanatical processions and feudal wars, of mediaeval Rome raged unnoticed below. For Pope Sixtus and his Riarios, and Pope Innocent and his Cybos, thirsting for power and gold, drunken with lust and bloodshed, were benign and courteous patrons of all art and ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... Woodbridge community, and there is, accordingly, a somewhat formidable atmosphere about them which is vaguely felt by all. But here we must let the affair rest. They are not to play any other part in our story than to shed their benign influence over the hero, and we may dismiss them except for an occasional inevitable reference, with a brief statement. When, in his Sophomore year, he had made the baseball team, it had been conceded that Tom's chances of "coming across" ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... had become the inculcation of false philosophies summed up in the general term Kultur, that the subjects of the autocratic-ridden empires believed they were being guided by benign influences. Many enlightened men; at least it seems they must have been enlightened, in Germany and Austria—men who possessed liberated intellects and were not in the pay of the Kulturists—professed to believe that despotism in the modern ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... least wee bit tiresomely, but with youth-like continence; without intoxication, and, which happens especially rarely, without the least shadow of mutual affronts, or jealousy, or unvoiced mortifications. Of course, such a benign mood had been helped by the sun, the fresh river breeze, the sweet exhalations of the grasses and the water, the joyous sensation of the strength and alertness of one's body while bathing and rowing, and the restraining influence of the clever, kind, pure and handsome girls from ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... school was pastor. With how deep a spirit of wonder and perplexity was I wont to regard him from our remote pew in the gallery, as, with step solemn and slow, he ascended the pulpit! This reverend man with countenance so demurely benign, with robes so glossy, and so clerically flowing, with wig so minutely powdered, so rigid and so vast,—could this be he who, of late, with sour visage, and in snuffy habiliments, administered, ferule in hand, the Draconian ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... raised his right hand and, inasmuch as his countenance was calm and benign, his gesture appeared to be ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... into Paris, Captain Gardiner was his master of the horse; and I have been told that a great deal of the care of that admirably well-adjusted ceremony fell upon him; so that he gained great credit by the manner in which he conducted it. Under the benign influence of his Lordship's favour, which to the last day of his life he retained, a captain's commission was procured for him, dated July 22, 1715, in the regiment of dragoons commanded by Colonel Stanhope, ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge
... a moment after this impulsive entrance, and the governess turned toward Mrs. Foss a face that, benign and enlightened though it was, called up the memory of faces seen in good-humored German comic papers. The expression of her smile said to the company that she was guiltless in the matter of this invasion. Could one ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... plaudit, exclaimed frequently, "What popularity is this! how fine to a man's feelings! yet he Must find it embarrassing." Indeed I should suppose he could with difficulty bear it, 'Twas almost adoration! How much I lament that I lost the sight of his benign countenance, during such glorious moments as the most favoured monarchs can scarce enjoy twice in ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... In the torridly tropic heaven of the virtuous dead an Unknown God, so the tribes believe, makes fire—just as in the nether regions beneath the earth the Great Evil, who has revealed himself with a more terrible reality than the Great Benign, creates cold and forges ice. In that land of the happy dead, disclosed in the aurora, there is never any night, nor is it ever cold. So the souls there are always happy. Sometimes in their revels they troop earthward to cheer the mortals who suffer from ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... tranquillity expressed in this letter, and which was the greatest blessing that could have been given to Sarah Grimke's last years, grew day by day, and shed its benign influence on all about her. She had long ceased to look back, and had long been satisfied that though she had had an ample share of sorrows and perplexities, her life had passed, after all, with more of ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... this truth benign: "To die for one loved tenderly, Of greatest love on earth is sign"; And now, such love is mine— Such ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... was altogether at variance with his tastes,—and it would be futile. He must summon courage to tell her that he no longer wished for the match; but he could not do it on this morning. Then,—for that morning,—some benign god preserved him. ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... O mighty machine! O benign, munificent law! Law of a people who boast of mercy and truth and equal rights and justice to all. Law of a land with rivers of gold and mountains of silver, the sum of its wealth astounding ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... charms did not fail making an impression on my landlady, who had no little relish for this kind of beauty. She had, indeed, a real compassion for the young man; and hearing from the surgeon that affairs were like to go ill with the volunteer, she suspected they might hereafter wear no benign aspect with the ensign. Having obtained, therefore, leave to make him a visit, and finding him in a very melancholy mood, which she considerably heightened by telling him there were scarce any hopes of the volunteer's life, she proceeded to ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... routine; if they had only taken their task a bit less seriously and had not tried to apply too strictly to an empty continent the paternal administration of an older country; we might have been privileged to witness the development and operation of as complete and benign a system of colonial government as has been devised in modern times. The public initiative of the Spanish government, and the care with which it selected its colonists, compare very favourably with the opportunism of the English and the French, who colonized by chance ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... beamed in benign mockery. "What you goin' to do after that, Joe? If we got the rest ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... the sacrament to some of the bye-standers."—Ib., p. 222. "The high fed astrology which it nurtured, is reduced to a skeleton on the leaf of an almanac."—Cardell's Gram., p. 6. "Fulton was an eminent engineer: he invented steam boats."—Ib., p. 30. "Then, in comes the benign latitude of the doctrine of goodwill."—SOUTH: in Johnson's Dict. "Being very lucky in a pair of long lanthorn-jaws, he wrung his face into a hideous grimace."—SPECTATOR: ib. "Who had lived almost four-and-twenty years under so politick a king ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... the door-bell of the castle rang, and soon a varlet came to fast inform my lord the dwarf that in the parlor waited now a giant, and on the card he gave his name was written, "S.T. Mate." The dwarf unto his parlor quick repaired, and there, upon some dozen chairs the giant sat, smiling benign. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various
... the late Government made their agreement with France—the warm and cordial feeling resulting from the fact that these two nations, who had had perpetual differences in the past, had cleared these differences away. I remember saying, I think, that it seemed to me that some benign influence had been at work to produce the cordial atmosphere that had made that possible. But how far that friendship entails obligation—it has been a friendship between the nations and ratified by the nations—how ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... help coloring at that benign pleasantry. It was all the more painful to him because it was at once true and untrue. How should he explain the sort of literary alchemy, thanks to which he was enabled to affirm that he never drew portraits, although not a line of his fifteen volumes was traced without a living model? He ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... was prepossessing. He was tall and spare, but with a benign expression of countenance. He was well dressed, wore gold spectacles, and his scant hair and a tuft of whiskers on either side of his cheeks were snowy white, while his features were regular. He must have been ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... though I were on a stormy sea. The ship in which we sailed tossed like a cork, while the waves, foam-crested, hurled themselves furiously on our bark. A great panic seized the ship's crew, and they gave themselves up for lost. But for myself I had no fear. A great benign influence was around me, and I felt as safe as a babe rocked on its mother's breast, while the wild winds that roared seemed as sweet as the lullaby of a mother ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... lordship had the inexpressible happiness of announcing to his king and country, the entire liberation of the kingdom of Naples from French anarchy; the restoration of it's worthy sovereign to his hereditary throne; and of his numerous oppressed subjects, to the felicity of that benign and paternal protection which they had ever experienced under his Sicilian Majesty's ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... and went; and now returned again To Sicily the old Saturnian reign; Under the Angel's governance benign The happy island danced with corn and wine, And deep within the mountain's burning breast Enceladus, ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... pusillanimous mien, as being ashamed of our high calling. Then shall we be rid of the rank and pestilent truth that is rotting the land; then shall we be great and good and beautiful, and worthy dwellers in a world where even benign Nature habitually lies, except when she promises execrable weather. Then—but I am but a new and feeble student in this gracious art; I can ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... used to separate adjectives in opposition, but closely connected. "Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull." "Liberal, not lavish, is kind Nature's hand." "Though black, yet comely; and though rash, benign." ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... remote past was unclouded; he would tell about the friends of his early and middle life with unbroken vigour.' So, tended in his home by warm filial devotion, and surrounded by the reverent kindness of his village neighbours, this wise and benign man slowly passed ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley
... the seceding States, who are loyal to the Union; and these should have that support which the prestige of the General Government can alone give them. It is not to the North or to the Republican Party that the malcontents are called on to submit, but to the laws, and to the benign intentions of the Constitution, as they were understood by its framers. What the country wants is a permanent settlement; and it has learned, by repeated trial, that compromise is not a cement, but a wedge. The Government did not hesitate to protect the doubtful ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... of the distant vessels appear between us and the sun, like evil spirits gliding about the ocean to cause shipwrecks and disaster; while again, on the opposite quarter, the canvas appears of snowy whiteness, just catching the last rays of the light-giving orb of day, and we would fain believe them benign beings hovering over the ocean, to protect us poor mortals from the malign influences of their antagonists; while our proud ship glides majestically along in solitary grandeur, casting indignantly ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... the story while he and I smoked at one end of his veranda, and his kindly faced wife talked with "the only girl on earth" at the other end, beyond reach of his voice. He was a large, portly, and benign old gentleman, with an infinite experience of life, whom I had long known as a fellow-tenant in the studio building. He was not an artist, but an editorial-writer on one of the great dailies, who worked, cooked, and slept in his studio, until Saturday ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... large and placid, and his eye Is deep and bright, with steady looks that still. Soft lines of tranquil thought his face fulfill - His face at once benign and proud and shy. If envy scout, if ignorance deny, His faultless patience, his unyielding will, Beautiful gentleness and splendid skill, Innumerable gratitudes reply. His wise, rare smile is sweet with certainties, And seems in all his patients ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... naturata. Lessing seems to have done what he could to be a dutiful failure. But there was something in him stronger and more sacred than even filial piety; and the good old pastor is remembered now only as the father of a son who would have shared the benign oblivion of his own theological works, if he could only have had his wise way with him. Even after never so many biographies and review articles, genius continues to be a marvellous and inspiring thing. At the same time, considering the then condition of what was pleasantly ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... garment of the emperor Hwang Ti (who according to the Chinese legends, which of course are not above reproach, reigned in the twenty-seventh century B.C.). In this ancient literature there are numerous references to the dragon, and not merely to the legends, but also to representations of the benign monster on garments, banners and metal tablets.[161] "The ancient texts ... are short, but sufficient to give us the main conceptions of Old China with regard to the dragon. In those early days [just as at present] he was the god of water, thunder, ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... justice done to the cakes by that long-suffering man. Waiting till he had a tempting pile of the lightest, brownest flapjacks ever seen upon his plate, and was watching an extra big bit of butter melt luxuriously into the warm bosom of the upper one, with a face as benign as if some of the molasses he was trickling over them had been absorbed into his nature, Mrs. Wilkins seized the propitious moment ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... Henson's usually benign countenance would have startled such of his friends and admirers as regarded him as a shining light and great example. The smug satisfaction, the unctuous sweetness of the expansive blue eyes were gone; a murderous gleam shone there ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... ye, who make the fortunes of all books! Benign Ceruleans of the second sex! Who advertise new poems by your looks, Your "Imprimatur" will ye not annex? What! must I go to the oblivious cooks,[eo] Those Cornish plunderers of Parnassian wrecks? Ah! must I then the only minstrel be, Proscribed from ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... The Pope remained some time longer in the French capital. The prolonged presence of His Holiness was not without its influence on the religious feelings of the people, so great was the respect inspired by the benign countenance and mild manners of the Pope. When the period of his persecutions arrived it would have been well for Bonaparte had Pius VII. never been seen in Paris, for it was impossible to view in any other light than as a victim the man whose ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... the fortunes of the war are constantly changing. Meanwhile the most reprehensible means have been employed by both parties to extort money from foreigners, as well as natives, to carry on this ruinous contest. The truth is that this fine country, blessed with a productive soil and a benign climate, has been reduced by civil dissension to a condition of almost hopeless anarchy and imbecility. It would be vain for this Government to attempt to enforce payment in money of the claims of American citizens, now amounting to more than $10,000,000, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan
... now tendered to him without hesitation; and, repairing to Madrid, received the instructions of the government as to the course to be pursued. They were expressed in the most benign and conciliatory tone, perfectly in accordance with the suggestions of his own benevolent temper.10 But, while he commended the tone of the instructions, he considered the powers with which he was to be intrusted as wholly incompetent to their object. They were conceived in ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... may hold, His well fraught head may find no trifling prize. Should crafty lawyer trespass on our ground, Caitiffs avaunt! disturbing tribe away! Unless (white crow) an honest one be found; He'll better, wiser go for what we say. Should some ripe scholar, gentle and benign, With candour, care, and judgment thee peruse: Thy faults to kind oblivion he'll consign; Nor to thy merit will his praise refuse. Thou may'st be searched for polish'd words and verse By flippant spouter, emptiest of praters: ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... and to suggest how important a personage she was in his estimation. Assured, as she thought, of her influence in Washington, she seems also to have aspired to equal influence in the Vatican. That would not be the first occasion on which Cardinals' hats had been bestowed through the benign feminine intercession. Reports from Rome were favorable; ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... little sharply. "Once a young brown girl, with boundless faith in white folks, went to a Judge's office to ask for an appointment which she deserved. There was no one there. The benign old Judge with his saintly face and white hair suggested that she lay aside her ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... the position in which he found himself; but August was brave, and he had a firm belief that God and Hirschvogel would take care of him. The master-potter of Nuernberg was always present to his mind, a kindly, benign, and gracious spirit, dwelling manifestly in that porcelain tower whereof ...
— The Nuernberg Stove • Louisa de la Rame (AKA Ouida)
... from this evil man, sir King: for he is more worthy of death than of life, whereas he hath taken from the Queen's Daughter the flower of her virginity." But when Amile heard this, he fell adown all astonied, and might say never a word; but the benign King lifted him up again, and said to him: "Rise up, Amile, and have no fear, and defend thee of this blame." So he lifted himself up and said: "Have no will to trow, sire, in the lies of Arderi the ...
— Old French Romances • William Morris
... Innocent, benign, or simple tumours present a close structural resemblance to the normal tissues of the body. They grow slowly, and are usually definitely circumscribed by a fibrous capsule, from which they are easily enucleated, and they do not tend to recur after removal. In their growth they merely push aside ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... Jay, and Madison 'poor antagonists' in combating their objections; if so, how does he account for the remarkable triumph of their dispassionate exposition and lucid arguments? In all political and literary history there are few more benign and distinguished examples of the practical efficiency of intelligent, patriotic, and conscientious reasoning against ignorance, prejudice, and partisan misrepresentation. And yet, in the face of this testimony, by the self-constituted editor of this national work, Hamilton ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... though I own you to have been the first of mankind in virtue and goodness—though, while you governed, Philosophy sat on the throne and diffused the benign influences of her administration over the whole Roman Empire—yet as a king I might, perhaps, pretend to a merit even superior ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... put in a word," said the benign rector. "You know that I have always desired your welfare; but look now! this mortal danger has appeared in other districts also, possibly it may be a Divine visitation. There are villages in which two or three ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... captives grown supine, Chained to their task in sightless mine: Above, the bland day smiles benign, Birds carol free, In thunderous throes of life ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... No one has nailed him with sachet eggs. He has not been choked by quarts of confetti. His conscience is as pure as the brews of Munich. He is still in a beneficent state of primeval and exquisite prophylaxis, of benign chemical purity, of protean moral asepsis. He came prepared for deluges of wine and concerted onslaughts from ineffable freimaderln. But he might as well have attended a drama by Charles Klein for all the rakish romance he has unearthed. His evening has ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... exempt from the ordeal, laughed unrestrainedly at the melee. One danced entirely with his arms; his feet had very little to do with the time. One hopped through with a most dolorous expression of intense absorption in the arduous task. Another never changed a benign smile that had appeared on entering, but preserved it unimpaired through every accident. One female, apparently of the tender age of thirty, wore a yellow muslin, with her hair combed rigidly a la chinoise, and tightly fastened at the back of her head in a knot ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... Republican sectional party affirm, that slavery is a relic of barbarism, and therefore slavery shall be abolished in all the States and territories of the American Union. Another method was to have declared in the Constitution, as ultra men of the South now declare, that slavery is a benign institution, deserving of protection, encouragement and extension by the Federal government, and therefore slavery shall be protected and extended in all the States and territories of the American Union. Had the constitutional ...
— The Relations of the Federal Government to Slavery - Delivered at Fort Wayne, Ind., October 30th 1860 • Joseph Ketchum Edgerton
... the Doctor, gazing upward, "rejoices in a benign aspect with Venus. Fame, true love, and immortality will be yours, Jumonville de Villiers; but you will die young under the flag of your country and for sake of your King! You will not marry, but all the maids ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... transaction concerning Rubber Shares. (It was in the autumn of the great gambling year, 1910.) He had simply opened his lucky and wise mouth at the proper moment, and the money, like ripe, golden fruit, had fallen into it, a gift from benign heaven, surely a cause for happiness! And yet—he did not feel so jolly! He was surprised, he was even a little hurt, to discover by introspection that monetary gain was not necessarily accompanied by felicity. Nevertheless, this very successful man of the world of the ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... slouch hat, the picturesque amplitude of hair which were once the uniform of the artist. But these, in his final effect, were subordinate to 'a certain breadth and majesty of brow, a cast of countenance at once benign and austere, as though the art he practiced so supremely both exacted much and conferred much. He made a fine and potent figure as he stood, with his back to the bright street and the gutter-child standing beside ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... with benign aspect, seems now the predominant star of the zenith: A friendly intercourse succeeds suspicion. The difference of sentiment, that once created jealousy, now excites a smile; and the narrow views of our forefathers are ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... caught the hand of Stevens in her own, and kissed it—kissed HIS hand—could William Hinkley have seen THAT, how it would have rankled, how he would have writhed! She kissed the hands of that wily hypocrite, bedewing them with her tears, as if he were some benign and blessing saint; and not because he had shown any merits or practised any virtues, but simply because of certain professions which he had made, and in which she had perfect faith because of the professions, and not because of any previous knowledge which she had of the professor. Truly, it behooves ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... of that nature, had done no injury to any man. That was fortunate; but I could not much value myself upon what was so much an accident of my situation. Something, however, I might pretend to beyond this negative merit; for I had originally a benign nature; and, as I advanced in years and thoughtfulness, the gratitude which possessed me for my own exceeding happiness led me to do that by principle and system which I had already done upon blind impulse; and thus upon a double argument I was incapable of turning away ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... prostrated themselves in the dust and cried, "Mercy on the town of Ghent." While they were thus prostrate, the town spokesman of the council made an elaborate speech in French, assuring the duke that if, out of his benign grace. he would take his loving and repentant subjects again into his favour, they would never again give ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... their books about with intimations of their being likely to be acceptable or not—of which practice poor Tennyson knows too much for his peace. If, indeed, a letter of introduction to Beranger were vouchsafed to us from any benign quarter, we should both be delighted, but we must wait patiently for the influence of the stars. Meanwhile, we have at last sent our letter [Mazzini's] to George Sand, accompanied with a little note signed ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... the night, And let the crisped crescent shine Upon my eyelids while I sleep, And soothe me with her beams benign. ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume II. • Walter de la Mare
... the darkness, the carriage lamps were visible, shining down on the broad steps. At the same moment a lady came along from the corridor; a tall, elderly woman, with a pale, sweet face, quite white hair done up in old-fashioned little curls, and with eyes of a sad, benign expression. She seemed to be very pleased and cheerful; it was only the Vicar, who shook hands with her, who knew that her whole frame ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... channel to the Welsh hills. She was flattered by the confidence reposed in her, for Dr. Madden, reticent by nature, had never been known to speak in the domestic circle about his pecuniary affairs. He seemed to be the kind of man who would inspire his children with affection: grave but benign, amiably diffident, with a hint of lurking mirthfulness about his eyes and lips. And to-day he was in the best of humours; professional prospects, as he had just explained to Alice, were more encouraging than hitherto; ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... her voice and her benign face. She was really one of those delightful women who are "easily persuaded," and who readily accept whatever is, as right. For she had naturally one of the healthiest of human souls; besides which, years had brought her that tender sagacity and gentleness, which does not often come until ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... unfortunate woman arrived, Misery was waiting for her with a benign smile upon his long visage. He showed her all the sixpenny ones, but she did not like any of them, so after a while Nimrod suggested that perhaps she would like a paper of a little better quality, and she could pay the trifling difference out ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... fall On Priam's ill-starr'd merriment In bower and hall: His ruthless arm in broad bare day The infant from the breast had torn, Nay, given to flame, ah, well a way! The babe unborn: But, won by Venus' voice and thine, Relenting Jove Aeneas will'd With other omens more benign New walls to build. Sweet tuner of the Grecian lyre, Whose locks are laved in Xanthus' dews, Blooming Agyieus! help, inspire My Daunian Muse! 'Tis Phoebus, Phoebus gifts my tongue With minstrel art and minstrel fires: Come, noble youths and maidens sprung ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... you come? We have just been talking about you," cried Peggy, flitting to the side of the tall, handsome old gentleman and slipping her arm about him as his encircled her shoulder, and he looked down upon her with a pair of benign dark ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... to wealth gave him possession, Bude, his butler, was the acquisition in which he took the greatest delight and pride. Bude was a large and comfortable- looking person, triple-chinned like an archdeacon, bald-headed except for a respectable and saving edging of dark down, clean-shaven, benign of countenance, with a bold nose which to the psychologist bespoke both ambition and inborn cleverness. He had a thin, tight mouth which in itself alone was a symbol of discreet reticence, the hall-mark of the trusted ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... This benign whooping, however, failed to awaken the enthusiasm of the mass of novel-readers and brought but meagre orders from the circulating libraries. "Typhoon" came upon the heels of "Youth," but still the sales of the Conrad books continued small and the author ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... song: The humming burden of Earth's toil to feed Her creatures all, her task to speed their growth, Her aim to lead them up her pathways, shown Between the Pains and Pleasures; warned of both, Of either aided on their hard ascent. Now when she looked, with love's benign delight After great ecstasy, along the plains, What foulest impregnation of her sight Transformed the scene to multitudinous troops Of human sketches, quaver-figures, bent, As were they winter sedges, broken hoops, Dry udder, vineless poles, worm-eaten ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... benign descended, thou Best guardian of the fates of Rome, Too long already from thy home Hast thou, dear chief, been ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... my boy yet, I am afraid he isn't coming here to-night, he's such a dear boy, my Helmdon, I'm sure you will like him. But where's Anne, ah! dancing already, the dear child, she does do it so well,' and with a benign smile on her kind old face, Lady Dadford ...
— Lippa • Beatrice Egerton
... theological tyranny, banished Calvin. In a few years, however, he was recalled and received with great enthusiasm. After this, he was supreme, and the will of Calvin became the law of Geneva. Under the benign administration of Calvin, James Gruet was beheaded because he had written some profane verses. The slightest word against Calvin or his absurd doctrine ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... hard to penetrate; The mirror you describe so small, so great, So priceless, so benign, "the eye" must be, A heaven 'twill show if thine speak ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... olden days. Charlevoix, La Hontan, Hocquart, and Peter Kalm, men of widely different tastes and aptitudes, all bear testimony to his vigor, stamina, and native-born vivacity. He was courteous and polite always, yet there was no flavor of servility in this most benign trait of character. It was bred in his bone and was fostered by the teachings of his church. Along with this went a bonhomie and a lightheartedness, a touch of personal vanity, with a liking for display ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... current, but enough, we think, has been said to show that the sea, instead of being an ocean of unchanging drops, driven about at random by the power of stormy winds, is a mighty flood flowing in an appointed course—steady, regular, and systematic in its motions, varied and wonderful in its actions, benign and sweet in its influences, as it sweeps mound and round the world, fulfilling the will ...
— The Ocean and its Wonders • R.M. Ballantyne
... volleys of molten projectiles, lava masses, huge drifts of ashes, and clouds of flaming, noxious, gaseous emanations to suffocate every living thing. Nothing could withstand such a bombardment from the exhaustless magazines within the vast chambers of the planet, no longer kindly Mother Earth, benign in the beauty of May-time, but cruel, relentless, merciless ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... your parents dear, Whilst joy smiles through the starting tear, Give approbation due. As each drinks deep in mirthful wine Your rosy health, and looks benign Are ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte
... man, with a face which Jake, in a rage, had once described as that of "a pig with the measles." But this was, without doubt, a gross perversion of the truth. Benjamin Tresco's countenance was as benign as that of Bacchus, and as open as the day. Its chief peculiarity was that the brow and lashes of one eye were white, while piebald patches adorned his ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... Caleb Harper sat there, with his benign old face open-eyed in wakefulness, death would stand grudgingly aloof, staring at the wounded man yet ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... seir] various. erd] earth. lest] least. synnaris] sinners. benyng] benign. attour] over, above. perst] pierced. ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... plots, insurrections and rebellions have distressed many states and nations, Connecticut hath enjoyed an internal peace and tranquility, which forcibly demonstrates the wisdom and equity of her Government.—Such a Government, administered by men of virtue and talents, has produced the most benign effects, and our prosperity is calculated to excite the warmest expressions of gratitude rather than the murmurs ...
— Count The Cost • Jonathan Steadfast
... King Magnus took charge of the government. He was a ruler of benign and good disposition toward the common people, whose interests he always furthered. But he lacked strength of character, and was not able to control the obnoxious nobles. The provinces of Scania and Bleking suffered greatly under Danish rule, which was changed ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... land," he said, "this glorious liberty, these benign institutions, the dear purchase of our fathers, are ours; ours to enjoy, ours to preserve, ours to transmit. Generations past and generations to come hold us responsible for ...
— Four Great Americans: Washington, Franklin, Webster, Lincoln - A Book for Young Americans • James Baldwin
... help laughing as Steve sparred away at a fat sofa-pillow, to illustrate his meaning; and, having given it several scientific whacks, he pulled down his cuffs and smiled upon her with benign pity for her feminine ignorance of this summary ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... aversion, were invested with the attributes of deities. The various parts of the house—door, kitchen-stove, courtyard, &c.—were also conceived of as sheltering some spirit whose influence might be benign or the reverse. The spirits of the land and of grain came to mean one's country, the commonwealth, the state; and the sacrifices of these spirits by the emperor formed a public announcement of his accession, or of his continued right to the throne. Side by side with such sacrificial ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... beautiful sister-in-law. Lady Anstruthers, in her new bloom, had not lacked partners, who discovered that she was a childishly light creature who danced extremely well. Everyone was kind to her, and the very grand old ladies, who admired Betty, were absolutely benign in their manner. Betty's partners paid ingenuous court to her, and Sir Nigel found he had not been mistaken in his estimate of the dignity his position of escort and male relation gave ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... such tyranny, that the tyrant is able to acquire a sort of exemption from the weakness of pity. It is wisely ordered that few human beings shall feel aught but pain in looking upon the extreme bodily anguish of their fellow-men; and when a monster appears who seems to contradict this benign law, he is embalmed as a monster, and transmitted to future times along with such rara aves as Caligula, Domitian, and Nana Sahib. And here—as a Southern man, brought up in the midst of a household of slaves—let me remark, that the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... over my cousin's hand was indeed the person whom I had seen with Delora a few hours ago. I ran Freddy to ground, and presently I found myself also bowing before His Excellency. He regarded me through his horn-rimmed spectacles with a benign and pleasant expression. I had been in the East, and I talked for a few moments upon the subjects which I thought would ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was a benign and rather mellow old fellow, with a dry sense of humor and a very keen knowledge of his fellow men. He made a good deal of money, but not having any wife or child upon which to lavish it he spent ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... Suffrage. Woman's Rights. Higher Education for Women. Socialism and State Socialism. Widened Scope of Governmental Action. Restriction of Immigration. Catholics. Their Attitude to Public Schools. Peril to Family. Mormonism. Divorce. Danger from a Secular Spirit. New Sense of Nationality. Benign Results. Greely Expedition to Polar Regions. Lesson of our National Success to Other Nations. Our Nation's Duty ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... be said that there is anything of coldness in their glance. Her eyes are full of charity and sweetness. They rest with tenderness on a ray of light, on a flower, on the commonest object in nature; but with greater tenderness still, with signs of a softer feeling, more human and benign, do they rest on her fellow-man, without his daring to imagine in that tranquil and serene glance, however young or handsome or conceited he may be, anything more than charity and love toward a fellow-man, or, at most, ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... had contracted for his services and our reputation belied us if we were unwilling to secure at a paltry financial outlay what would contribute to our comfort and health. This persuasive gentleman assured us that, under the benign influence of his sprinkling cart, Clarendon Avenue would presently become one of the most popular of suburban driveways. Hither would equipages come from every quarter, and the thoroughfare eventually would be famed as the coolest, shadiest, ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... were her eyes to search the inmost soul: Yet virtue triumph'd in their beams benign, And impious Pride oft felt their dread control, When in fierce lightning flash'd the ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... King stirred in his diabolical underground manner. He sent his confessor to me in prison. The friar was mild and benign. ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... gaiety of turquoise. Or so it seems to-day, when the passion of Christianity against Hathor has spent itself and died. Now Christians come to seek what Christian Copts destroyed; wander through the deserted courts, desirous of looking upon the faces that have long since been hacked to pieces. A more benign spirit informs our world, but, alas! Hathor has been sacrificed to deviltries of old. And it is well, perhaps, that her temple should be sad, like a place of silent waiting for ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... finishing Kidnapped, or The Merry Men, we take up Guy Mannering, or The Antiquary, or any of Scott's books which treat of the peasantry, the first impression we gain is, that we are happy. The tension is gone; we are in contact with a great, sunny, benign human being who pours a flood of life out before us and floats us as the sea floats a chip. He is full of old-fashioned and absurd passages. Sometimes he proses, and sometimes he runs to seed. He is so careless of his English ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... whom it is sometimes said that he was indifferent to religion, had yet done his great work under inspiration, which he himself acknowledges in his inaugural address, when he speaks of the nation as "enlightened by a benign religion, professed indeed, and practised in various forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man; acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, which by all its dispensation proves that it results in the happiness of man ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... proprietor of Acacia creek, where we find ourselves for the nonce located, was a gentleman who had attained the meridian of life, though years sat lightly on his open brow. He was tall and handsome, robust in constitution, affable, benign, and hospitable in disposition; a fond father, and one of the most respected settlers in the district of which he was a magistrate. As his history is somewhat romantic, the reader may be disposed to pardon the digression, in our stopping here to give ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... deal about the Quaker Penn, who, being the son of the renowned Admiral Sir William Penn, sacrificed all the advantages which his social position afforded him for the sake of the gospel, and with the hope of spreading its benign truths among the heathen of the New World, and of affording refuge to those driven forth from their native ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... bidden farewell to his elder guests, whom he accompanied to the steps, he turned to me with a look so benign and affectionate I never shall forget it, ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... had already sailed far away towards the plains of Germany, and the moon had climbed so high above the ragged Dent de Jaman as to its rays to stream into, the basin of the Leman. A thousand pensive stars spangled the vauk images of the benign omnipotence which unceasingly pervades and governs the universe, whatever may be the local derangements or accidental struggles of the inferior agents. The foaming and rushing waves had gone down nearly as fast ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... natural to a man, who views in it the native soil of himself and his progenitors for several generations; I anticipate with pleasing expectation that retreat, in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free government, the ever favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... the graves under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... Harry picked up the pistol and sword, spoils of victory, and rose at his leisure. He contemplated the hapless highwayman with benign interest for a moment, and turned to the coach. "You are still there, ladies? Benjamin is flattered and so am I. But the play is over. He will not be amusing for some time, and at any moment he may be profane. ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... sway, Who rul'st from pole to pole, And up beyond yon milky way, Where wondrous planets roll: Oh! tell me how a power divine, That tames the creatures wild, Whose touch benign makes all men kin, Could slay ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... the jungle. There seemed to be required so much bowing, smiling, punctiliousness and elaborate complimenting that in a short time I felt myself in the precise mental attitude of a very small monkey shaking the bars of his cage with all four hands and gibbering in the face of some benign and infinitely superior professor. I fairly ached behind the ears trying to look sufficiently alert and bland and intelligent. Yank sat stolid, chewed tobacco and spat out of the window, which also ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... and stood in the lantern light, with a dreamy expression on his grotesque face such as I had seen there once or twice before. When he glanced at me with that strange affection shining from his great eyes, he seemed like some big, benign dog. Never had I seen a calmer man. It seemed impossible that passion ever had ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... her obliging disposition and engaging manners. She has ever been the true artist; earnestly devoted to the fullest development of her own musical powers, but not envying those of others; loving music intensely, as something sacred, and always anxious to aid in extending its benign influence. The people of Dover, of Haverhill, of Boston, and other places, hold her in grateful remembrance for a frequent exercise of those generous impulses that have caused her to often sing without charge at concerts given for the benefit of ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... No. 845.] O Nature! Wherefore art thou so partial; being to some of thy children a tender and benign mother, and to others a most cruel and pitiless stepmother? I see children of thine given up to slavery to others, without any sort of advantage, and instead of remuneration for the good they do, they are paid with the severest suffering, and ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... our case,—and altogether, no doubt, in the case of others less fortunate—all this good might be swept away for ever. We had seen the rich fruit-trees waving in the soft air, the tender herbs shooting upwards under the benign influence of the bright sun; and, the next day, we had seen these good and beautiful trees and plants uprooted by the hurricane, crushed and hurled to the ground in destructive devastation. We had lived for many months in a clime for the most part so beautiful, that we had often wondered whether ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne |
