"Docility" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Vigneron with the most minute instructions—what she was to do during the journey, how she was to get back home on arriving in Paris, and what steps she was to take if Gustave was to have another attack. Somewhat scared, she responded, in all docility, to each recommendation: "Yes, yes, dear—of course, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... miraculous fertility, will awake new forms of art, new styles of splendor; and the negro race, no longer despised and trodden down, will, perhaps, show forth some of the latest and most magnificent revelations of human life. Certainly they will, in their gentleness, their lowly docility of heart, their aptitude to repose on a superior mind and rest on a higher power, their childlike simplicity of affection, and facility of forgiveness. In all these they will exhibit the highest form of the peculiarly ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... death could not long be postponed. They who attempted to read the prophecy with accuracy were of opinion that the prophet had intimated that had the nation, even in this its crisis, consented to take him, the prophet, as its sole physician and to obey his prescription with childlike docility, health might not only have been re-established, but a new juvenescence absolutely created. The nature of the medicine that should have been taken was even supposed to have been indicated in some very vague terms. Had he been allowed to operate ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... jaca; he was broad-chested, and rotund in his hind quarters, and possessed much of the plumpness and sleekness which distinguish that breed, but looking in his eyes you would have been undeceived in a moment; a wild savage fire darted from the restless orbs, and so far from exhibiting the docility of the other noble and loyal animal, he occasionally plunged desperately, and could scarcely be restrained by a strong curb and powerful arm from resuming his former headlong course. The rider was a youth, apparently about eighteen, dressed as a European, with ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... plainly that many districts were still peopled by Yemishi and that their docility varied in different localities. In the Akita campaign the usual surrender was rehearsed. The Yemishi declared that their bows and arrows were for hunting, not for fighting, and the affair ended in a great feast given by Hirafu, the sequel being that two hundred Yemishi proceeded ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... into the faces of the two men, then with touching docility he did as Roger bade him. In a moment he was blowing foam violently into the fire. The two men looked at each other a ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... But though he excelled all his competitors, in strength of body, and the accomplishments of skill, yet was not his mind rough and boisterous. Success had not taught him a despotic and untractable temper, applause had not made him insolent and vain. He was gentle as the dove. He listened with eager docility to the voice of hoary wisdom. He had always a tear ready to drop over the simple narrative of pastoral distress. Victor as he continually was in wrestling, in the race, and in the song, the shout of triumph never escaped his lips, the exultation of insult he was never heard to ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... The beast was an outlaw of the most pronounced type, with a repertory of tricks, calculated to get a man off his back, so extensive that he never seemed to repeat. He stood always as docilely as a camel to be saddled and bridled, with what method in this apparent docility no man versed in horse philosophy ever had been able to reason out. Perhaps it was that he had been born with a spite against man, and this was his scheme for luring him on to his ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... upon the logs, whereby they would move more swiftly than usual. He described several successful drives on the Kennebec, when the logs had melted down the river almost by magic, owing to his generalship; and he paid a tribute, in passing, to the docility of the boss, who on that occasion had never moved a single log without ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... substance and standing in her own community; marriage, perhaps, had provided her with means and leisure. She had been willing to subordinate herself to a university town apprehended as a social organism, and she now seemed inclined to accept with docility any observations made by a confident urbanite with a fair degree ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... as that with which, for the first time, they comprehended that salvation is without money and without price—absolutely free and gratuitous. It was to them news—good news; and when I call to mind Meekha's impetuous temperament, and see him listen with such docility to Christ's teaching, I cannot but hope that, though imperfectly sanctified, the 'good work' is begun in him, which God's grace will complete. He accepts no new truth without a challenge, and nothing short of a 'Thus saith the Lord,' will give it currency with him. At one of my evening lectures ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... George Sand was a woman, with a woman's ideal of gentleness, of "the charm of good manners," as essential to civilization. She has somewhere spoken admirably of the variety and balance of forces which go to make up true civilization; "certain forces of weakness, docility, attractiveness, suavity, are here just as real forces as forces of vigor, encroachment, violence, or brutality." Yes, as real forces, although Prince Bismarck cannot see it; because human nature requires ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... emotions, and never able to conceal what he felt if he had cared to do so. Marcello had inherited his father's character and his mother's face, as often happens; but his unquiet disposition was tempered as yet by a certain almost girlish docility, which had clung to him from childhood as the result of being brought up almost entirely by the mother he worshipped. And now, for the first time, comparing him with her second husband, she realised the boy's girlishness, and wished him to outgrow it. Her own ideal of what even a young ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... cannot be denied, and the fact surprised no one so much as herself. The nuns, accustomed to all sorts of children of every variety of temper, of every shade of docility and wilfulness, of cleverness and stupidity, found nothing astonishing in one more perverse little specimen, but Madelon could not understand it at all. She was not used to feeling naughty, and did not know what it meant at first. In her life hitherto, when she had been ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... character, of their young disciples, which no accidents of life can ever afterwards remove or alter. Many of these little schools I visited in my progress through the country, and I observed with pleasure the great docility and submissive deportment of the children, and heartily wished they had had better ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... salutary and most potent one, of its being, in the gross, APPRENTICESHIP TO FRIEDRICH WILHELM the Rhadamanthine Spartan King, who hates from his heart all empty Nonsense, and Unveracity most of all. Which one element, well aided by docility, by openness and loyalty of mind, on the Pupil's part, proved at length sufficient to conquer the others; as it were to burn up all the others, and reduce their sour dark smoke, abounding everywhere, into flame and illumination mostly. This radiant swift-paced Son owed much to the surly, irascible, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... was now two weeks old. Annie was no stronger than on the day of his birth. She lay day and night in a tranquil state, smiling with inexpressible sweetness when she was spoken to, rarely speaking of her own accord, doing with gentle docility all she was told to do, but looking more and more like a transfigured saint. All the arch, joyous, playful look was gone; there was no added age in the look which had taken its place; neither any sorrow; but something ineffably solemn, rapt, removed from earth. Sometimes, ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... this time in absolute natural embarrassment. "Don't talk about your wife, and this house, but just say you've made the thing up with me,—with ME, you know, and I'll see you through." An idea, as yet vague, that he could turn Collinson's unexpected docility to his own purposes, possessed him even in his embarrassment, and he was still more strangely conscious of his inordinate vanity gathering a fearful joy from Collinson's evident admiration. It was heightened by ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... strengthened the ducal House and weakened the private Families. He exalted the sovereign, and depressed the ministers. A transforming government went abroad. Dishonesty and dissoluteness were ashamed and hid their heads. Loyalty and good faith became the characteristics of the men, and chastity and docility those of the women. Strangers came in crowds from other States [5].' Confucius became the idol of the people, and flew in songs through their mouths [6]. But this sky of bright promise was soon overcast. As the fame of the reformations in Lu went abroad, the neighboring princes began to be ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge
... distressed mind under the dreadful influences of a hateful dream. And what little there is in the early records of the colony of New Jersey is at once a compliment to the humanity of the master, and the docility of ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... direct way with them, equally removed from both petting and authoritativeness. His own natural childlikeness came out—and indeed all his life he preserved the innocence, the impulsiveness, the mingled impatience and docility of a child more than any man I ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... this unexpected flash of spirit. They had been married nearly three years by this time, and Beth's habitual docility had deceived him. Hitherto men have been able to insult their wives in private with impunity when so minded, and Dan was staggered for a moment to find himself face to face with a mere girl who boldly refused to ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... cannot pretend to say: Pamela was certainly led into some indiscretions; in particular, she was said to have gone to a ball without shoes or stockings, which seems to argue the same sort of ignorance, and the same docility to any chance impressions, which characterize the Virginia of Miss Edgeworth. She was a reputed daughter (as I have said) of Philippe Egalit; and her putative mother was Madame de Genlis, who had been settled in ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... unconscious self on the contrary is provided with a marvelous and impeccable memory which registers without our knowledge the smallest events, the least important acts of our existence. Further, it is credulous and accepts with unreasoning docility what it is told. Thus, as it is the unconscious that is responsible for the functioning of all our organs but the intermediary of the brain, a result is produced which may seem rather paradoxical to you: that is, if it believes that a certain ...
— Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion • Emile Coue
... more painful sight than that of untimely care in children, and it was particularly observable in one whose disposition had heretofore been mirthful. Yet there was so much sweetness and docility about Clara, that your admiration was excited; and if the moods of mind are calculated to paint the cheek with beauty, and endow motions with grace, surely her contemplations must have been celestial; since every lineament was moulded into loveliness, and her motions were more harmonious than ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... cottagers and laborers, are obliged to send their infants of both sexes to be reared and educated, when they come to the age of twenty moons, at which time they are supposed to have some rudiments of docility. These schools are of several kinds, suited to different qualities, and to both sexes. They have certain professors, well skilled in preparing children for such a condition of life as befits the rank of their parents, and ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... well as others who have lived among the aborigines for purely benevolent purposes, have discovered in them capabilities and docility which may put to the blush many of the whites who despise and hate them. Not only in individual cases, but in more extended instances, the Indian has been found susceptible of religious and moral instruction; ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... so?' Gladys asked, with all the docility of a child. 'Very well, dear Guardy, I will do as you think. But where are they now? I must bid ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... than the thought of returning to the big, desolate house where Rob reigned in solitary state and the sitting-rooms were shrouded in holland wrappings. He allowed himself to be persuaded, submitted to the sponging and binding which ensued with a docility which advanced him far in the host's good graces, and ate his luncheon on the ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... their passage to the North, disappeared with the little they had saved. They were quite destitute now, but looked to the future with no foreboding, and huddled together in the straw, made a picture of domestic felicity that impressed me greatly with the docility, contentment, and unfailing good humor of their dusky tribe. The eyes of the children were large and lustrous, and they revealed the clear pearls beneath their lips as they clung bashfully to their mother's lap. The old lady was smoking a clay pipe; the man running over ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... too much or too little—according to the point of view—to assume that Fouchette was patient under her yoke and that she went about her tasks with the docility of a well-trained animal. On the contrary, she not only rebelled in spirit, but she often resisted with all her feeble strength, fighting, feet, hands, and teeth, with feline ferocity. Having been brought to the ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... had recovered himself. That was too much for the obstreperous animal; he knew he was conquered and gave in to the inevitable, allowing himself to be handled and put through his paces with suspicious docility. ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... to contemn my own acquisitions; but were not those of Eliza still more slender? Could I rely upon the permanence of her equanimity and her docility to my instructions? What qualities might not time unfold, and how little was I qualified to estimate the character of one whom no vicissitude or hardship had approached before the death of her father,—whose ignorance was, indeed, great, when it could justly be said even to exceed ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... prudence, namely, "memory," "understanding" and "foresight." Macrobius (In Somn. Scip. i) following the opinion of Plotinus ascribes to prudence six parts, namely, "reasoning," "understanding," "circumspection," "foresight," "docility" and "caution." Aristotle says (Ethic. vi, 9, 10, 11) that "good counsel," "synesis" and "gnome" belong to prudence. Again under the head of prudence he mentions "conjecture," "shrewdness," "sense" and "understanding." And another Greek philosopher ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... which illustrates the docility of the sadoe drivers, and the cleverness with which they can trace and identify ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... so far as we do accomplish anything of significance, we must move along stable and determinate lines; we must be able to count on the future.[1] It has already been pointed out that it is man's docility to learning, his long period of infancy[2] which makes his eventual achievements possible. But it is man's persistence in the habits he has acquired that is in part responsible for his progress. In individual life, the utility of persistence, and concentration of effort upon a definite ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... Placated by Renouard's docility the Editor gazed at him for a while. "Aha! I'll tell you how. Learn then that we have begun the campaign. We have telegraphed his description to the police of every township up and down the land. And what's more we've ascertained definitely that he hasn't been in this town for the last three ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... docility," said Penborough; "if the Opposition employ that means, they will embarrass all ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... her, should we be surprised that China has also become inoculated with the virus of commercial and political ambitions? It cannot be many years before she will be in the running with the rest of us, with 400,000,000 of people to do the work; people of intelligence, patience, endurance, and docility; people with everything to gain and nothing to lose; with the secret of how to succeed already taught by other nations, which she can ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... felt under some pressing obligation to tender to Mr. Buchanan the appointment of secretary of State, but desired to accompany it with conditions which would subordinate him in the general conduct of the administration. With a spirit of docility, if not humility, altogether incomprehensible, Mr. Buchanan "accepted the position cheerfully and cordially on the terms on which the ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... the stolid butt of good-humored practical jokes, the victim alternately of careless indifference or of extravagant generosity. He received kicks and half-dollars intermittently, and pocketed both with stoical fortitude. But under this treatment he presently lost the docility and frugality which was part of his inheritance, and began to put his small wits against his tormentors, until they grew tired of their own mischief and his. But they knew not what to do with him. His pretty nankeen-yellow skin debarred him from ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... not come before me boldly with your wants?—what do I say? with your commands? Have I the name of being passionately devoted to my throne? I can scarce suppose it. Come, then; show me your majority, and I will instantly resign. Tell this to your friends; assure them from me of my docility; assure them that, however they conceive of my deficiencies, they cannot suppose me more unfit to be a ruler than I do myself. I am one of the worst princes in Europe; will they ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the food offered him, and crouch, huddled over it, with his face to the rock-wall, while he devoured it with frantic haste and bestial noises. But as he found himself treated with invariable kindness, he began to develop an anxious gratitude and docility. On A-ya's tall form his little round eyes, shy and fierce at the same time, came to rest with an adoring awe. The smell of him being extremely offensive to all this cleanly tribe, and especially to A-ya ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... is the grey Arab in the next stable. This magnificent horse was presented to Her Majesty by the Thakore of Morvi, and does not bear the best of stable reputations, but when mounted he is docility itself, and a very faithful worker. The grey's wardrobe, when he came to England, consisted of the following gorgeous trappings:—Saddle of red and green cloth, under felt, pad for saddle, embroidered saddle-cloth, embroidered bridle, plume, hood in cloth of gold, leg-ring and ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... three years—yet not weaned, and a female; there was also another daughter, Shega, about twelve or thirteen years of age, who, as well as her father, was a most attentive nurse. My hopes were but small, as far as concerned the mother; but the child was so patient that I hoped, from its docility, soon to accustom it to soups and nourishing food, as its only complaint was actual starvation. I screened off a portion of my cabin, and arranged some bedding for them, in the same manner as the Esquimaux do their own. Warm broth, dry bedding, and a comfortable cabin, did ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... the midst of so much national anxiety, or so many disaffected persons abstaining from action under similar circumstances, with such numerous partisans ready to renounce the master they still served with implicit docility. It was an entire nation of wearied spectators who had long given up all interference in their own fate, and knew not what catastrophe they were to hope or fear to the terrible game of which they were ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... faint, idiotic smile; the parted lips seemed to resemble two frayed, red, wet rags, and she walked with a sort of timid, uncertain step, just as though with one foot she were making a large step, and with the other a small one. She walked with docility up to the divan and with docility laid her head down on the pillow, without ceasing to smile faintly and insanely. Even at a distance it was apparent that ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... right about what he would have accomplished by that time the next night; for before sundown he had half the story written, and, what is more, the chapters had come as easily as any writing he ever did. For docility, Marguerite was a perfect wonder. Not only did she follow out his wishes; she often anticipated them, and in certain parts gave him a lead in a new direction, which, Stuart said, gave the story a ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... his directions, without making any remark, without showing any external appearance of surprise. He had not removed either his hat or coat. Mrs. Lecount took them off for him. "Thank you," he said, with the docility of a well-trained child. "It's like a scene in a novel—it's ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... if the theory which Moses propounded were sound the assets which he offered as an inducement for docility could be obtained, at so cheap a rate, in no other way. All Moses' moral teaching amounted, therefore, to this—"It pays to be obedient and good." No argument could have been better adapted to Babylonish society, and it seems to ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... to what Winifred there thinks wisest? Ah! Albinia, you want to learn, as poor Queen Anne of Austria did, that docility in illness may be self-resignation into higher Hands. Perhaps you despise it, but it is no mean exercise of strength and resolution ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... looked around upon the multitude to find the marks of those demoniac passions which are to strew carnage through our own country when its bondmen shall be made free. The countenances gathered there, bore the traces of benevolence, of humility, of meekness, of docility, and reverence; and we felt, while looking on them, that the doers of justice to a wronged people "shall surely dwell in safety and be quiet ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... they detained her, they never refused her aught, save to take her home again. Our little daughter she had named Beatrice, after her maternal grandmother. She was born six months and six days after Agnes's abstraction. She spoke highly of the pongos, of their docility, generosity, warmth of affection to their mates and young ones, and of their irresistible strength. At my wife's injunctions, or from her example, they all wore aprons: and the females had let the hair of their heads grow long. It was glossy black, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 398, November 14, 1829 • Various
... to awaken in her something of the hope which I felt myself when I uttered them. She replied to my questions with more than docility—she exerted her intelligence; she willingly opened her whole ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... seemed strange to Chip after that evening—the one, that the fight with Old Piper was ended; and the other, that in the matter of Edith's marriage, once the immediate shock had spent its strength, he bowed to the accomplished fact with a docility he himself could not understand. As for the fight with Old Piper, there was no longer a reason for waging it. In the new situation Old Piper had lost its appeal, from sheer inadequacy to meet the new need. The fact of the marriage ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... want me to," replied Polly, with unusual docility. "But please tell me about him. Mr. Scott didn't seem ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... is claimed by him who is willing to hear instruction and can perceive right and wrong when they are shown to him by another;—but he who hath neither acuteness nor docility—who can neither find the way by himself, nor will be led by others, is a wretch ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... is to inculcate gentleness and politeness and docility. Another is purity and holiness. External cleanliness is also recommended, but not as a substitute for internal. The important thing is internal purity, external takes ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... aft and took the tiller from Regulus' hand, motioning him forward to the place he had himself occupied. The negro stared, but went with his accustomed docility. Patricia sat upright in ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... Bible in many places favours republicanism. M. de Lafayette, having once reproached an Anglican minister with speaking only of heaven, went to hear him preach the following Sunday, and the words, the execrable house of Hanover, proved the docility ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... prophecy, and under the influence of the apparition which he saw, or thought he saw always—in asserting that the corpse of Stephen Monkton, wherever it was, lay yet unburied. On every other topic he deferred to me with the utmost readiness and docility; on this he maintained his strange opinion with an obstinacy which set reason and persuasion ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... could have blushed for his inanity; happily he had action to cloak his embarrassment. In a twinkling he was at the water's edge, pausing there to listen, with admirable docility, to her plaintive objection: "But you'll get wet and—and ruin your things. I can't ask that ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... then a melting mood came over him. At every Christmas he led himself the eloquent Oriental prayer, young Abraham responding with even a richer imagery, for his mind was alert, his schooling had been private and unintermittent, and his father's enthusiasm and his mother's docility made him a poet and a ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... by the young man's accepting the situation with a grace, and even docility, which was nearly too much for ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... made; your fur boasts of the delicate varieties of the tiger; your eyes are lively and pleasing; your velvet coat and tail are of enviable beauty; and your agility, gracefulness, and docility are, indeed, the admiration of all who behold you! Your moral qualities are not less estimable; and we will attempt to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 12, Issue 328, August 23, 1828 • Various
... country voters had at last bethought themselves of their work and returned to their farms; many of the most active and disorderly spirits, the restless loud-voiced men who are the potent minority in an agitation, had been removed by the levy of Marius; with the city mob docility generally alternated with revolution, and it was now inclined to look to the verdict of the recognised heads of the State. In this moment of reaction, too, many must have been inclined to wonder what after all could ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... their mother had, almost amounting to shame. Every virtuous person believed in the efficacy of the rod, and, maugre her own docility, she had been chastised with it almost as a religious duty; but her sons had never felt the weight of a blow, except once when their grandmother caught them carving a border of eagles and doves round the hall table, and then Ebbo had returned the ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... which must necessarily immerse her in he distracting occupations and harassing cares of the world. But accustomed to look on her parents as the representatives of God, and therefore seeing only His will in the impending project, she submitted with the respectful docility habitual to her, and none but the interior witness of. the sacrifice to obedience, could have suspected the cost at which it was offered. She simply assured her mother of her readiness to obey, adding the, ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... An unwonted gentleness and docility on the part of a previously irritable or vicious mare, and supervening on service, is an excellent indication of pregnancy, the generative instinct which caused the ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... But in truth the morality of these conventional worlds differs from the morality of the real world only in points where there is no danger that the real world will ever go wrong. The generosity and docility of Telemachus, the fortitude, the modesty, the filial tenderness of Kailyal, are virtues of all ages and nations. And there was very little danger that the Dauphin would worship Minerva, or that an English damsel would dance, with ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... spiritual forces which we might have named, and which would have manifested the same incontestable supremacy: there is the energy of meekness, that spirit of docility which communes with the Almighty in hallowed and receptive awe: there is the boundless vitality of love which lives on through midnight after midnight, unfainting and unspent: there is the inexhaustible energy of faith which hold on and out amid the massed hostilities of all its foes. You cannot ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... He insensibly assumed a tone milder than was usual to him; and no voice sounded so sweet to him as did Rosario's. He repayed the Youth's attentions by instructing him in various sciences; The Novice received his lessons with docility; Ambrosio was every day more charmed with the vivacity of his Genius, the simplicity of his manners, and the rectitude of his heart: In short He loved him with all the affection of a Father. He could not help sometimes indulging a desire secretly to see the face of his Pupil; ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... coerce, shows himself now all docile and submissive, and ready to accept whatever Jesus says: 'Lord, who is He, that I might believe on Him?' That was not credulity. He already knew enough of Christ to know that he ought to trust Him. And to his docility there is given the full revelation; and he hears the words which Pharisees and unrighteous men were not worthy to hear: 'Thou hast both seen it is He that talketh with thee.' Then intellectual conviction, moral reliance, and the utter prostration and devotion of the whole man bow him ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... Romanun and the Priest's Prayer Book ought to have shown the Committee, were it not for their peculiar unteachableness, a better way." To one who can read between the lines, this arraignment of the Americans for their lack of docility to the teachings of the Priest's Prayer Book ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... coffee, "that none of your family line ever kept the laws of any government or creed." And if it was well that he should bear this in mind, it was well to reiterate it persistently, for, from the nurse's arms, the boy wore a look, not of docility so much as of gentle, judicial benevolence. The domestics of the old man's house used to shed tears of laughter to see that look on the face of a babe. His rude guardian addressed himself to the modification of this facial expression; it had ...
— Madame Delphine • George W. Cable
... is not all. There are people who are simply cultivated—Naturvoelker—and people who are wholly cultivated—Vollkulturvoelker. Now the degree of right depends on the degree of culture. As compared with the Kulturvoelker the Naturvoelker have no rights. They have only duties—submission, docility, obedience. And if there exists a people which deserves more than all others the title of Vollkulturvoelker—completely cultured people—to this people the earth belongs and the supremacy thereof. Its mission is to bend ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... submitted to his adviser, and consented to try the effects of his prescription. A potion, was accordingly prepared, of which one ingredient was a spoonful of calomel! Having administered this, the Frenchman proceeded on his voyage, leaving the patient to abide the consequences of his docility. Such, however, was the weakness of his system, that he could neither throw it off, nor take it into circulation for five days. The crude poison was then voided, and a distressing salivation ensued, in the course of which all other morbid symptoms disappeared: by the middle ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... servants. The truth seems to be that the bovine animals have but little intellectual capacity, and it has in no wise served the purposes of man to develop such powers of mind as they have. We have ever been given to asking little of them, save docility. This we have in a high measure won with our milch cows, which of all our domesticated creatures are perhaps the most absolutely submissive; the more highly developed of them being little more than passive producers ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... as it were, and acted in isolated positions; others, and these the majority, took close order, and fought, so to speak, in column. In addition to his regular forces, Auguste engaged supernumerary and irregular troops, known to him as sous-claqueurs, upon whose discipline and docility he could not wholly rely, though he could make them useful by enclosing them in the ranks of his seasoned soldiers. The sous-claqueurs were usually well-clothed frequenters and well-wishers of the Opera House, anxious to attend the first representation ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... How admirably did the progress of his travels evince and justify the pure and enlightened confidence of his spirit! All dangers, all difficulties, vanish before his gentleness, his regularity, his perseverance. Insolence and ferocity seem to turn, at his approach, into docility and respect. Every hardship he endures, every step he advances, in his wide and laborious career of Beneficence, instead of impairing his strength, invigorates his frame; instead of diminishing his influence, increases the utility of ...
— The Eulogies of Howard • William Hayley
... wedding she surprised herself by her docility and acquiescence in all that was proposed for her. She even accepted without demur the white swiss and blue ribbons that a week before she had considered entirely too infantile for an adult maid of honor. This particular exhibition of virtue was due to the exemplary behavior ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... a noble animal. His docility is perfect. He climbed up and down places so steep that a good horse would have bungled at them, pulled down trees when he was told to do it, held others which were slanting dangerously across the track high above our heads till we had safely ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... directions. Having no other object of contemplation or subject of discourse, she always found, in their postures and looks, occasion for praise, or blame, or command. The readiness with which they understood, and the docility with which they obeyed, her movements and ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... intensest delight, not in imparting knowledge—that is a comparatively poor thing—but in leading a mind up to see what it was before incapable of seeing. It was part of the same gift that he always knew when he had not succeeded. In Alister he found a wonderful docility—crossed indeed with a great pride, against ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... is not the only demand of this fastidious gentleman; the fortunate woman whom he deigns to honour must be a paragon of sweetness and docility. No "woman's rights" or "suffrage rant" for him, and none of those high-stepping professional women need apply either—oh, no! And then all of her interests must be his, for of all things on earth, he "does despise ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... listened with docility to all that the ministers had to say, he steadily persisted in asserting his own innocence of the crimes for which he was condemned, and in his refusal to deliver up ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... always, turn the conversation as I might, brought it back with the same dexterity to the subject of the Englishman in the next room. In any other woman this persistency would have offended me. My lovely guest was irresistible; I answered her questions with the docility of a child. She possessed all the amusing eccentricity of her nation. When I told her of the accident which confined the Englishman to his bed, she sprang to her feet. An extraordinary smile irradiated her countenance. She said, "Show me the horse who broke the Englishman's leg! ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... Bart's beautiful cob with long mane and tail had been divested of saddle and bridle, and after being watered was about to be secured by its lariat to the tether-peg, the excitable little creature, that had been till now all docility and tractableness, suddenly uttered a shrill neigh, pranced, reared up, and before Bart could seize it by the mane, went off across the ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... who desired to be rewarded. As a consequence, the leaders could work in harmony with those Democratic chiefs who were content with a "solid South" and local home rule. The Negroes of the Black Belt, with less enthusiasm and hope, but with quite the same docility as in 1868, began to vote as the Democratic leaders directed. This practice brought up in another form the question of "Negro government" and resulted in a demand from the people of the white counties that the Negro be put entirely out of politics. The answer came between 1890 ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming
... it among his friends, writhed under the mere possibility. And how they would laugh in and round about Peshawur! A fine figure he would cut as he rode through the streets with every ragged bystander jeering at the man who was walked into docility and submission by his ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... I obeyed all my brother's military commands with the utmost docility; and happy it made me that every sort of doubt, or question, or opening for demur was swallowed up in the unity of this one papal principle, discovered by my brother, viz., that all rights and duties of casuistry ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... would deal with a country like Ireland. Von Moll twisted his moustaches fiercely and told Gorman that if Ireland had been a German dependency she would have ceased to trouble the world early in the eighteenth century. Gorman listened with every appearance of deference and docility, while von Moll explained the Prussian way of dealing with people like ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... the concentrated essence of feminine witchery. Intuition strong, logic weak, and the two qualities so balanced as to produce an indefinable charm; will-power large, but docility equal, if a man is clever enough to know how to manage her; knowledge of facts absolutely nil, but she is exquisitely intelligent in spite of it. She has a way of evading, escaping, eluding, and then gives you an intoxicating hint of sudden and complete surrender. She is divinely ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... work and brilliant recognition was interrupted in 1848 by Ruskin's amazing marriage to Miss Euphemia Gray, a union into which he entered at the desire of his parents with a docility as stupid as it was stupendous. Five years later the couple were quietly divorced, that Mrs. Ruskin might marry Millais. All the author's biographers maintain an indiscreet reserve in discussing the affair, but there can be no concealment of the fact that its effect upon Ruskin ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... sing a canticle to your character. Jane is a tiny—person, I was about to say, for she has so strong an individuality that I can scarcely think of her as less than human—Jane is a tiny, solemn creature, looking all docility and decorum, with long hair of a subdued tan colour, very much worn off in patches, I fear, by the ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... always with him or his son, and made this child his friend and counselor, to the great disdain of all the courtiers. Charming, still gloomy and silent, learned all that this young mentor could teach him, then returned to his former preceptors, whom he astonished by his intelligence and docility. He soon knew his grammar so well that the priest asked himself one day whether, by chance, these definitions, which he had never understood, had not a meaning. Charming none the less astonished the philosopher, ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... Yet all this marvellous learning fumes away in boyish impertinence. It confounds itself. And every Christian says, Oh, take away this superfluous weight of erudition, that, being so rare a thing, cannot be wanted in the broad highways of religion. What we do want is humility, docility, reverence for God, and love for man. These are sown broadcast amongst human hearts. Now, these apply themselves to the sense of Scripture, not to its grammatical niceties. But if so, even that case shows indirectly ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... "Go back!" she said. All the confidence, the gentleness, the docility of the last three days were gone; and in their place suspicion glared at him from eyes grown spiteful as a cat's. "Go back!" she repeated. "I do not want you! I do not want any one, or any help! Or any protection! Go, do you hear, ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... M. Dorset's cart, at the risk of incommoding him, and retarding the conveyance of his merchandise. In all this you have been very inconsiderate. My child, observe: it is not sufficient to do good, you must also do good properly. At your age, the first of all virtues is confidence and docility towards your relations. I am therefore obliged to tell you that I prefer your tranquil attachment to your misplaced warmth. This, however, does not prevent me from embracing you, but less tenderly than I shall do when I learn that you have ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... auditors; and though he did not appear to solicit benevolence, he always wished to retain authority, and leave his company impressed with the idea that it was his to teach in this world, and theirs to learn. What wonder, then, that all should receive with docility from Johnson those doctrines, which, propagated by Collier, they drove away from them with shouts! Dr. Johnson was not grave, however, because he knew not how to be merry. No man loved laughing better, and his vein of humour was rich and apparently inexhaustible; though Dr. ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... of good things gone by, though she had but the faintest idea of what those good things had been. She imagined that a purity had existed which was now gone; that a piety had adorned our pastors and a simple docility our people, for which it may be feared history gave her but little true warrant. She was accustomed to speak of Cranmer as though he had been the firmest and most simple-minded of martyrs, and of Elizabeth as though the pure Protestant ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... docility of that complete indifference which is bred of deadening weariness, she submitted to being helped to her seat, arranged her veil to protect her face and sat back with folded hands, submissive to endure whatsoever chance or mischance there might ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... eye that mocketh at his father, and despises the [Hebrew: iqhh] of his mother."[10] To this view we are led also by the Arabic, where the word [Arabic: **], does not denote obedience in general, but willing obedience, docility, in the viii. sq. [Hebrew: l] dicto audientem se praebuit more discipuli. (Compare Camus in Schulten, on Prov. l. c.) Cognate is [Arabic: **], "to take care," "to guard oneself," specially of the conflict with the higher powers of life, in the viii. semet custodivit ah aliqua ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... the multiplication table and the rule of three, or the hypostatical union with the chemical composition of water and light. Having said thus much of compulsion, we return, not as ministers in the temple of religion so much as students in the school of science, to consider with docility the question in dispute, Is ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... instruments; but, after a while, became very fond of all, particularly of the gentle flute, at which they would show their delight by beating time with their great feet. The keepers accustomed them to the sight of great multitudes of people. At one time, when a particular exhibition of the docility of elephants was required, twelve of the most sagacious and well trained were made to march into the theatre with a regular step. At the voice of their keeper, they moved in harmonious measure, sometimes in a circle, and sometimes divided ...
— What the Animals Do and Say • Eliza Lee Follen
... of dynamite, spilling plates off dressers and cock-billing texts, and arresting the astonished clock at four forty-six, little Daisy was trying to nerve herself to address the assembled company. The unforeseen docility of the band had put new ideas in that sleek, baby-seal head. Odds and ends of tracts and storybooks recurred to her. Infantile ambitions awoke and clamored. But it was daunting, just the same, to confront ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... great emporium for trade between Sierra Leone and the Niger, was captured and destroyed; and all the inhabitants of that district, whom every traveller, from Winwood Reade down to Dr. Blyden, has mentioned with praise for their industry and docility, have been exterminated or carried off. Sulimania, which was the garden of West Africa, has ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... a cinder ring," she replied with unwonted docility. "The teacher said I would be ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... charge of the palace. Volterra did not intend to take that way of making enquiries about Sabina, if he made any at all, and the Baroness knew that when he did not mean to do a thing, the obstinacy of a Calabrian mule was docility compared with his dogged opposition. Moreover, she would not have dared to do it unknown to him. There was some good reason why he did not intend to look ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... good Sisters obeyed first with the docility of holy women accustomed to submission. The Count and Countess appeared next, followed by the manufacturer and his wife, then Loiseau pushing in front of him ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... Relieve my anxiety Rose, Yellow, Jealousy Rose, York and Lancaster, War Rose, White & Red together, Unity Roses, Crown of, Reward of Rosebud, Red, Pure & Lovely Rosebud, White, Girlhood Rosebud, Moss, Confession of love Rosemary, You ever Revive Rudbeckia, Justice Rue, Scorn, Despite Rush, Docility Rye-grass, Changeable Saffron, Shun Excess Sage, Domestic Virtue Sainfoin, Agitation St. John's Wort, Animosity Salvia, Blue, Wisdom Salvia, Red, Energy Saxifrage, Mossy, Affection Scabious, Unfortunate Love Scabious, Sweet, Widowhood Scarlet Lychnis, Brilliant Eye ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... women peculiarly fitted them for the work. They were a mixed race. The fiery enthusiasm of the Sclaves was in them blended with the steadfast energy and patient docility of the Germans. The fire of their natures was a holy fire—a lambent flame which lighted but did not destroy. Their creed was one of love; it was a joyful persuasion of their interest in Christ and their title to His purchased salvation. Here, then, we ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... acted over what I had been reading or fancying, or half one, half the other, with a stick cutting down weeds and nettles, as one of the "Seven Champions of Christendom." Alas! I had all the simplicity, all the docility of the little child, but none of the child's habits. I never thought as a child, never had the ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... with her. The instincts of the English aristocrat reappeared amid the accomplishments of the petit-maitre, and poor Mrs. Allison's spirits revived. Then the golden-haired Lady Madeleine was asked to stay at Castle Luton. When she came Ancoats devoted himself with extraordinary docility. He drew her, made songs for her, and devised French charades to act with her; he even went so far as to compare her with enthusiasm to the latest and most wonderful "Salome" just exhibited in the Salon by the latest and most wonderful of the impressionists. ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... completion of a design which he had, through two Acts, so magnificently carried on,—the impatience with which, though conscious of this failure, he as usual hurried to the press, without deigning to woo, or wait for, a happier moment of inspiration,—his frank docility in, at once, surrendering up his third Act to reprobation, without urging one parental word in its behalf,—the doubt he evidently felt, whether, from his habit of striking off these creations at a heat, he should be able to rekindle his imagination on the subject,—and then, lastly, the complete ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... pains-taking, and docile youth, will, no doubt, learn a great deal, no matter where he has been placed in pupilage; but we have heard from a contemporary of M. Rollin, that he was not particularly distinguished either for his industry or his docility in early life. The earliest days of the reign of Charles X. saw M. Ledru Rollin an etudiant en droit in Paris. Though the schools of law had been re-established during the Consulate pretty much after the fashion in which they existed in the time of Louis the XIV., yet ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various
... pallid with silent torture. "Since the rascals have taken to assassination, we know that we have them at the dregs," said Count Lenkenstein. "A cord round the throats of a few scores of them, and the country will learn the virtue of docility." ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... an instant before speaking. Then, all at once, his features assumed an expression of docility, not ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... have concealed part of the news from her. However that might be, I determined to save the horse, and explained this to Aline, with a brotherly warning not to allow emotion to get the better of her judgment in future. She listened with a docility that promised future reprisals, and then, agreeing that it would be well to secure the horse, said that she should not mind being left alone. Indeed, unless something very unexpected happened, she would be as safe alone at Fairmead as ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss |
