"Contentment" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... supposing we could catch the old fox tripping, would I consent to such and such a term of an agreement—these and the like questions he kept asking at long intervals, while he thoughtfully rolled his wine upon his tongue. When I had answered all of them, seemingly to his contentment, he fell into a still deeper muse, even the claret being now forgotten. Then he got a sheet of paper and a pencil, and set to work writing and weighing every word; and at last touched a bell and had his clerk ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... on the mantelpiece, a great bowl of roses on the mosaic centre-table, and, as usual, a bunch of pansies on the little round table by the armchair in which Miss Wealthy always sat. She established herself there now, and took up her knitting with a little sigh of contentment. ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... death Eloquence prejudices the subject it would advance Emperor Julian, surnamed the Apostate Endeavouring to be brief, I become obscure Engaged in the avenues of old age, being already past forty Enough to do to comfort myself, without having to console others Enslave our own contentment to the power of another? Enters lightly into a quarrel is apt to go as lightly out of it Entertain us with fables: astrologers and physicians Epicurus Establish this proposition by authority and huffing Evade this tormenting and unprofitable knowledge Even the very promises ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne
... loyalty. He has had to consider how the interests of individual citizens may harmonise with the interests of the community, how justice and liberty may be united, how the state may have both order and contentment. The application of the knowledge which he has gained—viz., the study of law to the daily facts of human society—sharpens and strengthens all his faculties, clears his judgment, helps him to distinguish true ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... the little valley, which four days ago was smiling with all the health of nature and the contentment of industrious man, is waxing pestiferous with the awful odor of decaying human bodies. Buzzards, invited by their disgusting instinct, gather for a promised feast, and sit and glower on neighboring perches or else circle round and round in the blue empyrean over the location ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... which the entire work is floated proves that Chopin in mental health was not daunted by larger forms. There is moonlight in this music, and some sunlight, too. The prevailing moods are coquetry and sweet contentment. ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... the newspapers turned with a sense of relief to happier things. It seemed as if a new era of contentment was about to dawn. Everybody had struck who could possibly want to strike or who could possibly be cajoled or bullied into striking, whether they wanted to or not. The lighter and brighter side of life might now claim some attention. And conspicuous among the ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... breadth of a hair divided them from the peasantry. The measure of their sense is this: that these symposia of rustic vanity were kept entirely within the family, like some secret ancestral practice. To the world their serious faces were never deformed by the suspicion of any simper of self-contentment. Yet it was known. "They hae a guid pride o' themsel's!" was the word ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... solace that is now left him? And so, albeit she very well knew that she might have the falcon for the asking, she was perplexed, and knew not what to say, and gave her son no answer. At length, however, the love she bore the boy carried the day, and she made up her mind, for his contentment, come what might, not to send, but to go herself and fetch him the falcon. So:—"Be of good cheer, my son," she said, "and doubt not thou wilt soon be well; for I promise thee that the very first thing that I shall do tomorrow morning will be to go and fetch ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... satisfactory. I was afraid you lacked manliness. Then came—a disappointment. It was a blow to us—to family pride. I watched you more closely, and I saw before that year ended that you were taking your medicine rightly. I wanted to tell you of my contentment, but being slow of speech I—couldn't. So"—the iron face broke for a second into a whimsical grin— "so I offered you a motor. And you wouldn't take it. I knew, though you didn't explain, that you feared it would ...
— The Courage of the Commonplace • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... palace of kings, she lived amid her family the favourite of all and the admiration of the world .... When I went to Versailles Madame Elisabeth was twenty-two years of age. Her plump figure and pretty pink colour must have attracted notice, and her air of calmness and contentment even more than her beauty. She was fond of billiards, and her elegance and courage in riding were remarkable. But she never allowed these amusements to interfere with her religious observances. At that time her wish to take the ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... lake is but a rushy swamp and the massive ruins of the castle only serve to show what their splendor once was, and to impress on the musing visitor the transitory value of human possessions, and the happiness of those who enjoy a humble lot in virtuous contentment. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... example of more then that age in which he died. And yet this copy, though very much, indeed too much short of the Originall, will present you with some features not unlike your dead friend, and with fewer blemishes and more ornaments than when 'twas first made publique: which creates a contentment to my selfe, because it is the more worthy of him, and because I may with more civility intitle you ...
— Waltoniana - Inedited Remains in Verse and Prose of Izaak Walton • Isaak Walton
... has made a great change upon the Duke. He begins now to familiarise himself to French company, and I flatter myself I shall spend the rest of the time we are to live together not only in Peace and contentment, ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... of eventide, the satisfaction after long and hard day's work; delicious feeling of rest and contentment; soothing ...
— Woman's Endurance • A.D.L.
... the birch; and between the shadows which were cast by the gigantic boles of these, and many other varieties of timber, the sunbeams played on the smooth soft turf, and illuminated a scene of peaceful joy and contentment. ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... their adventures to each other since they parted, embraced and kissed each other, and then told Kalander the whole story; and Palladius recounted also to Pyrocles the strange story of Arcadia and its king. And so they lived for some days in great contentment. But anon, it could not be hid from Palladius that Diaphantus was grown weary of his abode in Arcadia, seeing the court could not be visited, but was prohibited to all men save certain shepherdish people. And one day, when Kalander had invited them to the hunting of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... hastily in the indicated direction. A blue-coated bobby was to be seen approaching with measured stride, diffusing upon the still evening air an impression of ineffably capable self-contentment. ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... can quell it. I subdue my fancy to my fate sometimes, as a rational creature ought surely to do; but then I suffer acutely, and am wretched; while in a careless abandonment of myself to any and every dream of coming joy I find present contentment. I cannot help myself. I shall continue to dream, I am sure, until I have grown so old that I can resign all earthly hopes without sighing. I pray to be spared the sight of any object which, by rousing within me the desire of present possession, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... then, too, there came into view the sight of green tree-tops and a glimpse of the river, and these encouraged her to proceed. Indeed, she was now more afraid to go back than to go forward, and Bonny Angel's strange contentment in the care of a stranger, like herself, renewed a belief that she was other than mere mortal, and so above the common needs ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... sick at heart, overwhelmed with a quick burst of irresistible compassion for this brute agony he could not relieve. The sweetness was gone from the evening, the sense of peace, of security, and placid contentment was stricken from the landscape. The hideous ruin in the engine's path drove all thought of his poem from his mind. The inspiration vanished like a mist. The de Profundis had ceased ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... of the good stuff that scoundrel deprived Bessie of," he told himself, with a grin of contentment, after he had eaten until he could not take another bite. "Besides, everything is fair in war-times. When you're raiding through the enemy's country it's supposed you'll live on the spoils around you. Well, I'm going to live, and Carl Potzfeldt is my enemy, all right. He's proved ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... When mild contentment rules the breast Unchecked the pleasure, sweet the rest, The passing hours that close; No fruitless wish disturbs the maid, No blasted hopes her peace invade ...
— The Flower Basket - A Fairy Tale • Unknown
... have when I go there. Now, Ellen, there is an example of contentment for you. If ever a woman loved husband and children and friends Mrs. Vawse loved hers; I know this from those who knew her long ago; and now look at her. Of them all she has none left but the orphan daughter of her youngest son, and you know a little what sort ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... arrived in person shortly after lunch, she went flying to meet him, and came back hanging on his arm, her face sparkling with happiness and contentment. ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... after he had done it, it was not all happiness, all contentment, with him. He did feel that he had crippled himself,—impeded himself in running the race, as it were, with a log round his leg. He had offered to marry her, and he must do so at once, or almost at once, because she could now find no other home but his. He knew, as well as did ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... between the great andirons, ready to be kindled for preparing the evening meal. Aloft, and reached by a ladder that rested against an opening, was the chamber where the family used to sleep. This was the happy home of Robert Keyes, where comfort and busy contentment reigned. ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... among the pleasure grounds of opulent citizens. The land was every where richly cultivated, and a happier peasantry, as far as the eye of the traveller could judge, nowhere exists. The most luxuriant valleys of our own Italy are not more crowded with the evidences of plenty and contentment. Upon drawing near to the ancient Baalbec, I found on inquiry of our guide, that we were not to pass through it, as I had hoped, nor even very near it, not nearer than between two and three miles. So that in this I had been clearly deceived by those of whom I had made the most ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... name by the mingled caution and boldness of his opposition to the dictator. Such efforts were not of much importance, if the opponent desired nothing farther than by their means to procure for himself a curule chair, and then to sit in it in contentment for the rest of his life. No doubt, if this chair should not satisfy a popular man and Gaius Gracchus should find a successor, a struggle for life or death was inevitable; but for the present at least no name could be mentioned, the bearer ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... and Acts of Parliament, were the rebellious impulses of men filled with a prophetic spirit, walking in obedience to an inward voice, eager to cry aloud their message to a generation wrapped in prosperity and self-contentment. They formed no single school and followed no single line. In a few cases we may observe the relation of master and pupil, as between Carlyle and Ruskin; in more we can see a small band of friends like the Pre-Raphaelite ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... marry a man who has anything to do with politics, my child. Many a time my poor Potecki used to say to me, 'My angel, cultivate contentment; you may have to live on it ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... their freedom, who before, for the same cause, had removed the government of kings from their city. And if sometime, which is very seldom, good men be preferred to honours,[112] what other thing can give contentment in them but the honesty of those which have them? So that virtues are not honoured by dignities, but dignities by virtue. But what is this excellent power which you esteemed so desirable? Consider you not, O earthly wights, whom you seem to excel? For if among mice thou shouldst see one claim ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... together a new establishment. I was glad to find in the servant who attended me an old acquaintance. He had been in my own employ when I first settled at L——, and left me to get married. He and his wife were now both in Strahan's service. He spoke warmly of his new master and his contentment with his situation, while he unpacked my carpet-bag and assisted me to change my dress. But the chief object of his talk and his praise was ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Futteh Jung, however, still held out in the Balla Hissar, and intermittent firing was heard as the weary cortege of prisoners reached a fort about three miles short of Cabul, which the ladies of the proprietor's zenana had evacuated in their favour. Here they lived if not in contentment at least in considerable comfort and amenity. They had the privacy of a delightful garden, and enjoyed the freedom of bathing in the adjacent river. After the strife between Akbar Khan and Futteh Jung ceased they were even permitted to ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... tenderly away, Then roused himself to safely cover The dull red brands with ashes over. And while, with care, our mother laid The work aside, her steps she stayed One moment, seeking to express Her grateful sense of happiness For food and shelter, warmth and health, And love's contentment more than wealth, With simple wishes (not the weak, Vain prayers which no fulfilment seek, But such as warm the generous heart, O'er-prompt to do with Heaven its part) That none might lack, that bitter night, For bread and ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... used to be," Mrs. Fletcher said to Lady Wharton that night. The two old ladies were sitting together upstairs, and Mrs. John Fletcher was with them. In such conferences Mrs. Fletcher always domineered,—to the perfect contentment of old Lady Wharton, but not equally so ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... oh, welcome, as life to the dead, my love! But I do not understand my blessedness—I do not," he said, dropping his head on her shoulders, while she still lay on his bosom, in a dream, a trance of perfect contentment. ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... a lie is living?" Many a lie has filled its maw! "Better illusion tho than giving Faith to a fatal loveless Law?" There is a certain Socratean Saying that swine of their ditch are sure; Yet do they prove by their contentment That it ...
— Many Gods • Cale Young Rice
... party, indeed, that assembled round the breakfast table next morning. Mrs. Mulready was at the head of the table making tea, looking pale and weak, but with a look of quiet happiness and contentment on her face such as her children had never seen there before, but which was henceforth to be its ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... revolutionaries kept clear of the power of money by going without things, but that was not the way. Capital always preached contentment to the poor; he would go the other way, and conquer production by a great ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... Rishis accept hospitality. When they, having been worshipped, become annihilated, then another forest shines forth. In that forest, Intelligence is the tree; Emancipation is the fruit; Tranquillity is the shade of which it is possessed. It has knowledge for its resting house, contentment for its water, and the Kshetrajna for its sun. Its end cannot be ascertained upwards, downwards, or horizontally. Seven females always dwell there, with faces downwards, possessed of effulgence, and endued with the cause of generations. They take ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... thy foes. For but a moment, for ever so small a space of time, blaze thou up on the heads of thy enemies. He is a man who cherisheth wrath and forgiveth not. He, on the other hand, who is forgiving and without wrath, is neither a man nor woman. Contentment and softness of heart and these two, viz., want of exertion and fear, are destructive of prosperity. He that is without exertion never winneth what is great. Therefore, O son, free thyself, by thy ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... answered his companion 'knowledge is more than equivalent to force.'" "To judge rightly of the present we must oppose it to the past for all judgement is compartive [sic—KTH] and of the future nothing can be known." "'Contentment is natural wealth' says Socrates to which I shall ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... an attitude towards life did not encourage the Faithful to go forth and invent electrical machinery or bother about railroads and steamship lines. But it gave every Mohammedan a certain amount of contentment. It bade him be at peace with himself and with the world in which he lived and that was a very ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... twenty-nine years old at the time of his marriage. That he was full of contentment as well as hope at this time may be inferred from his letter to Constable three weeks after ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... behold: The viewing the strains which through those cheeks appeare, And that pure whitenesse which triumpheth there, Mixt with those azure Saphire passing vaines, Which are insert like siluer running streames, Watring those golden apples of the brests, Where heauens delight & earths contentment rests, His full-fed eye orecome with such excesse, Sweares and forsweares, denies and doth confesse: Then doth he touch her lips, Natures rich treasure, And musing thinks which is the greatest pleasure To kisse or see; for to resolue which doubt, Againe he kisses, whence comes stealing ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... can be content," he added, with emphasis, "to live here buried in morass, pent in with mountains—my nature, that God gave me, contravened; my faculties, heaven-bestowed, paralysed—made useless. You hear now how I contradict myself. I, who preached contentment with a humble lot, and justified the vocation even of hewers of wood and drawers of water in God's service—I, His ordained minister, almost rave in my restlessness. Well, propensities and principles must be reconciled by ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... passes mine how anybody with Christian faith can believe in ghosts," said the minister gently, and Sophia Gill felt a certain feminine contentment in hearing him. The minister was a child to her; she regarded him with no tincture of sentiment, and yet she loved to hear two other women covertly condemned by him and she ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... Master, to strive sincerely and devotedly to follow in the path that He has mapped out for us in this life, is the most wonderful, the most reasonable, and the most satisfactory way to live. It means peace in our hearts, peace of mind, contentment, happiness, hope, and an assurance of a life beyond the grave that shall never end. What a glorious plan God has made for all who will love and serve Him ...
— The Key To Peace • A. Marie Miles
... and great speculators, not running in a stream merely down your principal streets, but turning fertilizing rivulets into every by-lane and every alley, tends so powerfully to promote the comfort, happiness, and contentment of a nation? Do you not know that all progress comes from successful and peaceful industry, and that upon it is based your superstructure of education, of morals, of self-respect among your people, as well as every measure for extending and consolidating ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... irreverently called the moon; on the contrary, no head and face could look more sleek and healthy, and its expression—which was chiefly confined to a pair of round and ruddy cheeks, the slight knot and interruptions forming the nose and eyes being scarcely worth mention—was one of jolly contentment, only tempered by that sense of personal dignity which usually made itself felt in his attitude and bearing. This sense of dignity could hardly be considered excessive in a man who had been butler to "the family" for fifteen years, ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... thus found on the Arno, was happy or not, after her removal from that more elevated sphere which she had just begun to move in. But if respectability of connection and a pleasant locality be likely to insure contentment to a fallen star, we have reason to believe that she found herself more comfortable than Lucifer ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... simplicity of life, and as a result of simplicity of life, contentment with simple and not too costly pleasures. We saw the Emperor as a young colonel forbidding his officers to join a Berlin club where gambling was prevalent. This year, after a luxurious lunch at one of the regimental messes, he issues an order, or rather an edict, expressing his ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... sensible or feeling mind will desire to see the French Canadian driven to break up all at once habits formed by ages of contentment; and, as it does not press upon them beyond their ready endurance, why should we, to please a few rich capitalists or merchants, suddenly force a British population into ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... is the theory of those who suppose a certain special moral sense, which sense and not reason determines the moral law, and in consequence of which the consciousness of virtue is supposed to be directly connected with contentment and pleasure; that of vice, with mental dissatisfaction and pain; thus reducing the whole to the desire of private happiness. Without repeating what has been said above, I will here only remark the fallacy they ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant
... Surpassest far my naming; how may I Adore thee, Author of this universe, And all this good to man? for whose well being So amply, and with hands so liberal, Thou hast provided all things: But with me I see not who partakes. In solitude What happiness, who can enjoy alone, Or, all enjoying, what contentment find? Thus I presumptuous; and the Vision bright, As with a smile more brightened, thus replied. What callest thou solitude? Is not the Earth With various living creatures, and the air Replenished, and all these at thy command ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... child consenting to become the third wife of the jolly little man, for he was known as one of the happiest and most genial of men, although it kept him toiling like a slave to keep a score of mouths in bread. The third Mrs. Heffner became the mother of 9 children in ten years, and the contentment and happiness of the couple were proverbial. One day, in the fall of 1885, the father of the 41 children was crossing a railroad track and was run down by a locomotive and instantly killed. His widow and 24 of the 42 ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... determined to fix my abode in the great city. I hired an apartment in the Rue des Lavandieres, and established myself there, giving out that I was a fencing-master. No pupils came; but at any rate there was peace and contentment. I formed no acquaintances except one, a certain Camus, a glove-maker, who had an apartment above mine. For some reason or other this man forced himself upon me, and though at first I repulsed his attentions he would not be denied, and I grew ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... welcomed by these disembodied ones, because their desires and emotions still cling to the earth they have left, and the mind has not sufficiently lived on its own plane to find therein full satisfaction and contentment. The lower Manas still yearns towards kamic gratifications and the vivid highly coloured sensations of earth-life, and can by these yearnings be drawn back to the scenes it has regretfully quitted. Speaking ...
— Death—and After? • Annie Besant
... appeal to her. When George was absent, his look haunted her with the intensity of an hallucination; when at last she saw it again, she felt that nothing else in the world mattered to her, so supreme was the contentment that swept over her. Though she was more intelligent than Jane, not even Jane herself had surrendered so unconditionally to the primal force. At least Jane had made exactions, but so complete was the subjugation of Gabriella ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... near. I know not how to deal with thee by arguments; for if thou wert as wise and patient as ever woman was, yet it must needs be a great trial to thee, and the greater because I am so dear to thee. That which I must chiefly look at in thee for thy ground of contentment ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... sword surrendered,' asked the chancellor; 'is it his own sword, or the sword of France?' 'It is only the sword of the emperor,' was Castelnau's reply. 'Well, there is no use talking about other conditions,' said Von Moltke, sharply, while a look of contentment and gratification passed over his face, according to Bismarck; one 'almost joyful,' writes the keen Captain d'Orcet. 'After the last words of Von Moltke,' he continues, 'De Wimpffen exclaimed, "We shall renew the battle." "The truce," retorted the German general, "expires ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... 'and receive this crown, which I never bestow on any but my greatest favourites. It is called the crown of Contentment. I reserve it for those who, led on by Perseverance, come to me by the Right Path, in spite of Difficulty and Danger. Those who arrive at my presence by any of the many other roads that are open to mankind I give over to the charge of some of my inferior attendants, such as ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... ours to claim and keep, The joy of honest labor and the boon of happy sleep, For each little family circle where there is no empty chair Save where God has sent the sorrow for the loving hearts to bear; And thankful for the loyal souls and brave hearts of the past Who builded that contentment should be with us to ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... mankind. His step was rather more deliberate than common; his eye rested on the pavement, and on turning into his pew, as he prepared to kneel, in the first humble petition of our beautiful service, he raised it towards the altar with an expression of benevolence and reverence, that spoke contentment, ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... protect the body, that it should not see corruption nor become lost in the earth, and that he should not allow the soul to wander aimlessly in the infinite spaces, but that it should be conducted to some secure haven of contentment, where it might receive the sacrifices and offerings which loving hands laid upon the tomb.[1] Were other gods also called upon, it was that they might intercede with the Supreme Divinity in favor of these ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... beloved relative's wishes. The omission was trying enough to the foster-mother's heart and patience, even while she believed the knowledge of it to be confined to herself. She could still hold up her head bravely among her kindred and acquaintances, and talk of the "dear child's" good fortune and contentment with it; how popular and beloved she was among them, and what an elegant house her generous husband had bestowed upon her; could still hint at the instability of her own plans, and the possibility that she might, at any day or hour, determine to leave her native ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... nipped the newly unfolded petals, that the flower had begun to droop. Now that dark time was already forgotten. She could hardly realize that it had ever been. In the joy of Vanno's love for her, and his old friend's fatherly kindness, she basked in the contentment of being understood, loved, taken care of; and she knew that she was a woman, not a child, only by the capacity to love a man as a woman loves. If she had said, "But I am nearly twenty-five," the two men would have realized at once that her school days must ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... dispositions, who take the world easy, eat white bread or brown, whichever can be got with least thought or trouble, and would rather starve on a penny than work for a pound. If left to himself, he would have whistled life away in perfect contentment; but his wife kept continually dinning in his ears about his idleness, his carelessness, and the ruin he ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... and women—remain on the side lines because they can not see well enough to play the great game of stirring life, with its joy of untrammeled effort? Shall they not have a game which they can play? Shall we of these better walks of life pursue our way in smug contentment, and permit the preventable causes of blindness to continue their black business, and ever add to the roll of their victims?" The leading oculists of the country recommend sight-saving classes, and many of them give their time and money to the service of these handicapped children, establishing ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... undeceive them. I, who have been behind the scenes, both of pleasure and business, and have seen all the springs and pullies of those decorations which astonish and dazzle the audience, retire, not only without regret, but with contentment and satisfaction. But what I do, and ever shall regret, is the time which, while young, I lost in mere idleness, and in doing nothing. This is the common effect of the inconsideracy of youth, against which I beg you will be most carefully upon your guard. The value of moments, when ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... Full of complacent contentment, Tonza made hasty preparations for leaving Diu, and that same evening saw him a welcome guest ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... 1855, to her sister, Miss Julia Baker, who was admirably qualified to console him and make his dwelling cheerful, and who has two sons, both living. No man has been more blessed in domestic life. We know not where there would be a more pleasing picture of peace and contentment exhibited than is found in this happy family. In all his pursuits and avocations, Mr. Wilder seems to have realized and practised that grand principle, which has such a bearing and influence on the whole course of life—the philosophy of habit, a power almost omnipotent for good or evil. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various
... domestic policy of no interest; that there was only one subject which should engage the attention of public men, because everything depended on it,—that was our external system; and that the only specific for a revival of trade and the contentment of the people, was a general settlement of the boundary questions. Finally, Mr Kremlin urged upon the National Convention to recast their petition with this view, assuring them that on foreign policy they would have ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... a moment before answering. Then, flushing, he uttered the words which brought my little castle of contentment grumbling about me and warned me that my marital problems ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... purification by suffering, the spirits not only submit willingly but they exhibit real contentment if not actual love of the chastisement imposed upon them. The unchaste not only heedfully keep within the flames but gladly endure the fire because they are convinced "with such treatment and with such diet must the last wound be healed" (XXV, 136). And most ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... renders abnormal the passions of the one; and cupidity, born of envy, blunts the moral perceptions of the other, then indeed is that nation delivered over to the world, the flesh and the devil. When all alike are poor, contentment reigns. The son grows up a useful, self-reliant man, the daughter an industrious, virtuous woman. From this class comes nearly every benefactor of mankind. It has ever been the great repository of morality, the balance- wheel of society, the brain and brawn ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Jupillon's three dogs, three wretched curs; she always had them on her knees, she scolded them and kissed them and talked to them; and when she was warm with their warmth, she would feel in the depths of her heart the contentment of a beast rubbing against her little ones. Again, the shop to her meant all the gossip of the quarter, the rendezvous of all the scandals,—how this one had failed to pay her note and that one had received a carriage load of flowers; it meant a place that was on ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... about to do. Therefore by every plant which scatters its seed and by the moist warm garden which receives and nourishes it, by the comminglement of bloodshed with pleasure, by the joy that mimics anguish with sighs and shudderings, and by the contentment which mimics death,—by all these do we invoke thee. O thou, continuous one, whose will these children attend, and whom I now adore in this fair-colored and soft woman's body, it is thou whom I honor, not any woman, in doing what seems good to ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... McMaster will suffice to cure most of our dyspeptic feelings about national discontent in our time, and dispel the fabulous notion of an older time in America, when everybody was happy and everybody was contented. No such day ever existed. The kingdom of contentment is within us, like the kingdom of God. McMaster tells us the unvarnished tale of inflation and political and financial asininity in the former days, so that when he is done we are less liable to that frailty of the ignorant soul; namely, ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... fingers of Nunsmere had graduated the reawakening of her nostalgia for the great world. She spoke now and then of visiting Japan and America and South Africa, somewhat to her mother's consternation; but no irresistible force drove her thither. She found contentment in procrastination. ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... become indifferent to her husband, and only wondered that she did not hate him. Her heart seemed to spend all its emotion on the little being to whom she had given life—a healthy boy, who already, so she fancied, knew a difference between his mother and his nurse, and gurgled a peculiar note of contentment when lying in her arms. Whether wife or not, she claimed every privilege of motherhood. Had the child been a weakling, she could not have known this abounding solace: the defect would have reproached her. But from the day of his ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... the people of this city as though they had a certain paternal influence and responsibility toward them [applause], and it rejoices my heart. And in another point of view, we know that the safety of any community and society depends upon the contentment and happiness of all classes of ...
— Parks for the People - Proceedings of a Public Meeting held at Faneuil Hall, June 7, 1876 • Various
... vanquished in the field or the lists), could satisfy the desires of his heart. After a brief enjoyment of his ancestral honours, he retired to the monastery which his father had erected, and found, with the poor children of St. Francis, that peace and contentment which the world ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... thousand flames. The vineyards of Cos and Sais had yielded their oldest and sweetest wines, red and purple and golden. The choicest meats and the rarest fruits that ripened under the glowing suns of Khem—all was there that could make glad the heart of man and fill his soul with contentment. ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... out, it was reinforced by another sound, rhythmical, abrupt, twanging, filling the water and air with a slow measure on four notes. The water swirled beside the canoe, and a face appeared—a monstrous, complacent face, such as Bocklin would love—a face inhuman in possessing the quality of supreme contentment. Framed in the brown waters, the head of the great, grinning catfish rose, and slowly sank, leaving outlines discernible in ripples and bubbles with almost Cheshire persistency. One of my Indians, passing in his dugout, smiled at my peering down ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... should wait until the twenty-third of May, but I don't see why we should have the whole town waiting with us. Why don't you assert yourself, dear, before it is too late? Once she pulls off this announcement party, it's all off with peace of mind and contentment so far as we are concerned. Of course, she'll be enjoying it, but what of us? Are ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... that most clannish and suspicious of Mediterranean peoples first called forth the administrative powers of Sir Gilbert Elliot, first Earl of Minto. Acting as Viceroy of Corsica, he sought to promote contentment by promulgating an excellent constitution and administrative reforms. But, being hampered from the outset by the factious behaviour of Paoli, he, with the consent of the Cabinet, deported him to England in the autumn of 1795. An equally serious ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... prime, yet shall it without repining suffice to them whose thoughts borrow unconsciously sweet comforts from the past and future, and have been taught by mutual cares and sorrows to indulge tempered expectations of the best earthly felicity. And is it not so? How much tranquillity and contentment in human homes! Calm onflowings of life shaded in domestic privacy, and seen but at times coming out into the open light! What brave patience under poverty! What beautiful resignation in grief! Riches take wings to themselves and flee away—yet without and within the door ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... so pale, were flushed and round, and an expression of happy contentment took the place of the excited sparkle ...
— Lucia Rudini - Somewhere in Italy • Martha Trent
... self-complacency, for, in addition to the money gain, his adventure had notably increased his prestige aboard ship, where Brant's praise for his prompt and efficient action was respectfully accepted. Yet, despite his contentment, the mountaineer found himself strangely troubled as he lay in his bunk, after the ship had got under way. It may be that his perturbation had a physical cause, at least in part, for there was more movement ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... returned from England, came to condole with dear Mrs. Arlington upon the ill luck that had befallen the family, she found that lady quite satisfied, to her profound astonishment. However, she gave a willing ear and ready sympathy to Grace, who was quite disgusted at her mother's contentment, and returned with Lady Ashton to the Park, saying, that she was far too angry to meet them at present; and there she remained for weeks nursing her wrath against her only brother, who would so shortly leave for a distant land, not heeding the possibility, ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... Sunday. His Majesty attended Divine Service with some of the troops stationed near by, in a small country church perched high up on the hill-side. Quiet and contentment pervaded everything; not even the sound of a ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... of contentment. She would remember and tell her Aunt Debby about this. While her Aunt Debby had chided her about repeating these little romantic tales which came to her ears, Hester had a feeling that the elder Miss ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird
... join us there—Cartwright, Russell, the Vatican and all—and if such a step were not inconsistent with your true interests—you should have it: but I know very well that you love Italy too much not to have had weighty reasons for renouncing her at present—and I want your own good and not my own contentment in the matter. Wherever you are, be sure I shall follow your proceedings with deep and true interest. I heard of your successes—and am now anxious to know how you get on with the great picture, the 'Ex voto'—if it does not prove full of beauty and power, two of us ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... Chi-nong, the god who taught men how to cook; Fo, with long eyes closed in meditation, and lips smiling the mysterious smile of Supreme Beatitude; Cheou-lao, god of Longevity, bestriding his aerial steed, the white-winged stork; Pou-t'ai, Lord of Contentment and of Wealth, obese and dreamy; and that fairest Goddess of Talent, from whose beneficent hands eternally streams the ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn
... have no whips for Mariota's square shoulders. Her baby, I warrant, plucked her from the burning. I am not so sure but you might find in that girl a responsive spirit, and—is the saying too hard?—a teacher. Contentment with a few things was never one of your ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... Dieppe, full of contentment with the quarters to which fortune had guided him, under-rated the merits and attractions of the inn in the village across the river. Fare and accommodation indeed were plain and rough at the Aquila Nera, but the company round its fireside would have raised ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... morals among these people was that a natural unmorality was some offset to the existing conditions. The features of the native life which appealed most to us were the universal optimism, the laughing good-nature and contentment, and the Sunday cleanliness of the entire congregation which swarmed into the chapel service, a welcome respite from the perennial dirt of the week days. Moreover, nearly all had been taught to read and write in Eskimo, though there is no literature in that language to ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... Some are easily contented. But I am not sure that contentment is a trait of a noble mind. I used to own negro slaves in New York. They were contented. To rest satisfied is the ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... will give data for the solution of the most difficult questions connected with the subject, of which the principal one is the mode in which the chance of advancement in life is to be extended to all, and yet made compatible with contentment in the pursuit of lower avocations by those whose abilities do not qualify them for the higher. But the general principle of trial schools lies at the root of the matter—of schools, that is to say, in which the knowledge offered and discipline enforced ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... the years of my prenticeship having glided cannily over on the working-board of my respected maister, James Hosey, where I sat sewing cross-legged like a busy bee, in the true spirit of industrious contentment, I found myself, at the end of the seven year, so well instructed in the tailoring trade, to which I had paid a near-sighted attention, that, without more ado, I girt myself round about with a proud determination ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... he could not help thinking of a passage in Dickens, which spoke of a chorus in which every man took the tune he knew best, and sang it to his own satisfaction. So, at this charitable committee, every lady took the subject uppermost in her mind, and talked about it to her own great contentment, but not much to the advancement of the subject they had met to discuss. But even that committee could have been nothing to the Cranford ladies when I attempted to gain some clear and definite information as to poor Peter's height, ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... the merry Louises, picked his way with quick, dainty steps down the Rue du Palais. The gay Louises, before returning to the Convent, resolved to make a hasty promenade to the walls to see the people at work upon them. They received with great contentment the military salutes of the officers of their acquaintance, which they acknowledged with the courtesy of well-trained internes, slightly exaggerated by provoking smiles and mischievous glances which had formed no part of the lessons ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... own true love's projected shade, Now that at length by certain proof he knows, 60 That whether real or a magic show, Whate'er it was, it is no longer so; Though heart be lonesome, Hope laid low, Yet, Lady! deem him not unblest: The certainty that struck Hope dead, 65 Hath left Contentment in her stead: And that is next ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... one unvaried round of impenetrable beef. Mr. Obabiah Oldbuck, when he decided to adopt a pastoral life, and assumed the provisional name of Thyrsis, never looked upon his flocks and herds with more unalloyed contentment than I upon that fleecy family. I had been familiar, in Kansas, with the metaphor by which the sentiments of an owner were credited to his property, and had heard of a proslavery colt and an antislavery ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... told us we should be treated as we treated others, and then turned away among the officers. The next day we found we were to live under a just rule, and that satisfied us. One of the great causes of the contentment that reigned in the ship, was the method, and the regularity of the hours observed. The men knew on what they could calculate, in ordinary times, and this left them their own masters within certain hours. I repeat, she was the happiest ship I ever served in, though I have ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... ample justice to the meal, however, and filled in so thoroughly that his round little pod of a stomach was a burden to carry. He therefore dropped himself down on the floor, breathed out a sigh of contentment, and ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... change of residence or a vacation trip are always interested in the climate of the locality attracting their attention, for they know that absolute contentment in any clime, even for a brief period, is impossible without a friendly attitude on the part of the elements. So many regions seem to have been permanently blighted by conditions opposed to human happiness, or at least to have been forgotten in certain important essentials ...
— The Beauties of the State of Washington - A Book for Tourists • Harry F. Giles
... ideas, capable of turning my hut into a palace worthy of earth's proudest monarch, I lay down to rest. America appeared to my view the true land of milk and honey, the abode of contentment and delight. 'People should come to New Orleans,' I often said to Manon, 'who wish to enjoy the real rapture of love! It is here that love is divested of all selfishness, all jealousy, all inconstancy. Our countrymen come here ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... he could do had been done, and as Houston looked for the last time upon the pale face, where the angel of death was already smoothing out the lines traced by the last few days of suffering, and softening the features into a look of contentment and peace, he was glad that in the last moments of that life, there had come faith, even ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... upbuilding of that street he named for the one he loved," she said. "I imagine he little thought it was to become a business street, that he thought of it always as lined with quaintly beautiful Spanish homes, shaded and quiet, with couples strolling along it at twilight and rest and contentment everywhere." ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... question has been raised, whether they are, in fact, worth keeping. Either discipline must be so much relaxed, as that the labor of the slave will scarcely pay for his support; or, if forced to labor no more than is even necessary to health and contentment, they abscond, and passing over the lines into a non-slaveholding State, are there concealed and protected. The number and the success of elopements leave no doubt of the establishment of a regular chain of posts, accessary to, and of systematic plans, ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... Monarchy of England than I am; but crowns, coronets, mitres, military display, the pomp of war, wide colonies, and a huge empire, are, in my view, all trifles light as air, and not worth considering, unless with them you can have a fair share of comfort, contentment, and happiness, among the great body of the people. Palaces, baronial castles, great halls, stately mansions, do not make a nation. The nation in every country dwells in the cottage; and unless the light of ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... dinner in Sir Alexander's garden, and saw his little grotto, which is hung with pieces of poetry written in a fair hand. It was agreeable to observe the contentment and kindness of this quiet, benevolent man. Professor Macleod was brother to Macleod of Talisker, and brother-in-law to the Laird of Col. He gave me a letter to young Col. I was weary of this day, and began ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... no corruption had been charged against the corporation of Edinburgh; and by Mr. Canning, who considered it was intended to undermine the barriers which resisted the inroads of a more wide and sweeping innovation. Mr. Canning also brought forward the unexampled prosperity of Edinburgh, and the contentment which pervaded its population, as a convincing proof of the excellence of the old system. After expatiating on the advantages connected with the Scotch representation, he remarked that his objection to the present motion was its application, as a single instance of reform in ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Rewes came first—very graceful in lavender silk, and accompanied by her little boy, who showed by an unconscious anxiety of expression that he felt instinctively his mother's air of contentment was assumed. Then Baron Zeuill, with Brigit on his arm, followed. The Baron looked grave—too grave for the happy circumstances. Brigit seemed as pale as the lilies on the altar; she was less beautiful but more ethereal than usual. There was something frail, transparent, ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... me yesterday that she was positive Billie and Mr. Howard would come down for a while in July or August." Kit heaved a sigh of contentment, as she rose from the ground. "I see that my wilderness is going to blossom like the rose, Proserpine Hancock. Now, if you'll kindly tell me where all these tent dwellers of mine are going to get fresh water from when the brooks dry up, I'll ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... slipperiness and unevenness of the road—and the chance, in case of an accident, of contesting the hardness of your skull with a mass of stone, which seemed as if it were made on purpose for knocking out people's brains. For some time contentment sat smiling over the city. But, as "man never is, but always to be, blest," perfect happiness appeared not to be secured even by Macadam. Ruts began to be formed—rain fell, and mud was generated at a prodigious rate; repairs were needed, and the road for a while was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... Cosmopolis. No misgivings came to mar his perfect contentment. He felt no qualms about separating Reggie from another thousand dollars. Except for a little small change in the possession of the Messrs. Rockefeller and Vincent Astor, Reggie had all the money in the world and could afford to lose. He hummed a gay air as he entered ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... framing a theory, it may be said that the minutes between nine-twenty-five and nine-thirty in the morning had a singular charm for Mary Datchet. She spent them in a very enviable frame of mind; her contentment was almost unalloyed. High in the air as her flat was, some beams from the morning sun reached her even in November, striking straight at curtain, chair, and carpet, and painting there three bright, true spaces of green, blue, and purple, upon which the eye rested with a pleasure ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... brass rails, their noses in fragrant mint and hops and their hands reaching out for free rations of olives, pretzels, cloves, pumpernickle, Bismarck herring, anchovies, schwartenmagen, wieners, Smithfield ham and dill pickles—such a gallery of contentment would probably do far more execution among the dismal shudra than all the current portraits of drunkards' livers. To vote for prohibition in the face of the liver portraits means to vote for the good of the other fellow, for even the oldest bibulomaniac always thinks that he himself will ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... deep and fearful blight Steals from her woman's life its holiest light. My heart is not for love, though love is well, And oft it hath a dear and happy spell. Wrapped in the cherished mission of my art, Contentment dwells within my earnest heart. Within the rippling measures of my song The choicest treasures of the world belong. Why seek for more, the world and fame are mine, Then wherefore love, though ...
— Love or Fame; and Other Poems • Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
... they destroy tranquillity by putting us at the mercy of externals. Whatsoever we make necessary for our contentment, we make lord of our happiness. By our eager desires we give perishable things supreme power over us, and so intertwine our being with theirs, that the blow which destroys them lets out our life-blood. And, therefore, we are ever disturbed by apprehensions and shaken ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... got up from the table—did he assume the role of lover. He turned to Antonia, and with an air of pride and contentment, asked the old woman, in her ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... inappropriate. You forget that we are now concerned with a piece representing the tribulations of a faithful wife, and not a comedy of the school of Charles the Second. I see that you are sincere; but sincerity renders a bad passion the more hateful. Now leave me. For your own contentment crush it. If this is impossible, conceal it. Should you ever again intimate it by even a glance, I will expel you from my society as ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the present time there were rather more. Although the farm was well stocked with every necessary, there was an apparent absence of comfort; and not one single woman resided here. The sunset of a fine day will generally cast an air of happy contentment on any scene; but here, at this retired farm-house, the brightest tints on the surrounding woods could not make me forget that forty hardened, profligate men were ceasing from their daily labours, like the slaves from Africa, yet without ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... received the horse from my host, and led him, doubtless, to stable, while I followed my conductor into the house. When we had passed the HALLAN, [The partition which divides a Scottish cottage.] we entered a well-sized apartment, with a clean brick floor, where a fire blazed (much to my contentment) in the ordinary projecting sort of a chimney, common in Scottish houses. There were stone seats within the chimney; and ordinary utensils, mixed with fishing-spears, nets, and similar implements of sport, were hung around the walls of the place. The female who had first appeared at the door, ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... had plenty, but less contentment. He was compelled to acknowledge that he had expected to meet Carinthia again at the Baths. Her absence dealt a violent shock to the aerial structure he dwelt in; for though his ardour for the life of the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... looked at her in dreamlike, meditative fashion,—its mother slept profoundly. She bent lower and lower over the child. With a beating heart she ventured to touch the small, pink hand that lay outside its wrappings like a softly curved rose-leaf. With a sort of elf-like confidence and contentment the feeble, wee fingers closed and curled round hers,—and held her fast! Weak as a silken thread, yet stronger in its persuasive force than a grasp of iron, that soft, light pressure controlled and restrained her, . . . very gradually the mists of her mind cleared,—the rattling, thunderous ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... who relieve us, the Lord will you bless, For relieving poor sailors in time of distress, May the Lord put an end to all cruel wars, And send peace and contentment to all British tars. ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... repast with delight I spread, 5 What though 'tis but rustic fare, May each guardian angel protect his shed, May contentment ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... to Joseph. Here the artist has finely expressed the delight with which the Mother regards the beauty of her Son, as is clearly manifest in the turn of her head and fixedness of her gaze; equally evident is her wish that this contentment shall be shared by that pious old man who receives the babe with infinite tenderness and reverence. Nor was this enough for Michelangelo, since the better to display his art he has grouped several undraped figures in the background, some upright, some ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... is eventually reached and the bivouac formed; then the joyful shout of "Tea up" is heard. Several buglers at the same time play the "Men's Mess Call" with variations, and for a while contentment reigns. ...
— From the St. Lawrence to the Yser with the 1st Canadian brigade • Frederic C. Curry
... a foe to the peace o' this bosom, That glows sae devoutly, dear lassie, for thee; Alas! that e'er poortith should blight love's young blossom, When riches nae lasting contentment can gie. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... must have it. I would desire, for your sake, that it should be by courtesy rather than by force, to avoid the blood which might be spilt on both sides. By surrendering courteously, you may be assured of all kinds of contentment, both for your persons and for your property, which on the faith that I have in Paradise, I will preserve as I would my own, without the least portion in the world being diminished. The Basques whom I send you are men of the vessels that I have captured, ...
— The Makers of Canada: Champlain • N. E. Dionne
... consciousness seemed to occupy the whole space of the woodland around, so little was there of jarring sight or sound to hinder perfect unity with the sentiment of the place. The idea returned upon him of sacrificing all practical aims to live in calm contentment here, and instead of going on elaborating new conceptions with infinite pains, to accept quiet domesticity according to oldest and homeliest notions. These reflections detained him till the wood was embrowned with the coming night, and the shy little bird of this dusky time had begun to ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... Contentment comes not therefore; still there lies An outer distance when the first is hailed, And still forever yawns before our ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... her mouth and throat felt parched, and yet withal she had a feeling of contentment the reason for which did not immediately penetrate her dull consciousness. She realized only that some agreeable happening had left her with a sensation of warmth about ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart |
