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Restful   Listen
adjective
Restful  adj.  
1.
Being at rest; quiet.
2.
Giving rest; freeing from toil, trouble, etc. "Tired with all these, for restful death I cry."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Restful" Quotes from Famous Books



... as he had arranged with his spiritual adviser, went into retreat. The retreat of the Huysmanite sect was a beautiful place, with the sweetest air in London, lit by natural sunlight, and with restful quadrangles of real grass open to the sky, where at the same time the penitent man of pleasure might enjoy all the pleasures of loafing and all the satisfaction of distinguished austerity. And, save for participation in the simple and ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells

... with short trips here and there—a restful week for them all, yet a week in which the boys learned more fully the woodman's ways. For one thing they were becoming expert fishers and rapidly improving in portaging. Even the two older men noticed how the boys were so quickly becoming adapted ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton

... Plymouth was wonderfully soothing. The hills covered with beautiful foliage in shades of brown and olive green were a most restful change from the monotony of the sea. A marked contrast to the peacefulness of the countryside were the fortifications everywhere visible commanding the approach to perhaps the most strongly fortified port in Southern England. With the possible exception of Sydney, Australia, Plymouth ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith

... feel the solemn loneliness of deep woods, to follow cattle as they crop the sweet-scented clover,—to learn to know, as one knows a mother's face, every change that comes over the heavens from the dewy freshness of early dawn to the restful calm of evening, from the overpowering mystery of the starlit sky to the tender human look with which the moon smiles upon the earth,—all this is education of a higher and altogether more real kind than it is possible to receive within the walls of a school; and lacking this, nothing ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding

... d'Orta, which although comparatively near Lake Maggiore is not often included in the itinerary of the fast traveling tourist, who usually hurries to Arona, Stresa, and Pallanza, which, beautiful as they are, lack something of the restful charm of this miniature lake set in the midst of a circle of well-wooded hills. After Como and Maggiore, which are like inland seas, the Lago d'Orta with its pretty island of San Giulio, all so small that one may see ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton

... itself with the highest things as readily as with those which are insignificant and paltry. Whoever can command his meditations in the streets, along the country roads, on the train, in the hours of relaxation, can enrich himself for all time without effort or fatigue; for it is as easy and restful to think about great things as about small ones. A certain lover of books made this discovery years ago, and has turned it to account with great profit to himself. He thought he discovered in the faces of certain great writers a meditative quality full ...
— Books and Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... time glided away. The hottest part of the afternoon came, when, as a rule, the boy felt drowsy and ready to have a restful sleep till the sun began to get low; but this day Marcus felt so alert and excited that he never once thought of sleep, though he more than once longed to see the sun go down so that it might be darkness such as would agree ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn

... Harvester lacked experience in these arts, and yet by some wonderful instinct all of these things occurred to him. There was real colour in the Girl's cheeks by the time he helped her into the cafe'. They were guided to a small room, cool and restful, close a window, beside which grew a tree covered with talking leaves. A waiting attendant, who seemed perfectly adept, brought in steaming bouillon, fragrant tea, broiled chicken, properly cooked vegetables, a wonderful salad, and then delicious ices and cold fruit. The happy Harvester leaned ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter

... neighborhood of Archie's hermitage. An unusual sign of life was to be seen at the mill-house itself; smoke was rising from the extemporized chimney; for Bell, as I knew, had installed herself as nurse and was doing her best to render the last days of the old recluse more restful than they could have been ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett

... get Nancy and Caroline to drive into the country, through the cool rush of the freer purer air of the suburbs, give them lunch at some smart road-house, soothingly restful and dim, where the temperature was artificially lowered, and they could powder their noses at will; and from thence go on until they were within the radius of the charmed circle where modern miracles were performed while the ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley

... Mrs. Craig, had been unusually reticent over their embroidery that early afternoon, seated together in the front room, which was now flooded with sunshine—an attractive, intimate room, restful and pretty in spite of the ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers

... Nick's departure. She found a French window standing open, and entered. It was the drawing-room, all swathed in brown holland. Its dim coolness was very different from the stony chill of the Priory. She looked around her with a restful feeling of being at home, despite the brown coverings. Many were the happy hours she had spent here both before and after Nick's marriage. It had always been her palace ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell

... solar system—and makes body tributary to the Mind. As it is the earth which is in motion, While the sun is at rest, though in viewing the sun rise one finds it impossible to believe the sun not to be really rising, so the body is but the humble servant of the restful Mind, though it seems otherwise to finite sense; but we shall never understand this while we admit that soul is in body, or mind in matter, and that man is included in non-intelligence. Soul is God, unchangeable and eternal; and man coexists ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... of Sweetwater River, twenty miles out from South Pass, revived many pleasant memories and some that were sad. I could remember the sparkling, clear water, the green skirt of undergrowth along the banks, and the restful camps, as we trudged along up the stream so many years ago. And now I saw the same channel, the same hills, and apparently the same waters swiftly passing. But where were the camp fires? Where was the herd of gaunt cattle? Where the sound of the din of bells? The hallooing for lost children? ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker

... a simple love of the things That glide in grasses and rubble of woody wreck; Or change their perch on a beat of quivering wings From branch to branch, only restful to pipe and peck; Or, bridled, curl at a touch their snouts in a ball; Or cast their web between bramble and thorny hook; The good physician, Melampus, loving them all, Among them walked, as a ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne

... mangroves from the river down below, and a parasol was visible in the stern. Then there was a hasty stampede down to the gully to wash; an agonized scuttle into the new shirts; and a hot and anxious assumption of restful calm. And so we welcomed ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay

... nervous, passionate nature, married to a bad husband, might at forty have posed for one of the Furies. Not until her life had become restful had her good looks shown themselves. Hers was the type of beauty that for its ...
— The Philosopher's Joke • Jerome K. Jerome

... and all land and all sea were hot as molten gold, Proteus with his flocks returned to the shade of his great cave by the sobbing sea, and on its sandy floor he stretched himself, and soon lay, his limbs all lax and restful, in the exquisite joy of a dreamless sleep. From behind the rocks Aristaeus watched him, and when, at length, he saw that Proteus slept too soundly to wake gently he stepped forward, and on the sleep-drowsed ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang

... Peace brought my father restful days, with love and fame for wage; War gave my son an unmarked grave and an unwritten page— Who shall declare which gift conveyed the ...
— Fires of Driftwood • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... miss my face? Do you know that I have gone From your fair and restful place, Far away where moveth on Night and day the restless sea? But ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)

... Duke on the shingles, curiously unmangled. He had the appearance of a man who had found death restful. ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... the English service; Britain is sufficiently well represented at Biarritz to support one during both summer and winter. The day is restful and calm, and we stroll out afterward along the beach and over to the deserted villa of the Empress, returning by the path on the bluff. The sound of trowels and hammers is in part stilled about the town, ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix

... me beside the still waters." When I grow thirsty, the river lieth at the foot of the mountain, and down the slope he will lead me, and there in the shade, in the quiet, restful coolness, I shall drink of the waters of quietness and shall be satisfied, and my soul shall delight in him. The path down which he leadeth me may be steep; there may be thorns along the way; but so long as I permit him to lead me where he will, ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor

... him in amazed wonder. He had expected to find himself in a palace of gilt, to find the prevailing note of the place an unrestrained and inartistic gorgeousness. He found instead that the decorations everywhere were of spotless white, the whole effect one of cultivated and restful harmony. The glass and linen on the table were perfect. There was nowhere the slightest evidence of any ostentation. Within a few feet of him, separated only by that little space of tablecloth and a great bowl of pink roses, sat Edith, dressed as he had never seen her before, ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... Charming woman! Gifted lad! Remarkable talent! Graceful outlines! Perfect evening! Great success! Interesting case! Glorious night! Exquisite scenery! Capital dinner! Stimulating conversation! Restful outing! Good wine! Happy ending! Touching ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw

... of a sudden Jules knew that there was another kind of hunger worse than the longing for bread. He wanted the soft touch of those lips again on his mouth and eyelids, the loving pressure of those restful arms, a thousand times more than he had wished for the loaf that he had just brought home. Two hot tears, that made his eyes ache in their slow gathering, ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston

... is ordered, we are often met by the reply that it is impossible, as work cannot be given up. It is, however, often possible to get a great deal more than is taken. Every spare moment should be spent lying down in the most restful position. It is an important element in nursing to give such a comfortable recumbent position to a patient as constitutes perfect rest, and the nurse who does so, does a ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk

... gently back and forward, in harmony with the quiet business enjoyment of its occupant; and there a pair of heels, stretched out to the farthest limit of their corresponding members, with toes squarely elevated in the air, testified to the restful condition of another individual of the party. See a pair of toes in the air and the heels as nearly as possible straight under them, one tucked up on the other, and you may be sure the person they belong to feels comfortable—physically. ...
— Diana • Susan Warner

... been gone half an hour, but she was still in the drawing-room when Nanda came back. The girl found her, on the sofa, in a posture that might have represented restful oblivion, but that, after a glance, our young lady appeared to interpret as mere intensity of thought. It was a condition from which at all events Mrs. Brook was quickly roused by her daughter's presence: ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James

... so, my fair Proserpina," he said, in a voice far from unkind. "When your eyes become accustomed to the gloom, you will find it much more restful than the glare we have ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester

... perplexed on any account, Rebecca always seemed to understand in that quiet, unobtrusive way of hers, and followed my movements with a grave, restful sympathy in her eyes. On several occasions I had asked her, playfully, to walk up the lane with me after school. So it became a matter of course that she should wait for me. Often we took longer walks, for it was an "open winter," with ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... is very restful,' he thought—'restful, peaceful, wholesome.' He found himself repeating softly the lines of Browning, beginning, 'Oh to be in England now that April's here,' and the transitions of thought carried him to that ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy

... that the coloring of vegetation is in great part the merest tintage, the large admixture of white giving to it a startling luminosity, and permitting the fullest effect of those neutral tints which are capable of combinations at once so restful and so pleasing to the refined eye. In the vegetation of Florida there is luminosity; but chromatic depth, as in most tropical coloring, is the chief characteristic of its visual effect. To hear Peters talk of the flowers of Hili-li, almost half ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake

... had the sense of Jenny as all movement, as flashing and drawing him into quagmires of sensation, like a will-o'-the-wisp. Emmy was not like that. She sat tremulously smiling, humble before him, diffident, flattering. She was intelligent: that was it. Intelligent was the word. Not lively, but restful. Critically he regarded her. Rather ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton

... for situation, in the midst of groves of young pine, on a considerable plateau sloping southward, overlooking the valley of a little creek with the grand old mountain towering above them on the farther side. A quiet restful spot removed from the temptations of town life, four miles from the village station; just the place for the great family home school which I found on this occasion, Wednesday night, busy as bees preparing for the great event of the year. The boys had put up a brush ...
— American Missionary, Volume 50, No. 8, August, 1896 • Various

... believe in all sorts of traditions, and, as I have said before, supernatural things. They live almost wholly in sentiment, and are little known save by a very few. I like them, yet I cannot tell why. When in their presence I feel a sort of transcendental charm, a something intangible, but restful to my soul. It's only with you and them, Dawn, that I ever feel thus, and that is ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams

... labelling her attractive, it is really, on the whole, a designedly repulsive person she has presented to us. Though an interesting study in Teuton perfidy and certainly better written than the columns of most evening papers, I can hardly recommend the book as a restful change ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 22, 1916 • Various

... grinning. "You'll get used to the way we snore before long, and you'll kind of enjoy it. I'd be scared to death if I got awake in the night and didn't hear everybody in the house snoring. It's kind of restful to know that everybody's asleep,—and not dead. If they wasn't snoring, I'd certainly think ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon

... A covered way led from the street to the house, and I followed on the heels of the servant, a smart young Parisian, looking curiously at the little garden which in London would have been forlorn and smutty. Here in Paris bright flowers bloomed healthily and a little fountain plashed with that restful monotony which ever ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman

... Sabbath has nothing at all of the nature of the joyous breathing-time from the load of life which a festival affords, but is a thing for itself, which separates the Sabbath not only from the week days, but also from the festival days, and approaches an ascetic exercise much more nearly than a restful refreshment. It is taken in a perfectly abstract manner, not as rest from ordinary work, but as rest absolutely. On the holy day it is not lawful to leave the camp to gather sticks or manna (Exod. xvi.; Numbers xv.), not even to kindle a fire or cook a meal (Exodus ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... Cattle all gratefully low in pastures where fountains are glistening— Hark! in the shade of that rock the pruner with singing rejoices— The dove in the elm and the flock of wood-pigeons hoarsely repining, The plash of the sacred cascade—ah, restful, indeed, are these voices, Tityrus, all in the shade of your wide-spreading ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field

... beds. The hotel, a relic of old times, with its patio and long portal, its rooms whose lower floors were on the ground level, its unpretentious spaciousness, appealed strongly to Bartley as something unusual in the way of a hostelry. It seemed restful, romantic, inviting. It was a place where a man might write, dream, loaf, and smoke. Then, incidentally, it was not far from the Lawrence ranch, which was not far from the home of a certain young woman whom ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... for the child," she whispered to herself. "How good God is!" Then she slept again for a long, restful space, and woke refreshed, so that Katy's secret fear that Cousin Helen might be ill from excitement, and not able to come to her wedding, ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge

... book she had been reading aloud and looked anxiously at her father. This was the third day they had been at Morristown, and it was the first time her father had uttered any word of complaint. The change had been restful, and he had enjoyed it thoroughly. There had been so many things to see and to talk about with his brother that he hardly missed the separation from Glendow. A sense of glad freedom had been his. There was no responsibility of parish work, and no long, tiresome drives ahead. He ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody

... for restful death I cry, As to behold desert a beggar born, And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity, And purest faith unhappily forsworn, And gilded honour shamefully misplac'd, And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, And right perfection wrongfully disgrac'd, And strength ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare

... me especially. She was a small person; I couldn't decide whether she was a child or a woman. I kept thinking her homely, and then when she spoke I forgot everything but the music of her voice,—it was so restful, so rich and mellow in tone, and she seemed so small for such a splendid voice. Somehow I kept expecting her to squeak like a mouse, but every word she spoke charmed me. Before the meal was over it ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart

... sideways into his auditor's face and concentrating his argument by a contraction of one eyelid during delivery. The greater number carried in their hands ground-ash saplings, using them partly as walking-sticks and partly for poking up pigs, sheep, neighbours with their backs turned, and restful things in general, which seemed to require such treatment in the course of their peregrinations. During conversations each subjected his sapling to great varieties of usage—bending it round his back, forming an arch of it between his two ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy

... thine own scholar strays, O! Poet, thou art passed, and at its bound Hollow and sere we cry, yet win no sound But the dark muttering of the forest maze We may not tread, nor pierce with any gaze; And hardly love dare whisper thou hast found That restful moonlit slope of pastoral ground Set in dark dingles ...
— English Poems • Richard Le Gallienne

... through the parlor door," she continued. "Could anything be more beautiful? The sun is just setting. The lake is asleep. See the reflection of the trees beneath its surface. How peaceful, how restful! My mind is just like the lake—perfectly at ease. Why do you not control your storm and calm down like the lake? Look at the tall shadows of the contented firs reaching away out across its bosom. How like ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)

... his arms quiver, and pressed more closely against them. They were strong arms, protecting arms, restful to lean against ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse

... there no more, and the hostelry can never again be to me all that it was of solid comfort. Or perhaps, as he was so entirely an outside figure, I might rather say that Hampstead itself is not what it was. His robust but restful form, topped with that weather-beaten and chin-bearded face, was the hub of the summit of Hampstead. He was as richly local as the pond there—that famous pond which in hot weather is so much waded through by cart-horses and ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm

... shadows ... the delicate tracery of the ash-tree, and the tall rowans, and the massive blue shadows of the cliffs ... a golden and silver land.... A very sweet silence had fallen between them, as if music had ceased and become restful color.... They watched ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne

... courts necessarily lack the cloistral charm of the Court of Abundance, since they have the fourth sides open. But what they lack in the sense of enclosure they make up in sunniness and joyous color. They are restful and warm and quiet-and artistically they are among the most perfect and most harmonious ...
— An Art-Lovers guide to the Exposition • Shelden Cheney

... would the plague if you want your garden to afford you all the pleasure you can get out of it. Nature's methods are always restful in effect because they are so simple and direct. They never seem premeditated. Her plants "just grow," like the Topsy of Mrs. Stowe's book, and no one seems to have given any thought to the matter. But in order to successfully imitate Nature it is absolutely necessary that we familiarize ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford

... he continued after a pause, "to find anything so restful as this in London. After one has been fretting about business all day, about getting on, meeting obligations, and parrying dangers, I do not know what one would do if it were not for such pacific corners." He spoke with long pauses between the sentences. "You must know a ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... it very much; it is so restful, and I sleep sound upon that cartel. I feel as though I should like to trek on for the ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard

... rippling bends, its comfortable resting-places where sun and shade played together. Inviting as it all was, however, she kept well out on the open where her business lay; only occasionally did she let her gaze wander from its set task to loiter in this more restful scene. She kept on looking for lambs. But after a while she awoke to the fact that she had been walking closer and closer when she ought to be keeping out on the prairie; instead of using it as a guide in her work she was making a companion ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart

... and then; following him, they rose from their knees. Mrs Davidson's face was pale and restful. She was comforted and at peace, but the Macphails felt suddenly bashful. They did not know which ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham

... lamps where you're going, my friend. And I think the chance to work independently on something that really interests you will prove every bit as restful to your nerves as a summer's travel. I know the scientific mentality." Berg chuckled. ...
— Security • Poul William Anderson

... agitated voice of Miss Ryerson, who said that an extraordinary thing had happened and begged me to come to her at once. She was stopping at the Shoreham, just across the street, and five minutes later we were talking earnestly in the spacious blue-and-white salon with its flowers and restful lights. Needless to say, I preferred a talk with this beautiful girl to the most learned ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett

... often more in the birth of a child than the coming of another son or daughter into the world. Between those forces of life and death a woman may also get her chance to be born anew, made over again, spiritually as well as physically. In those long, restful hours afterward, when suspense is over and pain is over, and there is a freedom from household cares, and one is looked upon with renewed tenderness, the thoughts may flow over long, long ways. To face danger bravely in itself gives strength for the clearer vision; and a peculiarly loved child unlocks ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various

... he noticed a curved ceiling of soft blue which misted at the edges into gray. The restful color acted on his troubled, waking mind like a soothing word. For the first time since he had been struck down in the night his headache was gone. He raised his hand to explore that old hurt near his hairline that had been so tender only yesterday ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton

... huts of yellow straw, surrounded by ponderous walls of gray stone or dun-colored earth, and the irregular green fields were intersected by a silvery ribbon of running water: the whole composed such a fair picture of restful, peaceful beauty, that for the moment it held me at the edge in silent contemplation. It appeared impossible that so sweet, secluded a spot could be the habitation of savages, vengeful and cruel. Yet those black, moving dots down yonder, clustering in front of the various lodges, I knew were naked ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish

... simply. "It's such a restful contrast to the strenuousness of life. You make me feel just by looking at you that everything's all right. You bring a peaceful atmosphere in with you, and"—his voice sank a little—"you take it away again when ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell

... what she had been thinking of. This had been the meaning of the tender thought for him he had recognised uncomprehendingly in her look: it had been the cause of her desire to enfold him in healing and restful peace. When he had felt that she drew so close to him that they were scarcely separated by physical being, it was because she had suddenly awakened to a new comprehension. The awakening must have been a sudden one. He had known at the church ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... is a better and a deeper thing than any claim of law or register of bequest can show. Titus Oldways had found that out; and he had settled in his mind, to his restful and satisfied belief, that God, to the last moment of His time, and the last particle of His created substance, can surely care for and order ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... sun sank slowly toward the horizon, filling the sky with flaming colors of red and gold, rimmed by the blues and purples of approaching night. The sunset was gaudy and blatant, Kennon thought with mild distaste, unlike the restful day-end ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone

... prepared for it, but the advantage of a continuous day to a busy, hustling camp like this one, had not presented itself to us until we ourselves attempted to work half the night; then we realized it fully. At nine in the evening a beautiful twilight enveloped all, restful to nerves and eyes, but still light enough ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan

... began a vast but unsystematic exploration of the streets. I asked for no names. It was enough that the pavements were full of white men and women, the streets clanging with traffic, and that the restful roar of a great city rang in my ears. The cable cars glided to all points of the compass at once. I took them one by one till I could go no further. San Francisco has been pitched down on the sand bunkers of the Bikaneer desert. ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling

... and the service was home-like and hearty. The drums were there and rolled at the Glorias, and 'God Save the Queen,' which was sung because it was a parade service. I spoke to the men on the blessings of a restful hour of worship in an English church after our journeyings, and of the mercies which had been granted to us, basing what I had to say on 'It is good for us to be here.' At the morning service at 10.30 there was a large number of the headquarter staff present, many of whom, Lord Roberts included, ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry

... mother lying for ever silent and cold in the dark earth! Oh, poor world-weary woman in Dudley Grove, and all the countless thousands that lived toiling, hungry, hopeless lives in squalid London tenements—why had she, Fan, been so favoured as to be carried away from it all into this sweet restful place? Why—why? Then, even while she asked, wondering, thinking that it was all like a strange beautiful dream, unable yet to realise it, suddenly as by inspiration the meaning of the words Miss Starbrow had spoken to her flashed into her mind; and the thought made her tremble, the ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... and disengaged as the new moon, and listened to the chatter of old and young with the easy quietness of a young heart that has early outlived life, and looks on everything in the world from some gentle, restful eminence far on towards a better home. She smiled at everybody's word, had a quick eye for everybody's wants, and was ready with thimble, scissors, or thread, whenever any one needed them; but once, when there ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... heart First slowly rouses from its dreamless sleep, To all the tumult of a passion life, Ere yet have wakened jealousy and strife. Just as a young, untutored child will start Out of a long hour's slumber, sound and deep, And lie and smile with rosy lips, and cheeks, In a sweet, restful trance, before it speaks. A time when yet no word the spell has broken, Save what the heart unto the soul has spoken, In quickened throbs, and sighs but half suppressed. A time when that sweet truth, all unconfessed, ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... went on, 'that the woman I married would be fond of her needle. There is something so restful in the idea of coming home in the evening to see one's companion sitting at the fireside engaged in ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick

... Was this happy, restful place not even England? Was all the dull and weary wandering over, and had she got home—to the best home—the home where Jesus dwelt? She really thought it must be so, and this would account for the softness of this little bed, ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade

... toil over, the old soldier sat him down, in restful content, by his own peaceful fireside, while, with the old musket in its honored place above the tall wooden mantle, he fought over again, in memory, his old-time battles, and to sons and grandsons taught, in thrilling, patriotic words, the great lesson to love and revere ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various

... a comfort to that sister, to sort o' rest off for an evenin' from makin' vests and pantaloons, cheap, to furnish him money!—it was so sort o' restful to her to set and hear him talk large aginst wimmen's suffrage and the weakness ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)

... as you lie there, only that you do not feel the rain as you do among trees. Here too a fountain rises and immediately loses itself underground. There are a number of marble chairs placed up and down, which are as restful for persons tired with walking as the bed-chamber itself. Near these chairs are little fountains, and throughout the whole riding- course you hear the murmur of tiny streams carried through pipes, which ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger

... at the end of the terrace, other persons, the restful, quiet ones, were walking slowly, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... dew had shone all the lights of the long banks of the ribbed sky, as all the colours changed in the restful spaces of evening. And over it the marvellous night had gleamed with ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany

... period of five years and six months, of detention certainly, but no longer of imprisonment. In truth, it was the most restful period of Flinders' whole life; and, if he could have banished the longing for home and family, and the bitter feeling of wrong that gnawed at his heart, and could have quietened the desire that was ever uppermost in his mind to continue the exploratory work ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... my wishes,' Carinthia rejoined. 'The man I do not think a bad man. He has a master. While I am bound to my child I must be restful, and with the man at the castle Martha's goblins would jump about me day and night. My boy makes a coward ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... for the clean, quiet little haven up in the hills came over her like an ache. She was homesick for the restful mountains, where there were no slums, no fever-infested spots such as she had been in all morning, no loathsome mouldy walls, no dank, foul odors. She pictured the little home not as it stood when last she saw ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston

... there by day and looked at the black reflection of the trees. And in the heat it seemed so cool and restful.... ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham

... She kissed her father and scolded him when she learnt that he had not yet decided on his trip to Gavarnie. She should really be displeased with him, she said, if he did not go. Still with the same restful, smiling expression, she added that she did not expect to be cured that day; and then, assuming an air of mystery, she begged Pierre to obtain permission for her to spend the following night before the Grotto. This was a favour which all the sufferers ardently ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... allotted her to work them out with. Most of the rest of them would have nothing to do with raising the masses, but, after the comfortable fashion of early nineteenth-century days, were content to let well alone at eight shillings a week. Perhaps it was this restful attitude that decided the publishers to claim for this volume the distinctive quality ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 4, 1919. • Various

... taking up his short-handled axe, "I am going to make for my lady-love the finest couch for tranquil, restful sleep that mortal ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory

... vintage to which "Miss KATHARINE TYNAN'S" novels belong is so old that some of its flavour has departed, there is no doubt that many of us are still glad enough to sample it. In these nervous times it is in fact very restful to read a book as calm and detached as Miss Mary (MURRAY). Not that Mary refrained from allowing her heart to flutter in the wrong direction, but even the simplest of us couldn't really be alarmed by this excursion. Mrs. HINKSON seems ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 153, November 7, 1917 • Various

... for the first time since his hurt in the other valley he stretched out his head between his great arms, and heaved a deep and restful sigh. Muskwa crept up close to him, so close that he was warmed by Thor's body; and together they slept the deep and peaceful sleep of full stomachs, while over them the stars grew brighter, and the moon came up to flood the peaks and the ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood

... more restful than rivers or the sea. Rivers are always flowing, though it may be but slowly; the sea may rest awhile, now and then, but is generally full of action and energy; while lakes seem to sleep and dream. Lakes in a beautiful country are like silver ornaments on ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock

... could I honestly assert that in the years preceding these I had ever known content? I fear not. Elation, the sense of more or less successful striving, occasional triumphs—all these good things I had known. But content, peace, secure and restful satisfaction— No, I could not truly say I had ever experienced these. Perhaps they have been rare among all the educated peoples of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; particularly, it may be, among those who, like myself, have been ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... usually so appealing, so restful after fifty work-filled weeks amid the noisy turmoil of the city's life, lacked something of its customary charm and satisfaction. The man found himself with a real longing for the companionship ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson

... unaccustomed lassitude bore down his body and stupefied his brain. A thousand indistinct memories were moving about in the penumbral borderland of consciousness, but they refused to take shape. They would emerge into the light presently, of course. Meanwhile, it was restful to remain in this state of semi-stupefaction. He ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... to catch the 8.15, which started punctually, the sole remnant of railway virtue possessed by the Chatham and South Eastern line. A restful porter, quickened into active life by a half-crown tip, found him a vacant seat in a first-class smoking carriage, and Brett's hasty glance round the compartment revealed that his travelling companions, as far as Dover, at any rate, ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy

... gained something by contrast with each and naturally became the center of the group. This prominence was partly due to his figure, of large mold, finely formed and firmly knit, carrying always an air of restful strength and composure which made itself felt in whatever company he found himself. His head, although not out of proportion with his fine shoulders and trunk, was somewhat massive, a fact which was emphasized ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates

... we are not without a MASTER, a LEADER, a HEAD. We were intended to be followers. We always do follow; but, alas! We did not follow the right MASTER. Now the right MASTER has found us; and instead of following our own foolish lead, we want to follow His wise lead. And it is most restful to realize that we are not left to live a life at the mercy of circumstances, or to walk in our own wisdom. We can never foresee the future; we never fully understand the present. How dangerous would be our position ...
— A Ribband of Blue - And Other Bible Studies • J. Hudson Taylor

... window, made a tour of the flower-vases, and flew out again into the sunshine. From the lawn the cries of the tennis players, the calls of thrush and blackbird and dishwasher, were wafted in on waves of perfume from the roses. It was very pleasant and restful to Harry Luttrell after the sweat and labour of France. He sighed as he folded his letter and addressed it to a friend in the ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason

... our worship, and the gentle encouragement, both fervent and sincere, of those who were educating me. They were very fond of me, and I adored them, so that even now the very memory of them, fascinating and restful as it is, thrills me ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt

... Mrs. Hartley, looking about her. "I'm always glad to get back from London to the restful quiet of these great trees and the ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells

... and restful eyes, As ashes follow flame. But O! I heard a voice from those rich skies Call tenderly my name; It was as if some priestly fingers stole In benedictions ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson

... own dreams were not very restful. She was hiding something all night long from some creature ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe

... it seemed to the boy that there were no such things as "jelly-pieces" to bother about. He liked his mother to sing to him, for he seemed to get rolled up in her soft, warm voice, and become restful and happy. Gradually the low crooning song grew fainter in his ears, the flicker of the fire danced further and further away, until long streaks of golden thready light seemed to reach out, straight ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh

... less deep and yearning she might have been more easily content with the tokens of an innocent and happy life visible in their home. If happiness had been, in her estimation, but the enjoyment of genial days and restful nights, with no cares to harass, and only pleasant duties to perform; if the interchange of kindly offices, the little acts of self-denial, the giving up of trifles, the taking cheerfully of the little disappointments, which even ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson

... a little Norman village. It is one of those lovely summer days when the sweetness of life is almost visible in the azure vase of earth and sky. In the distance stretches the immense, fertile valley of the Seine, with its green meadows planted with restful trees, between which the river flows like a long path of gladness leading to the misty hills of the estuary. I am looking down on the village-square, with its ring of young lime-trees. A procession leaves the church and, amid prayers and chanting, they carry the statue ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck

... gallery forms in Charlottenburg the most important apartment of the castle and is characteristically German. The combination of the simple oak wood with the delicate gold carving produced a most original and most restful effect. The wonderful dimensions, the beautiful material, the harmony of colors, and perfection of artistic details all combined to impress the observer. The entire length of the long wall was divided into niches by pilasters. Each niche contained a mirror and over that a picture from the ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission

... heed him," said she, more composedly. "If he seeks to force me, I shall find a way of setting myself free. Dear Mother of Heaven! death were a sweet and restful thing after all that I have suffered ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini

... the fishermen if another party had made a journey along the sands. When the snow came the sands were impassable. As soon as the ice on the bay would bear, there would be coming and going, no doubt; but until then Caius had the restful security that she was near him, and that it could not be many days before he saw her. The only flaw in his conclusion was that the fact did not bear it out; he did not ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall

... town has lately crept modestly into our western literature as "Friendship Village." [Footnote: Zona Gale, "Friendship Village." Macmillan, New York, 1908.] Except that it has a more comely setting than most towns of the plains—even of those northern plains with their restful undulations—and has a brighter, cleaner aspect —since a light-colored brick is used instead of the red so much in favor where wood is forbidden by the fire laws—it is a typical western town— the next size larger than "Aramoni"; and so I must stop here for ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley

... sitting on his doorstep, his chin on his hands, busily strengthening his restful philosophy. She quickly bargained with him and he hurried away to get out his old carry-all. When he found that she followed him, and found in addition that she intended accompanying him, ...
— Stubble • George Looms

... saw the tears that came or knew about the restful feeling which followed me into dreamland. I had not left my country. Its spirit, its love of liberty, the happy "songs in the night" which it had put into the mouths of its sons ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 54, No. 4, October, 1900 • Various

... —this practical, outspoken, gentle-voiced, tender wife and mother, tenacious of her opinions, yet big enough and courageous enough to acknowledge her mistakes; this woman, wise in counsel, sympathetic in sorrow, joyous with the young, restful with the old, you would have discovered certain lines about her white forehead which advancing years alone could ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith

... a restful, sultry, deserted look. Even in the dull blue, torrid sky there was nought save ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... his human love clung about her, showing itself in a thousand forms of watchful tenderness. And hers clung to him, closely, dependently; she let herself be taken care of, ruled and guided, as if with him she found helplessness restful and submission sweet. Many a little outward fondness, that when people have been long married naturally drops into disuse, was revived again; he would bring her flowers out of the garden, or new books from the town; and many a time, when no one ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... "And it is to her, Miss Stanton, that I owe all this blessedness. I am a changed man," he said to himself, almost gaily, "I live, I enjoy, for to-morrow I shall see her again. To live that one hour of restful blessedness," he thought, "is well worth the bare existence of the other twenty-three." His friends felt the change, too. They all knew that something had happened, that something had entered the life of the old professor and changed it, but not one of them attempted ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein

... of the strength of other men, as his own physical and mental strength have always seemed to be without limit. He could work continuously as long as he wished, and had sleep at his command. His sleep was always instant, profound, and restful. He has told me that he never dreamed. I have known Mr. Edison now for thirty-one years, and feel that he has always kept his mind direct and simple, going straight to the root of troubles. One of the peculiarities I have noticed is that I have never known him to break into a ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... scandals about the same women, disgusted him so much as to make him feel at times a veritable inclination to commit suicide. He could no longer lead this life regular and inane, so commonplace, so frivolous and so dull at the same time, and he felt a longing for something tranquil, restful, comfortable, without knowing what. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... out at the prairies and the line of the river glistening in the gloaming. A faint pink tone edged some gray cloud flakes in the southwest sky and all the scene was restful ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter

... measles does not need much treatment. If the patient has a high fever and is very hot and restless, bathe with tepid or cool water every two or three hours, till the patient becomes quite restful. Sometimes they have too much covering and that makes them hot and restless. Remove a little at a time. Bathing will not hurt the rash, for it can be done under the clothes and without any danger ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... in fooling about Flanders, fell into a fixed affection for the town of Mechlin or Malines. Our rest there was so restful that we almost felt it as a home, and ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton

... imagined his purgatory sinking into hell. On all this inferno the night had sunk like a foretaste of cleansing death. The fires lay smoldering like poor, hopeless devils, fain to sleep. The world was merged in a tidal wave from the ocean of hope, and seemed to heave a restful sigh under its ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald

... nothin'," said Texas, glancing with pensive eyes to a point far up the sun-baked street where his gaze rested upon a pretentious house in a neatly-fenced yard where there were green things that gave a restful impression. "Circumstantial evidence is sure convincin'." he sighed deeply. "I reckon you knowed all along that I thought a heap of Mary Jane. That's the reason you picked me out for the ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various

... cunning. I have had German friends, two or three, in the course of my life, but none of them ever understood a word that I said if I tried to say what I thought. You could talk to them about food, and they responded easily. It was all very restful and pleasant, like talking ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh

... like to think of the lengthened tide-flux of pedestrian citizens facing South-westward, as being drawn by devout attraction to our nourishing luminary: at the hour, mark, when the Norland cloud-king, after a day of wild invasion, sits him on his restful bank of bluefish smack-o'-cheek red above Whitechapel, to spy where his last puff of icy javelins pierces and dismembers the vapoury masses in cluster about the circle of flame descending upon the greatest and most elevated of Admirals at the head of the Strand, with illumination ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... self-centred and self-sufficing, a man to whom nothing outside himself would make any tangible difference; but she recalled it without a trace of the apprehension with which it had been previously coupled. She began indeed to dwell upon that idea of him as upon something restful, and the idea was still prominent in her mind when, a little more than a week afterwards, Drake galloped up to her one morning as she ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason

... Miss Sheridan, evidently fresh from a bath, a black hat tipped over her smiling eyes, and her big fur coat belted about her. Norma's vigil had lasted until after two o'clock, but then she had had four hours of restful sleep, for she knew that ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris

... its banishment. The ultimate aim of art should be to make life beautiful in every nook and corner, to elevate the humdrum working days of common men by fair and sunny surroundings, to make manners gentle and gracious, speech melodious and refined, homes, pleasant and restful. ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... not a restful night for Randal Courteney, and in the early morning he was out again, striding over the sunlit sands towards his own ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... to them all to see him there! and how good the supper which Aunt Steiner prepared, and how good the restful home to the weary ones, and how welcome the comfortable beds to which they retired as ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang

... success on the evening of its first representation in Hamburg. The pleasant impression then made by its agreeable and lovely melodies has not faded the less that, after hearing many of our stormy and exciting modern operas, one often and ardently {11} longs for the restful charm and guileless pleasure of a ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... cameras were trained for the scenes enacted by Consuello was idealistic as an outdoor setting. Shasta daisies, primroses and stalks of purple and white larkspur, in riotous profusion, gave splotches of bright color that stood out vividly against the bosky green. Stately, restful trees gave bounteous shade. A brook, tumbling down the hillside, gurgled over clean, white stones ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson

... fifteen actual hours a day on Post days, sixteen hours on non-Post days. Many men speak of working hours like these, or even longer ones, but investigation would generally show that all kinds of restful interludes are indiscriminately counted in. Queed's hours, you understand, were not elapsed time—they were absolutely net. He was one of the few men in the world who literally ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... of room," Louise Graham remarked. "In that liking, you see, I'm a genuine Westerner. That's what I missed most when at school in the East, at Bryn Mawr—space. I wanted my big mountains and wide mesa and long, restful views. And how I galloped on my pony through the sagebrush when I came back during ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd

... once more into the country, with its spring perfumes, its soft breezes, its restful green, but fast though they drove another messenger had outstripped them. From the little chapel, as the car rolled up the avenue, came the slow tolling of a bell. Madame Christophor stood on the corner ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... these fitting lines of Whittier, whose charming home, "Oak Knoll," a short distance off, had just given me a restful pleasure. Then I walked around to the other side of the monument, where I read, with mingled feelings, the ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various

... hurry of feeling or movement. She had been in a crowd for some hours, and was glad to be quite alone and talk to herself a little. It was also so restful to gradually relinquish all the restraining gauds of fashionable attire, and as she leisurely performed these duties, she entered into conversation with her own heart—talked over with it the events of the past week, and decided that its fretless days, full of good things, had ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr



Words linked to "Restful" :   restless, restfulness, slumbrous



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