"Nobleness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said, rising and standing before her, "your answer is painful to me. I had anticipated the winning of your hand and heart. It had not occurred to me that I should fail. I appreciate what you have said. A loftier ideal of the nobleness of true womanhood has come to me. My honor, respect, and love for you are deeper than ever, but I see that what I desired cannot be. I bid ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... from the door while labor is paralyzed, and the strong arms have beaten their ploughshares into swords! What self-sacrifice of millions of humble wives and daughters whose works and sorrows are now refining the history of their country, and lifting the popular nobleness: they are giving all that they are to keep their volunteers in the field. The flag waves over no such faithfulness; its stars sparkle not like this sincerity. The feeling and heroism of women are enough to refresh and to remould the generation. Like subtle ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... of generosity and honour about the unfortunate Prince, even in his fallen state, that he refused to consent to the assassination of the uncle, who found no difficulty, it would appear, in assassinating him; thus showing that wayward strain of nobleness among many defects and miseries which through all their tragic career was to be found even in the least defensible of ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... the hand of the King, my father, and left him, wondering at his nobleness who could show such a road to his only child, though its treading would mean woe to him and mayhap the ruin of his hopes. Still that road is an old one among the women of my people, and why should I not walk it, as thousands ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... a soul of wondrous nobleness. He had not been hurt by popularity, as so many men are. Not all good people pass through times of great success, with its attendant elation and adulation, and come out simple-hearted and lowly. Then even a severer test of character ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... dear before is dearer now. There's not a bird singing upon his bough But sings the sweeter in our English ears: There's not a nobleness of heart, hand, brain But shines the purer; happiest is England now In those that fight, and watch with pride ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... of old had fired her soul with hot indignation, came back insidiously. She shuddered. Was she to lose all—brother, lover, father—in this unnatural strife? She had been so loyal to her father. She had been so proud of him when others reviled. She had felt so serenely confident of the nobleness of his heart, the generosity of his impulses. She had always been able to mold him, as she thought. Could it be possible that he was human to her, inhuman to the rest of the world? Then her mind, tortured ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... good thoughts, an existence of tender cares, an eternity of youthful devotion spoke in that rapt, momentary, eloquent gaze, and imprinted on his expression a character ineffably beautiful and calm—a nobleness above the human, and approaching the angelic ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... To please the Lady Margaret and to exhibit his skill Henry played the gitteron, the lute and the cornet, and danced and jousted before her.[135] He "excelled every one as much in agility in breaking spears as in nobleness of stature". Within a week Tournay fell; on 13th October Henry commenced his return, and on the 21st he ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... character. The answer of Hector to Polydamas, who would have dissuaded a further prosecution of the Trojan success, has been repeated by many of the most devoted patriots the world ever saw. We, who defy augury in these matters, can yet add nothing to the nobleness ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... fold and one shepherd, never one uniform culture for all mankind, never universal nobleness. Our virtue and happiness can only flourish amid an active conflict with wrong. If every stumbling-block were smoothed away, men would no longer be like men, but like a flock of innocent brutes, feeding on good things provided ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... Alfred, feeling that the power was now in his hands, had had ample time to reflect on the course which he should pursue with his subjugated enemies; and the result to which he came, and the measure which he adopted, evince, as much as any act of his life, the greatness, and originality, and nobleness of his character. Here were two distinct and independent races on the same island, that had been engaged for many years in a most fierce and sanguinary struggle, each gaining at times a temporary and partial victory, but neither ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... dress attracted vulgar eyes, With Fashion's gewgaws flauntingly display'd; He had the bearing of the gentleman; And nobleness of mind illumined his mien, Winning at ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... without effort of their own, have grown holier and purer by the agitations and toil which civilise their worshippers. In other words, the same influences which elevate and widen our sense of human duty give corresponding height and nobleness to our ideas of the divine character. The history of the civilisation of the earth is the history of the civilisation of Olympus also. It will be seen that the deity whom De Maistre sets up is below the moral level of the time in respect of Punishment. ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... When Love and Nobleness shall live Next door to Truth and Right, While Reverence shall rent a room, Upon ...
— The Scarlet Gown - being verses by a St. Andrews Man • R. F. Murray
... Germany, and one of the earliest converts to the principles of the Friends in Scotland. As a Quaker, he became an object of hatred and abuse at the hands of the magistracy and populace; but he endured all these insults and injuries with the greatest patience and nobleness of soul. ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... that, and sent and told Asgrim, and Asgrim said, "There is no man like Gudmund for nobleness of mind," and then he told it ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... more bright and hopeful it is than the verdict which Mr. Ruskin finds Shakspere to have returned. Man is no longer "a pipe for fortune's fingers to sound what stop she please." The evil elements still exist in the world, and are numerous and formidable; but man, by nobleness of life and word, by patience and self-mastery, can master them, bring them into subjection, and make them tend to eventual good. Caliban, the gross, sensual, earthly element—though somewhat raised—would run riot, and is therefore compelled to menial ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... "do not set your heart against the most unhappy lady in England. If you did but know her, her nobleness, her misery! Before you steel yourself against me, her friend, let me ask you one question. Do you know where Mrs. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... mother. He immediately planted himself close by my side, laid his great paw incessantly upon my knee, and, with looks of regret, would have expressed the friendship he bore me with caresses. Indeed there seemed a hidden goodness in his heart, a nobleness that caused the current of his friendship to flow with much gentleness, and a singleness in his mute appeals to my approbation, that I could not help contrasting with the insincerity of those dogs who go about ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... escape from real sin and degradation, will leave the brooding over speculative pollution to the cynics and the 'righteous overmuch' who, disagreeing in everything else, unite in blind insensibility to the nobleness of the visible world, and in inability to appreciate the grandeur of the place Man ...
— On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals • Thomas H. Huxley
... escaped him,—that which was incidentally stated in the preceding chapter,—namely, that the difference between great and mean art lies, not in definable methods of handling, or styles of representation, or choices of subjects, but wholly in the nobleness of the end to which the effort of the painter is addressed. We cannot say that a painter is great because he paints boldly, or paints delicately; because he generalizes or particularizes; because he loves detail, or because he disdains it. He is ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... bugles, blow! They brought us, for our dearth, Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain. Honour has come back, as a king, to earth, And paid his subjects with a royal wage; And Nobleness walks in our ways again; And we have ...
— The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke • Rupert Brooke
... he was, he felt touched by this nobleness of nature, by a gratitude for a mere trifle, as the world views it; though for the eyes of this divine innocence the trifle, like Bossuet's cup of water, was worth more than the victories of great captains. Beneath ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... consequences of so doing, and news also reached Luther of the troubles and distress of his other friends, he repeatedly sent to them at Augsburg fresh words of encouragement, comfort, and counsel, which remain to attest, more than anything else, the nobleness of his mind and character. He speaks, as from a height of confident, clear, and proud conviction, to those who are struggling in the whirl and vortex of earthly schemes and counsels. He has gained this height, and maintains it in the implicit faith with which he clings ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... for itself. In its dignity, its nobleness, its fearlessness, it is one of the finest human documents I know. But let it be remembered that it is not the letter of a mournful and heart-broken man, turning his back on life in an ecstasy of despair; but the letter of one who had taken a boundless delight ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... breast; My fingers, used to tune the amorous lute, Are not of force to hold this steely glaive. So I am left to wail my parents' death, Not able for to work my proper death. Ah, Locrine, honored for thy nobleness! Ah, Estrild, famous for thy constancy! Ill may they fare that wrought your ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... a dismal panic, and Uncle Silas—polished, mild—seemed unaccountably horrible to me. Then it was no longer an accidental fascination of electro-biology. It was something more. His nature was incomprehensible by me. He was without the nobleness, without the freshness, without the softness, without the frivolities of such human nature as I had experienced, either within myself or in other persons. I instinctively felt that appeals to sympathies or feelings could no more affect him than a marble ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... with every one of her graceful movements. She was a tall and slender girl, with a beautiful long white throat, smooth and round, that took on entrancing curves of pride and gentleness, of humility and nobleness. She had splendid rippling hair of a deep bronze, that had been red a few years earlier; and dark blue dreamy eyes under broad dark eyebrows; a long sweep of cool fair cheek, and a rather wide mouth with a little tender, pathetic droop ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... Norway and the passes of the mountains, down Vaerdal, towards Stickelstad, and the crisis that awaited, is beautifully depicted by Snorro. It has, all of it, the description (and we see clearly, the fact itself had), a kind of pathetic grandeur, simplicity, and rude nobleness; something Epic or Homeric, without the metre or the singing of Homer, but with all the sincerity, rugged truth to nature, and much more of piety, devoutness, reverence for what is forever High in this Universe, than meets us ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... actually writing against the grain. He threw this aside impatiently, and with extraordinary energy and enthusiasm began a new story, Weir of Hermiston, which would undoubtedly have been his masterpiece, had he lived to complete it. In luminosity of style, in nobleness of conception, in the almost infallible choice of words, this astonishing fragment easily takes first place in Stevenson's productions. At the end of a day spent in almost feverish dictation, the third of December 1894, he suddenly fainted, ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I think, gentlemen will stand aloof from politics—I mean, gentlemen who have received in their blood and in their training those notions of graciousness, sweetness, and nobleness which flow from centuries of piety and learning. Only here and there will such a man accept the odious conditions of our public life, inspired by a sense of duty, and prepared to endure the intolerable ugliness and dishonesty of politics ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... warriors go into battle almost nude; at least, we must suppose so, from their invariably receiving their death-wounds in that condition. I will not believe that a sculptor or a painter is a man of genius unless he can wake the nobleness of his subject, illuminate and transfigure any given pattern of coat and breeches. Nevertheless, I never go into St. Paul's without being impressed anew with the grandeur of the edifice, and the general effect of these same groups of statuary ranged ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... opened. To-day we stand a self-centred nation. We have seen so much of English consistency, of English nobleness, we have so learned to prize English honor and English generosity, that there is not a living American, North or South, who values English opinion, on any point of national right, duty, or manliness, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... certain proof of piety toward God and man. These, too, like remorse of conscience, spring out of the intellectual structure, and may exist without any affectionate love of God in the heart. There is a species of nobleness and beauty in moral excellence that makes an involuntary and unavoidable impression. When the Christian martyr seals his devotion to God and truth with his blood; when a meek and lowly disciple of Christ clothes his life of poverty, and self-denial, with a daily beauty greater ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... truth, there is no practice more crossing the genuine nature of genteelness, or misbecoming persons well born and well bred; who should excel the rude vulgar in goodness, in courtesy, in nobleness of heart, in unwillingness to offend, and readiness to oblige those with whom they converse, in steady composedness of mind and manners, in disdaining to say or do any ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... article of box-coats, every contriver of men of fashion, we mean in the tailoring, which is the principal department, reside in the parish of St James's, within easy reach of their distinguished patrons. These gentlemen have a high and self-respecting idea of the nobleness and utility of their vocation. A friend of ours, of whom we know no harm save that he pays his tailors' bills, being one day afflicted with this unusual form of insanity, desired the artist to deduct some odd shillings from his bill; in a word, to make it pounds—"Excuse ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... Bancroft's room and was thankful that my muff had sent me back to receive a visit which at their age is rarely paid. . . . I found them full of delight at Mr. Brooke, the Rajah of Sarawak, with whose nobleness of soul they would have great sympathy. He is just now the lion of London, and like all other lions is run after by most people because he is one, and by the few because he deserves to be one. Now, lest you should know nothing about him, let me tell you that at his own expense he fitted out ...
— Letters from England 1846-1849 • Elizabeth Davis Bancroft (Mrs. George Bancroft)
... fresh-coloured; and beaming with health, spirit, and vivacity. Its almost womanly sweetness was chastened and redeemed by the massiveness of the head, the deep penetrating eye, and an aspect of uncommon elevation and nobleness. Till the last, he was the very personification of the old Dux—the Duke of Chivalry—the foremost leader and commander of the people. But instead of chained mail and helmet, he was to be seen every day walking ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... that the being common to brutes, or peculiar to man, can alone be no rational test of inferiority, or dignity in pleasures. We must not assume that man is the nobler animal, and then deduce the nobleness of his delights; but we must prove the nobleness of the delights, and thence the nobleness of the animal. The dignity of affection is no way lessened because a large measure of it may be found in lower animals, neither is the vileness of gluttony and lust abated because they are common to ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... not been contemptible in the offering of his love; his best had come out at that moment; if it does not come out then, somehow,—through face and tone, in some plain earnestness or simple nobleness, if not in fashion of the spoken word as very well it may not,—it must be small best that the man has ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... Mrs. Allen, has been that rare thing a beauty, and although she be now an old woman I had almost said that she is so still. Why should I not say so? Nobleness of feature and sweetness of expression are surely as delightful in age as in youth. Her face and figure are much like those which are stamped indelibly on the memory of every one who ever saw that grand specimen of woman—Mrs. Siddons. The outline of Mrs. Allen's face is exactly the same; ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... apologists, including even Brantz Mayer, dwell on Cresap's nobleness in not massacring Logan's family! It was certainly to his credit that he did not do so, but it does not speak very well for him that he should even have entertained the thought. He was doubtless, on the whole, a brave, good-hearted man—quite as good as the average borderer; ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... dishevelled, his look so proud yet so mild, struck the crowd who beheld him with admiration, and almost with fanaticism; the women, above all, expressed themselves with that imagination which is an almost universal gift in Italy, and even gives a nobleness to the conversation of the common people. They threw themselves on their knees before him, and cried, "You are surely St Michael, the patron of our city; display thy wings most holy saint! but do not quit us: deign to ascend the steeple of the cathedral, that all ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... are seized with a passionate desire to do something great for the world, and you are ready to speak the truth fearlessly on all occasions. But just think of the enormous task it would be to stir to even half an inch of aspiring nobleness, the frightful mass of corruption in London to-day! In all trades and professions it is the same story,—everything is a question of GAIN. To begin with, look at the Church, the 'Pillar of the State!' There, all sorts ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... nerves his arm. Neither he nor Reine Allix could see that a man's duty might lie from home, but in that home both were alike ready to dare anything and to suffer everything. It was a narrow form of patriotism, yet it had nobleness, endurance, and patience in it; in song it has been oftentimes deified as heroism, but in modern warfare it is ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... beautiful, loveable actions, tempers, feelings, which you ever saw or heard of. Think of all the good, and admirable, and loveable people whom you ever met; and fancy to yourselves all that goodness, nobleness, admirableness, loveableness, and millions of times more, gathered together in one, to make one perfectly good character—and then you have some faint notion of God, some dim sight of God, who is the eternal and ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... and, as he thinks, killed him. A crowd which he imagines to be composed of the Provost's attendants has followed him from the palace. Torture stares him in the face; and his physical sensitiveness has the upper hand again. For a moment Chiappino becomes a hero; he is shamed into nobleness. He flings his own cloak over Luitolfo, gives him his passport, hurries him from the house, assumes his friend's blood-stained garment, and claims his deed. But he has scarcely done so when he perceives ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... Frere, as President of the Royal Geographical Society, after a copious notice of his life, summed it up in these words: "As a whole, the work of his life will surely be held up in ages to come as one of singular nobleness of design, and of unflinching energy and self-sacrifice in execution. It will be long ere any one man will be able to open so large an extent of unknown land to civilized mankind. Yet longer, perhaps, ere we find a brighter example of a life of such ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... How strong and womanly she had been this morning, the girl whose life had been bounded by this Chaudiere, with a metropolitan convent and hospital as her only glimpses of the busy world. She would fit in anywhere—in the highest places, with her grace, and her nobleness of mind, arcadian, passionate and beautiful. There came upon him again the feeling of the evening before, when he saw her standing in his doorway, the night about them, jealous affection, undying love, in her eyes. It quickened his steps imperceptibly. He passed a stream, and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the yacht that followed his first wild speech of love. But Claudius's was a knightly soul, and when he served he served wholly, without reservation. Had the dark-browed Countess guessed half the nobleness of purpose her tall lover carried in his breast, who knows but she might have been sooner moved herself. But how could she know? She suspected, indeed, that he was above his fellows, and she never attributed bad motives to his actions, as she would unhesitatingly have done with most ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... said he, and suppose must not presume to ask, what those terms were. But I can but too well guess at them; and that I was to have been the preliminary sacrifice. But you must allow me, Madam, to say, That as much as I admire the nobleness of your sentiments in general, and in particular that laudable pride which you have spoken of, I wish that I could compliment you with such an uniformity in it, as had set you as much above all submission to minds implacable and unreasonable, (I hope I may, without offence, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... Christian to the two terrified and retreating men. Now, every true venture is made against risk and uncertainty, against anxiety and danger and fear. And it is just this that constitutes the nobleness and blessedness of faith. Faith sells all for Christ. Faith risks all for eternal life. Faith faces all for salvation. When it is at the worst, faith still says, Very well; even if there is no Celestial City anywhere in the world, it is better to die still ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... visit him during his sickness, showed him a charm hung round his neck, as a proof that he must be indeed ill to submit to such a piece of folly. As he was now on his deathbed, the most distinguished of the citizens and his surviving friends collected round him and spoke admiringly of his nobleness and immense power, enumerating also the number of his exploits, and the trophies which he had set up for victories gained; for while in chief command he had won no less than nine victories for Athens. They were talking thus to one another in his presence, imagining that he could no longer ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... things as parts of a natural or historic order, and while insisting on the recognition of the actual conditions of this order as indispensable, and condemning attempted evasions of such recognition as futile and childish, yet opens an ample bosom for all forms of beauty in art, and for all nobleness in moral aspiration. That Mr. Carlyle has reached this high ground we do not say. Temperament has kept him down from it. But it is after this that he has striven. The tumid nothingness of pure transcendentalism he has always abhorred. ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
... I sought relief from my favourite books; those memorials of past nobleness and greatness from which I had always hitherto drawn strength and animation. I read them now without feeling, or with the accustomed feeling minus all its charm; and I became persuaded, that my love of mankind, ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... uprightness, and almost always the spirit of improvement, dooming themselves to ignorance, if not to vice, for a vain show. Is this evil without remedy? Is human nature always to be sacrificed to outward decoration? Is the outward always to triumph over the inward man? Is nobleness of sentiment never to spring up among us? May not a reform in this particular begin in the laboring class, since it seems so desperate among the more prosperous? Cannot the laborer, whose condition calls him ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... arrows and energy and allies and dominions and fame and strength. Those are always difficult of acquisition, however much they may be desired. Learned men of repute always praise in good society nobleness of descent. But nothing is equal to might. Indeed, O monarch, there is nothing I like more than prowess. Born in a race noted for its valour, one that is without valour is scarcely worthy of regard. One, however, possessed of valour, that is born in a race not noted for it, is much superior ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... have killed your husband yet he spared his life; that was a sign of his great nobleness of heart!" she declared, trying to forget Ortrud's words and ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... perpetual seeking which the presence of the beloved object modulates, not suspends, where the heart momently finds, and, finding, again seeks on;—lastly, when 'life's changeful orb has pass'd the full', a confirmed faith in the nobleness of humanity, thus brought home and pressed, as it were, to the very bosom of hourly experience; it supposes, I say, a heartfelt reverence for worth, not the less deep because divested of its solemnity by habit, by familiarity, by mutual infirmities, and even by a feeling ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... our goods without paying for them. I am aware that my husband, myself, my children, and all my household are your prisoners, to be dealt with according to your good pleasure, in person and goods; but, knowing the nobleness of your heart, I am come to entreat you humbly to have pity on us, and extend to us your wonted generosity. Here is a little present we make you; and we pray that you may be pleased to take ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... all, sinks into our memory and helps to shape our characters; and thus children brought up among beautiful sights and sweet sounds will most likely show the fruits of their nursing by thoughtfulness and affection and nobleness of mind, even by the expression ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... can be permanently maintained."[208] Speaking of the same principle Carlyle says: "It is only with renunciation that life, properly speaking, can be said to begin.... In a valiant suffering for others, not in a slothful making others suffer for us, did nobleness ever lie." And George Sand in still stronger terms has said, "There is but one sole virtue in the world—the ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... life was to him a poet's dream. He lived in a continual glamour of spiritual romance, bathing everything, from the old deities of the Valhalla down to the champions of German liberation, in an ideal glow of purity and nobleness, earnestly Christian throughout, even in his dealings with Northern mythology, for he saw Christ unconsciously shown in Baldur, and ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... again, and that she wished to see me. I confess I was irritated, that I was ready to decline to see her, but my curiosity, coupled with my desire not to offend her, led me to receive the unexpected guest. Assuming the expression of majestic nobleness with which I usually greet my visitors, and softening that expression somewhat by a smile in view of the romantic character of the affair, I ordered my servant to ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... letter characteristic of his nobleness as a friend, or is it too insistent upon bringing Bassanio to him, since to send such a letter was equivalent to ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke
... himself up with an air the nobleness of which was somewhat marred by the expression of his eyes. "I will never touch a penny of it," he declared. "I will be like the captain. I am trying all I can to ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... group of contrasts; the soldierly, high-bred, easy grace of the pallid black-haired Colonel, with the native nobleness of bearing of the stalwart farmer, equally tall, and his handsome ruddy face glowing with health; and the two sisters, the one fresh, plump, and rosy, the picture of a happy young mother, and the ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... frequently evince a pride and greatness of mind which would not have disgraced the heroes of ancient Greece and Rome. "The greatest part of them," says Charlevoix, "have truly a nobleness and an equality of soul which we cannot arrive at with all the helps we can obtain from philosophy and religion." Always master of themselves, in the most sudden misfortunes, we cannot perceive the least alteration in their countenances. A prisoner who knows ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... took my empty dreams And filled them every one With tenderness and nobleness, April ...
— Love Songs • Sara Teasdale
... general, his love of the myriad English flowers is perhaps the fondest part of it. He draws them with a rare perfection, and always—little definite, delicate, tremulous things as they are—with a certain nobleness. This latter quality, indeed. I am prone to find in all his work, and I should insist on it still more if I might refer to his important paintings. So composite are the parts of which any distinguished talent is made up that we have to feel our way as we enumerate ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... relate to Benjamin Banneker,—facts which, though not difficult of access, are scarcely known beyond the district in Maryland where, on the spot where he was born, his unadorned grave receives now and then a visit from some pilgrim of his own race who has found out the nobleness which Jefferson recognized and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... speaking of the "Eikon Basilike," supposed to be written by Charles the First, says:—There was in it a nobleness and justness of thought with a greatness of style, that made it to be looked on as the best writ book in the English language.—Swift. I think it a poor treatise, and that the ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... frivolous danglers round her cousin! I liked her for having no conventionalities, fast or slow, and especially for hating heroes! And when my sister had helped to let her get into this intolerable web, how could I look on without feeling the nobleness that has never shifted blame from herself, but bowed, owned all, ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... eagle glance at once detects falsehood wherewith it has no affinity, and you judge of others according to the standard of your own nobleness, but I am persuaded the attempt would be in vain. The case stands thus: there is really but witness against witness, for what know I of what occurred at the death-bed of Eveline's father, except what she herself has told me? Kind though may be the heart of the Governor, and sound his ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... that! I thank you heartily for that—and you, I doubt not from your nobleness of nature, Will pardon me for asking ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... not steady his voice to answer her. Would any other girl have taken it in this way? He felt there were depths in her nature that he had not fathomed yet. The nobleness of the action seemed to lift her up out of her grief. The heroic death was a fit ending to that brave life, short ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... his obiter dicta on the arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture; for example, when he says of the Tuscan palaces that "in their large dependence on pure symmetry for beauty of effect, [they] reproduce more than other modern styles the simple nobleness of Greek architecture." And we would note also what he says of the Albani Antinoues. It must be a nimble wit that can keep pace with Mr. James's logic in his aesthetic criticism. It is apt to spring airily over the middle term to the conclusion, leaving ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... source; who contend that such champions of liberty as Brutus, William of Orange, De Witt, Chatham, however haughty and aristocratic the ideas of some of them, were yet of the same political faith, filled with ideas of human nobleness and dignity, conceding much, if not to the masses, at least to the advanced and enlightened classes which in their eyes represented humanity. Thinkers of this kind are not far to seek; witness Scherer, Remusat, Tocqueville,—the last of whom ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... citizens that marks the course of that government, and the characteristic kindness of its representative in Charleston, the appeal was promptly responded to. The consul attended him in person, and even provided from his own purse things necessary to make him comfortable. We could not but admire the nobleness of many acts bestowed upon this humble citizen through the consul, showing the attachment and faith of a government to its humblest subject. The question now was, would the Executive release him? Mr. Grimshaw ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... the woods, and although an excellent shot, he could never enjoy hunting or shooting, as it hurt him to kill birds or animals. He abhorred the copying, by Americans, of European aristocratic "sport," for the nobleness of his nature could not descend to the vicious customs of those only noble by assumption or in title. His intellectual bearing, his catholicity of tastes and his learning presented a striking contrast to the narrow outlook and brainlessness ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... acted the most noble part towards me, and I have no doubt but he is convinced that I was actuated in my opposition to him solely by public views; and if I was then deceived and mistaken as to his public conduct, he has shown that he has the nobleness of soul that knows how to forgive my hostility to him, because he believes that I was his opponent, not to serve any selfish end, but from ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... wrote once: "Tennyson found out in the golden season of his life, his youth, just what kind of work he was fitted to do, and he never squandered an hour in search of his primary bearings.... There is always a gravity about him, a becoming nobleness, which reminds one of what St. Simon said of Fenelon, 'When he is present it requires an effort to cease looking ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... woman is, too, physically stronger than a man. Her physique excels man's. Look at her torso, at the size, the fulness, the rounded firmness, the depth of the chest. There is a nobleness about it. Shoulders, arms, limbs, all reach a breadth of make seldom seen in man. There is more than merely sufficient—there is a luxuriance indicating a surpassing vigour. And this occurs without effort. She needs no long manual labour, no exhaustive ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... thought such as they ought to be when you must act upon them; but see them as they are when you are tempted to act for them. Seek to owe their suffrage to their dignity; but to make them happy keep an account of their unworthiness; thus, on the one hand, the nobleness of your heart will kindle theirs, and, on the other, your end will not be reduced to nothingness by their unworthiness. The gravity of your principles will keep them off from you, but in play they will still endure them. Their taste ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... those who sent him and spends his time there in selfish enjoyment of the delights of knowledge! Woe to him if he does not week by week return laden, and ever more richly laden, and saying, Yes, brothers, I have been to that land; and it is a land of light and peace and nobleness: but I have never forgotten you and your needs and the dear bonds of brotherhood; and look, I have brought back this, and this, and this: take it to gladden ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... that are better than money, and that cannot be purchased with it—These are indeed the best things. All that can be bought money possesses actually or potentially, but there are some things that cannot be bought. Love, friendship, nobleness of soul, genius, cannot be purchased. We must estimate rightly the power of money. It is great, but it may be exaggerated, (a) Honesty is better than money. If a man gains money at the expense of honesty and integrity, he ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... be in the very heart of it instantly," said his bearer. "I love you, and would fain do all you desire. Do not fancy that all nobleness of spirit is lost among us people below. You know what the proverb says, 'There's never a fruit, however degenerate, but will taste of its stock.' I was of a different order of beings once, and—But it is as well ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... generous ideals, sound impulses, and traditions which appeal to the imagination, the atmosphere will do as much for many men as the formal instruction they receive. It will inspire self-respect, firm ambitions, and general dignity and nobleness of nature. Men will be drawn together by the sympathy of aspiration, rather than by mere congeniality of habit, and their daily association will have an educational influence of the most lasting ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... before whom they had trembled so long. The knights around him broke out at the tidings in a passionate burst of fury, and clamoured for the blood of Richard of Cornwall and his son, who were prisoners in the castle. But Simon had enough nobleness left to interpose. "To God and him alone was it owing" Richard owned afterwards, "that I was snatched from death." The captives were not only saved, but set free. A Parliament had been called at Winchester at the opening of September, ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... present, while we hear from men who owe to their wives not only all that is comfortable or graceful, but all that is wise, in the arrangement of their lives, the frequent remark, "You cannot reason with a woman,"—when from those of delicacy, nobleness, and poetic culture, falls the contemptuous phrase "women and children," and that in no light sally of the hour, but in works intended to give a permanent statement of the best experiences,—when not one man, in the million, shall I say? no, not in the hundred million, ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... chill the ardor of his early Anglomania, and in this, as in everything, she wished to humor him to the utmost. No one could have realized more than she his essential fineness, his innate nobleness. Marriages are what the parties to them alone really know them to be, but from the outside I should say that this marriage was one of the most perfect. It lasted in his absolute devotion to the day of her death, that delayed long in cruel suffering, and that left one ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... were sitting at one of the tables, a venerable old man, with a guitar suspended from his shoulder, entered the room, and coming immediately to their table, Mr. Hamilton addressed him by the name of Homer.—He was the most celebrated Improvisatore in all Italy, and the richness of expression, and nobleness of conception which he displayed in his effusions, had obtained for him that distinguished name. Those who once heard his poetry, never ceased to lament that it was lost in the same moment, affirming, that it often was so regular and dignified, as to equal the finest compositions of Tasso ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... of temper betray us in early life into improper connexions; and the very constancy, and nobleness of nature, which characterize the best hearts, ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... which society (unless it should change its entire constitution for this man's unworthy sake) neither could nor ought to pardon. More safely might it pardon murder. Fauntleroy's guilt was discovered. He fled; his wife perished, by the necessity of her innate nobleness, in its alliance with a being so ignoble; and betwixt her mother's death and her father's ignominy, his daughter was left worse ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... on the pretext that the brain alone is the noble part of our organism? Thought, thought, confound it all! thought is the product of the whole body. Let them try to make a brain think by itself alone; see what becomes of the nobleness of the brain when the stomach is ailing! No, no, it's idiotic; there is no philosophy nor science in it! We are positivists, evolutionists, and yet we are to stick to the literary lay-figures of classic times, and continue disentangling ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... home work needs to be taken from the hands of indifferent, careless servants and confided to those who realize the nobleness of the responsibility, and will strive to meet it faithfully. Ultimately, the ignorant, careless ones must be taught, but that will never be till culture is a manifest necessity and finds a fit reward. When a man undertakes the charge of a new business, he learns, not only its ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... written with but one single object—the vivid inculcation of inward purity and moral purpose, by the history of a boy who, in spite of the inherent nobleness of his disposition, falls into all folly and wickedness, until he has learnt to seek help from above. I am deeply thankful to know—from testimony public and private, anonymous and acknowledged—that this object has, by God's blessing, ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... humbled. Her folly, which now seemed even criminal, was all exposed to him; and he must surely despise her for ever. But he did nothing of the kind. His astonishing generosity and nobleness of conduct were such that the only difference he made in his behaviour to her was to pay her somewhat more ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... which the projected apologetic of Pascal was to revolve as on a pivot, is the contrasted greatness and wretchedness of man,—with Divine Revelation, in its doctrine of a fall on man's part from original nobleness, supplying the needed link, and the only link conceivable, of explanation, to unite the one with the other, the human greatness with the human wretchedness. This contrast of dignity and disgrace should constantly be in the mind of the reader of ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... those days, his life was devoted to deeds of rapine and murder, there was in his demeanor toward those with whom he was at peace, and toward enemies who were entirely subdued, a certain high-toned nobleness and generosity of character, which, combined with his undaunted courage, and his extraordinary strength and prowess on the field of battle, made him one of the greatest lights of chivalry ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... this generous outspoken man was esteemed in his own time. To us, in ours, it has been given still more to know the noble son of 'that giant brood,' whose name will be loved and held in honour as long as people live to honour nobleness, simplicity, and genius; those things which give life ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... altered times, may still retain their place in the economy of the world. Westminster Abbey, so we hear it said, sometimes with a cynical sneer, sometimes with a timorous scruple, has admitted within its walls many who have been great without being good, noble with a nobleness of the earth earthy, worldly with the wisdom of this world. But it is a counterbalancing reflection, that the central tomb, round which all those famous names have clustered, contains the ashes of one who, weak and erring ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin
... the moonlight first I saw you,—with the dawn I take my leave; Others come to gaze and wonder,—not, like me, to pause and grieve: Sure, whatever heart doth hasten here, of master or of slave, This aspect of true nobleness ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... a charming and lovely apparition, full of nobleness and grace, full of fire and energy; and yet, in spite of her youthfulness, not wanting in a certain grandeur and dignity. Elizabeth, though still almost a child, and frequently bowed and humbled by misfortune, yet ever remained ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... of many which this chapter may teach us. We are too apt to think that peace and prosperity are the only signs of God's favour. That if a nation be religious, it is certain to thrive and be happy. But it is not so. We find from history that the times in which nations have shewn most nobleness, most courage, most righteousness, most faith in God, have been times of trouble, and danger, and terror. When nations have been invaded, persecuted, trampled under foot by tyrants, then all the good which was in them has again and again shewed itself. Then to the astonishment ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... procession. In the midst of all the tumult, clamour, and singing, interrupted by frequent discharges of musketry, which the hand of a monster or a bungler might so easily render fatal, I saw the Queen preserving most courageous tranquillity of soul, and an air of nobleness and inexpressible dignity, and my eyes were suffused with tears of admiration and grief.—"Memoirs ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... such a hope, how could they have endured the existence they had? True, there are in our day men who profess unbelief in that future, and yet lead an enjoyable life, nor even say to themselves, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die;" but say instead, with nobleness, "Let us do what good we may, for there are men to come after us." Of all things let him who would be a Christian be fair to every man and every class of men. Before, however, I could be satisfied that I understood the mental condition of such, I should require a deeper insight than ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... Tristram through all the rooms. There were a great many of them, and, decorated for the occasion and filled with a stately crowd, their somewhat tarnished nobleness recovered its lustre. Mrs. Tristram, looking about her, dropped a series of softly-incisive comments upon her fellow-guests. But Newman made vague answers; he hardly heard her, his thoughts were elsewhere. They ...
— The American • Henry James
... Gyldenlove,—I have no right to keep you here; but 'twill be unlike your nobleness if you refuse to hear what I have ...
— Henrik Ibsen's Prose Dramas Vol III. • Henrik Ibsen
... answer to that question depends all the success or the failure; all the nobleness or the unworthiness of the individual life. No one can estimate too ardently, or too earnestly, the spiritual salvation of keeping faith with ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... written. The hand of the persecutor was not stayed. The rack and the lash and the stake continued to claim their victims. So far it was labour in vain. But the letter remains, to speak for ever for the courage of Latimer; and to speak something, too, for a prince that could respect the nobleness of the poor yeoman's son, who dared in such a cause to write to him as a man to a man. To have written at all in such a strain was as brave a step as was ever deliberately ventured. Like most brave acts, it did not go unrewarded; for Henry remained ever after, ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... Tecle and her daughter found in his courteous reply a gleam of nobleness which inspired them with a shadow of confidence. Above all, they were proud, and more averse to noisy scenes than women usually are. They received him coldly, then, but calmly. On his part, he displayed toward them in his looks and language a subdued seriousness and ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... There, at least, the aged and ill could live in peace and comfort; there grim poverty was unknown; there the widow and orphan were free from carking care; and there men and women of humble rank had learned the truth that when men toil for the common good there is a perennial nobleness in work.78 ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... and melody are thus fine the composition is also good. The parts, in their variety, belong to one another and to the unity of the whole. Style, melody and composition are always in the closest relation. And this nobleness of composition, style, and melody is chiefly found in those poems of his which have to do with the great matter of poetry—the representation of the universal and simple passions of human nature with their attendant and necessary thoughts. And there, in that part of his work, not in ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... conclusion—wholly illogical to assert that because we had once found love of art connected with moral baseness, the love of art must be the general root of moral baseness; and equally unfair to assert that, because we had once found neglect of art coincident with nobleness of disposition, neglect of art must be always the source or sign of that nobleness. But if we pass from the Indian peninsula into other countries of the globe; and from our own recent experience, to ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... same As those I stooped to kiss And heard my harrowing half-spoken name, A little ere the one who bowed above her, Our father and her very constant lover, Rose stoical, and we knew that she was dead. Then I, who could not understand or share His antique nobleness, Being unapt to bear The insults which time flings us for our proof, Fled from the horrible roof Into the alien sunshine merciless, The shrill satiric fields ghastly with day, Raging to front God in his pride of sway And hurl across the ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... so died, Anthony Wayne; gentleman, soldier, statesman, patriot. "Mad," "Dandy," "Black Snake," "Tornado." Angry with traitors—Neat-Courageous—Irresistible. None can study his life without feeling the nobleness of his character. Courtly in manners, honorable to a degree, high in aspirations, unselfishly for country, magnanimous in victory, loyal to authority, affectionate to family, pure in morality, and earnest for the right, Anthony Wayne's life is ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... the last place, I have a few things to tell you respecting that dangerous nobleness of consummate art,—COMPOSITION. For though it is quite unnecessary for you yet awhile to attempt it, and it may be inexpedient for you to attempt it at all, you ought to know what it means, and to look for and enjoy it in ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... interested in every circumstance of it. What signify the silly, idle gewgaws of wealth, or the ideal trumpery of greatness! When fellow-partakers of the same nature fear the same God, have the same benevolence of heart, the same nobleness of soul, the same detestation at everything dishonest, and the same scorn at everything unworthy—if they are not in the dependence of absolute beggary, in the name of common sense are they not EQUALS? And if the bias, the instinctive ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... of Henry of Monmouth at this period, strongly marking the kindness and generosity and nobleness of his mind, was the removal of the remains of Richard II. from Langley to Westminster. Without implying any consciousness, or even suspicion of guilt, on the part of his father as to Richard's death, ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... lying on her sofa, reading. Titine was brushing her hair. Asako, when she read, which was not often, preferred literature of the sentimental school, books like The Rosary, with stained glass in them, and tragedy overcome by nobleness ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... propped against Church's knee and with his head fallen on the surgeon's shoulder. Capron was always a handsome, soldierly looking man—some said that he was the most soldierly looking of any of the young officers in the army—and as I saw him then death had given him a great dignity and nobleness. He was only twenty-eight years old, the age when life has just begun, but he rested his head on the surgeon's shoulder like a man who knew he was already through with it and that, though they might peck and mend at the body, he had received his final orders. His breast and shoulders were bare, ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... personal, and simple prose! Eleven good books given to the circulation and received not only with admiration but with gratitude—books where there are more or less good or sincere pages, but where there is not one on which original humor, nobleness, charm, some comforting thoughts, some elevated sentiments do not shine. Some other author would perhaps have stopped after producing "Quo Vadis," without any doubt the best of Sienkiewicz's books. But Sienkiewicz looks into the future and cares more about works which he is going to write, ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,
... "if you have told me harsh truths, it was with gentle intentions;—I only hope that I may prove, at least by the future, that I am not altogether so bad as you imagine. As to the friend whose name has been passed between us, no man can go beyond me in a sense of her real nobleness; I am sensible how little I can ever deserve the sentiment with which she honors me. I am ready, in my future course, to obey any commands that you and she may think proper to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... else he was, and as Grace said no more, he touched his cap, and passed on. The devoted admirer of Shuffles's nobleness and goodness was greatly disconcerted by the blunt statements of the second master, who had declared that the ship's company were almost in a state of mutiny against the captain. She continued her inquiries among other officers; but, though ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... nobleness of character so exemplified as in your life? Be comforted, Zoe, that in all my black sorrow I cling desperately to my pride in your strength. I long to shout abroad what you did and why you would never marry me, to tell ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... a week we were to have been married. Thank Heaven, we were still to be married in a week. And he had spoken of the man as "a scoundrel," who left her. America, indeed! what matters it? Still, there would be the same head, the same heart, the same manliness, strength, nobleness,—all that a woman can truly honor and love. Not military, and not a scoundrel; but plain, massive, gentle, direct. He would do. And a sense of full happiness pressed up to my very lips, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... a disposition that in good hands might have achieved great nobleness; and though cruelly bound and trained to evil, was no sooner allowed to follow its natural bent than it reached out eagerly towards excellence. At this moment, it was his mother's policy to appear to leave the ascendancy to the Huguenot ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... business with such a bird. He declared that he would go to his house and take it away from him. This act, so characteristic of the despotic arrogance which marked Richard's character, shows that the reckless ferocity for which he was so renowned was not softened or alleviated by any true and genuine nobleness or generosity. For a rich and powerful king thus to rob a poor, helpless peasant, and on such a pretext too, was as base a deed as we can well conceive a ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... boastings of M. de Rohan? The pretended correspondence and interviews he speaks of? All that I know is, that I have the most absolute confidence in the queen, which she merits by the nobleness of her character. It was easy for her to have told me nothing of all this; but she always makes an immediate appeal to me in all difficulties, and confides to me the care of her honor. I am ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... believed that the statesman whose upright patriotism, moderation, and nobleness of purpose thus breathed through every word spoken by him in public or whispered to friends was already held up by a herd of ravening slanderers to obloquy as a traitor ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... not have had Othello's flaw, Not erred with Brutus,—greater, then, than those For all their nobleness. Oh, albeit with awe, Leave we the mighty phantoms and draw near The man that fashioned them and gave them law! The Master Poet found with scarce a peer In all the ages his domain to share, Yet of all singers gentlest and most dear! Oh, how shall words thy proper praise declare, ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... down and was silent, but many a time both then and in after-days did he wonder at the nobleness of mind of this savage king, which enabled him, under circumstances so cruel, to conquer his own passion and show himself willing to lay down life and throne together, that he might carry out his vow to protect the woman who had brought him so much pain and ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... of Leopold Robert I find charming. They are full of vigor and nobleness; they express a nature where all is rich, young, and on a large scale. Those that I have seen are so happily expressive of the thoughts and perceptions of early manhood, I can hardly regret he did not live to enter on another stage ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... while, however, before M. Cenani arrived, and, praising the nobleness and integrity of the boy, proposed to his parents to take him to Paris and put him in his banking house, where he might make a fortune; which was readily agreed to. Young Colbert soon found himself in a new world. But, denying himself the brilliant attractions with which ...
— Anecdotes for Boys • Harvey Newcomb
... consists in the Variety and Singularity of his Characters, and in the constant Conformity of each Character to it self from its very first setting out in the Play, quite to the End. And still further, no Poet ever came up to him, in the Nobleness and Sublimity of Thought, so frequent in his Tragedies, and all express'd with the ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous
... modest eyes which Raphael divined, for those virgin lines, often due to chances of conception, which the modesty of Christian life alone can bestow or keep unchanged,—such a painter, in love with his ideal, would have found in the face of Eugenie the innate nobleness that is ignorant of itself; he would have seen beneath the calmness of that brow a world of love; he would have felt, in the shape of the eyes, in the fall of the eyelids, the presence of the nameless something that we call divine. Her features, the contour ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... task to find A tribute for thy lofty mind, Amidst whose gloomy vengeance shone Some milder virtues all thine own, Some gleams of feeling pure and warm, Like sunshine on a sky of storm, Proofs that the Negro's heart retains Some nobleness amid its chains,— That kindness to the wronged is never Without its excellent reward, Holy to human-kind and ever Acceptable ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... might have been traced by a Chinese pencil. The silken down on his cheeks, like his bright curling hair, shone golden in the sunlight. A divine graciousness transfused the white temples that caught that golden gleam; a matchless nobleness had set its seal in the short chin raised, but not abruptly. The smile that hovered about the coral lips, yet redder as they seemed by force of contrast with the even teeth, was the smile of some sorrowing angel. Lucien's hands denoted race; they were shapely ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... obstruction; but there was none—absolutely none. The traitors walked deliberately into the trap set for them. Over and over again I asked myself quietly and in cold blood—was there any reason why I should have pity on them? Had they shown one redeeming point in their characters? Was there any nobleness, any honesty, any real sterling good quality in either of them to justify my consideration? And always the answer came, NO! Hollow to the heart's core, hypocrites both, liars both—even the guilty passion they cherished for one another had no real earnestness in it save the pursuit of present ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... a Noble one, If I may aske my Innocence; yet I find Him very amorous. O my husband loves him; He is a powerfull man at Court, whose friendship Is worth preserving. Sister, I confesse His nobleness and person hath prevaild With mee to give him still the freest welcome My modestie and honor would permitt; But if I thought my husband had a scruple His visits were not honourable, I Should soone declare how much I wish ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... if not outwardly arrested by some hostile agent, seems capable of endless progress without ever exhausting either its own capacity or the perfections of infinitude.18 There are before it unlimited truth, beauty, power, nobleness, to be contemplated, mastered, acquired. With indefatigable alacrity, insatiable faculty and desire, it responds to the infinite call. The obvious inference is that its destiny is unending advancement. Annihilation would be a sequel absurdly incongruous ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... either thrillingly impressed or made to experience unusual emotions. The conclusion is, therefore, unavoidable, that every soul can become great. By processes of culture to which it is able to subject itself, it can perpetually increase in wisdom, in strength, and in nobleness. ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... life to either of them as the flowing of a gentle stream, even as brother and sister lived they, chastely, and with temperate feasting. Surely the youth loved her with a great love, and the heart of Bhanavar turned not from him, and was won utterly by his gentleness and nobleness and devotion; and they relied on each other's presence for any joy, and were desolate in absence, as the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... on its intellectual side indeed that Elizabeth touched the England of her day. All its moral aspects were simply dead to her. It was a time when men were being lifted into nobleness by the new moral energy which seemed suddenly to pulse through the whole people, when honour and enthusiasm took colours of poetic beauty, and religion became a chivalry. But the finer sentiments of the men about ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... powers that we have. If we are to do much for God, if we are to keep what we have already attained, if we are to make our own lives sweet and beautiful, if we are to be invested with any increase of capacity, or led to any higher heights of nobleness and Christlikeness, we must copy, and make a conscious effort to copy, these two things, which marked the Apostle's estimate of himself—a distinct recognition that we are only reservoirs and nothing more—'What ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... themselves with shooting at the cattle, and then retreated; and Mr. Joseph Chevront, who lived hardby, hearing the report of the guns and the loud cries of Carder, sent his own family to a place of safety, and with nobleness of purpose, ran to the relief of his neighbor. He enabled Carder to remove his family to a place of greater security, although the enemy were yet near, and engaged in skinning one of the cattle that they might take ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... I know not whether the idea of "a canal, that flows gently through delicious gardens," is well adapted to designate the character of Sophocles, which is peculiarly distinguished by nobleness, grandeur, and elevation. That of an impetuous and rapid stream, whose waves, from the violence of their motion, are loud, and to be heard afar off, seems to me a more suitable ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... It is not reasonable that one should capture the lamb and another go off with the fleece. If they had been willing to participate in our discoveries, use their means, and risk their persons, they would have given evidence of their honor and nobleness, but on the contrary they show clearly that they are impelled by pure malice that they may enjoy the fruit of our labors equally ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain
... and Sanzio may have felt, their flatterers, dependants, and creatures cherished the liveliest hostility and lived in continual rivalry. It is somewhat painful to think that Michelangelo could have lent a willing ear to the malignant babble of a man so much inferior to himself in nobleness of nature—have listened when Sebastiano taunted Raffaello as "Prince of the Synagogue," or boasted that a picture of his own was superior to "the tapestries just come from Flanders." Yet Sebastiano was not the only friend to whose idle gossip the great sculptor indulgently stooped. Lionardo, ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... and more earnest as she went on; her face had become flushed, and her eyes fuller and fuller of appealing love. Stephen had the fibre of nobleness in him that vibrated to her appeal; but in the same moment—how could it be otherwise?—that pleading beauty gained new ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... he avoids great maladies, has good health, and lives long. And never knew I man, who was attached to hawks and hounds, but was of good disposition and habits; for the love of hunting springs from nobleness and gentleness of heart, whether one be a great lord or a ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... shall only answer by asking—Have they ever read it? For if they have done so, I pity them if they have not found it, in spite of occasional tediousness and pedantry, as brave, righteous, and pious a book as man need look into: and wish for no better proof of the nobleness and virtue of the Elizabethan age, than the fact that "Euphues" and the "Arcadia" were the two popular romances of the day. It may have suited the purposes of Sir Walter Scott, in his cleverly drawn Sir Piercie Shafton, to ridicule the Euphuists, and that affectatam comitatem of the travelled ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... the account of Pythius and Xerxes here, what generous and noble-minded men we might suppose them to be! But alas! how large a portion of the apparent generosity and nobleness which shows itself among potentates and kings, turns into selfishness and hypocrisy when closely examined. Pythius was one of the most merciless tyrants that ever lived. He held all the people that lived upon his vast estates ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... what reason? Who is this man, and what is the mysterious power that he possesses? His power is too great to spring from an honorable source. Sabine is sacrificing herself to this man for some reason or other, and he, like a dastardly cur, is ready to take advantage of the nobleness ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... pardon: but, my Queen, I hear of rumours flying thro' your court. Our bond, as not the bond of man and wife, Should have in it an absoluter trust To make up that defect: let rumours be: When did not rumours fly? these, as I trust That you trust me in your own nobleness, I may not well believe that ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... it did, a continuance of the matrimonial tie, which bound them together when all the world supposed that he wished it sundered, seems to have resulted from a conscientious sense of duty, and implies certain latent traits of generosity and nobleness in Charles's character, which, though ordinarily overpowered and nullified by the influences of folly and vice, still always seem to have maintained their hold, and to come out to view from time to time, in the course of the gay monarch's ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... one-tenth part of his worth; his nobleness of mind, his generosity, his tenderness," she ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... were once magnificent entablatures, have been used to construct plain walls, or laid in obscure and neglected pavements—all, however, still retaining, notwithstanding their present degradation, unequivocal marks of the nobleness of their origin. The quarries where the ancient Parian marble was obtained were situated on this island, not very far from the town. They remain to the present day in the same state in which the ancient ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... great thoughts would have suggested themselves spontaneously to Epictetus—whether there was an inborn wisdom and nobleness in the mind of this slave which would have enabled him to elaborate such views from his own consciousness, we cannot tell; they do not, however, express his sentiments only, but belong in fact to the moral teaching of the great Stoic school, in the doctrines of ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... political power that really gave his strength to the young Minister. The sudden rise of English industry was pushing the manufacturer to the front; and the manufacturer pinned his faith from the first in William Pitt. All that the trading classes loved in Chatham, his nobleness of temper, his consciousness of power, his patriotism, his sympathy with a wider world than the world within the Parliament-house, they saw in his son. He had little indeed of the poetic and imaginative side of Chatham's genius, of his quick perception of what was ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... Lordship knew The nature, and the nobleness of the Gentleman, Though he shew slight here, and at what gusts of danger His manhood has arrived, But that Mens fates are foolish, And often headlong overrun ...
— The Little French Lawyer - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont
... servant; filial love brought the words of pardon to his lips and tears into his eyes. Delighted to grant what he desired most of all things in the world, he extended his hand to the Duc with all the nobleness and kindliness of a Bourbon. The cardinal bowed, and respectfully kissed it; and his heart, which should have burst with remorse, only swelled in the joy ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various |
