"Consolatory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... eyes toward the Comedie Francaise, and dreamed of playing in Moliere, had her hopes centered in Granet. Granet promised to every actress an engagement at the Rue de Richelieu. I am waiting for the Granet ministry! was the consolatory reflection, interrupted by sighs, of the licentiates in law. Meanwhile those office-seekers danced attendance on Granet, and their smile was worth to the future Excellency all the ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... alone shows a freshness of feeling quite consolatory; certainly "Childe Harold" was not ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... was disposed to be consolatory in word as well as deed. He kept up a desultory conversation as he ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... now. The thought of her future and her honor lent her strength to submit to the deceitful consolations of a woman whom she knew to be a dangerous enemy. And the General's wife was by no means sparing of her consolatory phrases; in fact, it was only after a long homily on the uncertainty of life below that she ventured to approach the subject of her letter of the previous evening. "For it is necessary to face the inevitable," she pursued. "The troublesome realities of life have no respect for ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... she would get her "rights", as she called them, somehow, by fair means or foul. Deb was sufficiently a woman of the world herself to recognise this, and the uselessness of thinking she could alter it. Well, money is a consolatory thing—she knew its value now; and there was that additional comfort, which, of course, she did not own to—the thought of where Mr Ewing would be when Mrs ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... were hard at work in Combles, there was as yet no water within five miles of the batteries. The Boche by smashing all the power-pumps had seen to that; and the waggon lines were too far in rear for moving warfare. "We shall be all right when we get to the canal," had been everybody's consolatory pronouncement. "The horses won't be so hard ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... her grief continued unabated, Fitz. at length began to think of the many little consolatory acts he had successfully practised in his professional career, and was just insinuating some very tender speech on the score of resignation, with his head inclined towards the weeping lady beside him, when the chaise of Mrs. Fitz. came up along-side, and the postillions ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... difficulties to the translator. Cole has simply transliterated it, "The Consolatory Terradecad." Spalatin paraphrased it "Ein trostlichs Buchlein," etc. The Berlin Edition renders ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... great risks for a little man. We are beginning to understand one another. Are there any more ripe bananas handy?" He said all this and more, as he looked round, cheerfully accepting peace-offerings and listening to many consolatory words. The next morning he showed us how a young and not foolish horse should ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... most consolatory circumstance, that these just and enlightened views on the subject of religion, and its beneficial influence on society, are now entertained by all the deepest thinkers and most brilliant writers in France. There is not an intellect which rises ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... were boys—as though to inquire if I was all right; but it was quiet enough not to wake me if I were asleep. It seemed like the friendly "Ahoy!" from a boat floating on the same dark sea. Jack was lying awake, thinking of me as I was thinking of Olivia. There was something so consolatory in this sympathy that I fell asleep while ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... With this consolatory reflection the damsel went about her usual occupations, leaving her mistress to school her mind as she best might, for eradicating the sentiments which she had hitherto entertained ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Anatomy of Melancholy, The Home Book of Verse, George Herbert's Poems, The Notebooks of Samuel Butler, and Leaves of Grass. He took down The Anatomy of Melancholy, that most delightful of all books for midnight browsing. Turning to one of his favourite passages—"A Consolatory Digression, Containing the Remedies of All Manner of Discontents"—he was happily lost to all ticking of the clock, retaining only such bodily consciousness as was needful to dump, fill, and relight his pipe from time to time. Solitude is a dear jewel for men whose days ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... positively declared to the Eternal that Eudore will draw the blessings of Heaven upon the Christians through the merits of the blood of the Saviour. This, as you see, is precisely the orthodox phrase, and the exact lesson of the catechism. The doctrine of expiation, so consolatory in other respects, and consecrated by antiquity, has been acknowledged in our religion: its mission from Christ has not destroyed it. And I may observe, incidentally, that I hope the sacrifice of some innocent victim, condemned in the Revolution, will ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... to carry out because he had no blood. The spite of a present entire opposition to Woodseer's professed views made him exult in the thought, that the mouther of sentences was likely to be at work stultifying them and himself in the halls there below during the day. An imp of mischief offered consolatory sport in those halls of the Black Goddess; already he regarded his recent subservience to the conceited and tripped peripatetic philosopher as among the ignominies he had cast away on his road to a general contempt; which ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... had swooped in ahead of the dreadful procession—preceding now the carriageful of Hanaford relations: Mr. Gaines, red-glazed, brief and interrogatory; Westy, small, nervous, ill at ease with his grief; and Mrs. Gaines, supreme in the possession of a consolatory yet funereal manner, and sinking on Justine's breast with the solemn whisper: "Have ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... No. 10.] The notes to Zmeskall generally have the dates written by himself. This one bears the date March 7, 1809. In all points connected with domestic life, and especially in household matters and discords, Zmeskall was always a kind and consolatory friend. Beethoven at that time lived in the same house with Countess Erdoedy. ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1 of 2 • Lady Wallace
... girl a painful effort to sit still, apparently unmoved, but there was strength in her, and she would not betray her distress. She felt that her grief must be endured bravely. It was almost overwhelming, but there was mingled with it a faint consolatory thrill of pride, for it was clear that the man who had loved her had done a splendid thing. He had given all that had been given him—she knew she would never forget that phrase of his—willingly, and it seemed to her that the traits with which he had been endowed were rare and ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... August Bonaparte wished to open negotiations with the Pasha of Acre, nicknamed the Butcher. He offered Djezzar his friendship, sought his in return, and gave him the most consolatory assurances of the safety of his dominions. He promised to support him against the Grand Seignior, at the very moment when he was assuring the Egyptians that he would support the Grand Seignior against the beys. But Djezzar, confiding in his own strength and in the protection ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... for months, while he is debarred from pronouncing definitively on his guilt or innocence? There is an incongruity in all this, of which savages might be ashamed. We trust that the time is approaching when a better system will be established. Consolatory is it to consider, that in various countries of Europe, as well as in America, the subject of prison discipline, and of criminal jurisprudence, occupies the attention of philanthropists and statesmen to a degree never before witnessed, as from their simultaneous exertions much good ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... his consolatory letter to his mother Helvia, as well as a panegyric on Messalina and a consolatory letter to Polybius, ostensibly to condole with him on the loss of his brother; but in reality to get that powerful freedman to exert his influence with the emperor, to recall his sentence of exile. ...
— Itinerary through Corsica - by its Rail, Carriage & Forest Roads • Charles Bertram Black
... name had been a mockery, to others it was not so. Wherever she went, she always brought "better things"—at least in anticipation. She was the most hopeful little body in the world, and carried with her a score of consolatory proverbs, about "long lanes" that had most fortunate "turnings," and "cloudy mornings" that were sure to change into "very fine days." She had always in her heart a garden full of small budding blessings; and though ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... who had scarce ever in my presence praised me, and who, as I knew, abstained from praise as hurtful to his children,—affected me to tears at the time, although I could not foresee how dear and consolatory this extravagant expression of regard would very soon become. The family were deeply moved by the fervency of his prayer of thanksgiving, on the Sunday morning when I was somewhat recovered; and to mother ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... are often bitten to death by these deadly creatures; the pigs, whose fat it seems does not accept the venom into its tissues with the same effect, escape unhurt for the most part—so much for the anti-venomous virtue of adipose matter—a consolatory consideration for such of us as are inclined to take on flesh more than ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... living room Dundee began upon the judge again, regardless of the fact that the elderly husband was murmuring consolatory ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... reading-glass in its drawer and slammed it shut. It made no difference, he assured himself, one way or the other. And in the consolatory moments of a sudden new triumph Never-Fail Blake let his thoughts wander pleasantly back over that long life which (and of this he was now comfortably conscious) his next official move was about ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... vast idea that had blazed suddenly on her mind. Now that Elizabeth was quite through with Peyton, now that Peyton must be low in his self-esteem for Elizabeth's humiliation of him, and therefore likely to be grateful for consolatory attentions, Miss Sally might resume her own hopes. But there was ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... everybody's—except Herbert's: he explains it all on biological grounds as the beautiful discriminative action of natural selection. Simple, but not consolatory. Still, look at the other side of the question. Suppose you and everybody else were to give up all superfluities, and confine all your energies to the unlimited production of bare necessaries. Suppose you occupy every acre of land with your corn-fields, or your piggeries; and sweep away ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... an argument that developed into a wrangle, in the midst of which Henry, flinging a consolatory speech to Marsh, escaped from the house. "You'll get all the keen ones to-night," he said. "That'll ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... With this self-consolatory remark, to which the "boss" assents, Johnny proceeds to shut and lock the tavern door. Soon after the windows of the Choctaw Chief show lightless, its interior silent, the moonbeams shining upon its shingled roof peacefully and innocently, as though it had never ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... French people to repudiate, as their national ensign, that immortal tricolour, the flag of the Revolution and the Empire, under which they have won the glory which of all glories has hitherto been dearest to them and which is associated with the most romantic, the most heroic, the epic, the consolatory, period of their history—this luckless manifesto, I say, appears to give the measure of the political wisdom of the excellent Henry V. The proposal should have had less simplicity or the ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... prefer that, which, first of all, would solve the greatest number of difficulties, as far as scriptural texts were concerned, in conformity with the Divine attributes, which, secondly, would afford the most encouraging and consolatory creed, if it were equally well founded with any other; and which, thirdly, either by its own operation, or by the administration of it, would produce the post perfect Christian character. Let us then judge of the religion of the Quakers by ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... I must go to sleep. I take from my shelves Epictetus, who might be expected to throw cold water on the most burning fever of the mind. I have not read far before I come across this consolatory apophthegm: "The contest is unequal between a charming girl and a beginner in philosophy." He is mocking me, the cold-blooded pedagogue! I throw his book across the room. But he is right. I am but a beginner in philosophy. No armour wherein my reason can invest ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... no one. I was lost in imaginings, and was always seeking seclusion and solitude. I was particularly fond of the ruined greenhouse. I would climb up on the high wall, and perch myself, and sit there, such an unhappy, lonely, and melancholy youth, that I felt sorry for myself—and how consolatory where those mournful sensations, how I revelled ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... within their sombre influence; and, when they had all collected in the bright, open space, some little distance beyond, they looked at each other and at the ruins, with dubious expressions of countenance, each, no doubt, wishing that each would suggest something of a consolatory or practicable character. ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... may have anticipated such a stroke and, as I told you in July, I knew it was impending—one cannot realise it till it falls. As Gray said to Mason, 'A man has but one mother;' it is a blank that cannot be filled up. But I have the consolatory thought that my dear mother's life was complete in its usefulness, its energy, its unquenchable zeal for the good of others, its Christian endurance of sorrow and of pain; and no one ever lived in this world more fitted to ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... down to see him off, tried (with his mouth full of buckwheat cake) to say something consolatory, and gave it as his experience, "that a fellow soon got over that sort of thing; that separations must occur sometimes," &c.—and, on the whole, endeavoured to talk in a very manly and philosophical ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... disposition in the world to believe, I could do no more than believe that the bright-eyed woman believed; so I gave her that much credit, and her customary fee in ready money. It was a pleasure, rather than a disappointment, that Juliet's resting-place was forgotten. However consolatory it may have been to Yorick's Ghost, to hear the feet upon the pavement overhead, and, twenty times a day, the repetition of his name, it is better for Juliet to lie out of the track of tourists, and to have no visitors but such as come to graves in spring-rain, and ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... liable to be used in their own or adjacent States. These two measures would have completed what I deemed necessary for the entire security of our country. They would have given me, on my retirement from the government of the nation, the consolatory reflection, that having found, when I was called to it, not a single sea-port town in a condition to repel a levy of contribution by a single privateer or pirate, I had left every harbor so prepared by works and gun-boats, as to be in a reasonable state ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... great man, who loved not to send out calumnies into the world with his own name attached to them, came to inspect this portion of Wirt's manuscript, he was moved by his usual prudence to write such a letter as drew from Wirt the following consolatory assurance:— ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... reformed religion, did render that faith beneficial to them beyond the proportion of their narrow and still half superstitious conception of it. And this is, in truth, the consideration the most consolatory in looking back to that tenebrious period in which popery was slowly retiring, with a protracted exertion of all the craft and strength of an able and veteran tyrant contending to ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... age of fifty-one to that of sixty-three the inherent vigour of his constitution, and his invincible desire to live, were unabated. From all his pains and sorrows he took refuge, as so many have done before him, in the one unfailing Nepenthe, the consolatory self-forgetfulness of literature. It was in the Tower that the main bulk of his voluminous writings ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... his own probity, loyalty, and patriotism. Destined originally to the church, John, properly sixth Earl of Mar, carried into public life those virtues which would have adorned the career of a private individual. In the melancholy interest of Queen Mary's eventful life, it is consolatory to reflect on the integrity and moderation of this exemplary nobleman. Too good and too sensitive for his times, he died of a broken heart, the result of that inward and incurable sorrow which the generous and the honest experience, when ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... children and their future prospects, that the pain which he feels on these accounts may overbalance the pleasure, which he acknowledges in the constant prudence, goodness, solicitude, and affection, of his wife. This may be so much the case, that all her consolatory offices may not be able to get the better of his grief. A man, therefore, in such circumstances, may truly repent of his marriage, or that he was ever the father of such children, though he can never complain as the husband of such ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume II (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... broad-skirted Dutch urchin, who sulked and swelled and grew dogged and sullen beneath the birch. All this he called "doing his duty by their parents;" and he never inflicted a chastisement without following it by the assurance, so consolatory to the smarting urchin, that "he would remember it and thank him for it the longest day he had ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... dwelleth in the breast of the sad.... Morose as I am in judging of poetry, I could find nothing inelegant in the whole piece. I hope you will in your next (since you are such a master of the plaintive) send me some verses consolatory to a hermit; for my sequestered situation sometimes stamps a firm belief on my mind that I am actually an anchorite. In return for your welcome poetical effusion, I have nothing at present but a chorus of the Jepthes of Buchanan, written soon after ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... parental dignity, and by no means to be confounded with the referees in astronomical or pharmaceutical cases, or with ordinary omphalopsychites. Whatever be or not be the result of these investigations and calculations, it is consolatory to the student of proportional hemispheres to remark that, whichever way the sophist may turn, he must invariably rely on the softer impeachments ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870 • Various
... for all the children, with consolatory chunks of bread in hand, had been sent off into the spacious playing places about them. Mrs. Donnyhill, who looked like a weather-worn gypsy, went about muttering to herself passionately sorrowful lamentations: "God ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... material existence, was compelled to endure its miseries, or was enabled to appreciate its enjoyments. In this he recognised the veracity of that solemn assurance, that happiness is accessible, even on this earth, to all who use their senses with a virtuous discrimination. Nor had this consolatory truth been enforced merely by a barren asseveration. Balsamo had been taught the inestimable value of those senses, and the penalties of such as abused them by their vices. Five incidents, most touching, or most appalling, had reminded him of the exquisite ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... myself! I am so young—one is still young at six!—What man can say that I have injured him? Since, in my Mother's absence all the day engaged upon Municipal affairs, I peacefully beguile the weary hours by suction of consolatory thumbs. (Here he inserts his thumb in his mouth, but almost instantly removes it with a start.) Again I meet those eyes! I'll look no more—but draw the blind and shut my terror out. (Draws blind and lights candle; Stage lightens.) Heigho, I wish my Mother ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 9, 1890. • Various
... poplar white" can cause the pine-tree to blanch. No frost has power to strip it of a single leaf. Its wood is soft, but how dauntless its spirit!—a truly encouraging paradox, lending itself, at our private need, to endless consolatory moralizings. The great majority of my brothers must be comforted, I think, by any fresh reminder that the battle ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... be seen in all her splendour; active energetic and consolatory; not disturbed by doubt, not disgraced by acrimony, not slumbering in sloth, not bloated with pride, not dogmatical, not intolerant, not rancorous, not persecuting, not inquisitorial; but diffusing her ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... and perplexing question of Evil, Mr Helps has said many acute and consolatory things, from among which we have culled the following sentences:—'The man who is satisfied with any given state of things that we are likely to see on earth, must have a creeping imagination: on the other hand, he who is oppressed by the evils around him so as to ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... elate, that as we read we catch the energy and elation. The reading of the riddle is this: the religion against which Lucretius made his attack was not the soaring idealism of Plato, nor the inspiring and consolatory faith of Christianity, but an outworn mythology in which this world was ruled by capricious and unworthy despots, and the next world was gloomy with terrors and almost unlighted by hopes. Such had become the popular mythology in its later day, and as contrasted with ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... portions of the globe will crowd round its gates, and demand admission into its sanctuary. 'The Tree of Liberty' will be planted in the midst, and its branches will extend to the ends of the earth, while the friends of freedom meet and fraternize and amalgamate under its consolatory shade. There our infants shall be taught to lisp in tender accents the revolutionary hymn, there with wreaths of myrtle, and oak, and poplar, and vine, and olive and cypress, and ivy, with violets and roses and daffodils and dandelions in our hands, we will ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... extent of a man's travels has in it something consolatory. That he should have left friends and enemies in many different and distant quarters gives a sort of earthly dignity to his existence. And I think the better of myself for the belief that I have left some in California interested ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... common soldiers (houspilleurs), guarded the prisoner;[2141] they were not the flower of chivalry. They mocked her and she rebuked them, a circumstance they must have found consolatory. At night two of them stayed behind the door; three remained with her, and constantly troubled her by saying first that she would die, then that she would be delivered. No one could speak to her without ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... me to proffer the consolatory thought with which one of our wittiest caricaturists closes his satiric observations: "Man is not perfect!" It is sufficient, therefore, that our institutions have no more disadvantages than advantages ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... his see, not as illegal, but improper, and of bad example, have determined the King, who left it to them, not to consent to it, though the Bishop himself still insists on it. As this decision disappoints Bishop Newton, Lord Bath has obtained a consolatory promise for him of the mitre of London, to the great discomfort of Terrick and Warburton. You see Lord Bath(575 does not hobble up the back-stairs for nothing. Oh, he is an excellent courtier! The Prince of Wales shoots ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... alone by the people of this country, who raised him from their own ranks to the high office he filled, but by the people of all friendly nations, whose messages of sympathy and hope, while hope was possible, have been most consolatory in ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley
... privately visited the north apartments, kept her entirely silent on the subject of her apprehension; and she tried only to sooth Annette, who held, that Ludovico was certainly to be destroyed; and who was much less affected by Emily's consolatory efforts, than by the manner of old Dorothee, who often, as she exclaimed Ludovico, sighed, and threw ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... the conflict which has to be waged by every son of Adam with disease, misfortune, death, the believers in it are provided with neither armour nor weapons. Surely a real religion, handed down from century to century, ought to have accumulated a store of consolatory truths which will be of some help to us in time of need. If it can tell us nothing, if we cannot face a single disaster any the better for it, and if we never dream of turning to it when we are in distress, ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... made known her whole case to Mr. Gregson, whose opinion of it has been very consolatory to me; he says indeed it is a case perfectly out of the reach of all physical aid, but at the same time not at all dangerous. Constant pain is a sad grievance, whatever part is affected, and she is hardly ever free from an aching head, as well as an uneasy side, but ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... dark ages sprang a literature strange and marvellous, but full of naive faith, and bearing striking witness to the activity of the human spirit even in those dim centuries: I mean the literature of 'visions and legends.' And to estimate the importance of these consolatory creations aright, we must remember how precarious and miserable life then was, passed in constant privation and poverty, menaced with increasing perils; and then consider the fact that these legends kept constantly before the mind of the oppressed people the consoling idea of a superintending ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... fate of Mrs. Kilfoyle's cloak was very different from her forecast. But I do not think that a knowledge of it would have been consolatory to her by any means. If she had heard of it, she would probably have said, "The cross of Christ upon us. God be good to the misfort'nit crathur." For she was not of at all an implacable temper, and would, under the circumstances, ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... her family's mournful expectations, Lydia stayed for the funeral, and was so deeply absorbed and satisfied by her position in the Kilroy house that she returned home still impressive, consolatory, and crushed in manner. ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... fellow-citizens looked on, cool and collected; they saw the latent source from which these outrages proceeded; they gathered around their public functionaries, and when the Constitution called them to the decision by suffrage, they pronounced their verdict, honorable to those who had served them and consolatory to the friend of man who believes that he may be trusted with the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 1: Thomas Jefferson • Edited by James D. Richardson
... circumstances make up the situation. A certain disease is the cause of a man's death; his suffering is an incident; that he is in his own home, that he has good medical attendance, careful nursing, etc., are consolatory circumstances. With the same idea of subordination, we often say, "This is not a circumstance to that." So a person is said to be in easy circumstances. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... stable, at one dollar per P.M. Get a nigger to chauffeur the pastor at fifty cents per same. There you are. Let the boy be provided with an assortment of records to suit the people—pleasant and sad, consolatory and gay, encouragin' or reprovin', and so forth. The coon drives up, puts in a cartridge, sets the pastor in the door, and when the family gets through with him they sets him ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... Heaven,—invisible to all but the noble and pure of soul. The impure ignoble gaze with eyes, and she is not there. They will prove it to you by logic, by endless Hansard Debatings, by bursts of Parliamentary eloquence. It is not consolatory to behold! For properly, as many men as there are in a Nation who can withal see Heaven's invisible Justice, and know it to be on Earth also omnipotent, so many men are there who stand between a Nation and perdition. So many, and no more. Heavy-laden ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... the bottles to their usual places in the cupboard. Time went on and I think that it was Ellen who had next to take a dose from the Bottle. It was then remarked that she neither shed tears nor made the usual wry faces. Nor yet did she appear in haste to seize and swallow the draught of consolatory coffee from the Old Squire's sympathetic hand. "Why, Nellie girl, you are getting to be quite brave," was his approving comment; and Ellen, with a puzzled glance around the table, laughed, looked earnestly at Gram, but said nothing; I think she had caught Addison's eye ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... satisfaction at this announcement; but as far as it is possible to understand certain recently published passages (Ibid., vol. iii. page 798) I have either partially or wholly again fallen into error. It is consolatory to me that others find Professor Owen's controversial writings as difficult to understand and to reconcile with each other, as I do. As far as the mere enunciation of the principle of natural selection is concerned, it is quite immaterial whether or not Professor Owen preceded me, for both ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... ancestral pasteurs which at last drew him back, or on, to the affirmation of an unformulated faith of his own. At any rate, before most other savants would say that they had souls of their own he became, by opening a summer school of science with prayer, nearly as consolatory to the unscientific who wished to believe they had souls, as Mr. John Fiske himself, though Mr. Fiske, as the arch-apostle of Darwinism, had arrived at nearly the same point by such a very ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... remarks of Napoleon, made at St. Helena, will give a very correct idea of his prevailing feeling upon the subject of religion. "The sentiment of religion is so consolatory, that it must be considered a gift from Heaven. What a resource would it not be for us here, to possess it. What rewards have I not a right to expect, who have run a career so extraordinary, so tempestuous, as mine has been, without committing a single crime. And yet ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... (free) 705; take a load off one's chest, get a load off one's chest, take off a load of care. be relieved; breathe more freely, draw a long breath; take comfort; dry the tears, dry the eyes, wipe the tears, wipe the eyes. Adj. relieving &c. v.; consolatory, soothing; assuaging, assuasive[obs3]; balmy, balsamic; lenitive, palliative; anodyne &c. (remedial) 662; curative &c. 660. Phr. "here comes a man ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... was the father's consolatory reply, "I don't want his letters. I tell you he can't call for his money before November, and this is ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... of Nineveh and Babylon, of Cyzicum and Mytilene? The fairest towns that ever the sun rose upon" (and all, with the curious exception of Mytilene, enumerated by Burton) "are now no more." And then the famous consolatory letter from Servius Sulpicius to Cicero on the death of Tullia is laid under contribution—Burton's rendering of the Latin being followed almost word for word. "Returning out of Asia," declaims Mr. Shandy, "when I sailed from Aegina towards Megara" ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... good Christian minister was as consolatory, as the circumstances out of which it shone were sad. I never have seen anything more delightfully genuine than the calm dismissal by himself and his household of all they had undergone, as a simple duty that was quietly done and ended. In speaking of it, ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... returned. "And if it be consolatory to minister to their physical wants, how much more to feed ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... bewail'd their Numa dead. His consort Rome deserted, and lay hid In the deep forests of Aricia's vale; And with her wailings and her mournful sighs, The rites impeded in Diana's fane. How oft the nymphs who dwelt in lakes and groves, Kind admonitions gave her not to mourn, And sooth'd her with consolatory words! How oft the son of Theseus weeping, said; "Cease thus to grieve, nor think your fate alone "Is hard. Look round awhile on others' woes; "More mild your own you'll bear. Would that not mine "Were ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... the afternoon, behold is not this your Sorceress Dubarry with the handkerchief at her eyes, mounting D'Aiguillon's chariot; rolling off in his Duchess's consolatory arms? She is gone; and her place knows her no more. Vanish, false Sorceress; into Space! Needless to hover at neighbouring Ruel; for thy day is done. Shut are the royal palace-gates for evermore; hardly in coming years shalt ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... gratitude endeavour to deceive his heart, by caresses which any other would have thought to be the natural effusions of filial sensibility, of filial piety and affection; that heart incessantly perceived a solitude within itself. Even the consolatory visions of hope began to grow less frequent, when heaven at last heard his prayers, Alas! in the very instant that Fortune gratifies our fondest wishes, she often betrays us; and her smiles are a thousand times more ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... excellence are paid to antiquity, is a complaint likely to be always continued by those, who, being able to add nothing to truth, hope for eminence from the heresies of paradox; or those, who, being forced by disappointment upon consolatory expedients, are willing to hope from posterity what the present age refuses, and flatter themselves that the regard which is yet denied by envy, will be ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... communicate to you a Misfortune which frequently happens, and therefore deserves a consolatory Discourse on the Subject. I was within this Half-Year in the Possession of as much Beauty and as many Lovers as any young Lady in England. But my Admirers have left me, and I cannot complain of their ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... Charles, in his own defence, pretends to blame Glamorgan; probably as a blind to Ormond and Digby, through whom it was sent. Soon afterwards, on February 28th, he despatched Sir J. Winter to him with full instructions, and the following consolatory epistle:— ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... insistent appeal, and had come to be regarded as an essential prop to lend support to man's conviction of the reality of a life beyond the grave. A web of moral precept and the allurement of hope had been so woven around them that no force was able to strip away this body of consolatory beliefs; and they have persisted for all time, although the reasoning by which they were originally built up has been demolished and ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... Adagio, for convenience, though the tempi of slow movements ranges from extremely slow (Largo) to the border line of fast, as in the case of the Allegretto of the Seventh Symphony of Beethoven. The mood of the slow movement is frequently sombre, and its instrumental coloring dark; but it may also be consolatory, contemplative, restful, religiously uplifting. The writing is preferably in a broadly sustained style, the effect being that of an exalted hymn, and this has led to a predilection for a theme and variations as the mould in which ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... to you, and hopes he will soon be better," the man said, with a little flourish of his hands. In point of fact Katherine had done nothing of the kind, but it sounded better so, he thought, and gave a consolatory touch ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... take it. You couldn't tell that at all. If you'd known it beforehand you'd have acted quite different. We all know that. Any one else might have done the same thing that was—that was"—he sought a consolatory phrase—"that was like you." He plunged still further. "I might have done it myself if I hadn't—hadn't been built the other way 'round. Only that won't matter to old man Fay—nor ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... thing that can be said against poetry is that there is so much tedium in it. The glorious moments are all too few. It is his honest recognition of this woeful fact that makes Dr. Johnson, with all his faults lying thick about him, the most consolatory of our critics to the ordinary reading man. "Tediousness is the most fatal of all faults.... Unhappily this pernicious failure is that which an author is least able to discover. We are seldom tiresome to ourselves.... Perhaps ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... incidents, in the causation of which these faults had no share: and this I have always felt the severest punishment. The wound indeed is of the same dimensions; but the edges are jagged, and there is a dull underpain that survives the smart which it had aggravated. For there is always a consolatory feeling that accompanies the sense of a proportion between antecedents and consequents. The sense of Before and After becomes both intelligible and intellectual when, and only when, we contemplate the ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... many tears, but tears of joy or pity. Dearly she loved all those mortal creatures whom she was soon about to leave; but she sat in sunshine even within the shadow of death; and the "voice that called her home" had so long been whispering in her ear, that its accents had become dear to her, and consolatory every word that was heard in the silence, as ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... (as Black Band was called) with ironstone fit and proper for the blast furnace. Yet that discovery has elevated Scotland to a considerable rank among the iron-making nations of Europe, with resources still in store that may be considered inexhaustible. But such are the consolatory effects of Time, that the discoverer of 1801 is no longer considered the intrusive visionary of the laboratory, but the acknowledged benefactor of his country at large, and particularly of an extensive class of coal and mine proprietors ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... words were consolatory; and when I came to hear the story, this was the way the accident happened. As I mentioned before, even this drift had thawed till it was soft at the surface and worn away almost to the rocks. During ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... witchery, and falling dews and night airs retain their terrors, stay at home and rest. Edith and Sir Victor, Trix and the Honorable Angus Hammond, saunter down arm in arm to the boat. Charley and the two Irish boatmen bring up the rear—Mr. Stuart smoking a consolatory cigar. ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... Lieutenant, "if you really think all this likely to be very consolatory to the party concerned, I will send ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... as if to convince herself; she turned her eyes from the trees and forest-paths she loved; she hid her face in my bosom, and we— yes, my masculine firmness dissolved—we wept together consolatory tears, and then calm—nay, almost cheerful, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... we are not unseasonable, here are in this sheet—Merry Christmas! the Turks, (of a darker hue;) Exhibitions; a Consolatory "Population" Scrap; Hints for Singing after a good master; a Bunch of Facts on Turnips; a column on Liston—that living limner ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction - Vol. X, No. 289., Saturday, December 22, 1827 • Various
... her, sir, I'll bet something," said the man; and with this speech, the only consolatory one which had yet been made by any of the party, he left them. The Messenger having now done all that he thought sufficient, retired comfortably to repose, shaking from his mind at once all recollection ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... general laugh at this consolatory remark; even Bertha smiled faintly as she patted Snorro's head, while Astrid and Thora—not to mention Gudrid—agreed between themselves that he was the dearest, sweetest, and in every way the most delightful Vinlander that had ever ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... recoiled strongly upon me; and the sight of the wretch sitting stiffened in quiet agony, (for it was no better,) affected me with a faint sickness. I felt that an effort was necessary, and, with some difficulty, addressed a few cheering and consolatory phrases to the miserable creature I had undertaken to support. My words might not—but I fear my tone was too much in unison with his feelings, such as they were. His answer was a few inarticulate mutterings, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 374 • Various
... conspicuous in the daily papers which are available for his flights, but the leading poets of to-day do not feel that it is incumbent upon them to evolve stanzas in a casual way on every mournful occasion. In that elder day allegories, anagrams, acrostics—all intended to have a consolatory effect on mourning friends—flowed from every clerical pen, adding a new terror to death and a new burden to life, but received by the readers with a species of solemn glee. Of one given to this habit Cotton ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... Prudence. "After all they are only harmless owls." Her consolatory words were as much for the benefit of her own nerves as for ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... content, I need not be miserable," was the consolatory reflection with which she took upon herself her ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... that threatened the capital, the necessity of sending away the troops, and entrusting the care of the city to a militia of citizens; and if it obtained these demands from the king, a deputation was to be sent to Paris with the consolatory intelligence. But the members soon returned with ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... Zambezi, for instance, where a single tiny insect of the Zebra species nearly drove me out of my senses when suffering from fever. Probably, however, the mosquito only visits Cannes in the summer, though my wife declared she heard a buzz, and experienced a bite. It was certainly consolatory to think that I was no longer considered tempting ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... the spark of malice that took pleasure in it, had given sudden brilliancy. Jock was so much astonished that he uttered no reproach, but went on by her side, after a moment, pondering. He could not see how any offence could have lurked in the encouraging and consolatory ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... plundered!—Such an one's house has been set on fire!—This man is cut in pieces; that has been transfixed with the bayonet!—Those poor creatures are seeking their children!"—These were the tidings brought by every new fugitive. If you asked the French when the march would be over, you received the consolatory answer—"Not before six o'clock in the morning." During the night the sound of drums and trumpets incessantly announced the arrival of fresh regiments. At length, about midnight, the bustle somewhat subsided, at least so far as regarded the marching of troops. I now seized the favourable ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)
... Leslie protested, half-mollified, with her parting nod. "Don't—for pity's sake!—talk about it," she added, rudely, to Norma, as Norma began some consolatory murmur on the stairs. But when they were before her own fire, waiting for the expected girls, she made Norma a ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... could grow old. Then, after staring at me a moment in a half angry manner, as though offended at my having suggested so disagreeable an idea, he seemed all at once to recover himself, remarking quickly, that he should be old then, too, and that they could both be buried together. This consolatory reflection seemed completely to neutralise the effect of my last attack, and Mowno's countenance resumed its habitual expression of calm and ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... indulge in the mournful pleasure of conversing of Hippolitus, and when thus engaged, the hours crept unheeded by. A thousand questions she repeated concerning him, but to those most interesting to her, she received no consolatory answer. Cornelia, who had heard of the fatal transaction at the castle of Mazzini, deplored with her its ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... which certain persons use, under the title of "letters of condolence." It is the wine mixed with gall which they gave our Lord to drink; and as He refused it, so may we. There are, no doubt, persons of a gloomy and a religious temperament combined who delight in such phrases; who quote the least consolatory of the texts of Scripture; who roll our grief as a sweet morsel under their tongues; who really envy the position of chief mourner as one of great dignity and considerable consequence; who consider crape and bombazine as a sort of royal mantle conferring distinction. There are many such people in ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... the poor soul stands shivering, as it were, on the verge of death, and has nothing strong, but its fears and doubts; then a little balm poured into the wounds of the mind, a little comforting advice to rely on God's mercies, from a good person, how consolatory must it be! And how, like morning mists before the sun, must all diffidences and gloomy doubts, be chased away ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... the morning, Satan began to shoot his fiery darts, by putting into her mind to doubt whether she was chosen to eternal life, and Christ died for her. Her friends readily pointed out to her those consolatory passages of Scripture which comfort the fainting heart, and treat of the Redeemer who taketh away the sins of ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... gifted by nature, that it was impossible for me to study, and that the people in Copenhagen threw away the money which they spent upon me: I besought him therefore to counsel me what I should do. The excellent man strengthened me with mild words, and wrote to me a most friendly and consolatory letter; he said that the rector meant kindly by me—that it was his custom and way of acting—that I was making all the progress that people could expect from me, and that I need not doubt of my abilities. He told me that he himself was a peasant youth of three and twenty, ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... greater part of the queen's jewels. But a mutual jealousy and disgust subsisted under these exteriors of friendship and esteem. The two houses of parliament waited on the king at Kensington, with consolatory addresses on the death of his consort; their example was followed by the regency of Scotland, the city and clergy of London, the dissenting ministers, and almost all ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... and Vibart, like an empty cab in quest of a fare. Miss Carstyle, the young man decided, was the kind of girl whose surroundings rub off on her; or was it rather that Mrs. Carstyle's idiosyncrasies were of a nature to color every one within reach? Vibart, looking across the table as this consolatory alternative occurred to him, was sure that they had not colored Mr. Carstyle; but that, perhaps, was only because they had bleached him instead. Mr. Carstyle was quite colorless; it would have been impossible to guess his native tint. His wife's qualities, ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... needs,—nevertheless he maintained a certain aloofness from them, not only because he was by nature reserved, but because he judged reserve necessary in order to uphold respect. In sickness or trouble, no one could be more quietly helpful or consolatory than he; and in the company of children he threw off all restraint and was as a child himself in the heartiness and spontaneity of his mirth and good humour,—but with all women, save the very aged and matronly, he generally found ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... had been heard in the corridor, but her first surreptitious glance was not consolatory. Camille, with an expression oddly commingled of mirth and petulance, was intensely busy with her glove-fastening, while the broad back of George Dalton, who was apparently as busy gazing from a barred window against a stone wall, had a most uncanny look of intelligence ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... who are in what are called easy circumstances who can afford the leisure to treat themselves to a handsome complaint, and these experience an immediate alleviation when once they have found a sonorous Greek name to abuse it by. There is something consolatory also, something flattering to their sense of personal dignity, and to that conceit of singularity which is the natural recoil from our uneasy consciousness of being commonplace, in thinking ourselves victims of a malady by which no one had ever suffered before. Accordingly ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... Gifford says (of the first act) is very consolatory. 'English, sterling genuine English,' is a desideratum amongst you, and I am glad that I have got so much left; though Heaven knows how I retain it: I hear none but from my Valet, and his is Nottinghamshire; and I see ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... see any application in this homily," said the Easy Chair, "or only an application disastrous to your imaginable postulate that Christmas is a beneficent and consolatory factor in our lives." ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... after defeating the Lacedaemonians in the naval engagement of Cnidus, commenced a tour of inspection round the islands and the maritime states, expelling from them, as they visited them, one after another the Spartan governors. (1) Everywhere they gave consolatory assurances to the citizens that they had no intention of establishing fortress citadels within their walls, or in any way interfering with their self-government. (2) Such words fell soothingly upon the ears of those to whom they were addressed; the proposals were courteously ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... of our well balanced system, [it is certainly well balanced when both sides hold places and pensions at once.] I agree with the noble viscount that they have not [I hope] much success. I am convinced that there is no danger to be apprehended from their attempts: but it is truly important and consolatory [to us placemen, I suppose] to know, that if ever there should arise a serious alarm, there is but one spirit, one sense, [and that sense I presume is not common sense] and one determination in this house "—which undoubtedly is to hold all their places and ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... I don't mind!" "Perhaps they won't give a dowry," he thought with a consolatory sense ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... Duke himself in a consolatory strain, endeavouring to reconcile him to the loss of so promising a son, by recalling to his memory those heroes of antiquity whose careers of glory were cut short by sudden and ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... the ministry, and the bellicose and constitutional fury of their king. All humanity will find repose beneath the laurels of our August Emperor and, after having conquered half of Europe, he will add to his long list of victories the most difficult and most consolatory of all,—the ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... waiting to be filled in, and through his mind was passing and repassing the same question that occupied the thoughts of his mother and sisters. What could be the explanation of the whistle heard by Molly? The want of this alone sufficed to overthrow the most ingenious of consolatory explanations. All four looked at it from different points of view, and to each the signal-whistle calling Christian into the garden was an ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... was in possession. And the fact that his attitude toward her had been one of sympathy and friendliness rather than of disapproval, that his insight seemed to have fathomed her case, apprehended it in all but the details, was even more disturbing—yet vaguely consoling. The consolatory element in the situation was somehow connected with the lady, his friend from Silliston, to whom he had introduced her and whose image now came before her the more vividly, perhaps, in contrast with that of Mrs. Brocklehurst. Mrs. Maturin—could Janet have so expressed her thought! ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... producing the first article of human subsistence is of the most cheering character to the feelings of patriotism. Proceeding from a cause which humanity will view with concern, the sufferings of scarcity in distant lands, it yields a consolatory reflection that this scarcity is in no respect attributable to us; that it comes from the dispensation of Him who ordains all in wisdom and goodness, and who permits evil itself only as an instrument of good; that, far from contributing to this scarcity, our ...
— A Compilation of Messages and Letters of the Presidents - 2nd section (of 3) of Volume 2: John Quincy Adams • Editor: James D. Richardson
... unknown world of the departed—and rise before me in this chamber. I wiped my tears and hushed my sobs, fearful lest any sign of violent grief might waken a preternatural voice to comfort me, or elicit from the gloom some haloed face, bending over me with strange pity. This idea, consolatory in theory, I felt would be terrible if realised: with all my might I endeavoured to stifle it—I endeavoured to be firm. Shaking my hair from my eyes, I lifted my head and tried to look boldly round the dark room; at this moment a light gleamed on the wall. Was it, I ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... must needs draw a melancholy moral from the most consolatory phenomena. And so Charlotte ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... is not. I left him with the Governor only a few minutes ago, and the Senator was never better in his life—nor safer!" In spite of his best endeavor to be consolatory and matter-of-fact he was not able to keep a certain significance out of ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... aside this partial and unjust decree, Mr. Huggins appealed to the public, and printed his oratorio. Though it was adorned with a frontispiece designed by Hogarth, and engraved by Vandergucht, the world could not be compelled to read, and the unhappy writer had no other resource than the consolatory reflection, that his work was superlatively excellent, but unluckily printed in a tasteless age; a comfortable and solacing self-consciousness, which hath, I verily believe, prevented many a great genius from ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... relieving circumstances; the condition of the country was not yet utterly hopeless, and the vanity of being stable in the midst of universal change, ministered a mild though secret pleasure, which, in the painful anxieties of the period, was not without its consolatory value. But when the tide of public opinion had turned strongly in one direction, and that in favor of secession, all those pleasures, so mild and spiritual, were at once destroyed. Nor was this a condition without change. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... she resumed, after I had ended a consolatory discussion, which it was but too manifest had fallen unprofitably upon her ear, "such dreadful, impious thoughts come into my mind, whether I choose it or not; they come, and stay, and return, strive as I may; and I can't pray against them. They are forced upon me with the strength ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... 'I know what I mean. That's more than enough for me.' And with this consolatory rumination, ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... soul. In all my stay in their country I found only one person who believed in a life "beyond the grave," as we should say, though as the Lalugwumps are cannibals they would say "beyond the stomach." In testimony to the consolatory value of the doctrine of another life, I may say that this one true believer had in this life a comparatively unsatisfactory lot, for in early youth he had been struck by a flying stone from a volcano and had lost a ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... in the last extremity, (should it occur) a few kind robins with their sylvan pall, would honour also our obsequies. This kind of calming ulterior hope might do very well for poets, but it was not quite so consolatory to the ladies, who with all their admiration of disinterested pity, wished to keep off the dear tender-hearted robins a ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... a long letter—a very long letter, written close on all four sides of the sheet of paper, and crossed afterwards; but it was not a consolatory letter, for as Emma read it she stopped from time to time to put her handkerchief to her eyes. To be sure Dolly marvelled greatly to see her in so much distress, for to her thinking a love affair ought to be one of the best jokes, and the slyest, merriest kind of thing in life. But she ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... rain run off, partially concealed her face. She was not sorry, for a movement of defective courage was upon her, evidence of which she preferred to keep to herself. Julius March remained silent. And this she resented slightly, for she badly wanted somebody to say something, either vindictive or consolatory. Then, indignation getting the better alike of reticence ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... man, that he was greatly grieved at the misunderstanding, and that Messrs. Block and Curling were the family lawyers. Parson John invited his nephew to come down to Loring Lowtown. Captain Marrable went to Block and Curling, who were by no means consolatory, and ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... nothing," exclaimed Lady Audley, "except that I am the most miserable of women. Let me think," she cried, silencing Phoebe's consolatory murmurs with an imperious gesture. "Hold your tongue, girl, and let me think of this business, ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... nice of her," Mrs. Thayer observed, with a consolatory pat on Julia's arm, "only it isn't quite practical, me dear, is ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... abode he began to flap his wings and quack vehemently. She heard his voice and almost quacked to screaming with ecstasy, both expressing their joy by crossing necks and quacking in concert. The next morning he fell upon the unfortunate drake who had made consolatory advances to his mate, pecked out his eyes and so injured him that the poor fellow died in the course of a ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [January, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... Mrs Halliday's sobs got the better of her utterance, and Mr. Sheldon was fain to say something of a consolatory nature. ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... healthy mind; that is, a mind that is exactly what it ought to be. Where shall we discover such a one? My reader, you have not got it. I have not got it. Nobody has got it. No doubt, at the first glance, this seems startling; but I intend this essay to be a consolatory one, and I wish to show you that in this world it is well if means will fairly and decently suffice for their ends, even though they be very far from being all that we could wish. God intends not ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... they tell us. A certain percentage, they tell us, must every year go... that way... to the devil, I suppose, so that the rest may remain chaste, and not be interfered with. A percentage! What splendid words they have; they are so scientific, so consolatory.... Once you've said 'percentage' there's nothing more to worry about. If we had any other word... maybe we might feel more uneasy.... But what if Dounia were one of the percentage! Of another one ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... pleasantries which made us yet smile, in spite of the horrors of our situation? One, besides others, said jestingly, 'If the brig is sent to search for us, pray God it has the eyes of Argus,' in allusion to the name of the vessel we presumed would be sent to our assistance. This consolatory idea never left us an instant, and ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... pursue, but well assured that he would keep his word; and, if he did, it would be impossible for him to introduce this delicate subject without compromising himself,—nay, without positively offering himself to Bertha. The very mention of such a theme would be a proposal; and, with this consolatory reflection, he returned ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... drop the worn-out farce of offering a trumpery reward and to take a direct and manly course. They ought to accept Mr.——'s preposterously liberal offer, and admit him to the two Unions, and thereby disown the criminal act in the form most consolatory to the sufferer: or else they should face the situation, and say, "This act was done under our banner, though not by our order, and we stand by it." The Liberal will continue ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... the detention of the slaves in bondage under the circumstances which are yet existing,' says an advocate; by which consolatory avowal we are taught that the criminality of man-stealing depends upon circumstances, and not upon the fact that it is a daring violation of the rights of man and the laws ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... the Comte de Brambourg gave a supper to du Tillet, Nucingen, Eugene de Rastignac, Maxime de Trailles, and Henri de Marsay. The amphitryon accepted with much nonchalance the half-consolatory condolences they made to him as to his rupture with the ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... like the latter insinuated in certain publications), I should think their captivity just. If this be true, much more ought to have been done; but done, in my opinion, in another manner. The punishment of real tyrants is a noble and awful act of justice; and it has with truth been said to be consolatory to the human mind. But if I were to punish a wicked king, I should regard the dignity in avenging the crime. Justice is grave and decorous, and in its punishments rather seems to submit to a necessity than to make ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... of life and can often be restored to their original freshness after they have been dried for years. It was the sight of a small moss in the interior of Africa that suggested to Mungo Park such consolatory reflections as saved him from despair. He had been stripped of all ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... succeeding year will be augmenting in a rapid manner the value of his farm, and that the same spot which administers to his and their present wants, cannot fail to suffice for their future. This is of itself a most consolatory prospect; it at all events prevents the present good from being embittered with any dread of future evil; it permits the industrious man the tranquil enjoyment of the fruits of his labours, and rescues him from the necessity of hoarding up against the approach of gathering calamity, ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... allusion; but from the first she divined that her aunt misliked Master Calvin and found that mislike consolatory. ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... would retire discreetly to the staircase and, sitting on a step, would draw from the pocket of his plum-coloured surtout his little Lucretius and read, by the light of a lantern, some of the author's sternly consolatory maxims: "Sic ubi non erimus.... When we shall have ceased to be, nothing will have power to move us, not even the heavens and earth and sea confounding their shattered fragments...." But, in the ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... fathers, Hurtado de Mendoza and Sanchez, who have proved that a man may secretly kill his enemies, since by this means he avoids two sins—that of exposing his life, and that of fighting a duel. It is in accordance with this grand consolatory principle that I have ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... and except when I have the conversation of a very few select friends, I am never so well as when I sit down to a dish of coffee in the Cocoa Tree, sacred of old to loyalty, look round me to men of ancient families, and please myself with the consolatory thought that there is perhaps more good in the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... essential to my sister as to any human being, she turned her affection wholly on me. Her care in nursing and entertaining me absorbed all her time: her female companions, who were swayed by her without her intending it, had likewise to contrive all sorts of things to be pleasing and consolatory to me. She was inventive in cheering me up, and even developed some germs of comical humor which I had never known in her, and which became her very well. There soon arose between us a coterie-language, by which we could converse before all people without their understanding us; ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... was, as Mr. Brock hinted in the little autobiographical sketch which we gave in a former chapter, incarcerated for a certain period, and for certain other debts, in the donjons of Shrewsbury; but he released himself from them by that noble and consolatory method of whitewashing which the law has provided for gentlemen in his oppressed condition; and he had not been a week in London, when he fell in with, and overcame, or put to flight, Captain Wood, alias ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... alone to the house. Although suffering under a natural feeling of annoyance at discovering that he was not foremost in Claudia's heart, as he had led himself to suppose, he was yet keenly alive to the fact that the interview had its consolatory aspect. In the first place, there is a fiction that a lady who respects herself does not fall in love with a man whom she suspects to be in love with somebody else; and Haddington's mind, though of no mean order ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... had gotten into trouble, said a few general consolatory words in a judicious bass, such as the noble fathers used in olden comedies, and ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin |
