"Benignity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... high and excellent seriousness, which Aristotle assigns as one of the grand virtues of poetry. The substance of Chaucer's poetry, his view of things and his criticism of life, has largeness, freedom, shrewdness, benignity; but it has not this high seriousness. Homer's criticism of life has it, Dante's has it, Shakespeare's has it. It is this chiefly which gives to our spirits what they can rest upon; and with the increasing demands of our modern ages ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... absolutely shake her in her bed before her thirteenth hour of rest, and you may say what you please. It cannot be implied that she is hardened, for no such quality is compatible with her character. But she smiles every joke and every advice aside with such an air of impassible benignity, that you see it is of no use to think of reforming ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various
... the eye, the majesty of the presence, and the high temper of the discourse. Men have been ungrateful and perverse; they have done what they could to counteract, to debase, this most heavenly influence of their life; but the laws of their Maker are too strong, the benignity of their Father is too patient and fervent, for their opposition to withstand: and true love continues, and will continue, to send up its homage amidst the meditations of every eventide, and the busy hum of noon, and the song of ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... traits of his person. His features, however, were so marked by prominent characteristics, which appear in all likenesses of him, that a stranger could not be mistaken in the man; he was remarkably dignified in his manners, and had an air of benignity over his features which his visitant did not expect, being rather prepared for sternness of countenance.... his smile was extraordinarily attractive. It was observed to me that there was an expression in Washington's face that no painter had succeeded in taking. ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... feeling I shall pray 20 For thee when I am far away: For never saw I mien, or face, In which more plainly I could trace Benignity and home-bred sense Ripening in perfect innocence. Here, scatter'd like a random seed, Remote from men, Thou dost not need The embarrass'd look of shy distress, And ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... me for giving you an associate like M. d'Orleans, to whom I give my nomination to the cardinalship." At this word the Bishop, who little expected such a scene, fell at the King's feet and embraced his knees. He was a man whose face spoke at once of the virtue and benignity he possessed. In youth he was so pious, that young and old were afraid to say afoul word in his presence. Although very rich, he appropriated scarcely any of his wealth to himself, but gave it away for good works. The modesty and the simplicity with which M. d'Orleans ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... the spot where the dog and the officer lay, he stopped, and when he saw what had happened, the money he had brought with which to deliver his dog, fell rattling, unheeded to the ground, and then he raised his palms toward heaven, as if entreating the vengeance or the benignity of the skies, and with tears streaming down his cheeks, he lifted up his voice and wept, saying: "Oh, God, he's killed my dog!" And then he sank down all in a heap, as if he would die beside his dying dog, for the dog was not yet dead, ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... much in Harriet's power to relieve him from it? I dare not think it arises from her want of filial regard; I do not know anything so likely to abate the ardour of my attachment as a knowledge of that; but it is an ungenerous suggestion, unworthy the benignity and tenderness ...
— The Politician Out-Witted • Samuel Low
... by Your Majesty's benignity at an early period as a painter, and chosen by those professors highly endowed in the three branches of the fine arts to fill their highest station, and sanctioned by Your Majesty's signature in their choice;—in that station, I have been, for more than ten years, ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... whole, there were to be rational creatures produced, allowed to rise in excellency by the exercise of powers implanted for that purpose; if benignity itself thought fit to call into existence a creature above the brutes, who could think and improve himself, why should that inestimable gift, for a gift it was, if a man was so created as to have a capacity to rise above the state in which sensation produced brutal ease, be ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... declared the performance was little, if at all, inferior to that of his deceased friend Garrick. With the very same breath in which we read the paragraph we declared it to be a falsehood. Mr. Fox had too much judgment to institute the comparison—Mr. Fox had too much benignity to utter such a malicious ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... their true end and object; for there is such a thing as tyranny as well as usurpation. You can hardly state to me a case, to which legislature is the most confessedly competent, in which, if the rules of benignity and prudence are not observed, the most mischievous and oppressive things may not be done. So that after all, it is a moral and virtuous discretion, and not any abstract theory of right, which keeps governments faithful to their ends. Crude, unconnected truths are in the world ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... companion, stood motionless gazing at her steadfastly. For her beauty, the monarch for some moment believed her to be (the goddess) Sri herself. Next he regarded her to be the embodiment of the rays emanating from Surya. In splendour of her person she resembled a flame of fire, though in benignity and loveliness she resembled a spotless digit of the moon. And standing on the mountain-breast, the black-eyed maiden appeared like a bright statue of gold. The mountain itself with its creepers and plants, because of the beauty and attire of that damsel, seemed to be converted ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... and gallant gentleman, who was now become Comptroller of the Navy, having succeeded Sir Hugh Palliser in April 1775, received him with his accustomed benignity. His tenderness was alarmed at the ravages which he beheld in his nephew's countenance; and he resolved that, if he could not instantly reinstate his vigour, he would at least endeavour to recruit his spirits by the choicest ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... again the notes of Epicurean philosophy fall almost unconsciously from his lips. With poetry at hand, he appears to feel no misgivings. A large faith he might seem to have in what is called "natural optimism," the beauty and benignity of nature, if let alone, in her mechanical round of changes with man and beast and flower. Her method, however, certainly involves forgetfulness for the individual; and to this, to the prospect of oblivion, poetry, too, may help to brace us, if, ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... true Plays of Shakespeare may prove to them in older years enrichers of the fancy, strengtheners of virtue, a withdrawing from all selfish and mercenary thoughts, a lesson of all sweet and honourable thoughts and actions, to teach courtesy, benignity, generosity, humanity: for of examples, teaching these virtues, his ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... committing his imaginative wisdom to the press, has delivered it from his living lips? He has gone about in the true spirit of an old Greek bard, with a noble carelessness of self, giving fit utterance to the divine spirit within, him. Who that has ever heard can forget him? His mild benignity, the unbounded variety of his knowledge, the fast succeeding products of his imagination, the child-like simplicity with which he rises from the dryest and commonest theme into the wildest magnificence of thought, pouring on the soul a stream of beauty and ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... substance and entity. Then as to the natural powers, by means of which it is turned to the protection and government of matter, to which it allies itself, and by appulsion benefits and communicates of its perfection to inferior things, through the likeness which it has to the Divine, which in its benignity communicates itself or produces infinitely, i.e. imparts existence to the universal infinite and to the innumerable worlds in it, or, finitely, produces this universe alone, subject to our eyes and our common reason. ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... humour, remarks, "neither was wrong":—"Mox, quasi rixantes stupra et flagitia invicem objectavere: neuter falso." (Hist. I. 74.) This witty and ridiculing vein does not prevent him from being always kindly. The benignity of his nature is seen in all his portraitures (which look, by the way, like the portraitures of real men); it is observable in his character of Licinius Mucianus (I. 10), Cornelius Fuscus (II. 86), Helvidius Priscus (IV. 5), and others;—lovely portraits where ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... friendship and alliance of the French to a greater degree than before. For the settlement of this there have now for a good while been dealings here with the King's Ambassador, and his Treaty is now almost brought to a conclusion. Moreover, the singular benignity and moderation of your Eminence, always manifest hitherto in the most important transactions of the Kingdom relating to the French Protestants, causes me to hope much from your own ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... who loves to see Kings at peace with one another, that you expressed such joy at our elevation to the throne. Continue to set to the world this example of benignity; continue to show your interest in one who recommends himself by his pure affection for you. For you do not seek to pick shabby quarrels with other Sovereigns; you do not delight in unjust contests, which are contrary to sound morality[660], since you seek for nothing but ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... the men of old, where, being lovingly received by them, I am fed with that food which is mine alone; where I do not hesitate to speak with them, and to ask for the reason of their actions, and they in their benignity answer me; and for four hours I feel no weariness, I forget every trouble, poverty does not dismay, death does not terrify me; I am possessed entirely by those great men. And ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... Napoleon, according to a severe divine judgment Emperor of France, and James Buchanan, according to the merciful divine benignity ...
— Secret Enemies of True Republicanism • Andrew B. Smolnikar
... manliness observable in almost every face; and in some a certain loftiness and sweetness that rebuked your belittling criticisms and stilled them. A most noble benignity and purity reposed in the countenance of him they called Sir Galahad, and likewise in the king's also; and there was majesty and greatness in the giant frame and high bearing of Sir ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... above mentioned. And this is the more extraordinary, because the heads of Lawrence, like those of ancient statuary, are always smaller than life, to give them an aristocratic, high-bred air, and the bodies are larger. The expression of countenance, too, was benignity itself,—just such as Titian would have been delighted with,—calm, clear, passionless, without a prevailing characteristic of any strength. "Felix trembled," they say. Whatever Felix may have done, I do not believe that Lord Eldon ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... if the God of Light had bade it be, In sweet reward for pious rite performed; As if, with human love and fondness charmed, The Lord had smiled with love's benignity. ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... among the heathen. [10] She entertained a deep sense of the merits of Columbus, to whose serious and elevated character her own bore much resemblance; although the enthusiasm, which distinguished each, was naturally tempered in hers with somewhat more of benignity and discretion. ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... first and last was the pair of lustrous, dark brown eyes that glowed and dilated with every deep emotion. He had the quiet, assured manner of a master; yet I was not so instantly conscious of that, as of an air of reverence and benignity, which, combined with the somewhat Oriental tendency of feature and colour, made his whole personality suggest that of a young poet-prophet ...
— A Day with Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy • George Sampson
... madame, I do not come to trespass so far upon your benignity," he answered, as he bent before her. "I come to express, rather, my regret that you should have made one ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... the bosom friend of Dora. Supposed to have been blighted in early life in some love affair, and hence she looks on the happiness of others with a calm, supercilious benignity, and talks of herself as being "in the desert of ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... without warning, or the taste of the waters of an unexpected fountain. These, and similar suggestions, must have given, formerly, to the language of the senseless stone a voice enforced and endeared by the benignity of that Nature with which it was in unison.—We, in modern times, have lost much of these advantages; and they are but in a small degree counterbalanced to the inhabitants of large towns and cities, by the custom of depositing the dead within, or contiguous to, their places of worship; ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... proceeding in a few prefatory remarks to explain to the man how fairly he had been tried, etc., broke in upon the court by exclaiming that 'he did'nt care if the court had convicted him, he wasn't guilty any how.' 'That will be a consolation to you,' rejoined the judge, with unusual benignity, and with a voice full of sympathy and compassion, 'That will be a consolation to you, in the hour of your confinement, for we read in the good Book that it is better to suffer wrong, than do wrong.' In the irrepressible burst of laughter ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... magnificance, Thy virtue, and thy great humility, Surpass all science and all utterance; For sometimes, Lady, ere men pray to thee Thou goest before in thy benignity, The light to us vouchsafing of thy prayer, To be our guide ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... and the "Rydalian Laurels" are magnificent. Still I saw abodes among the hills that I should have preferred for Wordsworth, more wild and still, more romantic; the fresh and lovely Rydal Mount seems merely the retirement of a gentleman, rather than the haunt of a poet. He showed his benignity of disposition in several little things, especially in his attentions to a young boy we had with us. This boy had left the Circus, exhibiting its feats of horsemanship in Ambleside "for that day only," at his own desire to see Wordsworth, ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... brought an undivided patrimony down to the present generation. One cannot help regretting that the estate is to be cut up now into five shares or more. Eleven thousand acres of fertile hill and dale, sinking and swelling gently, so as to attract all the benignity of sun or breeze—not more densely wooded than is common on our own western shores, and watered to an ornamental perfection—truly on any civilized land, ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... lifted. The form of the sleeper expanded with power. Her face took on benignity and lofty serenity. She rose slowly, impressively, and with her hand upraised in a peculiar gesture, laid a blessing upon the head of her hostess. There was so much of sweetness and tolerance in her face, so much of dignity and power in every movement that I was moved to applaud ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... something else much more important, which is, that He understands you! He understands your feeble love, your longings, desires, hopes, faults, ambitions, crosses; and that, after all, is what counts! Of course you don't understand Him! You are overshadowed by His love, His power, His benignity, His wisdom; that is as it should be! Why, Rebecca, dear, if you could stand erect and unabashed in God's presence, as one who perfectly comprehended His nature or His purposes, it would be sacrilege! Don't be puzzled out of your blessed inheritance of faith, my child; accept ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... repast as is consumed by one who dines at six, drinks a bottle of port every day at dessert, and never smoked a cigar in his life. No earthly consideration would hurry him for the next half-hour. He looked over the top of his newspaper with the placid benignity of a man who, considering digestion one of the most important functions of nature, ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... generosity that any man becomes capable of so governing others as to take true part in any system of national economy. Nor is there any other eternal distinction between the upper and lower classes than this form of liberty, Eleutheria, or benignity, in the one, and its opposite of slavery, Douleia, or malignity, in the other; the separation of these two orders of men, and the firm government of the lower by the higher, being the first conditions of possible ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... that even those already used to that wild morning had not anticipated or dreamed. The professor, on finding Basil in front of him, stared with a blank benignity for a few seconds, and then drew up his left leg and hung it bent in the attitude that his sister had described as being the first of all his antics. And the moment he had done it Basil Grant lifted his own leg and held it out rigid before him, ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... dry lips. His very good-humour, his benignity, appalled me. I knew how terrible would be the change, how fearful his rage, when I should tell him the truth. And yet that I, Gil de Berault, should tremble before any man! With that thought I spurred myself, as it were, to the task. 'No, your Eminence,' I said, with the ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... that he was reckless of other people's feelings; so far from that, he had a morbid facility in his kindness; and in cases where he had no reason to suspect any lurking hostility, he showed even a paralytic benignity. But, simply and constitutionally, he was incapable of a sincere thought or a sincere emotion. Nothing that ever he uttered, were it even a prayer to God, but he had a fancy for reading it backwards. And he was evermore false, not as ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... impelled by the same impetuous youthful passions; under similar circumstances, depend upon it we should commit the self-same errors that we have now to regret. As for myself, instead of indulging in this sort of weakness, I look back upon my past errors with a sort of awful reverence for the benignity of the divine will of my Maker; and, when I prostrate myself before God, and offer up a silent, although an ardent thanksgiving for all his goodness to me, an insignificant human being, I never forget to pour out my most grateful and ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... cap on again as he had taken it off, and resumed his own seat. There was a wonderful air of benignity and patronage in his manner. These were the ceremonies with which he ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... piousness, independence, industry, will-power, faithfulness, fairness, sociability, reliability, self-reliance, tendency to work hard, perseverance, carefulness, impulsiveness, temperance, high-spiritedness, joviality, benignity, quietness, cheerfulness, hospitality, sympathy, humorousness, love of fun, neighborliness, love of frontier life, love of travel and of adventure. The same may be said of immoral traits, such as criminality, pauperism, delinquency, irascibility, lying, ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... their consolation in the final proportions of eternal justice." When we learn that a Lyons silk weaver, working as hard as he could for over seventeen hours a day, could not earn money enough to procure the most bare and urgent necessaries of subsistence, we may know with what benignity of brow eternal justice must have presented herself in the garret of that hapless wretch. It was no idle abstraction, no metaphysical right of man for which the Trench cried, but only the practical right of being permitted, by their own toil, to save themselves and the little ones about their knees ...
— Burke • John Morley
... the block" was Tresco himself, but what he lacked in tailoring he made good in serene benignity of countenance. His features, which beamed like the sun shining above him, were recognised by all who passed by. It was, "How do, Benjamin; bobbin' up, old party?" "Mornin', Tresco. You remind me of the rooster that found the jewel—you look so bloomin' contented with yourself." "Ah! good day, ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... was Toulouse's son; Maine has left a famous Dowager, whom we see. Nothing more of notable about the one or the other.] She was never very beautiful; but had a world of grace and witty intelligence; and knew a Voltaire when she saw him. Was the soul of courtesy and benignity, though proud enough, and carrying her head at its due height; and was always very charming, in her lofty gracious way, to mankind. Interesting to all, were it only as a living fragment of the Grand Epoch,—kind of French Fulness of Time, when the world was at length blessed with a ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... Yudhishthira, truth, charity, forgiveness, benevolence, benignity, kindness and the Veda[2] which worketh the benefit of the four orders, which is the authority in matters of religion and which is true, are seen even in the Sudra. As regards the object to be known and which thou allegest is without both happiness and misery, I do not ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... most industrious artists," says Vasari, "were labouring by the light of Giotto and his followers to give the world examples of such power as the benignity of their stars and the varied character of their fantasies enabled them to command, and while desirous of imitating the perfection of Nature by the excellence of Art, they were struggling to attain that high comprehension which many call intelligence, and ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... a tall woman of forty, her ample form, her wide bosom, the falling folds of her black dress, her loosely girdled waist, suggesting, with the cloistral analogies, the mournful benignity of a bereaved Madonna. Seen as she stood there, leaning her head to watch her son's approach, she was an almost intimidating presence, black, still, and stately. But when the door opened and the young man came in, when, not moving to meet him, she turned her head with ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... state of my own mind at the time, made me peculiarly susceptible to external influences, and fixed minute circumstances more intensely on my memory; so that I now vividly recall the thought which then occurred to me—that I had never before seen so much gentleness and calm quiet benignity in a man. The impression then rapidly formed has lasted ever since, for in all the long years from that day until his death I never had cause to abate one jot of the reverential feeling with which he then ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... a smile of benignity upon his face. "It is a clever plan," said he, "and you are a good fellow, Dickory, but your scheme, though well intentioned, is unsound. I have too much regard for you to trust you in any vessel sailing from Belize to Kingston, where there are often naval vessels. Going from ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... treasure that she thither lad,* *took And, sooth to say, of victual great plenty, They have her giv'n, and clothes eke she had And forth she sailed in the salte sea: O my Constance, full of benignity, O emperores younge daughter dear, He that is lord of fortune be thy ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... them, I thought I discerned in the stranger a mild benignity of countenance, which I had somewhere seen before—I gazed at ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... render a faithful report to your majesty, but I must entreat your forgiveness if my anxiety leads to some obscurity in my language." A glance at the king after this discreet and subtle exordium, assured Villefort of the benignity of his august auditor, and he ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... was an enormously fat gentleman, one half of whose head was bound up with a dirty white handkerchief, over which a torn piece of hat was stuck, very much to one side. He had a most roguish eye, and a smile of inviting benignity on his dirty countenance. In one hand he held and tingled a guitar, while he most ingeniously swept in the copper with the other. By his side sat two wretched-looking women, with long matted hair, their elbows on the table, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... away by the frosty wind, and the eye dimmed by the moor-mist, or blinded by the hail; this outspeaking of the strong spirit of men who may not gather redundant fruitage from the earth, nor bask in dreamy benignity of sunshine, but must break the rock for bread, and cleave the forest for fire, and show, even in what they did for their delight, some of the hard habits of the arm and heart that grew on them as they swung the axe or ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... as the Cooleen Bawn was concerned, than her extraordinary power of conciliating love and attachment from all who approached her, or were engaged in attending upon her person. The singular softness of her sweet and mellow voice was in itself an exponent of the remarkable suavity and benignity of her disposition. In fact, she carried a charm about her—an atmosphere of kindness and benevolence that no human being who came within its influence could resist. Her smile was a perfect fascination, which, ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... and this question would occur with a cruel sharpness after some brief chance interview with Dr. John. He had still such kind looks, such a warm hand; his voice still kept so pleasant a tone for my name; I never liked "Lucy" so well as when he uttered it. But I learned in time that this benignity, this cordiality, this music, belonged in no shape to me: it was a part of himself; it was the honey of his temper; it was the balm of his mellow mood; he imparted it, as the ripe fruit rewards with sweetness the rifling bee; he diffused it about him, as sweet plants shed ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... with generous and happy feelings. As we passed over a rising ground which commanded something of a prospect, the sounds of rustic merriment now and then reached our ears; the Squire paused for a few moments, and looked around with an air of inexpressible benignity. The beauty of the day was of itself sufficient to inspire philanthropy. Notwithstanding the frostiness of the morning, the sun in his cloudless journey had acquired sufficient power to melt away ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... my belief in the infinite wisdom and benignity of events; you have, dear friend, with certain feminine limitations, shared it with me. Could there have been a more perfect illustration of it than the power that led us here? On a shore, historic in interest, beautiful in climate, ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... if the weather were bad we generally made our promenade up and down the broad terrace in front of the windows. Sullen and malign at times she used to look, and as suddenly she would pat me on the shoulder caressingly, and smile with a grotesque benignity, asking tenderly, 'Are you fatigue, ma chere?' or 'Are you ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... communities who stand nearer to us in nature. For the future of the freed slaves we may well be concerned; but the future of the whole country, involving the future of the blacks, urges a paramount claim upon our anxiety. Effective benignity, like the Nile, is not narrow in its bounty, and true policy is always broad. To be sure, it is vain to seek to glide, with moulded words, over the difficulties of the situation. And for them who are neither partisans, nor enthusiasts, ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... heavenly. I left my goods that I have evermore most highly esteemed, that is, my word and sacraments, to be dispensed of you. These benefits I gave you, and do you give me these thanks? Can you find in your hearts thus to abuse my goodness, my benignity, my gentleness? Have you thus deceived me? No, no, ye have not deceived me, but yourselves. My gifts and benefits towards you shall be to your greater damnation. Because you have contemned the lenity and clemency of the master of the house, ye have right well deserved ...
— Sermons on the Card and Other Discourses • Hugh Latimer
... of his own benignity that the retiring sun gives up all rivalry at once and instantly sets in despair, Father DEAN departs to his dinner, and Mr. SIMPSON, the Gospeler, betakes himself cheerily to the second-floor-back where ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... of his senior year James entered another phase of his development. He offered to the college a new, or at least an enlarged, interpretation of himself. Some of his smiling good-fellowship had been sloughed to make way for the benignity of a budding statesman. He still held a tolerant attitude to the antics of his friends, but it was easy to see that he had put away childish things. To his many young women admirers he talked confidentially of his aims and aspirations. The future of ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... grief than is plainly needful and unavoidable; that we are conscious and sensible of our own obnoxiousness to the like slips or falls, and do consider that we also may be tempted, and being tempted, may be overborne. This they cannot perceive or be persuaded of, except we temper our speech with benignity and mildness. Such speech prudence also dictateth, as most useful and hopeful for producing the good ends honest reprehension doth aim at; it mollifieth and it melteth a stubborn heart, it subdueth and winneth a perverse will, it healeth distempered affections. Whereas ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... sound of grass-cutting, the grave, measured soliloquy of a blackbird hidden in the flame-flowered chestnut. Hazel felt that she would like to go on picking currants for ever, growing more and more like Mrs. Marston every day, and at least becoming (possibly through sheer benignity) a grandmother. There seemed no place in her life for Reddin, no time for Hunter's Spinney. She thought, 'I wunna go. I'll stay along of Ed'ard, and no harm'll come to me.' But a peremptory voice said that she must go, and once more her soul became ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... hand with an air perfectly unaffected and unobtrusive, yet which was almost paternal in its benignity. Her look was one almost of reverence as she hurried on her way with ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... Fanny," she replied, with her wonted sweetness and benignity, "to ask any one to tamper with duty; but, my child, our faults, our pride frequently mislead us. You shall go to-night, if you please; but I wish, for my sake, you could stay at least till to-morrow morning. I have ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... feared I seemed a rash, ill-balanced man. So carefully had I avoided Miss Warren's society, and yet so freely and frankly, apparently, had I spoken to her in the presence of her affianced, that his suspicions were evidently banished, and he treated me with a gracious and patronizing benignity. He saw no reason why he should not turn on me the light of his full and smiling countenance, which might be taken as an emblem of prosperity; and, in truth, I gave him no reason. So rigid was the constraint under which I kept myself that ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... credit, and promised obedience, and join with them in their detestable rebellion. And although his Majesty, in the sincerity of his royal heart, cannot apprehend any such disloyalty or treachery in the person of the clansmen of the Isles, who have had so large a proof of his Majesty's clemency, benignity, and favour, that now, so unworthily and unnecessarily, they will reject his Majesty's favour, and, to the inevitable hazard and peril of their estates, join with these miserable miscreants in their rebellion yet to take ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... fitly represent one of the Graces than a Muse or the sage Minerva. In conclusion, I not only remark in your Highness all that is requisite on the part of the mind to perfect and sublime wisdom, but also all that can be required on the part of the will or the manners, in which benignity and gentleness are so conjoined with majesty that, though fortune has attacked you with continued injustice, it has failed either to irritate or crush you. And this constrains me to such veneration ...
— The Principles of Philosophy • Rene Descartes
... Christian charity; God's love, God's grace; good will; philanthropy &c 910; unselfishness &c 942. good nature, good feeling, good wishes; kindness, kindliness &c adj.; loving-kindness, benignity, brotherly love, charity, humanity, fellow-feeling, sympathy; goodness of heart, warmth of heart; bonhomie; kind-heartedness; amiability, milk of human kindness, tenderness; love &c 897; friendship &c 888. toleration, consideration, generosity; mercy ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... from the pure and simple profession of deism! The true deist has but one Deity, and his religion consists in contemplating the power, wisdom, and benignity of the Deity in his works, and in endeavouring to imitate him in ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... I laughed aloud and heartily, and thinking it was now part of the game, I held out both my arms, and protruded my whole body toward the stranger. He would not receive me from my father's neck, but he asked me with benignity and solicitude if I was hungry; at which I laughed again, and more than ever; for it was early in the morning, soon after the first meal, and my father had nourished me most carefully and plentifully in all ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... was a little surprised and a good deal gratified, Fleda saw, by her coming, and played the hostess with great benignity. The quilting-frame was stretched in an upper room, not in the long kitchen, to Fleda's joy; most of the company were already seated at it, and she had to go through a long string of introductions before she was permitted to take her place. First of all, Earl Douglass's wife, who rose up, ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... little daughter this morning. It requires a good deal of that new attribute of yours, faith, which judges all things by a rule of contraries, and can never see anything but kindness in the worst afflictions which malignity could devise, to discover benignity and mercy in the torturing calamity which has just punished you and your wife for nothing! But I fancy that it will be harder still when I tell you what I more than suspect—ha, ha. It would be really ridiculous, if it were not heart-rending; that your little girl has been actually ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... experience had brought, not a sour cynicism, but the mellowing influence of a ripened philosophy. He was such an old man as may fondly be imagined walking through the streets of Paranaque in stately benignity amid the fear and respect of the brown people over whom ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... perceived enough of the amiable benignity of your mind, to be sure that you will like to hear the praises of your friend. Indeed, there is but one opinion about Mr. Robertson's history.(1010) I don't remember any other work that ever met universal approbation. Since the Romans and the Greeks, who have now an exclusive charter ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... good will, love, benignity, philanthropy, beneficence, bounty, liberality, tolerance. Associated Words: ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... looked much older than he was, his hair being silvered all over, and his person tending to corpulency, there was about him no trace of bodily sickness or mental decay, but rather an air of voluptuous repose. His benignity of manner placed his auditors entirely at their ease; and inclined them to listen delighted to the sweet low tone in which he began to discourse on some high theme. At first his tones were conversational: he seemed to ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... when, late in a summer evening, I went to call on the old lady to whom my reader is now introduced, I was received by her with all her usual affection and benignity; while, at the same time, she seemed abstracted and disposed to silence. I asked her the reason. "They have been clearing out the old chapel," she said; "John Clayhudgeons having, it seems, discovered that the stuff within—being, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... too often, ungrateful people, she was full of tender pity—the yearning of the single-hearted missionary, for the welfare of his flock. They were steeped in darkness, but she carried the light—nay, she was the light! and with a benignity, often evinced by self-sacrifice—she poured it graciously over ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... saith he, "those very 'tempora periculosa' whereof Saint Paul speaketh, when men shall love their own selves, and be proud, unthankful, without affection, peace, or benignity, loving their pleasures rather than God. And if it serve thee, I would not like to ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... Johnson. He confessed to a toleration for Scott's novels, and had been detected by his children both laughing and crying over the stories of Charles Dickens; for the amiable weaknesses of human nature still remain in the best regulated mind. To women and children, the judge was benignity itself, imitating the Grand Monarque, who bowed even to a chambermaid. He believed in good, orderly, respectable, old ways and entertainments, and had a quiet horror of all that is loud or noisy or pretentious; which sometimes made his social duties a trial to him, ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... shining brightly through the casement, Miss Craig (afterwards Mrs. Henry Duncan) was afraid the light might be too much for him, and rose to let down the window-blinds. Burns immediately guessed what she meant, and regarding the young lady with a look of great benignity, said, 'Thank you, my dear, for your kind attention; but oh! let him shine; he will not shine ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... observes in his Irenicum: "The unity and peace that was then among Christians made religion amiable in the judgment of impartial heathens: Christians were then known by the benignity and sweetness of their dispositions, by the candour and ingenuity of their spirits, by their mutual love, forbearance, and condescension to one another. But either this is not the practice of Christianity (viz., a duty ...
— An Exhortation to Peace and Unity • Attributed (incorrectly) to John Bunyan
... this outburst with the utmost benignity. "Come and have a coffee, Louis," he suggested. "Mehmed's is only ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... obtained very easily by the professor; and when Hermione left him, before lunch, it is probable that in the solitude of the conservatory the man of science rubbed his gigantic hands together, and beamed upon the orchids with unusual benignity. ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... equally evident that, if individuals did not die, they could never have any other life than the present. The foregoing considerations, fathomed and appreciated, transform the institution of death from caprice and punishment into necessity and benignity. In the timid sentimentalist's view, death is horrible. Nature unrolls the chart of organic existence, a convulsed and lurid list of murderers, from the spider in the window to the tiger in the jungle, from the shark at the bottom of the sea to the eagle against the floor of ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... life. They have to do with it, because while the portion of man may be by the rougher labors of the head and hands to work out many of the great results of life, the peculiar function of woman is to spread grace and softness, truth, beauty, benignity over all. Nor is woman confined to this. In fact I wish that her direct as well as indirect influence were still larger than it is in the sphere of politics. Why, we trust a woman with the sceptre of the realm, consider her adequate to ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... parlour, in an easy chair, before a cheerful fire, with a newspaper in his hand, sat a bluff little elderly gentleman, with a bald head and a fat little countenance, in which benignity appeared to hold perpetual though ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... ears of Tayoga the presence of two or three hundred warriors. Robert knew, too, that a large force was now before them. How long could the thirty hold back the Indian hosts? Yet he had the word of Tayoga that Tododaho looked down upon them with benignity and that all the omens and presages were favorable. There was a flash at his elbow and a rifle sang its deadly song in his ear. Then Tayoga uttered a ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... up at his full height. His thin figure seemed to expand. His thumbs sought the arm-holes of his vest. Upon his face was a look of sympathetic benignity that he always wore during ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... face In which full plainly I can trace Benignity and home-bred sense, Ripening in perfect innocence. Here scattered, like a random seed, Remote from men, thou dost not need The embarrassed look of shy distress And maidenly shamefacedness. Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear The freedom of a mountaineer. ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... dropped his subject and took up a tin measure. He served the little maid with a benignity quite charming to witness, made an entry on a slate ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... in deep meditation; now and then casting his eyes toward me and then taking them away, as if fearful of offending my sensibility and again falling into thought. At length, fixing them more firmly and with an open benignity of countenance, he ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... with their gentleness, suffered them to scrutinise him, and won them by his benignity. The natives were equally objects of curiosity to the Spaniards. They were naked, painted all over with a variety of colours and designs. Their complexion was tawny, and they were destitute of beards; their hair not crisp, like that of negroes, but straight and coarse; their features were agreeable; ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... gazette, that the city of New York and the countries of Staten and Long Island have submitted voluntarily and cheerfully, and that many are very full of zeal to the cause of administration. Were they instantly restored to trade? Are they yet restored to it? Is not the benignity of two commissioners, naturally most humane and generous men, some way fettered by instructions, equally against their dispositions and the spirit of Parliamentary faith, when Mr. Tryon, vaunting of the fidelity of the city in which he is governor, is obliged to apply ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... and affection, the objects of philanthropy and Christian benevolence with which her life had been identified. After the meeting, and at her own desire, several members of the committee, and other friends, assembled at her house. They were welcomed by her with the greatest benignity and kindness, and in her intercourse with them, strong were the indications of the heavenly teaching through which her subdued and sanctified spirit had been called to pass. Her affectionate salutation in parting, unconsciously closed, in regard to most of them, the intercourse ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... possible demonstrations of the most gracious benignity on the one side, and reverence on the other, Horatio quitted the presence, and went to sir Thomas Higgons, who at that time was privy purse, and one of the finest gentlemen that ever England bred, and acquainted him with the chevalier St. George's goodness ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... sometimes no expression at all, or an apparent stolidity which is really the absence of expression; in the archaic smile we see an attempt to enliven the face, and possibly also, as we have noticed, to express and even to induce the benignity of the deity. But this attempt, made with inadequate artistic resources, tends to result in a mere grimace; and as we approach the transitional age before the greatest period of sculpture, we often find a reaction against any such exaggeration of ...
— Religion and Art in Ancient Greece • Ernest Arthur Gardner
... and accustomed to rise at dawn to attend to her household affairs, not permitting her art to interfere with the more homely duties of her life. One writer says that "her devoted filial affection, her feminine grace, and the artless benignity of her manners rounded out a character regarded as an ideal of ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... "But ASPECT is the countenance of Christ when passive to the gaze of others; REGARD is the same countenance in active contemplation of those others whom he loves or pities. The PLACID ASPECT expresses, therefore, the divine rest; the MEEK REGARD expresses the divine benignity; the one is the self-absorption of the total Godhead, the other the external emanation ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... was generally harsh and proud. But yet Wilton could not help believing that there was a peculiar expression in the Earl's countenance when that nobleman's eyes turned upon him; that there was a smile which was not a smile of benignity, that there was a courtesy which was not of the heart. Why or wherefore Wilton could hardly tell, but he fancied that the Earl's conduct was what it might be towards a person who had suddenly fallen completely into his power, and whom he intended ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... blest Feast of the Nativity! H eaven made thy lowly shrine R esplendent with the gift of the eternal Deity I n whom we live and move, whose large benignity S pared not His Son divine: T hat well-beloved Son by God was given, M ankind to save with His redeeming blood; A nd Jesus freely left the bliss of Heaven, S uffering death, to achieve our lasting ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... drove the people called Quakers and Dissenters to America. Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is alway the strongly-marked feature of all law-religions, or religions established by law. Take away the law-establishment, and every religion re-assumes its original benignity. In America, a catholic priest is a good citizen, a good character, and a good neighbour; an episcopalian minister is of the same description: and this proceeds independently of the men, from there being ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... Benignity, kindness, keen humour, broad common sense and industry characterised my mother. The Reverend Dr. Chambers was for many years her pastor. He had fifty years of pastorate service, in Somerville, N.J., and the Collegiate Church, New York. He said, in an ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... view. "How carefully," he says, "we should cherish the little virtues which spring up at the foot of the Cross!" When the saint was asked, "What virtues do you mean?" he replied: "Humility, patience, meekness, benignity, bearing one another's burden, condescension, softness of heart, cheerfulness, cordiality, compassion, forgiving injuries, simplicity, candour—all, in short of that sort of little virtues. They, like unobtrusive violets, love the shade; ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... uttermost. He drove down the Lungh' Arno, and through the Piazza, and past the Duomo. There was no further need to keep the blinds closed, and as he drove on he looked out upon the inhabitants of Florence with a grand benignity of expression to which no language can do justice. Many things conspired to fill his breast with the serenest satisfaction and self-complacency. First, he had saved himself from being humbugged. Secondly, he had been the victor in two very respectable trials of muscle, in which he, by the sheer ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... unlike Lady Chetwoode, the mother in "Airy Fairy Lilian." Lady Chetwoode wore dainty caps, all white lace and delicate ribbon bows that matched in colour her trailing gown. Her small and tapering hands were covered with rings. She walked with a slow, rather stately step, and there was a benignity about her that went straight to the heart... Well, there was something about mother, too, that went straight to the heart. Missy wouldn't trade off her mother for ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... has been to know Mr. Gallaudet in his own home, surrounded by his own intelligent children, have had a new revelation of the gentleness, the tenderness and benignity of the paternal relation. Many years since I was a "watcher by the bed," where lay his little daughter, recovering from a dangerous illness. He evidently felt that a great responsibility was resting upon a young nurse, with whom, though he knew her well, he was not ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... do the blandishments of life invariably add to the sum of moral excellence; they are often "as dead sea fruit that tempts the eye, but turns to ashes on the lips."—While a rough exterior as frequently covers a temper of the utmost benignity, happy in itself and giving ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... which the free circulation of grain throughout the whole Roman world had in depressing the agriculture of Italy, Gaul, and Greece. They were unable to withstand the competition of Egypt, Lybia, and Sicily—the storehouses of the world; where the benignity of the climate, and the riches of the soil, rewarded seventy or an hundred fold the labours of the husbandman. Gaul, where the increase was only seven-fold—Italy, where it seldom exceeded twelve—Spain, where it was never so high, were crushed in the struggle. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... day there came into our pulpit the most gracious of mortals, with a face all benignity, who gave out the first hymn and made the first prayer as an angel might have read and prayed. Our choir was a pretty good one, but its best was coarse and discordant after ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... the faintest trace of self-seeking in His motives; sensuality shrinks abashed from His celestial purity; falsehood can leave no stain on Him who is incarnate truth; injustice is forgotten beside His errorless equity; the very possibility of avarice is swallowed up in His benignity and love; the very idea of ambition is lost in His divine wisdom and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... which he surpassed everybody in the region; his noble stature and well-proportioned form; his head finely poised, and around it a halo of parental benignity, its perpetual and unfading crown; these struck every one at first sight, and prepossessed all in his favor. I know of none with whom to compare him in these respects except Ezekiel Webster. In his whole spirit and mien, in look and word and action, he was a father, and his whole ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... hadst me in Thy sight; So guard me, Father, through this night; And by thy dear benignity From Satan's malice shelter me; For what of evil may befall The body, is ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... company with a benignity which had a touch of the majestic, and also of the rustic in it; for at heart the Doctor was a bashful man,—that is, he had somewhere in his mental camp that treacherous fellow whom John Bunyan anathematizes under the name of Shame. The company rose on his entrance; the men bowed and the women ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... again, but a thousand sweet emotions mingled with them. The abbess suffered her to weep without interruption, and watched over her with a look of benignity, that might have characterized the countenance of a guardian angel. Emily, when she became tranquil, was encouraged to speak without reserve, and to mention the motive, that made her unwilling to quit the cottage, which the abbess did not oppose even by a hint; but praised the filial ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... representation or of delegated power; and the world was to see whether society could, by the strength of this principle, maintain its own peace and good government, carry forward its own great interests, and conduct itself to political renown and glory. By the benignity of Providence, this experiment, so full of interest to us and to our posterity forever, so full of interest, indeed, to the world in its present generation and in all its generations to come, was suffered to commence under the guidance of Washington. Destined for this high career, he was ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... I'll tell you how The interim may be disposed of best:— In short, let me propose a merry jest!" At this Sir Gawayne gave a sudden start, For some old memory seemed to clutch his heart, And in the baron's eyes he seemed to see A twinkling gleam of green benignity Not wholly strange; but like a flash 't was gone. Gawayne sank back, and his good host went on: "Two days you sojourn here, and while I take My daily hunting in the wood, you make My house and castle yours; and then, each night, We'll meet ...
— Gawayne And The Green Knight - A Fairy Tale • Charlton Miner Lewis
... I overflowed with benignity to all the world, and even granted the poor Frenchman permission to enjoy his pipe, a privilege of which he made haste to avail himself. It was an ill-timed charity, to be sure, but I could well afford to submit to the temporary ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... I proceeded on our journey for some time in silence; he restraining his sober-minded steed to a pace which might have suited a much less active walker than myself, and looking on me from time to time with an expression of curiosity, mingled with benignity. For my part, I cared not to speak first. It happened I had never before been in company with one of this particular sect, and, afraid that in addressing him I might unwittingly infringe upon some of their prejudices or peculiarities, I patiently ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... should I not recognize some one, whom, benefits imparted and received had prompted to love me? What were the limits and duration of his guardianship? Was the genius of my birth entrusted by divine benignity with this province? Are human faculties adequate to receive stronger proofs of the existence of unfettered and beneficent intelligences than I ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... expression changed to one of cheerfulness and benignity. "Right you are, sir," he said, and shut down the door in a manner that suggested entire appreciation ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... was benignity itself as his glance turned lovingly to the Prouty House and the White Hand Laundry—the latter in particular being a milestone on the road of Progress since it heralded the fact that the day was not far distant when a man could wear ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... sky. These other stars have now joined the American constellation; they circle around their centre, and the heavens beam with a new light. Beneath this illumination, let us walk the course of life, and at its close devoutly commend our beloved country, the common parent of us all, to the Divine Benignity." ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... radiance of many candles and surrounded by a numerous company—fat and thin, old and young, red-faced and pale, gentle and simple. At the end farthest from the street one figure stood erect—a short, round, rubicund little man, wearing a gown of rusty black, one thumb stuck into his vest, and a rosy benignity in the glance with which he scanned the table. He threw back his head, cleared his tight throat sonorously, and began, in tones perhaps best described as treacly, to address the seated company, with an intention also towards the larger ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... of God which depravity may not abuse. The belief of the divine perfections, especially of the divine mercy and benignity is often made the occasion of sin. Those whose "hearts are turned away from the Lord, when they hear the words of the curse, are wont to bless themselves in their hearts, saying, we shall have peace, though we walk in the imagination of our hearts, to add drunkenness to thirst." When ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... of the other watcher was one I could never forget; its benignity was associated with the most horrible hours of my life, with deeds so dreadful that recollection to this day sometimes breaks my sleep, arousing me in the still watches, bathed in a cold sweat ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... of this kind. The foolish, equivocally gifted with the quality of articulate speech, may, if they choose, satisfy their own self-love by reducing all action out of the common course to a series of variations on the same motive in others. Men blessed by the benignity of experience will be thankful not to waste life in guessing evil about ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... Emerson must be remembered only as blended with his benignity. "His friends were all that knew him," and, as Dr. Holmes said, "his smile was the well-remembered line of Terence written out in living features." Emerson's journals show the difficulty of his ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... imbued with the philosophic jollity of the jolly servant of Martin Chuzzlewit. Were it not for their chains, it would have been difficult to discover master from slave; the physiognomic traits were alike—the mild benignity with which we were regarded was equally visible on all faces. The chains were ponderous—they might have held elephants captive; but as the slaves carried nothing but themselves, their weight could not ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... his listeners, as at times to make them feel almost breathless. Such seemed the movement of Coleridge's words in lecture or in earnest discourse, and his countenance retained the same charms of benignity, gentleness, and intelligence, though this expression varied with the thoughts he uttered, and was much modified by his sensitive nature. His quotations from the poets, of high character, were most feelingly and most luminously given, as by one inspired with the subject. In my ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... baleful—a serpent, a scorpion, a plant of deadly nightshade or of henbane. But, on the other hand, the sun was all goodness, and persons or things which it cast forth into life infallibly partook of its benignity. Wine that maketh man glad, the bee who works for him in the flowers secreting wax and honey, the meat and herbs which are his food, the stuffs that clothe him, all useful things which he makes for himself, not only emanated from the Solar Eye of Horus, but were indeed nothing ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... She went at once, and unattended, to the apartments in one of the towers that had been assigned to the Court Godmother, who, without seeming at all overwhelmed by such condescension, received her with more benignity than usual. "Thank you, my dear," she said, in answer to the Queen's inquiries, "I am tolerably well, and feel no ill effects from my journey. And I think," she added complacently, "you will agree ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... dear," she sighed, "you have missed such a treat! You have no conception of these Scottish ministers of the Establishment,—such culture, such courtliness of manner, such scholarship, such spirituality, such wise benignity of opinion! I asked the doctor to explain the Disruption movement to me, and he was most interesting and lucid, and most affecting, too, when he described the misunderstandings and misconceptions that the Church suffered in those terrible days ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... singularly calm and innocent expression. The woman's dark hair waved gracefully on her high forehead, and caught his attention. Her eyes were subtly sweet, her mouth full of pathos. She pressed forward to speak to him; the Dean, all benignity, bent his head ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... to him what the man's distinguishing quality was. It was his open look, an expression almost of benignity, absolutely foreign to the Indian character. Indians may give their eyes freely to one another, but a white man never sees beneath ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... missionary experiences in his attempts to instil religious principles into the Indian mind, is to get him to entertain the theory that the human race sprang originally from one pair. The pagan believes in the existence of a Supreme Being, though, his idea of that Being's benignity and consideration relates solely to an earthly oversight of him, and a concern for his daily wants. His conception of future bliss is almost wholly sensual, and wrapped up with the notion of an unrestrained indulgence of animal appetite, and a whole-souled abandonment ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... you something from time to time," said the prosperous lawyer, for it made him feel his own success to see such a poor young man and it tickled his vitals into benignity. ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train |
